THE- CHURCH OFF.NGL\ND "A- HISTORY- FOR v> V • TH P 'VPPV- P P\/ 1 >J7.N - OP-GI .OUCBSTER ILLUSTRATED PRINCETON, N. J. Purchased by the Mrs. Robert Lenox Kennedy Church History Fund. BX 5055 .S64 1898 v. 3 Spence-Jones, H. D. M . 1836- 1917 . The Church of England Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/churchofenglandh03spen QUEEN ELIZABETH. (From the painting by Zucckero at Hatfield House.) THE Church of England A HISTORY FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE 5pence- 3ones Very Rev. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D. Dean of Gloucester VOL. III. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION C A S S E L L and COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PARIS &* MELBOURNE 1S98 [all rights reserved] CONTENTS. J'AGK CHAPTER XLI. The Secular Popes 1 CHAPTER XLII. Luther and the German Reformation .12 CHAPTER XLIII. The Two Last English Ecclesiastical Chancellors 27 CHAPTER XLIV. Henry VIII. and the Divorce 41 CHAPTER XLV. The Parliament of the Reformation. The Vicar-General Thomas Cromwell 56 CHAPTER XLVI. Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries ... 96 CHAPTER XLVII. The Final Confiscation of all Monastic Houses 120 CHAPTER XLVIII. Further Progress of the Reformation till the Death of Henry VIII . 149 CHAPTER XLIX. Edward VI. and the First Prayer-Book 185 CHAPTER L. The Second Prayer-Book. Death of Edward VI. 207 CHAPTER LI. Mary and the Roman Reaction 232 CHAPTER LII. The Spanish Marriage, and the Reconciliation with Rome . . . .248 iv CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER LIU. The Marian Persecution. Ridley and Latimer . 269 CHAPTER LIV. The Burning of Cranmer. The Marian Martyrs 293 CHAPTER LV. Mary's Failure and Death 315 CHAPTER LVI. Accession of Elizabeth. Cecil, Parker, and Jewel 326 CHAPTER LVII. Archbishop Parker and His Work 356 CHAPTER LVIII. The Great Contest with Spain7 and Rome .387 CHAPTER LIX. Archbishop Grindal and the Puritan Party . 408 CHAPTER LX. Archbishop Whitgift and the Anglican Development. Richard Hooker . .123 CHAPTER LXI. Close of Elizabeth's Reign. The Reformed Church of England . . .445 EXCURSUS D. The Story of the Nun of Kent, Commonly Known as thf. -'Holy Maid of Kent," 1531—1534 ■ • • • 469 EXCURSUS E. The Parker Library at Cambridge ... 470 EXCURSUS F. Spenser's Portrait of Grindal 472 CHAPTER XLI. THE SECULAR POPES. Character of the Popes who preceded the Reformation — Sixtus IV. a purely Political Ruler — Open Immorality of Innocent VIII. — Alexander VI. and the Borgias — Pius III. also the Father of a Family — Julius II. — Shameless Intrigues of Pontifical Elections — Political Ability of Julius — Founder of the Papal States — Extraordinary Contemporary Satire upon this Pope — The Medicaean Leo X — His Magnificence and Patronage of Art and Letters — Attempted Reform under Adrian VI. — His Sincerity, but utter Failure — Clement VII — His Simoniacal Conduct — Sack of Rome under his Papacy — Paul IV. and his Illegitimate Family — Papal Patronage of Art and Letteis. THE line of Popes who filled the principal and most influential position in the religious world of the west during the half century which preceded the Reformation in England, no doubt largely contributed to the public feeling which demanded and obtained the great change. With rare exceptions, thev were worldly men rather than spiritual guides ; energetic and often unscrupulous statesmen and princes, rather than church- men. Purely secular and self-seeking men, with a cynical disbelief in the doctrines they professed to teach, and with a shameless disregard of the ascetic virtues held in estimation by the church in which they were the chief pastors, it may well be con- 61 ceived that such men utterly tailed to see what was lacking in the church of their time ; they were blind — utterly blind — to the wants and needs of the peoples whose religion they professed to guide and direct. Indeed, such men as Innocent VIII., Julius II., and Leo X. could never have been expected to enter into any questions connected with vital religion. They lived in another atmosphere altogether than that breathed by Colet and More in England, or Luther and Melancthon in Germany. Vital religion to the Popes of this period, distinguished and for the most part able men that they were, was quite outside their lives. The principal work under- 2 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1471—1503. taken by a Sixtus IV. and a Julius II., and more or less adopted by the other Popes of this period, was the founda- tion of a secular kingdom, in which the Pope was the monarch. The building up of the States of the Church was the great feature in the story of the Papacy, at the time when the mighty questions which resulted in the Reformation were agitating men's minds in central and northern Europe. Let us rapidly glance over the careers and characters of this line of mighty prelates, with their awful claims to a supreme spiritual power. Sixtus IV., who filled the papal chair a.d. 147 1 to 1484, began what may be termed the secularisation of the Papacy. Of him Machiavelli writes : " He was the first Pope who began to show the extent of the papal power, and how things that before were called errors could be hidden behind the papal authority." The his- torian of these popes thus explains these weighty words : " The papal power which Machiavelli had before his eyes was not the moral authority of the head of Christen- dom, but the power of an Italian prince who was engaged in consolidating his dominions into an important state . . . This object Sixtus IV. pursued passion- ately, to the exclusion of the other duties of his office." * His successor, Innocent VIII. (a.d. 1484 to 1492), who pursued the same policy, in his private life openly disregarded the most venerable traditions of the mediaeval church : preferring his relations, among * Bishop Creighton : " History of the Papacy during the Reformation," book v., chap. iv. them his own acknowledged son, to high and important offices. Indeed, with bitter but not untrue irony this pontiff has been described as setting the example of an estimable father of a family. His example, as might have been expected from a Pope who openly recognised in the Vatican a son and daughter, was gener- ally disastrous to the discipline and the whole moral tone of the church. Bacon, alluding to a bull of privileges granted by Innocent VIII. to king Henry VII., in grateful return for a complimentary oration delivered by the English ambassador, writes : " The Pope, knowing himself to be lazy and unprofitable to the Christian world, was wonderfully glad to hear that there were such echoes of him sounding in so distant parts." Alexander VI. (cardinal Borgia), who reigned in Rome from 1492 to 1503, was yet more active in the work of the secularisation of the Papacy. His career as head of the Christian church of the west was rather that of an active and utterly unscrupulous statesman, than that of a Christian bishop of the highest rank. None can deny that he was devoted to business and state affairs, and unsparing of himself in the discharge of his public duties as a ruler. He ever punctually discharged the ecclesiastical duties of a Pope so far as mere ritual was concerned. But his private life before his election to the Papacy was notoriously immoral, and these immoralities continued, without any attempt to conceal them, after he became Pope. Of his children, Caesar and Lucretia have become historical, and the story of the first is disfigured with shameful intrigue and even crime. iSo3--iS»3'J ALEXANDER VI Alexander VI. (Borgia) was followed by- cardinal Piccolomini, who took the title of Pius III. He only lived a few months. He, too, is known in the history of these popes as the father of several children. He was a man, however, of some learning, and his character in other respects gener- ally stood high. Julius H. (cardinal Rovere) took up the thread of the tortuous papal policy the same year (1503), and for ten years until J 51 3 was a prominent figure in European history. As a secular prince, his reign was distinguished for conspicuous abilitv. He carried on and developed the plans of his predecessors, which aimed at making the Papacy an important territorial power in Italy, and was successful generally in these purely secular schemes ; but nothing was done in his reign to restore a spiritual tone into the Roman court. Still, it must be conceded to Julius II. that he en- deavoured to provide for a purer election of future popes, and to infuse some spirit of earnestness into the college of cardinals. The manner of life, the greed and lawless- ness of these princes of the church, during this period, is one of the saddest chapters in a generally sad history. They gave and received bribes ; they lived with all imagin- able ostentation. Their stately Roman palaces were fortified and strengthened with towers ; great numbers of armed re- tainers were housed in these palace- fortresses ; and there they too often bid defiance to all justice and right. These men, often relations of the reigning pope, had most of them sons and nephews whom they enriched with the spoils of the church, regardless of the open scandal which their conduct occasioned. There AND JULIUS II. 3 were, of course, some exceptions ; but the general reputation of the members of the once famous and still most powerful college of cardinals was evil. One of the gloomiest features of this time was the network of intrigue and plotting which enveloped every succeeding papal election. The choice of the supreme pontiff was entirely in the hands of the cardinals ; and as the choice necessarily fell upon one of their body, the antecedents, the public and private life, the ambitions, tastes, aims, and hopes of the cardinal deliberately chosen for the august office of bishop of Rome, was intimately known to the electoral bod\\ Yet with the knowledge of the man, these electors, after long and careful consideration, with ceremonies handed down from a remote antiquity, in solemn conclave assembled, elected a car- dinal Borgia (Alexander VI.), a cardinal Rovere (Julius II.), a cardinal Medici (Leo X.) to fulfil an office which carried with it such enormous responsibilities and which involved such tremendous claims. Apart from utter lack of spirituality, and from a merely secular point of view, this was a great reign. Julius II. made the Papacy the centre of the politics, not of the religion of Europe. Guicciardini, the Florentine historian, writes of the Pope how, " had he been a secular prince, he would deserve the highest glory ; how he was extolled bv those who, having lost the right use of words and confused the distinctions of accurate speech, judge that it is the office of the Popest to bring empire to the apostolic seat by arms and b\- the shedding of Christian blood, more than to trouble themselves by setting an example of holy life and arresting the 4 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1503-1513- decay of morals, for the salvation of those souls for whose sake thev boast that Christ set them as His vicars on earth." Julius II. ma)- be looked upon as the Pope who completed the foundation of the Papal States, the dissolution of which strange and unhappy mixture of spiritual and secular things our own age has wit- nessed. In this curious reign of a bishop of Rome, we see the so -styled head of Christendom leading his armies to attack his enemies — those who were opposed to his schemes for territorial aggrandisement. It was this Pope, with his wars and intrigues, who was the subject of a bitter contemporary satire, in the shape of a strange dialogue with St. Peter at the gate of Paradise. In this dialogue he is represented as claiming, but claiming in vain, the right of entry: — Peter (to the shade of Julius) : " Have you taught true doctrine ? " Julius (replies) : " Not I. I have been too busy fighting. There are monks to look after doctrine, if that is of any con- sequence." Peter : " Who are those dark ones with the scars ? " Julius : " Those are my soldiers and generals who were killed fighting for me. They all deserve heaven. I promised it them under hand and seal if they lost their lives in my service, no matter how wicked they might be.'' Peter: "How about the duke of Fer- rara ? " Julius : " I wanted the duchy of Ferrara for a son of my own, who could be depended on to be true to the church, and who had just poniarded the cardinal of Pavia.'' Peter : " What ! Popes with wives and children ? " Julius : " Wives ! No, not wives. But why not children ? " Peter : " Were the opposition cardinals bad men ? " Julius: "I know no harm of their morals. The cardinal of Rouen was sanctimonious — always crying for reform in the church. Anyhow, death relieved me of him, and I was glad. Another, the cardinal of St. Cross, a Spaniard, was also a good sort of man, but he was rigid, austere, and given to theology, a class of man always unfriendly to the Popes." Peter : " How have vou increased the church ? " Julius : " I found it poor ; I have made it splendid." Peter : " Splendid with what ? With faith ? " Julius : " These are words. I have filled Rome with palaces, troops of servants, armies and officers, with purple and gold, with glory, hoards of treasure." Peter : " At any rate, this is the worldly side. How about the other ? " Julius : " You are thinking about the old affair, when you starved as Pope, with a handful of poor hunted bishops about you. Time has changed all that. Look now at our gorgeous churches, our priests by thousands, bishops like kings, with retinues and with palaces, cardinals in their purple gloriously attended, horses and mules decked with gold and jewels, shod with gold and silver. Beyond all, myself supreme Pontiff, borne on soldiers' shoulders in a golden chair. Hearken to the roar of cannon, the bugle notes, the drums — kings of the earth SATIRE UPON JULIUS II. 5 1503—1513] scarce admitted to kiss my holiness's foot. trophies, spoils, shouts that rent the Look at all this, and tell me, is it not heavens, and I carried aloft, the head and magnificent?" author of it all!" Peter : " I look at a very worldiy Peter : " Enough — enough ! The tyrant. heathen were humane compared to you — POPE JULIUS 11. (From the fortrait by KrjCaele in the Xational GalUry.) Julias : " You would not say so had you seen me carried in state at Bologna and at Rome after the war with Venice, or when I beat the French at Ravenna. Those were spectacles ! Carriages and horses, troops under arms, generals gal- loping, pomp of bishops, glory of cardinals, you who triumphed because so many thousand Christians had been slain for your ambition ; you, a Holy Father in Christ, who never did good to any single soul in word or deed ! " The strange dialogue concludes with St. Peter asking the familiar spirit 6 THE CHURCH accompanying Pope Julius, " O miserable churl ! tell me, spirit : are the bishops generally like this one ? " The spirit replies, " Yes, a good part of them, but this is the chief, far and away." Peter closes the conversation with : " I am not surprised that so few apply now here (at the gate of Paradise) for admission, when the church has such rulers." This unheard-of piece of scurrility , directed against the acknowledged chief bishop of western Christendom, with his claims to an awful power, was so popular that it was brought on the public stage at Paris.* It may have been, probably was, grossly exaggerated ; but it reflects the feelings with which many at that time regarded the greatest of the line of those secular Popes who reigned at the Vatican in the early years of the sixteenth century. Yet when this renowned warrior, statesman, and Pope died, in 15 13, Rome, her turbulent, pleasure-loving citizens, her magnificent cardinals and nobles, un- feignedly mourned. " Men felt that a great man had passed away." Pope Julius II. was a notable example of an illustrious churchman, in those dark days when Christianity had well- nigh vanished from the church. Such a head of the western church, in no slight degree precipitated the great crash. The life of the Pope was too faithfully copied by many of his subordinates in the countries of northern and central Europe. He was imitated by lesser men, who pos- sessed the worldly tastes but were not * For these extracts also we are indebted to Mr. Froude's translations in the "Oxford Lectures" " Life and Letters of Erasmus." (Longmans & Co., 1895) OF ENGLAND. [1513-1521. actuated by the lofty aims and patriotic ambitions of their master, who loved Italy and Rome. Sceptics often at heart, they used the still mighty influence of the church for their own selfish ends. Such men were, alas ! numerous among the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, and the higher clergy of the first quarter of the sixteenth century. " The most precious memorial of Julius II. is his portrait by Raffaele, on which many of us have gazed with curious admiration. It is a veritable revelation of his character. Seated in an arm-chair, with head bent downwards, the Pope is in deep thought. His furrowed brow and his deep-sunk eyes- tell of energy and decision. The down- drawn corners of his mouth betoken con- stant dealings with the world. Raffaele has caught the momentary repose of a. restless and passionate spirit." * Alas ! the spirit of the great Pope was that of a thoroughly worldly, not of a religious man. The cardinals chose as successor to Julius II. one of their number well fitted to> carry on the now traditionary policy of the- line of secular Popes. Cardinal Medici, the moving spirit of the powerful and famous- Florentine house of that name, who as- sumed the title of Leo X., is perhaps the best known of these stately and magnificent pontiffs, whose lives and policy excited in minds like Luther's so intense a feeling of sorrow and almost of despair. Leo X., cardinal Medici, reigned some eight years,. a.d. 1 5 1 3 to 1521,3 period which included the early years of the revolt of Germany under the influence of Luther and his com- * Bishop Creighton : "History of the Papacy during the Reformation," book v., chap. xvii. 1513-1521.] LEO x- AND panions. (The theses of the reformer against the doctrine of indulgences were nailed to the Wittenberg church door in 15 17.) The cardinals desired a kindly, magnificent Pope, perhaps less politically active than the dead Julius II., less bellicose, but still a pontiff who would maintain the secular dignity rather than the spiritual position of the chief pontiff. Such a man they found exactly in cardinal Medici. There was a story widely circulated, that one of the first sayings of the new Pope to his elder brother, Giulamo Medici, was, " Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has given it to us." The reign of the Medici Leo X. was long looked back to in Rome and Italy as the golden age — as the period of its greatest glory. Under his rule Rome was the real capital of Italy, the centre of arts and letters. The court of Leo was mag- nificent, and considering the age and the lax code of its society, no especially glaring immorality disfigured it. The entertain- ments at the Vatican were numerous and splendid, and the guests not unfrequently numbered as marry as two thousand. It was to supply means for all this lavish expenditure, that such devices as the sale of indulgences, which stirred the heart of Luther, were pressed, though the ostensible reason for the urgent need of money was the prosecution of the costly works in the new church of St. Peter's. His latest historian* tells us how Leo X. was also a keen sportsman, and that as soon as the summer heat began to abate, he withdrew from Rome and devoted a couple of months to field sports, including hawking, fishing, and the more active sport * Bishop Creighton. ADRIAN VI. 7 of the chase of deer and wild boars. He was always the kindly and liberal patron of art and literature, and in his days Rome was ever the favourite home of the great architects, painters, and sculptors, who made that eventful age in Italy so famous. In spite of all his devices to raise money, when he died his treasury was empty and his debts enormous. This was the pontiff who represented the mediaeval church at the time when its very existence was threatened by the German revolt ; at the time when, in every country of Europe, men's minds were turned to the urgent necessity for a thorough reform in the church's doctrines and practices. Something of a reaction in the college of cardinals, probably largely aided by the influence of the emperor Charles V., took place on the premature death of Leo X., and resulted in- the election of the em- peror's tutor, cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, a man sixty-three years old, with a wide reputation for piety. Pope Adrian VI. was no mean theologian, and was earnestly desirous of promoting a real reformation in the Papacy and in the church at large. He had, however, no sympathy whatever with the new learning, and he was bitterly hostile to Luther and his theological views. A curious change at once passed over the Vatican court. Instead of the lavish profusion and gorgeous magnificence of Leo X. and his predecessors, Alexander VI. (Borgia) and Julius II., the household of Adrian VI. was of the simplest description. An old Flemish woman presided over the kitchen, and the Pope was waited on at table by two Spanish pages. He pressed upon the luxurious cardinals the urgent 8 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1522 need for reform in the church's manners, and called upon them to set the example of devotion and of a stern frugality. The result of these sharp measures was to win him much unpopularity, and even hatred, in Rome. Abroad he pursued the same measures of retrenchment, and pressed upon foreign churches the necessity of immediate change in their way of living and working. " The time is past," he wrote, " when God will connive at our faults. The age is changed, and popular opinion no longer thinks that the charges brought against us are partly false. The axe is laid at the foot of the tree, unless we choose to return to wisdom. Let the Pope and the curia do away their errors, by which God and man are justly offended ; let them bring the clergv once more under discipline. If the Germans see this done, there will be no further talk of Luther. The root and the cure of the evil are alike in ourselves." It was, indeed, time that something should be done at headquarters if the church were to be saved. Personal pro- fligacy had long surrounded the pontiff's throne ; everything connected with Rome was rotten to the core, at home and abroad. The Tetzel scandal in the matter of indulgences was, in fact, repeated — per- haps with less coarseness and openness, but still repeated — in England in every great and small town, as well as in a thousand centres on the Continent. Every- thing connected with the supreme authoritv at Rome was sold — legal justice and spiritual privileges, promotions, dispensa- tions, pardons, indulgences ; the very revenue of the holy see depended largely on simony ; and at the same time all the officials, from the senior cardinal down to the lowest clerk in the chancery, were naturally averse to any inquiry, reform, or alteration in a system upon which their income for daily bread or daily luxury absolutely depended. Adrian VI., in his honest longing for reforms, looked round in vain for helpers in his formidable task. Alas ! he soon died. He was, as has been well suggested, helped out of life, perhaps, by the hope- lessness of his task. 1522 witnessed his election, the following year (1523) wit- nessed his obsequies. " He is," writes his biographer, " a pathetic figure in the annals of the Papacy. A man whose very virtues were vain, because he had not force to clothe his ideas with such a form that they appealed to men's imagination. He had no impressiveness, no fire, no attractiveness. The cynical diplomatists and self-seeking ecclesiastics who were around him were never moved, even for a moment, by any consciousness that they stood before a man whose life was built higher than their own. All that he could do was to raise a barren protest, which created no sympathy on either side. He forgot that the old-fashioned conception of a pope, which he strove to restore, had entirely faded from men's minds, and his revival was only a caricature. An old and feeble man, without resources, without a party, he hoped to convince a stubborn and dis- tracted world by the mere force of an example of primitive piety." * But Adrian died all too soon, perhaps of a broken heart. Still, he will ever shine out among that long line of secular dissolute popes as a noble, self-denying man, but who was * Bishop Creighton. I523-I534-] CLEMENT VII. 9 unequal to the great task to which he The Roman folk were full of joy, how- had set himself. ever, at the prospect of the restoration of Adrian VI. was succeeded by another cardinal of the powerful Medici house, who took the name of Clement VII. He was an Italian of the old school of worldly ecclesiastics, trained in the courts ot Alexander VI. (Borgia) and Julius II. His election was mainly due to intrigues among the cardinals. He engaged to divide among the members of the college by lot the many benefices which he held. This simoniacal bargain gives some index to the character of the new pontiff, and to the spirit which actuated the cardinal princes in whose hands lay the all-im- portant choice. Photo : Aihiari. THE EXTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S, ROME. the brave days of Leo X., with a lavishly spending court. There was no longer any talk of reform or change ■ but things went io THE CHURCH on in the papal circle as thev had done aforetime. This pontificate is especially remarkable for the awful disaster which befel Rome itself. We are not concerned here with the story of the tortuous in- trigues of Italy. Clement VII. became pope at the close of 1523. In 1527 the western world was startled and horrified at the news that a large army of mercenaries, nominally under the banner of the Empire, disappointed of its pay, had mutinied and marched upon Rome ; had stormed it after a feeble and ill-directed resistance, and had then proceeded to sack the magnificent city, under circumstances of unexampled barbarity. This terrible catastrophe, of course, for ever destroyed the prestige of Clement VII., of whom we shall hear again when we relate the unhappy story of the divorce of king Henry VIII. of England. It was this Pope Clement who played fast and loose with Henry VIII. and Katherine of Arragon ; now playing into the hands of Katherine's nephew, the emperor Charles V., who supported his aunt, the unhappy queen ; now holding out hopes to the infatuated English king that the church would break the bonds of the marriage, in accordance with Henry VIIL's passionate wish. In the end, having pleased and satisfied neither Englishman nor Spaniard, Pope Clement found that his faithless policy had created that rift between England and the Papacy which, save once for a few short disastrous years, has never been bridged over since, though more than three centuries and a half separate us from the days when the sad tragedy of king Henry VIIL's divorce was being played in Rome and London. OF ENGLAND. [,S34. We may add one sombre detail to our grey, sad-coloured picture. When Clement VII. passed away, the college of cardinals in 1534 was pleased to elect in his room one of their number, the cardinal Farnese, known in history as Paul IV. This prelate, like so many of his predecessors in the Papacy, had a family of illegitimate children. Imme- diately on his accession he created two of his grandsons — still boys of fifteen and fourteen years of age — cardinals of the church, " as props, he pleaded, for his old age." The Italian writer, Pallavicino, as an apology for this act, pleads that cardinal Farnese, Paul IV., had been trained in an age of wickedness "the very memory of which cannot be recalled without a shudder of horror and indignation." Here must close this hasty sketch or the Popes who reigned during the half century which immediately preceded the Reformation of the English Church. It has been drawn for the purpose of showing how utterly unfitted was this line of secular Popes (not to bestow on them a harsher epithet) to oppose any barrier to the rapid march of cir- cumstances which led to the great change ; indeed, the lives and policy of this succession of acknowledged heads of western Christianity in no small degree contributed to the catastrophe. As religious men, as heads of the spiritual power of the western world, a position they claimed, and which in the sadly mistaken age in which they lived was largely conceded to them, they were indeed weighed in the balance and found utterly wanting. But the fair historian must 1503-1521] PATRONAGE OF not omit one title to honour which they have fairly merited from the generations which followed them. They were, gener- ally speaking, true and magnificent patrons of art in its highest and noblest sense. The two greatest of these " secular " Popes, Julius II. and Leo X., were con- spicuous examples of such enlightened patronage, and as such have earned the undying gratitude of all who are sensible of the ennobling and purifying power of true art. The pontificates of Julius II. and Leo X. lasted from a.d. 1503 to a.d. 1521, a period of nearly twenty years. Julius II. was, if not the discoverer of the mighty genius of Bramante, Raffaele, and Michael Angelo, at least the munificent patron who gave these men the means and opportunity to carry out and develop their schemes of work, which have been for more than three centuries and a half the admiration of the civilised world. Bramante, the great architect of the Renaissance, has left behind him many specimens in Rome of his unrivalled genius in the magnificent palaces he built for certain of the wealthy cardinals, and in the vast conceptions he carried out in the old Vatican palace ; but his master-work was, of course, the new church of St. Peter's, built on the site of the older and more venerable building, with its innumerable memories. Bramante died more than a hundred years before the completion of the St. Peter's known to us. Considerable changes were made in the original design ; but the splendid conception of the vastest church in Christendom belonged to Bra- mante, the architect of Julius and Leo. In many respects our own St. Paul's is ART BY LEO X. n a copy, of course on a smaller scale, 01 the Renaissance temple of these magnificent Popes whose story we have been telling. What Bramante, under the inspiration of Julius and Leo, did for architecture, Raffaele and Michael Angelo accomplished for painting and sculpture. Pilgrims whc- love art, from every country of the civilised world, for three and a half centuries have reverently gazed at, and many of them carefully studied and vainly tried to imitate,, the works of these true masters. Leo X. was, however, more than a muni- ficent and discerning patron of art. He earnestlv encouraged and promoted the cultivation of the new learning, providing, well-nigh a hundred professors for the education of students, and from all quarters, in his days famous scholars were attracted Romewards. In one of his bulls he wrote "that his design was to make the city of Rome the capital of the world in literature as it is in everything else." A still more accurate knowledge of Greek was the greatest object aimed at, and a series of valuable and costly editions of forgotten classical works were published at Rome. While, however, we read with curious in- terest the titles of some of these : Pindar, Theocritus, scholia on Homer or Sophocles, etc., we look in vain for editions of the Greek New Testament. The book loved, by Christians above all books in the world, was ignored by the Roman school of learning fostered by the great secular Popes ; the Greek New Testament was left to other and different hands to dis- inter, to print, to revise, and to comment upon. The worldly Popes of that won- derful age took little interest in such matters as these. CHAPTER XLII. LUTHER AND THE GERMAN' REFORMATION. Luther's Birth and Parentage— Early Life— His Visit to Rome — Tetzel and the Indulgences — Luther': Indignation — Publishes his Theses — Carelessness of Leo X. about the Matter — The Pope anathematises Luther, and Luther burns the Bull— The Diet of Worms — Luther's German Bible — His Marriage — What the Protestants really "protested " against — The League of Schmalkald — Appearance and Character of Luther — Basis of his Theology — Excesses of the Lutheran Reaction — Luther and Erasmus — Sir Thomas More's Opinion — Pamphlets of the Reformation Period — Reuchlin — True Sources of the Reformation. TT J'E sketched in our last volume YY the chief English pioneers of our own Reformation : Colet and More belonged, of course, to our country ; and Erasmus, as we have seen, not only did most of his Greek New Testament in England, but received the principal inspiration for his great work from his English friends. There is a fourth figure we must now attempt to paint. He was indeed in no sense an Englishman ; but his work had so vast an influence upon the momentous religious change about to pass over our church, that it is impossible to tell the Reformation story of England, without dwelling for a brief space on the life, the character, and the doctrines of the German teacher who brought about so tremendous a change in doctrinal teaching and religious rites in Germany and on the continent of Europe. No such historv as ours can be complete, without some attempt to sketch the mighty figure of Martin Luther. He was born in Thuringia, a province of North Central Germany, in a.d. 1483, some sixteen years later than Erasmus. His parents were honest enterprising mechanics who by patient industry raised themselves to a position of fair competence, which enabled them carefully to educate their boy Martin, who early showed pro- mise of future distinction. He set his heart upon being a priest, somewhat against his father's wish, and when still young became a monk in an Augustinian monastery in his native country. Then he distinguished himself by his passionaU love of study and by his stern, ascetic way of life. His superiors, anxious to provide the young and earnest monk with suitable useful work, procured for him the post of teacher or professor in the newly-founded university of Wittenberg in Saxony, where he soon became a power as a teacher and preacher. In 1 5 1 1 , when he was twenty-eight years of age, he was sent to Rome on some business connected with the affairs of his Augustinian order. His enthusiastic spirit longed to see Rome, and it is said, when he first caught sight of the city, he threw himself in intense devotion on the ground, crying out, " Holy Rome, I salute thee ! " But, alas ' what he saw there sadly dis- appointed him. Julius II. was Pope, and the character and life of the pontiff and his cardinals were utterly at variance with ETC SjQ 5 2 a = a.'Q «>= «■« fa J! c - o ~ 9 i=sJ!c •jj ~ « n n~ i s 5^ : \ = 14 THE CHURCH what the young Augustinian professor had pictured. He returned home disillusioned, even shocked, but once more devoted him- self with renewed earnestness to the work of preaching and lecturing, striving to do his little share of duty even while the heads of the church were so conspicuouslv -jgnoring theirs. His fame as a preacher grew. The Elector Frederick, listening to him, one day said, " This monk has strange ideas." Then came an incident, small in itself, "but which, coming under the verv eves of Luther, alreadv ill at ease and unhappy when he remembered what was going on at Rome and in other important centres of Teligious life, excited his deepest indignation and sorrow. LeoX. had succeeded Julius II., a magnificent, liberal, sceptical prelate, utterly devoid of all real spiritual earnest- ness. The court of Rome was extravagant. Large sums of money flowed into it from various sources, but the expenditure of Leo X. far outstripped his revenues, great though they were. One of this pontiff's dreams was to complete the vast and splendid buildings of the new St. Peter's ■church ; especially for this object the many agents of Rome throughout Europe were pressed to gather extra money for the papal exchequer. Among the frightful corruptions in the church life of the day, stood pre-eminent the strange and unnatural traffic in 41 indulgences." The monstrous fiction gradually had gained ground, that in the spiritual treasury of the Pope were ac- cumulated the superfluous merits of all the" saints from the days of the Apostles downwards. These were the Pope's own propertv, to dispose of as he pleased. A OF ENGLAND. [1516. large revenue yearly accrued to the holv see from the sale of these indulgences. It is difficult to believe that either buver or seller could really persuade themselves that such a traffic in good earnest benefited the soul, either of quick or dead ; but the traffic, urged on by various motives — some based on foolish superstition, some on mere greed — went on unhindered in all the countries in communion with Rome. It was in A.D. 151 6—1 517 that a Domin- ican named Tetzel appeared in the neigh bourhood of Wittenberg, where Luther lived and worked. This monk had been entrusted with raising a sum of money for the needs of the papal court, and especially for the costlv building works of St. Peter's, by means of these indulgences. He seems to have travelled from town to town, ad- vertising these strange wares after the fashion of a wandering pedlar or chapman. The story, as we read it, sounds incredible, were it not supported by such ample evidence. The churches were decorated to receive this unworthy representative of the bishop of Rome. A red cross was fixed on the altar, a silk banner with the Papal arms floated over it, an alms-dish to receive the purchase-money for the indulgences was placed near, and the Dominican from the pulpit exhorted the bystanders to come and purchase forgiveness for their sins. Even grave iniquities — so taught Tetzel — might be covered by the purchase of these indulgences. Shocked and dismaved by this shameless prostitution of at best a precarious and shadowv priestlv claim, Luther, having remonstrated in vain, openly protested, and in the October of 1517 nailed on the door of the church of Wittenberg his 1516-1524] LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY. r c famous challenge to Tetzel or any emissary of the Pope to prove from Holy Scripture that a certificate signed by the bishop of Rome had the power of putting away sin. The protest consisted of ninety-five theses on the various features of these papal in- dulgences or pardons, which were especially sought for by anxious souls fearing for relatives or dear ones suffering the un- known pains of purgatory, and who hoped, possibly in some cases against hope, that the pardon of the Pope would free these departed souls, or at least shorten the period of their anguish. Luther boldly asserted that the papal assertion was monstrous. The church might cancel penances which it imposed, but the church's pardon could not reach to pur- gatory, on the other side of the grave. Those, he said, whom God had condemned, must there remain till He Himself was pleased to set them free. The story of the act and words of Luther rang through Germany and most of Europe. The protest of the bold teacher of Wittenberg was generally applauded. Even many churchmen, faithful and loyal to the Pope, heartily approved. The scandal of the sale of indulgences was ab- solutely indefensible. It had long been felt by many to be a gross abuse, and the exposure of Tetzel brought the question to a head. As yet, however, Luther remained loyal to the Pope. He only demanded a disclaimer of Tetzel and his proceedings from Rome ; and if that had been given the matter, so far as he was concerned, would probably have ended. But the disclaimer never came. At first, Pope Leo X. treated the affair as of no importance. Luther, however, was in bitter earnest, and stoutly defended his bold theses. Disputations on the sub- ject were held at Heidelberg. Other and grave charges came up against the exac- tions of the papal court through its varied emissaries, and in the end Luther was summoned to Rome. He refused to go. The German princes were urged by Leo to arrest the daring heretic, as he was soon styled. The princes, however, declined to take any step against one who unmistak- ably had public opinion on his side. Luther demanded that a General Council of the church should be held to consider these grave accusations. The whole ques- tion of the papal supremacy, its enormous claims, its crying abuses, was soon brought to the front ; and actual revolt against the old order of things in the religious world had begun. Rome curiously underrated the influence of Luther in Germany. No real attempt was made to understand his remonstrances, or to reply to his charges. The Pope and his cardinals dreaded the General Council, for which so many earnest men were hoping, and a bull anathematising Luther was published. This bull brought things to an absolute crisis. Luther replied by publicly burning the papal bull at Wittenberg, before a crowd of professors and students who sympathised with him. The decretals and other traditional docu- ments, upon which the claims of the bishop of Rome were largely based, were tossed by the daring reformer into the same bon- fire. This public and insulting renunciation of the Roman supremacy by Luther and his friends took place in a.d. 1520. Charles V. had recently been crowned emperor, and his first Germanic Diet met 16 THE CHURCH at Worms in the following year (1521). The principal business before that august and important assembly of the German sovereign princes, electors, and magnates was " to check the progress of new and dangerous opinions." Luther was sum- moned to appear before the Diet. Although a safe-conduct was promised him, he was urged to keep away. The burning of Huss at Constance, in spite of a similar guarantee, was in vain urged upon him. Luther's celebrated reply to these friendly warnings is well known : " Though there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the houses, I will go there." As might have been expected, the Diet condemned him, although he had many friends in the Council — some open, more perhaps unavowed. But it was impossible for the supreme Council of the Empire to sanction an open rupture with the estab- lished order of religion. Luther, of course, declined to submit to Rome, and was formally placed under the ban of the empire as an excommunicated heretic. The edict of Worms styled him " the evil fiend in human form," and ordered that his writings should be burned and never reprinted ; but before the time granted him by the imperial safe-conduct had ex- pired, his friends forcibly seized him and placed him in safety in the castle of Wart- burg in Saxony. There he remained shut up, but strictly guarded bv his well-wishers from harm, for nearlv a vear. In the meantime the edict of Worms remained practically unheeded, and the revolt against Rome spread with strange rapiditv over Germanw The details of this rapid German Reformation lie, of course, alto- gether outside the scope of our present OF ENGLAND. [15.6-1524. work, and are only referred to in this brief sketch as bearing on the more general question of the Reformation of the church. The people of Germany took the reform of their own church largely into their own hands. The monas- teries were generally dissolved. The old church courts were abolished. Images were removed from the churches. Private masses were abolished, and the Mass itself was changed into a Communion Service. The church lands were sequestrated. To all these startling changes there was little resistance. The free German cities be- came " Lutheran " in doctrine and practice almost without exception. We return to the great Reformer who had kindled this mightv, widespread con- flagration. During his seclusion in the castle of Wartburg he prepared, mainly from the Greek Testament recently pub- lished by Erasmus, his German version of the New Testament. This was published in 15:22. The Old Testament was added after a year or two. This German Bible had an enormous and rapid sale, and ad- vanced the cause of the Reformation with an influence no invective, however bitter, or merely human argument, however powerful, could have possessed. It has been well said that it was the disinterment and subsequent publication of the Greek New Testament bv Erasmus, and the translation of it into English and German a few years later, " which did the work of the Reformation ; without this divine witness it would inevitably have failed." In 1524 Luther abandoned the monastic dress, and in 1525 he married Catherine von Bora, somewhiles a nun, who had left her convent some two years before. 62 1 8 THE CHURCH Much both of warm praise and bitter blame has been awarded to his casting off his earlv monastic and priestlv vows, and adopting, about the age of forty, the married life and the responsibility of a home and family ; but we are not concerned here with the wisdom or the righteousness of his action. His own defence is powerful, and from his own standpoint difficult to answer. He had for years inculcated the advantage of the married state, and had pointed out the evils attendant upon enforced celibacy ; surely, he argued, he was bound to en- dorse his teaching and that of his friends by his own example. The picture we possess of Luther's home is unmistakably a beautiful one. His loving devotion to his wife was ever unbroken, and his relations to his children are at once touching and admirable. No regrets for his action in this respect seem ever to have darkened the atmosphere of that loving home circle. In the same year (1524) a council was held at Augsburg, which in 1526 adjourned to Spires ; but nothing was done on either side in the direction of conciliation or agreement. The rift grew broader and ever broader. In 1529-30 met, under the summons of the emperor Charles V., the famous Diet of Augsburg, from which may be dated the final and formal separation of a large part of Germany from communion with Rome. The Lutheran confession of faith, known as the " Confession of Augs- burg." drawn by Melancthon, was formally presented to the emperor by the elector of Saxony, who ranked as the first of the German sovereign princes. But still no compromise between the opposing parties was arrived at. The emperor put out OF ENGLAND. [.502-1546. another edict, confirming the edict of Worms of 1521, and insisted on uniformity of observance in religious matters. The married priests were ordered to put away their wives. The laity were recommended to attend mass, to pray to the Virgin and saints, and to restore the monasteries. Each prince was enjoined, under penalties, to enforce the law in his own province. On the other hand, a General Council of the church was promised immediately. The reply to the edict of Augsburg was. the League of Schmalkald, half of the states and cities of Germany agreeing to band together in defence of their liberties. The name of " Protestants " now appears generally on the stage of church history ; as the appellation of the men who " pro- tested,"' not so much against doctrines in themselves, as is the too common view, but against being coerced into accepting doctrines which thev believed to be false, or into practising ceremonies they held to be idolatrous. Luther survived these events some six- teen years, dying in 1 546 at Eisleben. He was interred with all possible honours at Wittenberg, the scene of his first protest against the indulgences of Leo X., the act which immediately led to all these mighty changes. For the purposes of our history of the English Church, the above bare sketch of events connected with the Reformation in Germany is sufficient : but something more is necessary in regard to the remarkable man, to whom in the providence of God the reformation work in Germany is mainly due. It is indisputable that the theology of Luther and of his associates — men like i502-iS46.] PERSONALIT Melancthon — in no inconsiderable degree influenced the views of our own English reformers, upon which we must presently dwell at length, and inspired at least portions of the formularies of faith which they put forth ; formularies which have been adopted as the basis of all the teach- ing of the Church of England from the Reformation period downwards. We have briefly alluded to the circum- stances of Luther's early career. In ap- pearance he was a stalwart man ; he seems to have been sensuous, passionate, imagina- tive, tender, easily moved to laughter or to tears, susceptible of the strongest love or hate. His eyes, men say, were especially remarkable. They were black, with a yellow rim round the iris, such as one sees in the eyes of a lion. His passionate de- votion, his intense earnestness, his student's work — work as translator, commentator, lecturer, preacher — never flagged. Much of his work is enduring, and likely to endure. Luther in his private life was never the gloomy ascetic. He loved music, and was himself no mean composer, assigning to this popular art a place second only to theology itself. He was also an ardent admirer of painting, and his are among the earliest works made interesting by the help of engravings. Like so many of the great and eminent men of God in different ages, he had a curious and strange intimacy with the animal world, and like Francis of Assisi and our English Cuthbert, the birds of the air knew him and loved him as their friend. What shall we say of his theology ? What was there in Luther's belief and teaching which won so quickly an empire over countless human hearts ; an empire which is enduring, and which shows no OF LUTHER. 19 symptom of change or of decay ? The dominant thought in his own mind has been well expressed in the following terms : " He possessed, what is perhaps the most awful and imperious creation of Christianity — the sense of sin. . . . Such a sense is at root a passion for the possession of Deity, in a man who feels Deity too awful in His goodness to be possessed by him. . . . He knows the impossibility of being worthy of God, yet feels the necessity to him of the God who seems so un- approachable, so inaccessible. To such a man reconciliation, to be real, must be of God and to God, a work of infinite grace ; and religion, to be true, must be the way or method of such reconciliation. The Christian doctrine of sin would be in- tolerable, were it not transfigured by the Christian doctrine of grace ; indeed, it is the splendour of the one which makes the shadow lie so dark on the other.''* In his earlier studies Luther had come across the Vulgate version of the New Testament, not much studied in the schools of his time, save in the Epistles and Gospels selected for the church's services. With this Latin version he was aided by the treatises of Augustine, of which he was ever a diligent student. Deep thoughts had begun to work in his mind. Then came the Greek New Testa- ment of Erasmus; and with this before him, the awful mistakes which the church was propagating in her teaching, flashed upon him in all their extent. The New Testa- ment came to him, not as. the voice of the church, but as the voice of God. " The first Christian age rises before him, wakes into life, stands out in vivid contrast with his * Dr. Fairbairn : " Christ in Modern Theology." 20 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1502— 1546. own. Here are no indulgences, penances, pilgrimages ; all is simple, of grace through faith without works. • . . . He stands in the immediate presence of Christ ; . . . in the light of the New Testament, duty becomes clear : there must be a return to In other words, the dominant idea in Luther's theology, as set out in his lectures, sermons, and commentaries, was the utter impossibility of meriting the forgiveness of sins by good works. Men must be directed to turn alone to the Lamb of God. This, LUTHER. MELANCTHON, POMERANUS, AND CRUCIGER TRANSLATING THE BIBLE. (From the painting by P. A. Labouchere.) Apostolical Christianity. For Luther this return was summed up in the idea of redemption by the free grace of God in Christ, justification by faith without any work or contributory merit on the part of man. . . . What he saw before him was an immense system of salvation by works, the works mere ceremonial." * * Dr Fairbairn : " Christ in Modern Theology " the German reformer felt, was emphatically not the teaching of the church of his day. The prevalent error, which taught that it was possible to merit the forgiveness of sins by good works, was the basis on which was built the whole monstrous system of indulgences, against which he had pro- tested so earnestly in the extreme case of the Dominican Tetzel at Wittenberg. It 1 502—1546.] Will be seen later on DEFECTS OF LUTHERANISM. 21 how largely this central point of Luther's theology affected the doctrine and the formularies which embodied the teaching of the reformers of the Church of [ ^ 6 1 ^^Z^***} England. But great though Lu- ther was, and eminently use- ful as his work and teaching was in sweep- ing away the false system which had grown up in the Middle Ages, obscur- ing and veiling many of the precious truths and doctrines of primitive Christianity, it is indisput- able that Lu- theranism was full of incon- sistencies; sparing much which ought to have perished, over - emphasising its great ideas, binding itself hastily to definitions and formuke which produced new divisions. It has been accepted generally as the form of reformed Christ- ianity adopted in Germany ; but the dis- passionate observer is forced to come to the conclusion that the result, so far as ft ^ 7 1*4 h ;» Germanv is concerned, has not been satis- factory. In England it will be seen that, while adopting much that was true and real and in accordance with primitive Christianity in Luther's teaching, our own reformers avoided a large proportion of the errors w h i c h d i s - figured Lu- theranism, and which have gravely im- paired the in- fluence and power of re- ligion over the lives and con- versation of men in those countries where Luther- a n i s m was adopted. / f f.J 'in AUTOGRAPH INSCRIPTION BY LUTHER ON THE FLY-LEAF OF THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE GERMAN BIBLE, PRINTED AT WITTENBERG IN 1 54 1 . * {British Museum.) A few words seem still ne- cessary on the relations be- tween the two men whose life-work alone rendered the * Translation : Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil if thou art with me. God's word is a light which shines in darkness and leads more clearly than day- light. For in death is extinguished not only the light of this sun, but also the light of reason with all its wisdom, whilst the word of God shines in all faithfulness an eternal sun which alone faith sees and follows to the eternal clear life. 22 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1502— 1546. English Reformation possible — Luther and Erasmus. It is not too much to say that these great reformers disliked each other, mistrusted each other. The grounds, however, of their mutual dislike and mistrust were not by any means the same. When in 1516 Luther, then a professor at the new university of Wittenberg, was ardently pursuing those studies which equipped him for his after work, we can easily imagine the eagerness with which the fervid Augustinian monk welcomed the Greek Testament with its annotations, put out by the famous scholar Erasmus; how he would study it for the first time in the original language, hoping to find in the learned and brilliant exposition which accompanied the precious text, his own views definitely and clearly stated. He was bitterly disappointed. Erasmus, he quickly found, had missed what he felt was the true keynote to the great Epistle to the Romans. The illustrious scholar, whose praise was on the lips of every reformer, had interpreted "the deeds of the law'' (Rom. iii. 20), by the keeping of which no flesh shall be justified in the eyes of God, as referring to the Jewish ceremonial law only. He (Luther) — and this was the ground idea of his theology — referred these "deeds of the law" to the observance of the whole Decalogue. And this was the kevnote to all Erasmus's interpretation of St. Paul. Every day, said Luther, as he read more and more of Erasmus, he lost liking for him. With all his Greek and Hebrew, he said that the illustrious scholar was lacking in Christian wisdom. " May God give him," wrote Luther in one of his letters, " understanding in his own good time ! " The rift between the two grew broader as time went on. The grounds of Erasmus's dislike of Luther were very different from the grave and weighty doctrinal points which so agitated the fervid German reformer. They were more general — more belonging, so to speak, to the history of the world. Especially important and interesting to ourselves were the sources of the hostile feelings of Erasmus towards Luther and his reforms, for they found many an echo in English hearts; and indeed the reverent love for antiquity, and the dread of too violent and sudden changes, which actuated Erasmus in his later years, largely contri- buted to the conservative spirit which happily guided so much in the Reforma- tion work in England. Erasmus, with all his knowledge of the corruptions of the ecclesiastical system of his day, with his clear view of Christianity as mirrored in the New Testament, with his earnest long- ing to see a thorough reformation in the doctrine and practice of the church, feared revolution, with its sure sequel in the sweeping destruction of so much that was venerable and helpful. He dreaded the release of incalculable forces ; possibly fearful animosities, disunion, even religious war with its attendant horrors. And in Luther he saw one who, he thought, was likely to precipitate such a revolution. Hence, with a really unfeigned admiration for his daring, unselfish spirit, he misliked him, and persistently held aloof from him. The thoughts of Erasmus were largely the thoughts of men like Colet and More. They were shared too by king Henry VIII., as we shall see, and were never quite absent from the thoughts of the leading I5Q2-I546-] LUTHER AN reformers of England. We will cite a few of Erasmus's comments upon Luther ; they wil] help us to understand the spirit which partly guided the acts and writings of Cranmer and Ridley, who will so shortly come before us. At the beginning of Luther's public career, when attention was fairly aroused by his bold denunciation of the scandal in the matter of the indulgences, Erasmus strongly sympathised with the brave protest, and strongly deprecated the Pope's action. The latter, instead of calmly examining the grounds of Luther's righteous indigna- tion, assumed a haughty, bullying attitude, sending utterly unfit men to inquire into the transactions which excited such wide- spread indignation. " I am amazed," wrote Erasmus, " that the Pope should have commissioners on the business so violent and arrogant. Cardinal Cajetan is over- bearing and haughty ; Miltitz is little better ; Aleander is a maniac." To Luther he wrote, urging moderation : " Quiet argument may do more than wholesale condemnation. Old institutions cannot be rooted up in an instant. Do not get angry. Do not be excited over the stir you have made." Writing on the same subject to a young cardinal of the great house of Croy, Erasmus •observes that the " best men were least offended by Luther," but adds, " I am sorry that Luther's books have been published. I tried to prevent it, as I thought they would cause disturbance ; however, while men may not entirely approve them, they will read them, and pardon much for the sake of the rest." He defends the champion of the truth thus : " What un- worthy motive could Luther have had ? D ERASMUS. 23 He wants no promotion. He seeks tor no money." Yet Erasmus deprecated the violence of the Lutheran writings. In a letter to Warham, the archbishop of Can- terbury, we find the following : " Luther has made a prodigious stir ; would that he had held his tongue, or had written in a better tone. Luther has been sent into the world by the genius of discord ; every corner has been disturbed by him. All admit that the corruptions of the church required a drastic medicine. But drugs wrongly given make the sick man worse." In another letter to Luther's friend and wisest counsellor, the theologian Melanc- thon, he expresses himself in this wise : " I do not object generally to the evan- gelical doctrines, but there is much in Luther's teaching which I dislike. He ruins everything which he touches, with extravagance. I would have religion puri- fied without destroying authority. Prac- tices grown corrupt by long usage might be gradually corrected without throwing everything into confusion. Luther sees certain things to be wrong, and in flying blindly at them causes more harm than he cures. . . . What good is done by telling foolish young people that the Pope is antichrist, that they cannot do right if they try, that good works and merits are a vain illusion, and that man can do nothing of himself? . . . Would that Luther had tried as hard to improve Popes and princes as to expose their faults." As Erasmus grew older he became grad- ually more conservative. Lutheranism alarmed him. He feared greatly the con- struction of a new dogmatic theology, of which the denial of the human will was a marked feature. In a lettert dated 1529, 24 THE CHURCH he alludes to some of the wilder Lutheran ideas. " The notion that any Christian may consecrate or absolve or ordain I think pure insanity. . . . Doubtless I have wished that Popes and cardinals and bishops were more like the Apostles, but never in thought have I wished these offices abolished. . . . Never will I be exasperated or tempted into deserting the true communion." What Erasmus feared in Lutheranism, but shrank from expressing to the full, Sir Thomas More openlv said, and in England there were many earnest reformers who felt like More. In a letter to Erasmus written in 1525, the year of Luther's marriage to Catherine von Bora, when the revolt of Germany against the old religion had already attracted the attention of Europe, More says : " Do it [that is, reply at length to Luther] ; you have nothing to fear. Luther himself is not so cowardly as to hope, or so wicked as to wish, that you should be silent. I cannot say how foolish and inflated I think his letter to you. He knows well how the wretched glosses with which he has darkened Scrip- ture, turn to ice at his touch. They were cold enough already. If for some reason you cannot make a public rejoinder, at least set down your private thoughts in writing and send me the MS. ; the bishop of London and I will take charge of it." But this we know Erasmus never did. Although he disliked sorely much that Luther did and taught, he knew that on many points the German reformer was right. In the matter of any public re- joinder to Lutheranism, Erasmus held his peace. He would not be found fighting against God.* * Cf. Froude : " Life and Letters of Erasmus." OF ENGLAND. [IS,& The first thirty years of the sixteenth century witnessed the newly-discovered printing-press in full activity. As might have been expected, such a time was pro- lific in controversial literature ; little, how- ever, of which was worth preserving or even remembering. But the bitterness of the attack on the many and crying abuses of the church, and obstinate defence on the part of many who were interested in the continuance of the scandals in question, evoked not a few pamphlets, as we should term them, bearing on the great contro- versy and the many questions it stirred up. The most popular and important of these, the " Praise of Folly," by Erasmus, we have already briefly described. Luther's pen was also frequently employed in the contest. His violent invective and pas- sionate remonstrances were, however, in the highest degree regrettable, and his productions as a pamphleteer, though they were numerous and often pungent, are best forgotten. Luther has other and nobler claims, by far, to the respect and veneration of the generations who followed him. Of this school of ephemeral literature, after Erasmus's " Praise of Folly," the " Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum " perhaps holds the most prominent place. This re- markable satire appeared in 15 16, and is generally understood to have been largely, though not entirely, the work of Ulrich von Hutten, who has been well described as a noble, a warrior, and a rake — a theo- logian withal, and an ardent reformer. All things, it is said, were welcome to Hutten — arms and love, theology and de- bauchery, a disputation with the disciples of the mediaeval schoolmen, a controversy I5i6.] SATIRES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 25 with Erasmus, or a war to the knife with attention. These " Epistoke Obscurorum the dunces of his age.* Von Hutten died Virorum " were written in exaggerated still comparatively young ; he was passion- monkish Latin, and professed to be letters ately attached to Luther, who nevertheless of simple monks unknown to fame, bring- me%nba-£piftdf3tia u *0auU3in z:imott)eon. 090£rft£aptteL fu£t>2ifti tmrcb&enml Ien Sottts/jupxofgenofe wrber< flung oe.s lebes vS jCbrtfto 3befi». /Deynem lieben fon HTfmotfoeo. Sn«0 /barmfyrtjicteyt/fWCK/ von Sotoem voter m vnfcrm bern 3befu £b«fto. 3cfoo«ncfe 23ott/oem(cbeicn« vonmeyncnwHeltern bcr/ynn rer» , nemgewilfenAHie icfo on vnterlofj Oeyn geocnc? ynmeynem gepet tog vn»nacbt/vnD verlangetmicb ofcb jufcfocncwenn (cfo&encFeanbeyoe, ttvenen)cuff oa9(rr/mftfrmocnerruIletwurC>c/niocryniKrciri(d? tKemgtfertxtm$ax9ben6ynnC>vr/wil<^WMrgcwotKt bat yn Off ncr gro fjm utter JLoiOe/m vn n ocyncr mutter i£unit"c/brn aber gewffVoas flud) ynn 6 jr. X)mb wilder fttbwfllenfcftoicb eryiincre/Osson erwetftft We gabc JSottis/Oleynn Oyrifryourcb oie fluff legung meyner bcncx/ iDenn23ottb«t*ne m'djr. gebenoen geyftocr furcrxyrj<'nOfm/&er Er«fftvnOerl(ebwoerju fcyncm furfary vn gnflO/bfc vtis g*bcniftyrfh£bri(lo3t^ufurbffW»«rwdt/rt5taberc^rib«t ourcboic erf (beynong vnferebeylanoe 3W*u CbJifH/Oeroem toot bet oie^ macbt genomen/Vne o«8 leben vA eyn vnuergenglicb roefjen one lietbt biodbf/Ourcb b«s £uflgclfon/ru tvrtcbemtcb geferjt byn eyn p?tOiger mo <\pofieI vno lerer oerbey^tri/vrnbttnJct)er f«cf> cod cnroilcbcn (cbglewbt bab/nioerfcn mrr merit beylagebewflren bif; an ytxncn teg. titftofcbnaeboemfTirbflooerbeylfarnen wort/otetrnvon mrr gcboietbaft/vomglatoben vfi von oer Hebe ynn /Cbtifro 3befu/Dl fen gnten beylag beware ourcboen bcylige geyfi/oer ynn ens wo net. 2Da8wcyjtu/7Ms/ficbvomkgctvano^benal(eoUynn3na|inO/ rntcrwilcben ((tpbfgeluavno ZOermogenep.iDcr berrgebeberm bfrtnefcytoem baufjt. Onefipborf/Ot nn erb^tmicf>offt erquicft/ vnob«t (ilj THE BEGINNING OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO TIMOTHY. (From the first edition of Lutlur's Translation of the Bible. British Museum.) mourned over his friend's brilliant, unwise ing their puzzled questions and doubts career, and deplored his clever but mis- to their old master, trusting that he chievous satire, which excited so much out of his vast learning would be ♦ See Sir J. Stephen's Essays in Ecclesiastical able satisfactorily to answer them. Tne Biography :" Martin Luther." picture drawn wasL of course, a gross 26 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1516. caricature, but it unmistakably hit not a few of the more conspicuous blots in the church, and especially in the monastic life of that age. Erasmus and other nota- bilities appear from time to time in the correspondence, giving an historical colour to the work. Ridiculous scruples and questions of absurd casuistry are carefully detailed, and side by side with them broad hints of secret immorality are given. " Immense straining at gnats was put in contrast with the ease with which camels were swallowed within the walls of the cloister." * This bitter satire is classed among the most effective that the world has ever seen, and there is no doubt but that it lent a material aid to the progress of some of the more regrettable features of the Reforma- tion. Luther gravely censured the writer of the famous pamphlet for employing in it the language of reproach and cruel insult, and spoke of the author of the scurrilous but wonderfully popular piece as a buffoon. Strangely enough, Sir Thomas More was amused and interested in it, and wrote to Erasmus " that in England it delighted everyone." Its effect was seen when the general suppression of the religious houses was carried into effect some twenty years later. The " Letters of the Obscure Men " were so amusing, so brilliant and witty, that for a time it was supposed that none but Erasmus could have been their author. The great scholar indignantly repudiated the doubtful compliment, alleging that the coarseness of the book simply disgusted him. Ulrich von Hutten, hearing of the outspoken delight of More in the " Letters " * Seebohm : " Oxford Reformers." in question, wrote to Erasmus for some account of his English admirer, and in reply Erasmus sent to Von Hutten that charming and graphic picture of More which we have already given in our account of the English writer and statesman. Another of these powerful satires, which attracted the attention of Europe, was the dramatic dialogue, from which we have already quoted, written in a.d. 15 13, after the death of Pope Julius II., and purporting to be a conversation between the shade of the departed Pope and St. Peter at the gate of Paradise, the doorkeeper refusing admission to the haughty Pontiff. That people could listen calmly to such tremen- dous charges against a Pope acknowledged by the whole western church, gives us some insight into what was working in many men's minds at this juncture. Far more weighty, though, than these satires and libels which flooded Europe, were the works of the learned Reuchlin, the friend of Erasmus, who was a profound Hebrew and Greek scholar, and to whom belongs the credit of introducing the study of these languages into Germany. Reuchlin is not unfairly styled the father of modern Biblical criticism.. The devout Colet speaks of his writings as " the works of so great a man,'' and gently rebukes Erasmus for sending a copy of one of the more famous of them, the " Cabalistica," to bishop Fisher and not to him (Colet). It was from the writings of Reuchlin, the Greek Testament and commentaries of Erasmus, and the German Bible of Luther, not from the host of witty and scurrilous satires, that the strongest arguments for the reformation of the church in Germany were taken. CHAPTER XLIII. THE TWO LAST ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL CHANCELLORS. Early Life of William Warham — Primate and Chancellor — Testimony of Erasmus and Henry VIII. — Warham as a Reformer — Makes Way for Wolsey — His Dying Protest against Separation from Rome — Wolsey — His Political Genius — Early Life — Archbishop of York and Pluralist — Legate a latere — Chancellor and Chief Minister— His Pomp and Power — Conduct in the Divorce — Disgrace and Death — His Attitude towards Church Reform — Educational Foundations from Revenues of Suppressed Monasteries — Insufficiency of such Measures in the Actual State of the Church. THERE were two distinguished men who had a large, perhaps the principal share in guiding the for- tunes of the Church of England during the twenty-five or thirty years which immediately went before the era of the Reformation. They were the last of the statesmen-ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages, who usually stood at the king's right hand, occupying generally the principal position in church and state. From the days of Dunstan, again and again we find one man filling the post of archbishop and chief adviser of the crown, in civil as well as in ecclesiastical matters. The two men whose careers we must now briefly sketch, were the last who filled this double position. The elder of them — William Warham, subsequently archbishop of Canterbury for thirty years, during fifteen of which he was chancellor and chief minister of the crown, only vacating the latter civil post in favour of Wolsey, his brother-archbishop of York — was born about 1450. His career in many particulars closely resembled that of many who before his time had risen to high honour and dignity in the church. He was educated at Winchester (Eton and Winchester were, in the days of Warham, the two principal schools of England), and then at New College, Oxford, of which society he became a fellow, then a tutor. As was the habit with so many rising churchmen, Warham early devoted him- self to the study of law, and subsequently practised in the Court of Arches. He was not ordained, apparently, until 1493, and then rapidly rose into prominence. Cardinal-archbishop Morton, the minister of Henry VII., introduced him to the king, and we now find Warham busily engaged in state affairs, attached to various important foreign missions as legal adviser, such as in the case of the embassies to Burgundy in the matter of the imposture of Perkin Warbeck, and to Spain on the occasion of the negotiations which preceded the marriage of prince Arthur and Katharine of Arragon. Then we find him with a seat at the royal council as master of the Rolls, until in 1501 he was nominated to the bishopric of London, and in 1503, on the unexpected death of archbishop Dean, he became primate and chancellor. During his long career, Warham was ever an earnest, conscientious worker ; generous to others, magnificent in every- thing connected with his great office, though always simple and even austere in his own private life. At Oxford he was known as one who never indulged in 28 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1503—1532. the customary tastes of youths of his own time of life. He kept no " dogs of chase," no hawks ; he was never seen with sling or bow and arrow ; he refused to play at any games of hazard ; ever the unwearied worker, whether as student or tutor, lawyer or ambassador, chancellor or primate. ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. (From the picture by Holbein?) Erasmus, no very gentle critic of the higher ecclesiastics, and ever sparing of his praise, even of those he admired and liked, thus wrote of him, in a letter to cardinal Grymamus : "The archbishop of Canterbury (Warham) is one of the best of men, and an honour to the realm ; wise, judicious, learned above all his contempor- aries, and so modest that he is unconscious of his superiority. Under a quiet manner, he is withal energetic and laborious. He is experienced in business ; he has played a distinguished part in foreign embassies ; besides being primate, he is lord chancellor, the highest judicial office in the realm — yet, with all his greatness, he has been father and mother to me, and has partly made up to me what I sacrificed in leaving Rome." Again, as late as 1530, Erasmus writes of him : " Some are saints, like the archbishop of Canterbury [Warham] and the bishop of London and the bishop of Rochester [Fisher]." With both the kings whom he served Warham was a favourite, and, although he contrived to retain his popularity in the country towards the end of Henry VTL's reign, when the king and his ministers were generally disliked, Henry remained his warm friend till the hour of his death. He would often visit the archbishop, and was his guest at Canterbury about three weeks before his mortal sickness. That Henry VIII. thought highly of Warham and es- teemed him greatly, is manifest from the terms in which the king spoke of him in a letter written to his envoy at the papal court the year before Warham's death. " And why," so runs the king's letter, proposing that the divorce case should be adjudged in England, " should ye not suffer the archbishop of Canterbury to determyne this matter in Inglande. . . . As for the person of the bisshop of Canterbury, ye may say there canne be no person in Christendome more in- differente, more miet, apt and convenient than the said archbisshop (Warham), who hath lernyng, excellent high and long experience, a man ever of a singular zele to justice." Warham was a reformer, but too gentle ,5o3_,532.] ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. 29 in the measures he wished to see adopted ; points of the ecclesiastical system, and he was a true supporter of the new learn- especially loathed the proceedings of the ing though wanting the enthusiasm of ecclesiastical courts. These he earnestly Colet, More, Erasmus, or even Wolsey. His desired to see reformed. These courts "ego et rex meus." (By permission from the picture by Sit John Gilbert, R.A., P.R. IV S., in the Guildhall A rt Gallery. desire, for instance, in the case of the Bible, was that it should be more generally read than it was ; but he would confine the privilege to a few, who would study it piously and wisely. He would not have the Bible used as a test by which to sit in judgment on the teachings of the church. He clearly saw many of the iniquitous dealt especially with matrimonial causes, wills, and social contracts, and with many real and supposed moral offences. Much money was extorted 'from the people by these courts. Long delays, if money were not forthcoming, were often complained of; hush-money bribes, and other iniquitous proceedings were too often the rule. 30 THE CHURCH It was especially to remedv this state of things, to bring about a complete reforma- tion of the ecclesiastical church in Eng- land, that Warham countenanced the appointment of Wolsey, the archbishop of York, who he felt was a stronger man than himself, as legate a latere. Occupying thus an exceptional position as special papal legate, Wolsey would be enabled thoroughly to reform the obnoxious courts. This was the reason of Warham submitting to Wolsey being made a cardinal, and at some self-sacrifice allowing another thus to take his place in some important duties which belonged to his high office as archbishop of Canterbury. It was, how- ever, an unfortunate step; for Wolsey in- stituted a legislative court which superseded the old jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and brought him later into collision with Warham. Thus the attempt at re- formation here proved a failure. To sum up Warham's career. He had been confessedly a great ecclesiastic, and on the whole a successful and well-loved man, but was utterly unfit to guide the church in her hour of difficulty. In his latter days he was shocked and dismayed at the drastic measures of reform which he saw were imminent. Powerless to struggle against the stream, he withdrew himself heartbroken into his home, and, dying, dictated from his bed that solemn but unavailing protest with which his name will be for ever connected. It is a pathetic state paper, these words ot the dying archbishop, and fairly represents the state of mind of men like More, the learned and godly lavman, and Fisher, the saintlv bishop. These, while seeing the urgent necessity of a great OF ENGLAND. [1503-1532. reform, stood aghast when they saw the tremendous changes which appeared to be coming on — changes which they feared would destroy the church they hoped to reform by quieter and more gentle means. Rudely to break with the cherished tra- dition of the mediaeval church, to such men was an intolerable thought. Fisher and More went cheerfully to death rather than submit ; Warham, the old man, it was said, died of a broken heart, and dying, left these solemn words behind him : — " In the name of God — Amen. — We, William, by Divine Providence arch- bishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, protest against any statutes hitherto published, or hereafter to be made by Parliament, in derogation of the Roman Pontiff and the Apostolic see, or in diminution of the rights, privileges, customs and liberties which belonged to the church of Canterbury ; we protest that we cannot consent to such statutes ; we dissent from them, cry out against them, contradict them." Many in England thought like these great and good but mistaken men ; but the torrent of the Reformation was too strong for them. They were swept away, and their unavailing protests ignored ; and for good or for evil — we see now it was for good — the old order of things was com- pletely changed, in the manner which has to appear in our story. The second of these men is a still more conspicuous example of the long line of statesmen-ecclesiastics who governed Eng- land for so many centuries ; and was the last of that long and distinguished line. Wolsey, afterwards chancellor as well i5o6-i53°-] CARDINA as cardinal-archbishop of York, legate a latere, in some respects was the greatest of them all. His learned biographer* con- siders him " the greatest political genius whom England has ever produced ; for at a great crisis of European history he impressed England with a sense of her own importance, and secured for her a leading position in European affairs, which since his (Wolsey's) days has seemed her natural right . . ." In his days, during the eleven brilliant years of his ministry, he made England for the time the centre of European politics. Wolsey was born at Ipswich, it is be- lieved, in 1471. His parents, belonging to what we should term the middle-class, were persons in fairly good position, prosperous graziers and wool merchants. At a very early age he went to Oxford, and in due course became a fellow and master of the grammar school of Mag- dalen College. In 1501 we find him chaplain to Dean, archbishop of Canter- bury, and in 1506 at court as chaplain to king Henry VII. He was then about thirty-five years of age. In the next three years he was busily engaged in state matters at home and abroad, and evidently won the favour of the king ; for before the latter's death Wolsey received the preferment of the rich deanery of Lincoln. Henry VIII. appointed Wolsey his almoner, on the strong recommendation of Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester — a trusted counsellor of his father ; and in 151 1 he appears as a member of the king's council. Wolsey now comes to the front ; he became a trusted adviser of Henry, who rewarded him with divers responsible and * Bishop Creighton of London WOLSEY. 31 influential places of preferment, thus paying for his services, as the custom then was, out of the revenues and dignities of the church. In 15 14 he received the bishopric of Tournai, when that city passed into the possession of the English ; and in that same year the archbishopric of York was conferred on the young and rising states- man. In this great office, the second dignity in the Church of England, Wolsey was never installed. It was only after his fall in 1529 that he found leisure to make arrangements at York for the ceremonv, some fifteen years after he had accepted the dignity ; but the end came before the day appointed. Wolsey's predecessor in the archbishopric of York was also a non-resident. This was archbishop Thomas Bainbridge, who lived as a cardinal in the papal court, and who died, as it is believed, poisoned by one of his household. The bishopric of Lincoln was also con- ferred upon Wolsey, who was then en- riched by the revenues of three sees, in none of which he seems ever to have resided. But if he was a neglectful ecclesiastic — for in addition to the above important preferments he shortly afterwards received the bishopric of \yinchester and the mag- nificent abbey of St. Albans — Wolsey was an energetic and most able minister of state, occupying the position of chancellor and chief minister of Henry from the resignation of Warham until 1529, when he made way for Sir Thomas More. He was also, through the powerful interest of Henry VIII., elected to the rank of cardinal, and was appointed legate a latere in England. The cardinal-arch- bishop was eminently a peace minister, 32 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1506—1530. for he was conscious that England had nothing to gain from war ; and for seven years of his brilliant administration, while the Continent was often convulsed with bloody battles, sieges, and desolating invasions, England remained absolutely at peace. This quiet period enabled mously wealthy. His pomp was almost royal, and a suite of high ecclesiastics and nobles followed him wherever he moved. His household was composed of five hundred persons of noble birth, and its chief posts were eagerly sought after by knights and nobles of high degree. Two HAMPTON COURT. her very largely to increase her com- merce, and to develop her universities and schools. Nowhere, as we have seen, did the new learning find a home and a welcome as it did in England, under the influence of such men as More, Colet, Erasmus, Linacre, and other distinguished scholars and men of genius. The great English minister was not only all-powerful, but was, through the man}' preferments which he held, enor- of his splendid residences after his fall became royal palaces, both famous in English history — Hampton Court, and York Place, afterwards known as White- hall. These dwellings, under altered con- ditions, for centuries were the centres of court and political life ; while his mag- nificent foundation of " Cardinal College '' at Oxford, under its altered name of " Christ Church," still maintains its fame and reputation among all English-speaking 34 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1506— 1530. people in our own day and time, though nearly five centuries have passed since the great cardinal designed and endowed " the house." Nor was all this splendour and pomp, greater perhaps than had ever previously been displayed by a subject, incommen- surate with Wolsey's power. As chan- cellor he was supreme judge, as well as principal minister of state ; as legate a lat:rc he was absolutely master in all church matters ; and in all this varied and various business, he showed him- self consummately skilful. No adverse criticism has ever been levelled at Wol- sey's conduct of public affairs. The re- sult of this concentration of all power in church and state in one single hand enormously strengthened the Crown. It has been well said that "in raising his favourite to the position of head of church and state, Henry VIII. was gathering all religious as well as all civil authority into his personal grasp. The nation which trembled before Wolsey, learned to tremble before the king who could destroy Wolsey by a breath. Greatness, wealth, authority he held, and owned he held, simply at the royal will."* Roughly speaking, the supreme power of Wolsey lasted eleven years. As time went on, various causes worked together to undermine, and eventually to ruin the great cardinal. Foreign affairs did not turn out as he had expected, and the king's implicit trust and real love for his able and devoted minister grew gradually cold. Henry listened more and more to Wolsey's many enemies and detractors. * Green : " History of the English People," chap, vi., section v. Weariness of his enormous and ever- increasing labours, perhaps satiety after he had for a long series of years en- joyed the highest prizes the world has to offer, seems also to have crept over the brilliant and successful statesman, to have robbed him by degrees of much of his old tireless energy, and to have dimmed somewhat his old brilliancy and splendid ability. Over the king and the court gradually a cloud spread, which changed the character of Henry, and turned for a season all his thoughts and aspirations. into a new channel. This cloud, at first not bigger than a man's hand, grew and grew, till it over- shadowed England. Neither Wolsey nor anyone else at first suspected it. The love of Henry for the beautiful Anne Boleyn, Wolsey thought, was only a transitory fancy, such as not infrequently passes over and disfigures court life. But Henry's passion was no transitory fancy. We trace elsewhere the growth and development of what was termed the " king's matter," the question of the divorce from the wife of his youthr Katharine of Arragon. Wolsey tem- porised ; he knew it was an unjust and shameful proceeding from the beginning ; but he used his great powers, alas ! to aid and abet the king's wishes. We shall see how the designs of the cardinal-minister were frustrated ; and how Henry, seeing the cardinal had failed, entrusted the matter to other hands, and arbitrarily dismissed his old friend and counsellor under circumstances of the cruellest neglect and ingratitude. Nothing can excuse Henry's conduct to his lonjr-tried and faithful minister. 1506-1530.] WOLSEY'S FAI It is not too much to say that this conduct hroke Wolsey's heart. With a constitution probably undermined by years of unre- mitting work and thought and care, he was unable to bear up against the shock of the utter ruin which fell upon him. Not only had he lost all which made life to him worth living, but that life, he felt, was in danger of being violently and shamefully cut short. The end came with startling suddenness. The story of the closing: scene, with its dramatic incidents, is too well known to need repetition. After having been stripped of well-nigh all his posts of honour and emoluments, of all his wealth and possessions, he was suddenly arrested, and on his sad journev under guard to the Tower some mortal sickness seized him, from which the stunned and hopeless man, so lately the foremost subject in England — cer- tainly the most powerful minister in Christendom — never rallied. It was dusk on a November evening in 1 530 when the dying cardinal, in the course of that last sad journey to London and the Tower, reached Leicester abbey, where the abbot greeted him by torchlight. " Father abbot," he said, " I am come hither to lay my bones among you." He was right; too weak to walk, Kingston, the constable of the Tower, tenderly bore him in his arms to a bed in the abbey — the bed he never quitted ; for after a few restless pain-filled hours, he breathed his last. Years after, the true story of the closing days of Wolsey was written by his dear friend and personal attendant, Cavendish. The story was read by the greatest 01 our English dramatists, who has fashioned out of it that portrait of Wolsey which will , AND DEATH. 35 endure so long as the English language is read and loved by men. " Wolsey has become the type of the vanity of all human endeavour, and his closing hours point the moral of ths superiority of a quiet life with God, over the manifold activities of an aspiring ambition."* Such is the brief record of the career of the last and greatest of the statesmen - ecclesiastics of England. What, now, did he think of the condition of the church over which he virtuallv ruled for the eleven years preceding the tremendous crash of the Reformation ? Living as did Wolsey in the midst of so many various corruptions and mis- appropriations of church revenues and preferments, it was perhaps impossible for him fully to grasp the iniquity of the state of things which then existed in the church. A bishop himselt of several sees, of which he knew scarcely anything, the bitter wrong occasioned by the non-residence of ecclesiastics would scarcely occur to him. Payment for state and public work out oi the revenues of the church had become a matter of such ordinary occurrence, that it passed usually without any open scandal. For instance, in 1521, when the abbot of St. Albans died, at Wolsey's request king Henry VIII. ordered the monks of that wealthy foundation to take his chancellor- archbishop as their abbot, saying, " My lord cardinal has sustained many charges in this his voyage " — the king was alluding to one of Wolsey's foreign missions — " and hath expended ^~ 10,000." Such an ap- pointment for such a reason in subsequent ages would have seemed impossible ; it was no unusual act in those days. Wolsey, •Bishop Creighton : "Cardinal Wolsey." 36 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1506— 1530. with his pluralities, could scarcely look askance on his friend cardinal Campeggio, for instance, enjoying the bishopric of Hereford and its revenues, although Cam- peggio was only known in England as an Italian cardinal occasionally employed on important foreign missions by the Pope. Favoured parish clergy often held as many office ? I can tell, for I know him well. . . . It is the devil ; among all the pack of them that have cures, the devil shall go for my money, for he applieth his business. Therefore, ve unpreaching pre- lates, learn of the devil to be diligent in vour office ; if ye will not learn of God, for shame learn of the devil." Rev's WOLSEY GOING IN PROCESSION TO WESTMINSTER HALL. {By permission, from the picture by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., P.R .W.S., in the Guildhall Art Gallery?) as eight benefices, but what could Wolsey say in such cases ? Yet the evil of these glaring abuses connected with non-residence had sunk deep into the hearts of many thinking men. Latimer's audacious sermon at Paul's Cross, preached some eighteen years after Wolsey's fall, reflects something of the public mind in this particular. ''I would ask a strange question," said the popular preacher : " Who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in England, that passeth all the rest in doing of his bitter satire against the clergy, written about 1528, tells the same story in ex- aggerated, but still in not quite untrue terms, of the popular indignation against this shameless and fatal way of living and working. " They (the bishops) drink in golden bowls The blood of poor simple souls Perishing for lack of sustenance. Their hungry cures they never teach, Nor will suffer none other to preach." Roy's Satire. Wolsev, however, in spite of his political preoccupations, felt too surely that in 3» THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1505-1530. large measure the church had lost its former hold upon the people ; that it was no longer, as in old days, the iuspirer of popular aspirations. The middle classes, then rapidly rising into prominence and power, he knew well viewed the church's riches with jealousy, feeling that in innumer- able instances this wealth was misapplied. Some of its practices, and in certain in- stances its doctrines, were the objects of ridicule and mockery among even pious men of intelligence. We have seen that this was the case with such devout and scholarly thought-leaders as Colet and Erasmus, and even More. Wolsey would reform this state of things ; he would even remove the papal authority in England, and, without an)7 formal breaking with past traditions, would put the relation ot the Church of England to the Papacy on a new footing. It was a thorough reform he longed for and hoped to carry out ; but it was a conservative reformation, and one that should be carried out gradually, and without any drastic or destructive opera- tions. He would begin with a new appli- cation of much of the monastic property, in cases where the old foundations were manifestly useless, or, at all events, were not doing the work for which they were originally founded and endowed. Many of the monasteries he hoped to convert into scholastic houses — "garrisons of learned and pious men, who should occupy the land from end to end." This idea of Wolsey, as part of the reformation of the church, had long been a favourite project with enlightened churchmen. William of Wykeham en- dowed his new college at Oxford with lands purchased and acquired from monas- teries. Henry VI. endowed his noble foundation of Eton and King's College, Cambridge, with revenues derived from the suppression of alien priories. In 1497 John Alcock, bishop of Ely, obtained per- mission to suppress the useless nunnery of St. Radigund in Cambridge, and use its site for the foundation of Jesus College. And Wolsey followed these wise examples by obtaining from Pope Clement VII. leave to convert into a college the monas- tery of St. Frideswide at Oxford. He soon afterwards obtained a papal bull allowing him to suppress all monasteries with fewer than seven inmates, and to devote their revenues to educational purposes. Wolsey even began this wise work of converting the useless religious houses into schools and colleges. In his native town of Ipswich, he established a college of con- siderable pretensions with some of the money thus obtained. But when Wolsey was disgraced, the Ipswich foundation was swept away. On a far nobler and grander scale, however, was his Oxford foundation of Cardinal College, which the king, on the earnest entreaty of the fallen minister, spared. The cardinal's hat, the well- known cognisance of the magnificent foundation of Wolsey, still pressrves the memory of the illustrious founder, in spite of the change of the name to Christ Church ; while the unfinished cloister tells the story of a magnificent and stately work rudely and suddenly interrupted. The method adopted by Wolsey in the case of these small and fading religious houses was to send commissioners to in- quire into their actual condition. If the report was unfavourable, which in the case 01 these shrunken establishments^ whose i5o6— 1530.] WOLSEY AS A CI revenues were unable to support more than seven monks at the outside, was almost a foregone conclusion, as no great or useful purpose was likely to be served bv the preservation of such a community, then the house was dissolved, and the few members were transferred to a larger monastic establishment, and the estates and possessions of the suppressed house were applied to educational uses. In Wolsey's case no grave moral charge seems to have been adduced as a reason for the dissolution of these fading foundations : only the uselessness of maintaining such establishments any longer. But the pre- cedent was an ominous one, and was used with terrible effect a few years later, with a very different object. The chief instrument employed by Wolsey was a certain individual, one Thomas Cromwell, who subsequently be- came the mos': notorious instrument in the deeds of ruthless spoliation which so sadlv disfigured the Reformation work in Eng- land. Wolsey, the conservative reformer, little thought what a terrible suggestion his well-meant attempt to benefit national education at the expense of some few worn-out, dying communities would afford a tew years later, when men's passions were loosed, and in the heat and anguish of dispute and controversy, right and wrong would too often be confused ; little thought what wholesale robbery and ruin would be carried out under the shadow of a throne he had done so much to build up and strengthen, and with the sanction of a strained law he himself had first put into force. Wolsey's work in respect to the much needed reformation of the ecclesiastical JRCH REFORMER. 39 courts, the crying abuses of which all earnest churchmen alike deplored, has been already alluded to. To effect this most necessary reform, the cardinal - minister used his extraordinary position as cardinal and legate d latere, a position sought for by him, and acquiesced in by his ecclesiastical superior Warham, especially for this end. Wolsey instituted a lega- tine court, intended to supersede the ordinary jurisdiction of the courts whose powers were so shamefully misused. But his sudden fall from power prevented any development of his plans and policy in this direction ; and the attempt only left the courts and jurisdiction in worse con- fusion than before. Had Wolsey remained in power, it is probable that the crying evils justly com- plained of in connection with these eccle- siastical courts would have been largely redressed, and another and a wiser system gradually introduced ; while monastic revenues belonging to houses confessedly useless, and lacking in discipline and earnestness, would have been increasingly diverted by general consent to educational purposes. Thus England would have been gradually covered with a network of public schools and colleges, and the irreparable losses and deplorable waste which the sorrowful years 1529-1540 witnessed, would have been averted. But in the providence of God these attempts r.t a quiet reformation, to be wrought by efforts within the church's inner pale, proved abortive and came to nought. The church, indeed, was sick nigh unto death. It was not only that its courts were corrupt and grievously oppressive to the people, that its priests were 4Q THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [•506-1530. making merchandise of its highest and most responsible offices, that too many of its ancient monastic communities were useless and decaying ; but its teaching was full of error and superstition, and its holiest doctrines were changed in many instances almost past recognition. Wolsey and Warham " had made the common mistake of men of the world who are representatives of an old order of things at a time when that order is doomed and dying. They could not read the signs of the times, and confounded the barrenness of death with the barrenness of a winter which might be followed by a new spring and summer. They believed that the old tree of me- diaeval religion, which, in fact, was cum- bering the ground, might bloom again in its old beauty." * Other and sterner agents were needed for the work of purifying ; other and more * Cf. Froude, vol. i., chap. ii. terrible means were required. These the Eternal Wisdom raised up and provided. In the period of storm and stress which immediately succeeded the fall of Wolsey and the death of Warham, it is true that much was done which serious thinking men must mourn over ; that much was lost to the Church of England which can never be recovered or replaced. But the patriot, the real lover of primitive Christianity, must rejoice and be deeply thankful that, out of the seeming ruin and destruction of so much that was venerable and precious, the English Church, never destroyed, arose again, immeasurably stronger, purer, truer than ever, and more fitted to carry on its mighty work of teaching and guiding that Anglo-Saxon race, which had a future before it such as none then, not even the most enthusiastic and sanguine of its members in the six- teenth century, could foresee. CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE, OXFORD, SHOWING THE UNFINISHED CLOISTERS. HENRY VIII. GIVING THE CHARTER TO THE BARBER SURGEONS. From a print after tlie picture by Holbein.) CHAPTER XLIV. HENRY VIII. AND THE DIVORCE. Historical Importance of the Divorce between Henry VIII. and Katharine of Arragon— Origin of the Marriage— Its 111 Omens and Consequences — Anne Boleyn — Character and Appearance of Henry VIII. — Early Attempts to Procure a Divorce — Appeal to the Pope— Double-dealing of Clement VII. — The Pope appoints a Commission — Its Adjournment and Failure, and consequent Fall of Wolsey from Power— Thomas Cranmerand his Advice — Rise of Cranmerin Royal Favour — Becomes Archbishop of Canterbury — The Divorce Pronounced in England — The Act of 1533 for Restraint of Appeals to Rome— The Formal Sentence — Last Occasion of an English Primate's Signature as Papal Legate — The Coronation of Anne Boleyn— Indignation of the Clergy — They are Forbidden to Preach — Importance of this Denial of Romish Jurisdiction. THE episode of the divorce or separa- tion of Henry VIII. from Katharine of Arragon possesses an importance in the history of England, out of all proportion to its actual position in the royal and state chronicles. Other sove- reigns and princes before Henry VIII. had been divorced and separated and had married again for political reasons ; and although in each case the act was an unrighteous one, it had been passed over with comparatively little comment. In king Henry's own case the episode of divorce was repeated ; but a few lines are sufficient for the historian when he tells of the condemnation and death of Catherine Howard, or of the marriage of Anne of Cleves, and the subsequent divorce or separation. The proceedings, however, which accompanied the famous 42 THE CHURCH question at issue in respect to the legality of the marriage of Katharine, had such momentous consequences, that the story must be told at length. Years before, when Henry VII. was king, and his successor, afterwards known as Henry VIII., was a boy only twelye years old, Katharine, the daughter of Ferdinand, king of Arragon. one of the most sagacious and far-seeing princes of his time, came to England as the bride of Arthur, prince of Wales, Henry VII. 's eldest son. Fiye months after the marriage of Arthur and Katharine, Arthur died. Henry VII. and Ferdinand were desirous for political reasons that the union be- tween England and Spain should remain unbroken, and Katharine was betrothed to the boy- prince Henry, the Pope re- luctantly granting a dispensation which legalised the unlawful connection. Time passed on ; the mind of Henry VII. apparently changed as to the wisdom of the marriage, and it would probably haye been broken off, had not prince Henry himself earnestly desired to carry it out. Katharine was six years older than her boy betrothed, who evidently loved her deariy, and refused to give her up. They were married with great state by archbishop Warham, Katharine appearing dressed, not as a widow, but as a yirgin bride in white satin. Her hair, *' long, beautiful, and goodly to behold," •streamed down her neck, crowned with a gjmmed diadem. She sat in her covered litter, drawn by white palfreys, and her ladies were apparelled like their mistress in white and silver. Virgins in white welcomed her in her bridal procession through the City of London. Everything OF ENGLAND [15=7-1533. was arranged to carry out the idea that she was a virgin bride, not the widow of Henry's brother Arthur. Katharine, we are told, was a charming personage in those early days ; she danced well, was a good musician, lively and bright in conversation, with an elegant deport- ment and gracious and winning manners ; the beauty of her complexion was specially remarkable. The marriage for man}- years was undoubtedly a happy one. Henry was ever a hero in Katharine's eves, and she was his devoted and passionately attached wife. Nor was the affection un- requited. The young king — he succeeded his father when he was only eighteen years old — was for years a faithful and ever- loving husband. We read in one of the state papers, a memorandum of Henry's some time after his marriage, that if he were still free to choose, his choice would fall on the lady Katharine. Years passed on, and things went id with the royal pair. A direct male heir to the English throne was passionately de- sired. Men dreaded with a well-founded dread the evils of a disputed succession. With the terrible memories of the long " Roses" wars still fresh in mind, the prospect of Henry VIII. dying without any heir save one sickly little daughter, was a gloomy future indeed for the country. We read of premature births, children born dead, or dying after a few days or hours ; only the princess Mary, a frail girl life, survived. A curse, men said, hung over the ill-omened marriage. All this must be taken into account when we dispassionately review the circumstances of the divorce, which became so prominent a feature soon after the first quarter of the ■5*7-15330 HENRY VIII, AN sixteenth century had run its course. Had | Henry VIII., after some seventeen or eighteen years of wedded life, with the ill-defined but none the less positive dread of a disturbed future which threatened his well-beloved Engl, n 1 should he die with- out a male heir to follow him, determined purely for state reasons to put away Katharine, posterity would have judged him very differently. It would have written him down, perhaps, as a hard, unfeeling, unloving man ; as one who did evil that good might eventually result. But men must have felt that many a political plea might have been urged in : justification of his conduct. Many would have felt, and not without reason, that the king, in ordering his conduct, had placed his country first and his own reputation in the background. But, alas for Henry's fair fame ! the whole story of the divorce is coloured with his unhappy love for the beautiful Anne Boleyn ; and the majority of his ; critics gravely doubt whether patriotism entered much into his motives, when he pressed the question of the divorce into the forefront of English and European politics, when he made the tremendous question of freeing the church from the dictation of Rome, to hinge upon the right of the Pope to listen to an appeal from his injured wife. The picturesque little window in the cloisters of Windsor Castle is still shown, I through which one day the king is said to have caught his first glimpse of that attractive form of the maid of honour, who in after days was known as the heroine i of the strange drama, which shaded into the fearful tragedy that finished the life- > THE DIVORCE. 43 story of Anne Bolevn. This famous and ill-fated lady was the second daughter ox Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was connected by marriage with some of the noblest persons in the realm. As a child she accompanied the princess Mary, Henry VIII. 's sister, into France, when Marv became the wife of king Louis XII. — a marriage soon dissolved by the death of the French king. Anne Bolevn remained in Paris to complete her education, and much of her after frivolity and carelessness is ascribed to her residence of some nine years in the most licentious court of Christendom. In 152:5 she returned to England, and became maid of honour to Katharine of Arragon, apparentlv still the king's loved and honoured consort. In the English court, after a time the young maid of honour became distinguished for her talents, her varied accomplishments, and, chiefest of all, for her winning beauty. Some kind of a binding engagement which legally bound her to lord Percy, eldest son of the duke of Northumberland, had apparently been entered into before king Henry saw her ; and this early con- nection with Percy was after all the most solid of the accusations subsequently brought against the unhappy queen. Im- prudent, light, fond of admiration, covet- ous of power and grandeur, certainly was Anne Boleyn ; but while fully admitting these faults, very grave in one advanced to the dizzy eminence ot a throne, we willingly endorse the general acquittal which succeeding generations have pro- nounced of the monstrous charges brought against her fair fame by that strange and despotic king, who once thought he loved her with a passionate and overpowering 44 THE CHURCH OF EXGLAXD. .1527—1533. love. The sad tragedy which closed her short but strikingly brilliant career, has ever appealed to the chivalry of her countrymen, and pity rather than blame colours all our thoughts of the ill-fated as " the night-crow," as the person to whom he owed all that was most cruel in his treatment, as " the sleepless enemy who, sleeping and waking, continually plotted his destruction." ANNE BOLEYN. {From the portrait by Holbein.) Anne Boleyn. Two dark blots, however, will for ever stain the memor)- of this poor queen — her conduct to her mistress, the deserted Katharine of Arragon, during the period (lasting several years) which elapsed between Henry's first admiration for her and the actual divorce ; and the bitter, relentless animosity she showed to the fallen cardinal Wolsey. He describes her Holbein has preserved for us her like- ness : we have several of her pictures. Like so many representations of world-famed beauties, no portrait probably does her justice — pretty certainly, and attractive, with great eyes looking out on the world she loved too well. We wonder, never- theless, as we gaze on one or other of these paintings, what was the charm which 1527-1533-] ANNE BOLEYN. 45 worked so powerfully upon Henry's heart break away for her sake from the cherished and the hearts of many besides Henry, traditions of centuries. ANNE BOLEYN'S WINDOW, WINDSOR CASTLE. We marvel what was the charm which We speak advisedly of king Henry VIII. induced so great a man as the king to as a great man. He is disfigured, it is 46 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1527—1533- true, by many and grievous faults, so many and so grievous that even his greatest admirers prefer to dwell on the results of his momentous history, rather than on the blurred and blood stained details of his life. Yet not only was he a most able sovereign, but from the year 1500, when he succeeded his father Henry VII., until the years 1527-8, when his love for Anne Bolevn began to colour all his thoughts and to supply a motive for all his actions, a period of some seventeen or eighteen years, he ranked as one of the best and most accomplished princes in Christendom. He was generally popular at home, success- ful in his rare foreign wars, happy in his selection of one of the greatest ministers who ever guided the fortunes of England. He attracted the notice of scholars like Erasmus, who ever spoke of him and wrote of him in warm terms of admiration and devotion. In person he is said to have been like his grandfather Edward IV., who was reputed to have been the handsomest man in Europe, though when we look at his many portraits — for instance, at the famous picture of Holbein, which delineates the scene of his giving the charter to the barber surgeons — we are at a loss to under- stand such an encomium. In all knightly exercises, he was without a peer ; as a writer of despatches and state papers he equalled, if he did not surpass, his famous ministers. He was a scholar, an accom- plished linguist, a musician, no mean theologian (as we shall presently see), and withal an indefatigable student. Intensely convinced of the truths of the religion he was ever ready to defend, he was present always twice, not unfrequently thrice a day at the services in the royal chapel ; indeed his absorbing interest in religious matters never flagged, even in those sadder days of his middle and later life, when unbridled passion had been allowed to darken all the fair promise of his earlier years. Such was Henry VIII. when the drama of the divorce began in real earnest, a.d. 1527. From the time that he first saw Anne Bolevn, the imperious sovereign, unaccustomed to opposition, determined to make her his wife. His theological studies suggested a pretext for a divorce from Katharine. Had not his marriage with the .Spanish princess been unlawful ? Could he lawfully wed with one who had been his brother's wife ? It was true that a papal dispensation had been sought and obtained when he married her ; surely, though, some plea might be discovered which would enable the reigning Pope to set aside the dispensation granted by his predecessor. Wolsey, then the chancellor and all-powerful minister, was consulted. The statesman from the beginning dis- approved; but so subservient was he to the king, his master, that he entered, though evidently with reluctance, into his plans. Wolsey felt that, in addition to the moral shock which such a proceeding as the king dreamed of would give to ever}- right- thinking Englishman, politically such an act as the putting away of Katharine would be highl}- perilous. Henry's queen was the aunt of the emperor Charles V., and this powerful sovereign would never calmly acquiesce in such an affront to his family. Nevertheless, Wolsey entered with seeming warmth into the king's designs. At first the affair was brought before Wolsey and Warham, the two archbishops, I527-I533-] INTRIGUES FOR in their legatine court, secretly. Overtures were made to Katharine also, in the hope that she would acquiesce calmly in all the king's wishes. Great promises of wealth and dignity were made to her. But from the first the injured queen determined to maintain her just rights. It was then determined by Henry and his advisers that the Pope should be consulted, and that the opinion of the universities of England and the Continent should be taken on the question, and that the canonists of Europe should be invited to consider the point. A long series of intrigues and negotia- tions now began. It was hoped that the Pope would decide the matter in favour of Henry, and thus put an end to the question by granting him a release from his mar- riage. Wolsey went abroad to conduct the difficult intrigue. Dissatisfied at the slow progress in the negotiation made by Wolsey, Henry sent his secretary, Knight, to see the Pope himself, to set before him his " conscientious " scruples. But the Pope saw through these pleas; recognising that Henry was moved really by a desire to marry Anne Boleyn, and that the religious scruples were only a pretext. The bishop of Rome also feared offending mortally the emperor Charles V., who was the dominant power in Italy, and so delayed giving any definite opinion. Clement VII., the reigning Pope, who succeeded Adrian VI., the failure of whose attempts to reform the Vatican we have already described, had brought back the state of things which had so long prevailed at Rome. He was a fair specimen of the line of secular Popes. Owing his election largely to bribery, as may be supposed, he was a warm supporter of the old evil THE DIVORCE. 47 traditions. He aimed at being a statesman rather than a churchman ; but as a states- man he was weak, wavering, passionate ; now bidding for the support of England , now trembling with good reason lest he should offend the powerful emperor Charles V. It was his sad reign which witnessed the sack of Rome by the im- perialist mercenaries. This was the Pope to whom Henry and Wolsey looked for a settlement of the question of the divorce. Timorous, vacillating, a poor theologian, Rome could hardly have found in the long line of her Pontiffs one less fitted than was Clement VII. to grapple with the thorny questions stirred up by Henry VIII. Knight, the secretary of the king's mission to Rome, effected nothing. Again the matter was placed in Wolsey's hands, who despatched a special embassage to Pope Clement, consisting of Stephen Gar- diner and Edward Foxe, a royal chaplain. Gardiner was subsequently known as bishop of Winchester, and Foxe as bishop of Hereford, the first-named playing a most distinguished part in the reign of queen Mary. Gardiner and Foxe induced the Pope to send a commission to in- vestigate the affair in England. Cardinal Campeggio was nominated legate ; with him was associated the English - minister, cardinal Wolsey. Campeggio was a pro- minent personage among the Roman officials of the time, and on several occa- sions was charged with difficult foreign missions by Rome. He was a fairly learned and prudent man of the world, and was highly esteemed by Erasmus, who describes him as one of the most just and reasonable of men. The Pope, however, pursuing his usual crafty policy, was careful not to give 48 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1527—1533. plenary power to this commission to settle the matter, retaining in his own hands the final decision. Campeggio, who acted as the protector of England at the papal court, was rewarded for his services in this capacity by the bishopric of Hereford. This was one of the many instances of the shameful abuse by which high and re- sponsible offices in the Church of England were held by non-resident foreigners. To Campeggio was intrusted a decretal of the Pope, in which the law relating to Henry's divorce case was carefully laid down. It is doubtful if this important document ever saw the light in the course of the mission of Campeggio ; it was certainly destroyed by the legate, acting upon orders from Rome, before he finally left England. The court of Wolsey and Campeggio was formally held at Blackfriars in London in the course of 1520. Queen Katharine appeared before it, protested against its jurisdiction, and then formally appealed to Rome. The legates gave no decision, but adjourned the court on a frivolous pretext. Shortly after, the Pope — no doubt under the influence of the emperor Charles V. — ■ recalled the powers granted to the legates Wolsey and Campeggio, and resolved to revoke the cause to Rome. This utter failure to secure a settlement of the matter in England with the approval of Rome, was the immediate reason of Wolsey's down- fall. Campeggio left England the autumn of the same year, 1529, under the marked displeasure of king Henry, who violated the privileges of an ambassador by causing his luggage to be ransacked at Dover in the hope of finding the decretal above referred to, but the legate had already destroyed it. Directly after Campeggio had left the kingdom, the king's attorney sued for a writ of " praemunire " against Wolsey, on the ground that his acts done as legate were contrary to the statute. Some little time before this, Cranmer, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, ap- peared on the scene. Until the year 1528 the future metropolitan had led an undis- tinguished life as a quiet scholar. He belonged to an honourable and ancient, though not a wealthy family in Notting- hamshire, and as a member of Jesus College resided as a tutor at Cambridge for many years. He was not ordained before 1523, and proceeded to the degree of D.D. In 1528, the year of the sweating sickness, Cranmer was occupied with the instruction of two boys, the sons of a gentleman named Cressy, in the neighbourhood of Waltham abbey. Henry VIII., who was then ear- nestly pressing his divorce at the Roman court, was residing near Waltham, to avoid the danger from the disease in the cities. Two of his confidential advisers, Gardiner and Foxe, who, as we have seen, were employed in the all-important question of the divorce, accidentally met Cranmer at Mr. Cressy's table, and were struck with the unknown Cambridge scholar's views on the divorce. Cranmer urged the propriety of " trying the question out of the word of God," implying that it should be decided without any refer- ence to the authority of the Pope. His idea was that if the marriage of Henry with Katharine was a union contrary to the divine law, it was no marriage at all. If there had been no marriage, then the king was free to marry whom he pleased without any reference to Rome. Let the canonists and the universities, he said, 64 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1527—1533. pronounce that for a man to marry his deceased brother's wife was contrary to the divine law ; let the evidence be produced before the ecclesiastical courts in England that Katharine had been married to the dead prince Arthur ; and the cause would be at once decided in the way which Henry desired. To urge that a papal dispensation had been given in past years legalising such a marriage as that between Henry and his brother's widow, would be of no avail; for while a Pope was at liberty under certain circumstances to dispense with the law of the church, no papal dispensation would extend to the law of God. Gardiner and Foxe were struck with Cr.mmer's lucid exposition of the question at issue, and the fresh light he threw upon it, and reported the conversation to king Henry. He at once sent for Cranmer, who impressed him as he had done Foxe and Gardiner. " Master doctor," the king is reported to have said, " I pray you, and because you are a subject I command and charge you, to set aside all other business and affairs, and to see that this my cause be furthered by your device." From this time Cranmer became a royal favourite, and an influential personage. He was rapidly advanced, and the real conduct of " the king's matter " was en- trusted to him. He was appointed a royal chaplain, and composed a treatise on the invalidity of the marriage of Henry and Katharine, the central argument being, that the marriage in question was not merely voidable, but from the beginning was void. We next hear of him at Rome, where, as the king of England's trusted counsellor, he was received with distinc- tion ; and although he was not permitted to repeat his argument before the Pope, he was appointed by the Roman court " Penitentiary of England," an important and lucrative office, as through the Peni- tentiary all papal dispensations in England must pass. The appointment was evidently a device of Clement's tortuous policy, in- tended to conciliate Henry, and to make Cranmer specially friendly to Rome, seeing that he would derive a considerable income from the papal court. Cranmer, however, in spite of Roman cajoleries and bribes, continued his labours on behalf of his royal patron. In Italy, France, and Germany, he held many secret conferences on the subject of the disputed marriage. In 1530 we find him again in England. In the meantime the opinion of the English and foreign universities had been gradually elicited, as well as that of famous canonists. In 1532 he was again busily engaged on the Continent on the same business. During that visit he fell in love with the niece of the scholar Osiander, whom he married. This marriage has been quoted as a proof that, up to this time, Cranmer had no expectation or desire to succeed the aged Warham as archbishop of Canterbury, or even to be promoted to episcopal rank. But on Warham's death, early in 1533, the offer of the great post was made to him by Henry, who pressed its acceptance upon him. Again the Pope's policy was to win Henry and his favourite, and Clement made no difficulty in issuing the customary bull confirming the appoint- ment of Cranmer. At length the English and foreign uni- versities were prepared with their judgment on the great question. Corruption, there is no doubt, was freely exercised on both ,527-1533.] THE DIVORCE sides ; Spanish influence, of course, being exerted in favour of Katharine. In Italy and in Germany the opinion was against the English king, Italy being especially guided by Spanish influence, which was everywhere dominant. In Germany the weight of Luther's opinion was cast against Henry. Luther was no friend of Henry, who had written violently against his doctrines, and the German divines were coldlv, though at the same time cautiously, hostile to the English king. Not so France — the jealous enemy of Spain and the emperor : there the whole weight of king Francis I.'s power was cast in favour of Henry's burning wishes ; and the great university of Paris, partly, it must be con- fessed, acting under Francis's inspiration, drew up an ample declaration of opinion against the legality of the marriage of Henry and Katharine. Oxford and Cam- bridge, after long discussion, largely in- fluenced by Cranmer, pronounced in favour of the divorce. All was now ready for the final scenes in the prolonged controversy. Two years had passed since Henry first began to move for divorce, and at the beginning of 1533 he privately married Anne Boleyn, whom he had created marchioness of Pembroke, granting her a yearly provision of a thousand pounds, equivalent to ten or twelve thousand pounds of our money, out of the revenues of the see of Durham. Events during the first months of that year, 1533, moved rapidly. In February the famous act was passed by the English legislature for ''the restraint of appeals to Rome.'' The immediate signification of this great act, the first decisive blow struck by the English parliament against PRONOUNCED. 51 the power of the Pope, was clear : it would prevent Katharine, should the judgment of the English courts go against her, appeal- ing to the supreme jurisdiction of Rome. Rut its effects reached far beyond the divorce question. Henceforth, persons procuring processes, inhibitions, appeals or citations Irom the court of Rome, as well as their aiders and abettors, all and every one cf them were to incur the tremendous penal- ties of praemunire ; and in all such cases which hitherto admitted of appeal to Rome, the appeals were to be from the archdeacon's court to the bishop's court, from the bishop's court to the archbishop, and no further. In the month of April that same year (1 533) the case was laid before Convocation, which was required to hold debate and give evidence on the matter agitated be- tween the king and queen. It does not appear that pressure was wanting, for while the sentences procured from the universities of England and the Continent were laid before the assembly, it was required to frame its answer according to the model of the university of Paris. The controversy in Convocation was, however, keen ; but, as was to have been expected, the sentence, in spite of some decided protests, was given finally against the legality of the marriage of Henry and Katharine. In May of the same year archbishop Cranmer proceeded to Dunstable, a place within four miles of Ampthill, where queen Katharine was residing, and there set up his court in the Lady chapel of the convent, of which the prior, Markham, was earnestly devoted to the king. Katharine was sum- moned to appear before the court. .She refused to come, and was then pronounced THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1527—1533. contumacious. No further notice was taken of her absence, and when sentence was pronounced, she was not even sum- moned to receive it. In the citation she was called bv the name of " the lady Katharine," her final style and title not being determined upon. With the arch- bishop at the Dunstable court were present AKCllDISIIOP CKANMZR. (From a portrait at Lambeth ra'ace.) the bishops of London, Winchester. Lin- coln, Bath and Wells. The marriage with the king was formally pronounced to have been from the beginning null and void, the court resting mainly upon the decisions of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris. On the 23rd of May, 1533, the king was informed that the great cause was at an end. A few extracts from the sentence deserve to be quoted. It began thus : " We. Thomas, by divine permission archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and legate of the apostolic see, in a certain cause of enquiry of and concerning the validity of the marriage contracted and consummated between . . . Henry VIII. and Katharine, daughter of . . Ferdinand, king of Spain . . . pro- ceeding according to law and justice in the said cause, which has been brought before us judicially in virtue of our offices, . having also seen and carefully considered not only the censures and decrees of the most famous universities of almost the whole Christian world, but likewise the opinions and determinations both of the most eminent divines and civilians, as also the resolutions and con- clusions of the clergy of both provinces of England in convocation assembled, . . . find, and with undeniable plainness see that the marriage . . . between Henry VIII. and the most serene lady Katharine was and is null and invalid, and that it was contracted and consummated contrary to the law of God. . . . Therefore we — Thomas, archbishop, primate and legate — pronounce sentence and declare for the invalidity of the said marriage, decreeing that the said pretended marriage always was and still is null and invalid, . . . that it is of no force or obligation ; and therefore we sentence that it is not lawful for . . . Henry VIII. and . . . the lady Katharine to remain in the same pretended marriage, and we do separate and divorce them one from the other, . . . and that they, so separated and divorced, are absolutely free from all marriage bond." It is specially remarkable that this and the several instruments put forth on the 1527-1533] CORONATION OF ANNE BOLEYN. 