^1 
 
Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
INTOLERANCE IN 
 
 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 QUEEN OF ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR JAY KLEIN 
 
 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements 
 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 
 of Political Science, Columbia University. 
 
 
 ,' 1 •, 1 ' > 
 

 COPYRIGHT, I917, BY ARTHUR JAY KLEIK 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published February igiy 
 
VITA 
 
 The writer of this dissertation was born at Sturgis, Mich- 
 igan, in 1884. He studied at Wabash College, graduating 
 in 1906 with the degree of B.A. and with membership in 
 the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He studied at Union Theo- 
 logical Seminary, 1906-09, graduating in 1909 with the 
 degree of B.D., magna cum laude. In 1908 he entered 
 Columbia University, and he received the degree of M.A. 
 in 1909. From 1910 until 1915 he taught history in Towns- 
 end Harris Hall, the academic department of the College 
 of the City of New York. In 191 5 he was appointed pro- 
 fessor of history in Wheaton College, Norton, Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 347241 
 
iMISSiiS? 
 
 m 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^<^ 
 
 iUSi 
 
 INTOLERANCE 
 
 IN THE REIGN OF 
 
 ^een of England 
 
 By Arthur Jay Klein, Professor of History 
 in Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. 
 
 boston & nejv york 
 Houghton Mifflin Company 
 
 The Riverside Press Cambridge 
 
 M.DCCCC.XVII 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ARTHUR JAY KLEIN 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVBD 
 
 Published February iqiy 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the preparation of this study the writer has attempted 
 to make the text interesting and intelligible to the average 
 reader. He has, therefore, relegated the dry bones and 
 paraphernalia of study to the footnotes and a bibliograph- 
 ical appendix. The material for the reign of Elizabeth is 
 so voluminous, however, that footnotes and bibliography 
 are not complete. The footnotes do not represent all the 
 material upon which statements in the text are based, but 
 the writer believes that the authorities given amply sup- 
 port the opinions and conclusions there expressed. 
 
 In selecting material for the footnotes from the vast 
 amount of published and unpublished source matter col- 
 lected in the preparation of this essay, the author has con- 
 fined the references for the most part to a few representative 
 men and collections of sources. The works of Jewel, Parker, 
 Whitgift, Hooker, and Cartwright, the Zurich Letters and 
 the Domestic State Papers, have, for instance, been chosen 
 as most representative and easily available to the general 
 reader. Unless otherwise noted, however, the author has 
 depended upon the manuscripts in the Record Office and 
 not upon the Calendar of the Domestic State Papers, since the 
 Calendar, especially for the earlier years of Elizabeth's 
 reign, is often so condensed as to give inadequate informa- 
 tion. The representative sources selected have been given 
 so as to make as complete as possible, within the limits of 
 this study, the facts and opinions presented by them. 
 Other sources have been given whenever those chosen as 
 most representative were lacking or were not of sufficient 
 weight. 
 
 The sources used consist of the laws. Parliamentary 
 debates, acts of Council, proclamations, public and private 
 
vi Preface 
 
 papers, correspondence, sermons, diaries, controversial 
 works, and foreign comment. References in the footnotes to 
 secondary works have been reduced to the minimum for the 
 sake of the appearance of the printed page, but the writer 
 has tried to express his sense of obligation to the work of 
 others in the Bibliographical Appendix. It is hoped that the 
 Appendix will serve the further purpose of assisting the 
 American student, about to enter upon a study of Eliza- 
 bethan ecclesiastical and religious history, to find his way in 
 the somewhat confusing mass of the literature of the period. 
 
 There remains the pleasant duty of expressing my 
 gratitude to the officials of the Public Record Office and 
 of the British Museum for their courteous and painstaking 
 assistance. To the Reverend Mr. Claude Jenkins, of the 
 Lambeth Palace Library, who took the time to teach an 
 American stranger how to read and handle the documents 
 of the period, I owe one of my most^pleasant memories of 
 England and of Englishmen. To Miss Cornelia T. Hudson, 
 reference assistant in the Library of Union Theological 
 Seminary, I wish to express my thanks for friendly help 
 in excess of the official courtesy with which I have met in 
 all the libraries I have consulted. The mere acknowledg- 
 ment of my debt of gratitude to Professor James T. Shot- 
 well, of Columbia University, and to Professor William 
 Walker Rockwell, of Union Theological Seminary, must nec- 
 essarily express inadequately the value of the encourage- 
 ment, the suggestions, and the hours of labor which they 
 have so freely given. The kindness of Professor Edward 
 P. Cheyney, of the University of Pennsylvania, in reading 
 and criticizing the completed manuscript, and the help in 
 reading the proof given by Professor F. J. Foakes Jackson, 
 of Union Theological Seminary, have assisted materially in 
 making the essay more readable. 
 
 Arthur J. Klein. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY . 
 
 Vague conceptions of tolerance — Social nature of intolerance 
 — Intolerance manifested in all kinds of social activity — Intoler- 
 • ance of the larger groups of society — Religion intolerant because 
 its truths are revealed and positive — Historic causes of religious 
 intolerance — Extent of religious intolerance — Non-religious in- 
 tolerance — Tolerance is not negative — This study deals with 
 Elizabethan England — It was a period of the formation of 
 parties — Importance of Protestant dissent for Elizabethan intol- 
 erance. 
 
 II. POLITICS AND RELIGION .... 
 
 The death of Mary Tudor — England at the accession of 
 Elizabeth — Elizabeth's alleged illegitimacy — Catholics and 
 Protestants — Paul IV and England — The position of Mary 
 Stuart — The attitude of Philip II — The attitude of Scotland — 
 Importance of securing the Queen's political position — Caution 
 of the government — Religious tastes of Elizabeth — Religious 
 indifference of the nation — Tendencies of the Marian exiles 
 toward compromise — Compromise and the Catholics — Identi- 
 fication of the Sovereign and the State — Catholic opposition — 
 Complication of the domestic with the foreign situation — Plans 
 of the government — The first Parliament — Freedom of dis- 
 cussion — Disputation at Westminster — Employment of mod- 
 erate Protestants — Character of the Parliament — Acts of 
 Supremacy and Uniformity — Other acts of the Parliament — 
 Removal of the Catholic Bishops — The Royal Visitation — 
 High Commission — The choice of the higher clergy — The 
 character of the new clergy — The choice of the lesser clergy — 
 Elements of hope for Catholics — The foreign political situation 
 — Weaknesses of the ecclesiastical system — Act for the Assur- 
 ance of the Queen's Supremacy — Act for execution of Writ de 
 Excommunicato Capiendo — Offenses that incurred excommunica- 
 tion — Acts against prophesyings and conjurers — Similarity 
 of the new establishment to the old. 
 
 III. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHO- 
 LICS 35 
 
 The lenient policy of the government — The Rebellion of the 
 North — The old and new nobility — Significance of the revolt 
 — The Bull of Excommunication — Its effect on the religious 
 situation — Elizabeth's reply to the Bull — Need for further 
 
viii Contents 
 
 legislation — Act making further offenses treason — Restraints 
 upon the press — Act against the introduction of papal bulls 
 and instruments — Fugitives beyond the sea — The Jesuit mis- 
 sionaries — Foreign dangers — Statutes to retain the Queen's 
 subjects in obedience — Seditious words and rumors — Spanish 
 resentment and plot — Parliament of 1584-85 — Parliament of 
 1586-87 — Mary Stuart in England — English policy and Mary 
 Stuart — England, Mary, and Scotland — England, Mary, and 
 Spain — The defeat of the Armada — Continued fear of the 
 Spaniard — Enthusiasm for the Crown — Legislation of 1593 — 
 The government and the Jesuits — Government policy in dealing 
 with the Catholics — The imposition of the death penalty — 
 Exile — Desire to keep Catholics in England — Exception in 
 cases of the Jesuits and the poor — Inability of the government 
 to imprison all Catholics — Fines and confiscations — Resistance 
 of the Catholics — Failure of the fines and confiscations to pro- 
 duce an income — Later imposition of the pecuniary penalties — 
 Lenient administration of the laws against Catholics — Govern- 
 mental influence to prevent execution of letter of the law — Fac- 
 tions in the Council — Moderating proposals of Cecil — Educa- 
 tional value of the government's tolerant attitude. 
 
 IV. CHURCH AND STATE 64 
 
 Formative period of Anglicanism — The Establishment an 
 experiment — Elements of patriotism and of moderation in the 
 Church — Political dominance determined these characteristics — 
 Relations of Church and State before Elizabeth — Causes for po- 
 litical dominance in Elizabeth's reign — The supremacy of the 
 Queen — Erastianism — Legal extent of Crown's Supremacy — 
 Exercise of supremacy by commission — Preservation of regu- 
 lar ecclesiastical jurisdiction — High Court of Delegates and the 
 Royal Supremacy — Commissions of Review and the favor of the 
 Crown — The Council and the High Commission — Change in 
 the nature of High Commission activity — Council and Star 
 Chamber — Court influence and the lower ecclesiastical courts — 
 Justices of peace and the religious acts — Control of the Council 
 over the justices of peace — The logic of secular administration 
 of the Religious Acts — Use of the prerogative writs by King's 
 Bench and Common Pleas — Special privileges — The Peculiars 
 
 — The Peculiars added confusion to the system — The Palatinates 
 
 — Lesser franchises — System subject to the interference of the 
 Court at all points — Irregularity, causes and results — The 
 Queen's prerogative and coercive power — Dispensing power of 
 the Crown — Legality of the judicial acts of the Queen and Coun- 
 cil — Extent of the activity of the Council — Need for coordinat- 
 ing power — Inadequacy of the inherited machinery to deal with 
 new conditions — The success of the relationship existing between 
 State and Church — State intolerance imposed upon the Church 
 
 — Religious and ecclesiastical intolerance restrained by the 
 State — Influence of the union of the Church and State upon the 
 development of dissent — Political dominance and promotion of 
 tolerance — Personal influence of the Queen in this development. 
 
Contents ix 
 
 V. ANGLICANISM 93 
 
 Lack of unity in the early Anglican Church — Causes of union 
 and elements of disunion — Ambiguous nature of the standards 
 set up — Religious character of the Church — Caution needed in 
 formulating doctrinal and ecclesiastical standards — The Parlia- 
 mentary doctrinal standards — The Thirty-nine Articles — 
 Further restraint on doctrinal formulation — Religious opposi- 
 tion to the abuses of Roman Catholicism — Controversial char- 
 acter of the period — The character of the clergy — Queen's 
 opposition to religious enthusiasm — Protestantism lightens the 
 responsibility of the ecclesiastical organization for the individual 
 
 — Non-religious interest of the period — Demands of ecclesiasti- 
 cal controversy — Religious zeal developed by dissent — Need 
 for ecclesiastical apologetic — Basis of apologetic historical — 
 Papacy rejected upon historical grounds — Church not limited by 
 primitive church history — Recognition of the principle of his- 
 torical development — Advantage to Anglicanism of this liberal 
 position — Importance of ecclesiastical theory in the develop- 
 ment of intolerance — Restraints upon Anglican development — 
 Causes for development — English sources of the idea of apos- 
 tolic succession of the bishops — Whitgift and the apostolic suc- 
 cession — Anglican denials of the doctrine — Alarm of the 
 radical Protestants — Hooker and the apostolic succession — 
 Development of Anglican ecclesiastical consciousness — Changed 
 relationship between Anglicans and Continental Protestantism — 
 Anglican desire for autonomy — Jewel and Hooker — Jewel's 
 emphasis upon the unity of Protestantism — Hooker's defense of 
 Anglicanism as an independent entity — Hooker's distrust of 
 bare scripture — Jewel's confidence in the power of the Word — 
 Hooker's belief in the authority of reason and need for experts 
 
 — Hooker's exaltation of the episcopal organization — Position 
 of the Queen in Hooker's theory — Jewel's idea of the sovereign's 
 power — Hooker's lack of confidence in the secular dominance 
 over the Church — Changed attitude of Anglicanism toward dis- 
 senting opinions — Early uncertainty and liberality — Develop- 
 ment of ecclesiastical consciousness paralleled by hardening of the 
 Anglican spirit — Other causes for hardening — Early Anglican- 
 ism intolerant of papal Catholicism — Changed basis of Anglican 
 strength — Moral condemnation of the Jesuits — Common 
 ideals of Early Anglicanism and other forms of Protestantism — 
 Practical character of the early Church — Development of an- 
 tagonism within the Church. 
 
 VI. PROTESTANT DISSENT 131 
 
 Complexity of dissent — Difficulties of classification — Loose 
 use of the term " Puritan " — Difficulty of distinguishing Puritan 
 from Separatist — Precisianists — Presbyterians — Genetic use 
 of the term ' ' Congregational" — Anabaptists — Cleavage was upon 
 lines of ecclesiastical polity — The Fanatic Sects — Elements of 
 discord in the Church — Indifferent nature of the first questions 
 of dispute — Ceremonial differences — The sympathies of the 
 leaders in State and Church — Variety in the use of ceremonies — 
 
i 
 
 Contents 
 
 Parker's Advertisements — Legality of the Advertisements — 
 Parker's argument on the habits — The anti-vestiarian argument 
 
 — The determination of the Queen that the habits be worn — 
 Reasons for her insistence — Results of the vestiarian contro- 
 versy — Bacon on the development of the quarrel between Angli- 
 canism and Dissent — First Admonition to Parliament — Its 
 place in the development of dissent — Disregard of the Queen's 
 position — Circumstances preceding appearance of the First 
 Admonition — Literary controversy over the Admonition — Ob- 
 jects of the Admonition's attack — Protestations of loyalty — \ 
 Danger in the attack — Intolerance shown by the Admonishers 
 
 — Absolute authority of the New Testament in ecclesiastical or- 
 ganization — The Second Admonition — The purpose of the 
 publication — Spirit of the Second Admonition — Split in the 
 ranks of dissent — Controversy between Cartwright and Whit- 
 gift — The work of Travers. 
 
 VII. PROTESTANT DISSENT (continued) . . I59 1 
 
 Presbyterian polity — Scriptural basis of the system — Basis j 
 
 for condemnation of Catholicism — Ecclesiastical intolerance of , 
 
 the Presbyterians — Presbyterian doctrinal intolerance toward j 
 
 Lutheranism — Presbyterian attack upon the Anglican organiza- i 
 
 tion — Results upon Anglicanism of the Presbyterian attack — 
 Presbyterian attack upon Anglican doctrinal standards and its 
 results — Presbyterians and the fight for Parliamentary freedom \ 
 
 — Aristocratic character of Presbyterianism — Presbyterianism \ 
 to be established by the government — Presbyterian theory of j 
 the relationship between Church and State — Legal basis of .' 
 governmental repression of Presbyterianism — Opposition to j 
 repression on the part of officials — Basis of charges of disloyalty | 
 
 — The attitude of Cecil and Elizabeth — Danger to the govern- | 
 ment's policy of leniency toward Catholics — Danger to cordial i 
 relations with all forms of Continental Protestantism — Dissent- : 
 ing movements other than the Presbyterian — Rejection of 
 necessity of the union of Church and State — Idea of the Church 
 as a body of the spiritually fit — Narrow dogmatic standards — 
 Loose and ineffective form of organization — Religious earnest- 
 ness of the group — Religious basis for condemnation of others 
 
 — Attempt to transfer basis of disagreement from unessential to 
 essential — Doctrinal and religious intolerance — Causes for 
 Elizabethan condemnation of the Congregationalistic groups. 
 
 VIII. CONCLUSION 183 
 
 Importance of the separation from the Roman Catholic 
 Church — The governmental policy of toleration^ — Modifica- 
 tion of the governmental policy by reason of Catholic activity — 
 Modification of the governmental policy by reason of Presbj-te- 
 rian activity — Modification of the governmental policy by 
 reason of Anglican development — The idea that ecclesiastical 
 unity was essential to political unity — Development of Anglican 
 
Contents - xi 
 
 ecclesiastical intolerance — Presbyterian intolerance — Rejec- 
 tion of the connection between Church and State by the Congre- 
 gational group — The development of three strong religious 
 parties. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX .... 191 
 INDEX . 213 
 
INTOLERANCE IN 
 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Most of us feel that intolerance is an antiquated evil. We 
 hasten to enroll ourselves in the ranks of the tolerant, and 
 at least in the free world of hypothesis and speculation, we 
 experience, at little cost, the self-congratulatory pleasure 
 of thus reckoning ourselves in the advance guard of civiliza- 
 tion. As a matter of fact, our conception of tolerance is usu- 
 ally so vague as to entail no renunciation of our pet preju- 
 dices : our renunciation is confined to the abandonment of 
 intolerant principles, moribund some centuries before our 
 birth. Men have probably always in this way proclaimed 
 their allegiance to the spirit and principles of toleration 
 without being seriously disturbed by their own intolerances, 
 and without voicing any earnest protest against the intoler- 
 ance of their own time. We easily recognize the inconsist- 
 ency between the utterances and the attitude of Elizabethan 
 Englishmen who insisted by means of prison and banish- 
 ment that the forms of a Prayer Book be strictly observed, 
 and looked with horror upon the Spanish Inquisition. We 
 smile a superior smile over their boasts of tolerance on the 
 score that the number of Catholics killed by Queen Eliza- 
 beth did not equal the number of Protestants killed by Queen 
 Mary, and we may even see the weakness of their modern 
 apologists who point with pride to the fact that Elizabethan 
 England had no St. Bartholomew's Eve. The examples of 
 such inconsistency are amusing and satisfying in direct pro- 
 portion to their antiquity and their distance from our own 
 ruts of thought. When in England it became possible for all 
 
2 iNTOLFPi^NXE IN THE ReIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 ie1I^;ions to exist ?idc by side, and men therefore proclaimed 
 themselves tolerant, there was still attached to Catholicism 
 and to all forms of Protestantism other than the particular 
 form known as Anglicanism the penalty of the curtailment 
 of political rights. Some Englishmen are still unreconciled 
 to the removal of divorce and marriage from the jurisdiction 
 of the Established Church. Some Americans still defend 
 Sabbatarian legislation enacted at the demand of a reli- 
 gious prejudice which saw no intolerance in forcing the ex- 
 treme interpretation of the Mosaic law upon Christian and 
 non-Christian alike. Like our ancestors, we leave suffi- 
 cient leeway for the full play of our own intolerances and 
 with easy carelessness avoid the discomforts of exact 
 definition. 
 
 Intolerance is essentially a social phenomenon based 
 upon the group conviction of "rightness." When mani- 
 fested by the dominant group, it is both a dynamic and a 
 conservative force. It is occupied with the maintenance of 
 things as they are, and has for its purpose social unity. 
 It exerts itself to bring into line those individuals, or groups 
 of individuals, who are clinging to things as they were, and 
 attempts to restrain the individuals or groups of individuals 
 who are striving toward things as they shall be. Its relations 
 and its sympathies are closer to the past than to the future. 
 It bases its authority on accepted knowledge or opinion. 
 Opposed to it are the groups who cling to opinions already 
 rejected and the groups with opinions not yet accepted. 
 Intolerance is a phase in the development of social conscious- 
 ness, a part of the process of whipping into shape unique or 
 diverse elements of the social group. It is a by-product of the 
 process of social grouping. In so far as the various social 
 groups have conflicting interests or standards, and so long 
 as the existence of one or more groups is theoretically or 
 practically inconsistent with the existence of other groups, 
 antagonism or intolerance results. Since the social relation- 
 
Introductory 3 
 
 ships of men are practically infinite in variety, intolerance 
 may be displayed upon any subject of sufficient interest or 
 importance to secure the adherence of a group, and may 
 manifest itself in an infinite variety of ways. Medical in- 
 tolerance has shown itself in the persecution of the advo- 
 cates of anaesthetics and antiseptics. National intolerance 
 of the foreigner, legal intolerance of new conceptions of 
 justice, social intolerance of unusual manners, the intoler- 
 ance of the radical for the slower-minded conservative in 
 politics, economics, law, or dress, — these intolerances may 
 vary in extent, nature, and results, and their history is 
 merely the story of the modification of the extent, nature, 
 and results of antagonisms. 
 
 Necessarily the intolerance displayed by the larger groups 
 of society is most conspicuous and receives the most at- 
 tention, although from the standpoint of the progress of so- 
 ciety such intolerance may not be of the most far-reaching 
 influence. Religion, for instance, which occupies the con- 
 sciousness of groups of international size, has been given 
 so much attention by the writers on intolerance that it has 
 become necessary to resist its claims to a monopoly of the 
 word. 
 
 Religion, however, is of great importance for the subject 
 of intolerance from other reasons than the mere size of the 
 religious groups. Religion is based upon bodies of opinion 
 that are regarded as more important and as more positive 
 than any of the other facts of human life. Starting with a 
 group of opinions which are positively and supematurally 
 revealed, religion offers the greatest resistance to the at- 
 tacks of critical reason and to the advance of the merely 
 human phases of knowledge. It insists with inflexibility upon 
 the truth of its tenets and the acceptance of them by all men. 
 Historically, also, the religious organization in Western Eu- 
 rope obtained such a dominance over men that it succeeded 
 in subjecting to its religious and ecclesiastical control ele- 
 ments of social activity which, as we view the matter now, 
 
4 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 were only remotely connected with the acceptance of its 
 fundamental body of divinely revealed dogma. It suc- 
 ceeded in adapting to this dogma almost the whole body of 
 scientific and social investigation. Chemistry, anatomy, 
 botany, astronomy, as well as law and government, all 
 felt the restraining force of ecclesiastical conceptions and 
 dogmas. Its supernatural elements were emphasized at the 
 expense of human progress. Claiming to be the most social 
 force, it became anti-social in so far as it made its ideal one 
 of otherworldliness. Obviously the students of intolerance 
 have a rich and important field in religion. 
 
 The Christian religion has afforded material for studies of 
 pagan intolerance of Christians, and Christian intolerance 
 of pagans. We have volumes upon Catholic intolerance of 
 Protestants and upon Protestant intolerance of Catholics 
 and of other Protestants. The study of religious intolerance, 
 both Catholic and Protestant, in the field of non-religious 
 activities is still rich in unexplored possibilities, so rich that 
 it is perhaps useless to attempt to call the attention of the 
 historians of intolerance to the fact that there is also a field 
 worth investigating in the groups of non-religious intoler- 
 ance. A very interesting book, or series of books, even, more 
 useful than much that has been written about religious in- 
 tolerance, might be compiled by some one who turned his 
 attention to the intolerances of medicine, of law, or of eti- 
 quette. They might even repay the historian by displaying 
 a humorous ridiculousness that the solemn connotations of 
 theology make impossible in that field. 
 
 It is unfortunate that the study of intolerance has been 
 so largely confined to a record of punishments and penalties, 
 and has concerned itself so little with the development of 
 positive tolerance. The interesting and important thing 
 about intolerance is its decrease. It has usually been taken 
 for granted that decrease of intolerance has meant increase 
 of tolerance ; but this is not always true and tends to make 
 tolerance synonymous with indifference. Tolerance becomes 
 
Introductory ' 5 
 
 at best easy amiability. Indifference and amiability are 
 negative and afford no basis for the self-congratulatory at- 
 titude we like to associate with tolerance. Tolerance as a 
 force provocative of progress is positive. It implies a def- 
 inite attitude of mind, an open-minded observation of diver- 
 gent opinions, a conscious refraining from the attitude of 
 condemnation, and a willingness to adopt ideas if they prove, 
 or seem likely to prove good. Intolerance of heretical ideas 
 prevents progress. Tolerance welcomes the new, looks to 
 the future, has a supreme confidence in the upward evolu- 
 tion of society. 
 
 It is the purpose of this essay to examine one very small 
 field of religious intolerance, that in England during the 
 reign of Elizabeth. IMuch has been done already. Catholics 
 and Anglicans alike have devoted volumes to the suffering 
 and disabilities of the Catholics. The subordination of re- 
 ligious to political considerations which marks the step in the 
 direction of religious tolerance that came with the revolt 
 of the nations from the suzerainty of the Papacy and the 
 formation of national churches, has been repeatedly empha- 
 sized. The importance of the period for the developments 
 in the reign of the Stuarts has been pointed out. But un- 
 fortunately attention has been confined too exclusively to 
 the government and the Anglican Establishment. Of almost 
 equal importance are the rise of the dissenting Protestant 
 groups in England, particularly the Presbyterian, and their 
 attitudes and theories of relationship with the Catholics, the 
 Established Church, and the government. Elizabeth's reign 
 was essentially a period of the formation of parties and 
 opinions. During her reign Puritan and Independent came 
 to group consciousness, grew into awareness of themselves 
 as distinct from Anglicanism and from each other; the 
 Anglican Church rose, collected its forces, and transformed 
 itself from a tool of secular government into a militant ec- 
 clesiastical organization. The ground for the later struggle 
 
6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 was prepared; and if in the seventeenth century we find 
 distinctly difTerent theories at the basis of intolerance, we 
 must seek the origin of the later attitude in Elizabeth's 
 day. Her reign is a time of beginnings, a period of prelimi- 
 nary development, and partakes of the interest and uncer- 
 tainties of all origins of complex social phenomena. 
 
 The purpose of this essay is to estimate and to call atten- 
 tion not only to the intolerance of the government and the 
 Established Church, but also to the rising Protestant 
 groups of dissent, and to indicate the way they conditioned 
 and influenced the attitude of both the government and 
 the Church and intrenched themselves for the future con- 
 flict. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 POLITICS AND RELIGION 
 
 Unloved and disheartened, Mary Tudor died on the 17th 
 of November, 1558. Her sincere struggle to estabhsh the 
 old faith in England once more, her pathetic love for Philip 
 of Spain, the loss of Calais, the knowledge that without 
 children to succeed her the work done could not endure, — 
 all these things had made her life a sad one. Our imagina- 
 tions have clothed her reign with gloom and blood, while 
 that of her successor has become correspondingly splendid, 
 intriguing, fanciful, swashbuckler, profane, — a living age. 
 We approach the study of Elizabeth's reign with the expec- 
 tation of finding at last a period when life was all dramatic, 
 but, as always, we find that the facts are less romantic than 
 our imaginative pictures. 
 
 Life to the Elizabethan Englishman was not all a joyous 
 adventure. Famine and pestilence ushered in the reign. 
 An empty treasury confronted the new queen. The com- 
 mercial and the industrial life of the kingdom declined. 
 War with France and Scotland made taxation heavy. The 
 army and navy were riddled by graft, and crumbling for- 
 tresses indicated a lack of national military pride. The 
 officials of Mary's rule still maintained their power in 
 Church and State, objects of hatred to the people, and — 
 the greatest danger to the Queen's peaceable accession — 
 centers around which might gather foreign opposition to 
 the daughter of Anne Boleyn. 
 
 Elizabeth's alleged illegitimacy 
 
 In the eyes of her Catholic subjects Elizabeth rested 
 under the shadow of an uncertain title. The charge of ille- 
 gitimacy had stamped its black smudge upon the brow of 
 
8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the baby girl, followed her through young womanhood In 
 her uncertain and dangerous position during the reign of 
 Mary, and when death had removed Mary, strode specter- 
 like across the joy of the nation. Upon Elizabeth's entry 
 into the City she was greeted with great demonstrations 
 of joy by the populace, but the councillors whom she had 
 called around her ^ realized that within the kingdom, Cath- 
 olic love for Mother Church and power. Catholic consist- 
 ency, might unite a large party which, resting upon papal 
 condemnation of the marriage of her father and mother, 
 would reject her claims to the throne. Domestic dangers to 
 her position might also threaten from that anti-Catholic 
 party whose members had grown bitter under the persecu- 
 tions of Mary.2 The domestic dangers became menacing 
 and real by reason of their complication with the projects 
 and ambitions of foreign powers. 
 
 From the fact of Elizabeth's illegitimacy In the eyes of 
 the Catholic world sprang two great foreign dangers, the 
 one to endure throughout the reign, the other to end only 
 with an act which has brought upon Elizabeth's name an 
 undeserv^ed reproach ; the Papal See was hostile and Mary 
 of Scotland set up a claim to England's throne. 
 
 Neither Elizabeth nor her advisers, probably, expected 
 that a break with the Papacy could be avoided. The Pope's 
 attitude must necessarily be determined In some measure 
 by the pronouncements of his predecessor upon the marriage 
 of which Elizabeth was the fruit. It could hardly be ex- 
 
 * Cecil, Parry, Cave, Sadler, Rogers, Sackville, and Haddon were summoned 
 to her at Hatfield. The old council was reorganized. Sir Thomas Parry became 
 Comptroller of the Household; Sir Edward Rogers, Vice-Chamberlain; William 
 Cecil, Principal Secretary in the place of Dr. Boxall, Archdeacon of Ely; Sir 
 Nicholas Bacon displaced the Archbishop of York as Keeper of the Great Seal; 
 while the Earls of Bedford, Derby, and Northampton, Cave, Sadler, and Sack- 
 ville took the places of Mary's councillors. Pembroke, Arundel, Howard, 
 Shrewsbury', Winchester, Clinton, Petre, and Mason continued. 
 
 2 S. R. Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Refortnation in Eng- 
 land, with an introduction by A. W. Hutton (London and New York, 1899), 
 Essays VI, no. ii; vii, no. iii; viii; IX ; X, quotes from Knox, Goodman, Whitting- 
 ham, Kethe, Becon, Bradford, Ponet. 
 
Politics and Religion 9 
 
 pected that the most compliant and peace-loving of popes 
 would heartily welcome to the family of Catholic royalty 
 the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Still less could it be expected 
 that Paul IV, energetic and uncompromising, would dis- 
 regard that quarrel which had torn England from the fold 
 of the faithful. Theoretically, at least, — and it was chiefly 
 upon theoretical grounds that those closest to Elizabeth 
 had to base their policy, — Mary of Scotland must have 
 seemed to the Papacy the only logical and legitimate heir 
 to England's throne. 
 
 Mary recognized her advantage, and she was sufficiently 
 vigorous in her Catholicism and shrewd in her politics to 
 seize every weapon opportunity might offer. Although 
 Elizabeth was seated upon the throne and was supported 
 by the sentiment of the English people, Mary's hope of dis- 
 placing her was by no means based on dreams alone. She 
 had married the Dauphin of France, who succeeded to the 
 crown as Francis II but a few months after Elizabeth's 
 accession, and upon the advice of the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 the new King and Queen at once added to their other titles 
 that of King and Queen of England. With France behind 
 her claim, and the Pope supporting her, Elizabeth might 
 have been crowded off the throne and England forced into 
 Catholicism, had Philip, the autocrat of the Catholic pow- 
 ers, also thrown his weight into the struggle upon the side 
 of Mary. But Philip, with all his Catholic enthusiasm, 
 would never allow France and the Guises to attain that 
 dominance In European affairs which the addition of Eng- 
 land to their power would have meant. Philip did not love 
 England, nor did he wish to see It become Protestant, but 
 at the first he had hopes that the country might still be 
 preserved for Catholicism and be made to serve his own 
 purposes against the aggression of France.^ Elizabeth 
 played with the offer of marriage which Philip made as long 
 as it was possible to avoid a decisive answer, and encouraged 
 
 -'1 Venetian Calendar, 72, April 23, 1559, June 11, 1559. 
 
10 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 him to believe that the Council of Trent might accomplish 
 something to make reconciliation possible even though she 
 rejected his hand. Philip lent his aid in securing favorable 
 terms for England at the Peace of Cateau-Cambr6sis and 
 relieved her from the embarrassment of his opposition at 
 the time when he could have done most harm to Elizabeth. 
 But Mary's purposes were not balked by the opposition 
 of Philip alone. She did not have the sympathy of her own 
 land, Scotland, either in the alliance with France, in her 
 desire to establish the Catholic religion, or in her opposition 
 to England. In Scotland the Reformation had established 
 itself among all classes, although the motives which inspired 
 them were not exclusively religious; for, in Scotland, as in 
 other countries, a variety of purposes inspired the Protes- 
 tant party. Here, as elsewhere, it was not simply a religious 
 reformation, but a social conflict arising from political, 
 economic, and legal motives. The party formed in Scot- 
 land in 1557 was made up of elements looking for the spoil of 
 the wealthy and corrupt Church, for the expulsion of French 
 influence from the country, the lessening of the royal power, 
 the establishment of Protestant doctrines; and it was from 
 these diverse elements that the signers of the first Covenant 
 were drawn. Nor did the Covenant represent the extreme 
 Calvinism usually associated with the Scotch ; it demanded 
 merely that the English Book of Common Prayer be used, 
 and that preaching be permitted. Not until after the return 
 to Scotland of John Knox in May, 1559, was the stamp of un- 
 compromising Calvinism placed upon the Scottish Church. 
 Mary could look for bitter opposition from her Scottish sub- 
 jects if she tried, with French aid, to establish herself upon 
 the English throne and attempted to impose Catholicism 
 upon the English people and autocratic power upon Scot- 
 land. In spite of these difficulties, however, the danger to 
 England was real. Any change in the situation which might 
 free Mary's hands, or any change in the attitude of Philip 
 which would cause him to abandon his hostility to France 
 
Politics and Religion ii 
 
 and unite with that country in opposition to England, 
 might sweep Elizabeth off the throne and place the nation 
 in danger of foreign dominion. From this situation came 
 that succession of crises calling for the patriotism of Eng- 
 lishmen which ended only with the death of Mary and the 
 defeat of the Armada. 
 
 THE CAUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT 
 
 In these circumstances domestic considerations were of 
 primary importance in determining the character of the 
 changes in the religious establishment of England. Of first 
 importance, also, in any changes to be made was the per- 
 sonal and dynastic safety of the Queen. The necessity of 
 making her position as queen secure took precedence over 
 all questions of personal or national religious preference. 
 Could her throne have been secured most certainly by con- 
 tinuing the alliance with the Papacy by means of diplomatic 
 accommodations on both sides, doubtless this would have 
 been the method adopted. The personal attitude and charac- 
 ter of Paul IV, and perhaps also French influence upon the 
 Papal See, the Continental religious and political situation 
 combined with the domestic situation to make such a solu- 
 tion of Elizabeth's difficulties well-nigh impossible. Without 
 voluntary concessions on the part of the Papacy,^ it seemed 
 to Elizabeth's advisers more dangerous to meddle with the 
 papal power in England than to abolish it altogether.^ Yet 
 the wretched condition of the military and economic re- 
 sources and the uncertainty of national support made 
 dangerous a step so radical as complete separation from the 
 Roman Church. 
 
 1 Dixon {History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman 
 Jurisdiction [Oxford, 1902], vol. v, p. 88) has disposed of the often-repeated 
 assertion that the Pope offered to confirm the English Prayer Book if his 
 authority was acknowledged. But cf. Raynaldus, no. 42 (trans, in E. P. 
 Cheyney, Readings in English History, pp. 373-74). where the offer to sanction 
 the English Liturg>', allow the Lord's Supper in both kinds, and revoke the 
 condemnation of the marriage of Henry and Anne is printed. 
 
 * State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. i, no. 68. 
 
12 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The government advanced with caution. The exiles on 
 account of religion were allowed to return in great numbers, 
 but nothing was done for them. In May, 1559, Jewel com- 
 plained to Bullinger, " ... at present we are so living, as 
 scarcely to seem like persons returned from exile; for to 
 say nothing else, not one of us has yet had even his owti 
 property restored to him." ^ All preaching was prohibited 
 until Parliament could meet to decide upon a form of ec- 
 clesiastical settlement.^ The Queen herself received men of 
 all parties, wrote to the Pope,^ kept up her friendship with 
 Philip of Spain. The Council repressed the enthusiasms 
 of Catholics and Protestants alike. The government was 
 anxious to give neither Protestants nor Catholics hopes or 
 fears which would bring matters to a crisis until they had 
 formulated and arranged for the execution of the policy best 
 suited to secure the allegiance of as great a number of all 
 religious parties as was possible. Dictated by the desire 
 to make secure the position of the Queen, this policy must 
 necessarily be one of compromise and moderation, at least 
 until it was safe to disturb the delicate balance of the foreign 
 political situation which made England dependent upon 
 the friendship of Philip and freedom from the active hos- 
 tility of the other Catholic Powers. 
 
 In entire accord with the moderation thus made neces- 
 sary were the personal tastes and preferences of the Queen. 
 She did not share, she could not understand, the uncom- 
 promising zeal of either Catholic or Protestant. If the 
 political considerations demanded a Protestant or anti- 
 papal establishment, she was willing that it should be set up; 
 yet her love for the pomp and forms of a stately religion and 
 her hatred of the extremes and fanaticism of Protestant en- 
 thusiasm were real, and she stood ready to establish and 
 maintain the policy of moderation which left room for 
 some of the forms she loved. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. xx. 
 
 * H. N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (London, 1907), p. 23. 
 ' Raynaldus, Ann. Ecc, Ann. 1559, no. 2. 
 
Politics and Religion 13 
 
 The middle course could make little appeal to enthu- 
 siasm. Zealous Catholics could not be satisfied thus nor 
 could the extreme Protestants be content with halfway 
 measures. "Others are seeking after a golden, or, as it 
 rather seems to me, a leaden mediocrity; and are crying 
 out, that the half is better than the whole." "Whatever 
 is to be, I only wish that our party may not act with 
 too much worldly prudence and policy in the cause of 
 God." ^ But Elizabeth and the men who were in her con- 
 fidence were not extremists, they were not religious enthusi- 
 asts; they represented the national state of mind and were 
 justified in their belief that the Queen could depend upon 
 the nation's support for a reasonable and moderate re- 
 ligious settlement. 
 
 On the religious question the nation was, on the whole, 
 indififerent. Nor is it strange that this was true at this 
 time. England had been forced through change after 
 change in the religious establishment, beginning with 
 Henry VIII and ending with the proscriptions of Mary. 
 It had been trained for a quarter of a century to adjust 
 itself to a turn-coat policy in religious matters. As Lloyd 
 quaintly says of Cecil, "He saw the interest of this state 
 changed six times, and died an honest man: the crown 
 put upon four heads, yet he continued a faithful subject: 
 religion changed, as to the public constitution of it, five 
 times, yet he kept the faith." ^ During that period the na- 
 tion had seen England sink into insignificance in Conti- 
 nental affairs and watched its internal conditions grow 
 from bad to worse. The extremes of Mary's reign and the 
 growing economic distress of the country repelled English 
 thought from purely religious quarrels and absorbed their 
 attention in more practical matters. Just as at the Res- 
 toration, following a period of political control by the ex- 
 tremists in religion, there was a period during which re- 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, vol. IV, Letters, no. xii, Jewel to Martyr; Zurich Letters, no. 
 viii, Jewel to Martyr, Jan. 26, 1559. * Nares, Burghley, vol. lii, p. 326. 
 
14 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Ilgious enthusiasm languished and the country joyfully 
 proceeded to recuperate from the effects of religious re- 
 straints, so now after Mary's persecutions there succeeded 
 a period of that indifference to religion, which, if not a 
 promoter of positive tolerance is a great check on intol- 
 erance. The country needed the help of all in adjusting its 
 home affairs and demanded their loyalty to protect their 
 queen and themselves from another Catholic sovereign. 
 Their enthusiasm found vent in these things, not in religious 
 contentions. The policy of subordinating religious consid- 
 erations to the political safety of the nation enabled the 
 Church of the early part of Elizabeth's reign to survive 
 the attacks from within and without the kingdom; the 
 Church was not itself an object of enthusiastic support, but 
 served as a standard around which Englishmen gathered to 
 defend principles to which they gave their deepest loyalty 
 and purpose, determination and love. Changes which ap- 
 pealed to the loyalty and patriotism of the nation, and 
 which freed it from the wearisome persecutions and dis- 
 tracting turmoil that characterized Mary's reign, were 
 certain of English support. 
 
 The policy of moderation, the halfway course, which the 
 religious indifference, the political situation, and the 
 Queen's preferences made the logical plan to secure the alle- 
 giance of the kingdom, implied, of course, a departure from 
 Roman Catholicism in the direction of some form of Prot- 
 estantism. The religious and ecclesiastical history of Eng- 
 land under Henry and Edward furnished a precedent for 
 the change which could be made with the least shock to the 
 feelings of Englishmen. 
 
 The Church developed in the reigns of Elizabeth's 
 father and brother was of a character which of all the 
 forms of Protestantism departed least in belief, form, 
 and organization from Catholicism. Practically all of 
 Elizabeth's mature subjects had been living in the time 
 of Henry and Edward, and there existed a large party 
 
Politics and Religion 15 
 
 within the kingdom accustomed to, if not partisans of 
 the Church, as it had developed in Edwardian times. The 
 right wing of this party had in Mary's reign become 
 stronger and its leaders had confirmed their predilections 
 by residence on the Continent, where they had associated 
 closely with the prominent figures of Continental Protes- 
 tantism. On the Continent sufficient time had elapsed 
 since Luther's attack upon the Papacy to make less domi- 
 nant the essentially political motives of the revolt from 
 papal control, and Protestantism itself had begun that 
 hardening of dogmatic and ecclesiastical standards which 
 resulted in a more oppressive spirit than had existed in 
 Catholicism itself prior to the Lutheran revolt; but this 
 development had not yet gone so far nor the Protestant 
 parties become so strong that anti-papal principles had 
 sunk into the background of sectarian propaganda. Thus 
 the English who had fled to the Continent during Mary's 
 reign were, with the exception of a few extremists hyp- 
 notized by the Calvinistic system, most influenced by their 
 residence in the Protestant centers toward an anti-papal 
 rather than toward a narrow sectarian policy. 
 
 These men the government could use in carrying out its 
 plans, though it did not ask their help in making them.^ 
 Many of the most able and practical were ready to make 
 compromises, either for the sake of introducing a modi- 
 fied reform into the Church in England, or for the sake of 
 securing for themselves the exercise and emoluments of 
 clerical office. ^ Papal Catholics could not compromise. 
 The theory of the Church forbade it, although it is perhaps 
 true that shame for the compromises of the past rather than 
 strict regard for the theory of the Church induced many 
 of them to stand firmly now upon the convictions registered 
 during Mary's reign. ^ "For sake of consistency which the 
 
 ^ Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, nos. viii, x, xii; Zurich Letters, nos. xi, xiv, 
 XV ; Parker Correspondence, no. xlix. 
 
 * Jewel, Works, vol. ii, p. 770; Zurich Letters, no. xlix. 
 
 ' ]ev/e\, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. xiv; Zurich Letters, no. xxvii; Burnet, 
 
1 6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 miserable knaves now choose to call their conscience, 
 some few of the bishops, who were furious in the late 
 Marian times, cannot as yet in so short a time, for very 
 shame return to their senses." ^ Lukewarm Catholics, 
 however, Catholics from policy. Catholics whose patriotism 
 exceeded their love for the Church, should not be driven into 
 opposition by extreme measures. With regard to the Prot- 
 estants the government occupied the strategic position. 
 Any change from Catholicism could be regarded as a con- 
 cession which, for the present, must perforce satisfy the 
 radicals, and win for the government the great mass of 
 reformers, already prepared to make compromises and to 
 rejoice over gains religious or financial.^ Necessity, not in- 
 clination, may have made the changes in the religious es- 
 tablishment veer toward Protestantism, but the govern- 
 ment had little to fear from a national Protestant party 
 and could safely proceed in the direction made inevitable 
 by the attitude of the Pope and by the political situation. 
 The change was so moderately made, however, that Ascham 
 was able to write to Sturmlus, "[The Queen has] exercised 
 such moderation, that the papists themselves have no com- 
 plaint to make of having been severely dealt with."^ 
 
 The government, in depending for the success of a com- 
 promise religious policy upon the party of reform and upon 
 the Catholics whose papal traditions were not so strong 
 as their English feelings, was strengthened by the circum- 
 stances which made support of its religious policy clearly 
 essential to the safety of the Queen. Loyalty to the sover- 
 eign was the greatest practical bond of national union in 
 sixteenth-century England, the first principle of national 
 patriotism. That such a spirit existed and would support 
 the Queen's religious policy was comparatively easy of con- 
 
 History of the Reformation of the Church of England (Pocock edition, Oxford, 
 1865), pt. Ill, bk. VI, no. 51. 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, vol. IV, Letters, no. Ixi. Cf. ibid., nos. xv, xx, xxi. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, nos. ii, xxvi, xxxiii. 
 
 ' Ibid., no. Ixiv. 
 
Politics and Religion 17 
 
 firmation during a time when the opinions of the great mass 
 of the population were negligible or non-existent. The new 
 nobles and gentry were sufficiently numerous and influen- 
 tial to see to it that their dependents made no serious trouble; 
 their own allegiance was secured by conviction, or by pros- 
 pects of place and profit.^ 
 
 In England the Queen might depend upon practically the 
 united support of the reforming party and upon many luke- 
 warm Catholics. The greatest dangers within the king- 
 dom came from the older Catholic nobility, displeased at the 
 prominence of the new men as well as devoted to the old 
 Church, and from the clerics who had held high office in 
 Church and State during Mary's reign. The latter, alarmed 
 at the uncertainty of the government's policy, reasonably 
 certain that Papal Catholicism would not be established 
 as the religion of the State, and fearful lest the extreme 
 Protestants ultimately have their way and a system of per- 
 secution be inaugurated, formed the party of opposition 
 to governmental plans for an ecclesiastical compromise. 
 Yet for the most part this opposition was passive, and was 
 accompanied by protestations of loyalty to the Cro^\^l, 
 and to the Queen. 
 
 This party would have been of little importance and 
 helpless in the grip of royal disfavor had not the policy 
 which the foreign complications forced upon the govern- 
 ment been one of compromise and reconciliation of all loyal 
 Catholics. In so far as the clerical party was at one with 
 and in a sense dependent upon foreign, that is papal, poli- 
 tics, it was dangerous to the government; but fear of alli- 
 ance or intrigue with Continental Catholicism had to give 
 way before the more pressing danger that the suppres- 
 sion or harsh treatment of the old leaders of the Church 
 would excite the sympathy, or arouse the antagonism, of 
 men who would otherwise quietly acquiesce in the moderate 
 proposals of the government. 
 
 ^ Lee, The Church under Elizabeth (2 vols. 1880), vol. i, p. 70. 
 
1 8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Elizabeth's first parliament 
 
 The details of the slow and cautious plans of the govern- 
 ment would here occupy too much space and serve only to 
 confuse the purposes of this essay. ^ They are to be found 
 in the histories of the period. Throughout the time between 
 the accession of Elizabeth and the meeting of her first Par- 
 liament the plans for the religious changes were perfected 
 and the country carefully persuaded into an attitude of wait- 
 ing for the settlement of the religious questions to be em- 
 bodied in law by that body.^ In the mean time Cecil and the 
 other leaders arranged for the election to Commons of men 
 who would be amenable to the directions of the Crown,' and 
 the committee of the Council, "for the consideration of all 
 things necessary for the Parliament" drafted the measures 
 thought necessary to be passed by that body when it should 
 assemble."* 
 
 Parliament was opened on January 25, 1559, with the 
 usual ceremony, and Convocation assembled, as was the 
 custom, at the same time. In the Lords the bishops and 
 one abbot took their usual places and were permitted a free- 
 dom in voicing their opposition to all the proposed religious 
 changes that would hardly have been granted to lay oppo- 
 nents of governmental policy.^ Convocation passed articles 
 asserting uncompromising adherence to the Roman Catholic 
 faith. ^ The fairness of the government and its magnanimity 
 were ostentatious; the pleas of the clerics vivid and im- 
 passioned, in spite of the fact that they knew their case was 
 
 * State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. I, no. 69; vol. iv, no. 40; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. I, pt. I, pp. 74-76, App., no. iv; Burnet, pt, 11, bk. iii, no. i, p. 497; 
 Dodd (Tierney's ed.), vol. 11, p. 123, and App., no. 33. 
 
 2 Zurich Letters, nos. iii, viii. 
 
 * For methods of influencing the elections cf. Council to Parker and Cobham, 
 Parker Correspondence, no. cclxxxvii, Feb. 17, 1570. 
 
 * Strype, Annals, vol. i, pt. I, App., no. iv; Dodd (Tierney's ed.), II, p. 123, 
 and App., no. 33; Dixon, vol. v, p. 22, note. 
 
 ' Strype, Annals, vol. i, pt. I, App., nos. vi, vii, ix, x, xi; D'Ewes, Journals, 
 Elizabeth's first Parliament. 
 
 * Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 179. 
 
Politics and Religion 19 
 
 hopeless except as the vigor of their protests in Parliament 
 and through the Convocation might serve to modify or 
 soften for Catholics the terms of the settlement. They knew 
 that the government would go as far as it could to avoid 
 trouble and that it was willing to make as light as was con- 
 sistent with safety the disabilities placed upon the Cath- 
 olics. Elizabeth had shown this, when at her coronation, ten 
 days before the assembling of Parliament, the Catholic 
 bishops, who had, with the exception of Oglethorpe, refused 
 to officiate,^ were allowed to escape any outward evidence 
 of her displeasure. In spite of a perverseness which often 
 drove the even-minded Cecil to distraction, Elizabeth some- 
 times showed, when conditions demanded it, a proper re- 
 gard for practical politics, even at the expense of her per- 
 sonal feelings. 
 
 After Parliament had been in session for some time and 
 after the points of the settlement had been well mulled 
 over in both houses, the government reached the cul- 
 mination, and at the same time the end, of its previous pol- 
 icy toward Mary's clergy. Arrangements were made for a 
 great disputation, before the members of the Council and 
 the nobility at Westminster, between the representatives of 
 the Catholic and of the reforming parties. Governmental 
 show of fairness in choosing the subjects for the conference 
 and in arranging the method of discussion was perhaps more 
 seeming than real, but the indiscretions of the Catholic 
 divines, before the notable assemblage gathered to listen to 
 the debate, afforded the authorities sufficiently good grounds 
 for placing restraints upon their liberties. The refusal of the 
 Catholics to proceed had, if we may trust Jewel, another 
 effect, doubtless appreciated by the government. Jewel 
 wrote to Martyr immediately after the affair, "It is alto- 
 gether incredible how much this conduct has lessened the 
 opinion that the people entertained of the bishops; for they 
 
 ^ Dixon (vol. V, pp. 47-51) denies this, but does not seem to me to have \ 
 
 proved his case. 
 
20 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 all begin to suspect that they refused to say anything, only 
 because they had not anything to say." ^ 
 
 We have already had occasion to mention the impatience 
 of the Protestants, who had returned from exile or come out 
 of hiding, over their neglected condition and the slowness of 
 the government in making provision for them. Their im- 
 patience was aggravated by governmental permission of 
 dilatory tactics by the Catholic bishops. "It is idly and 
 scurrilously said, by way of joke, that as heretofore Christ 
 was cast out by his enemies, so he is now kept out by his 
 friends." "We manage ... as if God himself could scarce 
 retain his authority without our ordinances and precau- 
 tions." - Since most of them were not admitted to the 
 counsels and purposes of the government in its treatment 
 of Catholics, nor capable of understanding the need for 
 caution and moderation, they were greatly discouraged over 
 their prospects. The moderate men of the reforming party, 
 however, who, like Cox,^ and Parker, were least fanatical, 
 were used by the leaders at court and given assurances of 
 favor, conditional upon cooperation in establishing a church 
 such as the government had in mind. Protestants preached 
 at court and were given employment upon the details of 
 arrangement for the changes contemplated, such as the 
 revision of Edward's Prayer Book and the compilation of 
 the Book of Homilies. With the progress of the work of 
 Parliament the Protestants had less cause for complaint 
 and were allowed greater expression of opinion so long as 
 they did not exceed the limits of discussion set by govern- 
 ment policy. Forced, as the court was, to depend for sup- 
 port of its anti-papal policy upon the reformers, it placed 
 confidence only in those who were in sympathy with its de- 
 
 * Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. ix {Zurich Letters, no. xll; Burnet, pt. 
 ni, bk. VI, no. 49, p. 407). Cf. also ibid., no. viii; Zurich Letters, nos. xi, xix; 
 Burnet, pt. in, bk. vi, no. 47, p. 402; 5. P., Dont., Eliz., vol. iii, no. 52; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. i, pt. l, App., nos. xv, xvi. 
 
 2 Zurich Letters, no. xiii. Cf. also ibid., nos. xi, xiv, xvii, xix, xHi. 
 
 * Hall, Elizabethan Age, chap, viii, "The Churchman," pp. 103-18. 
 
Politics and Religion 21 
 
 sire to make no radical changes, and to conduct all things in 
 order and decency, with proper regard to the secular inter- 
 ests of all concerned. - - , 
 
 The carefully packed Parliament was significantly 
 enough characterized by the predominance of younger men 
 who had not had previous experience as members of the 
 Commons. They were for the most part of Protestant sym- 
 pathies, but sufficiently in awe of court influence to submit 
 to the management of Cecil and the Crown. We find in this 
 Parliament little of that tendency to take the bit in its teeth 
 and direct its own course which later in the reign gave such 
 opportunity for the exercise of royal authority in restraint 
 of Parliamentary action. No serious obstacles presented 
 themselves in the Commons to the passage of the religious 
 acts determined upon by the government; but nothing was 
 done in haste, and the willingness of the Commons was re- 
 strained by the greater experience of the Lords. Perhaps, 
 too, the government was willing to allow more or less 
 radical talk in the Commons to counteract the effects of 
 Catholic protests in the Upper House. The history of the 
 passage of the acts through Parliament is somewhat tire- 
 some, and significant only as confirming the care and super- 
 vision of the court leaders. It will be sufficient here to name 
 and summarize briefly the provisions of the acts as they 
 finally received the signature of the Queen. 
 
 The most important of these were the Acts of Supremacy ^ 
 and Uniformity.^ The Act of Supremacy repealed i and 2 
 Philip and Mary, c. 8, which had revived papal jurisdic- 
 tion, and the statutes concerning heresy made in that 
 reign. Ten statutes of Henry VHI and one of Edward were 
 revived. It dropped the title "Supreme Head of the 
 Church," 3 although it retained the substance and pro- 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, i EHz., c. I. ^ Ibid., c. 2. 
 
 ' D'Ewes, Journals, p. 38; Stubbs, in A pp. Ecc. Courts, Com. Report, Ses- 
 sional Papers, 1883, vol. xxiv, p. 44: "the effect of omitting the revival of 26 
 H. VIII, c. I, 28 H. VIII, c. 10, 35 H. VIII, c. 3, and 35 H. VIII, c. i, sec. 7, 
 was the abolition of the royal claim to the title of supreme head as affirmed 
 by Act of Parliament." 
 
22 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 vided for the exercise of a supreme royal authority by means 
 of ecclesiastical commissions practically unlimited by law 
 as to composition, number, and duration. The old juris- 
 diction of the ecclesiastical courts was, however, retained. 
 The Act of Uniformity imposed an ambiguous Prayer Book, 
 designed to permit men of all faiths to take part in the serv- 
 ices. Of laymen no declaration of faith was demanded; 
 outward conformity, signified by attendance upon the 
 service, was all that was asked ; and a fine of twelve pence 
 imposed for absence from the new services was intended to 
 secure attendance. Office-holders,^ both lay and clerical, 
 were required to take an oath acknowledging the Queen's 
 supremacy and renouncing all allegiance and obedience to 
 any foreign power, upon pain of loss of, and disqualifica- 
 tion for office. Clerics who took the oath, but refused to 
 use the service and comply with the terms of the act, were 
 subject to increasing penalties culminating in deposition and 
 life imprisonment. 
 
 Besides the two great measures of establishment, which 
 virtually placed the Queen at the head of the English Church, 
 Parliament annexed the first fruits and tenths to the Crown ; 
 declared Elizabeth lawful heir to the Crown,^ without, how- 
 ever, affirming in so many words the validity of Anne's 
 marriage to Henry; annexed to the Crown the religious 
 houses which Mary had founded; and gave the Queen 
 power, with the ecclesiastical commissioners, to take further 
 order for the regulation of the cathedral and collegiate 
 churches.' 
 
 inauguration of the establishment 
 After the completion of the work of Elizabeth's first 
 Parliament and its dissolution, the government had yet to 
 put the system devised into operation. Naturally the first 
 
 » C/. however, Span. Cal., 155S-6T, vol. l, no. 36, p. 76; Parker Corresp., 
 no. Ixxi. 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, i Eliz., c. 5. • Ibid., c. 22. 
 
Politics and Religion 23 
 
 step toward the inauguration of the establishment was the 
 removal of the obstructionist bishops. This the Act of Uni- 
 formity had made legally possible in the paragraphs which 
 provided that from the clerics an oath acknowledging the 
 Queen's supremacy might be demanded by such persons as 
 were authorized by the Queen to receive it. The Council, by 
 virtue of commission dated May 23, offered the oath to the 
 Roman bishops, and, upon their refusal to take it, deposed, 
 during the course of the summer, all except Landaff, who 
 took the oath and was allowed to retain his bishopric. 
 
 The removal of the lesser Catholic clergy throughout the 
 kingdom was accomplished by means of Commissions of 
 Royal Visitation formed during the summer months. Eng- 
 land was divided into six circuits and commissioners, mostly 
 laymen, appointed to make the rounds,^ administer the 
 oath to the clergy, and inquire into certain articles of which 
 the most interesting are those concerning the late perse- 
 cutions.- The visitors carried with them also a set of royal 
 injunctions for the guidance of the Church. These were 
 copied after the injunctions of Edward VI, with an explana- 
 tion added at the end setting forth the fact that the Queen 
 did not claim spiritual functions and a denial that the gov- 
 ernment attached to the taking of the oath the acknowledg- 
 ment of any such belief.^ Because of the extent of the ter- 
 ritory to be covered by these commissions and because 
 of their limited powers, the results of this visitation are 
 hard to estimate. Anglican and Catholic writers, after 
 careful study of all available statistical information, differ 
 widely in their conclusions as to the number of the clergy 
 
 » S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. X, no. i; vol. vi, no. 12; Henry Gee, Elizabethan 
 Clergy (Oxford, 1898), pp. 89-93, 133-36; Cardwell, Documentary Annals, 
 vol. I, 249; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. Ill, no. 7, p. 533. 
 
 * Articles printed in Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, pp. 65-70; Sparrow, Collec- 
 tions. 
 
 » Prothero, Select Statutes, p. 184; Sparrow, Collections, p. 65; S. P., Dom., 
 Eliz., vol. XV, no. 27; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. iii, p. 631; Collier, 11, 433; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. i, pt. i, p. 197; Jewel, Works, vol. iv, "Defence of the Apolog>'," 
 pp. 958-1039; Whitgift, Works (Parker Society), vol. i, p. 22. 
 
24 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 who were deposed.^ The point is not essential. We know 
 enough to be certain that, while not thorough in its work, 
 the visitation accomplished practically all that the govern- 
 ment hoped for or desired ; the system was inaugurated and 
 its most fanatical enemies removed from the exercise of 
 their offices. The perfection of the system, and the sifting 
 out of enemies whom the visitation had missed and the 
 government desired to find, might safely be left to other 
 more permanent agencies of supervision. 
 
 The examination of the certificates of the royal visitors 
 and the completion of their work ^ were assigned by com- 
 mission, dated September 13, to the central commission for 
 the exercise of royal supremacy contemplated by the Act 
 of Supremacy. This central or permanent body had already 
 been created and given extensive powers by commission 
 issued on July 19, although it probably did not meet until 
 the practical completion of the work of the royal visitors, 
 as many of its members were also visitors. Besides the busi- 
 ness resulting from the work of the Royal Visitation, the 
 central commission had committed to its care the super- 
 vision of the working of the Acts of Supremacy and Uni- 
 formity throughout the kingdom, repression of seditious 
 books, heretical opinions, false rumors, slanderous words, 
 disturbances of, and absence from, the established services, 
 and was further given jurisdiction over all vagabonds of 
 London and the vicinity.^ ^^ ^ 
 
 The removal of the Catholic bishops, the work of the 
 Royal Visitation, and the creation of a central commission 
 were in large part merely repressive measures, providing for 
 proper policing of the country. It was essential to the work- 
 ing of the system that the episcopal offices, made vacant by 
 the forced retirement of the Roman Catholic bishops, be 
 
 * Gee, Elizabethan Clergy (Oxford, 1898); H. N. Birt, Elizabethan Religious 
 Settlement (London, 1907). 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vil, no. 79; Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, p. 141; Birt, 
 Elizabethan Religious Settlement, p. 183, no. 2. Cf. Parker Corresp., no. Ixxx. 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. v, no. 18; Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 227-32; 
 Cardwell, Documentary Annals, vol. I, p. 223. 
 
Politics and Religion 25 
 
 filled. There was no lack of candidates for the positions. 
 Protestants who from conviction regarded the abolition of 
 the papal supremacy as the essential element for the Na- 
 tional Church; Protestants who hoped for further reform, 
 but were willing to take honorable office In the Church for 
 the sake of excluding persons less Protestant than them- 
 selves, and for the sake of working from the Inside for 
 more radical changes; Protestants whose convictions were 
 swayed by the knowledge that high offices in the Church 
 were not likely to be awarded to radicals — all more or 
 less modestly waited for preferment. And men from all 
 of these classes obtained what they waited for, some in 
 positions less high than they had hoped, but better than 
 exile or obscurity. The disagreeable bickerings of the newly 
 chosen clergy with the Queen over the exchange of parson- 
 ages impropriate for bishops' lands, which delayed their 
 installation and consecration for some time, was not entirely 
 due to greed on the part of the bishops. "The bishops are 
 as yet only marked out, and their estates are in the mean 
 time gloriously swelling the exchequer," ^ Jewel wrote to 
 Martyr In November, 1559. Many felt, with Jewel, more 
 concern over the impoverishment of the Church by the 
 Queen's excessive demands than for their own loss of 
 worldly goods. Their greed at this time has probably been 
 considerably magnified because of the avarice of such men 
 as Aylmer, one of the least admirable of the Elizabethan 
 bishops. His conduct was the opposite of that which he had 
 demanded before he became a bishop. Then he had cried, 
 "Come of you Bishoppes, away with your superfluities, 
 yeld up your thousands, be content with hundreds as they 
 be In other reformed Churches, where be as greate learned 
 men as you are. Let your portion be priestlike and not 
 princelike." ^ As a bishop his greed became a common 
 
 1 Zurich Letters, no. xxxv. Cf. Parker Corresp., nos. Ixviii, Ixix; S. P., Dont., 
 Eliz., vol. VIII, no. 19. 
 
 2 Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation, p. 166; Strj-pe, 
 Annals, vol. ri, pt. i, App., no. xxxi; Strype, Aylmer, passim. 
 
26 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 scandal. But Parker, Jewel, Grindal, Parkhurst, and many 
 of the others were men of relatively high character, al- 
 though better fitted perhaps for scholastic affairs than for 
 the complexities of practical ecclesiastical administration. 
 None of them had ability or training in ecclesiastical ad- 
 ministration comparable to that of Cecil in secular admin- 
 istration. Yet they were earnest and sincere men fitted to 
 give intelligent, if not brilliant, service in the establishment 
 of the Church. 
 
 The selection of the lesser clergy to fill the places made 
 vacant by the work of the Royal Visitation presented a much 
 more difficult problem. Secular influence in the selection of 
 these men was exerted by local magnates and nobles with 
 more concern for selfish advantage than for the welfare 
 either of Church or of State, and Parker wrote to Lady 
 Bacon : — 
 
 I was informed the best of the country, not under the degree 
 of knights, were infected with this sore, so far that some one 
 knight had four or five, some other seven or eight benefices 
 clouted together, fleecing them all, defrauding the crown's subjects 
 of their duty of prayers, somewhere setting boys and their serving- 
 men to bear the names of such living.^ 
 
 The Queen herself did not realize the need for competent 
 preachers and pastors; the higher clergy were in too many 
 cases, even where competent men were available, careless 
 about securing their services, or as greedy as the laity to 
 secure cheap ones. Clerical service gave no dignified or 
 honored position in the community, and the financial 
 rewards were not enticing to men of ability. The tone and 
 character of the lesser clergy reached perhaps its lowest ebb 
 during the first years of Elizabeth's reign. ^ 
 
 In spite of the setting in motion of the machinery pro- 
 vided by the religious acts, the Roman Catholics were not 
 entirely disheartened. There were elements in the situation 
 
 ^ Parker Corresp., no. ccxxxix. * Cf. chap, v, p. 131. 
 
Politics and Religion 27 
 
 which justified them in thinking that their case was not 
 hopeless. Although they had apparently lost power, the ob- 
 vious conciliatory policy of the government gave them prac- 
 tical assurance that they were in little real present danger 
 and led them to hope that a chance for rehabilitation might 
 present itself. That the organization and the services of the 
 establishment were not radically changed by the new order 
 was a subject for congratulation among Catholics. Parsons, 
 the Jesuit, at a later date rejoices "that the sweet and high 
 Providence of Almighty God hath not been small in con- 
 serving and holding together a good portion of the material 
 part of the old English Catholick Church, above all other 
 Nations, that have been over-run with Heresie, for that we 
 have yet on foot many principal Monuments that are de- 
 stroyed, in other countries, as namely we have our Cathe- 
 dral Churches and Bishopricks yet standing, our Deanries, 
 Canonries, Archdeaconries, and other Benefices not de- 
 stroyed, our Colledges and Universities whole, so that there 
 wanteth nothing, but a new form to give them Life and 
 Spirit by putting good and vertuous Men into them. ..." * 
 The work of the Royal Commissioners of Visitation had 
 varied with the character of the visitors and the sentiments 
 of the districts visited, and the institution of the new system 
 was by no means thorough. Catholic clergy were left, in 
 some sections at least, in charge of their old parishes. 
 "... The prebendaries in the cathedrals, and the parish 
 priests in the other churches, retaining the outward habits 
 and inward feeling of popery, so fascinate the ears and eyes 
 of the multitude that they are unable to believe but that 
 either the popish doctrine is still retained, or at least that it 
 will be shortly restored." ^ The most dangerous and rabid 
 of the papal adherents had been removed, but the impres- 
 sion was given that this was all the government wished to 
 
 • Parsons, Memorial of the Reformation of England, printed in part in Taunton, 
 English Jesuits, App., p. 478. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. liii, Lever to Bullinger, July 10, 1560. 
 
28 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 accomplish. Finally, there was much in the foreign polit- 
 ical situation to give Catholics hope, and cause concern to 
 Elizabeth and her advisers. 
 
 Elizabeth's second parliament 
 
 Foreign events during the first four or five years of Eliza- 
 beth's reign served to emphasize the need for the loyalty 
 of Englishmen and for the maintenance of governmental 
 control over the religious question.^ When Parliament met 
 for the second time, January 12, 1563, Philip had given up 
 his hope of regaining England for Catholicism by matrimo- 
 nial alliance. Elizabeth had refused to send representatives 
 to the Council of Trent, and the labors of that body had 
 ended without accomplishing anything which tended toward 
 reconciliation. In 1562 the Pope, Pius IV, issued a brief for- 
 bidding Catholics to attend the English services on pain of 
 being declared schismatic, and thus, in some measure, Eng- 
 lish Catholics had been compelled to withdraw the assent 
 to the new arrangement which the moderate policy of the 
 government had won from them. Mary was back in Scot- 
 land,' forced to make concessions to the Protestants to 
 maintain her throne, but craftily intriguing to gain freedom. 
 I She schemed and waited in the hope that a turn of the wheel 
 might seat her on the English throne and give her the means 
 to suppress the hated preachers. Her hopes were dependent 
 upon her uncles the Guises, and events in France in 1562 
 seemed to indicate that the time she awaited had come. The 
 year opened with the issue by Catharine of an edict of 
 toleration. Guise replied with the massacre of a Protestant 
 congregation at Vassy. He entered Paris and seized the 
 queen mother and the king. The Huguenot leaders took the 
 field and France was divided into two hostile and destruc- 
 tive religious camps. Philip sent forces to Gascony to aid the 
 Guises. The Pope and the Duke of Savoy hired Italians 
 
 * D'Ewes, Journals, Cecil's speech in the second Parliament. CJ. Zurich 
 Letters, nos. Ixix, Ixxii, Ixxiii. 
 
Politics and Religion 29 
 
 and Pledmontese to attack the Huguenots from the south- 
 west. German mercenaries were added to the Catholic forces 
 in the north. The Huguenots seemed enclosed in the net 
 of their foes. Mary negotiated a marriage with the son of J- 
 Philip, strengthened her connections with the Continental 
 Catholics, and plotted the overthrow of Elizabeth and the 
 restoration of both Scotland and England to the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Papal See. Success for the Catholics on the Con- 
 tinent seemed to mean success for Mary in Scotland, per- 
 haps in England also. Then came the battle of Dreux and 
 the virtual defeat of the combined Huguenot forces. 
 
 That the English Parliament in this situation should 
 strengthen the kingdom's defenses against its religious and 
 political enemies was inevitable; that it proceeded along 
 the lines of the weaknesses found in the system established 
 is evidence of conservatism and moderation not to be 
 expected from a radical Protestant body. 
 
 There is no question that the system had been proved 
 ineffective in some points by the experience of the past 
 five years. In the first place, under the arrangements made 
 by the Act of Supremacy for administering the oath, many, 
 both clerics and laity, who were in positions to hinder the 
 secure establishment of the system, had been able to escape, 
 either because the means for administering the oath were in- 
 effective, or because they were not included in the classes 
 specified as required to take it. Thus we find disorders both 
 among the clerics and laity, particularly in the north where 
 the great centers of Catholic dissent were situated, and 
 where the need for a united front was especially great from a 
 military standpoint. Compared with the extent of the coun- 
 try, the means of administering the oath to the clergy were 
 few, and where such means should have been sufiicient 
 they were often hindered by the opposition or indiffer- 
 ence of secular officials whose sympathies were with their 
 Catholic neighbors. The ecclesiastics were often forced to 
 make such complaints as Parker's to Cecil : — 
 
30 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 I am here stoutly faced out by that vain official who was de- 
 clared to have slandered Mr. Morris and some justices of the 
 peace, and purpose to examine the foul slander of Morris accord- 
 ing to the request of your letters. The official seemeth to dis- 
 credit my office, for that I am but one of the commission, and 
 have none other assistants here; and therefore it would do good 
 service if the commission I sued for to be renewed were granted. 
 There be stout words muttered for actions of the case, and for 
 dangerous premunires, and specially tossed by his friends, pa- 
 pists only, where the better subjects do universally cry out his 
 abuses. If I had some advice from you I should do the better.^ 
 
 Complaints of such hindrance were constantly sent to the 
 Council, because the bishops and other ecclesiastics were 
 without the power necessary to enforce their orders. Since 
 the real sting of excommunication lay, for the Catholics, 
 not in exclusion from the Church, but in the temporal pen- 
 alties attached to that condition, failure to impose these 
 penalties took from the hands of the Church the force of its 
 most powerful weapon. Here, then, are at least two impor- 
 tant defects of the system created by the acts of 1559: the 
 right to administer the oath of supremacy and the obligation 
 to take it did not extend far enough to cover all dangers, 
 and the ecclesiastical censure of excommunication could not 
 be rightly enforced because minor officials, particularly the 
 sheriffs and justices of the peace, failed to do their duty 
 and there was no generally applicable means of forcing them 
 to do so. These are obviously defects that needed correc- 
 tion, and we find that Parliament's two most important 
 acts, the Act for the Assurance of the Queen's Supremacy 
 and the Act for the Better Enforcement of the Writ de Ex- 
 commtinicato Capiendo, deal with these very things. 
 
 The Act for the Assurance of the Queen's Supremacy 2 
 had for its purpose the most effective administration of the 
 previous legislation concerning the royal supremacy and the 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., no. cclxxix; cf. Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. Ixxii; 5. P., 
 Dom., Eliz., vol. CCLXX, no. 99; vol. CCLXXIV, no. 25. 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. \; cf. speeches against the bill by Browne, 
 Lord Montague, and Atkinson, Strype, Annals, vol. i, chap. xxvi. 
 
Politics and Religion 31 
 
 extension of such legislation to persons not previously reached 
 by its requirements, particularly the provision which com- 
 pelled the taking of the oath of supremacy. The punishment 
 for maintenance of the papal power in England was in- 
 creased, and the enforcement of the law was, for the first 
 time, brought under the control of a powerful and efficient 
 secular court. King's Bench. The minor officials to whom 
 the administration of the laws against Catholics had been 
 in great part entrusted, were made directly responsible to 
 it for the performance of their duty. The loopholes left by 
 the Act of Supremacy for escape from taking the oath of 
 supremacy were closed and the application of the require- 
 ment was greatly extended. To those classes of persons 
 formerly required to take it, were added the members of 
 Commons, all lay and clerical graduates of the universi- 
 ties, schoolmasters, public and private teachers, barristers, 
 lawyers, sheriffs, and all "persons whatsoever who have or 
 shall be admitted to any ministry or office belonging to the 
 common law or any other law within the realm." The agents 
 for administering the oath were increased in number. Every 
 archbishop and bishop was given power to administer the 
 oath to all ecclesiastics within his diocese, and the Lord 
 Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal was authorized 
 to issue commissions to any persons he saw fit, to adminis- 
 ter the oath to such persons as were specified in the com- 
 mission. Refusal to take the oath was punished by more 
 severe penalties.* 
 
 In the Act for the due Execution of the Writ de Excommu- 
 nicato Capiendo ^ the ecclesiastical censure of excommunica- 
 tion was made stronger. It had long been the custom for the 
 bishop, upon excommunicating an offender, to write to the 
 Court of Chancery for a writ de Excommunicato Capiendo, 
 
 ' Parker Corresp., nos. cxxvii and cxxviii. Parker, with the approval of 
 Cecil, took measures to see that these penalties were not too severely enforced. 
 Cf. Str>'pe, Parker, 126. 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 23. History of the act in Strype, Annals, 
 vol. I, pt. I, p. 460. 
 
32 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 or capias. Chancery issued the writ to the sheriff for execu- 
 tion, and that officer was supposed upon its receipt to ar- 
 rest and imprison the person excommunicated. Under the 
 new establishment, however, the sheriff was often in sym- 
 pathy with such offenders and failed to do his duty,^ and 
 there was, in cases of such failure, no way, by means of the 
 ordinary processes of law, to force him to perform his duty 
 because the writ was not returnable to any court. The new 
 act, probably drawn up by Parker and Grindal,^ provided, 
 by means of fines imposed upon the minor officials for fail- 
 ure to do their duty, that the authority of the spiritual 
 censure be effectively enforced and that the personal lean- 
 ings of the sheriffs should not prevent the execution of the 
 penalties involved in excommunication. Incidentally the 
 act specifies the offenses that incur the penalty of Excom- 
 munication: 
 
 Excommunlcatyon dothe proceede upon some cause or con- 
 tempte of some originall matter of Heresie or refusing to have his 
 or their childe baptysed or to receave the Holy Communion as 
 yt commonlye is now used to be recyved in the churche of Eng- 
 lande, or to come to Dyvine service nowe commonlye used in 
 the said churche of Englande, or errour in matters of religion or 
 doctryne now receyved and alowed in the sayd churche of Eng- 
 lande, incontenencye, usurye, symonye, periurye, in the ecclesias- 
 tical court or Idolatrye. 
 
 Parliament did not confine its work for the security of the 
 Queen and the realm to the enactment of these two acts. The 
 repression of that class of persons who pretended to fore- 
 cast events, or to exercise magical powers, was looked to in 
 two special acts which imposed penalties upon witches and 
 enchanters. Such persons were regarded as dangerous be- 
 cause of their associations with the old religion.^ The acts 
 were framed because the people were misled by seditious 
 persons dissatisfied with the religious establishment, who 
 
 * Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, p. 19. * Strype, Annals, vol. i, pt. i, p, 460. 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 15; Strype, Annals, vol. i, pt. I, pp. 441, 
 465-66; Statutes oj the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 16. 
 
Politics and Religion 33 
 
 used prophecy and divination as excuses or incentives for 
 bringing about the Queen's death. The belief in magic, 
 possession, witchcraft, and similar supernatural manifesta- 
 tions of power was shared by all classes and by all types of 
 religious faith. This somewhat curious persistence in Chris- 
 tianity of an essentially dual conception of the universe and 
 supernatural forces has extended even to the present time, 
 and though the importance which all men of that time at- 
 tached to such claims seems absurd to-day, the fear was 
 real and the danger imagined particularly hard to meet. 
 
 THE SUCCESS OF GOVERNMENT POLICY 
 
 In the establishment thus created by the first Parliament 
 and strengthened by the second, there was little to alarm 
 the great mass of the people. There was no change made 
 that on the surface could not be justified by some act of the 
 past, although, as is usual. Englishman's precedent applied 
 to a new situation might involve consequences utterly for- 
 eign to the substance of past conceptions. The old machin- 
 ery remained; the two provinces, the bishoprics, and in 
 great part the same clergy still conducted the services. 
 The services were not so different as to shock religious sense, 
 or to arouse the opposition of the people, although iso- 
 lated cases of Protestant violence and Catholic stubborn- 
 ness might occur. For a long time the Queen retained, 
 much to the distress of her clergy, elements of the old wor- 
 ship in her private chapel. ^ The supremacy of the Queen 
 was maintained, but the title of "Supreme Head of the 
 Church," so offensive to Catholics, was not assumed, and 
 the national headship over all estates of the realm found 
 support in the patriotic sentiments of all Protestants and a 
 great number of Catholics. In the enforcement of the su- ^ 
 premacy no extraordinary judicial bodies with which thepeo- ' 
 pie were unfamiliar were created. The Queen's commissions 
 
 ' » Parker Corresp., nos. Ixvi, Ixvii, Ixxii; Zurich Letters, nos. xxv, xl, xxxix, 
 xliv, xlviii, xliii.^ 
 
34 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 were similar to those of Edward and Mary, and the regular 
 and ecclesiastical courts exercised jurisdiction in establish- 
 ing and maintaining the supremacy and ecclesiastical order 
 in much the same way that they had in the past. The pur- 
 poses of the government had been to construct a Church 
 which would enable Elizabeth to retain her throne, which 
 would reconcile Catholics and Protestants, and which might 
 serve as a police force over the outlying districts of the 
 kingdom. The Church as established served as a protection 
 against Catholic dangers and in a minor degree insured the 
 avoidance of Protestant excesses. ^ As a governmental tool 
 it accomplished its objects with as little friction and injus- 
 tice as could be expected. In the hands of Elizabeth and 
 her government it came as near satisfying all parties as any 
 system that could have been devised. 
 
 The years from 1563 to the end of Elizabeth's reign 
 brought no essential changes in the structure of the Church. 
 Details were adjusted and relationships changed somewhat 
 as new problems arose and as the Church itself developed 
 an independent ecclesiastical consciousness, but essentially 
 the structure given the Church in the first years of Eliza- 
 beth remained unchanged. Of the adjustments and changed 
 relationships, so far as they concern the growth of an inde- 
 pendent Anglican Church, and the development of various 
 phases of Protestant dissent, we shall speak in succeeding 
 chapters. They are phases of English religious and ecclesi- 
 astical history which may be best treated after we have 
 reviewed the course of those events which, to the minds 
 of all Protestant elements in the kingdom, most closely 
 concerned the religious as well as the political integrity of 
 England. 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vi, no. 22; vol. xiii, no. 32; Strype, Annals, vol. I, 
 pt. I, p. 279; Collier, Ecc. Hist., vol. vi, p. 332. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHOLICS 
 
 The Catholic danger was, during the whole reign of Eliza- 
 beth, the one most prominent in English religious politics, 
 yet the lenient policy in the handling of her Catholic sub- 
 jects, inaugurated at the beginning, was maintained by 
 Elizabeth and her government. Repression of disorder and 
 restraint of individuals whose activity might be politically 
 dangerous were in general the only purpose of that policy. 
 Nevertheless, we find considerable diversity in the thorough- 
 ness with which such restraint and repression were exer- 
 cised, and a growing severity in the laws enacted for dealing 
 with Catholic recusants. At times of great national danger 
 or of increased Catholic activity, laws were put in execution 
 with greater vigor and greater legal safeguards were erected. 
 A history of the reign in detail is unnecessary here, but a 
 r6sum6 of the chief events and situations in connection with 
 the Catholic problem will make clear the grounds for politi- 
 cal fear of Catholic disturbance and the incentives afforded 
 for new legislation ; and a description of this legislation will, 
 in conjunction with other sources of information, afford 
 a basis for an analysis of the character and purposes of 
 governmental repression of Catholics. 
 
 THE REBELLION OF THE NORTHERN EARLS 
 From 1563 until 1570 there is little of striking interest or 
 importance to detain us. They were years of anxiety, it is 
 true, years during which the kingdom was least prepared 
 to meet the Catholic disorders within and attack from Cath- 
 olic powers outside the kingdom, yet the wisdom of the 
 governmental policy of waiting, and the confusion of Con- 
 tinental politics enabled the State to weather the minor dis- 
 
36 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 turbanccs caused by the revolt of the nobles in the north 
 and the tempests of the vestlarlan controversy. We are 
 for the present concerned only with the former. 
 