53 divorce by the archbishop, by which in Only a few days more were suffered to effect the power of the Pope was made elapse after the pronouncement of the void, were the last public documents in judgment at Dunstable: then London was i 1 ] LA . ^ — » LETTER FROM CRANMER AT DUNSTABLE TO HFNRY VIII , INFORMING HIM OF THE DATE WHEN HIS "GRAVE CRETE MATIER " WILL ISE BROUGHT TO A CONCLUSION. (Record Office.) which the primates of England wrote themselves legates of the Roman see, save in the public documents put out in the reign of queen Mary — a comparatively very short period. gratified with the sight of one of the most gorgeous pageants which had ever de- lighted the eyes of the idle and the thoughtless. No bridal ceremony had been possible in the case of her whom the 54 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [IS27—IS33- king delighted to honour. In silence and in secret the ceremony had been hurried over some months before. Rut now Henry could show his new and beautiful queen in the sight of all. The brilliant apologist of Henry VIII. exhausts his vivid and striking word-painting in the de- scription of the coronation of Anne Boleyn, from which one striking passage may be quoted : " Glorious as the spec- tacle [of the coronation procession] was, perhaps, however, it passed unheeded. Those eyes [the people's] were watching all for another object, which now drew near. . . . Then was seen approach- ing a white chariot, drawn bv two palfreys in white damask, which swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making music with silver bells ; and in the chariot sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this glittering homage, F'ortune's plaything of the hour, the queen of England — queen at last — borne along on the waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed incense of greatness, for which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win ; and she had won it. There she sat, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds — most beautiful, loveliest, most favoured, perhaps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters. . . . Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, queen Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London, not radiant then with beauty on a gay errand cf coronation, but a poor wandering ghost on a sad tragic errand, from which she will never more return, passing away out of an earth where she may stay no longer,, into a presence where, nevertheless, we know that all is well — for all of us, and therefore for her."* What of the poor discrowned lady, in her sad and lonely desolation ? Stripped of her queenly title, styled simply dowager- princess of Wales, her daughter Mary pronounced illegitimate, she sank, crushed by her unmericed misfortunes, slowly into the grave. Nothing was done by the im- perious king to soften the awful blow ; no- royal residence was specially assigned to her. She was removed from one residence to another, harassed, persecuted about the empty title she refused to resign, now and again even insulted, and treated with a parsimony disgraceful as it was useless,, which moved the pity and indignation of Europe. The one fair spot in this sad chapter was the devotion shown, after her mother's untimely death, by the disinherited Mary to her little sister Elizabeth, whom she was bade to call " not sister, but princess.'' Their loving attachment, often broken and interfered with by state complications and state jealousies, was never completely severed, and the remains of the two prin- cesses— the daughter of Katharine, and the daughter of her supplanter, both in their turns queens of England, rest together in the quiet calm of one grave in " the abbey of the kings and queens.'' On the Continent the news of the divorce and the king's marriage was generally received with indignation ; but the con- fused relationships of the foreign powers, the bitter jealousy which existed between * Froude's " History," vol, i., chap. y. W-I533-] RESULTS OF France and Spain, the deadly animosity with which the Lutheran states were re- garded by Italy and other countries still faithful to the Roman obedience, prevented anything like an armed demonstration in favour of Katharine, and the not un- natural fears of Henry soon subsided. Even the Pope, whose power in England had received so fatal a blow in the matter of the right of appeals, forbore to launch any edict against Henry, whom he hoped to win back to some kind of submission. At home the indignation of the working clergy was aroused by the king's act. The pulpits resounded with grave and well- earned rebukes. So dangerous did these criticisms appear, that Cranmer forbade all preaching. This singular restraint of preaching lasted a whole year, and Cranmer was, it is said, for a time the most unpopu- lar man in England. So far this feeling was altogether to the credit of the English clergy and laity ; but unfortunately many of them, with some of the Canterbury monks, were so far led away by it as to encourage the treasonable impostures of the celebrated so-called Nun of Kent,* who denounced vengeance upon Henry on pretence of direct revelation from the Almighty, and who was gladly used as a tool by unscrupulous members of the queen's party. Some really great per- sonages were for a time deceived by this strange imposition, and it will be remem- bered that his connection with it was one of the causes which probably in some degree influenced the execution of Sir * For fuller details respecting this remarkable imposture, see Excursus D, " The Nun of Kent," at end of the volume. THE DIVORCE. 55 Thomas More. Its wide acceptance is a striking proof of the popular feeling concerning the divorce and re-marriage of the king. But this burning indignation gradually died down. The divorce was, after all, the king's private wrong-doing. It did not seriously affect the life of the people. What endured, was the action which grew out of it in the matter of the relations of England and the Papacy. Cranmer and the king, when the immediate result was accomplished, and the injured Katharine was prevented lodging an appeal at the court of Rome, saw the vast import- ance of the step which the legislature had been induced to take. They were deter- mined that it should not be retraced, and ordered the act for restraint of appeals to Rome to be set up on every church door in England. Out of a cruel wrong, thus grew a might}- good for the English people. The first great step towards the enfranchisement of the Church of England from the bondage of Rome, which had lasted for centuries, had been taken. But this must not blind us to the iniquity of the step itself, which admits of no excuse, no palliation. Although in the providence of God, it resulted in a nobler and truer life for the church, and through the church for the people, in the case of Henry himself, it was unblessed ; it brought him neither peace, nor even temporary happiness. The remainder of that great reign, with its restless work — often true work and striving after the higher good and righteousness — was, so far as Henry himself was concerned, a period filled with lamentation, and mourning, and woe. CHAPTER XLV. THE PARLIAMENT OF THF. REFORMATION. THE VICAR-GENERAL THOMAS CROMWELL. Reform of the English Church Hitherto Restrained by the Power of the Crown — Significance of the I )ivorce— Parliament Summoned in 1529 — Acts of that Session reforming Ecclesiastical Courts and Prohibiting Non-Residence— 1530 a Blank Session— But Distinguished for Oppression of the Clergy under the Statute of Praemunire — Claim of the King in 1531 to be styled Supreme Head of the Church — Supplication against the Ordinaries— Convocation makes Canons against various Abuses — Its Reply to the Supplication — Submission of the Clergy — Limitation of the Benefit of Clergy, and Extension of Mortmain Statutes — Abolition of Annates and First Fruits to Rome — More Resigns Office — Warham makes his Dying Protest — The 1533 Session passes the Act for Restraint of Appeals — The 1534 Session further Restricts Annates, forbids Peter-pence and Dispensations and Papal Bulls, and confines Ecclesiastical Elections within the Kingdom — Act for the Punishment of Heretics — The Act of Succession — Its Tragic Consequences — Suffragan Bishoprics — Martyrdom of John Frith — Thomas Cromwell made Vicar-General — Sketch of his Career — The " Valor Ecclesiasticus " — Martyrdom of the Carthusians — Papal Excommunication of the King, and its Utter Failure. IN completing our story of the royal di- vorce which precipitated the English Reformation, we have somewhat an- ticipated the sequence of events, and must now retrace our steps a little. The divorce was pronounced, and the Act " restraining appeals to Rome " was only passed early in the year 1533 ; but the Reformation as a state question, really began in England three years earlier, in 1529. In that year Henry VIII. finally gave up the hope of a com- promise with the Pope which should cover with the sanction of Rome his project for the dissolution of his marriage, and allow him to make Anne Boleyn his queen. And the consequences were momentous. Things had long been evil, as we have seen, in the Church of England. The mediaeval church was still full of life and power and learning ; still officered with many men of devotion, zeal, and faith. But its teaching and its practice were dis- figured by many superstitions, the growth of ages. Its life and work were hindered by many and shameful abuses. It was oppressed, too, with a strange foreign oppression by a so-called spiritual power, ever advancing fresh and more burdensome claims, which had grown men knew not how ; and this foreign power, in addition, was in many respects evil and corrupt. We have treated in detail manv of the curious super- stitions which were so seriously affecting the doctrine taught and the life lived, and have seen how they revolted not a few of the best and noblest Englishmen. We have seen also how Rome weighed down with her dead hand every department of the church. The new learning had taught men much, had opened the eyes of many to see the defects of the mediaeval ecclesiastical svstem ; and there was a widespread and well-grounded discontent. The sermons of Colet, the writings of More, the letters of Erasmus, lift the veil for us, and show us only too clearly what was the mind Of thoughtful men in England in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. For 1529-3 OBSTACLES TO REFORM. 57 years the church had been faintly struggling to reform itself. But such efforts had not been successful. They were at best but half-hearted : no really great reforming first, then churchmen ; and a greater than Morton, Warham, or Wolsey was required to carry out what was so sorely needed. In England a great power had existed. 158$ LIBELLO HV IC REGIO HAEC INSVNT, Oran'oloanm's Clerk apud Ro.pon, in exhibmone open's regi'j . Refponfio roman.pont.ad eandem ex tempore facia. Bulla ro.pon. ad regi'am maieftatem, proems open's cohfirmati'one. Summa l'ndulgetiaru, libellum ipfum regium legenribuSjConceffarum. LibeUus regius aduerfus Martt'num Lutherum hsrefiarchon. Epiftola regia ad illuftrifiimos Saxom'ae duces pie admoni'toria. TITLE PAGE (BY HOLBEIN) OF HENRY VIII.'S PAMPHLET AGAINST MARTIN LUTHER, WHICH GAINED HIM THE TITLE OF " FIDEI DEFENSOR " FROM THE POPE. {British Museum.) spirit had arisen in England. Morton, existed still, which watched jealously over Wolsey, Warham, archbishops, ministers the fortunes of the church, partly from of the crown, chancellors — men, too, all- motives of policy, partly from conviction, powerful with the king of the day— had as in the case of Henry V. With us the seen the growing need of a thorough crown had ever protected the church reform. But these men were statesmen from crude, ill-advised, often self-interested 58 THE CHURCH schemes of reformation. More than a hundred years before, in 1410, king Henry IV. boldly set aside the revolutionary proposals of the Parliament to sweep away church endowments and church privileges Henry IV. thus protected the church, largely because he felt that the men who would attack her were enemies of social order. Henry V. was a religious man as well as a most able sovereign, and the policy of his father, Henry IV., which used the crown as a defence of the church against the attacks of Lollardism, was also the policy of the victor of Agincourt, though higher motives also weighed with him. Henry VI. was counted in his own and in later generations as a saint, and with him mediaeval superstitions were sacred ; so when he was in power and as long as he was in power, the church was absolutely safe ; it had no need to dread any rude reformer, whether for conscience' sake or mere greed. During the Wars of the Roses, in the reigns of the brothers Edward IV. and Richard III., men had other thoughts and aims to occupy them than religious matters, however pressing. During the reign of Henry VII. and his famous minister, cardinal Morton, the church was safe from any outside mal- content. Reform was in the air ; but Tudor absolutism under the guidance of Morton left the Reformation to the church to initiate and to carry out, if it saw fit. Henry VIII., the able and versatile king, the all-accomplished soldier, and at the same time scholar and student, was a theologian himself of no mean acquire- ments, and for the first twenty years of his reign, while Warham and Wolsey were in power as chancellors, the crown still OF ENGLAND. [,529. protected the church. And the enormous power of the crown under the great Tudor monorchs must be borne in mind. They were well-nigh absolute ; and if their acts ran in the name of the Parliament, the Parliament was ever a singularly sub- servient assembly. Under Henry VIII., during the long period of Wolsey's power as chief minister, reform, as we have seen, was by no means forgotten or laid aside ; but the church, conscious of no immediate danger, was strangely apathetic. As for cardinal Wolsey, the chancellor, although he had many noble plans of new religious educational foundations in which much of the church's wealth and influence under the changed condition of things might be utilised, some of which plans he carried out, some he only sketched out, yet it must be confessed, in spite of his splendid abilities, that Wolsey's mind was too secular, and his time too filled up with absorbing state business at home and abroad, to allow him to devote himself with real earnestness and success to the urgently needed work of church reform. So things went on much as they had done aforetime. Roughly speaking, western Christendom was divided into two great divisions. Italy, France, and Spain belonged especially to the Latin races — to peoples who, more or less, were descended from the inhabitants of the provinces of the old Roman empire. The central and northern parts of western Christendom, northern and middle Ger- many, the Low Countries, and the lands which fringe the Baltic, together with England, were peculiarly the home of the Teutonic peoples — the descendants of the 1529.] INFLUENCE O: old northern races. While the causes of discontent with the mediaeval corruptions of Christianity existed throughout the whole of western Christendom, it was among the Teutonic nations that this dis- content— this longing after a purer religion, more like that which was taught in the earlier days of Christianity, was most pro- nounced. While in the Latin countries, Italy, France, and Spain, many were uneasy and dissatisfied with the existing condition of religion and the church ; these great countries, as a whole, patiently though uneasily acquiesced in the existing state of things, looking to the promised general council of the church as the ultimate remedy. Not so in Germany, the home of the Teutonic peoples. Germany openly broke with the mediaeval church and its im- memorial centre of Rome, and with some regrettable haste and precipitation, re- modelled Christianity, not always being careful in the new religious organisation to preserve the ancient traditions and practices. In central Europe — in Germany — a great revolution in religious matters had been already accomplished bv the burning faith and splendid enthusiasm of Luther. Much had been done in those broad coun- tries watered by the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Danube, to purify the faith ; but in the process of reformation not a little had also been done which men have since bitterly regretted ; destruction had accompanied reformation, and the new church organ- isation was ill-fitted for its work, as men have sadly found out in course of time. England — wealthy, powerful England — the other division of the Teutonic peoples, whilst feeling, like Germany, in- THE CROWN. 59 tense discontent with the corruptions of mediaeval Christianity — a discontent which, for a long period, had been growing in. the English nation — was restrained from openly breaking with the established order of things, as we have just observed, by the enormous power of the crown, which, for various reasons, was utterly averse to any great religious change. Indeed, the. wearer of the crown of England, a man of singular genius and learning, and withal a most haughty despot, himself publicly wrote against Luther, the apostle of the German reformation, in a book which brought him from grateful Rome the title of " Defender of the Faith." What was to be the fate of England ? Were the old landmarks to be swept away here also, as. in Germany ? Was the old organisation which had endured, with various changes, but which still, on the whole, had endured from Apostolic times, to be wiped out ? Was the faith to be purified, and the practice and life of the church to be re- formed, at the terrible cost by which faith and practice and life had been reformed in Germany and in central Europe ? Froude, in a short passage of singular- power, thus briefly sums up the situation in A.D. 1520 : "A crisis had arrived, and a revolution of policy was inevitable. From the accession of Henry VII. (a.d. 1485) the country had been governed by a succession of ecclesiastical ministers [Morton, War- ham, Wolsey], who, being priests as well as statesmen, were essentially conservative, and whose efforts in a position of constantly increasing difficulty had been directed towards resisting the changing tendencies of the age, and either evading a reforma- tion of the church, while they admitted oo THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1529. its necessity, or retaining the conduct of it in their own hands, while they were giving evidence of their inability to accomplish the work. It was now over ; the ablest representative of this party [Wolsey] in a last desperate effort to retain power, had decisively failed." * Froude, however, slurs over the absorbing motive which decided Henry VIII. to withdraw his protection from the English mediaeval church. When that protection was once withdrawn, the flood of reformation, the waters of which had long been gathering, flowed on unchecked, with the results we now have to trace. The position in England had, indeed, long been an unnatural one. Our country, in common with the continental Teutonic nations, had for some time been awakened to the knowledge that the Christian re- ligion, as taught and expounded in the mediaeval system, was hopelessly buried under a mass of baseless superstitions. National discontent, expressed by such men as Colet, Erasmus, and More, • had risen to such a height, that some sweep- ing change — it matters little by what name it is called — was imperatively demanded. Nothing stood in the way of this change, save the will of an imperious and well-nigh absolute monarch, who chose to maintain the old state of things. And when his will no longer stood in the way, at once the nation commenced the work of refor- mation. The wild passion of Henry VIII. for Anne Boleyn was the immediate cause of Henry's changed policy. His anger with Rome for not assisting him in his project of divorce from the queen who stood in his way, and his sullen indignation * History of England, chap ii with the clergy, who, to their credit as a body, publicly disapproved his action in the matter, determined the king to withdraw the shield of protection which the crown had hitherto thrown over the church and its grievous shortcomings. It was time, indeed, that this unnatural pro- tecting influence should be withdrawn ; it was a good thing for England, and eventu- allv for her church. But it was a pitiful reason which brought about that change in the policy of the crown — a change which, in the long run, as we shall see, worked so great a blessing for our people. Wolsey fell in the autumn of 1529. It is doubtful if the king at that date had any definite ideas on the subject of the Reformation, though he was far too able and far-seeing a man, too consummate a statesman, not to have read more or less accurately the signs of the times ; not to be aware how unpopular with many, perhaps with the majority of his subjects, was the church ; how deep-rooted was the persuasion, that far-reaching reforms were imperatively necessary. When Wolsey was dismissed and a new adviser summoned to his side, and the help and counsel of Parliament, long ignored, was invoked, the dominant feeling in Henry's mind was simply that new measures and new men must be tried in order to carry out what was the burning desire in his heart. The divorce from Katharine of Arragon un- doubtedly was uppermost in his thoughts. He probably never dreamed ot the far- reaching changes which were to be brought about through the instrumentality of that memorable Parliament summoned in the late autumn of 1529, though these changes were certainly acquiesced in, probably ic HENRY VIII. IN PARLIAMENT. (From a contemporary fruit in the British Museum) 62 THE CHURCH many cases suggested by him, during that Parliament's long and memorable continuance. Probably no one, indeed, of the principal persons who took part in its opening session had any conception of the mag- nitude of the changes it would effect in the course of its many sessions — least of all, perhaps, the king, who may be fairly described as being " educated " by its debates, and by the famous and able men M-ho arose as these long-continued debates proceeded. At first, perhaps, he scarcely dreamt of eyen breaking entirely with the papal power. He wished, evidently, to startle and frighten Rome into acquiescing in his yiews ; and later, apparently, to slight and rebuke the clergy for their opposition. At first this was apparently all that king Henry proposed to carry out. But the tide was too strong to be stemmed, eyen by the imperious monarch, when once the flood-gates of popular opinion were opened ; and the king, as we shall see, was well content to float along with it, well content merely to guide that strong, irresistible current. We find at least no effort of his, as eyents proceeded, to stay its sweeping course. How little, howeyer, king Henry VIII. anticipated what was coming, is evident from his wishing, in the first instance, his old adviser, archbishop Warham, to come back again into his former place as chan- cellor and chief minister when Wolsey fell. Warham, who had resigned the seals about fifteen years before, was in church matters, though an enlightened supporter of the new learning, a conservative, and utterly opposed to any drastic measures of reform. But Warham was an old, worn-out man OF ENGLAND. [i52?. when the king's offer was made him,* and he at once declined to entertain the thought of again becoming chancellor. Then Henry turned to another and far dearer and more intimate friend, Sir Thomas More. We have already given some account of this distinguished man. almost the most renowned of then living Englishmen, at once scholar and states- man. More also was, as we have seen, although conscious of the faults of the present ecclesiastical system, and anxious for some changes and cautious reforms, an ardent churchman ; and his appoint- ment to the chief office under the crown seemed a pledge on the king's part that, although Wolsey was disgraced, no drastic changes or sweeping reforms in church matters were then contemplated. More, however, only held his high office for a comparatively short time. He soon felt himself constrained to resign, as he was unable to restrain or even to guide the proposal of measures, many of which he utterly disapproved. When it was clearly seen that More would not yield to the rushing torrent of public opinion, with which Henry partly sympathised, neither his long friendship with the king, nor his unrivalled reputation, nor his stainless character could save him ; and his retire- ment and withdrawal from active political life was only the prelude to his arrect, condemnation, and execution. But of this development of policy Henry never dreamed, when in A.n. 1529 he ap- pointed More chancellor, and summoned * It has been, however, by some historians de- nied that Henry ever absolutely offered the seals to Warham. ,S29.] THE "REFORMAT the " Reformation " Parliament to meet. Wolsey had been opposed to Parlia- mentary government, and, with the ex- ception of one session, Parliament had not been called together for some fourteen years. This famous "Reformation'' Parlia- ment was composed of a House of Lords, consisting of two archbishops, sixteen bishops, twenty-six abbots, two priors, and forty-four temporal peers ; and of a House of Commons numbering 2q8 members ; the latter composed of popular representatives very largely under royal influence. Sir Thomas Audley, a devoted servant of the king and subsequently chancellor, was the speaker of the House of Commons. The debates generally seem to have manifested a spirit of violent hostility against the clergy, but these attacks were directed rather against the abuses of the ecclesiastic courts and the so-called greed of ecclesiastics, than against the life gener- ally lived by the clerks. Neither in this opening session, nor in the famous " sup- plication of the Commons " presented some two or three years later (1532), which de- tailed the especial grievances complained of by the laity, was there anything which amounted to a general accusation of im- morality against ecclesiastics. That there were cases of gross immorality and evil living among ecclesiastical persons at that time, is not to be doubted ; but after all, the examples cited, culled out of the diocesan registers, as too lightly punished, are not numerous in comparison with the whole number, and there is no proof that the clergy generally had fallen into such a state as to make them detested, on account of any special evil living, in the eyes of the nation. )N" PARLIAMENT. 63 The first session lasted only some six weeks. Numerous propositions touching the church were made by the Commons. These for the most part were hotly resisted by the Upper House, in which the bishops and abbots were so numerous. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was conspicuous by his vehement opposition. Fisher has been described, not unfairly, as one of the orna- ments of the bench and the kingdom ; he had been years before the confessor and friend of the lad}- Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother of king Henry VII., well loved in England ; and it was upon his advice she determined upon those noble academical foundations, which have made her name illustrious. He was the last survivor, too, of the counsellors ol Henry VII. " My lords," he is reported to have said, " you see daily what Bills come hither from tbe Commons House, and all to the destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was, and when the church went down, then fell the glory of the king- dom ; now with the Commons is nothing but down with the church, and all this me seemeth is for lack of faith only." The king was, however, on the side of the Commons, and three important Bill, of reformation were eventually carried in this short session, and became law. The first and second were measures directed against the ecclesiastical courts, and were emphatically needed. Amongst other crying abuses, the fees exacted in these spiritual courts for probate of wills, for mortuaries or offerings made at burials, were justly described as excessive and oppressive. The state of these ecclesiastical courts had long been complained of 64 THE CHURCH In the earlier Middle Ages it must be remembered that they had been the refuge of the people against much cruel injustice and cruelty on the part of the royal and baronial courts, but they had become in the course of time utterly corrupt and oppressive. Warbam, and subsequently Wolsey, had endeavoured to reform them, and it was indeed for this very purpose that Wolsey was made, with the consent of Warham, legate d latere, in order to give him absolute power to do away with the more crving abuses connected with them. Wolsey, however, we have already noticed, had effected but little in this direction, and legislation was urgently needed. The third of the Acts passed in this first session was for the prevention of clerical farming and clerical trading, for abolishing pluralities, and for enforcing residence among the clergy. The first part of this Act was directed especially against the religious houses, where large estates were farmed, and where in many cases wool was sold by the abbots and priors like ordinary secular merchants. The Act, which was a curious one, tried to distinguish between farming and production which was neces- sary for the maintenance of the houses and their communities, and what was grown and produced for home and even foreign markets. It was, however, clear that the meaning of the Act was to facilitate the transference of ecclesiastical landed pro- pertv to laymen, and it is memorable as the first effort in this age of spoliation to deal with the property of the church under the veil of legal and public sanction. This part of the Act became, however, owing to the vast confiscation which was soon carried OF ENGLAND. r,53o. out, practically inoperative. The clauses which dealt with pluralities and non- residence, touched some of the gravest abuses of the mediaeval English Church. The vast number of exceptions, however, which permitted privileged ecclesiastics to hold more than one living, considerably neutralised the effect of these provisions. Rome, too, was attacked in this lengthy and far-reaching piece of legislation. Under a heavy penalty clerics were forbidden to obtain a licence from the Pope to hold more benefices than the statute specified. The first year (1529) of the "Reforma- tion " Parliament closed with the passing of these Acts. In the following year the king and the principal actors in the legis- lature were too preoccupied with the various intrigues and curious negotiations at home and abroad connected with the absorbing " king's matter " (the divorce) to devise or to debate any further legislation connected with the church. More, the chancellor, was distinctly averse to any more being done ; and the king probably acquiesced, waiting to see what further action would be taken by Rome and the English friends of Rome in the great question which occupied well-nigh all his thoughts. During this interval, however, king Henry was careful to show his rigid orf/iodoxv, by issuing various proclamations and in- struments against heretics, and more par- ticularly against heretical and anti-church books and pamphlets, which at this period were inundating England, and exciting men's minds against the church. Many of these publications were disfigured by shameless exaggerations, and by not a few impudent falsehoods. A commission, <53°-] HERETICAL MOVEMENTS. 65 consisting of the most learned persons of the selfish and careless lives. Angry with two universities, was appointed to examine religion, men are only too glad to be and report upon such books. These books, enabled to criticise and belittle the men emanating both from home and foreign who are its acknowledged office-bearers. THOMAS CROMWELL. (From the portrait by Holbein.) printing-presses, were eagerly welcomed and largely read by the many of all classes and orders who are always too ready to find fault with teachers of a religion, which attracts them with a strange attraction, even while it perpetually rebukes their 65 At the time of which we are writing, there was, alas ! much that invited the severest criticism in the teaching and practices of the church. But among the immediate causes which precipitated the Reformation in England, and coloured it with harshness 66 THE CHURCH and injustice, and even with cruelty, there is no doubt but that the scurrilous and ribald literature which, with too much success, was circulated among the people, will ever hold a prominent and disgraceful place. The invention of the printing-press was not an unmixed good. Then, as now, its enormous power was too often prostituted for selfish and evil ends. One very noble purpose of king Henry's, however, shines out among much that was confused and marred by human prejudice and passion in these first days of attempted reformation. " His highness," we read, '" intended to provide that the Holy Scrip- ture should be by great, learned, and Catholic persons translated into the English tongue, if it should then seem to his grace convenient to do." The year 1530, unmarked by any fresh legislation, was notorious for a most tyran- nical and shameful procedure on the king's part, for which no apology can be offered. With unswerving boldness, both in private and in public, the clergy, especially among the regular or monastic teachers, continued to declare their conviction that it was utterly unlawful for the king to put away Katharine and to marry another. No state reasons that could be alleged could possibly justify such a procedure. Apparently in revenge for this steady opposition on the part of the clergy, Henry, on the advice of Thomas Cromwell, a former confidential official of the fallen cardinal, asserted that the whole body of the clergy, regular and secular, had come under the statute of prae- munire by acknowledging the legatine authoritv of cardinal Wolsey. The statutes of praemunire have been OF ENGLAND. [IS30. already referred to. They were Acts passed, and several times repeated and amplified, as safeguards against the imperious, and ever-growing claims of Rome, and enacted that " They who should procure or prose- cute any Romish bulls, in certain cases shall incur the forfeiture of their estates, or be banished, or be put out of the king's protection." In the case of Wolsey, whose supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters as legate a latere the clergy were charged with acknowledging, it must be remem- bered that it was at king Henry's own request Wolsey was nominated to the cardinalship, and was appointed legate a latere. Well aware that, by accepting the legatine office in question, he was trans- gressing the law, Wolsey, before exercising legatine powers, had been careful to obtain from the crown a licence under the great seal ! There was thus absolutely no excuse for Henry's totally unjust and tyrannical accusation. But the king was master, and the church was helpless ; and to obtain the royal pardon for this alleged transgression, the clergy consented in the following vear, through Convocation, to pay an enormous fine to the king, a sum amounting to nearly two millions of our money ! The form under which this vast sum of money was paid was peculiar, and deserves a few words of comment, for it led to another and important concession on the part of the clergy. When Convocation in the s ear 1531 presented the money to the king (the exact amount, no doubt, had been previously arranged), no allusion was made to the praemunire, but the fine was described as a grateful offering for the in- comparable benefits of the king towards them, which required not only verbal ,532.] THE KING AS " SUPREM thanks, but also a spontaneous oblation of money. " He, the king, had defended the church by sword and pen so mightily, so victoriously, that he had earned eternal fame. A thousand foes, the Lutherans especially, had conspired against the church and clergy of England ; but his majesty, as the pious defender of the faith and of the church, had quelled their audacity. They were unwilling that his majesty should deem them ungrateful." Henry was, however, not satisfied with the money grant only. He insisted upon the English clergy styling him, in the terms of their grant, " the only protector and supreme head of the church and clergy of England." Here the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, under the presidency of archbishop Warham, hesi- tated. Was such an acknowledgment right ? For three sessions they held debate with the king's councillors, and at last agreed to give king Henry the title he insisted on, with the following modifica- tion : " We acknowledge his majesty to be the singular protector, only and supreme lord, and, so far as the laws of Christ allow, supreme head of the English church and clergy." The assumption of this style by Henry VIII. excited attention and much grave remonstrance. Such men as Tunstall, bishop of Durham, solemnly protested against it, even though limited by the words "so far as the law of Christ allows"; and others among the northern bishops followed his example. The lan- guage apparently was strange, and the style of " supreme head of the church " was uncustomary ; but, after all, the title was little more than the strong assertion HEAD OF THE CHURCH." 67 of an ancient right. The English sover- eign had been at all times the head of the realm, both of the spirituality and the temporality ; sometimes he had borne titles which expressed this. In the laws of Edward the Confessor, for instance, he was termed the vicar of Christ, a title which seems as expressive as that which was assumed by Henry VIII. and sanc- tioned by Convocation.* The year 1532 witnessed the last scenes of the intrigues and negotiations connected with the divorce question, but it was also especially memorable for the " supplication against the ordinaries " presented by the House of Commons. Roughly, this famous " supplication " consists of two parts. The first attacked the right which the clergy exercised of making spiritual laws in Con- vocation without the assent of the sovereign. The second part dealt with the various abuses which were complained of as exist- ing in the Church of England. The " supplication " dwelt, in the first part, upon the new fantastic and erroneous opinions which had of late increased among the people, mainly through the circulation of "frantic seditious books"; it added, however, that the uncharitable conduct of the church ordinaries (alluding, of course, to the bishops) and their commissaries in dealing with these errors multiplied them. The " supplication " then traced much of this mischief to the right claimed by the clergy in their convocations to make laws and ordinances on these and other matters without the royal assent. Laws, it affirmed, * Cf. Dixon : " History of the Church of England from the abolition of the Roman jurisdiction," chap. i. 68 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1532. so made were to the great prejudice and damage of the king's subjects. The docu- ment then proceeded in its second part to detail : the grievances complained of arose principally out of the state of the ecclesi- astical courts. The unfairness and bitter animus of the " supplication " is clearly and unmistakably shown by the general tenor of its vehement complaints. It speaks of acknowledged wrongs and griev- ances as though nothing had been done to remove them, although special acts for this purpose had already been passed ; and there was nothing to prevent the Commons, had they pleased, from initiating further legislation in the matter of these courts, had they found that the acts of 1529 were insufficient or required amending. They dwelt with vehemence upon the exorbitant fees charged, the enormous probate duties, the vast cost of the ecclesiastical judicial machinery; and then, not without somejus- tification, they proceeded to complain that even for sacraments of holy church, money payments were asked, and that in some cases the most solemn rites were withheld until the payment demanded was made. Other abuses were specified, such as the conferring of benefices upon 111 young folk," kinsfolk of the ordinaries, who were under age and unfit to serve any cure. The number of superfluous holidays was dwelt upon ; a curious statement bearing on the lives of the people was appended here : " Great, abominable and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports, were used and.exercised " on these holidays ; it was recommended that the number of these should be cut down, and more religiously observed. The treatment of heretics was gravely found fault with. Accusations, said the " suppli- cation," were hourly made, arrests were effected, long periods of incarceration en- dured, and then, if nothing was proved against the accused persons, they were liberated without any amends for their losses and sufferings ; over-severity with these heretics was also alleged. But in all this " supplication " of the Commons, bitter though it was in its spirit, we find no hint of any general charge of grave immorality among the clergy. In the April of the same year (1532) these accusations were sent bv the king to archbishop Warham, to be laid before and immediatelv to be considered by Convocation. While the "supplication" against the ordinaries was being prepared and pre- sented by the Commons, Convocation was seriously engaged in. making canons which dealt with the reformation of the abuses more generally complained of. Had these canons been completed and enforced, not a few of the more prominent evils in the life and practice of the church would have been swept away. The following reforms were embodied in the canons proposed in this last attempt at independent ecclesiastical legislation. Archbishops and bishops were to set an example to their flocks. Their frequent absences from their various dioceses were to be avoided for the future. They were exhorted and admonished by Convocation to be always present in their sees at the principal church feasts — at least at Christmas, Holv Week, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Leave of absence was to be generally limited. Over the fees exacted and severities practised by their officials they were to exercise a more careful super- vision. Heresies were to be put down. HENRY VIII. (From the portrait at Warwick Castle by Holbein^ 70 THE CHURCH and heretical books diligently sought out. The monastic schools and the universities were to be visited, and a stricter discipline was to be required from the abbots and the "religious" under their rule. Greater care and increased strictness was to be exercised at ordinations. No person was to be ordained sub-deacon unless he were suffi- ciently acquainted with the Gospels and Epistles, at least those contained in the Missal, so as to be able to give the examiner the grammatical sense of these portions of Holy Scripture. All excuses made by beneficed men, who claimed to be allowed non-residence for the purposes of study, were to be carefully inquired into. To guard against idleness, all rectors, vicars, curates, and chanting priests, besides their daily offices, were directed to busy them- selves in studies and in other good works, especially in the duty of instructing the young. Idle priests were to be severely rebuked, and even punished by their ordinaries. The sumptuous in apparel were to be reduced to a prescribed vesture, and hunters among the clergy recalled to graver conversation. School- masters were to be especially careful not to allow their pupils to read books which the ordinaries of the place disapproved of as likely to corrupt the faith. As in many of the religious houses the number of the " religious " was decreasing, it was enjoined that a proper number should in these houses be made up and kept up perpetually. A list of seditious and here- tical books was prepared. These reforms, it will be seen, covered many of the more crying abuses prevalent in the church. While Convocation was thus busied in preparing these statutes, which aimed at a OF ENGLAND. [,S32. thorough reformation of the clergy, the king sent down the supplication of the Commons against the ordinaries " above referred to, and desired that an answer to the accusations therein contained might be speedily returned. With little delay what is known as the first answer to the " sup- plication " was prepared for the king. This answer was revised, perhaps composed, by the afterwards famous Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and was a dignified and moderate state paper. It denied that there was any widening breach between the clergy and the people of England, asserting that the jurisdiction of the church in matters of heresy had been carefully ad- ministered, that much of the information upon which the " supplication " was based had been devised by persons who had little favour to the clergy. As regarded the charge that they made sanctions or laws in Convocation without the royal assent, they maintained that their action here rested upon rights which they possessed from immemorial antiquity. When the king placed " the answer" in the hands of the Speaker of the Commons, he showed his discontent with its in- dependent tone by observing, " We think this answer will scantily please you, for it seemeth to us very slender." The king proceeded to require from Convocation a second answer. This second answer was prepared with great care, and sent to king Henry by the hands of the bishops of London and Lincoln, the abbot of West- minster, and other dignitaries, who were deputed to make a personal appeal to the king imploring him to support the clergy and to preserve the liberties of the church unbroken, as he and his great ancestors ,532.] SUBMISSION O had hitherto done. They suggested a com- promise in the matter of the laws made by Convocation, proposing that they should be permitted to make laws in ecclesiastical matters by themselves, but not to publish them save by the king's consent. They further offered to amend any existing laws if in any point they were obnoxious. The personal appeal to Henry, however, was fruitless ; and the second answer also completely failed to satisfy him. The struggle for mastery between Convocation and the king did not last long. There was no one among the clergy of supereminent influence and ability. There were many earnest and devoted men, and not a few scholars, but no one stood out at that juncture conspicuously above his fellows. Warham, the archbishop, when in his prime, would have been scarcely fit to guide and direct the church at such a juncture ; he had shown himself an ad- mirable archbishop, in quiet times, but he was of little use in moments of stress and storm, and, in addition, Warham was now a very old and worn-out man. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was the most promi- nent then among the prelates ; but Gar- diner was no favourite of the king, and, as we shall see in his subsequent career, was too devoted to the interests of Rome and to the preservation of its ancient power, for the English party among the clergy to be considered as a leader. The contest was all over before the end of May of that year (1532). With only slight concessions, the king had his way, and in the famous " submission of the clergy " the king's demands were virtually embodied. Two years later the submission was embodied in an Act of Parliament, THE CLERGY. 71 which also included the Act for restraint of appeals to Rome, hereafter to be de- scribed. In this celebrated Act it was ordained that the clergy, according to their submission, were neither to execute their old canons or constitutions nor make new ones without the assent and licence of the king, on pain of imprisonment and fine at the royal pleasure ; that their convocations were only to be assembled by the authority of the king's writ ; that the king should have power to nominate two-and-thirty persons, sixteen of the spirituality and six- teen of the temporality, to revise the canons, ordinances, and constitutions promised. Henry, however, never took advantage of this last concession. To return to the royal and parliamentary doings of 1532. Three important Acts were the subject of debates in Parliament in the remaining months of this year's sessions. Two of these materially limited the privileges long enjoyed by the clergy of England, and the third was the first considerable blow aimed at the jurisdiction in England of the papal see. The first limited the ancient privilege known as " benefit of clergy." From very ancient times, under the somewhat vague name of " clerks," not only ministers of the church and religious persons in general, but, as it seems, every person who could read and write, might, when accused of petty treason and felonious offences, plead their clergy, and be demanded by the ordinaries of the church to be surrendered to them, as subject to their jurisdiction and not to the king's justices. In times when few, save the clergy and the " religious," possessed even the scantiest knowledge, when few 72 THE CHURCH could read and write, such a privilege was almost entirely confined to the ranks of the clergy and monastics ; but when learn- ing grew more general, such a privilege became a positive danger to the state. The statute of 1532 did iittle more than limit " clergy *' to the actual ministers ot the church ; but it paved the way to other statutes, by which the privilege was taken away even from all ecclesiastical persons. Such legislation must be regarded as emphatically righteous, since privileges of this kind in any well-ordered state could only conduce to laxity and to wrong- doing. To the God-fearing and peaceable among the ecclesiastics " the benefit of clergy," thus understood, would be no boon or assistance. The second of these statutes was a far more serious blow. It was the first definite attack upon the property of the religious communities and of the chinch ; and this first attack, as we shall have to relate, was quickly followed up by others, and of a far more injurious nature. Under the old feudal system of tenures, lands were held of lords under obligations, often burdensome and oppressive. The chief of these was military service ; another occasional but still burdensome obligation was -wardship and other rights, which fell to the crown or the lord at every vacancy; To avoid these obligations, lands were often given to churches, and especially to religious houses. Lands thus given were said to be " aliened in mortmain." Being held by ''religious persons" in what was termed " frank- almoign " in pure and perpetual largesse, these lands owed no military service ; they became "dead" for all state and national purposes — hence the term " mortmain." OF ENGLAND. [i532. Being held, too, in unchangeable perpetuity — for no vacancy could ever occur in a corporation — these lands were subject to none of the ordinary incidents which be- longed to a vacaricy. Sometimes these donations to churches or religious bodies were real, the results of piety or super- stition ; this was especially the case in the earlier Middle Ages, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the great age of monastic building and endowment. But as time went on, many such donations were fictitious, being simply given 'to the church to escape the ordinary obligations, and were received back from the church by the donors on less burdensome con- ditions. Such donations, real or fictitious, became a real danger to the state. To guard against it, a whole series of Acts were passed from very early days downwards. We find such a statute in Magna Carta, making it illegal for any to give his lands to a religious house, either by a real or fictitious gift ; all such gifts were declared void. The famous statute of " mort- main" of Edward I. is usually quoted as the great example of these statutes. But by different devices these legal provisions had been constantly evaded. Among the various endowments bestowed upon the church, a favourite and very common practice was to leave land to a religious house or church to secure the continual service of a priest to sing masses for the soul of the departed for ever, or at least for threescore or fourscore years. This curious superstition, for it must be reckoned as such, is several times alluded to in the " Paston Correspondence," from which we have already quoted as illustrative .1532.] ANTI-CLERICAL LEGISLATION. 6i the religious belief and life of an of twenty years. This new statute would ordinary English family in the fifteenth of course, seriously affect all fresh church ^c^/y^i-x^. e^C-^e^^^C^ X^tK^wiV^^jf*^- ... fax* ^f> CAay. ^,o.f <.,£f„lC. y*4it. & tfrf>x lv.» <4i/W*' £r €,<*.tfy i" •» Svf^y4 ^jC ^ fiyf«. <^ly ■ Is i%S*k*4f , CL^ti*-*-' yo&~i- <^»y&p*** t^ipii* *i&tZ**+lj"i*f* ,/K+,^r} gy&i; y>C**&t? *C f&*y6>*** 'ix*£*w*,JZi£ g^ff^tfp «--rv<.- i $f '— L\8. &y^«j^^.^^H>.£/*4--* ' *e, Iff: feitf^i DECLARATION OF EIGHT BISHOPS (CRAXMER, CUTHBERT TUNSTALL OF DURHAM, JOHN STOKES LEY OI- LONDON, JOHN CLARK OF BATH AND WELLS, THOMAS GOODRICH OF ELY, NICHOLAS SHAXTON OI- SALISBURY, HUGH LATIMER OF WORCESTER, AND JOHN HILSEY OF ROCHESTER) RECOGNISING THE AUTHORITY OF CHRISTIAN PRINCES IN ECCLESIASTICAL MATTERS. {British Museum.) century, the century immediately preceding endowments, and its effect would be far- the present era. The act of 1532 limited reaching. any such gift thereafter made to a period One more ecclesiastical act of this year 74 THE CHURCH (1532) must be mentioned. Curiously enough, it was made at the request of the clergy themselves. The act to abolish annates, or the first-fruits of bishoprics paid to the see of Rome on every vacancy, was a blow aimed at the power of the Pope. It was a burdensome tax, and its abolition by act of Parliament has been well de- scribed as the cutting away of the first of the great Roman cables. It was, however, arranged by the king that this act should not be published for a year, the royal assent, by a special clause, being delayed; in the hope that the Pope might be brought to a better understanding with the English king — presumably on the question of the divorce, which was still pending. When eventually this bill became law, the bishops obtained no advantage from it, for the first-fruits, not only of bishoprics, which used to go to the Pope, but the first-fruits of all benefices whatsoever, were then swept into the royal treasury. This same ever-memorable year wit- nessed the resignation of Sir Thomas More as chancellor. He resigned his great office after but a short and troubled tenure, at the same time that the " submission of the clergy" was signed. The spirit of the ecclesiastical legislation was utterly distaste- ful to him. He foresaw, too, that the work of 1 532 was only the beginning of other and more drastic changes — changes which he found his influence would be powerless to stay. No one felt more deeply than did More the urgent necessity of reform in the church, but he dreaded the effect 01 the removal ot the ancient landmarks. What had taken place in Germany ill- disposed him to countenance any steps in legislation which might eventually lead OF ENGLAND. [,S32. to a similar revolution in England. If the links which bound England to Rome — burdensome though those links were — should be rudely snapped, he feared lest, as had happened in foreign churches, the line of bishops reaching back to apos- tolic times might be broken too, and a new form of church order and government unknown to the great churches of antiquity substituted. The men, More sadly felt, to whose counsels Henry was even be- ginning to listen, for the most part cared more for plunder and self-aggrandisement than for reform. The doubts and dreads, so graphically expressed in Erasmus's Letters as already cited, were ever before More's mind, and, to his deeply religious; spirit, were presented in a yet more painful aspect. It was a quiet, cautious, thought ful, (might we use the term) " prayerful " reform that More longed for : dreading with inexpressible dread ■ the after-effects which the stern, ruthless, destructive mea- sures evidently meditated by Henry VIII., would have upon the future of the church, whose errors More deeply and truly mourned over, but which, in spite of errors, he passionately loved. With such a work — destruction rather than con- struction— in which he felt no sympathy, he would have nothing to do. Before the year closed, Warham of Canterbury died, after delivering his solemn protest against the late legislation ; he felt, even more than his friend More, the revolu- tionary and destructive tendencies of king Henry VIII. 's mind. Less convinced than the great chancellor of the urgent necessity of reforms, he bitterly and sorrowfully con- demned the changes, while More contented himself with simply resigning his high ,533-J RESTRAINT OF A office and descending into private life. But as the sequel sadly showed, More's silence was too dangerous a factor to be ignored : even his silent disapproval cost him his head. Very early in the next year (1533) Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn, and in February the " Act for restraint of Appeals " to Rome was passed. The act of the previous year abolishing annates, or the first-fruits of bishoprics paid on every vacancy to the Pope, though passed, was only ratified in July, 1533, some six months later ; so the "Act for restraint of Appeals" ranks as the first decisive blow struck by the legislature of England against the papal power. Too much has been made of the im- mediate circumstances under which this act was passed. It became law just as the king's divorce from Katharine of Arragon was pronounced, and no doubt Henry's idea of preventing an appeal to Rome by the divorced queen, was a factor in the circumstances which led to the passing of the act at that juncture. But it was only one factor. Strong discontent on the part of the Church of England with Rome had long existed, and the demand of the clergy in Convocation in the' previous year, that the " Annates " should be abolished, is a strong proof of this. In some respects the abolition of the payment of annates would be a heavier blow to Rome than the restraining of appeals ; and if the temper of the clergy was so strong as to demand such a remission of a tribute, long paid to Rome, some idea can be formed of the mood of the Commons, who were not in- fluenced by the scruples which naturally >PEALS TO ROME. 75 weighed with ecclesiastics, Indeed, the willingness on the part of Parliament, and the lukewarm opposition of Convoca- tion when, in the next year, the decisive acts were passed which were directed against the papacy, and which finally separated England from the Roman com- munion, tell us with no uncertain voice that it was something far deeper than the petulant anger of king Henry VIII. which brought about the great change in the relations of the English church with the bishops of Rome. The heart of England was set upon asserting the complete in- dependence of its national church — the independence it had enjoyed in the far- back days of the Anglo-Saxon Alfred and his great house. The preamble of this famous statute is notorious, and may be well quoted as an ad- mirable declaration of the imperial majesty of England. It ran thus : " In divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king." " From the days of Athelstan the kings of the English assumed the title of emperor of Britain, meaning thereby to assert the independence of the English crown of any foreign superior. The title of emperor was meant to assert that the king of the English was not the homager but the peer alike of the Imperator of the West and the Basileus of the East." * It was meant to assert that Britain was the third im- perial division of Christendom, while the Britannic churches constituted a separate * Cf. Freeman : " Norman Conquest," chap, iii., sect. 4, and chap, xxiii., ssct. 1. 76 THE CHURCH patriarchate. Archbishop Anselm was, we know, styled by Pope Urban at the Council of Bari, A.r>. ioq8, " Pope of another world " {Ptipa altcrtus orbis). It was enacted in this important statute that all causes con- nected with spiritual jurisdiction should be adjudged in England ; that no appeals out of the realm were to be made. The prelates of the realm, the ministers and curates, were desired to execute all sacra- ments and divine services in spite of interdicts or excommunications, on pain of a year's imprisonment. Any person pro- curing sentences from Rome was to incur the forfeiture of praemunire. Passing over for a moment certain me- morable events which happened in the course of the year of Henry's divorce and re-marriage, we will briefly sketch the sequel to the first anti-papal legislation of the years 1532 and 1533, in the great acts against Rome passed in the following year, the twenty-fifth of king Henry VIII. The same Parliament met on January 1 5th, 1534. From the rolls of the Upper House we find a large proportion of the spiritual peers were absent ; fourteen out of the twenty-six mitred abbots were absent, and only seven of the bishops were in their places. But the legislation which decided the position of the Church of Eng- land as a church completely independent of Rome, went on. Three great acts bearing on this moment- ous question were passed. The first, " the Act for the restraint of Annates," repeated but enormously amplified the act passed two year.~> before on the same subject. The second was " the Act concerning Peter- pence and dispensations." The third was OF ENGLAND. [i534. " the Act for the submission of the clergy and restraint of appeals." A brief notice of these all-important acts in detail will be useful. In the first, " for the restraint of Annates," a marked change in the title given to the Pope — a change also observable in the other statutes of this year — appears. The " Pope's Holiness " of earlier statutes, be- came simply " the bishop of Rome, other- wise called the Pope." The former Act forbidding annates, which simply dealt with the liabilities of bishops and with certain payments made by them to Rome, was here greatly enlarged, so as to ex- tinguish all payments to the Pope without reserve. It also forbade bulls or breves or any other thing to be procured from Rome ; and, what was of great importance, it confined the elections of bishops entirelv within the kingdom. This act continued the old process of the licence to the chapter of the cathedral church to elect (the conge d'clire), accompanied by a letter missive signifying to the chapter the person whom the king desired to be elected. This cus- tomary method of procedure was made now part of the statute law of England. If the chapter failed to elect in a certain number of days, they were placed under a praemunire, and the king proceeded to fill the vacancy by a simple nomination, without further regard to them.* Much has been written and said on the present mode of appointing archbishops and bishops in the Church of England. * Cf. Dixon's " History of the Church of Eng- land from the abolition of Roman Jurisdiction," on whose elaborate and exhaustive note the fol- lowing short account of the manner of choosing and subsequsntly electing bishops in the English church is largely based. ,S34.j ELECTION The conge d'c'lirc or the licence to elect, issued to the cathedral chapter, accom- panied by the royal nomination of the person whom the sovereign desires to be elected, has been the subject of much F BISHOPS. 77 elections made in the Gemot, where the king and the Witan were assembled. Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury, the friend and adviser of Alfred (a.d. 890), is stated in all the Chronicles save one to have been Issued on the translation of Joseph Wilcocks oj Rochester, upon which Dr. £liat the A rchi-.-ts of severe criticism. It will be well, therefore, briefly to see what had been the custom which pre- vailed in England in the centu- ries preceding the Reformation, in the matter of the appoint- ment of the chief pastors of the church. Going back to the seventh century, to the times of archbishop Theodore, that great organiser of the English church, traces of capitular election are found in his days ; and yet we find Theodore presiding at from the bishopric of Gloucester to that Sydal ivas electea Bishop, 1731. {front Gloucester Cathedral.) chosen of God and of all the folk. A little later (a.d. 995) we read of archbishop Elfric being elected by the king and all his Witan, and the chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury-, vainly op- posing his election. Capitular election was indeed enforced by the reformation of Dunstan, but the regulations of Dun- stan were soon broken, and under the later Anglo-Saxon and also in the reign of the Danish kings, we have instances in 7» THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['534- which the king alone appointed the bishops. Under Canute and his successors we find the practice of investiture with ring and staff. These sacred emblems were sent by the chapter to the king when a vacancy occurred, and were returned by him with a nomination of the person whom he desired to have appointed. Edward the Confessor used to notify the appointment of a bishop by charter, without reference to an election. The neglect of any capitular election was urged by the Conqueror in the case of the deposition of Stigand. The Constitutions of Clarendon, in the reign of the Angevin monarch Henry II., directed that episcopal elections should take place in the royal chapel, subject to the approval of the king and the chief persons in the realm. The system of issuing to the chapter the conge d'e/irc, the king's permission to elect, is said to have been begun by king John. This king promised freedom of election, when his permission to elect had been given. There is no doubt, however, but that the kings soon returned to the old practice of nominating the clerk who was to be chosen, the name being given in a letter accompanying the licence to the chapter to elect. It seems clear that free- dom of election had only been exercised at rare intervals in the Church of England, and was only secured in those rare intervals by the personal influence of such eminent and powerful men as Dunstan, Anselm, or Langton. The direct influence of the kings in securing the election of their nominees was very rarely resisted. Thus the act of king Henry VIII., passed in 1534, made no real change, save that it once and for all forbade any papal inter- ference in the election of bishops ; the power of the crown, save at rare and brief intervals, having ever been supreme in nominations to these episcopal appoint- ments. In other words, the act of 1534 simply legalised what may be termed an almost invariable and immemorial practice in the Church of England. The choice of the name is nominally still in the hands of the sovereign, but the choice is virtually made by the prime minister of the day ; and the prime minister is the representative for the time of the majority of the English people. The sovereign exercises on rare occasions, usually wisely and prudently, the power of veto ; but the name suggested, coming as it does from the minister of the majority of the nation, is usually accepted, as it may be said to represent the national choice. This act, with its startling provisions as regards Roman interference, was quickly supplemented by another containing further clauses asserting the complete independ- ence of the Church of England. This second act was named " the Act concerning Peter-pence and dispensations." This is the statute which the lawyers describe as discharging the subject from all dependence on the see of Rome. It was based upon what it termed the intolerable exactions which the bishop of Rome, otherwise called the Pope, and his chambers, which he called Apostolic, took out of the realm by usurpation and sufferance. These exac- tions included pensions, Peter-pence, pro- curations, fruits, bulls for archbishoprics and bishoprics, for appeals, legatine juris- diction, dispensations, relaxations, and other infinite descriptions of bulls, breves, and Papal instruments. It was said, and IS34.] ABOLITION OF probably with truth, that the Pope got more money out of England than from any other country. Remonstrances had been for a long period frequently made to the papal court, even by those who were well disposed to a papal supremacy, but these remonstrances had been utterly dis- regarded ; and now the cup was full, and all payments of every kind from England to the papal see were swept away by act of Parliament. It is a curious misreading of facts which refers these weighty acts of the legislature to the sole will of the king. It was the voice of England which im- peratively demanded them. The well-known contribution to Rome, which stands at the head of the act, called " Peter-pence," which is still collected, as travellers on the Continent are well aware, in every church owning the Roman obedi- ence— the " denier de St. Pierre " — existed in England from very far-back times. It seems to date in our island from the days of the Mercian king Offa, and was originally, no doubt, made for maintaining an English college at Rome. Edward III., in 1366, stopped its payment ; but only for a time. This "Act" contained directions for many other sweeping changes; notably that which ordered that all licences, dispensations, and other instruments, formally issuing from Rome, were to be granted henceforth by the archbishop of Canterbury, under re- strictions laid down in the statute. In- dulgences and all manner of privileges were specially ordered to be reformed by the king's council. One sinister provision, however, appears in this act, in which the power and in- fluence of the king is sadly visible. It was no doubt largely owing to the advice 01 PETER-PENCE. 79 one who had much to do with the legisla- tion and proceedings, often high-handed and shamefully unjust, of that disturbed and stormy period of change — Thomas Cromwell, afterwards the vicar-general. There were very many of the religious houses, abbeys, priories, colleges and hospitals, exempt from the jurisdiction of the primate and his suffragans. These had no power of visitation, no right to confirm or to interfere in the election of their superiors or officials. They were alone dependent on the Pope ; and now, when the authority of the Pope was entirely swept away, instead of placing these houses and communities under the jurisdiction of the English episcopate, a special provision was introduced into this " Act " setting forth that neither the archbishop of Canterbury nor any other person should have power to " visit or to vex them." This formidable and, as it turned out, fatal power was left in the hands of the king, and of such persons as he chose under the great seal to appoint. The third of the famous anti-papal acts of 1 534 embodied the "submission of the clergy," above referred to at some length, in a formal statute. This act also con- firmed again the other, forbidding appeals to Rome. Other weighty though less important ecclesiastical acts became law in this same session of Parliament — notably an " Act concerning the punishment of Heretics." It will be seen that Henry throughout his reign, in all his various moods, had, while consenting to the abolition of all papal power in England, no intention of depart- ing from the doctrines generally held as vital by the mediaeval churches of western 8o THE CHURCH Christendom. A short private act was also passed, which " deprived " the two last of the long succession of foreign bishops who from the time of the Norman Conquest had been intruded into English sees, to their great and lasting detriment. These were cardinal Campeggio, the friend and well-wisher of Erasmus, who had played so useless and ignoble a part as legate to England in the matter of the king's divorce, and who held the see of Salisburv, and Jerome de Ghinucci, who occupied the see of Worcester. The latter had been for years the English agent at Rome. The " Act of Succession " was the final piece of work of this ever-memorable session. It was framed for the purpose of securing the succession to the crown of England to the children of queen Anne Bolevn, and would not claim any special mention in this history, had it not con- tained certain clauses which were the immediate cause of the execution of Sir Thomas More and of Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and which also led to the suppression of the Friars Observant. Certain parts of the oath which this act directed the subjects of king Henry to take, touched the consciences of More and Fisher, and their refusal to swear brought both these two eminent men to the block. The story of the last days of More has already been told, and it will have been seen that other causes, besides the question of part of the oath of supremacy, were at work when More and Fisher were condemned. The temper of More was opposed to the drastic church legislation favoured by Henry. He was too great and eminent i personage to be suffered to live in OF ENGLAND. [,S34. opposition, while Fisher was inextricably bound up with the maintenance of the Roman supremacy. These two, in the eyes of Henry and his advisers — especially More, with his unrivalled genius, his world-wide reputation, his vast and well-deserved in- fluence— were dangerous in the highest degree to the successful carrying out of those designs of a wholesale confiscation of church propertv, which were being gradually matured in the royal cabinet. The oath of the succession was tendered to the religious orders, who were already evilly viewed by Henry and his advisers, in a more severe and obnoxious form than that which had been refused by More and Fisher, and accepted by Parliament and the secular clergy. The friars were especially an object of dislike and suspicion. The religious houses were required to swear not only that the marriage between Henrv and Anne Boleyn was just and legiti- mate, but also publicly to preach and per- suade the same on every occasion. Thev were also desired to swear that they would ever hold the king to be head of the Church of England ; and in the oath which was presented to them they had to swear also that the bishop of Rome, who had usurped the name of Pope, had no more authority or jurisdiction than other bishops in England or elsewhere in their own dioceses. There was an evident intention, in the case of the religious communities, to make the oath intolerable. Contrary, how- ever, to expectation, the oath in its new and offensive form was almost universally taken bv the monastic orders. Only in two instances was it formally refused, for the fitful resistance of the Brigitites or re- formed Austin friars at Sion in Brentford 1 534-] THE FRIARS OBSERVANT. ,8 1 gave, comparatively speaking, little trouble to the authorities. The Carthusians of London, however, at first obstinately refused. After some pressure and persecution they yielded, but we shall soon see what was the temper of declined the oath, with the result that the whole order was suppressed, their houses were emptied of their inhabitants, apd friars of the Augustinian order were introduced into their friaries. This was the first suppression, and preceded the £3 - THE OUTER COURT, OLD CHARTERHOUSE. this famous house, when we have to relate the terrible Charterhouse tragedy, which followed almost immediately. The Friars Observant, an order of reformed Franciscans, possessed at this time several houses in England ; they were a small but admirably disciplined body, and in their ranks were several of the most eloquent preachers of the day. At Greenwich the Observants 66 general confiscation of the lesser com- munities by some two years. The Ob- servant Friars were treated with great rigour ; many were imprisoned, and fifty are said to have died in confinement. The remainder were banished from the realm. The entire number of the English " Observants " did not exceed two hundred. Nothing save their refusal to take the oath 82 THE CHURCH Jseems to have been alleged against them. They maintained "they had professed St. "Francis' religion, and in the observance thereof they would live and die." In the November of this same memorable year, 1534, Parliament reassembled and continued its ecclesiastical legislation. The first act declared that the king ought to have the title of " Supreme Head of the Church of England." The act rehearsed that the clergy (in Convocation) had so acknowledged him already. The king was to have power and authority " to visit and reform errors, heresies, contempts, and offences." How completely and terribly Henry determined to avail himself of this power thus granted him by the legislature will soon have to be described. The next act was a strange and novel form of oppression. It annexed to the crown the first-fruits and profits for one year of every spiritual benefice, from arch- bishoprics down to very small benefices, and a yearly tenth of the same. Com- missioners were to search for the value of every benefice. The charge of collecting the tenths was thrown upon the bishops. In consideration of these yearly payments a fifth part of the enormous fine, levied in consequence of the alleged prasmunire two years before, was remitted. The act for suffragan bishops was also passed in this late session of 1534. Twenty- six towns were named for the sees of as many suffragan bishops, who might be appointed at the request of diocesans requiring assistance in their episcopal duties. About half that number of dio- cesans accepted this relief in the five years which followed the passing of this useful OF ENGLAND. [,S34. act. Under the old system suffragans without sees had been frequently ap- pointed, with titles generally taken from some distant foreign town, by those diocesan bishops who chose to have them. The title of bishop of Sidon, for instance, had been given to a succession of suffragan bishops who assisted the arch- bishops of Canterbury. The bishop of Negropont was the suffragan of York. The obscure Reonen (an Athenian town) gave a name to the assistant to the bishop of Salisbury. The general idea of this act was to assert the absolute independence of England of all foreign churches by doing away with the very name of continental sees which acknowledge the obedience of Rome, in the case of these suffragan or coadjutor bishops. The practice of appoint- ing these bishops " in partibus," as it is termed, as assistants to continental bishops in communion with Rome, is still preserved abroad. The titles named in this act, in many well-known instances, have been revived in our own day in the case of the lately- appointed suffragan bishops. The twenty- six towns named in this act are as follows : Thctford, Ipswich, Colchester, Dover, Guild- ford, Southampton, Taunton, Shaftesbury, Molton, Marlborough, Bedford, Glouces- ter, Leicester, Shrewsbury, Bristol, Penrith (Llandaff), Bridgewater, Nottingham, Grantham, Hull, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Penrith, Berwick, St. Germans in Cornwall, and the Isle of Wight. The towns in italics have in late years been taken as the titles of bishops suffragan appointed at the request of diocesans requiring aid for their large and increasing sees. Two of the number — Gloucester and ,533.] WRITINGS OF Bristol — have been constituted separate dioceses. At the beginning of the year 1533, Cranmer had been appointed archbishop of Canterbury. Warham had died at the close of 1532. Before the end of 1534, the severance of the Church of England from Rome was completed by the formal giving up by Cranmer of the style and title of legate ; an office which had been inherent in the arch-see ot Canterbury since the days of William of Corbeuil, in the early part of the twelfth century. Cranmer commanded in Convocation that the title of " legate " should be disused, and the word " metropolitan " inserted instead of it. Not to interrupt the sketch of the great anti-papal acts of Parliament which heralded the Reformation in England, we did not mention a very memorable martyr- dom which took place in the year 1533 ; memorable because the writings of the martyr, an almost unknown scholar when in pain and agony he uttered his testimony, had in after-years some influence on the thoughts and conclusions of the English reform leaders. John Frith had been a pupil of Gardiner at Oxford, and had, on the invitation 01 Wolsey, joined the new and stately Oxford foundation of Cardinal College, afterwards Christ Church. There he became an ardent student of the forbidden Lutheran literature, and as a suspected heretic was ; imprisoned. Subsequently released by the 'orders of the liberal-minded Wolsey, he ! betook himself to Flanders, and became I the friend of Tyndale. We soon hear 01 him as one of the members of the secret JOHN FRITH. 83 society of Christian Brethren. This society numbered in its ranks many earnest and God-fearing men, who were pained and thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of religious affairs in England and on the Continent ; but mingled with these good and earnest men were not a few turbulent spirits who loved change and revolution for their own selfish ends, and who gave this secret society the colour of hostility to the state. Frith was betrayed, the story says, by his own associates. He came into direct collision with the then chancellor, Sir Thomas More — a bittei enemy of Lutheranism and the "new" teaching. An interchange of pamphlets took place on the subject of the nature of the sacrament, More upholding the mediaeval orthodox teaching concerning transubstantiation ; Frith putting forth generally the doctrinal teaching which has since been generally accepted in our church and set forth in her formularies. To More's "letter impugning the erroneous writing of John Frith against the blessed sacrament of the altar," Frith replied in an exhaustive tract, or book, " on the sacrament." This was a most learned and lucid re- futation of the doctrine of transubstantia- tion, and was the storehouse of references and deductions from which Cranmer afterwards so largely borrowed. Indeed, the words with which, in the Book of Common Prayer, " the Order of the ad- ministration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion " closes, are the words of Frith, who perished at the stake in 1533: " The natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here, it being against the truth of Christ's 84 THE CHURCH natural body to be at one time in more places than one." Frith has been well termed the most genuine martyr of the Reformation. " We may admire the greatness of the man who first died for freedom of conscience, and in sweet and touching words justified himself in laying down his life upon that ground.'' It was this great theologian who first sug- gested to the Church of England, that it was a supreme act of tyranny to make all dogmas equally binding. He denied, for instance, the common opinion concerning purgatory, but added, " Nevertheless I count neither part a necessary article of our faith, necessary to be believed in on pain of damnation, whether there be a purgatory or not." Of the more important and hotly- disputed dogma of transubstantiation he wrote in similar language : That this " should be a accessary article of the faith, I think no man can say it with a good conscience, although it were true indeed." There have been, and are, uncounted thousands in our Church of England who have never heard of Frith ; but his holy thoughts have permeated the views and teaching of our best and truest divines. These holy and humble men condemn the dogmas of purgatory and of transubstantia- tion, and many other disputed articles of faith taught in the mediaeval schools of theology ; yet they would be as far as possible from pretending their belief in the eternal damnation of those who held these articles. Our church wisely and righteously makes a broad distinction between the fundamental articles of belief and those non- fundamental dogmas which may be held or rejected without incurring eternal con- demnation ; not so Rome. " The cause of OF ENGLAND. [,533. my death," wrote this true martyr, " is this — because I cannot in conscience swear that our prelates' opinion of the Sacrament (that is, that the substance of the bread and wine is verily changed into the flesh and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ) is an undoubted article of faith, necessary to be believed under pain of damnation." Again, with great lucidity he writes : " Now, though this opinion were true (which thing they can neither prove by Scripture nor doctors), yet could I not in conscience grant that it should be an article of the faith necessary to be believed, for there are many verities which vet may be no such articles of our faith. It is true that I lay in irons when I wrote this, howbeit I would not have you to receive this truth for an article of our faith, for you may think the contrary without danger of damnation." Such wise charity, in ques- tions not fundamental, has been the glory and strength of the Church of England since the Reformation. We have a letter which Cranmer, the new archbishop, wrote at this time to his friend Hawkins, the English ambassador in Germany. It is deeply interesting to read now the light words with which the man who played subsequently so great a part in the English Reformation, dismissed the awful tragedy of which the sad hero was Frith ; Frith, from whose writings he after- wards learned so much, learned those deep truths, for which in the end he, too, chose to die ! " Other news we have none notable," he writes, " but that one Frith, which was in the Tower in prison, was appointed by the king's grace to be examined before me (and others), whose opinion was so notably erroneous that we I533.] MARTYRDOM could not despatch him, but were fain to leave him to the determination of his ordinary, the bishop of London. . . . He thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith that there is the very corporeal presence of Christ within OF FRITH. 85 ■ him one Andrew, a tailor, for the same opinion ; and thus fare you well." Frith and Andrew Hewitt, the poor tailor, whose general answer to the ques- tions put at the trial was that " he thought as Frith thought," went quickly to their the host and sacrament of the altar, . . . and surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to i leave that imagination. But for all that 1 we could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel. Notwithstanding, now he is at a final end with all examinations, for my lord of London hath given sentence and delivered him to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with martyrs' crowns at Smithfield, where, alas ! the too true story tells us, Frith's cruel sufferings were prolonged. " Twenty years later another fire was blazing under the walls of Oxford, and the hand which wrote those light lines above quoted was blacken- ing in the flames of it, paying there the penalty of the same imagination for which Frith and the poor London tailor were with such cool indifference condemned. It is affecting to know that Frith's writings 86 THE CHURCH were the instrument of Cranmer's con- version." * During the year 1535 there was no ;ession of the Parliament we have termed the Reformation Parliament, which opened in 1520 and ran on until the spring of 1536, and which, from the importance of its legislation, will be ever memorable in the annals of our country. In this year the king appointed his favourite and con- fidential minister, Thomas Cromwell, vicar- general in things ecclesiastical. It was a new title and a new office, imitated, but on a very different scale, from an ancient church office. Cardinal Wolsey had been vicar-general of the Pope in England. It was also usual for a bishop to have a vicar- general in his diocese. The new vicar- general represented the " Supreme Head of the Church." A commission was now appointed by the king to visit all churches, metropolitical, cathedral, and collegiate ; all monasteries and hospitals ; priories, dignities, offices — in a word, all places ecclesiastical, secular, and regular ; to in- quire into the lives and conversation of all presidents and prelates of the same, of whatever rank and dignity, and of all who dwelt in or held office in any of the places specified in the commission. The chief of this all-powerful commission was the new vicar-general, who was to nominate other commissioners to assist him. The powers entrusted to Cromwell and his subordinates on the commission were enormous. Those whom in the course of their visitation they deemed culpable, they might deprive or suspend. They were empowered to make fresh statutes * Froude : " History of England," chap. v. iF ENGLAND. ['535-1540. and ordinances. They might hold synods, chapters, and convocations, over which they were to preside. They were to hold elections of prelates, and indicate who should be elected. The great work of this powerful tribunal was the suppres- sion of the monasteries in England, which was carried into effect in the course of the next five years. It will be interesting to glance at the life-story and character of the famous and bitterly-hated man who stood at its head, and who worked such havoc in the magnificent and stately edifice of the still powerful mediaeval Church of England. Strangely different portraits have been drawn of this powerful and able statesman. Of those drawn from contemporary sources, cardinal Pole, who represents the Roman view, frequently in his biography of Crom- well styles him " the messenger of Satan," occasionally the " man of sin," the monster of England, a wretch of low birth, brutal insolence, and atheistic morals. In more chastened language, this estimate of the great minister has been held by one school of writers down to our time. On the other hand, a different school of portraiture is represented by Foxe, whose strong anti- papal instincts led him to look gently, if not with absolute approval, upon all the high-handed ruin that was accomplished when Cromwell was minister. Comparing him with the distinguished statesmen of the age, he does not scruple to write of him thus : — " If there was more of human learning in More and Gardiner, there was, it seems, in Cromwell a more heavenly light of the mind, and more prompt and perfect judgment, together with a more heroical and princely disposition." 1 535- > 540] THOMAS In our own day and time, with all the advantages of abundant material out of which to form a just estimate, our leading historians are still completely divided. Canon Dixon, in his most thoughtful and accurate history, " can see no greatness in him either of mind or soul : he was simply a servant." Bishop Stubbs, more cautious, considers him the greatest and most famous of Henry's ministers, but alludes to his character as being even more mysterious than his master's, dwelling especially on his "mysterious unconscientiousness ; " yet while evidently viewing his character and policy with strong disapprobation, considers that during that stormy period from 1535 to 1540, Cromwell was the real hero of the hour. Froude, on the other hand, ex- hausts his rhetoric in a panegyric of this " Malleus Monachorum " — the hammer of the monastic orders ; and while allowing that " a long list of solemn tragedies weigh upon his memory ; that he was the fierce executor of fiercer laws ; that his was an unflinching resolution which neither danger could daunt nor saintly virtue move to mercy ; that those who, from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed, and passed on over their bodies," he pleads, at the same time, " that his aim was noble, that the object he was pursuing — the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations — was the freedom of Eng- land and the destruction of idolatry." The earlier years of this life, which was destined so powerfully to influence the fortunes of the English church, and whose work will ever remain a dark blot on the story of the English Reformation, are sur- rounded with the mist of uncertainty. His ROMWELL. 87 was undoubtedly a wild and stormy youth. We hear of his being obliged — still young — to leave England, and to wander abroad in Italy and other places, where not im- probably he took part in those unprincipled campaigns, in one of which Rome was stormed and sacked. Returning to Eng- land, his marriage brought him some fortune, and as a woollen dealer he amassed a fair competence. Subsequently he was brought in contact with Wolsey, the then all-powerful chancellor. Wolsey was struck with his talents and capacity for work, and employed him as his agent in visiting and breaking up the smaller religious houses, which the Pope had granted for the foundation of the new college There is no reason to doubt but that his conduct to his master, when he fell into disgrace, was noble and chivalrous ; indeed, Cromwell's fidelity, first to Wolsey and then to Henry, was the brightest spot in his strange and com- plex character. It is unfair to belittle his conduct to the fallen chancellor, which is spoken of in warm and grateful terms by Wolsey's devoted and loving personal attendant, Cavendish, to whose memoir we owe so many and such interesting details of the latter days of the great cardinal. It was probably this chivalrous devotion to his fallen minister which favourably influenced Henry. At all events, the king soon took Crom- well, who had been trained, as the king well knew, by the ablest statesman of the age, into his confidence, and rapidly pro- moted him in his service. He became successively chancellor of the exchequer, secretary of state, lord privy seal and great chamberlain, and, most important 88 THE CHURCH of all, vicar-general in matters ecclesiastical. Later he was created Earl of Essex. In Parliament he took precedence of the nobles of every rank, by virtue of his ecclesiastical title of king's vicar-general. His career has been well described as " that of a slave at once constituted grand vizier in an Eastern despotism, rather than that of a minister of state promoted in a con- stitutional government, where law, usage, and public opinion check the capricious humours of the sovereign." * The work of havoc and destruction carried on between the years 1535-40, in which period Cromwell was virtually sole minister, will be related in its place : here we are briefly summarising the history of Cromwell. In 1540 the all-powerful vicar-general fell. His fall was even more sudden than his marvellous elevation. Various causes, as will be seen, contributed to Cromwell's ruin. The royal disappoint- ment in the matter of the person of Anne of Cleves, the new queen, is usually given as the occasion of Henry's fatal anger. But there were other and deeper reasons at work, closely connected with the Reforma- tion storm, which made the vicar-general and his policy utterly distasteful at that moment to the imperious monarch ; and the world was suddenly startled by the news that the all-powerful Cromwell, the most despotic minister who had ever governed England, had paid for his actions, variously estimated, with his life. The parliamentary engine of attainder was employed against Cromwell. No' voice save' the pitiful Cranmer's was raised in' his favour. The subservient Parliament then sitting, quickly did the * Lorci Campbell : " Lives of the Chancellors." OF ENGLAND. [l535. king's will, and Cromwell, without trial, was sent to the block on Tower Hill, un- pitied and unmourned, to receive the dread guerdon of a traitor. He was em- phatically not a good man — self-seeking, avaricious, merciless, the instrument of a mighty wrong ; all this and more may fairly be predicated by the unbiassed his- torian of this strange and brilliant states- man. But he was no traitor ; faithful and loyal to the end, he had simply done too thoroughly the will of the great despot who sat on the throne of England. Much, however, has to be related before that scene took place on Tower Hill which closed Cromwell's life. Once more we take up the story of the year 1535, which witnessed his appoint- ment as vicar-general. In the same year, acting under Henry's directions, the lord chancellor Audley issued a commission for ascertaining the true value of the first- fruits and annual tenths of all sees and benefices, which Parliament, in the last session of the preceding year, 1534, had ordered to be paid to the crown. To this commission is owing the famous document so often quoted, known as the " Valor Ecclesiasticus " of Henry VIII. The " Valor Ecclesiasticus " was a schedule of the whole of the revenue of the church property in England. It has been well described as a fair, though hardly a friendly survey. The following brief notes on this interesting and most weighty state paper will be useful. It shows, first, that there had been no marked change in church property for above two centuries and a half. This deduction is arrived at by a carefui ex- 1535 ] THE "VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS. 89 ainination of the revenues of the Church as shown in the document called the sidering the large increase in the revenue of the whole kingdom since that date, jctmi m jct> Mi su 1 if jcbu hi tiiii iu tut %u b jritf .Septimus t]caiia«ts:t)irofus Cienus tc angcuts. -fcecembetljabetoies.un.Euna.m;* t ht.mtfbw. &ancto£ mfantt ct Darte rnarti? ^eojia . 5 «ii B • H«i B ^anctibirmteppfcopt' ©emojte. b u B c Bonas. a tow 38 Banrtt ntcoiat ep^ftopt et cofeffoife* ijclec. Id TOa.Canrttantyee. ii^tec* 2d CConceptio beats mane ttrginis. ijt.iec. %g — " — 38 ^au^UamaftiS^ spmotfa t> ^o«s. &anrt€ luue ifrgtrtfs etmattte ir.fec. e m ktjsamm* f %m W S XM fef sDfepfentfa. *tf SBtaflia* fef Hance* Cfjome apeflolt. ; *tf fflltotlia* U Xfcattoitts&ffinoOtttenscIpifti jy.lee. at Bantafiepbanipwijomatfiris ijc.lec. U i=fanctiJoftanmsapoaoUetcu4gekae.i]f.icf. Bojc fiabct lj02as.3rtJitf.Bies fcero.W* e t»u tit c fuit D jtitf f xl ttlX a urn c tnt 0 fci . e 6 f ill! Wi TAGE FROM A HEREFORD MISSAL IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, SHOWING THE ERASURE OF ST. THOMAS A BECKET'S DAY, AND THE SUBSTITUTION OF THE WORD " BISHOP " FOR " TOPE" IN THE CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER. " Taxation " of Pope Nicholas, made in though the revenues of the church and the reign of Edward I. Indeed, con- the monastic orders set forth in the yo THE CHURCH " Valor'" of Henry VIII. show an absolute increase, yet when compared with the revenues of the kingdom, in reality they show a decrease. The exact compilation is stated to be as follows: Under Edward I. the church income was about eleven- fiftieths (ii) of the whole revenue of the kingdom ; under Henry VIII. it was about eight-seventy-fifths (7^). These figures are given to enable the student to form some idea of the possessions of the church and the religious houses at the period of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The property of the church at the period referred to was undoubtedly very large, when everything was taken into con- sideration— so large as to excite cupidity, and especially in the case of the greater abbeys and cathedrals, where the wealth and magnificence of the shrines were publicly displayed. But there is no doubt that interested parties took pains to exaggerate the extent and value of the church's possessions. Roughly speaking, there were before the Reformation (1535) 12,474 promo- tions or benefices of various kinds: 21 archbishoprics and bishoprics, 1 1 deaneries, 60 archdeaconries, 394 dignities and pre- bends, 8,803 benefices, 605 religious houses, 110 hospitals, 96 colleges, 2,374 chantries and free chapels. Of course, it must be borne in mind that all exact calculations are impossible, but generally calculating the probable difference in the value of money in the sixteenth and the second half of the nineteenth centuries, the revenues of the Church of England — in- cluding the monastic orders — amounted on the eve of the English Reformation to scarcely four millions of our money OF ENGLAND. [I535. (^"4,000,000). This calculation is arrived at by multiplying the amount of revenue of the church of the sixteenth century by twelve, the value of money then being roughly ten to twelve times greater than at the close of the nineteenth.* Early in the same year a formal re- nunciation of the Pope was taken of the bishops. These promised never to take an oath of fealty or obedience to any foreign power ; they undertook to main- tain the king's cause and quarrel, to observe all the laws which had been enacted for the suppression of the papacy, not to appeal to Rome, or procure from the bishop of Rome any bulls, breves, or prescripts whatsoever. They declared the papacy or Roman patriarchate not to have been ordained of God in holy Scripture, but by human tradition ; and they pro- mised henceforth never to call the bishop of Rome by the name of pope or universal bishop, but to call him only bishop of Rome or brother. This was the first document derived evidently from Luther- anism ; the titles therein denied to the Roman pontiff were those which had been denied by Luther. Letters general were also sent to the bishops in the June of 1535, commanding them to preach the sincere word of God and the new title of the king, and to see that their clergy, both secular and regular, did the same every Sunday and feast-day. They were to cause all prayers, rubrics, and canons in mass-books and other books used in churches in which the bishop of Rome was named, to be rased out, " that * Compare Speed's tables made from the "Valor Ecclesiasticus," quoted and summarised in Dixon, " History of Church of England," chap. iv. I535.] RESISTANCE OF ' the name and memory of the bishop of Rome, except to his contumely and re- proach, might be extinct, suppressed, and obscured." It was ordered, too, that every preacher should preach at least once against the usurped power of the bishop of Rome, and that no man should defend the same ; also that for a year no preacher should preach either for or against purga- tory, honouring of saints, marriage of priests, pilgrimages, miracles (alluding, of course, to modern miracles), which things had hitherto caused dissension in the realm. These directions and others of less importance seem to have been obeyed by the bishops. We have no account of any opposition. The same year was memorable also for some terrible executions, including that of Sir Thomas More and bishop Fisher. The persecution of the Carthusians, in the matter of the oath to the supreme head of the church, was recommenced, and a bloody vengeance was exacted. The story of the tragedy of the London Carthusians will ever be told and re-told as an example of the intense earnestness which inspired the more serious souls in the Reformation age. We, who now rejoice in the fruits of the sufferings nobly borne by the Marian martyrs, who enjoy com- parative freedom, who are blessed with purer and more primitive doctrines, who worship with the ancient rites purified from mediaeval superstition — a freedom, a creed, and rites purchased with the agony of such martyrs as Frith and Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer — must not refuse our tribute of admiration to heroes who died on the other side, very nobly described as "gallant men whose high forms, in the sunset of the IE CARTHUSIANS. 91 old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory." * Among the monastic orders the Car- thusians were at this period especially respected, owing to the exceptional sanctity of their lives. At the time when the ques- tions of the royal succession and the abjur- ation of the papal supremacy were fiercely agitating men's minds, the prior of the London Charterhouse, John Houghton, was suspected, not without reason, to be privately exhorting his penitents, and those over whom he exercised influence, to remain firm in refusing to abjure the supremacy of the Pope. The Carthusian prior was a man of great attainments, and of fervid piety. Educated at Cambridge, against the wishes of his family he entered early into the ranks of the secular clergy, and subsequently became a Carthusian monk. In that order he was quickly pro- moted to offices of trust and dignity. For twenty years before the storm broke, he had served God in " religion." He is described by one who knew him well as " in person short, with a graceful figure and dignified appearance ; his actions modest, his voice gentle, chaste in body, in heart humble, he was admired and sought after by all, and by his com- munity was most beloved and esteemed. One and all revered him, and none were ever known to speak a word against him. . . . He governed rather by example than precept, and his subjects were influ- enced as much by the fervour of his pre- eminent sanctity, as by the burning ex- hortations he addressed to them in their chapter. He rarely offered mass, but that he was rapt in ecstasy, and poured forth * Froude. 92 THE CHURCH floods of tears at the recollection of Christ's loving kindness and compassion." * Such was the prior of the London Carthusians, when the oath touching the royal succes- sion, and the headship of the Church of England, was tendered amongst other com- munities to the English Carthusians. At first the prior refused, and preferred imprisonment to subscribing to the oath re- quired. But eventually, persuaded by certain "good and learned men," such as Stokesley, bishop of London, and Lee, archbishop of York, that the present controversy was not a lawful cause for which they should expose themselves to death, Houghton and his companions yielded to the king's commandments, and took the proposed oath, with this condition : " so far as it was lawful." Months passed on, and the act giving the king the title of " Supreme Head of the Church of England " became the law of the land. The provisions of the act in question were put into force, and the doomed order were required again to subscribe, without reservation. We possess a singularly vivid account of all that took place in what Froude calls " one of the grand scenes of history, a solemn battle fought out to the death by the champions of rival principles." The author of the recital was one who, as an eye-witness of most of the scenes which he so pathetically describes, is especially worthy of credence. Maurice Chauncey, f who tells the simple story, was a Carthusian monk, and one of the few who gave way under the hard trial, but subsequently bitterly repented that he, unlike his happier * Chauncey ; quoted by Dr. Gasquet, vol. i., chap. vi. t Froude calls him "Chamney." OF ENGLAND. [1535. companions, had missed the crown of mar- tyrdom. In the earlier chapters of his recital, Chauncey gives " a loving, linger- ing picture of his cloister life, to him the perfection of earthly happiness. It is placed before us in all its superstition, its de- votion, and its simplicity, the counterpart, even in minute details, of accounts of cloisters, when monasticism was in its young vigour, which had been written ten centuries before. St. Bede or St. Cuthbert might have found himself in the house of the London Carthusians, and he would have had few questions to ask, and no duties to learn or to unlearn. The form of the buildings would have seemed more elaborate, the notes of the organ would have added richer solemnity to the services, but the salient features of the scene would have been all familiar. He would have lived in a cell of the same shape, he would have thought the same thoughts, spoken the same words in the same language. The prayers, the daily life, almost the very faces with which he was surrounded would have seemed unaltered. A thousand years of the world's " history had rolled by, and these lonely islands of prayer had remained still anchored in the stream, the strands of the ropes which held them wearing now to a thread, and very near their last parting, but still unbroken." * In the quiet of the holy house, when the summons came requiring the brethren formally to submit to the royal mandate and to reject the papal authority, prior Houghton called his monks together and bade them to prepare for the worst. Then follows the description of several days of quiet preparation, of mutual exhortation * Froude : '.' History of England," chap. ix. ,535.] THE CARTHUSIAN MARTYRS. 93 and confession one to the other. On the into their hearts. And then followed a third day the mass of the Holy Ghost was sweet, soft sound of music, at which our sung, and with touching faith Chauncey venerable father (Houghton) was so moved WASH-HOUSE COURT, OLD CHARTERHOUSE. recalls " how God made known His presence among us. For when the host was lifted up, there came, as it were, a whisper of air which breathed upon our faces as we knelt. Some perceived it with the bodily senses ; all felt it as it thrilled that he sank down in tears, and for a long time could not continue the service — we all remaining stupefied, hearing the melody, but knowing neither whence it came nor whither it went ; only our hearts rejoiced as we perceived that God was with us q4 THE CHURCH indeed." * With the prior just then were two other of the English Carthusian chiefs — Lawrence, prior of Beauvale in Notting- hamshire, and Webster, prior of Axholm in Lincolnshire — who had come up to consult with their London brethren on the course of action the order was to adopt in this their hour of trial. " Thus, with un- obtrusive nobleness, did these poor men prepare themselves for their end, not less beautiful in their resolution, not less de- serving the everlasting remembrance of mankind, than those three hundred who, in the summer morning, sat combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae. We will not regret their cause ; there is no cause for which any man can more nobly suffer than to witness that it is better for him to die than to speak words which he does not mean. Nor in this their hour of trial were they (as we have seen) left without higher comfort." t The end came quickly enough. The three priors went in person to Cromwell, the then all-powerful minister of the crown, telling him plainly that the order dared not go against what the Catholic church had always held (the fact of the Roman supremacy). They were committed to the Tower, were tried, and condemned as guilty of treason. The three, together with a Brigitite monk, Reynolds, and one John Hale, vicar of Isleworth, were exe- cuted at Tyburn in the May of 1535. The details of the execution were singularly horrible. The " religious were drawn to the place of execution in their habits. They were each offered, as they mounted * Quoted from the original by Gasquet : " Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," chap. vi. f Froude's " History," vol. ii., chap ix. OF ENGLAND. [iS35. the scaffold, a pardon if, even at the last moment, they would obey the king and the parliament. Each rejected the offer of life at the price of a guilty conscience. They were hanged, cut down still alive (Houghton in his great agony was able still to utter a prayer), the heart was torn from each sufferer ; they were then beheaded and dismembered ; the whole of the awful scene being carefully arranged so as to afford a terrible example to " religious " and ecclesiastics of the punishment which would surely follow upon disobedience to the royal command. The arm of prior Houghton was hung up over the archway of the London Charterhouse — a bloody sign intended to awe the remaining brethren of the order into submission.* But there was no submission to be found among the Carthusian monks. The gallant spirit of Houghton and his brother sufferers inspired the brethren of the order. A few weeks were left to them to reflect ; then three more were taken, tried, and executed. With the rest, other measures were adopted. The monks of the stubborn house were dispersed among more pliant communities. Two of them, we read, were involved in the " Pilgrimage of Grace," the story of which is related further on, and were hanged in chains at York. Ten were sent subsequently to Newgate ; but no suffering made any im- pression upon these devoted men. Nine of these prisoners died miserably of prison fever and cruel hardships in confinement ; the tenth was publicly executed. Some of the remainder, of whom the writer of the story (Chauncey) was one, went through * Cf. Gasquet, vol. i., chap. vi. ; Froude : Hist, of Eng., ch. ix. IS35] THE KING E> some kind of formal submission, and escaped abroad. " So fell the monks of the London Charterhouse, splintered to pieces — for so only could their resistance be overcome — by the iron sceptre and the iron hand which held it. The story claims from us that sympathy which is the due of their exalted courage." * The trial and death of the Carthusian monks sent a thrill of horror through Europe. The death of cardinal Fisher and More filled up the cup of indignation at Rome, and the insulting words of the acts directed against the supremacy of Rome, followed by the stern measures adopted by Henry to enforce the statutes, such as the erasure of the prayers in which the name of the Pope appeared, were avenged by Pope Paul III. in perhaps the most terrific instrument ever issued from the Roman chancery. The language of that bull of interdict and anathema, was indeed terrible. The king of England was pronounced accursed. When he died his body was to remain unburied ; his soul, blasted with anath- emas, would be cast into hell ; while the lands of his subjects who remained faithful to him were laid under a interdict, their children were disinherited, their marriages illegal, their wills invalid. All the subjects * Froude COMMUNICATED. 95 of the king without exception were ab- solved from their allegiance. The entire nation, under the dread penalty of excom- munication, was commanded no longer to acknowledge Henry as their sovereign. The clergy, leaving a few of their number to baptise the new-born infants, were to withdraw from the accursed land, and return no more till it had submitted. The awful anathema was for the time, owing, it is said, to the remonstrance or the intercession of Francis I., king of France, suspended. Three years later, however, in 1538, when by the continued destruction of monasteries, shrines, and sacred images, hereafter to be related, and above all by the outrage on Canterbury and its revered saint, St. Thomas Becket, the king of England had dared the worst, the dread bull of excommunication and deposition was finally launched. But it fell in strange silence. It was disregarded in England, and on the Con- tinent no one seems to have paid much heed to it. The power of England was too great to be assailed by any faithful servant of Rome. So utterly did the scathing papal anathema fail in its pur- pose, so harmlessly fell the bolt from Rome, which was intended to wither Henry and his advisers, that men have even asked whether the instrument in question was ever formally promulgated at all ! CHAPTER XLVI. SUPPRESSION OF THE LESSER MONASTERIES. Iniquity of the Suppression as carried out by Henry VIII. — Cromwell's Visitation of the Universities — Visitation of the Lesser Monasteries in 1535 — The Commissioners — The Vicar-General — The King — All the Lesser Monasteries granted to the Crown by the Parliament of 1536 — The Charges of Immorality — The King's "Declaration" or Black Book — The " Comperta " — Obvious Inconsist- ency of the Accusations — Absence of Confessions — Subservience of the Parliament — Testimony of the Pensions — The Act itself Vindicates the Large Houses — Political Motives for the Suppression — Its Method — Statistics — Popular Revolt in Lincolnshire — Suppression by the King — The "Pilgrimage of Grace" — Intrigues of Cardinal Pole — Henry's Vengeance. IT would be impossible for the unbiassed historian to advance any convincing pleas for the purity of Henry VIII. 's motives in the carrying out of the suppres- sion of the monastic orders in his realm. Those among us — and they form the large majority of the thoughtful and cultured in our land — who are thoroughly per- suaded of the immense advantage which the Reformation as a whole brought to our church and countrv, look with the gravest disapprobation on the great con- fiscation which took place, and on the means used to bring this suppression and confiscation about. Reformation was im- peratively needed in the church, in her doctrines and teaching, in her forms and ceremonies, in her government, and in the means she used to maintain and to spread her influence among the people. In the majority of cases, in the houses of the monastic orders reformation was even more imperatively needed than among the so-called secular clergy. More even than reformation was needed here ; complete, changed conditions were required, new aims, new ideals, new work, were wanted, for it is indisputable that the mediaeval monastery had outlived the period of its usefulness. But reformation and change, adaptation to new conditions of society, are very different from destruction. And it was destruction, not reformation ; it was utter ruin, not well-considered change and wise reconstruction, which passed over that mighty monastic system which had existed and flourished for so many centuries, which had conferred such enduring bene- fits upon society, especially during the earlier Middle Ages. Its possessions, most of its lordly buildings and priceless treasures, its ministers — very many of them devoted and earnest servants of the church, very many of them men holy and humble of heart — were simply overwhelmed in that mighty wave of destruction called the suppression of the monastic orders, and appeared no more. England and her church indisputably owes much to Henry VIII. — not a little, indeed, to some of his advisers. The fair historian must grant this, must acknow- ledge the great debt ; but in the matter of the suppression and confiscation of the monasteries, as it was actually carried out, he can deal out little but words of condemnation and regret. The instru- ments he chose for his work were evil — 1536—1541] STORY OF A GREAT WRONG. 97 unmistakably evil ; the methods he pur- their inmates — charges in the majority sued to attain his ohject were manifestly of cases utterly unproven. These accusa- unfair and absolutely unjust. The way, tions were skilfully used so as to blacken too, in which he disposed of most of the most unfairly the reputations of the entire enormous property which, by means of body of monastics and friars. And so it these bad men and evil methods, he be- has come to pass that a great wrong, came possessed of, can only be characterised knowingly or unknowingly, has been done WOLSEY S GATEWAY, IPSWICH. Photo : Poulton & Son. as shameful, selfish, utterly unprincipled. Comparatively speaking, very little of the splendid inheritance handed down by the piety and thrift of past generations was devoted to any good and useful purpose. It was for the most part recklessly appro- priated by those who had no shadow of claim to it, squandered, and finally lost: To veil the shameful iniquity of the transaction, grave charges were brought against some of the monastic houses and 67 to a multitude of men, many of whom — perhaps the great majority — according to their lights, seem to have done their duty faithfully. This was not all. As time went on, successive historians have assumed the terrible guilt of the monastic orders as proved. Writers who with good reason have admired and prized the work of the English Reformation, thinking that the story of the downfall and " deserved " ruin 98 THE CHURCH of the monastic orders was a useful con- tribution to their memoir, have without investigation repeated again and again the unhappy but often quite untrue recital ; and so it has come to pass that the story of the supposed wrong-doing, and of the crushing punishment which followed the accumulated sin of the monks and nuns of England, has taken its place among the " Credenda," among the things taught as absolutely true to every English boy and girl. The writer of this history, while yielding to no one in his profound con- viction of the inestimable benefits which the Reformation has brought to England and her most ancient church, feels that the grave recital, instead of suffering, will immeasurably gain in the estimation of all serious men, by the frank confession of this grave and irreparable error. So deeply had the conviction of the guilt of the " Orders " sunk into men's hearts, that it is only in the last few years that the English monk has found defenders bold enough to speak a word in his defence. But recent study has at last stirred up among our countrymen a suspicion that a cruel injustice has been done. This suspicion has now found bold and open expression. Dr. Gasquet, the Roman Catholic historian, naturally a partisan, in glowing language denounces the cruel falseness of the charge, and the terrible nature of the fatally destructive punish- ment ; openly ascribing to the royal author of the charge, and the execution of the punishment, a miserable passion for plunder, as the ignoble motive alike of charge and punishment. The careful and painstaking nature of his work, and the historical weight of the evidence he brings OF ENGLAND. [1536-154:. to bear on his important studv of the monasteries and their suppression, will ever win for Dr. Gasquet the respectful attention of all serious historians of the Reformation period, even when they find it necessary to differ from some of his con- clusions. Canon Dixon, an Anglican writer, in his exhaustive history of the period, after fresh examination of the evidence for and against the religious orders in the England of the sixteenth century, virtually comes to the same conclusions respecting the un- righteousness of the cruel suppression as the Roman Catholic scholar, and in his sum- mary asserts that even under the changed conditions of the age, they were doing fairly the work for which they had been founded. Mr. Green, who certainly cannot be suspected of any undue partiality for mediaeval forms of religion, in his cold and measured language, writing on the suppression of the religious houses, and the charges upon which the great ruin was based, says: ''The character of the visitors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the long debate (in Parliament) which followed on its reception, leaves little doubt that the charges were grossly exaggerated." It is, indeed, difficult to credit Henry VIII. with lofty motives in this matter of the confiscation of the monastic property. As a statesman of no ordinary capacity, trained by his great minister Wolsey, the king could not help seeing that much of the monks' work was done. The education of the people was no longer in their hands. The conservation and multiplication of books had passed altogether from the monastics, since the invention and mar- vellous development of the printing press. ,535-] THE UNIVERS Bishop Stubbs, indeed, does not hesitate to speak of " the incurable uselessness of the monastic orders in the time of Wolsey." The perpetual danger which the presence of the " Orders," devoted heart and soul to Rome, would have been to England after the abolition of the Roman supremacy — a danger thoroughly understood by the statesmanlike Henry VIII., is discussed a little further on, and really constitutes the best apologia for the king's action. A complete recasting of the monastic system, of the monk's work and office, was indeed imperatively needed ; and not improbably in the first instance Henry satisfied his conscience by purposing to employ the larger portion of the revenues he proposed to confiscate for urgent state purposes, such as national defence; for more practical religious objects, such as endowing new bishoprics ; and for education, such as the establishment of colleges and schools. Some of these things Wolsey had planned in the day of his power. But the pitiful allot- ment for these purposes that the king eventually made of the vast property which fell into his hands from the plundered orders, compels us to see in the whole business only a miserable example of greed. The poor excuses for the suppression made in the days of the lesser and earlier confiscations, when he charged the dis- possessed monks with nameless crimes and shameless profligacy, were all silently dropped as time went on ; and the confisca- tion of all the greater monasteries and their vast revenues was carried out by the imperious sovereign with scarcely an effort to throw a flimsy veil of pretended justice over his arbitrary act. But the cruel and sweeping accusations made in the first TES VISITED. 99 instances against the smaller religious houses, and upon which the Act of Parlia- ment legalising the suppression and con- fiscation of the lesser monasteries was based, have never been forgotten, and have served to blacken permanently the character of all the " religious," who suf- fered grievous wrong at the hands of Henry VIII. The wickedness of the monk and nun of the fifteenth century has be- come one of the articles of common belief among the English-speaking peoples. Under the enormous powers granted him, the vicar-general, Cromwell, deter- mined, before commencing a visitation of the monasteries, to inquire into the state of the universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge. He appointed for this purpose two commissioners, who afterwards ob- tained an unenviable notoriety in the great confiscation — Drs. Layton and Leigh. It does not seem that much scope was found for their reforming zeal in either Oxford or Cambridge. In the report on Oxford we read that in several colleges Dr. Layton found lectures well kept and diligently fre- quented ; but nevertheless, he suggested some alteration in the mode of study. A few new lectures were founded in Greek and Latin, while some stern regulations were made in the case of the students of the monastic colleges. From the first, in all his dealings with the monastic orders, a bitter and hostile spirit was unmistakably manifest on the part of the vicar-general, Cromwell. Some Greek and Hebrew lectures were also instituted at Cambridge. Generally, however, in spite of the visitation, the two universities were left practically unharmed. IOO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [I535—IS36, In the September' of this same year, prior to the famous inquiry of Cromwell, OBVERSE OF THE GREAT SEAL OF HENRY VIII. ' the bishops were forbidden to visit any monastery or church during the pro- posed visitation. The realm in this autumn was divided into districts, and apportioned to commissioners chosen by the vicar-general and appointed under the king's hand and signet. They were men unknown and ob- scure, and included Drs. Leigh and Layton — who had already been em- ployed in similar work by the all- powerful favourite — the subsequently infamous Dr. London, John ap Rice, Richard Bellasis, and a few more, some of whose names are preserved, but who never attained any sort of reputation beyond the . dreary fame attached to this unhappy inquisition. The closing weeks of 1535, which witnessed the visitation, and the year 1536, are memorable for the. suppression and con- fiscation of all the smaller religious houses, visited or not visited in the course of this commission. Singularly rapid must have been the various visits paid by the com- missioners, for before the month of August of the year 1536 was passed the celebrated Act dissolving the smaller monasteries. Under the head of " smaller monasteries " were included all religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, whose income from all sources did not exceed two hundred pounds annually, equivalent to about ,£2,400 of our present money. Three hundred and seventy-six communities were dissolved ; of these thirty-one were refounded, but such refounded houses continued in existence onlv a year or two longer. The property of all these monasteries and nunneries was confiscated and given to the king. In such an inquiry as the one we are REVERSE OF THE GREAT SEAL OF HENRY VIII. now busied with, a few words on the aims and character of the chief instruments of the great confiscation are necessary. These 1 535- 1 536 3 THE MONASTIC instruments may be divided into three divisions : — (i) the principal and best known of the commissioners appointed by Crom- well to inquire into the state of the monasteries ; (2) the vicar-general, Crom- well, himself ; and (3) the king, who was the chief beneficiary of the mighty spoliation. The first is the group of commissioners COMMISSIONERS. 