 The rebellion of Northumberland and Westmoreland In 
 1569 was not based exclusively upon dislike of the religious 
 changes made by Elizabeth and a consequent advocacy of 
 the claims of Mary Stuart, but was in part at least founded 
 upon the disgruntled feeling of the old nobility displaced 
 by "new men." The earls, a remnant of the feudal nobil- 
 ity, with many of the views and ideals of family position 
 which belonged to an earlier time, were jealous of the power 
 wielded by Cecil, Bacon, Walsingham, and the new families. 
 In their proclamation the rebels charged that the Queen 
 was surrounded "by divers newe set-upp nobles, who not 
 onlie go aboute to overthrow and put downe the ancient 
 nobilitie of the realme, but also have misused the queen's 
 majestle's owne personne, and also have by the space of 
 twelve yeares now^e past set upp and mayntayned a new- 
 found religion and heresie contrary to God's word." ^ In one 
 sense, the revolt of 1569 was a struggle between the old and 
 the new aristocracy, and it Is easily conceivable that some 
 such strife would have arisen had a political situation other 
 than the religious one made the monarchy as dependent 
 upon the employment and preference of the new men as was 
 Elizabeth In the situation which had been forced upon her. 
 
 The revolt was easily quelled, and punished with a cruelty 
 in excess of the dangers that might justly have been feared 
 from such a poorly planned attempt upon the throne of 
 Elizabeth. The revolt of the north proved that internal 
 Catholic discontent could not serve as the primary force 
 for the overthrow of existing conditions, although It might, 
 under certain circumstances, form a powerful auxiliary to 
 foreign invasion should the international political situation 
 unite the enemies of Elizabeth against England. The fact 
 
 » Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. v, p. 113. Cf. Bull of Excommunication, par. 2; 
 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, pp. 11 30-31. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 37 
 
 that the parties of opposition were essentially foreign, papal, 
 Scotch, Spanish, won for Elizabeth the support of all who 
 resented outside interference in English affairs, and brought 
 her triumphantly through the succession of crises that con- 
 fronted the kingdom. 
 
 THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 In Februarys 1570, the carefully laid and remarkably suc- 
 cessful plans of the government to secure by a broad and 
 inclusive policy the adherence of Catholics to the estab- 
 lishment w^ere rudely disturbed. The question now became 
 whether the government's lenient policy during the years 
 preceding would bear good or evil fruit. Four years before, 
 Pius V, hot-tempered and pious in fact as well as name, 
 had come to the papal throne. In 1570 he issued a Bull 
 of Excommunication against Elizabeth.^ What its conse- 
 quences might be it was hard to estimate. Catholics were 
 compelled to choose definitely whether they should withdraw 
 from the Elizabethan establishment that assent which the 
 leniency of the government had made possible, or remain 
 true to their loyal feelings and incur the censures of Mother 
 Church. Would the leniency of governmental religious pol- 
 icy bear fruit in continued adherence of loyal Catholics at 
 so great cost? Or would they yield obedience to the Pope 
 at the sacrifice of personal comfort and safety, loyalty and 
 home? The Pope demanded the sacrifice of English loyalty 
 to ecclesiastical and religious zeal. Many hesitated, and 
 Elizabeth issued a masterly proclamation in which she dis- 
 claimed a desire to sacrifice religious feeling to patriotic 
 feeling : — 
 
 Her majesty would have all her loving subjects to understand, 
 that, as long as they shall openly continue in the observation of 
 her laws, and shall not wilfully and manifestly break them by 
 their open actions, her majesty's means is not to have any of 
 them molested by any inquisition or examination of their con- 
 
 » Wilkins, Concilia, vol. IV, p. 260; Cardwell, Doc. Annals, vol. i, pp. 328- 
 31 ; Burnet, pt. ii, bk. m, no. 13, p. 579. 
 
38 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 sciences in causes of religion ; but to accept and entreat them as her 
 good and obedient subjects. She meaneth not to enter into the 
 inquisition of any men's consciences as long as they shall observe 
 her laws in their open deeds.' 
 
 The Bull was not popular with the reasonable English 
 Catholics, nor with the European princes. ^ From this time 
 forth, until the final settlement of the danger to England 
 from foreign aggression, all parties in England felt that 
 however much they differed, there was need for a common 
 front against the enemy. In a sense it aroused the Protes- 
 tants of England to a united loyalty to the Crown which 
 had not been possible before, not even ten years before at 
 the reorganization of the Church. The only point of dis- 
 agreement was as to the severity of the measures that 
 should be taken in retaliation upon the Catholics who sub- 
 mitted to the commands of the Bull. 
 
 The publication of the Bull of Excommunication was the 
 occasion for the most striking proclamation of governmental 
 determination to adhere to its fundamental policy of ab- 
 staining from active interference with Catholics whose reli- 
 gious beliefs did not involve them in political plots; but the 
 revolt of the northern earls and the dangers attendant upon 
 the imprisonment of Mary Stuart, in conjunction with the 
 publication of the Bull, led the political leaders to favor the 
 passage of more restrictive legislation by the Parliament 
 of 1 57 1. That element in Parliament w^hich wished for 
 a more radically Protestant reformation of the Anglican 
 Establishment was more bitterly anti-Catholic than the 
 government, and heartily lent itself to the framing of severe 
 laws against the Catholics. An act, "whereby certayne 
 offences bee made treason," ^ attempted to counteract the 
 effects of the Bull by making treasonable the declaration in 
 any way that the Queen was not, or.- .ght not to be, queen 
 
 * S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. Lxxi, nos. i6 and 34. 
 
 * Span. Cal., p. 254, Philip to Gueraude Spes; For. Cal., p. 291, Norris to 
 Eliz,; ibid., p. 339; Raynaldus, p. 177 (1571). """ 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, 13 Eliz., c. I. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 39 
 
 and the declaration that Elizabeth was a heretic, schismatic, 
 or usurper. By disbarring from the succession any who 
 claimed a greater right to the throne, and making the 
 maintenance of such claims treason, the act struck at 
 Mary of Scotland and her Catholic supporters. Not con- 
 tent with this, severe penalties were attached to the publica- 
 tion of books which, before any act of Parliament was made 
 establishing the succession, maintained the right of any 
 particular person to the succession. Another act made trea- 
 sonable the introduction and putting into execution of Bulls 
 or other instruments from the See of Rome, and subjected 
 the Importers of articles blessed by the Pope to the penalties 
 of Provisors and Premunire.^ Catholics who had fled to the 
 Continent were, by still another act, commanded to return 
 home within six months upon pain of forfeiture of their lands 
 during life. 2 These measures made clear the resolution of 
 the nation to protect itself and its queen. But Cecil wrote, 
 "... there shall be no colour or occasion to shed the blood 
 of any of her Majesty's subjects that shall only profess de- 
 votion in their religion without bending their labours ma- 
 liciously to disturb the common quiet of the realm, and 
 therewith to cause sedition and rebellion to occupy the place 
 of peace against it." ^ Since the severity of the enforcement 
 of the laws rested almost entirely upon the Queen and her 
 councillors, Catholics had little to fear as long as they kept 
 their skirts clear of political Intrigue. 
 
 LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS FROM I580 TO 1 587 
 
 The Pariiament which reassembled in 1580-81 had to 
 meet a situation more complicated and alarming even than 
 that following the publication of the Bull of Excommunica- 
 tion. The seminary at Douay, founded in 1568 by William 
 Allen to train Catholic priests to fill the vacancies In the 
 English priesthood caused by the death or withdrawal of the 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, 13 Eliz., c. 2. * Ibid., c. 3. 
 
 » Dom. Cat., Eliz., p. 391. 
 
40 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Marian clergy, had prospered, and in 1576 began to send 
 its missionaries into the kingdom. The effect of their pres- 
 ence was made evident by increased activity on the part of 
 the Catholic laity and more general refusal to attend the 
 established services. In 1580 the first of the Jesuit mission- 
 aries, Campion and Parsons, landed in England and passed 
 from one end of the country to the other. ^ Latent enthusi- 
 asm for the old faith was roused by the earnest preaching of 
 Campion, while Parsons sowed the seeds of political discon- 
 tent and gathered together the loose ends of Catholic plot 
 and intrigue. In the Netherlands Don John of Austria had 
 planned a descent upon England by sea, and so pressing 
 was the danger that in 1577 Elizabeth made an alliance with 
 the Netherlands and sent men and money to the assistance of 
 the burghers. In 1578 Philip's forces defeated the Dutch at 
 Gemblours, and the next year the Pacification of Ghent was 
 broken by the defection of the Catholic southern provinces. 
 In Ireland papal soldiers, headed by the Jesuit Sander, 
 landed in 1580 and aroused the Irish to rebellion, and at the 
 same time William Gilbert was sent to England to organize 
 the Catholics for cooperation with the Spanish forces of 
 Philip. Walsingham and his spies were active and success- 
 ful in ferreting out and punishing recusants, yet the dan- 
 gers in the situation and the panic fear of Englishmen 
 demanded that some more severe weapon than any yet in 
 existence be created for use against the Catholics.^ 
 
 The Parliament of 1581 enacted in the statute " to retalne 
 the Queenes Majesties Subjects In their due Obedience" 
 that all "persons whatsoever which . . . shall by any wayes 
 or means . . . withdraw any of the Queenes Matles subjects 
 from their . . . obedience to her Majestie or . . . withdraw 
 them . . . from the relygion nowe by her Highnes aucthori- 
 tie established ... to the Romyshe Religion . . . shalbe ad- 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxxvii, no. 28; vol. cxLiv, no. 65; Strype, Annals, 
 vol. Ill, App., no. vi. 
 
 * Span. CaL,Eliz., vol. iii, nos. 31 and 119; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CXLII, 
 no. 33; vol. cxxxvi, no. 41 ; vol. cxxxin, no. 46. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 41 
 
 judged to be Traitors." ^ Any person thus withdrawn was 
 also declared guilty of high treason. The saying of mass 
 was punished by a fine of two hundred marks ; and persons 
 not going to church, as required by law, were to forfeit to 
 the Queen for every month twenty pounds of lawful English 
 money, and after one year of absence to give bond of at least 
 two hundred pounds for good behavior. An act against se- 
 ditious words and rumors uttered against the Queen pro- 
 vided the penalties of fine for the first, and death for the 
 second offense.^ 
 
 From 1582 until 1585 the situation Increased In difificul- 
 ties for England, but came to no crisis. Spanish resentment 
 at the exploits of the English freebooters on the seas and 
 over the secret aid and open sympathy of the English for 
 the Netherlands grew in bitterness. Mendoza plotted with 
 Mary and was dismissed from England.^ Philip's fear of 
 French interference disappeared upon the death of Alengon 
 and the outbreak of the war of religion between Henry of 
 Navarre and the Catholics. The assassination of William of 
 Orange freed Spain from Its most able single opponent In 
 the Netherlands and raised a panic of fear for the life of their 
 queen in England. Parliament in 1584-85 passed an act 
 I banishing Jesuits from the realm, ^ and sanctioned the as- 
 sociations formed for the defense of the Queen. ^ 
 
 Antwerp fell, and in January, 1586, Elizabeth openly 
 broke with Spain and sent an armed force to the aid of the 
 Dutch. James of Scotland was induced, by his desire for rec- 
 ognition as the next In succession, to form an offensive and 
 defensive alliance with Elizabeth. The Parliament of 1586- 
 87 made effective the law of 1581 levying a fine of twenty 
 
 1 StatuUs of the Realm, 23 EHz., c. i ; Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. ill, no. 57; 5. P., 
 Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxvii, no. 6; vol. cxxxvi, no. 15; D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 
 272, 274, 285-88, 293, 302. 
 
 » Statutes of the Realm, 23 Eliz., c. 2. 
 
 * Strype, Annals, vol. Ill, App., no. xx\-i. 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, 27 Eliz., c. 2; S. P., Dam., Eliz., vol. ccxvi, no. 22. 
 ' Statutes of the Realm, 27 Eliz., c. i ; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ll, nos. 6 and 7; 
 
 vol. CLXXiii, no. 81; D'Ewes, Journals, 285. 
 
42 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 pounds upon Catholic recusants, by authorizing the seizure 
 of the goods and two thirds of the lands of such as evaded 
 or refused payment,^ and vigorously addressed itself to the 
 removal of Mary Stuart from the situation. The complicity 
 of Mary in the Babington Plot gave to Walsingham and 
 the statesmen who had long urged her death, grounds for 
 insistence, and the more decisive stand of England inter- 
 nationally made the elimination of Mary a consistent and 
 logical step. After nineteen years of imprisonment Mary 
 Stuart was beheaded on February 8, 1587. 
 
 MARY STUART 
 
 The importance of this step as indicative of the new de- 
 termination of English policy in meeting the dangers which 
 had confronted the realm from the beginning of Elizabeth's 
 reign, will be made more evident, perhaps, by a summary 
 showing the position which Mary occupied in national and 
 international affairs during the period of her captivity. We 
 have already spoken of her title to the throne of England 
 and its bearing upon the Catholic problem during the first 
 years of Elizabeth's reign, but until Elizabeth was definitely 
 excluded from the Catholic communion Mary of Scotland 
 must have felt that her claims to England's throne, in so 
 far as they were dependent upon Catholic rejection of Eliza- 
 beth's legitimacy, had not received adequate support from 
 papal power. When the Bull of Excommunication was 
 finally issued by Pius V (1570), however, Mary was not 
 free to push her claims with vigor, nor had her course of 
 action during the years immediately preceding her con- 
 finement in England tended to make real the political pur- 
 poses by which she should have regulated her personal and 
 political action. We shall not here review the familiar story 
 of Mary, Queen of Scots, her difficulties at home, the flight 
 to England, her imprisonment and death. English treat- 
 ment of the Scottish queen and Elizabeth's attitude toward 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, 28 and 29 Eliz., c. 6. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 43 
 
 her, points which concern us closely, have been the sub- 
 jects of bitter historical controversy and partisanship. The 
 motives which governed the English in their treatment of 
 Mary have always provided a rich field for disagreement to 
 the controversialists. With the details of that discussion we 
 shall not meddle. We shall present briefly the considera- 
 tions which to us seem to have determined England's atti- 
 tude toward Mary. 
 
 In the eyes of the English political leaders of the time the 
 detention of the queen for nineteen years was not wise. 
 Barlow, Bishop of Chichester, wrote in 1575: "We have 
 nothing new here, unless it be a new thing to hold a wolf 
 by the ears, to cherish a snake in one's bosom ; which things 
 have ceased to be novelties in this country: for the queen of 
 the north, the plague of Britain, the prince of darkness in 
 the form of a she wolf, is still kept in custody among us." ^ 
 
 They clamored for her death: "If that only desperate 
 person were away, as by justice soon it might be, the 
 Queen's Majesty's good subjects would be in better hope, 
 and the papists daily expectation vanquished. . . . There 
 be many worldings, many counterfeits, many ambidexters, 
 many neutrals, strong themselves in all their doings, and 
 yet we which ought to be jilii lucis, want our policies and 
 prudence." ^ 
 
 That they did not have their way was undoubtedly due 
 to the stubbornness of the Queen, her absolute refusal to 
 make a decision to do as they wished. For this conduct on 
 her part we have been offered the explanation that she was 
 unwilling that the blood of her cousin should rest upon her 
 head. Perhaps Elizabeth did have some such scruple, but 
 it may be as reasonable to believe that the delay which she 
 caused was due to a truly statesmanlike realization of the 
 consequences of Mary's death. It must be remembered that 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. ccvii; Parker Corresp., no. ccxlix. 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. ccciv, Parker to Burghley, Sept. l6, 1572; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. li, App., no. xiv. 
 
44 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the years until the death of Mary were years of political 
 balancing and caution for England, years of inaction where 
 inaction was possible, careful and parsimonious decision 
 only when decision became inevitable, not alone in regard 
 to the fate of Mary of Scotland, but in foreign and domestic 
 policy in all other lines. Elizabeth with the men about her 
 realized that Mary alive must be the nucleus of multitudi- 
 nous plots. Would Mary dead give greater safety to Eng- 
 land? Probably not. Mary's plots with English factions, 
 papal emissaries, Scotch Catholics, and Spanish interests 
 were dangerous only if they could be developed in secret, 
 and it appears that nothing was hidden from the crafty 
 spies of Walsingham and Cecil. In Scotland the Protestant 
 party evidently joined with the radical English in demand- 
 ing Mary's death. Elizabeth could have surrendered Mary 
 and got rid of her easily had there appeared to her no good 
 reason for keeping her cousin under her own control. 
 Most of us find it difficult to think of the Scotch as anything 
 other than Presbyterian, but it must not be forgotten that 
 to Englishmen of Elizabeth's time it was by no means cer- 
 tain that Catholicism would not once more gain the upper 
 hand in Scotland. Release of Mary might be the occasion 
 for an outburst of Catholic zeal and fury there. As long as 
 Mary was in English hands, England could count on Scot- 
 land's friendship and dependence. If Scotland became Cath- 
 olic once more, Mary alive in English custody was worth 
 more to England than Mary dead in the grave. Never- 
 theless, Mary's life was more important to England from 
 the standpoint of her influence upon the question of the 
 Spanish attitude than of the Scotch. Many Catholics did 
 not see, Mary herself did not realize, but Elizabeth may 
 have understood perfectly that the interest of Philip of 
 Spain in the restoration of England to Catholicism had in 
 it a very large element of selfishness. Philip entered into 
 plots with Mary, he promised great aids, he sheltered and 
 pensioned expatriated English Catholics, he stirred up dis- 
 
The Government and the Catholics 45 
 
 content in the country. But he would not invade England 
 to set Mary Stuart, a niece of Guise, upon England's throne 
 — not even for love of Catholicism, He waited as Elizabeth 
 hoped he would wait. He waited until Mary died at odds 
 with her Protestant son. He waited until those who had 
 been children at the accession of Elizabeth had grown to 
 manhood under her rule and under the influence of the 
 Church she had established. When Alary was killed Philip 
 was ready to act. He received as a legacy from the Scotch 
 queen the bequest of her claims on the English throne.^ 
 Action by Philip now, if successful, would bring him the 
 selfish rewards which had always been essential to secure 
 his action. He sent the Armada. The Spanish party, which 
 for years before Mary's death he had tried to build up in 
 England with the help of the Jesuit Parsons, proved to 
 have no substantial body. All England, Catholic and 
 Protestant alike, rallied to repel the invader. ^ Elizabeth's 
 policy had proved successful. 
 
 That Elizabeth foresaw all this is incredible; that she may 
 and probably did believe that the selfishness of Philip would 
 keep him out of England as long as Mary Stuart was alive, 
 is not difficult to believe; and it Is easier to believe that this, 
 rather than Elizabeth's fear of the blood of her cousin, was 
 the reason why Mary's life was preserved for so many 
 years In the face of English opposition. 
 
 THE LAWS OF 1 593 
 
 The defeat of the Armada did not for the Elizabethan, 
 as it does for us, mark the end of the Spanish danger. It 
 seemed a great victory, a national and providential deliver- 
 ance from the hands of Antichrist and the hated foreigner; 
 
 1 Cal. State Papers {Simancas), vol. in, pp. 581, 590, 645; Labanoff, Lettres 
 de Marie Stuart, vol. vi, p. 453; Record of the English Catholics, vol. II, pp. 
 285, 286, paper drawn up by Parsons and Allen. 
 
 ' Pierce, Introdtiction to the Mar prelate Tracts, p. 146; Cal. State Papers, 
 Dom., Add. 1580-1625, vol. xxxi, p. 14; Strype, Annals, vol. in, App., no. 
 Ixv, a paper drawn up to show the Catholics how they may assist in repelling 
 the Spaniard. 
 
46 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 but the name and the prestige of Spain were still great, the 
 forces of the Papacy insidious and persistent; the throne 
 of the Queen and the independence of England not yet 
 safe. Partly as a result of the national panic over contin- 
 ued dangers from the Spaniard and his "devils" the Jesu- 
 its, partly as a result of her thirty-five years' reign, dedi- 
 cated, as the nation felt, to the spiritual as well as the 
 political welfare and safety of England, enthusiasm for the 
 Queen burst into flame and loyalty to the Crown assumed an 
 importance that threatened to give to the monarchy a power 
 and authority equal to that exercised by Henry VIII. Prot- 
 estant extremists as well as Catholic, all whose opinions 
 in the least threatened the safety of the State or the 
 disturbance of the established system, were dangerous and 
 should be crushed. In 1593 Parliament passed the most 
 severe anti-Catholic legislation of the reign. ^ But it also 
 enacted statutes against Protestant dissenters hardly less 
 rigorous. 2 At no time in the reign, however, would depend- 
 ence upon the formal letter of the law give a more mislead- 
 ing conception of the true spirit of governmental religious 
 policy. The obvious inference from the legislation of 1593, 
 that the Queen was taking advantage of a wave of national 
 feeling to inaugurate a system of relentless repression of 
 Catholics would be far from the truth. National loyalty 
 won victories and wrote statutes which gave the Queen 
 the mastery and might have supported a relentless perse- 
 cution had the government desired it ; but the government 
 did not. Elizabeth used her supremacy in more tolerant 
 fashion. 
 
 After the harsh laws of 1593 a system of horrible perse- 
 cution would have been set up in England had the will to 
 punish been as angry as the tone of the law. Fortunately 
 those who led, both in Church and State, directed their 
 efforts not to crushing either Jesuits or Catholics, but to 
 
 • Statutes of the Realm, 35 Eliz., c. 2. 
 
 * Ibid., c. I, "An Acte to retayne the Quenes subjectes in obedience." 
 
The Government and the Catholics 47 
 
 providing insurance against treasonable outbursts of their 
 enthusiasm. We find Bancroft, Bishop of London, with the 
 consent of Elizabeth and the written absolution of the 
 Council, going so far as to furnish the secular priests of 
 Rome with printers and protecting them in the distribution 
 of their books in order that the influence of the dangerous 
 Jesuits might be counteracted. He and the Court hoped 
 to win all loyal Catholics to peace by this practical evi- 
 dence of immunity for those who confined their Catholi- 
 cism to belief in the doctrines of the Mother Church and 
 kept their skirts clear of political intrigue. Catholics were 
 even led to hope for toleration of their religion. A Catholic 
 wrote to Cecil : — 
 
 England, I know, standeth in most dangerous terms to be a 
 spoil to all the world, and to be brought into perpetual bondage, 
 and that, I fear, your lordships and the rest of the Council will see 
 when it is too late. Would to God, therefore, Her Majesty would 
 grant toleration of religion, whereby men's minds would be ap- 
 peased and join all in one for the defence of our country. We 
 see what safety it hath been to France, how peaceable the king- 
 dom of Polonia is where no man's conscience is forced, how the 
 Germans live, being contrary in religion, without giving offence 
 one to another. Why might not we do the like in England, seeing 
 everyman must answer for his own soul at the Latter Day, and 
 that religion is the gift of God and cannot be beaten into a man's 
 head with a hammer? Well may men's bodies be forced but not 
 their minds, and where force is used, love is lost, and the prince 
 and state endangered.^ 
 
 In 1 601 Bancroft went so far in that direction as to pre- 
 sent a petition for Catholic toleration to Elizabeth and his 
 reproof was no more severe than the observ^ation from the 
 Queen, "These men perceiving my lenity and clemency 
 toward them, are not content, but demand everything, and 
 wish to have it at once." 
 
 To quiet the alarm of Presbyterians and radical church- 
 men who were frightened at the seeming kindness to the 
 Catholics, Elizabeth was forced to issue a proclamation 
 
 » Historical MSS. Commission, Hatfield MSS., pt. Vli, pp. 363-64- 
 
48 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 disclaiming any intention to permit a toleration in Eng- 
 land : — 
 
 They [the secular priestsl do almost insinuate into the minds 
 of all sorts of people (as well the good that grieve at it, as the 
 bad that thirst after it) that we have some purpose to grant a tol- 
 eration of two religions within our realm, where God (we thank 
 Him for it who seeth into the secret corners of all hearts) doth 
 not only know our innocency from such imagination, but how 
 far it hath been from any about us to offer to our ears the per- 
 suasion of such a course, as would not only disturb the peace 
 of the church, but bring this our State into confusion.^ 
 
 But the leaders dominated the situation and had no in- 
 tention of abandoning the consistent policy of reconciliation 
 and moderation which the Queen had found so effective 
 during the period preceding the Armada. Bancroft did not 
 succeed, as he had hoped, in transferring from Jesuits to 
 seculars the influence over the Catholic laity, but he so 
 intensified the bitter dissension in the ranks of English 
 Catholicism that the danger of Catholic plot was for the 
 time reduced to a negligible factor, and the persecuting 
 spirit of the acts of 1593 grew cold during the last ten- 
 years of Elizabeth's reign. ^ 
 
 administration of laws against catholics 
 The penalties imposed by the statutes ran through 
 the whole range of punishments designed to discourage 
 crime against the State. Fine, imprisonment, segregation, 
 exile, or death, might legally result from failure to conform 
 to the established ecclesiastical requirements, but Eliza- 
 beth and her government in the imposition of these penal- 
 ties assumed pretty definite policies which modified con- 
 siderably the purposes of the statutes imposing them. 
 
 The authorities were exceedingly reluctant to apply the 
 extreme penalty to all those who might clearly and easily 
 have been brought under the terms of the statutes. The ex- 
 
 1 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ccLXXXV, no. 55. 
 
 * Usher, Reconstruction, vol. i, pp. 132-37. 156-59- 
 
The Government and the Catholics 49 
 
 cesses of Mary's reign were fresh in the minds of the people 
 as a horrible example of papal cruelty which it was the pride 
 of the English to avoid. Elizabeth's hope of securing the 
 peaceable acquiescence of the nation to the new ecclesias- 
 tical establishment was dependent upon abstinence, so far 
 as possible, from any action which would incite the fears 
 of Catholics or range the nation definitely upon the side of 
 the radical Protestants. Ecclesiastical censures, fines, short 
 terms of imprisonment, even if applied pretty generally, 
 would necessarily afford less ground for the development 
 of Catholic desperation than would even one death for 
 adherence to the old faith. Patience, care that pressure was 
 not applied to those persons who might, if pressed, persist 
 in opinions and actions which would subject them to the 
 extreme penalties of the law, a certain clear-sighted blind- 
 ness to the violation of the law, enabled Elizabeth to rule for 
 ten years unsmirched by the blood of any Catholic subject. 
 When armed rebellion, papal absolution from obedience to 
 her rule, and treasonable plots against her throne and life 
 made it clear that some Catholics, at least, would not rest 
 content with the passive resistance which Elizabeth had 
 been well content to overlook, the policy of the government 
 in dealing with such persons was carefully formulated and 
 given the widest publicity. 
 
 The public utterances of governmental officials, the state 
 papers and writings of Burleigh, the proclamations of Eliza- 
 beth in reply to the Bull of Excommunication, made the 
 strongest possible declaration of the government's purpose 
 to abstain from interference with the religious opinions 
 and conscientious scruples of Englishmen, so long as those 
 opinions and scruples did not involve the commission of 
 open acts in direct violation of the law and dangerous to 
 the safety of the State. To be sure, such a statement might 
 mean little, since, under a less liberal interpretation, almost 
 any manifestation of Catholic faith could, without incon- 
 sistency with the avowed policy, be treated as inimical to 
 
50 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the welfare of the commonwealth. But with few exceptions 
 Elizabeth and her government were careful to seek and to 
 find evidence of clearly menacing purpose before proceeding 
 to the imposition of the death penalty. ^ Legally much was 
 treasonable that was not punished as such, and the knowl- 
 edge of Catholic activity in the hands of the government at 
 all times was used only when it seemed that a warning was 
 needed, or that the activity of some individual was actu- 
 ally dangerous to the State. 
 
 Perhaps no closer comparison of the English govern- 
 mental attitude toward Catholics can be made than with 
 the attitude of established government toward anarchistic 
 opinion in our own time. The attitude is distinctly one of 
 suspicion and supervision, but also one of tolerance and 
 abstinence from active interference, except when the ex- 
 pression of opinion becomes clearly destructive of exist- 
 ing institutions or manifests itself in acts of violence. 
 The comparison is also susceptible of extension to the 
 opportunity afforded in both cases for the manifesta- 
 tion by minor officials, because of individual feeling or 
 desire for personal advantage, of an attitude less tolerant 
 than the one assumed by the government. The zeal of the 
 police in our own country sometimes oversteps the law, and 
 in Elizabeth's day it sometimes became necessary for the 
 government to restrain excessive zeal in the repression of 
 Catholics on the part of government officials. The central- 
 ized authority of the Privy Council enabled the govern- 
 ment to dismiss quietly harmless Catholics whom the zeal 
 of local officials had involved in difficulties. ' 
 
 "The total number of Catholics who suffered under her 
 [Elizabeth] was 189; 128 of them being priests, 58 laymen 
 and 3 women." To them should be added — as Law remarks 
 in his "Calendar of English Martyrs" — thirty-two Fran- 
 
 * Strype, Annals, vol. in, App., no. xlvii, "That such papists as of late times 
 have been executed were by a statute of Edward III lawfully executed as 
 traitors. A treatise." 
 
The Government and the Catholics 51 
 
 ciscans "who were starved to death." ^ This is one of the 
 most recent Catholic statements. If the figures given are ac- 
 cepted without question, one who is uninterested in proving 
 the diabolic activity of the Elizabethan government will be 
 impressed by the comparative smallness of the number who 
 suffered death during the forty-five years of Elizabeth's rule. 
 In this number are included Catholics who suffered because 
 of clearly treasonable activity as well as those who suffered 
 because of too great caution on the part of the government. 
 The number, therefore, who sufTered death without having 
 been involved in what, to-day even, would be regarded as 
 treason, must have been relatively small; so small as to af- 
 ford little ground for the argument that the action of the 
 government against Catholics was inspired by a theory of its 
 ^ duty to crush out that type of personal religious faith. It is 
 undoubtedly true that some Catholics were condemned to 
 death and executed who were personally guiltless of more 
 than adherence to their religious faith, but they were the 
 innocent \'ictims of the treasonable activity of their fellow 
 Catholics, rather than of governmental religious intolerance. 
 The case of Campion is in point. Campion was himself sin- 
 gularly free from political guile and suffered death, not for 
 his own intrigues, but for those of his brother Jesuit Parsons. 
 Many Catholic writers have either included in their lists 
 of martyrs every Catholic who died, no matter what the 
 cause, or have, with more seeming fairness, made the most 
 of every case where the evidence of treasonable complicity 
 is not clear. Anglicans have endeavored often to establish 
 presumption of criminal complicity in practically all the 
 cases, or have satisfied themselves by glossing over the 
 facts by vague, general statements about differences of times 
 and the cruelty of the age. To an impartial observ^er it seems 
 useless to try to distinguish in every case between the 
 justly and the unjustly condemned upon the basis of such 
 
 > W. S. Lilly, "England since the Reformation," Catholic Encyclopedia, 
 vol. V, p. 449. 
 
>J 
 
 52 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 remnants of evidence as remain to us. The important thing 
 is not the establishment of the justice or injustice of indi- 
 vidual cases, but the determination of whether the policy 
 proclaimed by the government was the one which was in 
 fact adhered to in its treatment of Catholics. The evidence 
 is overwhelmingly in favor of the conclusion that it was. 
 The cases in which the death penalty was imposed without 
 definite political reason are so few that, though they may 
 excite compassion and regret, they are not of sufficient 
 weight to counterbalance the evidence which establishes the 
 unwillingness of the government to proceed to the death 
 penalty in its dealings with Roman Catholics. Elizabeth 
 created and maintained an illegal toleration of Catholics 
 of such extent that in the later years of her reign the Catho- 
 lics were encouraged to hope that freedom of worship would 
 be granted them, and Elizabeth was compelled, by the fears 
 and bigotry of her radical Protestant subjects, to issue a 
 proclamation denying that she had any such purpose. Per- 
 haps nothing more clearly indicates the success of the gov- 
 ernment's Catholic policy. The most important hindrance 
 to it during the last ten years of the reign came, not from 
 the excesses of the Catholics, but from the opposition of 
 the radical Protestant groups that had, during the first 
 thirty years of Elizabeth's rule, developed into parties of 
 consistent antagonism to the middle course in ecclesiastical 
 matters. Of these bodies and their attitude we shall speak 
 in a succeeding chapter. 
 
 Theoretically, the purpose of the death penalty is the 
 final removal of those subjected to it from the community 
 to whose peace and existence their presence is a menace. 
 From the standpoint of the State, the more merciful penalty 
 of exile is less effective than death, only because of the pos- 
 sibility of a secret return to the community. Because of 
 the unwillingness of the English authorities to stir up the 
 emotional horror of the nation by condemning Catholics to 
 death, the policy of exiling them would have been an ob- 
 
The Government and the Catholics 53 
 
 vious one for the government to adopt had it desired to 
 rid the commonwealth of CathoHcs. But the circumstances 
 were such that the detention of Catholics in England was 
 less dangerous than forcing them into, or permitting them 
 to seek, exile. 
 
 In 1574 Cox wrote, "Certain of our nobility, pupils of the 
 Roman pontiff, either weary of their happiness or impatient 
 of the long continued progress of the gospel, have taken 
 flight, some into France, some into Spain, others into differ- 
 ent places, with the view of plotting some mischief against 
 the professors of godliness."^ The aid which exiles might 
 give to foreign enemies was more to be feared than their 
 activity at home under the eye of the government. 
 
 We have noted the laws which attempted, by means of 
 confiscation of property, to secure the return to England 
 of such persons as fled overseas. Probably such laws were 
 not very effective in inducing those to return who had 
 already fled to the safety of the Continent, but they were 
 perhaps of use in causing Catholics who were still in Eng- 
 land to remain in the enjoyment of their property even at 
 the expense of occasional fines, a regular tax, or short terms 
 of imprisonment; and this unwillingness to subject them- 
 selves to the hardships of property loss and exile was en- 
 couraged by practical assurance of the inability and un- 
 willingness of the government to impose upon Catholics 
 who remained peacefully in England, penalties involving 
 hardships equal to those of exile. 
 
 There are but two exceptions to the consistent purpose 
 of the State to keep the Catholics at home. The statute 
 against Jesuits and seminary priests, passed in 1585,^ pro- 
 vided for the expulsion of such persons from the kingdom 
 within forty days after the close of Parliament, and the act 
 passed in 1593 against Popish Recusants ^ provided that 
 
 » Zurich Letters, no. cxcix; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CLXXVi, no. 9; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. 11, pt. I, p. 495; pt. II, App., no. xl. 
 
 » 27 Eliz., c. II. '35 Eliz., c. II, sec. v. 
 
54 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 those who because of poverty lived better in prison than 
 they could if "abrode at their own libertie," should be com- 
 pelled to adjure the realm. The provision of the act against 
 the Jesuits and seminary priests which required them to 
 leave the realm applied, however, only to a small and, in 
 a sense, non-resident class, whose activity in England was 
 more dangerous than upon the Continent, and is no very 
 large exception to the general rule. Further the provision 
 which allowed Jesuits and priests to remain for forty days 
 after the close of Parliament was a merciful and politic 
 measure, for the laws already upon the statute books were 
 sufficient to condemn to death any Jesuit or priest caught 
 in England, and it was probable that the dread of Jesuit 
 machinations felt by the nation would have left no other al- 
 ternative. The opportunity to leave, thus offered Jesuits and 
 priests, gave no such cause for Catholic alarm as would the 
 enforcement of previous law against those already virtually 
 in the power of the government. The other exception was 
 merely the logical consequence of the chief purpose of the 
 government in dealing with the Catholics, the purpose to 
 make them pay the expenses of supervision and, if possible, 
 a profit for the treasury. The class affected by the order to 
 leave the kingdom did not have and could not pay any 
 money toward its own support. The order to leave the 
 realm was in fact about equivalent to the expulsion of a 
 pauper class. ^ Without money they could work little harm 
 on the Continent. 
 
 The imprisonment of Catholics who refused to submit to 
 ^ the formal requirements of the law in regard to church at- 
 tendance and outward conformity was not persecution in- 
 spired by religious principle. The conformity which the gov- 
 ernment demanded was little more than a pledge of political 
 loyalty to the Crown, and at first did not, to most Catholics, 
 
 * See R. B. Merriman, "Notes on the Treatment of the English Catholics 
 in the Reign of Elizabeth," /I wmcan Historical Review, April, 1908, vol. xill, 
 no. 3, for a project to send poor Catholics to America. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 55 
 
 imply any renunciation of their religious faith. Imprisonment 
 was resorted to because it was felt that persons who would 
 not grant the easy pledge of loyalty demanded were danger- 
 ously hostile and should be shut up until they were no 
 longer dangerous; that is, until they would submit them- 
 selves and conform. The difficulty encountered, however, 
 in this method of dealing with Catholics was that there were 
 too many of them, — there were not enough prisons to hold 
 them all. Several methods of confinement were tried. Cath- 
 olics were committed to prison at their own expense, they 
 were released on bond, they were confined to their houses or 
 neighborhoods, or placed in the easy custody of responsible 
 individuals.^ Segregation in such places as Ely and Wis- 
 beach was tried. But there was an embarrassingly large 
 number of Catholics, and to imprison them all, even by 
 these expedients, involved a great deal of expense that the 
 government did not like to incur. 
 
 Fines and confiscations of property were the penalties 
 that appealed most to the parsimony of Elizabeth, and best 
 fitted in with the purposes of the government to avoid plac- 
 ing excessive burdens upon loyal Catholics. ^ The fine of one 
 shilling for absence from church brought in little money, 
 however, and contributed practically nothing toward the 
 expense of supervision. In the early eighties, when Catho- 
 lic activity became alarming, Walsingham found that his 
 vigorous eff'orts to cope with the danger were costing more 
 than the sum furnished by confiscations, the fine of one 
 hundred marks imposed upon those who depraved the serv- 
 ices, and the fine of one shilling for absence from church. 
 The act passed by Parliament in 1581, "to reteine the 
 Queenes Majesties Subjectes in their due Obedience," en- 
 deavored to make up the deficit by providing that absentees 
 from church be fined twenty pounds a month. In Decem- 
 ber, 1580, Mendoza had written to Philip, "The Queen has 
 ordered an inquiry into the incomes of the imprisoned 
 1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxvii, no. 6. * Ibid., no. 7. 
 
56 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Catholics, which cannot fail to be considerable as their 
 number is large. It is understood that the object is to pass 
 an Act in Parliament confiscating their property if they do 
 not go to church. Their punishment hitherto has only been 
 imprisonment." ^ The statute was not so severe as they had 
 feared, however, and perhaps nothing so well serves to em- 
 phasize the previous want of hardship imposed upon Cath- 
 olics as their efforts to prevent the passage of this law. They 
 offered Elizabeth a hundred and fifty thousand crowns in 
 a lump sum as evidence of their loyalty and willingness to 
 contribute to her expenses, and their unwillingness to pay 
 such a tax.^ But, curiously enough, the act had neglected 
 to provide a means of levying upon the lands and property 
 of those subject to the penalties, and the first alarm of the 
 Catholics subsided as soon as it became evident that the 
 law would become inoperative if passive resistance and eva- 
 sion were resorted to. A curious paper drawn up by a 
 Catholic to furnish directions on how to meet the law is 
 headed : — • 
 
 A briefe advertisement howe to answere unto the statute for not 
 cominge to church both in law and conscience conteyning three 
 principall pointes. The first what is to be said in law to that 
 common demand. Doe you or will you goe to the Church, The 
 second whether the matter of the statute for not cominge to 
 Church can be found by inquisition of a Jury. Thirdly, if any 
 person beinge denied the advantage of all exceptions by lawe 
 how to answere with most safety according to the duty of a 
 catholique,' 
 
 To many, Imprisonment or the easy custody in which 
 they found themselves, was far preferable to the payment 
 of such a sum for their freedom.^ Further, the essential 
 defect of the act was hardly more responsible for the failure 
 to impose the large fine than was Elizabeth's attitude.^ 
 
 1 Span. Cat., Eliz., vol. in, no. 57, p. 70. * Ibid., no. 79. 
 
 ' S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxxvi, no. 15. 
 
 * Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. ni, no. 109; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxxvi, no. 
 17; vol. cxiv, no. 22. 
 
 * S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clv, no. 42. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 57 
 
 The passage of the act had raised such alarm among Catho- 
 lics and the crisis of 1581 had passed so easily that, dearly 
 as she loved money, Elizabeth felt it wa^dangerous to her 
 policy of compromise to permit its rigid enforcement. There 
 is no evidence that the government secured the regular in- 
 come from the fines which might have been expected and 
 which actually did accrue, when, in 1587, the threatening 
 danger of Spanish invasion made the Court willing that the 
 defects of the act be corrected, and removed Elizabeth's 
 personal opposition to its enforcement. 
 
 Walsingham was dissatisfied with the act and with the 
 attitude of Elizabeth, for he well knew that had the Court 
 wished the law enforced, the minor defects of statement in 
 the law would have presented no insurmountable obstacle.^ 
 When the contributions of recusants ^ in 1585-86, toward 
 the force raised for the assistance of the Netherlands, 
 showed that the failure of the act of 1581 was not entirely 
 due to the poverty of the Catholics, but to their unwilling- 
 ness to submit themselves to such an excessive tax as the 
 law demanded, Walsingham seized upon this idea and se- 
 cured a letter from the Privy Council to the sheriffs and 
 justices of peace, which had for its purpose such ease and 
 alleviation of the penalties imposed by the laws as would 
 enable the government to secure a reasonable tax from all 
 recusants.^ The proposal was that the local officials should 
 require the recusants "to make offer and sett downe every 
 man accordinge to his particular value what yearly sume 
 he cane be contented of his owne disposition to allowe . . . 
 to be discharged of the perill and penalties of the lawe 
 whereunto they may stand subjecte and liable by reason of 
 their recusancye." The income promised as a result of this 
 modification of the act was more than had been obtained 
 during the four years since its passage, but Walsingham was 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CLVii, no. 51; vol. CLi, nos. 72 and 73. 
 « Ibid., vol. CLxxxiii, nos. 15, 23, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 45, 46, 51, 53, 57, 61, 
 62, 71, 72; vol. CLXXXiv, nos. 41, 45, 46, 61. 
 
 ' Ibid., ^'ol. CLXXXVi, nos. 81-83; vol. CLXXxvii, no. 45. 
 
58 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 not yet satisfied with the returns.^ The recusants had just 
 made what they felt was a generous contribution to the ex- 
 penses of the Dutch expedition, and did not wish to part 
 with any more money. The law of 158 1 had been a dead 
 letter so long that its perils and penalties did not inspire 
 them with much fear. It would have been well for them had 
 their response been more enthusiastic and liberal, for the 
 fears inspired by the foreign political situation in 1586-87 
 led Parliament in 1587 to provide for the enforcement of 
 the penalty by authorizing the seizure of two thirds of the 
 lands and all the goods of recusants who evaded or refused 
 to pay the fine.^ 
 
 The administration of this phase of the law was now 
 taken out of the hands of the local officials, often incompe- 
 tent or parties to its evasion, and placed in the hands of 
 court appointees, and the results were gratifying both to the 
 government and to those who shared with the government 
 the revenues forced from the Catholics.' During the last 
 years of the reign, this method of taxation had become 
 so regular and dependable that the recusants' fines were 
 farmed out. 
 
 Curiously enough, in the face of statutes which made the 
 Catholic faith a crime, we find Catholics occupying offices 
 of trust in the kingdom, rich and powerful, giving whole- 
 heartedly of their loyal service against the Spanish invader. 
 Their presence, in the face of the laws on the statute books, 
 would have been impossible had laws been consistently 
 enforced.'* Needless to say they were not. Within limits the 
 laws were consistently annulled. Loyal Catholics from 
 whom money could be extracted were left in comparative 
 
 » 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CLXXxvii, nos. 45, 48, 49, 64; vol. clxxxix, nos. 2, 
 17, 47, 48; vol. cxc, no. 11; vol. cxciv, no. 73; Strype, Annals, vol, in, pt. 
 II, App., no. xiii. 
 
 * 29 Eliz., c. 6; D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 387-88, 415-17. 
 
 * S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ccxxix, no. 68; vol. ccxLi, no. 66; vol. CLVii, no. 77; 
 vol. CCLI, no. 53; W. H. Frere, English Church under Elizabeth and James I, pp. 
 214, 264-67, 337; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. cxxxii; no. xxxi. 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. cccv, Parker to Burghley, Oct. 6, 1572. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 59 
 
 peace. The laws stood on the books, witnesses to the world 
 of the loyalty and patriotism of the English people; warn- 
 ings against disloyalty; harsh correctors of treason when 
 need required. They were little more. They were intended 
 by the government to be little more. However truly they 
 may stand to-day, and stood then, as the expression of an 
 intolerant religious spirit in the people of England, that was 
 not the purpose of the government in allowing their enact- 
 ment, nor is it evident in the government's use of the laws 
 enacted. Had the rulers wished to use the laws in the spirit 
 of repression, persecution would have been more severe than 
 we find it, and the existence within the kingdom of any con- 
 siderable body of Catholic believers impossible. The gov- 
 ernment was not, however, seeking the extermination of 
 Catholics; it was seeking the safest policy for itself; it might 
 use the intolerance of religious fanatics to make its laws, 
 but it would use its own judgment in enforcing them. 
 
 It is hard for us to conceive of the innumerable influences 
 the Court could bring to bear, without coming into open con- 
 flict with the statutes of Parliament, to annul the effects of 
 the legislation therein embodied, if such statutes interfered 
 with, or were contrary to, the policy upon which the govern- 
 ment had determined. The Queen's prerogative was great. 
 The Council was practically unlimited by existing law or 
 public opinion In what it could do. The law itself placed in 
 the Queen's hands the means to make of little effect any 
 procedure of which she disapproved. The Church was abso- 
 lutely under her thumb, and could not move to do its share 
 in enforcing these acts without her consent or even direct 
 order. The local officials were under the influence of the 
 gentry,^ and upon the local officials depended the enforce- 
 ment of the acts to an extent little realized to-day ; and their 
 responsibility to the superior power, while undisputed, was 
 not backed by an efficient series of connecting links or an 
 
 » Parker Corresp., no. cc, Parker to Cecil, Feb. 12, 1565-66; 5. P., Dom., 
 Eliz., vol. XIX, no. 24; vol. Lxxiv, no. 22. 
 
6o Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 effective superv^Ision. Further, the influence of the gentry 
 in protecting their retainers in office was greatly increased 
 during a time when the government feared to antagonize 
 any of their class because of the immense influence they had 
 upon their immediate neighbors, and the mass of unintelli- 
 gent and otherwise negligible persons who took their opin- 
 ions and orders from the gentry. 
 
 Your Lordship knowcth that the people are comonly carried 
 away by gentlemen Recusants, landlords, and some other ring- 
 leaders of that sorte: so as the winninge or the punishinge of one 
 or two of them is a reclayminge or a kind of bridlinge of many that 
 doe depend upon them.^ 
 
 I would plainly prove this, that neither ye Papists number equall 
 their report, nor ye Puritans would euer fill up a long register, if 
 ye ministers and Recusants were not backed, flattered and en- 
 couraged by Gentlemen in countries that make a good reason for 
 it, if private evil may justifie such formes, as keep oyle still in 
 yt Lampe.2 
 
 i All these influences combined to make the acts of Parlia- 
 ment less severe in practice than they were in letter. Nor 
 must it be lost sight of that the Parliaments from 1570 to 
 1585 were Parliaments containing a large anti-Catholic ele- 
 ment which the Queen and the Church of England men 
 were anxious to keep under control because they were rep- 
 resentative of a class which desired definitely to abandon 
 the government policy of leniency in religious matters. 
 Their statutes served as a means to keep down dangerous 
 conspiracies and as a testimonial to the Catholic powers 
 that the Queen was backed by the nation in her position of 
 independence. That they should be rigidly enforced, Eliza- 
 beth did not desire. 
 
 This view is not entirely supported by the utterances of 
 those who surrounded Elizabeth and were supposed to be 
 in her confidence. But there were in her Court and Council 
 at least two factions, the one headed by Leicester and Sir 
 Francis Knollys, who represented the rabid Puritan oppo- 
 
 ^ 5. P., Dom., Jac. I, vol. xui, no. 25. * Ibid., vol. xn, no. 28. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 6i 
 
 sition to all things Romish, in part from conviction, per- 
 haps, but chiefly from desire to humiliate the second and 
 leading faction headed by Cecil and Bacon. The utterances 
 of the former may be dismissed for the present by classing 
 them with that radical element in Parliament whose pro- 
 gramme of legislation served the useful purpose of warning 
 against conspiracy and foreign interference. The latter fac- 
 tion felt that the Queen proceeded too moderately and 
 agreed, in part at least, with the anti-Catholic Parliamen- 
 tary programme of the radical reformers. Their motives 
 were, however, entirely political and loyal, and not, as it 
 seems, personal or religious, and they agreed, that, if pos- 
 sible, the policy of reconciliation was best. Cecil seems to 
 have continually entertained plans for preserving and mak- 
 ing more effective Elizabeth's determination to make state 
 policy and not religious opinion the test of Catholic repres- 
 sion. As late as 1583 we find him proposing that the oath of 
 supremacy be so modified that Catholics could swear their 
 allegiance without violating their religious convictions. 
 
 Therefore considering that the urging of the oath of suprem- 
 acy must needs, in some degree, beget despair, since in the taking 
 of it, he must either think he doth an unlawful act, (as without 
 the special grace of God he cannot think otherwise,) or else, by 
 refusing it, must become a traitor, which before some hurt done 
 seemeth hard: I humbly submit this to your excellent considera- 
 tion. Whether, with as much security of your majesty's person 
 and state, and more satisfaction for them, it were not better to 
 leave the oath to this sense, That whosoever, would not bear 
 arms against all foreign princes, and namely the pope, that 
 should any way invade your majesty's dominions, he should be a 
 traitor? For hereof this commodity will ensue, that those papists 
 (as I think most papists would, that should take this oath) would 
 be divided from the great mutual confidence which is now between 
 the pope and them by reason of their afflictions for him; and such 
 priests as would refuse that oath, then no tongue could say, for 
 shame, that they suffer for religion, if they did suffer. 
 
 But here it may be objected they would dissemble and equivo- 
 cate with this oath, and that the pope would dispense with them 
 in that ease. Even so may they with the present oath, both 
 
62 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 dissemble and equivocate, and also have the pope's dispensation 
 for the present oath, as well as the other.^ 
 
 The number of Catholics in the country was great and it 
 is somewhat astonishing and difficult of explanation, if one 
 believes that the government had deliberately set out to 
 suppress all Catholics, to find Cecil saying, " I wish no les- 
 sening of their number but by preaching and by education 
 of the younger under schoolmasters." His proposal that 
 tenants be protected from popish landlords to the extent 
 " that they be not put out of their living" for embracing the 
 established religion, neither argues any general suppression 
 of Catholics nor any desire on the part of Cecil that they 
 be absolutely suppressed.^ 
 
 It is clear that the anti-Catholic legislation, passed in 
 part because of dangers from Catholic enemies, in part be- 
 cause of the influence of growing anti-Catholic sects, was 
 modified in the letter of its enforcement, primarily by the 
 conciliatory and positively tolerant purposes of government 
 politics, and secondarily by the unavoidable inadequacy of 
 the machinery of enforcement. 
 
 We have in this chapter traced briefly the course of Eliza- 
 bethan religious and ecclesiastical politics, with especial 
 reference to the relations that existed between the Catholics 
 and the English government. We have shown that political 
 motives dominated the government in its organization of 
 the Church and in its repression of Roman Catholicism. 
 We have endeavored to make clear the fact that in spite of 
 penal legislation, in spite of pressure from within and with- 
 out the kingdom, considerations of national safety made the 
 policy of the government throughout the reign one of con- 
 ciliation toward Catholics. This conciliatory attitude marks 
 
 » "A Tract of Lord Burleigh to the Queen," Somers Tracts, by Sir Walter 
 Scott, vol. I, p. 165 (13 vols. London, 1809). Quoted in Hallam, Const. Hist., 
 vol. I, p. 157. 
 
 ' Burleigh, "Execution of Justice," and Walsingham's letter printed in 
 Burnet, pt. 11, bk. iii, p. 661. Also Queen's proclamation after the issue of the 
 Bull of Excommunication. Spedding, Life and Letters of Bacon, vol. I, p. 97 » 
 cf. for the Catholic view, J. H. Pollen in The Month, Nov., 1904. 
 
The Government and the Catholics 63 
 
 a perceptible advance in the direction of toleration by its 
 educational influence upon the people of England toward 
 the acceptance of the principle that state safety, preserva- 
 tion of national political integrity, and not championship of 
 a particular form of salvation, was the reason for restraint 
 on men's religious practices, and that such restraint should 
 be exercised only when open and overt acts, or the expressed 
 determination to commit actual acts of hostility, arising 
 from such opinions, endanger the safety of the common- 
 wealth. Unfortunately the acceptance of these principles 
 was not complete. The government had erected and main- 
 tained a National Church that had yet to learn to apply 
 these ideas to all, and Puritanism had during the period 
 developed into complex groups of fanatical intolerance. It 
 is to the examination of the Anglican Church and the sects 
 of Protestantism that we must now turn. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 CHURCH AND STATE 
 
 It would be an interesting study in religious life and ideals 
 and in religious psychology to attempt to draw a diagram of 
 the complex motives which actuated the men who once more 
 set in motion the machinery of the Church of Henry VIII. 
 It would be an interesting and perhaps profitable study to 
 examine the mechanism they set in motion at the beginning 
 of Elizabeth's reign, when the Church was in its formative 
 period, and when the structural features of its organization 
 were in greatest evidence, and their character of greatest 
 importance in determining the nature of the English Estab- 
 lishment. But motives and mechanics are closely connected. 
 The Anglican Church, like every other great institution 
 drawing its support from the love and emotion of a people, 
 never existed in mechanical form alone. The Church was 
 always a living body, not a structure artificially constructed 
 from the blue-prints of mere governmental politics. Men 
 built into the Church their motives, loves, hatreds, their 
 delusions and ambitions. 
 
 Yet the Church of that time was not the Anglican Church 
 we know, with its great body of traditions, its long history 
 and distinctive personality. Anglicanism had not yet won 
 for itself an allegiance which in devotion and in loyalty — 
 and occasionally in bigotry — has rivaled the feeling of 
 Catholics for Mother Church. The Church had not come 
 to look upon itself as an institution whose form and doctrine 
 had been determined by the ordinance of Deity. It had not 
 yet returned in search of apostolic authorization to the 
 dim infancy of a primitive church history of questionable 
 authenticity. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign the 
 Church did not demand from Englishmen their adherence 
 
Church and State 65 
 
 upon these grounds; its appeal was to expediency and to 
 loyalty, rather than to divine right. 
 
 The new church system was an experiment, a part of that 
 general experimentation to find a modus vivendi and to meet 
 the untried difficulties by which Protestantism was every- 
 where confronted. It was an experiment connected with, 
 and founded upon, the experience and organization of the 
 past, but an experiment nevertheless. Many who sup- 
 ported it recognized its experimental character and hoped 
 that it would be but temporary, the vestibule to that better 
 and more truly Christian building whose plan they had 
 learned from John Calvin in the days of their exile. Many 
 failed to see that it was an experiment and felt surprise 
 when later experience proved this governmental tool unable 
 to cope with changed conditions. None believed possible, 
 few desired, a complete break with past ecclesiastical his- 
 tory; but neither did any recognize the inadequacy of that 
 organization and that past experience for the new condi- 
 tions. Between the elements which made up the new 
 Church conflict arose. Yet, as we search for the qualities 
 which have held for centuries the allegiance of Englishmen, 
 we find two still maintaining their sway, which lay at the 
 basis of the Church even in its foundation, the elements of 
 patriotism and of moderation. 
 
 THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 How great has been the Influence of these two factors 
 during the history of the Church, how important the role 
 they have played during its later development, we shall not 
 inquire; it is impossible, however, to comprehend the 
 Church of Elizabeth's day without understanding how there 
 was breathed into it a spirit which has made Englishmen 
 feel that the Anglican Church is peculiarly English, noble 
 and worthy the devotion and love of Englishmen, and that 
 it is neither rabid with the unreasonable and unreasoning 
 love of change, nor, on the other hand, cold and inflexible 
 
66 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 and dead. We must understand the Englishman's loyalty 
 to the Church as a national institution and the English- 
 man's pride in the safe, sane character of the Church's 
 government and doctrine, if we would understand the 
 structure which was given to the Church when England's 
 greatest sovereign sat upon the throne. 
 
 Fundamental in the creation and maintenance of that 
 moderation and inclusiveness, which have come to be the 
 particular pride of the Anglican Establishment, were the 
 close connection between Church and State at the beginning 
 of Elizabeth's reign, and the dominance of political interests 
 in that union throughout the forty-odd years of her rule. 
 The identification of the ecclesiastical and the religious es- 
 tablishment of the kingdom with the political integrity of 
 England gave to the support of the Church a patriotic im- 
 portance which has persisted through times when national 
 welfare demanded rejection of the claims of the Church. To 
 the dominance of State over Church in Elizabeth's time, the 
 Anglican Establishment owes those elements of character 
 and form which have made it an institution so distinc- 
 tively national, and through which it still retains the alle- 
 giance of the vast mass of Englishmen. 
 
 THE ROYAL HEADSHIP 
 
 In England the subordination of the Church to the will of 
 the sovereign was no new thing. From the time when Wil- 
 liam the Norman had refused to render homage to Gregory 
 VII, and resisted all attempts to sink his power and the Eng- 
 lish Church, into absolute subservience to the dominance of 
 the Roman See, kings of England had struggled to keep a 
 grip on the National Church, and Parliament had enacted 
 laws to maintain the independence which they believed an 
 essential characteristic of the Church in England. Conti- 
 nental theory and practice supported the assumption that 
 the religion of the people should follow the religion of the 
 prince. The ecclesiastical changes undertaken by Henry 
 
Church and State 67 
 
 had rested fundamentally upon this principle and, at a time 
 when the popular absolutism of the first Tudors had so 
 closely identified loyalty to the sovereign with loyalty to the 
 nation, the people of the kingdom accepted the theory al- 
 most without question, and a book, written by Hayward, 
 which asserted that allegiance was due to the State and not 
 to the person of the sovereign raised a great stir because of 
 the novelty of the idea.^ The reigns of Edward and Mary 
 and the ecclesiastical changes which accompanied them 
 confirm the fact of submission to the idea, in spite of the 
 persistence during Mary's reign of a Protestant opposition 
 developed under Edward. As long as national life and loy- 
 alty to the Crown were so closely identified, the connection 
 between Church and State would persist if the personal 
 safety or the dynastic claims of the sovereign made neces- 
 sary the championship of any particular religious or ecclesi- 
 astical establishment against the claims of foreign power. 
 The hostility of Roman Catholics and Roman Catholic 
 powers to Elizabeth made it necessary for the Queen to call 
 upon the nation for support of her ecclesiastical policy in 
 order that her right to rule, established by the Parliament 
 of Henry, might be maintained. 
 
 An ecclesiastical establishment, on any basis other than 
 that of the supremacy of the Queen over the Church as well 
 as State, was, to the Tudor Elizabeth, inconceivable. Eng- 
 lish history and Continental practice made it familiar. The 
 political situation made it necessary. Elizabeth's desire for 
 the power which she believed essential to her dignity made 
 impossible any other arrangement. On such practical 
 considerations was based the royal headship, still one 
 of the distinctive characteristics of the English Establish- 
 ment. 
 
 Although Elizabeth's first Parliament had, in the Act of 
 Supremacy, dropped the title used by Henry, "Supreme 
 Head of the Church in England," so offensive to Catholics 
 
 » S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CCLXXV, no. 28, no. 31. 
 
68 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 and not entirely acceptable to some Protestants,^ the essen- 
 tial fact remained. It is somewhat difficult to define just 
 what this headship involved, just what were its limits. The 
 act does not clearly define it. The men of Elizabeth's time 
 set few bounds. Elizabeth herself disclaimed the right to 
 exercise spiritual functions,^ yet it is difficult to see how 
 powers she undoubtedly did exercise are to be distinguished 
 from supreme pastoral office. The act, 8 Elizabeth, c. i, 
 declares that the Queen, "by her supreme power and au- 
 thority, hath dispensed with all causes and doubts of any 
 imperfection or disability that can or may in any way be 
 objected" against the validity of the consecrations of the 
 archbishops and bishops already made. She sometimes as- 
 serted powers equal to those of the Pope, and the leaders of 
 the kingdom, both in Church and State, were equally gen- 
 erous. Cecil said that the Queen might do as much as the 
 Pope and that she certainly could exercise powers equal to 
 those of Archbishop Parker. ^ Jewel asserted that the Eng- 
 lish give to the sovereign "that prerogatve and chief ty that 
 evermore hath been due unto him by the ordinance and 
 word of God; that is to say, to be the nurse of God's reli- 
 gion ; to make laws for the church ; to hear and take up cases 
 and questions of the faith if he be able; or otherwise to com- 
 mit them over by his authority unto the learned ; to com- 
 mand the bishops and priests to do their duties and to pun- 
 ish such as be ofifenders." * Bancroft granted that her 
 authority was equal to that of the Pope. Parker was more 
 cautious. He wTote: "It Is one thing to discuss what is 
 done, in order or out of order, and commonly hand over 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. xii; Def. of Apol., pp. 974-76; Zurich 
 Letters, nos. xvii, xviii; Burnet, vol. Ill, bk. VI, no. 52; Parker Corresp., no. 
 xlix; Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Amos, chap. vii. v. 13, "Erant enim 
 blasphemi qui vocarent eum [llenricum VI 11] Summum Caput Ecclesiae sub 
 Christo." 
 
 « S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xv, no. 27; vol. xxvii, no. 40; Thirty-nine Articles, 
 on the Civil Magistrate. 
 
 3 Parker Corresp., no. cclxx. 
 
 < Jewel, Works, vol. ill, p. 167. Cf. also, ihid., vol. I, pp. 396-97. ^io-\\\ 
 vol. Ill, p. 98; vol. IV, pp. 976, 959, 903, 1036. 
 
Church and State 69 
 
 head, and what Is safely and surely done by warrant of law. 
 During the prince's life who will doubt of anything that may 
 pass from that authority? But the question is, what will 
 stand sure in all times, by the judgment of the best learned? 
 And here I am offended with some lawyers, who make the 
 Injunctions of the prince in her own life not to be of such 
 force as they make a Roman law written in the same or like 
 case." ^ And to Cecil: "Whatsoever the ecclesiastical pre- 
 rogative is, I fear it is not so great as your pen hath given it 
 her in the Injunction, and yet her governance is of more 
 prerogative than the head papists would grant unto her." ^ 
 Pilkington. who represented the more Protestant group 
 within the Establishment wrote: "We endure, I must con- 
 fess, many things against our inclinations, and groan under 
 them, which if we wished ever so much, no entreaty can 
 remove. We are under authority, and cannot make any 
 innovation without the sanction of the queen, or abrogate 
 any thing without the authority of the laws: and the only 
 alternative now allowed us is, whether we will bear with 
 these things or disturb the peace of the church." ' 
 
 No party, not even the more radical Protestants,^ whether 
 Calvinist, Lutheran, or Zwinglian, questioned the necessity 
 of the union of Church and State, and a certain supremacy 
 of the sovereign over the Church. The difficulties were en- 
 tirely over the extent of that supremacy and the nature of 
 that union. Theoretically, perhaps, the Established Church 
 of Elizabeth was founded upon a difference in kind of se- 
 cular and spiritual matters, of government and church. 
 "A church and a commonwealth, we grant, are things in na- 
 ture the one distinguished from the other. A church is one 
 way, and a commonwealth another way defined." ^ But 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. cclxx. * Ibid., no. ccclxix. 
 ' Zurich Letters, no. clxxvii. 
 
 * The Anabaptists would have questioned the necessity for such union be- 
 tween the Church and State, but it is very doubtful whether there were Ana- 
 baptists in England during the early years of Elizabeth's reign. There were 
 certainly not enough to merit the name of party. Cf. Burrage, Early English 
 Dissenters, passim. . ' Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vni, chap, i, sec. 2. 
 
/O Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 medloeval history had long before proved untenable the the- 
 ory that supreme spiritual authority and supreme temporal 
 power could move each in its own distinct sphere. The 
 theory of the equality of the two powers had given way to 
 two opposing theories: that the secular power was inferior 
 in kind to spiritual power and therefore subject to it in all 
 matters over which the spiritual power chose to assert its 
 authority; that the secular power was divinely instituted 
 and therefore had control to a great extent within the spirit- 
 ual realm. The political necessity for a strong secular ad- 
 ministration in England and the complications of secular 
 with religious politics necessitated the negation of the theo- 
 retical separation of the two powers. To all intents the 
 Church was founded and conducted upon purely Erastlan 
 principles. This was the view of the Queen and was con- 
 firmed by the action of the government, and in great part 
 also, by the statements of churchmen, however much they 
 kicked against the pricks of governmental domination in 
 individual cases. 
 
 The religious acts passed by Elizabeth's first Parliament 
 had vested in the Imperial Crown of the realm all spiritual 
 or ecclesiastical authority of visitation, reformation, and 
 correction of the Church,^ and had given to the Queen 
 authority to make ordinances and rules in churches col- 
 legiate, corporations, and schools, ^ and with the advice of 
 the Metropolitan to make changes in the order appointed in 
 the Book of Common Prayer or in the ornaments of the 
 church and ministers.^ Here certainly is extensive power, 
 and the means for its practical exercise were provided by the 
 authorization of commissions to be issued under the Great 
 Seal.^ The power of the Queen was not limited, by the 
 terms of the act, as to the time for which such commissions 
 should continue their existence, the number of persons in 
 
 * Act of Supremacy, par. vii. 
 
 ' I Eliz., c. 22; Parker Corresp., nos. cv, cvii. 
 
 ' The Act of Uniformity, par. xiii. CJ. Parker Corresp., nos. xciv and xcv. 
 
 * Act of Uniformity, par. viii. 
 
Church and State 71 
 
 r 
 
 the commission, nor the number of commissions existent at 
 any one time. The only limitation placed upon her in their 
 appointment was that such persons as were appointed be 
 natural-born subjects of the realm. 
 
 In actual practice the Queen took full advantage of this 
 broad privilege to an extent usually given little weight in 
 the treatment of the ecclesiastical commissions during her 
 reign. Emphasis has most usually been placed upon the 
 central, more permanent ecclesiastical commission at Lon- 
 don, commonly called the High Commission, but other 
 commissions of wide jurisdiction and extensive powers were 
 created; commissions of royal visitation, provincial com- 
 missions, diocesan commissions, and temporary or local 
 commissions were issued for special purposes, all exercising 
 according to the particular terms of the letters patent, as 
 provided by the act, a more or less extensive degree of the 
 power involved in the royal supremacy.^ It should be 
 noted, in passing, that the lesser and local commissions, the 
 commissions other than the High Commission, enabled the 
 Queen to keep a closer rein on ecclesiastical affairs than 
 would have been possible had she vested her authority in 
 one High Commission, which might have developed a ten- 
 dency to become an independent body, exercising her pow- 
 ers without reference to the Queen, in somewhat the same 
 way that the King's Court outgrew the control of royal 
 power. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS 
 
 The extensive power involved in the royal supremacy 
 thus placed in the hands of the Queen, is by the acts appar- 
 ently limited by the clause which saves the jurisdiction of 
 the regular ecclesiastical officers and courts, but this limita- 
 
 1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxLi, nos. 3, 28; vol. Lxxiv, no. 37; vol. cviir, 
 nos. 7, 8; vol. cxix, no. 60; vol. Lxxvir, no. 81; vol. XLVi, nos. 19, 20, 32; vol. 
 XXIII, no. 56; vol. XXVI, nos. 41, 42; Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 241, 240, 237, 
 235. 232, 150; Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, pp. 37-38; Bkt, Elizabethan Settlement, 
 p. 222. 
 
72 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 tion Is more seeming than real. The regular jurisdiction 
 of the ecclesiastical courts extended over matrimonial and 
 testamentary cases and offenses such as perjury, sacrilege, 
 heresy, and immorality. The censures they might Impose 
 were penitential In their nature, culminating in exclusion 
 from the church — excommunication. Excommunication 
 was followed by the imposition of further punishment, — 
 fine. Imprisonment, or death at the hands of the temporal 
 power. By the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy their 
 jurisdiction was extended, and the censures placed in the 
 hands of ecclesiastical officials were increased in severity. 
 Yet their relation to the temporal power was In general one 
 of subordination, subordination to the temporal courts and 
 to the Crown. 
 
 This subordination to the Crown, so far as the orderly 
 system Is concerned. Is best Illustrated by the fact that the 
 highest court of appeal in ecclesiastical cases was a body 
 appointed by the temporal power and largely made up of 
 the laity. In theory ecclesiastical causes passed by a regu- 
 lar system of appeals from the Archdeacons' or Bishops' 
 Courts, to final settlement, so far as the Church had con- 
 trol, In the Archbishop's Court. ^ But when the abolition of 
 papal power made necessary some substitute for appeal 
 from the national ecclesiastical courts to papal ones, Henry 
 VIII had provided ^ that appeals from the Archbishop's 
 Court might be made to the king and be determined by a 
 Royal Commission.^ Owing to the fact that these commis- 
 sions were chosen from a regular list kept by the Secretary 
 of Appeal to the Lord Chancellor, it became In a sense a 
 permanent court and thus received the name of High Court 
 of Delegates, although a new commission was appointed for 
 
 1 The Archbishop's Courts were sources of confusion and corruption. 
 Cf. Grindal, Remains, p. 361, Letter no. Ixxxiii. 
 
 2 25 Henry VHL c. 19, repealed by i and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8, but 
 revived by the Act of Supremacy. 
 
 8 Brodrick and Freemantle, p. Ivii, n. 2, for a case which went through the 
 whole system. 
 
Church and State 73 
 
 the hearing of each case.^ During Elizabeth's reign the 
 Court of Delegates was of little importance, for there was 
 one notable exception to the general rule that all ecclesias- 
 tical appeals lay to this court. Because the High Commis- 
 sioners were the Queen's delegates, with authority, by vir- 
 tue of their commission, finally to hear and determine cases, 
 no appeal lay from their decision to the Court of Delegates, ^ 
 and litigants preferred to have their cases tried by the High 
 Commission rather than by the slower and more involved 
 process of the High Court of Delegates. 
 
 The supremacy of the Crown is further marked by the 
 fact that although the High Court of Delegates and the 
 High Commissioners were thus final and definitive courts, 
 it was possible, following the analogy of papal practice, to 
 secure further hearing by petitioning the Queen in Council 
 for a Commission of Review.' Since such commissions were 
 not, according to Blackstone,^ " a matter of right, which the 
 subject may demand, ex debito justitm : but merely a matter 
 of favour," the power of the sovereign, at a time when sub- 
 servient commissioners were always available, enabled the 
 Crown to enforce its personal will upon the Church by 
 perfectly legal process. 
 
 The dominance of the Crown over the system of ecclesias- 
 tical courts was not, however, maintained by its position at 
 the apex of the system alone. Interference and dictation 
 from the Queen and Council extended down the line from 
 the highest to the lowest courts having to do with the eccle- 
 siastical causes and the enforcement of the religious acts 
 passed during Elizabeth's reign, which so closely concerned 
 the political interests and purposes of the government. 
 
 1 Blackstone, Com., vol. li, bk. in, c. v, p. 65; Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. 11, 
 p. 970; VV. F. Finlason, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, p. 68; Brod- 
 rick and Freemantle, Collections of Judgments, p. xlvi. 
 
 * Brodrick and Freemantle, pp. xliii-xliv. 
 
 » Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. 11, p. 971; Coke, 4 Inst., 341. Example of such 
 commission, Brodrick and Freemantle, p. xlii; cf. Justice Williams, Law of 
 Executors, vol. i, p. 437 (3d ed.); Commission for Ecc. Courts (1832), p. 701. 
 
 * Blackstone, vol. 11, bk. iii, c. 5, p. 67. 
 
74 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The chief of these courts, the High Commission, may be 
 regarded as somewhat out of the line of regular ecclesiastical 
 courts, in spite of its use as a final court of appeal, for its 
 most important regular function was the handling of busi- 
 ness arising from the enforcement of the statutes passed in 
 Elizabeth's reign, both in an appellate capacity and as a 
 court of original jurisdiction. During the early part of the 
 reign it acted as a sort of committee of the Council for con- 
 sideration of cases committed to it by the Council,^ re- 
 ceived its orders from the Council, and registered its deci- 
 sions according to the wishes of that body. Toward the end 
 of the reign, however, it was becoming increasingly a body 
 of ecclesiastical administration. "The commission itselfe 
 was ordained for very good purposes, but it is most horriblie 
 abused by you, and turned cleane contrarie to the ende 
 wherefore it was ordayned."^ But Cosin wrote in 1593, in 
 defense of its activity, " the device of the Commission Eccle- 
 siastical! was for assistance and ayde of Ordinary Jurisdic- 
 tion Ecclesiasticall, and for rounder proceeding and more 
 greuious punishment at least (in these dissolute times) more 
 feared: then can or may by Ordinarie Jurisdiction be in- 
 flicted." ^ As the Commission was used more extensively 
 for purposes more purely administrative, the Council or 
 Star Chamber attended to religious or ecclesiastical cases 
 which were of political importance. At no time, however, 
 was it free from the control of the Queen and her secular 
 officers. Such control, of course, was natural and intended, 
 since the Commission acted merely as the Queen's represen- 
 tative, yet it was doubtless intended by the acts that the 
 jurisdiction exercised by the commissions was to be such, 
 
 * Parker Corresp., nos. Ivii, Iviii, lix, Ix, Ixii, Ixiii, Ixx, Ixxi, Ixxiii; Privy Council 
 Register (New Series), xi, 315-435; xviii, 362; xxiv, 317; xxv, 113, 211, 505; 
 xxvi, 179; xi, 137, 149, 174, 182, 212, 322, 362, 386; vii, 145; xi, 322; xii, 336; 
 xiii, 72; viii, 395; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. XLVI, no. 12. 
 
 2 Marprelate Tracts, Epistle, conclusion. 
 
 ' Richard Cosin, Apology of and for Sundry Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ec- 
 clesiastical (1593)- pt. I, p. III. Cf. Strype, Whitgift, vol. i, p. 267; Calderwood, 
 History of the Scottish Kirk, vol. vii, p. 63. 
 
Church and State 75 
 
 and to be exercised In such way, as was consonant with 
 legal practice in ecclesiastical courts, although In part cre- 
 ated free from restraints in order that action might be ex- 
 pedited. The illegality of some of the High Commission's 
 activity during the early part of the reign was made possible 
 by the pressing dangers which threatened and by the sub- 
 servience to the will of the Queen of its members, who, in 
 other capacities, owed their preferment to their sovereign. 
 The increasing opposition to it by the secular courts toward 
 the end of the reign was due to the greater security of the 
 kingdom and to the fact that the Council and the Council in 
 Star Chamber gradually removed from It business of a reli- 
 gious or ecclesiastical character which concerned the safety 
 of the State; although, on the other hand, the Council and 
 Star Chamber may have been compelled to assume charge 
 of such business because of the legal opposition to the High 
 Commission. The Star Chamber and the Council were not 
 so subject to legal restraints as was the Commission and 
 could deal summarily with cases which the Queen or her 
 advisers felt should be thus handled. The legal powers of 
 the Star Chamber were extensive and Its close connection 
 with the Crown gave it power to exercise extra-legal juris- 
 diction which at a later time the nation resented fiercely. 
 The activity of this court is, however, so Intimately con- 
 nected with the exercise of royal prerogative and a subject 
 of such dispute that we shall defer its consideration until 
 we have occasion to speak of that phase of the Queen's pre- 
 rogative which partook of the character of administration 
 of justice. 
 
 Royal and secular influence upon the regular ecclesiastical 
 courts was hardly less direct and dominant. The Bishop's 
 Court, regularly a consistory court presided over by the 
 official of the bishop, had jurisdiction over all ecclesiastical 
 matters within the limits of the diocese. This official origi- 
 nally held office at the pleasure of the bishop and ceased to 
 exercise jurisdiction upon the removal or death of the bishop 
 
76 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 to whom he owed his appointment; but by Elizabeth's time 
 he had become entirely independent of the bishop for his 
 tenure of office. The control of the bishop was preser\^ed, 
 however, by the fact that the bishop might reser\^e such 
 particular cases as he or the Crown desired for his own hear- 
 ing.^ Further the diocesan court was inhibited from exer- 
 cising jurisdiction during episcopal visitation of the diocese. 
 Appeal lay from the bishop to the Metropolitan Court.^ 
 Although interference of the Crown with the courts of the 
 diocese, by means of its influence upon the bishop, was per- 
 haps of little importance in actual practice, the dependence 
 of the bishop upon royalty for place and preferment sub- 
 jected his episcopal jurisdiction to the constant influence, if 
 not the direction, of the Queen and those who surrounded 
 her. The courts of the bishops and the archbishops were 
 subject to interference by the Queen and Council chiefly by 
 admonition to try cases, or by reproof and punishment of 
 ecclesiastical officials who failed to do their duty, although 
 cases are not lacking in which their officials were ordered by 
 the Council to render particular decisions or punishments 
 in cases that came to the notice of the Council, or ordered 
 to send offenders, already before the ecclesiastical court, up 
 to London for examination by the Council. Such cases were 
 then usually committed by the Lords of the Council to set- 
 tlement by the High Commission with directions to exam- 
 ine further and report to the Council, or to proceed to such 
 penalty as seemed to them good, or to inflict punishment 
 according to the directions of the Council given with the 
 commitment. 
 
 THE SECULAR COURTS AND THE CHURCH 
 
 The justices of peace, to whom were committed certain 
 phases of the enforcement of the religious acts, came most 
 closely in contact with the people and dealt with minor 
 
 * Report of the Ecc. Cvmm. (1832), pp. 11-12, and for 1883, pp. 25-26. 
 ' Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. 11, p. 970. 
 
Church and State 'j'] 
 
 offenses at first instance. The justices held office and exer- 
 cised power by virtue of commission from the Crown, ^ and 
 were compelled to take the oath acknowledging the Queen's 
 supremacy besides the regular oath promising uprightness 
 in the discharge of the duties of office. Their jurisdiction 
 over offenses coming under the terms of the religious acts 
 formed the most intimate contact between the people and 
 the superior agents of ecclesiastical and religious control. 
 Cases too difficult, or too serious for settlement in general 
 sessions, were committed to the ecclesiastical commissioners 
 or reported to the Council. Subject as they were to the 
 supervision and the orders of the Council and the Star 
 Chamber, the justices of peace served in many capacities. 
 Because of their humble position and because of the fact 
 that they were not usually trained in legal lore, they came 
 in for a great deal of supervision. Failure of the justices to 
 do their duty, either of office or by conceding that degree of 
 religious conformity and zeal which were regarded as essen- 
 tial, was reported to the Council.^ The justices of peace 
 were ordered to seize persons whom the Council wished sent 
 to them in London, and they were directed by the Council 
 to enforce the Queen's proclamations. Justices who refused 
 the oath of supremacy were looked after and the loyal ones 
 directed how to proceed in regard to offering the oath to the 
 others. They were sometimes required to determine cases of 
 religious offense without "further troubling the Council of 
 any such matters." The Council sent the justices to ex- 
 amine Papists and directed them where to send the exami- 
 nations already taken. There is hardly a point at which 
 their activities did not come in for the guidance of the 
 powers above. 3 
 
 * Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 144, 147, 149; Crompton, L' Office el Au- 
 thorite de Justices de Peace, p. 3. (ed. 1583); Middlesex County Records, vol. 
 I, p. xxiv (Middlesex County Record Society); Beard, The Office of Justice oj 
 the Peace in England, New York, 1904. 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xix, no. 42; vol. xxi, no. 13. 
 
 * 7^., vol. VI, no. 29; vol. XVI, no. 49; vol. LX, no. 53; Acts oJ Privy Coun- 
 cil, passim. 
 
78 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The placing of the administration of the ecclesiastical law 
 in the hands of justices of peace is not consistent with the 
 conception of the Church as a body having exclusive juris- 
 diction over spiritual and ecclesiastical questions, but the 
 offenses with which the justices dealt were statutory of- 
 fenses against the royal power; and their jurisdiction, and 
 the jurisdiction of the other secular courts over such eccle- 
 siastical questions, is entirely consistent with the idea of the 
 Church as one means of securing the sovereign's supremacy 
 over all the subjects of the realm. i . 
 
 The chief points of contact between secular and ecclesi- 
 astical courts, however, aside from such statutory relation- 
 ships as were created by the religious acts are found in the 
 attempts of the secular courts, notably King's Bench and 
 Common Pleas, to preserve the common law from encroach- 
 ment by the ecclesiastical courts and High Commissioners. 
 Such restraint was most usually exercised by means of pre- 
 rogative writs. ^ 
 
 IRREGULARITY OF THE SYSTEM 
 
 It was characteristic of the time that certain rights, 
 acquired originally by way of grant from the Crown, or 
 possessed by virtue of long custom, were private property. 
 Thus there were a variety of jurisdictions, franchises, and 
 patronages which were treated as private property, and 
 gave the holders the power to hinder In many ways the regu- 
 lar execution of justice and the enforcement of the laws for 
 religious uniformity. In the hands of the Queen were some 
 such rights which she held as private property Independent 
 of her sovereignty over the realm, and In such cases she had 
 a more efifective means of control than that afforded her by 
 the laws of the kingdom. Various sections of the country, 
 various cities and institutions,^ were especally favored or 
 
 * Blackstone, Com., bk. ill, c. vii, pp. lo8, iii. 
 