101 character. Canon Dixon, the Anglican, is scarcely less severe, and even Froude, the apologist of Henrv VIII. and all his works, represents them as agents with little scruple or sympathy, and even allows that they received bribes. Dr. London's subsequent career of infamy is too well known to permit of any serious defence in his case. employed by Cromwell. The principal and best known of these were Dr. Layton, Thomas Leigh, Dr. London, and John ap Rice, Richard Ingworth, suffragan bishop of Dover, and William Petre. The four first-named are by far the most notorious ; the last two were only really engaged in the later scene of the dissolution of the religious houses. Gasquet, the Roman Catholic historian of the suppression, re- presents these men as base and vile ; no language is too harsh when he- paints their Of the others, without endorsing all the bitter words of Gasquet and Dixon, it is sufficient to describe them as mere creatures of Cromwell, as greedy and self-sufficient, as men utterly wanting in any lofty aim or purpose. No serious person could attach much real weight to their words or reports. When we sum up the case against the monastic orders and the friars, it must be on evidence utterly separate from any testimony adduced by these ill-starred and generally discredited partisans. 102 THE CHURCH Of Cromwell we have already spoken. While declining to endorse the too sweep- ing condemnation of some historians, we cannot but feel that while most able, he was not a good man, though emphatic- ally a very faithful servant of his master, king Henry. He seems honestly to have disliked and mistrusted monasticism and all connected with it, and to have felt that England and her church would be better without monk or friar or nun. But at the same time it cannot be denied that it was his interest to blacken the monastic order, and that his vast fortune, lost together with his life as soon as made, was largely built upon their ruin — a ruin which he was the principal instrument in bringing about. But Cromwell was only an instru- ment— a servant, a creature. There was one behind him far greater, of whom we must briefly speak. King Henry VIII. has been justly de- scribed * as the main originator of the greatest and most critical changes of his reign — amongst others, of the suppression of the monastic orders and the wholesale confiscation of their property of all de- scriptions. After the fall of Wolsev, no minister can be credited with any real power or influence in determining Henry's policy. His conduct to one after the other throws strong light upon his relations to his principal advisers. As for Wolsey, his greatest minister, from whom he learned so much statecraft, he ruined him and broke his heart. More he soon tossed aside and beheaded. Cromwell he used as his ready and able instrument ; and then when Cromwell's plans and views seemed to cross his own, he at once brought this * Bishop Stubbs : " Oxford Lectures." OF ENGLAND. [1535-1536- all-trusted friend and minister also to the block. The idea of the monastic suppression had long been in Henry's mind. Wolsey first suggested it to the king, when in his far-reaching scheme for church reform he, with the aid of Rome, suppressed some small houses, and used their property for the establishment of educational centres. The idea soon took firm root in Henry's mind. Then came the quarrel with the Papacy — a quarrel which was embittered by two considerations. As a patriotic statesman, Henry was deeply conscious that the assumptions and claims of the Pope were really hurtful to the state as to the church ; as a headstrong, arbitrary, pas- sionate man, Henry hated the Pope as the formidable opposer of his divorce. The vast network of monasteries in England the king viewed, and rightly, as a network of fortresses devoted to the Pope. When he finally broke with the Pope, Henry knew that these numerous and powerful monastic communities would be a perpetual menace to the new anti-papal order of things he had established in his realm. Henry and Cromwell felt that the monk would never accept the king of England as the head of the church in place of the Pope. Then again, Wolsey, his tutor for years in things ecclesiastical as well as civil, had shown him how useless was the monk in the new state of things, and Henry here was an apt pupil ; the pupil soon went far beyond his teacher. Wolsev would change and reform, Henry chose to destroy ; for destruction here meant enormous gain to himself, and an insatiable desire for spoil became an uncontrollable passion with "535— 1536-] CHARACTER OF HENRY VIII. 103 him. At this juncture Cromwell arose, and became his confidant and adviser. With Cromwell were more or less associated the greedy Boleyn family, and when the Boleyn family fell with the condemned queen, the Seymours, who inherited their influence, were even more eager for change and plunder. The advice and suggestion of these evil counsellors suited the king, and the destruction of the monasteries was resolved upon, and effectually and rapidly carried out. Various have been the estimates which historians have made of the character of the famous tyrant, Henry VIII. To Froude, fur instance, he seems a figure at once grand and heroic. By Roman Catholic writers, and not a few learned Ang- licans, he is depicted as a monster of lust and greed. To the calm and judicial mind of bishop Stubbs, he appears certainly neither " grand nor heroic,'' nor yet the monster of lust and greed — " not even as a man more vicious than many sovereigns who have maintained a fair place in history, the unhappy, most unhappy history of his wives having brought upon him an amount of moral hatred which is excessive. No absolutely profligate king could have got into the miserable abyss in which we find Henry VIII. struggling during the latter half of his reign. In morality he was not better, perhaps, than his famous contem- porary, the emperor Charles V., but he was much better than Francis I. and Henry IV., both popular heroes of French history. Yet he was a man of unbounded selfishness, passionately desirous of wealth — not perhaps for wealth's sake, but for the additional power which the possession of vast wealth ever gives." The longing for the spoils of the monasteries was no doubt one great factor in his determination to suppress the religious orders. The moral disease which so often accompanies the possession of supreme power, largely affected Henry, and served to destroy his perception of right and wrong ; and this moral disease was in Henry's case aug- mented by the almost total absence of any real check of public opinion. In any estimate of Henry VIII. the historian must not forget, that from this strange and despotic monarch Emgland and her church, under the Divine power which brings good out of evil, received good as well as evil. Under his arbitrary rule the English Church was freed from the yoke of Rome, retaining all her own proper framework ; was delivered, too, from a mass of soul - destroying superstition ; obtained the Bible in English, and the use of the chief forms of prayer in the vernacular. Very grandly does this same profound scholar and historian thus sum up his masterly estimate of this great and unhappy king : "I do not attempt to portray him after my own idea, but I seem to see in him a grand, gross figure, very far removed from ordinary human sympathies; self-engrossed, self-confident, self-willed, un- scrupulous in act, violent and crafty, but justifying to himself, by his belief in him- self, both unscrupulousness, violence, and craft ; a man who regarded himself as the highest justice, and who looked on mercy as a mere human weakness. And with all this, as needs must have been, a very unhappy man ; wretched in his friends, wretched in his servants, most wretched in his loneli- ness— that awful loneliness in which a king lives, and which the worst as well as the ro4 THE CHURCH best of despots realises. Have I drawn the outline of a monster ? Well, perhaps ; but not the popular notion of this particular portrait. A strong, high-spirited, ruthless, disappointed, solitary creature ; a thing to hate or to pity or to smile at, or to shudder at, or to wonder at, but not to judge." * The ruin and confiscation was effected, strange to say, by regular and constitutional methods. The obsequious Parliament of 1 536 gave to the king all the smaller monasteries which had not above two hun- dred pounds of vearly income (^2,400 of our money). The equally obedient Parlia- ment of 1539 threw over the destruction and confiscation of man}' of the greater monasteries, which had fallen after the rising in the north, generally known as the " Pilgrimage of Grace," the shield of the law. " Let the king and his heirs possess these houses for ever," ran the words of the statute. The Act of 1539, which gave these monasteries to King Henry VIII., was also prospective, and look- ing on to future confiscations, in its provi- sions legalised the seizure by the king of the possessions of other religious houses as yet untouched. Indeed, Parliament under king Henry VIII. did little more than register the peremptory orders of the sovereign as their own wishes. There was little or no public opinion in this age of despotism to check or even to modify the royal will. If public opinion ever did manifest itself, as in the case of the northern risings in 1536-37, it was quickly put down with an iron hand, and its leaders expiated their offence of daring to ■ Bishop Stubbs : " Oxford Lectures," No. xii. OF ENGLAND. [I536. think otherwise than the king, on the scaffold. Thus the monasteries, their estates, their treasures, were confiscated at the arbitrary will of the sovereign. His advisers, notably Cromwell, a few royal favourites, and the families of his successive queens, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, were un- doubtedly sharers in the guilt of the shameful act, and became recipients of a considerable portion of the plunder ; but the real author of the terrible mischief was the king himself, and he was also the chief beneficiary of the vast plunder which resulted from it. The terms of the act alleged that the monastic houses which were under that value, and houses which contained less than twelve religious persons, were the abodes of " manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abomin- able living." The Parliament knew that all this vicious living was true, for the kino- had made to them " a plain declaration " of it, and the king knew it to be true, " as well as by the accounts of his late visita- tions, as by sundry credible informations." The number of monasteries which were suppressed, and their possessions confiscated by the crown forthwith, by the operation of this Act of Dissolution, is variously stated. Stow gives it at three hundred and seventy-six. This number is fairly accurate, but it includes generally the houses which fell between Michaelmas, 1535, and Michaelmas, 1537. This, a comparatively speaking small suppression and confiscation, was, however, only the prelude to a very much larger operation of the same kind, which followed immediately after in the )rears 1538-39-40. 1536 ] THE "BLACK BOOK." 105 It seems to the unimpassioned historian, evil Life and conversation of the monks calmly reviewing even the first great Act and nuns of England has been mainly of spoliation, a tremendous conclusion for built ; a storv, alas ! which has sunk deep the king and his obsequious Parliament to into the hearts of Englishmen, have come to, with only the reports before The Bill for suppressing the little mon- \>a~J •tt&tV ^f^" -'-V^***^ d+jSZ" &GtffZt~-' PORTION OF A FAGE OF THE MS. AT THE RECORD OFFICE, KNOWN AS "COMPERTA" (seep. 106). ( The portion reproduced contains charges of superstition against the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds.) them of a few commissioners, whose posi- tion and character were certainly open to question — of commissioners, too, who had only been at work for weeks ! And yet it is upon the extraordinarily rapid work and report of these officials — Drs. Leigh, Lay ton, and London, and a very few others of less prominence — that the story of the asteries was preceded by a " Declaration made to Parliament by the king of the reports of the visitors, or a digest of them, which was apparently read openly in both Houses. This document, from the dark nature of the disclosures it held, has obtained the name of the " Black Book." It is from bishop Latimer, probably an eye- io6 THE CHURCH witness of the scene, that historians have taken their well-known description of the " thrill of horror " with which the Parlia- ment heard the king's description .of the manifold iniquities of abbots, monks, and nuns ; but the words of bitter irony with which the good bishop qualified his de- scription of the thrill of horror Tire not so well known. " When their enormities," wrote Latimer, " were first read in the Parliament House, they were so great and abominable that there was nothing but ' Down with them ! ' but within a while the same abbots were made bishops for the saving of their pensions." This " Declaration " or " Black Book," whatever it was, is not now in existence ; it disappeared not long, perhaps directly, after it had been used. The common tradition that it was destroyed in the reign of Mary, is baseless. The only documents which we possess concerning the original statement of the presumed guilt of the religious houses, which led to their sup- pression, are two manuscripts which bear the simple title of " Comperta " (Facts discovered). These MSS. agree in the main one with the other ; only in one part is there any real difference. Each of these MSS. is divided into two parts, of which the former is the same in both, and refers to one hundred and twenty monasteries, nearly all situated in the province of York. The second part in one MS. refers to twenty-four " houses," nearly all in the diocese of Norwich ; in the other MS. the second part is concerned with ten other monasteries in the same diocese. It seems probable that there were other " Com- perta " besides the fragmentary ones we possess ; for Bale, the well-known bitter OF ENGLAND. [I536. and intemperate controversialist, who died in 1503, in one of his prefaces gives a quotation which seems to come from a set of lost " Comperta." The reports concern some of the greatest houses in England, such as Battle Abbey, and Christ Church and St. Augustine's, Canterbury.* These '' Comperta " were very possibly the originals upon which the " Declaration " or " Black Book " was founded. At first reading they are terribly damaging to the character of the religious houses. On examination, however, they present a cut- and-dried appearance, following a very rigid and a very summary method of detailing the guilt of the doomed monastic com- munities. In them all, the method is the same. The name of the house is given first ; then follows a list of the religious persons it contained, ranged under the same dreary heads. Some are enrolled as adulterers, some as incestuous, some as guilty of unnatural crimes ; others are thieves or traitors. Of the innocent there was no classification ; nor is it possible from these documents to discover the proportion they bore to the guilty, since the total number of the dwellers in a house never appears. The " Comperta " contain lists of names ; whence are these derived ? The mon- asteries, small and great, seem to have made no confessions. One only lias ever been produced with any admission of moral guilt — that of the Cluniac house of St. Andrew at Northampton — and that solitary instance is tainted with signs of unreality, for the * See Canon Dixon : " History of the Church of England from the abolition of the Roman Juris- diction," chap, v., where a detailed account of the " Comperta " is given. ,S36.] CHARACTER OF result of this " confession " was that the monks of St. Andrew received pensions — all but one, who was promoted to a living ! A vague belief exists that the monasteries made numerous confessions. If these could have been produced and published, they would have been indeed grave pieces of accusation, but no one ever saw these pretended acknowledgments of guilt. The few documents which do exist, which might be construed as confessions, belong to certain religious houses, which in the years 1538-30, under the strong pressure exerted by the royal commissioners, volun- tarily surrendered ; but emphatically it must be repeated, that they contain no acknowledgment at all of moral turpitude. Again, the "Comperta," with their damn- ing but apparently stereotyped accusations, are strangely at variance with the letters of the visitors, some of which are still extant. These speak well or indifferently of about half of the houses they are known to have visited. They are "vivacious or solemn, according to the temper of the writer," but they seldom mention any of the monki: by name, much less give lists of them. They contain, it is true, some very few evil stories, and these Mr. Froude, in his well-known graphic description, has given as samples of the more ordinary experience of the royal commissioners. But there are no more. So different, indeed, are the letters of the visitors which we possess, from the damning document which is said to have been read in Parliament, that Canon Dixon* concludes with certainty that the document in question — ■ the "Declaration" or "Black Book" — came * " History of the Church of England," chap. v. HE "COMPERTA." 107 not immediately from the hands of the visitors at all, but from the hands of Cromwell and the king. The Parliament, before whom the " De- claration " was read, is tersely described by bishop Stubbs* in the following terms : — " Henry had clearly got a Parliament on which he could depend" ; and, again, " the king appointed the Speaker ; in the House of Lords the king exercised the same right when the chancellor (in all cases chosen by himself) was not a peer. The result was that the Speaker, instead of being the defender of the liberties of the House, had often to reduce it to an order that meant obsequious reticence or sullen submission." The same historian writes of the condition of the famous Parliament, in which the dissolution of the greater monasteries was accomplished, as "abject"; and, again, " Henry used his Parliaments merely to register his sovereign acts, . . . re- ceiving the thanks of the Commons for his most arbitrary acts." Hallam, writing of the obsequiousness and venality of Lords and Commons in this reign, says : " Both Houses of Parliament yielded to every mandate of Henry's imperious will ; they bent with every breath of his capiic'.ous humour, they were responsible for the san- guinary statutes, for the tyranny which they sanctioned by law, and for that which they permitted without law." t And yet even that obsequious Parlia- ment, thus described by our most serious historians, was not by any means con- vinced of the truth of Henry's and Crom- * " Oxford Lectures " (Lecture XII.) ; Consti- tutional History, chap. xxi. f "Constitutional History of England," vol. i., p. 51, quoted by Dr. Gasquet. 108 THE CHURCH well's description of monkish enormities ; for Sir Henry Spelman — who, as Dr. Gasquet in his exhaustive, though perhaps over-coloured picture tells us, without doubt gave the traditional account of the passing of the bill giving the lesser houses to the king — says, " It is true the Parlia- ment gave these (the lesser monasteries) to him, but so unwillingly (as I have heard) that when the bill had stuck long in the Lower House, he commanded the Commons to attend him in the forenoon in his gallerv, when he let them wait till late in the afternoon, and then coming out of his chamber, walking a turn or two among them, and looking angrily on them, first on the one side and then on the other, at last 1 1 hear ' (saith he) ' that my bill will not pass ; but I will have it pass, or I will have some of your heads,' and without other rhetoric or persuasion returned to his chamber. Enough had been said, the bill passed, and all was given him as he desired." * Nor apparently were Henry and Crom- well themselves convinced of the truth of the awful allegations so formallv and so publicly made against so many of the " religious." For out of the names which appear in the " Comperta " lists of the *' religious " charged with immorality, some two hundred and fifty in number, more than a third can positively be identified as having received pensions upon the dissolu- tion of their houses, which would scarcely have been the case had their accusers reallv believed in the accuracy of the scathing accusations. Among the nuns these curious statistics are even more * " History of Sacrilege," p. 206. Spelman was born in 1562, less than thirty years after the event. OF ENGLAND. [1536. remarkable. Onlv some twenty-seven nuns in all are charged with vice, and of these seventeen are known to have been after- wards pensioned. One very remarkable case deserves special mention. The abbot of Langdon in Kent, the subject of one of the well-known three or four " stock " stories repeated so often as examples of the usual condition of monastic houses, was described bv the visitor as most immoral, and " the drunkenest knave living." This abbot was subsequently recommended by the king's officers for a pension, which was granted him by the Court of Augmentation for life, or until such time as he received " a fitting ecclesiastical benefice." * Nor indeed were all the houses mentioned in the " Comperta " accused of moral turpi- tude. They all, however, shared the same fate, being suppressed and their property confiscated by the crown. But the most singular proof of the iniquity of the great confiscation is derived from the words of the preamble to the famous act suppressing the smaller houses, those which had not above two hundred pounds a year. In the preamble to the act in question occur words as follows : — "The king's most roval majestv, being supreme head on earth under God of the Church of England, daily studying and devising the increase, advance, and exalta- tion of true doctrine and virtue in the said church to the only glorv and honour of God, having knowledge that the premises be true as well as by the accompts of his late visitations as bv sundry credible in- formation, considering also that divers great and solemn monasteries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right * Cf. Dr. Gasquet, vol i., pp. 352-363. TlNTERN ABBEY. 110 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1536. well kept and observed." The preamble then goes on to say that these great and solemn monasteries, not possessing their full number, should receive certain of the dispossessed persons from the smaller houses. Within four years of this ad- mission by the king, all the " great and solemn monasteries," for which Parliament thanked God, were also swept into the same net of confiscation with the little houses ! None were spared. Their churches were taken — many of them ruthlessly ruined ; their houses were destroyed ; their possessions were claimed by the king, and the monks and nuns were driven out ! Attention has been especially called by Dr. Gasquet to the silence of the " old and contemporary chroniclers Hall, Stow, Grafton, Holinshed, and Fabian, as to the alleged vicious life practised in the cloisters of England." There is no doubt but that the charges, largely manufactured in the first instance for the purpose of providing a sufficient excuse for the great spoliation, have been repeated by successive historians without sufficient examination ; some of these writers perhaps thinking that the great cause of the Reforma- tion in England would be helped by maintaining this plea for an unrighteous act, an act some of us now think is the darkest blot in the whole course of events which, on the whole, have worked such beneficent results in the Church of England. Burnet's history was the great storehouse from which most of the so-called facts were drawn. Hume adopts Burnet's narration and deductions, and, in many places, his very words. In our own days men like Professor Seebohm, with some slight modifications, adopt without inquiry the same manu- factured version. Mr. Froude brilliantly works up the same materials into his lucid and most interesting history, which in this part is one long and able, but, alas ! untruthful, apology for his hero, Henry VIII. At last the spell was broken by Mr. Green, to whom readers of history of all sorts and conditions owe so great a debt. His sketch of the suppression of the monasteries most unfortunately is singularly meagre ; the question evidently did not interest him, and he dismisses it in a few lines. But even this curt and "not very accurate notice is sufficient to show that the eminent historian was gravely dis- satisfied with the popular estimate of the high-handed and unrighteous act of Henry VIII. and his all-powerful minister, Crom- well. He deems, as we have seen, the charges made against the monks " grossly exaggerated"; and again, in the reference to authorities in the same work we read, in the section dealing with Thomas Crom- well, 1530—40: "Mr. Froude's Narrative History of England (vols. I., II., III.), though of great literary merit, is disfigured by a love of paradox, by hero-worship, and by a reckless defence of tyranny and of crime. It possesses during this period little or no historical value." * Recent scholarly works of Anglican as weil as of Roman Catholic writers, with their exhaustive investiga- tions into original documents, have placed the whole question on a new and really historical basis, and the serious student of the future will have to dismiss as absolutely unhistorical the old familiar stories of the * " History of the English People," chap, vi., sec. vi. ,536.] THE "COURT OF monstrous and unheard-of guilt of the monk and nun of the religious houses of England, at the epoch of their suppression and confiscation. While, however, deploring the awful \va>te consequent on the rude and cruel methods adopted by the king- and his servants, and mourning over the irreparable loss to the church of so vast a property, which indisputably belonged to it and which might have been so usefully and beneficially employed for the welfare of the people and the spread and development of true religion and education, it will be seen, as the story of the church is unfolded, that the terrible ruin of the monasteries and so many of their noble churches, and the deplorable wasting of their property, in no wise permanently affected the continuity of the Church of England. This great error only affected the church as the loss of a valuable province affects the status of a powerful nation. It was a lamentable and regrettable loss — nothing more. But we have now to give some brief account of the ruin worked during the years 1536, '37i '38, '39, and '40, the years of the suppression of the monasteries. The course of events had no doubt been carefully planned out and arranged in the busy and skilful brain of the Vicar-General, Cromwell, who, thoroughly comprehending what was in Henry's mind, too faithfully constituted himself the instrument of carrying out his master's wishes. And here it is only just to repeat that, although cupidity and greed were strong factors in Henry's determination to compass the ruin of the religious orders, another factor must be credited as working powerfully in the AUGMENTATIONS." 111 mind of the despotic king. Henry was in- disputably a great statesman and an earnest reformer. As a statesman he felt that the fatal and ever-growing influence of Rome was a serious drawback to the rapidly expanding power of his kingdom. As a reformer he was conscious that the per- petual and all-embracing interferences of the Italian church with the affairs of the Church of England lay as a dead-hand upon all efforts of reformation. If the power of Rome were allowed to continue, no real reformation in doctrines which were, after all, novelties, and in practices which were even by the most devout and earnest men of the age deemed super- stitions, was possible. Owing to various reasons, the principal of which have been already alluded to, Henry knew well that the monasteries were the great strongholds of Romanism in the country. Their de- struction, then, from this point of view, appeared in the light of a patriotic act. Alas ! that this patriotic side of the trans- action was disfigured by such shameful cupidity ; so disfigured, so marred, that the serious historian is even tempted to ignore, if not altogether to deny, the nobler factors which were probably also working in the royal mind when the great suppression was determined upon. Elaborate preparations were made by the Crown for the gathering in and harvesting of the rich plunder which was looked for from the confiscation of the monastic lands and other possessions. Everything was done with a careful show of legality, and almost the last measure passed by the Parliament which gave to Henry VIII. the so-called lesser monasteries, was the creation of the " Court of Augmentations." ii2 THE CHURCH So elaborate was the machinery of this court, and so highly paid were its chief officials, that it seems more than probable that the king and Cromwell were meditat- ing a further and important development in confiscation ; were looking forward from the first to a plunder far more valuable than anything which could be hoped to have resulted from the dissolution of the lesser and poorer religious houses. The duties of this important newly created court were to deal with all lands and movables coming into the possession of the Crown through the suppression of the religious houses. The Court of Augmentations con- sisted at first of a chancellor, a treasurer, two legal officers, ten auditors, seventeen receivers, and others. The salaries were very considerable, the chancellor receiving £"*,o a year (some ^9,000 of our money) and the other officials in proportion. As will be seen, in the next four or five years enormous property passed through the hands of these men. A fresh Com- mission was immediately nominated to examine into the revenues of the mon- asteries, and to arrange for the immediate dissolution of all which fell beneath the limit of income fixed in the Act of Parlia- ment. Before the close of the year 1536 large sums had already been paid into the treasury of the Court of Augmentations, and many monasteries had already been desolated. The system by which suppression was carried out was generally the same. Six royal commissioners, with a retinue of servants, presented themselves at the doomed house. Questions were put. Rigid inventories were made of all plate, jewels, and other goods and property. No OF ENGLAND. [i536. more rents were allowed to be received. The very bells of the church and the lead which covered the roofs were scheduled. Everything, even the poor furniture of the cells, was sold. The number of " houses " which fell after the passing of the act of 1536 was, as we said, about 362 to 376. Roughly, two thousand monks and nuns, rather more than less, the monks being of course largely in the majority, were ejected from their homes. In addition to these, some nine or ten thousand dependent servants, farm labourers, and others connected with the monasteries then dissolved, were de- prived of their means of livelihood. The annual value of the confiscated estates was probably about ^"8,000. The plate and jewels and the proceeds of the sales of lead, bells, furniture, and even buildings has been reckoned at ^"100,000. These amounts, it must be borne in mind, must be multiplied by ten or twelve to arrive at the present value of these sums. But although the plunder was very large, nothing like these amounts found their way into the king's treasury. Corruption existed everywhere, and vast sums were wasted and made away with, before the crown was enriched by the confiscated spoils. Of the dissolved communities about fifty- two — the exact number is uncertain — were almost immediately refounded by the king; only, however, to fall again in the sub- sequent sweeping confiscations. Of these fifty - two refounded houses, curiously enough, several had been among the number of those gravely defamed in the " Comperta," and in more than one case a superior incriminated by the visitors was re-appointed in the new foundation ! < 7. C < o o t/: t« W r/ ft. C/l W /A/ H < H4 THE CHURCH It has been a matter of surprise that the nation bore so calmly this high-handed and cruel act of sacrilege. We have al- ready alluded to this, pointing out the difficulty of exciting public opinion at this period, in addition to which it must be remembered that the confiscation was carried out under the immediate sanction of the obsequious and submissive Parlia- ment, and directly under the direction of a monarch who was practically absolute, and who brooked no opposition to his will. Yet in spite of these reasons, which may be fairly alleged as accounting for the general apathetic acquiescence, there was a moment in Henry VIII.'s reign when his throne was in danger owing to a burst of popular indignation ; when a formidable revolt of well-nigh half his kingdom threatened to overturn his government. The insurrection, commonly known as the " Pilgrimage of Grace," gives some indica- tion of a popular feeling usually supposed to have been absolutely apathetic and careless in the matter of the suppression of the monasteries ; but in the end this abortive though dangerous rising gave an impetus to the progress of the " suppres- sion," and afforded a colourable pretext for enlarging the already broad limits of the Parliamentary sanctions to the confiscation. Before the popular rising known as the " Pilgrimage of Grace," only the so-called " lesser " houses were swept away ; but directly after the rising the confiscation of the greater communities began, under the pretext that they had been concerned in the northern treason. The late spring and summer of 1536 had witnessed the extraordinary rapidity of the operations of the royal commissioners. OF ENGLAND. [,S36. House after house, whose property came under the limitation of the act, fell. Yorkshire and Lincolnshire especially were affected. The spectacle of so many monks and nuns and their numerous dependents rendered homeless, the distress of the poor who had long been succoured and helped in many ways by the various religious communities, the sacrilegious destruction of many churches, so long the object of veneration and love, stirred up a general discontent ; and before the close of the harvest season of 1536 a tumult, excited in Louth against the action of the com- missioners in the case of a small Cistercian nunnery in the neighbourhood, gave the signal for what rapidly became a general outbreak. The rising spread from one town to another. Dr. Mackerel, the abbot of Barlings, an important house of Praemon- stratensian canons, was at first conspicuous as the principal leader of the insurgents. A small force under the Duke of Suffolk was despatched by the king to disperse these rebels against his authority, and a royal proclamation was put forth excusing the action of the confiscating Commission, which had so stirred up men's minds in Lincolnshire. Some of the king's words in this pro- clamation are remarkable when read in connection with subsequent events. " Ye speak," wrote the king, " of the suppression of religious houses, but the religious houses were given to us by Act of Parliament ; none arc suppressed where God was well served, but those where most vice, mischief, and abomination of living were used ; and that doth well appear by their own confessions, subscribed by their own hands in the time of our '53& j THE "PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE." ii5 visitation." This public proclamation ill accords with Henry's subsequent action, when the great houses where, according to the king's own showing in the Act of Parliament, as here, " God was well served," were also suppressed and confiscated, the innocent and the guilty (supposing they were guilty) suffering alike ! The prompt military demonstration of the king, and his words showing the absolute legality of his acts — nothing having been done outside parliamentary sanction — put an end to the Lincolnshire outbreak. The tumultuous forces of the rebels, numbering, it is said, some 60,000 persons in different districts, dispersed somewhat sullenly, partly persuaded by the king's words, partly over- awed by his soldiers. About a hundred rebels were arrested for after-examination, among whom was the abbot of Barlings, who had been the conspicuous figure of the rising ; the rest received the royal pardon. As the suppression of the monasteries went on, however, the smouldering dis- content flamed up again and spread more rapidly, the important county of Yorkshire becoming seriously disturbed. The same causes which excited the men of Lincoln- shire were at work through all the northern counties. These causes were well detailed subsequently ' by Robert Aske, who was afterwards known as one of the principal leaders of the rebellion. " Men's hearts much grudged," wrote Aske in his sub- sequent narrative to the king, " with the suppression of the abbeys by reason the same would be the destruction of the whole religion in England ; and their especial great grudge is against the lord Cromwell, being reputed the destroyer of the Commonwealth." " He did grudge against the statute of suppressions, and so did the whole country, because the abbeys in the north parts gave great alms to poor men and laudably served God. By reason of the said suppression the divine service of Almighty God is much diminished, great number of masses unsaid, and the blessed consecration of the Sacrament now not used and showed in those places, to the distress of the faith and spiritual com- fort to man's soul. The temple of God is now razed and pulled down, the ornaments and relics of the church of God unrever- ently used, the tombs and sepulchres of honourable and noble men pulled down and sold. No hospitality is now in these places kept." " Also the abbeys were one of the beauties of this realm to all men and strangers passing through the same. Also all gentlemen were much succoured in their needs, with many their young sons there assisted, and in nunneries their daughters brought up in virtue." Thus, in the one formidable rebellion of the reign of Henry VIII., the causes of the armed resistance to the king's will were clearly in the main ecclesiastical. The destruction of the abbeys and the monastic communities was felt to be a grave blow to religion, a hardship to the poor, and an injury to the nation. The details of this insurrection, known as the " Pilgrimage of Grace," are well known, and we only touch on them in relation to our story of the monastic sup- pression. It was just as the Lincolnshire rising was being quelled, about October in this same year (1536), that a widespread confederation of gentry, clergv, and people was being formed in Yorkshire under that name. A lawyer of fair lineage, but n6 comparatively an unknown personage, named Robert Aske, rather against his will, was raised by popular acclaim to the headship of this confederation. The reasons which generally actuated them have been given in Aske's own words; the object of the revolt is briefly set out in the proclamation issued bv the rebel leader. " Evil-disposed persons," it declared, " being of the king's council, have incensed his grace with many new inventions, contrary to the faith of God, the honour of the king, and the weal of the realm. They intend to destroy the Church of England and her ministers ; they have robbed and spoiled, and intend utterly to rob and spoil the whole bodv of this realm. We have now taken this pilgrim- age for the preservation of Christ's church, of the realm, and of the king." On enter- ing York the first act of Aske, the chief of the insurgent army, was to fix a proclama- tion on the doors of the cathedral inviting all monks and nuns dispossessed from their houses to report themselves, with a view to their immediate restoration to their monasteries. The Yorkshire revolt spread with extra- ordinary rapiditv. In the ranks of the insurgents were soon to be found the heads of a verv large proportion of the principal northern families. Thirtv thousand men, well armed and equipped, in an incredibly short space of time were under arms, with the cognisance of the " five wounds of Christ," the symbol chosen by the Pilgrim- age, broidered upon their pilgrim badges. Although these formidable insurgents pro- fessed loyalty to the king, and only insisted upon the repeal of the hated church acts and the dismissal and punishment of guilty ministers, Cromwell being especially aimed [1536. at, yet when once such a power becomes dominant in a nation, the gravest changes are at once imminent ; and there is no doubt but that at one time the throne of Henry was in danger. But the Tudor sovereigns were ever at their greatest in moments of extreme peril, and the skill and courage of Henry VIII. in these critical days are not the least among the evidences which we possess of the commanding genius of this strange, master- ful sovereign. Very soon he gathered together a dependable force of some 50,000 men. Strong reinforcements were sent to his generals in the north. Heralds were sent into the cities and towns of the dis- affected districts to tell the king's version of what he had done in the matter of the monasteries. Negotiations were opened with the leading rebels. A general pardon was promised, and certain popular con- cessions to the people were offered ; but in church matters he declined to yield to any pressure. He, however, volunteered to summon a Parliament at York in the following summer, when all misunderstand- ings between the king and his subjects should be cleared up. On the part of the rebels there seems to have been no definite plan of action, and no one master mind arose to guide and direct their proceedings. Neither in rank nor in ability was Robert Aske equal to the position of chief, and jealousies among the rebel chiefs weakened and divided their counsels. Delays and negotiations con- tributed to weaken the cause of the mal- contents ; the army of the Pilgrimage of Grace gradually melted away, while the forces of the king grew every day stronger. Aske himself was received into royal favour, THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I536.] INTRIGUES and sent for to the court to consult with the king ; and thus without bloodshed the terrible danger, which for a time threatened Henry, was averted, and the abortive OF POLE. [17 was, however, a third act of the eventful drama of the revolt, which had still to be played out. The principal agent in this miserable third act was one, concerning ASKE AFFIXING HIS PROCLAMATION TO THE DOOR OF YORK CATHEDRAL. reaction against the royal measures left the sovereign more powerful than ever. Thus before the eventful year 1536 closed, the curtain fell on the second act of the revolt of Englishmen against the suppression of the monastic orders. There whom we shall hear much in our future history. Reginald Pole, a kinsman and in his youth a favourite of king Henry, had in the matter of the divorce thrown in his lot with Rome, and then, as the bitter enemy of the English king, was regarded u8 with high favour at the papal court. Rome had been deluded bv wild rumours touching the magnitude and success of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and Pole was raised to the dignity of a cardinal by Pope Paul III. at the close of the year 1536. The young cardinal, invested with the dignity of legate, set out for England (which he never reached), imagining that he would find there a victorious faction ready and eager to dethrone Henry VIII. and prepared to restore England to the obedience of Rome. On his journey he received at Lyons the melancholy tidings of the utter failure of the " Pilgrimage of Grace," and learned also that he himself had been proclaimed a rebel, and that a price was set upon his head. He was obliged at once to quit the friendly soil of France ; but from the neutral territory of Cambray, for some months he fanned the slumbering discontent which still smouldered in the north of England. Affairs in the disaffected districts, however, now wore a very different com- plexion from what they had presented in the early days of the " Pilgrimage of Grace " revolt. A strong royalist force was now in the field ; the more important towns were occupied by Henry's garrisons ; the chief leaders in the late rising were known to have made terms with the king ; and Aske, the leader, was even supposed to have been taken into his confidence. But in spite of these unpromising pro- spects of any successful renewal of hostili- ties, fresh outbreaks of popular indignation — aroused by the continued suppression of the religious houses — did break forth. There can be no doubt but that Pole's mission from Rome strongly influenced [1537- men's minds at this juncture ; and it is evident from his letters to the Pope, that he maintained an active correspond- ence with England.* The new outbreak was not a general one, however ; it was spasmodic, and confined to certain northern districts, and without apparently any concerted plans, and was quickly damped down. Sir Francis Bigod, a York- shire gentleman, headed the new attempt at revolt ; he was taken prisoner by the king's forces, and very soon after we read of the arrest of the leaders of the once formidable " Pilgrimage of Grace." It is difficult to ascertain what special fresh offence they had given, since they had laid down their arms and submitted to Henry's authority. Nothing could have happened more opportunely for Henry's designs, however, than this new and ill-advised attempt at insurrection. What in the first place was evidently a national outburst of feeling, was now coloured with the suspicion of Roman intrigues ; and Henry was enabled to appeal to patriotic motives as a pretext for the terrible severities which disfigured the history of the year 1 537. Martial law was proclaimed, and seventy- four persons of various degrees among the clergy and laity of the north were hanged. But the vengeance of Henry was far from being appeased by these wholesale executions. The Lincolnshire prisoners connected with the first act of the northern rising, who had been since their arrest languishing in confinement, were brought to trial, and under the new developments of the great rebellion, nineteen of the * Froude : "History of England,'' chap, xiv., ad. 1537. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1537.] END OF THE prisoners were executed. Among the victims of the king's cruel severity were several illustrious prisoners who had been more or less mixed up with the earlier scenes of the revolt — such as the abbot of Barlings and Lord Hussey. The fate of the principal leaders of the " Pilgrimage of Grace " was next decided upon, and the abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, Lord Darcy, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir John Bulmer, Robert Aske, and others — pro- minent advocates of the persecuted and harried monastic orders — were hanged or beheaded as felons. When this bloody vengeance had been taken — to use the words of Henry's apologist — ■ the insur- rection which at one time seemed so formidable, " sank down into rest." "PILGRIMAGE." 119 This sketch of the "Pilgrimage of Grace " and other disturbances in the Northern counties, is given simply to show that the high - handed proceedings of king Henry, and of his minister Cromwell, were viewed with grave, even in some cases with a passionate disfavour. The subsequent rising in the West, and the demands of the Western insurgents early in the reign of Edward VI. (1549), bear a similar testimony. Still, on the whole, the acquiescence of the nation — perhaps a sullen acquiescence — in the suppression of the monastic orders, bears out what has been already said, that deep into the hearts of Englishmen had sunk the conviction that the real work of the monasteries was done. sr. mary's abbey, york. CHAPTER XLVII. THE FINAL CONFISCATION OF ALL MONASTIC HOUSES. Effect of the Northern Rebellion on the Monastic Suppression— Magnitude of the Confiscation — Political Motives — The Friaries — Their Poverty — The Convents — Their Place in Female Education — Destruction of the Shrines — The Great Monasteries — Enforced "Voluntary Surrenders " — The Legalising Act of 1539 — Losses of the Suppression — In Books — Works of Art— Churches and Buildings — Amount of the Spoil — Terrible Waste of the Property— Small Portion restored to any Religious Purpose — Consequent Poverty of Benefices — Loss to the Poor — To Education — Indirect Benefits from the Suppression — The Un-English Character of Monasticism — Deliverance from Rome and from Mediaeval Superstitions. THE disastrous ending of those north- ern risings recounted in our last chapter, undoubtedly had a great effect upon the progress of the great monastic confiscation. The Act of Par- liament had especially limited the sup- pressions of monasteries to those houses which possessed revenues under a certain amount. It only contemplated the de- struction of the so-called ''smaller'' religious communities. The more im- portant houses were generally included under the terms — "great and solemn monasteries where (thanks be to God) religion was right well kept and ob- served." The original act never con- templated these being confiscated. But the immediate result of the " Pilgrimage of Grace" was that not a few of the larger and more important communities fell ; some because the abbots or priors had been openly concerned in the late rising ; others which had taken no open part in the great rebellion were forced to sur- render upon suspicion of complicity in the acts or designs of the insurgents. This course of action broke the spell which at first seemed to protect the larger and wealthier monasteries, and paved the way to the general and universal con- fiscation which shortly followed. Even the apologists of the suppression confess the shameful injustice of these proceedings. Thus Burnet argues, " How justly soever these abbots were attainted, the seizing of their abbey lands was thought a great stretch of law, since the offence of an ecclesiastical incumbent is a personal thing, and cannot prejudice the church." Among the monasteries which fell after the northern rising, accused of complicity in the rebellion or suspected as being more or less involved in the acts of the in- surgents, were the abbeys of Barlings, Jervaulx, Whalley, and Kirksted, the priory of Bridlington with its splendid minster church, and a very little later the great abbey of Furness in Lancashire, whose abbot was thought to be incriminated with the northern rebels. There was now ab- solutely no one to oppose the king, no public opinion, no Parliamentary feeling. Parliament was ready to pass any acts Henry might desire for his purpose. I537-] GROWTH OF THE CONFISCATION. i2r An enormous, almost incalculable plunder commissioners, and no doubt clearly saw, seemed to wait for him to stretch out his too, that the accusations were grossly hand to gather it in. exaggerated and largely false. But he was FURNF.SS ABBEY. convinced of their uselessness as com- munities, and he chose to believe that their property would be better used if in his hands. It did not take much to convince him by a similar reasoning that the ''great and solemn monasteries where religion The king had already persuaded himself that the destruction of the smaller mon- asteries would conduce to the advantage of religion. So able and astute a man of course saw through the venality of the instruments employed by Cromwell as 122 THE CHURCH was right well kept " were, after all, cum- bering the earth. Ever)T monastery, large and small, was also in his eyes a stronghold of hated and dangerous Rome, and the vision of the enormous plunder which would be his if the great houses were sup- pressed, decided the general course of his future action. From the day when the lives of Darcy, Aske, and the crowd or other rebel chiefs of the north who had dared to oppose his will were sacrificed, and the great rebellion finally put down, the suppression of the greater and more valuable houses began to be carried out with as little delay as possible. The work of ruin only took about three years from the date of the last executions of the leaders of the fatal " Pilgrimage of Grace," a.d. 1557-40. In considering the magnitude of the revolution in the condition of England which the suppression of the monastic orders brought about, the difference in the actual population of our country in the years 1536-40 and in the closing years of the nineteenth century, must ever be borne in mind. In the sixteenth century these numbers were considerably below four millions. In the last vears of the nine- teenth century thirty millions would be a frir estimate. So when the friaries were dissolved, an event which took place a few months after the close of the rising in the north (in the autumn of 1538), and eighteen hundred men, whose life-work la)' mainly among the poor, were dispersed, an enormous gap was necessarily made in religious ministrations among the people. In the sixteenth century there were in England about two hundred friaries, divided as follows : — The order of St. Francis had OF ENGLAND. [,538. sixty ; of St. Dominic there were fifty-three ; the Austin friars had forty-two ; the Car- melites thirty-six houses. There were besides these a few communities of Trini- tarian and other less important orders. The houses of the friars were built in or near the more important towns. With some rare exceptions in such centres as London and York, the houses and the churches of the friars were generally poor and insignificant. They possessed but few farms and manors, and their churches, bevond the sites, which were in some cases valuable, contained little which could in- crease the hoard in the royal treasury. The hope of plunder can scarcely have been a factor in the royal mind therefore, when the suppression of the friaries was resolved upon. It was rather the persua- sion that these men were as a rule devoted to the papal system, and bitterly hostile to the new state of things in England, which probably moved Henry and Cromwell to decree their immediate dissolution. The suppression of the Mendicant orders, it must be remembered, followed close upon the termination of the northern rebellion, the latter phases of which had been closely connected with Roman intrigues carried on under the influence of cardinal Pole. " The eighteen hundred English friars,'' to use the words of their own Roman Catholic apologist, Gasquet, " formed part only of a vast army which possessed battalions in every country, and which was governed by a supreme commander, dwell- ing in a foreign country, and generally beneath the very shadow of the papal throne. Their very poverty tended to make them independent of crown control ; the friars were free to choose or accept an 15381 THE FRIARIES SUPPRESSED. 123 appointed superior without the king's (or the bishop's) consent or licence." The friaries had been left alone when the dissolution of the smaller and poorer houses was carried out. Their deep poverty had preserved them. The policy of spoliation had little to gain from their confiscation, and the considerable popu- larity which was still enjoyed by the Mendicants among the lower orders of the people, also no doubt in some degree protected them. It would have been a great risk to have run for a very little gain. So the friaries remained untouched. But the northern rebellion, and the open interference of Rome, to a large extent altered the royal policy. There was strong suspicion that as a body the friars were playing among the people of England the part of vehement partisans of Rome ; and seeing that the deliberate policy of Henry had definitely cut the bonds which bound the Church of England to Rome asunder, such a procedure as the sup- pression of the friaries — confessedly sadly fallen off from their original earnestness of aim and purpose — under certain con- ditions, would have admitted very strong pleas of justification. But the miserable circumstances of the suppression of these poor communities were such as must effectively bar any such pleas ; the same miserable greed and appetency on the part of the king and his commissioners for vulgar plunder, characterised the sup- pression of these numerous but very poor houses, as we have noticed, and shall have further to notice in the case of the more wealthy churches and houses of the Bene- dictines, and other monastic orders. Two or three contemporary, and in some cases official notices will best show the extreme poverty of the friaries, and the circumstances which accompanied their suppression in the year 1538. Richard Ingworth, bishop-suffragan of Dover — who was conspicuous as a royal commissioner in the later scenes of the confiscation, and who has not left behind him the villainous reputation for covetous- ness and worse, which characterised so many of his colleagues — writing to Lord Cromwell, 1st April, 153Q, says that in the north of England he has received for the king twenty-six friaries, " the poorest houses that ever he went to." Again, the same bishop Ingworth says : " I have received to the king's use twelve houses of friars (situated in the northern midlands). They were all in poverty, and little left, scarce to pay the debts. In these houses the king's grace shall have but the lead . . . and twenty-four bells, such as they be, and of every house a chalice " (of silver). In the twenty-six houses of friars in the north which Ingworth dissolved in the early months of 1539, he obtained little except the worth of the sacred vessels and the lead of the roofs. In Scarborough he reports that the friaries were so impoverished, that to pay their liabilities the very stalls from the church and the screen-work had to be sold. " So that nothing was left but stone and glass ; and all that the king can expect to get is the lead off the roof and very poor chalices." How roughly and cruelly the commis- sioners went to work in the case of these poor houses and simple churches of the friars, is best described in such reports as Dr. London's. "At Reading," writes i24 THE CHURCH this sacrilegious man, "I did only deface the church, all the windows being full of friars " [he was alluding apparently to the stained glass], "and I left the roof and walls whole for the king's use ... I sold the ornaments and the cells in their dormitory. At Aylesbury I did only deface the church.'' At Warwick, he says, he only broke the windows of the friars' church ; and again he adds : " I never pulled down any house entirely, but so defaced them that they could not be used again." Writing of his work at Oxford, this infamous commissioner speaks of the friars' copes and vestments : these he considered " pretty," and so he took them. The rest of their possessions he deemed practically valueless. On the whole, the value of the spoils of the friars, swept into the royal treasury, was very small. Only the sites and, in some cases, the buildings were valuable. Situated often in the heart of great towns, the spaces on which the buildings were erected were much sought after, and the crown, by disposing of these, made considerable profit. Instances of such sales are given from Lincoln, Grimsby, Reading, Wor- cester, and other places. The dispossessed friars were treated harshly and without consideration ; only a very small sum was given them on their being turned adrift into the world. In very rare instances, a small pension was granted! Considerable misapprehension exists on the subject of the convents of nuns, all of which, without exception, shared in the common fate ot suppression between the years i 536-1 540. Much doubt exists in OF ENGLAND. [i536. the general mind as to the number of these nuns, as to their possessions, as to their occupations, and, lastly, as to the charges brought against them — charges which are supposed to have brought about the dissolution of their houses. At the time of the great monastic coa- fiscation in England, there were, all told, about one hundred and forty convents owned by nuns ;* of these, rather more than half belonged to the Benedictine order. They were scattered over all the counties, a preponderating number being in Yorkshire. These contained in all roughly about 1,560 nuns — this is, of course, exclusive of the dependents and tenants and various farm servants and others. Some 850 of these nuns were Benedictines. These English convents were mostly insignificant in numbers, and their property was but small. In- deed, in the report of the commission which examined, for the purposes of the destroying Act of Parliament of 1536, into the resources of the various communities, it appears that only eighteen out of the one hundred and forty women's houses possessed property above the Parliament- ary limit of £200 a year. The Cistercian houses seem to have been singularly desti- tute of resources. They were twenty-six in number, and in all these only one was reported as having more than the £200 income, and in many of the communities the yearly income was even under jQ^o. In the first months of the suppression in 1536, the king was not rigorous in insisting upon the surrender of many of these poor female communities. But the * Cf. Dr. Gasquet : " Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," chap. vi. 1536—1540] THE NUNNERIES. 12: mercy thus shown only continued a very little while. The nunneries of England were all ruined and confiscated before the year 1 540-1 had run its course. charged with vice of any kind ; and as we have already remarked when speaking generally of the charges brought against the monastic orders, even of these seven- SI'OLIATION" OF A SHRINE. As regards the fair fame of these houses, all involved in one common ruin, on re- ferring to the extant " Comperta," which em- braced the communities of some thirteen counties, only twenty-seven nuns in all the convents which were visited are and-twenty, all but ten can be identified as subsequently receiving the royal grant of a pension — a fact which pretty well dis- poses of the reality of the charges brought against at least seventeen of the twenty- seven accused. Thusv arguing from the 126 THE CHURCH very reports themselves, prepared by hostile and somewhat unscrupulous com- missioners, the fair fame of the English nuns at the period of the Reformation suffers but little, when a careful investi- gation is made of the facts as we learn them from contemporary documents. As regards their occupations, there is no doubt but that the nunneries had long been, and when the hour of their suppression sounded, were still, in many cases, great educational homes. Robert Aske, the leader of the northern revolt, has been already quoted as urging, among the Yorkshire grievances consequent upon the dissolution of the religious houses, " that those nunneries were suppressed in which the daughters of Yorkshire gentle- men were brought up in virtue." Dr. Gasquet does not hesitate to say, and his assertion is no baseless one, " that in the convents the female portion of the popu- lation found their only teachers, the rich as well as the poor, and the destruction of these religious houses was the absolute extinction of any systematic education for women during a long period."* At the convent of Winchester, for instance, the list of the ladies being educated within the walls at the time of the suppression shows something of the nature of the work which was going on in a Benedictine nunnery in 1538-q. The same writer quotes an interesting passage on the educational work of the English nuns in a Wiltshire convent, by an eye-witness. " There the young maids were brought up where they had examples of piety and humility and modesty and obedience. . . . Here * " Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," chap. vi. OF ENGLAND. [1536-1540. they learned needlework, the art of con- fectionary, surgery, physic, writing, draw- ing." Without supposing that all the one hundred and forty female religious houses were thus usefully occupied, there is no doubt that not a few of them were centres of female education ; and these were all swept away by the same wave of ruthless destruction which overwhelmed the whole monastic system. Very few, however, of the convents thus destroyed were rich enough to bring any great amount of spoil to the royal treasury. Only here and there among the confiscated houses was there a wealthy one. As an instance of such, we may cite Barking, perhaps the most ancient and historical. From this great nunnery came a rich hoard of priceless plate into the king's hands. The plate weighed, it is said, 5,000 ounces. Among the treasures of Barking was a monstrance weighing sixty- five ounces, enriched with a precious bervl. Here, too, were found many costly vestments of gold and tissue, so beautiful that they were specially reserved for the king's use. The whole story of the sup- pression of the nunneries is a very sad one, and little excuse can be found, even by Henry's apologists, for this high-handed act of royal tyranny. One feature connected with the sup- pression— the destruction of relics, shrines, and images to which some special sanctity was attached — requires special notice. Among the grave abuses in religion and popular religious worship which were swept away in the course of the Refor- mation in England, the misplaced rever- ence and devotion to relics and images, 1536—1540.] DESTRUCTION OF SHRINES AND RELICS. 127 which had led to so much imposture and childish superstition, will ever hold a prominent place. What was, however, done in the course of the suppression by the royal commissioners of Henry VIII., appointed by Cromwell, was so coloured by human passion and greed that it forms an almost repulsive episode in the great confiscation. In reviewing the whole re- formation work in England, all sober theologians among us unfeignedly rejoice that these objects of an utterly misplaced devotion were removed. But the circum- stances under which they were swept away in the course of the monastic sup- pression in the years 1 536-1 540, are deeply regrettable. The age which especially loved to multiply these curious objects of devotion was the Crusading period. The armies of the Cross obtained from the Greeks — often, no doubt, at a great price — relics, consisting of fragments of bones, portions of the dress, a few drops of the blood or some famous and distinguished saints ; the value of the relic, of course, depending on the sanctity of the person with whom the relic was connected. Thus the notorious relic of the Holy Blood of Hales, which has been the subject of so many curious explanations and inquiries, was probably obtained by Richard of Cornwall, the founder of Hales, for his house, and it has been suggested with some probabilitv that this Richard, who was king of the Romans, procured at a great price the precious relic, knowing it to have been one of the spoils of the sanctuaries of Con- stantinople, which had been brought into Germany after the sack of that city by the Latins in the year 1204. To give instances of the estimation in which these curious treasures were held in the earlier Middle- Ages, we find such men as the learned and saintly Hugh of Lincoln, deservedly reckoned the foremost English churchman of his day, travelling through France making a collection of relics, of each of which he was careful to require the pedigree. Baldwin, the second emperor of Con- stantinople, was driven by his necessities to sell the sacred treasures of the imperial chapel. St. Louis of France became the possessor of the most famous of these — the. crown of thorns. This he received with all reverence in Paris, barefoot and clad only in his shirt. Bishop Grosseteste, the scholar and statesman who occupies so prominent a place among the churchmen of his age, preached a sermon on the authenticity of the Holy Blood presented by Henry III. to Westminster abbey. All this was, so to speak, in the days of the childhood of Europe, when able and devout men shared in these strange and curious superstitions. Time went on. The relics multiplied, and, as was only too probable, afforded not unfrequently oppor- tunity for unscrupulous men to play upon, the credulity of their fellows. There were not a few relics, when the Reformation storm burst upon the Church of England, which had been unmistakably manufactured for the purposes of gain and deception. Images, for instance, in which skilful mechanism enabled the body of the image to move, the head to bow, the eyes to turn upwards, the arms to open as though in the act of blessing. Such devices to excite special devotion among the uneducated and unthinking masses were, of course, utterly unworthy, and deserved no mercy. 128 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1538. Alain-, also, of the relics preserved in the monastic churches, such as the wood of the Holy Cross, the milk of the Blessed Virgin, the girdle of St. Mary Magdalene, had before the Reformation become utterly discredited among thinking or educated men. The scorn and indignation of Eras- mus and Colet at such pitiful exhibitions have been already dwelt upon, and the feelings of earnest and devout souls like Colet on the subject, were no doubt shared in by very many of the disciples of the new learning. But the appetite for plunder did not allow the commissioners of Cromwell merely to destroy such images, and to scatter to the winds such relics. There were scattered through the cathedrals and abbeys of England many beautiful and most costly shrines, which contained remains of local saints, undoubtedly genuine remains. " Among the peculiar treasures of the great abbeys and cathedrals were the mortal remains of the holy men in whose memories they had been founded, who by martyrs' deaths or lives of super- human loftiness had earned the veneration of later ages. The bodies of these saints had been gathered into costly shrines, which a beautiful piety had decorated with choicest offerings. . . . Such dust was looked upon with awe and pious fear." * In the year 1538 directions were issued that every noted shrine should be de- molished. The king's officers were ordered to take away the shrine and bones, with all the ornaments of the same shrine, and the shrine was ordered to be destroyed. As the result of this general order, irre- parable mischief was done. To take a few * Froude. examples : at Winchester the magnificent shrine of St. Swithun's, which for centuries had been the glory of Winchester, was thus despoiled. The official charged with the work writes : " About three o'clock in the morning we made an end of the shrine here ; the silver alone would amount to near two thousand marks." The same night he took possession of the cross of emeralds, the cross called " Hierusalem," another cross of gold, two chalices of gold, and some silver plate. On the Sunday morning, when the shrine had been dis- posed of, the officials charged with the work went round the choir, and stood with their lights before the splendid reredos. There, so runs the account, " we viewed the altar. It will be worth taking down. This done, we proceeded to sweep away all the rotten bones that be called relics." The result of this Winchester desecration of the shrines was 1,035 ounces of gold, 13,886 ounces of silver-gilt, and other treasures ! This went into the royal trea- sury. The beautiful and venerable shrine of St. Richard of Chichester was ruthlessly destroyed, and the commissioners returned an account of 118 ounces of gold with stone enamel and agate, 5,255 ounces of silver, with other precious vestments and treasures. The magnificent and stately shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham, when destroyed, with the treasures from the cathedral, yielded a yet greater harvest to the spoiler. This was one of the most sumptuous shrines of England, and the value of the treasure taken away was enormous. The shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury was reputed to be the richest in the world. As an art treasure, canon Dixon does not CffiOjuo; t r ama auof ta eft p!c?aft?« ctblufattis racial plo?a£ alios fuos: etnolutt c otolan q; no f fit \ |@0ClC080 1 otma one bona gceptm?: v_A. que Ccto> nobis ptectbjf pjefenttsbtteqsparttcr^eterne tnbite totem fubuDtu.pet bnm Ofnn. to *:jr»0:iiccttt?pafltone gaubetangclict collaubat fclnl bet. f>0.22>fus bcuecat gentes tn tyete mtatetuSipolluetuttemplii tmemm tuu i pofuetuntijietftn { porno? cufto* t>iam.fc}>;ue.tu;ceto2tgo. ^DjattO* engp&mtg eeegsgtoffe ftefl-tffco^Otrobmt: pica i^»^titem£4^^=^ a< #eojtabenatua?ate/befct8 fte- pbano /be f cto toljane/f betnno- centtbustm.^pla. ^Dfspottfey* in cot bmus m#.45£. po&uct one tug caput ct9eo;ton$ Be lapfi^» l^onjtftt Dfie. tn cot bnt? m£*&ex£ 0.ffjft Eujcftilffe bit. o?. cflcebeclso.b.epla" partttt be.<5?. B9qut.3iis,tf tejfi. Ceqn\ Celette o?ga. « wage. PAGE OF A HEREFORD MISSAL, CONTAINING THE SERVICE OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY, FROM WHICH ALL THE PRAYERS REFERRING TO HIM HAVE BEEN ERASED. (British Museum.) 69 130 THE CHURCH hesitate to call it the glory of England, almost the common property of Christen- dom, as " on it the princes of Christen- dom for centuries had vied in laying upon it the most precious products of the mine and of the loom, the fairest works of the most skilful artificers ; the offerings of thousands of pilgrims, continued through three hundred years, had been poured in a golden flood upon the church and city of the martyr." In the case of this most costly of the shrines, a special royal man- date was issued, and in the autumn of 1538 St. Thomas of Canterbury was de- clared a traitor, and it was enjoined that ''henceforth his images and pictures throughout the whole realm should be destroyed ; that the days used to be festival in his name should not be ob- served, and the service office and prayers in his name should not be read." The windows of jewelled glass which the church had raised in countless churches in his honour were broken, to the irre- parable injury of priceless specimens of one of the loveliest of mediaeval arts. All this was done in some way to legalise the appropriation of the treasures of the Can- terbury shrine. The plunder of jewels and gold from the shrine and hoard were carried out in two vast chests upon the shoulders of six or eight stalwart men, and the rest of the precious things filled twenty-six carts, that waited at the door to carry away the rich spoil to London. The bare official catalogue of the treasures of this desecrated shrine, thus broken to pieces and carried off, reads like a page out of the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights. The above instances are conspicuous examples, but only examples, of what was OF ENGLAND. [,557. done all over England. All the shrines, many of them rich beyond description in choice specimens of mediaeval art — art such as the world had never seen before, and probably will never see again — were ruthlessly destroyed. What was saved for the king, in many cases was simply the gold, the silver, or even the brass, and now and again the jewels which encrusted the shrines ; but these constituted an enormous amount of riches. The curious antiquary, the reverent worshipper, the traveller from the great Western Republic, and the new and vaster England beyond the seas, visiting with various feelings the ancient parish churches, the glorious Eng- lish cathedrals and abbeys, are all alike dismayed and distressed at the ruthless havoc too visible in these venerated homes of prayer — a havoc evidently in large part the work of one generation. The niches emptied of the carved images, the broken tracery, the ruined canopy work, the dis- figured shrine of the saint, the desecrated tomb of the illustrious dead, alike bear their sad and solemn witness to an un- reasoning, undiscriminating fury which, prompted partly by greed, partly by a fanatic zeal, spared nothing which in the eyes of the destroyers seemed precious to them, or spoke to them of a seemingly misplaced reverence. To return to the story of the suppression of the monasteries. The year 1537 saw the fall of several of the great houses of religion more or less mixed up, or charged with being mixed up, with the " Pilgrimage of Grace " and the designs of the northern insurgents, and the in- trigues set on foot by cardinal Pole and ,537—1538-] THE "VOLUNTA the Court of Rome. The year following is notable as being the great year of the suppression. It was now clear that the limitation of the Act of Parliament of 1536, confining the suppression to the smaller houses, was to be disregarded. Much had happened to forward this policy. The ease with which so many of the smaller houses had been broken up and their goods confiscated, suggested that confiscation on a yet larger scale I could be carried out with equal facility. The large sums which these confiscations had brought into the royal treasury had whetted the appetite for plunder already I too manifest on the part of Henry, his ministers, and the many recipients of the royal bounty. The unmistakable position taken up by the monastic orders and their well-wishers in favour of the lost supremacy of Rome ; and, lastly, the almost uncon- i trolled power of the Crown, enormouslv developed by the complete failure of the northern insurrection — all these circum- stances precipitated the general suppres- sion of monasteries, including the great as well as the small houses. Although no Act of Parliament as yet formally legalised any interference with the estates of the larger houses, the policy of Henry and his ministers endeavoured to shelter this greater confiscation under a thin veil of right and reverence, at least for the forms of law. Every possible en- deavour was made in the cases of the greater houses to induce the abbots, priors, and their chapters voluntarily to surrender their churches and treasures, their monastic dwellings and estates. " Willingly to consent and agree," were the terms used by the royal commis- Y SURRENDERS." 131 sioners. We read such directions, issued to the officials in question, as the follow- ing, and these were very generally used and carried out : " If they (the commis- sioners) shall find any of the said heads and convents so appointed to be dissolved, so wilful and obstinate that they will in nowise submit themselves to the king's majesty in manner and form aforesaid (that is, by voluntary surrender of every- thing), in that case the said commissioners shall take possession of the house and lands, the jewels, plate, and all other things belonging to them." If, on the other hand, they, the abbots and priors, " shall agree and willingly consent to a fair surrender, the said commissioners shall appoint unto the said head and every member of their convent, pensions for the term of their lives, and also give them by way of reward that sum of money for the change of their apparel, and likewise such portions of the household stuff," as they think proper. On the other hand, no pensions or gifts were to be given to obstinate and wilful persons. These terms induced many surrenders : the promises of a pension and other sub- stantial advantages on the one hand, and on the other a threat (no mere menace) of deprivation of even a scanty means of subsistence, and perhaps further punish- ment. The doom of the London Carthu- sians was before their eyes, and was well calculated to allure or to alarm the help- less inmates of monastic houses to com- pliance with the stern measures of king Henry VIII. But fair promises and cruel threats were not the only means used to procure the surrender of the greater houses. Under the colour of maladministration in 13- THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1557-1538- their high offices, under pretence of di- lapidations in the buildings of church or monastery, non -pliant abbots were, in certain well-known instances, summarily their noble abbeys ruthlessly dismantled, and the vast estates and treasures of their houses confiscated. About one hundred and fifty monasteries of monks, under the deprived, and others more amenable to strong pressure detailed above, appear to the royal wishes placed in their stalls. So the abbot Clement Lichfield — a man of blameless life and perfect integrity, and withal a great builder — was deposed, and a creature of the king, one Philip Hawford, was placed in the abbot's chair of the might}' and historical Benedictine house of Evesham. Ab- bot Hawford speedily resigned his great trust into the commissioners' hands, and was at once rewarded for his com- pliance by an ample pension, and shortly afterwards by the deanery of Worcester. His tomb can still be seen in that fair cathedral, of which he became the head by these unworthy means. The surrender of the great abbey of St. Albans, to take another conspicuous instance, was brought about by a similar proceeding. Only a few months later a still more summary pro- cess was adopted in the cases of the splendid and illustrious houses of Glastonbury, Col- chester, and Reading, There the abbots, accused of treason, were executed, and ENGLISH COMMUNION CUP AND COVER OF SILVER, HALL MARK 1573, IN THE POSSESSION OF SIR SAMUEL MONTAGU, BART., M.P. have "voluntarily" signed away their pro- perty, and by formal deed handed over all rights to the king. The number of im- portant and wealthy monasteries suppressed and confiscated by "at- tainder" in 1537, by " voluntary " surrender and under other and various pretexts in 1538, had now become a for- midable and portentous list. More, too, were marked out for imme- diate suppression. Surely, thought the king, ever punctilious, even in his most tyrannical works, in observing the forms of the law, it were well to procure retrospective Parliamentary sanction for what was done in 1537-38, and prospec- tive sanction for what he purposed in the immediate future to carry out. In the year 1539, therefore, a Bill was drafted by his chancellor, Audley, which should throw the shield of the law over all his proceed- ings in regard to monasteries, great as well as small. The Bill in an incredibly short space of 1539-1 THE CONFISCATION LEGALISED. 1 33 time became an Act. It positively went through the obsequious and obedient Parliament in three successive days. At the third reading the king himself was present. This tre- mendous act legal- ising the greatest J confiscation ever known in our land, ran as follows : " Freely, voluntarily, under no manner of constraint, have many abbeys, priories, friaries, hospitals, and other religious houses re- signed themselves, their lands, their properties, their rights into the hands of the king since the twenty-seventh year of his reign. Let the king and his heirs possess those houses for ever. Other religious houses may happen in future to be sup- pressed, dissolved, renounced, forfeited, given up, or other- wise to come into the king's hands. Let him enjoy the in." In this Parliament of 1530 the mitred abbots still had a place among the peers of England. Some surprise has naturally been expressed that we possess no record of any protest from any of them against FRENCH SILVRR-GILT RELInUARY CONTAINING A PORTION OF THE "TRUE CROSS (15TH century). South Kensington Museum. the, spoliation of their ancient storied homes. Were they awed by the passion- ate vehemence of the despotic lord of England, who would brook no opposition to his imperious will ? Were they convinced of the utter hopelessness of any plea or argu- ment they might urge in defence of the monasteries ? No one can answer these questions, which rise so natur- ally to the lips of the student of the story of these days of stress and storm. Probably few of the abbots about to be disinherited were present at that Par- liament ; and the few who ventured to take their seats in the national as- sembly doubtless had been won to silence by bribes or cowed by threats. It was too late now for useless debate. The ruin of the monastic orders had been decided on. In great part it had been carried out. The Parliament of Henry VIII. had simply to register the decrees of the king of England. His mind was fully made up. No lord, spiritual or temporal, dared to say him nay. 134 THE CHURCH The years 1539-40 saw the end of the matter. Many mourned the irreparable and widelv-extended loss occasioned by the ruin of the monasteries in England, but no voice was heard in public deprecating the king's action. The king willed it, and Parliament in solemn session was content to register his sovereign will. The dis- sentients were cowed by the failure of the northern rebellion, and by the bloody vengeance which had been exe- cuted alike on noble and ecclesiastic who had dared to take part in it. The sullen and wide-spread applause, however, which greeted the fall and death of Crom- well, a dread surprise which fell on England as the last of the religious houses was passing into the king's possession, tells us how bitterly the outcome of the works and days of the powerful minister had sunk into many English hearts. The inborn loyalty of the nation to their king visited the great sin of Henry VIII. upon his too- faithful minister : all sorts and conditions of men were pleased to consider the fallen minister as guilty of the great wrong. They were mistaken, perhaps consciously mistaken. The real author of the ruin of the monastic orders, and of the irrepar- able loss of so much that was venerable and lovely, was one higher and more irresponsible than Cromwell. Thus one mighty religious house after another fell in the sad years 1538, 1539, 1 540. In the majority of the greater monasteries, no attempt was apparently made to excuse the suppression and con- sequent confiscation by charging the monk owners with immorality, or even with neglect of their self-imposed duties, or with carelessness of the splendid and historic OF ENGLAND. [1537-1540. fabric committed to their charge. No shadow of accusation, for instance, seems to have been alleged against the last tenants of such stately prayer-homes as Durham and Bury St. Edmunds, as Evesham or Gloucester. And now to take stock of the gains and losses from all this suppression and con- fiscation ; and first of the material losses. " The face of the kingdom," writes canon Dixon in an eloquent though melancholy passage, " was changed by this memorable event ; foreign nations stood at gaze to behold the course of England. The land was strewn with hundreds of ruins. Stately buildings, churches, halls, chambers, cloisters — a whole architecture, into which the genius of ages and races had been breathed — were laid in dust and rubbish. Vast libraries, the priceless records of anti- quity, the illuminated treasures of the Middle Ages, were ravished with a waste so sordid as to have wrung a cry of anguish even from Bale* (the bitter foe of the monks), who thus writes : " Of the books in the monastic libraries, some -were sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some were sent over the sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers but at times whole ships full." . . . " I know a merchant- man that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings apiece — a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied, instead of grey paper, by the space of more than these ten rears, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. We cannot tell what we have lost."' * Quoted by Canon Dixon, in "History of the Church of England," chap. x. 1537— i S40-] THE WASTE AND LOSS. 135 What to some, perhaps, would appear still more striking waste, was the treat- ment of the plate, the destruction of the sacred vessels and treasures belonging to the doomed monasteries. Priceless works of the highest mediaeval art in gold and silver were destroyed. In the eyes of the commissioners, in perhaps the majority of cases, these represented only so many ounces of metal, and were carelessly broken up and disposed of. The extraordinary wealth of the English churches in such beautiful things excited the astonishment of strangers. An Italian, speaking of England about forty years before the great confiscation, thus writes : "Above all are the English riches displayed in the church treasures ; for there is not a parish church in the kingdom so mean as not to possess crucifixes, candlesticks, censers, patens, and cups of silver. Nor is there a convent of Mendicant friars so poor as not to have all these same articles in silver, besides many other ornaments worthy of a cathedral church in the same metal. You may therefore imagine what the decora- tions of those enormously rich Benedictine, Carthusian, and Cistercian monasteries must be." * Much of this precious work was enriched with gems or enamelled bosses, and was richly chased. Only a few inventories have been preserved of the enormous mass of valuable objects swept into the royal treasury. Besides the ornaments rudely taken from the tombs and shrines of saints, the king's plunder comprised all descriptions of church ornaments, including, besides the objects of sacred art above mentioned, * Camden Society : " Italian relation about Eng- land," a.d. 1500. Quoted by Gasquet. monstrances for exposing the blessed sacrament, crosses, processional and pastoral staves, croziers, mitres, rings, jewelled gloves, cruets, censers, silver dishes of every kind, clasps studded with gems taken from illuminated missals and other service books. The most gorgeous productions of mediaeval embroidery and needlework were also dispersed ; the more remarkable being reserved for the king, the rest heed- lessly scattered. Copes of gold cloth ela- borately worked, coverings for altars, all descriptions of sacred vestments, chasubles, and every description of altar furniture, brocades and stuffs of Eastern origin cunningly worked and embroidered — by far the greater part of these exquisite things, so long reserved for sacred uses, fell into private hands. We read, alas ! of private men's parlours being not unfrequently hung with altar-cloths, their tables and beds adorned with copes. " It was a sorry house," we read, " and not worth the naming, which had not somewhat of this furniture in it, though it were only a fair large cushion made of a cope, or an altar- cloth to adorn their windows, or make their chairs appear to have somewhat in them of a chair of state." Some of these spoils were even purchased and shipped to foreign lands. There are others amongst us who per- haps are more especially touched by the hopeless mischief done in the wreckage of the monastic abbeys and churches, and the graceful piles of buildings which had in the course of centuries grown up beneath their hallowed shade. Here the loss has been simply irreparable. During much of the Middle Ages, men built as they have 136 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [i537— 1540. never built since. The stately abbey — the monastic home of prayer — had been the Book of Stone, out of which many genera- tions had been taught. In these stately piles the quaint and varied symbolism, the daring picturesqueness of interior and exterior, the patient and devout work of centuries, failed to appeal to the hearts or heads of these official wreckers ; and count- less buildings were destroyed for the sake of the lead which covered the roofs, or the bells which hung in the towers. Some, unroofed and otherwise dismantled, were left to the wild fury of the elements, and the winds and rain slowly completed the destroyers' work. Often the massive and stately building served as a stone quarry or GLASTONBURY ABBEY. a builder's yard ; and the neighbouring peasant and farmer carried away the stones and pillars as he needed them, for his field- walls or barns. In many cases the orders were peremptory, and an immediate de- struction of the buildings of church and monastery followed the suppression of the community. Not unfrequently this was positively a hard and painful task ; so massive were the walls, so splendidly and solidly built, were the buttresses and the towers, so enduringly laid, were the solid foundations. The mediaeval monk was ever a great builder. As one instance of this work of destruc- tion— which will show what pains were taken to level to the ground what had taken long years of self-denial and thought and care to build up — we will quote a few lines illustrative of the destroyers' work at the ab- bey of Lewes. It will serve as an example of what was taking place in a hundred doomed monastic churches. Lewes abbey was a noble and stately edi- fice, but by no means singular for its magnifi- cence and size. The account is in a letter ad- dressed to Lord 1537— 1540- ] DESTRUCTION OF CHURCHES. 137 Cromwell. After enlarging upon the vast- ness and solidity of the abbey the destroyers were engaged upon, the letter goes on to say how a company of skilled workmen from London had been brought down to Lewes — carpen- ters, smiths, plumb- ers, etc. To each of these his office was assigned ; some hewed the walls about and broke them, the carpenters underset with props what the others cut away yet so great was the labour, that more workmen of like skill were wanted. The walls were five feet thick, and in some places ten. The steepfe was eighty feet in height ; in the church there were thirty-two pillars standing, ot these some were forty, others twenty feet in height. The height of the church was over sixty feet. They had begun to cast the lead, and would do it with all diligence and saving. The destruction of the buiidings in most places was most thorough ; as, for example, the mighty abbey of Evesham has all dis- appeared save one solitary tower. A few vast fragments are all that remain of the lordly abbey at Reading. The pathetic ruins of Bury St. Edmunds hint — they do nothing more — at the surpassing grandeur of that world-famous pile. The remains of the storied churches of Glastonbury, Tintern, Fountains, Rivaulx, Whitby, Melrose, and a hundred more, in their picturesque and touching ruin, are still in their pathetic beauty the ornaments of FOUNTAINS ABBEY. the districts of which they were once the living religious centres. Some few, spared by the rare mercy of the destroyers, like the lordly abbey of St. Peter at Glouces- ter, are still with us ; and after three cen- turies and a half more of wear and tear, in their scarred but still perfect beauty and serene majesty, tell us what kind of 138 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['537-1540. buildings Henry and Cromwell were that vast treasures of gold and silver and pleased to level to the ground. gems, ar)d other precious things confiscated The exact amount of the monastic spoils, by the king, do not appear in any of the reckoned in money, is difficult to arrive at. formal accounts and catalogues that we are Gasquet is very cautious in his estimates, acquainted with ; still, when all deductions generally following the figures given by are made, it is clear that the prize seized Speed ; he estimates that the fall of by Henry was very great, the monasteries transferred to the royal And, alas ! much of it was wasted, and TYNEMOUTH PRIORY. exchequer an income of more than two quickly dissipated. The question is often millions a year of our present money, or asked : Then what became of the enormous a capital sum roughly amounting to fifty property thus confiscated ? Very much, millions. He adds, however, that what of course, will never be accounted for ; with gratuitous grants, sales of land, and still, the list of the known beneficiaries of other means whereby the capital value of the goods of the monastic orders is a long the plunder was greatly diminished, at no one. Gasquet generally in his lucid sum- time was anything approaching the sum at mary, although intensely disapproving the which the revenue of the monastic houses whole transaction, is conspicuously fair, was computed, received by the royal and considers that a large proportion of treasury. We must remember, however, the plunder — rather more than half — which i537-'54o-] WHAT BECAME OF THE SPOIL. 139 was paid into the Court of Augmentation, went for national purposes, under the heads of coast fortifications, for the pur- poses of perfectly useless foreign wars, and general military matters ; but it must be borne in mind that vast treasures which were confiscated never appeared on the records of the Court of Augmentation at all. Considerable sums for a time were also paid away in pensions to the dis- possessed monks and nuns ; mainly, of course, to those concerned in the voluntary surrenders. In the case of the lesser mon- asteries, only the superiors were granted pensions. The Mendicant friars as a class received no yearly allowance ; the majority were turned adrift, receiving only a small gratuity. Much of the spoil without doubt was lavishly, even carelessly given away to Henry's courtiers, and to those influential persons who supported his policy. Some powerful men were enormously enriched ; among these conspicuous recipients of the royal bounty were Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, the duke of Norfolk, and the earl of Rutland. The Seymours and the Dudleys rank among the chief of these beneficiaries ; a long list of persons thus enriched might be made out, not a few of them absolutely unworthy. During the last eight years of his life, canon Dixon computes that Henry gave away about 420 of the confiscated monasteries or sites of monasteries. Even after the king's death there was a great deal of this de- scription of property still in the possession of the crown. A portion of the confiscated property — but only a small portion — found its way back to the Church. Six new bishoprics and cathedral chapters were founded out of the wreckage of the mon- astic estates. Of these, Oxford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Peterborough are still with us as important sees. Some small sums were also given for educational purposes to Oxford and Cambridge ; but beyond the comparatively insignificant amount set apart for these religious pur- poses, the whole sum realised by the dis- solutions was spent for secular and private purposes. A considerable amount was also expended on the royal palaces of West- minster, Hampton Court, St. James's, and other royal residences. But after taking all these objects into consideration, immense sums and vast hoards of treasure are unaccounted for, and seem to have vanished. From first to last the suppres- sion of the monasteries, in its conception, in its carrying out, in the disposition of its ill-gotten fruits, is a melancholy story, and will ever remain a dark blot in the chronicles of the English Reformation. But through the suppression of the monastic orders the Church of England lost much besides mere property. The disappearance of the abbots and priors gravely weakened its influence both in Parliament and Convocation. The voice of a head of a great monastic community had a different sound from the voice of a bishop in Parliament, or of a head of a parish in Convocation. While not separated from human interests, the life of the superior of a religious house allowed the abbot or the prior a leisure for thought and study, so imperatively needed in the hierarchy of a national church — a leisure which can never belong to the chief 140 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [•537-I543- pastor of a great diocese, or to the spiritual guide of a parish, with its endless distrac- tions and varied cares. In some respects the Anglican dean of an historic cathedral now fills the place in the church of the extinct abbots and priors. But the deans have no seat in the great council of the nation, and in Convocation they are numerically but a very small body. A loss, however, that was even more felt in the church than the disappearance of the abbots and priors, was the serious diminu- tion of the numbers of ministers of religion among the masses. The friars, especially of the Mendicant orders, ministered to the crowds resident in towns and cities. Their place has never been supplied. The want has been mere and more felt as the popu- lation increased ; the numbers of ministers of religion, ever since the suppression of the monastic orders, being totally insuffi- cient for the numbers of the people, of whom they should be not only the priests, but the instructors and teachers. One, and that a most important, con- sideration has been too often lost sight of in the great, confiscation ; a vast num- ber of the benefices of the church, through " appropriation " [the word is explained later], had become the property of the monasteries. Each of these was served by a vicar, appointed by the monastery which had become possessed of the benefice. The law or custom required that the stipends of such vicars should be increased from time to time as the value of money altered. The bishop of the diocese usually insisted on this regulation or practice being carried out. When, however, the monastery and its possessions passed into lay hands, no such obligation could be enforced ; the bishop had no power over the new lay possessor of the abbey lands. The amount of the income, which was a charge upon the property, payable to the vicar at the time of the dissolution, has since remained a fixed charge. Nothing further could be demanded, although the value of money has so enormously dimin- ished in value. What in the sixteenth century represented a sufficiency — possibly a bare sufficiency — in the nineteenth century has become a miserable pittance. Hence the extreme poverty of so many of the benefices of the church. This appro- priation of benefices on the part of the monasteries has been justly stigmatised as an undoubted wrong ; but the religious communities generally supplied — though perhaps not too generously, and often under some compulsion — the needs of the vicar they placed over the parish. But after the dissolution these needs grew more pressing, and the position of the vicars of these ''monastic" benefices altered for the worse. It would have been a righteous disposition of some of the confiscated funds to have made some provision in these cases. Alas ! such a thought never seems to have entered into the mind of the king or of his instrument. This appropriation of parochial churches to religious houses in many cases is of very ancient date. We have records of such being made by the first founders as early as a.d. 800, in the case of the abbey of Crowland by Bertulph, king of Merck- land (Mercia). Many such " appropria- tions " were made by the first founders before the Norman Conquest. At the Westminster synod (a.d. 1200) under > 537— 154°-] LOSS TO THE POOR. 141 archbishop Hubert Walter, the fourteenth Besides the spiritual loss suffered by the canon ordained " that in any church people, when so many of their priests and ' appropriated ' by any of the religious, teachers disappeared in the great wave of a vicar be instituted by the care of the destruction, the poor especially were severe IN A MONASTERY SCHOOL. bishop, who is to receive a decent com- petency out of the goods of thk church." * * Compare here — Lord Selborne : " Defence of the Church of England," viii. Hunt : Introduction to " Two Chartularies of Bath Priory." Hook : "Archbishops," ii., 11. losers in other respects by the suppression of the monastic hobses. Poverty in mani- fold ways was relieved by the monks. The burden of sickness and distress of all kinds among the people was helped and made more tolerable by the love and devotion of 142 THE CHURCH the monastic orders. There is no doubt but that for the poor, life was made harder by the dissolution of the monasteries. Many factors must confessedly be taken into account which have come into being since the middle of the sixteenth century, especially the enormous increase of the population ; but the problem of poor relief has been as yet only very partially solved, and our philanthropists and statesmen, although they have put forward many theories, have arrived at no definite con- clusions here. It must be allowed that no adequate means have as yet been discovered to fill up the void which the " dissolution " occasioned in the question of help to the poor, the sick, and the helpless of our population. The monasteries and friaries were emphatically, with all their short- comings, a blessing and a comfort to the sick and needy, who are ever with us. Our system of poor-law relief as yet very meagrely and sparingly fills their place. In educational matters the fall of the religious houses was a distinct loss to the nation. By most of the religious corpora- tions throughout the country schools were maintained, in which instruction was given, generally gratuitously, in reading, writing, and singing, and in some of the more advanced arts of the age as well. The name by which these seminaries were generally known was "free schools." The loss of these free monastic schools fell most heavily, of course, upon the poorer classes of the population. " Up to this time," writes Dixon, " the educated class was recruited chiefly from the independent poor, the yeomen, and small tenants. Many even of the great clerks of this age, from Wolsey to Latimer, were the sons of, OF ENGLAND. [1537-1540. comparatively speaking, poor men. It does not seem to have been the custom that the sons of the gentry should go to college. They passed usually from the monastic seminaries to the court or the castle. After the great revolution of which we have been speaking, the universities more and more were resorted to by another and a higher class. The poor had less chance, after the fall of the monasteries, of educa- tion than they had before it." Most of the schools, writes Gasquet, alluding to these monastic seminaries at this time, were closed, and in addition the support afforded by the religious houses to pro- mising young clerics pursuing their studies at the universities, of course, came to an end, when the orders, from whence this help to young students came, were suppressed. At Cambridge in 1545 the scholars petitioned king Henry for privileges, as they feared the destruction of monasteries would annihilate learning. The danger at Oxford was equally great. In a sermon of bishop Latimer, the follow- ing words occur, which show how deeply sensible were men like this prominent and earnest reformer of the inevitable loss to all education and general learn- ing, which was the result of the closing of the monastic schools, and of the cessation of the large and generous support hitherto given to students at Oxford and Cambridge by the religious orders : "It is a pitiable thing to see schools so neglected ; every true Christian ought to lament the same. . . . Schools are not maintained ; scholars have no exhibitions. . . . Very few there be that help poor scholars. ... It would 1537— 1540-] INJURY TO EDUCATION. i43 pity a man's heart to hear of the state of Cambridge — what it is in Oxford I cannot tell — I think there be at this day (a.d. 1550) ten thousand students less than there were within these twenty years, and fewer preachers." The enormous numbers quoted assisted in his counsels, to preserve some- thing from this vanishing world of mon- asticism, which had through so many cen- turies of its existence worked so hard and so successfully for religion and learning ; had relieved so much suffering and want ; Photo : K . Keene, Derby. CHANCEL ARCH OF THE AliBEY, DEEI'DALE. by the good bishop savour perhaps of exaggeration. But the fact of the grave decline in students after the " suppression " is indisputable. Another writer thus speaks of Oxford : " Most of the halls and hostels were left empty. Art declined, and ignor- ance began to take place again." The chronicler of all these amazing scenes of loss and waste, wonders with a sad wonderment why no real effort was made by the king and the statesmen who had contributed so enormously to art and letters, to education, to agriculture, and even to commerce ; whose stately build- ings and matchless churches were at once the beauty and glory of England. " If even buildings had been spared because of their grandeur and beauty ; if priceless libraries had been cared for and preserved ; if the unnumbered specimens of exquisite mediaeval art had been tenderly collected and watched over ; if a few of the 144 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['537-154°- monasteries had been kept as they were, and rilled with men who in passionate earnestness loved the life which in the sixteenth century was viewed so generally with suspicion and dislike— then the re- volution would have had a more honest ever made ? Had a statesman arisen who, in the storm and stress of the Refor- mation, had guided king Henry VIII. into paths of moderation and mercy ; had been far-sighted enough to reject what was worn-out and useless, and to preserve KIRKSTALL ABBEY. appearance." In such language as this, one of the fairest Anglican historians of the suppression* bewails the deplorable tragedy. Mr. Froude, in closing his version of the sad story, curiously states : " The efforts for the reform of the orders had totally failed." When and by whom, the wonder- ing reader asks, was any such state effort * Canon Dixon. whatever was still living and working — and without doubt when the day" of destruction dawned there was , much that was well worth preserving— had such a statesman arisen, and could he have guided the king to reform rather than to destroy ; then, perhaps, England would have possessed, as did France in the century following the dissolution of the monasteries, a . gr,oup.,of religious societies like th«.t of the IfeSK+i- 1537— 1540] MONAST1CISM UN-ENGLISH. T4S dictines of St. Maur, where some of the greatest literary work ot comparatively modern times was planned and successfully carried out. But this was not to be. And, after all, it is indisputable that monasticism was un-English. It must be looked upon, in spite of the number of English religious really nourished in the Anglo-Saxon times — that is, in those days when the princes of the great house of Alfred ruled. It did not appear as a real power among us till after the Norman Conquest. " It came all perfect from abroad, it perished in a MELROSE ABBEY, houses, in the light of an exotic, not as of real English growth. As a system it had never found a place in the hearts of the English people. The loved king Alfred, with his intense fervour and passionate religiousness, we know made a strong effort to popularise this monasticism among his people ; and we have seen how small an amount of success in this particular attended the efforts of the patriot king. It could never be said to have 70 moment altogether." Of all the many mediaeval monastic orders, there is only one, strange to say, that can boast of English origin : the small and compara- tively insignificant group of communities called " Gilbertines" was founded in the twelfth century by an Englishman. No doubt this fact, little noticed by historians as a rule, that monasticism was un-English, largely contributed to the ease with which the great confiscation was planned and 146 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [•537—1540. canied out in the short space of about five or six years. Thus the monk fell ; and in spite of the splendid work done by many a religious community in the now past Middle Ages, comparatively unpitied. The angry mur- murs which we heard in the " Pilgrimage of Grace " and the northern rising, were not the voice of England as a nation. Some, perhaps even many, were grieved at his disappearance, and gravely disapproved of the high-handed and harsh measures of the king and his famous minister, Crom- well, to whom public opinion chose to ascribe the royal policy in the matter. But, on the whole, the nation sullenly acquiesced in the great wrong. Had the English people really cared, never would even the despotic and self-willed Henry have carried out his purpose. On the other hand, two important, though indirect, results of the suppression of the monasteries must not be forgotten. With deep truth once wrote a wise and far-seeing historian of Henry VIII.,* allud- ing especially to this darkest chapter in the life of the great Tudor king : "I do not conceal from myself that under the Divine power, which brings good out of evil and overrules the wrath of man to the praise of God, we have received good as well as evil through the means of this ' majestic lord who broke the bonds of Rome.' " Nothing save the suppression of this mighty network of fortresses, each garrisoned with its faithful papal force, could have effectually and permanently broken the chain of this iron bondage. No statute, no act of Parliament, however * Bishop Stubbs. stringent, but what would have been evaded after a time, had the religious orders continued to guide the education and to influence the hearts of the people. Their traditions, their vast power, the principles which guided their life and work, were all too closely bound up with Rome and the papal supremacy, for them ever to acquiesce in a separation from the Roman obedience. The Church of England never had become the beneficent, world-wide religion which knits together so many of the Anglo-Saxon race ; the world-wide church capable of indefinite expansion, and of adaptability to all sorts and con- ditions of men, dwelling in different climes and under such different conditions — had it not finally broken off its unnatural subjection to an Italian church. And this final and necessary severance would have been impossible, had the monastic orders continued to flourish and to work among us. And yet one more benefit indirectly came to the Church of England through the ruin and fall of the monasteries. It is well known that the religious houses were the chief seat of many of the grossest mediaeval superstitions. It was in their churches and abbeys that the large majority of sacred, and in not a few cases the so-called miraculous images and relics were preserved. It was the unhappy heritage of an ignorant and superstitious past, it is true ; but it was a heritage which the monastic orders of the six- teenth century still guarded with the most jealous care, and surrounded with an ex- treme reverence : a care and a reverence which showed no sign of abatement, or even of that caution which the strong light shed by the new learning on all such 1557— 1540-j BENEFITS FROM THE SUPPRESSION. 147 things should at least have enjoined. There prayer from Heaven. Many of these were few religious houses, great or small, were no doubt impostures, used too often that were without one or more such objects for the sake of vulgar gain ; others genuine TJNTERN ABBZY. of a misplaced devotion — objects that were celebrated in the neighbourhood, some- times far beyond the immediate neigh- bourhood, as being efficacious in the cure of disease, or prompt in the aid of child- birth, and other favours procurable by in the sense 01 being what they were said to be, but invested by their guardians with supposed supernatural powers utterly false and unreal. Pilgrimages to such houses and shrines, prayers addressed to such idols — for they were nothing more — i48 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.. [1537— 1540. occupied a foremost place among the soul-destroying errors swept away by the English Reformation. From various reasons — from custom, from long-estab- lished tradition, in some cases no doubt from ignorance, too often from reasons suggested by the love of gain and profit, the dwellers in the monasteries, as a class, upheld this wrong and foolish idol cult. The fall of the orders, and the ruin of their churches and houses in every part of the land, dealt a death-blow to this worn-out mediaeval superstition. Never had it been possible to have weaned the mass of the people from their unreasoning belief in, and attachment to, these popular objects of worship, if they had not witnessed such scenes, as the pillage and desecration of world-famous shrines — such as that of St. Cuthbert, at Durham ; St. Edmund, king and martyr, at St. Edmundsbury ; and St. Thomas, in his gorgeous resting-place at Canterbury. The ruin of the precious shrine, the scattering to the winds of Heaven of the remains of the blessed saint, sank deep into a thousand thousand hearts ; and the memory of these stern and repulsive acts rendered possible the subsequent work of the English reformers, when they expunged for ever from the liturgies of the English church every vestige and trace of that worship of the creature which belongs alone of right to the Creator. In England the sainted and worshipped relic, the miraculous and adored image, really vanished, when the monastic orders disappeared. 111 4 C»*.. 9 . — ARCHWAY AT EVESHAM ( This and the Bell Tower are the sole remnants of the Monastery 0/ Evesham.) Wf&beepiftleof paolto . IBttc frrtf Cl?aj>cr. 1 21 uUn 4t>o(Hc ofF jfcfu ■ lTbn(t/bvrtxirilloffrotbe"u;hicbc bdcrcon Je* lUfHtbtlft. I <3tau be xritb yotx an& patct from £100 ourc fadKr'tfiti) (torn ripeloiiwjefrMr Chap. j^»U|Tcobc ©obtrttfatb/rofoutcIoj&Off* DflCbt((l'n>bicbb,^tf)blc)flBv(jn'itb3i[niiiTWX offprntuaUblcffingf inbcrenlrtbrnf^s by d> r(i'ca>j&T^iJ9lKb-iB4M>fint,airit)rmtlT20 tt>e lore ✓ bcfoie the fouoacio of the n?oUde wttb out bltt m«rnbts|'igbt.2(n5oi&o*nc&rflbcfo:i:vntol)i (ilfc that tpeffruloc be ebofen to Ivnai throne 3cfue iCbufV^aoiornflytotbeplcJj'utcofljia u?ill • toth\piaTfcofhiagtonoii$grace/T»bcre tptrh he I?at6 ma»e ve accepted mthc beloi«& . EBJSr rrbom nw barcreOtmpoon tfjoiow hi*1 - bln&^cbJtistofarith^focgcrencaofffrmtcs/ «aotbrngcrotbisofbi3gc4«/n>bidjgrt (Kebcfneooiirs obcnnDantlr matt aifcwm/ onb pro&ccT. 2tnD bath openncb tmto ve thy nrf (tary of bis triU aeoioynge to hte plcafure/1an& , pnrpoffD tlK f~" ie t n by m filfc to bare it oeds 9 «Oa'l^tl?ccrnifw«itbiuPf^otbcgiwtpboievipbi£bbit>-'W'''" corrupt the ertb with bet foinicaaon/ ao» batl> drengco tbe bloub of bi n fernaunrf of her bco. ^ ; 3fno dgayitcthcy faib:2liltlora.^InOfniof crol-Aw-^. i I ferppcfoievecniOK. 2tn6tbcjrnifl.ptmotit?/! ' t eni> the u q . bcfKs fe 1 1 bonne ✓ ant> voifhyppet* j et^ofbrttr*Kng;pi* pyfioureloiovgoP all vetbatacc Ijte fen>auntf> flobrctbaffeau'bynibotbfmaUaiiOgKtr. . \ (■J^no 3 betbe tbe rorcr offroocbepe ople/etvti 4* tbe force off manp n?orc«/anoasthe t»r* et off ftronfjc tndn»i7ngf/fayinge:2fHcluya/ • fo* ge^ommpoKntbatbratgruo. Art re beglf f tfb'onbretorcc ariog.rpe honour, to byni:fo:tb* i mcnageoffthclamhe is tome/anD bys rpyffi , mabebccfvlivrtPoy.SnDtobccrpae grtiurcov ; ttwtfbefntilpcbcaTsyeo curb pnrcan&gooolr ■ tayrus, ,yo:tbcraynetfisthcrygbtcircfne(»off ! farnctf. 3n0^f^Wvnionie:b.»pTOTcibcfjXu«t.i ' ttbt*arcc4tlc?'rntotbeJijnibf a (upper. 2tn& | hefayaernto imtthefe ore tf>e trm* fayingea off J Cfo&.2lnbTfellf 1 3cfue out offtbi-bouAV cnfarbTtlMfcelVoe/gotnocbiKonlercfoi* teovntobi/fogrttlytb»itbettte'imiOf.:t mafbt yppj/flOrilltbcpiroplt-floocotitbcPjoou. 2tnt> (jefpofemanyrbyngf fothcminfimilituoP'fa* ytnge: JtS.boltw/ thcfowctwmttfcutytofcmc/ 2lnb.uilK- fotVtD form: fell by tbc&XJyett fyttt/ finJ> the fotell Pen nvcb twvoureo it rppv. €Soiik fill opo (tony 0tou"s< u> ba c it b.i b not modi.- et» tb/jinbrtnonitfpt6acvppc/bbcn thefutt woo vppctftt cflutbbm/fm&fotlofeoffrotyngewyoGK&et* uw - Bom. fill (lmo^ctij&ini-fl^aiiMbctljoti ma ocofe otto ctoaof e& tt.petJK fell tit geotw eje 01 fet/ano bioabt foitb gajofrpKifotticrttt bubteb folb ■ fome fifty folb 'lottK trryrty folbe. H>bofe>» rbotb tacts to bcu re/ let bim btttre. tt& bye oifctples .i tb to l;s foalt bttbegewe'tati&beroollba-re abotlboncf. f« *buttcbofoev«t bstb not:fr5bifltrtltMt.lUnoiriicJ)lobtiinbtritt> THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER (MATTH. XIII.). (From the Second Edition, 1525, 0/ Tyndaie's New Testament Bafitist College, Bristol.) The effect of the edict was largely to stop any study of the divine word among the people for about a hundred years. As might have been expected, the print- ing-press brought about a change. The man whose name will be for ever asso- ciated with the work of popularising the Scriptures among the English people was one William Tvndale, a restless and ardent Oxford student. We trace his somewhat uncertain career from Oxford, and later from Cambridge to Gloucestershire, where he was for some time a tutor in a pri- vate family. Thence to London, where his purpose to produce a new English translation of the New Testament was matured ; from London — he was, however, coldly looked upon by Tunstall the bishop, and the church — he betook himself to Wittenberg, and there, it is said, under the immediate direction of Luther, he carried out his great design of producing an English version of the Gospels and Epistles, aided by some ardent reformers from his own country. His new English translation of the sacred books was printed on the Continent. The first editions of his famous New Testament appeared as early as 1525. Subsequently the Penta- teuch in English was added to the New Testament, and after- wards the historical books of the Old Testament, and the Psalms and Prophets. At length the whole canon was translated and published in separate portions, either by Tyndale himself, or under Tyndaie's immediate direc- tion and supervision. In the ten years following 1525 an inexhaustible stream of these volumes poured from the foreign printing-presses into our island — as Foxe quaintly expresses it, " Copies of the New Testament came thick and threefold into England " — where they were circulated among the people by thousands. They were proscribed and forbidden, but the IS25- '53o-] TYNDALE'S ENGLISH BIBLE. 155 ISA fa tye-SnfrtkaattSfftc " • . ' Vr1 fcmif my frff' &f«0f i">" &f < 0' m ' 3 r*-»A foftdteof Clrfft/wW V»9rj3an> rnrfrnt mouse fou/mtj of no rrprtacfon/Bur «r| , 8otiif«Tiwrti3i on) Ka«r8ouj5WY»afttacorrufl>. Statmt' Igjffi frirer»«na^weii^rfonrptfeJYDtrttf«fttr« efourctMrtnffe not carniia'f5<««'«, ™ jre rm>g0n> In e |rnwout«<»n« toMKcScnstoiwfonofraifo8t8lftt/ »8rn youre oMtrmr <<> MpfM . f oKe pe 09 «ino;fsaftrrt8e8ftCTOr^fl'«un«r ft 6c ie C8tl|rw/run) fo arcisf C9«frf«;ana- teoogST ffiiifor Mlmrfrfftfomf we«moit/ rrofour>oUl(tf»)?(£Mfff''-5c?"'?5n,c? 8« to toffVf ana not to o^tof cpu/ltfSnft ni>* . ■ Stfomrf™'.WI«f»Pt3:^3f9,"''c°;,: i tatBoiMSJU'oitaooutcto maSryouofraroe Vftf fctm».tfo» cplfOwifapTJ W f«* 01.5 frri»wcr6<« 6<» ptcffwr <0W"«J/ im!>9(6fprac««lstuJt-ffrt9rn,0,»<« r«JH tjlnsconelovopff/t^itasvocarffn voniSra •SrfrttfWXO^tiJ-iS'atcaBrmt/focSeattWfOJ PAGE FROM TYN DALE'S NEW TESTAMENT OF 1534. CONTAINING THE CURIOUS ERROR LET HYM THAT IS SOCHE THINKE ON HIS WYFE " (FOR "THIS VVYSF. ") (2 CORINTHIANS X. 1 1). THE BLACK LETTER READS— " tf)ittttr On f)tS tDgfC " for " tfjnifcr on tljis togff," where the a.v. reads "think this." {Baptist College, Bristol.) opposition only increased the enormous circulation. These early editions of Tyndale's work were condemned formally by Convocation as heretical ; as among the books of the "Mala dogmata." They were, whenever they could be found or bought up by the bishops and authorities, burnt. On first thoughts, such an action on the part of the clergy would seem simply in- excusable, almost incredible ; but it must be remembered, that every one of the little volumes issued by Tyndale contained a preface, and was accom- panied by notes, coloured with very intemperate and bitter denunciation of the bishops and clergy, the monks and friars, the rites and ceremonies of the Church. This was the unhappy practice of the day. In a lesser degree the biblical works of the great Erasmus were also disfigured with similar polemical and vituperative comment. It can therefore hardly be a matter of surprise, considering the bitter and hostile matter which the little volumes containing the translation of Tyndale, further contained by way of ex- position of the divine words, that they were regarded as a source of danger to the Church as then constituted in England. It was, of course, owing to the wild and CThc thyrde Chapter. MO fes kcptc the fhepc of lethr'o his fa> thrrinlaroprcjItofMadian. and he drouctheflocketothebackcfydcof thcdcOr, te,adcametothcmoutaync of God, Horcb. Andtheangcllofthc Lotde apcar;drntoht in a flame of fyre out of a bulh. A nd he percc« sued that the bulhburnedu-ithfjrcandcon. fumednot-Than Mofcs (aydc.I trill goo hc» ce and fee this gretc fyghte, hotoe itcomcrh that the buflic bumeih not.And ujhc the Lor defame that he came for to fce,hc called onto him out of the bufli and faydt : Mofcs Mofcs Andhe anfmered here am IAndhcfaydc:co menot hither, but put th> ftioocs off thi fete : for the place rchcrcon thou flondr ft is holy grounde-Andhe fayde : I am the Godof thy rathcr.the Godof Abraham.thc God of Ifa. ae and the God of lacob And Mofrs hyd his face.for he teas afraydc to loke ppon God. Than the LordcfeyJc : 1 haue finely fene Ae trouble of my people which arc in bgipte and haue hcrdc their ctyc tchich they liauc of their tafitemaHas.For 1 knowctheire foroooc and am come dotnnc todclyuer them out of thehandes of the Egiptian»,and to brynge the out c f that Iondc unto a good londc and a lar» ge and -a. ' \ PAGE FROM THE FIRST EDITION OFTYNDALES PENTA- TEUCH, 1530, CONTAINING EXODUS III. {Baptist College, Bristol.) 156 . THE CHURCH bitter denunciation contained in the pre- faces and notes, that Tyndale incurred the vehement and relentless hostility of such men as Warham and Wolsey, and, chiefest of all, of Sir Thomas More. Marred and disfigured though it was by these unhappy comments, however, the TITLE PAGE OK THE SECOND EDITION OF COVER- DALE's BIBLE, 1537 * {Baptist College, Bristol.) translation of Tyndale was a right noble work ; and it has formed the basis of all the subsequent English versions. His comments- — product of that age of storm and stress — have dropped away ; but the great translation, the real work, remained. It showed to the English folk, in a way they had never seen before, " the saintly figure of the Christ, the object of all love, * This was the first folio Bible printed in England. OF ENGLAND. [,S36. the pattern of all imitation." The English New Testament, the work of Tyndale, did more than anything else to prepare the hearts of our people for the future refor- mation which in the end swept away image and relic, ceremony and form which stood between them and the divine figure of the Christ. Writing of the " authorised version " of the New Testament, the learned company of the revisers, in 1881, bore this singular testimony to Tyndale's work. " The (English) translation was the work of many hands and of several gene- rations. The foundation was laid by William Tyndale. His translation of the New Testament was the true primary version. The versions that followed it were either substantially reproductions of Tyndale's translation in its first shape, or revisions of versions that had been them- selves almost entirely based on it." * In one of his eloquent passages Mr. Froude thus writes of the reformer and his enduring work : " Of (Tyndale's) trans- lation, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may •say it is substantially the Bible with which we are all familiar. The peculiar genius which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon sim- plicity, the preternatural grandeur, un- equalled and unapproached in the at- tempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man — William Tyndale. Lying, while engaged in that great office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any moment * Preface to the revised version of the New Testament, printed in 1881 for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 1S36-] TYNDALE'S MARTYRDOM. 157 to fall, he worked under circumstances alone, perhaps, truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him ; his spirit, as it were, divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air. His saw the salvation for which he had longed, and he might depart to his place. He was denounced to the regent of Flanders ; he was enticed by the suborned treachery of a miserable English fanatic beyond the LETTER FROM MYLES COVERDALE, RICHARD GRAFTON, AND WILLIAM GREY TO CROMWELL, SENDING HIM SPECIMEN FAGES OF THE NEW EDITION OF THE BIIiLE ON WHICH THEY WERE EMPLOYED. 1538. (Record Office.) work was done. He lived to see the Bible no longer carried by stealth into his coun- try, where the possession of it was a crime, but borne in by the solemn will of the king, solemnly recognised as the Word of the most High God. And then his occu- pation in this earth was gone. His eyes town, under whose liberties he had been secure ; and with the reward which at other times as well as those, has been held fitting by human justice for the earth's great ones, he passed away in smoke and flame to his rest." * * " History of England," chap, xii 158 THE CHURCH It was at Vilvorde, a few miles from Brussels, that Tyndale was chained to the stake, strangled, and burned to ashes. The prayer, the last words which tradition says he uttered, was remarkable as well for the spirit it breathed, as for its strangely rapid and literal fulfilment. " Lord," cried the dying martyr, " open the king of England's eyes." Tyndale perished in the autumn of 1536. In the course of the next two years the royal injunction was published by Cromwell, ordering that a Bible in Latin and English should be placed in every parish church in the land.* Successive editions of the English Bible, published under the king's sanction, now rapidly appeared. The first of these, by Myles Coverdale, published in foreign parts — " cum prh'ilegio" — and dedicated to king Henry VIII., made its appearance in London in 1536. Some, perhaps even a consider- able part, of the work seems to have been done by Coverdale himself, who was once an Austin friar, but long converted to the Reformation, of which he was an ardent disciple. Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the precise share taken or influence exercised by Tyndale on this edition of Coverdale. This was the first complete English Bible which was per- mitted to be sold publicly. It ap- peared in 1536. Although it was not disfigured by the violent language of the notes and prefaces of the forbidden edition of Tyndale, the words of the preface of this Bible, published under royal sanction, give us some idea of the intense bitterness which the theologic disputes of the period * There is some confusion about the exact date of the royal injunction in question, the years 1536 and 1538 being both given. OF ENGLAND. [1536-1541. had excited in men's minds. After a curious and somewhat confused comparison of the action of the bishop of Rome with that of Caiaphas, the Coverdale edition went on to say that " the bishop of Rome has studied long to keep the Bible from the people, and especially from princes, lest they should find out his tricks and his falsehoods, . . . knowing well enough that if the clear sun of God's Word came over the heat of the dav, it would drive away the foul mist of his devilish doctrines." Three editions appeared of this Bible of Coverdale. In the following year was published a far more important version of the Holy Scriptures, known as " Matthew's Bible," under the direct patronage of the all- powerful minister, Cromwell, and the primate Cranmer ; this was dedicated to the king, and published with his " most gracious license." Here in the New Testament Tyndale is reproduced en- tirely ; and his work was also used in the Old Testament as far as the Second Book of Chronicles. The rest of the Old Testa- ment comes from Coverdale, with a few changes. The Bible of Matthew was the first formally " authorised version," and is the true primary version of the printed English Bible. In 1539 an edition of Matthew's Bible appeared, edited by one Taverner. The text was simply a reprint, but it contained a preface most offensive to the conserva- tive party, who abhorred the excesses of the extreme reformers. In this preface the priesthood was denied ; masses and purga- tory w-ere ignored ; the sacraments were described as nothing but outward signs, the Eucharist, especially, as a memorial 1536-1541.I SUCCESSIVE E supper. This violent and un-Catholic preface was described as " a summary of things contained in Holy Scripture." It was supposed that this Bible thus prefaced jLISH BIBLES. 159 by Coverdale ; but it is remarkable as1 omitting the prologue and preface and notes. To the second of the seven editions Cranmer himself wrote a preface ; hence, it LETTER FROM CRANMER TO CROMWELL THANKING HIM FOR OBTAINING THE for Matthew's English bible. 15.17. {British Museum.) KING S AUTHORITY was prepared with the connivance of Cromwell. It was immediately, however, followed by a more serious work, under the super- intendence of Coverdale. This edition of the Bible, known as "The Great Bible," was nothing more than a reprint of Matthew's, revised and compared with the Hebrew is sometimes termed " Cranmer's Bible," all the six later issues of this famous edition having Cranmer's preface. It is, however, better to preserve the original name — " The Great Bible " — for all the seven editions. They were issued in 1539, 1540, and 1 541. Some idea Avas entertained by the bishops of correcting what they, or i6o THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1568. some of them at least, termed blemishes. But it came to nothing, and " The Great Bible," mainly, as we have seen, the work of the martyr Tyndale, was left untampered with. The original editions of the trans- date 1568 ; the second 1572. The " authorised version," a retransiation from the Hebrew and Greek by order of king James by forty-seven divines, was made in 161 1. This will be specially noticed in its BEGINNING OF ST. MATTHEW, FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF "THE GREAT BIBLE," 153S. BROUGHT OUT UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF COVERDALE. {Baptist College, Bristol.) lator, which contained his preface and notes, were prohibited. It was thus that the Holv Scriptures in English struggled into universal use. After twenty-seven vears, in 1568, a re- vision of the Great Bible, undertaken, as we shall subsequentlv see, at the suggestion of archbishop Parker, bv fifteen theologians, was made. This was known as the " Bishop's Bible." The first edition bears proper place. But in this short, general summary of the history of the English Bible it may be well to anticipate just so much of the story of the " authorised version " of 161 1 as to connect that famous translation with the earlier Bibles of king Henry VIII., on which we have been dwelling. The primary and fundamental rule issued to and closely followed by the translators or revisers of " 161 1 " was TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE "GREAT BIBLE," 1539. 71 l62 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1538. expressed in the following terms : — " The ordinary Bible read in the church, com- monly called the Bishop's Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit." This rule was strictly observed ; and thus we may unhesitatingly affirm that the style, tone, and to a great extent the words, of our time-honoured English Bible were in the main settled once and for all by the reformer and martyr, William Tyndale, who was burnt at Vilvorde, near Brussels, in 1536. Finally, the company of revisers of 1881, in their preface, speak of Tyndale's noble work in the following glowing terms : " We have had to study this great version carefully and minutely, line by line ; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences and the felicities of its rhythm. To render a work that had reached this high standard of excellence still more excellent, to increase its fidelity without destroying its charm, was the task committed to us." * The earnest desire for Reformation, which so evidently pervaded the nations which sprang from a Teutonic stock, in- cluding the larger part of Germany, Den- mark, and England, and which had from various causes induced these peoples to make such great changes in their eccle- siastical government, ought naturally, it would have seemed, to have drawn these various peoples together. On first thoughts * Preface to the New Testament, by the revisers of 1881. a union, more or less close, between Ger- many and Denmark on the one side and wealthy, powerful England on the other, ought to have been arranged. This, how- ever, never came about, though attempts in this direction were made in the earlier phases of the English Reformation. As early as the year 1535, when the separation of the Church of England from the Roman obedience became an irrevocable fact, over- tures were made. English ambassadors, at the head of whom was Edward Fox, bishop of Hereford, held long debates with the German theologians at Wittenberg. Points of irreconcilable difference, especially on the questions of clerical celibacy, the supper of the Lord, and the pontifical mass, arose. At one time it was agreed that certain eminent German divines, including the great Melancthon, should proceed to Eng- land to discuss the points of difference, but from various reasons, apparently mainly political, the German delegates never came, and for a time all negotiations ceased. Melancthon was ever a favourite divine with Henry, and through his influence, as we have already remarked, an infusion of Lutheran theology was apparent in the " Ten Articles,'' the first English confession of faith, put forth in 1536. The idea of some union of England and Germany was revived in 1538, and a German mission, recommended in the strongest terms by Melancthon, arrived in England. In fundamental doctrines the Church of England agreed with the Lutheran churches, but it was found im- possible to come to any definite agreement on certain points. These seem to have been the receiving of the Lord's Supper in both kinds, the use of private masses, in «538-*53»-! ENGLAND A which the priest received for others, and the celibacy of priests. There were other points, too, in the background, of serious moment, in which the English Church, at that time very desirous to show how closely it adhered to mediaeval Catholi- cism, objected to make any change — notably in the question of the sacraments of matrimony, orders, confirmation, and extreme unction. Largely, it would seem, through the influence of bishop Gardiner, the envoys were compelled to depart, after a long sojourn in England, without having done anything towards a union between the Church of England and the Lutheran communities. Cranmer and Cromwell were well disposed to negotiate with such a view, but the king and Gardiner disliked the idea of any modi- fication of the second English confession, as embodied in the Bishop's Book put out in 1537. Once more an attempt to unite England and Germany was made. In Germany at this time it was apparently felt that a religious compact with the mighty and united England would be of the greatest importance, and the envoys seem to have been prepared for this end to make the most liberal concessions. They would even retain the office of mass if private masses were given up. They would admit the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist ; the point of receiving in both kinds might be left an open question ; holy days and feasts of saints should be allowed, and even invocation ot saints, so that it were taught " that Christian men should not convert the same hope to the saints which they ought to have unto God." Even images of Christ and of the saints D GERMANY. 163 they did not reject, only the idolatrous adoration of them. On the question of purgatory and pardons, it was the abuse of them that they objected to, the doctrines they were willing to leave undefined. But all the negotiations were futile; no agree- ment was come to. Were the Lutheran churches in earnest, we are tempted to ask, when they offered such a broad basis of agreement ? The envoys even suggested that a modified primacy of Rome might be admitted ! Possibly this suggestion really repelled the English king. Political reasons were also present which broadened the rift between the two nations, the divorce of Anne of Cleves amongst them. At all events, the king of England was cold, the negotiations were broken off, and all idea of a union between continental Protestants and the Church of England was given up. The religious state of England in 1538-9 was somewhat confused. The nation was divided into various parties, and among these the feeling of dislike and even abhor- rence one of another ran very high. An outline sketch of these parties will help us to understand something of the king's policy at this period of his reign. There was the party which still held on to Rome, made up of churchmen and laymen who abhorred the schism with the Papacy. This section of the community was largely recruited from the expelled monastics and by those who sympathised with them. To these, naturally, king Henry was an apostate ; was one who for the sake of greed and gain had sold his church and given up the cherished sacred traditions of centuries. These could see no good for their country in the breaking 1 64 THE CHURCH off the papal yoke. To return to the old state of things, not a few were ready even to play the part of traitors to their country and its government. A larger and more important section were Anglicans — to use a word which gradually came into use. These were content to separate from Rome, if only the old doctrinal teaching was rigidly maintained, the old objects of reverence preserved, the old and cherished cere- monies maintained. This party was strictly, rigidly conservative in every- thing pertaining to the Church, save in the one particular of the Roman obedi- ence. With it the king deeply and strongly svmpathised. He would gently reform some of the outward framework ; he would make some concessions to the men of the new learning ; he would re- move the manifest impostures and flagrant frauds which disfigured the old teaching ; he would give an English Bible to the people, perhaps hedging in the use of this Bible with some restrictions. But on the whole, the king was rigidly steadfast to the old mediaeval paths of religion ; as little as possible must be changed, either in doctrine or rites and ceremonies. The majority of the bishops, and most of the leading peers of the old creation who were left in England, felt very much as the king in these matters. The Lutheran partv in the church num- bered some very eminent men — such as Cranmer and Latimer ; but its definitions of religion were too subtle, too eclectic — to use a term of modern phraseology — for the mass of the English people. These, too, were rigidlv orthodox in what we should now term essentials in religion, but OF ENGLAND. [1538-1539 were earnest Reformers in their passionate longing to sweep away images, relics, pil- grimages, and what they deemed mediaeval ceremonies. They doubted the truth of the doctrine of Purgatory, and misliked all that doctrine involved— pardon, in- dulgences, and the like. They desired also that permission should be given to the clergy to marry. Outside these three great parties lay a vast number who cannot be classed, mostlv belonging to the people, and roughlv denominated " heretics " — true descend- ants of the Lollards of the preceding- century. Some were Anabaptists, some Sacramentarians, some Zwinglians : all more or less affected by the wave of Reformation which was passing over the nations of Europe, man}' intensely in earnest in their detestation of mediaeval superstitions, but generally very ignorant, and utterlv incapable of forming anv serious and well-balanced judgment re- specting the momentous questions which were agitating the Church.* Cromwell, who for some vears had occupied the foremost position among the king's advisers and favourites, and to whom as chief minister intense jealousy, hatred, and fear were attracted, was never a religious man. He was a most loval servant of Henrv, whom he served with a rare fidelitv ; but was ever the statesman rather than the churchman, caring, on the whole, little for those ecclesiastical matters in which, to his own bitter loss, he was so deeply mixed up. As far as he cared at all for these things, he belonged to the Lutheran partv, especially in their hatred of Roman influence, and in their detestation * Cf. Froude : " History of England," chap xvi. 1538— 1539 j ' RELIGIOUS STATE OF ENGLAND. 165 of all mediaeval superstitions. His great with or helped forward. Other political work, the work with which his name will events, notably the failure in the matter ever be associated — the dissolution of the of the marriage of Henry with Anne of W&^f t&-rt *«-^7r y$j£y$-'h f-y - v ~ "i "t r— > rz 1 rtwtvo to fad ttS&fiS JH|}mtttrOH ftu? wiifiiftttwii Gtt$ tbiS miK^ Wiit^iiiujj-^tGc 0ctt9» ftjfttW'ttj&cff £netf>c ronfoit oftfiv ^»i^'Jli^M tfjttffiiit- of &4 C«9t<5* Ojjuftfi- tkiStempojttff ttn$ ojfw^ fciiK^ men of Jji«f iuj£/s^ CtniRittwii tt«9 £v tfo CTufcut of ^omouONi.jfi.tf f]?i.t ftjJimRcd itQtWtniS iv<^nrtff« jcjofucd' ftitvi?&t>o an» GTooifc op >»'/. <£*Stou£ Cj&Ji Cjfffe Sjnp^ttityo thti* jfittt- ttfiti t$t> umptjrtroii ' KMitouCt£> uOO ouffirtuio'op GjCftS 02 Sojmo uox ttiip ot§<^ tf"»Gp*ntf Ktitjgc \5iifijtthitc of 4t(tflo &>9 hi*uT tta^WfltW/. 6» t&e f*&s of «Gtcd of ftrt rf« » &, f&J&f .^hSb fitu.o of Spirt uf dj£ £c h' J'oi' onjj^-tsfo -v gto!. .a c- T^jfeJ- .i.- .;.cl^.a ^ a-* e. f^v'of Cjrfuu- 4_voffo^ o6p]'K-l> Gp the fitWc of 4x«d *i5 tfittt if cjyvinjrtvtfi tivm |Joiu otfi«^ «Sirfo»t rtt- rfot wvtf§t iwep f}n>{tft> tfi*r tt- lo'iitrtv- ttn9 iicte|Jitii S»\V&Ht ttirtt WOt inl/f^tU CIH0PC> fiyttlf pltfririO IIKtC *if HttclfrtjlC tfirtt ^pPittc£iort|'K-0"fc tOHtvimcd; ttiiv^ tH?iiii>ttetf in t^io' fti^iT' CiitffijTSc Cfinjrfio ttii9 Coiijncjftttwi tcy<ifiv ge* iKVti^ ojfeinjtc tfie tiedW rtii9 ^H>9fti ronplittt [ittoilO ENTRY IN THE STATUTE ROLL AT THE RECORD OFFICE, OF THE PASSING OK THE ACT OF THE SIX ARTICLES. the basis of an act which the king deter- mined should be the guiding rule of the church. It was terribly reactionary, intensely conservative. If it became law, it would indeed show that England was, for the present at all events, to have little to do with Lutheranism or the Reformation as was, oi course, bitterly opposed to it ; Cranmer spoke long and fearlessly against it ; but all was to no purpose. The king had now made up his mind, and, taking his part in the debate in Parliament, showed his intention clearly. His bitter disappoint- ment at the Reformation extravagances, as he regarded them, was clearly expressed. 170 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['539- The result of the debate and of the many conferences held was inevitable, and the act of the " Six Articles " was, in spite of crrave opposition, passed. The Six Articles may be summed up as follows : — ■ (1) The doctrine of transubstantiation was affirmed. " In the sacrament of the altar, after consecration, there remaineth no substance of bread and wine,"' but the natural body and blood of Christ are present under these forms. (2) That communion in both kinds is not necessary to salvation to all persons by the law of God. This gave sanction to a custom — hotlv objected to bv reformers, but which had prevailed for about a hundred years in the mediaeval church — of denying the cup to the laity. (3) That priests might not marry. (4) That vows of chastity once taken by men or women must be observed, and were of perpetual obligation. (5) That private or solitary masses in the church ought to be continued as meet for godly consolation and benefit. (6) That auricular confession to a priest must be retained and continued to be used in the church. These reactionary Articles — for such they emphatically were, of which the above is a summary — the act declared, must be sternly enforced under the following severe pains and penalties : — Whoever by word or by writing denied the first article, that affirming transubstantiation, should be declared a heretic, and suffer death by burning without opportunity of abjuration, without protection from sanc- tuary or benefit of clergy ; whoever spoke against, or otherwise broke, the other five Articles, any one of them, should, for the first offence, forfeit his property ; if he offended a second time or refused to abjure when called to answer, he should suffer death as a felon. All marriages hitherto contracted by priests were declared void ; and such marriages had become, since the Reformation spirit had passed over the church, of common occurrence. Arch- bishop Cranmer, for instance, was married. To refuse to go to confession was felony. To refuse to receive the sacrament was also felony. The immediate result of the passing of the act of the " Six Articles " is well sum- marised in the following words : — " On every road, on which the free mind of man was moving, the dark sentinel of orthodoxy was stationed with its flaming sword ; and in a little time all cowards, all who had adopted the new opinions with motives less pure than that deep zeal and love which alone entitles human beings to constitute them- selves champions of God, flinched into their proper nothingness, and left the battle to the brave and good.''* The opinion of Lutherans and of the German reformers was well expressed by Melancthon, probably the most learned and moderate of his party in Germany, the friend and often the teacher of Cranmer, and to whom king Henry himself had ever listened with respectful attention, and not unfrequentlv with marked approval. In a letter to Henry, almost passionate in its disapproval of the measure, he implores the king to change his purpose. " If that barbarous decree be not repealed," he wrote, " the bishops will never cease to rage against the church of Christ without * Froude : " Hist, of England," chap. xvi. 1539-1546.] PERSECUTIONS UNDER THE ACT. 171 mercy and without pity, . . . and you, O king, all the godly beseech most humbly that you will not prefer such wicked and cruel oppressions and subtle sophisteries before their own just and honest prayers. God recompense you to your great reward if you shall grant those prayers." One of the first results of the new act was the resignation of bishops Latimer and Shaxton, the two most prominent of the reformer bishops. Latimer, who, however, again rose to eminence and power, now fell into poverty and neglect for several years. But while individual cases of persecution are recorded, the general effect of the " Six Articles " has been exaggerated. The act continued in force for some eight years, and several times was made the instrument of a cruel persecution ; but during a large portion of the eight years, its stringent provisions do not seem to have severely pressed. Four distinct persecutions, how- ever, took place under the provisions of this hateful and reactionary statute in 1539, 1 541, 1543, and 1546. In the first of these as many as five hundred persons (mostly in the metropolis) were indicted for heresy, but these were after a short time set at liberty. Again, in 1 541 commissions were issued to the bishops and officials to pro- ceed against the heretics. As before, the prosecutions were almost entirely confined to the diocese of London. About two hundred were arrested, but only one or two executions were the result ; the others were released. In Salisbury three men were burned for matters spoken " against the sacrament," and in Lincoln two more. In 1543 three men were burnt at Windsor as having transgressed against the bloody act. One of these, one of the singing men of the Windsor choir, is notorious in the history of the time for his public insult to an alabaster image of the Virgin, the nose of which he publicly knocked off. This choirman, whose name, Testwood, has come down to us, was also accused of blasphemy in the course of singing an anthem. In a verse which ran " O Redemptrix et Salvatrix," Testwood was heard changing the " O " into " Non " and the " et" into- " nee." He with two others were burnt in front of Windsor Castle, the victims- enduring their torments with heroic con- stancy. The king, when the story of their doom was related to him, is said to have exclaimed, "Alas, poor innocents!" In. 1544 the "Six Articles" act was so far modified by Parliament that accusations of heresy could only be made on the oath of twelve men or more, and the time was- limited within a year of the committal of the alleged offence. The fourth and last formal persecution under the hateful act took place as late as 1546, when several persons suffered at Smithfield. Amongst these was Anne Askew, who was of good birth and highly educated. Much pains were taken and torture inflicted to per- suade her to recant, but she was constant, even through the agonies of the rack. Her opinions were apparently those of Frith, of whom we have already written. She was burned with three companions, in the presence of an immense concourse of spectators. It will be seen from this brief summary that the results of the " whip with six strings," as the act has been popularly called, have been exaggerated, though altogether a good many persons suffered for religion during the last years of king 172 THE CHURCH Henry VIII. 's reign. The actual execu- tions under its provisions were not very numerous ; and it only seems to have been enforced with any severity at the intervals of time above quoted, and only in certain districts. The meaning of the detestable act, of which so much has been written, seems to have been — " that the king was roused bv an idea that the church, of which he was resolved to be the supreme head, was likely to be over- thrown bv a torrent of what he considered infidelity and blasphemv, and that he de- vised and carried such a measure as he thought was suited to check the frightful evil." " Such seems to have been the origin of the act. It was evidently in- tended to intimidate, rather than to hurt ; to pacify the people, rather than to destroy them. ... It was meant to frighten the people, and it did frighten them." * And during the year 1539 to the first days of the year 1547, when king Henry died, the English people lived more or less under the shadow of this terrible act of the " Six Articles," ever with the fear of a possible prosecution for heresy before their eyes. During these last years of Henry VIII.'s eventful reign, the Reformation seemingly made little progress in England ; in reality, however, considerable steps were taken, which made the work we shall presently have to consider, done in the reign of the boy-king Edward VI., possible. During these closing years it is indisputable that Cranmer, the archbishop, possessed great influence with the king. It is true that the primate was not much at court ; * Dr. Maitland, quoted by Dean Hook : " Lives of the Archbishops — Thomas Cranmer." OF ENGLAND. [,543. but the evident love which Henry felt for Cranmer, and his trust in his judgment, makes it almost certain that nothing in religious matters was done without consultation with his archbishop. On more than one occasion Henry threw the shield of his royal protection over his friend and counsellor, and enabled him to defeat the hostile intrigues which were being continually devised by Cranmer's many enemies. Much of this time was spent by the primate in comparative quiet and retirement and study ; and a great and marked change in his views of doc- trine evidently passed over the archbishop in the course of these quiet years. The third English Confession of Faith put out with authority in this reign, made its appearance in 1543. It had been under the careful consideration of a commission, composed of bishops and doctors, for some two years and a half. It was the third great formulary of the reign, and was termed " The Necessary Doctrine and Eru- dition of a Christian Man," being known popularly as the " King's Book." It dealt especially with the burning questions of the age, the doctrine of the sacraments, church government, and the authority of the bishop. It has been accurately described as a revision of the first formulary of faith : " The Institution of a Christian Man," generally called the " Bishops' Book," and was, on the whole, more learned in its arguments than the first formulary. In some respects it was markedly re- actionary, notably in the preface, written in the name of the king himself. Here the too free handling of the now public and translated Scriptures is sharply commented 1 543-1 •'THE KING'S BOOK." 173 upon, and reasons are given for the strange doctrine was taught than that put forth parliamentary restraints which this same in " The Bishops' Book." The article on year were imposed upon the reading bv baptism was re-written, and baptismal re- certain of the uneducated classes of these generation was asserted to its full extent. MARTYRDOM OF TESTWOOD AND HIS COMPANIONS iyi). =ame Scriptures. " It was not necessary " In the Sacrament of the Altar, for the brief — so run the words of this preface — " for article in the " Bishops' Book," declaring all to read the Scriptures for themselves ; the doctrine of the Real Presence, was it was sufficient to hear and bear away substituted a long one affirming transub- the lessons taught by the preachers." stantiation and receiving in one kind, and In respect of the Sacraments, a higher receiving fasting. In the exposition of the 174 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1543- Sacrament of Penance, auricular confession Avas required. The celibacy of the priests, that long-disputed point, was insisted upon. In the " King's Book," however, a dis- tinction was made between the greater sacraments of baptism, penance, and the altar, and the rest of the seven. The expositions of the Ten Commandments were practically the same as in the " Bishops' Book." Several passages against images were, however, added in this last formulary. Generally speaking, whilst a higher doctrine pervaded " The King's Book," and a decided leaning towards mediaeval teaching, there is no doubt that there was less of the controversial spirit of the time in it. In commenting upon the petition for " daily bread " in the Lord's Prayer, the " Bishops' Book " had said the Word of God was principally meant, but the " King's Book " added that the sacrament of the altar was meant by the bread for which we ask. The same reactionary spirit noticeable in this formulary of 1543, was also manifest in the ecclesiastical measures of the Parlia- ment of that year, in which the free use of the English Bible was limited. Tyndale's version, with the notes, prologues, and prefaces, was again prohibited ; and it was also enacted that no woman might read the Bible ; no artificer, 'prentice, serving- man, husbandman, or labourer might read it, either openly or privately, nor teach or preach in the church, on pain of a month's imprisonment. But noblemen and gentlemen might read it quietly in their families; merchants, too, might read it to themselves, and so might ladies. A clause was added empowering the king to alter this act or any part of it at his pleasure. From the tone of these enactments, evi- dently suggested by the king, it appears that Henry was sorely troubled at the wild excesses which were prevalent among ill- educated and fanatical persons, who took upon themselves to publicly read and expound the Scriptures, It is not, however, probable that these painful and severe restrictions placed upon reading the Scriptures were intended to be permanent. It is not likely that either the king or Cranmer — whose influence during these last years of the reign, although it does not seem to have been paramount with Henry, still was ever weighty and powerful — had any idea other than that of gradually familiarising the people with the English Bible ; for at the same time (1543) an order went out that one lesson from the Old and New Testament should be read in English in the churches without exposition. (This lesson, in English, was to be read after the Te Deum and Magnificat.) An announce- ment was also made this same year by the archbishop, that all antiphoners, mass books, etc., were to be purged from all mention of the bishop of Rome's name, from all apocryphas, feigned legends, super- stitious orations, versicles, and responses ; that the names and memories ot all saints which were not contained in the Scrip- tures or authentic doctors should be abolished, and put out of the same books and calendars. A committee of the two houses of Convocation was to be ap- pointed to carry this order into effect. It does not, however, appear that the order in question was carried out. The earnest desire of Henry and Cran- mer to assist the people in forming a true conception of religion, was especially I'HE AUTHORISED " PRIMER » OF DEVOTION. 1545] manifested in their important scheme, which gave the nation in the year 1545, for the first time, a formally authorised book of private prayers and devotion in the vernacular. But these prayers were, with a few notable exceptions, exclusively for private, not for public use. Long before the Reformation period books existed, more or less generally used, for private devotion, containing the offices in English and in Latin, including the Hours, the Litany, the Ten Commandments, the Ave, and other pieces. Some of these books, known as Primers, contained as well short explanations or expositions. In the Reformation age, as might have been expected, these primers were multiplied. Two of them that obtained much notoriety deserve mention. Marshall's primer, which was condemned as early as 1530 by Convo- cation, contained besides the translated prayers many denunciations of " blind idolatry with which the worship of Christians was become depraved." The other of the more famous ■ primers of this age, published by Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, possessed an official character, being put out under the auspices of Crom- well, then the chief minister of the crown. It retains the old Litany, but omitted all the saints named therein, save those that are found in the New Testament. It contained a calendar giving Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and saints' days, which nearly correspond with those now in use. In 1545 Henry, no doubt under the influence of Cranmer, put out the first authorised primer with the prayers in English. In his preface the king stated that " he had bestowed pains to set forth 17: a determinate form of prayer, that men might know both what they prayed and also in what words, and neither offer to God things standing against true religion, nor yet words far out of their intelligence or understanding." All schoolmasters were to teach this primer or book ot ordinary prayers, and no other primer was to be taught. Besides the private prayers thus translated, including the " Hours," etc., certain parts of the public services were also translated and authoritatively published in English — the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Com- mandments, the Litany, and Bidding prayers, and these were no doubt publicly used in divine service in the year 1545. Other and far more important changes in the public services were, it is clear, under the influence of Cranmer, under consideration, when the king's fatal illness stopped these measures for the moment. Much towards a reformation in the Church of England had been done, before the sands of that royal life ran out. The dead hand of Rome, which had pressed for so long and with ever-increasing weight upon all church life, had been — thanks to the energy of king Henry VIII.— for ever removed. Many of the more glaring abuses and exaggerations which had gradu- ally grown up in the Middle Ages, had been swept away. Indulgences and par- dons belonged to the past ; the idolatrous cult of images and relics was well-nigh swept away ; the Holy Scriptures were no longer a sealed book ; the Bible was gradually becoming 'the possession of all sorts and conditions of men. 176 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['545- Considerable progress, too, had been made towards the general use of an Eng- lish liturgy. Books containing authorised translations of the various church services were in the hands of the people ; and ahead)' some of these prayers were prayed, of change — the language being alone altered — which constitutes the strength and beauty of the service of the English Church. They were the very prayers which Plegmund in the days of Alfred, and Dunstan in the times of Edgar, and PUBLIC EXPOUNDING OF THE SCRIPTURES (/ 1 74). even in church, in the familiar vernacular. It was clear that soon the old familiar but comparatively unknown Latin tongue would cease altogether to be heard in the churches of the land, and that all prayers would be sent up to the Mercy Seat in the well-loved English tongue. But they would be the same pravers which had been prayed in the Church of Christ from an immemorial antiquity ; and it is this continuity, this changelessness in the midst Anselm when the Red King reigned, had prayed ; only they were to be hence- forth uttered in English, which all men in our island understood, instead of in Latin, the meaning of which only a very few really comprehended. A great wrong had no doubt been perpe- trated by king Henry, an awful ruin had been worked, when he destroyed the monasteries and wasted their precious treasures. But even out of this act of irreparable mischief 1539 ] CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 177 and wrong-doing, by the providence of God, good had already been worked. The immediate result of the ruin and desolation of the monasteries and the abbey churches was, as we have seen, a partial reaction in the reformers' work began again among us, after Henry's death, it was largely carried on in a conservative spirit, to which we owe the preservation of so much of Catholic truth in our formularies and ritual. HUGH LATIMER, BISHOP OF WORCESTER. (From the portrait in the National Portrait Gal/cry.) the Reformation work ; a reaction in some respects mistaken, but which prevented the wild and destructive theories that worked such permanent mischief in the reformed churches on the Continent being carried out in England. This reaction was a breathing-time for England ; and when 72 To one master-mind our church is largely indebted, as well for that which was happily preservedj as for that which was fortunately restored to us. Our picture of the friend of Henry's latter years— of the famous Reformation archbishop — can be no por- trait of a great saint, or of a consummate 178 THE CHURCH statesman, or even of a very distinguished genius. Cranmer was none of these. He was an able, honest man ; highly gifted ; an indefatigable worker ; an earnest be- liever in the great truths of the faith ; and, above all, a loyal and devoted Englishman ; ever a patient seeker after truth ; ever ready to give up what he felt to be mis- taken, when he had thoroughly and with vast pains convinced himself of his error. Cranmer was never above learning from other men whose learning he felt was greater than his own ; and he was ready to submit his judgment to others, when once he was persuaded that their de- ductions were right and true. He was a man full of human errors, human weak- nesses, human failings ; but, in spite of all these, he did a right noble work for the church he loved so well, and in the end died for. The large majority of serious Englishmen will ever cherish the memory of Cranmer, and will honour him as one of the chiefest and most earnest of our reformers. During the earlier years of his archi- episcopate, Cranmer had apparently little sympathv with the opinions of the more ad- vanced reformers on the burning questions which were agitating men's minds. A quiet reformation of the more flagrant abuses in church government, and a re- moval of the more pronounced superstitions which disfigured church practices, were the points he especially aimed at carrying out ; but at the same time he was resolute in his determination to free his church from the yoke of Rome. He intensely sympathised with the advocates of the new learning in their earnest desire to secure for the people an English version of the OF ENGLAND. [I53g. Holy Scriptures ; and the gift of the Bible in the vernacular was largely the result of his unflagging efforts. The English Bible for the people was supplemented, as we. have seen, by the gradual introduction of first, private prayers, then public prayers, also, in the tongue understanded by the masses. That during the sad years of the suppression of the monastic orders, and the shameless confiscation and waste which followed of so much that might have been devoted to* God's service, he stood by supinely, without apparently venturing to remonstrate with the king, will ever appear a dark blot on his character. That others who* felt deeply in this matter were equally timorous or time-serving, is poor matter out of which to construct an apology for his conduct here. It remains, and ever will, a dark chapter in his life-story. That he vehemently opposed the pass- ing of the " Six Articles " Act is indis- putable ; but it would seem that his oppo- sition was based rather upon intense dislike of the bitter spirit of persecution which was breathed in the Act in question, than from any serious dislike to the doctrines enunciated in its provisions. The large share he took in the composition and subsequent putting forth of the "King's Book," is an ample proof that to the end of Henry's reign he had little sympathy with what is termed Reformation doctrine ; and his conduct after his stern master's death, when as the head of the council he ordered a dirge to be sung in all the churches of London, and, assisted by eight other bishops, sang himself a mass of requiem, showed that he had not as yet given up his belief in the sacrifice of the mass and in the dogma of transubstantiation. 1539— 1545 ] RIDLEY AND CRANMER. 179 After the passing of the statute of the ;i Six Articles," to which he was without doubt adverse, archbishop Cranmer retired a good deal from the turmoil of public life, though he still preserved the confidence and intimate friendship of the king. It was in these years that he especially devoted himself to study, and these studies gradu- ally produced a great change in the arch- bishop's opinions. Hitherto he had quietly acquiesced in the teaching which the Re- formers so vehemently opposed. His private secretary gives us an interesting account of his way of life. Cranmer's usual hour for rising was five o'clock. The first four hours of the day were generally given to devotion and studv. He was not in the habit, when he read, of trusting to his memory, but had his commonplace book always at hand, and he usuallv read standing at his desk. At nine o'clock the primate received visitors, and transacted business till one, the usual hour for dinner. After dinner he would again receive visitors; and by his courtesy and kindness he Avon the goodwill of all who sought his presence. Then he would enjoy for a time some field sports, in which it was said he excelled ; sometimes his recreation was a game of chess. At five he repaired to his chapel for devotion. Between chapel and supper time he again refreshed himself with some outdoor exercise ; of supper, we read, he frequently did not partake, although he was always present to welcome his guests. At nine he retired to rest. During the years of his partial retire- ment, the famous Hugh Latimer was often his guest and companion ; and there is no doubt but that this earnest and devoted Reformer, who, with all his faults, is very dear to Englishmen, exercised considerable influence over him. But his chief friend and counsellor at this time was his chaplain, the learned theologian Ridley. This re- markable man, who has stamped his views indelibly upon the formularies and teaching of the Church of England, was born early in the sixteenth century. His career at Cambridge was most distinguished ; he became a Fellow, and, finally, Master of his college (Pembroke). His favourite walk in the orchard, where he would pace up and down committing portions of the Greek Testament to memory, is yet called " Ridley's Walk." Subsequently he tra- velled on the Continent, studying both at the Sorbonne and at Louvain ; and in Germany he became intimately acquainted with several of the leading Reformers. Returning to Cambridge, he again filled various distinguished posts in his uni- versity. He came under the notice of Cranmer, of whom he became the intimate friend and counsellor. Ridley's conversion to the principal Reform doctrines was very slow, and was the fruit of long and patient stud)-. The famous treatise of Ratramn, to which we have alluded before at some length in discussing the doctrines of the Anglo-Saxon church in the tenth century, with its profound learning and unanswer- able arguments, were the basis of his, views and subsequent teaching on the subject of the Lord's supper. The remainder of his distinguished career is well known, and belongs to English history. Cranmer in- troduced him to the king, who gave him valuable preferment. Under Edward VI. he was successively appointed to the sees of Rochester (1547) and of London (1550). 180 THE CHURCH Under Queen Mary he was imprisoned in the Tower, and eventually tried at Oxford, and burnt as a heretic in 1555. He en- dured his martyrdom with great dignity and courage. Foxe describes him as " wise in counsell, deepe of wit, and very politike in all his doings. ... In all points so good, godlie, and ghostlie a man, that England may justly rue the loss of so worthie a treasure." Burnet speaks ot him as. the ablest of the Reformers; he is described as small in stature, but great in learning. Such was the quiet scholar who brought his influence to bear on Cranmer during the last years of Henry VIII. ; and Cranmer freely acknow- ledged his deep obligation to him. It is said that about the year 1545, Ridley communicated to the archbishop what he had discovered in the writings of Ratramn, and that then the two friends set themselves to examine the matter with more than ordinary care. Many wise theologians in the Church of England would be glad if the Eucharistic controversy had never arisen ; glad if, in his abbey of Corbey, Paschasius Radbertus had left the great mystery undefined, as it had ever been in the early ages of the church ; glad if Rabanus Maurus the arch- bishop, and Ratramn the monk, and other learned men, had not been compelled by the alarm stirred up by Paschasius to ex- amine and write on the hard question. But theologians and historians, although the)- may regret the question was ever stirred at all, are bound to relate the true story. There is no doubt but that Cran- mer for years after he became archbishop, took but little interest in the discussion of a dogma which for a long time he regarded OF ENGLAND. [1539-1545. as scarcely needing much discussion. The doctrine of transubstantiation he found generally taught in the church, and he therefore received it, as did his sovereign king Henry VIII., without questioning. In the third great formulary, " The King's Book," it is clearly taught. But the controversy was daily assuming among reformers greater importance. Pro- testants (we use this term generally for reformers) of all shades were urgent that the mass should be turned into a com- munion. The mass was regarded by the medixval church as a sacrifice for the quick and dead. The reformers maintained that it was a communion through which the faithful were united to Christ. They . taught that the Eucharist was indeed a sacrifice, but a commemorative sacrifice in which the faithful offered themselves as a sacrifice, a bod)' of persons prepared to serve God in bod)' and soiil. The mediaeval church regarded itself as offering the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But if He was to be offered, He must be corporeally present ; and He could only be corporeally present by the transmutation of the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This dogma Cranmer and Henry VIII. unhesitatingly received when the " King's Book " was put out. In the last years of the famous reign, the unswerving determination of reformers of all lands and schools to reject this dogma of transubstantiation, weighed sorely on men like Cranmer, and his friend and adviser, Ridley. Ridley devoted himself to the study of the question, and the re- markable treatise of Ratramn, published first in opposition to Paschasius Radbertus some seven hundred years before, decided CRAMMER'S CHANGE OF VIEWS. 181 IS39-I547-] him absolutely to throw his lot in this we know were familiar to him, were natter in with the reformers. He took also probably at this period working in the weighty treatise to Cranmer, and the his mind. Slowly, very slowly indeed, archbishop seems from that day gradually the new conviction seems to have forced NICHOLAS RIDLEY, IHSHOP OF LONDON. (From tlie portrait in the Xational Portrait Gallery.) to have changed his old views. Cranmer's words later express this : " Ridley did confer with me, and by sending persuasions and authorities of ancient doctors drew me quite from my opinion in favour 01 tran- substantiation." Frith's arguments, which itself upon him. He cannot be said to have really renounced the dogma of tran- substantiation before king Henry's death, because he celebrated mass at the corona- tion of Edward VI., and sung the mass at St. Paul's on the occasion of the death of 182 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1546—1547- Francis I. of France, a month or two after Henry's death. But that his opinions were already changing is clear, and it e\'en seems probable that Henry himself, extraordinary as it may appear, and fiercely as he had fought for the doctrine of transubstantia- tion during the whole of his reign, cher- ished doubts or had to some extent changed his own views before the end came ; for some arrangements had been made between the kings of France and England, shortly before the death of these monarchs, to turn the mass into a communion ; and Cranmer is even said to have been com- manded to prepare a form of communion.* We dwell upon this gradual but de- liberate change of opinion on the part of Ridley and Cranmer, if not also of Henry VIII. himself, because it is of * In support of this statement, that king Henrv VIII. shortly before his death was determined to carry out the Reformation further, Dean Hook quotes (see "Remains," i., 321) Cranmer's words to his secretary, Murice, after Henry's death : " I am sure you were at Hampton Court when the French king's ambassador was entertained there, not long before the king's death . . . the king leaning upon the ambassador and upon me ; if I should tell what communication between the king's highness and the said ambassador was had concerning the establishment of sincere religion, then a man would hardly have believed it. Nor had I myself thought the king's highness had been so forw ard in these matters as then appeared, I may tell you it passed the pulling down of roods and suppressing the ringing of bells. I take it, that few in England would have believed that the king's majesty and the French king had been at their peril ... to have changed the mass into a communion as we now use it . . . and herein the king's highness willed even to pen a form thereof to be sent to the French king to consider of." See also Canon Dixon, who refers to Strype's " Cranmer (bk. i., chap xxx.) for the words : " The king (Henry VIII.) commanded him (Cranmer) to pen a form for the alteration of the mass into a communion ." (" Hist, of Ch. of Eng ," chap, xii.) extreme importance to ascertain what was intended to be taught by the formularies of the Church of England, as reformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ridlev, the dear friend and counsellor of Cranmer, maintained a doctrine nearly identical with that maintained by Calvin, and before him by Ratramn. With the latter Ridley expresses his entire accordance. He constantly declares that whilst he rejects all presence of the natural body and blood in the way of transub- stantiation, he yet acknowledges a real presence of Christ spiritually, and by grace to be received by the faithful in the com- munion of the Eucharist.* Ridley's own words deserve quotation, and will show his opinion with accuracy. " I say that the body of Christ is present in the Sacrament, but yet sacramentally and spiritually (ac- cording to His grace) giving life, and in that respect really, that is, according to His benediction giving life. . . . The true church of Christ doth acknowledge a presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper to be communicated to the godly by grace and spiritually, as I have often showed, by a sacramental signification, not by the corporeal presence of the body of His flesh " ; and, again, " that heavenly Lamb is (as I confess) on the table, but by a spiritual presence, and not after any corporeal presence of the flesh taken of the Virgin Mary." The Liturgy and Articles of our church were certainly in the main, if not entirely, compiled by these two. It is true that both the Liturgy and the Articles have been slightly altered since their time, yet by far the larger part remains just as Cranmer * " Works — Parker Society," pp. 236-249. ,S52.] ANGLICAN DOCTRINE and Ridley left them. Dean Hook's summary * is important, that " our re- formers helieved that Christ can be really present to the worthy recipient ; that they considered the rcs-sacramcnti to depend on consecration, and on the worthy re- ceiving— not the receiving without the consecration, but the consecration with the receiving. They argued that the bread and wine when consecrated are intended to become to all intents and purposes that blessed thing which they represent ; but such they do not become in fact until the worthy recipient has made it such to him- self by faith. He then rejoices, for that he has received his Lord.'' Hooker (a.d. 1553 1600), to quote the words of perhaps our greatest Anglican theologian, gives the same interpretation when he writes " that Christ is personally there present, albeit a part of Christ be corporally absent — that the fruit of the Eucharist is the participa- tion of the body and blood of Christ ; that the real presence of Christ's most blessed bodv and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament." t The words in Cranmer's Article (the present xxviii.) are " to such as rightlv worthily and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ, and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ." % This was one of the forty- two articles of religion published in the * " Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, ■vol. vii., chap. Hi., p. 152. t " Ecclesiastical Polity," book v., chap, lxvii., 6-11. \ See page 220, where the text of this article is given, with the changes of 1562. OF THE SACRAMENT. 183 year 1552. Bishop Jewel (a.d. 1522-1571), who was probably the chief writer of the second book of Homilies, and who may be trusted as one of the weightiest exponents of the Anglican belief, writes in his apology : " We plainly pronounce in the Supper the body and blood of the Lord, the flesh of the Son of God, to be truly exhibited to those who believe." The same great truth is taught in our day to every boy and girl brought up in the Anglican church, in the words of our Catechism, in the explanation of the Sacraments, added in 1004 : ''The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Whether or not the opinion of Tunstall, bishop of Durham, that it would have been better (i to leave curious persons to their own conjectures respecting this mystery " was not a wise one, is an open question. Not a few holy and humble men in our own and in former generations certainly think with him. So evidentlv thought Hooker, though he closely followed the Anglican reformers in his definitions, when he wrote : " It is enough that unto me that take them, they are the bodv and blood of Christ. Why should any. cogitation possess the soul of the faithful communicant, but, O my God ! thou art true ; O my soul ! thou art happy." All we have done here, however, is to faithfully set forth what was beyond doubt in the mind of our great Anglican re- formers themselves, when they compiled the formularies of the Anglican faith. And when they put these formularies forth they invented nothing, suggested nothing novel. They simply and faithfully restored 1 84 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Li 547- the ancient creed, in the spirit, and we might almost say in the very words of the old Anglo-Saxon church ; sweeping away the novel additions and interpretations introduced by mediaeval divines. The continuity of the Anglican church with the church of Dunstan and Elfric is, in this respect, unbroken ; and it has been shown already how glorious was the lineage of that church of our Anglo-Saxon fathers. When the end came for Henry VIII. , it was not unexpected. Though not an old man, his health had long been declining. His ever-increasing corpulence had given him much pain and uneasiness ; and when in the last months of his life an ulcer in his leg had deepened and spread, he could no longer walk or stand, and was wheeled from room to room. The symptoms grew worse, and the king became fully aware that the end was at hand. The day before his death, it is said, he spent in conversation with lord Hertford, the brother of his queen Jane Seymour, and consequently uncle of the future king, Edward VI., and Sir William Paget, on the condition and future of England. A few hours after this he grew suddenly worse, and being asked which of the bishops he desired to see, he answered, Cranmer. When the archbishop arrived the king was still conscious, but speechless. Cranmer, " speaking comfortably to him, desired him to give him some token that he put his trust in God through Jesus Christ : therewith the king wrung hard the archbishop's hand, and expired.'' Edward VI., who followed him on the throne, was scarcely ten years old when his father died. 4 4 'J j/S : «JN $f, Aft; RIDLEY S WALK, PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. nf**" • ' <- •)■ 'i~Jr~??{. ;~r—t ' — — the- 17 jfiC crnfaKcdcsarr sfw /Av W ' Wanted fa ^ ^ . y> "Thf Crt &tS<~ ^W-t free <* ' aheL 0- Itor'xJ- t /*j (Ac p&rf'd ■ j , " , , 'A PORTION OF A PAGE OF KING EDWARD VI.'s DIARY. [British Musettm.) CHAPTER XLIX. EDWARD VI. AND THE FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. The Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland— Edward VI. — Troubled Character of his Reign — The Homilies — Injunctions — Destruction of Images and Paintings in Churches — Repeal of the Six Articles — The First Order of Communion — The Roman Breviary — The Sarum Use — The First Book of Common Prayer in English — Description of its Principal Features — Resistance to the Reformed Liturgy — Fall of Somerset from Power. THE will of Henry VIII., a carefully prepared document, left the govern- ment during the minority in the hands of a body of executors of equal powers, who were to be advised bv an assistant body of counsellors. The executors were com- posed of representatives of both the parties who had formed the late king's council. The reformers and the supporters of the new learning, the conservatives and the men of the old learning, were alike members of this proposed regency. But Henry's intention that things should go on as before his death, under the guidance of this evenly-balanced council, was quickly set aside. Gardiner, who was the leader of the " old learning," was put aside ; Hertford, the young king's uncle, as a result of a series of intrigues, stepped into the position of regent, with the name of Protector ; and various promotions in the peerage were given to his friends, Hertford taking the title of the duke of Somerset. The years of the reign of Edward VI. — 1 547—1 553 — are a confused and disturbed period in English ecclesiastical history. During these years, which witnessed the alternate supremacy of factions, when the government was in the hands of those who, as a rule, cared for little save the advancement of their own interests, two men in succession stood prominent ; in the picture of the time they fill the principal places in the canvas. 186 THE CHURCH The first of these was the Protector, Hertford, better known by the title he assumed, immediately upon Henry's death, of the duke of Somerset. He has been well described as " attempting the work of a giant with the strength of a woman, as being at once passionate and unmanage- able." With the multitude he won a great reputation, and was the object of their love to the end. Historians dwell on his good intentions ; but these were marred by over- weening pride and boundless ostentation. As the result of his Scotch wars and the A'ictory of Pinkie, he assumed the role or a hero and a great general ; as the repealer of the persecuting statute of the Six Arti- cles, he won among the people the repu- tation of an advocate of religious libertv, and a devoted friend of the Reformation. But his administration was generally disastrous. As a result of his government, a danger- ous and widespread rebellion disturbed the west and south of England ; and the revolt spread over Yorkshire and the Northern Midlands. In the west the rebellion bore the character of a religious •outbreak, being fostered bv the bitter discontent of those who loved the old rites and ceremonies, and disliked the in- novations of the reforming part\\ In the northern districts, other and various causes ■connected with the Protector's government were at work. The outbreaks, both in the north and west, were subdued at length after considerable bloodshed ; but the prestige of Somerset was ruined. Disasters Avhich befel the English armies in France contributed also to his downfall. His life was, however, spared at the time, and his victorious rivals even allowed him OF ENGLAND. [1547-1552. still to hold a subordinate place in the regency council ; but he was subse- quently accused of intriguing to regain his lost power, and eventually brought to the block in the year 1552, where he suffered with much dignity and calmness. So passionately was Somerset loved by many in spite of his faults and many weak- nesses, his overweening pride, and the dis- asters which had overtaken his govern- ment, that many who were near the scaffold pressed forward to dip their hand- kerchiefs in their loved hero's blood. In the sad tragedy which closed the brilliant life, much that disfigured that life has been forgotten, and the career of Somerset, which worked much evil and mischief to his country, has been usually painted by historians in far too laudator}- terms. His great rival and successor in power, Dudley, lord Lisle, earl of Warwick and subsequently duke of Northumberland, has left behind him a far darker and more guilty reputation. He was the son of that Dudley who, with Empson, were' notorious in the reign of Henry VII. as the agents of much of the greed and oppression which disfigured the great and on the whole beneficent reign of the first of the Tudor kings, and who was executed for treason in the early days of Henry VIII. The son of the justly execrated official distinguished himself under Henry VIII. as a soldier, a sailor, and a skilful diplomatist. He re- ceived the dignity of the peerage, and as lord Lisle was one of the king's counsellors who formed the regency government under Somerset. He was created earl of War- wick, and, later, duke of Northumberland. He has been well described as " shrewd, cunning, and plausible; as possessing 1547-1553 ] SOMERSET AND ] something of the reality, something of the affectation of high qualities, with great personal courage ; a character well fitted to impose on others, because, first of all, it is likely that he imposed upon himself." Somerset, although a worldly and ambi-. tious statesman, was in his heart deeply attached to what he understood to be the principles of the Reformation ; and we possess still a beautiful prayer, written by himself, with which he began his self- imposed duties of government. But North- umberland had no real religious convictions whatever. His bias was, if anything, in the direction of the old learning, and the party opposed to the Reformation hoped much from him when, on the fall of Som- erset, he became the ruling power in the State. But they hoped in vain ; he cared for none of these things. The one sole object of his life was the aggrandisement of himself and his family ; everything was sacrificed to this ignoble end. For this he persuaded the dying Edward VI. to nominate his cousin, the lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII. 's sister, as his successor, having already arranged the ill-fated marriage between the lady Jane Grey and his young son Guildford Dudley. When all the elaborate scaffolding he had prepared with so much care and many dark intrigues had crumbled away, and the princess Mary, against whose right- ful succession to the crown he had plotted — apparently so successfully — was on the throne, Dudley professed detestation tf everything connected with the Reforma- tion. After an edifying or unedifying succession of recantations, of what under Mary's rule were branded as Reformation IORTHUMBERLAND. 187 heresies and errors, he died, saying to the crowd who had gathered round the scaf- fold where he expiated his many fatal ambitions, that his fall was owing to the false preachers who had led him to err from the Catholic faith ot Christ, and im- ploring his wondering hearers to turn all of them and at once to the church (of Rome) which they had left ; in which church he from the bottom of his heart avowed his own steadfast belief. He re- peated the Miserere and the Dc Pro- fundi's psalms and the Paternoster, and muttered "I have deserved a thousand deaths;" then tracing with his finger on the sawdust sprinkled round the block a cross, he kissed it devoutly ; then laid his head on the block, and so died — perhaps in earnest at last. For many years a bad, evil man, he perished absolutely unregretted. To these two men were committed the destinies of our country during the seven years of the reign of Edward VI. The sketch will help us in forming an estimate of the work accomplished in that confused, sad period. Of the boy-king an outline picture must also be drawn, before we take up the narrative of the all-important religious work which was carried on in the midst of such unpromising surroundings. Edward VI., king of England, was born in 1537 at Hampton Court. He was the son of Henry VIII. and of his third and best loved wife, Jane Seymour, his birth costing his mother her life. The greatest pains, from his earliest years, were bestowed upon the training of the solitary male hope of the Tudor dynasty. When he was six years old, he was placed under the i88 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [•547—1553- tuition of Sir John Cheke, the famous Greek scholar, and the learned Roger Ascham. All his biographers dwell on his amiability an 1 deep piety, and his too early learning he was by no means allowed to neglect athletic exercises. Nothing was forgotten in the education of this promising heir to the crown of the mighty English THE DUKE OF SOMERSET. (After the portrait by Holbein.) precocious quickness in learning " He would gently promise me often," wrote Roger Ascham afterwards of his loved pupil, " to do me good one day." He learned as a bov to speak and read Latin well, and made great progress in Greek ; he was also a good French scholar, and could play on the lute. With all this too nation. He even in his diary tells us how he loved games. When Henry VIII. died, he was scarcely ten years old. Then followed his six or seven years of kingship. He was barely seventeen when the end came. His was a loveless, melancholy childhood, over- shadowed with the state and stiffness of a 1547— 1553 ] KING EDWARD VI. 189 Tudor court, under the guardianship of of them. His character was absolutely irre- such men as the protector Somerset, his proachable. The boy-king was conscious ,)j)0 ' colter f'Jxthcb?? ^r s>/J>rr hr& . J>,f/h /?r >/ ground 'y/?eUj>c 1 theft 'Ai/' >o ii Cerh'iX CCfmjeJfii/?/ fAah dtp Jz J^^kff&^y hrMc ■ St uf i'AGE OF KING EDWARD VI. 'S DIARY, WRITTEN IN HIS OWN HAND, CONTAINING REFERENCE (*) TO THE EXECUTION OF THE DUKE OF SOMERSET (/. 190). (British Museum.) iiU t##<*t& uncle, whom he loved but little, and the of his high destiny, fully aware of the unprincipled Dudley, duke of Northumber- awful responsibilities to which he was land. His sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, had called, and devoted himself to study and to separate establishments, and he saw little preparation for his future career ; and on IQO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['547—I553- public occasions he ever bore himself with a quiet dignity beyond his years. The learned Italian. Cardan, who paid a visit to England about 155-. thus writes in glowing terms of the impression which Edward VI. made upon him : " I saw him, the mar- vellous boy. at the age of fifteen years. He knew seven languages, including Latin and French, both of which he spoke fluently. Italian, Spanish, and a considerable amount of Greek. He asked questions about my philosophy, and very searching were the questions he put to me about the book which I dedicated to him, and par- ticularly as to ray great discovery as to the reason of the comets (Cardan was a famous astronomer and mathematician). Ah, he led me among the stars ! He was as sweet, too, as he was learned. Alas for his earlv grave ! He favoured the arts before he was old enough to know them ; before he was old enough to use them, he knew them. Alas ! that he could only give a specimen, not an example of virtue." He was naturally religious and thought- ful, and all his sympathies were with the Reformation. But, as we have said, it was a loveless, joyless existence for a boy, and well calculated to foster the seeds of weak health and disease, which so soon closed the career that gave such promise of nobility and devoted earnestness. He seems to have cared little for any of his nearest relations. When Somerset, his uncle, who was ever kind to him, was brought to the block through the influence of Northumberland, we read this cold and apparently unfeeling entry in the young king's diarv — " The duke of Somerset had his head cut off on Tower Hill between eight and nine in the morning " — nothing more : no expression of regret or even of surprise ! He excluded without apparently any regret his two sisters from the succes- sion. Mary's religion was hateful to him, but it is difficult to see why Elizabeth was shut out. He was attacked soon after Somerset's death bv small-pox, and, although he re- covered from the dread malady, the seeds of consumption had been sown, probably during his convalescence. Other com- plications of sickness were quickly de- veloped, and men saw that the hours of the young king were numbered. He was a great sufferer at the last. Eruptions came out over his skin, his hair fell off, and then his nails and afterwards the joints of his toes and fingers. Northumberland was suspected of hastening the end bv poison ; but this is absolutely improbable. Dudlev had many sins to answer for, but not this. Edward VI. was scarcely sixteen years old when he breathed his last. We possess several admirable portraits of him by the great and famous Holbein. His fair, sweet, boyish face, with his grey eyes and his sad, earnest expression, is very familiar to us from them. One who saw him shortly before his death, describes him as u of stature below the usual size, with a gesture and general aspect sedate and becoming." Such is a rough picture of the young king and the chief persons of the unhappv regencv government, which lasted during the six and a half years from January, 1 547» to July, 1553, when the boy-king died. It was during these sad years of confusion and misrule that the great liturgical re- formation was carried out, mainly by Cranmer ; yet most 01 his work, done in ,S47.] THE FIRST BOC that period of stress and storm, has been enduring. " While the Church of Eng- land remains, the image of Cranmer will be seen reflected on the calm surface of the Liturgy. The most beautiful portions of it are translations from the Breviary ; yet the same prayers translated by others would not be those which chime like church bells in the ears of the English child. The translations and the addresses, which are original, have the same silvery melody of language, and breathe the same simplicity of spirit."* While we marvel at the almost unearthly beauty of the quiet solemn praise and prayer, woven into the wondrous tapestry of our Anglican Liturgv amid the sordid tumult of plot and intrigue and rebellion going on all around, the same train of thought which disposes us to wondering admiration of the great work done at such a time, also leads us to find in the same sordid tumult of plot and intrigue excuses for the errors in judgment which were undoubtedly made, and the grave : mistakes which were committed, in those six and a halt years of work, carried on amidst such disturbing con- ditions. When Henry VIII. died, we have seen how the minds of Cranmer and Ridley were being led towards further reformation ; and we saw that, had the king lived, fresh advances in that direction were imminent. One is even tempted to wish that the great erring life had been prolonged, for it seems probable that some of the things most to be deplored would never have been done : such as the wanton and irreparable destruction of altars, images, shrines, tombs, stained * Froude. : OF HOMILIES. 191 windows, and the like. But when Henry died there was no one to restrain the violent and destructive spirit which too often accompanied good and righteous reforms. With Cranmer in his forward movement were associated, first and foremost, Ridley,, just nominated bishop of Rochester ; Holgate, archbishop of York ; and four other bishops. The new protector, Somer- set, as far as his many state cares and private ambitions permitted him, heartily sympathised with Cranmer and his friends. The first work undertaken by the primate was the putting out of twelve homilies, authorised by royal authority — the present first Book of Homilies of the Church of England. This was ordered to be read in churches every Sunday. This book, intended for the public instruction of the people, which contained some true and admirable pieces of popular theology, while it did not contradict, must be re- garded as watering down in some im- portant particulars the teaching of " The King's Book." The mention of the Sacra- ments, which had formed so important a place in the formulary put out under Henry VIII., in the Homilies was scanty and only incidental ; strangely enough, no single Homily was devoted to their ex- position. At the same time, the Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament was pub- lished by authority. This Paraphrase, written by one who und'" jbtedly was the foremost literary genii;., of the age — al- though by no means of the same nature and spirit as the polemical Commentaries of Tyndale — was not a work calculated to infuse a calm and spiritual tone among the fervid and often excited men of that time. 192 THE CHURCH Putting out this Paraphrase at such a time must be looked upon as a regrettable step. Gardiner, who was the leader of the con- servative party in the Church of England, warmly remonstrated, but to no avail. Next followed in the same year (1547) a general visitation of the kingdom, under royal authority. The country was divided for this purpose into six circuits, among thirty visitors, composed partly of lay, partly of clerical officials. These carried with them the new books above referred to — the Homilies and Erasmus's Paraphrase ; and what was more important, the cele- brated Injunctions of Edward VI. These Injunctions were in part a reproduction of former manifestoes of Henry VIII., and repeated what had been formerly set forth concerning the king's supremacy, the English Bible, and the instruction of the people in the rudiments of the faith, etc. But there were some very important new Injunctions, admirable and wise in spirit and in tone ; such as directions for the lessons to be read in English, and also the Epistle and Gospel in English at high mass ; for an English Litany, no longer to be sung only in procession as formerly, but to be always sung immediately before high mass. Certain ancient customs were forbidden — others were still permitted. Waxen tapers before images and shrines were reduced to two, which were to be set only upon the high altar before the Sacrament. The distinction between '"images" which were superstitiously abused and those which were not, as expressed in earlier royal pronouncements, was maintained in these Injunctions ; but in the following 3-ear (1548) an order in Council directed that OF ENGLAND. [I547. all images, whether abused or not, were to be removed from churches. The result was that innumerable pictures and paint- ings of feigned miracles that were in waiis, glass windows, or elsewhere in churches, or even in private houses, were ruthlesslv destroyed. Feigned miracles were found as difficult to be discerned from true miracles as abused images from other images. " Thenceforth began that vil- lainous scraping, coating, or whitewashing of frescoes, and that indiscriminate smash- ing of windows, which obliterated in countless instances the most various and beautiful examples of several of the arts, and at a blow took from the midst of men the science, the traditionary secrets, which it had taken five centuries to accumulate." * The comparatively rare examples we now possess of painted windows of the pre-Reformation period, were preserved, there is little doubt, to avoid the expense which would have been incurred had they been broken, in replacing them with plain glass to keep the wind and rain out. To this not un- natural wish to save needless expenditure, to take one conspicuous example, we owe the conservation of the matchless wall of translucent jewelled glass, the gift of a pious layman who, in the days of Edward III., wished to commemorate the battle of Creci, and which for 550 years has been among the glories of the superb choir of Gloucester. One who is, comparatively speaking, rarely stirred to indignation by any of the regrettable Reformation excesses and exaggerations, when penning his graphic * Dixon : " History of the Church of England," chap xiii. 1547— 1 548-] ICONOCLASM IN THE CHURCHES. 193 picture of the results of this unhappy Injunction, and of the supplementary order in Council of the following year, thus should remain no memory of the same. Painted glass survives to show that the order was imperfectly obeyed ; Photo : H. IV. IVatson, Gloucester. THE GREAT EAST WINDOW, GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL. breaks into an eloquent and stirring out- but, in general, spoliation became the law burst of indignant anger : " From wall and window every picture, every image com- memorative of saint or prophet, was to be extirpated and nut away, so that there 73 of the land. The statues crashed from their niches ; rood and rood-loft were laid low, and the sunlight stared in white and stainless upon the whitened aisles. io4 THE CHURCH The churches were now whitelimed, with the Commandments written upon the walls, where the quaint frescoes had told the story of the Gospel to the eyes of generation after generation. The super- stition which had paid an undue reverence to the symbols of holy things was avenged by the superstition of as blind a hatred. It was no light thing to the village peasant to see the royal arms staring above the empty socket of the crucifix to which he prayed ; the saints, after which he was named in baptism, flung out into the mud ; the pictures on the church walls daubed with plaster, over which his eyes had wandered wonderingly in childhood." * The months of 1547 passed on. In November the first Parliament of the Protectorate met, and with it the Con- vocation of the clergy. The feeling in favour of a sharp advance in the Reforma- tion was very pronounced. The " Six Articles " act, and other statutes which had been enacted in the days of Henry IV. and his son against the Lollards, were repealed. The old process of the Conge d'e/i're, or licence to elect a bishop addressed to the dean and chapter, was unfortunately departed from, and an act was passed " for the election of bishops," in which it was directed that they should be appointed by letters patent of the king. This act was repealed bv queen Elizabeth. The question of the sacrament of the altar was brought up, and with the view of checking the profanities which were too common on the lips of the extreme partv cf Reformers, here blasphemy was made penal by statute. But in the same act, * Froude : " History of England," chap. xxiv. OF ENGLAND. [1 547-1548. communion in both kinds was enjoined on laity as well as on clergy. The sacra- ment of the altar in this act was called " the Supper of the Lord, the Communion and partaking of the body and blood of Christ." One more important measure became law this year. Henry VIII. had received from Parliament the power of suppressing chauntries, hospitals, and other mediaeval corporations. Death had interfered with his generally exerting this last power of confiscation. The act was now renewed, in spite of the opposition of Cranmer. It is especially deserving of notice that at this juncture in the Reformation, Con- vocation unanimously agreed in the communion being administered under both kinds, and regarded with favour the proposed abolition of celibacy in their order. The year 1548 — the second of the Pro- tectorate— commenced with an event which gives us some index to the rapid march of serious public opinion. Latimer — somewhile bishop of Worcester — who had been silenced for eight years, preached at Paul's Cross a remarkable course of sermons. One of these, the sermon "of the Plough," we still possess. It is a good specimen of the oratory of the day, which, while it denounced with fervour and truth mediaeval superstitions which still too often kept their hold upon the people, was too often disfigured with wild and intemperate allusions, ill suited to the progress of a calm and thoughtful Reformation. " The best ploughman," he said, " in the realm is the devil. He is always in his parish ; he keeps his residence " (thus alluding to the too frequent absence of bishops from their ,S48.] FIRST ORDER dioceses). "With him it is away with books, and up with beads ; away with the light of the Gospel, and up with the light of candles. Yea, it is roundly, up with all superstitions and idolatry, censing and painting of images, palms, ashes, and holy water ; up with purgatory pick-purse, down with Christ's Cross ; let all things be done in Latin, nothing but Latin. God's Word may in no wise be translated into English ! Woe unto thee, O Devil ! That Italian bishop yonder is thy chieftain, and has prevailed to make us believe vain things by his pardons, to frustrate Christ's sole merits of His passion." In the many-coloured story of the English Reformation, the serious historian has to relate many an act over which he mourns, has to paint many a scene of ruthless, heedless destruction. Men's passions were loosed, gross exaggerations were unscrupulously advanced, selfish greed and narrow fanaticism coloured too many of the works and days of the reformers ; much that was venerable and beautiful, soul-stirring, and helpful to religion was heedlessly and thoughtlessly swept away. In striking contrast to these acts of bar- barous destruction and stupid fanaticism, in contrast to those words and writings deemed to be religious, but forged in the white-heat of passion, stand out the noble English translation of the Bible, the work of Tyndale the scholar and his friends, and the beautiful English liturgy, the result of the labours of Cranmer and his associates. In the English Bible and in the Anglican liturgy we see the best and most beneficent side of the Reformation of our church. Most of what is really good and great in F COMMUNION. 195 the change that passed over the Church of England in the fifteenth century is trace- able to these noble and beneficent works. In the one, the poorest as well as the richest, the illiterate peasant and artisan as well as the trained and practised scholar, could read and ponder over, as he had never read and pondered over before, the grand and moving story of God's dealings with and His surpassing love for men ; in the other he could pray, as he had never prayed before, to his God, Redeemer,. Friend. The first important liturgical work of the Reformation — the Sacramentary, the first English order of Communion — was authoritatively ordered for general use in the Easter-tide of the year 1 548. Briefly, its history was as follows. We have already seen how Parliament had passed an act for the administration of the Eucharist in both kinds, thus dealing with one of the flagrant abuses of the later mediaeval church. As a necessary sequel to this act, a commission of bishops and doctors, composed of divines belonging to what is best called the schools of the old and new learning, had been appointed by the council to compose an order of Communion in English. Over this mixed commission Cranmer presided, and was throughout the guiding spirit. They met at Windsor Castle, and their labours were completed before the Easter of that year (1548). We may well conclude that much, if not most of the work, had been already prepared by Cranmer and Ridley. This first English Order of Communion was a most careful and cautious piece of liturgic reformation of the old missal, the " Sarum Use " being principally used. So jq6 THE CHURCH cautious, indeed, were Cranmer and his fellow-workers, that in the " Reformed Order," while providing for the changes about to be detailed, out of extreme reverence, and perhaps hesitancy in finding the exact words in our vernacular, the actual oblation and consecration were allowed to remain in the mediaeval Latin ; the exhortation and direction addressed to the communicants being, however, now in English. The priest was also forbidden to vary from the old rites and ceremonies of the mass " until other order should be provided." The great changes were: (i) provision being made for administering the Sacrament in both kinds ; (2) a general Confession in English was added, to be re- peated by all the people. In the mediaeval use the Confession was said secretly by the priest. The people who communi- cated had, as a rule, made their confessions before they came. This introduction of a public confession was an open attack upon the old practice of secret or auricular confession.* Dean Hook gives, as the especial reason for this change, the fact of the rarity of com- municants being owing to the supposed necessity of prior confessing ; and confes- sion to God being necessarv, a general public confession and absolution were added to the service. But the compilers of the " Reformed Order of Communion " were so tender and careful not to wound the consciences of devout and earnest men, that they urged a mutual charity in the following wise and loving words : " Let not such as shall be satisfied with a general confession be offended with those that doth use, to their further satisfying, * Cf. Dixon : " Hist, of Ch. of Eng.," chap. xiv. OF ENGLAND. [I54s. this auricular and secret confession to the priests ; nor those who think needful to the quietness of their own consciences further to lay open their sins to the priest, be offended with those that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession in the church." But in spite of this permission, the new Order for ever swept away the absolute necessity of auricular confession and private absolution before communicating. The English part of the new Order of Communion was mainly derived from a German model — the " Consultation of Hermann," the elector archbishop of Cologne. Hermann owed his work chiefly to the Lutheran Bucer. Bucer derived his formularies largely from the liturgy given to Nuremberg by Luther himself. The influence of German reformers in the re vision of the public services which rapidly followed the putting out of this first reformed Communion Service, was very considerable. The disturbed state of German}' at this time drove away many of the leading divines and theologians from their own country. Not a few of these exiles received a warm welcome in England, and several of the more prominent were hospitablv entertained at Lambeth by Cranmer, who profited largely by their advice in his liturgical labours. Among these were Peter Martyr, a learned Lutheran divine ; Martin Bucer, whose reputation in Germany as a follower of Luther was deservedly great ; Fagius, the learned Hebraist ; and Alasco, the Pole. There was considerable opposition to the new " Order of Cofnmunion," as mierht have been looked for. Manv of the clerev misliked the new snirit of reform which 198 THE CHURCH breathed through the direction to ad- minister the sacrament in both kinds ; the permission to communicate without prior secret confession and absolution, which took away (so felt many of the party of the old learning) from the clerical character of the service, struck a blow at the position and influence of the clergy. Quietly the " new order" was evaded in various quarters — more especially, it is said, in some of the cathedral churches. Some of the bishops, too, notably Gardiner of Winchester and Bonner of London, who had no share in its composition, were negligent in the enforcement of the use of the book. A good deal of uneasiness and even some bitter discontent pervaded the church in this period of 'change; in certain places it was almost a veiled rebellion. Preaching was entirely forbidden by royal proclama- tion. Already preaching had been strictly limited, bishops and clergy having been •ordered only to preach in their own cures. None other might preach but licensed preachers. But now total silence was im- posed upon the pulpit, pending the labours of the commissioners at Windsor, who were engaged in the preparation of the uniform Order of Public Prayer. The Teform of the " Breviary," as we shall see, was proceeded with immediately after the reform of the " Missal " was completed. From abroad, after the reform of the Missal in 'the shape of the " Order of Com- munion," came various voices from the great Continental reformers of approval and of encouragement. Bucer, who may be fairly taken as the representative of the Lutherans, after warm congratulations on the work of the Windsor commissioners, wrote : " No relics of the old leaven will OF ENGLAND. [,S4s. long remain in you, either in doctrine or discipline. The work will go on, the sacraments will be administered according to Christ's institution, communicated to all who should receive, declared and ac- knowledged to be the signs of His grace." Calvin wrote, before the close of the year 1548, a long letter to the protector Somer- set, urging him to go on as he had com- menced. " Pursue the work," he wrote, "which thou hast begun, till thou hast rendered thy kingdom the most desired in the world. Go on ; refrain not thy hand. . . . Though strong, thou seemest to need strengthening by holy exhortation. . . . Great difficulties hast thou ; nor is it wonderful that the bulk of men refuse the Gospel. ... I hear that there be two kinds of men who seditiously stir them- selves against you and the realm — those who walk disorderly in the name of the Gospel, and those who are sunk in the old superstitions. . . . There is a lack of good pastors among you. Supply that defect, but have a care of rash and erratic men. See that you have lively sermons ; preaching ought not to be dead, but lively, not ornamental, not theatrical, but edify- ing. . . . Let there be a form of doctrine published, received by all and taught bv all. . . . It is of no use to do things by halves ; a little leaven of the Roman corruption will leaven the whole mass of the Supper of the Lord. I hear with pain that there is a prayer for the dead in your celebration. I know that this is not meant for purgatory. I know that it is an ancient thing, designed to show that in one communion all, the quick and dead alike, are of one body. But still it is an addition to the most sacred of rites. iS48.j THE OLDER Moreover, you have chrism in confirma- tion, and you have extreme unction. How frivolous ! " It was, as we have seen, at the Easter- tide of 1548 that the reformed Missal, the first English Order of Communion, came into public use. The Windsor commis- sioners, under the presidency of Cranmer, at once set to work on the remainder of their great task, the composition of the first Prayer-book, or, as it may generally be termed, the reform of the Breviary. Now what was this " Breviary " and the other mediaeval service-books, which Cranmer and his fellows had before them ? To go back many centuries, we find in the early Middle Ages many " uses " of worship, variously derived from very early liturgies known as the liturgy of St. James or of Antioch, from which the Russian liturgy of the present time is derived ; the liturgy of St. Mark or of Alexandria ; the liturgy of St. Peter, the basis of the Roman rite ; the liturgy of St. John or of Ephesus, which passed into Spain and Gaul, and so to the far West, and which is "known as the Gallican liturgy. This was the ancient liturgy of the British church very largely, and generallv used in England by the Anglo-Saxon Church before the coming of the Normans. In the eleventh century a great liturgic reformation was effected by Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). This was very generally received throughout the West, but still -with great variations in different lands. In England in the same century Osmund, bishop of Salisbury (Sarum), in 1078, shocked at the prevailing want of uni- formity in the services of the Church of England, consolidated with great skill and )FFICE-BOOKS. 199 pains the services for his own diocese ot Salisbury. These became a model for the arrangement of services in other dioceses. And though his " use," known as the " Sarum Use," was not avowedly adopted in everv other diocese, yet there is perhaps no diocese in England in which the influence of the " Sarum Use" cannot be traced.* The principal office-books of the " Use of Sarum," so generally adopted in mediae- val England, were roughly as follows : — (a) The Missal, which contained all that the priest required for the service of the Mass : the fixed portion — the Ordinary and Canon — in the middle of the volume, pre- ceded by the variable portions — Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, etc., for Sundavs from Advent to Easter ; after the Canon or fixed portion, the Collects, etc., for the remaining Sundays in the year ; and then the similar Collects, etc., for saints' days. {b) The Graduate contained the musical notation to the Introits, to the Nicene Creed, and such portions of the Canon as were sung. (c) The Proccssionalc included such parts of the service as were sung in procession. (//) The Ordinate (Pica or Pie) was the book of direction for priests. (e) The Breviary contained the services for the canonical hours, matins and lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, com- pline. They were composed of prayers, psalms, hymns, and canticles, with lessons 01 Scripture. This comprehensive book began to be called the Breviary towards the end of the eleventh century. It was usually called Portiforium in England. It * Dean Hook: "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," vol. vii., chap. iii. 200 THE CHURCH was divided in the Sarum Use into two parts — Pars Hyemalis, the services from Advent to Whitsuntide, and Pars /Esti- valis, from Trinity to Advent.' (f) The Legenda contained the lessons read at the matin offices. (g) The Manuale was the book of oc- casional offices, containing the offices for f Ldv/aTd vj .^--''" , \L _ i KING EDWARD VI. (From the drawing by Holbein in the British Museum.) baptism, matrimonv. visitation of the sick, extreme unction, burial, etc. (//) The Pontificate included the offices peculiar to the episcopal order, as con- firmation, ordination, and consecration. In 1535. under the warrant of Pope Clement VII., Ouignon, cardinal of Santa Croce, produced a reformed Breviary, which was accepted in many dioceses in various countries. In this reformed Bre- viary the Latin language was, of course, retained. The canonical hours were re- duced. Two-thirds of the saints' days were OF ENGLAND. [IS4g. omitted, as well as all the offices of the Blessed Virgin. Many of the versicles, responds, etc., which Ouignon deemed superfluous, were cut out, and not a few of the Legends which had crept in were here omitted ; while, on the other hand, care was taken in this reformed Breviary that the greater part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New, except portions of the Apocalypse, should be read through in the vear. The Council of Trent, however, suppressed Ouignon's reformed Breviary, and produced a recension of its own for the Roman use. The reason alleged by this great liturgical (Roman) Reformer for omitting the offices of the Blessed Virgin deserves notice, as it shows that the growing cult of Mary was not viewed favourably by some thoughtful minds, even in the Roman obedience. " The Church," said Ouignon, " was bound to adore Mary, but she would be better pleased with a system which by a more convenient and expeditious method allured the clergy to the Divine Word of her son Jesus Christ." This was probablv the chief reason why the " Breviary " of Ouignon was suppressed.* Besides the books of the " Sarum Use " and the re- formed Breviary of cardinal Ouignon, Cranmer and his colleagues had before them the German "Consultation of Her- mann " above referred to, composed by Bucer and Melancthon on the basis of the Nuremberg liturgy compiled by Luther himself. The " Consultation " also, we must bear in mind, was drawn mainly from ancient sources. Out of the " Sarum Use " mainly, how- ever, the first English Prayer-Book was * Cf. Hook: " Archbishops," vol iii... chap. iii. 1548— 1549-] THE FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. 20.1 made ; and, on the whole, the work was well done. The great majority of the formularies were ably and happily trans- lated from originals which had been used in Christian churches of the highest antiquity. The more promi- nent of the super- stitions-which had in mediaeval times gradually crept into the primitive liturg- ies, were eliminated. The whole was pre- sented for the first time in a tongue which all English- men could under- stand and follow. The spirit of the English Reforma- tion, of course, breathed through the whole book, but it was a spirit which rose high above exaggerated reform on the one hand, and a timid, and fearful conser- vatism on the other. The new book was ready before the close of the year 1548, and was in the hands of the Parliament in the month of December. And in the January of 1 ^49 it was estab- lished by the first act for the Uniformity of Religion. The printing of the Prayer- Book was at once taken in hand, for by the Whit Sunday of that same year -(Co 7K ft f*Liu> ^^W^-T\i^ s4e>- LETTER OF KING EDWARD VI. AND HIS COUNCIL TO THE BISHOrS IN CON- FIRMATION OF THE USE OF THE I!00K OF COMMON PRAYER, AND ORDER- ING THEM TO "DEFACE AND ABOLISH " ALL ROMAN CATHOLIC SERVICE books, 1544. signed AT THE TO? by edward. {British Museum.) the Act of Uniformity enjoined that it should be used throughout the land. In some churches this date was even anticipated. 202 THE CHURCH Let us now shortly examine the First Book, of Common Prayer of king Edward VL, of which we hear so much. As we have said, its basis was the Sarum Breviary. In the first place, the length of the original *' Use " was much reduced. Everything appeared in English — prayers, psalms, lessons, sentences. The " Hours " were abolished. A single modest volume now contained Breviarv and Missal and ■occasional offices. Instead of the com- plicated and lengthy " Seven Hours," the .services of the Breviarv were divided into two — the service for matins and the service for evensong. The principal changes from the Breviarv -were as follows. A preface, which set forth the principles on which the services were compiled, is the introduction to the book. This preface, which is still retained, was largelv taken from the reformed Breviary of cardinal Ouignon. Like the Breviarv services, the morning and •evening order began with the Lord's Praver ; but whereas formerly the Lord's Prayer, followed by the uAve" formed the secret devotion of the priest, it now was ordered to be said with a loud voice. The spirit of the Reformation was closely to associate the people as much as possible with the prayers. The silent, secret, solitary prayers of the priests in all the services, which had formed so notable a part of the mediaeval services, were changed into prayers in which all the worshippers could join. The "Ave " * was abolished. * The "Ave" consisted of the words of the "Angelic Salutation," St. Lukei. 28 'and 42). The Latin form was " Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Amen. It is rendered in the Prymer, from a MS. of about a d. 1410: The Psalms were introduced according to their present monthly arrangement. The invocation of saints was abolished, and many ceremonies which were deemed use- less and superstitious were done away with. Much of the musical character of the old services was taken away. Provision was made in the lessons for reading almost the whole of the Scriptures. The New Testament, with the exception of a few chapters of the Revelation, was now read in its entirety. The Athanasian creed, prescribed daily in the old Breviarv. was now ordered to be said no more than six times in the year. On the general aspect of the new reformed services, it has been said with considerable truth that, " of the high choral tone which marked them from antiquity, the daily prayers of the church lost much in this sweeping revision. A lower, sadder religious sentiment was indeed the character of the age ; and while this led to the abolition of a great deal of music, theological critics have not failed to remark, furthermore, throughout the book, the depression of many phrases that had been more joyful, hopeful, or trustful as thev stood originally." * The second part of the First Book of Edward VL, containing the Eucharistic service, which was now termed " The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Com- munion, commonly called the Mass," was generally the Communion order as arranged and put out by Cranmer and the Windsor commission in the preceding order, which " Heil, Marie, ful of grace, the lord is with thee, thou art blessid among wymmen ; and the blessid fruyt of thi wombe, Jesus. So be it." * Canon Dixon : " History of the Church of England," chap. xv. I549-] THE EUCHAR we have already spoken of, but with some important alterations. First, the whole service was now in English. Those portions which had been left in Latin — the Consecration of the Host and the more solemn prayers and hymns — were now translated into the tongue of the people. Other alterations were also made which gravely changed much of the character and teaching of the old Missal, whether of Sarum (Salisbury) or of any other Eng- lish church. Of these alterations the more notable were : The many pre- scribed gestures of the priests, by which were signified the various parts of the great mvstery of the Passion — such as the kissing of the pax, the elevation of the Host, the breaking of the Host — were omitted. In direct teaching the following is re- markable. In the old prayer of consecration there was nothing that answered to the declaration now inserted, that the Sacrifice of the Cross was " a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world," and that the celebration was a " commemoration and a perpetual memory " of the Saviour's death. The elements were called for the first time, at the moment of consecration, *' creatures of bread and wine," as if to exclude the notion of transubstantiation. The old words "that they might be made" were limited to " that they might be " the body and blood of Christ ; and it was prayed that this might be by the operation of the Holy Spirit and Word. In the Sarum Missal the " Canon of the Mass," or the original long prayer of consecration, divided into several parts and enriched with man)- ceremonies, was said secretly >TIC SERVICE. 203 by the priest. " In the new order the priest was directed to " say or sing plainly and distinctly the whole prayer." It is notable that prayer for the dead was retained in this First Prayer-Book of 1549, and also that the invocation of the ministry of the holy angels was still left there. The bread to be used in this Communion Service was ordered to be of one sort and fashion throughout the realm — " that is to say, unleavened and round as it was afore, but without all manner of print, and some- thing more large and thicker than it was." One more striking feature in the Eu- charistic service of the First Book of Edward VI. was the omission of nearly all the Preparation ceremonial which was enjoined upon the celebrant in the Sarum Missal and other mediaeval uses, before the mass. This elaborate ceremonial introduc- tion did not, however, belong to primitive antiquity. The new sacramentary largely carried out the idea of the leading reformers, that the Eucharistic service should be a Com- munion. The mass had become almost exclusively a clerical function. The great mediaeval solemnity was undoubtedly a beautiful and touching representation of the various scenes of the Passion, but com- paratively small was the share that the people bore in this, the greatest of the services of the church. After all, the lay worshippers were expected to do little more than hear " mass." Well-nigh all the changes in the reformed office were in this direction of " communion." The sub- stitution of English for the mysterious Latin, a tongue understood by very few of * Cf. Canon Dixon ; " Hist. Ch. of Eng.," chap. xv. 2Q4 THE CHURCH the worshippers out of the priestly order ; the doing away with secret saving bv the priest of the most sacred portion of the service ; the interdiction of most of the elaborate and mvsterious ceremonial per- formed bv the celebrant, much of which was hardly comprehended by the great majority of worshippers ; the substitution of the general confession bv the people for the private or secret confession said bv the priest in the celebration of the mass ; the reception by the people of the blessed sacrament in both kinds — all this emphatic- ally tended to change the mediaeval mass into a communion. While, however, rejoicing that the solemn Eucharistic service was brought bv the great Anglican reformers nearer to the people, more home to their hearts, more within the comprehension of all sorts and conditions of men ; that the worshipper was enabled to share, as he had not done for centuries, in the awful mvsteries ; that the doctrine taught in the words spoken and symbolism adopted approached more closely the purer doctrine of long past ages of the church ; the serious student of church historv will be very guarded as to anv expression of unstinted disapproval of all the mediaeval teaching. He may feel, and justly feel, that Cranmer and Ridley, Melancthon and Bucer, and the earnest and praverful scholar-divines of their goodly fellowship, were led by the Holy Spirit in the great Reformation controversy to choose the better part ; but it is a grave mistake to speak or think lightly of the great mediaeval solemnities. The Church of England mav be deemed happy and blessed that she has recovered much of the ancient simplicity- of Christian worship, OF ENGLAND. [,549. while she has faithfully preserved the price- less treasures of its deeper teaching concerning the most sacred mvsteries of the faith once delivered to the saints. But it will ever be the wisdom of our church to speak with reverence and respect of ceremonies and ritual, which she has wisely changed and simplified, but which have been the jov and the delight, and are still the refreshment, of many holy and humble men, numbering in their ranks not a few scholars and learned men, who are journeying, we dare to hope — ay, and to believe — with the same brave earnestness of purpose as we are, towards the city which hath foundations. The Baptismal office was reformed largelv upon the model of the book of the great Lutheran teacher, Hermann of Cologne. Some of the mediaeval rites were yet retained by our conservative reformers, such as the ceremony of exorcism of the' devil, the clothing of the baptised infant in symbolical white raiment. Probably owing to the admonition of Calvin, whose words to the Lord Protector we have already- quoted, chrism was done awav with, and a prayer for the inward unction of the Holv Spirit was substituted for the out- ward anointing with oil. The cross was, however, retained in the reformed service. The Catechism in its first part, with its clear-cut definitions of Christian doctrine as we possess it now, was included in the office of Confirmation. The second ad- mirable part — that relating to the sacra- ments— belongs to a somewhat later period. It was onlv added to our Prayer-book, as we shall see, in the year 1604. The addresses at the beginning and end of the office of Matrimony were added in TITLE-PAGE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1549) OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. {British Museum.) 206 THE CHURCH the First Book of Edward VI., but some of the mediaeval rites were suffered to remain in the service. In the Office for the Sick the spirit of conservatism preserved still extreme unction. In the Burial Service prayers -were offered, as before, for the dead. The stern, uncompromising rubric against unbaptised, excommunicated, and unhappy suicides, was only added in 1661. It found no place in the books of the Reformation age. The order to use the new Prayer- book, with its sweeping changes in the old services, in certain districts ex- cited a religious war. In the west of England especially, the zeal for the old forms of religion seems to have been especially strong. Devonshire and Corn- wall for a considerable time were the scenes of what was almost a civil war. The government eventually succeeded in restoring order ; but the religious revolt had to be stamped out in blood. The demands of the insurgents were strange, almost petulant in their anger against the new innovations. They asked that the " Six Articles " of Henry VIII. might be revived ; that the mass should be again said in Latin, and be celebrated by the priest alone, without others communicating ; that the sacrament might be delivered to the people only at Easter, and then but in one kind ; that images should be set up again, and souls in purgatory should be prayed for by name. " We will not have," said these angry lovers of the old customs and rites, " the new service or the Bible in English. . . . We will not have God's service set forth like a Christian play." These strange requests, formulated by the religious malcontents of the west, OF ENGLAND. [,S49. throw considerable light on the curious and unhappy perversions of religion which were common in the church, when Cran- mer and Ridley were firm in their de- termination to change the mass into a communion. Besides the west country, at this time sporadic outbreaks in the eastern counties, in Oxfordshire, and even in Yorkshire, had to be put down with a high hand and con- siderable bloodshed. In the east and midlands, however, although religious questions were doubtless mixed up with the causes of discontent, other reasons were at work which excited men to re- bellion. The government of the upstart lords of the council was distrusted and disliked. Agrarian troubles, such as the enclosure of common lands, which deprived the poor cottagers of their ancient rights, stirred up the people to revolt. And no doubt the confiscation of the old abbey lands, followed by the suppression of hospitals and chantries, at this time con- tributed largely to increase the misery of the poor. The fall of Somerset and his government quickly followed upon the bloody sup- pression of this wide-spread revolt. The England of 1 549 and the following year was indeed a troubled scene, in the midst of which Cranmer and his associates con- structed the new religious formularies of the Church of England. But the great work of reformation and reconstruction went on, though the surroundings were so unpropitious, and the government of the country so precarious, the king all the while but a child, and surrounded with vacillating and self- engrossed ministers and counsellors. CHAPTER L. THE SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. DEATH OF EDWARD VI. The Reformed Ordinal — Ridley destroys Altars in Churches — Bishop Hooper and the Puritan Party — Their Destructive Work — Hooper's Subsequent Deprivation and Martyrdom — Knox and His Influence — Further Influence of Foreign Reforming Theologians — Cranmer's Book on the Sacrament — The abortive Reformed Canon Law — The Forty-two Articles of Religion — Their Moderation — Subsequent Puritan Alterations Sketched — The Second Prayer-book — Sketch of the Variations in it — Iconoclasm of the Puritan Party — Brief Sketch of the Reformation Divines — Death of Edward VI. — His Attempt to Secure a Protestant Succession. THE year 1550 (April) saw the next important step in the liturgical reformation, in the new English ordinal, which replaced the old " Ponti- ficale." Great changes were made here. In the new " ordinal " the five lower grades in the ministry — ostiaries, lectors, exorcists, acolytes, and subdeacons — found no place at all. Deacons, priests, and bishops were alone retained, and in the ordination of these the ceremonies, for- merly of a most elaborate nature, were reduced to a primitive simplicity. The changes now made in the old " Pontificale," depriving it of many of the old mediaeval ceremonies, and leaving it a much simpler rite, left it indeed shorn of much of its old stateliness; but at the same time all that was necessary to convey the clerical character was maintained. The inherent authority of the episcopal office was not diminished, since no orders were admitted which it took not a bishop to confer. In the new " ordinal," shorn though it was of most of its many elaborate ceremonies, a return was merely made to primitive simplicity. It, however, offended certain of the Eng- lish bishops, and led to the removal or retirement of certain of these prelates. The ordinal was not bound up with the volume of Common Prayer until 1553. In the same vear (1550) Ridley was promoted from the see of Rochester to London. He, very early in his new dignity, put forth on his own responsibility the injunction for turning altars into tables. His plea for this, in his own words, runs: "The form of a table may move and turn the people from the old super- stitious opinions of the popish mass and to the right use of the Lord's table."' He set the example of this change, when in St. Paul's he broke down the high altar by night and set up a table there. A very general demolition and destruction followed throughout the churches of England of much that was associated with holy things. Towards the end of the year 1550 letters legalising this destruction were sent out in the king's name to the bishops by the council. Accompanying these " state letters " ordering the demoli- tion of the remaining altars, were certain reasons which the bishops were required to expound through the medium of discreet preachers, explaining the motives wherever altars were taken down. The stone altars thus destroyed were not unfrequently used for most ignoble purposes, and the 208 THE CHURCH desecration gave at the time bitter offence. This deeply regrettable development in the progress of the Reformation was pushed on bv men of the spirit of Hooper, who at thi> juncture became one of the principal figures in the history of the time. Little is known of the earlv life of this celebrated man. He received his training at Oxford, and subsequently travelled abroad, and in Zurich saw and admired the extreme and exaggerated reforms introduced by Zwinglius — reforms in Zwinglius's teaching not unmixed with very grave doctrinal errors. He then composed several able but ill-balanced tractates on the burning and mvsterious points of theology, which in this restless age of inquiry and reform were too often heedlessly tossed to and fro. Returning to England, he became the acknowledged chief of the extreme party of the "Gospellers" as they were termed. Hooper was one of the children of the Reformation for whom we cannot but feel a grudging admiration. Deeply persuaded of the evils of the corruptions of Rome, he could see no beauty or reality in mediaeval symbolism which appealed to so many,. His whole nature was absorbed in the thought how what he hated might be swept away. His teaching was often harsh and austere. But that, in spite of this repellent austerity, he possessed vast in- fluence over the hearts of men, is evident. He became one of the protector Somerset's chaplains, and a prominent preacher in London. With all his faults, there was much that was admirable in Hooper. In- tensely in earnest, persuaded of the dire OF ENGLAND. [,sso. necessity of change, able and real, never self-seeking, he only, alas ! could see one side of a controversy, and ruthlessly trampled down everything which to his narrow views seemed likely to promote the superstitions which he looked on as fatal to true religion. To Hooper the new ordinal, purged though it had been of so many of the ancient cere- monies and rites, was obnoxious as still containing much that in his opinion belonged not to the primitive and best church. These scruples, boldly and rashly ad- vanced, have gained for Hooper the title •of Father of Nonconformity. Many devoted souls have since followed in his track, but they do not represent the real mind of the majority of the English people, and their teaching has generally been repudiated bv the conservative spirit of the Anglican church. This has ever in the long run shown a deep and reverential regard for rites and ceremonies hallowed by long custom, and precious with their symbolism to many devout minds ; a shrinking to interfere with them has ever been a charac- teristic feature among our most thoughtful divines. The Church of England since the Reformation has been reproached by some, lauded by others, for its adoption of a middle course, preserving as it has done the mediaeval rites and ceremonies, beauti- ful and instructive in their touching sym- bolism, in all cases when this conservation of ancient uses did not teach a doctrine unknown in the primitive Christian church. This Via Media Anglicana generally ap- proves itself, as it has been again and again seen, to the majority of thoughtful and cultured Englishmen. But Hooper and i55°0 BISHOP HOOPER. 209 his school are always with us, and should never be ignored or lightly spoken of. He represents a minority, it is true ; but it is a minority of in- tensely earnest and religious men, who contribute a battalion, insignificant neither in numbers nor in cha- racter, in that mighty army of re- ligious Eng- lishmen who are playing so great a part in the story of the world. Well will it be for us if those who guide the thoughts and direct the policy of our church, ever bear in mind the ex- istence in our midst of the sturdy, God-fearing descendants of this uncompromising and honest, though no doubt in many respects mistaken reformer. Unlike Cranmer, Hooper was never called to guide and direct the Church in the storm and stress of the Reforma- tion. Unlike Gardiner, he was never 74 the recognised chief of a great party. Un- like Ridley, he never weaved formularies of faith and doctrine. Unlike Latimer, whose marvellously winning personality ever commended his somewhat strange views and ideas to uncounted thousands ; less famous in church and state than Tunstall or Bonner, Hooper is the representa- tive, rough- hewn Eng- lish reformer, the type and example of thousands in his day, who were heart- sick at the sight of the s u perstitions which over- laid and dis- torted all true religion. His soul loathed the flagrant abuses which disfigured all church life ; and he longed with a real saint's longing for a return to the sim- plicity and guileless- ness painted in the beautiful lite which lives along the inspired pages of the New Testament. He saw little beauty in the majestic piles which the 210 THE CHURCH piety and devoted earnestness of the Middle Ages had erected with so much pains and care. The stately ritual, the impressive forms of the Catholic service, meant nothing to him. The}' inspired no ennobling thoughts ; thev whispered no loftv imagin- ings ; they suggested no grand ideals. To men like Hooper was owing the iconoclasm of the age, the terrible destruc- tiveness which to man)- of us seems akin to impiety and irreverence. To their sad work we owe " the empty shattered niche which once canopied the image of a saint in glory, or loved king or holv abbot, and now looks down on us from a hundred bare and naked walls." To their melancholy industry our churches owe the destruction of an incalculable mass of rare and precious furniture — chalices, crosses, candlesticks, many of them curiously chased and carved by an art the very secret of which is hope- lessly lost ; translucent windows of jewelled glass, stained by a craft of painters of sur- passing skill and ingenuity — such matchless skill as the world had never seen before, and whose craft, alas ! has never reappeared again ; tombs and sepulchral monuments, many of them of rare quaint beauty; altars innumerable of all sizes and materials, with the richest hangings and coverings of cloth of gold and tissues of silver ; shrines all ablaze with gold and gems ; costly vest- ments worked and embroidered in past a^res, when time was disregarded if devoted to the service of God and His church ; church plate of various descriptions, com- posed of precious metals, and church bells of rare and exquisite sweetness of sound, of all sizes and weights. All such things perished in innumerable quantities owing to this sad misdirected zeal, during the OF ENGLAND. [l550. reign of the boy-king Edward, between the years 154.Q and 1553. In the blind and fanatical fury which the preaching and writing against mediaeval idolatry stirred up, we even read of the desecrated and demolished altars being used for pig-sties : " arce facta sunt hares y" while parlours were often hung with altar-cloths, tables and beds were covered with copes, and many a chalice, once used in the most sacred office of our religion, was used as an ordinary drinking-goblet. That Cranmer disliked Hooper at first is clear ; and only later, when the devoted piety and single-heartedness and utter absence cf all self-seeking of the bigoted and fanatical reformer compelled admira- tion and recognition, did the archbishop show himself friendly. Hooper became a great power, and may be taken as a fair representative of a vast number of the more advanced reformers. In the year 1550 he was offered the newly-founded see of Gloucester, just vacant by the death of the first incumbent, Wakeman. The stern and uncompromising teacher at first, however, stoutly refused the dignity, if he were obliged to wear the dress and take the oath prescribed by the new ordinal. Subsequently, when remonstrated with by Ridley, he replied that he did not condemn the ceremonies and vestments as sinful ; thev were not evil in themselves, but simply things which lacked the authority of Scripture. The dress of a bishop was peculiarly obnoxious to him. He declined to yield to the persuasion of Cranmer, or to the sharp remonstrances of Bucer, who blamed him for disputing about trifles. Hooper replied in a vigorous paper in I550-I555-] HOOPER'S LIFE A MARTYRDOM. 211 which he maintained his orthodoxy in all the important matters concerning the faith. " I am no heretic," he wrote ; "I abhor -every heretical opinion of antiquity, and I abhor the anabaptists and blasphemers of cur own time ; " but he persisted in refusing the episcopal habit. He was even com- mitted by the Council to the Fleet prison for his obstinate disobedience to the law. At length he yielded, consenting to accept the bishopric on condition that he was only expected to wear the detested dress in preaching before the king or on other extraordinary occasions. Even this slight concession gave offence to the extreme reformers with whom he sympathised. As a bishop, all concur that he ruled his diocese wellv showing that " doctrinal fanaticism was compatible with the loftiest excellence." Simple, even austere in his own living, he was lavish in his hospitality and generositv '; absolutely impartial, he gained universal respect if he failed to attract love. We may anticipate a little, and trace his brief career to its noble close, since we have chosen him as an example of the ex- treme Reforming partv, whose influence was so marked, and often so harmful and confusing, in the Reformation settlement. Very early in the great reaction under Edward VI.'s sister and successor, queen Mary, bishop Hooper was arrested and deprived. In prison, where he languished for some eighteen months, he was treated by the new powers with extreme harsh- ness. When at length brought to trial he steadily refused to make any submission, and after degradation was condemned to die in his own cathedral city. On his last journey, his firmness and constancy won him the hearts of his guards. Arriving at Gloucester, where he was dearly loved, the road leading to the city was lined for a mile with people, and the mayor with an escort was present to prevent a rescue. The house where he spent his last night on earth is still shown, and is reverently regarded after nisfh three centuries and a half. The evening before his execution, one of the commissioners appointed to super- intend the death scene, Sir Anthony Kingston, visited the prisoner. He loved the old man well ; for in the old days Hooper had been the means of rescuing him from evil ways and a dissolute life. Kingston found him in his little room praying. Bursting into tears, he spoke to his old friend and master, begging him to submit himself to the new laws, and so pre- serve his life. "Oh, consider ; life is sweet and death is bitter. Seeing, then, life may be had, desire to live, for life hereafter may do good." Hooper answered : " True it is, Master Kingston, that life is sweet and death is bitter ; therefore, I have settled myself through the strength of God's Holy Spirit patiently to pass through the fire prepared for me." Kingston then took his leave ; his words on parting are memor- able, because they show the stuff of which these earnest though fanatical Reformers were made, and the power which they evidently exerted over men's hearts. " I thank God that I ever knew you ; for God appointed you to call me, being a lost child. I was both an adulterer and a fornicator, and God, by your good in- struction, brought me to the forsaking of the same." Other officials came to him the same 212 THE CHURCH evening — the mayor and aldermen and sheriffs — to shake him by the hand. He only prayed them that there might be a quick fire, and reminded them he was well aware he might have life and worldly gain if he would but consent to confess that his doctrine was falsehood and heresy. During the early hours of his last night, the bishop slept quietly. Then until the guard fetched him he continued in prayer. It was a February morning of the year 1555, and windy and wet. The spot where he suffered is now the poor and somewhat squalid St. Mary's Square, just outside the old gate of the great abbey. The windows of the gate, unchanged, are still there ; they were occupied on that sad day by a company of priests, beholding the scene. The charred stake to which he was bound was lately dug up in the old churchyard, and is preserved by the citi- zens as a precious relic. He had been suffering from sciatica, and walked with difficultv ; but men say, even in his grievous pain he smiled when he saw the stake. The officers in charge placed a box before him, which they told him con- tained his pardon, if he would but recant his errors. "Away with it ! " Hooper cried. Then they undressed him, and tied gun- powder between his legs and arms — a last mercy to hasten death. Shivering, not with fear but with cold, with his own hands he arranged the faggots round him. The torture was long and terrible ; the wet and windy morning prevented the flames from rising ; and when the powder exploded, it onlv added to the agony he was enduring with so much constancy. Several times dry faggots were laid round OF ENGLAND. [1550-1553 the stake — still the sulky flames onlv smouldered ; but the martyr never flinched. " Lord Jesus, have mercy on me," the pitiful bystanders heard him mutter more than once ; and they noticed how his lips continued to move as though in prayer. At last the end came, and the brave spirit went to God. These Reformers were indeed in terrible earnest ! There is little doubt but that Cranmer, Ridley, and their learned assessors were considerablv influenced, from the year 1550 onwards, by the arguments and writings brought to bear upon them on the part of foreign theologians of eminence on the one hand, and by the more ex- treme among the English Reformers on the other. There was, it must be borne in mind, no controlling spirit in England during the boy-king's reign. The sover- eign was a child ; and neither of the two men who in succession wielded the chief power in the land — Somerset and North- umberland— had any definite views on the burning religious questions which agitated the time. Somerset was a moderate Re- former, it is true ; but his wayward and too often self-seeking spirit prevented him from exercising an}- powerful influence over the counsels of the great Anglican theologians. And when he disappeared from the Protector's seat, his successor, Northumberland, in a still less degree made himself " felt " with Cranmer and his fellows. The new regent — for that was reallv the position filled by North- umberland during Edward's later years — was one who in modern parlance would be termed a mere opportunist of the baser •550-1553 ] PURITAN INFLUENCES. 