 * The Universities were especially important and very tenacious of their 
 charter rights. Parker Corresp., no. cclxiv, note 3; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. XLIX, 
 no. 29; vol. XIX, no. 56. 
 
Church and State" 79 
 
 had, by right of custom, charter, or special grant, exemption 
 from the control of the regular courts to greater or less ex- 
 tent; or were given special local courts to deal with matters 
 which ordinarily fell under the jurisdiction of the regular 
 courts. This characteristic of Tudor times is, in the ecclesi- 
 astical courts, exemplified by the "peculiars"; those in the 
 realm of secular judicature may be grouped as the palati- 
 nates and lesser franchises. 
 
 During papal times, as marks of exceptional favor or for 
 the purpose of curtailing the power of great ecclesiastics, the 
 Papal See had granted to various churches and districts 
 exemption from the jurisdiction of the regular ecclesiastical 
 superior. This irregularity was entirely in line with the 
 prevalence of special franchises and privileges in the secular 
 administration and continued until long after our period. 
 The churches or districts which held such exemptions from 
 the control of the regular ecclesiastical system are called 
 "peculiars." The subject is particularly intricate and irreg- 
 ular, but wherever we find a peculiar court it means that 
 certain extraordinary rights of exemption from local juris- 
 diction, or rights to exercise an independent jurisdiction out 
 of harmony with the regular system, have been granted as 
 special privileges, just as in feudal society it was usual for 
 large landholders to exercise a franchise jurisdiction which 
 displaced or paralleled the jurisdiction of the king's courts.^ 
 The Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1832 shows 
 that there were many kinds of these peculiars, archiepis- 
 copal, episcopal, diaconal, prebendal, rectorial, and vicarial. 
 The way in which they curtailed the jurisdiction of the 
 diocesan courts — the privilege was often granted for this 
 purpose — may be seen from a report in the Episcopal Reg- 
 ister of the Bishop of London, Grindal, made to the Privy 
 Council in 1563.2 We learn that out of a total of six hun- 
 dred and forty-one churches in London, forty-seven were 
 
 * Holdsworth, Hist. Eng. Law, vol. i, p. 370. 
 ■ * Phillemore, Ecc. Law, p. 927; Birt, Elizabethan Settlement, p. 443. 
 
8o Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 peculiars, exempt from his jurisdiction. Of these, thirteen, 
 including Bow Church whose dean was judge of the Court of 
 Arches, belonged to the peculiar jurisdiction of the arch- 
 bishop, but some were exempt both from the jurisdiction of 
 the bishop and of the archbishop. Henry VIII provided 
 that appeals from peculiars, whose privileges exempted 
 them from the jurisdiction of the higher ecclesiastical 
 courts, lay directly to the King in Chancery, the High 
 Court of Delegates. It would be a somewhat profitless 
 study to attempt to determine how far the existence of these 
 peculiars affected the regular and appellate jurisdiction of 
 the Bishops' and Archbishops' Courts, but that they con- 
 tributed to the intricacy and confusion of the administra- 
 tion of ecclesiastical law is evident.^ 
 
 The palatinates were sections which were in a sense sepa- 
 rate from the rest of the country and in which the king's 
 writ did not run. They had a local independence. 
 
 The power and authority of those that had counties Palatine 
 was king-like for they might pardon treasons, murders, felonies, 
 and outlawries thereupon. They might also make justices of 
 eyre, justices of assize, or gaol delivery, and of the peace. And 
 all original and judicial writs, and all manner of indictments of 
 treasons and felony, and the process thereupon was made in the 
 name of the persons having such county Palatine. And in every 
 writ and indictment within any County Palatine it was sup- 
 posed to be contra pacem of him that had the county Palatine.^ 
 
 They were subject, however, to the acts of Parliament, 
 and, owing to the nature of English government and to the 
 development of royal power, they did not continue an in- 
 dependent development. Their legal system closely followed 
 that of the English system and English common law was 
 applied in their courts. Often the same officer acted as 
 royal judge and judge of the palatinate. Bacon describes 
 the judicial system of the palatinate as "a small model of 
 
 * Phillemore, Ecc. Law, pp. 214, 441; Parker Corresp., no. ccxcvi; Grindal, 
 Remains, p. 150, item 11. 
 
 * Coke, 4 Inst., p. 205. Cf. G. T. Lapsley, County Palatine of Durham; Holds- 
 worth, Eng. Law, vol. I, p. 50. 
 
Church and State 8i 
 
 the great government of the kingdom," but the establish- 
 ment of the Councils of the North and of Wales and the 
 work of Henry VIII extended the control of the Crown and 
 reduced their independence.^ 
 
 The lesser franchises were of varying degrees of impor- 
 tance and gave the holder different degrees of immunity from 
 the interference of the royal officials. Thus, some, like the 
 frankpledge, prevented the sheriff from inquiring into the 
 affairs of the neighborhood, and by this means the nobles 
 were often able to defeat, or delay, the purposes of the 
 Crown by preventing royal officials from carrying out their 
 directions within the liberties. 
 
 We have seen that, in the ecclesiastical court system, the 
 final appeal lay to a court dominated by secular interest and 
 directly dependent for its existence and power upon the will 
 of the sovereign. According to the strict system of ecclesias- 
 tical court procedure, it would seem that there should be 
 little interference with the ecclesiastical courts until by 
 regular process litigation had brought matters to the point 
 where appeal was made to the Queen for the appointment 
 of Delegates. The strict system was not, however, the real 
 one, and still less was the independent working of the sys- 
 tem so complete as it would seem. In fact, the ecclesiastical 
 court system did not exist independently, but was subject 
 to interference from the secular courts, and the Queen, and 
 the Queen's Council at all points. Secular courts had in 
 some cases original jurisdiction concurrent with that of the 
 ecclesiastical courts; the secular courts could by means of 
 the prerogative writs restrain the ecclesiastical courts from 
 hearing or proceeding to judgment. The Queen exercised 
 her authority directly by virtue of her prerogative, and by 
 means of the direct dependence of the ecclesiastical courts 
 upon her for existence and authority, or indirectly through 
 the identical interests of the court officials and the aristo- 
 cratic class. 
 
 » 27 H. Vni, c. 24; 32 H. Vni, c. 50; 34 H. VIII, c. 26; 13 EHz., c. 12. Ely 
 and Durham retained their own jurisdiction, however, until 1835. 
 
82 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The confusion of the system, the inextricable mixture of 
 secular and ecclesiastical power, must certainly be evident. 
 It is possible to take any one phase of the system and make 
 it appear fairly consistent and regular, but the overlappings 
 and cross-currents make the arrangement of the whole 
 scheme a somewhat chaotic one. This was, of course, due 
 in great part to the necessity of meeting emergencies, the 
 habit of using the commission, the undeveloped state of the 
 best established courts and their uncertain relations with 
 one another. The machinery for the enforcement of the law 
 was by its very complexity made inefficient and wasteful of 
 effort for accomplishing the purposes of the government, 
 administering the affairs of the Church, and coordinating 
 the activities of the government and Church.^ It was a 
 makeshift system, wheels and cogs were added, flexible 
 couplings inserted, power applied to meet temporary or 
 extraordinary emergencies until the least degree of efficiency 
 was dependent upon an arbitrary disregard of machinery 
 and the direct application of royal power to the task in 
 hand. Elizabeth wrote to Parker: — 
 
 If any superior officers shall be found hereto disagreeable, if 
 otherwise your discretion or authority shall not serve to reform 
 them, We will that you shall duly inform us thereof, to the end we 
 may give indelayed order for the same; for we intend to have no 
 dissension or variety grow by suffering of persons which maintain 
 dissension to remain in authority; for so the sovereign authority 
 which we have under Almighty God should be violate and made 
 frustrate, and we might be well thought to bear the sword in vain.^ 
 
 The sovereign did not lack the power, nor did Elizabeth lack 
 the will to use it. 
 
 THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE 
 
 The extensive legal powers given by the acts were not 
 interpreted conservatively by the Queen or the men around 
 her. The extent of her rightful prerogative was not defined 
 
 * Parker Corresp., nos. ccxxxix, cclxxxiii, cccvi, cccviii, cccxvii, cccxxxiv, 
 cccli, cccliii, App. ii, p. 485; Cheyney, History of England from the Armada, 
 vol. I, p. 130. ' Parker Corresp., no. clxx. 
 
Church and State 83 
 
 or limited. The temper of the Queen, the legal machinery 
 which was at her service in accomplishing illegal objects, the 
 political dangers which made men desire to avoid the delays 
 and complexities of legal procedure, united in procuring 
 from the nation assent to proceedings to which, at a later 
 time, it could no longer be induced to submit. The will of 
 the sovereign was absolute within the field where previously 
 delegated agents had not by consent or custom removed 
 power from her hands, and her influence over such dele- 
 gated agents was so great that in a case of contest, not in- 
 volving national feeling, she was practically certain of vic- 
 tory.^ The control by the sovereign, whether directly, or 
 through her Council, may be classified as that which par- 
 took of the character of legislation and that which partook 
 of the character of administration of justice. 
 
 The extensive control exercised by the Queen personally, 
 by means of letters and proclamations was in part based 
 upon the prerogative right, claimed and generally allowed 
 in Tudor times, that the sovereign could issue edicts having 
 the force of law concerning matters not contrary to the 
 statutes of the realm or the common law; and in part 
 founded upon the act of Parliament which gave the Queen 
 the ecclesiastical supremacy. It would be difficult, and is 
 unnecessary, to attempt to determine upon which of these 
 rights the various acts of Elizabeth were based. Sufficient 
 to know that her letters and proclamations were treated by 
 secular and ecclesiastical officials as having the force of law 
 and that the Council Insisted upon the obsen,^ance of her 
 proclamations as though they were statutory enactments. 
 "... The queen by her royal prerogative has power to pro- 
 vide remedies for the punishment or otherwise of exorbitant 
 offenses as the case and time require, without Parliament," 
 and such proclamations be firm and forcible law and of the 
 like force as the common law or an act of Parliament, de- 
 clared the Council In Star Chamber.^ 
 
 ^ S. P., Dam., Eliz., vol. xviii, no. 21; vol. ccviii, no. 15 and no. 34. 
 ' Quoted in Cheyney, Hist. Eng. from Armada, vol. i, p. 92. 
 
84 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Of somewhat different character from this power of posi- 
 tive enactment, is the dispensing power exercised by the 
 Queen, although it, too, is based upon the royal prerogative. 
 The dispensing power is a survival of that absolutism which 
 existed at a time when monarchy had not become consti- 
 tutionally limited. Founded upon a similar basis, also, was 
 the interference of the Queen in the action of Parliament; 
 although it is true that in religious matters the Queen 
 might claim that until her ecclesiastical supremacy had 
 been repealed by the body which established it, if she 
 would admit the power of that body to establish it, Parlia- 
 ment could have no right to exercise any part of the func- 
 tions involved in the supremacy without her express 
 consent. 
 
 It is not difficult to see how the power of legislative enact- 
 ment was based upon the royal prerogative, but many writ- 
 ers have hesitated or failed to recognize that the same prin- 
 ciple is involved when the administration of justice by the 
 Queen and Council is concerned. Because this branch of the 
 royal power was so largely exercised by the Council, which 
 in turn was so closely connected with a court, the Star 
 Chamber, which at a later time was declared illegal, the 
 legal categories of a later period have been applied to this 
 phase of royal activity, and the true situation confused. 
 
 That the administration of justice was at one time a fun- 
 damental duty of the sovereign is clear from the fact that 
 from this royal obligation arose the whole judicial and court 
 system of England. That the growth of the courts rendered 
 them to a great degree independent of the sovereign, and 
 limited the sovereign in the exercise of his administrative 
 duty, in so far as it concerned the administration of justice, 
 is equally clear from the history of English law. But that 
 in Elizabeth's time this growth of the courts had deprived 
 the sovereign of all, or nearly all, of these functions is an 
 unwarranted assumption and contradicted by the facts. 
 The facts show that to the sovereign still remained a con- 
 
Church and State 85 
 
 siderable portion of the king's original right and duty to 
 see that justice was administered and enforced. Under the 
 Tudors this right was exercised extensively, and was not 
 confined to matters not cognizable in the established courts, 
 nor to the supervision of these courts, but included juris- 
 dictions concurrent with those of both the secular and the 
 ecclesiastical courts. No one, so far as we know, denies 
 that the Queen or the Council actually attended to mat- 
 ters which it was the regular duty of the established courts 
 to look after, but the foundation of these acts has been 
 often misinterpreted. 
 
 Though Finlason attempts to show that the Council never 
 had any "direct judicial power or jurisdiction original or 
 appellate, as to causes arising within the realm," and main- 
 tains that the actual exercise of such power was an "abusive 
 and usurped jurisdiction" during the reign of Elizabeth,^ 
 he admits that it did have the legal right to deal with cases 
 arising in dependencies without the realm — that is, Guern- 
 sey, Jersey, and the colonies — by virtue of the "duty of 
 the sovereign to see that justice was administered in all his 
 dominions and to prevent a failure of justice." He admits 
 here, in other words, that the Council was the Queen's rep- 
 resentative, in these cases to exercise the royal function of 
 administering justice. And he admits also that such func- 
 tion was still held by the sovereign until a time much later 
 than that which we are considering. But he denies that the 
 function was legally operative in England where royal 
 courts regularly exercised the jurisdiction involved in such 
 royal power. The very fact that the Council did exercise 
 such powers in England refutes his argument, even though 
 it were not for the further fact that it was not until eighty 
 years after our period that the exercise of such powers by 
 the Star Chamber was abolished by act of Parliament, at a 
 time when the royal power was undergoing a violent curtail- 
 ment. That the restraint of royal power in this direction 
 
 ^ Finlason, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, pp. i6, 187, 690. 
 
86 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 was one of the greatest benefits conferred by the contest 
 between the Stuart kings and the people, may perhaps be 
 admitted, but that this result of that contest has anything 
 to do with the legality of the royal prerogative during the 
 first years of Elizabeth's reign can be maintained only by 
 imposing on an earlier time the legal conceptions of a 
 period over eighty years subsequent. We must return to 
 what we actually find during the early years of Elizabeth's 
 reign and the only conclusion possible from those facts is 
 that the sovereign did, at this time, exercise, personally or 
 by means of her Council, a control which involved both the 
 right of legislative action and of administration of justice. 
 It is not necessary for us, perhaps, to distinguish the legal 
 from the illegal, or extra-legal exercise of royal power, since 
 our interest lies in the fact rather than in its basis. By vir- 
 tue of her prerogative, her legal rights, or extra-legal powers 
 the Queen issued injunctions and orders for the regulation 
 of the Church, prescribed regulations for the press, issued 
 proclamations, maintained a close supervision over her 
 officials ecclesiastical and lay, enforced or created penalties 
 against offenders.^ The Council, as representative of the 
 Queen or on its own legal authority, handled much of this 
 business without attempting to distinguish carefully upon 
 what authority Its action was based. It supervised both 
 secular and ecclesiastical courts, received petitions and 
 appeals, dealt with offenders directly, or gave orders how 
 they should be dealt with by other agents. It is difficult to 
 place any definite limits to their jurisdiction and their activ- 
 ity.^ Probably none was placed at the time. Whatever 
 came to their attention as requiring correction or guidance, 
 
 * Sparrow, Collections, p. 65; Cardwell, Documentary Annals, vol. i, p. 178; 
 Strype, Parker, vol. i, p. 442 ; Strype, Whitgift, App. iii, no. xxiv ; Prothero, 
 Select Statutes, pp. 168-72; Grindal, Remains, pp. 404-35; Camden, Annals, 
 (1625), bk. Ill, pp. 14-16. 
 
 2 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ill, nos. 52, 54; vol. XI, nos. 16, 25; vol. xxi, no. 7; 
 vol. XXIV, no. 24; vol. XII, no. 13; vol. xvi, nos. 49, 60; Acts of the Privy Coun- 
 cil, vol. vii, pp. 127, 145; Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. I, p. 139; Cheyney, History 
 of England from the Armada, vol. i, p. 80. 
 
Church and State 87 
 
 they attended to in one way or another, directly or indi- 
 rectly, and during this period we find no instance of protest 
 against their powers, certainly not from the ecclesiastical 
 officials. On the contrary, Parker's appeal to the Council, 
 "if you lay not your helping hand to it . . . all that is done 
 is but to be laughed at," was by no means rare.^ The feeling 
 was probably pretty general that the times were not settled, 
 that the new establishment was uncertain and in need of 
 support from all sources; no one cared to question the au- 
 thority of the body which was so closely connected with 
 the safety of the Queen and with the exercise of her broad 
 and poorly defined prerogative, especially since the actual 
 force which the Council could wield, legally or illegally, 
 made opposition dangerous. To the exercise of royal power 
 and the activity of the Council was due whatever of unity 
 or efficiency there was in the workings of the complex ma- 
 chinery. If it had not been for some overriding or directing 
 force which could solve problems without unnecessary ref- 
 erence to the complex instruments provided by law, the 
 confusion would have been far greater than it actually was. 
 Strype has preserved for us a somewhat whimsical note, 
 made by an Elizabethan cleric, recording what "every man 
 that 
 
 hath cure of souls is Infolded by his oath to keep and obey" ; I. The 
 sacred canonical word of God. II. The statutes of the realm. 
 III. The queen's majesty's injunctions, and formal letters pat- 
 ent. IV. The letters of the lords of the Privy Council. V. The 
 Metropolitan his injunctions and articles. VI. The articles 
 and mandates of his bishop. VII. The articles and mandates 
 of Mr. Archdeacon. VIII. The mandates of chancellors or com- 
 missaries, sompners, receivers, etc. IX. The comptrolment of 
 all men with patience.^ 
 
 The opponents of the bishops expressed their conscious- 
 ness of restraint with somewhat less patience : — 
 
 ... No preachers may withoute greate danger of the lawes, 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., nos. clxxvi, ccv, ccvi, ccxix. 
 ---- * Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. ii, p. 132. 
 
88 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 utter all truthe comprised in the book of God. It is so circum- 
 scribed and wrapt within the compasse of suche statutes, suche 
 penalties, suche injunctions, suche advertisements, suche ar- 
 ticles, suche canons, suche sober caveats, and suche manifolde 
 pamphlets, that in manner it doth but peepe out from behinde 
 the screene. The lawes of the lande, the booke of common prayer, 
 the Queenes Injunctions, the Commissioners advertisements, the 
 bishops late Canons, Lindwoodes Provincials every bishops Ar- 
 ticles in his diocese, my Lord of Canterburies sober caveates in 
 his licenses to preachers, and his highe courte of prerogative or 
 grave fatherly faculties, these together, or the worste of them (as 
 some of them be too badde) may not be broken or offended 
 against, but with more daunger than to offende against the Bible.^ 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF THE UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE 
 
 The Queen seems to have believed at first that all that 
 was necessary for the establishment of the Church and the 
 accomplishment of the government's objects, was the pas- 
 sage of the laws and the installation of the officers of the 
 system to do their complex duty. She displayed an angry 
 impatience with her clergy, and charged them with neglect 
 and failure to do their duty when the Establishment failed 
 of itself to accomplish what she desired ; ^ yet her own will- 
 fulness and greed were as responsible as more fundamental 
 causes in the failure of the ecclesiastical machinery. Parker 
 was moved to protest bitterly that all he could do amounted 
 to nothing unsupported by the Queen, or, what was worse, 
 that he was actually hindered in his work by her perverse- 
 ness and her willingness to lend her ear to the plaints of 
 the enemies he made in doing her will. " If this ball shall 
 be tossed unto us, and then have no authority by the 
 Queen's Majesty's hand, we will set still." ^ "And where 
 the Queen's Highness will needs have me assay with mine 
 own authority what I can do for order, I trust I shall 
 not be stayed hereafter."^ He felt that the clergy were 
 
 1 Puritan Manifestoes, Second Admonition, p. 91. 
 
 * Parker Corresp., nos. cvii, clxx, cclxxiii. ' Ibid., no. clxxvi. 
 
 * Ibid., no. ccix; cf. also, nos. cxiv, clxxviii, cciii; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. 
 clxxv, no. 2. 
 
Church and State 89 
 
 being used by the Queen to shield herself from the unpopu- 
 larity which might result from the work she wished done. 
 "The talk, as I am informed, is much increased, and un- 
 restful they be, and I alone they say am in fault. For as 
 for the Queen's Majesty's part, in my expostulation with 
 many of them I signify their disobedience, wherein, because 
 they see the danger they cease to impute it to her Majesty, 
 for they say, but for my calling on, she is indifferent." " If 
 this matter shall be overturned with all these great hopes, 
 etc., I am at a point to be used and abused: nam scio nos 
 episcopos in hunc usum positos esse.'' ^ Aylmer bluntly said, 
 " I am blamed for not taking upon me a matter wherein she 
 herself would not be seen." ^ '■ 
 
 Yet, in spite of hindrances, in spite of the uncertainties of 
 royal temper and the discouragement of the clergy at times, 
 the results desired by the government were obtained. The 
 nation was won to regard for the Anglican Establishment as 
 a patriotic duty, the Church itself preser\'-ed from the narrow 
 sectarianism of the Continent. Of the lesser effects of the 
 connection of Church and State upon the spirit of Anglican- 
 ism, of the compromise spirit of its standards, and the 
 practical character of its leaders, we shall have occasion to 
 refer in the following chapter. 
 
 The union of Church and State was of primary impor- 
 tance in determining the degree of tolerance possible in 
 England during Elizabeth's reign. It is obvious that the 
 political purposes of the government were such as made 
 certain forms of Catholic and Protestant activity equally 
 intolerable. In so far as the desire of the government was 
 to repress such activity, its attitude was by its dominance 
 over the Church forced upon the ecclesiastical establish- 
 ment. The Church reflected the intolerance of the State. 
 Yet this was of little importance as a factor in the promo- 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. clxxix. 
 
 * Strype, Aylmer, p. 77; cf. also Parker Corresp., nos. cxlv, cxxvli, clxxviii, 
 cciii. 
 
90 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 tion of ecclesiastical intolerance, for moderate and reason- 
 able as was the spirit of the personnel of the Establishment, 
 ecclesiastics, by virtue of their narrow interests and per- 
 spective, were more inclined to repress the religious ene- 
 mies of the government than was the government itself. 
 The policy of the government acted rather as a check than 
 an incentive to intolerance on the part of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities. We find the Church and its officers prevented 
 by their subjection to the will of the secular power from 
 exercising the force which they conceived their position 
 gave them, and which they felt should, from the standpoint 
 of the Church, be exercised. The instruments of the law, 
 however, were not in their control, and their own courts 
 and officials were so restrained at every point by the in- 
 fluence of the Queen, the Council, and the secular officials, 
 that there was little opportunity to display that spirit of 
 compulsion which many of them would have liked to ex- 
 ercise toward both Catholics and Protestants. The mod- 
 erate and conciliatory policy of the State prevented the 
 development of doctrinal and ecclesiastical bigotry in a 
 Church which, unrestrained, would doubtless have devel- 
 oped both. 
 
 In the union of the two, and the consequent mould in 
 which the Church was cast, lay also one of the principal 
 causes for the growth of dissent. The union between State 
 and Church determined the early character of this dissent. 
 Individuals found the restraints imposed upon them too 
 confining, and without daring to break the mould itself, 
 without daring to direct their energies against the funda- 
 mental structure of a Church backed by government pat- 
 ronage, sought a greater freedom within the system itself. 
 Thus the vestiarian controversy was significant, not as a 
 protest against the system, but as a protest against one of 
 the small features within the system which it was felt could 
 be safely attacked without coming in conflict with the 
 government. That this controversy later developed into 
 
Church and State 91 
 
 what amounted to a direct attack upon the particular type 
 of ecclesiastical organization, was due to influences of which 
 we shall speak when we come to deal with the development 
 of dissent. 
 
 There is no question that there is in the general lenient 
 policy of the government to let live in comparative peace 
 any who would take the essential vows of loyalty to the 
 Crown, and attend the services of the Church as pre- 
 scribed by law, an advance in tolerance over the spirit of 
 the time. Government restraint prevented the Church from 
 demanding subscription to a particular set of doctrinal the- 
 ories, and when subscription to a formula was demanded it 
 was subscription to no such system as that embodied in the 
 Augsburg Confession, but to a somewhat spineless collection 
 of polemic statements, that in only the slightest degree in- 
 volved religious intolerance.^ It was the fault of the ar- 
 rangement which so subjugated the Church to the State, 
 and the temporary character of the advance in tolerance 
 was due to this, that the peculiar form of ecclesiastical 
 organization made it inevitable that once established firmly 
 the organization would no longer be content to be so inclu- 
 sive and so colorless. The good of the relationship, from the 
 standpoint of the permanent advance of tolerance, lay in 
 the opportunity it gave for dissenting opinion to become 
 powerful enough to resist with strength all later attempts 
 at complete suppression, so that in the end it became neces- 
 sary to arrange some peaceable method for the existence of 
 varied phases of Christianity side by side. 
 
 To carry to its logical consequence the dominance of the 
 Queen over both State and Church, would lead to the con- 
 clusion that whatever tolerance or intolerance we discover 
 manifested by either, was based, not on group consciousness 
 and prejudice, but upon the personal will of the sovereign. 
 Undoubtedly Elizabeth's personal prejudices modified pro- 
 foundly the groups which are for us the only index to 
 
 » C/. Thirty-nine Articles, Arts, xix and xxil. 
 
92 lNTOLERi\NCE IN THE ReIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 national feeling, but it would be absurd to ascribe an all- 
 powerful influence to the Queen. Intolerance of any im- 
 portance is always the manifestation of a social attitude of 
 greater or less extent, however great may be the influence 
 of an individual in determining that attitude. In England 
 neither national, religious, nor ecclesiastical unity of feeling 
 had reached a high development, and as intolerance is the 
 outward manifestation of variant groups striving for social 
 cohesion the time was ripe in England for an outburst of 
 religious and political intolerance. Around the person and 
 the throne of Elizabeth centered the development of Eng- 
 lish national unity, and it is to her glory that her great influ- 
 ence made religion and the Church subservient to that 
 development, and was directed toward the moderation and 
 elimination of religious differences. She made mistakes, she 
 was unwise, but to her, and to a few men around her, is due 
 the fact that the tone of the government in religious matters 
 was more sane and reasonable than the spirit of the men 
 she used to establish and serve in her Church. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 ANGLICANISM 
 
 The men who made up the early Church of Elizabeth were 
 drawn from three parties, those to whom the compromise 
 Church was agreeable because of temperamental or intel- 
 lectual convictions, Catholics who were loyal and felt that 
 the governmental Establishment was sufficiently right to 
 excuse the outward show of adherence which the govern- 
 ment demanded, and the more radical Protestants who were 
 ready to make compromises and concessions for the sake of 
 securing an anti-Roman Church, and perhaps for the sake 
 of securing for themselves the advantages of position and 
 hoped-for power. Naturally those who would now be 
 called the Erastians were most acceptable to the Queen 
 and secured the most important positions. The direct- 
 ing heads were not extremists, not religious enthusiasts. 
 They were reasonable men. They were cautious men. 
 Temperament and the desire to keep their positions made 
 them so. The antiquarian interests of Parker, and his dry- 
 as-dust researches, so far removed from definitely religious 
 views, are characteristic of the men who had the Church 
 in charge at the first of the reign. Parker, Grindal, Sandys, 
 and the rest were eminently practical men in a worldly 
 sense, good men also, but not religious enthusiasts, not 
 unreasonably pious. They were not men fitted to assume 
 a rousing captaincy of militant religion. The govern- 
 ment was perhaps not utterly indifTerent to religious 
 interest, but primarily fighting for self-preser\'ation; the 
 Church itself was inspired by the same fears as the govern- 
 ment and well satisfied with the alliance of the two. The 
 Protestant party also hated the common enemy with a bit- 
 ter hatred and felt that for the present it could give up 
 
94 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 cherished notions in order to present a united front to the 
 foe. Any institution thus founded on the alliance of essen- 
 tially different ideas in opposition to a common foe, or even 
 in love of a common object, is liable to rupture when the 
 danger disappears or the common object is obtained. Color- 
 less and political as the Church was in the beginning, 
 founded upon compromise, there lay within it the seeds and 
 the causes for the growth of divergent opinions of well- 
 founded character, should the country once become free 
 from external danger. 
 
 the establishment as a compromise 
 
 The desire of the Church to compromise comes out clearly 
 in the standards which it set up, or attempted to set up. 
 Judging from these standards alone, the Church, apart from 
 its obtrusive patriotism, emphasized few aspects of religious 
 conviction. The only legal standard was for years the tak- 
 ing of a purely political oath of loyalty to the Crown by the 
 clerics, and, on the part of the laymen, a purely formal ex- 
 pression of allegiance to the established government by 
 attendance on the Church services. True there was an at- 
 tempt by the Church to secure the adoption of a standard of 
 belief in 1563, but government policy secured the delay in 
 the necessary enactment of that standard into law until 1 57 1 , 
 when the political situation had been so changed by the pro- 
 nouncements of Papacy that the government was willing to 
 permit the Thirty-nine Articles to be incorporated into the 
 body of ecclesiastical standards. But the Articles are them- 
 selves so indefinite in statement, so merely anti-Roman, 
 that they but serve to emphasize further the compromise 
 and political character of the English Establishment. The 
 fact that the Church was established at, and according to, 
 the dictates of government policy resulted in a Church that 
 was a compromise. It was not simply a compromise be- 
 tween Catholicism and Protestantism, but, more important 
 still, it was a compromise with itself. It was & conscious 
 
Anglicanism 95 
 
 attempt to abstain from making definite statements of its 
 own position and justification of its position as a compro- 
 mise Church. 
 
 You may see how he [Jewel] would mingle policy and religion 
 together. Surely he is wise and a good servant in this time.^ And 
 where the Queen's Highness doth note me to be too soft and easy, 
 I think divers of my brethren will rather note me, if they were 
 asked, too sharp and too earnest in moderation, which towards 
 them I have used, and will still do, till mediocrity shall be re- 
 ceived amongst us.^ 
 
 We find the clergy taking pride in its "mediocrity," al- 
 though there could be little defense of the Church from that 
 standpoint.^ This was a condition which was bound to van- 
 ish as soon as the dangers from foreign aggression disap- 
 peared and the Church had acquired the sanction of age. At 
 first, however, the only clear thing about its position was 
 that it was not papal and that it was English, things, which, 
 in themselves, do not define a Church any more than they 
 define industrial or philosophical systems. That the Church 
 finally escaped from colorless compromise, and has, in gen- 
 eral, become a deliberately tolerant and inclusive body, was 
 due to the men who directed its affairs in later years, to the 
 struggle with enthusiasts through which it passed, to the 
 essentially patriotic and national stamp placed upon it in 
 the beginning. 
 
 Yet the Church established by the government, Erastian 
 in form and conception, would have failed to become the 
 great Church we know, it could not have played the role it 
 has in the development of England, it could not have held 
 the allegiance of Englishmen, had it not been something 
 greater than a tool of secular politics. In the face of sincere 
 religious feeling, before the enthusiasm of Puritan eamest- 
 
 ^ Parker Corresp., no. cxvi; cf. no. clxiv. 
 
 * Ibid., no. cxxvii; cf. Strype, Parker, bk. I, p. 126. 
 
 • J. H. Newman's early defense of the via media would have been impossible 
 for one who lived in Elizabeth's day and adhered to the Establishment during 
 her first years of rule. 
 
96 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 ness and inexorable piety, it would have failed even to serve 
 the political purpose for which it was created, it could not 
 have continued its life and remained for centuries the 
 Church to which Englishmen have given their allegiance, 
 had it not been from the first something more than Erastian, 
 something more than expedient. It was religious. During 
 the time when its officers and its polity were most subservi- 
 ent to governmental dictation, the English Church had, and 
 was conscious of the fact that it had, a function other than 
 that of serving merely as a cog in the governmental ma- 
 chinery. Yet the connection between Church and State, 
 the essential subordination of ecclesiastical to secular policy, 
 was during Elizabeth's reign never repudiated by the Es- 
 tablished Church ; and the development of its religious life, 
 as well as the development of ecclesiastical and doctrinal 
 theory, was necessarily limited by that relationship. Oppo- 
 nents charged that "common experience dothe prove, that 
 they doe for the most parte apply them selves to the time 
 and seeke rather to please and followe worldly pollicie, then 
 sincerely to promote Gods cause, and to publish his truth." * 
 
 FORMULATION OF DOCTRINAL STANDARDS 
 
 The moderate and conciliatory purposes of secular poli- 
 tics made the formulation of an independent ecclesiastical 
 or doctrinal apologetic a delicate task. Any theory of the 
 ecclesiastical Establishment which too vigorously con- 
 demned Catholicism would defeat the desire of the govern- 
 ment to procure the allegiance of Catholics, and would not 
 be permitted. Any theory which antagonized the Conti- 
 nental reformers would be equally distasteful to the gov- 
 ernment. In doctrine and in religion, therefore, we find 
 little development during Elizabeth's reign over what had 
 existed from the first, largely because of the restraints 
 placed upon such development by royal taste and policy. By 
 
 ^ Puritan Manifestoes, Second Admonition, p. 89. Cf. Burrage, English Dis- 
 senters, vol. II, p. 98. 
 
Anglicanism 97 
 
 the acts of Parliament which erected the Elizabethan Estab- 
 lishment, there was, appropriately enough, considering the 
 secular character of the parliamentary bodies, little empha- 
 sis placed upon the doctrinal features of the new Church. 
 In the Act of Uniformity we find a limitation placed upon 
 doctrinal formulation, in entire accord with the historical 
 grounds upon which the repudiation of papal claims had 
 been made, and entirely in harmony with the essentially 
 political interest of the act establishing the form of ecclesi- 
 astical service and government. The Apostles' and Atha- 
 nasian Creeds, the pronouncements of the first four General 
 Councils, and the Scriptures, are to serve as the standards 
 upon which charges of heresy are to be based. These are 
 indefinite standards, the interpretation of which may vary 
 with changed conditions of thought and government; nor 
 can they be regarded as furnishing a proper doctrinal state- 
 ment of the position of the English Church ; they are rather 
 the traditional inheritance of all Christians, Catholic as well 
 as Protestant, and are in no w^ay distinctive or to be ranked 
 in the same class with the doctrinal formularies of the Con- 
 tinental Reformed and Lutheran Churches. 
 
 The first real attempt to give to the Establishment a defi- 
 nite statement of its doctrinal and ecclesiastical belief, was 
 that of the Convocation of 1563 when it passed the Thirty- 
 nine Articles. A detailed history of the Articles, or an anal- 
 ysis of their contents even, would be out of place here, and 
 would require a treatment far beyond the limits of this 
 study. Essentially they were the Forty-two Articles of 
 Edward VI, modified in the spirit of compromise. They 
 were essentially polemic, in so far as ecclesiastical theory is 
 concerned, and conciliatory in regard to doctrine. "The 
 papists mislike of the book of common prayers for nothing 
 else, but because it swerveth from their mass-book, and is 
 not in all points like unto it. And these men mislike it for 
 nothing else, but that it hath too much likelihood unto it," ^ 
 ^ Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 120. Cf. also, Zurich Letters, nos. cix, cxii, cxx. 
 
98 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 wrote Whitgift, and the same might have been said of the 
 Articles. They so far fail to embody what came to be dis- 
 tinctively Anglican that a later English ecclesiastic could 
 say of them that they "are no more part of the Church of 
 England than the limpet which clings to the rock is the rock 
 itself." ^ Doctrinally there is nothing in them which could 
 not, by judicious interpretation, be accepted by any Prot- 
 estant, or even by any Catholic. Yet so great was the 
 Queen's aversion to definite statement of the position of the 
 Church, apart from its Erastianism, or so anxious her con- 
 cern that the way be left open for any move which the fu- 
 ture political situation might make necessary, that even 
 this seemed dangerous and she refused the royal signature 
 necessary to give the Articles authoritative position. It was 
 not until nine years later, ^ when all hope of reconcilation 
 with the Papacy was past, at a time when it might be sup- 
 posed that the Church could afford to take a more decisive 
 stand than in 1563, that the Articles received Parliamentary 
 sanction and the assent of the Queen ; ^ and then in a form 
 whose interpretation, in so far as the ecclesiastical features 
 were concerned, was debatable. 
 
 The catechism, in both the longer and shorter forms pre- 
 pared by Nowell, similarly avoided debatable doctrinal 
 statements and never received governmental sanction. The 
 Church, for the most part, gave the government hearty 
 support in repressing doctrinal discussion. The homilies 
 were prepared for this purpose, as well as for supplying 
 homiletic material for use by those incapable of preparing 
 their own sermons. Elizabeth and Cecil discouraged such 
 doctrinal debates as Parker and Jewel and the early prel- 
 ates were inclined to enter upon, and so great were the 
 restraints imposed upon the clergy that many of them 
 
 * Hook, Lives of the Archbishops, Parker, p. 353. Cf. Child, Church and State, 
 p. 196. 
 
 2 Parker Corresp., nos. ccxxiv, ccxxv; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. XLI, no. 43; 
 D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 133. 
 
 * 13 Eliz., c. 2. 
 
Anglicanism 99 
 
 thought caution was being carried too far. "To be pre- 
 scribed in preaching, to have no matter in controversy in 
 religion spoken of, is thought far unreasonable, specially 
 seeing so many adversaries as by their books plentifully had 
 in the court from beyond the sea, do impugn the verity of 
 our religion." ^ "What can I hope, when injunctions are 
 laid upon those appointed to preach, not to handle vice 
 with too much severity; when the preachers are deemed 
 intolerable, if they say anything that is displeasing? " ^ 
 
 When Whitgift, in his zeal for the doctrines of Calvinism 
 and for the suppression of dissent, endeavored to impose the 
 Calvinistic Lambeth Articles upon the Church, the Queen, 
 through Cecil, promptly quashed both the attempt to give 
 Anglican doctrine a Calvinistic stamp, and the seeming 
 assertion of archiepiscopal authority in the realm of reli- 
 gious dogma. 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Quite apart from any ecclesiastical theory or formulation 
 of doctrine, however, the Church looked upon itself as the 
 opponent of Roman Catholicism. This, of course, was in 
 part due to the trend of secular politics in opposition to 
 Rome, but the presence within the Church of influential 
 and sincere men whose political fear of the menace of Rome 
 was equaled by their moral and religious horror of the 
 abuses within that Church, gave to this opposition a 
 strength and determination which no mere loyalty to the 
 Crown could have done. In England, as on the Continent, 
 the purely secular motives of opposition to the papal and 
 ecclesiastical control enabled those whose religious or moral 
 motives led them to protest against abuses which shocked 
 and repulsed them, to express their opinions and to resist 
 suppression. In England, as on the Continent also, the 
 secular revolt, however, would have been immensely more 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., no. clxxv, Parker to Cecil. 
 * Zurich Letters, no. xxxix, Sampson to Martyr. 
 
100 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 complicated and have resulted in more distress and insta- 
 bility than was actually the case, had it not been for ideal- 
 istic notions of religion and the Church which afforded the 
 necessary emotional grounds of opposition.^ Following the 
 usual habit of men the English Church and its leaders 
 found at hand the material for the construction of an 
 ecclesiastical theory which allowed full play for their emo- 
 tional condemnation of Roman Catholicism, but the emo- 
 tional rather than the intellectual motive, determined the 
 spirit and attitude of the Church. 
 
 A superficial reading of the writings of the time would 
 lead one to believe that the only possible concern felt for 
 the souls of Englishmen was lest they be damned through 
 adherence to Romanism, and that the ecclesiastics believed 
 Rome the only religious danger which the Church had to 
 combat. Yet there were not lacking within the Church men 
 who felt that, independently of ecclesiastical or doctrinal 
 theory, independently of opposition to Rome even, the 
 Church had laid upon it the duty of proclaiming the gospel 
 of God's forgiving love to common men. The controversial 
 character of the period is, of course, much more patent than 
 this idealistic concern for the souls of men, and it often con- 
 cealed the religious earnestness which really existed. The 
 pressing political aggression of the Papacy gave to the age 
 an essentially controversial stamp and many causes com- 
 bined to prevent the development of Anglican religious 
 spirit. 
 
 Within the Church were men more concerned over the 
 dignity and remuneration of clerical ofifice than about the 
 spiritual duties connected therewith.^ Earnest and trained 
 men to take the lower, more intimate pastoral offices were 
 
 ^ Fox's Martyrology, probably the most widely known of Elizabethan re- 
 ligious productions, was little more than an emotional campaign document 
 intended to arouse the feeling of the English against Roman Catholicism. 
 
 * Strype, Annals, vol. ii, pt. I, pp. 331, 463, 467; Strype, Aylmer, p. 169; 
 Froude, History of England, vol. xii, pp. 4-7, 543; Dixon, History of the Church, 
 vol. V, p. 23; Parker Corresp., no. ccxxxiv; Usher, Reconstruction, vol. I, pp. 
 209-11; Pierce, Introd. to Marprelate Tracts, pp. loi et seq. 
 
Anglicanism ioi 
 
 lacking. Ignorant and illiterate artisans were, of necessity, 
 employed to perform the services. Parker admitted the 
 fact. 
 
 . . . We and you both, for tolerable supply thereof, have here- 
 tofore admitted unto the ministry sundry artificers and others, 
 not traded and brought up in learning, and, as it happened in a 
 multitude, some that were of base occupations.^ 
 
 There was truth in the charge made, that 
 
 the bishops have made priests of the basest of the people, not only 
 for their occupations and trades whence they have taken them as 
 shoemakers, barbers, tailors, waterbearers, shepherds, and horse 
 keepers, but also for their want of good learning and honesty.^ 
 
 Sandys wrote : — 
 
 The disease spreadeth for patrons gape for gain, and hungry fel- 
 lows utterly destitute of all good learning and godly zeal, yea 
 scarcely clothed with common honesty, having money, find ready 
 entrance to the Church.^ 
 
 The greed of patrons enabled the unfiit to secure places. 
 Bishop Cooper could write truthfully: — 
 
 As for the corruption in bestowing other meaner livings, the 
 chief fault thereof is in patrons themselves. For it is the usual 
 manner of the most part of these (I speak of too good experience) 
 though they may have good store of able men in the Universities, 
 yet if an ambitious or greedy minister come not unto them to sue 
 for the benefice, if there be an insufficient man or a corrupt person 
 within two shires of them, whom they think they can draw to any 
 composition for their own benefit, they will by one means or 
 other find him out, and if the bishop shall make courtesy to ad- 
 mit him, some such shift shall be found by the law, either by 
 Qiiare ijnpedit or otherwise, that whether the bishop will or no, he 
 shall be shifted into the benefice. I know some bishops unto 
 whom such suits against the patrons have been more chargeable 
 in one year, than they have gained by all the benefices they have 
 
 ^ Parker Corresp., no. Ixxxvi. 
 
 ' Supplication of Puritan Ministers to Parliament in 1586, quoted in Neal, 
 vol. I, p. 317. Cf. also Parker Corresp., nos. ccxi, ccxxxix, cclxxxii; Jewel, 
 Works, vol. II, p. 1012; vol. IV, pp. 909, 873; Zurich Letters, no. Ivi; Sto-pe, 
 Whitgift, vol. I, pp. 328-30; Grindal, Remains, p. 130; Whitgift, Works, vol. I, 
 p. 316. 
 
 ' Quoted in Hunt, Relig. Thought, vol. I, p. 77. 
 
102 iNTCLFkANeE IN THE ReIGN OF ELIZABETH 
 
 bestowed since they were bishops, or I think will do while they 
 be bishops.^ 
 
 Political caution enabled disloyal parish priests who had 
 serv-ed under the Catholic regime to retain their livings, 
 much to the discouragement of the ecclesiastical officials. 
 
 This Machiavel government is strange to me, for it bringeth 
 forth strange fruits. As soon is the papist favoured as is the true 
 Protestant. And yet forsooth my levity doth mar all. When the 
 true subject is not regarded but overthwarted, when the rebel Is 
 borne with, a good commonwealth, scilicet. When the faithful 
 subject and officer hath spent his wit to search, to find, to indict, 
 to arraign, and to condemn, yet must they be kept still for a fair 
 day to cut our own throats.^ 
 
 All of these conditions combined to give to the lower 
 clergy, and too often to the higher also, a character little 
 provocative of spiritual life in the Church. A great part of 
 the nation was dead to the emotions that give religion vital- 
 ity. Ideas of morality were loose among both clergy and 
 laity; ^ ministerial ofifice, of the lesser kind at least, carried 
 with It no guarantee or expectation of respectability.^ 
 There was little hope of immediate or rapid improvement. 
 The changing value of money, due to the increased supply 
 of gold from the New World, the changed agricultural and 
 commercial conditions, so reduced the already insufficient 
 remuneration of clerical office, that only the inefificlent and 
 untrained were attracted to the ministry in its more humble 
 aspects. "For what man of reason will think that eight 
 pounds yearly is able to maintain a learned divine? When 
 as every scull in a kitchen and groom in a stable is better 
 provided for?" ^ 
 
 1 Cooper, Admonition, p. 147, quoted in Hooker, Ecc. Pol., vol. ll, bk. vil, 
 chap. XXIV, sec. 7, note 87. Cf. Hooker, Ecc. Pol., vol. n, bk. vii, chap, xxiv, 
 
 sec. 7, p. 210. 
 
 2 Parker Corresp., no. ccxcvii. Cf. also Usher, Reconstruction, vol. i, pp. 35, 
 no, in; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ix, no. 71; Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 313. 
 
 3 Hall, Elizabethan Age, chap, vii, "The Courtier"; App., pp. 242-50. 
 
 * Cf. Spenser, Shepheard's Calendar and Mother Hubbard's Tale; Parker 
 Corresp., no. cc. 
 6 Strype, Whitgift, vol. I, p. 534. Cf. also ibid., vol. lii, p. 174; Usher, Recon- 
 
Anglicanism 103 
 
 The Queen did not like the idea of religious zeal, she could 
 not understand the stern and unyielding religious convic- 
 tions of either Catholic or Protestant. She feared the effects 
 of both. The growth within the Church of any great enthu- 
 siasm for any kind of religious belief seemed to her danger- 
 ous. She dreaded the effects upon the people of popular and 
 soul-stirring preachers. She preferred that the Church slum- 
 ber a little. When Grindal, one of the most sincere of the 
 clergy and most deeply imbued with the spirit of piety, at- 
 tempted to regulate the prophesyings in the interests of an 
 educated ministry, she absolutely commanded him to put 
 them down. He refused. His unwillingness to allow the 
 political fears, or personal dislike of the Queen, to interfere 
 with what he regarded as his spiritual duty,^ stirred the 
 Queen to wrath and she promptly suspended him from the 
 exercise of his office of Archbishop of Canterbury. When 
 one whom she personally had held in high regard, one of 
 such eminence in the organization which she had built up, 
 was thus suppressed for attempting to encourage a purely 
 spiritual exercise, it was not likely that less favored persons 
 and less eminent ones would meet w^ith much consideration 
 at her hands. The growth of any considerable body within 
 the Church which attempted to place in the forefront the 
 belief that the Church was the repository of God's truth, 
 and had, as such, a duty transcending its duty of obedience 
 to the commands of royalty, could not exist during Eliza- 
 beth's reign. 
 
 In so far as Protestantism asserted the power and neces- 
 sity of direct communion between man and his God, the 
 pressure upon the corporate Church to regard itself as re- 
 sponsible for the individual was lightened, and, upon reli- 
 
 struction, vol. i, pp. 219-39; Collier., Ecc. Hist., vol. II, App., p. 104; Hooker, 
 Ecc. Pol., hk. VII, chap, xxiv; Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 283; E. F. Gay, 
 Royal Historical Society's Transactions (New Series), vol. xiv, pp. 258-62. 
 
 1 Strype, Grindal, pp. 327, 328, App., p. 558; Grindal, Remains, pp. 373, 374, 
 376-90, 467, 468, Letters, nos. xc-xcix, App., nos. ii, iii; Prothero, Select Stat- 
 utes, pp. 202-06; 5. P., Dotn., Eliz., vol. XLi, no. 44; Strype, Annals, vol. il, 
 pt. n, App., nos. viii, ix; vol. II, pt. I, App., nos. xxiii, xxxviii, xxxix. 
 
104 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 gious grounds, the demand of the Church that the individ- 
 ual submit his soul to the Church lost force. Anglicanism 
 was under the necessity of securing universal allegiance 
 because the political situation demanded the adherence of 
 all Englishmen to the State Church ; this need, and the in- 
 fluence of the Protestant idea of individual capability and 
 responsibility in the sphere of religion, weakened ecclesias- 
 tical insistence upon, and concern for, the salvation of men. 
 Nevertheless, imbued as were many of its clergy with the 
 moral and religious ideas and feelings of a Protestantism 
 kept sane by governmental regulation and cool-headedness, 
 it was inevitable that they should have the spiritual welfare 
 of their charges thrust upon their consciousness. We find 
 them striving constantly to raise the standards, morally and 
 educationally, of both clergy and people. But with the death 
 of the clerics who survived from the reign of Mary, and 
 with the dying-out of such men as Parker, Jewel, Sandys, 
 and Grindal, when Whitgift and Bancroft, with their talent 
 for organization, took the places of the first clerics, the 
 Church was absorbed in the conflict with Presbyterianism 
 and with religiously earnest dissent ; there were difficulties in 
 the way of the cultivation of the religious life of the Church. j 
 Yet many men had been by that time educated under the j 
 Elizabethan Church,^ and perhaps there was as much moral I 
 earnestness and truly religious propaganda as exists in any 
 Church when men are busy with concerns more immediate 
 and practical than the salvation of their souls. Religious i 
 enthusiasm sometimes serves as a substitute for other intel- \ 
 lectual and emotional excitement, but seldom makes much 
 headway at a time so crowded with political, literary, and 
 commercial interest as was the reign of Elizabeth. During j 
 Elizabeth's reign the consciousness in the Anglican Church j 
 of its function as God's messenger of salvation never de- ; 
 veloped into any great spiritual or religious movement. ! 
 There was too much need for the establishment of the 
 1 At Cambridge in 1568, 28 men proceeded B.A.; in 1583, 277. 
 
Anglicanism 105 
 
 machinery of the Church, too great necessity for caution in 
 every pronouncement upon religious questions; there was 
 not, in the stress of papal controversy, time for the devel- 
 opment of non-controversial religious earnestness. The 
 Church was, as was the rest of the nation, religiously quies- 
 cent, until stirred into life by the agitation of a group of 
 emotionally religious men whose convictions, borrowed or 
 adapted from Continental Protestantism, brought them into 
 conflict with the constituted church authorities and the 
 government. 
 
 FORMULATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL THEORY 
 
 Justification of the Establishment as an organization was 
 an immediate need, more pressing than the formulation of 
 its doctrinal theory or the development of its religious life. 
 The formulation of an ecclesiastical theory for the Church, 
 was, of necessity, one of the first considerations of the men 
 who took office in the new Establishment. Obviously the 
 real political motives behind the organization of the Church, 
 the bare assertion of the Erastian principle, could not serve 
 as adequate apology for the Church in the minds of many 
 Englishmen, nor could it serve as a defense against the 
 attacks of its enemies. 
 
 The historical claims of Henry, reiterated by the Eliza- 
 bethan religious acts, served as the basis for the develop- 
 ment of a theory of the Church such as was required. His- 
 torically, the preface to Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy 
 asserted, the jurisdiction of the Papacy in England was a 
 usurped and abused jurisdiction. The Act of Uniformity 
 asserted that the doctrinal standards of the Church were 
 primitive, pre-Roman. Thus the language of the acts indi- 
 cates the justification of the Church which was in the minds 
 of the leaders in the separation movement. That the Eliza- 
 bethan Church should continue the development of the 
 ecclesiastical apologetic chosen by Henry was natural. It 
 gave to the Church of Elizabeth a direct connection with 
 
io6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the Church of her father under which most of her subjects 
 had been born. It was a return, beyond the unpopular reign 
 of Mary, to the golden times of her predecessors. The justi- 
 fication of the Establishment upon historical grounds was 
 also entirely in line with the attempts of the Continent to 
 find historical basis for their separation from the Church of 
 Rome. Englishmen who during Mary's reign had retired 
 into private life or fled to the Continent, men like Jewel and 
 Parker, had imbibed their ideas from the separatist apolo- 
 gists of Henry's and Edward's reigns; those who spent their 
 time on the Continent had used the opportunity for associa- 
 tion with Continental reformers, to perfect their studies in 
 primitive church history; a study based, it is true, upon un- 
 critical use of the sources, but nevertheless adequate for 
 their purposes in spite of the Catholic charge, "Your own 
 opinion is the rule to esteeme them or despise them." ^ 
 Parker the Archbishop was an antiquarian. His interests 
 and his tastes combined to make agreeable the defense upon 
 historical grounds of the Church of which he was the head. 
 Jewel, the first apologist of the English Church, was an om- 
 nivorous student who sought and found, in his study of the 
 primitive fathers, abundant authority for the Establish- 
 ment. Nowhere is the essential unity of thought upon the 
 Continent and in England shown more strikingly than in 
 the importance given to historical investigation of the first 
 four centuries of Christianity. 
 
 The historical apologetic had for its fundamental article 
 the idea emphasized by the preface to the Act of Supremacy, 
 the idea that the jurisdiction of the Papacy historically did 
 not reach back to the beginnings of Christianity.^ The 
 primitive Church knew no such papal power; it contem- 
 plated no such hierarchy and universal dominion as was 
 maintained by the Romans. A natural corollary to this 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, vol. Ill, p. 176. 
 
 ' Ibid., pp. 192, 233, 267; vol. II, pp. 106, 85; vol. IV, pp. 1062-68, 1072; 
 vol. I, pp. 338, 444, 3-25; Parker Corresp., no. Ixxvii. 
 
Anglicanism 107 
 
 fundamental rejection upon historical grounds, of papal 
 claims, was the rejection also of many of the rites and cere- 
 monies and observances of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 Extreme unction, administration of the sacrament in one 
 kind only, the excessive use of saints' days, were rejected, 
 practically, because of the objections of the extremer Prot- 
 estants; theoretically, because no authority was found for 
 their use in primitive times. "As for us, we have planted 
 no new religion, but only have renewed the old, that was 
 undoubtedly founded and used by the apostles of Christ, 
 and other holy fathers in the primitive church, and of this 
 long late time, by means of the multitude of your traditions 
 and vanities, hath been drowned." ^ Yet the association of 
 the Church with the government in the particularly close 
 relations which conciliatory politics made necessary, pre- 
 vented the maintenance of primitive practice as the exclu- 
 sive touchstone for organization and ceremony in the Eng- 
 lish Church. 2 The subservience of the Church to the will of 
 the Queen made necessary the retention of ceremonies and 
 forms of organization whose persistence in the English Es- 
 tablishment would have been hard to justify on the grounds 
 of apostolic precedent. A theory permitting a more liberal 
 practice than that laid down even by liberal interpretation 
 of the primitive history of the Christian Church was neces- 
 sary. In essence, the basis for this theory, so far as it had a 
 Scriptural basis, was Paul's command to render obedience 
 unto superior powers. The leaders of the Church also 
 showed a common sense in their recognition of historical 
 development and change in external ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion hardly to be expected in the sixteenth century. No 
 doubt their contention that the form of the organization 
 and the ceremonies to be used in the Church were to be 
 
 1 Jewel. Works, vol. IV, pp. 777, 1 123. The economic argument that such 
 profusion of saints' days interfered with labor was advanced, but during the 
 first years of Elizabeth's rule received little emphasis. It was a favorite argu- 
 ment with the Presbyterians. 
 
 * Ibid.,yq\. i, pp. 65, 75; vol. ill, p. 177. 
 
io8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 determined by the needs of time and place, was inspired in 
 great part by the necessity of finding a justification for cer- 
 tain features of the English Establishment which could not 
 be defended upon purely historical grounds, but that this 
 defense took the general ground of reasonableness, rather 
 than some more narrow ground, such as the divine character 
 of the kingship, was due, in some cases at least, to a truly 
 liberal realization of the fact rather than to polemic difficul- 
 ties.^ 
 
 Practical common sense and practical needs produced 
 this liberal sense of historical development. There was in 
 this position room for the necessary Erastianism of the 
 Church and no difficulty to reconcile with the acts of Par- 
 liament and the headship of the Queen. The contention 
 that the external form of ecclesiastical establishment was a 
 matter of indifference and might, therefore, be changed and 
 accommodated to the needs of different peoples at different 
 times, served in a measure to blunt the reproaches of the 
 Catholics that Elizabeth's Church existed merely by virtue 
 of secular, that is, Parliamentary, enactment. To this 
 charge the reply was not a direct denial, but a counter- 
 charge that Parliament had always debated concerning 
 ecclesiastical changes and that under Mary the Catholics 
 had a "Parliament faith, a Parliament mass, and a Parlia- 
 ment Pope." ^ The refusal to claim for the English Estab- 
 lishment any particular sanctity, or divinely given plan, 
 enabled the Church to avoid condemning Continental Prot- 
 estantism and permitted the most cordial relations with the 
 most important forms of anti-Romanism. At the same time, 
 Parker's claim that the English Church was the truly 
 Catholic Church was given its full force in reconciling those 
 Catholics who could be brought to renounce the ecclesias- 
 
 > C/. the rather amusing instance, "In the Apostles' times that was harmless, 
 which being now revived would be scandalous; as their oscula sancta." Hooker, 
 Ecc. Pol., Pre/., chap, iv, sec. 4, p. 137. 
 
 2 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, p. 904. Cf. ibid., vol. IV, pp. 903, 898, 902, 264, 166, 
 906; Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 185; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. viii, chap. vi. 
 
Anglicanism 109 
 
 tical headship of the Pope. Hardly less important was the 
 fact that, with such a theory for the basis of an ecclesiastical 
 structure, there was not inevitably bound the acceptance of 
 any set of semi-religious ecclesiastical dogma. And finally, 
 such a basis gave encouragement to a great number of radi- 
 cal Protestants to believe that entire freedom was left to the 
 Church to develop an organization and a serv^ice more in 
 accord with their extreme ideas than was the Establishment 
 already erected. This particularly was true as regards the 
 ceremonies of the Church, and led directly to the attacks 
 made upon the vestments and certain other ceremonies 
 which Parker was hard put to it to defend upon the grounds 
 of expediency. 
 
 We have indicated how few were the steps taken in the 
 doctrinal and religious development of the Established 
 Church during the reign of Elizabeth, and have shown some 
 of the causes which prevented further growth in those lines. 
 The same causes were, for the most part, operative in pre- 
 venting development of ecclesiastical theory also, but there 
 was, nevertheless, a tendency here toward the formation of 
 a particular system. The development of ecclesiastical 
 theory is most important for the theory of intolerance in 
 Elizabeth's reign, for, contrary to the accepted belief, it is 
 in the realm of ecclesiastical, rather than purely religious, 
 divergence, that the greatest field for intolerance lies. The 
 emotional reactions which lead to intolerance may be de- 
 v^eloped from any kind of divergence in views, even those 
 which often seem the most immaterial are capable of pro- 
 ducing as strong reactions as those bearing directly on daily 
 life. But where belief is the foundation of social institutions 
 it is most likely to secure the defense of lasting intolerance. 
 It is the necessity for defense of the social organization for 
 religious purposes, rather than the necessity for the defense 
 of a particular type of strictly religious dogma, that affords 
 the greatest occasion for a display of intolerance. The 
 dogma which the organization has made official may serve 
 
no Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 as the charge on which Intolerance manifests itself, but the 
 supposed danger to the organization implied in the rejection 
 of the dogma of the organization, inspires the charges. 
 Nothing illustrates this more strikingly than the latitude 
 allowed to scholars by the Catholic Church in their specula- 
 tions, so long as they did not so express or publish their 
 private opinions as to threaten the safety of the hierarchy. 
 In England the differences between dissenting Protestant 
 groups and the Establishment, which caused the greatest 
 friction, were differences of organization and ceremony 
 rather than those of religion. The political connection be- 
 tween the Church and State accentuated the danger in 
 every dissenting tendency which attacked the form of the 
 religious social system established by the secular govern- 
 ment. It was not the political danger to the monarchy, but 
 the ecclesiastical danger to the Establishment which led to 
 the development of ecclesiastical theory in the English 
 Establishment. It was in opposition to hostile champion- 
 ship of the Presbyterian form of ecclesiastical organization 
 that the most important tendency to development of a new 
 Anglican ecclesiastical theory arose. This tendency was 
 toward the development of the dogma of the apostolic 
 succession of the bishops.' 
 
 The immediate sources of the Idea of the apostolic succes- 
 sion in England are difficult to determine, primarily because 
 the development in Elizabeth's reign did not become a clear 
 and consistent championship of the theory. The dignity of 
 episcopal, as opposed to the claims of papal, power was an 
 old subject of controversy, and it was but natural that it 
 should assert itself in the English Church, whose foundation 
 was opposition to the Papacy and w^hose episcopal adminis- 
 tration was a survival from the old Church. The substitu- 
 tion by Henry of his own authority for that of the Pope, and 
 the very personal exercise of that power by him, were not 
 conducive to the development of an independent episcopal 
 theory. Barlow, Bishop of St. Asaph's, said: — 
 
Anglicanism hi 
 
 If the King's grace being supreme head of the Church of Eng- 
 land, did choose, denominate, and elect any layman (being 
 learned) to be a bishop, that be so chosen (without mention 
 being made of any orders) should be as good a bishop as he is 
 or the best in England.^ 
 
 Cranmer said he valued his episcopal title no more than 
 he did " the paring of an apple," and that " there is no more 
 promise of God that grace is given in the committing of the 
 ecclesiastical office than it is in the committing of the civil 
 office." 2 An ambiguous statement in the ordinal of Edward 
 VI suggests, but does not assert, the necessity for episcopal 
 ordination, and practice during his reign destroys whatever 
 force might be given to this seeming assertion of episcopal 
 dignity. Jewel, at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, con- 
 fused the question of an apostolic episcopal succession with 
 the succession of apostolic doctrine in the Church. He re- 
 fused to be definite, and certainly no apostolic succession of 
 bishops was asserted as essential. He implies that it was 
 not. " If it were certain that the religion and truth of God 
 passeth evermore orderly by succession and none otherwise, 
 then were succession a very good substantial argument of 
 the truth." ^ The attempt of Whitgift to call in question 
 the validity of Travers's Continental ordination, and the 
 appeals made to the case of Whittingham,"* which concerned 
 the same question, indicate a tendency to interpret the act, 
 "that ministers be of sound doctrine," as excluding all who 
 had not been ordained according to the legal forms of 
 the Anglican Church, which, of course, required episcopal 
 participation. 
 
 The act itself states that 
 
 Every person under the degree of a bishop, which doth or shall 
 
 1 Quoted in J. Gregory, Puritanism, p. 50. 
 
 2 Cranmer, Works (Jenkins ed.). vol. 11, p. 102. Cf. Cranmer, Remains and 
 Letters, p. 305. 
 
 ' Jewel, Works, vol. in, p. 322. Cf. also ibid., vol. ni, pp. 103, 104, 106, 
 309-10. 
 
 * Cf. Maitland, Essays, " Puritan Politics," no. ii, pp. 77-98; Strype, Annals, 
 vol. u, pt. II, App., no. xiii; Strype, Parker, 156, App., nos. xxvii, xlvii. 
 
112 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy word and sacra- 
 ments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration, 
 or ordering than the form set forth by ParHament in the time of 
 the late king Edward VI or now used; shall in the presence of the 
 bishop or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese where 
 he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent and 
 subscribe to all the articles of religion, which only concern the 
 confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the 
 sacraments.^ 
 
 The generally accepted opinion, confirmed by practice, was 
 that the act admitted of Presbyterian ordination.^ \\'hit- 
 gift's opponents, and some of his friends, interpreted his 
 attack as an expedient and illegal glorification of the 
 episcopal office. 
 
 . . . Let our aduersary^es looke unto yt how they account of the 
 refourmed Churches abroad seing they have denyed such to be 
 suffycyent and lawfull Ministers of the Ghospell of Christ, who 
 have bene of those Churches allowed and ordayned thereunto.^ 
 
 But there is little indication here of a theory of apostolic 
 episcopal succession. Whitgift undoubtedly desired a more 
 independent and autocratic episcopal authority, but the 
 most superficial thought discovered the obvious antagonism 
 of the theory of a divinely ordained episcopal ministry, to 
 that subservience to the political dominance which was the 
 essential characteristic of the Elizabethan foundation. 
 . Dr. Hammond wrote to Burghley in 1588: — 
 
 The bishops of our realm do not (so far as I ever yet heard), nor 
 may not, claim to themselves any other authority than is given 
 them by the statute of the 25th of King Henry the Eighth, re- 
 cited in the first year of Her Majesty's reign, or by other statutes 
 of the land; neither is it reasonable they should make other 
 claims, for if it had pleased Her Majesty with the wisdom of the 
 realm, to have used no bishops at all, we could not have com- 
 plained justly of any defect in our church: or if it had liked them 
 to limit the authority of bishops to shorter terms, they might not 
 
 ^ 13 Eliz., c. 12. 
 
 * Strype, Grindal, bk. VI, chap, xni; Cosin, Works, vol. iv, pp. 403-07, 449- 
 50; Bacon, quoted, p. 147. 
 
 ' Penry's Answer to Fifteen Slanderous Articles, Burrage, Eng. Dissenters, 
 vol. II, p. 67. Cf. also, Travers's Supplication, in Hooker, Works, vol. 11, p. 331. 
 
Anglicanism 113 
 
 have said they had any wrong. But sith it hath pleased Her 
 Majesty to use the ministry of bishops, and to assign them this 
 authority, it must be to me, that am a subject, as God's ordi- 
 nance, and therefore to be obeyed according to St. Paul's rule.^ 
 
 A theory of divine right episcopacy implies an independ- 
 ence and freedom of action for ecclesiastical ofificials far 
 beyond that contemplated by the ecclesiastical or secular 
 founders of the system, and Elizabeth could admit no such 
 theory, whatever its polemic advantages against Catholics 
 or dissentient Protestants. Whitgift and the others, on 
 whom is usually laid the charge of having introduced the 
 idea, made statements and used arguments which may be 
 interpreted as tending toward some such doctrine, but fear 
 of the consequences led them to disclaim hastily and em- 
 phatically that they held such opinions. Bishop Cooper 
 said : — 
 
 That our Bishops and ministers do not challenge to holde by 
 succession, it is most evident: their whole doctrine and preaching 
 is contrary.^ 
 
 Whitgift goes to great lengths in his denials : — 
 
 If it had pleased her majesty with the wisdom of the realm, to 
 have used no bishops at all, we could not have complained justly 
 of any defect in our church.^ If it had pleased her Majesty to 
 have assigned the imposition of hands to the deans of every cathe- 
 dral church, or some other numbers of ministers, which in no sort 
 were bishops, but as they be pastors, there had been no wrong 
 done to their persons that I can conceive.^ 
 
 Bancroft, in the sermon in which it is claimed he sug- 
 gested the divine character of bishops, proclaimed that to 
 the Queen belonged "all the authority and jurisdiction 
 which by usurpation at any time did appertain to the 
 Pope."^ 
 
 ^ Quoted in Child, Church and State, p. 293. Cf. Lee, Elizabethan Church, 
 vol. n, p. 124. 2 Cooper, Admonition (Arber ed.), p. 137. 
 
 3 Quoted in Hunt, Religious Thought, vol. Ill, p. 298; Strype, Whitgift, App., 
 no. xlii, Whitgift to Sir Francis Knollys. 
 
 * Strype, Whitgift, vol. in, pp. 222-23. 
 
 6 Child, Church and State, pp. 237-38. On the Other side. Hook, Lives of 
 the Archbishops, vol. v, pp. 194-95. 
 
114 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Nevertheless, their statements which showed the apos- 
 toHc tendency excited the wrath of their opponents and the 
 condemnation of their friends. Knollys wrote in anger and 
 excitement to Cecil, ^ that the superiority and authority of 
 the bishops rested upon the royal authority alone and that 
 Dr. Whitgift had, he believed, incurred the penalty of 
 praemunire by claiming for the bishops a divine right. 
 Bacon strongly disapproved of the implied condemnation 
 of their Continental brethren, and the clerics, who pro- 
 pounded the theory in opposition to the claims of Pres- 
 byterian dissent, themselves felt that it was a dangerous 
 doctrine whose implications they did not care to accept. 
 
 Hooker, who marks the most just and able presentation 
 of the Anglican view, and who had been foremost in con- 
 tention with Travers,^ heartily defends the episcopalian 
 system of organization upon grounds of history and expedi- 
 ency, and even hints that it might be strongly defended 
 upon a Scriptural basis. 
 
 If we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our 
 own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against 
 them were to hold even as they do, that there must needs be 
 found in Scripture some particular form of church polity which 
 God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth 
 to all churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to 
 respect ourselves, and by coming to make those things seem the 
 truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which 
 we neither like nor mean to follow. Wherefore that which we take 
 to be generally true concerning the mutability of laws, the same 
 we have plainly delivered.^ 
 
 He carefully abstains from asserting for bishops any apos- 
 tolic authority not dependent upon the will of the sovereign 
 and the parliamentary establishment of the episcopal or- 
 ganization, and admits that "we are not simply without 
 
 1 S. p., Dom., Eliz., vol. cccxxxni, no. 62; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. iv, 
 App., no. V. 
 
 "^ Travers, Supplication to the Council, Hooker, Works, vol. II, pp. 329-38; 
 Hooker's answer to Travers, ibid., pp. 339-51- 
 
 » Hooker, Works, Ecc. Pol., vol. ill, chap, x, sec. 8. Cf. ibid., sees., 14, 18. 
 
Anglicanism 115 
 
 exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apos- 
 tles by continued succession of bishops in every effective 
 ordination." ^ 
 
 Apostolic succession of bishops was not a consistently 
 worked-out and defended system, however rich in argumen- 
 tative material Elizabeth's reign may have proved to later 
 defenders of the theory. There are too many contradictions 
 and denials of logical conclusions, yet those who recognize 
 the illogical existence of contradictory opinions, side by 
 side in the minds of men, can understand that the idea was 
 not wholly absent. Because of assertions made by Eliza- 
 bethan clerics, some have discovered a theory of episcopal 
 succession in the Elizabethan Church from the first ;^ some 
 have, because of the contradictions and denials, refused to 
 recognize its existence at all at that date.^ Both are wrong. 
 The germs from which the theory was to develop and the 
 causes for the development of the theory did exist. A devel- 
 opment did take place, but not a development which en- 
 ables us to predicate an apostolic episcopal succession in 
 the reign of Elizabeth. It was a development of ecclesi- 
 astical consciousness and dignity. Its nature is most strik- 
 ingly shown in the changed attitude toward Continental 
 Protestantism, and the attempts of Whitglft and Bancroft 
 to strengthen the administrative machinery of the Church. 
 
 Considerations of personal friendship and of similar 
 ideals for the Church, and common enmity to papal power, 
 made the early Anglican Church tolerant and friendly to 
 Continental Protestantism, and in a sense dependent upon 
 it. But with the death of the Marian exiles there were no 
 longer influences of such importance and strength to hold 
 the two together. The Zurich letters present a somewhat 
 pathetic picture as the Continental and English friends 
 
 » Hooker, ubi sup., bk. vii, chap, xiv, sec. 2, p. 175. Cf. also bk. iii, chap. 
 11, sec. 2; Editor's preface, p. xxxiii, n. 49; Strype, Whitgift, vol. II, p. 202; 
 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vii, no. 46, for a later falsification of the facts in 
 accordance with later apostolic theory. Cf. Saravia's treatises. 
 
 ' Hook, Lives of the Archbishops (New Series), Grindal, vol. v, p. 41. 
 
 ' Child, Church and Stale, App., no. vi. 
 
ii6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 exchange letters telling of the death of former associates, 
 until, at last, the correspondence is taken up by a second 
 generation whose friendship is traditional rather than real. 
 The personnel of both the Continental and English churches 
 had changed. There was not that intimate personal inter- 
 course and sympathy of the first years of Elizabeth's reign. 
 Naturally, as the Protestants within the English Church 
 had been disappointed in their attempts to make more 
 radical changes, the sympathy of the Continent shifted 
 from the Anglican Church to that body within the Anglican 
 Church which set itself squarely for dissent. And in the 
 same way, the Anglican Church, while prevented by politi- 
 cal considerations and pressure by the Crown from con- 
 demning or breaking with the Continent entirely, as it 
 passed through the dangers of Catholic opposition, and 
 resisted the attacks of Protestant radicals at home, devel- 
 oped a consciousness of unity and homogeneity which made 
 it less anxious for the approval of Continental Protestantism 
 and more confident of its own self-sufficiency. One would 
 hardly have found the early Elizabethan clerics writing as 
 did Hooker, "... for mine own part, although I see that 
 certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and 
 French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred 
 Scripture, I mean the government that is by bishops . . . 
 this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in 
 such case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes, 
 without any fault of their own may be driven to want that 
 kind of polity or regiment which is best." ^ 
 
 As the Church gained this feeling of social unity and 
 ecclesiastical solidity, there was a tendency to resent the 
 too active interference of secular power in its afi"airs, a desire 
 for more complete autonomy. The hold of the State was 
 too strong to permit the development of an ecclesiastical 
 theory which would free the Church from the chains of 
 temporal politics and secular greed, but the practical tal- 
 
 * Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. iii, chap, xi, sec. 14. 
 
Anglicanism 117 
 
 ents of Whitglft and Bancroft saw opportunity for permis- 
 sible and necessary work in the reconstruction of the admin- 
 istrative machinery of the Church. Whitgift, upon becom- 
 ing archbishop, set vigorously to work. He enforced the 
 laws against recusants; caused the press censorship to be 
 vested in himself and the Bishop of London, and allowed 
 the publication of none but the official Bible. He saw to it 
 that the prescribed apparel was worn and that only priests 
 and deacons and those with special license were allowed to 
 preach. He would license no preachers without subscription 
 to the famous "Three Articles," acceptance of the Royal 
 Supremacy, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Prayer-Book 
 with the Pontifical prescribed. The Ecclesiastical Com- 
 mission gave him the most effective means of working the 
 administrative machinery, and the oath ex officio mero, the 
 most hated and feared method of procedure in the Com- 
 mission, was used by Whitgift persistently. When legal 
 opposition made necessary some other means of proceed- 
 ing with the work he had undertaken, the Archbishop 
 turned to the Star Chamber and thus added his quota to 
 the burdens and sins of that court. Whitgift was in ear- 
 nest, but royal jealousy and the inertness of an established 
 order prevented during Elizabeth's reign more than the 
 beginning of the reform needed in the ecclesiastical admin- 
 istration. At the accession of James, however, with that 
 monarch's hearty cooperation, Bancroft was enabled to 
 bring about the changes which his experience in Elizabeth's 
 reign had shown him were desirable from the standpoint 
 of the ecclesiastical body. 
 
 It was not, then, in religious life, In religious or ecclesi- 
 astical dogma, that the Church of Elizabeth made Its most 
 important development, but In the creation of a church per- 
 sonality. Starting with a fundamentally Erastian concep- 
 tion of itself, yet with large elements of truly religious feel- 
 ing also, the Church failed to develop much beyond the 
 initial stages either doctrinally or religiously. EcclesiastI- 
 
ii8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 cally there was a tendency to give to the Church, as a de- 
 fense against Catholic and Protestant, and, to a certain 
 extent, perhaps, as a means of freeing itself from the bur- 
 densome restraints of royal control, an ecclesiastical apolo- 
 getic which contained the germs of the dogma of apostolic 
 episcopal succession. This tendency, however, was re- 
 strained by the subservient position in which the Church 
 found itself as a result of the peculiar facts of its creation 
 and the circumstances of its continued existence. 
 
 A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST AND THE LAST APOLOGISTS 
 
 OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN 
 
 Perhaps no more illuminating summary of the change in 
 the Church could be made than a comparison of Jewel, the 
 first, with Hooker, the last, apologist of the reign. Jewel 
 defended the Church from the attacks of the Catholics, 
 Hooker from the Protestants. This difference of purpose 
 might seem to make a comparison of the two somewhat 
 difficult, but the very fact that the object of fear and an- 
 tagonism had changed, is of great significance. Jewel felt 
 no need for defending the Church from Protestants, for the 
 bond between the English Church and the other varieties 
 of Protestant faith was close, and their dislike of the com- 
 mon foe outweighed the unimportant differences among 
 themselves. By Hooker's tim.e this unity of feeling had 
 broken down before the attacks of dissent and the develop- 
 ment of Anglican ecclesiastical consciousness. In the Eng- 
 lish Church itself the differences of opinion which Jewel 
 recognized as real were minimized and sunk from sight in 
 the unity of faith and hatred which existed among all Eng- 
 lish Protestants. "Touching the dissensions in Religion 
 which ye imagine to be amongst us in the church of Eng- 
 land, I will say nothing. It grieveth you full sore to see 
 that in all the articles of the faith, and in the whole sub- 
 stance of doctrine we do so quietly join together."^ Jewel 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, Def. of ApoL, p. 6l0. Cf. ibid., p. 623; Zurich Letters, no. 
 clxxvii. 
 
Anglicanism 119 
 
 was in somewhat the same position, in relation to the 
 Catholics, that the Presbyterians occupied in relation to 
 Hooker and the Anglican Establishment. There is a striking 
 similarity between the reproaches Jewel cast upon the 
 Romanists, and the attacks of the Presbyterians which 
 Hooker had to repel. Inconsistency, greed, secularization 
 of spiritual office, retention of superstitious ceremonies, 
 aggrandizement of ecclesiastical office, charges which the 
 Church of Hooker's day had to meet from the dissenters, 
 were the old charges that Jewel had used as his chief justi- 
 fication for the break of the Church in England from the 
 Papal Establishment. Cartwright's demand, "that they 
 remember their former times, and correct themselves by 
 themselves," ^ had in it the sting of truth. The fact that 
 during Elizabeth's reign the allies of her early Establish- 
 ment had become the chief danger, to be feared more than 
 the Catholics, indicates a change in circumstances, and 
 necessitated a development of Anglican apologetic that 
 Jewel would never have dreamed of. Hooker was com- 
 pelled to make a defense of the Church as an independent 
 entity, distinct from all other churches both Catholic and 
 Protestant. Jewel's doctrines and arguments would have 
 served as well for any of the Protestant churches as for the 
 Church of England. Because of this changed standpoint, 
 forced upon the Anglicans by the growth and attacks of 
 English dissenters, the attitude toward the Catholic Church 
 was different. In a sense it was more friendly. 
 
 The Church of Rome favourablie admitted to be of the house 
 of God; Calvin with the reformed Churches full of faults, and 
 most of all they which endevoured to be most removed from 
 conformitie with the Church of Rome.^ 
 
 Instead of justifying the English Church upon the merely 
 anti-papal grounds of an experimental organization. Hooker 
 rested his case upon the dignity and worth of the Anglican 
 
 ^ Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 37, 
 
 * Hooker, Works, vol. i, p. 123, n. 12, Christian Letter. Cf. also ihid.,\o\. I, 
 p. 86. 
 
120 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Ecclesiastical Establishment. He raised the Church above 
 the attacks of Catholic and Protestant by glorifying its 
 polity, and tried to make its position impregnable, by means 
 of an articulated system of reasoning. 
 
 Where Jewel had emphasized the authority of truth and 
 the Scripture, Hooker was convinced of the incompetence 
 of both in the hands of the common man. 
 
 Thus much we see, it hath already made thousands so head- 
 strong even in gross and palpable errors, that a man whose capac- 
 ity will scarce serve him to utter five words in sensible manner 
 blusheth not in any doubt concerning matter of Scripture to 
 think his own bare Yea as good as the Nay of all the wise, grave, 
 and learned judgments that are in the whole world: which inso- 
 lency must be repressed or it will be the very bane of Christian 
 religion.^ 
 
 The truth and the Scripture must be predigested by clerical 
 and ecclesiastical learning and be accepted by the general- 
 ity upon that authority. For 
 
 In our doubtful cases of law, what man is there who seeth not 
 how requisite it is that professors of skill in that faculty be our 
 directors? So it is in all other kinds of knowledge. And even in 
 this kind likewise the Lord hath himself appointed, that the 
 priests lips should preserve knowledge, and that other men should 
 seek the truth at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the 
 Lord of hosts. ^ 
 
 Reason must interpret and organize, the reason of a class 
 expert and competent in religion. Jewel, clinging to what 
 has been sometimes regarded as the fundamental principle 
 of the Protestant Reformation, would have asserted the 
 sufficient ability of all men to learn the truth from the 
 Scriptures, and proclaimed the uselessness of interposing 
 between them and the Bible the authority of experts. " In 
 human conceits it is the part of a wise man to wait for judg- 
 ment and consent of men; but in matters divine God's word 
 
 ' Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. ii, chap, vii, sec. 6, p. 213. 
 
 ^ Ibid., Pref., chap, in, sec. 2, p. 130. C/. ibid., chap, iv, sec. 4; bk. n, chap. 
 vn, sec. 3; bk. ni, chap, vui, sec. 13. 
 