213 sort. As for the grave questions of theo- statesman and theologian of no mean logy, they were to him of little moment ; power, was missed at the helm of the they only interested him so far as they State in the storm - filled years which could be made subservient to his selfish followed his death. schemes for his own and his family's aggrandisement. Even those who most bitterly condemn the works and doings of Henry VIII. must feel how sorely the strong wise hand of one who, with all his faults and grievous errors, was at once a The home and foreign influences to which we have referred as weighing with Cranmer and his friends are distinctly visible in most of those all-important formularies put out after 1550; notably in the elaborate " Reformatio Legum," 2I4 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1552. in the " XLII. Articles of Religion," and more particularly in the so-called Second Praver-book of Edward VI. , issued officially in the year 1552. In the last of these a less conservative spirit is especially notice- able. The views of the gentler of the foreign divines colour strongly the altera- tions made ; and in a less degree the thoughts of men like Latimer, Hooper, and even Knox were present in the mind of the archbishop when he ruled out many of the words and expressions contained in the first Prayer-book of 1549, and swept away some of the ancient rites and cere- monies of the mediaeval church which were preserved in the earlier work. Of Latimer and Hooper we have spoken already as good and prominent examples of the powerful and influential, more ex- treme division of English Reformers. The third of these eminent men belonging to the " home " section of Reformers, John Knox, is of course more exclusively con- nected with Scottish history during the troubled days of Mary Queen of Scots. With this later part of his life, and with the mighty changes which his fervid spirit inaugurated in Scotland, we shall speak very briefly, as our work is mainly con- fined to England. But in the days of Edward VI., Knox played a considerable part as a leader among the more extreme Reformers in England. It was Knox especially to whom is ascribed the question which arose at this juncture, of kneeling at the Eucharist. " I thought it good," said Knox, " to avoid all other gestures than Christ used, or commanded to be used, and to use sitting at the Lord's table." He was a more daring and k.wless innovator by far than Latimer, or even Hooper, and positively invented a form of his own instead of the prescribed " Order of Holy Communion," a form which he deemed more in accordance with primitive sim- plicity. He obtained great fame as a preacher of the extreme school. The duke of Northumberland in 1552 caused the bishopric of Rochester to be offered to him, cynically giving as one of the causes of such promotion, that "as a bishop, he would act as a whetstone to Cranmer.'r But Knox refused the proffered bishopric, as well as various other preferments. He, like Latimer and Hooper, cared little for earthly dignities or possessions. After Edward VI.'s. death, during Mary's reign, we hear frequently of this zealous Reformer as prominent among the English exiles on the Continent. But his great and enduring work was done subsequently in Scotland. There his labours have been variously estimated ac- cording to the temper of the historian- One speaks of him as having instigated "the terrific Scottish revolution." More sympathetically, perhaps more justly, Mr. Froude estimates the influence of this great though fanatical and gloomy spirit in his native country, when he writes of him at a later period : that " it was not for nothing that John Knox had for ten years preached in Edinburgh, and his words had been echoed from a thousand pulpits ;" and how he succeeded in teach- ing the people " that princes and lords only might have noble blood, but every Scot had a soul to be saved. . . Elsewhere the plebeian element of nations had risen to power through the arts and industries which make men rich ; the commons of 1559-1572.] INFLUENCE AND DE Scotland were sons of their religion. While the nobles were chasing their small ambi- tions, or entangling themselves in political intrigues, the tradesmen, the mechanics, the poor tillers of the soil had sprung suddenly into consciousness with spiritual convictions for which they were prepared to live and die. The fear of God in them left no room in them for the fear of any other thing, and in the very fierce in- tolerance which Knox had poured into their veins, they had become a force in the State. The poor clay which a gener- ation earlier the haughty baron would have trodden into slime, had been heated red hot in the furnace of a new faith. . . . . ' [Scottish Protestantism] was shaped by Knox into a creed for the people ; a creed in which the ten com- mandments were more important than the sciences, and the Bible than all the literature of the world — narrow, fierce, defiant, but hard as steel." After a work-filled life of almost bound- less influence, so far as Scotland was concerned, he fell quietly asleep in 1572. The beautiful memories of his serene death - chamber show us how intense and abiding had been his faith, how very real his life — with all its errors, lived according to his light. On the last day of that life, he begged his wife to read him the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, "where," he told the bystanders, "he first, years before, cast anchor." As night drew on, the family assembled in his room for the ordinary prayers. " Sir," said one of those present to the dying theologian, " heard ye the prayers ? " "I would to God," answered Knox, " that ye and all men heard them as I have heard ATI! OF JOHN KNOX. 215 them, and I praise God of the heavenly sound." Then with a long sigh he said, " Now it is come." Froude,who is ever at his 'greatest when he dwells on the character of these rugged Reformation heroes, thus sums up : "It is as we look back over that stormy time, and weigh the actors in it one against the other, that he stands out in his full proportions. No grander figure in the entire history of the Reformation in this island than that of Knox. In purity and uprightness, in courage, truth, and stainless honour, the Regent Murray and our English Latimer were perhaps his equals ; but Murray was intellectually far below him, and the sphere of Latimer's influence was on a smaller scale. . . His was the voice which taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the proudest peer or prelate ... he it was who raised the poor commons of his country into a stern and rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious, and fanatical, but who nevertheless were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force again to submit to tyranny ; and his reward has been the ingratitude of those who should most have done honour to his memory." * Besides the party of more extreme English reformers, numbering in their ranks many serious and earnest men, notable examples of which we have sketched, another body of foreign in- fluences more or less in the same direction were brought to bear upon Cranmer and what we may term his official assessors, * " History of England," vol. x., chap xxiii. 216 THE CHURCH in their work of preparing the reformed service - hooks and formularies of faith. The archbishop was helped in his work by a little group of foreign divines, wlio hoped to find in England a quieter and safer home than their own agitated and sorely disturbed country afforded them, and who were generally kindly received in England. Some of the more moderate of these theologians were welcomed warmly by the English archbishop, and we find them placed in prominent teaching posi- tions at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Of these the chief were the following : — (i) Martin Bticer, a German divine, born near Strasburg, originally a Dominican friar. Sent by his order to study at Heidel- berg, he soon became distinguished as a student of Greek theology, and also as the friend of Luther. He obtained later great fame as a teacher in Germany. In 1 548 he came to England, and received the appointment of king's professor of divinity at Cambridge. Before he had completed his third year of teaching, he died, and was buried with great honour in the English university, as many as three thousand persons, it is said, following him to his grave. He exercised considerable influence over Cranmer. In some points this influence was exerted largely in a conservative direction, notably in his desire to preserve the three orders in the ministry, which he maintained were appointed in the beginning by the Holy Ghost. He called it a device of Satan to destroy the order of bishops. But, on the other hand, to Bucer's suggestions were owing some of the less happy emendations in the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI., put out in OF ENGLAND. [I552. 1552. We shall presently allude to his famous " Censura " of the First Prayer- book. (2) Peter Martyr, a native of Florence, the second of the great foreign divines who shared the intimacy of the English primate, was in his youth an Austin canon, and became prior of a house near Lucca. He seems to have been deeply impressed with some of the writings of Zwinglius, the Swiss reformer. He gave up his preferment, and then studied in Switzerland. His doctrines finally were largely tinged with the teach- ing of'Calvin. In England he settled at Oxford, where among his more renowned pupils were Jewel, Nowell, and others, who afterwards became famous. He was of a vehement and ardent temperament, but he lacked the reverential spirit of Bucer. His view of the Sacraments was lower, nor had he the same regard as Bucer for ecclesiastical order. He was a man, how- ever, of great learning and eloquence, and a diligent student of Holy Scripture. (3) Paul Fagius was appointed professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, but, dying soon after his arrival, was succeeded by Trc- mellius as professor of that language in the university. (4) John Alasco was a Pole ; he was a man of great activity and zeal, and super- intended the Dutch or German congrega- tion in London. He, too, was a follower of Calvin. Melancthon painted his charac- ter as daring and self-opinionated. Besides these, were other foreign divines in England occupying no formal official positions. These theologians acted as the teachers and spiritual guides of considerable foreign congregations driven from their own country by the disturbed state of 218 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1550-1552. affairs on the Continent, and who had settled mostly in London. All these influences no douht considerably affected the tone and spirit of the successive formularies put out after the year 1549, the date of the Act of Uniformity sanctioning the First Prayer-book of Edward VI. We must briefly describe the more important of these writings and formularies. In the year 1550 Cranmer published his book on the sacrament. In it he wrote : " Monks, friars, pardons, pilgrimages are gone . . . Two chief roots still remain — the popish doctrine of transubstantiation . the sacrament of the altar, and of the sacrifice and oblation of Christ made by the priest for the salvation of the quick and the dead." Gardiner, who had not yet been deprived of his see, replied to the archbishop's treatise by a lengthy tractate on the other side, a work of great learning and ability, in which, however, he did not hesitate to charge Cranmer with being a heretic and a sacramentary. Gardiner was deprived and imprisoned in the year follow- ing ( 1 5 5 1 ), and remained in duresse until the accession of queen Mary. As far back as the year 1532 the clergy in their submission to king Henry VIII. had expressed their willingness to accept a complete reformation in the elaborate system of canon law. In 1534 an act was passed to nominate commissioners to effect this object. The act was renewed in 1536 and 1544. During these years the work slowly progressed, largely under the super- vision of Cranmer. In 154Q, under Ed- ward VI., a new commission was issued ; and in 1551 eight persons, again under the presidency of Cranmer, were nominated by the crown to bring the great work of recasting the ecclesiastical laws to a con- clusion. Peter Martyr was one of these. It was finished, was this great work of codification of the ancient canons of the church, adapted to the new state of things, but was never signed, owing no doubt to the king's sudden death. It was finally rejected by Parliament in the time of Elizabeth. This " Reformatio legum ecclcsiasti- cortsm" which thus came to nothing, was a vast piece of work, a monument of in- dustry and pains. It was divided into fifty-one " titles," and embraced almost every point connected with faith and eccle- siastical practice. The disciplinary laws were very stern, and still claimed the right of the church to send obstinate heretics in fundamental doctrines of the faith, such as. the doctrine of the Trinity, to the stake. Comprehensive and far-reaching as was this code of ecclesiastical laws, it would be scarcely worth while to dwell upon it, as it never received official sanction. Far more important in the story of our national church, however, was the publication of the " Forty-two Articles of Religion" in the year 1552, which, with certain alterations and modifications, are still the " Articles of Religion " of the Church of England. Of these Cranmer and Ridley were no doubt the chief com- pilers, and by far the larger portion of them remain just as these two — the greatest of the Anglican Reformation divines — left them. Their chief sources were the Lutheran confessions of faith, especially the confession of- Augsburg. Our Re- formers, however, while using, by no means ,S52.] THE FORTY-! exclusively followed the great German formularies ; for on certain of the most debated subjects new expressions and even contrary definitions were used. The Articles of Religion were long under careful discussion, and before being finally published were sent to certain of the bishops for inspection and criticism. Whether or no the " Fortv-two Articles " were ever formally sanctioned by Convocation, is a doubtful point. Considering the fierceness of the theo- logical disputes of the time, and the pressure evidentlv exercised upon the archbishop and his counsellors, generally speaking the Forty-two Articles showed a surprisingly comprehensive and moder- ate spirit. That they have passed through such a furnace of subsequent criticism, and have endured with, comparatively speak- ing, such few and unimportant changes to our own dav and time, is the best proof of the wisdom and learning and gentleness of their famous author. "The broad suit touch of Cranmer," writes the last, the most patient, and perhaps the truest of the later Reformation historians,* " lay upon them as they came from the furnace — a touch which was not wholly retained in the recension which afterwards reduced them to thirty-nine." ... It was, for those burning times, a gentle declaration indeed, which taught that, like the great eastern churches, the Church of Rome had erred both in worship and faith, without errors specified ; and that general councils might err, and sometimes had erred ; and a similar moderation is notice- able when neither images nor pictures nor * Canon Dixon : " History of the Church of England," chap. xxi. VO ARTICLES. 219 saints, but only the worshipping, the adora- tion, the invocation of them, are denied to have the warrant}' of Scripture ; and when Purgatory and pardons are termed not as now, Roman, but scholastic doctrines. The great and burning question, which had agitated the church for so many ages, on the " marriage of priests " was, save for the brief interlude of Mary's reign, by these articles decided for ever as regarded the Church of England. Such marriages were lawful, was the definite pronouncement. In the Articles referring to the sacra- ment "of the Lord's Supper," round which so fierce a controversy was still kept upr the language is less gentle, the doctrine more accentuated. Ridley and Cranmer felt here that in the mediaeval teaching the gravest errors were pressed home ; against these the spirit of the Reformation revolted. Here there must be no mis- taking the sound of their trumpet. It was no longer the question of mere cere- monial observances, or of customs and objects hallowed by the reverence of cen- turies, concerning which men like these would wish, while purging away supersti- tious practices, to speak and generally to act with gentleness and consideration ; * doctrines were involved here for the truth of which many a noble soul in that heart-searching age was content to die. Sacramental grace was generally maintained ; but the doctrine of the cor- poreal presence was denied, because the body of Christ was in Heaven. In the XXIXth (the present XXVIIIth) Article, * There were some sad and notable exceptions to this general rule, however, to which we have adverted above ; in particular respecting Ridley's action in '.he desecration cf the altars. 220 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [i552- "transubstantiation" was explicitly denied. The Article now numbered XXXI. styled sacrifices of masses as fables and dan- gerous deceits. In the revision of 1562, in this Article, "blasphemous" was pre- fixed to fables. The text of the original XXIXth (now the XXVIIIth) Article of 1552-3, marking the change made in the revision of 1562, is printed in the note below.* In the Forty-two Articles of 1552-3, there was no article on " the Holy Ghost ;" but there were four more at the end which were omitted in the revision under queen Elizabeth in 1562. These were on the * " The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have amongst themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacra- ment of our redemption by Christ's death, inso- much that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. Transubstantiation, or the change of the substances of bread and wine in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture [in 1562 here were inserted the words, " overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament "]: and h'ath given occasion to many superstitions. Since the very being of human nature doth require that the body of one and the same man cannot be at one and the same time in many places, but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate p lace, therefore the body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time ; and since (as the holy Scriptures testify) Christ hath been taken up into heaven, and there is to abide till the end of the world, it becotneth not any of the faithful to believe or profess that there is a real or corporeal presene-e (as they phrase it) of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist." [In 1562 the words in italic were left out, and the following were inserted: "The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner, and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith."] " The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped." following points : " That the resurrection of the dead is not past already." "That the souls of men departed do not perish with their bodies, or sleep till the day of judgment." " That the notion of a millen- nium is a faith derived from Jewish tradi- tion, and is against the sense of Scripture.'' "That it is a grievous error to teach that all men, however they may live, shall be saved at last." To these Articles of Re- ligion the clergy were required to subscribe; penalties of deprivation were to follow after a term of disobedience. But king Edward VI. died before the specified term expired. The influence of the more extreme among the English Reformers and of the foreign scholars present in England was, however, far more marked in the revision of the first Service-book. This revision work was carried on through the year 155 1. In the April of 1552 Parliament passed the law for using it, and the service as revised in the " Second Book of Edward VI." was heard for the first time in St. Paul's on the feast of All Saints, November 1, 1552. The boy-king died eight months later. It was thus onh- the Service-book ot the Church of England for this short period. But its effect on the worship of tire Anglican church must not be measured by the brief period of its use ; for it was the basis upon which the present Praver-book of our church was, though not altogether, very largely framed. It was to be expected that this most important formulary would be especially coloured by the powerful outside influ- ences so busily at work in England ; for while the archbishop's book on the Sacra- ment, and the Forty-two Articles, were iSS=-] THE SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. 221 designed rather for the clergy and the as the prayers, of the whole church. It student of theology, the public Service- was to bring about a thorough revision of i^f ttbe communion /•*<>/, ico. fut^anbmbteftolp gofpcl commaunbe bs to continue a perpetual memoipof ttjatms pjeeious oeatbc,tontpll bts c ommtng acjatne : $eacc bs £> mcrctfull fatbet,tt)e bcfecIjctDcano gratmttl>ittticreceiupngtbcfc tbp cre- atures of bjcaoc ano tmnc, aceojbtng to tbp fonne cure fauiour Jefu CbJtftcs bolp tnttitution, in rcmcmbjauce of bis ucatl) anb pamonjnap be par taucrs of bps mofi blefTeb bobp anb bioube , tobo in tl)c fame nigbt tljat be toas betcaieb, ioHc bjeab,anb toljen bebao geuen tban< fees^be bjafce it,anb gaue'tt to bis bifcipics/ainng: xa« ft^cate.tbts is anp boop, ttijitfce is gcuen foj pou. SDoe tbismremembjaunccofmc. SiUctmfe after fuppee, be touc tbe cuppe, ana toben be bao geuen tbattttes,be ga* ue it to tbenifaipngrDnn&c pe au of tlns.fo? tbis is nip blou&e of tbc nettie Xeftainent, tobtcbeiscbebbefoipou ano fo; manp, f oj rcmimon of finnes , botbis as of te as pe (ball bjpnHe it in rememb jaunce of me. ple,m ti)etr. ijanDeg bncltnge. atiiD wi;cnf)e Miucreti) tije bjtcaoc,^ tyalirape. Witt, ano eatetbts, mrcmembiaunce, tbat eb:ifte. jjbpeo foi tbe, ano feoeon bun in tbpne ijcrtbpfaptb ?xbitb tban&esgeiimge. C3n0 tlje mim'fter rljat Oeliuetcf I) tf>e euppe,a>aU rape. 3D jpnUe tbis fn remembjaunce tbat Clmftcs blouoe toas $ebbe Co; tbe5ano be tbanfceful. CCtJcnfyaltfje pjtteft fay rtje JLojoes pjapcr, ft?c people repef jmge after t)i>m euei? peticion.3? ftcc^albe fapoe as fototoetl). a^DESD anD btaucnip father , toe tljp bum* blc &cruaur.fes , cntierlpe beftre tbp fatljcr* ipegaobneffejnercifuUp to accept tljps oure Sacrifice of pzapfe anb tbancftcsgeupnge, inooftebumblpcbefccbpncic tbe tograunte, tbat bp tbe merttes ano bcatb of tbp fonne 3fefus etnttt ano tbiougbe f aitb in bis bloub.toe (ano all tbp tobole cbuccb^mapobmnerenumoofourfinncs.anbalotbci: bene* PAGE CONTAINING THE COMMUNION SERVICE FROM THE SECOND PRAYER LOOK OF euward VI. [p. 223). [British Museum.) book was for the people also, and re- gulated the rites and ceremonies as wel these, which were so intimately bound up with the religious life of the people, that 222 THE CHURCH the efforts of the more extreme reformers among the foreigners settled in England, as well as the English divines of the same school, were directed. In the preceding year, 1 55 1 , Bucer, who was then settled as Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, at the request, appar- ently, of the bishop of Ely, formally ex- amined and carefully criticised the First Prayer-book of 1549. He embodied the results of his labours in his well-known " Censura " of the English service. A copy of the " Censura " of Bucer was sent to Peter Martyr, the Italian scholar who was officially teaching at Oxford, and the results of the labours of Bucer and Martyr were forwarded to Cranmer. Not a few of the changes and emendations of the two foreign divines were embodied in that great popular formulary put out with authority later in 1552, and known gener- ally as the " Second Prayer-book of Edward VI." The " Censura " of Bucer, more or less endorsed by Peter Martyr, which so strongly coloured the Second Prayer-book, of which we are about to speak with some detail, was a somewhat long and exhaustive treatise of twenty-eight chapters, in which almost the whole of the First Prayer-book was carefully reviewed. Bucer wrote that lie had examined the First Prayer-book with a view of determining whether he could with full approval hold office in the Church of England. " I found nothing therein," he went on to say, " that was •contrary to the Word of God, properly understood, though there were some things that might appear without a candid inter- pretation, contrary to that Word." He then with great pains set out what he OF ENGLAND. [ISS3. deemed objectionable, or at least liable to misconception, from his point of view. One curious criticism of Bucer on the structural form of churches was fortunately not adopted. " To have the choir separate from the rest of the church," urged the great German teacher, " is anti-christian, and makes the ministers, of whatever life and doctrine, nearer in station, as it were, to God than the laity. From the shape of the most ancient churches, and from the writings of the Fathers, the station of the clergy was in the middle of the church." This was at least a bold assertion, and certainly is not borne out by what we know of many of the early Christian sacred buildings. Had this unfortunate recom- mendation been carried out, the many stately churches, abbeys, and cathedrals of England would have been irretrievably spoiled by the demolition of the chancels. Happilv the good sense of Cranmer pre- vailed here, and the ruin of so many noble and venerable homes of prayer, thus gravely recommended and pressed, was averted : a special rubric was inserted ordering that the chancels should remain as they had done in times past. Still, the variations made jn the Second book were many, and by no means in all cases for the better. Some of them were fortunately ruled out, as we shall presently see, in the subsequent revision of the English Prayer-book. Among the more notable changes were the additions to the commencement of the morning and evening prayers — viz., the introductory Sentences, the Exhortation, the General Confession, and Absolution. This generally had the tendency of making confession a public instead of a private act. A similar inten- i552.} CHANGES XN TI tion has already been noticed in the first English Communion Service. This im- portant change has subsequently held its position in our Prayer-book, and the spirit which dictated it has commended itself generally to the spirit of the Anglican communion. Among other and less im- portant alterations to be noticed was the insertion of the Apostles' Creed into the evening prayers, while the Athanasian Creed was ordered to be said on thirteen feasts, instead of only on six days in the year. The order of Holy Communion showed greater changes. The Ten Command- ments were added to the service. Certain alterations in the position of the prayers in the service, of no great moment, were made, such as the removal of the hymn Gloria in cxcchis from the beginning to the end. What was really regrettable was the omission of the direction for the so-called manual acts in consecrating. In this Second Book the celebrant simply read of our Saviour taking, blessing, and breaking, without doing it himself ; and in the solemn words spoken to the communicants, all mention of receiving the body and blood of Christ was left out. These un- happy omissions were subsequently restored in the Elizabethan revision. In this Second Book only the second clause of the words now used appeared, thus : " Take and eat this " ; " Drink this." The mixture of water with wine was omitted, as were also the sign of the cross and the invocation of the Word and the Holy Ghost at the consecration of the elements. The rubric concerning vestments ordered that neither alb, vestment, nor cope should be used ; a bishop should wear a rochet, E PRAYER-BOOK. 223 a priest or deacon only a surplice. The remonstrance of Bucer, upon which this direction respecting vestments was evi- dently based, was singular, and deserves mention as showing what was in the mind of the more learned and moderate of the extreme Reformers here : — " I wish that the vesture appointed for that ministration [of the Holy Communion] were taken away, not because it is impious, but because we ought to have nothing in common with Romanising antichrists." In the Visitation of the Sick the cere- raony of anointing the sick person according to the ancient custom was disused, and the directions for private confessions and reserving portions of the consecrated elements were omitted. In the Burial Service the prayers for the dead, and the office for the Eucharist at funerals, were struck out. In Baptism, the triple immersion was abandoned, as were also the exorcism and the use of chrism. The water was to be consecrated whenever the service was used. The Ordinal was also stripped of some of the ancient cere- monies retained in the First Book. A strong effort was made by the extreme Reformers to omit the rubric enjoining the communicant to kneel. The First Book contained no directions here, as the kneel- ing attitude had hitherto been unques- tioned. Hooper and Alasco publicly preached and inveighed against this reverent custom. John Knox, when at Berwick, introduced a rite of his own, from which the attitude of kneeling was excluded. Cranmer received a commu- nication from the council, who were hardly pressed in this matter, urging him to con- sult with Ridley and Peter Martyr as to 234 THE CHURCH the advisability of omitting the rubric. But Cranmer positively refused to yield this point at the bidding of men whom he termed " glorious but unquiet spirits, who would still find faults if the book were altered ever}1 year.'' Some words of conciliation were however appended to the "kneeling" declaration, in which it was explained that though the gesture of kneeling was retained, there was nothing of superstition involved in it. The word " altar " was significantly re- moved from this Second Book. There is little doubt but that the English Reformers were determined, rightly or wrongly, to give up the use of this word ; nor has it ever been restored to the Anglican Prayer- book. It is, however, unquestionable that the general language of Christians, both earlv and later, has been favourable to the use of it. The word was certainly used by the Fathers, even from the time of Ignatius in the earlv years of the second century ; on the other hand, the only name by which we are certain that it is called in the New Testament, is " The Table of the Lord" (i Cor. x. 21). The words of bishop Andrewes (1555 — 1626) are wise: " The same is fitly called an altar, which a^ain is as fitly called a table." The learned Mede (a.d. 1586 — 1638) well writes : " The seat or raised fabric ap- pointed for the setting and celebration of this holy mvstery (the Eucharist) was the holy tabic or altar, for by both these names hath that sacred bicre, as I may call it, of the bod}* and blood of Christ been ever promiscuously and indifferentlv called in the church." The impartial historian, while acknow- OF ENGLAND. [l552. ledging the inestimable benefits which the labours and patient learning of Cranmer and his faithful associates have conferred on the Church of England, on a general review of the great formularies compiled under their direction during the reign of king Edward VI. , cannot help acknow- ledging that grave harm was wrought to some of the works of these really great and devout men, owing to the pressure put upon them by the extreme and ex- aggerated views of some belonging to our own country, and some imported from the Continent, whom Cranmer, as we have seen, wearied with their constant and overbearing importunity, patheticallv called "glorious but unquiet spirits," recognising their splendid earnestness, while at the same time he somewhat revolted against their restless, dogmatising, and even un- charitable requirements. The term " grave harm/' as being wrought to their generally admirable work, is used here advisedlv ; and a very brief catalogue of the leading ecclesiastical events of these stormy six or seven years, during which the "formu- laries"' in question were published, will serve to show the effect on Cranmer and his friends, who guided the course of the English Reformation at this momentous period, of this terrible and constant pressure. In 1547 the Injunctions of Edward VI. as to public worship were put out. In the year 1549, the First Prayer-book made its appearance. In this book the service of the church was largelv denuded of ceremonies, some of them beautiful and suggestive, but others of them no doubt more or less coloured with mediaeval super- stition. Later in the same vear, by act .of 1547— 155° J DESTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE REIGN. 22? Parliament, were ruthlessly destroyed all the remaining images that could be found, not only in churches but in private houses; and even all the precious records of medke- val ritual contained in books and manu- scripts were hunted out and destroyed. In 1550 the ancient English ordinal was and for some time even without the thin veil of the royal letters through the council, which after some considerable delay appeared to legalise this lamentable destruction and desecration. Strange to say, the learned, devout, and generally moderate Ridley was foremost in this sad Mas tr peter mtr (utyjbtrif it: tofijftg, put affemenf &tu X wk d( cfofi eft "V fa KM fa oa Chnff^dir'atst/ few fa a 6n pete & QUn a 'Guff? (c mm z auo-fs Awocanfy fa ou i[ ya ^a\d ' 'nun eft if yiJunt.admiYWM Cprr7?~ k/:mz_ Jiff fd era ire cy/f^wM jfr ex /fa pri>rs M it Wlk WHS rrwtoftfk' 'tf twite ffrwtictfpn & ob/curt efa/rYk >r< ; 'Cm pwf fc*t-eet££qwPt>e>* fe catpte toft ■ ' ff patw * fir- m ss.ro>? rd'v eft chrif- (fKt a fainter AUTOGRAPH TREATISE OF EDWARD VI. ON THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSU BSTANTIATION. (British Museum ) shorn of much of its old splendour, and very many of its suggestive and emblematical rites, which belonged to an immemorial anti- quity, were done away with. The same year, 1550, witnessed the destruction throughout England of the altars, so long the centres of the most solemn service of the church ; an act of sacrilege — for we can call it nothing else — carried out with remorse- less pertinacity under the same influence, 75 business, and Cranmer, the tenor of whose mind would have revolted at such a ruth- less desecration, though he does not appear so prominent in the affair, from the tone of his remonstrance with Day, bishop of Chichester, who flatly refused to -comply with the royal letters directing the de- struction of the altars, evidently viewed the ill-omened procedure with tolerance, if not with approval. 226 THE CHURCH The year 1552 was unhappily memorable for the determination of the council " to search all the shires of England for the remaining church goods." The official visitation which followed upon this resolve of the council, swept the churches of an incalculable mass of rare and precious sacred things, including plate and other objects of the greatest value, and rich with the beautiful and artistic workmanship of the mediaeval times. We have already given a summary of what was lost to the church in this miserable attempt to enforce simplicity in divine worship, "a cruel puri- fication," as it has not inaptly been called. Cranmer in this instance evidently dis- approved of the proceedings, and seems to have remonstrated against the wholesale spoliation. But the strong current of public opinion, let loose by the wild words and exaggerated remonstrances of the ex- tremists among the home and foreign Reformers, was too strong for him ; and these men, who, with all their earnestness and real piety, were the authors of such mischief to the cause they had so deeply at heart, worked their will, and the sad spoliation left its dark and disgraceful mark on the English Reformation story. The year before, 1 55 1 , Bucer's " Censura " of the First Praver-book, and Martyr's endorsement of it, embodving the views of the more moderate of the foreign (Luth- eran) Reformers, a criticism invited bv the rulers of the English church, was actually taken as the groundwork of the great revision of the Prayer-book to be used in the public services of the church, and which resulted in the putting out in 1552 of the famous work known as the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI.. which in its OF ENGLAND. [1547-1553. acknowledged shortcomings, notably in the Communion Service, has been already briefly discussed. Here, again, Cranmer appears in one notable instance — this time successfully — as the advocate of the older and reverential posture of kneeling at the Communion, which the hot-headed and fanatical party of extreme reform strangely deemed superstitious, and wished to do away with. Of the divines and theologians who occupy a prominent place on the canvas of the historical painters of this all-im- portant period of the six or seven years' reign of the boy-king Edward VL, first to take the leaders of the new learning — " the Reformation " divines. Of these, Cranmer and Ridley occupy so important a position that the other figures of the group are almost forgotten. We have already written of these two, and shall have again occasion to dwell upon them and their influence and character, when we come to the last sad scenes of their lives in the reign of Mary. Latimer, who perhaps occupied among the early Reformation leaders the third place, will also come before us once more in the Marian tragedy. Of the others of this group, who are after all in the popular estimate little more than " names," Ponet, who followed Ridley as bishop of Rochester when Ridley was translated to the see of London, and who subsequently succeeded Gardiner at Win- chester when that prelate was deprived, was a man of brilliant parts and of much general knowledge. At once a skilled mechanician and an accomplished linguist, he was also distinguished as an able 1547— iSS.v] THE REFORMATION DIVINES. 227 preacher. He was known also for his violence in polemical discussion. As a theologian he has gone down to posterity as the author of the short Catechism in Latin and English which was printed with the "Forty-two Articles'' of 1552-1553 (the latter being the official date of their publication). This catechism was an able work in the form of a dialogue between a master and his scholar. It never appears, however, to have been widely circulated, and the king's death virtually closed its public history. Ponet, although he held such high office during a considerable part of the reign, cannot be said to have exer- cised a leading part in the Reformation, and— which was extremely rare among the personages who surrounded Cranmer — his character was not stainless, a grave charge of immorality being alleged against him. He was among the bishops deprived at the beginning of queen Mary's reign, and he then fled the country. Miles Coverdale, somewhiles bishop of Exeter, must always be held in grateful remembrance among members of the Anglican communion for his work in con- nection with our versions of the Bible. First as a fellow-worker with Tyndale, and later as the coadjutor of Cranmer, for some twenty years he laboured incessantly on the Scriptures. He was the chief editor of the famous edition known as Cranmer's or the Great Bible. In 1551 he became bishop of Exeter, was deprived on the accession of Mary, and for two years lan- guished in prison. Known rather as a scholar than as a Reformation divine, he was released, and resided at Geneva, re- suming among the English congregation of exiles there his loved biblical labours. On the accession of Elizabeth, his views had become too much coloured with the opinions of the Genevan reformers for a bishop of an Anglican see, and for some time he discharged the humbler duties of rector of St. Magnus, London Bridge, dving in 1566. Scory was Ridlev's chaplain, and eminent as a preacher. He successively filled the sees of Rochester and Chichester. Under queen Mary he was deprived, and sub- mitting also in the new state of things to be separated from his wife, we hear of him abroad as " superintendent " of the English congregation at Embden in East Friesland. In queen Elizabeth's reign he was one of the consecrating bishops of archbishop Parker. Goodrich, bishop of Elv, is principally known as receiving the seals of chancellor on the disgrace of Rich in che year 1 5 5 1 , thus reviving once more the tradition of an ecclesiastical chancellor. He would doubtless have appeared on the roll of the prelates deprived under Mary, but death closed his life-storv. Barlow, bishop first of St. David's, then of Bath and Wells, was deprived and im- prisoned under queen Mary. He was one of the consecrating bishops of archbishop Parker. Taylor, dean and afterwards bishop of Lincoln, was deprived under Mary. He died in 1554. Holbeach, bishop of Lincoln, once a Benedictine monk and prior of Worcester, was one of the most learned of the group of bishops ; he died two years before the death of Edward VI. Harley, bishop of Hereford, was deprived under Mary. He died in 1554. 228 THE CHURCH Holgate was once master of the order of the Gilbertines. In the days of the great suppression he had easily consented to the surrender of the houses of his order, and his reward was the see of Llandaff in 1542. He married, and was in consequence especially an object of dislike to the Romish MILES COVEKDALE, BISHOP OF EXETER. {From ail old print.') party. He had the reputation of being a wise and statesmanlike ecclesiastic. A year or two later he became the northern arch- bishop. Holgate, too, was deprived in 1 554, and died in 1 556. Bird, bishop of Chester, in earlier years had been much employed by Henry VIII. in state business, and was a man of con- siderable learning ; he was deprived in 1554, but on his abjuration and divorce from his wife, was befriended by Bonner, W ENGLAND. [1547-1553. and appointed to the less influential office of a suffragan bishop. Bush, bishop of Bristol, resigned in 1554, and so evaded formal deprivation. Thirlby, bishop of Westminster, then of Norwich, then of Ely, came to the front in the days of Henry VIII., and in the opinion of the king was "an inferior Gardiner." He was the first and only occupant of the newly-founded but soon suppressed see of Westminster. When that see was again merged in London, Thirlby was translated in the year 1 5 59 to Norwich. As a sympathiser in the new learning, in spite of his lukewarmness in the progress of the Reformation, he was suffered to retain his see during the reign of Edward VI. Under Mary he became bishop of Ely, and was one of the judges at Cranmer's trial. He refused to take . the oath of supremacy to Elizabeth. These are the best known of the prelates of Edward's reign. We find some of their names among the lists of the ecclesiastics who assisted in the preparation of the " Reformatio Legum " and other formu- laries, but they are comparatively insigni- ficant personages. The few really eminent men, who as reformers, or representatives of the new learning and its influences, took a prominent part in the events of this reign, were Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and John Knox, and the foreigners Bucer and Peter Martyr. Among the men of the " old learning," still to use that well-known appellation, who with more or less vigour resolutely opposed the progress of the Reformation — after the foremost man of the- party, Gardiner, the well-known bishop of 1547 — 1553-] R( MAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIASTICS. 229 Winchester, who will come before us still more prominently in the next reign, and Bonner, who, as we shall see, subsequently won for himself an unenviable fame — ranks Cuthbert Tunstall, who, in earlier days as bishop of London, but better known as bishop of Durham, played a distinguished part in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward he soon gave place to Gardiner. We read of him as endeavouring to suppress Tyn- dale's New Testament, " thinking it better," as Burnet says, " to burn the books of the heretics than the heretics themselves." In 1550, on a charge of misprision of treason, he was deprived of his see and committed to the Tower. By queen Mary 4 mm V •>// GENEVA. VI., and Mary. Archbishop Warham appointed him his vicar-general, and he rose rapidlv to very high preferment in the church. His reputation for learning extended far beyond his native country, and he was favourably noticed by the great Erasmus. In the earlier years of his career as bishop he was regarded as the chief of the men of the " old learning." But his conspicuous moderation unfitted bim for leadership in that stormy age, and he was restored to his bishopric, but his gentleness and moderation failed to com- mend him to her government. On the accession of Elizabeth he declined to take the oath of supremacy ; but Tunstall really seems to have misliked other and impend- ing doctrinal changes more than " the oath." He was committed to the gentle custody of archbishop Parker, and died at the advanced age of eighty-five in 1559, after a long and, on the whole, noble and blameless life. 2 50 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [IS47-I553- Heath, bishop of Rochester, then of Worcester, and afterwards archbishop of York and chancellor, a very learned and conscientious man, was reckoned as one of the moderate supporters of the old learn- ing, and was only deprived of his see in 1551, when the influence of the extreme reformers swept away so many of the old landmarks. He was imprisoned bv the council of Edward VI., but released and restored to his see on Mary's accession. Under queen Mary, Heath was translated to the archbishopric of York, and when Gardiner died he received the great seal as chancellor. Elizabeth retained him as a privy councillor for a time, and was re- luctant to part with so good a man. He finally declined, however, to submit to the new order of things, was once more de- prived, and suffered a long imprisonment in the Tower. He died in retirement in 1579, after a long and industrious life of seventy-nine years — much of it spent in positions of high dignity and great re- sponsibility. He will ever be remem- bered as one of the most distinguished and noble representatives of the " old learning.'' Day, bishop of Chichester, was not op- posed to some of the earlier measures of reformation, and was one of the com- mission engaged in the compilation of the First Prayer-book of Edward VI., but was averse to the subsequent acts of the re- forming party. When the directions were issued to destroy the altars in the churches, Day positively refused compliance. He was deprived in 155 1, and imprisoned. Queen Mary at once freed him from con- finement, and restored him to his see. He died in 1 cc6. The concluding events of Edward VL's. reign are well known, and are described in the many histories of England. In his great zeal for the reformed religion he was per- suaded by Dudley, duke of Northumber- land, who was all-powerful in the regency government, to direct the succession so as to exclude his sisters. The dying king was, no doubt, intensely in earnest, and his whole thoughts were bent 011 securing the crown to one who would favour the progress of the reformed party, to which from his heart he was deeply attached. But with Northumberland it was different. It is difficult to credit this, able but unprincipled statesman with any real concern for religion. His heart was apparently alone fixed on the permanent aggrandisement of himselt and his family. The hurried marriage of his son, lord Guildford Dudley, with the lady Jane Grey, who after the daughters of Henry VIII. stood next in succession to the throne, tells us only too clearly what was in his mind. We are, however, only specially con- cerned with archbishop Cranmer's part in the transaction, as the representative of the Church of England. That he had no confidential communication with North- umberland beforehand is clear. For a time he resolutely refused to sign with the council the fatal instrument altering the succession. Still, there is no doubt that he was influenced by well-founded appre- hension that the accession of the princess Mary, who was a devoted and bigoted ad- herent to the old forms of religion, would be a fatal blow to the interests of that reformation which had been his life's work. And behind his well-grounded fears for the iS53] EDWARD VI. AND reformed Church of England rose up in Cranmer's mind the dark shadow of the divorce of Mary's mother, and the shame and unmerited ignominy under which Katharine of Arragon closed her sad life. Of all the reformers in England, archbishop Cranmer, who had been so fatally involved in that long-past tragedy, had most to fear if Katharine's disinherited daughter became queen of England. But though, in the strange device of Edward VI. to change the rightful succes- sion, on the letters patent the name of Cranmer stands first, that signature was only written after all the others, judges, ministers of state, and great nobles, had appended their names. It was indeed a strange scene around the bedside of the dying boy. The judges and great lawyers were from the first most unwilling to sign such a document, being aware that if thus, at the bidding of a king little more than a child, under the influence of a minister personally inter- ested in the question as was Northumber- land, they sanctioned such a momentous change in the succession, they would be guilty of high treason. The first day witnessed their refusal ; sent for again on the day following to the king's bed- side, they were asked angrily why they had not prepared the letters patent. Re- luctantly they yielded, but not before receiving in writing a pardon if their consent should later prove to have been a crime. All signed save Cranmer. He would not add his name, notwithstanding the urgent reasons he had for dreading the THE SUCCESSION. 231 accession of Mary, even when he heard that the judges had acquiesced and con- sented to sign, till he had seen the dying Edward, who begged that he would not stand out alone against his royal will. Then he yielded. Others, when later they had to defend their action, pleaded mental reservation and some such excuse. Rut Cranmer was too noble to advance any such plea. He frankly said that when he signed at last, " he did it unfeignedly and without dissimulation.'' A few days later Edward expired, and lady Jane Grey became queen. Some amazement has been expressed at the imperious and decided conduct of the young king on his death-bed, considering he was but a boy — not yet seventeen years old. But the circumstances of his life must be remembered. He was most precocious in intellect, and for some six years, since he had become king, he had been accus- tomed to the most slavish adulation. It has been well remarked, that under the elaborate system of the Tudor etiquette of his court, " he beheld the human race mostly in the act of genuflexion." Even his sisters Mary and Elizabeth fell on their knees whenever they spoke to him. What was evidently foremost in his thoughts when dying, was a passionate desire that the Reformation, as he under- stood it, should meet with no check in England. Hence his indignation with the judges who dared to cross his will, and his vehement entreaties to his old friend Cranmer not to hinder his purpose. CHAPTER LI. MARY AND THE ROMAN REACTION. Mary's devotion to Romanism — Disputes about her private Mass — Popular Revolt against the Dudley Plot, and Accession of Mary — Restoration of the Mass — Changes in the Episcopate — Protest and Arrest of Cranmer — Breaches of the existing Law by the Queen's Command — Her Coronation — Reversal by Parliament of recent Ecclesiastical Legislation — and by Convocation — Great Pro- testant Reaction caused by the Excesses and Cruelties of Mary — Reasons for Unpopularity of the Reformers — Impetus given by Mary to the Reformation Cause — Its Chief Elements. THE dread of the dying boy-king that the accession of his sister Mary would work unknown evil to the Reformation cause he loved so well, was well founded. All through his six years' reign his sister's devotion to the old forms of religion had disturbed him, and her determination to have nothing to do with the new reformed services, but to maintain in her own household the ancient mediaeval mass, several times threatened seriously to embroil England in a war with Mary's mighty relative, the emperor Charles V. Mary's fervid attachment to the old form of religion was no mere political predilec- tion. She was descended from a stock, and belonged to a family, whose devotion to the mediaeval rites — which we will now term Romanism, though it meant far more than merely an acknowledgment of the papal supremacy — was a passion, and was the guiding principle of Philip II., son of the emperor Charles V., in all his tortuous policy. Her hereditary attach- ment to " Romanism " was fanned into a steady flame of intense devotion by the sight of her mother's misfortunes, and she regarded the Reformation as the principal cause of all her troubles, of the cruel divorce, and of her own pretended stain of illegitimacy. From her childhood she hated the reformers, of all schools, with an intense hate. They were in her eyes not merely bitterly hostile to what she had been trained from her child-days to regard as the truth ; they were besides her own personal, irreconcilable foes. As early as 1549 troubles began, as to her right to hear mass in her own house- hold. The mass was forbidden to be cele- brated before her now that Parliament had confirmed the English service. Mary in- sisted on its continuance in her own house- hold, expostulating in plain terms with the council of the Protector. " I see men," she said, "whom my father (Henry VIII.) made from nothing, take usurped power on them. They have broken his will and made laws contrary to it, contrary to the customs of all Christendom, contrary to the law of God and His church." Such language was not calculated to conciliate; and an attempt was made to connect her with the popular risings in the west and east of England. She disclaimed all such complicity, and for a time was suffered to have the service she claimed in her own private chamber. We hear again of the troubles occasioned by the vexed question of the lady Mary's I550 ] PRINCESS MARY mass in 1550. A story, probably true, is told that the boy-king, when advised for state reasons — the state reasons being the foreign complications which were likely to AND THE MASS, 233 wept and sobbed at the thought of sanc- tioning what he felt was against the truth. Cranmer and Ridley, when the young king left the room, wept too at the memory / tun/el c_Aasr>bre' f i^hrrr i*a>$ d>r/a leyfQ » fat* ^*&*pet &ry s?*zfSy a^Hj&sm r — V ccMcUide' h? keener jfssste /*A/H-'t PAGF. Ol' KING EDWARD VI. 's DIARY, CONTAINING REFERENCES TO THE DISPUTE WITH PRINCESS MARY ABOUT HER MASS. {British Museum.) arise from the displeasure of the emperor of the strange scene, and said to Cheke, Charles V. at hearing that his kinswoman Edward's tutor, " Ohj Cheke, be glad of Mary was affronted and persecuted in the such a scholar, which hath mare divinity matter of her attachment to the old forms in his little finger than we in all our bodies." of religion — to permit Marv to have the The painful dispute gathered fresh force mass in her own house if she desired its as the Reformation advanced in England. 234 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1553- The emperor personally remonstrated in strong terms, while Edward VI. looked upon it as a matter of conscience to pre- vent a service being held which he deemed sinful. In 1551 the matter became one of state importance. Charles V. even threat- ened war if his kinswoman was further insulted. Edward, however, remained ob- durate, and the mass was forbidden. In spite of the royal command, however, it was suspected that the illegal service was still celebrated before the princess in private. Mary, in the year 155 1, spoke thus to the royal council : " I am his Majesty's faithful subject and poor sister, ready in all things to obey his laws, but rather than use any other service than was used at the death of the late king, my father [the mass was then used], I will lay my head on a block and suffer death." Such was the princess whom Edward, with his intense convictions in favour of the Reformation, with good reason dreaded to think of as his successor on the throne. But all the elaborate pile of intrigue built up round the bedside of the dying boy, firmly cemented, as it seemed at the time, by the intense conviction of the king that the succession of his sister Mary to the throne he was vacating, would work unknown evil to the Reformation cause in England, fell to pieces almost at once like a house of cards. Never was so rapid, so complete a ruin as that of the cause of Northumberland and his friends. In the lady Jane Grey the party of the Reforma- tion had an almost ideal candidate for the crown. Her extreme youth — she was nearly of the same age as Edward VI. — was the only point that could be alleged against her. Her natural abilities were very conspicuous. She had at that early age acquired an amount of learning rarely possessed even by mature scholars of the first rank. At fifteen she was busily engaged in Hebrew studies, she could already read and even write Greek, and in Latin she could write with ease and free- dom. Her piety was real, simple, un- feigned. She had no ambition, although she must have been fully conscious of her undoubted nearness to the crown. Edward's health had long been verv pre- carious, and upon his sisters Mary and Elizabeth the official stain of illegitimacy, in spite of Henry VIII. 's will, rested ; while on the royal descent of the lady Jane, the grand-daughter of Henry's sister Mary, rested absolutely no suspicion or doubt. But she had been persuaded into a marriage with Guildford Dudley, the petulant and self-seeking son of a self- seeking, ambitious father ; and the dark shadow of the general hatred and distrust which was the deserved guerdon of North- umberland, fell upon Northumberland's, gifted and ill-fated daughter-in-law. Bril- liant, pure, devoted, as confessedly was the lady Jane Grey, from the moment of Edward's death she was regarded by every serious man in England as simply the instrument of the unprincipled states- man who evidently intended to use her for the purposes of his own selfish aggran- disement. In England patriotism has ever been the powerful factor in all the great crises of the nation ; and the thoughtful and earnest among the reformers, although they were conscious of the extreme danger to their cause which the accession of Mary threatened, were equally conscious that no permanent good could result to true I553-] COLLAPSE OF NORTHUMBERLAND'S PLOT. 235 religion if the destinies of England were entrusted to the Dudleys and Northumber- land. Hence the rapid collapse of the Dudley plot. On July 8th, 1553, Northumberland and the lords of the council saluted the lady Jane as queen. On the ioth of the same month all was over, and queen Jane's father, the duke of Suffolk, convinced of the hopelessness of her cause, with his own hands hysterically tore down the canopy under which his daughter was sitting in royal state in the Tower, telling her she was no longer queen, and that such dis- tinctions were not for one of her station. The quiet, simple girl-queen heard his passionate words unmoved, and asked if she might leave the Tower and its royal state for her old home. The Tower of London, however, as the poor ten-days' queen sadly found, was a prison as well as a palace. The rapid change that in ten or eleven days had passed over queen Jane's fortunes, and which temporarily stayed the progress of the Reformation, came about in a manner we need state but brieflv, as the story has been so often told. The intel- ligence of the king's death was quicklv conveyed to Mary, who without an hour's delay quitted her home at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, and fled northwards into Norfolk, where for a season she would be in security and among faithful friends. It was time ; for only a few hours after her flight the Dudleys came to secure her person ; but Mary was already far awav. Very quickly round her gathered a group of nobles and other influential persons, who sympathised with her in religious matters ; and more who were gravely dis- satisfied with Northumberland's well-known pretensions and boundless ambition. From the first London, though overawed by the presence of the Dudleys and their armed retainers, was hostile to the new arrange- ment, which so arbitrarily altered the succession. Mary, from her Norfolk head- quarters, at once put out an able proclama- tion in the form of a letter to the council, requiring them to immediately proclaim her accession. In the council there was much wavering ; intense dislike and jealousy of Northumberland helping to forward Mary's cause. Treachery was in the air. North- umberland could trust no one ; so at once, mindful of his old soldierly instincts, he put himself at the head of a hastily gathered force, and marched to Norfolk to> disperse the little army which was rapidly gathering round Mary. But it was of no avail ; the feeling of England was against him. His own troops were disaffected, and mutinied in favour of Mary. The council in his absence — they said to avoid a civil war — decided to restore the crown to its lawful owner, and ranged themselves with the citizens of London on the side of Mary. Northumberland returned to London a prisoner closely guarded. The ten daysr reign of the lad)' Jane Grey was over, and Mary was generally acknowledged queen. Cranmer and Ridley, the real chiefs of the English Reformation, were deeply in- volved in the matter of the substitution of the lady Jane for Mary. Cranmer's- name stood at the head of the fatal letters- patent, and of other public declarations of Northumberland. His reluctance at first has been related ; but when once he had signed, we hear of no flinching. Ridley, on one of the two Sundays of queen Jane's reign, preached by order of the council a 236 THE CHURCH sermon at Paul's Cross, which was never forgiven him. In it he made personal allusion to Mary. " There was no hope," he said, " to be conceived but that she would disturb and destrov all that which with such great labour had been settled in the reign of her brother." On the ^rd of August, 1553, Man- entered London in great state amid loud rejoicings, her sister Elizabeth accompany- ing her. The scene at the Tower must have been a striking one, when she kissed the group of distinguished captives who were languishing there. " These are my prisoners," she said with the matchless Tudor grace which ever stormed men's hearts. The bishops of the old learning were freed and restored to their forfeited dignities — Gardiner, Bonner, Heath, Dav, and Tunstall.* Tunstall being released from the prison of the King's Bench, Bonner from the Marshalsea ; the other three were among the Tower captives. Great leniencv was shown to the political offenders, and onlv three of the chiefs were put to death. Of these, of course. Northumberland was one. The behaviour of the brilliant but worth- less leader of the movement to set aside Marv and Elizabeth in favour of ladv Jane Grew during his last davs on earth, brought dishonour upon the reformers whose views he professed to share. In a fine passage Froude well describes his state of mind after his condemnation, and gentlv sug- gests that the duke of Northumberland's famous apostasv was perhaps determined bv nobler motives than the forlorn hope of purchasing life bv thus abjuring the principles of the Reformation, and so * Short sketches of each of. these prelates have been already given. OF ENGLAND. [,553. gaining Mary's favour and pardon. " He had affected religion, talked about religion, plaved with religion, till fools and flatterers had told him he was a saint ; and now in his extreme need he found that he had trifled with forms and words till they had grown into a hideous hvpocrisy. The in- finitv of death was opening at his feet, and he had no faith, no hope, no conviction, but onlv a blank and awful horror, and perhaps he felt that there was nothing left him but to fling himself back in agonv into the open arms of superstition. He asked for a confessor." * Gardiner visited him in his prison in the Tower. North- umberland very earnestly prayed for his influence to save him from the death he so dreaded. But though the now powerful prelate interceded, the intercession was of no avail. The sin in his case had been too great to be pardoned. Before his execu- tion, which has been already related, he heard mass and made a public profession of his reception of the pre-Reformation tenets. This was in the August of the same year. The public death and apostasv of the self- constituted leader and champion of the re- formers, of course, produced a sad impression on the public mind ; and, amazing to relate, almost without protest, the restoration of the old Latin mass was effected in St. Paul's and in other important centres. The great crucifix was replaced in the rood-loft : the altar was replaced and adorned as in old times ; the old forbidden doctrines were preached ; and scarcelv a murmur was heard ! A very few weeks before the great change passed over the country, the funeral rites of the dead Edward VL, after * " History of England," vol vi., chap. xxx. ,553.] FUNERAL C some delay, were performed in Westminster Abbey by Cranmer according to the English Book of Prayer, Gardiner at the same time, in the presence of the queen and council, performing a mass of requiem in the Tower. Mary would not have per- THE KING. 237 great archbishop, when he laid his old master's son to rest in the stately abbey amongst his royal ancestors. A forlorn spectacle indeed, for with Edward were buried, so far as man could see, the hopes of Cranmer's life. The Reformation work LADY JANE GREY REFUSING TO ACCEPT THE CROWN. (From t he picture by C. R, Leslie, R.A., by permission of the Duke 0/ Bedford.) mitted Cranmer to have used the reformed rite, had it not been for the persuasion of the Spanish ambassador, Renard, in whose judgment Mary placed the fullest con- fidence. " Edward,"' urged the Spanish statesman, "as a heretic, should have a heretic's funeral.'' This was the last public function at which Cranmer presided. It must have been a sorrowful day for the would soon be destroyed ; the yoke of Rome would be again welcomed in England ; the old mediaeval superstitions, gradually swept away with so much pains and trouble, would once more be allowed to mar and to disfigure religion. Cranmer at this time might easily have escaped, as did many others, to foreign lands, but the old man disdained to fly ; he would tarry 238 THE CHURCH liere and see the end. Alas ! it soon came. Events moved during the first months of Mary's reign with extraordinary rapidity. The ease with which the formidable power of Northumberland was crushed, the en- thusiastic reception which Man- met with when she came to London, the apparently unanimous welcome of her government in the country generally, the prompt and public recantation of all the Reformation doctrines by the great leader himself before he expiated his offences against Mary on the block, no doubt contributed to mislead the queen as to the real strength of the Reformation in England. We hear of warnings addressed to her by the wiser and more far-seeing politicians of the friendly cabinet of her kinsman, the em- peror Charles V. It is clear, too, that her ablest counsellor, Gardiner, whom she speedily restored to his see of Winchester, and to whom she entrusted the seals of the chancellor, intensely as he was opposed to the Reformation, would have advocated far greater moderation as the policv of the now dominant partv ; but he was overruled. The emperor Charles himself, with great wisdom, urged her not to be hasty at the beginning in altering what she might find amiss ■ she should be conciliatory, waiting for the determination of Parliament, and making at first no edicts contrary to those which were established in the realm. But the queen was obstinate. Intensely in earnest herself, in matters connected with religion she could brook no delay. In direct opposition to what was the law in the land, in the very first months of Marv's reign the Latin mass and services were publicly restored in many of the iF ENGLAND. [,553. London churches, in the universities, in several at least of the cathedrals in various parts of the country ; and mostly, as we have remarked, without any serious opposition. Even in Rome this rapid and precipitate action was viewed with grave mistrust and some dislike. It was deemed pre- mature. A public reconciliation with the Pope ought to have preceded the formal restoration of the Latin rites ; for England, it must be remembered, was under a solemn interdict, and the wiser and more far-seeing of the Roman doctors feared that a reaction might speedily sweep awav Mary's hasty work. Mary, however, was not to be stayed. A royal proclamation was issued, forbidding all preaching save by persons specially licensed by the queen herself. At first this was limited to London, then to the diocese of Norwich, where the Reformation feeling was very strong ; but almost immediately after- wards this proclamation, forbidding preach- ing or reading and interpreting the Scriptures save by licensed preachers, was extended to the whole kingdom. Some at least of these stern reactionarv measures were in certain cases set at naught, and a few arrests were made in consequence. Among the arrested was Latimer. He might have escaped from the country ; but Latimer's was no craven spirit. He, like Cranmer. disdained to fly ; he would die, if needs be, for his faith. The council committed him to the Tower. In the meantime the deprived bishops — Gardiner (Winchester), Bonner (London), Voysey (Exeter). Heath (Worcester), Day (Chichester) — were reinstated in their sees in the place of Ponet, Ridlev. Coverdale, Hooper, and Scon,-. ,553.] CRANMER' Other important changes in the Ed- wardian episcopate soon followed. They may be thus shortly summarised : — Paul Bush, to avoid deprivation, resigned the see of Bristol. Hooper, who held the sees of Worcester and Gloucester, was quickly ejected from the former by the restoration of Heath, and subsequently from the latter on charge of heresy. Ferrars, of St. David's, who under some obscure charges had been imprisoned by the late government, was now formally deprived. Bird, who was married, was ejected from Chester, and Holgate from the arch-see of York. For the first three or four months of Mary's reign the chief Reformation theo- logian, Cranmer, was left unmolested, but unforgiven, at Lambeth. He had many powerful friends. It was even meditated that some gentleness might be used towards this eminent and widely-loved man. His conduct in the matter of Northumberland's " letters-patent," altering the succession, was well known ; how intensely he had disliked the " device " of the dying king, and how only at last, under the pressure of Edward's own personal entreaties, he had yielded. It was, too, no doubt con- sidered by Gardiner and the wiser heads among Mary's counsellors that if Cranmer as archbishop quietly submitted to the changes and then resigned, leniency in the form of a pension and an honourable retirement would well serve the cause of the Roman party. It would be a dis- heartening example to the earnest lovers of the Reformation — such an ignoble end for the famous Reformation archbishop. So Cranmer was left in peace for several months, while in his own cathedral of PROTEST. 239 Canterbury the mass was set up again by the vice-dean, a former monk, in the absence of the dean. Men marvelled whether the great arch- bishop could see this change unmoved. They only marvelled a short space ; when from the quiet study of Lambeth issued such a manifesto, in the form of a declara- tion from Cranmer, that the party of Mary at once saw they had to reckon with a powerful and determined adversary indeed. Very stern were the words the archbishop used, and showed that he was the uncom- promising foe of the new reactionary policy of Mary. He thus wrote : "I never set up the mass again in Canterbury. It was done by a false, flattering, lying monk. The noble Henry reformed some things in the Latin mass : the late Edward took the whole of it away for the manifold errors and abuses thereof, and restored Christ's Holy Supper according to His institution. But the Devil is now going about to over- throw the Lord's Holy Supper and restore the Latin satisfactory masses. And some have herein abused the name of me, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury ; where- fore this is to signify to the world that it was not I that set up the mass in Canter- bury, but that monk with a dozen of his adherents. The Lord reward him in the day of judgment." In counsel with Peter Martyr, who arrived from Oxford, where his work was now over and done, he added to the above a formidable challenge : " He, Cranmer, along with Peter Martyr and four or five more reformers, were ready to defend the common prayers of the churches, ministra- tion of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies ; were ready to show that 2\o THE CHURCH all the doctrine and religion put out by Edward VI. was more pure and according to God's Word than any that had been used in England these thousand years. Let God's Word be the judge." This and more, embodied in the formidable declara- tion, though not printed, was circulated so generally in manuscript through London, " that the press," said Renard, the Spanish ambassador, " would not have sent out more." When Cranmer put this forth, he was well aware that his life must pay the forfeit. At once the archbishop was summoned to the council. He withdrew none of the above strong and noble words, and was at once committed to the Tower, where, in company with his old friends Ridley and Latimer, he waited the sure guerdon of his brave protest. Peter Martyr was allowed to leave the kingdom. Upon queen Mary, flushed with her undreamed-of success, and preparing fresh measures . for the destruction of the Re- formation, many great and difficult ques- tions began to press for a speedy settlement. In the church, what action was to be taken with the married clergy ? What, if any, restitution was to be made to the church of all the broad lands and possessions of which it had been deprived by successive acts of her father and brother ? What steps were to be taken for the succession to the crown ? for only her frail life stood between the succession of the Protestant princess Elizabeth to the throne, and the undoing of all her present work. Should she not at once marry and give an heir to the throne, who would carry on the work which was next her heart ? If so, whom OF ENGLAND. [i553r should she take as a husband? And, lastly, who was to be the successor of Cranmer, the reformer, in the arch-see of Canterbury, with all its boundless in- fluence ? On the first of these great state questions her mind was made up ; but the change would be a hazardous and dangerous ex- periment, of enforcing celibacy upon a large and influential bod)- of Anglican clergy. The restitution of the spoils, earnestly de- sired by Mary, would seriously affect and probably alienate many of the greatest and most powerful of the nobles and gentry. Her marriage was a singularly vexed and confused question. Her Spanish kinsfolk and friends— and Mary ever listened with preference to their advice — strongly pressed on her the desirability of an alliance with Philip of Spain, son and heir of the em- peror Charles V. Others even suggested cardinal Pole as a possible candidate for her hand, Pole being only as yet in minor orders. It is not, however, probable that Pole was ever seriously thought of. In England the thought of the Spanish marriage was generally most distasteful. Such an alliance, all true lovers of England felt, would go far to. destroy the independ- ence of their country; and would not im- probably reduce it, at all events for a time, into the condition of a province of the vast Spanish dominions, like the Low Countries. Courtenay, afterwards earl of Devon, the English candidate for the queen's hand, was of the blood of the Plantagenets, and was popular among the people ; but this alliance seems ever to have been distasteful to' the queen. The succession to Cranmer's arch-see was an anxious question. Gardiner, the chancellor, with 76 CORONATION OF MARY. 242 THE CHURCH his undoubted talents, his high reputa- tion, and his splendid record of suffering endured for the cause, seemed naturally designated for the primacy ; but here again Mary's personal predilection pointed to another person, for Gardiner, though bigoted and earnest, was too patriotic an Englishman to satisfy the queen and her Spanish friends ; so his hopes were doomed to be disappointed. Besides all these con- fused and complicated interests, the pre- sence of her sister Elizabeth, already popular and ever loved among the people, the hope from the first days of Mary's reign of the English reformers, was a standing menace and even a positive danger to queen Mary and her projects. The temper of the new rule was quickly shown in the measures taken for breaking up the foreign congregations established in England, notably the one under the superintendence of the extreme reformer, Alasco, in London, and the congregation of Flemings formed at Glastonbury. These and others were obliged to seek a new refuge on the Continent. On October ist, 1553, Mary was crowned at Westminster with much stately cere- mony. It was noticeable that the old Latin rites, although contrary to the law of the land, were used on this occasion. A few days later met the first Parliament of her reign. Again the law was broken, for the old mass of the Holy Ghost was celebrated solemnly before the two Houses. By this Parliament, however, an a^.t was speedily passed repealing all the statutes of Edward VI. , nine in number, regarding religion. The contents of this drastic act, which virtually broke up the Reformation OF ENGLAND. [ISS3. work as far as Parliament could do it, were indicated by the words of the preamble, which spoke of the " divine service and good administration of the sacraments.'" Thus the following Edwardian acts were formally repealed : — The Act for receiving in both kinds ; the Act for the election of bishops ; the two Acts which abrogated the laws against the marriage of priests ; the Acts for putting away the old service- books and images ; the two Acts of Uni- formity, which established the First and Second Prayer-books of Edward VI. ; the Act which among other things dealt with holy days and fasting days. The divine service as used in the last year of king Henry VIII. was ordered to be re-intro- duced, thus restoring the Latin use. Nothing, however, was said in this great act respecting the Roman obedience, and no pains or penalties which would follow non-observance of its decree were mentioned. While Parliament was sitting, at a state, trial at the Guildhall, archbishop Cranmer, the lady Jane Grey, her husband, lord Guildford Dudley, and his two brothers Ambrose and Henry, were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to die. None of these death-sentences were, however, immediately carried out. Mary wished to spare her fallen rival, the lady Jane Grey, and hesitated before even sending the three Dudleys to the block. Cranmer, whose death was certainly resolved on, was spared for a time for a singular reason. The reformer archbishop, it will be remem- bered, had in the days of Henry VIII. received the pallium from Rome, and, according to the old Roman rule, was amenable to no mere secular tribunal. As ISS3 ] MARY'S FIRST will be seen, neither the queen nor Rome ever dreamed of eventually sparing that great life, but for the moment he was safe. In conjunction with this Parliament met the Convocation of Canterbury. The pro- locutor chosen by the lower House was Weston, the new dean of Westminster, a fervid supporter of the new state of things. His words at the opening were remarkable as expressing the views and feelings of that party of the clergy who were opposed to the Reformation. " The queen," he said, " has called together so many Athanasiuses from all parts of the kingdom, who may mend the Catholic faith, in miserable manner rent and torn ; so many imprisoned Chrysostoms among the bishops has she rescued from their bonds for this. Noble sufferers, it is your work to rebuild the walls which the heretics have broken down. . . . There is one thing on which we may congratulate ourselves. That blasphemous and erroneous book, which they call the Book of Common Prayer, never passed our Houses." The prolocutor then proceeded to invite the lower House to debate on matters of religion, and, producing the volume which contained the forty-two Articles of Religion and the short catechism of Ponet, which he characterised as "that pestiferous and heretical book put out without your con- sent," desired that the House should first debate the articles of the catechism con- cerning the sacrament of the altar. He added that the Book of Common Praver was also " very abominable." The House, as may be supposed, under the now dominant influence was mainly composed of men devoted to the anti-Reformation policy ; but it contained a small fraction of CONVOCATION. 243 reformers. It must have been a stout- hearted little band who were bold enough to confront the now triumphant reactionary party at such a moment. The reformers spoke gallantly and temperately, but the result was, of course, at such a time a fore- gone conclusion. The majority in favour of the anti-Reformation was very large ; it numbered three hundred and fifty against eighty. The mass was restored, and celibacy was once more enjoined upon the clergy of England. In the upper House four articles were passed treating of the great subject in dispute. They may be summarised : — "For communion in one kind ; for transubstantia- tion; for the adoration and reservation of the Eucharist ; and concerning the substance of the Eucharist — the institution and inten- tion." This important Convocation, which for a time virtually destroyed the Reforma- tion so far as official acts could do so, was dissolved by queen Mary on Decem- ber 13, 1553. From the 20th of that same December it was forbidden that the service and communion should be celebrated in English in any part of the kingdom. Married priests were also no longer to officiate. The Latin service was to be universally used. Altars were to be set up again, and the ancient ceremonies of the mediaeval church, which had been abolished, were to be restored. In a little more than six months after Edward VI. had breathed his last, this tremendous change had passed over Eng- land. As yet, however, nothing had been done towards bringing back the Roman obedience. All things were, however, now ready for this crowning act of the great religious revolution. " An absolute 2^4 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ['55* retrogression, doing away the work of a quarter of a century, was about to be attempted, as it" there had been no Refor- mation, as if the might}' revolution, whose furrows ridged every field, had been a dream, to vanish without trace. This at- tempt to obliterate the past, which is with- out parallel in history, gives a melancholy fascination to the name of the only ruler who ever essayed so impossible a task : nor would Mary have ventured on it, if from the beginning she had not been listening to foreign voices."* To assert, as some of our most thoughtful writers on the Reformation in England have done, that without queen Mary and the policv of her reign, the Reformation in England would have been impossible, or at least long delayed, appears to be a paradox ; and yet, when the startling statement is fairly examined, it will be found to be strictly accurate. When Mary ascended the throne, her popularity among her subjects was enor- mous. The English have ever been at heart a devotedly loyal nation, and Mary was acknowledged by all ranks and orders in the realm as the lawful heiress of the crown. The undeserved woes of her mother Katharine of Arragon — woes in which her daughter and only child had long shared — appealed to the chivalry of the people. There was much, too, in the * Canon Dixon : " History of the Church of England," chap. xxii. The writer of this necessarily brief summary of the Edwardian work and the Marian reaction desires to express his deep sense of the conspicuous fairness of Canon Dixon's ex- haustive and scholarly History of this period, of which he has ventured largely to avail himself in the short precis of the Formularies of Edward VI. character of the blameless solitary princess, which, before the sad policy of her rule had alienated from her the heart of her people, attracted to her, if not universal love, certainly the general respect of the majority of more serious Englishmen. Stainlessly pure, intensely in earnest, fervidly religious, there was much in Mary's character that gave fair promise of a noble reign. And yet, after five un- happy years she closed her life and reign amidst the general execration of the nation, which had so rapturously wel- comed her accession. The government during her brother's reign, lasting between five and six years, had been in the hands mainly of political adventurers — of men who had been usually content to seek their own self-aggrandise- ment rather than the good of the nation. Things had gone ill with England, from the day when the sceptre fell from the strong hands of Henry VIII. Home matters and foreign affairs had been equall}- mismanaged. Somerset, the young king's uncle, in spite of his many errors and fatal mistakes, had enjoyed a certain popularity ; but Somerset had perished on the block, mainly as the result of the intrigues of factions, and his successor to the chief place in the regency was a man who was generally mistrusted, and by many hated. The reformers, who during the years of Edward VI.'s reign had had their own way in religious matters, had also failed to carry with them the people. A large number of these were still devotedly attached to the old forms and rites and ceremonies. These became more precious and valued when they were violently superseded ; while the wanton excesses of '553 ] REACTION AGAINST THE OUEEN 245 the extremists among the reformers had the church. The real benefits which the alienated and even disgusted many serious Reformation had conferred on the people, persons, who were really anxious for a reformation of the crying abuses which disfigured alike church practices and church life. The destruction of the monasteries and the confiscation of their property, the were by many forgotten in the disgraceful excesses which, alas ! accompanied the efforts of the reformers, and which were multiplied as time advanced. Indeed, it is not too msch to say that when Mary, gyp . '11, ' :4Vp\ }!' shameful desecration of altar and shrine, the pillage of so many churches, had excited a burning indignation in the minds of not a few even of those well disposed to the English services, and who joyfully welcomed the English Bible and the beautiful liturgy in the vernacular, who rejoiced at the abrogation of mediaeval superstitious ceremonies, and who accepted with real joy the .restoration of a truer interpretation of the most sacred rites of amid the joyous acclamations of the nation, became queen, the Reformation and its chiefs were positively unpopular among many, only coldly viewed by others, and even hated by a powerful and numerous section of Englishmen. But this widely-spread feeling of love and loyalty to the queen, was changed, long before her short reign of five years came to an end, into bitter hate; such hate as no sovereign of England, not even such 246 THE CHURCH a king as John, had righteously earned by his misdeeds. Surrounded by a group of advisers drawn from the party in Eng- land who disliked with a blind dislike every innovation in matters of religion ; urged on by Spaniards and foreign coun- sellors, to whom the very name of the Reformation was accursed ; dominated by the influence of cardinal Pole, the pure and saintly Romish bigot, who knew nothing of the English temper and the English mind ; for the last four years of her reign queen Mary set on foot, and with all the powers of the state continued, the most deadly persecution ever witnessed in this land. In this short space of time three hundred persons were positively burnt at the stake for their religious opinions, while at least another hundred, says Lord Bur- leigh, were lamentably destroyed by hard treatment in prison and in other ways. All this went home to the English heart ; it has never been forgotten ; has for ever associated the old forms of religion- Romanism, as it is popularly called — with the idea of bitter, relentless persecution ; and has thus invested the Reformation doctrines and practices with a halo of estimation, even of veneration, in the minds of Englishmen, which these doctrines and practices never possessed before. "The ruthless plundering of the monasteries, the desecration of altars and shrines, the sad spectacle of ruined abbey and desolated church, were all effectually veiled by the smoke which went up to heaven from the three hundred Marian burnings." Then, too, the martyrs of the reforming party were not only made up of the poor rank and file who perished so patiently and so bravely in those cruel flames, but OF ENGLAND. ['553-1558. the famous chiefs of the great movement acquired through their sufferings, nobly borne for the sake of the truth they pro- fessed, a new position in the eyes of the people. Leading reformers such as Ridley and Latimer, Hooper and Ferrars, spoke from their prison rooms in the Tower, at Oxford, or at Gloucester, with a power and authority which their words or writings had never possessed before. The spectacle of Cranmer's right arm withering in the fire at Oxford, impressed England in a way which the great archbishop had failed to do when he counselled Henry VIII., or presided over the Windsor divines, or guided the childhood of Edward VI. Men felt — many for the first time — how real must be the faith which nerved these illustrious leaders to endure such torments for the principles they had spent so many years in pressing home to England. Thus it came t.o pass, strangely enough, that. Mary, and the men who surrounded Mary during her five years' reign — Philip the king and Renard the ambassador, Gardiner and Bonner the bishops, and, chiefest of all, Mary's dearest friend, Pole — in these five short years gave a new colour altogether to the Reformation. The great religious movement was seen in quite a new aspect in the homes and hearts of the English people. In the year 1553 the issue of the tremendous religious struggle in our island was doubtful. Before the year 1558 had run its course, the cause of the Reformation was virtually won in England. Looking closer into the circumstances under which this strange change in public opinion in England was brought about, we see three distinct acts of disastrous policy, •553— I5SS] MARY'S FATAL POLICY. 247 deliberately planned and carried out by queen Alary herself. In the first, the Spanish marriage, she was largely in- fluenced by the advice and persuasions of her maternal kinsman, the emperor Charles V., to whom she was especially attached. Gratitude and real affection, perhaps even more than the glitter of the grandest match in the world, determined Mary to choose the great Emperor's heir as her husband. But the marriage was in every respect hateful to the English people. Foreign in- fluences— we see it again and again in our island story — were ever peculiarly mistrusted by England ; and the very splendour and power of Philip, which ■evidently dazzled and attracted the queen, contributed to the intense dislike with which the great Spanish alliance was viewed. From the day of the Spanish marriage, Mary's popularity among her subjects began to wane. Every act of her government was viewed as an act of Spanish and foreign policy, and in con- sequence was misliked and mistrusted. The second of the great acts of policy which distinguished her reign was the reconciliation with Rome. This likewise was opposed to English feeling. Nothing in the Reformation work of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. had so commended itself to the popular mind, as the severance from Rome. Long before the Reformation, the bonds of Rome had been felt peculiarly galling and humiliating. The nobler and more patriotic even among Mary's minis- ters and advisers feU: this deeply, notably Gardiner of Winchester, the chancellor. His conversion to his royal mistress's views in this matter was tardy, and even re- luctant. She was only backed up in her purpose by her new Spanish connections ; who, however, though they eventually co-operated with her in the reconciliation work, saw, and from the first dreaded the consequences of the act. The third of the great acts of Marian policy was the attitude of her government, after the reconciliation with Rome, towards the more earnest spirits of the Reformed party. During the last three or four years of her life and reign this attitude was one of bitter, relentless, cruel persecu- tion— a persecution which showed of w hat stuff the real Reformers were composed. The burnings of the so-called heretics in Oxford and at Smithfield, under the shadow of cathedrals such as Canterbury and Nor- wich, became a great " object lesson " to the English people, and showed the Re- formers in a new light. The sordid and covetous aspect which hitherto had domin- ated and coloured so much of the great Reformation movement, was forgotten in the splendid heroism of the martyrs, who chose voluntarily to die the most painful of deaths rather than give up what they felt to be the truth. The story of the utter failure of the mediaeval reaction under queen Mary, will be best told by painting a word-picture of each of these three acts of Marian policy. (1) The Spanish marriage. (2) The recon- ciliation with Rome. (3) The persecution of the Reformers. CHAPTER LII. THE SPANISH MARRIAGE, AND THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. Reasons for Mary's Marriage with Philip of Spain — Its Unpopularity — Fatal Influence on her Religious Policy — Its Disastrous Results — Gardiner's Efforts against Spanish Influence — Cardinal Pole — Delays in his Reception — Dispensation for the Confiscated Monastic Property — Pole's Arrival in England — Meeting with the Parliament — The Parliamentary Petition — The Reconciliation and Absolution — The Reaction in England — Pole's Influence on Mary — Superseded as Legate — His Last Days and Death — Character of Pole. THE queen's selection of the heir to the enormous dominions of Charles V. as her husband, was the begin- ning of her troubles. It was an ill-fated connection ; it cost her at once, as we have seen, her short-lived popularity ; it brought her only unhappiness and bitter disappointment. The chagrin and misery resulting from the loveless union, which very quickly followed, no doubt weakened her health, and left her an almost un- resisting victim to the malady to which she succumbed after her sad five years of queenship. Mary was thirty-seven years old when she became queen. The question whom she should choose as her husband was almost the first important state problem she was called upon to solve. The choice lay still with her ; but only three possible candidates were presented to her. The Englishman suggested was her kinsman, lord Courtenav. With him she would have nothing to do. The second candidate, again, was scarcely seriously thought of. He, too, was a kinsman of the royal house of England, the famous cardinal Pole, who, although a cardinal, was not yet a priest of the church. But the deep affection which Mary conceived for Pole ever partook rather of the nature of respect and rever- ence ; she never really viewed him in the light of a possible husband. From the first her eyes were turned towards her relative, the Spanish prince Philip. The long kind- ness and steady support and affection which Philip's father, the emperor Charles V., had ever shown to her when she was viewed with dislike and repulsion by her father and brother, had won her heart. The magni- ficent position in the world of the heir to the vast possessions of Charles V. satis- fied her ambition, and seemed to offer her, as the wife of the most powerful prince in Christendom, limitless power to carry out her design of restoring what she believed from her heart the only true religion, to the land over which she was called to rule. Her dearest wishes were also fostered by the desire of Charles V. himself for this alliance ; and every possible inducement to decide Mary to accept the hand of Philip was pressed upon her by the astute and able Spanish ambassador, Renard, whom from the first hours of her reign she had admitted to her confidence. The connection from the first was in- tensely disliked by every patriotic English- man. The imminent danger was foreseen instinctively, of England becoming little 1553— 1554 ] SPANISH INFLUENCE ON THE OUEEN. 249 more than an appanage of Spain, if the queen became the wife of the future sovereign of the great Continental empire. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, Mary's chancellor, tbe most eminent statesman of her reign, was bitterly hostile to the alli- ance ; and although, when he found that the queen was determined to choose Philip as her husband, he yielded with a fairly good grace, the queen never forgave him remind us how repeatedly Renard, the imperial ambassador, acting as the mouth- piece of the emperor Charles V., advised moderation, only counselling severity in the case of those Englishmen who offended in matters connected with the state — such as the lady Jane Grey, her father the duke of Suffolk, and others who seemed danger- ous to Mary's government. But it is im- possible not to perceive how the unhappy ■J I J n 1 1 - L/C J F ENGLAND. [,554. that nation (of the English) make haste now to do Peter reverence ? Strange, too, that this is the house of Maty. Can it be Mary that is so slow to open ? True, in- deed, it is that when Mary's damsel heard the voice, she opened not the door for joy ; she ran and told Mazy (thus playing on the well-known passage in the ' Acts,' where Peter is released from prison by the angel). And though at first she doubted, yet when Peter continued knocking, she opened the door, she took him in, she regarded not the danger, although Herod was yet alive and was king. Is it joy which now with- holds Marv, or is it fear ? She rejoices, that I know, but she also fears. Yet Why should Mary fear now, when Herod is dead ? » With such curious theology, and still more curious exposition of Scripture, did- the cardinal legate of the Roman see urge upon Philip, and through Philip upon queen Mary, a prompt obedience to the Pope. He went on with his strange, pleading letter, powerful enough from Pole's and the Roman standpoint : " Do you, therefore, sire, teach her (Mary) how to cast her fears awav. It is not I only who stand here — it is not only Peter — Christ is here ; Christ waits with me till you will open and take Him in. You, who are king of England, while vou have ambassadors of all other princes at your court, vou will not have Christ's am- bassador ; you have rejected your Christ ! " Then from urgent, piteous, loving entreaty. Pole went on to stern menaces. " Go vour way ; build on the foundation of worldlv policv, and in Christ's own words I tell you — that the rain will fall, the floods will rise, the winds will blow, and beat »554 ] THE HOUR OF ROMAN REACTION. 257 upon your house, and it will fall, and great will be the fall thereof." At last the hour came when Philip and Mary thought it safe to undertake the Roman obedience. A year and a half had passed. Sweeping changes in religious matters had passed over England, virtually unchallenged by the voice of the nation. REGINALD, CARDINAL POLE. (From the Picture attributed to Raphael.) great work of formal reconciliation with Rome. Mary had longed for it, we have seen, from the first days of her reign ; only from motives of state policy the day of reconciliation was deferred until things were ripe for the State to return to the old 77 The old government and its leaders had been swept away. The reforming bishops had been deposed, and were all in prison or in exile. Spasmodic efforts of armed resistance to the mediaeval reaction, it is true, had been made, but they had been 258 THE CHURCH effectually stamped out in blood. The sullen acquiescence of the English nation in the great change, for this is what it was after the first hour of delirious joy which welcomed her accession, was mistaken by Mary and her ministers, by Pole and the Roman cabinet, even by the more astute Renard and Spain, for approval ; and in the November of 1554 a state embassage was sent to Pole, formally inviting him to England, there to arrange the reconciliation with the so-called apostolic see. The only stipulation that apparently was made, was that the Pope, on being again acknowledged as supreme in matters ecclesiastical in England, should, through the voice of his legate, grant a dispensation to the possessors of monastic lands and property to hold these lands still. This condition was consented to, and, with little delay, Pole set out with solemn pomp on his journey to restore England to the Roman communion and obedience. He was to come, however, as ambassador, not as legate. But, as we shall see, very soon after his arrival the civil authority and title was rapidly merged in the spiritual office and dignity of legate a latere, with all its awful and tremendous assumptions. He was received at Canterbury with every demonstration of respect and affec- tionate regard, and amidst the greetings of a vast and apparently a sympathising crowd, passed to his temporary resting- place in the storied city of the metro- politans of England, under the shadow of the proud cathedral of Lanfranc and Anselm. The palace of the imprisoned Cranmer, soon to be his own, was de- stroyed, a fire having some time before reduced it to ruins. OF ENGLAND. [,554. At this time Pole, who for the next few years was destined to be the evil genius of Mary and England, though he was only fifty-four years old, presented the appear- ance of a worn-out, prematurely aged man, feeble and sickly. We read how on his long journey he had been even lifted into the litter which bore him through his stately progress. His restless and exciting life, coloured now with feverish hopes, now with disappointment and failure, had well-nigh worn him out. Only the excite- ment and joy at the realisation of his long- deferred hopes buoyed him up, and gave him strength and power to carry out his cherished plans. It has been remarked that in cardinal Pole's portrait at this period of his life, there is much to remind the historical student of his strong like- ness to his royal Plantagenet ancestors, from whom he claimed direct descent. The beautiful but somewhat weak Planta- genet face is reproduced in the features of the well-meaning but often hard and cruel bigot, who, as Mary's intimate friend and most trusted adviser in spiritual matters, during the latter part of her unhappy reign, worked such untold mischief to the cause he had laid so deeply to heart. Those curious in such matters may repeat the once popular Gloucester pilgrimage to the shrine of the murdered Edward II., hard by the high altar of the stately cathedral, and in the still perfect ala- baster effigy which rests on the scarred tomb, trace the traditional beautiful Plan- tagenet features here referred to ; the king's face being evidently modelled upon a mask taken after death. Nicholas Harpsfield, the archdeacon of Canterbury — a prominent Marian divine, ,554 ] RECEPTION OF a rhetorician rather than a theologian, whom we often come across in the records of this sad period, notably in the Oxford trials — received Pole, as the principal resident dignitary. His curious turgid eloquence on this occasion is a fair specimen of the hysterical, blind complacency with which the leading divines whom Mary delighted to honour viewed the changed aspect of things in the Anglican Church. The oration, according to an Italian account of the ceremony of welcome, was so beautiful and so affecting that all the hearers were moved to tears. The legate himself, however, seems to have been pained by the unmeasured flattery, and gravely rebuked the orator for his ful- some address of welcome.* The progress Londonwards commenced. At Rochester, in deference to royal command, the cardinal assumed the ancient pomp and insignia of a Papal legate, the cross and the once well-known silver pillars being borne be- fore him. The act reversing his attainder was presented him ; and he was received by Philip and Mary and their court with every demonstration of respect and affection. Things indeed were changed in England; for in the Parliament which met this winter of 1554, at the opening service the mass was celebrated, and the Pope was prayed for by name. Then the great * The words deserve to be quoted. " Thou art Pole," said Harpsfield, " the one who lights us to the Kingdom of Heaven. The sky, the rivers, the earth, these very walls" (alluding to the scarred walls stripped of colour and sculpture) " long for thee. When thou wert absent from us all things were sad. At thy coming everything becomes glad and peaceful." The Latin pun on his name can scarcely be given in any English rendering — " Tu es Polus, qui aperis nobis Polum regni coelorum " ARDINAL POLE. 259 business of the reconciliation was hurried forward. The two Houses were at once summoned to attend the court at White- hall, to hear the declaration of Pole, the now acknowledged cardinal legate. The date of this striking scene was November 28, 1554. Philip and queen Mary, who was splendidly dressed, sat on a raised dais, and Pole on their right hand, just outside the edge of the royal canopv ; his silver cross and pillars had been borne before him. Bishop Gardiner, the chancellor, introduced Pole to the great assembly in the follow- ing terms : " Here is present the right reverend father in God the lord cardinal Pole, come from the apostolic see of Rome as ambassador, upon one of the weightiest causes that ever happened in this realm." Then Pole rose, and spoke in a low, weak voice. He told them that the see apostolic had a special respect to the realm of England above all others ; and then slightly sketched its history in the matters of the Christian faith, dwelling, of course, on the mission of Augustine, but ignoring the whole work of the Celtic church. He touched upon the two royal Saxon pilgrims to Rome, but had little to say touching submission to Rome in Anglo- Saxon times ; dwelling generally on the favours showered upon England by the Popes, and on the prosperity of the land down to the time of the late " schism " ; from that unhappy day the English had been overwhelmed with calamities. Then he called attention to the woes which had been the lot of other lands who had for- saken the apostolic see. " Let the empire of Greece " (he meant the Eastern empire) "be a spectacle to the world, which by 26o THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. departing from the unity of the Church of Rome has been brought into subjection bv the Turk. Let Germany, wretchedly torn with diversity of sects and factions, be a spectacle." In his extravagant laudation of Philip and Marv. he adduced a strange and ingenious comparison which to our ears sounds somewhat profane. " The emperor Charles V., of all princes in Europe, had travailed most in the cause of religion, but he had failed in establish- ing peace." (Pole was, of course, alluding to the great Lutheran schism in Germany.) " He could not build the temple of Jerusa- lem, for like David he was stained with blood and wars ; he left the finishing of it to Solomon — the Rex Paciiicus — in the person of Philip,- Marv's husband." He concluded by stating that he held from the Pope full powers of reconciliation, pressing home the assertion that his mission was to reconcile, not to condemn, especially not to call anything in question already done. Then referring especially to the monastic spoils, which were to be left in the hands of those who held them. "All matters that il'cvc past, they should be as things cast into the sea of forget/illness" But all laws by which England had dissevered herself trom the unity of Christ's church must, urged the legate, be abrogated. The grace of the apostolic see thus offered was dependent upon this absolute revocation by Parlia- ment of all the anti-papal acts. There was no delay. The " Houses " were as subservient to the will of the Tudor queen, as not many years before thev had been to the will of the imperious Tudor king her father. Their very unanimity showed how little they represented the heart of the nation, rent asunder as it was by the claims of the Reformers on the one hand, and of the lovers of the old mediaeval forms and doctrines on the other. But feeble and impotent as were the two Houses, their will when expressed was the law of the land. One day sufficed for the settlement of the momentous question. It was seen at once that the formal repeal of the many obnoxious acts would take considerable time, and the impatient Pole brooked no delay. He would content himself with requiring a joint petition from the two Houses to their majesties, in which, promising without delay to repeal all the anti-papal laws, thev should pray the king and queen to intercede for the removal of the interdict. This act of complete submission was all settled in a few hours. The question whether England should return to obedi- ence to Rome was decided in the affirma- tive by the peers unanimously ; bv the commons — 560 in number — with only two dissentient voices. The petition was drawn up by a joint committee of the lords and commons, and was positively ready for presentation on the day but one following the speech of Pole to the king and queen and the assembled Houses in the royal chamber at Whitehall. The eventful dav of the reconciliation — a date memorable in the story of the Church of England — was St. Andrew's day, November 50, 1554. The early hours of the morning were occupied by the Court in attending a solemn mass sung at Westminster. It was the festival of the institution of the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece, and king Philip was accompanied by ooo noblemen and gentle- CARDINAL POLE RECONCILING THE REALM OF ENGLAND TO THE ROMAN COMMUNION. 262 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1554- men of Spain, and by the knights of the English order of the Garter. Dinner was served at 2 o'clock in the afternoon ; and then in the gloaming of that winter day once more Parliament assembled at White hall in the presence of Mary and her Spanish husband. As on the first meeting two days before, Gardiner, the chancellor, acted as spokes- man, and asked the august assembly ii they continued still in the same mind. A unanimous assent followed. The chancellor continued, Should he proceed in their names to pray for absolution ? Again the assembled Parliament signified their assent. He then, after presenting the document to the queen, read aloud the petition which had been drawn up by the joint committee of the two Houses. It was humbly worded, and ran in the names of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons of the present Parliament, representing the whole body of the realm of England. They •declared themselves " very sorry and re- pentant for the schism and disobedience committed in the realm against the see apostolic, by making laws against the supremacy of the sacred see"; and they besought their Majesties (Philip and Mary), H as persons undefiled in the offence to- ward the holy see, to obtain from the see apostolic absolution from all danger 01 such censures and sentences as bv the laws of the church they were gotten into ; and they prayed that as children repentant they might be received into the unity of Christ's church, in order that the noble realm (of England), in unity and perfect obedience to the see apostolic and the Pope for the time being, might serve God and their majesties to the furtherance of His honour and glory." Cardinal Pole replied, without at first rising from his seat, " Much indeed has the English nation to thank the Almighty for recalling them to his fold. Once again has God given a token of his special favour to this realm ; for as this nation in the time of the primitive church was the first to be called out of the darkness of heathen- ism,* so now they were the first to whom God had given grace to repent of their schism.t How would the angels, who rejoiced when one sinner was converted, triumph when a whole noble nation were brought home." The legate then rose to pronounce the solemn words which removed the inter- dict from England. The queen and Philip knelt, and the whole assembly with them, to receive the absolution, which Pole pro- ceeded to pronounce. The voice was low, but in the deep hush every word of the strange forgiveness was audible. " Our Lord Jesus Christ," so ran the great Papal pronouncement, " by His mercy absolves you, and we, by apostolic authority given unto us by the most holy lord Pope Julius the Third, His vicegerent on earth, do absolve and deliver you with this whole realm from all heresy and schism, and from all judgment, censure, and pain, for that cause incurred ; and we restore you again into the unity of our Mother the Holy Church — in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." i * Pole was evidently referring here to the dim tradition of king Lucius' conversion. t This was an allusion to the Continental Teutonic nations, who remained steadfast to the principles of the Reformation and to separation from Rome J Cf. Froude : Hist., chap xxxii. 1554-1 THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. 263 The news of the submission of the English nation was received at Rome with extraordinary joy. Pope Julius, it is said, embraced the bearer ot the glad tidings, and then fell on his knees in prayer. In the Eternal City the most extravagant joy was manifested at the repentance of England, and no suspicion or doubt seems to have crossed the mind of the Pope and his cardinals, of the sin- cerity of the solemn act of submission and reconciliation. The king and queen and Parliament had ratified the great sub- mission, the expression of a national sorrow for the past. It was surely the voice of repentant England. The real truth was different. It was not the voice of the nation. The Spanish marriage, the presence of Philip and his Spanish followers, had already struck the first deadly blow to the progress of the mediaeval reaction under Mary, which followed the hated government of North- umberland, and the sacrilegious excesses of the extreme party of the reformers. The restoration of the Papal power inflicted a still more fatal wound. The unpopularity of the Reformation, which, from various causes already detailed, threatened to undo the true work of the earnest and devoted scholars of the new learning among the people, was fast giving way to a bitter regret on the part of thousands of serious Englishmen, when, as they became conscious of the growing influence of Spain and the reactionaries, they saw the English Bible taken away, and the English services proscribed, and ceremonies and rites they had come to recognise as superstitious and idolatrous, restored. And these feelings were enormously intensified when they found the yoke of Rome, so long and bitterly hated by the vast majority of Englishmen, once more firmly riveted on the national church. The words of Pole on that November day in 1554, when in the Pope's name he removed the interdict from the country, gave an undreamed-of impulse to the Reformation cause in England. But Mary and Philip, even Gardiner, much more the rejoicing Julius III. in distant Rome, were all blind to this. They had no suspicion of the tremendous force with which their policy and acts were working for the cause they hated with so intense a hate. There was a third and might}* impulse still to be given to the apparently dying Reformation in England, and which we have yet to treat of at greater length, which followed immediately after this memorable reconciliation with Rome ; but it may be interesting first very briefly to relate the remaining personal incidents in the life-story of that interesting adventurer who worked unconsciously so cruel a mis- chief to his native land. We use the word " unconsciously " advisedly, for even those who most intensely disapprove his policy and his disastrous influence over Mary, can find no flaw in his own spotless character, and are compelled reluctantly to acknow- ledge the generally unselfish nobility of his aims and purposes. To Reginald Pole, from the very first days of his public life, the Reformation and all that the Reformation included was an unholy thing. Probably the iniquity of the divorce of Katharine of Arragon, so unhappily interwoven with the early stages of the great religious movement in 264 THE CHURCH England, had first roused the indignation of the chivalrous descendant of the Plan- tagenets, and this indignation coloured in Pole's imagination every succeeding scene in the great drama. He would have nothing to do with what he felt was an unclean thing, and shaking off the dust of his native land, he became a voluntary exile, nobly renouncing; all the advantages and high promotion which lay before him. An industrious scholar and an unwearied worker, his narrow and confined intellect failed to see the urgent necessity of a thorough reform in church doctrine, government, and practice, so patent to men like Erasmus and Colet, and even to the high-souled, conservative More. In Pole's mind the idea of the unity of the -church was ever paramount, and this unity could only be obtained by an unswerving obedience to that great bishop of Rome, who to Pole and to men who thought with him was Christ's vicegerent on earth. He ignored completely the deep-seated, ineradicable English feeling of repugnance to this foreign supremacy in the church ; was utterly blind to the teachings of the history of the past and the lessons of the present, so far as regarded his native country. In estimating his character, however, it must never be forgotten that his life's work was never to advance or to benefit himself, but solely to promote what he deemed the cause of true religion ; and in working for this end he believed he was working for the weal of England. His chance came in the evening of his life, when prematurely worn-out, being only fifty-four years of age when he came as legate. He was received in England, as we have seen, with all imaginable honours, OF ENGLAND. [,554. and, though in weak and failing health, successfully carried out what he had long so passionately desired — the reconciliation of his country with Rome. It was his lot to pronounce the formal absolution, and to remove the interdict from England. This was done in the November of 1554. In the early months of the following year (1555) the Marian persecution began. This was simultaneous with Pole's obtain- ing almost supreme power at court ; and the terrible burning of so-called heretics, with rare intervals, continued until the end of 1558, when Pole and his royal mistress passed away. In the August of 1555 Philip left England, only to return again for a brief visit. In the November of the same year the statesmanlike chan- cellor, Gardiner of Winchester, died ; and from that date Pole's solitary influence was supreme with Mary. Upon the sickly and hysterical queen, during the last three years of her sad life, disappointments and disillusionments, one after the other, pressed very sorely. She found the love of her subjects turned into hate. Philip, whom she adored with an almost idolatrous love, had deserted her. Gardiner, the wise minister, for whom she never cared, though almost in- variably trusting him, was dead. The hope of a child, heir to all her greatness and far-reaching plans, at last had vanished. Only Pole remained to her, her faithful friend of past years, who had brought the message of forgiveness from the Pope, whom she regarded with no feigned belief as God's vicegerent on earth ; who once had been gravely suggested to her as a possible husband, and who thought as she thought on every matter connected with CARDINAL POLE AND QUEEN MARY. 1555— '556 ] religion, now her chief and almost her only care. Seldom have an adviser and a sovereign been brought into such intimate relations of friendship and common in- terests as were Pole and Mary during those last three or four years of their life. They were scarcely ever apart, the ecclesiastic and the queen. As Mary moved restlessly from 26; this realm, both with regard to secular and spiritual affairs. He is a man of great learning and goodness of heart. His opinion is of such authority with the queen, that by a mere sign with his hand he could remove any person from the situation he holds or bring him to punish- ment. Therefore he is envied and hated PANORAMIC VIEW OF CANTERHURY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. one palace to the other, now residing at St. James's, now at Greenwich or at Richmond, the archbishop — for this he became when Cranmer passed to his rest in the spring of 1556, in the flames of Oxford — usually accompanied his royal friend and mistress. Rarely were they separated ; and it was their custom to spend two or three hours together daily. One who has given us some interesting pictures of the time thus writes of him : " On the shoulders of this man now rests the whole weight of the government of by the principal ministers. With all this, he uses his power with great discretion and humility." * All contemporary evidence, indeed, proves that certainly, from the date of Philip's departure from England to the end of the reign, cardinal Pole was the solitary friend and adviser upon whose counsels Mary relied. Of the cruelties which were exercised during those years of persecution, which have made Mary's reign a byword in * Micheles, quoted by Dean Hook ; " Lives of the Archbishops," vol viii , chap. iv. 266 THE CHURCH English history, and have associated the dread and too well-deserved epithet of " bloody :' with her name, Pole must there- fore be considered, with the queen, the joint author. With absolute truth Froude writes on this point : " Is it to be supposed that in the horrible crusade which hence- forth was the business of Mary's life, the Papal legate, the sovereign director of the ecclesiastical administration of the realm, was not consulted, or if consulted, that he refused his sanction ? But it is not a question of conjecture or probability. From the legate came the first edict for the episcopal inquisition ; under the legate every bishop held his judicial commission ; while, if Smithfield (where bishop Bonner was supreme) is excepted, the most fright- ful scenes in the entire frightful period were witnessed under the shadow of his own metropolitan cathedral." His apolo- gists can only urge that Pole was not cruel, nor loved to see others suffering ; but notwithstanding the 300 burnings were ordered to be carried out, and were carried out by the cardinal and the queen, " in the delirious belief that they were chosen instruments of Providence." A strange nemesis befel the archbishop in the course of the year 1557. Cardinal Caraffa, a personal enemy of the English cardinal, had been elected to the papacy, a dignity to which, when Caraffa was chosen, Pole was deemed to have just claims. Between Caraffa, known as Pope Paul IV., and Philip, Mary's husband, a fierce enmity arose, with the details of which here we are not concerned. Pole was in a strange dilemma ; bound by every tie of affection and interest to Philip and Mary, and at the same time linked by the most awful OF ENGLAND. [,SS7. spiritual bonds to their bitterest enemy, whom he himself acknowledged as his absolute chief on earth, and whose com- mission as legate he bore. He naturally attached himself to his own sovereign, and vainly tried to mediate between Philip and the Pope. The haughty pontiff, who of old disliked Pole, summarily revoked the legatine commission of the English arch- bishop, and named as his legate an old Observant friar of Greenwich, one William Peto, who in the far-back days of Henry VIII. had distinguished himself by his bold opposition to the king. Never was so strange, so unlooked-for an insult offered to a faithful servant of Rome. The strongest remonstrances were made from England. Letters from Pole himself, from the Angli- can bishops, from the nobility of the realm (the last probably emanating from the council), were sent to Rome, deprecating the insult offered to the most faithful servant of Rome and the church repre- sented by Rome, probably living on earth ; but to no avail. A joint letter even from Philip and Mary deigned to entreat Paul IV. not to take away the legatine dignity from the one man who was fitted to guide the confused and unsettled fortunes of the Church of England, in the hour of per- plexity and danger through which the church was then passing. But remon- strances availed nought. An old and ill-grounded charge of heresy against Pole was even hinted at ; and the Pope wrote to the king and queen, in reply to their letter of strong and bitter remonstrance, that his appointment of the aged and com- paratively unknown Peto as legate in the room of Pole was the result of a divine inspiration ! ISS8] POLE'S LAST Di Pole was never reinstated in the legatine office. Very deeply the iron of the cruel and undeserved insult entered into his soul, as is manifest from his words in a communication addressed by him to Paul IV. early in 1558. In this he strangely likens himself to Isaac in the proposed sacrifice in the Genesis story, when Abra- ham's hand was stayed by the angel, Abraham being represented in the curious simile by the Pope. " I see not an angel sent to stay your hand, as in the case of Isaac, but I see a host of angels — Philip and Mary, Catholic kings, defenders of the faith ; I see a legion of pious men [referring to the signatories of the English protest] coming to snatch that sword, the process of accusation [alluding probably to the old and easily disproved charge of heresy], out of your hand." But the Pope, shrouding himself in silence, deigned no further reply. The cold neglect of Rome ; the suspicion that he, who had devoted his life to further the papal cause, was charged with heresy ; the deprivation of the legatine office, which Pole prized far above his dignity as arch- bishop ; no doubt weighed sorely on the trusted and all-powerful adviser of Mary, and contributed largely to undermine his weak and failing health. He had no strength left to fight against the fever and ague, which in the summer of 1558 had begun to ravage England — a veritable pestilence, to which the queen herself suc- cumbed. Everything seemed against him. In the beginning of the year 1558 the arms of England suffered a terrible reverse on the Continent, and Calais and the last remnant of her possessions in France were torn from her. This unlooked-for rS AND DEATH. 267 misfortune, which affected rather the pride than the prosperity of England, was an additional blow to the already hateful government' of Mary, and was quickly followed by a long-continued and fatal epidemic of the nature of fever and ague (not improbably a serious outbreak of the disease known in our own times as influenza or la grippe). The queen sickened with this widespread malady in the September of 1558, breathing her last on the 16th November. When the queen died, Pole too was lying between life and death at Lambeth, and at first his attendants kept the news of the passing away of his dearest friend and mistress from him ; but the intelligence was inadvertently conveyed to him, and from that moment the dying cardinal never rallied. His confidant and devoted friend, Priuli, in his letters has left us some interesting details of his last hours. He tells us how he spoke such words as moved the by- standers to tears, as he dwelt on that Divine Providence which throughout his chequered life had, even in all his afflictions, calmed and consoled him. He drew a vivid parallel between his life and the queen's, relating how he had sympathised with her in the sorrows of her early life, and then had shared in all her troubles and anxieties since she had become queen. They were not to be separated, he added, by death. Later, when his pains grew easier, he caused himself to be lifted in front of the altar, and, bowing to the ground with tears and sobs, said the Con- fitcor and received the Holy Communion. Later in the day he listened to vespers and then to compline. At last he said the end was come, and asked for the commendatory 268 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1558. prayers, and so calmlv fell asleep, only twenty-two hours after Mary had breathed her last. Thus Pole passed away to his great account, in all the odour of sanctity, with- out, so far as we know, ever having breathed one sigh of regret for the unspeakable woe and misery he had brought, during his three or four years of supreme power, on his native land ; unconscious, apparently, of the execrations which from thousands of outraged hearths and homes were being uttered against the remorseless Roman cardinal. His successor in the arch-see, Parker, has deliberately called him " the executioner and scourge of the Church of England'' [Carnifex ct flagelhim Ecclcsicc Anglicance). And yet " his character was irreproachable ; in all the virtues of the [Roman] Catholic Church he walked with- out spot or stain ; and the system to which he had surrendered himself had left to him of the common weaknesses of mankind his enormous vanity alone. But that system had extinguished in him the human in- stincts, the genial emotions by which theological theories stand especially in need to be corrected. He belonged to a class of persons, at all times numerous, in whom enthusiasm takes the place of under- standing, who are men of an idea. . . Happily for the welfare of mankind, persons so constituted rarely arrive at power : should power come to them, they use it, as Pole used it, to defeat the ends which are nearest to their hearts."* He lay in state at Lambeth for forty days, while masses were being said for the repose of his soul. The bodv with much ceremony was then taken to Canterbury, and once more all that was mortal of Pole was received by a great crowd of curious, perhaps of admiring and respectful citizens and clergv. A sermon in his praise in Latin and in English was delivered when his remains were laid, as he had wished, in St. Thomas's chapel of the historic cathedral. The simple words, Depositum Cardinalis Pali, mark the place of the interment of the last cardinal-archbishop who presided over the Church of England. * Froude . " History," chap. xxxv. CARDINAL POLE'S TOME IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. PRISONERS' WALK, TOWER OK LONDON. CHAPTER LIII. THE MARIAN PERSECUTION. RIDLEY AND LATIMER. Revival of the Laws relating to Heresy — The First Martyrs, Rogers and Hooper — Imprisonment of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer — Cranmer's Condemnation for Treason — His Respite and its Reasons — Trial for Heresy of the Three Bishops at Oxford — The Three Propositions concerning the Sacrament — Reply of the Bishops — Their Condemnation — Its Illegality — Interference of Rome — New Roman Trial — Cranmer Tried Separately — His Defence — Condemned by the Pope Himself — Trial of Ridley and Latimer — Ridley's Exposition of the Sacrament — Latimer's Identical — The Condemnation — Ridley's Formal Degradation — His Last Night — The Two Martyrs at the Stake — Their End — Ridley's Public Epistle of Testimony. THE persecution of the reformers, which we have termed the third of the important pieces of Marian policy, was the direct outcome of the first two already spoken of — viz. the Spanish marriage and the reconciliation with Rome. The first completely alienated the queen from her subjects ; the second, carried out with the full consent and approval of her Spanish consort, was the especial work of the man whom Mary from the hour of his landing in England chose as her trusted adviser and confidant. Cardinal Pole. It had been the one object he had aimed at for years. A glance at the dates of the great re- actionary measures, will show how little time was lost in pressing forward the ghastly scenes we are about to speak of. On the 25th July, 1554, Philip and Mary were married. On the 24th of the Novem- ber following the king and queen received 270 THE CHURCH the cardinal-legate with all state at White- hall. On the 30th November the " recon- ciliation " was formally ratified, and the interdict removed. In the few remaining days of this same year the obsequious Parliament not only fulfilled its under- taking to the legate, when he removed the interdict, by enacting a comprehensive statute repealing all the anti-papal acts, but passed a terrible statute reviving the old heresy laws, ordering that this statute should come into force in a few weeks' time — viz. on the 20th of the January following. The cardinal-legate was now at the queen's right hand, and on the 4th of February in the year 1555, the first of that long roll of martyrs, whose story will never be forgotten in England, perished in the flames at Smithfield in the presence of a vast crowd of appalled and dismayed spectators. This was Rogers, the well- known prebendary of St. Paul's. On the 9th of the same month bishop Hooper suffered at Gloucester, while on the 8th and qth of the same month similar death- scenes were witnessed at Coventry, in the Midlands, and at Suffolk, in the eastern counties. Other burnings rapidly followed, of which brief details will be given pre- sentlv. In our picture of this unhappy reign, some account of the terrible suffer- ings to which those singled out as victims among the Reformed party were subjected, will of course be necessary. Many words and details will not be needed, but we shall describe at some length the proceedings taken against the three most prominent among the sufferers in the Marian perse- cutions ; and from the accusations brought against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and OF ENGLAND. [.553-554- their replies, we shall gather a fair idea of the charges under which the less distin- guished in the party of reform suffered the same awful penalty which was exacted from the chiefs. Within three months of Mary's acces- sion, the three famous Reformer bishops had found their way to the palace-prison of the Tower of London. At first, as re- garded Cranmer and Ridley, considerable leniency seems to have been exercised ; but the treatment of Latimer was more severe, the excessive freedom of speech of the great preacher having probably ex- cited more enmity than the more reserved and thoughtful utterances of the arch- bishop and bishop of London. Latimer, for instance, complained of the cold he suffered. The three were, however, freely permitted at all events to communicate with each other, and the conferences (apparently written) between Ridley and Latimer are preserved, and are of the highest interest, as showing some of the points in dispute insisted on by these great teachers. "I cannot consent," wrote Ridley, "to the mass in a strange tongue, without communion, made a private table, and where there be many priests that will communicate, every one of them having their altars, masses, and tables : the cup denied to the laity." The following among the Tower utterances of the "Three" are remarkable. Latimer; " Speaking like aliens or madmen ! making that private which Christ made common. The Lord's death is not shown in the Supper, unless there be a partaking not of the bread only, but of the cup." Ridley: " The)- servilely serve the sign, instead of the thing signi- iSS4.] TRIAL OF THE fied, adoring and worshipping the bread." Latimer: " Deny such a corporal presence and transubstantiation, and their fantas- tical adoration will vanish away." * Cranmer in the first six months of Mary's reign had been tried with lady Jane Grey and the Dudleys for treason in the neuter of the succession, and condemned. His arch-see for all purposes of administration was deemed void by his attainder, but no further proceedings were for the present taken against him, and he was left in prison. Indeed, the whole question of the treatment of the heretics, as the Reformers were termed, was at first left undeter- mined ; only in Cranmer's case there was never any intention of sparing him. "The archbishop will be executed," wrote Renard, the Spanish ambassador. His great spiritual office and the sacred pall he had received from Rome preserved his life for a time, until an ecclesiastical tribunal should confirm the sentence of death passed by a court Rome deemed an irregular tribunal. The important share which the archbishop had taken in the matter of the divorce of Mary's mother, Katharine of Arragon, had virtually ex- cluded him in the queen's eyes from any possibility of pardon. To this, without doubt, Cranmer owed his final condemna- tion in 1556, in spite of his unhappy re- cantation, which by every principle of justice and honour ought to have at least saved his life ; but Mary's sullen revenge gave him that splendid chance of atoning for his momentary weakness — a chance of which he availed himself in the last awful scene at Oxford which closed his eventful life. * Quoted by Canon Dixon : Hist., chap, xxiii. THREE BISHOPS. 271 In the April or 1554, some nine or ten months after Mary became queen, the three bishops were transferred from the Tower to Oxford, and the old universitv city became the scene of their famous trial and subsequent sufferings. It must be remembered that two distinct and pro- longed trials of these three illustrious men were held ; the first in the April of 1554. immediately after the removal of the prisoners from the Tower. The proceed- ings of the first trial and condemnation were quashed by Rome as illegal, not being conducted under her auspices. The second was deferred for eighteen months, and was also held at Oxford, under a special commission issuing from the Pope. The sentences passed by this second or Roman trial were carried out in all their dreadful severity. The first Oxford trial took the form of a theological discussion on the following propositions. They are of great importance, as the acceptance or denial of the substance of them was virtually made the text of heresy or orthodoxy in most of the prose- cutions of the following years. They were three in number : — (1) In the sacrament of the altar, bv virtue of the divine word uttered by the priests, the natural body of Christ, con- ceived by the Virgin Mary, is really present under the species of bread and wine, and also His natural blood. (2) After consecration the substance of bread and wine no longer remaineth, neither any other substance, save only the substance of Christ, God and Man. (3) In the mass there is a life-giving propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the dead as well as the living. 2-z THE CHURCH The commissioners, or rather the judges, in the first Oxford trial of 1554, thirty- three in number, were made up of some of the more famous of the Marian divines, partly consisting of a deputation delegated bv Convocation under Dr. Weston, the prolocutor ; to these were joined from the university of Oxford the vice-chancellor, rector of Lincoln College, afterwards dean of Westminster and then of Windsor, the masters of Pembroke and Queen's Colleges, and others ; from Cam- bridge among notable theologians came the vice-chancellor, the provost of King's, the master of St. John's, Gardiner's chap- lain, and the master of Queen's. The scene of the trial was the university church of St. Mary's, and there the commissioners took their seats in front of the altar, the doctors appearing in their scarlet robes. Cranmer was summoned first, and stand- ing leaning on his staff listened to an opening address of Weston, in which he was charged with having cut himself off from the unity of the church, as a setter-forth of new doctrines, every year putting out a new faith. A copy of the above rehearsed articles was given him, and after a short questioning the archbishop was sent back to his prison to write a formal answer, books such as he should require for his reply being promised him. Ridley was then brought before the commissioners. His answers to them on this occasion, Foxe tells us, were " sharp, wittie, and very learned." He, too, re- ceived the materials out of which he might compose a formal answer. Latimer was next summoned. The great preacher was then an old and some- what infirm man. He is described on this OF ENGLAND. [,S54. occasion as coming in " with a kerchief and two or three cappes on his head, his spectacles hanging by a string at his breast, and a staffe in his hand." The contrast of Ridley and Latimer's appearance at each of these painful scenes is dwelt on bv their biographer ; Ridlev being ever carefullv, ever handsomely apparelled, and Latimer roughly and poorly, as though he cared nothing for those things connected with his person. The great crowd which pressed upon Latimer is several times alluded to. To the crowd he was apparentlv the best known and probably the most popular of the three great Reformers. They had scarcely two davs for writing their replies, one of these days being Sundav. The disputation, or rather the interrogation of Cranmer which followed after the two davs, was long and somewhat confused, with many interruptions on the part of the '' judges." " The learned, mod- erate, and noble exposition which Cranmer had so quickly penned, remained unread." A few of Cranmer's words must be quoted, as showing what was his undoubted view of the great doctrine which formed the real subject in dispute between the Reformers and the Marian theologians. " The true bodv of Christ," said the ac- cused archbishop, ''is present to those that trulv receive Him — but spirituallv : it is taken after a spiritual sort ; Christ is present by the grace and efficacy of His passion. I deny that He is present in bread, or that under the bread is His organised bod}- — that is, having parts or members." And again, "We receive with the mouth the sacrament, but the thing and matter of the sacrament we receive 274 THE CHURCH bv faith. Inwardly we eat Christ's body, outwardly we eat the sacrament." * To- wards the end of the disputation Cranmer was charged with corrupting some of the old fathers and the schoolmen in his books on the Eucharist, notably Justin Martyr, Duns Scotus, and St. Thomas of Aquinas. When Ridle}- was examined, he read much of his written answers, which were learned and carefully prepared. He was, however, frequently interrupted, and was sharply questioned by his many adver- saries. In the course of his written an- swers, he even went so far as to write of the doctrine of the carnal presence, which he opposed, as amounting to M anthro- pophagy," and was then accused by one of the judges of uttering blasphemies. " I little thought," said Ridley then, " to Iiave such contumely from one who was once my friend." The decree of the Council of Lateran, which affirmed tran- substantiation, was quoted against him. Ridley demurred as to the authority of this council. " What," cried out Dr. Tresham, one of the canons of Christ Church, " you reject the Council of Lateran ! Write it down ; write it down ! " " Write it a dozen times," said Ridley. In the end the assembly was broken up by the prolocutor with the words, " Ye see the stubborn, the crafty, the inconstant mind of the man ; ve see the unshaken strength of the truth. Shout after me the song of victory — Vicit Veritas, vicit Veritas ! " Ridley's doctrine of the sacrament was absolutely identical with that of Cranmer. In the course of this long and important * Compare Canon Dixon : History, chap, xxiii. OF ENGLAND. [i554. trial, the great theologian uttered the following memorable words, which sub- sequently were virtually embodied in one of the Thirtv-nine Articles of queen Eliza- beth : " Evil men do eat the very true and natural Body of Christ sacramentallv, and no further ; but good men do eat the very true Body, both sacramentallv and spiritually by grace." Latimer was brought before the com- mission a day or two after, also by himself. He, too, had written his answers ; they were rougher, less profound, than the careful treatise-like replies of his two friends who preceded him, who were deep theologians ; but his replies were characterised, like his sermons, with brilliant, playful ex- pressions, and were written partly in English, partly in Latin. The doctrine, however, was the same as that of his friends. He expressed himself as fearful lest he should be thought to make the Sacrament nothing else but a bare sign ; so he repeated that therein he acknow- ledged a spiritual Presence which was sufficient for a Christian man, and that this might be called a real Presence. He pleaded as an excuse for his brevity his great age, his weakness, even faintness ; but his readiness of wit and old brilliancy never seem to have failed him. " Ecclcsia papistical he said in his quaint Latin, " erravit et err at? adding in English, " I think for the space of six or seven hundred years there was no mention of anj* eating but spiritually, for before these years the church did ever confess a spiritual manducation, but ecclcsia Romana pepcrit cmrcm transubstantia- tioms ("the Roman Church produced the error of transubstantiation '). My lord IS54-] THE REFORME of Canterbury's book handleth that very well, and by him I could answer you if I had him." And later he again referred to Cranmer's celebrated treatise in the words, " I refer me to my lord of Canterbury's book wholly therein." Weston, the prolocutor, with some force from his standpoint, toward the close of the examination said : " Well, Master Latimer, we wish you well, and exhort you to come to yourself. Remember that out of Noah's Ark is no salvation. Remember who were the beginners of your doctrine — a few flying apostates, running out of Ger- many for fear of the faggot. Remember what they were who have set forth your doctrine in this realm — flingbrains and lightheads, never constant in one thing, as might be seen in the turning of the table, one day west, another day east, one that way, another this way, when like a sort of apes they could not tell which way to turn their tails. They say they will be like the apostles, and have no churches your stubbornness is all vain glory, and that will do you little good when a faggot is in your beard . . . the queen is merciful, if you will turn." " You shall have no hope in me to turn," replied the steadfast old man, " for the queen I prav daily that she may turn from this religion." Weston then rose, saying, " You see the weakness of heresy against the truth ; he denieth all truth and all the fathers." The sentence was a foregone conclusion. Cranmer was once more brought before the commissioners ; and in the same week the three bishops, this time together, appeared before the court, and were formally condemned as heretics. After they had heard the sentence, they replied 5 CONDEMNED. 275 in beautiful and touching terms as follow-. We follow the report of Foxe : — The archbishop of Canterbury (Crannien : "From this your judgement and sentence, I appeale to the just judgement of God Almightie, trusting to be present with Him in heaven, for whose presence in the altar I am thus condemned." Dr. Ridley : " Although I be not of your companie, yet doubt not I that my name is written in another place, whither this sentence will send us sooner than we should by the course of Nature have come." Mr. Latimer : " I thanke God most heartily that he hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorifie God by that kinde of death." To these words the prolocutor Weston replied : " If you go to heaven in this faith, then I will never come thither, as I am thus persuaded." The three then returned to their separate places of con- finement ; and on the day following there was " a masse with a general procession and great solemnitie," the condemned reformers beholding it — the archbishop and Ridley from their prison, and " Latymer, also being brought to see it, thought he should have gone to burning," and refused to look at the sight. " Dr. Weston carried the Sacrament, and foure doctors carried the canopie over him." Eighteen months, however, passed before the last act of the famous tragedy was played out in the old university city. This first notable trial, on which the eyes of all England were fixed — which was watched, too, in many countries separated from England by the silver streak of sea — took place in the April of 1554. The 276 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND L'55S- solemn sentence pronounced by that court, at least august in the numbers, rank, and dignity of those who composed it, affirmed that the three " were no members of the church, and therefore they, their fantasy, and patrones were condemned as heretics." The dignified and touching words of the prisoners thus condemned, clearly showed that they looked for death as the outcome of the sentence, although they repeated, that as things then stood " there was no law to condemn us." Touching this lawlessness on the part of the tribunal, Hooper wrote in a letter to Ferrar and others, bearing date the May following in the same year, quoting in the same letter some words used by Weston, the prolocutor of Convo- cation, when this unlaw was alleged : " It forceth not," quoth Weston, " for a law ; we have a commission to proceed with them ; when they be despatched, let their friends sue the law." The Heresy Acts under which these so-called heretics might be legally con- demned (especiallv the acts against the Lollards [2 Henry IV.], which enacted that the obstinate who refused to abjure . . . . were to be delivered to the secular authori- ties and burnt in a high place before the people) were only re-enacted in the December of that year, 1554, and came into force the 20th January, 1555. It is probable that this difficulty saved the three for the time, from the martyrdom they evidently looked for as their speedy guerdon. In the meantime, the cold disapproval of Rome when these famous proceedings at Oxford became generally known, pre- vented any further action being taken for the present. The archbishop, Ridley, and Latimer, were simply detained in confine- ment, some eighteen months. From the April of 1554 until the close of September, 1555, they languished in their Oxford prisons, waiting for death. Then Rome — now reconciled with England — with its old imperious disregard of all important ecclesiastical measures which were not based upon direct sanction from the Papal chamber, formally issued a commission on the petition of Philip and Mary, completely ignoring the official con- demnation pronounced at the close of the lengthy proceedings at Oxford in the April of 1554, and only recognising those proceedings as an open disputation held in Oxford. The new trial, which took place at the close of September, 1555, this time under the direct auspices of Rome, was differently ordered in the case of Cranmer. The arch- bishop had received originally, in the days of Henry VIII., the pall from the Roman pontiff. The Pope alone — so it was deter- mined by the Roman cabinet — could judge and condemn so exalted a dignitarv. Cranmer for form's sake was summoned to Rome ; but the charge of the case was entrusted, with a view to a trial at home, to cardinal del Puteo. The cardinal ap- pointed as his delegates in England Brooks, bishop of Gloucester, the dean of St. Paul's, and the well-known Harps- field, archdeacon of Canterbury ; only the first of these, Brooks of Gloucester, officiated at the archbishop's trial. In the cases of Ridley and Latimer a less exalted authority was deemed suffi- cient to give directions for their trial, as Rome denied their episcopal rank alto- gether ; so, as Foxe tells us, a commission I555-] ROME ORDERS A FRESH TRIAL. 277 was issued, about a fortnight after Cran- and to doctour Holiman, bishop of Bris- mer's trial, from " Cardinale Pole, legate towe (Bristol), that they should have full *5 Watti* sM^im***!* auyhJ^t^faahiJ u fit ' ACCOUNT OF A DISPUTATION HELD AT OXFORD APRIL 18, 1554, BETWEEN LATIMER AND MASTER SMITH, AND DR. CARTERIGHT BEFORE DR. WESTON. IN ENGLISH AND LATIN. FOXE PRINTED FROM THIS MS., AS APPEARS FROM A NOTE AT THE LEFT HAND TOP CORNER. {British MuseiUH.) a latere, to John White, bishop of Lincoln, power to examine .... and to judge to doctour Brooks, bishop of Gloucester, Latimer and Ridley, pretensed bishops of 278 THE CHURCH Worcester and London, for sundry erro- neous opinions which they did hold and maintain in open disputation had in Oxford as also long before in the time of perdition." It was thus Pole charac- terised the reign of Edward VI. and a large portion of the reign of Henry VIII. Much had happened in England during the seventeen to eighteen months which had passed since the condemnation of the three leading Reformers at the Oxford trial. In quick succession followed the doings of Parliament — the sweeping away into the dust-heaps of the past the many and various acts of Parliament which at first had limited, and then de- stroyed the mighty and far-reaching power of the bishop of Rome in England. Then followed the re-enactment of the bloody acts, forged in another age as a weapon to be used against the comparatively weak and puny school of the now-forgotten Lollard teachers ; scarcely ever put in force, but now to be turned under queen Mary into a tremendous engine of war against a far more numerous and powerful " heretical " school. Closely, anxiously were the important Oxford captives watched ; their words spoken at the famous trial re- membered, quoted, repeated in a hundred centres of harassed England. The acts against heretics came into force in January, and the stern persecution at once began to rage in certain parts of England, all through the spring and summer months of 1 555. Many witnessed a good confession, and passed away ; but the doom of Cranmer, Ridley, and Lati- mer still tarried. At length the machinery of Rome was completed, and a new and stately death-scene arranged, in which OF ENGLAND. [,555. the great three were to play the leading parts. The Roman trial of Cranmer came first by a few days. It was a strange and im- pressive scene in the well-known church of St. Marj' at Oxford, that September day of the year 1555. When the papal delegate, bishop Brooks of Gloucester, representing the Pope's person (as Foxe hath it) sat in his " pontificalibus " on " a solemn scaffold ten feet high under the sacrament of the altar, at the east end of the church, to judge an archbishop of Canterbury, the like had never been seen before in England, not even in the days of the enormous me- diaeval power of the bishops of Rome ! On the right hand of the Pope's delegate, but beneath him, sat the king and queen's com- missioners, doctors Martin and Story ; and underneath them were other doctors, scribes, and Pharisees, also with the Pope's collectors and a rabblement of such other like, as Foxe delights to call them. Cranmer was sent for to come before them. He was clothed in a fair black gown, with his scarlet doctor's hood, and was still addressed by the court as "Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury." To the royal proctors representing the queen of England, Martin and Story, he made a humble obeisance, bowing his knee to the ground and pulling off his cap. Dr. Martin was chancellor of Winchester under Gardiner. Dr. Story was chancellor of Lincoln. But he looked steadily at the bishop of Gloucester, the Pope's delegate ; and putting on his cap again, made no sign of obedience at all, justifying this startling act of disrespect, and saying he had done it advisedlv, having once taken a solemn oath never to consent to the I555 ] ROMISH TRIA admitting the bishop of Rome's authority into the realm of England again. " This not once bowing or making any revert nee to him who represented the Pope's person was wonderously marked of the people that was there present and saw it." The bishop of Gloucester, whose conduct throughout the trial — the result, of course, being pre-arranged — was quiet and digni- fied, and marked with considerable respect and consideration for the distinguished prisoner, in his opening address dwelt upon the fact much insisted upon by the Marian divines, the strangeness of the de- parture of Cranmer from what he (Brooks) termed the universal and Catholic church, from the received faith of all Christendom. He reminded the prisoner how from a low degree he had been raised to the proud position of metropolitan of England — the " legatus natus " of the holy see ; adding the somewhat startling suggestion that if he would repent, even then (to give his very words), " it were ten to one that where you were archbishop of Canterbury and metropolitan of England, that ye shall be as well still, yea, and rather better." Dr. Martin, the royal proctor, followed, briefly setting forth the articles of accusa- tion, including charges of perjury to the Pope, adultery in the matter of his marriage, and the books of heresy partly written by him, partly set forth by his authority. Then Cranmer obtained leave to reply. His defence was somewhat elaborate and very able, and mainly dealt first with his view of papal interference in England, then with the doctrines he had enunciated in respect to the Holy Eucharist. Subse- quently the questions concerning the OF CRANMER. 279 supreme headship of the church and the marriage of Cranmer occupied the court. The accused archbishop prefaced his words by kneeling down, and, with his face towards the west, said the Lord's Prayer and recited the articles of the creed. The westward position he adopted to avoid any suspicion of kneeling before and paying any adoration to the consecrated wafer which was displayed in the pyx on the altar above the papal delegate's throne. He expressed himself in very strong terms as utterly opposed to the acknowledg- ment of any Roman supremacy in England ; " the state of England," as he said, "being so repugnant to it." The religion, too, he added, which the see of Rome had pub- lished in late years was contrary to what the ancient fathers, the apostles, and Christ had taught. The expressions he used in speaking of the Pope were very strong, and even violent. He plainly alluded to him as the enemy of God, as contrary to God and injurious to His plain laws, even as anti-Christ, dwelling especially on one conspicuous instance. " Whereas God would have the people come to church and hear His Word expounded to them, and, that they might the better understand it, to hear it in their mother tongue which they know, the Pope willed the service to be had in the Latin tongue, which they do not understand " ; thus sharply re- proving the reactionary measures passed under Roman influences, which swept awav one of the most beneficent works of the Reformation — viz. the adoption of public praver in English, and replaced the English formularies again by the Latin breviary and missal. As touching the Eucharistic doctrine, 280 THE CHURCH Cranmer's words on this occasion were memorable. " As concerning the Sacra- ment," he said, "I have taught no false doctrine of the Sacrament of the Aultar. For if it canne be proved by any doctor above a thousand years after Christ that Christe's bodie is there reallie, I will give over. My book was made seaven years agoe, and no man hath brought anye JOHN foxe. {From the portrait in his "Acts and Monuments." Ed. 1641.) authors against it. I believe that who so eateth and drinketh that Sacrament, Christ is within them — whole Christ, His nativitie, passion, resurrection, and ascen- sion, but not that corporaltie that sitteth in heaven." Cranmer's doctrine of the most holy Sacrament was clear and definite. To the above important declaration it will be well, so as to make his meaning per- fectly clear, to quote the archbishop's words spoken at the first Oxford disputation or trial of 1554. " His true bodie is truly present to them that truly receive him, OF ENGLAND. [i555. but spiritually ; and so it is taken after a spiritual sort. ... As oft as you shall do this it shall put you in remembrance of the breaking of my bodie and the shedding of my blood ; that as truly as you receive this Sacrament, so truly shall vou receive the benefits promised, by receiving the same worthily." And even more forcibly in a writing which the archbishop put in or exhibited at the same interrogatory : " Thus, therefore, true bread and true wine remain still in the Eucharist until they be consumed of the faithful." And again, " Moreover, He abideth also in them which worthily receive the Sacrament." * The book referred to by Cranmer Avas either his " Defence of the true and Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament," written in Latin, or even more probably the exhaustive treatise on the same sub- ject written in reply to Gardiner. Of one or other of these profound works Ridley thus nobly and generously spoke in the course of his disputation, when a prisoner in the Tower, with Feckenham and others: " Quoth I, that book was made of a great learned man, and of him which is able to do the like again ; as for me, I ensure you (be not deceived in me), I was never able to do or write anie such like thing. He (Cranmer) passeth mee (Ridlev) no lesse than the learned master his young scholler." On being somewhat roughly and coarsely charged with having been twice married, the archbishop freelv admitted * See Foxe, quoted here at length in the " Lives, of Bishop Latimer, Ridley, and Archbishop Cran- mer." Dr. Wordsworth: "Ecc. Biography,'' vol. ii. Compare also Dean Hook : " Archbishops ' (Cran - mer), vol. vii. , p. 363, where the doctrine of the; great reformer is clearly summarised. '555 ] CRANMER CONDEMNED. 281 it, boldly repeating that he saw no shame this period, was born in the year 15 17. jn ^ He received his education at Oxford, and The whole process against Cranmer, when became a fellow of Magdalen College, and concluded, was drawn H up in Latin, and sent to Rome. A consistory was held, and cardinal Puteo, the delegate appointed by the holy see to conduct the matter, reported that the charges — " wicked and execrable " — were held to be proved. On the 4th December the same year, archbishop Cranmer was pronounced by Pope Paul IV. to be excommunicated, anathematised, and de- prived ; and was ordered to be handed over to the secular authorities as a notorious heresiarch. The terrible condemnation of Rome arrived in England in due course, with the consequences hereafter to be related ; but in the meantime the simpler matters of the other two Reformer chiefs, Ridley and Latimer, had been disposed of. We must tell their tragic story. John Foxe — 15 17-1587 — the famous historian and martyrologist, whose great work, " Foxe's Book of Martyrs," we have so frequently referred to, and TITLE-PAGE TO FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS. (Ed. 1576. British Museum.) whose vivid and picturesque description of the Marian martyrs is so helpful to all historians of was reported to be a careful and elegant scholar. He subsequently applied himself to the study of divinity, and became well 282 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [i55S versed in the Greek and Latin fathers and the schoolmen, and was also a fair Hebrew scholar. Becoming attached to the princi- ples of the Reformers in 1545, he was ejected from his fellowship, and for a lengthened period lived in straitened cir- cumstances. We hear of him as a private tutor in more than one powerful family. Through the influence of one of these — that of the duke of Norfolk — he regained his lost Oxford position ; but in the reign of Mary he became once more a wanderer and an exile. At this period of his life parts of his great work were written. At the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was made a prebendary of Salisbury, and eventually vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, dying in 1587. His famous " Book of Martyrs," it is said, occupied the patient, tireless scholar some eleven years. He had the rare advantage of some personal knowledge of most of his heroes, of whom he was the contemporary. In some of his details Foxe is not always accurate ; against his so-called " Puritan " prejudices the fair historian has constantly to be on his guard ; but on the whole, the estimate " that John Foxe is one of the most faithful and authentic of historians " is scarcely an exaggerated one. The importance of Foxe's monumental writings, and their simplicity and charm of stvle, is by all serious students of the English Reforma- tion now acknowledged. It was a fortnight after Cranmer's trial, on the 30th September, 1555, that bishops Ridley and Latimer were brought before the commissioners of cardinal Pole, legate a latere, in the Oxford divinity school. The cardinal's representatives were men of the highest rank in the church — Dr. Brooks, bishop of Gloucester, Dr. White, bishop of Lincoln, and Dr. Holvman, bishop of Bristol. This court practically ignored the condemnation passed some eighteen months before. The Reformers were accused of holding divers erroneous opinions, which they maintained " in open disputations, held in Oxford in the previous year, 1554, and elsewhere in the time of perdition," thus characterising the days of Edward VI. 's reign. If they were prepared to recant these opinions, " giving and yielding themselves to the determination of the universall and Catholicke churche planted by Peter in the blessed see of Rome," then the judges deputed by the cardinal-legate were empowered " to minis- ter unto them the reconciliation of the holy father the Pope ; " but if the accused were stubborn, and chose to defend and maintain their erroneous opinions, the judges were to proceed according to the law of heretics, to degrade them from their dignity, to cut them off from the church, and yield them to the secular power to receive punishment due to such heresy and schism. Ridley appeared before the court of the legate's commissioners first. Like Cranmer, he refused anv acknowledgment of the Pope, declining to raise his cap or bow the knee to the legate's representatives. The first part of the trial mainlv turned upon the question of the papal supremacy, the bishop of Lincoln requiring Ridley to receive the true doctrine of the church, which he boldlv affirmed " was first founded bv Peter at Rome immediately after the death of Christ, and from him by lineal succession hath been brought to this our time." Ridley replied at some length, and IS55.] TRIAL OF RIDLl with force and eloquence, to the startling but not unknown claim for Rome made by the legate Pole's episcopal commissioner, who did not hesitate to affirm that there were two powers — " The Sword and the Keys." The sword was given to kings ; the keys were delivered by Christ to Peter, and by him left to all the successors (in the see of Rome). Ridley declared in the midst of his learned argument that he perceived the greater part of Christendom was infected " with the poyson of the see of Rome. I repaire," he went on to say, " to the usage of the primitive church, which I find cleane contrary to the Pope's decrees." Then he gave an instance, " As in that the priest receiveth alone, that it is made unlawful to the laitee to receive in both kinds and such like. Wherefore it requireth that I prefer the antiquity of the primitive church before the novelty of the Romish church." It was not without pathos, however, that the bishop of Lincoln urged upon bishop Ridley the memory of old times: "Re- member, Master Ridley, it is no strange country whither I exhort you to return. You were once one of us. . . . It is not so long ago sith you separated yourself from us." But the more important part by far of the famous trial of this the greatest of our reformer theologians, was his reply to the "Articles." They were the same as had been proposed to the three bishops on the occasion of the first series of disputations a year and a half before ; and it will be remembered that they briefly but clearly set out the teaching of the later mediasval church on the Eucharistic doctrine, the first two Articles dealing with the question ' AND LATIMER. 283 of transubstantiation, the third affirming the doctrine that in the mass was a pro- pitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead. As Ridley was so largely concerned in the framing of the formularies now possessed by the Church of England, it is of the highest moment for us to be able to refer to his very words when questioned, at this supreme juncture of his life, on these difficult and disputed points of doctrine. To the first Article, which affirmed that " the true and natural bodie of Christ after the consecration of the priest is present in the Sacrament of the Altar," Ridley in the course of his reply said : " My lord, . . . We confesse all, one thing to be in the Sacrament, and dissent in the manner of being there. I, being fully by God's Word thereunto persuaded, confesse Christ's naturale bodie to be in the Sacrament indeede by spirit and grace, because that whosoever receiveth worthilie that bread and wine receiveth effectually Christ's body and drinketh his blood — that is, he is made effectually partaker of his passion ; and you make a grosser kinde of being, en- closing a naturall, a lively, and a mooving bodie under the shape or forme of bread and wine." To the second Article, that " in the Sacrament of the Altar after consecration there remaineth not the substance of bread and wine, nor any other substance save the substance of Christ, God and Man," Ridley answered thus : " In the Sacrament is a certain chaunge, in that that bread which was before common bread is now made a lively representation of Christ's body; and not only a figure, but effectuously repre- sented! his bodie, that even as the mortall bodie was nourished by that visible bread, 28a THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1555- so is the internall soule fed with the heavenly foode of Christ's bodie which the eye of faith seeth, as the bodilie eye seeth only bread. Such a sacramental mutation I srant to bee in the bread and wine, which trulv is no small chaunge, but such a chaunge as no mortal man can make, but onelie that omnipotencv of Christ's word." Upon the bishop of Lincoln desiring of him a more direct answer, Ridley con- tinued : " That notwithstanding this sacra- mentall mutation of which he spake, and all the doctors confessed, the true substance and nature of bread and wine remaineth, with the which the bodie is in like sort nourished, as the soule by grace and spirite with the bodie of Christ. Even so in baptisme the bodie is washed with the visible water, and the soule is cleansed from all filth by the invisible Holy Ghost, and vet the water ceaseth not to be water, but keepeth the nature of water still. In like sort in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the bread ceaseth not to bee bread." The bishop of Lincoln, however, declined to accept this analog}- between the two sacraments, because that Christ said not by the water, " This is the Holie Ghost," as He did by the bread. " This is my body'' Respecting the third article, which affirmed that in the mass was a propitiatorv sacrifice for the quick and the dead, Ridlev replied : " Christ, as St. Paule writeth, made one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, neither can any man reiterate that sacrifice of His ; and yet is the Communion an acceptable sacrifice to God, of praise and thanksgiving ; but to say that thereby sinnes are taken awaie (which wholie and perfectlie was done by Christ's passion, of the which the com- munion is onlie a memorie), that is a great derogation of the merits of Christ's passion, for the sacrament was instituted that we receiving it, and thereby recognising and remembering His passion, should be par- takers of the merits of the same. For otherwise dooth this sacrament take upon it the office of Christ's passion, whereby it might follow that Christ died in vaine." It was in the course of the second dav's examination that bishop Brooks of Gloucester, in the course of his address to Ridlev, made the sarcastic comparison which is so often quoted : " Latimer leaneth to Cranmer. Cranmer to Ridlev. and Ridley to the singularitie of his own witte ; so that if vou overthrow the singularitie of Ridley's witte, then must needs the religion of Cranmer and Latimer fall also." To this, later in the dav, Ridlev, with that generous courtesv which was ever a characteristic of the great reformer, replied : "And whereas here the bishop of Gloucester savs Cranmer leaned to him, that was most untrue, in that he was but a young scholler in com- parison of Cranmer ; for at what time he was a voung scholler, then was Cranmer a doctor ; so that he confessed Cranmer might have been his schoolmaster these manie yeeres." Latimer was introduced into the court, which was to condemn him. alone. He stood before his judges an old man, then eightv vears of age, dressed as seemed to have been his wont, shabbilv, even meanlv. His well-worn New Testament and his spectacles were as usual slung round him. " The greatest man, perhaps, then living in the world," Froude styles him — a strange estimate it seems on first thoughts, when we remember his two fellow prisoners, 1555 ] TRIAL OF whose weighty writings have had for so long a mighty in- fluence on our great English Church. But the influence of Latimer, too, had been wide, all through the drama of the English Reformation ; with his wonder- ful oratory, his intense burning convictions, he had perhaps done more to sway men's hearts than any other of the leading Refor- mers. The work of Ridley and Cranmer largely lay in the fu- ture. Their writings swayed the thoughts of men of another generation and reign, when the hands that penned the deep, profound thoughts had become ashes, and the great souls of the two had already passed to their eternal rest. But Latimer had been ever the popular teacher, whom men loved and hated with a strangely intense love and hate ; so, in some respects, the brilliant historian's estimate was a true one. Latimer was especially the people's hero. On that sad morning he had been kept long waiting in a cold and draughty ante-room. Before his examination he reproached his judges thus : " My lords, if I appear again, I pray you not to send lor me untill you be readie, for I am an old man, and it is great hurt to mine old age to tarrie so long gazing upon the cold walles." The bishop of Lincoln expressed his sorrow for this seeming discourtesy, and RIDLEY AND LATIMER. 285 st. mary's, .oxford. 286 THE CHURCH the trial went on, much after the fashion of Ridley's. The answers, too, were not very different, for the two had long been dear friends, and they thought alike on all the burning questions of the day ; only Latimer's replies, although to the same effect as Ridley's, wanted natur- ally the clear-cut precision of the great theologian's statements. Latimer's answer to the second Article was remarkable, and shows what the teach- ings of the great preacher must have been in his many soul-stirring sermons : " There is, my lord, a change in the bread and wine, and such a change as no power but the omnipotence of God can make, in that that which before was bread, should now have that dignitie to exhibite Christ's body; and yet the bread is still bread, and the wine still wine : for the change is not in the nature but in the dignitie, because now that which was common bread hath dignitie to exhibit Christ's body ; for whereas it was common bread, it is now no more common bread, neither ought it to bee so taken, but as holie bread sancti- fied by God's word." To the third Article he replied: "Christ made one perfect sacrifice for the whole world, neither can any man offer Him againe, neither can the priest offer up Christ againe for the sinnes of man, Avhich He took away by offering Himself once for all (as St. Paul saith) upon the crosse, neither is there any propitiation for our sinnes, saving His cross only.' On the following day, after further ex- amination, Ridley was formally condemned, and committed to the secular powers for punishment ; in addition he was excom- municated by the great excommunication. OF ENGLAND. [lS5S. Latimer was then sent for, and after a somewhat lengthy examination received, like Ridley, his formal sentence of con- demnation. The press of the people crowding to see the illustrious prisoners is especially mentioned. Only one cere- mony more — that of public degradation — remained before the dread sentence was carried out. For about a fortnight the two prisoners waited for death. During these last days they were both visited by the well-known Peter de Soto, a Dominican friar, once the confessor of the emperor Charles V., an eminent theologian of Salamanca, who came to England in the train of Philip of Spain, Mary's husband, and was subse- quently appointed a public professor or lecturer at Oxford, in order, we read, to undo the mischief worked by Peter Martyr. Latimer, however, refused to hold any converse with him. It was a curious destiny for this learned friar, who was so active at Oxford at the time of the burning of the three martyrs, that in the end he himself fell under the ban of the Inquisition. On the 15th October, 1 555, the day before the two friends were burned, the bishop of Gloucester, the vice-chancellor, and other leading men of the university, came to the mayor's house, where Ridley was in- carcerated, to perform the office which formally degraded the condemned heretic. Foxe gives us many details of the painful ceremony. Once more the Reformer was asked to recant, and the queen's mercy was offered him as a guerdon ; but Ridley stoutly refused, and said he was prepared to seal the doctrine which he had taught with his blood. Then bishop Brooks ISS5] DEGRADATION I prepared to degrade him from the priest- hood only, for he said, " Wee take you for no bishop." In putting on the various priestly vestments, which were to be stripped from him, some force had to be used, for Ridley refused to assist in the ceremony.* When the words of the papal ceremony were read, taking from him the office of preaching the Gospel, Ridley sighed, and looking up to heaven said, " Lord God, forgive them their wickedness." After " the degrada- tion was ended, very sollemlie the pris- oner said to bishop Brooks, ' My lord, I wish that you would read over a little book of Bertram's doings concerning the sacrament. I promise you that you shall find much good learning therein.1 " This was the celebrated treatise of Bertram, or Ratramn," De corpore et sanguine Domini," written at the request of king Charles le Chauve (the bald) in the middle of the ninth century, from which work, it will be remembered years before, Ridley, when staying in Cranmer's house in the reign of Henry VIII., had first learned the true principles of the doctrine of the Eucharist. He thus commended this book almost with his last breath to the man who had judged and condemned him. Latimer was similarly degraded, but no particulars of the ceremony in his case have been preserved. The same evening (October 1 5) a strange scene took place in the house of the mayor, to whose custody Ridley had been entrusted. Irish, the mayor, seems to have treated his distinguished prisoner with considera- tion and courtesy. His wife was a bigoted * This will be detailed at greater length when we come to speak of the degradation of archbishop Cranmer. JD MARTYRDOM. 287 Romanist. Before the supper Ridley care- fully washed himself. His care for his personal appearance and dress throughout all his troubles was a characteristic feature of our famous theologian. While sitting at the table, with pathetic humour he bade his hostess to his marriage. " ' For,' saith hee, ' to-morrow I must be married,' and so shewed himself to be as merrie as ever he was at any time before." * Death had no terrors for Ridley. The Romanist wife of the mayor upon this began to weep. " Oh, Mistress Irish," went on Ridley, "you love me not now, I see well enough. For in that you weep, it doth appear that you will not be at my marriage . . . but quiet your selfe ; though my breakfast shall be somewhat sharp and painful, yet I am sure my supper shall be more pleasant and sweet." His brother-in-law was allowed to be Avith him that last evening. When they rose from table he offered to watch all night with the condemned man. But Ridley said : " No, no, that you shall not ; for I minde (God willing) to go to bed and to sleepe as quietlie to-night as ever I did in my life." So his brother-in-law left him, bidding him to be of good cheer. The morning of the 16th October was bright and sunny. Lord Williams of Thame with a strong guard was in attend- ance, in the event of any tumult arising. The prisoner walked to the place appointed for his execution — in the ditch over against Bailey college, on the north side of Oxford. For the last time Ridley carefully apparelled himself. He was dressed "in a faire blacke gown, furred, such as he used to wear when * Foxe's vivid and picturesque narrative is closely followed ihere. 288 THE CHURCH a bishop, a tippet of velvet and fur about his neck, a velvet nightcap upon his head, and a corner cap upon the same." He walked calmly to the stake between the mayor of Oxford and an alderman. After him came Latimer, carelessly and poorly dressed as usual, in a Bristol frieze frock, all worn, a long new shroud hanging over his hose to the feet, " all ready to the fire." Many of the bystanders grieved sorely as they watched the two great men pass, when they remembered who they were, and thought of " the honour they sometime had, and the calamine where - unto they were fallen." As Ridley passed under the well-known Bocardo prison, where Cranmer was con- fined, he looked up, " hoping belike to have seene him at the glasse window," and to have exchanged some farewell words with his old dear friend and colleague ; but the archbishop was busied in con- troversy with the Dominican Soto and others, and so heard not the tramp of the death procession as it passed. Then Ridlev, looking back, espied Latimer coming after, "unto whome he said, 'Oh, be ye there ? ' ' Yea,' said Latimer, ' have after as fast as I can follow.' " The two arrived at the stake. Ridley held up his hand and earnestly gazed up to the bright blue heavens, then, with a cheerful face, turned to his companion and kissed him, saving: ''Be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the furie of the flame or else strengthen us to abide it." Then he knelt down by the stake, kissed it, and engaged a while in silent prayer, Latimer kneeling hard by. Then the two arose and talked for a time together. What they said in that little OF ENGLAND. [l555. solemn conversation no one heard. The sun was shining all the while so brightly, that those who were superintending the death-scene moved out of the glare. It was the custom in those davs, at such an execution, for a divine appointed specially for the purpose to preach a shcrt discourse. A doctor Smith, who seems at one time to have been a reformer, but who had changed his views, and at that time held high office in the university, was the preacher. He took what from his point of view was an appropriate text enough : " Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing " (2 Cor. xiii.). It was an abusive piece of oratory. Occasionallv as he launched out into peculiarly bitter invective, the prisoners raised their eyes and hands heavenward, as it were calling God to bear witness to the truth. He only spoke for about a quarter of an hour. The doomed bishops were not permitted to reply to the cruel words, but were bidden to prepare themselves for the stake. Ridlev took off his furred gown and tippet, and handed them to his brother- in-law, who stood near. The bystanders, some of them his friends, and persons who wished him kindly, asked for some mementoes of him ; not a few of them were pitifully weeping all the while. To one he gave a new groat, to others nap- kins or nutmegs, bits of ginger, his dial, and other things as he had about him. " Some plucked the pointes of his hose. Happie was he that might get any ragge of him." Latimer had nought to give, but he undressed quietly and stood up erect in his shroud, strong and. .upright. Men said when he was thus made ready ,555-] MARTYRDOM OF RIDLEY AND LATIMER. 289 for the fire, he no longer looked the replied the bishop, and he undressed him- withered, bent, aged man of the trial self then to his shirt. Then standing all scene, shivering with cold, but a hale and ready on the stone by the stake, he said : Ridley's last bequests. hearty old man. Ridley still preserved some of his clothes, but, quoth his brother, "It will put you to more pain, and the trusse you are wearing will do a poore man good." " Be it in the name of God," 79 " Heavenly Father, I give Thee most heartie thanks for that Thou hast called me to be a professour of Thee even unto death." The smith, then taking a chain of iron, fastened the martyrs to the stake. 200 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. His brother-in-law brought Ridley a little bag of gunpowder, and proceeded to fasten it round the neck. " Yes," said the sufferer, " I take it to be sent of God ; I will receive it as sent of Him. And have you any for my brother ? " On hearing there was some reserved for Latimer, he added: "Then give to him betime, lest ye come too late." " Then," goes on the pitiful, true story, " they brought afaggotte kindled with fire, and laid the same downe at Ridley's feet, to whom Latimer spoke in this manner : ' Bee of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man ; wee shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never bee put out.' " As the flames mounted, Ridley was heard to say with a loud voice : " In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum meum ; Domine recipe spiritum meum," and con- stantly all through his agony repeated again and again the last words in English, " Lord, receive my spirit." Latimer's prayer, which rose from the other side of the stake, was: "Oh, Father of Heaven, receive my soul." Latimer received the first burst of flame as it mounted upwards as though he were embracing it. Then he was seen stroking his face with his hands ; but he soon expired, as it appeared, " with little paine or none." Probably the powder exploded soon, and the brave martyr became senseless. Fuller, in his " Holv State," thus touchingly comments upon the old man's speedy release : " Though Latimer came after Ridley to the stake, he got before him to heaven. His body, made tinder by old age, was no sooner touched by the fire but instantly this old Simeon had his nunc chinittis, and brought the news to heaven that his brother was following after." The end of Ridlev was a more terrible one. In his case " the wooden fagots were laid about the fosse . . . the fire burned first beneath, being kept down bv the wood, which, when he felt, he desired them for Christ's sake to let the fire come to him. His brother-in-law, who was standing near, with mistaken kindness threw on yet more wood, and the flames burned yet slower beneath. His feet and legs were all burnt, and yet no vital part was touched. The agony was extreme ; he was noticed to writhe and struggle ; and men heard him say : ' I cannot burn.' His body remained long untouched by the cruel flames. ' Lord, have mercy on me,' he cried again and again ; ' let the fire come to me : I cannot burn.' At length one of the bvstanders with his bill tore away the faggots, and at once the fire shot up. With a dying effort he struggled to- wards the flame, and at last the gunpowder exploded and he moved no more. Soon the poor charred body fell, as it were, at the feet of the dead Latimer." " It moved hundreds to tears," goes on the vivid recital of Foxe, " in beholding the horrible sight. Signs there were of sorrow on everie side — some took it grievouslie to see their deathes, whose lives they held full deare ; some pitied their persons that thought their soules had no need thereof. . Who considered their preferments in time past, the places of honour that thev sometime occupied in the common- wealth, the favour they were in with their princes, and the opinion of learning thev had, could not choose but sorrow with teares to see so great dignitie. honour, and 1S55-] THE MARTYRS "LIGHT A CANDLE.' 291 estimation ... so many godly virtues, the study of so manie yeres, such excellent learning, to be put into the fire and consumed in one moment. Well, dead they are, and the reward of this world they have alreadie. What reward remaineth for them in heaven, the day of the Lord's glorie, when Hee cometh with His saints, shall shortly, I trust, declare." * Thus died two out of the three foremost men of the English Reformation ; and dying, they " lit up," in Latimer's well- known parting words to Ridley, " such a candle in England as by God's grace shall never be put out." They were the most prominent, the best loved, of that noble army of martyrs who " made the Reforma- tion in England possible." One of our purest and most English poets, who has well voiced the judgment of two generations of his countrvmen, chose " the two " as the heroes of his striking verses, in which he paints them as men who — " . Constrained to wield the sword Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed With hostile din, and combating in sight Of hostile umpires partial and unjust; And did thereafter bathe their hands in fire. So to declare the conscience satisfied : Nor for their bodies would accept release ; But blessing God, and praising Him, bequeathed "With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame, The faith which they by diligence had earned, And through illuminating grace received For their dear countrymen, and all mankind. O high example, constancy divine ! " t During that long and weary year and a half of his imprisonment at Oxford, between his first condemnation and the final trial hv the commissioners of the cardinal-legate Pole, Ridley wrote from his prison various letters of exhortation and farewell to Brad- * Foxe. f Wordsworth : " Excursion," book vi. ford and other fellow-sufferers, some of which have been preserved. The most remarkable of these is an eloquent and touching paper, or letter, addressed to all his true and faithful friends. The farewell to his friends passes into a still more striking farewell to the sees over which he had presided ; and it closes with a strong admonition to the temporal lords who, under the influence of the court and government of the day, had abandoned the Reformation cause. This remarkable treatise or letter began in the name of Jesus ; and then as a man minding to take a far journey, contains some simple and earnest farewell messages to his kinsfolk, addressing them severally by name. Then he passes into a more general valediction addressed to his countrymen. He pictured what the Reformation in England had done for religion, dwelling especially on the truer form of the Lord's Supper it had intro- duced, and upon the use of the vulgar tongue in the services of the church. Then he painted the change back to the mediae- val customs ; the re-introduction of the mass, the doing away with the English tongue and substitution of the Latin language in the pravers and rites. He bade next a solemn farewell to his uni- versity of Cambridge, especially to his well-loved college of Pembroke Hall. In a touching passage he dwelt on the orchards and gardens of Pembroke, where he had used to pace up and down committing to memory, as he said, almost all Paul's epistles, thus laying the foundation of his vast theological knowledge. Then he turned to Canterbury, of which cathedral in old days he had been an honoured 292 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. C'555- member, and mourned over the sad changes which brooded over the metropolitan see. To Rochester, where he had been bishop for a season, he spoke a few words. But to London, over which he had presided for three years when Edward VI. was king, he had much to say : " O London ! Lon- don ! to whom now may I speak in thee ; to whom shall I bid farewell? Of all them, alas ! that loved God's word, and were the true setters-forth thereof, some have been burnt and slain, others have been exiled, others are still languishing in prison." He alluded, though not by name, to his successor Bonner's cruel rule and work, apostrophising it thus : li O thou most wicked and bloody see, why dost thou set up again many altars of idolatry ? Why hast thou overthrown the Lord's table ? How darest thou deny to the people of Christ His holy cup ? Why babblest thou to the people the common prayer in a strange tongue ? . . . . Thou wicked limb of Antichrist ; thou bloody wolf. Why slayest thou and makest havoc of the prophets of God ? Why murderest thou so cruelly Christ's poor sheep?" (The persecutions under Bonner in London were fiercer than in any other city and diocese in England.) He also appealed to one or two who had filled the office of lord mayor, addressing them by name and reminding them of the part they had once played. The striking paper ended with a fervent address to the temporal lords, whose attitude of sullen indifference and careless acquiescence, to men who shared Ridley's views, was inexplicable. The death of Ridley and Latimer in Mary's fires at Oxford, did for the Reformation cause they loved so well, what the pen of the one and the voice of the other never would have accomplished. These true great ones did not die in vain. LATIMER PREACHING BEFORE EDWARD VI. (From a woodcut in Foxes Bock of Martyrs. Ed. 1563.) CHAPTER LIV. THE BURNING OF CRANMER. THE MARIAN MARTYRS. Pre-eminence of Cranmer and his Work — Sees the Martyrdom of his Friends — Letter to the Queen — Pole's Reply — Rome's Unceasing Efforts to Work upon the Prisoner — His Formal Degradation — Continued Artifices of the Roman Divines — Cranmer's Recantations — Execution Resolved upon notwithstanding— Its Infamy — Scene in St. Mary's Church— The Recantation Publicly Withdrawn — Anger and Dismay of the Romanists —Noble Death of the Archbishop — Summary of Cranmer's Life and Character — Brief Sketch of the Marian Terror— Ferocity of the Persecution maintained to the Last. THERE was a third Reformation leader in some respects more dis- tinguished than the two, the story of whose brave confession we have been telling. In dignity he was their superior. Latimer was somewhiles bishop of Worcester ; Ridley at the accession of Marv * as bishop of the important see of London ; but Cranmer for long years had sat in the seat of Augustine at Canterbury, as primate of all England. As an eccle- siastic, his position was confessedly the most dignified and influential, after that of the bishop of Rome, in western Chris- tendom. In addition he had been the trusted adviser of Henry VIII., and the friend and confidant of his son, the boy- king Edward VI. In popular gifts, how- ever, he was Latimer's inferior. The famous archbishop never found that key to the hearts of the people of England, which Latimer had found and used in a hundred ways. As a theologian some prefer to underrate Cranmer ; yet no serious scholar can turn over the pages of his works without the conviction stealing upon him of his vast erudition and conspicuous ability, though as a theologian Ridley was con- fessedly greater. He was really Cranmer's teacher, though in his graceful courtesy he would never allow it ; an affecting rivalry existed between the two fathers of Anglican theology — not for the higher, but for the lower seat. The sunny, gener- ous nature of Ridley would never allow that Cranmer was his inferior ; very lovingly he would declare before men and angels that in Cranmer he had found his master. As a statesman — as the calm pilot who guided the ship of the church in the hour of her greatest peril, as it rocked to and fro in the wild Reformation tempest — the archbishop ranked far before his two friends. In those profound formu- laries, still the cherished treasure of the Anglican Church — formularies composed amidst the stress and storm of Edward's reign — if the thoughts were often Ridley's, the words well-nigh always were the words of Cranmer ; while the far-seeing wisdom, the well-balanced mind of the great arch- bishop, never permitted him to disfigure the Reformation cause with such regret- table acts as the desecration of the old mediaeval altars, so deep a blot on Ridley's work. In the course of that awful death-march to the stake through the streets of Oxford just pictured, we caught sight of Ridley looking up as he passed under the grim Bocardo prison, hoping for a last sight of, 204 THE CHURCH a last greeting from, his dearest friend of so many eventful years. But Cranmer was too busily engaged in listening to the specious arguments of the Dominican Soto to think of Ridley or of Latimer, doomed that day to die ; so the friends saw each other face to face no more on earth. It is said that though Ridley was disappointed at not beholding the well-known face at the window, the archbishop was told by someone in Bocardo that his friends were passing by on their way to the stake. Cranmer rushed to the window ; alas ! it was too late, the mournful procession had passed by. So he hurried up to the roof, whence he could gaze on the last scene from a distance. It was, as we have said, a singularly bright sunny morning, and he could see in the distance the figures of his two friends, talking together and embracing for the last time. He could mark the seemingly long pause occupied by the delivery of the death - sermon of Smith. Then he could dimly catch sight of Ridley distributing his little gifts to the bystanders, and noted the erect figure of the old man Latimer in his long shroud. He could see them lifting up their hands in prayer as the guards chained the brave martyrs to the stake ; then as he gazed he could perceive the flames creeping up and forming a glorv nimbus about the bodies of the saints. And when he had seen these things, Cranmer could look no longer ! * He was now alone ; the souls of the men whose constancy had helped him in his own long agony were safe in the Paradise of the blest — they had joined the company of just men made perfect. For Cranmer * Hook : " Lives of the Archbishops " : Cranmer. OF ENGLAND. [lSSS tbere was an awful solitude. The loneli- ness of Cranmer accounts for much in his sad history. From that day, it seems, now that his friends of so many years had left him, having witnessed their witness, his heart apparently began to fail him. The archbishop after his trial, while waiting for the condemnation to be con- firmed by Rome, wrote to queen Mary a remarkable letter, possibly in the hope that she would let him accompany his friends to the stake without waiting for the final Roman decision in his case. In this writing there was no plea for mercy. He calmly repeated the opinions for which he had been condemned at the Oxford trial, dwelling especially on what he termed the new doctrine of transubstan- tiation, and the sin of withholding the cup from the laity in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion. The most remarkable sentences in his letter, however, were those in which he enlarged upon the indignity done to the constitution of England, when the king and queen, as if they had been subjects in their own realm, complained and required justice from a stranger (the Pope) against one of their own subjects, being already condemned by the law of the land. " Death could not grieve him much more than to have his most dread and gracious sovereigns, to whom under God he owed all obedience, to be his accusers in judgment before a strange and outward power " * — that of Rome. This letter cardinal Pole was deputed to answer. Pole's letter in reply seems to have been somewhat delaved, but Cranmer received it some time in that period or doubt and despair which elapsed between. * Froude : "History," chap, xxxiii. isss.] CONDEMN A TIO his condemnation and the last scene in St. Mary's. It was a terrible letter. It charged the fallen archbishop with having corrupted Scripture, and broken through the communion of saints ; with having pretended to use reason to lead men astray, after the manner of the serpent in Paradise. "With the same instrument," wrote Pole, " have you destroyed your king, the realm, and the church ; and you have brought to perdition thousands of human souls. . . . Never had the Church of Christ a worse enemy than you have been. . . . Say not in your de- fence that you have done no violence, that you have been kind and gentle in your daily life. Thus I know men speak of you, but cheat not your conscience with so vain a plea. The devil, when called to answer for the souls that he hath slain, may plead likewise that he did not desire their de- struction ; he thought only to make them happy. ... So did you with your king, for you gave him the woman that he lusted after [Anne Boleyn] ; you gave him the honour wbich was not his due [the title of supreme head of the church on earth] ; and last and worst, you gave him poison in covering his iniquities with a cloak of righteousness . . . you tempted him into the place where there is no repentance, no hope of salvation . . . for your own profit you denied the presence of your Lord, and you rebelled against His servant, the Pope. Now, even now, by my mouth, Christ offers you mercy, and with the passionate hope which I am bound to feel for your salvation, I wait your answer to your Master's call." * * Cf. Froude : " History," chap, xxxiii., whose precis of Pole's letter has been followed. I OF CRANMER. 295 In these dreary weeks of waiting, emi- nent controversialists constantly visited the archbishop ; among these were Soto the Dominican, of whom we have spoken before as visiting Ridley and Latimer, and John de Villa Garcina, another learned Dominican of Valladolid, very learned in Plato and Aristotle, one of the new lecturers in Oxford, and one friar Rescius or Richard. These eminent theologians were unwearied in their attendance in Cranmer's prison. At times, it seems that he was taken from his dreary con- finement and entertained with kindness and consideration at the deanery. Nothing was omitted which might work upon the disturbed and harassed, friendless and doomed man. In recounting the circumstances which attended the famous and lamentable re- cantations of archbishop Cranmer, the dates are interesting and important. In the middle of September, 1555, he was condemned at Oxford, as the result of what we have termed the second or legatine trial. The condemnation was sent to Rome for confirmation, and the arch- bishop was formally cited to appear at the Italian tribunal. This last form was. simply a mockery, for Cranmer was kept a close prisoner at Oxford. On the 4th December the same year, sentence was pronounced by the Sacred College at Rome, and Cranmer was pronounced by Pope Paul IV. to be excommunicated and deprived, and was ordered to be handed over to the secular power as a notorious heresiarch, a follower of heresiarchs like Wyclif of damned memory, and Martin Luther. Some two months elapsed, however, 296 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1556. before the bull for the degradation of the archbishop arrived from Rome. Bonner, bishop of London, and Thirlby, bishop of Elv — the latter once an intimate friend of Cranmer — were entrusted with carrying out the painful ceremony on February 14th, 1556. It was in the course of these two months that Cranmer wrote or signed the documents known as the first two recantations or submissions. They were brief, and simply admitted the authority of the Pope as far as the laws of God and England allowed ; he was moved, he wrote, to this act considering that the king, queen, and parliament had recog- nised the Pope as the chief head of the Church of England. The formal ceremony of degradation was performed by Bonner and Thirlby on February 14th "in the quier of Christe's Church " (Oxford). We follow Foxe's de- scription here. " They put on him a sur- plice and an albe, after that the vestiment of a subdeacon, and even* other furniture, as a priest ready to say masse. When they had apparailed him so farre, ' What.' said he, ' I thinke I shall sav masse.' 4 Yea,' sayde Cousins, one of Boner's chap- laines, ' my lord, I trust to see you say masse for all this.' 'Doe you so?' quoth hee ; ' that you shall never see, nor I will never doe it.' Then they invested him in all manner of robes of a bishop and arch- bishoppe. as he is at his installing, saving that as everie thing then is most rich and costly, so everie thing in this was of canvas and olde cloutes. with a miter and pall of the same suite doone upon him in mock- erie, and the crozier staffe was put into his hand." Bonner's insulting words addressed to the archbishop are curious : " This is the man who hath ever despised the Pope's holiness, and now is to be judged bv him. This is the man who hath pulled downe so many churches, and now is come to be judged in a church. This is the man that contemned the blessed sacrament of the altar, and now is come to be condemned before that blessed sacrament hanging over the altar." Against this unmannerly rude- ness, Thirlby of El}- gently protested. In the course of the ceremony Cranmer pre- sented an appeal from the Pope to the next general council. The bishop of Ely received it reluctantly, as he said their commission expressly excluded all right of appeal. The sad ceremony went on. When they proceeded to take off the pall — the special archiepiscopal insignia bestowed on Cranmer by the Pope in the days of Henry VIII., before the king broke with Rome — the archbishop said : " Which of you hath a pall to take off my pall ? " Thirlby and Bonner replied, it was true that as bishops thev were his inferiors, but they were acting on this occasion as the Pope's delegates. Foxe goes on to relate the rest as follows : " Then a barber clipped his haire round about, and the bishops scraped the tops of his fingers where he had been anointed, wherein bishop Bonner behaved himself as roughly and unmannerly as the other bishop was to him soft and gentle. . . . 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Ctjm&al!rtemtol»Ktoatr«fpwtl»Commtwtsnfat«f6t»r'B' use bun Wft.snonret onmrt It to cHjre 08tai8«iSO(im)> b( tbic.w< . W 11)311 liifc. oy etbobttofant lojb Jttu thiiftibWtbtoasgtneri »ta nmt, tfw pt ople rtprtrnae ofi«l)!'iiio«ri>pttif <\ aoioe 9 btaitenlp fatbtr.tte top Iiflblt frraafite s! 'Hfca'f ntitrlp otflrt thpfathctlp goobnes mtrtihillp to nttfpt tBis out fatnftK of piaiOtanb tftanitts ge* nmgt mooftt tiumblpt btftcfipngt tpte to granntt, ttjat. PACES FROM THE PRAYER BOOK OF 1 559* Containing Part of tlte Communion Service, showing the most important alteration t made ofi$49(seep. 340). (British Museum.) the Prayer Book terbury, the queen's almoner, and bishop of Rochester. " In England generally the religious settlement was welcomed by the people, and corresponded to their wishes. The English were not greatlv interested in theological questions. They detested the Pope, they wished for services which they could understand, and were weary of super- who would not conform to the religion now established. The first work of these commissioners was to administer the oath of supremacy to the clergy, and to require the observance of the reformed liturgy. The surviving Marian bishops, with the * Bishop Creighton "Queen Elizabeth," chap. ii. t Cf. p. 221. l+i THE CHURCH exception of Dr. Kitchin, bishop of Llandaff, refused to comply. Of these we shall speak directly. Besides the bishops, a considerable number of digni- taries were, owing to non-compliance, ejected from their preferments, including one abbot, four priors, and one abbess, twelve deans, fourteen archdeacons, and sixty prebendaries. But, on the other hand, the parochial clergy as a body were prepared to acquiesce in the change. It is computed that out of 9,400 clergy in England only 1Q2 refused the oath of supremacy and declined to comply with the Act of Uniformity. These were gently dealt with, and had pensions assigned to them proportioned to the value of their preferments.* The archbishopric of Canterbury had been vacant since the death of cardinal Pole ; several of the bishops, too, had died about the same time, and only fourteen remained in possession of their sees. There were also two suffragan bishops of Thetford and Bedford. These two conformed, as did all the Irish prelates save three, but their views were not gener- ally favourable to the Reformation. There were, however, still alive three bishops of the reformed opinions who had been regu- larly consecrated, and who had formerly, before the Marian changes, been in posses- sion of sees. These were Corcrefti/c, some- whiles bishop of Exeter ; Scory, bishop of Rochester, then of Chichester ; and Barfau\ bishop of St. David's, then of Bath. Of the thirteen Marian bishops who re- fused to accept the change, eleven were ejected from their sees. It was hoped for * Cf. Massingberd : "The English Reformation, ' chap, xxv OF ENGLAND. [i559. some time that Heath, arehbishop of York, and Tunstal, bishop of Durham, would submit, and their sees were not filled up for nearly two years. They were all treated with conspicuous kindness and consider- ation, Bonner alone being imprisoned. A few retired abroad, but most remained in England. Several were entertained in the families of the newly appointed bishops. Heath, the archbishop of York, the late Chancellor, who had a considerable private fortune, lived henceforth in retirement in his own house at Chobham, near Windsor. He retained the friendship of the queen after he had lost his see. Thirlby, passages of whose eventful life and its many changes we have already touched on — notably his prominent share in the Oxford trials of Cranmer and his brother-sufferers — lived with Parker. He survived his fall many years, dying in 1570 ; and, it is said, found more happiness during that period of en- forced retirement than he had ever enjoyed in his years of greatness. Bonner at first lived with the bishop of Lincoln, but he was subsequently placed under restraint, dwelling within the rules of the Marshalsea prison, but occupying a house of his own. Speaking of these and the others of the de- prived prelates. Fuller quaintly observes — '"Thev had sweet chambers, soft beds, warm fires, plentiful and wholesome diet, each bishop faring like an archbishop, differing nothing from their former living, saving that was on their own charges, and this at the cost of another." Tunstal, for instance, lived and died in Lambeth, the guest of arch- bishop Parker. On the whole, they grate- fully repaid the kindness and consideration shown to them by never making any attempt to exercise episcopal functions, or J 559-] ARCHBISHOP PARKER. 343 to set up a rival succession in the Church of England.* It was on the 17th of December, 1559, when Elizabeth had been queen a little more than a year, that Dr. Matthew Parker was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, in succession to cardinal Pole, who died in the November of the previous year, a few hours after Mary passed away. It had been felt from the first days of the reign that this learned, quiet, thoughtful man was, of all the leading divines favourable to the Reformation and the new learning, the best fitted to fill the all- important position of archbishop of Canter- bury and metropolitan. We have heard of him already, as taking a leading part all through those anxious months during which the great change from Romanism was being carried out in the Church 01 England. Possessing the entire con- fidence of the queen and Cecil, Parker was one of that little company whose wise counsels piloted the church through the first confused months which imme- diately followed the death of Mary, and prepared men's minds for the great change we have been relating. How wisely and well he did his work, how accurately he interpreted the real feeling of England and the vast majority of the clergy, is shown in the quiet and almost unanimous reception of the Prayer - book and the provisions of the Act of Uniformity, in spite of the almost unanimous and determined opposition of the bishops, by the parochial clergy. No archbishop, perhaps, in the long line * Cf Massingberd : " English Reformation," chap. xxv. of our illustrious primates from the days of Augustine to our own times, ever took his seat on the historic throne of Canter- bury more reluctantly than did Parker. Ill-health, some constitutional timidity, some distrust of his own powers, a pre- ference for the quiet study-chamber, a dislike to the publicity which naturally attends high office, weighed deeply with this holy and humble man, and made him strangely averse to taking up the heavy burden of the primacy at such a juncture. The archiepiscopate was almost forced upon him ; but he yielded at last to continued pressure, and his own solemn words, penned, we feel, with tear-dimmed eyes for no public scrutiny, probably on the even- ing of his consecration, tell us something of the spirit with which he assumed the great office. " I was consecrated arch- bishop of Canterbury ; alas ! alas ! O Lord God, for what times hast Thou kept me ! Now I am come into deep waters, and the flood will overwhelm me. O Lord, I am oppressed. Answer for me and ^tablish me with Thy free spirit, for I am a man that hath but a short time to live." Matthew Parker, the seventieth arch- bishop of Canterbury, was born at Nor- wich in the year 1504. He belonged to a family engaged in trade, of the highest respectability and consideration. We hear later of his brother the mayor of Norwich. The family was remotely allied to the nobility ; the earl of Nottingham being his distant kinsman. He was ever a studious boy ; and at Cambridge he was a distinguished student of Corpus Christi College, of which society he became in 544 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1559- due course a fellow. He obtained, as years went on, considerable reputation as a preacher, and as a distinguished theo- logical scholar, especially devoting him- self to the study of the early Christian fathers. When he was about forty years old he was elected to the mastership of his college ; his work in the development of the famous library of his house, cele- brated far beyond the limits of his uni- versity, is well known. Before his election as master, he had been appointed chaplain to Anne Bolevn, whose confidence he won ; she even entreated him before her death to watch over her little daughter Elizabeth, of whom he was the lifelong friend. To this connection with her ill- fated mother, no doubt, was largely owing the friendship with which Elizabeth ever regarded him. After the fall and death of Anne Bolevn. of whose innocence Parker seems to have been persuaded, Henry VIII. appointed him his chaplain, and subse- quently gave him the deanery of Lincoln. His marriage, which was a most happy one. clearly shows us that his sympathies were entirely with the Reformed party in the church, and that he had little sympathy with the advocates of the old learning and the stern mediaeval views of ecclesiastical life. He was intimately connected with Martin Bucer, the famous Reformer theo- logian, during Bucer's career at Cambridge; and by many writers it is supposed that Bucer's opinions largely influenced the views and opinions of the future Eliza- bethan primate. Under Man- he was. of course, deprived of his valuable and im- portant preferments, and during her reign lived in great retirement, but ap- parently unmolested. It is very doubtful if he really underwent the persecution from which he is stated by some writers to have suffered. His character generally has been sum- marised by two eminent Anglican writers well able to form a just conception. Parker was " a man of learning, of mod- eration, of system, and of piety, cautious in the formation of his opinions, and firm in maintaining them ; but he was retiring in his habits, slow in his apprehensions, and (although an able preacher) disqualified for public speaking. ... In his general habits of prudence and moderation, there were two other points which would be thought likely, at that critical period, to qualify him for the exercise of church authority. He had a profound respect for the prerogative of the crown, and dreaded the Germanical natures, as he stvled them, of the English exiles," alluding, no doubt, to the views of such theologians as Zwinglius and Calvin.* The second estimate runs as follows — Matthew Parker was one " who bv nature and by education, bv the ripeness of his learning, the sobriety of his judgment, and the incorruptness of his private liie, was eminently fitted for the task of ruling the Church of England through a stormy period of her history ; and though he w as seldom able to reduce conflicting elements of thought and feeling into active harmony, yet the vessel he was called to pilot has been saved almost entirely by his skill from breaking on the rock of mediaeval supersti- tion, or else drifting far away into the whirlpool of licentiousness and unbelief. . . . . He was intimately acquainted * Dr. Cardwell. 1559- CHAKACTER OF PARKER. 345 with the records of the ancient church, ancient liturgies and doctrines of the Chris- and uniformly based his vindication of our tian church in former times. He utterly dis- own upon his cordial adherence to the liked, therefore, the public offices of the t n ire t l^ rt bona It Ac, WHEN ARCHBISHOP ELECT, TO ONE OF THE COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED TO ENFORCE SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ARTICLE ACKNOWLEDGING THE QUEEN 'S SUPREMACY IN THE CHURCH. {British Museum.) primitive faith, and to the practice of the present Roman church, because they varied purest ages. His great skill in antiquity, so much from the ancient." " " Among to quote the language of Strype, reached enthusiasts," again writes his patient bio- to ecclesiastical matters as well as historical, grapher, "he had no enthusiasm; amidst whereby he became acquainted with the * Archdeacon Hardwick 346 THE CHURCH the controversies of the day he distinguished between reform and revolution. He had studied the writings of Zwingle, Luther, and Calvin ; and knowing their faults, as well as .their merits, he had no inclination to follow their lead. He had studied the fathers and the general councils, and knew the deviations of the church of Rome from primitive truth. He could distinguish between things essential and not essential. . . . . Perhaps no one could be found whose principles more nearly accorded with those of Elizabeth." He had been, though their senior in age, the intimate friend at Cambridge of Cecil and Bacon, the queen's trusted advisers, who were thus personally acquainted with the inner mind of the man whom they recommended to their royal mistress as the one, among English divines favourably inclined to a " conser- vative " reformation, best fitted and most thoroughly equipped with learning and experience, to carry out her views. But Parker himself for a considerable time was utterly averse to comply with the earnest desires of the queen and her counsellors. The seven years of enforced retirement from all sources of income had drained his slender private means, and he was very poor when Elizabeth became queen. His health was feeble ; his voice, he said, was decayed. Let the queen give him the revenues of some prebend, he would spend the rest of his life in a private state in preaching the gospel in poor and destitute parishes. He was, however, im- peratively summoned to the court, and there became at once the leading divine among those consulted in respect to the proposed changes. It was his wish, as it was also the queen's and Cecil's, to make the First OF ENGLAND. [,559 Prayer-book the basis of the liturgical changes ; and very reluctantly, when he- found how deeply the re-introduction of that conservative compilation would wound and disturb the more advanced reformer- without gaining the approval of the Romanists, he advised the queen, as we have seen, to adopt the Second Prayer-book, with certain modifications, as the form of prayer for the English Church. His views were followed, and with the changes we have notified, the Second Book appeared in the Act of Uniformity. His repugnance, however, to accepting the primacy still continued. He was mar- ried, and the queen's aversion to the mar- riage of the clergy was another reason in his mind for wishing to remain in a private- station. So strong were his scruples, that for a moment Elizabeth turned from him, and offered the great post to Dr. Wotton, the dean of Canterbury, an eminent man who had been in the Privy Council, and had been entrusted with important dip- lomatic posts. But Wotton was not an ambitious man, was conscious of his ignor- ance on deep theological questions, and at once refused the great office. Again Parker was pressed, and at length consented to accept it. All the various forms were carefully gone through. The conge d'elirc to the dean and chapter of Canterbury was issued and complied with ; the con- firmation in the historic church of St. Mary-le-Bow was carried out ; only the consecration remained. It is the happiness of the Church of England, that in the opinion of Parker and the more earnest and thoughtful of the English reformers who, under queen Eliza- ,S59.] CONSECRATIO beth, conducted the great changes of 1550 in the English Church, " the apostolic suc- cession was of vital importance to the very existence of the church and its various branches. Without the apostolic succession, this continuity of the church, and the organic identity of the present and the past, could not be preserved. The authorities in church and state concurred in their belief that the continuity could not be sustained unless the archiepiscopal throne were occupied bv one who could trace his authority to act in things sacred up to Augustine, through Augustine to the apo>tle~. and through them to the divine Head who breathed upon the apostolic college, saving, ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'"* No instance had occurred in the Catholic church until the period of the Reformation, in which ordination had been conferred bv any who were not bishops. It i> true the Lutheran and Genevan Dhurches had adopted the Presbvterian custom ; but they had done it with great reluctance, and as a matter of necessity. They would, indeed, have wished to preserve episcopal government. There was at first, however, a grave difficulty in England, for the slender hand- ful of Marian bishops who survived, save one, refused to conform to the Act of Uni- formity, and were not available. Happily, there were three regularly consecrated bishops, deprived bv Mary, still alive; and a regularly consecrated suffragan bishop (of Bedford), who had conformed. Parker made choice of these four, who consented to officiate at his consecration. Much has been written and spoken as to the validity * Dean Hook : " Lives of the Archbishops," Matthew Parker, chap. viii. J OF PARKER. 347 of this act. The unbroken continuity of the orders of the Church of England, of course, depends upon it. Baseless and even ridiculous stories have been devised, in the hope of throwing doubt upon it. But great and acknowledged scholars, who have written in late times on the question of the validity of Anglican orders, have for ever established in the minds of serious men (not bv any means confined to scholars who belong to the Anglican Church) that in the case of the consecration of archbishop Parker all things were done in perfect harmony with the immemorial usages of the Catholic Church. The four consecrating bishops (this is the most important point in connection with the solemn rite) had been themselve> all regularly and canonically consecrated.* William Barlow, who was selected as the presiding bishop, had long been an eminent personage during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, having been em- ployed, as was then so commonly the case, in important public business, both at home and abroad. He became bishop of St. David's in 1536. His consecrators were archbishop Cranmer and the bishops of Exeter and Bath.f In 1548 Barlow was translated to the see of Bath and Wells. He was reputed as a learned theologian, and had much to do with the composition * In addition to these four, three other bishops who had conformed — viz. Kitchin, bishop of Llandaff ; Bale, bishop of Ossory ; and Salisbury, bishop of Thetford — were also available ; but Parker, for various reasons, selected for his consecration the above-mentioned. + On the question of the loss of the Registers in the case of Barlow, see — Bishop Stubbs : " Episco- pal Succession," p 77; Dean Hook: "Arch- bishops," vol i.\ , chap viii ; and Dr. Lingard, quoted in a lengthy note by Dean Hook, p. 241. 348 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ti559- pf the " Bishop's. Book," or the " Institution of a Christian Man," printed in 1537, one of the great manuals of devotion put out under king Henry VIII. At the accession of queen Mary, Barlow, being married, probably to avoid persecution, resigned his see, and during her reign mostly resided in Germany. Under Elizabeth he became bishop of Chichester in 1559, and died ten years later, in December, 1569. Miles Coverdale, another of Parker's consecrators, we have already spoken of at some length as the friend of Tyndale, and later, in connection with his noble labours in the translation and editing of the English Bible. He became bishop of Exeter in 1 5 5 1 . His consecrators were archbishop Cranmer, Ridley, bishop of London, and Hodgkins, bishop-suffragan of Bedford. His Genevan doctrines pre- vented his being re-appointed to a see under Elizabeth. John Scory, the third of the bishops chosen by Parker, originally one of Ridley's chaplains, became bishop of Rochester in 1551. His consecrators were the same as Coverdale's — Cranmer, Ridley, and the suffragan bishop of Bedford. He was in the following year (1552) translated to Chichester, and was extruded from his see by bishop Gardiner's influence, under Mary, in 1554. Among the Marian exiles, he took charge of the English Church at Embden in East Friesland, under the grange title of superintendent. Early in the reign of Elizabeth he was appointed to the see of Hereford. John Hodgkins, the fourth of the con- secrating bishops, had been appointed bishop-suffragan of Bedford as early as the year 1537. Stokesley, bishop of London, Robert Wharton, bishop of St. Asaph, and John Hilsey, bishop of Roches- ter, were his consecrators.* The ceremony of the consecration of Parker took place in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, in the presence of many persons, official and otherwise (amongst others the kinsman of Parker, the earl of Notting- ham), at the early hour usual for this rite, between five and six in the morning ; the sermon being preached by bishop Scory. All was done in accordance with the second ordinal of Edward VI., which is nearly identical with the present use of the Church of England. Archbishop Parker was consecrated in December, 1559, bishop Barlow being nominated to the see of Chichester, and bishop Scory to the see of Hereford. Four more eminent reformer theologians inclined to moderate and conservative views, like Parker, were immediately ap- pointed to some of the other vacant dioceses. Edmund Grindal went to Lon- don, Richard Cox to Ely, Edwin Sandys to Worcester, and Rowland Merrick to Bangor. A little later, in the course of the following year, Nicholas Bullingham was appointed to Lincoln, John Jewel to Salisbury, Thomas Young to St. David's, * These apparently dry details have been given in view of the extreme importance of showing the perfect continuity of the Church of England in the matter of apostolical succession. The complete lists of all the English bishops and archbishops, with their consecrators, will be found in Bishop Stubbs's " Episcopal Succession in England," which is the one perfect and thorough work upon the subject. The old and now completely exploded fable of the pretended consecration of the arch- bishop at the " Nag's Head " Tavern has not been repeated or refuted here, as no serious Romanist writer thinks of quoting it any longer. 3SO THE CHURCH Richard Davies to St. Asaph, Edmund Guest (or Gheast) to Rochester, Gilbert Berkeley to Bath, Thomas Bentham to Coventry, William Alley to Exeter, and John Parkhurst to Norwich. In 1 56 ] Robert Home became bishop of Win- chester, and Edmund Scrambler bishop of Peterborough. Rigidly and with extreme- care was the unbroken continuity of the Church of England preserved by the wise foresight of Parker, the archbishop, and the Elizabethan ministers, among whom Sir William Cecil was the guiding in- fluence. After Parker, perhaps the most prominent and influential churchman in the first years of the great change was John Jewel, the famous author of " The Apology of the Church of England." This most learned and devout man was born in the year 1522 at Bude, in Devon. He belonged to an ancient but impoverished family, and already, as a student at Merton college, Oxford, had obtained a high reputation as a scholar and an indefatigable student. He became a lecturer at his college, and soon acquired considerable fame as a preacher. He was one of Peter Martyr's most devoted pupils and followers ; and on the accession of queen Mary was expelled from his college. At the first trial or disputation of Cranmer and Ridley at Oxford, 1554, Jewel acted as the secretary of the reformers, and especially incurred the anger of Dr. Marshall, the dean of Christ Church, who sent to Jewel what his anonymous biographer terms a " bead-roll of popish doctrines, to be subscribed by him on pain of fire and faggot and other grievous tortures." The poor man, we OE ENGLAND. [,560. read, having neither friend to consult with, nor time allowed him, took the pen in his hand, and saving, " Have you a mind to see how well I can write ? " subscribed his name hastily and with great reluctance. But Oxford was no safe place in those days of bitter persecution for a scholar who was known as the pupil and friend of Peter Martyr, and who was already famous as a keen controversialist on the reformers' side. He became a fugitive and an exile only just in time, for, his biographer tells us, had he delayed his flight but one day longer, he had been arrested ; and in the Marian persecution, for one like Jewel, there was but little breathing space between arrest and speedy condemnation as a heretic to the flames. At Frankfort, where he was kindly welcomed, he made a public recantation of his late subscription to the dean of Christ Church's paper, in which he wrote the following sorrowful words : " It was my abject and cowardly mind and faint heart that made my weak hand to commit this wickedness." From Frankfort he went to Strasburg, on the invitation of his friend and master, Peter Martyr, whom he assisted in his literary work ; and in that city he was thrown in constant contact with men like Grindal, Sandys, Cheeke, and other distinguished exiles. Jewel's exile lasted about four years, largely spent in study ; thus supplementing his earlier Oxford labours, and preparing himself unconsciously for the great con- troversial work with which his name will ever be so honourably associated in the Church of England. In company with many of the Marian exiles, he returned home early in Elizabeth's reign, and was i5oa] bishop JEWEL. 35 1 named as one of the commissioners for the western part of the island in the general visitation of the dioceses ordered by Par- liament for rectifying such things as they found amiss. His prudence and wisdom in this difficult and delicate task were con- spicuous, and Parker recommended him among the first group of distinguished reformers for a bishopric. He was conse- crated to Salisbury in the January of 1560. Jewel at first — no doubt, owing to his long intercourse with the foreign reformers — was inclined to extreme plainness and simplicity in church order, and at one time had even written against clerical, and especially episcopal vestments. But the quiet influence of Parker prevailed with him, and with the full approbation of his friends, Peter Martyr and Bullinger, he- did not allow his personal predilection in things, after all, non-essential, to interfere with the great work to which he was called. He ever loyally co-operated with the archbishop in his settlement of the Church of England, and was, indeed, a most valuable coadjutor. To great learning and real eloquence, he added the most entire and unselfish devotion in his work as a bishop. In the June of 1560, he preached his famous sermon at Paul's Cross upon 1 Cor. xi. 23-25 : " For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread, etc.," in which he publicly gave forth his chal- lenge— " urbi et orbi " — on the great sub- ject which agitated the minds of the religious world of the west ; thus acting as the mouthpiece of archbishop Parker and the Elizabethan bishops, and publicly announcing their views on this momentous question. We may thus briefly summarise the heads of the famous challenge, which run as follows : — " If any learned man of all our adver- saries, or if all the learned men that he alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any one example of the primitive church, where it may be clearly and plainly proved — " That there was any private mass in the whole world for the space of six hundred years after Christ ; " Or that there was then any communion ministered unto the people in one kind; " Or that the people had their common prayers in a strange tongue that they understood not ; " Or that the bishop of Rome was then called an universal bishop, or the head of the universal church ; " Or that the people were taught to believe that Christ's body is really substan- tially, corporally, carnally, or naturally in the sacrament (this was variously enlarged on in the great challenge) ; "Or that images were then set up in churches to the intent that people might worship them ; " Or that the lay people were forbidden to read the word of God in their own tongue," etc. etc. This is only a very concise summary, the challenge was much longer ; but the above precis indicates the principal points dwelt upon ; and considering that the preacher who stood at Paul's Cross under the shadow of the cathedral of the great THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1562. metropolis, was Parker's intimate and trusted friend, that his great reputation for scholarship and ecclesiastical learning was generally acknowledged, that he spoke with the weight and authority of one of the first group of Elizabethan bishops, we may fairly assume that these represented fairly the general spirit of the theology of the Church of Eng- land in these hotly - disputed questions, in the first years of the settlement under queen Elizabeth. Two years later, in 1562, Jewel put out hi> well - kn< >wn "Apology of the Church of Eng- land," in Latin. This celebrated treatise was " the public confession of the Catholic and Christian laith of the Church of England, and gave an account of the reasons of its departure from the see of Rome, and was also an answer to the calumnies that were then raised against the English Church and nation for not submitting to the pretended council of Trent then sitting." * The " Apology " was published with the * See Wordsworth's (Master of Trinity ) Ecclesi- astical Biographies: "Bishop Jewel,'' from the anonymous Life printed in 1685. ARCHBISHOP PARKER. {From the portrait at Lambeth Palace.) sanction of the two primates and their suffragans, and under the authority of the queen. To the English version Parker added a brief sketch of the Church of England as it then existed, with a list of the bishoprics and an account of the universities. Some interesting details of this sketch of Parker are w orth recording, as giving a graphic- picture of the Church of Eng- land in the first days of her re- formation under Eliza b e t h . '* Every one of the archbishops and bishops have their cathedral- churches, where- in the deans bear the chief rule, being men spe- cially chosen both for their ' learn- ing; ' and godli- ness as near as may be. These cathedral churches have also other dig- nities and canonries, whereunto be assigned no idle or unprofitable persons, but such as either be preachers or professors of the sciences of good learning. In the said cathedral churches, upon Sundays and festival days, the canons make ordinarily special sermons, whereunto duly resort the head officers of the city and the citizens." Careful provision, Parker explained, was made for visitation twice a year in every 1562.] JEWEL'S " APOLOGIA." 353 diocese by the archdeacons. If in their inquisitions any errors in religion or weighty matter should come before these officials, the bishops were to be duly informed. Nothing was read in our churches, wrote the archbishop, but the them to the people. ; . . All the Common Prayer, the lessons taken out of the Scriptures, and the administering of the Sacraments, were done in the vulgar tongue, which all may understand.'' Versions of the " Apology " of Jewel APOLOGIA ftites,tjtumfoncrtuis. CKED1MVS Sprritum SlnBu^mefr tcrtid | font in ftcra TtitdtjOU uerum cjft r e u : Non fi non credtum,non gcnitum, ftd ab utroquc Pdtrefci cet cr TiUo rttionc qmd*m mortti.biK incognita, • ir.efftbtli,procedcntcm . \Uiuseffcduriticmku ccrda emolltre , quumdtapcrfdlntijcramprfdic tionm Eutngelij, m olid quteuquerttior* in ptftc rd hcminum recipitur,lllu cos illumindre.cr in tgn tiencm Vei , atque in cmnem iddm ueritalis cr in tc Umuittnouitttem,crperpctutmftlutHffcm[ dueere. CR EDTM VS imtm (ffe EccUfidm Df r/im^i* ro- ut ohm tpud ludtos, in unu tliquem tngtili tut Rm| gwrx^conclufm ,fcdCixbolic^dtquew\uerfti rj/e, cr diffuftm in toium terrdnm orbtn ,utm nunc nttio Jit, que pvfiit uer'e conqutri , ft -extt itcor.os,tXios Vrefbitcros,dlios Epifcopos,quibu< in fiitulio populi cr Religion's curd cr procurdtio fn__ mifft fit-.Kcmnrm tamcn ur.um nec cfjc,ntc effe pofit^ quifummt rerum uniuerfc prt-fstNtm cr Chriftn femper adtffe Zcclefie fue.ZT Victrio bomine,qvii . afftin integrum fuccedtt,no egere: CT ncmincm mm" ttkm pofJcexiftcrt,qui unmtrftm UcUfim>hoccft& ECCLE. ANGLTCANAE. emits ptrtes orbiiterrtrun,uelammo complcllis:* dtati crdint collocdre,cr rede ic comode tdminijirf rc poffit:Apofrolos,ut Cypritmu dit , piri omies isf Dc ftnp&jj tcr k faff: pote/ttir. ity hoc He faffe tlios 5, Venn 1 " ■ ; fidr.Jm-abut tx tyto diftxm Mffe,Pjfcitet Om-i-btt, lUinmmdumuerfam:(jhviib-Ji,UoceteEudngdi:'m: Ef ut ut Hiercnynr.iijQmnts Eplfcopos ubicuy, tande Ad EicSn5. fint,pue Romtjiue Eugubijjiue Confiantinopoli, [tie "• Khcgi),uufde ejfc meriti,emfie fuerdotif Vtque Cjm ^ . J^prMwt tif.Epifeopttum MB* effc.cr eiut partem in t;.e '"^''^ '■ jelidum tenerii fingulu : Et defenrcntii Ktceni con* . m cilijjRortiinum- Epifcopum nihilo plus mm in Ecclefi* ' am Deiobtinere, qujmrcliquos Vdtritrcbtf Al rin* uitvum,cr A,ttioF ENGLAND. [1562. The same royal commission, appointed under the influence of Parker, examined into the sadly neglected state of many of the chancels of the parish churches through- out the land. These, and in man}' cases the entire churches, had formerly been repaired bv the monasteries to whom they largely belonged, and in whose patronage thev were. After the dissolution of the religious houses, too often the lavmen who became possessed of the monastic lands neglected the responsibility of caring for the churches and chancels in question. Among the directions given, the commis- sioners were required " to consider the decays of churches, and the unseemly keeping of chancels, and to order the commandments to be set up at the east end of the chancel, to be read not only for edification, but also to give some cornel v ornament, and demonstration that the same is a place of religion and prayer." At the same time (1561-2), under the direction of Parker, was composed the Second Book of Homilies, a large portion of which is ascribed to the pen of Jewel. This second book was formally accepted by Convocation, which met in the earlier months of ifbJ. They are expressly mentioned and enumerated in the Thirty- nine Articles. (The Thirty-nine Articles, which were formally accepted in the same Convocation of 1562, will be presentlv discussed.) The Thirty-nine Articles joins the First and Second Book of Homilies together, and judges them " to be read in churches by the ministers, diligently and distinctlv, that they may be understanded of the people." The object of these semi- authoritative documents was especially to provide popular discourses, which might 1562 ] THE TWO BOOKS OF HOMILIES. 361 be read in lieu of sermons by the clergy, part attributed to Cranmer, Ridley, and who in many cases, as we have already Latimer. In this first book, the homily of pointed out, were very illiterate, and salvation, referred to especially in Article XL, ORGAN IN KING'S COLLEGE CHAl'EL, CAMIUUUGF. {Early ibth Century.) m consequence were not licensed to preach. The First Book of Twelve Homilies had been published by authority in the reign of Edward VI. (1547), and were in great was the work of Cranmer, and is singularly eloquent, and valuable as a piece of sound theology. The two Books of Homilies thus formally ;02 THE CHURCH authorised in 1562, are precious now as showing generally the mind of Parker and his coadjutors, as indicating the popular teaching which they desired should be given to the English people. "They show a firm belief in the authoritative teaching and sacred tradition of the primitive church, regarded not as co-ordinate in authority with the Holy Scriptures, but as explanatory of the same. In the homilies we find enforced a deference to the first four general councils The homilies teach regeneration in Holy Bap- tism, the real (spiritual) presence in the Eucharist. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord are not only means of grace, they are means of the special grace of uniting the souls of the faithful to the Redeemer." * Convocation met early in the year 1562. It was opened with great ceremony and state ; the dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Nowell, being chosen prolocutor of the lower house. As most important and enduring legislation for the Church of England was virtually settled in this first Convocation of queen Elizabeth's reign, it will be well to say a little respecting the composition of this famous assembly. In the upper house, with the solitary exception, perhaps, of Sandys, bishop of Worcester, the prelates more or less sympathised with Parker, and loyally supported him in that middle course of action he had elected to follow in his difficult task of choice and re- jection among the mediaeval services and formulas: that uvta media Anglicana" which has ever been the strength of the Church of England, and which, with the * See generally Dean Hook : " Archbishops," vol. iv., chap. x. OF ENGLAND. [,562. deepest reverence for antiquity, united a determination to sweep away superstition and, comparatively speaking, novel doc- trines. In the lower house there was a strong element present of extreme reformers, about thirty -three in number. These represented a large and formidable party in England, who had " conformed " to the new state of things — to the liturgy, to the Act of Uniformity, and generally to the regulations of the archbishop and the queen ; but who hoped to bring about further changes in the direction of greater simplicity, and who longed for a more thorough sweeping away of mediaeval customs, rites, vestments, which in their eyes still marred and disfigured the English Reformation. Most of the leading men of this party had spent several years in exile, and more or less had come under the influence of that masterful spirit who ruled with a stern, uncompromising rule at Geneva. Far and wide reached the in- fluence of Calvin, largely through his great book, " The Institutes," which, since the mediaeval religious text-books of the school- men (the Summa of Aquinas, the writings of Peter Lombard, Duns Scotus, and others), had been scornfully burnt and discredited, had become the acknowledged text-book of a very large section of reformers. We are not specially concerned here with the tenets of Calvinism, which in England, as on the Continent, so deeply coloured much of the theology of the extreme party among the reformers. In this Con- vecation these thirty or thirty -three agitated against the views of Parker, clamouring for a simpler service and ritual; but behind these outward things there 1562.] THE CONVOCATION OF i«>2. 363 were grave doctrinal changes which they earnestly desired, and hoped eventually to see carried out. These men, and the large party which followed their lead, gradually acquired the name of Puritans, by which designation it will be convenient henceforth generally to style them, in contradistinction to the moderate conservative reformers repre- sented by archbishop Parker, whom we , will term the Anglican party- These latter formed the bulk of the religious reformers of England. Generalising is ever somewhat dangerous, but we may fairly summarise as follows : These Pu- ritans, as time went on, became divided among themselves. Some " conformed " to the established state of things, although disliking not a little of the ritual and practices, and to a less degree some of the doctrines put forth. Others sturdily re- fused and resisted, rather than make a sacrifice of their conscience. We ma)' see in these early schools of thought among the men of the Elizabethan age, the ancestors of the modern High Church and Evangelical schools within the pale of the Establishment ; the ancestors, too, of the modern Nonconformist outside the pale of the Church of England. In this celebrated meeting of Convoca- tion the Puritan party advanced some distinct views. These they scheduled, and thirty-three members of the lower house signed the schedule in question. The chief points advanced, and which were hotly debated, touched upon customs of the Catholic Church of immemorial an- tiquity, and were as follows : All scientific music, together with the use of the organ in divine service, was objected to ; the sign of the cross in baptism, the insisting upon the position of kneeling in the re- ception of the Eucharist, were likewise denounced ; copes and surplices were to be done away with ; festivals and saints' days were to be discontinued. A very large majority, however, supported Parker and the " Anglican " party ; and what is especially interesting, this majority was largely composed of the parochial clergy, the larger number of the Puritans being, strangely enough, made up of dignitaries such as deans, archdeacons, etc. But the most important event in this Convocation was the acceptance, with slight modifications, of Parker's draft of the Thirtv - nine Articles. Already a short summary of nine articles of religion had been drawn up in an episcopal " assessus," as it was termed, in the spring of 1 561 , in which the doctrine of the Trinity was asserted, as were also the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, the three Creeds, the power of the keys as exercised by the church, the agreement of Holy Scripture with the Book of Common Prayer, the distinction between the Mass and the Communion, the necessity of administering the Holy Communion in both kinds, the rejection of images, relics, and superstitious rites, etc. It was intended that these "Articles" should be subscribed by all the clergy licensed to officiate in the dioceses of either province. The necessity, however, for a much more elaborate and exhaustive formulary was imperative, considering the state of " religious " England in the early days of Elizabeth. To use Parker's own ex- pression, in a letter addressed to Sir 364 THE CHURCH Nicholas Eacon : " The realm is full ot Anabaptists, Arians, Libertines, Free-will men, etc., against whom only I thought ■ministers should be needed to fight in unity of doctrine. As to the Romish adversaries, their mouths may be stopped with their books and confessions of later days." When he wrote the above, the Furitan section alluded to as forming a compact party in Convocation had not formally asserted itself. But the necessity of an exhaustive formulary of doctrine seems to have been from the beginning constantlv present in Farker's mind ; and no doubt the short summary of the nine articles was only devised as an interim formulary, pending careful con- sideration of one more extensive and far- reaching in its scope. As the basis of the draft of his Articles of Religion, the archbishop naturally took the great Edwardian formulary of the forty- two articles, which had been so carefullv prepared bv his predecessor, Cranmer, and so often revised by the council, by famous Edwardian bishops, especially bv Cranmer's friend and counsellor, Ridlev, and other learned men. These forty -two articles Avere written for the most part in a comprehensive spirit. The recension of Parker shows less of the temper of com- promise, which has been well described as " characteristic of the English as con- trasted with the foreign Reformation."* Certain changes in the forty-two were * Dean Church, who gives Newman's by no means baseless assertion (in his defence of " Tract 90 "), that the first Reformers had intended the articles to comprehend a great bod}- of their countrymen who would have been driven out by any extreme and anti-Catholic declaration. ("Oxford Movement," chap, xiv.) OF ENGLAND. [,562. made in the archbishop's first draft. Four of the original articles he expunged, four more he added, making, too, some modi- fications. In his revision he was guided, as Cranmer had been before him, in a great degree by Lutheran formularies. Cranmer had derived much from the con- fession of Augsburg. Parker, in his re- vision, took several ideas from the confession of Wurtemburg. Both houses of Convo- cation accepted the final draft In the lower house the acceptance, naturally enough, considering its composition, was not so general as it was in the upper house of bishops, where it was practicallv unanimous. In addition, the archbishop of York and some of his suffragans attached their signatures to the document containing the articles. " This latter circumstance," it has been well said, " gives to this Convo- cation the character of a national synod." Queen Elizabeth herself, it is believed, in the exercise of what she considered her undoubted prerogative, struck out the twenty-ninth article, which spoke " of the wicked who eat not the bodv of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper " — the title of this article then was, " Impii non man- ducant corpus Christi in usu coense " — and added the famous clause, " Habet Ecclesia ritus statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctoritatem," in the twentieth article. (The church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith.) Both the article then struck out and the clause in question added, stand in the present Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. The articles were then thirtv-eight in number. To sum up, these articles, in an English translation, were soon after (1562) put 1562 ] THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 365 forth by the authority of Convocation, but not apparently with the authority of the queen, or of the legislature. In the year 1 57 1, the articles (including the twenty- ninth, struck out by the queen in 1562) again sub- were scribed houses 3 truci by both of Con- vocation, and committed to the editorship of bishop Jewel, and received the formal sanction of Parliament. They were then thirty - nine in number. "The thirty- nine articles then drawn up, sub- scribed, and au- thorised, have ever since been signed and as- sented to by all the clergy of the church, and until lately by every graduate of both the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and have hence an authority far beyond that of any single Convo- cation or Parliament, viz. the unanimous and solemn assent of all the bishops and clergy of the Church of England, and of the two universities, for well-nigh three hundred years." * * Bishop Harold Browne: "Introduction to Articles," page 10. Articles.- p g thereupon it was agreed ' if\fc2 ffjc arcfibt'ujoppeg; anto rgflioppesofboth prouincesand = the whole cleargie,in the Con- ~~ uocation Kofcten at London in -~ the yere of our Lorde G 6 D, " I j62,according to thecompu- _ ration of the Churchc of En- H'glande, fpjr theauoiding ofj the _ diucrfitiesofopinionjjanci" 0. jforJKe fiabliihy ng of "" confent touching ''ion. jstt=r3 auctljotftte, TITLE-PAGE TO THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES, {British Museum.) After taking into consideration the alter- ations above mentioned, there is no doubt that by far the greater part of the articles are as they left the study chambers of Cranmer and Ridley, remain to this day as those great reformers left them. The chief assistants of archbishop Parker in his work of revision here were Cox, bishop of Ely, Guest (orGheast), bishop of Ro- chester, Grindal, bishop of London, and Jewel, bishop of Salisbury. It is not in the province of a history to make definite and dog- matic pronounce- ments. It would be very hard to make such pro- nouncements in the matter of the famous formula of the Church of England, the The legitimate work is to set out facts, 1571 thirty-nine articles, of the historian and, where it is possible, to indicate results as far as they can be ascertained. Quali- fied praise, but still unmistakable praise, from serious and responsible persons, has been given again and again during the last three centuries. On the other hand, un- stinted condemnation has been poured on 366 THE CHURCH the great Anglican formulary by able and eloquent, if somewhat latitudinarian writers. Mr. Froude's comment is a good illustration of such views. Writing of the Act of Par- liament in which the thirty-nine articles received the formal sanction of the imperial legislature in i 571, the eminent historian says : " A Bill . . . made its way to the Statute-book to trouble the peace of broader times. Convocation, nine vears before (in 1562), had reimposed upon the clergy, so far as they had powers to legislate, the too celebrated thirty-nine articles of religion. The Parliament had then refused their sanction to a measure which went beyond the most extravagant pretensions of the Church of Rome in laying a yoke upon the conscience. But their moderation forsook them now. The heavy chains de- scended. The faith of England, which, but for this fatal step, might have expanded with the growth of the nation, was hard- ened into unchanging formuke, and in- tellect was condemned to make its further progress unsanctified by religion, the enemy of the Church, instead of being its hand- maid." * On the other hand, the quiet observer might point to the position which the Church of England holds in the great country of which every Englishman is so justly proud, a position which, as years roll onwards, and its responsibilities broaden and deepen, grows ever stronger and stronger, and more far-reaching in its prac- tically boundless influence. " Would it," probably asks the same quiet observer, "have ever reached that position of mighty influence, still less maintained it, without some such broad and massive formulary of * " Hist, of England," vol. x., chap. xxi. OF ENGLAND. [l562. faith to guide and steady its accredited teachers ? " That it may fairly be taken as representing that middle course ever chosen and trodden by the most faith- ful and thoughtful of the sons of the Church of England, is well exemplified bv the Calvinist assertion at the com- mencement of this centurv (the nineteenth) which claimed the " articles " as abetting the peculiar but wide-spread Calvinistic views ; while, near the close of this same century, the same articles, in a learned and somewhat exhaustive treatise bv a well- known learned Scottish prelate of a very different school of thought on the famous Anglican formulary, appear as a body of exclusively Catholic divinity. The work of Cranmer and Ridley, of Parker and Jewel, of Guest and Grindal, may be — undoubtedlv is — criticised by various minds, by various schools. That it is honeycombed with faults is indisputable : what merely human work, however grand and great, is not ? But that it was a good work and a great one, no fair and umbiassed critic can for a single moment doubt ; that it has been an enduring work, and promises still to endure, the same fair and unbiassed critic will unhesitatingly allow. Without entering into any detailed description of the changes in the " Angli- can Formulary" — slight changes, after all — effected by the Elizabethan divines, it will be interesting as a piece of theological history just to glance at a few of the more weighty changes or additions. In Article XXII., which was directed against the teaching concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of images as of reliques, in the words of introduction, the phrase " Romish I562.] THE CHURCH'S EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE. 367 Doctrine concerning purgatory " was substi- tuted for the more general and historical, " Doctrine of the Schoolmen." The twenty-fourth article, "Of speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the people understandeth," was framed in more expressive language than before. In the thirty-second article a clause was added, in which the legality of marriage on the part of bishops, priests, and deacons was at length openly affirmed. But the most important in a doctrinal point of view were the words added to the article " Of the Lord's Supper," now the twenty-eighth ; and the intro- duction of the twenty-ninth, " Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper." It has been before pointed out at some length how the great English reformers, Ridley, Cranmer, and their companions, with great earnestness pressed the doctrine of the real but spiritual reception of Christ's body in the Eucharist. Let us give a very brief summary of these views, according to the doctrines of the Anglo-Saxon Church. In the words of Elfric (" Epistola de Canonibus," addressed to bishop Wulfsine) : " That housel (i.e. the Eucharist) is Christ's body, not bodily, but ghostly." In the words of Ridley: "The true Church of Christ doth acknowledge a presence 01 Christ's Body in the Lord's Supper to be communicated to the godly by grace, and spiritually." In the words of Cranmer: " My doctrine is, that He (Christ) is by faith spiritually present with us, and is our spiritual food and nourishment. ... I say that the same visible and palpable flesh that was for us crucified ... is eaten of Christian people at His Holy Supper. . . . The diversity is not in the body, but in the eating thereof ; no man eating it carnally, but the good eating it both sacramentally and spiritually, and the evil only sacramentallv — that is, figuratively." For this truth the great reformers gave their bodies to be burned. In the words of Jewel (in the " Apology ") : " We plainly pronounce in the Supper the Body and Blood of the Lord, the flesh of the Son of God, to be exhibited to those who truly believe." Hooker w ith singular clearness repeats the same doctrine (Ecc. Polity, v., lxvii., 0) : " The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not, therefore, to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament." And again : " As for the Sacraments, they really exhibit, but lor aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really, nor do really contain in themselves that grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to bestow." This doctrine had already been clearly expressed in the article " Of the Lord's Supper " in the forty-two articles of Cranmer of 1552, in the words " To such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ." Archbishop Parker, however, determining to press right home this doctrine, added to the article in question (the present twenty-eighth) the memorable words, the full signification of which none could ever possibly mistake : " The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Snpper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body 368 THE CHURCH of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith." * Not satisfied even with this, the Elizabethan reformers in- sisted on yet another article being added (the present twenty-ninth). We say in- sisted, for the queen (or her council) at first expunged this article, which Con- vocation had authorised. The article in question is entitled "Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper." The article runs thus: "The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ : but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing." The above brief but thoroughly ex- haustive references, added to what has been said before, show clearly what was the mind of the Edwardian and Elizabethan reformers on this momentous question, which has such far-reaching results, and which may be considered the great doctrinal question agitated at the Re- formation. They gave effect to their views, for which they were prepared to die, and for which some, we have seen, did die, in the Edwardian formulary of 1552. And the same views were reiterated with still more expressive statements in the Elizabethan formulary of 1562 and 1 571, and which has remained the for- mulary, in the form of the Thirty-nine * This weighty addendum was drawn up by Dr. Guest, bishop of Rochester, Parker's friend and assistant. See Guest's letter to Sir William Cecil, dated Dec. 22, 1561. OF ENGLAND. [,S62. Articles, of the Church of England ever since. * Article XXX., " Of both kinds," which enjoined that the cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the " Lay-people," was also added in this Elizabethan revision. After this important meeting of Convo- cation in 1562, in which all the important questions above referred to were decided upon, "for several years the Church con- tinued to be governed by the archbishop.'' Parker's " prerogatives as primate seem not to have been disputed. Convocation met several times, but little business of an ecclesiastical character was transacted. The Convocations were duly assembled, but were chiefly employed in granting subsidies to the crown. Towards the end of the great archbishop's life, he presided over an important meeting of Convocation in 1571." At this Convocation, the thirty- nine articles were read and again confirmed, and signed by both houses, and the bishops were required to obtain the signatures of the clergy of their respective dioceses. The year has been described by some as " the woeful year of subscription." The same year the thirty-nine articles received the formal sanction of Parliament. In the Reformation story, no chapter contains pleasanter reading than that which recounts the noble and persistent efforts of the Reformers of different schools of thought and various nationalities to place * A list has already been given of the most famous Anglican divines, whom bishop Harold Browne (Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, article xxviii., section 1) does not hesitate to style the great luminaries of our church, all of whom have left us writings on the subject, and who, with very slight diversity, have agreed here in the sub- stance of their belief. .The flood. Genefis. Noah. latter enhe of valftn all tiiprnjca aerc mole tilrafaitnt.thF HjIBOClltudu on came. 00 #ot m Mb punpfhs tnent etcnein yiaccoTtcpena jauncc. € Blttpmttepti tro, (* that u rXcemetlj to f*KSlOlttOtl|f .Iroftcimin, /^llrnlKK* eftflloo ftapc& 41 Spacers ouolthcartic n) fflmretf fpittotttotetti rjcfo> the qoc« Ip c ti (duet), thenthepes flTamon of «£c top set) Ipfcfti tt)e C!0feconDe moneth, the fcuen< tceneDapof pmonetn.m the fame nap iDece alt tljr fountapnes of the gteat Detpe bjoften bp, anD the ibynDotbes of ncaucnvbeecopcnetr. iz 3lnD the capne UiasDpon the cacti) ®3 fbuctie Dapcs anD fourtte ntgutcs. 