Anglicanism 121 
 
 is all in all: the which as soon as a godly man hath received, 
 he presently yields and submits himself; he is not wavering 
 nor does he wait for any other." ^ Jewel believed that the 
 Scriptures were sufficient to bring all men to unity in mat- 
 ters of faith. Hooker knew this was untrue, and solved 
 the difficulty by interposing the authority or reason of the 
 Anglican Church, as Jewel's opponents interposed the Cath- 
 olic. Hooker, however, based the authority of the Angli- 
 can Church, not upon a theory of living divinity in the 
 Church with Scriptural authority to rule and interpret, 
 but upon the authority of reason. He, therefore, had a basis 
 for rejecting Catholic claims which Jewel had not had. This 
 was merely a development, it is true, of the idea of "order 
 and decency" and "fitness for time and place" which Jewel 
 and Parker had proclaimed, but it went further. In Hooker's 
 apologetic this order and fitness, the system devised by 
 ecclesiastical reason from the basis of the Scriptures, had 
 become static, solidified. Hooker did not deny the possibil- 
 ity, or even some future desirability, of change, but he so 
 carefully legalized the process by which such change could 
 be brought about, that it became difficult, and remote, and 
 the field of change definitely narrowed. Nowhere is this 
 more evident than in his exaltation of episcopacy. 
 
 Let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if any- 
 thing in the Church's government, surely the first institution of 
 Bishops was from heaven, was even of God; the Holy Ghost was 
 the author of it.^ 
 
 This we boldly therefore set down as a most infallible truth, 
 that the Church of Christ is at this day lawfully, and so hath been 
 sithence the first beginning, governed by Bishops having per- 
 manent superiority, and ruling power over other ministers of the 
 word and sacraments.' 
 
 ... It had either divine appointment before hand or divine 
 approbation afterv^ards, and is in that respect to be acknowledged 
 the ordinance of God.'' 
 
 1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, pp. 1 121-22. Cf. ibid., pp. 897, 1162-88. 
 
 * Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vn, chap, v, sec. 10. 
 
 » Ibid., hk, vn, chap, in, sec. i. * Ibid., bk. vii, chap. V, sec. 2. 
 
122 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 He comes as near as he dares to the assertion of Scriptural 
 authority for that form of organization; in fact he has no 
 doubt but that it was established and maintained by divine 
 approval, but he avoids breaking with the previous Anglican 
 position in regard to the Continental churches, for " the 
 necessity of polity and regiment in all Churches may be 
 held without holding any one certain form to be necessary 
 in them all." ^ He escapes the consequences of denying royal 
 authority over the Church, by admitting that, although 
 there is a divine authority for the episcopal organization, 
 there is no divine guarantee of its permanence. 
 
 On the other side bishops, albeit they may avouch with con- 
 formity of truth that their authority hath thus descended even 
 from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and everlast- 
 ing continuance of it they cannot say that any commandment of 
 the Lord doth enjoin; and therefore must acknowledge that the 
 Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to 
 take it away.^ 
 
 The Church and the bishops are given an authority which 
 makes it somewhat difficult for Hooker to admit the royal 
 authority which Elizabeth insisted upon. Because of the 
 power actually possessed by the sovereign, he recognized 
 that the sovereign must be given a prominent and decisive 
 place in the system, but he wished to do so, also, because 
 he saw that by making the sovereign the ultimate author- 
 ity, hence ultimately responsible, the attacks of the dis- 
 senters upon the Church would be given an aspect of dis- 
 loyalty which no previous charges had been able to bring 
 home to the Queen and to the dissenters themselves. He 
 identified the State and the Church by making them differ- 
 ent aspects of the same national group. 
 
 We hold, that seeing there is not any man of the Church of 
 England but the same man is also a member of the common- 
 
 ' Hooker, ubi sup., bk. iii, chap, ii, sec. I. Cf. also, ibid., bk. iv, chap, xni, 
 sec. 7; Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 369. 
 
 2 Hooker, ubi sup., bk, vn, chap, v, sec. 8. 
 
Anglicanism 123 
 
 wealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is 
 not also of the Church of England; therefore as in a figure tri- 
 angular the base doth differ from the sides thereof, and yet one 
 and the selfsame line is both a base and also a side; a side simply, 
 a base if it chance to be at the bottom and underlie the rest; so, 
 albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a 
 commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name 
 of a Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the self- 
 same multitude may in such sort be both, and is so with us, that 
 no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the 
 other. ^ 
 
 At the head of this group was the Queen with authority over 
 secular and ecclesiastical affairs by virtue of irrevocable 
 cession by the people. Hence, the sovereign was superior to 
 the officers of the Church In legislation, jurisdiction, and 
 nomination to office, and changes could come only through 
 the will of the sovereign. 2 
 
 Jewel had also given the sovereign an extensive authority. 
 He was fond of asserting "that since the strength of the 
 Empire is lessened, and kingdoms have succeeded to the 
 imperial power, that right, [formerly held by the emperor In 
 matters of religion] is common to Christian kings and 
 princes." ^ "We give him that prerogative and chief ty that 
 evermore hath been due him by the ordinance and word of 
 God; that is to say, to be the nurse of God's religion to 
 make laws for the church; to hear and take up cases and 
 questions of the faith, if he be able; or otherwise to commit 
 them over by his authority unto the learned ; to command 
 the bishops and priests to do their duties, and to punish 
 such as be offenders."^ But the power of the Emperor was 
 itself a debatable question and Jewel did not go further In 
 justification of the royal power over the Church. 
 
 Although Hooker proposed a theory of sovereign power 
 
 1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vni, chap, i, sec. 2. Cf. Whitgift, Works, vol. I, 
 
 p. 388. 
 
 2 Hooker, ubi sup., bk. vm, chaps, vii and vni. 
 
 2 Jewel, Works, vol. IV, " Epistle to Scipio." Cf. vol. m, p. 167. 
 * Jewel, ubi sup., p. 1123. 
 
124 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 consistent with his ecclesiastical theor>% it is evident that 
 he had less confidence in the beneficence of the connection 
 of the Establishment with the monarchy than did Jewel, 
 and was anxious to save for the Church and her officials a 
 dignified position. He would have preferred to allow the 
 Anglican Episcopacy to stand upon its own feet. 
 
 CHANGE IN the ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARD 
 CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DISSENTERS 
 
 The changed viewpoint and attitude of the English 
 Church, thus indicated by a comparison of the first and the 
 last apologists of the reign, was, in its development, paral- 
 leled by changing attitudes toward those religious and eccle- 
 siastical groups within the kingdom which diverged from 
 the Anglican Church in doctrine and polity. The basis for 
 governmental intolerance of dissent, both Catholic and 
 Protestant, did not change; the severity of its laws and its 
 actions increased until 1593; but the grounds upon which 
 such laws were passed and upon which governmental repres- 
 sion of dissent was exercised, remained the same throughout 
 the reign. In the beginning, the Church, as a religious 
 organization, had little basis of intolerance apart from, or 
 other than, the basis of governmental intolerance, state 
 safety. This was, of course, due to the fact that it had not 
 yet developed a life and organization consciousness apart 
 from its life as an arm of secular politics. Its earliest de- 
 mands, even as an ecclesiastical body, went little beyond 
 adherence to the Queen's supremacy and attendance upon 
 the services established, not by ecclesiastical or spiritual 
 authority, but by a purely temporal and only theoretically 
 representative national body. There was little concern ex- 
 pressed or felt, at first, in the spiritual welfare or salvation 
 of the members of this Church, nor could there be much 
 emphasis upon this point when all parties agreed that the 
 form of organization of the Church, even the greater part 
 of the ill-defined doctrines of the Church, were not essen- 
 
Anglicanism 125 
 
 tials of salvation, but were expedients, or the best conclu- 
 sions of men, at the most, only human and likely to err. 
 Thus they felt that, while certain doctrines were better and 
 that all men ought to believe them, the Roman Catholic 
 even might be saved, believing as he did; there could be 
 no great harm in demanding this state conformity from 
 Catholics. However, as the Church of England, with its 
 organization and ritual, was found to inspire love, and men 
 learned to respect the theory on which it rested and to 
 value its historical associations, Anglicans began to regret 
 the ties which an earlier policy had imposed upon it, and 
 to demand that the Church should be adhered to, not as 
 a political necessity, but for the sake of its own merits. 
 Not that they repudiated the pleas and the arguments in- 
 herent in the political connection, but they regretted more 
 the restraints it placed upon them from punishing those who 
 did not like the forms and rites grown dear to themselves. 
 
 Her Majesty told me that I had supreme government ecclesi- 
 astical; but what is it to govern cumbered with such subtlety? ^ 
 It is (by too much sufferance) past my reach and my brethren. 
 The comfort that these puritans have, and their continuance, 
 is marvellous; and therefore, if her Highness with her council 
 step not to it, I see the likelihood of a pitiful commonwealth to 
 follow.'^ 
 
 And their transition to this position was induced from both 
 sides by powerful irritants. The Pope had excommunicated 
 their Queen, for, and by whom, their Church had been 
 reestablished; loyalty demanded that they expel, for safe- 
 ty's sake, from the body of the new organization all who 
 retained their love for Roman Catholicism. The law of the 
 land reflected this loyal feeling and placed in their hands 
 the means of accomplishing their desire. The Protestants 
 whom Parker had called Precisianist, developed an ecclesi- 
 astical theory antagonistic to the established organization, 
 and angrily hurled at the heads of Anglicanism reproaches 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., no. ccclxix. Cf. S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. XCin, no. 8. 
 » Ibid., no. cccxxi. C/. ibid., no. cccxiii. 
 
126 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 which their subsen'ience to the government made it diffi- 
 cult to escape. In the beginning the Church was in a de- 
 fensive position ecclesiastically against Catholics only, 
 and the defense was not ecclesiastically intolerant, but 
 moderate. 
 
 Religiously, in so far as the Church had any aggressive 
 religious consciousness, it regarded itself as the enemy of 
 the abuses of Roman Catholicism. This enmity afforded, 
 perhaps, something of the emotional ferv^or which is so 
 necessary to intolerance, and might have helped to make 
 more vigorously hostile the intolerance of the Anglican 
 Church, had it not been restrained by the necessity, im- 
 posed upon it by its subjection to the State, of reconciling 
 Catholics to itself. The Church had not yet an authorita- 
 tive and accepted apologetic upon which to base theories 
 of intolerance. Governmentally, and as a tool of secular 
 politics, its position was strong and well defined ; religiously 
 and ecclesiastically its position was indefinite, and the state- 
 ment of its justification as an organization was not yet 
 crystallized into definite form. In so far as the apologetic 
 of Jewel and Parker was a justification for the Church's 
 existence, it did not serv^e as a basis for intolerance of 
 Catholics, but of the Papacy. The distinction is one that is 
 essentially superficial in view of Roman Catholic history 
 and theory, but to such m^en as Parker and Jewel, to Eliz- 
 abeth and many leaders in England, the distinction was a 
 true one, and their hope of maintaining the government's 
 position was dependent, they believed, upon the recognition 
 by Catholics that it was a legitimate distinction. In so far, 
 then, as the primitive Church idea afforded a ground for 
 intolerance, it was the basis for intolerance of papal author- 
 ity alone. And it was intended to be no more. This theory 
 was a defensive rather than an aggressive one. Had it be- 
 come aggressive, or had it carried with it definite state- 
 ments, or dogmatic definitions of the exact form of primi- 
 tive, pre-Catholic doctrine, as did Presbyterianism, it might 
 
Anglicanism 127 
 
 have served as the basis for Intolerance of Catholic or 
 Protestant, according to the nature of the Church or belief 
 thus defined. Politics, if not the convictions of the early 
 leaders, prevented such definitions, however, and ecclesi- 
 astically the Church was liberal. 
 
 The religious intolerance of the Church manifested toward 
 Catholics increased in intensity as it became a national 
 Institution, dependent no longer for sustenance upon gov- 
 ernmental strength, but upon the love of the English na- 
 tion. Its religious intolerance was. In other words, the 
 result of Its ecclesiastical development, from a hastily 
 gathered army for the defense of the sovereign, Into a true 
 social religious group. 
 
 Aside from the Increased love of the organization which 
 afforded in later Elizabethan days a basis for condemnation 
 and intolerance of Catholics, there was a practical reason 
 for development of intolerance of Catholics which had close 
 connection with, and in part was due to, the older Erastian 
 standpoint, but which was, at the same time, distinct from 
 and Independent of that view. The Increased activity of the 
 Jesuits in England, the foundation of Jesuit communities, 
 and the underground organizations of Jesuit missionaries, 
 the multiplication of plots against the Queen and nation, 
 filled Englishmen with terror; not alone because they feared 
 for the safety of the State, but because they gave credit to 
 reports of, and fully believed in, the extreme Protestant 
 conception of the Jesuit teachings. They believed that the 
 Jesuits stopped at no immoral, treacherous, or traitorous 
 act to accomplish their purposes. They believed thoroughly 
 that papal absolution, particularly In the case of the Jesuits, 
 was at hand to relieve from spiritual penalties any crime or 
 dastardly deed which was intended to promote the rule 
 of the Roman See. The Church, with other Englishmen, 
 heartily condemned both the Jesuits and the Church of 
 which they were a part, upon what they believed to be, and 
 what were In fact, high moral grounds. 
 
128 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The development during Elizabeth's reign of Anglican 
 intolerance of Protestantism may well afford food for 
 cynical comment to those who test the spirit of ecclesiasti- 
 cism by the life of the great teacher of Galilee. The clerics 
 of the early Establishment were the Puritans of the previous 
 reign, strivers for religious and ecclesiastical freedom.^ They 
 were the pupils and friends of Continental Protestants. 
 They disclaimed any particular sanctity for their Church. 
 Their Calvinistic and Lutheran friends were the champions 
 of a new temple of freedom where God might be worshiped 
 in the spirit of holiness and simple love. The new Estab- 
 lishment was but one more added to the brotherhood of the 
 free churches of God in Europe. So the idealists of the new 
 English Church proclaimed. 
 
 Unfortunately, or fortunately, perhaps, the Church was 
 not exclusively idealistic. It was a practical compromise 
 between men who were half-heartedly Catholic in doctrine 
 but anti-papal, and men who were Protestant but moder- 
 ate, distinctly anti-papal, and willing to accept compromise 
 in ecclesiastical organization and ceremony because, in the 
 situation, it was the best that could be obtained. The 
 Church defended itself by the assertion that the form of the 
 ecclesiastical organization was a matter of indifference. 
 Justification of itself against the claim of the Catholics that 
 theirs was the only divinely instituted Church, as we have 
 pointed out, compelled that, and at the same time this 
 apologetic secured the allegiance of those who wished a 
 more distinctively Protestant form of organization, for upon 
 such a theory changes could be made when opportunity 
 offered. It is here that the influence of the Queen is most 
 striking. She did not wish, she would not permit, the radical 
 swing to be made, and she was able, by virtue of the power 
 given her by the Parliamentary acts, and by virtue of her 
 assumed or justly claimed prerogative, to carry out her will, 
 
 1 Maitland, Essays, "Puritan Veracity," no. ii, p. 17; Grindal, Remains, 
 p. 203. 
 
Anglicanism 129 
 
 and also to prevent any modification of the power originally- 
 placed in her hands. Political danger and the common 
 opposition to papal claims won the allegiance to the Church 
 of those more radical in doctrine and ecclesiastical theory 
 than the Establishment; political necessity and the compos- 
 ite character of the personnel of the Church made it neces- 
 sary, during the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, to deal 
 tenderly with such persons. The party which intended that 
 the Church should not change toward Continental Protes- 
 tant forms of doctrine or ritual, but should continue its life 
 as the embodiment of "mediocrity," or, as they preferred 
 to put it, in the ideal form for England which events had 
 given it at the first, was strong and destined to survive. By 
 the time of Whitgift, however, dissent had become more 
 impatient, and consequently the tone of the Establishment 
 more brusque and insistent. 
 
 . . . Such insolent audacity against states and lawful regiment 
 is rather to be corrected with due punishment than confuted by 
 argument.^ 
 
 Surely the Church of God in this business is neither of capacity, 
 I trust, so weak, nor so unstrengthened, I know, with authority 
 from above, but that her laws may exact obedience at the hands 
 of her own children and enjoin gainsayers silence, giving them 
 roundly to understand that where our duty is submission weak 
 oppositions betoken pride. ^ 
 
 It was dissent within the Church that aroused the loyal 
 party of moderation to begin that formulation of a theory 
 of church government which later developed into the Laud- 
 ian Church idea. Where both sections of the Church had 
 formerly agreed that its particular polity was a matter of 
 indifference, they now advanced diverse theories of gov- 
 ernment, and each maintained its preference as though it 
 alone were right. Opposition developed on each side, until, 
 
 1 Whitgift, Works, vol. Ii, p. l88. Cf. also ibid., vol. I, pp. 170, 142, 122; 
 Strype, Whitgift, vol. i, pp. 229-32; vol. HI, pp. 81, 104-07; Pierce, Introd. to 
 Marprelate Tracts, pp. 71, 72. 
 
 2 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, chap, viii, sec. 4, p. 304. 
 
130 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 instead of discussing mere preferences and degrees of ex- 
 pediency, each was violently defending a form of church 
 government as alone divine, right, and acceptable to God. 
 It is of this development that we shall speak in the next 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 PROTESTANT DISSENT 
 
 Dissent in the days of Elizabeth is of particular interest 
 because many of those great religious organizations, which 
 have taken such a prominent part in English religious and 
 political life during the last three hundred years, trace their 
 English sources to her reign. It was a period of the forma- 
 tion of churches and church parties, and has the peculiar 
 fascination and at the same time the uncertainties of all peri- 
 ods of beginnings. Dislike of the Establishment manifested 
 itself in almost every degree, from a simple, mild disap- 
 proval of the ceremonies of the Established Church, to a 
 scathing denunciation of its forms, and a relentless deter- 
 mination to destroy it. Because organizations had not yet 
 fully developed, because ideas were not yet crystallized and 
 embodied in ecclesiastical standards, the classification of 
 dissent during this period is difficult. 
 
 The names we apply to ecclesiastical bodies or religious 
 opinions which began their growth in Elizabeth's reign, 
 cannot be applied safely, in many cases, to the groups from 
 which they developed. Contemporary names are inaccurate 
 and have, by later development and association, taken on 
 meanings utterly foreign to the thought of Elizabeth's time. 
 Puritan, Anabaptist, Barrowist, Brownist, Seeker, Familist, 
 were terms used variously, and inaccurately, to designate 
 men whose opinions were condemned by constituted author- 
 ity;^ but will not serve for purposes of classification, even 
 in the cases where they represented more or less definite 
 
 1 Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, "The Epistle," p. 80. One of the conditions of 
 peace with the bishops is "that they never slander the cause of Reforrnation 
 or the furtherers thereof in terming the cause by the name of Anabaptistery, 
 schism, etc., and the men Puritans and enemies of the State." 
 
132 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 types of opinion in Elizabethan usage. Many historians 
 have been accustomed, when speaking of dissent in Eliza- 
 beth's reign, to i ise the term " Puritan" to designate all who , 
 wished reform: while others have applied the name to all 
 within th e Chu rch who wished reform, and have called those 
 / who attempted to accomplish their reforms outside th e 
 rhnrrh, " Sopnraf i^t^ " This classification, however, is in- 
 accurate and unsatisfactory. Elizabethan usage of the term 
 " Puritan" does not sanction such a classification. We find 
 that Elizabethans applied the name to types of thought and 
 policy that are clearly Separatist. It was a loose term, at- 
 tached in scorn or dislike to a variety of religious and eccle- 
 siastical opinions, usually implying, at first, merely a desire 
 to change the rites and ceremonies of the English Estab- 
 lishment, without implying attack upon its fundamental 
 organization or character. It was in this sense applied to 
 those whom Archbishop Parker preferred, more accurately, 
 to call "Precisianists," quibblers over minor points of wor- 
 ship and ceremony, and was particularly distasteful to 
 those accused of Puritanism because it had for them all the 
 odium of an ancient heresy. "This name is very aptly given 
 to these men ; not because they be pure, no more than were 
 the heretics called Cathari; but because they think them- 
 selves to be mundioris ceteris, more pure than others as 
 Cathari did." ^ Yet, with the development of organized dis- 
 sent, it was with increasing frequency applied to all, except 
 Catholics, who differed from the Established Church in 
 their opinions as to the organization and character of a true 
 cliurch^The use of the term for purposes of classificationTs^t 
 also confusing because we ordinarily use the name to desig- 
 nate a type of thought, rather than a religious or ecclesi- 
 astical party ; and the type of thought which we think of as 
 Puritan was a development of the seventeenth century, and 
 did not characterize any group of dissent in Elizabeth's/ 
 
 ' Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 171. CJ. ibid., p. 172; Strype, Annals, vol. m, 
 pt. I, pp. 264-68. 
 
Protestant Dissent 133 
 
 time. At the beginning of James I's reign the term was 
 taking on its later meaning. 
 
 The imputation of the name of Puritan is now growne so odious 
 and reproachfull that many men for feare thereof are rather will- 
 ing to be thought to favour some vice or superstition than to 
 undergoe the scandall of that name, and seeing many who both 
 do approve and are verie desirous to obey his Majesties lawes and 
 government, (as well ecclesiastical as temporal,) yet only for 
 absteyning from or not approving grosse vices or profaneness or 
 for due frequenting publique exercises of religion or practicing 
 the private duties thereof in their owne familyes, are branded 
 with that opprobrious name.^ 
 
 In Elizabethan usage, however, the name " Puritan" was ap- 
 plied impartially to any and all who condemned the theory 
 or practice of the Established Church, and had no reference 
 to those qualities of character and mind which seventeenth- 
 century history attached to the name. Cartwright wrote, 
 in protesting against the application of the term to the 
 Presbyterians : — 
 
 What is our "straitness of life" any other than is required in 
 all Christians? We bring in, I am sure, no monachism or anchor- 
 ism, we eat and drink as other men, we live as other men, we are 
 apparelled as other men, we lie as other men, we use those honest 
 recreations that other men do; and we think that there is no good 
 thing or commodity of life in the world, but that in sobriety we 
 may be partakers of, so far as our degree and calling will suffer us, 
 and as God maketh us able to have it.^ 
 
 Further, the familiar division of English dissent into 
 Puritan and Separatist is inaccurate and unsatisfactory for 
 Elizabeth's reign, because it is difificult and sometimes im- 
 possible to distinguish between the two. The degrees of 
 separation were so varied that what may by one be regarded 
 as merely Puritan, may by another with equal reason be 
 classed as Separatist. 'The sources of Separatism are so. 
 clearly Puritan, and the development from one to the other 
 
 ^ Report on the Rutland Papers, vol. iv, p. 213. 
 _-* Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. no. 
 
134 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 so gradual, that it is impossible to discover definitely a line 
 of demarcation between the two; a great part of the dis- 
 satisfied can be placed definitely in neither class. The advo- 
 cates of Presbyterianism, for instance, were recruited from 
 Precisianists or Puritans, were called "Puritans," and, even 
 after a long period of development, regarded themselves as,j 
 part of the Anglican Establishment. "We make no separa- 
 tion from the church; we go about to separate all those 
 things that offend in the church, to the end that we, being 
 all knit to the sincere truth of the Gospel, might afterwards 
 in the same bond of truth be more nearly and closely joined 
 together." ^ Yet they condemned the fundamental structure 
 of the Anglican Church as it existed, and set up their own 
 unauthorized classes and synods which constituted a sepa- 
 rate organization whose Scriptural character was proclaimed. 
 It may be possible to call some particular sections of the 
 Presbyterian movement "Puritan," but the term has no 
 meaning for the movement as a whole. 
 
 Because of these difficulties we shall avoid so far as pos- 
 sible the familiar classification. We shall apply the term 
 (^ "Precisianists," following Archbishop's Parker's usage, to 
 the quibblers who did not ally themselves with any of the 
 distinct groups of dissent in attack upon the fundamental 
 structure of the Establishment. Those who advocated the 
 ' Presbyterian form of church government are easily placed 
 in a class by themselves, and form the most important dis- 
 tinct group within the ranks of dissent. To those bodies 
 which did not adhere to the Presbyterian polity, we shall 
 apply the contemporary names so far as possible, and group 
 them, with two exceptions, upon the basis of polity, under 
 the genetic name of " Congregationalists," although some- 
 what inaccurately in some cases. To this group belong the 
 Brownists, Barrowists, and Anabaptists. 
 
 Of these the Anabaptists are least important, although 
 
 1 Cartwright, aptid Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 102. Cf. ibid., vol. I, pp. 95, 
 104; Theses Martinianoe, Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, pp. 314-21. 
 
Protestant Dissent 135 
 
 the term is frequently used in the literature of the period. 
 It was not, however, strictly applied, but, because of Ana- 
 baptist radical, social, and economic theories and the excesses 
 at Munster, served as a term to cast reproach on all who 
 were irregular or fanatical in their religious opinions. 
 
 It is more than I thought could have happened unto you, once 
 to admit into your mind this opinion of anabaptism of your 
 brethren, which have always had it in as great detestation as 
 yourself, preached against it as much as yourself, hated of the 
 followers and favourers of it as much as yourself. And it is yet 
 more strange, that you have not doubted to give out such slan- 
 derous reports of them, but dare to present such accusations to 
 the holy and sacred seat of justice, and thereby (so much as in 
 you lieth) to corrupt it, and to call for the sword upon the inno- 
 cent, (which is given for their maintenance and safety,) that, as it 
 is a boldness untolerable, so could I hardly have thought that it 
 could have fallen into any that had carried but the countenance 
 and name of a professor of the gospel, much less of a doctor of 
 divinity.^ 
 
 "Anabaptist " was used by Elizabethan Englishmen in some- 
 what the same sense that highly respectable members of 
 modern society have used the term "anarchist," and, until 
 recently, the term " socialist." ^ Radical Presbyterians, Bar- 
 rowists, Brownists, Seekers, and Familists are all called by 
 the offensive name; but Anabaptism proper was of little 
 importance during our period and may be disregarded, ex- 
 cept as other types of dissent, most numerous among the 
 Congregational group, represented, or were supposed to 
 represent, phases of Anabaptist opinion. 
 
 It is characteristic of those groups of dissent from which 
 the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches originated, 
 that their chief disagreement with the Established Church 
 concerned matters of ceremony and of ecclesiastical polity, 
 
 1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 77. Cf. ibid., vol. i, pp. 125- 
 36, 105; S.P.,Dom.,Eliz., vol. xni, no. 36; Strype, Grindal,p. iSi; Grindal,i?e- 
 mains, p. 243; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, p. 21; vol. I, pp. 64, 66. 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. cccxxv; Strype, Parker, bk. iv, chap, xxiv; Grindal, 
 Remains, pp, 297, 298. 
 
136 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 rather than of doctrine or essential matters of faith. ^ The 
 Presbyterian adhered to the particular form of church 
 organization and theological dogma promulgated by Calvin; 
 but, of these tenets, the distinguishing one was the ecclesi- 
 astical polity, not Calvinistic theological dogma, for the 
 Calvinistic theology was the accepted theology of the great- 
 est number of loyal Church of England men, and of many 
 of the other groups of dissent. As Presbyterianism meant 
 the advocacy of the presbyterial organization, so Congre- 
 gationalism was merely championship of a particular form 
 of church organization, one made up of independent local 
 groups controlling their own affairs and determining what 
 doctrines should be taught in particular Congregational 
 churches. Within Congregationalism, therefore, we find 
 the widest diversity of religious belief and management. 
 
 Of the minor sects that fall neither under the classifica- 
 tion of Presbyterian nor Congregational, the most impor- 
 tant was the Family of Love. These belong to a class by 
 themselves, to that peculiarly fanatic religious type which 
 bases group consciousness on a recently living leader, sup- 
 posedly endowed with a new, divinely given revelation. ^ 
 Since this adherence to a divine message, given in the life- 
 time of the believer, is a matter of actually controlling faith 
 and emotion, these sects afford some of the most interesting 
 phenomena of religious psychology; but, because of their 
 connection with the life of one or two prophets, they are 
 not usually of long duration nor of particular influence on 
 the thought of the time. In Elizabeth's reign they afford 
 the most striking example of persecution from religious and 
 social motives. 
 
 This classification of dissent, into Presbyterian, Congre- 
 gational, and "fanatic," affords a basis for our treatment of 
 
 1 Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. Ixix; Dean Bridges, Defence, Preface, p. 43, 
 quoted in Pierce, Mar prelate Tracts, Introd., p. xxiii; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., Preface, 
 chap. Ill, sec. 7; ibid., note 57. 
 
 * Hooker, Works, vol. 11, p. 61, note; Stvype, Annals, vol. in, pt. ll, App., 
 nos. XXV, xlviii, xlix. 
 
Protestant Dissent 137 
 
 Elizabethan dissent. After tracing their common sources, 
 we shall speak of their opinions and their relations to the 
 Established Church, to each other, and to the government. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF DIVISION 
 
 As we have pointed out in a previous chapter, the com- 
 promise character of the English Establishment, and the 
 composite personnel of the Anglican clergy, were sources of 
 disunion. Many of the clergy had spent their exile during 
 the reign of Mary in close association with the Reformers 
 of the Continent where they had imbibed Continental no- 
 tions of ecclesiastical independence and hatred of the 
 Papacy. They took service in an Establishment which was 
 pledged to peaceable and friendly relations with the Conti- 
 nental Reformers by little except common enmity to the 
 Papacy. Thus, within the Establishment, were men at 
 heart more extremely Protestant than the Church under 
 which they took service and office, and to which they ten- 
 dered conformity. Some of them frankly told their Conti- 
 nental friends, and were approved by them for so determin- 
 ing, that, in accepting the Elizabethan Establishment and 
 employment under it, they were doing so in order to pre- 
 vent less Protestant persons securing the direction of affairs, 
 and with the fixed determination to exert all their official 
 influence to bring about changes of a more radical nature. 
 
 It was enjoined us (who had not then any authority either to 
 make laws or repeal them) either to wear the caps and surplices, 
 or to give place to others. We complied with this injunction, lest 
 our enemies should take possession of the places deserted by our- 
 selves. We certainly hope to repeal this clause of the act next 
 session; but if this cannot be effected, since the papists are form- 
 ing a secret and powerful opposition, I nevertheless am of opinion 
 that we ought to continue in the ministry, lest, if we desert and 
 reject it upon such grounds, they insinuate themselves.^ 
 
 * Zurich Letters, Horn to Gualter, no. xcvi. Cf. ibid., nos. xxvi, xxxiii, xlii, 
 Ixvii. ~ "~ 
 
138 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 The lukewarm character of the government policy in reli- 
 gious matters logically led, therefore, under the shelter of 
 the compromise, to the development of a large body which 
 wished to go to greater lengths in reform, and to give to 
 the Church a character more in accord with its own extreme 
 views. 
 
 . . . Our religion . . . will strike its roots yet deeper and deeper; and 
 that which is now creeping on and advancing by little and little, 
 will grow up with greater fruitfulness and verdure. As far as I can, 
 I am exerting myself in this matter to the utmost of my poor 
 abilities: others too are labouring for the same object, to which 
 especially is directed the godly diligence of certain preachers, and 
 particularly Jewel, now elected a bishop, and your friend Park- 
 hurst.^ 
 
 Yet the questions which gave ground for the first dispute 
 were questions which both sides united in calling matters of 
 indifference. The most prominent of these, and the earliest 
 to come into dispute in any wide way, were questions of 
 ceremony. 
 
 Differences in regard to rites and external observances 
 early manifested themselves, nowhere more strikingly than 
 in the Convocation of 1563.^ Proposals were there made in 
 the lower house, that saints' days be abolished, that the 
 use of the cross in baptism be omitted, that kneeling at the 
 communion be left to the ordinary's discretion, that organs 
 be removed from the churches, and that the minister use 
 the surplice only in saying service and at the sacraments. 
 These proposals were rejected by a scant majority of one, 
 and those voting in their favor were by no means of the 
 less able clergy. Many of the bishops themselves were num- 
 bered in the party of those who were called Precisianists. 
 Jewel expressed his opinion of the habits in no uncertain 
 tone: — 
 
 ^ Zurich Letters, Earl of Bedford to R. Gualter, no. xli, Cf. ibid., nos. ii, v, 
 vii, Ix; Strype, Annals, vol. iii, pt. i, pp. 25 et seq.; pt. 11, App., no. iii. 
 2 Prothero, Select Statutes, p. 190; Strype, Annals, chaps, xxix, xxx. 
 
Protestant Dissent 139 
 
 As to what you write respecting religion, and the theatrical 
 habits, I heartily wish it could be accomplished. We on our parts 
 have not been wanting to so good a cause. But those persons 
 who have taken such delight in these matters, have followed, I 
 believe, the ignorance of the priests; whom, when they found 
 them to be no better than mere logs of wood, without talent, or 
 learning, or morality, they were willing at least to commend to 
 the people by that comical dress. For in these times, alas! no care 
 whatever is taken for the encouragement of literature and the due 
 succession of learned men. And accordingly since they cannot 
 obtain influence in a proper way, they seek to occupy the eyes of 
 the multitude with these ridiculous trifles. These are, indeed, as 
 you very properly observe, the relics of the Amorites. For who 
 can deny it? And I wish that sometime or other they may be 
 taken away, and extirpated even to the lowest roots: neither my 
 voice nor my exertions shall be wanting to efTect that object.^ 
 
 Sandys also hoped that the habits would not be retained. 
 
 The last book of service is gone through with a proviso to retain 
 the ornaments which were used in the first and second year of 
 King Edward, until it please the Queen to take other order for 
 them. Our gloss upon this text is, that we shall not be forced to 
 use them, but that others in the meantime shall not convey them 
 away, but that they may remain for the Queen.^ 
 
 Grindal and Horn wrote: — 
 
 Nor is it owing to us that vestments of this kind have not been 
 altogether done away with: so far from it, that we most solemnly 
 make oath that we have hitherto laboured with all earnestness, 
 fidelity, and diligence, to effect what our brethren require, and 
 what we ourselves wish.^ 
 
 Pilkington and Parkhurst openly espoused the cause of the 
 radicals. Pilkington wrote to Leicester: — 
 
 It is necessary in apparel to show how a Protestant is to be 
 known from a Papist. Popery is beggarly; patched up of all sorts 
 of ceremonies. The white rochets of bishops began with a 
 Novatian heretic; and these other things, the cap and the rest, 
 have the like foundation.'* 
 
 1 Zurich Letters, no. xxxiv, Jewel to Martyr. Cf. ibid., nos. xv, xxxii. 
 » Parker Corresp., no. xlix, Sandys to Parker. Cf. Zurich Letters, no. xlviii. 
 ■» Zurich Letters, no. cxxi. Cf. Parker Corresp., nos. clxxv, clxxix, ccxiii, 
 ccxviii; Grindal, Remains, pp. 2il, 242, Letters, no. Ixix. 
 
 * Str>-pe, Parker, bk. 11, App., no. xxv. Cf. Parker Corresp., no. clxxix. 
 
140 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Parker complained of Parkhurst: — 
 
 The bishop of Norwich is blamed even of the best sort for his 
 remissness in ordering his clergy. He winketh at schismatics and 
 anabaptists, as I am informed. Surely I see great variety in min- 
 istration. A surplice may not be borne here. And the ministers 
 follow the folly of the people, calling it charity to feed their fond 
 humour. Oh, my Lord, what shall become of this time.^ 
 
 Nor was it in the Church alone that the differences between 
 the radicals and the conformists became the subject of seri- 
 ous difference of opinion. Sandys wrote to Burghley: — • 
 
 Surely they will make a division not only among the people but 
 also amongst the Nobilite, yea, and I feare among men of highest 
 calling and greatest authorite except spedy order be taken therein. ^ 
 
 The nobles were actuated, not only by conviction, but by 
 motives of policy and even of greed. 
 
 Another sort of men there is, which have been content to run 
 on with the reformers for a time, and to make them poor instru- 
 ments of their own designs. . . . Those things which under this 
 colour they have effected to their own good are, i. By maintain- 
 ing a contrary faction, they have kept the clergy always in awe, 
 and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their 
 peace. 2. By maintaining an opinion of equality among ministers, 
 they have made way to their own purposes for devouring cathe- 
 dral churches and bishops livings. 3. By exclaiming against 
 abuses in the Church they have carried their own corrupt deal- 
 ings in the civil state more covertly. For such is the nature of the 
 multitude they are not able to apprehend many things at once, 
 so as being possessed with dislike or liking of any one thing, many 
 other in the meantime may escape them without being perceived. 
 4. They have sought to disgrace the clergy in entertaining a con- 
 ceit in men's minds, and confirming it by continual practice, that 
 men of learning, and specially of the clergy, which are employed 
 in the chiefest kind of learning, are not to be admitted, or spar- 
 ingly admitted to matters of state; contrary to the practice of all 
 well governed commonwealths, and of our own till these late 
 years. ^ 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. cvii. Cf. Zurich Letters, nos. Ixv, cxvii. 
 
 * Puritan Manifestoes, App., p. 152. 
 
 ' George Cranmer's letter to Hooker, App. ii to bk. v of Ecc. Pol., vol. 11, 
 p. 64. 
 
Protestant Dissent 141 
 
 Of Leicester Parker wrote to Cecil : — 
 
 I am credibly informed that the earl is unquiet, and conferrcth 
 by help of some of the examiners to use the counsel of certain pre- 
 cisians I fear, and purposeth to undo me, etc. Yet I care not for 
 him. Yet I will reverence him because her Majesty hath so 
 placed him, as I do all others toward her. And if you do not pro- 
 vide in time to dull this attempt, there will be few in authority 
 to care greatly for your danger, and for such others. They will 
 provide for themself, and will learn by me in my case how to do.^ 
 
 Walsingham appointed the Puritan Reynolds to the di- 
 vinity lecture at Oxford founded to discredit Romanism.^ 
 Knollys, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Walter Mildmay wrote 
 an extraordinary letter to Parkhurst desiring him to allow 
 the exercises called "prophesyings" to continue, although 
 Parker was at the time making vigorous attempts to sup- 
 press these training schools for Puritanism.^ Even Cecil, 
 who headed the opposite faction in the Council, was not 
 altogether favorable to Parker's procedure, and took care 
 in many cases that those affected by the orders in regard to 
 the ceremonies and vestments suffer a minimum of incon- 
 venience.* 
 
 As a result the ceremonies were not everywhere observed. 
 The minister's taste often dictated whether he should wear 
 the habits or not, and determined the posture of the con- 
 gregation during communion. Forms of baptism varied. 
 The sign of the cross was sometimes used, sometimes not. 
 Many of the clergy held the prescribed habits up to ridicule. 
 The Dean of Wells, Turner, even made a man do penance 
 for adultery in a square priest's cap, much to the scandal 
 of his more dignified brethren.^ But in 1565, under pres- 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., no. ccclxvii. Cf. ibid., nos. clxxix, ccxviii, ccxix, cclxxvi, 
 cccxi, cccxii, cccxxviii. 
 
 2 Hooker, Works, vol. l, p. xxx. 
 
 » Parker Corresp., p. 457, note 2. Cf. also, nos. cccl, cccli, cccliii. 
 
 « Ibid., nos. clxxviii, clxxix, clxxxiv, clxxxv, clxxxvi; Grindal, Remains, Let- 
 ters, no. l.xxvii; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CLXXn, no. i. Travers, Hooker's oppo- 
 nent at the Temple Church, was Burghley's chaplain and tutor to his children. 
 
 s Parker Corresp., no. clxxxii; Zurich Letters, no. cviii. 
 
142 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 sure from Elizabeth, Parker issued his famous "Advertise- 
 ments," which were designed to do away with all such irreg- 
 ularities, and proceeded to enforce conformity to the habits. 
 
 There was some uncertainty whether he could legally 
 proceed to the deprivation of ministers who refused the 
 test he intended to offer, and neither the court, nor the 
 great lay lawyers, would back him up; some of them 
 through sympathy for the views of the dissenters, some 
 through question as to the legality of such procedure. The 
 test was made by Parker and Grindal on the London clergy 
 and most of them submitted. The rest were suspended at 
 once and given three months to consider before the bishops 
 proceeded to deprivation. Grindal did not like the work nor 
 did some of the other commissioners. Parker had printed 
 his articles without the Queen's authorization, although on 
 the title-page, he had endeavored to create the impression 
 that they had that sanction by proclaiming that they were 
 issued "by virtue of the Queen's Majesty's letters" com- 
 manding the same.^ Had Elizabeth given them her sanction, 
 they would have had the authority of law as provided by 
 the Act of Uniformity empowering the Queen, with the 
 advice of the Metropolitan, to take further order for the 
 ceremonies and ornaments of the Church, as was the im- 
 pression conveyed by Parker's clever title-page. The "Ad- 
 vertisements," however, did not settle the question as 
 Parker hoped, but aroused much alarm at the prospect of 
 compulsion, and occasioned much of the opposition to the 
 bishops and the Establishment which now began to develop 
 everywhere. Parker's proceedings mark the real beginning 
 of the split in the Anglican Church. 
 