13 3mthc fcife lame Dap, cnttcb |2oalj, anD&em,anb $am,anD3aphcthtl)c fotmes of /3oab,anD /Boahs ibpfe, anD tbctlmc unucs of his fotmes Ibtth the into the acfte. v 14 Xhep,(0anD euerp btafit after ftte InnDcanD ai tljc cattel aftcctheir MM, pea,anD cuetp tbomie that cr eepetl) bp* on the srounuc after his ftinbcanb cue- rye bpzte aftcchis HinDe^m) euerp flee* pnganDfethereDfonle. 15 2MB rhep tame bnto jftoalj Into the at ft ctujo anD ttbo.of all rtcuje Vbheran tsthcbjeathoflpfe, T6 3tnD thep cntrpng in, tame male anD female of all flefbe, as con Ijac torn- maunocD him: anD w 000 (but hpm in rounDc about. 17 :M> the fiuDDe tame fourtte Dapesbp* onthr earth, anD toe waters ibere m* crcafcD,anD bate Dp toe arfte,lCbDtthe iDas Ip ft Dp abouc tljc cacti). is ffletbatecsalfo Vbareb (icons, anD Ibere enttcafcD ercceDpnglp Dpon tljc cartlj : anD fo the acfte ibent Dpon ti)c bppcrfaccofthelbaters. 19 3lnD tlje tbatcrs pjeuapieb ercccDtng; Ip Dpon tl)e cacti), anD ai toe high bales tOat ace bnicr the("° Vbhole beancn, Xbere toncceD. 20 JrpftcenccubitcsbpibarDDiD tljerba* terspjeuapit, fo that the mountapnes toccecoucrcD. ai *3lnD wali fleujepcritbeD.that moucD Dpon the cacti), in fonte, tn cattell, tn bea(t,anD in cuccp ibojme that tceepetU upon the earth, pea, anD cuccp man alfo. u £>ofl)atwan tbathaD the bjeatfi of Ipfc in Ijts nodraies t%oughout all that was on tlje « Djpc ianDc,upcD. n 3lnD cuccp uibuaunte Ibas DcftropeD tljatccmapncD anD tbatlbas tn tljc bp* pecpactofthcgcounDcbothman ana tattcll, ano ibomie, anD tljc toule of the ficaucn.tbcp ibere euenDclrcopeD from tf the cactlj.anD^^oalj onipe remap* neD aiiue,anD thep that tDere unth him tn the acfte. 2+ ffiut the ibater pmiapleb bpon the cacti), a JjunDjcthanDfifticDapeg. Sucre otoct carrraicr eustte. but IhUSraflSSk' acmu. VViClxM. Ecclc.xL (.n) Wjem-te UOUfl puupfo- mtnt of <£oQ (BttniM- WCttftA U Bjat Uuit. rp) £>l Gibe there is eta mention raaw bpSSoffW, van he "• roattjco.fci: titer rclotocD Ooo.throtri; mulnruot ot SDpttrt. U'ettui CXftc PAGE FROM PARKER'S " BISHOPS' BIBLE." {British Museum.) 84 370 THE CHURCH the Bible, in a language thev could under- stand, within the reach of every English man and woman. We have alreadv dwelt in some detail upon the labours of a former generation, represented bv the brilliant cosmopolitan scholar Erasmus, by Luther in Germany, by Swiss and German divines of the Rhine cities of Basle and Strasburg, and the lake towns of Zurich and Geneva, represented in England by Tvndale and Coverdale. We have described also the work of Cranmer in his Great Bible of 1540. The Marian exiles, who had temporarily chosen Geneva as their home, gave a still further impulse to these efforts, for the group of English scholars, dwelling during the days of the English persecution in the beautiful city of Calvin, employed the comparative period of leisure during their exile in bringing out another, a more portable, cheaper, and hence more gener: ally accessible edition of the English Bible. These scholars, among whom were Whittingham. who had married Calvin's sister, Goodman, Pullain, Sampson, and Coverdale, carefully revised Tyndale's famous English version. " They entered," we read, " upon their great and wonderful work with much fear and trembling," working, it is said, day and night. The New Testament, done by Whittingham, was printed in 1557. the whole Bible in 1560. It became the most popular of all versions, and was largely read in Eng- land, where it was first printed in 1561, under a patent of monopoly given ^to James Bodlev, the father of the founder of the world-famed Bodleian library at Oxford. This patent was transferred in 1576 to one Bayter, in whose family, the right of printing Bibles remained for OF ENGLAND. [,SS7. upwards of a century. Not less 'than eighty editions, some of the whole Bible, were printed between 1558 and 161 1. The causes of the singular and enduring popularity of the so-called Genevan Bible are not far to seek. Different from the preceding versions, it was, comparatively speaking, a portable and hand}- volume, a small quarto. The far more plain and legible Roman type was used, and it was divided into verses, following the Hebrew example. The notes, too, were of their kind interesting, and often helpful, though strongly coloured, as might have been ex- pected, with the Calvinism under whose shadow the revisers of this celebrated version lived and worked. It was deeply regrettable that most of the earl)- printed ■ Bibles contained so many polemical notes, as noticed already in speaking of Erasmus's . work. The influence of such notes on the ( readers was, of course, incalculable, and sadly contributed in too many cases to bigotry and want of Christian charity. The theology and views which the comments in the Geneva Bible inculcated, were particu- ; larly acceptable to the Puritan party through the whole reign of Elizabeth, and her two successors. It was no doubt the presence of these polemical notes, and their strong Calvinistic bias,* which largely induced * As a specimen of these notes, we would in- stance the note on Rev. ix. 3, where we read : " The locusts that come out of the smoke, are said to be like subtle prelates, with monks, friars, car- • dinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops." ' And the note on 2 Chron. xv., 16 : " Herein he showed that he lacked zeal, for she ought to have died." It has been said that this was one of the texts, thus commented upon, which Scotch fanatics had handled in connection with the name of king James I.'s mother, the hapless Mary Stuart, queen of Scots. 1 568.] THE BISHOPS' BIBLE. •3-7-1 archbishop Parker to take in hand the weil-known version of the Scriptures, one of the great works of his archiepiscopate, known as "the Bishops' Bible." , Great and elaborate preparations were made for this undertaking of Parker's. Fourteen revisers were employed, and they were altogether at work for about 2 ©6e ojDet of burnt otfewejf * calico tonto ^opfes, ana fjpattetmtoltfm out of t\)t ttv bernatleoftlje congregation, faying: •§>pcanet)n* totljc tiymnn of^lfcael, £ tljonfyalt lap imto tDenu 3ffacoman of pon tying a wfacrifice im* totDeflofle^efyau tyyng voucfacrt* ftce from among tijefc cattell, enenfro among ttje beefr s ann tfje w fl)«pe» INITIAL FROM THE " BISHOPS' JilBLE." {British Museum). four years, 1563-4 to 1568. The idea of the archbishop was to adopt the improve- ments of the Genevan version,, while avoiding that extreme party spirit which disfigured that work in the eyes of Anglican churchmen of the school of. Parker, who desired that the Church of England should steadily hold its middle course. The com- pany consisted of eight bishops, including Dr. Cox, bishop of Ely, Dr. Sandys of Worcester, and bishop. Guest, of whom we hear so often as Parker's assistant and friend, as well as several deans and professors. Parker was the editor of the whole ; and besides the general superin- tendence, the archbishop -was responsible for several of the ; books in the Old and New Testaments. Among the instructions issued to his coadjutors, was a remarkable one warning them " to make no use of bitter notes upon any text, or yet to set down any determination in places of con- troversy." Everything was done to make this " Bishops' Bible " attractive. Wood en- gravings of a high character were freely introduced, with beautiful portraits of Elizabeth, lords Leicester and Burleigh, a map of Palestine, etc. The initials of the revisers were attached to the books which they had severalty undertaken to edit. The magnificent folio of the Bishops' Bible appeared in 1568 and 1572. It was enjoined that each cathedral should have a copy, and this provision was extended gradually to all parochial churches. It was also ordered that every bishop should have in his house a copy to be placed in the hall or dining-room, that it might be used by their household, or by strangers. It is observable, however, that the Bishops' Bible, of, all the English versions, -had, on the whole, the least success. Its great size and cost prevented its general circu- lation, which was practically limited to the cathedrals and churches. • A few words should here be added on the subject of the versions which maybe said to ^belong exclusively to the Roman Catholic devotees of the " old learning." Some English exiles belonging to the •Romish obedience, produced at Rheinis, in 1582; an. English version, largely based on the authentic text of the Vulgate. 372 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1582. Notes were appended, keenly controversial and dogmatic in character. The work was completed in 1608 bv the publication of the Old Testament at Donai. These Romish revisions charged all the English versions hitherto made, with being "false, corrupt, heretical." As might have been expected, these productions of the men of the "old learning" have been, compara- WOODCUT ILLUSTRATION I'ROM THE (British Museum.) tively speaking, little used, and even Roman Catholic scholars confess their manifest inferiority to the versions pro- duced by the Protestants of the new learning. The "authorised version," which still remains to be spoken of, will be described in detail in its proper place in the year 161 1. Passing from the work of editing and revising the English Bible ; passing from the work of legislation, from the making and revising service books and formularies of religion which were to influence not only the age which witnessed their composition or revision, but many as yet unborn genera- tions of churchmen, to the inner life of the church during the first fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, when Matthew Parker was archbishop, we shall find a state of things which must have given grave and ceaseless anxiety to the eminent Elizabethan bishops and reformers, but at the same time must have afforded them real ground of hopefulness for the church, for which they were so tirelessly working. We possess different pictures of this Elizabethan church, circa 1558 — 1576, painted by men who were well ac- quainted with its inner life. Some used bright" colours for their pictures, others worked with sombre neutral tints, ac- cording to the minds of the painters, and perhaps partly chosen with a view to the special object for which these pictures were drawn. Comparing, however, the various pictures together, the bright and the sombre, we shall fairly arrive at the truth, and the truth appears to have been that, in spite of much that was sad and disheartening, the English church during these earlier years of the great reign was, on the whole, a strong church, which fairly represented the religious feeling of the great majority of the English people. Its influence was, BISHOPS BIBLE 1564-1565-] THE VESTIARIAN CONTROVERSY. 373 however, vastly lessened by the presence among the people of the two powerful parties — the Puritans, of whom we have lately been speaking, on the one side, and the Roman Catholic party on the other ; both of whom had strong hopes of cap- turing it, and of even- tually moulding it after their own especial and peculiar views. In the very centre of the Church of England there was much search- ing of hearts among its rulers on the question of the vestments of the clergy, which included much besides the mere dress of the clergy. This vestiarian controversy, as it is termed, sorely exercised the minds of men like Jewel and Sandys, Grindal, and others, who had been influenced by the spirit of foreign reformed churches during their exile in the days of queen Mary. These were scandalised by such practices as the retention of the crucifix in the queen's chapel, the continued use of the cope, the tacit approval of the Latin service, and of many of the ancient mediaeval services sanctioned in the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI., at the uni- versities and public schools. They disliked the square cap and the distinctive dress worn generally by the clergy. They ob- jected to the episcopal robes, looking upon all this as contrary to the spirit of the „m ,^,,,1. ^t^Ayfiv^ ■ ///(..now/ v.«r (iH^KAtt+i^r 1 r iiftflrtii COPY OF INJUNCTIONS TO BE CONFESSED AND SUBSCRIBED BY THEM THAT SHALBE ADMYTTED READERS, 1562." (British Museum ) Reformation — as a retrograde movement in the direction of the old worn-out me- dievalism, from which they hoped the Reformation had purified the church. Generally united in doctrine, these men THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1564— 1566. gravely differed among themselves on manv questions of ceremonial and ritual observance. On many of these points, however, Parker and Cecil, and above all the queen, were determined. So most of the chief leaders, such men as Jewel, Grindal, and Sandys, somewhat reluctantly vielded. They con- sented to wear the objectionable dresses, and in other ways to subordinate their wishes to the established order of things, and, as far as they could, to enforce compliance on others. But this vestiarian controversy long agitated and sorelv weakened the church. The conduct of the more Puritan leaders in thus yielding was warmly approved by such far-sighted and moderate reformers on the Continent as Peter Martyr, who knew England well, and Bullinger at Zurich and Strasburg ; but at Geneva, Beza, Calvin's successor, took a different view, and his views and the remonstrances of his school did much to foment and keep alive the uneasy spirit of revolt, and even of dissent, among not a few churchmen in England. Worse than this, in the English Church at this period there was undoubtedly con- siderable laxity and disorder, and not a little deplorable irreverence in the conduct of the services, in the state of the cathedrals and parish churches, and even in the lives led by certain of the higher clergy. In a document addressed to archbishop Parker by the minister Cecil, we read, for instance, the following stern remonstrance respecting diversity in use and irreverence in the conduct of divine service, and especially in the administration of the Holy Communion: " Some of the clergy perform divine service and pravers in the chancel, others in the body of the church — some in a seat made ih the church, some in the pulpit with their, faces to the people ; some keep precisely to the order of the Book, some intermix psalms in metre ; some officiate with a surplice, ■ and others without it. . . In some places the table stands in the body of the church, in others it stands in the chancel ; in some places it stands altar-wise, distant from the wall a yard, in others it stands in the middle of the chancel, north and south ; in some places the table is joined, in others it stands upon tressels ; in some the table has a carpet, in others none. . . . Some administer the Communion with surplice and cope, some with surplice alone, some with neither ; some with chalice, others with Communion cup ; some with unleavened bread, ethers with leavened ; some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting ; some baptize in a font, others in a basin ; some sign with the sign of the cross, others make no sign ; some administer with a surplice, some without ; some with a square cap. some with a round cap ; some in scholar's clothes, some in others." This carelessness and irreverence, not un- common as it would seem, in all care and attention paid to the churches and their sacred furniture, was evidently an object of grave anxiety to Elizabeth. In a remon- strance, addressed by the queen to arch- bishop Parker, we read : " It breedeth no small offence and scandal to see and con- sider, upon the one part, the curiosity and cost bestowed by all sorts of men upon their private houses ; and, on the other part, the unclean and negligent order and spare keeping of the houses of prayer, by permitting open decays and ruins of 1564-1565] IRREGULARITIES covering of walls and windows, and by ap- pointing unmeet and unseemly tables with foul cloths for the communion of the Sacra- ment, and generally leaving the place of prayer desolate of all cleanliness and of meet ornament for such a place, whereby it might be known a place provided for divine service." The licence to marry, and the results of this licence, at first caused considerable offence to many, and in some cases seems to have led to lax and self-indulgent living. In Elizabeth's eyes such living was always more or less- a- scandal ; and . we : have seen how difficult it was for Parker, who earnestly desired the removal of all the old celibacy restrictions, to induce the queen to give her sanction to the "Article" which for ever; as far as the Church of England was concerned, swept away the ancient mediaeval restriction. : There is no doubt whatever that at first, among the clergy, the licence to marry gave cause for complaint and even scandal. , Very earl\- in her reign, Elizabeth forbade cathedral dignitaries to have their wives and children residing with them within the cathedral closes, under pain of for- feiting their promotions. " Cathedrals and colleges," said , the queen, '".had been founded to keep societies of learned men professing study and prayer, and the rooms intended for students were not to be sacrificed to women and children." There were, no doubt, at first many deplorable instances of laxity and self- indulgence. . The rapid changes in the whole aspect of the constitution of the church had " necessarily ( lowered the efficiency of the body of the clergy. Men who live through rapid transition either IN THE CHURCH. 375 become violent partisans, or grow timorous, cynical,' and indifferent. The leaders, on either side had, in the late violent changes, been ejected in their turn ; the clergy who remained were not men of strong character or much capacity. The old clergy were many of them indifferent. The younger were often of little learning and of lowly birth," * We read, for instance, of cases where the singing-men of the choirs of cathedrals became the prebends' private servants, having the church's stipend for their wages. We hear of the cathedral plate adorning the prebendal sideboards and dinner ' tables ; of organ • pipes , being melted into dishes for their kitchens ; of organ frames 1 carved into bedsteads ; . of even ' the copes and sacred . vestments, coveted for their elaborate and gilded embroidery, being slit into gowns and bodices. t. No doubt such disorderly proceedings were not by any means universal. It would be the grossest exaggeration to suggest that such a state of things as that pictured above generally existed in the English church ; but that examples of such scandals were by no means unknown in this period is evident from the testimony of contemporary records which we possess. It was, no doubt, with the desire of correcting such disorders, and with the view of putting an end to irregularities in the conduct of divine service and in the * Froude curiously calls attention to the frequent surnames of " Clark, Parson, Deacon, Dean, Prior, Abbot, Bishop, Frere, and Monk " being memorials of the stigma affixed by English prejudice on the children of the first married representatives of the sacred orders. (" History," vol. vii. , chap, vi.) , t Bishop Creighton : " Queen Elizabeth," chap, iv. 576 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1564— 1566. general administration of ecclesiastical matters — irregularities which too often shaded into positive acts of irreverence — that archbishop Parker put into force in 1566 certain ordinances, known as the "Advertisements." As earlv as 1564 these " Advertisements " had been drawn up, but at first they had not received the royal sanction which was afterwards given to them. Thev have since been quoted as authoritative in the canons of 1661. and were recognised as the " Advertisements of queen Elizabeth " in the canons of 1640, which were ratified bv king Charles L* In these " Advertisements " the clergy were required to urge in their preaching the reverent estimation of the Holv Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, pressing people to the often and devout receiving the Holv Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Every clergyman who was licensed was required to preach in his own person once in three months, or by a deputv appointed by the bishop. (This singular and sparing command to preach shows us how un- accustomed were the parochial clergy to preach at all.) Frequent communions were enjoined in cathedrals and colleges. The principal minister in the administra- tion of the Holv Communion was to use a cope. The dean and prebendaries of a cathedral were to wear the surplice with silk hood in the choir ; and the silk hood was to be worn whenever they preached in the cathedral. The baptismal font was not to be replaced by a basin. On the Lord's Day shops were to be closed ; but a proviso which forbade the displaving of * Compare Dean Hook : " Archbishops," vol. ix., chap xii , who gives the authorities. any goods before the service was done, showed that fairs and markets were some- times, at all events, held on Sundavs. The Rogation days were to be observed, and Psalms and Litany were to be sung. Searching inquiries were ordered to be made into the character of candidates for holv orders. The bishops were to appear in the dress usually adopted by their order before the Reformation. The other clergy were ordered to adopt a distinctive dress for their common apparel — " a side gown with sleeves, and tippets of sarcinet." But while recognising the existence of occasional disorder, and even of misrule, and here and there of deplorable irreverence in the case of some of the clergy in their method of saying or singing the services, we must be careful not to form our idea of the Elizabethan church from the de- scriptions selected only by picturesque historians. We have another picture of the same church, painted in verv different colours, bv Peter Hevlin, who wrote onlv about half a century after the death of Parker in 1576, and who was born in the year 1600, when Elizabeth was still reign- ing. Hevlin was chaplain to archbishop Laud. He became his intimate friend in the year 1627, and had, therefore, ex- ceptional opportunities of forming a fair conception of the state of the church during the half-century before his time. Dean Hook, in his quotation of Hevlin's view of the church, "first settled and established under queen Elizabeth," thus sums up his own view of Heylin's pic- ture : " Peter Heylin lived near enough to the time to render his testimony to the success of Parker's labours valuable ; and even if he took a favourable view of the OROAN-BELLOWS AND BLOWERS IN THE CATHEDRAL AT HALBERSTADT. (From Praetorius' "Syntagma Musi cum;' published in 1619. This fellows room is stated by Praetorius to have been erected as early as 1325, and to have remained unchanged till 1619.) 37« THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1564—1566. case, he will be found, on examination, to prove substantially correct." * Archbishop Laud's chaplain (Dr. Heylin) thus writes : "Now we may behold the face of the Church of England, as it was first settled and established under queen Eliza- beth. The government of the church by archbishops and bishops, according to the practice of the best and happiest times of Christianity. These bishops nominated and elected according to the statute in the twenty-fifth of king Henry VIII., and con- secrated by the ordinal confirmed by Par- liament in the fifth and sixth years of king Edward VI., never appearing publicly but in their rochets, nor officiating otherwise than in copes at the holy altar. The priests not stirring out of doors but in their square caps, gowns, or canonical coats, nor executing any divine office but in their surplice — a vestment set apart for religious services in the primitive times. " The doctrine of the church reduced into its ancient purity according to the articles agreed upon in Convocation. "The liturgy conformed to the primitive patterns, and all the rites and ceremonies therein prescribed, accommodated to the honour of God and the increase of piety. " The festivals preserved in their former dignity, observed with their distinct offices peculiar to them, and celebrated with a * It must, however, be remembered that Heylin's picture of the Church of England was drawn in the days of Laud ; after that great church organiser had reduced many things to order, which evidently in the early days of the Elizabethan settlement had been left undetermined. Still, such a state of things as Heylin^depicts could never have been the creation of one man, however earnest, capable, and energetic, as, undoubtedly, Laud was. There must have been a generally well-ordered shurch, and one full of vigour and life before his day (i.e. in the times of Elizabeth). religious concourse of all sorts of people. The weekly fasts, the holy times of Lent, the embering weeks, together with the fast of the Rogation, severely kept by the forbearance of all kind of flesh. " The sacrament of the Lord's Supper celebrated in the most reverent manner, the holy table seated in the place of the altar. " Music retained in all such churches in which provision had been made for the maintenance of it, or where the people could be trained up, at the least, to plain song. All which particulars were either established by the laws, or commanded by the queen's injunctions, or otherwise retained by virtue of some ancient usages." The writer then went on to say, it was not to be wondered at that these ancient usages were constantly observed in all cathedrals, and in the most part of parish churches, " considering how well they were precedented by the court itself, in which the liturgy was officiated every day both morning and evening, not only in the public chapel, but in the private closet (of the queen) ; celebrated in the chapel with organ and other musical instruments, and the most excellent voices both of men and children that could be got in all the kingdom. The gentlemen and children in their surplices, and the priests in copes as oft as they attended service at the holy altar. The altar furnished with rich plate, two fair candlesticks with tapers in them, and a massy crucifix of silver in the midst thereof." * * Heylin: " Cyprianus Anglicanus," p. 17 ;^and Heylin : " Hist, of the Reformation," p. 314. Edit. Robertson, quoted by Hook : "Archbishops," vol. xi., chap. xii. ■1564-1566.] PICTURES OF THE CH Another testimony to the flourishing state 01 the Anglican Church is also given by a foreign contemporary of Parker in the following terms : " How gravely, learnedly, and christianly, his grace (archbishop Parker) and others, the bishops, by their most godly travail, with the good help of the queen's (Elizabeth's) laws in that behalf provided, had reformed the state of the corrupt church, restored to God his due honour in public service . . . delivered the thralled minds of true Christians from their heavy bondage and oppression, drawn deceived souls out of most dangerous error, and to the people's eternal comfort published the most glorious light of God's most holy truth." * ; <- : : Such descriptions as these, even if painted in too bright colours, must be taken into account when the condition of the Church of England under Elizabeth is considered. It has been the fashion with many eminent historians f to speak slight- ingly of the two first great Protestant archbishops, Cranmer and Parker, who took so large a part in settling the con- dition of the Anglican church ; the first especially in the matter of her doctrines, the second in the matter of her govern- ment and administration, as well as in the confirmation of Cranmer's doctrinal formularies. Of Cranmer we have already written with much detail; his history must be his apologia pro vita, sua ; whether or not the apology convinces the reader of * " Wolfgang Musculus," quoted by Hook, ix., chap. xii. f See Macaulay's estimate of Cranmer, chap i. ; Froude's view of Parker, vol. xi., chap. xxv. Some church historians also are too ready to adopt these estimates. JRCH UNDER PARKER 379 the true greatness of the man and his work, will of course considerably depend on the views of the student himself. . One fact is indisputable — the work he did wa> an enduring work. As to Parker, the second Protestant archbishop, the accusa- tions levelled against him of selfish greed and excessive love of pomp and power, have been dealt with exhaustively, and, most of us think, effectually disproved. Two grave and thoughtful summaries by eminent historical scholars, each of them forming his estimate of the work and character of the great Elizabethan archbishop from a very different stand- point, have already been quoted,* and deserve to be carefully pondered over by every student of the making of the Church of England and the days of the famous Protestant queen. A third may be appropriately cited in this place. " Parker closed a laborious and upright life with all the foresight, firmness, and complacency that marked a vigorous, equable, and religious mind. A natural gravity had kept him eyen in youth from spectacles, games, and field-sports. His memory was naturally odious to the Puri- tans, and has ever been roughly treated by • dissenters. ■ But Parker; was really, in private, strictly moral, . accessible, liberal, and methodical. As a public man, plain good sense, command of tongue and tem- per, laborious diligence, cautious decision, depth of penetration, and unity of purpose, appear to have been his characteristics. He had, as we have seen, neither any superstitious reverence for the externals that he enforced, nor much tenderness for scruples that could make such things * See page 344. 380 THE CHURCH important. He thought merely of the law, and of the ancient prejudices that could make such things expedient. He was no forward nor even unreluctant volunteer in entering upon its religious execution ; but the painful duty having been forced upon him by his superiors, he discharged it steadily to the end of life. Many men would have slackened undoubtedly, when sometimes deserted, sometimes thwarted, by the very power that had urged them into it. Parker contented himself with complaining of a tortuous policy, that he felt personally unjust and harassing, that was uncongenial to his plain, blunt nature, and revolting to his principles. He knew well besides that Elizabeth, although seemingly vacillating herself, would bear no vacillation in him. Nor would a scholar's eye allow him either to doubt the propriety of his determina- tion or its ultimate success. Having none of the politician's pliancy, his discretion, learning, and integrity failed of securing all their proper weight among contem- poraries. The same cause has widely operated to the prejudice of his memory upon posterity." * It says much for the archbishop's wisdom and power of conciliation that he was able to preserve Elizabeth's friendship and support to the end, in spite of his firm opposition to much that the queen wished to introduce or to preserve in the Anglican settlement. Near the close of his life Elizabeth paid a state visit to the archbishop, in the course of which she expressed herself very warmly towards her old servant, telling him how gratifying to her had been this last entertainment * Soames : " Elizabethan History,'' p. 246. OF ENGLAND. [IS76. of his, in which he had conspicuously displayed his loyalty, etc. Parker was a great example of a man who, in spite of suffering and constant ill- health, utterly regardless of himself, lived a life of ceaseless work. He literally died in harness, thinking of his loved church, toiling for it, to the last. When too weak to write, sixteen .days before he passed away he dictated an important letter to his old friend and fellow- labourer Cecil (lord Burleigh), intended for his royal mistress's eye, warning her against the Puritans and Anabaptists. In his will, which is dated only a few days before his death, after a singularly beautiful and touching expression of his belief that by the precious death and merits of his most merciful Lord and Saviour Christ he would obtain forgive- ness and indulgence, if he had in any wavs offended his Lord God either by imprudence or evil or weakness, he be- queathed and commended his soul into the hands of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and his body to the earth to be buried, or any other way to be handled, as Almighty God had determined the hour, manner, and place of dying accord- ing to His good pleasure. The black marble tomb of the great prelate, prepared bv himself when in life, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, was ruthlessly destroyed, the body of the archbishop dug up, the lead torn off the coffin, and the mortal remains heedlessly and shamefully buried in a dunghill by the wild rage of the Puritans in the reign of Charles I. After the Restoration, arch- bishop Sancroft, under an order from the House of Lords, searched for and recovered 1576.] DEATH OF PARKER. 38i the mouldering bones. These were rever- in the government of the church, lay in ently reinterred in the same chapel, and the collecting of valuable manuscripts, the sad inscription graved over the tomb, mostly relating to the early history of Photo : J. T. Sandell, Thornton Heath. LAMBETH PALACE CHAPEL. "Corpus Matthaei Archiepiscopi hie tandem quiescit." In the evening of his work-filled life, in his rare intervals of leisure, the archbishop's great interest, outside his ceaseless labours England, some of which were edited and published under his superintendence. The historian and student should ever hold his memory in grateful memory. His collection of these records, which have through his care become available for scholars, is in itself 382 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. of rare value, while the noble example he set by this work of his was perhaps still more precious. His collection still exists, in the Parker Library of his college of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, where it is the greatest treasure of that ancient and honourable house, and is preserved with extraordinary care by the "Society," who are fully conscious of the value of their great master's loving bequest.* To pre- serve from destruction the scattered ancient monuments of national learning, once in the libraries of the confiscated monasteries, many of which, alas ! had been sold for " waste," as we have already related, the archbishop employed agents to make search through England and Wales for books of all sorts, but especially historical. Among the more important of these ancient national works edited by Parker were the " Flores Historiarum " (per Mathaeum Westmonasteriensem collecti), the "His- toria Major " of Matthew Paris, Walsing- ham's " Historia Anglicana," Asser's " Life of Alfred," and an edition of Elfric's Anglo-Saxon Homily, to which reference has been made on more than one occasion in this History ; Parker recognising the great value of this latter as a monument of the belief and teaching of the Anglo-Saxon Church on a subject round which such long fierce controversy had exercised men's minds in the Reforma- tion age. ' \ It is, indeed, no little to the credit of the great archbishop that he found time, in the midst of his perplexing and never- ending cares, for such work . as this. , In * It has been the ancient practice that in all inspections of the precious Parker MSS.," two members of the foundation should be present. England he will ever rank as one of the first who saw the necessity of providing materials for the student and scholar, out of which the story of the Church of England from the earliest times might be told and retold. Vast stores of this lore, the archbishop was conscious, once existed. The libraries of the ruined monasteries had been extraordinarily rich in these ancient monuments of learning. A large portion of the ample leisure of the monastic orders, especially of the great Benedictine com- munity, had been spent in copying and arranging these chronicles. These had been, as we have remarked, dispersed, and in many cases wantonly destroyed, but many still existed. An enormous number were, according to tradition, gathered together, thanks to Parker's diligence ; we even read of as many as 6,700 volumes having been procured by one of his agents in the course of four years' diligent search. Some of these were probably worthless, and laid aside ; others were no doubt copies of the same work, and it is presumable that the number of the books was greatly exagger- ated ; but we possess a catalogue of 482 of these precious manuscripts, given to the library of Corpus Christi college by the book-loving archbishop, who may fairly be given the honour of being the first of the great English collectors of materials for the history of England. For although his especial care was for church history, to which he ascribed so great a value, his col- lection .was .of the greatest importance in the civil history of his country. Parker, wise and devoted churchman though he was, must be considered pre-eminently a scholar ; his tastes . and pleasures were those of a patient and earnest student ; PARKER AND ELIZABETHAN , LITERATURE. but his great literary work, which was the charm and delight of the closing years of his most useful, life, was the outcome of "his desire':to give the Elizabethan church a basis in'the past." * , Among • the ' glories of the reign of Elizabeth, the wonderful development, of literature in England was the most en- during, and. has had the most permanent effect on the marvellous progress of the English > nation; The impulse was first given >by archbishop • Parker,' in; his great work of collecting.the historical manuscripts from the wreck of the monastic libraries. He was followed by ! other historical scholars who profited by his labours ; by Stow, the careful antiquarian ; by William Camden, head master of Westminster school ; and especially by Sir Walter Raleigh, whose " History of the World " may be looked on as the first of the many histories which have since enriched our literature. When Parker gave this first impulse to scholarship, England was singularly behind the other chief Euro- pean nations in letters. The Renais- sance had in this particular, owing to various circumstances, borne little fruit among us : the many years of civil and religious troubles had effectually pre- vented the spread of learning in our island. But very soon after the death of Parker, the movement of which he was the illustrious pioneer gathered strength. Within four years after he had passed away, John Lyly published his celebrated romance of " Euphues," filled with quaint conceits, written in an inflated style, but * See Excursus E for a short account of the " Parker " Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 383 full of striking and- 'beautiful'' thoughts. The work obtained a wide popularity, and for a tirrie:the'language and expressions of " Euphues." .'became' the'vpgue, especially- among Elizabeth's courtiers. This earliest among modern English romances has en- riched the language with the permanent epithet of " euphuism," a synonym for decorous unreality. * Closely following upon Lyly's famous, story appeared the noble. prose writing of the " Arcadia ". and other' works of Sir Philip Sidney, , the ideal " gentleman " of the second period of the great queen's reign ; while the yet greater names of Hooker and Bacon,- following, in the last years of the century, further illustrated the wondrous age which wit- nessed the awakening of modern English prose literature. Of H°°ker's writings, which especially belong to our own church story, we must presently speak in greater detail. • But in this marvellous sudden awaken ing of letters among us, great as were the Elizabethan prose writers, Lyly and Sidney, Hooker and Bacon, the poets and dramatists were even more extra- ordinary. "The full glory of the new literature broke on England with Edmund Spenser. . The appearance of the " Faerie Queen " is the one critical event in the annals of English poetry ; it settled, in fact, the question whether there was to be such a thing as English poetry or no. The older national verse, which had blossomed and died in Caedmon and his school, sprang suddenly into a grander * It will be remembered how mercilessly r the quaint pedantry of " Euphues" was caricatured .a few years later by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost. \\ • :aMpQ*t' 3§4 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. life in Chaucer (to whose writings as especially illustrative of certain aspects of ecclesiastical life in England we have al- ready referred), but it closed again in a yet more complete death. . . . No great imaginative poem had broken the silence of English literature for nearly two hundred vears, when Spenser landed in Bristol (from his Irish exile) with his ' Faerie Queen.' ... It was received with a burst of general welcome. It became (did the poem) the delight of every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every soldier . . from that moment the stream of English poetry has flowed on without a break." * The fierce theological disputes of the time curiously coloured the immortal poem of Spenser. The repeated allusions, the very characters of the poem, remind us how deep the religious questions of the period had sunk into the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men ; how theology had surrounded, permeated, penetrated all life. Already had Spenser in his earlier and less-known pastoral, the " Shepherd's Calendar," ranged himself on the side of the Puritan or extreme Protestant party. But the magnificent poem of the " Faerie Queen " is even more pronounced than the ''Shepherd's Calendar" in its ten- dency. Puritan to the core, it has been termed. " The worst foe of its ' Red Cross knight ' is the false and scarlet-clad Duessa of Rome, who parts him for a while from Truth, and leads him to the house of Pride. Spenser presses strongly and piti- lessly for the execution of Mary Stuart. No bitter word ever breaks the calm or * Green : " History," chap, vii., sect. vii. his verse save when it touches upon the perils with which Catholicism was en- vironing England, perils before which his knight must fall, ' were it not that Heavenly Grace doth him uphold and steadfast truth requite him out of all.' . It is in the temper and aim of his work that we catch the nobler and deeper tones of English Puritanism." We see how these Spenserian poems ''are all animated by his own religious views ; we see in them the force of early Pro- testant feeling, the hatred of Romanism, as being the source of error, the devotion to Elizabeth as the symbol of England's noblest aspirations. The ' Faerie Queen ' is indeed a poem most characteristic of the time in which it was written. ... It is the noblest monument of the fine culti- vation of Elizabeth's age." * Nor was the literature which blossomed out with such strange and startling sud- denness in the last thirty years of the sixteenth century, alone represented by masters of English prose like Lyly and Sidney, Hooker and Bacon, or by song- men such as Spenser. A wondrous group of plavwrights arose at the same time, and created the English drama. As famous in their own way, and perhaps even more influential with the people, were the now little-read works of Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. But all these names are forgotten in the surpassing glory which surrounds the memory of perhaps the greatest playwright and dramatist the world has ever seen — William Shakespeare — who * Green, Ibid. See also bishop Creighton's " Age of Elizabeth," book vii., chap. ii. We have given some examples of Spenser's Puritan leanings further on in our story. SPENSER AN ELIZABETHAN WRITER. 385 flourished in the last years of the virgin James I., and the theatre declined before queen. It was indeed a wondrous school the feverish excitement which preceded of dramatists, of which Shakespeare is the the times of the great rebellion." * acknowledged prince and chief, and which When, however, the splendid roll of prose EDMUND SPENSER. (Front an engraving by G. Virtue, after the llrell'y fort rait.) includes such names as Ford, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. The Elizabethan drama "continued to thrive in England until the severer morality of the Puritans revolted against the licence into which it began to fall under the writers of Elizabeth's successor, 85 writers, of poets and dramatists, of the reign of the great queen is proudly displayed , when the recital of the marvellous literary * For a more detailed account of this splendid Elizabethan outburst of literature of various kinds and different schools, see the vivid and picturesque pages of bishop Creighton and Mr. Green, above referred to. ?86 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. renaissance which took place in England modern literary England was that quiet in the last quarter of the sixteenth century scholarly man, who in the days of stress is told, the student of the story of the and storm, with the divine help, built up Church of England must never forget that the noble fabric of his church ; the pain- the pioneer of the famous band who have worn, gentle, but ever wise archbishop, contributed so largely to the making of Matthew Parker. THE RED CKOSS KNIGHT. (From the first edition of tlic " Fairy Queene," 1590.) CHAPTER LV11I. THE GREAT CONTEST WITH SPAIN AND ROME. Sympathy in England for the Mediaeval Church Order — Elizabeth's Toleration — Mary of Scotland the Natural Head of the Roman Party — Her History — Elizabeth Excommunicated by Pius V. in 1570 — Character of this Pope — Roman Catholic Conspiracies against the Queen — The Jesuits — Their Seminaries and Plots — The Queen forced to Repressive Measures — Schemes for her Assassination — Babington's Plot, and Execution of Mary — Revival on Mary's Death of Spanish Designs — ■ Character of Philip of Spain — His Connection with England — Claims the Crown — Cardinal Allen's Pastoral— The Armada and its Failure — Effect on the English People. fT~AHE genesis and progress of the I singular and intense dislike to Roman Catholicism among the English people, is a curious and inter- esting study, and claims in this place some detailed mention of events spread out over some twenty years, by way of explanation. For it had great influence upon the history of the Church of England. We have already noticed that the Church of England of Parker, Cecil, and Elizabeth, a church of the Reformation, but at the same time a church studiedly conservative in matters which belonged to primitive Catholic tradition, represented the religious feeling of the great majority of the English people ; but side by side with this majority were a considerable number of men fairly content with the old state of things, with a deep attachment to the old form of worship to which they had been accustomed from the days of their childhood. In the midland and northern counties this attachment to the old state of things was most marked. There were many things which served to remind the people of the old faith. A lingering at- tachment to some of them made the new and colder forms of religion distasteful to not a few minds. The old festivals were neglected. The ruined abbevs, the de- faced churches, the monuments of the dead perishing for want of care were ever be- fore their eyes. The new religious life seemed, indeed, comparatively silent and colourless. As early as the year 1562, we find De Quadra, bishop of Aquila, the Spanish ambassador in London, writing to the minister of Spain in Rome requesting him to ask the Pope Pius IV., in the name of English Roman Catholics, whether they might be present without sin at " the common prayers." These pravers them- selves, he said, were those of the old church, altered only so far as to omit the merits and intercession of the saints, so that there would be nothing in such a compliance unlawful. The communion might be evaded ; they asked for no dis- pensation here ; it was only the ordinary services they wished for permission to attend. The Inquisition, however, which was then powerful in Rome, determined that there must be no compromise ; so the Pope replied to the request from England sternly in the negative. Henceforth, the dividing lines between the adherents of the old and new learning became more and more marked. 388 THE CHURCH For a long time the queen looked with gentleness upon these devotees to the old state of things, and repressed the perse- cuting zeal of her bishops and counsellors, when they would have interfered with them. Priests quietly devoted to the Roman obedience were still to be found in every part of England, especially in the northern counties. Mass was still said in many private houses. Nuns were left un- molested under the shelter of Roman Catholic families ; and it was only later in her reign that the queen, becoming aware of the fanaticism and open hostility mani- fested to her government and person by the English Romanists, stimulated by the open support of Rome, devised sterner measures of repression. For instance, the people of Lancashire refused utterly to come any more to divine service in the English tongue, we read that OF ENGLAND. [,s7o. at their side. The Pope's authority was openly maintained ; sedition was undis- guisedly fostered ; penances were openly commuted for money ; the old mediaeval disused practices were being in many places gradually introduced again. This state of things had been enormously increased and encouraged by the promul- gation by Pope Pius V., in 1570, of the bull which excommunicated Elizabeth. The recognised head of this party, gradually growing in audacity if not in power as the reign of Elizabeth advanced, was Elizabeth's near kinswoman, the notorious Alary, queen of Scots, upon whom most of the English Romanists looked, not only as Elizabeth's legitimate successor, but even as the rightful queen of England. The direct claim of Mary Stuart to the English crown is shown by the following little table : — King Henry VII. I I I James IV (of Scotland) = Margaret. Katharine of = Henry VIII. = Anne Boleyn = Jane Seymour. Killed at Flodden. Arragon. | Mary of Guise = James V. of Scotland. Queen Mary. Queen Elizabeth. Edward VI. I Francis II., King = Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots = Lord Darnley. of France. James I., King of England (and VI. of Scotland). Lord Derby forbade the use of the liturgy in his private chapel. Again, Dr. Grindal, archbishop of York, found on coming to his diocese that the gentlemen were not affected to godly religion. He relates himself how they observed the old fasts and holidays ; they prayed still on their strings of beads. Disguised priests were numerous and busy ; corpse candles were lighted again beside the coffins of the dead, while clerks and curates sang requiems The queen of Scots was thus descended lineally from a daughter of Henry VII. older than Henry VIII. [The eldest born, Arthur, the first husband of Katharine of Arragon, died before his brother, Henry VIII.] The history of this brilliant and ill-fated princess, who played so prominent a part in the reign of Elizabeth, and who so largely contributed to the feelings with which Roman Catholicism came to be regarded in England, is as follows. 39© THE CHURCH When quite a child Mary was left, by the early death of her father, king James V., heiress to the Scottish throne. Henry VIII. had endeavoured to bring about a marriage between her and his young son Edward. This policy was con- tinued by the Protector Somerset. It completely failed, and the Scots, instead, arranged a marriage of their young queen with the dauphin of France, the hereditary enemy of England. Mary, queen of Scots, thus spent her girlhood and early woman- hood at the gay and somewhat dissolute court of France. Her husband the dauphin succeeded to the French throne under the name of Francis II., and Mary was thus for a brief period queen of France as well as of Scotland. Francis II. soon died, however, and Mary was left a widow at the early age of eighteen. She then returned to Scotland to take possession of her ancestral throne. This was in the year 1 56 1 , in the fourth vear of Elizabeth's reign. At this period Mary was one of the most lovelv, accomplished, and attractive ladies in the world. More French than Scottish, from her girlhood she had occupied the highest position in society, and had been trained in all the ways of intrigue and statesman- ship, regarding herselt as rightful queen of England, as well as of Scotland. In religion and politics she was an ardent Romanist. At first, on her return to Scotland, she was welcomed with real and devoted en- thusiasm. A beautiful girl, only eighteen years of age, their own hereditary queen, who had for a brief season worn the crown of France with a singular charm and dignity, which had won her unnum- bered passionate admirers in the foreign OF ENGLAND [1565. land of her adoption ; heiress, too, by undoubted descent to the English throne ; a consummate mistress of all the arts and intrigues of a court ; for a time she was the idol of a large portion of the warlike and chivalrous Scottish nation. But Mary Stuart, with all her splendid gifts and matchless opportunities, un- scrupulous and utterly selfish, was unable to retain for any lengthened period her hold upon the affections of the Scottish folk ; while her sensual nature soon led her into committing the gravest errors in policy— errors which, in the course of her unhappy career, too often shaded into crimes. Although a brilliant and showy personality, she was, after all, but a sorry chief of a great religious party. Her second marriage with Henry, lord Darnley, her cousin, a Roman Catholic like herself, kinsman also to many of the leading Scottish lords, was a most un- happy one. He has been styled, not without reason, a proud, ignorant, self- willed boy, utterly unfitted to be the mate of such a princess as Mary Stuart. It was. in 1565 that Mary married her cousin Darnley. The episodes of the great tragedy which ruined Mary's life followed quickly. In the year following the marriage,. David Rizzio, the queen's confidential secre- tary, and, men said, too-intimate friend and counsellor, was torn rudely from her presence by Darnley and his friends, and foully murdered in the royal Scottish palace of Holyrood. The queen pretended, after a time, to forgive the bitter and cruel affront ; but early in 1567 Europe was startled at the news of another deed of blood, more far-reaching in its consequences than the murder of David Rizzio. Darnley, who ,565—1587-: MARY, QUI outwardly had been partially reconciled with Mary, on the night of a ball at Holyrood left the palace for a lonely house close to Edinburgh, called Kirk of Field, where he was residing. The ill-matched pair parted in the evening in apparent friendship, seemingly with affection ; Mary kissed her husband and pressed a ring, in token of her returning love, on his finger. But that night the " Kirk of Field " was blown up by gunpowder, and the unhappy Darnley was found dead in the garden. The queen has never been cleared from suspicion of complicity in the awful crime, and her subsequent conduct went far to confirm the terrible accusation. The dis- grace of Mary was complete w hen, in the late spring of that same year (1567) she married the earl of Both well, whom Froude does not hesitate to term " the foulest ruffian among her subjects." Before this iniquitous marriage was carried out, Both- well was formally divorced from his legitimate wife. Mary at once created her third husband duke of Orkney and Shetland. There is but little doubt that the queen, whose growing dislike for Darnley had ripened into loathing after his share in the murder of Rizzio, had indulged in a guilty passion for Bothwell. Both well had compassed, probably with the queen's consent, the death of Darnley at the Kirk of Field. Events now succeeded one another in quick succession in the unhappy career of Mary. Her conduct had deservedly ruined her in the estimation of all the European nations. At home her name had become a byword of shame and disgrace. A very few months after the Bothwell marriage, she became a captive of the Scottish lords, £N OF SCOTS. 391 who had determined to dethrone her, in Lochleven castle, a queen henceforth only nominally. For a year she remained in duress at Lochleven ; in 1568 she con- trived to escape, and was soon joined by a strong force gathered together by men who still believed in the unhappy queen. Lord Murray, her half-brother, who had become regent of Scotland, met her troops and defeated them at Langside, near Glasgow. After the battle, which ruined her hopes, she fled to England, throwing herself on the mercy of her kinswoman, Elizabeth. From the year 1568 till 1587, when she expiated the errors and mis- takes of her sad career in the hall of Fotheringay castle, a period of between eighteen and nineteen years, she remained a prisoner in England, treated now with greater, now with less severity, a centre of wild and generally ill-conceived plots against the life of Elizabeth, her govern- ment, and the established Anglican com- munion ; a perpetual menace to the peace and prosperity of England. We have given a plain, unvarnished sketch of the active portion of the life of the queen of Scots, as it appeared to her contemporaries who were responsible for the government of Scotland and England. Was she, after all, guilty of the dark crimes on the ground of which the Scottish lords demanded and enforced her abdica- tion, before she threw herself upon Eliza- beth's mercy ? Again, was she privy to the plots for the assassination of Elizabeth, for which she suffered in the hall of Foth- eringay ? Round her memory has ever raged a war of contrary opinions. The genuineness of many of the pieces of accu- sation have since been gravely doubted ; 302 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. C1587- but much remains unexplained, and probably the true story of that unhappy life of' plots and intrigues will never be Mefot [atftefe coia/sanf vcusefre fi'yfycfirscieret'rfi ^^w/^ yuif fuf 'jtleyra crtfewfow par, rTfye^ r^^r/r f/ysc- g^mmtvi/ty e/>foi/*2J*f/w (tijutf^^ f^eenepry ifiWpnr- ttfcdtstwVvn '/wf 'm-tCtMe j afawcfffraceCXtf 2>icrt/ref'£a£r-e e* Gnfrc /.cwn ewi&prtf™ dland kingdom, whose power and wealth he knew so well, could be carried out with a fair prospect of success. In these designs, it must be remembered, religion and ambition were equally mingled. To the heir of Charles V. and the husband of the long-dead Marv Tudor, the sub- jugation of England presented itself, not merely in the light of a conquest necessary to maintain the grandeur and prosperity of his own well-loved Spain ; but to conquer and to convert the powerful and mighty island of heretics, in the eyes of Philip, ranked as a blessed work — a very Crusade. Since the publication of Mr. Motley's very noble and luminous " History of the Dutch Republic," the character of Philip II. of Spain has been laid bare to the student of history, and a just appreciation of that famous or infamous man can now be formed. Two popular pictures of him exist. To the Roman Catholics he was the brave and devoted champion of what they deemed the true orthodox form of Christianity, unswerving in his purpose to extirpate from the countries of Europe heresy in its many forms. Philip II. represents to the mind of Romanists the ideal of a Catholic sovereign — the true soldier of God. To the reformers, on the other hand, of all nationalities, Philip was the cruel, ambitious ruler ; the instigator 1586.] PHILIP II. OF SPAIN. 401 of the ruthless persecutions of the Low England, Philip the persecutor was dreaded Countries — persecutions before which the as one who aimed not merely at the ex- THE EXECUTION OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. (From the picture by Ford Madox Brown, by permission of Henry Boddington, E>q., Pomnall Hal!, Wilmslo-v, Cheshire.') deplorable events of the reign of Mary of England pale into insignificance. In 86 tirpation of the reformed religion, but at its very existence as a nation. The 402 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND [i 586- 1 598. Spanish sovereign was credited, and fairly, with the design of reducing England to the position of a province of Spain. The true portrait of the king of Spain is something between the two. He was not the hero the Roman Catholic historian loves to paint him ; on the other hand, he was far from being the fiend in human shape of the reformers' picture. That he was, however, the most dangerous enemy England ever had to dread and to combat is indisputably true. The son of Charles V, was an intensely religious man. With him religion, in that form he had been trained to regard as the only true form, was ever paramount. When his father, Charles V., after his abdication, worn out by a life of ceaseless care, lay dying in his solitude in the Spanish monastery of Yuste, he com- mended to his son a solemn duty, which he in his war-filled anxious life had never been able to carry out. His son and successor was to extirpate " heresy," then rampant in the world of the sixteenth century, in his own broad dominions ; he was to wage, too, an implacable war with the same dreaded heresy in the dominions of his neighbours. The Spanish territories of the wealth}- and powerful Low Countries, and England, where once he had worn the crown, were the two principal centres where this heresy he had to destroy especially flourished. Philip received his father's dying wish as a message from God. " He saw in his position and in his con viction a call from Providence to restore through Europe the shaking fabric of the church, and he lived to show that the most cruel curse which can afflict the world is the tyranny of ignorant con- scientiousness, and that there is no crime too dark for a devotee to perpetrate under the seeming sanction of his creed." At home, in his own Spain, the work king Philip set himself to carry out was com- paratively simple. Each priest and monk in Spain was a ready-made soldier of the Inquisition, without mercy, even as God, in their view of Him, was without mercy. "The rack, the dungeon, the stake, the gibbet, soon purified the Spanish do- minions of Philip II. In Sicily, Naples, and Lombardy there was even less difficulty; beyond the Atlantic Christianity was as yet only known in the form in which it had been preached by the Do- minicans."' * The story of the persecutions, followed by the successful revolt of the Low Countries, with the historic commercial world-centres of Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, will ever be the most instructive chapter in the annals of the famous Spanish monarch. The attempt to coerce and to subjugate England through the tremendous instrumentality of the " Armada " ranks, perhaps, as the second of Philip's mighty efforts to carry out Charles V.'s dying injunction. How signally both efforts resulted in utter failure is told in the stirring annals of the sixteenth century. In the persecution directed by Philip's renowned instrument, Alva, in the Low Countries, it is calculated that in three months as many as eighteen hundred persons perished at the stake and on the scaffold. It was the despair and national wrath, the outcome of this tremendous burst of Spanish fanaticism, which moved - Froude : "History of England," vol. xii.t chap. xvi. i586-i«m8.] PHILIP II. the Netherlander to revolt, and in the end successfully to break down for ever the fabric of Spanish rule in the north countries of Europe. The personality of the author of these awful persecutions — the husband of queen Alary Tudor, the ambitious claimant to the throne of Elizabeth and the sovereignty of England, the champion of Roman Catholicism, the man who made Romanism hateful in the eyes of the English people — is a strange and interesting one. He was no soldier. Historians like Froude and bishop Creighton, following the careful and accurate analysis of Motley and the brilliant sketch of his biographer, Prescott, dwell on Philip's reserved and cautious disposition. Slow and hesitating, he utterly lacked the energy, the high-mettled spirit, the romance, the dash and power of the Spanish character. Few seem to have been his vices. Moderate in his habits, careful and business-like even to a fault, a constant sufferer from ill-health, in the still seclusion of his gloomy palace- monastery of the Escurial he would sit the long day through, weaving the cunning web of Spanish diplomacy, ruling from that silent cabinet the vast empire of Spain and the Indies ; reading despatch after despatch which poured in upon him from his obsequious lieutenants in every part of the world, mastering them all, commenting upon them with a mar- vellous patience and restless industry. Acting then upon the information thus painfully and laboriously gathered, he slowly issued the sovereign orders which guided the course of this terrible persecu- tion, that stern, relentless campaign, or directed the development of the mighty OF SPAIN. 403 web of Spanish commerce in the two worlds ; but never losing sight for one moment of the grand aim of his life's work — the ex- tirpation of the heresy of the Reformation, and the establishment of what he deemed to be the one true Catholic faith. Such was Philip II. of Spain, true to his convictions to the last ; a sad, gloomy, unhappy man, the author of untold misery — of sufferings the like to which, consider- ing the mighty area over which he ruled and the number of human souls affected by his decrees, the world had never wit- nessed before — but never swerving one hair's-breadth from what he believed to be the truth. He lived to see his fairest, richest provinces torn from his grasp by the very heretics he had so relentlessly pursued ; he lived to see the England he coveted for his own great and powerful as England had never been before ; he lived to see his enormous fleets shattered and discredited, and the unrivalled commercial grandeur of his loved Spain already faded and tarnished ; and, more than all, he lived to see the Reformation, whose destruction had been his life-long dream, firmly rooted and established both in the revolted Low Countries and in England. And dying in 1598, after a long reign, which had lasted some forty years, of a weary and painful malady bravely and patiently borne, as he passed away men heard him say : " I die like a good Catholic, in faith and obedience to the Roman church." * Philip the Second, king of Spain * Cf. Froude: "History of England," vol. ix., chap. xvi. ; vol. xii., chap, xxxiv. And bishop Creighton: "Elizabeth," book vi., iii. And also Motley : " Dutch Republic," Prescott : " Philip II." and Stirling : " Cloister-Life of Charles V " 4o4 THE CHURCH (1556-1508), heir of the ambitions of the emperor Charles V., and of most of his enormous and widespread realms, from the year 1554 had been curiously mixed up with English politics. His marriage with OF ENGLAND. [,586. another land, was desirous, if possible, to retain his hold on England by marrying Mary's sister, Elizabeth. Foiled in this attempt, Philip ever viewed England and her queen with dislike and suspicion ; PHILIP II. OF SPAIN. (Afier tlie portrait by Titian.) Mary Tudor gave him a peculiar interest in Rmgland, and a quasi-regal authority over the English people. The marriage, never a happy connection, was severed by Mary's death in 1558 ; but Philip, who on his father's abdication in 1556 had become king of Spain and sovereign lord of many but, as we have seen, his policy prevented any open manifestation of hostility, be- cause,.had Elizabeth been driven from the throne, the succession would have cer- tainly fallen to Mar}', queen of Scots, who, through her close matrimonial connection with France, Spain's most hated rival, i586.] PHILIP'S HOSTILITY TO ENGLAND. 405 would have been a far more dangerous English sovereign from a Spanish point of view than Elizabeth. As time went on, and Elizabeth became the formidable champion of the Reformation, the dislike breach year by year between Elizabeth and Spain. At last the tragedy of Fotheringay left the way open for Spain to prosecute the long-cherished project of humiliating TITLE-PAGE OK A I'SAI.M OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE VICTORY OVER THE ARMADA. {British Museum.) of Philip, as an earnest and bigoted Roman Catholic, for the English sovereign grew in intensity. Other circumstances, too, connected with the vast colonial empire of Philip and the commercial enterprises of Spain, which were seriously interfered with by English adventure, widened the England and dethroning Elizabeth ; the queen of Scots was dead, and the old fear of assisting France through Mary Stuart existed no longer. Even before her death Philip had meditated a great attack on England ; but now that she was gone, the Spaniard who had been the 406 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1588. husband of Mary Tudor could claim the throne for himself . What the formidable at- tack of Philip on England in 1588, the year following the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, really signified, is best and most graphically shown in the pastoral letter to the English people of cardinal Allen. Allen had been for years the indefatigable teacher of the disloyal Roman Catholic seminarists at Douai and at Rheims. Pope Sixtus V., who had already offered a large sum of money to Philip to help him in his invasion of England, had made him a cardinal ; and Allen was also named as the future archbishop of Canterbury. This pastoral letter of cardinal Allen rehearsed the terrible anathemas levelled by Rome at queen Elizabeth, urging at the same time the faithful English Roman Catholics to rise in arms and thus welcome the Spanish champion of their religion. Copies of this pastoral of Allen's were secretly conveyed across the Channel, and distributed by means of the many Roman missionaries scattered up and down the country. The Spanish invasion, so runs the traitorous document which heralded the advent of the Armada and the soldiers of Parma, who were to be convoyed across the narrow seas by means of the ships of Spain, was intended to dethrone the usurp- ing heretic Elizabeth, who was termed the infamous daughter of the excommuni- cated Henry VIII. The English queen was described as born in adultery ; as one who had overthrown the English Church, profaned the sacraments, and torn God's * Philip had also shadowy claims to the English throne through his descent from the house of Lancaster ; John of Gaunt having married Con- stance, daughter of Peter the Cruel of Castille, from whom the emperor Charles V. was descended. priests from the altars in the very act of celebrating the holy mysteries. In the sees of the bishops she had placed the scum and filth of mankind — infamous, lascivious, apostate heretics. She had made England a sanctuary of atheists and rebels. Innocent, godly, and learned men, priests and bishops in England and Ire- land, had been racked, torn, chained, and even barbarously executed ; and the queen had filled up at last the measure of her wickedness by killing the anointed of God, the lady Mary, her nearest kinswoman, and by law the rightful possessor of her crown. The holy father had for a long time treated her with gentleness ; but finding that such treatment availed nothing, he at length asked the princes of Christendom to aid him in the punishment of so wicked a monster — the scourge of God and shame of womankind. The most Catholic king [Philip II. of Spain] had undertaken the task, and his soldiers were about to land on the English coast. " His holiness," pursued Allen, " being of your own flesh and blood, has been pleased to choose me as his legate for the restoring of religion. . . . He discharges you (the faithful) of your oath of allegiance, and requires you to join his Catholic majesty's power on their arrival." They (the faith- ful) were to fight for God's church and the honour of English knighthood, for Christ, for religion, and for the holy sacraments of the faith. The saints in heaven were interceding for them ; the blood of the martyred bishops, friars, priests, and lay- men was crying to God for their victory ; they were not to fear, for the English nation would turn from the setting sun, and would follow no more the broken fortunes of a i588.j THE SPANISH ARMADA. 407 mean and filthy woman. They were to take heart and quit themselves like men.* Much more of similar traitorous stuff was contained in this singular document of cardinal Allen, which preceded the advent of the Spanish Armada. The mighty armament itself sailed from the shores of Spain for the invasion of England in the July of 1588, under the command of the duke de Medina Sidonia, the grandest and apparently the most powerful fleet that the world had ever seen, while a trained and well-equipped Spanish army, under the able generalship of the prince of Parma, waited for their coming on the coasts of the Low Countries. The utter discomfiture of this magnifi- cent Armada bv the English fleet, under the gallant Howard, Drake, and their valiant companions, is a well-known story, and does not belong to our own. But the memory of king Philip's attempt, and the awful danger to which England had been exposed, remained for ever green in the memory of the English people. It has never been forgotten. Twenty years filled with plots, with secret machinations, with constant rumours of revolt, revolu- tion, and assassinations, had already sunk deep into the hearts of the nation. The Armada was the crowning blow to Roman Catholicism in this country. The inno- cent suffered with the guilty. There is no reason to suppose that the majority of English Romanists really sympathised with these would-be disturbers of the national peace, or ever dreamed of making common cause with the traitorous men who desired * Cf. Froude, who gives this " Admonition to the Nobility of England by Cardinal Allen " at greater length: vol xii , chap, xxxvi. the violent death of Elizabeth and the elevation of the queen of Scots to the throne ; still less favoured the views of Philip of Spain. But, naturally, the well- known conspiring of the little band of Jesuits and of seminarists, their undisguised teachings, the horrible fulminations of suc- cessive popes, the designs of Philip, which, when the Armada sailed in all its grandeur and pomp of war from the shores of Spain, seemed near their dread fulfilment — all these things impressed the English people with the persuasion that Roman Catholicism was a public and perpetual menace to the very existence of the empire ; that the English Roman Catholic was at heart a traitor, one who for the interests of what he deemed the true religion was ready to sacrifice the best interests of his country. Never has this stern object-lesson been forgotten ; and the dislike, in many cases the positive hatred, of the English nation to Rome and its faith, which even after three centuries still lives among us, is largely traceable to the events which happened during the first thirty years of Elizabeth's reign, very briefly and roughly portrayed in the preceding pages. In much, the dispassionate modern historian freely confesses, this dislike is exaggerated and perhaps unreasonable ; but it was then far from baseless, and, rightly or wrongly, it has largely influenced and deeplv coloured the whole subsequent history of the Church of England. How strongly these events influenced Elizabeth, and determined her conduct and the policy of her confidential advisers in church matters, must now be related, as we proceed to take up again our chronicle of the eccle- siastical settlement of her reign. CHAPTER LIX. ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL AND THE PURITAN' PARTY. Elizabeth's Religious Views — Overpowered by the Circumstances of her Reign — Influence of E«xile upon the Reforming Bishops — Influence of the Queen — The Resulting Compromise — Thomas Cartwright and the Extreme Puritans — The First English Presbytery of 1573 — Edmund Grihdal — Claims of the Puritans — Strength of the Puritan Movement — Resistance by Grindal and Home — Grindal's Views and Action as Archbishop of York — Becomes Primate of All England — The " Prophesyings " — Displeasure of the Queen— Death of the Archbishop — His Character and Work. ELIZABETH in many respects in- herited her father's (Henry VIII.) views on religion. It has been said broadly, but not without some truth, that king Henry attempted to constitute an Anglican church differing from the Roman Catholic church on the point of the papal supremacy, and on that point alone.* His daughter to a large extent shared these views. " Circumstances rather than prefer- ence had placed her originally on the side of the Protestants. Her connection with them was political, and it was only when she needed their assistance that she acknowledged a community of creed. With the quarrel with Rome she was identified from her birth. Her mother's marriage had caused the rupture, and the reunion under her sister had been accom- panied by her own disgrace. But with the creed as distinct from the papal su- premacy she had no quarrel at all. Mass and breviary, accompanied by national independence and liberty, not of worslhp but of conscience, would have suited best with her own tastes. . . . For Protes- tantism Elizabeth had never concealed her * Macaulay : " History of England," vol. i., chap. i. dislike and contempt. She hated to ac- knowledge any fellowship in religion either with Scots, Dutch, or Huguenots. She represented herself to foreign ambassadors as a Catholic in everything except in allegiance to the Papacy. . . . She left the Catholics in her household so unrestrained that they absented themselves at pleasure from the royal chapel without a question being asked. She allowed the county gentlemen all possible latitude in their own houses." * These passages of our historians, allow- ing perhaps for a little exaggeration, fairly represent Elizabeth's mind toward religion. The great queen, however, was no theologian like her father, and in these matters felt less deeply than he had done, and allowed herself to be largely influenced by her episcopal advisers. These had been, of course, mostly chosen from the reformed part)', which had suffered so grievously under the rule of her sister Mary. Their influence with her was enormously strengthened, as we have seen, by the events which happened during the first thirty years of her reign. The danger * Froude : " History of England," vol. xii., chap. xxxviii., and " Conclusion." THE ELIZABETHAN BISHOPS. 409 u« • no listing «ib places, we fnotSf*tb2eeoi foure£>iJ timer nwt bib in tbis lanbe, if tbis Ode t>ab r me ob< ferueb.«Ebey dapttbeiti eiitfo faff brbunbtebeSjanb 6)ers, anb fureV w fyi£tlbttrulbli)tytot*t notify? foitbe £>i#oppe« (tor^<*besfoeUntf^twe«f^e!rgifrea; yet in Ujeyi letters Jaue ibem all a jr?e commentation, j^etf fat cntr^ie flapIefTca, 01 etft fli>fcribio lift bonefi "; " ' wen $e Tpow tfjefe ftinPintf abernuwttorts. r7 SPc fi5oulb be to lor jj » tell potor bonoUrrt of CanytroU cijurdfet^ttje berates «foi|avoe of all loftei ting «d)bew,t»t?er mafter Deawi, maff er i)iccbeetfyfefe cbawttoi, firming >T mrtsfpfcwJlftaioulereof religion, fqUeafitig quere* ffer3,02g«n rilayer^offceUas.pifrrlerBjBentJoiiera, te aber3,»ergrrt»s.(tc. liue in great ibletirf|V,jatb b^ue rbekabibitig. 3fpou»cuIbe rnetoe wbencealltbcfi: i!u (amt,»t tangly m]\ct:tt\-w, tyattfyy «at\r \tottl rl . tbep»pe,«Be«te df tie Crotan fcprfes be%e, to tlx Inoi, b*ftwttio«of rcfofeneb cbttrdjf lloj at $t tfrxb) rnowe them. Sty i: 18 2lnb btrbes of ttoe fame frrber, ore courtourt lr 0:: ^fiftonf B of fcefoob*ofrbeirfouk8. M&K&e frete « . l^tr^2^3ffH8)fcliit^er:ottmebfffie5(b cloUbs »bilip.i.it, 1 from the Roman Catholic party to her conspicuous instances of the great Eliza- person and dynasty in which she con- bethan bishops ; and there is no doubt stantly lived, the feeling that " the Pro- but that the strong predilections of the testants were the only sub- jects on whose loyalty she could rely," inclined her, however, to another policy, and enabled Parker and his fellows, and their immediate successors, happily to carry out in great measure their views of church doctrine and government. These bishops, learned and eminent men for the most part, during the Marian per- secution had spent several years in exile, and naturally had passed under the in- fluence in a greater and less degree of the great foreign reformers with whom they came in contact during that exile ; with such master minds as Peter Martyr and Bullinger, and the yet more extreme Calvin and Beza. Archbishop Parker, perhaps, was of the famous company the least influenced by the powerful minds of the foreign reformers ; but Jewel, as we have seen, reluctantly con- sented to subordinate his Puritan tendencies. Grindal hesitated for some time to accept a mitre under the conditions im- posed by Elizabeth, Parker, and Cecil ; while Sandys, for a time at all events, openly espoused the views held by the Puritan party in England. These are ipjuf I on La J without route, tree* feidjeat friftc Y pamtrfc b , !es full of beab bones, fattebuiallaboMnbace ^ube.tt. imqwtit, alt leant lonrfrrs in all feeling, frtctte c Jfr^nbfBtcerto. motb.13.17* fpraFe of tbe&xbbrftop* VAGK OF CARTWRIGHT's " ADMONITION TO PARLIAMENT," CON- TAINING THE PASSAGE REFERRED TO ON PAGE 4II. (B)itii'l Museum. ) queen in favour of what we may still term the " old learning," considerably modified their actions, and contributed in no small degree to the wise and happy compromise which marks the constitution, 4io THE CHURCH the doctrines, and the ritual of the Church of England. As Macaulay some- what roughly but happily writes, the Church of England " occupies a middle position between the churches of Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions and discourses, composed by Protestants, set forth principles of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her prayers and thanksgivings, derived from the ancient breviaries, are very generally such that cardinal Fisher or cardinal Pole might have heartily joined in them." Her ritual is based entirely upon the best primitive models, only purged from superstitious additions which had no place in the more ancient and purer uses ; while her episcopal succession, traced from the days of the apostles, maintained the unbroken con- tinuity of the Church of England in the days of Elizabeth with the church of Theodore and Dunstan, of Lanfranc and Anselm. In the last four or five years of arch- bishop Parker's life (i 570-1 to 1576) the Puritan discontent with the established order of things assumed considerable pro- portions, had far-reaching consequences. The most prominent figure on the Puritan side was an able and persevering Cam- bridge scholar, one Thomas Cartwright. Born somewhere about 1535 in Hereford- shire, in early life his perseverance in his studies brought him through various obstacles to St. John's college, where his industry attracted attention. It is said that throughout his life he never allowed himself more than five hours for sleep. He was attached to the extreme Re- formation party, and during Mary's reign OF ENGLAND. [1571. earned his bread as a lawyer's clerk. Returning to Cambridge after Mary's death, he became in succession a fellow of St. John's and Trinity. On the occasion of queen Elizabeth's visit to the university he was chosen as one of the more dis- tinguished scholars to dispute before her ; and it is supposed by some that his hostility to the reigning powers in the church was first excited by his jealous indignation on that occasion, that the queen failed specially to notice him. At all events, he left Cambridge for a time and betook himself to Geneva. Returning to England, we next find him occupying the distinguished position of Margaret professor of divinity at his university; and he was in 1570 looked upon as the ablest controversialist on the Puritan side. Both in the pulpit and in the lecture hall he was in the habit of furiously inveighing against the established government of the church; dis- allowing the vocation of bishops and other ecclesiastical officers, the administration of the holy sacraments, the observation of rites and 'ceremonies. Man}- of these he openly denounced as damnable, devilish, and detestable. Over the minds of many of the resident students Cartwright ob- tained a singular influence, through his eloquence and earnestness. On one occasion it is related he denounced the use of surplices ; the next day, with three exceptions, all the students of Trinity appeared in the college chapel without the customary surplice. Through the in- fluence of Whitgift, who at that time was master of the college, Cartwright was deprived of his university preferments and banished from Cambridge. iS7i.] THOMAS C In 1 57 1 the now famous Puritan leader presented his well-known " Admonition to Parliament." It consisted of two parts, and is a good specimen of the intolerant, bitter spirit with which the extreme Puritans viewed the Church of England, and to what length their principles carried them ; it must also be borne in mind that they had in the England of that day a powerful minority of the people well dis- posed to them, some even in high positions of authority. Leicester, the powerful favourite of Elizabeth, had constituted himself especially their protector and patron. Cartwright and his fellow Puritan teachers ignored the apostolical succession so jealousy guarded bv archbishop Parker. They maintained the perfect equality of bishops and presbyters, pronouncing the bishop to be incapable of a title. They denounced all ranks in the hierarchy, con- demning the offices of deans, archdeacons, and prebendaries, and held that their precedence was an infringement upon the privileges of ordinary presbyters. The use of the Geneva Prayer-Book might be allowed, but the clergy should possess a free licence for extemporaneous prayer. Saints' days, the Lenten and other fasts observed from time immemorial in the Catholic church, were denounced as un- scriptural and superstitious. The use of the sign of the cross in baptism was an offence ; confirmation must not be regarded as essential ; kneeling at the Lord's Supper led to idolatry. The surplice and the ceremonies retained in the Church of England were branded as disgraceful.* A curious passage taken from Cartwright's * Compare dean Hook : " Archbishops," vol. ix., chap xii., and vol. x., chap. xxiv. RT WRIGHT. 411 "Admonition to Parliament " will well illus- trate the extraordinary bitterness of the ex- treme Puritan party at this period. After stigmatising cathedrals as " Popish dens," which together with the queen's chapel by their organs and curious singing " must be patterns and precedents to the people of all superstitions," the Admonition goes on with the following: "We should be long to tell your honours of cathedral churches, the dens aforesaid of all loitering lubbers, where master dean, master vice- dean, master canons or master preben- daries the greater, master petty canons or canons the lesser, master chancellor of the church, master treasurer or otherwise called Judas the purse-bearer, the chief chanter, singing men, squeaking choristers, organ-players, gospellers, epistollers, pen- sioners, readers, vergers, etc., live in great idleness, and have their abiding. If you would know whence all these come, we can easily answer, that they come from the Pope as from out of the Trojan horse's belly, to the distraction of God's kingdom.'" This violent and insolent diatribe was formally answered by Whitgift. Cart- wright was never restored to his university position ; several times we read of hi> being even committed to prison by bishop Aylmer (of London). Through the patronage of Leicester, however, he was subsequently appointed to the mastership of a hospital at Warwick. In his latter years Whitgift, when archbishop, showed him various acts of kindness, even allow- ing him again to preach at Warwick upon his promise to observe the laws and government of the Church of England. Worn out by his ceaseless studies, his disappointments, and care-filled, anxious 4i- THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. life, Cartwright died in 1603, having been in his latter days, some believe, won to a gentier and more loving estimation of his adversaries. To go back, however : as the result of the fierce diatribes of Cartwright the Cambridge professor, and the exaggerated and unhistorical views of reformation pressed by the extreme reformers, in the May of 1573 we hear of a separate asso- ciation or community being formed at Wandsworth in the neighbourhood of London. This first presbytery consisted of nonconforming ministers, who were joined by certain laymen. From this small beginning, which quickly followed upon Cartwright's formal attack on the church in tbe " Admonition to Parlia- ment," we trace the first organisation of Protestant dissent in England.* It will be thus seen to what grave dangers the church was exposed during the first years of its establishment, and how difficult and dangerous was the work of guiding it. On the one side was Rome and its phalanx of devoted and earnest English adherents, determined at all costs — even at the terrible alternative of sacrificing the national independence — to restore the Roman domination and the mediaeval doctrines taught and the rites practised before the great upheaval of the sixteenth century. On the other side was the Puritan party, equallv determined upon introducing into England the many changes adopted by the foreign reformers, although such changes would irretrievablv have destroyed the continuity of the English church with the ancient Catholic church. * Dean Hook : "Archbishops," vol. ix., chap, xii In the providence of God these grave dangers were averted. The sympathies of Elizabeth, the loved Tudor queen, whose power was very great — far greater than the Englishman of the nineteenth cen- tury can imagine — were at first undeniably with the Romanists, as far as doctrines and mediaeval rites were concerned ; but these sympathies were gradually alienated as her reign advanced by the attitude of the Romanist party, which identified itself with the deadly enemies of England, becoming, as we have seen, closely allied with Spain and her deep - laid designs upon the very existence of England as a nation. The peril which menaced the church from the Puritan party was averted, largely owing to the wise counsels and measures of Cecil, afterwards known as lord Burleigh, the great minister of the reign, and perhaps still more to the wisdom of the learned man who occupied the posi- tion of metropolitan in those first anxious years — Matthew Parker — and to the moderation and loyalty of the band of scholars and earnest men by whom he was surrounded. Those Elizabethan bishops — Jewel, Grindal, Cox, Whitgift, and others — were men for the most part whose theology was deeply coloured with the teaching of the eminent foreign reformers, at whose feet they had once sat and learned the story of the Reformation ; but who for the sake of preserving intact what they felt on the whole was catholic truth, for the sake of maintaining unbroken the con- tinuity of the ancient English church, sub- ordinated, as a rule, their personal feelings and desires, and loyally accepted that middle course of conciliation so dear to Parker the archbishop and Cecil the 1576.] ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL. 413 minister ; that been, and still Church of England. via media which has is, the strength of the The successor of Parker in the primacy was his friend and intimate associate Grindal, archbishop of York. The choice of Grindal to fill the important position of archbishop of Canterbury is an indication of the popular move- ment in favour of Puritanism. The disfavour with which the Roman Catholic partv were gene- rally viewed had been more or less reflected upon the " high" Anglican reformers, who were steadily in- clined to a con- servation of as much of the old mediaeval rites and customs as was consonant with the removal of superstitious and comparatively later usages. Grindal, although Parker's friend, and on the whole one who sympathised with his work and policy, was a more advanced reformer than the first Elizabethan arch- bishop, and his feelings towards the Puritan party were decidedly warmer than those of his predecessor. His appoint- ment to the great post is therefore an EDMUND GRINDAL, ARCHBISHOP OK CANTEKHURY. (From the enzwi iug by Arnold Bucket, in " H troologia Anglica™ published at Arnheim in 1620.) the year 1575. To Elizabeth, however, he was never a persona grata. Her views never varied, and it was only the deter- mined hostility of the Romish party which induced her very reluctantly to favour the extreme Protestants. But she felt, and with reason, during a considerable por- tion of her reign, that not only her person was in danger but that a revolution was even meditated, and the very existence of her loved England threatened by the Catholics. Edmund Grin- dal was born in the Lake dis- trict about the year 1 5 1 q ; his family were of the middle cla^. The future arch- bishop, in the course of a dis- tinguished uni- versity career, came under the notice of Ridley, then the master of his col- lege (Pembroke Hall). He filled various posi- tions in his university; was subsequently appointed chaplain to Ridley when the great reformer occupied the see of London ; then we find Grindal a royal chaplain at the court of Edward VI. The most in- teresting detail in connection with the first portion of the future archbishop's life was his intimacy with Martin Bucer, indication of the general popular bias in whose influence at Cambridge has been 4H THE CHURCH already described. This close friendship with the eminent foreign reformer no doubt permanently influenced the whole of Grindal's subsequent life and policy. He was with Bucer during his last illness, and was the recipient of his dying wishes. During the Marian persecution he formed one of that little band of dis- tinguished exiles at Strasburg ; and in common with most of his associates, de- voted himself to the ardent study of the Reformation principles, his guide at that period of his career being Peter Martyr, to whose lectures and instructions Grindal was a diligent and attentive listener. During this time of exile he contracted that firm friendship with the eminent German reformers which so largely in- fluenced his future life. On the accession of Elizabeth he re- turned to England, where he was warmly welcomed by Parker, and almost imme- diately was employed in the ecclesiastical work taken in hand by Parker and Cecil. Appointed a commissioner to consider the revision of the Prayer-Book (1558-9), he was at once, as one of the inner band of divines, singled out to fill high office in the Church of England. His scruples about some of the ceremonies retained by Cecil and Parker, and his anxious mis- givings as to the queen's evident leaning to practices viewed with grave suspicion by his foreign friends, such as the re- tention of the crucifix in the royal chapel, made him hesitate for a time before he decided to throw in his lot with the moderate party, then in the ascendant. However, Parker succeeded in overcoming his hesitation, persuading him that, after all, these things — the vestments of the OF ENGLAND. [i559. clergy and other matters in dispute — were but of secondary importance ; and, with some reluctance, he accepted the bishopric of London when Bonner was deposed. He was consecrated at Lambeth in the December of 1559, with Dr. Cox, bishop of Ely, Dr. Rowland Meyrick, bishop of Bangor, and Dr. Edwin Sandys, bishop of Worcester ; the last - named eventually followed him in the sees of London and York. These consecrations were arranged by Parker with all the care which befitted a rite so important to the continuity of the English Church. The names of the con- secrators of Grindal and this little group of eminent Elizabethan prelates are preserved in several authoritative records. They were Scory, bishop of Hereford, Barlow of Chichester, Hodgkins, bishop-suffragan of Bedford, and archbishop Parker himself. Grindal's Puritan leanings were earh manifested in his disinclination to wear the episcopal dress, to which he submitted with great reluctance. His loyalty, how- ever, to the general principles of the English Church was unquestionable. This is clear from his consenting to act as one of the commissioners who revised the new Calendar in the Praver-Book, to which such grave exception was taken by the extreme reformers. He was also, strange to say, connected with the Latin form of the Prayer-Book, which was virtually the First Book of Edward VI., and which Latin form collegiate churches, as we have seen, were permitted to use. Very earl)- in his episcopate a destructive fire necessitated the partial reconstruction of St. Paul's cathedral. An immense sum was expended on this restoration. The money was largely provided by a tax levied I566.J REMONSTRANCE on the London clergy. On this occasion Grindal's liberality was princely. Before the Reformation, the vast nave of St. Paul's (Paul's Walk) was commonly used as an exchange in which business was transacted, and where people used to walk and converse. This desecration was in part remedied by Grindal's reverential care. The pressure brought to bear by foreign theologians upon prelates like Grindal and Home, bishop of Winchester, whose Puritan views were well known in conti- nental centres such as Zurich and Strasburg, where they had lived and studied during the Marian persecution, is well illustrated in a letter addressed to these prelates by Bullinger. The letter bears the date of 1566. Grindal was at this time bishop ot London. The complaints of Bullinger were no doubt echoes of what he heard from discontented Puritan divines in England. Amongst other grievances, the famous German divine dwelt on the following : " We hear, though we hope the report is false, that certain new articles are required of ministers, to which if they refuse to subscribe they have to relinquish their office." The articles in question contained, amongst other things, the follow- ing " superstitions,'' as reformers like Bullinger deemed them. The measured chanting in churches was to be retained, together with the sound of organs ; minis- ters who performed the office of baptism were obliged to use breathings, exorcism, the sign of the cross, lighted tapers ; in the receiving the Lord's Supper, kneeling was necessary (which has an appearance of adoration) ; all the power of church govern- OF BULLINGER. 415 ment was pronounced to rest solely with the bishops ; and no pastor was allowed publicly to deliver his opinion on ecclesias- tical matters. Other matters are mentioned in this curious letter, some of which had no existence at all in the practices of the Church of England. Bullinger concluded by a hope that Grindal and Home would consult with their episcopal brethren and other " holy and prudent " men touching the amendment and purification of these and similar superstitions. From the " Zurich letters " * we see clearly what it was the Puritan party desired, and how strenuously they were endeavouring to strip the Anglican church of many of the rites and ceremonies and ritual observances happily preserved by Parker and his coadjutors in the Eliza- bethan settlement ; rites and cert-monies and ritual, be it remembered, of imme- morial antiquity, and which could not be attacked by any thoughtful scholar or divine as being " superstitious." Among the principal points dwelt upon may be instanced " the different orders of the clergy being still maintained, as formerly in the ' Papacy,' namely, the two arch- bishops, one of whom is primate ; after these are the bishops, then deans and archdeacons, and last of all rectors, vicars, curates. . . . No pastor is at liberty to ex- pound the Scriptures to his people without an express appointment to that office by the bishop. The book of prayers, i.e. the Engli-li Prayer-book, was filled with many absurdities (to say no worse of them) and silly superfluities, and seems to be * Quoted at some length by dean Hook, " Arch bishops," vol. x., chap, xix.— who also gives tn extenso the above quoted letter of Bullinger. 4io THE CHURCH composed after the manner of the papists, the grosser superstitions, however, being- taken away." In the English church these foreign reformers, no doubt the mouthpiece of English Puritans, complained that " many festivals were retained — consecrated in the name of saints with their vigils as formerly, singing in parts, in the church, and with organs, the tolling of bells at funerals. . . . By the queen's command all persons must reverently bow themselves in the church at the name of Jesus. That space which we call the chancel, by which in churches the laity are separated from the clergy, still remains in England, and prayers are said in the place accustomed in the time of popery. . . . The confirmation, too, of boys and girls is also in use, and the purification of women after childbirth. In the administration of the Lord's Supper, for the greater reverence of the sacra- ment, little round unleavened cakes are re-introduced by the queen. . . . Every- one, too, is obliged to communicate at the Lord's Supper on his bended knees. In every church throughout England the minister must wear a linen garment which we call a surplice ; and in the larger churches, at the administration of the Lord's Supper, the chief minister must wear a silk garment which thev call a cope. ... In their external dress the ministers of the word are at this time obliged to conform themselves to that of 'the popish priests. The square cap is imposed on all, together with a gown as long and loose as conveniently may be, and to some also is added a silk hood." We may — indeed, we must — respect the earnestness and real devotion of these ex- treme reformers in England, Germany, OF ENGLAND. [,566. and Switzerland, the advanced guard, so to speak, of the great Puritan army who in years to come, for a while, captured England and her church ; but the church they desired to build up upon the ruins of mediaeval Christianity in good truth would have been but a sombre and naked Temple of Truth. The church they dreamed of for England would never in the long run have appealed to the masses of the English people, would never have gathered into her holy walls that great multitude of all sorts and conditions of men who now with greater or less pious earnestness, many of them with a splendid self-sacrificing devotion, worship within the broad pale of her sanctuary. Had the Puritan church become the established church of our land — as once Bullinger, and still more Calvin and Beza, so passionately desired — is it too much to assert that un- counted thousands, who have been content to live and die in the fold of the Church of England, would have taken refuge in the unchanged mediasvalism of Rome, where they — forgetful of her grievous errors — would have found so much that was lack- ing in the austere and colourless Puritan forms of worship ? Nor could these ex- treme reformers with any truth or justice appeal to primitive Christian antiquity as the model upon which they wished to re- construct their cold, bare church. Ridley and Cranmer, Parker and Whitgift, with the great expounder of their ecclesiastical polity, the learned and judicious Hooker, chose as the models of their ritual and observances the ritual and observances, as far as they could be ascertained, of the earliest churches of Christendom, before superstition and man's ambitious instincts ,S66.] ENGLISH PRELATI had in any way marred and defaced them. The danger that the Puritan reaction would undo much, if not all, the wise work of Parker and the first makers of the re- formed and purified Church of England, was for many years an ever-present, real danger. The dread and hatred of Roman Catholicism, owing to the ill-omened and unpatriotic policy, above dwelt upon, of certain prominent persons of the Roman party, had deeply permeated the English nation, and favourably disposed men's minds to Puritanism, as the exact opposite to the feared and detested Romanism. This danger, however, was largely averted through the loyal conduct of such prelates as Grindal, Home, and Sandys. They were men imbued by their foreign training and foreign friendships, with a strong Puritanical bias. But theirs was the high wisdom which could discern the beauty and strength of the church in which they held high office. In the hour of stress and storm they therefore subordinated their own inclinations, and loyally held fast to the ritual, of which they often disapproved, which had been established by the first great Elizabethan archbishop and his coadjutors ; believing — and truly — that the Church of England, if it was per- manently to gain the affection of the people, must be a church of mutual con- cession, when concession involved no real sacrifice of principles. So we find Grindal and Home thus replying to Bullinger's remonstrances : "We hold that the ministers of the Church of England may adopt without impiety the distinction of habits now prescribed by 87 5 AND BULLINGER. 417 public authority, both in the administration of divine worship and for common use." The two Puritan bishops, as some would term them, with a splendid loyalty to their church, after reiterating in decisive terms that there existed in England the most entire liberty of preaching the purest doctrine, and likewise of exposing, laying open, and condemning by means of sound instruction errors and abuses of every kind, whether as to ceremonies or doctrine, or the sacraments or moral duties, went on to say : " We cannot accept this crude advice, neither ought we to be passive under the violent appeals which unceasingly in the pulpit are disturbing the peace of the church and bringing the whole of our religion into danger. ... If we were to acquiesce in the inconsiderate advice of our brethren (the Puritans), and all unite our strength illegally to attack the habits bv law established, to destroy and abolish them altogether, or else all lay down our offices at once — verilv, we should have a papistical, or, at least, a Lutherano-papisti- cal ministry, or none at all. . . . Since we cannot do what we would, we should in the Lord do what we can. . . . We receive," said these wise and loyal Puritans, " or rather tolerate the interrogations to infants, and the sign of the cross in baptism, and kneeling at the Lord's Supper, because it is so appointed by law." This and much more was written by these good men, utterly declining to have any part in the Puritan schism, preferring to yield in non-essential points, some of which were evidently distasteful to them, for the sake of preserving the unity of the great church to which they belonged. It 418 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1571- is this wise and conciliatory spirit which has ever been one of the great sources of the strength and enduring influence of the Anglican community. It was the strong Puritan bias of Grin- dal, united to a gentle conciliatory spirit, which it is said induced Parker to recom- mend his friend's promotion to the arch-see of York, which was vacated in 1568 by the death of archbishop Young. There was a long vacancy in the see, Grindal not being " confirmed " until the spring of 1570. The Puritan element in London was very strong, and the leanings of Grindal, loval though he was to the church, in some measure very probablv unfitted him in the eyes of Parker for the government of the see of the great and often unruly metropolis, which, from its position and nearness to the Continent, was the natural refuge of men of extreme religious opinions, who were not tolerated in their own land, and which reckoned among its regular inhabitants many turbu- lent spirits. The primate is reported to have said " that he liked well the removal of Grindal, for he reckoned him not resolute and severe enough for the government of London, since many of the ministers and people thereof, notwithstanding all his pains, still leaned to their former prejudices against all measures of reform." He was alluding here to the Puritan schismatics. During his four to five years' tenure of the York archbishopric, Grindal's canons of discipline (1571) are interesting as indicative of his views, and also as throw- ing some light upon the state of the church at this juncture. Priests, in these canons, are forbidden to use any ceremonies or gestures not appointed by the Book of Common Prayer. There was an evident leaning on the part of many to the old mediaeval ceremonies. The clergy were forbidden, in the administration of the Holv Communion, to put the consecrated bread into the people's mouths, but were directed to put it into their hands. The Holy Communion was to be received three times a vear, in addition to Ash Wednes- dav. This " compulsory " reception shows us that the old mediaeval practice of simply assisting at the l< mass " was deeply rooted in the hearts of men and women. In the comparative fewness of communicants, when compared with the ordinary congregation, so often commented upon and deplored bv all schools of thought in the Church of England of the present day, we still see the results of the mediaeval teaching, which seemed to be content with the worshippers " assisting " at the solemn service and, save on special occasions, with " beholding " rather than communicating. His desire to do away with stone altars as the)- existed in raanv churches ; his prohibition in the matter of wearing beads and praying upon them ; his forbidding worshippers to make the sign of the cross when at an}' time thev entered the church, are memorials of this famous Protestant divine's strong personal inclinations during his tenure of the arch- see of York. His administration was generally popular in the northern counties of England, in spite of his well-known views. As an ardent encourager of learning he was justly celebrated. In the labours connected with the putting out of the " Bishops' Bible," already described, Grindal took a prominent part. The estimation in which 1575-1576.] ARCHHIShK he was held, probably by the majority of the English people, is curiously borne witness to by the great song-man of the age. In the glorious verse of Spenser we see a true picture of the life and thought of England in the last quarter of the sixteenth century ; and Spenser has chosen archbishop Grindal, who at that time had fallen into disfavour with Eliza- beth owing to his too pronounced Puritan sympathies, as his model of a Christian pastor.* In the year 1575, when archbishop Parker, as we have related, passed away, the royal choice fell on Grindal as his successor, largely owing to the influence of the minister Cecil. His long ex- perience, his quiet, gentle wisdom, his great learning and general popularity, no doubt pointed him out as a fitting primate ; but it was especially his well- known strong Puritan bias which deter- mined Cecil to press his appointment with the queen. The danger to the church and state from the plots and designs of the Romanist party was be- coming more obvious every year ; and it was felt by the wise and far-seeing states- man that the safety of the queen and her government, and the very existence of the Church of England, would best be con- sulted by assuring the strong support of the more thoughtful of the Puritan re- formers. Among the prominent ecclesi- astics Grindal appeared the prelate who was most likely to conciliate this party ; while his well-known moderation would, it was supposed, prevent him from going too far in the paths of Puritan conciliation. * See Excursus F for Spenser's interesting references to Grindal. » GRINDAL. 419 The great and dangerous post, however, had few charms for him, and it was only after considerable pressure that Grindal consented to accept the high office. The wisdom of the appointment was soon made manifest ; for in spite of his decided lean- ings in the direction of Puritanism, the new archbishop speedily showed that he was resolutely determined to maintain the discipline of the church, and rigidly to uphold the order established by his pre- decessor Parker. Directly after he had entered upon the duties of his great office, he determined upon a metropolitical visitation in his province of Canterbury, which included all the southern, eastern, and midland dio- ceses. The preliminary inquiries addressed to the suffragan-bishops of the province give us a fair idea of the regulations in force in the Church of England at this period, 1575-6. Questions were asked of the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels, whether the " common prayer " was said or sung distinctly and reverently without any kind of alteration ; whether on Wednesdays and Fridays, not being holy days, the Litanv was duly used ; whether in each church or chapel the Book of Common Prayer, with the new Calendar and a Psalter, was provided for the parish ; and whether a copy of the English Bible in the largest volume, the two tomes of the Homilies, the Paraphrase of Erasmus translated into English, the table of the Ten Commandments, a con- venient pulpit well placed, a comely and decent table for the Holy Communion, with a fair linen cloth to lay upon the same, and some covering of silk, buckram, or other such like, a fair and comely communion _po THE CHURCH cup of silver and a cover of silver for the same which might serve for the ministration of the communion bread, were all dulv provided ; likewise a decent large surplice with sleeves, a sure coffer with large lock and kevs for the keeping of the register books, and a strong chest or box for the alms of the poor. All these things were evidently deemed essential by Grindal, as belonging to the due observance of the services and ritual, etc., of the Church of England, and such formal inquiries preliminary to a general archiepiscopal visitation showed that the primate had no intention of making any undue concessions to the extreme party; while the following questions which were also put indicated the primate's intention to allow no " usages " which might be deemed superstitious even by moderate reformers, even though the " usages " belonged to a remote antiquity, to be practised in the church over which he ruled. So inquiries were also made whether the minister wore a cope, and whether he had recourse to gestures, rites, or ceremonies not appointed bv the Book of Common Prayer, such as crossing or breathing over the sacramental bread and wine, or showing the same to the people to be worshipped or adored ; whether in the ministration of the sacrament of bap- tism an\- oil and chrism, tapers, spittle, or any Popish ceremony were adopted. Injunctions were issued, but it is doubt- ful if they were ever put in force ; for the archbishopric was put. as we shall pre- sentlv see, into sequestration before the visitation was completed. In the injunc- tions the churches and chapels, with the chancels thereof, were to be dulv and OF ENGLAND. [1575-1576. sufficiently repaired ; regulations were made with reference to the tolling and ringing the bells on Sundays and holy days. Monthly or quarterly sermons were to be preached, and in the absence of a sermon the Homilies were to be dulv read. The clergy were required to conform to the Thirty-nine Articles agreed upon in the Convocation of 1562. On the other hand, the books introduced by the Romanists, and tending to the purposes of superstition, were to be utterly defaced, rent, and abolished. Grindal also addressed an exhortation to the clergy of his province, urging them to press upon their parishioners the dutv of resorting to their parish churches every Wednesday and Friday, and there in addition to the services of the day they were to hear a sermon or homily on fasting and repentance. It was suggested that on these days they were at least to spare one meal to be dedicated to the service of the poor. The practical and devout mind of the archbishop is especially shown in the advice he required to be given to the master of even- household, not to omit to convene his family every night to make humble prayer to Almighty God that He would show mercv to tho^e who had justlv deserved His anger. There is no doubt that, loyal as Grindal was to the general principles of the Church of England, his policy and friendliness to the Puritan section cf the community, and his determination to stamp out certain mediaeval customs which were loved by manv, and still were practised in not a few- churches, gave grave offence to the queen. The strained relations which evidently existed between the archbishop and 1576 — 15770 THE OUEEN AND " PROPHESYINGS." J2I Elizabeth were Drought to ahead in the meetings of the clergy, when Scripture was curious controversy between the queen and freely discussed, and difficult and disputed primate in the matter of the " Prophesy- texts debated upon, and the opinions of 322 fa, too, ■r £ — -t* - LETTER FROM GRINDAL TO THE LORDS OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. Excusing himself for not suppressing " proplucyings" and stating that he " did not of my stubbernncs re/use to accomplishe the same, but because I thought it not safe /or me . . . to be the doer of that whereof my (none harte and conscience would condewne me." — Signed. (British Museum.) ings." It is difficult exactly to compre- hend why these "Prophesyings" were so peculiarly hateful to Elizabeth. We hear of them first in the days of Parker. The name seems to have been given to the Puritans were by these means probably openly ventilated and pressed. Parker appears to have shared the queen's dislike to these "Prophesyings," and in his days they were formally forbidden, in spite of 422 THE CHURCH the earnest remonstrances of some of his suffragans who were favourable to these open discussions of disputed theological questions. Under Grindal's rule they appear to have been revived in various places. The queen insisted that these clergy-meetings should be formally put a stop to. The archbishop remonstrated, suggesting that they should be permitted under strict rules and discipline ; but the queen was obstinate in her requirement that they should be absolutely forbidden. Grindal declined to comply with the royal command, and in consequence the arch- bishop was " sequestered " for five years, and was formally debarred from holding a Convocation. He seems, however, during this period to have continued to exercise most of his archiepiscopal functions — such as officiating at consecrations, etc. The whole question is somewhat confused, but it is clear that the queen was much opposed to Grindal's views and general policy. The tangled knot of the relations be- tween the sovereign and the primate was cut by the rapidly failing health and death of the archbishop. Illness enfeebled his powers, he lost his eyesight, and wished to resign. During the last days of his life, Whitgift, bishop of Worcester, acted generally as his deputy. Whitgift, of whom we must next speak, was ever a persona grata to the queen, who desired to appoint him at once archbishop in the room of Grindal ; but Whitgift refused to accept the arch-see so long as Grindal lived. The end, however, came soon, and the blind archbishop died in 1583, when Whitgift became his successor. OF ENGLAND. [,583. We have dwelt upon the works and days of the second of the Elizabethan archbishops with perhaps a little more detail than his quiet unobtrusive character, somewhat wanting in firmness and de- cision, at first sight would seem to call for. Grindal was not a great prelate or a far- seeing ecclesiastic ; he was simply a patient, earnest, scholarly man, who resolutely set himself to do what appeared to him his duty. From his early days he was thrown in the company of eminent men, who learned to value his industry, gentle piety, and un- swerving rectitude of purpose. He is an admirable example of many noble souls who, from the days of Elizabeth down to our own times, have been firmly convinced that the Church of England was not only the best constituted church in the world, but was well fitted to mould and guide the religious life of his fellow-countrymen. Though a Puritan by early training and long and intimate associations, Grindal ever declined to allow the peculiar views which he loved, seriously to influence his public acts. His life and work was a noble example of subordination and loyalty to the Church of England ; being convinced, in spite of many minor points in her discipline and usages which he gravely misliked, that on the whole, to use the striking words of a great divine who lived a few years later than Grindal, " the grounds on which the established Church of England was based, were of so rare and excellent mixture . . . that there was no other church in Europe so likely to preserve peace and unity." * * Dr. Hammond, 1605-1660 CHAPTER LX. ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT AND THK ANGLICAN DEVELOPMENT. RICHARD HOOKER. Early Life of Whitgift — Independence of Foreign Influence — Enforcement of Uniformity — Views of the Extreme Puritans— Whitgift's Severe Measures against them — Guiding Principles of the English Ecclesiastical Reformers — Foreign Opinions on the Results of their Work — Temper of the English People — Influence of Whitgift's Policy on the Masses — And on the Puritans — Richard Hooker — His Controversy with the Presbyterians — Account of his " Ecclesiastical Polity " — Epoch-making Character of the Book — Sketch of Hooker's Life — Greatness of his Character and Work. WHITGIFT, who succeeded Grindal in the primacy of the Church of England, was a man of a different calibre. To him the Puritan theories were utterly false. Equally loyal to the church as his predecessor, he was resolutely opposed to all concessions to a party which he felt would never be contented with simple toleration. The Puritans, in the eyes of Whitgift, aimed at changing the established church into something quite different. Their more extreme men even went so far as to advocate the abolition of episcopacy, and to urge the introduction in its place of the Presbyterian system. It was the church with the organisation of Calvin and Beza they longed to see substituted in England, in place of the church organised by Parker and Jewel. John Whitgift was born about the year 1530. He belonged to a Yorkshire middle-class family. At Cambridge he was the pupil of John Bradford, who afterwards suffered martyrdom in the reign of queen Mary. His career was a distinguished one, and he early attracted the notice of Ridley, then master of Pembroke Hall, who after- wards appointed him one of his chaplains. During the Marian troubles he was pro- tected from persecution by Dr. Pearne, master of Peter House ; and on the accession of Elizabeth we find Whitgift, who was looked upon as one of the most promising of the younger Cambridge divines, chosen to fill the responsible office of lady Margaret's professor of divinity in his university. His promotion was now rapid. Different from most of the prominent theologians who came into notice at the commencement of the Elizabethan era, Whitgift had never come under the in- fluence of the great foreign reformers. During the Marian persecution, as we have seen, instead of living in exile at Strasburg, Zurich, or Geneva, he had resided quietly at Cambridge ; and to this, no doubt, his utter want of all sympathy with the Puritan party may be largely attributed. As early as 1567 he was brought under the notice of the queen, who seems to have been singularly attracted by his great power as a preacher. By his sermons and conversation he so won her esteem that she determined to advance his fortunes. There is a curious story of a pun she made upon his name, calling him her White-gift. Through his court in- fluence he was advanced to the mastership of Trinity college ; and during his tenure of that office we twice hear of him as the 424 THE CHURCH energetic vice-chancellor of the university. In 1573 he became dean of Lincoln, still holding his Cambridge offices. During his ten years of prominent university life he was distinguished as a most able and indefatigable controversialist and apologist of the Church of England. His treatises in answer to Cartwright the Puritan, who violently attacked the established church, have been already alluded to at some length. In 1576 he was advanced to the see of Worcester, making steady progress year by year in the queen's favour. In Whitgift Elizabeth found a church- man after her own heart, and what was very rare in those days, a great English divine of the school of the new learning, who had never sat at the feet of any of the great foreign reformers. He, like Parker, believed in a duly consecrated episcopacy as a divine institution, and according to the judgment of antiquity,* considered episcopacy as essential to the being of a church. In common with the queen, he was bent on maintaining the perfect continuity of the Church of England, preserving care- fully as many of the Catholic rites and usages as were consonant with the removal of merely superstitious practices. He was, besides, resolutely determined to enforce order and regularity as well as uniformity in the church, by gentle, persuasive means if possible ; but when resistance was stubborn, by the introduction of harsher measures. His later administration in * " They (the members of the ancient Christian world) did not account it to be a church which was not subject to a bishop. . . . Ecclesia est in episcopo." — St. Cyprian iv., epistle ix. " The outward being of a church consisteth in the 'having of a bishop.'" (Hooker: " Ecc. Polity," book vii., chap, v., 3 and following sertions.) OE ENGLAND. [I583. carrying out these views has been too justly branded with the charge of actual persecution. It is undeniable that, owing largely to the circumstances already dwelt upon, the country was favourably disposed to Puritanism. A Puritan House of Commons rendered the rigid carrying out of this policy of repression difficult, if not posi- tively dangerous. But in Whitgift the queen found a primate who thought much as she did on questions of church order ; and so aided, the vast and undefined power of the great Tudor sovereign had its own way, and what has been termed the high Anglican system became under Whitgift and Elizabeth firmly established in Eng- land. How deeply she valued Whitgift is shown by her wish, when Sir Thomas Bromeley, the lord chancellor, died in 1587, to entrust the archbishop with the great seal. He declined the honour, being wise enough to see that the time was past when it was for the church's interest to unite the great lay and clerical offices in one person ; but he induced the queen to make his friend and confidant, Sir Christopher Hatton, chancellor. Hatton's advancement, however, did much to strengthen the archbishop's hand. Whit- gift preserved the queen's friendship to the last, and was with his great mistress when the end came. Grindal, as we have seen, died in 1583. The queen, being thoroughly convinced that the conciliatory measures of that gentle, loyal primate towards the Puritan party in the church — a party daily growing stronger and more emphatic in their de- nunciations of what they deemed the retrograde policy of the Church of England 1583-1584-] ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT. 425 — were utterly insufficient for the preserv- ation of the life of the church, at once appointed Whitgift to the vacant primacy. The new archbishop undertook the task of introducing a more rigid order and a sterner discipline into the church. He found many of the extreme reformers "taking orders and holding offices in the church, that they might use their posi- tion to subvert it." Whitgift was deter- mined to put a stop to this, and ordered that all the clergy should subscribe to three article-, affirming the royal suprem- acy, the lawful ness of the Book of Com- mon Prayer, and their assent to the Thirty-nine Articles. In pursuance of this policy, he issued articles of inquiry to the clergy, which they were requested to answer by virtue of their office. An outcry was immediately raised that the Inquisition was being introduced into England. Cecil (lord Burleigh) wrote to Whitgift that " this judicial and canonical sifting of poor ministers is not to edify or JOHN WHITGIFT, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. \Frow an Kngrazing by George Virtue, 1717, from an unknown picture.) reform. In charity, I think they ought not to answer all these nice points, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy." Whitgift in reply defended his action, and added : "I know your lordship desireth the peace of the church, but it cannot be pro- cured after so long liberty and lack of discipline if a few persons, so meanly qualified as most of them, are counte- nanced against the whole state of the clergy." In vain the House of Com- mons, which generally was on the Puri- tan side, pro- tested ; and even the queen's trust- ed ministers expressed their dread as to the results of what they deemed the archbishop's high - handed proceedings. Elizabeth steadily supported him. She would not permit even the strongly- expressed judgment of her faithful minis- ter Cecil to interfere with the policy of an archbishop whose views on church government, and whose dislike to Puritan interference, so entirely coincided with her own feelings. 426 THE CHURCH How dangerous were the designs of the more extreme of the Puritan party to the very existence of the church, appears from the opinions apparently generally held among them. Certain of their number were in 1587 brought before "the court of the high commissioner for causes ecclesi- astical." It is not probable that the more moderate acknowledged the holding of such destructive views ; but many at this time, and those, too, prominent members ot the anti-church party, no doubt sympathised with these opinions, which more or less permeated all the Puritan faction. The following are among the more striking of these opinions : "That the Church of Eng- land was no church, or at the least no true church, because the worship of the English Church was flat idolatry ; that the preachers had no lawful calling ; that the govern- ment (of the church) was ungodly ; that no bishop or preacher preached Christ sincerely and truly ; that the people of every parish ought to choose their bishop ; that every elder, though he be no doctor nor pastor, was a bishop ; that set prayer was blasphemous ; that the child of un- godlv parents ought not to be baptised." * Severe measures were resorted to in certain cases, and some of the more prominent of these Nonconformists were even executed. These acts of cruelty will ever be a blot on Whitgift's life. The times were, however, troubled, and heresy was too often construed into treason. Still, such extreme measures were deplorable. Many earnest and conscientious men fled the country, and took refuge in Holland, *See "Life of Archbishop Whitgift," by Sir George Paul, comptroller of Whitgift's household. Published 1612. OF ENGLAND. [1587. where gradually the body of Independents were formed, who came to the front later in the great civil war of the next century. Yet during the reign of Elizabeth the great mass of the Puritan Nonconformists rigorously though they were treated, were devotedly loyal ; the more thoughtful being well aware that " on the security of her person and the success of her administra- tion was staked, humanly speaking, the fate of the realm and of all reformed churches. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she con- signed them, often prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that re- bellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was left him, and shouted ' God save the queen.' The sentiment with which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity." * Their historian,f although bitterly blaming the cruelty with which she treated the people to whom he belonged, thus writes : " However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, queen Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and politic princess, for delivering her kingdom from the diffi- culties in which it was involved at her accession, for preserving the Protestant reformation against the attempts of the Pope, the emperor, and the king of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots, and her * Macaulay : " History of England," chap. i. t Neal. ,587.] THE CONTINUITY Popish subjects at home. . . . She was the glory of the age in which she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity." Succeeding writers of different times and of various schools of thought have found bitter fault with one or other of those great ones, who were raised up in these days of stress and storm to reduce the con- fusion and perplexity into which religion among us had fallen, to order. Parker and Guest have been charged with over much leaning to medievalism, with too great love for the rites and ceremonies of the church of the old learning ; Jewel, Sandys, and Home, with lingering love towards the destructive tendencies of the divines of Geneva, Strasburg, and Zurich ; Grindal has been often accused of being a Puritan in heart, and of being too ready to use his great office for the purpose of undermining the catholicity of the English church. In Whitgift, on the other hand, some see a wish to stamp out the spiritu- ality and earnestness, the splendid vigour and freshness, of the reformers ; and in his harsh and inquisitorial methods of govern- ment discover a set purpose to reduce the established communion into a church sub- ject to an iron rule of ecclesiastical despot- ism similar to that exercised by the Italian popes, with only the difference of the un- bending orders issuing from Canterbury instead of Rome. Elizabeth the queen has been credited with being a Romanist at heart, loving too well all the old mediae- val superstitions, and bent upon re-intro- ducing into the church of her island empire the ancient superstitions and idolatries which disfigured the pre -Reformation reli- gion, with the one exception of the old OF THE CHURCH. 427 allegiance to Rome ; while her minister Cecil stands out in the minds of other critics as a time-server and a heartless opportunist, as a statesman who all through the period of his long and unexampled influence, simply viewed religion as an instrument useful to his royal mistress, of whom — these think — he was the too faithful servant. In all these various criticisms of the devoted and patriotic ministers and the group of divines around the great queen, who during her long reign succeeded in establishing order and discipline in the church, under much that is wilfully exaggerated there is, of course, a basis of truth. They were men, no doubt like other men, prone to error and mistakes, influenced in different ways by their past training and present surroundings ; but who, as a whole, were distinguished for their unswerving loyalty to the church of which they were the devoted servants. They all with one accord were resolute in maintaining its continuity with the past. They were all, in their different ways of working, determined that the Church of England — the church of the future — should be no new church, but simply the pre- Reformation church purged of the old superstitions, and freed from the old and hateful domination of Rome. In the church which they built up out of the ruins of the pre-Reformation, the Edwardian, and Marian churches, the English bishops, careful with an exceeding carefulness, preserved unbroken the apostolical succession so precious in the eyes of all true churchmen, so necessary to the very being and existence of a Catholic church. Unbroken was the 428 THE CHURCH descent of every Elizabethan prelate from the pre - Reformation bishops ; no flaw in the consecration of any Elizabethan prelate can be detected by the lynx-eyed criticism of friend or foe. The ritual, though simplified and purified, was the old ritual of the Catholic church. The formularies of religion were strictly based upon the most ancient and primitive Catholic models. The prayers, with very rare exceptions, were word for word trans- lated from the " Sarum " and other uses used for centuries in all the stately English abbeys and humbler parish churches. The faith was the faith pro- fessed by Chrysostom and Augustine, by Bede and by Dunstan, even the very words of the ancient Catholic symbols being preserved. In all these things, Parker, the first re- constructor of the English order ; Jewel, the apologist ; Sandys, Cox, Home, and others, though trained at Strasburg and Zurich ; Grindal, the Puritan ; and Whit- gift, the high Anglican, were absolutely one. And to this group of really great men, the makers of the Church of England, every loyal and true son of our Anglican communion acknowledges a deep debt of gratitude, feeling at the same time an intense thankfulness to Him who is the church's Eternal Head, for His supreme mercy and love in raising up at such a time so noble, so true, so wise and scholarlv a company as made up the Elizabethan divines, who lived and wrote and ruled in the last half of the sixteenth century. We have an interesting and vivid picture of the impression which the order and OF ENGLAND. [1583-1584 reverence of the services of the Church of England made upon an Italian " intelli- gencer," a representative of the Papal court, who had come to England with a view of informing himself of the state of ecclesias- tical matters under Elizabeth. His words to an English gentleman who accompanied him (Sir Edward Hobby) were as follows : " That they were led in great blindness at Rome by our own nation, who made the people there believe that there was not in England either archbishop or bishop or cathedral, or any church or ecclesiastical government, but that all was pulled down to the ground, and that the people heard their ministers in woods and fields, amongst trees and brute beasts ; but for his own part, after he had witnessed the services in Canterbury cathedral on the occasion of a visit of archbishop Whitgift, where the dean, prebendaries, and preachers in their surplices and scarlet hoods were present, when he had heard the solemn music with the voices and organs, he was overtaken with admiration, and protested that (unless it were in the Pope's chapel) he never saw a more solemn sight, or heard a more heavenly sound." Sir Edward Hobbv on this expressed a wish that, when he re- turned to Rome, " he would work miracles in making those that are led into this blind- ness to see and understand the truth." " It is,'' said the intelligencer, " the chief cause ot my coming, to see with my own eyes and truly inform others." Where- upon Sir Edward Hobby accompanied him to London, and so to the court, where he saw and heard many things to confirm Sir Edward's report on the government of the church, and civil carriage of the people in their obedience to the 1583-1584-] FOREIGN OPINIONS OF THE CHURCH. 429 clergy and magistrates in the common- another striking view of the aspect which wealth.* the Church of England presented to This picture referred to the Elizabethan another distinguished foreigner, the French THE CHOIR, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. church of about the year 1583-4. A few years later, in the year 1603, the year of the death of the great queen, we have * From the " Life of Archbishop Whitgift," by Sir George Paul, first published 1612. ambassador, Rosny, afterwards known as the famous due de Sully. " My lord of London (Dr. Bancroft, soon afterwards archbishop in succession to Whitgift) there seriously put his majesty (king James I.) 430 THE CHURCH in mind of the speeches which the French ambassador, Monsieur Rosny, gave out concerning our Church of England, both at Canterbury soon after his arrival, and after at the court, upon the view of our solemn service and ceremonies — namely, that if the reformed churches in France had kept the same orders amongst them which we have, he was assured that there would have been many thousands of Protestants more there than now there are." * Some twenty-two years later we have yet another picture of the Church of England painted by a foreign hand, which gives us an equally glowing view of the order and reverence and impressive grandeur of the Anglican services. It comes from the report of a distinguished member of the suite of the marquis d'Effiat, ambassador of France, to James I. just before the marriage of prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.) with the princess Henrietta Maria. The witness in question was a French lay abbot. He thus describes his impressions to the lord keeper (arch- bishop Williams) : " I have been long inquisitive what outward face of God's worship was retained in your Church of England, what decorums were kept in the external communion of your assemblies Therefore, waving polemical points o, doctrine, I demanded after those things that lay open to the view and pertained to the exterior visage of the house of God." He had previously consulted, he remarked, with English Romanists on the subject, " such as had taken the habit of some sacred order." * Quoted by Dr. Wordsworth: "Ecclesiastical Biographies," from Barlow's "Sum of the Hampton Court Conference." OF ENGLAND. [,603. He went on to say : " But Jesu ! how they have deceived me ! " The French lay abbot in question had been attending service in Westminster abbey on Christmas Day. "What an idea of deformity, limned in their own brain, have they hung up before me ! They told me of no composed office of prayer used in all these churches by authority, but of extemporaneous babblings. They traduced your pulpits as if they were not possessed by men that be ordained by imposition of hands, but that shopkeepers and the scum of the people usurp that place in course, one after another, as they presume themselves to be gifted. Above all, they turned their re- proaches against your behaviour at the Sacrament, describing it as a prodigious monster of profaneness. . . . All this I perceive is infernally false. And though I deplore your schism from the Catholic church, yet I should bear false witness if 1 did not confess that your decency at that holy duty was very allowable, both in the consecrator and receiver. ... I will lose my head," he went on to say, " if you and our Huguenots are of one religion." After much more of this curious impression of the services and solemn decorum, he closes with the striking words : " I think you are not far from heaven." * The question suggests itself : Did the Anglican presentment of the reformed religion, as it appears under the adminis- tration of Whitgift (1583-1604), who fairly seems to have expressed the mind of Elizabeth, commend itself to the majority * Hacket's " Life of Archbishop Williams," 1693, quoted by Dr. Wordsworth : " Ecclesiastical Biography," vol. iii., pp. 610-613, notes. i6o3.] RELIGIOUS VIE of Englishmen ? On the whole, \\ c should answer in the affirmative. In spite of Nonconformist opposition and Romanist intrigues without, and differences of opinion within the church, there is no doubt that the Church of England established under Elizabeth, under the wakeful care of the catholic - minded Parker and his able and earnest co- adjutors— Jewel, Cox, Guest, Sandys, Home, Grindal, Whitgift, and others — now aided, now restrained or guided by the queen herself and her great minister Cecil, made a firm and enduring lodg- ment in the hearts of the people. Various computations have been made as to the relative number of adherents of Romanism and Protestantism at this time. Mr. Hallam, whose high rank among our historians gives vast weight to his opinion, considers that the Catholics (Roman Catholics) were one-third, and the Protes- tants two-thirds of the nation. Macaulay, declining " to number the people," believes that " each side had a few enterprising champions and a few stout-hearted martyrs, but the nation, undetermined in its opinions and convictions, resigned itself implicitly to the guidance of the government, and lent the sovereign of the day for the time being, an equally ready aid against either of the extreme parties. We are very far from saying," went on our popular his- torian, " that the English of that generation were irreligious. They held firmly those doctrines which are common to the Catholic and Protestant theology." * Much of what was introduced by the more thoughtful advocates of the new * Macaulay : Essays — " Burleigh and His 'limes." VS IN ENGLAND. 431 learning was widely and generally popu- lar— such as the rendering of the prayers in English, the communion in both kinds, above all and before all the open English Bible, which all might read, ponder over, pray over. But the people at large had " no fixed opinions as to the matters in dispute between the churches. They were sometimes Protestants, sometimes Catholics ; sometimes half - Protestants, half-Catholics. . . . These mixed feel- ings were not confined to the populace, Elizabeth herself was by no means exempt from them." * The ancient mediaeval ceremonies and usages were long remem- bered by queen and people alike with affectionate reverence. In the royal chapel, we know, stood a crucifix with wax lights burning round it. The great dramatists, who may be said fairly to reflect popular feeling, writing in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign, tell us, with no uncertain voice, that religion was deeply rooted in the hearts of English- men, in spite of their want of ardent zeal either for Protestantism or Roman Catholi- cism ; a state of mind largely owing to their admiration for much in the teaching of the new learning being mingled with a deep lingering attachment to rites and usages, and even doctrines, so long asso- ciated with all English religious life. In the works of these dramatists we find religion ever treated with tender respect. The fundamental doctrines of Christianity are handled reverently. The dramatists who adorned the last years of the Eliza- bethan era, while evidently generally pos- sessed in a high degree with reverence For religion, spoke scarcely like Protestants * Ibid. 452 THE CHURCH or Romanists. They seemed to hover between the two. " Almost every member of a religious order whom they introduced is a holy and venerable man. They treat the vow of celibacy — in later times so common a subject for ribaldrv — with mysterious reverence. . . . Massinger shows a great fondness for ecclesiastics of the Roman church . . . Shakespeare's partiality for friars is well known. In Hamlet, the Ghost complains that he died without extreme unction, and, in defiance of the article which condemns the doctrine of Purgatory, declares that he is " Confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes, done in his days of Nature, Are burnt and purged away." Yet the author of King John and Henry VIII. was surely no friend to Papal supremacy." * On such malleable natures the influence of the high Anglican policy of archbishop Whitgift, whose power in the church and state extended over the long period of some twenty years, was necessarily very great. It moulded the Church of England into the form generally aimed at by Parker, and on the whole preferred by Elizabeth, rallying to its ranks of moderates many of those who still loved — often, perhaps, with an unreasoning love — the old ways and rites. On the other hand, the high An- glican policy of Whitgift and his school no doubt alienated man)' of the really devout and earnest among the Puritan partv ; and the stern and persecuting measures unhappily adopted later in the * Macaulay : Essays — " Burleigh and His Times." On the other hand, the strong bias of the poet Spenser for Puritanism has been already noticed. OF ENGLAND. [1592- 1593. reign, in 1592-1593, widened the breach that was gradually forming between the established church and the extreme Puri- tans. These men asked themselves — should they, after having freed themselves from the yoke of Rome, quietly submit to what they regarded as a new spiritual tyranny ? Thus grew up in the latter half of Elizabeth's reign, during the primacy of her favourite prelate, Whit- gift, that Puritan party which developed during the reigns of the great queen's successors — James I. and Charles I. — into the Presbyterian and Independent division of the great Puritan faction, which eventu- ally declared war with the crown and church ; and which for a season was victorious, and for some years, as we shall presently see, destroyed both the crown and church. The Puritan victory, however, was but a transient one. The disappearance of church and crown was only seeming. In the heart of the people the church, with all its faults and short- comings, had made a firm lodgment ; and the victor)- of the church in 1660 was also the victory of the crown. But although ibbo saw the restoration of the monarchy and the downfall of the Puritan and Presbyterian supremacy, the unhappy breach between Anglicanism and Puritanism remains unbridged over, and Protestant England has ever since been split into two opposing camps. It has been suggested that had Eliza- beth and Whitgift pursued a different policy — a policy of complete toleration — the result would have been very different. This is, however, more than doubtful. The views of Elizabeth in the matter of church government and of church order, CHRISTMAS DAY SERVICE IN WESTMINSTER ADBEY, IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 88 434 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1594—1600. which were mainly the views of Parker, Whitgift, and their coadjutors, and even of such prelates as Jewel and Grindal, were too widely divergent from the opinions held on momentous questions by the more earnest of the extreme re- formers— held still, alas ! by their lineal descendants, the present Nonconformist bodies — to admit of reconciliation. But while the wiser and more thoughtful among Anglicans and Nonconformists feel alike that union on the grave points of difference is impossible, they are at the same time conscious that other articles bearing upon fundamental religion, which both hold in common, are so many and so deeply important, that the two great parties which make up religious England may fairly hope ever to work together as brothers, ever to fight shoulder to shoulder as fellow-soldiers, though ranged under different flags, in the great crusade which is being ever warred against the sleepless enemies of the Cross. The later years of Elizabeth witnessed the putting forth of the famous defence and systematic exposition of the position of the Church of England by Richard Hooker, in his " Ecclesiastical Polity." The work was published virtually under the imme- diate sanction of archbishop Whitgift, and has ever since held a unique, almost a semi-authoritative place among the writings of the chief divines of the Anglican com- munion. Some details of this remarkable work, which embodied then — and largely embodies still — the chief principles which fixed the position of the Church of Eng- land, will be interesting and useful. Hooker's book, it must be remembered, after the English Bible and the English Prayer-Book, was almost the first great work in English prose. Written in language of rare dignity and massive eloquence, to which was added profound learning, the importance of Hooker's work in the ecclesiastical history of England can, as it has been well phrased, hardly be overstated. The immediate occasion of the compo- sition of the famous "Ecclesiastical Polity" was the fierce controversy which arose between Hooker, the master of the Temple, and Mr. Travers, the afternoon lecturer or preacher at the Temple, who had been, it may be observed, disappointed in his hopes of succeeding to the mastership when Hooker, mainly through the power- ful influence of archbishop Whitgift, was appointed to that important preachership. Travers, after Cartwright, of whose violent speaking and writing at Cambridge and in London we have already spoken, was perhaps the most distinguished Puritan leader of the day. The claims of the Puritan party, resisted by Whitgift the primate, and by Hooker in his famous work, have been well summarised thus : " For the church modelled after the fashion of Geneva the Puritan leaders claimed an authority which surpassed the wildest dreams of the masters of the Vatican. All spiritual authority and juris- diction, the decreeing of doctrine, the ordering of ceremonies, lay wholly in the hands of the ministers of the church. To them belonged the supervision of public morals. In an ordered arrangement of classes and synods these presbyters were to govern their flocks, to regulate their own orders, to decide in matters of faith, to administer 1594-1630.] RICHARD discipline. Their weapon was excom- munication, and they were responsible for its use to none but Christ. The province of the civil ruler was simply to carry out the decisions of the presbyters, ' to see their decrees executed, and to punish the contemners of them.' The spirit of Calvinistic Presbyterianism excluded all toleration of practice or belief. Not only was the rule of ministers to be established as the one legal form of church govern- ment, but all other forms, episcopalian and separatist, were to be ruthlessly put down. For heresy there was the punishment of death. Never had the doctrine of persecu- tion been urged with such a blind and reckless ferocity. ' I deny,' wrote Cart- wright, ' that upon repentance there ought to follow any pardon of death. . . . Heretics ought to be put to death now. If this be bloody and extreme, I am content to be so counted with the Holy Ghost.' " * Against these adversaries, who counted in the number of their immediate ad- herents and sympathisers a powerful minority of the English people, including not a few of the great, the cultured, and the powerful, arose, in the words of Hallam, a defender of the English Church, " who mingled in those vulgar contro- versies t like a knight of romance amongst caitiff brawlers, with arms of finer temper, and worthy to be proved in a nobler field.'' We allude to the famous Richard * Green, iii., chap, viii., sect. i. t Dean Church (Introduction to Book I. of the " Ecclesiastical Polity "), quoting this fine passage, justly charges Mr. Hallam with a harsh and un- philosophical judgment in the use of such terms, in the matter of the great religious controversy of the time. HOOKER. 435 Hooker, somewhiles master of the Temple, a profound scholar, and one of the greatest divines and thinkers who have adorned the Church of England, the author of " The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." "This eminent work," went on our great historian to say, " may justly be reckoned to mark an era in our literature. . . . It is, indeed, not a little remarkable that England, until near the end of the sixteenth centurv, had given few proofs in literature of that intellectual power which was about to develop itself in Shakespeare and Bacon. We cannot, indeed, place Hooker (but whom dare we place ?) by the side of these master-spirits ; yet he has abundant claims to be counted among the luminaries of English literature. He not only opened the mine, but explored the depths of our native eloquence. So stately and graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so con- densed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrase, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity." * The treatise on the " Laws of Ecclesi- astical Polity " has been well described as " the first great systematic development of Anglican theology, in which can be traced the ideal embodied in the Elizabethan settlement," and as " an apology for a partial and, to a great extent, accidental settlement of the difficult questions raised by the reformation. In it he appears to * Hallam : " Constitutional History, ' i., 214. 4?6 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. [1594— 1600. write from a point of view to which the religious compromises of Elizabeth's reign wore the aspect of an absolute and unim- provable ideal. . . . He brought out the nobler features of the system he defended, exaggerated and false theory of the purpose and function of scripture as the exclusive guide of human conduct — he opposed his own more comprehensive theory of a rule derived not from one alone, but from all RICHARD HOOKER. (From a rare print by Hollar.) its fitness to be the church of a great nation, its adaptation to human nature and society, the reasonableness of its customs, the large- ness of aim, and the freedom and elevation of spirit in its principles and working, com- pared with what claimed to take its place. . . . . To what he considered the fundamental mistake of the Puritans — an the sources of light and truth with which man finds himself encompassed." * The work is divided into eight books. The first five appeared in print in the author's lifetime, the fifth being published in icq-, three years before his death, * Dean Church : Introduction to Book I., " Laws of Ecc. Polity." 1594 — l6oo.] HOOKER'S "ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY." 437 which happened in 1600. A consider- able part of the sixth book has virtually perished, and grave suspicions exist that it was wilfully destroyed. The remaining " will forget the magnificent comprehen- siveness of his treatment in the first book of the Polity, of the subject of the first three books, ' On the Nature of Law in TITLE-PAGE OF "THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY." (l622 EDITION.) (British Museum.) fragments of the sixth, and the seventh and eighth books— the two latter imperfect, but still in substantial preservation — remain. They were not, however, published till about fifty years after Hooker's death. " No reader of Hooker," said a profound •student of the Elizabethan masterpiece, general.' In the third division of this first book, the writer dwells on the law supernatural, of which the record and ex- ponent is scripture, and explains the true domain and purpose of this law of scripture. So it is that he lays the foundation ; with his foot firmly planted thereon, it is not 438 THE CHURCH hard for him to strike in the next two books (the second and third) decisive blows against the two fundamental positions of his antagonists : the maxim that for the individual Christian life, ' scripture is the only rule of all things which in this life may be done of men ; ' and the maxim that for the corporate life of the church, ' there must be in scripture a form of church polity the laws of which may not be altered.' On each of these Puritan maxims he argued separatelv. examining the supposed claims of holv scripture for itself." The second and third books are, however, now comparatively little read. Bishop Barrv. from whose essay we quote, considers it a fatal error to dwell upon any part of Hooker's massive work without study of the deep foundation laid in the first book, " more valuable he considers in itself, more important in its effects on subsequent English theology, certainly fuller of living instruction to us, than any part of the more apologetic and polemic superstructure which he has raised upon it."' In the fourth and fifth books are con- tained the defence of the worship and ritual of the Church of England. The fourth book deals with the charges brought by the Puritan party against our worship and ritual, of a want of apostolical sim- plicity, of too great likeness to the Church of Rome, of unlikeness to the system of Protestant churches abroad, of a derivation from the Judaic ceremonial of the Old Testament, of the retention of that which had been hopelessly corrupted by idolatry.* The fifth book, the most widely studied of * See Bishop Barry : " Essay on Hooker," in the " Masters in English Theology." OF ENGLAND. [1594-1600. all — the treatise almost universally put into the hands of all students of Anglican theology — examines the principle of a liturgy, then the various parts and access- ories of our prayer-book worship, the doctrine of the sacraments and their forms of ministration, the details of our occasional services, the principles of fasts and festivals, the three orders, and even the accidents of our ministry and parochial system. "From time immemorial it has been studied as the best commentary on our prayer-book." * The famous passage on the great sacrament of the Eucharist, a passage of " earnest and impressive eloquence," which closes chap, lxvii., sect. 12, urging that "among all who hold not that base Zwinglian theory, which our church expressly repudiates, there are these great fundamental points of agreement, that it is a real participation of Christ, that it is a real means of grace of the Holy Ghost . . . and that all this being accepted, we should inquire and dispute no further," has been already in part quoted in this work. Of the three remaining books, much of the sixth, we have already stated, has been lost. What we possess is but a fragment, and this fragment is directed in its argu- ment " rather against Rome than against Geneva," dealing with confession and abso- lution. The seventh and eighth books, onlv published long years after Hooker had passed away, and taken from Hooker's rough drafts, lack the corrections of the author. The seventh contains the argument for episcopacv and the question of apos- tolical succession. It lays down the prin- ciple that, there being no formal rule * Ibid. ,-i6oo] CONTENTS OF THE "ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 439 of church polity enunciated in Holy Scrip- ture, the form of government lay in the power of the church itself to determine ; that from the beginning, even from apostolic times, that form has been episcopal — a thousand five hundred years and upward [Hooker wrote before a. d. 1600] the church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of bishops. Thus, even taking the lower view of universal church custom, it is rash and presumptuous to overthrow it ; but taking the generally received persuasion, held from the first beginning, that the apostles themselves left bishops invested with power, it may be boldly and peremptorily concluded that, if anything in the church's government, surely the first constitution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God ; the holy Ghost was the author of it. Very gently, but still very firmly, the great Anglican theologian thus sorrow- fully speaks of other reformed churches, less happily circumstanced : " Although I see that certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially, and French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred Scriptures ; I mean the government that is by bishops, inasmuch that both these churches are fallen under a different kind of regiment, which to remedy, it is for the one altogether too late, and too soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble ; this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes, without any fault of their own, may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to content themselves with this, which either the irremediable error of former times, or the necessity of the present, hath cast upon them." The eighth and last book handles the principle of the royal supremacy, as maintained in the Church of England. This is not " Erastian," in the modern sense of the word. It simply asserts that all laws connected with the church were to be passed by the whole body, by the clergy in convocation, by the laity in Parliament, with the assent of the crown. The supreme authority to en- force these laws belonged to the crown, supreme in all causes ecclesiastical as well as civil. Such was this monumental work, which, as we have stated, was the first great sys- tematic development of Anglican theology, published under the immediate sanction of archbishop Whitgift, the favourite prelate and confidential friend of queen Elizabeth, at the close of the sixteenth century. The fifth, the largest and most important of the books, printed first in 1597, was ex- pressly dedicated to Whitgift in a long and elaborate dedication of several pages. So important did Whitgift deem the work of Hooker, that his biographer, the well- known Isaac Walton,* tells us how the archbishop, about a month after Hooker's death (1600), sent one of his chaplains " to inquire of Mrs. Hooker for the three re- maining books of Polity (VI., VII., VIII.) writ by her husband, of which she would not, or could not, give any account, and that about three months after this time, the bishop (archbishop) procured her to be sent for to London, and there by his procure- ment she was to be examined by some of * In appendix to " Life of Mr. Richard Hooker." 44° THE CHURCH her majesty's council concerning the dis- posal of these books." So important were these writings also considered bv the queen's privy council. As regards the general estimation in which the great work of Hooker was held, Isaac Walton tells us how both the reformed, and the learned of the Romish Church esteemed them, and repeats a curious story, that cardinal Allen, or the learned Dr. Stapleton. brought the book under the notice of Pope Clement VIII. The first book was read to the Pope, Isaac Walton goes on to say, in Latin, at the conclusion of which the Pope spoke to this purpose : "There is no learning that this man hath not searcht into, nothing too hard for his understanding ; this man indeed de- serves the name of an author ; his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them the seeds of eternity, that if the rest be like this, the}- shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning." In the same charming biography (Isaac Walton's) of the great scholar, which has become a classic among us, we read how at the first coming of king James (1603) into this kingdom, he inquired of the arch- bishop Whitgift for his friend Mr. Hooker, that writ the books of Church Polity ; to which the answer was, that he died a year before queen Elizabeth [it was more than a year], who received the sad news of his death with very much sorrow ; to which the king replied : " And I receive it with no less, that I shall want the desired hap- piness of seeing and discoursing with the man from whose books I have received such satisfaction ; indeed, my lord, I have received more satisfaction in reading a leaf or paragraph in Mr. Hooker, though it OF ENGLAND. [1603. were but about the fashion of churches, of church musick, or the like, but especially of the sacraments, than I have had in the reading particular large treatises written but of one of those subjects by others, though verv learned men ; .• . J and though many others write well, yet in the next age thev will be forgotten ; but doubt- less there is in every page of Mr. Hooker's book the picture of a divine soul, such pictures cf truth and reason, and drawn in so sacred colours, that they shall never fade, but give an immortal memory to the author." And, went on Walton to say, "it was so truly true that the king thought what he spoke, that as the most learned of the nation have, and still do mention Mr. Hooker with reverence, so he also did never mention him but with the epithet of 'learned,' or 'judicious,' or 'reverend.' or ' venerable ; ' nor did his son, our late king Charles the First, ever mention him without the same reverence, enjoining his son, our now gracious king [Walton wrote in the time of Charles II.] to be studious in Mr. Hooker's books." Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I., says in her relation at the end of "Icon Basilike : " " He (rav father) bid me read bishop Andrewe's sermons, Hooker's ' Ecclesiasti- cal Polity,' and bishop Laud's book against Fisher, which would ground me against Popery." The prophetic words of king James respecting the fadeless colours of Hooker's pictures of truth and reason, and the im- mortal memory of the author of the " Eccle- siastical Polity," have, so far as the four centuries which have elapsed since the master theologian fell asleep can bear witness, been fulfilled. "Fadeless colours" 1554— i6oo] THE LIFE OF HOOKER. 441 for his pictures of truth and reason, and an ''immortal memory, " are strong expres- sions ; but as yet the wide popularity, to use no stronger a term, of Hooker's noble work among those thoughtful religious men who have ever been the strength of the great Anglican communion, shows no sign of waning. It is not too much to say that the writer of the books of the " Ecclesiastical Polity,'' in the case of the large majority troubles with a strange charm and pathetic beauty. To the student of the history of the Church of England, the circumstances which led to the composition of perhaps its most important theological work, is of peculiar interest. Curiously enough, al- thoueh of English c hu rchrnen, has touched their hearts as well as their understand- ings. The life-story of the greatest theologian of the Anglican communion, so rich in divines and scholarly writers, is an un- eventful one, but it has been told by a real artist. Isaac Walton, in his simple biography, has invested the commonplace everyday life of Hooker and its homely tei bury. Hooker was brought into contact with several of the leading men in the Elizabethan church, notably with Sandys, the archbishop of York, and with Whitgift, and was also well known as a considerable scholar at his university of Oxford, he never obtained in the church, of which he became the most distinguished ornament, any preferment of high dignity, save perhaps the mastership of the Temple, which, after holding for some five or six years, he resigned, as incompatible with the prose- cution of his studies. And yet, probablv, after four centuries, his name is generally better known among us than that of any other of the famous Elizabethan divines, not even excepting the great archbishops 442 THE CHURCH Parker and Whitgift, and the distinguished author of the " Apology," Jewel, sometime bishop of Salisbury. Hooker's early connection with Jewel has been already noticed. It was to the kindness of Jewel that the humbly born Richard Hooker was indebted for his early education at Oxford, where he became a fellow of his college, Corpus Christi. He was distinguished especially as a Hebraist, and at Oxford some of the famous scholar's happiest days were spent in what he after- wards regretfully called " the freedom of my cell — which was my college." His first public appearance in London was in preaching at Paul's Cross. With some humour, mingled with pathos, Isaac Walton tells the story of the scholar's marriage with his landlady's daughter : " On his journey to London for the Paul's Cross sermon, Hooker contracted a severe cold. Nursed by his hostess, the wife of a draper in Watling Street, back into health, a feeling of gratitude induced the scholar to listen to her persuasion to take a wife that might prove a nurse to him, such an one as might both prolong his life and make it more comfortable." This wife was found in the person of her daughter Joan, " who brought him neither beauty nor portion . . . but the good man had no reason to rejoice in the wife of his youth, but had too just cause to say, ' Wo is me that I am constrained to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar.' This Joan seems to have been a commonplace, somewhat vulgar woman, utterly unsuited to the temper and disposition of the de- voted student." Bv this unlucky marriage, his biographer tells us, " the good man was drawn from the tranquillity of his OF ENGLAND. [i 554-1600. college, from that garden of piety, of pleasure, of peace and a sweet conversa- tion, into the thorny wilderness of a busy world, into those corroding cares that attend a married priest and a country parsonage, which was Drayton Beau- champ in Buckingham." An amusing and graphic picture is given us of the great scholar in his new home, with its uncongenial surroundings, on the occasion of a visit of two favourite pupils, one of whom was Edwin Sandys, a son of the archbishop of York. Sandys and his friend Cranmer* found their tutor with a volume of Horace in his hand, ''tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field, which he told his pupils he was forced to do there." Subsequently they went with him to his parsonage, but were not left long in the enjoyment of his companv, for presently " Richard was called by his wife to rock the cradle." The rest of their welcome, goes on the simple recital, was so like this, that they stayed but till the next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition. Sandys, we read, at once proceeded to acquaint his father the archbishop with his tutor's sad condition, and to beg him to remove him to some benefice that might give him a more quiet and comfortable subsistence. Through the archbishop's influence, who represented to the benchers of the Temple that Hooker was a pattern of virtue and learning, he was appointed to the mastership of the Temple. This was the turning-point of Hooker's career. The afternoon preacher of the society was, as we have already noticed, * This Cranmer was a grandson of the martyred archbishop's brother. the eminent Puritan leader, Travers. With this Travers Hooker was soon involved in public controversy ; and it was observed by a wit that " the forenoon sermons at the Temple spoke pure Canterbury, and the afternoon Geneva." We have already dwelt upon the great Puritan contention, which aimed at fundamental changes in the church government of England. This controversy now became the business of Hooker's life. His great work, " The Ecclesiastical Polity,'' grew out of the theological disputes of which the Temple was the scene in 1 585-6, Hooker, of course, being the champion of the Church of England. The sharp and bitter contro- versy led the great theologian to ponder over the grave divergences of opinion which unhappily divided the Puritan from the Anglican ; and he laid the foundations at that time of his exhaustive treatise on Ecclesiastical Polity, which subsequently rendered his name so famous among English divines. Finding the stir and bustle of the city incompatible with such studies, he asked the archbishop to give him a post in the country where, as he said, " I might behold God's blessing spring out of my mother earth, and eat my own bread without opposition." Whitgift listened to his prayer, and he was removed to the living of Boscombe, near Salisbury. In this retirement he composed the first four books of his master-work, which were published in 1 593—4. Through Whitgift's influence, he was removed in 1595 to the more lucrative preferment of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, where he completed and published in 1597 the most important section of his treatise, the fifth book. OF HOOKER. 443 It was only in the closing years of the life of the great student that men began to recognise that a thinker and writer of no common order had arisen amongst them. The parsonage of Bishopsbourne, where Hooker spent his last few years, is about three miles distant from Canterbury, near the Dover road, " in which parsonage Mr. Hooker had not been twelve months, but his books and the innocency of his life became so remarkable, that many turned out of the road, and others (scholars especially) went purposely to see the man whose life and learning were so much admired." "What went they out for to see," quaintly asks his biographer, Walton, fully conscious of the unimposing presence of his hero — " a man clothed in purple and fine linen ? " And describing the disap- pointment of many curious visitors on meeting with the object of their pilgrim- age, he thus paints the celebrated Richard Hooker, " as an obscure, harmless man, in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown or canonical coat ; of a mean stature and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his soul ; his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications." * Some indignant surprise is not un- naturally felt that so little recognition was given to this eminent man by the leaders of the church and state in his lifetime ; that one who deservedly is ranked among the two or three of the most conspicuous ornaments of the great reign of Eliza- beth, was allowed to pass away in the comparative seclusion of a little country parsonage. But it seems that although Hooker had been well known for years to> * Isaac Walton : " Life of Hooker." 444 THE CHURCH Burleigh, Sandys, Whitgift, and others, he had been only regarded as an accurate scholar and an able controversialist by these distinguished men ; the real great- ness of the man and the surpassing grandeur of his writings was only acknowledged too late for human recognition or gratitude. The noblest and most enduring section of the master-work — the fifth book — only saw the light in 1507; and before the year 1600 had run its course, Hooker had passed away to another and grander scene. In the biography from which we are quoting, written some sixty years or more after his death — a little writing which has charmed so many readers among our people, to whom the massive theology and the stately diction of Hooker, in his lucid and scholarly presentment of their church, is perhaps but the shadow of a mighty name — Isaac Walton is never tired of dwelling upon the humility and meekness and the devoted piety of Hooker. Singularly beautiful is his account of the great scholar's deathbed, and of his colloquies in the last solemn hours with his dear friend, Dr. Saravia, a learned Canterbury prebendary. One of these dying utterances deserves to be quoted, even in the comparatively brief and arid annals of a history, as it gives some index to the mind of the man to whom the law and OF ENGLAND. [l6oo. order of the Church of England, based, as he had so exhaustively shown in his writings, upon the records and traditions of an immemorial antiquity, appeared so beautiful and divine, so worthy of the English nation who had adopted it as their form of Christianity. It was the day before Hooker;s death, and his friend, as he looked on him, noticed the dying man was '• deep in contemplation, and not inclinable to discourse " Saravia asked him what was the nature of his present thoughts. The scholar at once replied : " That he was meditating the number and nature of angels, and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not be in heaven ; and oh that it might be so on earth ! " His last words gently expressed his wish to have lived a little longer, that he might have done the church more service ; but he was sensible that he could not hope it, for his days were past. Walton closes his story with the words : " Now he seems to rest like Lazarus in Abraham's bosom ; let me here draw his curtain, till with the most glorious com- pany of the patriarchs and apostles, the most noble army of martyrs and confessors, this most learned, most humble, holy man shall also awake to receive an eternal tranquillity, and with it a greater degree of glory than com- mon Christians shall be made partakers of." AiiE BURLEIGH MONUMENTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAPTER LXI. close of Elizabeth's reign, the reformed church of England. Splendour of the Elizabethan Era — Loneliness of the Queen's Last Years — Closing Days and Death — Her Work and Character — Last Years of Whitgift — The Lambeth Articles — Lancelot Andrewes — His Controversy with Rome — The New Need for such an Apologist — Rise of the Jesuits — Character of Andrewes — Sketch of the Reformed Church of England at Elizabeth's Death — Sketch of the Puritan Party — Growing Bitterness of the Puritans against the Church — Reasons for this Bitter- ness— Its Permanent Results — Estimate by the Earlier Anglicans of the Reformation Divines and their Work. T T yiTH the last years of the six- V Y teenth century, the curtain was about to fall on the brilliant reign in which so much had happened for England — the reign which had wit- nessed so many and such great changes, and had seen the marvellous development of English power and greatness at home and abroad. In all these changes and developments queen Elizabeth, during her long and, on the whole, prosperous reign, had borne the principal part. She had been rarely favoured throughout its long-drawn-out course with the help of a most illustrious company of assistants in every department of church and state, generally splendidly loyal, and singularly devoted to their royal mistress. No sovereign that had ever sat on the throne of England could boast of such a group of far-seeing faithful statesmen as Cecil and Bacon, Walsingham and Hunsdon ; such a 446 THE CHURCH company of soldiers and sailors, among whom the names of Philip Sidney, Drake, Howard of Effingham, will be for ever especially illustrious. Yet more famous in English story are the names of the chiefs of literature, who won for our country the first rank in the world of letters — Lyly and Sidney, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, and Bacon ; while in the department with which we are more especially concerned in our history of the Church of England, a singularly wise, learned, and statesmanlike group of ecclesiastics surrounded the queen all through her eventful career — men like Parker and Jewel, Guest, Sandys and Cox, Grindal and Whitgift, and — last in rank but first in fame and in enduring influence — the judicious Hooker. But the end was come at last. It was the melancholy destiny of the splendid queen that she outlived all her friends and faithful advisers, with perhaps the solitary exception of her favourite church counsellor and archbishop, Whitgift, who, however, only survived his royal mistress for one short year. " The great men who had upheld her throne in the days of peril, dropped one by one into the grave. Walsingham died soon after the defeat of the Armada ; Hunsdon, Knollys, Burleigh (Cecil), Drake, followed at brief intervals, and their mistress was left by herself, standing, as it seemed, on the pinnacle of earthly glory, yet in all the loneliness of greatness, and unable to enjoy the honours which Burleigh's policy had won for her. The first place among the Protestant powers, which had been so often offered her and so often re- fused, had been forced upon her — ' she was OF ENGLAND. [,598. the head of the name,' but it gave her no pleasure. She was the last of her race : no Tudor would sit again on the English throne. Her own sad prophecy was ful- filled, and she lived to see those whom she most trusted turning their eyes to the rising sun. Old age was coming upon her, bringing with it perhaps a conscious- ness of failing faculties ; and solitary in the midst of splendour, and friendless among the circle of adorers who swore they lived but in her presence, she grew weary of a life which had ceased to interest her." * Not a few of those who had long been the foremost figures of Elizabeth's brilliant court lay in the neighbouring abbey of Westminster, where slept the mighty an- cestors of the queen ; some in that solemn royal ring around the remains of the Con- fessor, some in the yet more sumptuously adorned chapel of Henry VII., where Elizabeth herself was so soon to be laid. The monuments of the Elizabethan mag- nates, who died well-nigh all before their mistress, are with us still, at once the glory and disfigurement of the abbey. As illustrations of one of the most brilliant chapters of our island story, thev possess an undying interest, while at the same time, in their huge and often tasteless magnificence, they disfigure the beauty of the fairest church in Christendom. The most conspicuous of these memorials of Elizabeth's courtiers are those of her kinsman and " rough and honest " cham- berlain, lord Hunsdon, and of the Cecils. Burleigh himself — the first of the two Cecils — though his funeral was celebrated in the abbey, lies in Stamford ; but the mighty tomb over the graves of his wife * Froude: " History," vol. xii., conclusion. 1598-1603] ELIZABETH'S and daughter is at Westminster. " It ex- presses the great grief of his life, which but for the earnest entreaties of the queen would have driven him from his public duties altogether. If anyone ask, says Cecil's epitaph, who is that aged man on bended knees, venerable from his hoary hairs, in his robes of state, and with the Order of the Garter ? the answer is, that we see the great minister of Elizabeth, his eyes dim with tears for the loss of those who were dearer to him beyond the whole race of womankind. ' * Burleigh died in 1598. On his death-bed the queen often visited him. Never had a sovereign been served so long and so faithfully. His great services to the Church of England during the anxious period of the settle- ment, have been already dwelt upon. Dying, he wrote to his son, to whom the queen entrusted many of his father's offices, " Serve God by serving the queen, for all other service is indeed bondage to the devil." Elizabeth, though at times she resented Cecil's wise and moderate coun- sels, thoroughly recognised the grandeur of his intellect and his unswerving loyalty, and spoke of him in the following remark- able terms : " Her comfort had been in her people's happiness, and their happiness in his discretion?'1 After his death the queen could not hear his name without shedding tears. Within four years, how- ever, she followed him into the land beyond the veil. We have an interesting description of the magnificent but lonely queen from the pen of a German traveller, illustrative ot her splendour in these last years, as she ap- *Dean Stanley: "Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' chap. iv. LAST DAYS. 447 peared in the chapel of her palace of Greenwich. " The presence chamber was richly hung with tapestry and strewn with rushes. In it were assembled the arch- bishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and the chief officers of the crown. The queen appeared, preceded by gentle- men, barons, earls, knights of the garter, all richly dressed. Next came the lord chancellor, bearing the seal in a red silk purse between two, one of whom carried the royal sceptre, the other the sword of state. Next came the queen, very majestic, her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled, her eyes small, jet black and pleasant, her nose a little hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to from their too great use of sugar). She had in her ears two pearls. Her hair was of an auburn colour, but false ; upon her head she wore a small crown. . . . Her air was stately, and her manner of speech gracious. She was dressed in white silk bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of silk shot with silver thread ; her train was very long, the end of it borne by a marchioness. ... As she went along in all this magnificence, she spoke very graciously to foreign ministers and others, in English, French, and Italian — whoever speaks to her kneels. The ladies of the court followed her, dressed in white. She was guarded on each side by the gentle- men pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt halberds. . . . While she was at prayers, we saw her table set with the following solemnity." * Then follow more details of court ceremony : " It would seem," said * Quoted by Bishop Creighton : " Queen Eliza- beth," chap, viii, 448 THE CHURCH her biographer, "that as years went on, Elizabeth fenced herself round with greater state, and by an increase of magnificence in apparel, tried to hide from herself and others the ravages of time. Certainly she objected to any reference to her age. When the bishop of St. David's preached a sermon on the text : ' Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom,' Elizabeth, instead of thanking him, according to her custom, told him that he might have kept his arithmetic for himself ; but I see that the greatest clerks are not the wisest men." But all this outward magnificence could not hide the signs of oncoming old age ; somewhat premature perhaps, for she was not yet seventy years of age ; but the lonely queen was literally worn out with a long life of restless work, ceaseless anxieties, and continued excitement. It was in vain that she kept up a poor show of outward gaiety ; in vain that she pretended to enjoy life as in old days. " She hunted, she danced, she jested with her young favourites ; she coquetted, and scolded, and frolicked (just as she had done so forty years before). ' The queen,' wrote a courtier, a few months before her death, ' was never so gallant these many years, nor so set upon jollity.' She persisted, in spite of opposition, in her gorgeous pro- gresses from country house to country house ; she clung to business as of old." On the May day of 1602, "she went a- maying in the woods of Lewisham." She even gave the Scottish king a hint that his succession to her crown was yet in the dim distance, by keeping his ambassador waiting in a passage where he might see her dancing in her chamber. " But death OF ENGLAND. [1602 -1603. crept on, her face became haggard, and her frame shrank almost to a skeleton. At last, even her taste for finery disap- peared, and she refused to change her dress for a week together. A strange melancholy settled down upon her; gradu- ally her mind gave way, she lost her memory . . . her very courage seemed to fail her. She called for a sword to lie constantly beside her, and thrust it irom time to time through the arras, as if she heard murderers stirring there. Food and rest became alike distasteful." * A touching letter from Sir John Har- rington to his wife, giving the particulars of an interview with the queen, tells us something of her melancholy condition during the last months. "Our dear queen,'' wrote Sir John, " my royal godmother, doth now bear show of human infirmity, too fast for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow for that good which we shall get by her releasement from pain and misery. It was not many days since I was bidden to her presence. I blessed the happy moment, and found her in a most pitiable state." On an allusion to the dead Essex, the queen dropped a tear, and smote her bosom. The writer proceeds : " She held in her hand a golden cup, which she often put to her lips, but in sooth her heart seemeth too full to lack more filling." Alluding to some verses Sir John had written, she smiled once and said, "When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such matters. Thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well ; I have eaten but one ill-tasted cake since yesternight." * Green : " History," chap, vii., sect. viii. 4:o THE CHURCH The end approached a few weeks later. Robert Carey, her kinsman, gives us a vivid picture of the dying Elizabeth. " When I came to court I found the queen ill-disposed. Hearing of my arrival, she sent for me. I found her sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her ; I kissed her hand, and told her it was my chief happiness to see her in safety and in health. She took my hand and wrung it, and said, ' No, Robin, I am not well,' and then discoursed with me of her indisposi- tion, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days ; in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs." Then she spoke of the queen of Scots. The tragedy at Fotheringay was evidently sorely troubling her ; and weeping she repeated that never had she given her consent to that sad death. She was too suffering the next morning to attend service in the royal chapel, but she had cushions laid for her hard by the closet door, and there she heard service. She remained on her cushions, says Carey, four days and nights at least. All about her could not per- suade her to take sustenance or go to bed. Cecil and another of her council in vain tried to induce her, and Cecil* said that " to content the people she must go to bed.'' The queen looked up and said, " The word must was not used to princes. Little man, little man, if your father had lived you durst not have said so much ; but you know I must die, and that makes you presumptuous." She was induced at last to take to her * Robert Cecil was secretary of state. He was the great lord Burleigh's son, and succeeded to much of his father's influence. OF ENGLAND. [l6o3. bed. The sad scene of her death was in the palace at Richmond. The council were assembled, and waited sorrowfully for the end. On the :13rd of March, 1603, she was speechless, but made signs for the archbishop (Whitgift) and her chaplains to come to her. " About six at night," says Carey,* " I went in with them, and fell upon my knees, full of tears to see the heavy sight. Her majesty lay upon her back. The archbishop knelt down by her, and examined her first of her faith, and she so punctually answered all his questions, by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a great comfort to all the beholders. Then the good man (Whitgift) told her plainly what she was, and what she was come to ; and although she had been a great queen here upon earth, yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the king of kings. After that he began to pray. . . . When he had continued so long in prayer that the old man's knees were weary, he blessed her, and made as though he would rise and leave her." The queen made a sign with her hand ; one of the ladies told the archbishop what Elizabeth desired. He must pray on. " He did so for a long half-hour more, and then thought to leave her ; the second time she made a sign to have him continue in prayer. He did so for another half an hour, with earnest cries to God for her soul's health, which he uttered with such fervency of spirit, as the queen to all our sight much rejoiced thereat, and gave testimony to us all of her Christian and comfortable end." She then fell asleep, and from that sleep * Carey was a son of lord Hunsdon, and a kinsman of queen Elizabeth. i6o3 ] DEATH OF THE OUEEN. 451 she never awakened. Strype,* in his life of Whitgift, bears similar testimony to the queen's earnestness and faith in her last moments. " I supply," writes this learned and voluminous author, " what one of her physicians, writing about her mortal sick- ness, is silent in. She had several of her learned and pious bishops frequently about her (the chaplains above alluded to), as particularly Watson, bishop of Chichester, her almoner, the bishop of London, and chieflv the archbishop (Whitgift), with whom in their prayers she very devoutly and with great fervency joined, . . . and making signs and shows to her last remembrance, of the sweet comfort she took in their presence and assistance, and of the unspeakable joy she was going unto.'' We have dwelt with some detail on the closing scenes of the life of the great queen, drawing our picture whollv from contemporary sources, not only because the character of Elizabeth is peculiarly interesting to us on account of the mo- mentous and permanent effect it has had upon the fortunes of the English people, or because of the splendour and surpassing lustre of the court with which she sur- rounded herself, but because it possesses a special importance in the eyes of the historian of the Church of England. The " Elizabethan " settlement of the difficult * Strype was a most learned contributor to the history and biography of the Church of England at that time. He was born in 1643, and lived to the age of ninety-four. He had access to the papers of lord Burleigh's private secretary, and to much more original matter. Although the many volumes of his works are chaotic and undigested, they contain a most useful quarry of material for historians of the age of Elizabeth. and somewhat confused questions raised by the Reformation ; the religious com- promises of the reign, which resulted in the Church of England — a church which has emphatically shown itself fitted to be the church of a great nation — were largely influenced by the queen herself. It must ever be remembered that Parker, the great first archbishop to whom the compromises were in the main due, and Whitgift, the third archbishop, were the especial choice of the queen and her trusted minister and adviser, Cecil. Parker and Whitgift in no small degree enjoyed the intimate friend- ship, and generally the entire confidence of Elizabeth. The famous divines, also, who arranged the settlement and ordered the religious compromise, were chosen by Parker, without doubt, with the full sanction and approval of the queen. Hence the life of one who so largely in- fluenced the momentous events connected with the settlement of the ecclesiastical polity of our church, is more than an interesting study. It possesses a peculiar and enduring importance of its own. "It is easy," said her latest biographer,* " to point out serious faults in Elizabeth, to draw out her inconsistencies, . . . but this treatment does not exhibit the real woman, still less the real queen. Eliza- beth was hailed at her accession as being ' mere English,' and ' mere English ' she remained. Round her, with all her faults, the England which we know grew into the consciousness of its destiny. There are many things in Elizabeth which we could have wished otherwise ; but she saw what England might become, and nursed it into the knowledge of its * Bishop Creighton. EKFIGY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH ON HER TOME IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. power." And as with the state, so with the church. With all her acknowledged faults, the conviction of the surpassing greatness of the " Protestant queen " will grow among thoughtful Englishmen as time rolls on, and bear fresh and ever fresh testimonv to the enduring character of her ecclesiastical work. The remains of the great queen were brought by water from Richmond, where she died, to Westminster. The surgeons, contrary to her own expressed desire, cered (embalmed) the body. Camden gives us a quaint but complete expression of the universal grief felt at her death : " The queen did come by water to Whitehall, The oars at every stroke did tears let fall." Her popularity, it is said, had for some time been on the wane, and it was one of her sorrows that she had lost the people's love. It is doubtful if this was reallv the case. Certain it is that the news of the death of the magnificent sovereign who had loved her England so well, evoked a burst of unfeigned sorrow among all sorts and conditions of men. Stow thus depicts the people's mourning for the dead Eliza- beth when her body was transported from Whitehall to her resting-place in the royal abbey : " Now the Cittie of Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people, in their streetes, houses, windowes, leads, and gutters, that came to see the obsequie ; and when they beheld her statue or picture* lving uppon the coffin, set forth in Royall robes, having a crowne uppon the head thereof, and a ball and scepter in either hand, there was such a generall sighing, groning and weeping, as the like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memorie of man ; neyther doth any historie mention any people, time, or date to make like lamentation for the death of their souveraygne." She was brought, doubtless (says Dean Stanley) by her own desire, to the north aisle of Henry VII. 's chapel, to the un- marked grave of her unfortunate prede- cessor (her sister Mary). On the statelv monument erected by James I. (though paid for, apparently, by the citizens of London) there are on the several sides long and somewhat inflated inscriptions descriptive of the glories of Elizabeth. One of these, * The wax effigy that was usually laid on the coffin of sovereigns and of other illustrious persons. Some of these curious reliques of the great dead are still preserved in Westminster Abbey. 1603.] TOMB OF MARY AND ELIZABETH. 453 however, is most pathetic, as it tells in a few simple words how the royal sisters sleep together, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, the daughter of Katharine of Arragon, and the daughter of Anne Boleyn : " Regno consortes et urna, hie obdormimus Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis." * "The stately coffin of Elizabeth rests on the coffin of Mary." The monument is an enormous pile of gorgeous Renaissance work, huge and stately rather than beautiful, telling sadly of the decadence of true art. It is much defaced and broken. Its most interesting feature is the recumbent effigy of the queen, and is, no doubt, a faithful representation of the great Elizabeth as she was known to her contemporaries in her later years. The features are calm and dignified, but wear that expression of utter weariness which seemed to come over her in her sad and lonely old age. * " Partners both in throne and grave, we sisters Elizabeth and Mary sleep in the hope of the resurrection." In the search for the sepulchre of James I., the wall at the east end of the monu- ment of Elizabeth was laid bare, and through a small aperture a view was obtained into a low and narrow vault immediately beneath her tomb. "It was instantly evident that it enclosed two coffins, and two only, and it could not l e doubted that these contained Elizabeth and her sister Mary. There was no disorder or decay . . . the dim light fell on a fragment of the coffin lid. There was the Tudor badge, a full double rose, on each side, the august initials E. R., and below the memorable date 1605." * The coffin had been originally covered, evi- dently with red silk velvet. Dean Stanley, who was privileged for a brief moment to see this solemn home of so much great- ness, dwells on the impressive sight of the secluded narrow tomb, " thus compressing in the closest grasp the two Tudor sisters, ' partners of the same tomb and throne,' the great queen thus reposing in solemn * Dean Stanley: "Memorials of Westminster Abbey." 454 THE CHURCH majesty, as can hardly be doubted by her own desire, on her sister's coffin." Archbishop Whitgift survived the qusen barely a year. One blot exists upon nis character of consistency. His general policy, as we have seen, resisted the tyrannous narrowness of Puritanism ; and in his warm and steady patronage of Hooker, in his acceptance of the " Eccle- siastical Polity "■ of that great master, he showed his determination to maintain the continuity of the existing Church of England with the historical church of the past. His conduct, however, in the matter of the so-called Lambeth Articles is inexplicable, save on the supposition that in his latter years "the instability of old age may have crept upon him," and that for the sake of peace he consented to agree to a concession to some views of the Puri- tan party, which were opposed to the doctrines of the church of which he had ever showed himself the resolute defender. Let us briefly sketch the curious episode of the Lambeth Articles. It was in 1595 that a considerable party at Cambridge publicly denounced the oppo- nents of Calvin as persons addicted to Popery, and certain heads of houses in that university went so far as to censure a divine who had spoken disrespectfully of Calvin. Whitgift, strange to say, seemed to sympathise with these Cambridge Cal- vinists, and arranged a meeting at Lambeth for the discussion of the points at issue. Dr. Whitaker, the Margaret Professor of Divinity, proposed to the archbishop a series of Articles, nine in number, which should be sent down to Cambridge stamped with episcopal authority. Whitgift called OF ENGLAND. [,S9J a meeting of some divines of high rank, who considered these Calvinistic proposi- tions, and positively approved of them, and with certain modifications sent them down to Cambridge. These were the celebrated " Lambeth Articles." They asserted that " God has from everlasting predestinated certain people to life, and that some He has reprobated to death, and that it is not in the power of every man to be saved." The whole proceeding was irregular, and the prelates and others who were assembled at Lambeth acted without any formal ecclesiastical authority, for they were not assembled in a synod. Lord Burleigh (Cecil), who was still alive and in power when the "Articles" in question were submitted to him, expressed his general disapprobation, and laid them before Elizabeth. She condemned them very strongly, and the archbishop seems at once to have submitted to her judg- ment. The result was that the Lambeth Articles were suppressed. They appeared, however, again — early in the reign of James I. — at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, when the Puritan party asked that " the nine assertions orthodoxal concluded at Lambeth" might be inserted in the Book of the XXXIX. Articles. The petition shared the fate in that Hampton Court Conference of the vast majority of the Puritan suggestions and requirements, and was absolutely rejected. Bishop Andrewes, of whom we must speak with some detail, who was considered at the beginning of the seventeenth century as the most learned and weighty of the Anglican divines, in his judgment on the Lambeth Articles thus expresses himself: " For sixteen years since I was ordained 1604.3 DEATH OF ARCH priest I have never publicly or privately disputed on these mysteries of predestina- tion, and now I would much rather hear than speak of them." With the close of Elizabeth's reign the long and eventful life's work of her great archbishop and friend was virtually done ; Whitgift was well-nigh seventy-four years of age, and was worn out. He was at first anxious lest the puritanical surroundings of Elizabeth's successor (James I.) would affect the royal disposition towards the Church of England ; but he was quickly reassured, and a long and intimate con- versation with king James at Theobald's convinced him that the new sovereign was well disposed to the church polity of his predecessor. " He did perceive," writes Whitgift's contemporary biographer, " the king's resolution for the continuance of the well-settled state of the church." The archbishop officiated at the coronation ; and afterwards, at the beginning of 1604, at the Hampton Court Conference * between the Anglican and Puritan divines, though too indisposed to be always present, was able still considerably to influence its dis- cussions. The same vear he was stricken with a sudden illness (it was called a dead palsv), the result of a chill contracted on his barge during a water journey between Lambeth and Fulham. The king visited the old and faithful primate in his sickness, when Whitgift tried to speak to him in Latin ; it is supposed wishing to say some- thing weighty on the subject of the church he had loved so well ; but only the words il pro ccclcsia Dei'''' (for the church of God) were audible. He soon afterwards expired quietly, after an eventful archiepiscopate of * See next volume. ISHOP WHITGIFT. 455 twenty years and two months, " living and dving," as the writer (above quoted) of his life tells us, "as a chosen and beloved servant of God, who had devoutly conse- crated his whole life to God."* Aftei' describing the funeral ceremonies, Paul quaintly closes the biography of this famous Elizabethan primate thus : " Having now committed the body of this most reverend personage (which was sometimes the man- sion of a most excellent soul) unto his grave (where it rests in assured expecta- tion of a glorious resurrection), I will speak of the outward shape and proportion thereof. He was of middle stature, of a grave countenance, and brown complexion, black hair and eyes ; he wore his beard neither long nor thick ; he was of good and quick strength. . . ." Apologising for dwelling upon " the renowned archbishop's actions and fame," he quaintly adds, u which could not without great shame unto myself and others his followers be buried in dark- ness with his body." We have drawn in the preceding pages several pictures of typical divines of this great age, more especially of Parker, the first Protestant archbishop, the organiser ; of Jewel, the bishop, and first apologist and writer ; of Whitgift, the primate after Elizabeth's heart, who took up and de- veloped Parker's work ; of Hooker, the first great English theologian, the quiet student, the deep and profound thinker, who, in his undying work on the laws of the ecclesiastical polity of the Church of England, brought out in " clear and explicit words, at once dignified and stately, the chief * Sir George Paul, comptroller of the arch- bishop's household. First published in 1612. 436 THE CHURCH principles which, implied and embodied in the Reformation, fixed the Anglican position from the first," gave us the first systematic development of Anglican theo- logy. We must paint one more like picture, which will complete our gallery of portraits of representative churchmen of this great age. We shall then be in LANCELOT ANDREWES, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. I (From an original engrav ng hy Simon Passe, A.D. 1618.) a position to sum up what these men conceived their church should be. Lancelot Andrewes, the subject of the last of our Elizabethan portraits, was a link between the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages. Born only two years later than Hooker, in 1553, when Mary was still reigning, a considerable personage, and a powerful influence during the latter years of Elizabeth, his career was prolonged for more than a quarter of a century after OF ENGLAND. [1603-160*. Hooker had passed away. Occupying one of the highest and most influential positions in the church, he lived through the reign of Elizabeth's successor, James I., and during the first part of the succeeding one, and for many years before he died was esteemed the greatest living theologian of the English church. Andrewes was early distinguished, both at the university and subsequently in London, at St. Paul's and Westminster, as a singularly attractive teacher. As a student he was indefatigable. Master of many tongues, he was acknowledged far beyond the limits of England as possessing an erudition well-nigh unrivalled. As a preacher, Andrewes was confessedly for many years the most sought-after in the Anglican communion, of which he was so long the distinguished ornament. No sermons like Andrewes' had as yet been preached in the English church. But popular preacher though he was, the subject of this little picture was even more distinguished as a controversialist. His vast and varied learning, sacred and pro- fane, his powers as a linguist, his singular command of language, his trained and polished intellect, all singularly contributed to his success in the rough field of dis- cussion and disputation ; although the accomplished teacher, the eloquent preacher, the patient seeker after a life hidden with God, was, as has been truly said, " only by necessitya polemic.'' But when reluctantly he took up arms for his loved Church of England, in that sad field of controversy he was amongst Englishman witnout a rival. Such a champion was indeed necessary ; for the close of the sixteenth and the 1603] REVIVAL OF ROMISH POWER. 457 earlier years of the seventeenth centuries brought into view a group of master minds on the continent of Europe, whose words and writings constituted a grave danger to the very existence of the Anglican church. Rome was not then what it had been in the days of the secular Popes, when mediaeval orders in the early middle ages had done for Rome, was now in different ways being effected by this new and devoted " Roman " Militia. The ways and methods of the Dominican and the Franciscan — though these orders were still a formidable force in the Roman \ 111 - 14 .J TOMB OF LAN'CELOT ANDREWES, IN ST. SAVIOUR'S, SOUTHWARK. Luther preached, and Erasmus wrote : a grave reformation had passed over its widely-extended communion. The Papacy and its system had resumed in many foreign lands much of its old sway over the human heart. Above aJl, the new order of the Jesuits, which had through the sixteenth century been constantly growing in numbers and weight, was giving a new and undreamed-of strength to the papal power at Rome. What the Catholic Church — were somewhat unfitted for the new conditions under which the Papacy was confronted with Protestantism. The Jesuits, equally devoted to Rome, were trained now to acquiesce in, now to refute the " New Learning," as the peculiar exigencies of the moment might demand. In them the Pope possessed a sleeplessly - vigilant, devotedly - loyal, and carefully-trained band of followers, with stations in every part of the globe. •458 THE CHURCH The famous " order of Jesus " produced at this early period of their existence a group of master minds : a little company of men, not only profound scholars, but able and acute historians and con- troversialists. Suarez, who died in Ibi7, has been popularly termed " the last of the schoolmen." He is ever regarded as one, if not the chief glory of the " order of Jesus " ; he was certainly their greatest theologian and metaphysician. His pub- lished writings fill twenty-three folio volumes. One of his works, published at the instigation of Pope Paul V., in i6i3,was *'A Defence of theCatholic Faith against the Anglican Sect," a book which king James I. ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman. It was, however, better com- bated by the Anglican theologians of the seventeenth century. Cardinal Baronius, a disciple of the saintly St. Philip Neri, enriched the new Roman literature with his Annales Ecclcsiastici, a labour which cost the scholar thirty years of toil. The first volume was published at Rome in 1588, and the twelfth and last was printed in 1607. It has been and still is considered a master-work, of enormous industry and profound research. Cardinal Duperron, archbishop of Sens, who was born in 1559 and who died in 1618, another voluminous and able writer, stands in the forefront of skilled controversialists, and in one of his famous works " drew a detailed and able comparison between the church of St. Augustine and of the four first councils, and the churches of his day, Roman and reformed ; and boldly asked which of the latter bore the greater resemblance to .the earlier type." But the Church of England was confronted also by Bellar- OF ENGLAND. [1603-1626. mine,* a greater man, perhaps, than any of these. This divine lived between the years 1542 and 1021. He belonged to the famous "order of Jesus," and obtained the rank of cardinal in 1599, and the archbishopric of Capua in 1602. This brilliant and distinguished man is reckoned one of the greatest of the sons of the Roman Catholic church, and the first of her polemical divines. For many years he was uniformly taken by all Protestant advocates as the champion par excellence of the Papal claims ; and a vindication of Protestantism regularly took the shape of an answer to Bellarmine. Fortified by the learning and research, the skill and the eloquence of this dis- tinguished group of theologians, historians, and controversialists, it appeared indeed that " Rome had much more to say for itself than had appeared to Cranmer, or even to Jewel." f It will ever be An- drewes' title to honour that he fearlessly met the challenge thrown down by Bellar- mine and Duperron, as champion of the Church of England. " Andrewes," it has been well said, " wrote with the advantage which enlarged knowledge had thrown on the aims and language of both sides in the struggle ; and he did not shrink from claiming for his church as large and *A glance at the "dates" of these famous theologians who arose at this period in the Roman Catholic church, will show how formidable was the phalanx of opponents of the Anglican com- munion at this particular juncture, the last quarter of the sixteenth and the first fifteen or twenty years of the seventeenth centuries : Baronius lived 1530-1607; Suarez, 1548-1617 ; Duperron, 1556-161S; Bellarmine, 1542-1621. Of this great four, Suarez and Bellarmine were Jesuits. f Dean Church. 1603 — 1626.] LANCELOT ANDREW HS. 459 essential conformity with antiquity, even in outward things, as could be pretended bv Rome, and a far deeper agreement in spirit.'' At home the power and vast influence of Andrewes, whom bishop Hall styles with rare truth " the renowned bishop of Winchester," and " the matchless bishop Andrewes," was in large measure owing to his sweetness and gentleness of temper ; to his almost perfect character, to what has been well termed " his irresistible charm of real holiness." He was one of the most lovable of men. Occupying as lie did for many years a foremost place in the Anglican hierarchy, courted and sought after by all sorts and conditions of men, from the sovereign on the throne down to the boy-student of the university and public school, he remained to the last utterly unspoiled. Ever the most loyal subject, ever the tender and devoted friend, and, above all, a man of prayer ; one who in the midst of court life and public life,* alike in the solitude of his loved study as in the royal council chamber, alike in the composition of his most learned and exhaustive treatises as in the stir and excitement of the pulpit of Westminster and St. Paul's, breathed an atmosphere rather of heaven than of earth. Before telling the story of the church * Andrewes was successively master of Pembroke hall, Cambridge, prebendary of St. Paul's and Westminster, dean of Westminster, bishop of Chichester, Ely, and Worcester, a privy councillor, lord high almoner, dean of the Chapel Royal. His great controversial works, now only known per- haps to a very few theological scholars, were the massive and exhaustive treatises written in reply to cardinal Bellarmine : the " Tortura Torti," with its quaint and now little understood title, and the " Responsio ad Apologiam Card. Bellarmini. under king James I., and of the events which led up to the great Rebellion, and the temporary downfall of the Church of England, it will be well to give some definite idea of what this church was, as conceived by Elizabeth, her minister Cecil, and the eminent learned and patriotic theologians who flourished in that period of building up and of recon- struction. From the writings of Hooker and Andrewes, we gather a clear-cut con- ception of the Church of England as it appeared in the eyes of its great teachers at the close of the sixteenth and in the first years of the seventeenth centuries — a conception which, taking into consider- ation the many difficulties which beset them, and the human errors which ever mar all earthly work, however noble and desirable, was fairly carried out. It was based upon the following foundation principles. The framers of the Elizabethan church settlement, in the foundation story of their work placed four things, and these — with us still — have endured without change, during the three centuries which have elapsed since Parker died and Hooker and Andrewes preached and wrote. (1) They maintained the episco- pate and the ordinal ; (2) they gave to the people the English Book of Common Prayer ; (3) they put boldly and without reserve the English Bible into the hands of all ; (4) they finally and unreservedly repudiated the authority of Rome, and in place of that misused authority they substituted the authority, without exactly defining its limit, of the crown, acting ever in concert with the church and the representatives of the church. 460 THE CHURCH The purpose of the Elizabethan divines " was, taking the actual historical church of Augustine and Ethelbert, of Becket and Wolsey, of Warham and Pole, as the existing historical representative and descendant of that supernatural society which is traceable through all the ages to apostolic days, to assert its rights, to release it from usurpation, to purge away the evils which this usurpation had created and fostered ; and, accepting the Bible as the primitive church had ac- cepted it, and trying to test everything by Scripture and history, to meet the immediate necessities of a crisis which called not onlv for abolition, but for reconstruction and replacement." * The ideal which these men and their queen set before their eves was, as far as possible, to harmonise " antiquity and novelty, control and freedom, ecclesi- astical and civil authority, the staid order of a church as old as the nation, and the vigour of a modern revolution of the age of the Renaissance." Their ideal was " to stimulate conscience and the sense of individual responsibilitv, and yet to keep them from bursting all bovinds ; to over- throw a vast ancient power, strong in its verv abuses, and entrenched behind the prejudices and the great deeds of centuries, and yet to save the sensitive, delicate instincts of loyalty, reverence (cJirfitrcht), and obedience ; tc make room in the same system of teaching for the venerable language of ancient fathers, and also for the new learning of famous modern authorities." f Their noble ideal, and one * Dean Church: "Masters in English The- ology (Lancelot Andrewes)." t Ibid. OF ENGLAND. [1693-1626. which they, on the whole, succeeded in realising, was that the continuity and identity of the existing church with the historical church of the past should be maintained. The experience of three centuries, with all their wear and tear, with even the terrible interlude of a sweeping Revolution which for a few years eclipsed the church, has shown that the work of these Elizabethan builders was at once a good one and an enduring, " It has shown a wonderful power of obstinate tenacity against jars and shocks, a force of continuous growth and of vigorous recovery after disaster and stagnation. It has certainlv vindicated its claim to life and reality." To sum up in a few words, " The Church of England at its Reformation had taken up its ground on the Scriptures and the primitive church. It had avowed its object to be a return, as far as was possible, to what the teaching of the apostles and their disciples had made the primitive church to be." * There was, however, another side of our country's religious life. In no country had the Reformation and its principles sunk so deep into the hearts of the people as in England. From the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, we have already noticed how England became " the people of a book, and that book was the Bible ; how the general study of the divine writings evoked a startling enthusiasm" . . . and consequently the whole life of the nation felt the change. Foreigners who visited England in this period especially commented upon this interesting phase of English life. * Ibid. 1603—1626.] THE PURITANS UNDER ELIZABETH. 461 And the religious England of the second half of the sixteenth century, thus stirred and moved to its very heart by the Re- formation spirit, was now divided into two great parties. Both were intensely in earnest m their desire to purge away mediaeval superstition and foreign usurpa- mdntenance, cared less for these things, deemed by the Anglicans of paramount importance. The earlier Puritan was no gloomy fanatic. Those lL fierce Jewish hatreds" which later on so marred his profession of faith, did not characterise it until a rURITAX WORSHIP IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. tion, and to restore a nobler and purer worship. But while one party were, as we have just seen, more conservative, and determined to sanction no change which would break the continuity of the reformed church with the old historical church of the Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet times ; the other party, usually known as the Puritans, without at first being positively hostile to their subsequent period. Not a few of the great Elizabethan divines themselves had strong Puritan leanings, which they more or less subordinated for the sake of unity, and with the desire of establishing law and order in the church they loved. How great a power was Puritanism in its earlier stages among the people, before it was disfigured by the extravagance and wild demands of men like Cartwright, and 462 THE CHURCH the school who followed him, we see from the evident puritanical leanings of Spenser; from the temper, on more than one occa- sion, of the House of Commons ; from the existence of a strong party, too, even at the court of Elizabeth, although the queen herself had little sympathy with the school. The higher side of Puritanism, which long lingered in the ranks of the men who were influenced by it, is beautifully delineated in such works as Lucy Hutchinson's memoirs of her husband, the man after- wards sadly known as colonel Hutchinson, one of the unhappv Regicides. The Puritan gentleman in his youth, with all his deep sense of the truth of religion, was highly accomplished, chivalrous, and deeplv religious. This was very early in his career, though the Puritan sadness appeared, and gave a sombre colouring to his life. John Milton, a little later, is another example of the highest and purest type of these more extreme Protestants. It is sadly interesting to trace the various influences which darkened Puritanism, rendered its professors more unbending and fanatical, and gradually widened the breach between the Anglican and the Puritan ; a breach which has gradually widened still more, and now parts the Church of England from the Noncon- formists by a gulf which no serious man can see any reasonable hope of ever bridging over. Unutterab'y sad it is to think of England, the home of Protestantism, with all its grandeur, and power to help' and inform the world, being so hopelessly divided ; to think of its best, and truest, and most earnest sons in opposite camps. Very true ring the mournful words of one of our profoundest thinkers, which tell us OF ENGLAND. [1603-1626. how, "even in the best state which society has just reached, it is lamentable to think how great a proportion of all the efforts and talents in the world are employed in merely neutralising one another.'' * This " parting of the ways " must be mentioned here, because it began early in Elizabeth's reign. It was attributable to many circumstances. Among the more prominent stands out the revival of Rome and the Papal power ,which has been treated of above. This alarmed and dismayed the earnest Puritans. The council of Trent had done more than definitely settle the dogmas of the Roman Catholic church. It had enormously purified the life and government of the Roman communion. The awful scandals which had shocked Erasmus and dismayed More and Colet, were in great measure things of the past ; and though the old mediaeval errors of doctrine remained uncorrected, nay, had been even authoritatively ratified, the loose morality, the venial government, and the relaxed discipline of the enfeebled and discredited church had given place to a sterner and more earnest state of things. Simultaneously with this great Roman "reformation" had arisen that mighty militia of the papacy, the "Order of Jesus," an order of preachers, teachers, missionaries, and even statesmen. It was, indeed, a new life which inspired Rome before the sixteenth century had run its course. The effect was marvellous. Roman Catholicism, which for a time appeared dying, became again a vast power in the world. Countries which for a time seemed * J. S. Mill: "Political Economy," book v., chap, xi., 16. 1603-1626.] PURITANISM ] lost to it were regained ; while in the lands of the newly discovered western world, it advanced under the shelter of the Hag of Spain, annexing new empires of undreamed-of magnitude and boundless wealth. Even in Europe, strange to say, Romanism gained ground, recovering people it had lost or well-nigh lost. In South Germany, Bavaria, with its broad and wealthy territories, returned to the Roman obedience ; and the great house of Hapsburg definitely adopted the cause of the Pope's as its own. France, then as now the first in influence and power of the states of Continental Europe, so long wavering between the religion of the old and new learning, under the influence of the once Protestant Henry IV. of Navarre, who bought his crown and his fair capital city of Paris at the price of a mass, became definitely Roman ; and the Huguenot faith, which at one time seemed likely to become the faith of France, relegated for the most part to the old provinces of Aquitaine and Provence, became nothing more than the faith of a sect, where once the reformers had hoped to have seen it the religion of a nation. Even in the Low Countries, where, thanks to the heroic resistance of William of Orange and the founders of the Dutch republic, the promise of the for- tunes of the Reformation seemed so bright, in the southern portion of the old Bur- gundian province Roman Catholicism re- gained its old position ; and Brabant and East and West Flanders, the most im- portant portions of the present kingdom of Belgium, again were reckoned among the lands of the Roman obedience. From the days of this Roman Catholic reaction until the present time, the countries then DSES GROUND. 463 recovered by Rome — viz. South Germany, the Low Countries, and France — have been reckoned among the most staunch and faithful of the papal adherents. All this was sorely grievous and dis- appointing to the earnest Puritan spirit, which gradually became embittered. The high hopes and outlooks cherished in the days of Luther, and even later than Luther, of a wide and general Reforma- tion, were dissipated. At home also alarming symptoms, as they thought, were manifesting themselves. " The historical feeling [in the Church of England] showed itself in a longing to ally the religion of the present with the religion ol the past ; to claim part in the great heritage of Catholic tradition. Men . . . started back from the bare intense spiritualism of the Puritan, to find nourishment for de- votion in the outer associations which the piety of ages had grouped around it — in holy places and holy things, in the stillness of church and altar, in the awful mvstery of sacraments." * In their own Eng- land a Hooker arose, and with a terrible accuracy demonstrated the fundamental errors of the system of extreme reformers ; and a Whitgift for many years, as primate, gave effect to views repugnant to Puritan wishes and ideas. And Whitgift was resolutely backed up by the undefined and vast power of the crown, under an imperious Tudor sover- eign. During her long and glorious and generally popular reign, Elizabeth's sym- pathies were wholly with the high Angli- can partv ; for the Puritans the great queen cherished only feelings of dislike * Green : " History of the English People," chap, viii., sect. ii. 404 THE CHURCH and distrust, feelings which gathered strength rather than diminished. As time went on, and the sixteenth century drew towards its close, the Puritan out- look in England grew more and more gloomy. Its more extreme advocates, such as Cartwright, were exposed even to a harsh persecution ; some were positively put to death. Wider and ever wider grew the breach ; dislike grew gradually into hatred. The language and remonstrances of the Puritans grew more and ever more exaggerated. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, another and a sterner spirit animated the Puritan partv. The gentler, the more yielding and more Christian spirit which animated such men as archbishop Grindal, in part disappeared ; the fierce and uncompromis- ing spirit of men like Cartwright gradually began to take its place. It was no longer a small section of the Puritans who set themselves in open opposition to the Anglican settlement, but great numbers of the partv, slowly and hesitatingly at first, adopted the extreme views which their fathers would have indignantly repudiated. In common with all reformers from the first days, thev clung to the words and teaching of the Bible ; but the more extreme Puritans as they developed and multiplied found comparatively little in the New Testa- ment to suit their peculiar and distorted views. " The Old Testament contained a history of a race selected by God to be wit- nesses of His unity and ministers of His vengeance.and specially commanded bvHim to do many things, which, if done without His special command, would have been atrocious crimes. In such a history it was OF ENGLAND. not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans, therefore, began to feel for the Old Testament a preference, which perhaps they did not distinctly avow even to them- selves, but which showed itself in all their sentiments and habits."* We find many of them at this period giving their children the names no longer of Christian saints, but of Hebrew heroes ; we find the Sunday transformed into the old Jewish Sabbath, and hedged about with a number of Judaic restrictions ; we find a stern and rigid life, out of which man}' of the more graceful and at the same time harmless habits and customs were eliminated, char- acterising the Puritan sect. They affected a peculiar and unbecoming dress ; thev condemned as sinful, innocent amusement and relaxation ; they rejected the very literature which their fathers had en- couraged and largely contributed to. Even the poems of the Puritan Spenser were forbidden. Even this was not all. As we shall see more in detail in the new chapter of our history now about to open, while this spirit of discontent with the established state of things in religion was disturbing large num- bers among the more serious and God- fearing Puritans, the two first Stuart kings, James I. and Charles L, attempted to en- force their views as to the duties and rights of kings. James I. passed away unloved, but still tolerated by the mass of his subjects. Charles I. inherited his father's ideas and views, and determined to carry them out in his government. Wentworth (lord * Macaulay : History of England," chap. i. PURITANISM AND POPULAR LIBERTY 4^5 Strafford), the minister of the unhappy reign, shared in his master's estimate of the royal prerogative, believed that an abso- lute king was the best and truest form of human government, sadly mistaking the temper and the determination of the Eng- lish people. And associated with Strafford, and Wentworth's policy. Puritanism allied itself with the parliament, fighting for the immemorial rights and privi- leges of Englishmen ; while Anglicanism adopted the fortunes of the king. When the parliament, after a long and bloody war, was victorious, the division between THE SORCERESSES, AN INCIDENT OK PURITAN TIMES. {By permission, from the picture by Walter MacEiven.) strange to say, sharing with him his views of the importance of absolutism, was the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. For many years Charles, Strafford, and Laud carried out the fatal policy. The fact of Laud being a prominent personage of this ill-fated trio, enormously widened the rift between Puritanism and Anglicanism. Anglicanism became tainted in the eyes of even the moderate Puritans, with all the faults and political mistakes of Charles 90 the two great parties of English Protestants had become more pronounced. Between the Anglicans and Puritans now were the ineffaceable memories of Edgehill and of Marston Moor, of Naseby and Worcester, of a hundred other less known hotly-con- tested battles. The churches of England, the possessions of the Anglican clergy, were treated as the spoils of a vanquished enemy are treated by a merciless conqueror. The children ofCranmer and Ridley, of Parker 46b THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. and Jewel, the pupils, of Hooker and Andrewes, under the hateful appellation of Malignants, were driven from their churches, were stripped of their possessions, were forbidden, under severe and cruel penalties, even to worship with the rites or to utter the prayers approved by and unspeakably dear to the Marian martyrs, or the Elizabethan Reformers. When once more, under the over- whelming reaction of the Restoration, the Anglicans regained their lost power and more than their old influence among the people, scant consideration was shown bv them to the vanquished when in their turn they occupied the place of victors ; and for years, under the rule of Charles II. and his Cavalier parliament, a series of bitter, cruel, fierce Acts, now condemned by the most fervid Anglicans, in succession harassed and distressed the once triumph- ant Puritans. The chance was thus lost — perhaps for ever — of uniting even with slender cords of friendship and considera- tion the two opposing schools of Protestant thought in England. The saddened his- torian, as he writes his melancholv chronicle, must condemn alike the Church of England and the Puritans for their fatal, short-sighted, persecuting policv, at once unsvmpathetic and un-Christlike. Thus Protestantism in England became hopelesslv divided ; and although time has relaxed somewhat these sad differ- ences, the two parties have never since come together. At last the dav of mutual toleration dawned ; but, alas ! it was too late ! The kindlv latitudinarian, who with a light heart speaks of a possible, even of a probable, re-union between the great Non- conformist sects which have sprung out of the Puritan party, and the historic Church ot England, is strangely ignorant of theology, is but scantily equipped with a knowledge of the past. The final parting of the ways, the Puritan and the Anglican, dates from the early years of the seven- teenth century, and the wound thus inflicted upon the Protestant influence of England has never since been healed. The Puritan and the Anglican, with similar high aims, and with one noble pur- pose, for three centuries have not been allies ; if not enemies, at least hopelessly at variance, the one, as has been justly said, too often neutralising the influence of the other. We may close this brief study of the Church of England of the Elizabethan divines with the words of archbishop Whitgift : " This I dare boldly affirm, that all points of religion necessary to salvation, and touching either the mysterv of our redemption in Christ, or the right use of the sacraments and true manner of worshipping God, are as purelv and perfectly taught, and by public authority established, in this Church of England at this dav as ever they were in an)- church since the apostles' time " ; * and with the words of the famous Laud, who enjoved in the earlv davs of his public career the friend- ship of Andrewes : l> I have lived and shall (God willing) die in the faith of Christ, as it was professed in the ancient primitive church, as it is professed in the present Church of England." t The great Elizabethan divines built upon the foundation - stories laid by the * Preface to "The Defence of the Answer" (Whitgift). f Conference with Fisher (Andrewes). THE REFORMATION DIVINES. first generation of English reformers, by master builders such as Ridley and Cran- mer. It is too much- the practice of some in modern times to underrate the work of these great ones, and to speak slightingly alike of the Reformation and of its early chiefs, to whom our church owes so vast a debt of gratitude. In forming an estimate of these founda- tion-stories, so well and securely laid in times of sore stress and storm, we should ponder well the weighty words penned by some of those profound scholars and divines of our Anglican communion, whom men of all schools of thought in our church delight to reverence and honour. These speak of the Reforma- tion in language very different from that which we sometimes hear, and cannot hear without being saddened. So Hooker, who writes of the English Reformation as " wonderfully marked by divine grace and favour and God's miraculous work- ings.'' " What can we conclude," he says, " than that the thing which He (God) so blesseth, defendeth, keepeth so strangely, cannot choose but be of Him ? Wherefore, if any refuse to believe us disputing for the verity of religion estab- lished, let them believe God Himself thus miraculously working for it, and wish life even for ever and ever unto that glorious and sacred instrument whereby He worketh." A very little later dean Jackson (Peterborough, 1579-1640) speaks of it as " that discreet and judicious, that happy Reformation." Bishop Hall (1 574— 1 656) styles it "that blessed Re- formation." " I earnestly exhort you," wrote the saintly Ken (1637-1710), "to a uniform zeal for the Reformation, that as, blessed be God, you are happily re- formed in your faith and in your worship, you would become wholly reformed in your lives." And as of the Reformation, their work, so these great divines spoke of the early reformers themselves. " Those illustrious men," says Andrewes, " never to be men- tioned without the deepest reverence, whose services God employed in the restoration of religion." Similarlv Jack- son : " The sage and reverend reformers of our church." So Sanderson : " Our godly forefathers, to whom (under God) we owe the purity of our religion." So the great bishop Bull (St. David's), 1634-1719, writing of Latimer: "Martyr constantissimus . . . sanctissimus . . . beatissimus pater." So bishop Nicholson (Gloucester), 1 599-1 672, writing of Cran- mer : " That glorious martyr of our church." So bishop Hall : " The com- posers of it (the liturgv), we still glory to say, were holy martyrs and confessors of the blessed reformation of religion, and if any rude hand have dared to cast a foul aspersion on any of them, he is none of the tribe I plead for ; I leave him to the reward of his own merits." So bishop Morton (Chester, Lichfield, and Durham), 1 564- 1659: "That goodly vine, which many Pauls, the industrious bishops and pastors have planted by preaching, and many Apollos, the faithful martyrs of Christ, have watered with their blood." So dean Hickes (Worcester), 1 642-1715 : "The reformers were as eminent for virtue and learning as any of that age ; their judgment was and is approved by millions of Christians." So archbishop Bancroft, 1544-1610: "They 468 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. w ere most learned men, and many of them godly martyrs, who were the chief penners and approvers of the Communion Book in king Edward's time." So bishop Taylor : " The zeal with which archbishop Grindal, bishop Ridley, Dr. Taylor, and others the holy martyrs and confessors in queen Mary's time, expressed for this excellent liturgy, before and at the time of their death, defending it by their disputations, adorning it by their practice, and sealing it with their blood, are arguments which ought to recommend it to all the sons of the Church of England for ever." Whitgift, writing of the compilers of king Edward's first Communion Book, says : " They were singular learned men, zealous in God's religion, blameless in life, and martyrs at their end." And in an interesting passage, apologising for the plunder of church property in the days of Henry VIII., bishop Andrewes thus speaks of the " error of those illustrious men," such as Ridley, Cranmer, and Latimer, " men never to be mentioned without the deepest reverence, whose ser- vices God employed in the restoration of religion, and who, too anxious for the restoration of the doctrines, paid less atten- tion to the patrimony of the church, and said almost as the king of Sodom said to Abraham, ' Give us the souls, and take the goods to thyself.' " QUEEN ELIZABETH. (Fiont the portrait by Isaac Oliver.) EXCURSUS D. THE STORY OF THE NUN OF KENT— COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE " HOLY MAID OF KENT," 1531-4. In the year 1531 Elizabeth Barton, the " Holy Maid of Kent," was at the height of her fame She was a country girl of Addington in Kent, a manor belonging to the archbishops of Canterbury. For some years she had been in a weakly state of health. Gradually strange symptoms developed themselves — she became a somnambulist ; she passed now and again into deep trances, and saw- visions and heard strange voices. Her case at- tracted considerable attention. It was a super- stitious age, and men were ever watching for signs of the marvellous and supernatural. The neigh- bouring prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, sent two of his monks to visit the dreamy hysterical girl, and they were struck with her strange powers. Then, in 1531, commenced the impostures. Eliza- beth was carefully trained by able and unscrupulous tutors. In her trances — partly, no doubt, real, partly feigned— she related how she had seen the blessed Virgin, how she had heard voices which spoke of things unseen by mortal eyes, unheard by mortal ears. She consented to become a nun, and for a considerable period (1531 — 1533-4) she became a recognised prophetess. The question of the king's divorce from Kath- arine of Arragon was then agitating all minds in England. Some of the friends of the injured queen did not scruple to employ the now famous " Nun of Kent " as an advocate of queen Katharine. It is curious that during the earlier days of her reputation as " a seer," so many serious persons believed in the truth of her inspirations. Among them was Wolsey, shortly before his fall, arch- bishop Warham, queen Katharine herself, and — greatest of all— Sir Thomas More. More at first thought little of her sayings ; but later, he seems to have been drawn into the circle of those who believed in her and her revelations. The king even desired Sir Thomas More to look into the matter, which had become grave enough to attract the notice of the royal cabinet. " Divers and many, as well great men of the realm as mean men, and many learned men, but specially many reli- gious men, had great confidence in her and often resorted to her." " The saintly halo was round her head, and her most trivial words caught the reflexion of the glory and seemed divine." * Time went on, and the visions grew more numerous. Once a fortnight she would fall into * Froude : Hist., chap. iv. a trance, and would relate how she was taken up into heaven into the presence of God and the saints, with heavenly light, heavenly voices, heavenly melodies and delights. She was used as an instrument — alas, as a willing instrument ! for the adulation she received, and the sense of importance she had acquired, were all too pleasant to the poor, weak, and vain woman — to influence men's minds in favour of queen Katharine against king Henry. Among her prophecies were solemn words addressed to king Henry, warning him that if he persisted in his resolution of marrying Anne Boleyn, God would take away his throne and life, She reiterated this, and announced that she had been bidden by God to declare this. Her sedi- tious prophecies — for they soon passed into open sedition, into threatening the king's majesty — were secretly but extensively circulated, and she became a great danger to the state. At length the "Holy Maid" and five of the Canterbury monks were arrested. Then the curious bubble at once burst. Alone, in captivity, subject to harsh treatment, with unknown dangers before her, probably torture threatening her, a traitor's terrible death at the end, her courage soon gave way, and she made a full and ample confession of her strange imposture. Far and wide her pretended revelations had found more or less acceptance. Vast numbers of regular and secular clergy listened eagerly to her words of prophetic warning, which she pro- fessed to have heard spoken by heavenly voices. Many of these were of high rank, dissatisfied with the political outlook, alarmed at the prospect of ecclesiastical affairs, disturbed at the question of the divorce and all the divorce entailed ; the immi- nent rupture with the Pope, and the consequent changes in the church. Not a few, too. among the laymen of England believed in her. We read how the bishop of Rochester, the saintly Fisher, had "wept for joy" at the utterances of the inspired prophetess; and Sir Thomas More, "who at first did little regard the said revelations, afterwards did greatly rejoice to hear of them." The Nun of Kent was certainly in communica- tion with queen Katharine and her daughter, the princess Mary, and their immediate adherents. And there is no doubt but that treasonable pro- jects were mixed up with the " utterances" which kept coming from her lips. These utterances 470 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. <*rew more and more hostile to the king as months passed on, till the end came ; the arrest and the confession of imposture, and the last dread scene at Tyburn, where the poor dreamer and her chief accomplices expiated their strange crime on the scaffold. EXCURSUS E. THE PARKER LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE. The library of Corpus Christi College, Cam- bridge, is known throughout the world of scholars for its magnificent collection of manuscripts accu- mulated by archbishop Matthew Parker, and bequeathed by him to the house which he had ruled as master for nine years. These were largely, if not entirely, gathered from the sad relics of the libraries of the monasteries suppressed by king Henry VIII., when these most precious treasures were heedlessly and selfishly plundered and scattered. The books, being in themselves of no intrinsic value, were little heeded, and to a large extent were lost or destroyed. A good example of this utter carelessness in the matter of the monastic books exists in one great folio volume containing, with other MSS., the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. It is numbered 81 in the Corpus Collection, and contains a few lines in the hand of archbishop Parker on the first leaf. In this memorandum he expresses his belief that it once belonged to the great archbishop Theodore (experts, however, believe now the MS. is of much later date). Another memorandum in the hand of Josselyn, Parker's secretary, tells us how a baker in Canterbury picked it out from among some ii'aste paper (inter laceras chartas) remaining from St. Augustine's monastery after the expulsion of the monks, and how the archbishop welcomed it as " a monstrous treasure." The oldest MS. in the collection (No. 304) is the " Historia Evangelica," which is a tran- script of the latter part of the sixth century. The most interesting, historically, however, is No. 286, which a reasonable tradition asserts to have been one of the volumes (referred to on page 87 of Vol. I. of this History) which Pope Gregory the Great sent from Rome for the use of St. Augustine of Canterbury. No. 197, a fragment of St. John, was written, apparently, at Lindisfarne at the end of the seventh century. The Parker library is especially rich in chronicles , two of them, Nos. 16 and 26, are supposed to have been composed, written, and illustrated by Matthew Paris himself in the reign of king Henry III. No. 322 contains two treatises by St. Anselm, written, there can be no doubt, by the hand of his dear friend and disciple Eadmer. This precious volume is enriched with autograph corrections by the saintly archbishop himself in the days of William Rufus. There are some exceedingly valuable MSS. of liturgies. No. 270, written in the eleventh century, embodies, in all probability, a direct transcript from the " Sacramentary " which St. Augustine brought with him from Rome to England, and is the only known MS. possessing a well-established claim to exhibit the authentic text of Pope Gregory's final recension of the Roman liturgy. No. 473 is a tropary of rare interest, written at Winchester in the tenth century, probably in the time of St. Dunstan, and containing hymns and the musical notation in the use of the Anglo-Saxon church. The earliest of the Parker MSS- of this class is, however, No. 272. It is a psalter and litany dated a.d. 884, written, apparently, at Rheims in the days of our king Alfred. It contains one of the earliest known copies of the " Quicunque Vult." There are in this class, too, seven ancient MS. psalters, one of which was once the property of archbishop Thomas Becket. Perhaps the MS. of most general interest, how- ever, is the famous copy of the "Articles" issued in 1562, with autograph signatures of the prelates who were present, and the marginal marks in red chalk, in Parker's own handwriting. In Anglo-Saxon literature this great library of the Elizabethan archbishop is extraordinarily rich. A very precious copy of Elfric's lives of the saints and of his celebrated "Canons," several times referred to in this History, is among these. The Anglo-Saxon collection includes MSS., of the greatest value and antiquity, of the Gospels, annals of England, glossaries, and homilies, etc. There are some curious volumes of French literature, showing the wide range of the Protestant archbishop's literary knowledge, true pioneer as he was of the Elizabethan renaissance of letters. These include poems, Anglo-Norman fabliaux, 472 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. proverbs, romances In one of these, " Le Miroir des Dames" (No. 324), appears the autograph signature of king Charles V. of France. In the Parker library, too, is included a collec- tion of autograph letters of his contemporaries. Among these are signed letters of king Edward VI., of the hapless queen Anne de Bouillan (sic), letters of Luther and Calvin, Colet and Erasmus, Melancthon and Bullinger, and indeed of almost every notable character of the Reformation age. In Latin and Greek MSS., No. 4S0 contains marginal notes in the handwriting of bishop Grosseteste, the famous and admirable bishop of Lincoln referred to in this History in the time of Henry III. These are only a few specially remarkable specimens of the treasures contained in this noble collection of Elizabeth's great archbishop, who, though worn with sickness and bodily weakness, in the midst of his crushing anxieties and his noble and enduring work of organising the Church of England, yet found time to play the part of the tireless student, the indefatigable book collector, the editor of many works, the writer himself of some. And, what was perhaps still more important, archbishop Parker, occupying the first place after Elizabeth in the realm, the powerful primate, the queen's trusted friend and adviser, the man to whom so many divergent schools of thought among the Protestants looked for guidance, by his intense love, his burning zeal for letters, set an example which was quickly followed by others who had stronger health, comparative youth, and splendid natural powers to advance the cause of literature, which so long had languished in our island. It is not too much to say that the great Elizabethan archbishop, to whom our church owes so much, was the pioneer, as we have ventured to style him, of that illustrious group of men who, in the words of Macaulay, "have made the Eliza- bethan age a more glorious and important era in the history of the human mind than the age of Pericles, Augustus, or Leo." [The above little sketch of the great Parker Collection of books is derived from a private memorandum given to the writer of this History by Dr. E. H. Perowne, the master of Corpus Christ College, Cambridge ] EXCURSUS F. SPENSER'S PORTRAIT OF GRINDAL. The sympathetic reference to archbishop Grindal is in the seventh eclogue of Spenser's " Shepherd's Calendar," the argument of which runs as fol- lows : — " This ^Eclogue is made in honour and commendation of good shepherds, and to the shame and dispraise of proud and ambitious pastors." Grindal, under the scarcely disguised name of " Old Algrind," is immortalised as the type of good shepherds in the following lines : — " Such a one he was (as I have heard Old Algrind often sayne), That whileome was the first shepheard, And lived with little gayne; And meeke he was, as meeke mought be, Simple as simple sheepe, Humble, and like in eche degree Thi flock which he did keepe. * * * * But shepheards mought be meeke and mild, Well eyed as Argus was. With fleshly follies undefiled, And stout as steeds of brasse ; Sike one (sayd Algrind) Mor,es was, That saw his Maker's face, His face more clear than crystall glasse, And spake to him in place. * * * * But say mee, what is Algrind hee, That is so oft bynempt ; Hee is a shepheard great in gree, But hath bene long ypent. One day he sat upon a hill, As now thou wouldest mee ; But I am taught by Algrind's ill To love the low degree." ("Bynempt," named; "gree," for degree; " ypent," pent up.) Then follows an account of Algrind's misfortune — how an eagle, probably signifying the queen, let fall a great shellfish on Algrind's head ; and the hapless shepherd is represented as " So now astonied at the stroke, Hee lyes in lingring payne. Ah good Algrind ! his hap was ill, But shall be better in time." Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Salvage, London, E.C. A SELECTED LIST OF Cassell & Company's Publications. Selections from Cassell ■ Barrie. From the Memoirs uf a Minister of France. I n„ ,,,„,„ wc«...M The Story of Francis Cludde. ) B* Stanley Wevman. The Garaen of Swords : A otory of the Siege of Strasburg. -\ Kronstadt. / Puritan's Wife, A. y By Max Pemberton. The Impregnable City. V AlsoCheap Edition, 3s.6d. J Some Persons Unknown, -j IWord1 °r?0ie. By E. W. Hornung. Rogue's March, The. ) Spectre Gold. \ By a Hair's- Breadth. '.By Headon Hill. Illustrated Edition. ) The Girl at Cobliurst. "v I By Story TeUer's Pack, A. I By Frank Stockton. Mrs. Cliff's Yacht. 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