 We may regard Parker as most clearly representing the 
 official Anglican position; and even Parker did not hesitate 
 to say that these were matters of indifference in themselves. 
 
 ' Parker Corresp., nos. clxxv, clxxvi, clxxviii, cciii, ccix, ccx; Wilkins, Con- 
 cilia, vol. IV, p. 247; Cardwell, Annals, vol. I, p. 287; Prothero, Select Statutes, 
 p. 191; Gee and Hardy, Documents ; Sparrow, Collections; S. P., Dom., Eliz., 
 vol. xxxix, no. 14. 
 
Protestant Dissent 143 
 
 " Does your Lordship think that I care either for cap, tippet, 
 surplice, or wafer-bread, or any such?" ^ He argued that 
 the habits and the ritual were not essential matters, in the 
 sense that the Catholic Church made them essential, but, 
 because of the order and decency lent by them to the church 
 service and the ministerial person, were worthy of observa- 
 tion, even had the law of Parliament and the will of the 
 sovereign not ordained that within the English Church such 
 habits and ritual should be observ^ed. In no sense were 
 other Protestant churches condemned for not using them, 
 for there was nothing sacred in their use or character. "The 
 Queen hath not established these garments and things for 
 any holiness' sake or religion, but only for a civil order and 
 comeliness: because she would have the ministers known 
 from other men, as the aldermen are known by their tip- 
 pets," etc. 2 Why should Christians squabble about such 
 matters and give to Catholics opportunity for reproaching 
 the Protestants for their lack of unity, and, at the same 
 time, by such quarrels make Continental friends believe 
 that the English Church tacitly condemned them because 
 they did not use the habits? The law commanded all to use 
 the habits — what was the profit in fighting about them? 
 
 On the other hand, those who objected to the habits pro- 
 claimed with equal certainty that they were matters of 
 indifference. Few made the actual wearing of the hab- 
 its a matter of conscience. Such men as Dr. Humphrey ^ 
 argued: in this indifferent matter of the wearing of the 
 habits why give the wearing or not wearing of them such 
 importance that refusal or dislike of them entails dismis- 
 sal from the ministry of the Church?^ Many devout and 
 
 ^ Parker Corresp., no. ccclxix. Cf. conclusion of the Advertisements. 
 
 ' Grindal, Remains, p. 2io. 
 
 3 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xxxvi, no. 64; vol. xxxix, no. 63; Zurich Letters, 
 nos. Ixxxv, ci, cix, cii; Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. 11, App., no. xxvii; Strype, 
 Parker, bk. 11, App., nos. xxx, xxxi. 
 
 *■ It seems curious to find Whitgift's name among those who took this posi- 
 tion. Cf. Strype, Parker, bk. iii, chap, iii, p. 125, and App., no. xxxix; S. P., 
 Dom., Eliz., vol. xxxviii, no. 10; Strype, Whitgift, App., no, iv. 
 
144 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 serious young men, who are heartily loyal to the Queen and 
 deeply attached to the Church now established, feel that 
 they cannot take service under her because they are obliged 
 to wear a costume which they look upon as a badge of 
 Romanism. Why not leave it, in the present dangerous, 
 unsettled, poverty-stricken, and preacherless condition of 
 the Church, to individual conscience? We shall thus secure 
 the whole-hearted service of the able men whom we need so 
 much. They agree on all else, why exclude them from be- 
 coming one of us, or eject devout and worthy preachers 
 who are already within the service of the Church, because 
 an indifferent matter is made into one of vital importance? 
 If we insist on the outward observances of Catholicism, we 
 give our Continental friends the idea that we are not truly 
 Protestant, but still cling, or will soon return, to images, 
 crosses, and tapers. Humphrey held that there was nothing 
 wrong in the habits themselves, but that insistence upon 
 them was a restraint of Christian liberty ill fitted for a 
 Church in the position and of the character of the Anglican 
 Establishment. He held up the threat that if the habits 
 were insisted upon, the Church would lose the support and 
 service of many who would otherwise give hearty allegiance. 
 At root the differences were largely temperamental and 
 matters of taste. 
 
 Parker would have been glad to give in ; he grew tired of 
 insisting. 
 
 The Queen's Majesty willed my lord of York to declare her 
 pleasure determinately to have the order to go forward. I trust 
 her Highness hath devised how it may be performed. I utterly 
 despair therein as of myself, and therefore must sit still, as I have 
 now done, alway waiting either her toleration, or else further aid. 
 Mr. Secretary, can it be thought, that I alone, having sun and 
 moon against me, can compass this difficulty? If you of her 
 Majesty's council provide no otherv\dse for this matter than as it 
 appeareth openly, what the sequel will be horresco vel reminis- 
 cendo} And must I do still all things alone? I am not able, and 
 
 * Parker Corresp., no. ccxv. 
 
Protestant Dissent 145 
 
 must refuse to promise to do that I cannot, and is another man's 
 charge. All other men must win honour and defence, and I only- 
 shame to be so vilely reported. And yet I am not weary to bear, 
 to do service to God and to my prince; but an ox can draw no 
 more than he can.^ 
 
 But neither the opposition of a great part of her clergy, nor 
 the influence of councillors could secure changes which the 
 Queen did not desire. And she did not desire these, although 
 she would not come out openly wdth support for her clergy 
 in enforcing the things she wished. She did not like the 
 barrenness and extremes of Continental Protestantism, and 
 she did like form and pomp. Had there been any real, imme- 
 diate danger to the Church, and hence to the government, 
 from the dispute, it is probable that she w^ould have given 
 way as she did in other cases, but she sensed the situation 
 too w^ell to feel that It was necessary to give way. She felt 
 that she might continue to maintain her absolute sway over 
 the Church in this respect In spite of some factious Individ- 
 uals. To Parker's objection "that these precise folks w^ould 
 ofTer their goods and bodies to prison, rather than they 
 would relent," Elizabeth replied by ordering him to im- 
 prison them then.^ Several considerations In the situation 
 made her Insist that the habits and ritual be strictly ob- 
 served. In the first place. It was the law, and the law must 
 be enforced. In the second place, she felt that the question 
 was not of enough importance to alienate any large body 
 of the clergy. And her opinion was correct. Grindal wrote 
 to Bullinger: — 
 
 Many of the more learned clerg>^ seemed to be on the point of 
 forsaking their ministry. Many of the people also had it in con- 
 templation to withdraw from us, and set up private meetings; 
 but however most of them, through the mercy of the Lord, have 
 now returned to a better mind.' 
 
 ^ Parker Corresp., no. ccxiii. Cf. also, ibid., nos. cxiv, clxxvi, cciii, cccxxi. 
 
 ' Ibid., no. ccxiii. Cf. also, ibid., nos. clxx, clxxi, ccxcii. 
 
 ' Zurich Letters, no. cxi. Cf. also, ibid., no. cxxi; Parker Corresp., no. ccvii. 
 
146 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 They would not give up their lately won places because of 
 the mere wearing of a habit. Further, she was not so keen 
 for preachers, devout and able, as was Humphrey.^ She 
 preferred that the Church slumber a little. A large body in 
 the Church liked the habits and the forms; they did not 
 desire, and some realized the inexpediency of making such 
 radical changes that the service would seem unfamiliar to 
 the people as a whole. Few of the Protestant officers of the 
 Church felt it worth while to make any vigorous protest 
 against their use in opposition to the wish of the Queen, 
 and many condemned the agitators for stirring up discus- 
 sion and controversy over the question. Nor did the Conti- 
 nental Reformers stand back of the extremists or take the 
 view they were expected to take. They felt that opposition 
 to the government Church was not worth while on such 
 matters when the government was apparently so whole- 
 heartedly opposing the Papacy. Bullinger wrote to Horn: — 
 
 I approve the zeal of those persons who would have the church 
 purged from all the dregs of popery. ... On the other hand, I 
 also commend your prudence, who do not think that churches 
 are to be forsaken because of the vestments. . . . But, as far as 
 I can form an opinion, your common adversaries are only aiming 
 at this, that on your removal they may put in your places either 
 papists, or else Lutheran doctors and presidents, who are not 
 very much unlike them.^ 
 
 And to Humphrey and Sampson the same divine wrote: — 
 
 It appears indeed most extraordinary to me, (if I may be al- 
 lowed, most accomplished and very dear brethren, to speak my 
 sentiments without offence,) that you can persuade yourselves 
 that you cannot, with a safe conscience subject yourselves and 
 churches to vestiarian bondage; and that you do not rather con- 
 sider, to what kind of bondage you will subject yourselves and 
 churches, if you refuse to comply with a civil ordinance, which 
 is a matter of indifference, and are perpetually contending in this 
 troublesome way; because by the relinquishment of your ofifice, 
 you will expose the churches to wolves, or at least to teachers who 
 
 * Cf. Elizabeth's letter to Grindal, Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 205, 206. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. xcviii. 
 
Protestant Dissent 147 
 
 are far from competent, and who are not equally fitted with 
 yourselves for the instruction of the people.* 
 
 Elizabeth had her way. A few men lost their preferments, 
 but the habits were worn. In itself the vestiarian contro- 
 versy is an exceedingly dry, and, like so many of the discus- 
 sions which have engaged the controversial genius of Chris- 
 tianity, silly, discussion; but its significance, as one of the 
 breaking-points between the two wings of the Church, can- 
 not be overemphasized. This controversy lies at the root 
 of the matter. Added to the natural temperamental differ- 
 ences of taste, the discussion about the vestments dug up 
 arguments, and stirred up feelings, and prepared the way 
 for opinions, which, when developed, made continuous 
 union impossible. But for a time the question slumbered. 
 It never died out entirely; and the arguments used in this 
 controversy lay at hand when the increasingly radical 
 opinions of the discontented compelled them to diverge 
 still more widely from the Established Church. ^ 
 
 That there should develop a more positive opposition 
 was inevitable. That antagonism between the Church 
 Established and Church Militant should grow sharp and 
 bitter was in part the result of controversy and in part the 
 result of the character of the men who carried on the work 
 of the Anglican Establishment and of the opposition to the 
 Establishment. It was a growing quarrel, increasing from 
 these small beginnings to irreconcilable differences. Bacon 
 has well described the nature of the development of this 
 antagonism. 
 
 It maybe remembered, that on their part which call for refor- 
 mation, was first propounded some dislike of certain ceremonies 
 supposed to be superstitious; some complaint of dumb ministers 
 who possessed rich benefices; and some invectives against the idle 
 
 1 Zurich Letters, no. civ. Cf. also, ibid., nos. xlii, xlvi, clvii, clviii; Strype, 
 Annals, vol. i, pt. I, App., nos. xxiv-xxvii. 
 
 2 Parker Corresp., no. ccxii; Zurich Letters, nos. cix, cxii, cxxii, cxxix, clxxiii, 
 clxxiv, clxxVi clxxvii. 
 
148 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 and monastical continuance within the Universities, by those 
 who had livings to be resident upon ; and such like abuses. Thence 
 they went on to condemn the government of bishops as an hier- 
 archy remaining to us of the corruptions of the Roman church, 
 and to except to sundry institutions as not sufficiently delivered 
 from the pollutions of the former times. And lastly, they ad- 
 vanced to define of an only and perpetual form of policy in the 
 church ; which (without consideration of possibility or foresight 
 of peril or perturbation of the church and state) must be erected 
 and planted by the magistrate. Here they stay. Others, (not able 
 to keep footing in so steep ground) descend further; That the 
 same must be entered into and accepted of the people, at their 
 peril, without the attending of the establishment of authority: 
 and so in the meantime they refuse to communicate with us, re- 
 puting us to have no church. This hath been the progression of 
 that side: — I mean of the generality. For I know, some persons 
 (being of the nature, not only to love extremities, but also to fall 
 to them without degrees,) were at the highest strain at the first. 
 The other part which maintaineth the present government of the 
 church, hath not kept to one tenor neither. First, those cere- 
 monies which were pretended to be corrupt they maintained to 
 be things indifferent, and opposed the examples of the good times 
 of the church to the challenge which was made unto them, be- 
 cause they were used in the later superstitious times. Then were 
 they also content mildly to acknowledge many imperfections in 
 the church : as tares come up amongst the corn ; which yet (ac- 
 cording to the wisdom taught by our Saviour) were not with 
 strife to be pulled up, lest it might spoil and supplant the good 
 corn, but to grow on together until the harvest. After, they 
 grew to a m.ore absolute defence and maintenance of all the 
 orders of the church, and stiffly to hold that nothing was to be 
 innovated ; partly because it needed not, partly because it would 
 make a breach upon the rest. Thence (Exasperate through con- 
 tentions) they are fallen to a direct condemnation of the contrary 
 part, as of a sect. Yea and some indiscreet persons have been 
 bold in open preaching to use dishonourable and derogative 
 speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as 
 some of our men (as I have heard) ordained in foreign parts have 
 been pronounced to be no lawful ministers. Thus we see the 
 beginnings were modest, but the extremes are violent; so as there 
 is almost as great a distance now of either side from itself, as was 
 at the first of one from the other. ^ 
 
 1 Bacon, Letters and Life (Spedding ed.), vol. I, pp. 86-87. 
 
Protestant Dissent 149 
 
 Bishop Cooper's statement is more explicit, but essen- 
 tially the same: — 
 
 At the beginning, some learned and godly preachers, for private 
 respects in themselves, made strange to wear the surplice, cap, 
 or tippet: but yet so that they declared themselves to think the 
 thing indifferent, and not to judge evil of such as did use them 
 [Grindal, Sandys, Parkhurst, Nowel, 1562]. Shortly after rose 
 up other [Sampson, Humphrey, Lever, Whittingham] defending 
 that they were not things indifferent, but distained with anti- 
 christian idolatry, and therefore not to be suffered in the Church. 
 Not long after came another sort [Cartwright, Travers, Field] 
 affirming that those matters touching apparel were but trifles, 
 and not worthy contention in the Church, but that there were 
 greater things far of more weight and importance, and indeed 
 touching faith and religion, and therefore meet to be altered in a 
 church rightly reformed. As the Book of Common Prayer, the 
 administration of the Sacraments, the government of the Church, 
 the election of ministers, and a number of other like. Fourthly, 
 now break out another sort [Brownists], earnestly affirming and 
 teaching, that we have no church, no bishops, no ministers, no 
 sacraments; and therefore that all that love Jesus Christ ought 
 with all speed to separate themselves from our congregations, 
 because our assemblies are profane, wicked, and antichristian. 
 Thus have you heard of four degrees for the overthrow of the 
 state of the Church of England. Now lastly of all come in these 
 men, that m.ake their whole direction against the living of bishops 
 and other ecclesiastical ministers: that they should have no tem.- 
 poral lands or jurisdiction.^ 
 
 It is characteristic of the first stages of this development 
 that the leaders of the opposition tried to bring about the 
 desired changes by what they conceived to be regular and 
 lawful methods. The first Important literary effort to secure 
 the adoption of changes advocated took the form of an 
 appeal to Parliament. The "First Admonition to Parlia- 
 ment," written by two ministers, Fielde and Wilcox, was 
 not a proclamation of Independence in religious and ecclesi- 
 astical matters, but an appeal to civil authority to correct 
 the abuses within the Church, and to change It In accord- 
 ance with Scriptural models. Its authors believed that the 
 
 1 Cooper, Admonition, p. 16, quoted in Hooker, Works, vol. i, p. 129, note 40. 
 
150 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 national representative body had the right to alter the fun- 
 damental structure of the Church by statute. Their behef 
 was justified by the fact that the acts of ParHament had 
 undoubtedly created and given legal form to the Estab- 
 lishment which existed. They had not been able to carry 
 their reforms in Convocation by the regular and ordinary 
 means created by statute for ecclesiastical lawmaking and 
 they, therefore, went behind Convocation to Parliament. 
 In this belief and appeal, however, they disregarded the 
 position of the Queen in the system and her determination 
 to maintain it. She looked upon such appeal to Parliament 
 as an infringement of her rights of supremacy over the 
 Church. Parliament had vested the control of ecclesiastical 
 affairs in her. She was determined to keep that control, and 
 throughout the reign insisted, with more or less success, 
 that Parliament keep its hands off ecclesiastical matters, 
 even when the proposals were not those of malcontents.^ 
 Such an attitude on the part of the Queen was not calcu- 
 lated to satisfy the appellants, nor did it soothe the dignity 
 of the Commons, but the fact remains that Elizabeth was 
 able to make good her position and that the appeal of the 
 "First Admonition" was punished as seditious. 
 
 The circumstances immediately preceding its publication 
 made it doubly obnoxious to the Queen. In the Parliament 
 of 1572 a bill was introduced in the Commons which pro- 
 vided that the penalties imposed by the existing religious 
 acts for not using the prescribed rites and ceremonies 
 should be in force "against such persons onely as do or shall 
 use anie maner of papisticall service, rites or Ceremonyes," 
 or who "use the same forme so prescribed more supersti- 
 ciouslie" than authorized. ^ It also provided that, by per- 
 mission of the bishop, any minister might be free to omit 
 all, or any part, of the Prayer Book, or to use the service of 
 the French or Dutch congregations. These drastic changes 
 
 ^ D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 133; Parker Corresp., nos. ccxxiv, ccxxv. 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. Lxxxvi, nos. 45, 46, 48; Puritan Manifestoes, App. i. 
 
Protestant Dissent 151 
 
 were disliked by many, and a committee was appointed to 
 frame another bill. The second bill restricted the penalties 
 to those uses of the book which were Popish or superstitious, 
 and gave some further liberty to the preacher. Speaker Bell 
 stopped proceedings, however, by signifying "her Highness' 
 pleasure, that from henceforth no more bills concerning 
 religion shall be preferred or received into this House unless 
 the same should be first considered and liked by the clergy." ^ 
 It was immediately after this session of Parliament that 
 the "Admonition" appeared. 
 
 They did not only propound it out of time (after the parliament 
 was ended), but out of order also, that is, in the manner of a libel, 
 with false allegations and applications of the scriptures, oppro- 
 brious speeches, and slanders.- For if you ask of the time; the 
 Admonition was published after the parliament, to the which it 
 was dedicated, was ended. If you speak of the place; it was not 
 exhibited in parliament (as it ought to have been), but spread 
 abroad in corners, and sent into the country. If you inquire of 
 the persons; it came first to their hands who had least to do in 
 reforming. 2 
 
 It was not strange that Elizabeth, already annoyed by the 
 attitude of the Commons, should regard it as an attack 
 upon^her authority, and believe that it partook more of the 
 nature of a seditious appeal to the people than an appeal to 
 Parliament. 
 
 Wilcox and Fielde were lodged in prison, but that did not 
 prevent the "Admonition" from becoming popular and 
 widely circulated. A lively literary contest resulted. Bishop 
 Cooper of Lincoln refuted the pamphlet in a sermon at 
 Paul's Cross a week after Parliament closed. An anony- 
 mous reply to Cooper appeared almost immediately, and. 
 in spite of the efforts of Archbishop Parker to discover the 
 secret press,'* within three months after its first appearance, 
 
 1 D'Ewes, Journals, p. 213; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. Lxxxvi, no. 47. 
 
 2 Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 39. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 80. Cf. also, D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 160, 161; Zurich Letters, no. 
 clxxxii. 
 
 * Parker Corresp., nos. ccciii, cccxiii; Sandys to Burghley, Aug. 28, 1573; 
 Puritan Manifestoes, App. vi. 
 
152 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the "Admonition" was twice printed in a second edition, 
 while Ficlde and Wilcox were still in prison. Closely con- 
 nected with the "Admonition" were two treatises which 
 appeared as one publication in September or October of the 
 same year, "An Exhortation to the Byshops to deal bro- 
 therly with theyr Brethern," and, "An exhortation to the 
 Bishops and their clergie to aunswer a little booke that 
 came forthe the last Parliament." Shortly after the appear- 
 ance of the "Admonition," its opponents compiled "A 
 Viewe of the Churche that the Authors of the late published 
 Admonition would have planted within this realme of 
 England, containing such Positions as they now hold against 
 the state of the said Church, as it is nowe." We have no 
 copy of this tract, but its contents are made clear by an 
 answer which appeared not earlier than September, 1572, 
 under the title, " Certaine Articles collected and taken (as it 
 is thought) by the Byshops out of a litle Boke entituled An 
 Admonition to the Parliament with an answere to the same." 
 This series of attacks upon the Establishment represents 
 the first stage of the Presbyterian movement. This stage is 
 midway between the early Precisianist attacks upon the 
 ceremonies and habits of the Church, and the active propa- 
 ganda to establish the distinctive ecclesiastical organization 
 of Presbyterianism. As in the case of the opponents of the 
 vestments any resemblance to the practices of the Roman 
 Church is sufficient basis for condemnation. But there is 
 an advance from the early vestiarian position. The chief 
 object of attack is not the ritual, but the organization and 
 the spirit of the Church and the clergy. While the "Ad- 
 monition" does not minimize the importance of abandoning 
 the ceremonies which are copied from the ceremonies of the 
 old Church, the chief and most telling part of its attack is 
 directed against the church organization itself, because it Is 
 similar to the hierarchy of Rome, with its grades of rank, 
 its ecclesiastical nobility, its courts, and faculties, ofhcials 
 and commissioners, its dispensations and licenses. The 
 
Protestant Dissent 153 
 
 likeness to Roman organization inevitably stamps its organi- 
 zation as wrong; the fact that it does not follow the New 
 Testament pattern irretrievably damns it. They find in the 
 proceedings of the bishops and other clerics who exercised 
 secular functions, not simply, however, the externals of Ro- 
 man, non-Scriptural organization, but the very spirit of papal 
 episcopal rule and anti-Christian superiority. The Church 
 deals more hardly with true Protestants like themselves, 
 who are loyal to the Queen and to Christ's holy religion, 
 than with the traitorous and anti-Christian Romanists. 
 
 In spite of the fact that they must have recognized that 
 such arguments were covert attacks upon the connection 
 between Church and State, they proclaimed their loyalty 
 to the Queen and the government. They warned the Queen 
 that such resemblance to Rome, such a Roman hierarchy 
 within the kingdom, afforded the greatest encouragement 
 to her Papist enemies. They pleaded that they were more 
 truly her loyal subjects than the bishops who maintained 
 such a state of affairs. Yet there is a note of rebellion 
 against the secular dictation as represented by the Queen. 
 In ancient times "nothing was taught but God's work and 
 now Princes pleasures, mennes devices, popish ceremonies, 
 and Antichristian rites in publique pulpits defended." ^ 
 "The pope's canon law and the will of the prince must have 
 the first place, and be preferred before the word and ordi- 
 nance of Christ." - The Queen could not have relished the 
 demand that Parliament see to it that "the statute may 
 more prevaile than an Injunction." 
 
 The appeal that poor men may study the matters In dis- 
 pute is a return to what Is traditionally regarded as a funda- 
 mental principle of the Protestant revolt, the right of every 
 man to judge his own soul's problems. To such a liberal 
 as Sandys even, their position seems dangerously antl- 
 arlstocratic and democratic. 
 
 * Puritan Manifestoes, p. 12. 
 _,.J Cf. "Parte of a Register," Grindal, Remains, p. 205. 
 
154 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 It may easely appeare what boldenesse and disobedience theis 
 new writers have alredy wrought in the mynds of the people and 
 that agaynst the Civill Magistrate whome in words they seme 
 to extoll but whose authoritie in very dede they labor to caste 
 downe. For he seeth litill that doth not perceyve how that their 
 whole proceedinges tend to a mere popularitie.^ 
 
 ' In spite of a seeming democracy and love of liberty, in 
 spite of the fact that they enter the plea which is now recog- 
 nized as one of the greatest arguments against intolerance, 
 the plea that persecution does no good,^ these writers were 
 not tolerant even within the narrow limits of Protestantism. 
 If divergent, they would have all opinions suppressed ex- 
 cept their own. They would substitute for the authority of 
 the early Church fathers and antiquity, in matters of eccle- 
 siastical organization and discipline, the authority of the 
 New Testament. And when they said New Testament, 
 they meant the verbally inspired text. Inasmuch as this is 
 an absolute and more restricted authority, it necessarily 
 implies a greater intolerance of all divergences. Yet as the 
 New Testament does not cover so much ground as "antiq- 
 uity," — that is, tradition, — they freed the Church from 
 many "precepts of men," thus seemingly increasing the 
 sphere of freedom. This greater freedom was, however, 
 largely neutralized by their insisting that nothing should 
 be done in the Church for which there was not a clear com- 
 mand of God. 
 
 In the autumn of the year in which the "First Admoni- 
 tion" appeared, Thomas Cartwright wrote and published 
 the "Second Admonition to Parliament." Led by Cart- 
 wright, Presbyterianism now entered upon that long and 
 wearisome literary conflict with the Anglican Establishment, 
 which, even to-day, has not entirely fallen into the desue- 
 tude it deserves. Although a cluster of lesser lights sur- 
 rounded them, the controversy centers about the works of 
 Cartwright and Dr. John Whitgift. The two had clashed 
 
 * Puritan Manifestoes, p. 154. * Ibid., p. 71. 
 
Protestant Dissent 155 
 
 before, and over substantially the same questions when 
 Cartwright was Lady Margaret Professor at the University 
 of Cambridge and Whitgift Master of Trinity College.^ In 
 that contest Whitgift succeeded in expelUng Cartwright 
 from the University, and Cartwright had gone to Geneva, 
 where he had been confirmed in his opinions by his associ- 
 ations with the fountain-heads of Presbyterianism. He re- 
 turned in 1572 at an opportune moment to take up his 
 old quarrel with Whitgift. Excitement over the "First 
 Admonition" was great. It was read on all sides. Whitgift 
 had under way the construction of the official reply, "An 
 Answere to a certen Libel intituled An Admonition to the 
 Parliament," and Cartwright brought out the "Second 
 Admonition" in time to receive his share of the worthy 
 doctor's condemnation. 
 
 The " Second Admonition " may be regarded as marking 
 a new stage in the controversy between dissent and Angli- 
 canism ; It marks the transfer in essential interest from con- 
 demnation of abuses to advocacy of a particular form of 
 church polity, the Presbyterian. 
 
 The other bokes are shorte (as it was requisite to present to 
 you), and therefore they have not so muche tolde you how to 
 Reforme, as what to Reforme. They have tolde you of many 
 things amisse, and that very truely, they have tolde you in gen- 
 erall, what were to be restored, but howe to doe these things, as it 
 is the hardest pointe, so It requireth, as themselves saye, a larger 
 discourse. I meane therfore to supplie . . . something that may 
 make to the expressing of the matter, so plalnely, that you may 
 have sufficient light to proceede by. . . .^ 
 
 Unfortunately for those who are compelled to wade 
 through the vast mass of literary polemic that resulted, the 
 method of procedure presented in the ' ' Second Admonition 
 was not so clear that the force of truth compelled its Imme- 
 diate acceptance. Cartwrlght's work Is less interesting than 
 
 * Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. Ixv, and note 4: Stn-pe, Whitgift, vol. i, p. 19; 
 Strype, Annals, vol. u, pt. I, App., nos. i, iii; 5. P., Dom., Eiiz., vol. LXXI, no. II. 
 ^ " Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 90. 
 
156 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 the "First Admonition." Its tone is less earnest in that it is 
 an intellectual, rather than an emotional, attack. In it we 
 find the narrowing and hardening that almost inevitably 
 accompany attempts to give practical organization to 
 idealistic or moral theories. The emphasis shifts from 
 moral and religious indignation, on a relatively high plane, 
 to an intellectual presentation of a definite ecclesiastical 
 polity. The "Second Admonition" and the development 
 of the propaganda under Cartwright's leadership mark a 
 distinct departure from the ground of the "First Admoni- 
 tion," as that work marks a breaking-away from those who 
 merely desired reforms in the English ceremonial. The 
 "Second Admonition" marks out the lines of development 
 for a distinct and peculiar form of dissent, the Presbyterian. 
 Not all dissenters followed that line of development. Cart- 
 wright succeeded in causing or forcing a division in the 
 ranks of the reformers. Many who were most ardent in the 
 struggle still further to modify the English Establishment 
 toward Protestantism, particularly in regard to ceremonies, 
 refused to follow Cartwright's extreme statements and posi- 
 tions.^ Some of these contented themselves with remaining 
 in the Church as churchmen with Precisianist tendencies, 
 some withdrew in time to form churches more consonant 
 with the spirit of Christianity than that proposed by Cart- 
 wright. Of these we shall speak more in detail after we have 
 presented the course and the results of the Presbyterian 
 development. 
 
 The "Second Admonition" and the Presbyterian move- 
 ment logically developed from the opposition to Roman 
 Catholicism manifested by the Vestiarians and the authors 
 of the "First Admonition," but, more Important, the 
 "Second Admonition" developed the attack upon the 
 Established Church organization and created the form and 
 machinery for putting into operation the church organiza- 
 
 1 Zurich Letters, nos. clxxxli, clxxxvi, cxcii, cxciii; Strype, Annals, vol. ill, 
 pt. II, App., no. xlix. 
 
Protestant Dissent 157 
 
 tion based upon Scriptural model which the "First Admo- 
 nition" suggested. 
 
 By the consent of all, evidently, Cartwright was now re- 
 garded as the head of the opposition, and the controversy, 
 so far as it was a Presbyterian controversy, was left pretty 
 largely in his hands. He wrote at once, "A Reply to an An- 
 swere made of Doctor Whitgift," and then escaped to the 
 Continent in time to avoid a warrant issued for his arrest 
 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.^ Elizabeth's procla- 
 mation against the two "Admonitions" ^ made that a safe 
 vantage-ground to occupy. Whitgift followed him with a 
 "Defence of the Answere," and at long range Cartwright 
 discharged two more shots, "The Second Replie" in 1575, 
 and "The Rest of the Second Replie" in 1577. To these 
 Whitgift did not reply, evidently considering that his mas- 
 sive work, m.ade available to the modern reader by the 
 Parker Society, had said all that was desirable. He now 
 trusted to less intellectual means to suppress his opponents. 
 As Hook expresses it, "It is not necessary to pursue this 
 controversy further, especially as it passed from the hands 
 of Whitgift to those of Bishop Aylmer, by whom Cart- 
 wright was several times committed to prison," ^ 
 
 In the mean time another Presbyterian work, of more 
 real importance than a great deal of the work of Cartwright, 
 had appeared. Walter Travers, whom we have met before 
 in connection with the question of ordinations, wrote, while 
 on the Continent, a Latin presentation of the Presbyte- 
 rian system, " Ecclesiastiae Disciplinse . . . ExpHcato." This 
 Cartwright translated and published as, "A full and plaine 
 declaration of Ecclesiasticall Discipline owt of the word of 
 God and off the declininge off the church of England from 
 the same." The " Book of Discipline," as it is familiarly 
 
 ^ Zurich Letters, no. cciii. Cf. Soames, Elizabethan History, p. 141. 
 
 * 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xci, no. 47; Zurich Letters, no. cxc; Puritan Mani- 
 festoes, App. v; Strype, Parker, vol. Ii, p. 320. 
 
 * Hook, Lives of the Archbishops, vol. v, p. 152 (New Series). 
 
158 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 known, is a consistent and logical presentation of the Pres- 
 byterian system, and formed the party platform. ^ 
 
 From this series of works, and from minor, incidental 
 tracts and letters, we derive the essentials of Presbyterian 
 ecclesiastical polity in England, its attitude toward Catho- 
 lics and Continental Protestantism, its relations with the 
 Anglican Establishment and the government. We shall 
 examine these things in the order mentioned. 
 
 * Dr. John Bridges answered Travers's book in Defence of the Government 
 Established in the Church of England for Ecclesiastical Matters. Aylmer had 
 been offered the task, but declined. Parker Corresp., no. ccclxviii; Grindal, 
 Remains, Letters, no. Ixxviii. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 PROTESTANT DISSENT (continued) 
 
 The familiar Presbyterian form of church organization is 
 midway between the aristocratic Episcopalian and the 
 democratic Congregational forms of ecclesiastical polity. 
 The unit of the organization is the presbytery, made up of 
 the ministers and elders of the local churches. Presbytery 
 appoints and inducts the ministers and is the court of appeal 
 for the local congregations. Local management is vested in 
 a consistory session made up of the ministers and elders, 
 subject in some respects to the wishes of the congregation, 
 but, in effect, exercising practically its own discretion. The 
 English system contemplated, also, provincial and national 
 synods to serve for the consideration and settlement of 
 church problems with which the local presbyteries were not 
 competent to deal finally. 
 
 For this organization Scriptural authority was claimed. 
 The pattern thus found in the Scriptures was the only right 
 pattern for a Church of Christ; the New Testament made 
 necessary the acceptance and the use of this particular 
 organization.^ There was no place for any other form, no 
 authority equal to the Scriptures for the use of any other 
 ecclesiastical organization. Presbyterian adherence to a 
 particular form of organization, and assertion of a binding 
 Scriptural obligation for its use, resulted in important con- 
 sequences for the theory of relationship between various 
 churches already existing. 
 
 Sharing with the Anti-Vestiarians, the Precisianists, and 
 the authors of the " First Admonition," a hatred for all that 
 was Roman Catholic in ritual and form, this theory, that 
 
 1 Whitgift, Works, vol. II, pp. 6, 6o, 195, 259; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. iii, 
 chap. V, sec i; chap, vii, sec. 4. 
 
i6o Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth" , 
 
 the New Testament commanded the use of the Presbyterian 
 organization and condemned all others, gave to the adher- 
 ents of this party a basis for condemnation of papal organi- 
 zation and Catholic ritual which the Anglican Church and 
 the predecessors of the Presbyterians in discontent in Eng- 
 land had lacked. The papal organization and the rites of 
 the Roman Church were damnable and anti-Christian, not 
 simply because of corruption and abuses, but because Christ 
 had established another form of organization and other 
 rites. They applied the test to the Church of England and 
 found it base metal, for the Church of England likes "well 
 of popish mass-mongers, men for all seasons, king Henry's 
 priests. King Edward's priests, queen Mary's priests, who 
 of a truth, if God's word were precisely followed, should 
 from the same be utterly removed." ^ It thus gave ground 
 for a more thorough-going opposition to, and a more utterly 
 irreconcilable intolerance of, all that pertained to Catholi- 
 cism. There was no need for Presbyterianism to appeal to 
 political policy and national patriotism in justification of 
 its opposition to Rome. 
 
 Inasmuch as the command of the New Testament to them 
 entailed a religious duty or implied one,^ since anything not 
 there authorized was, to the Presbyterian mind, unsavory 
 in the nostrils of the Lord, Presbyterianism became the 
 advocate of an intolerant and exclusive theory. It substi- 
 tuted, within the sphere of ecclesiastical organization, the 
 authority of the Scriptures for the authority of reason, 
 drew "all things unto the determination of bare and naked 
 Scripture." ^ The sphere of religious tolerance narrows and 
 expands directly in proportion to the number of things that 
 are added to, or removed from, the sphere of religious 
 
 1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 317- Cf. ibid., vol. I, p. 1 15. 
 In later editions " King Edward's priests" was omitted. Cf. Cambridge His- 
 tory of English Literature, vol. iii, p. 403. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. clxxvii; Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 26, note 3; pp. 180, 
 183; Hooicer, Works, vol. i, p. 227, note 61. 
 
 * Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. 11, chap, vii, sec. i. 
 
Protestant Dissent i6i 
 
 necessity. In so far as ecclesiastical polity is brought into 
 the forefront of religious propaganda, it becomes narrow 
 and intolerant. Anglicanism removed ecclesiastical polity 
 from the list of things religiously essential; polity was a 
 matter of indifference to be regulated and changed in 
 accordance with the needs and circumstances of time and 
 place. "... That any kind of government is so necessary 
 that without it the church cannot be saved, or that it may 
 not be altered into some other kind thought to be more 
 expedient, I utterly deny," wrote Whitgift.^ Anglicanism 
 may have been intolerant of diversity in matters of polity 
 and ritual, but it was an intolerance based, not upon a 
 theor>' that these things were religiously important, but 
 upon the belief that the legal establishment of certain forms 
 by national legislation and the safety of the kingdom neces- 
 sitated their observance. Apart from the religious question, 
 reason may well decide that enactments by a national as- 
 sembly based on political necessity are more justifiably 
 insisted on than any dogmatic consideration. By this test 
 Presbyterianism represents a backward tendency in the 
 development of toleration. 
 
 The results of this theory of a divinely originated pres- 
 bytery were not confined to the additional basis given for 
 condemnation of Catholics. All forms of Protestantism not 
 following the New Testament model were open to the same 
 condemnation as the Catholic Church. Lutheranism and 
 Anglicanism were equally detestable. Cartwright went so 
 far as to say, "Heretics" — and by heretics he meant those 
 not Calvinistic — " ought to be put to death now," and he 
 backed his extreme statement by the assertion that, "If this 
 be bloody and extreme I am content to be so counted with 
 the Holy Ghost." 2 
 
 ... To say that any magistrate can save the life of blasphem- 
 ers, contemptuous and stubborn idolaters, murderers, adulterers, 
 
 ^ Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 184. 
 
 » Cartwright, Second Reply, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. I16, note I. 
 Cf. also ibid., vol. i, p. 386. 
 
1 62 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 incestuous persons, and such like, which God by his judicial law 
 hath commanded to be put to death, I do utterly deny, and am 
 ready to prove, if that pertained to this question, and therefore, 
 although the judicial laws are permitted to the discretion of the 
 prince and magistrate, yet not so generally as you seem to affirm, 
 and as I have oftentimes said, that not only must it not be done 
 against the word but according to the word and by it.^ 
 
 It is, however, in connection with the condemnation of 
 Anglicanism that the results of the Presbyterian ecclesias- 
 tical polity are most significant. The Anglican Church did 
 not claim that it followed apostolic practice in church organ- 
 ization; it admitted that it did not. It said the form of 
 organization was not an essential matter. Cartwright's older 
 contemporaries in dissatisfaction were in substantial agree- 
 ment with the Anglican Establishment upon the essential 
 indifference of ecclesiastical polity, but in so far as they 
 attacked the organization at all, maintained that the Angli- 
 can organization was inexpedient. Cartwright united with 
 them in attack upon the resemblance of Anglicanism to 
 Rome. 
 
 Remove homilies, articles, injunctions, and that prescript 
 order of service made out of the mass-book. . . . We must needs 
 say as followeth, that this book is an unperfect book, culled and 
 picked out of that popish dung hill, the portuise and mass-book 
 full of all abominations. ... It is wicked, to say no worse of it, 
 so to attribute to a book, indeed culled out of the vile popish 
 service-book, with some certain rubrics and gloses of their own 
 device, such authority, as only is due to God in his book. . . . 
 Again, when learned they to multiply up many prayers of one 
 effect, so many times Glory be to the Father, so many times The 
 Lord be with you, so many times Let us Pray? Whence learned 
 they all these needless repetitions? is it not the popish Gloria 
 Patn?2 
 
 He attacked the wealth and pomp of the Anglican ecclesi- 
 astics, but departed from the position of the Admonishers 
 by maintaining that the Anglican Church was wrong in its 
 
 * Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 270. 
 
 * Cartwright, Second Admonition, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. II9i 
 note 6. 
 
Protestant Dissent 163 
 
 very essence.^ New Testament authority necessitated an- 
 other form of organization, and for the establishment of the 
 new, the Church already established must give way. Theo- 
 cratic, exclusive Calvinism must be substituted for the 
 merely expedient and comprehensive Episcopalian Estab- 
 lishment. The Anglican Church was an attempt to nation- 
 alize the religious organization, with loyalty to the Queen 
 as its fundamental article. The Presbyterian programme 
 was an attempt to create a narrow, national, sectarianism 
 founded upon exclusively Biblical authority. Political needs 
 were a secondary consideration, although it is true that 
 their antagonism to the Papacy serv^ed as a strong argu- 
 ment for the observance of that political policy which they 
 deemed most wise for the nation and royal safety — abso- 
 lute suppression of all Catholics. 
 
 From the Presbyterian opposition to Anglicanism, thus 
 based upon Scriptural authority, resulted important con- 
 sequences in Anglicanism Itself. Anglicanism began the 
 formulation, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, 
 of a divine right theory of episcopacy to meet the claims of 
 Presbyterianism. It abandoned the old basis of its apolo- 
 getic, expediency and antiquity, and substituted other argu- 
 ments. This shift took two directions. First, a return, with 
 the Presbyterians, to an exclusively Scriptural authority 
 where authorization of the Episcopal form was found ; and 
 second, the development of an entirely new line of argu- 
 ment which based the authority of Scriptures and of religion 
 itself upon reason. The Scriptures could be used by An- 
 glicans in defense of their peculiar organization as force- 
 fully as in defense of the Presbyterian. This appeal was 
 made at first with desire simply to refute the Presbyterian 
 argument that Anglicanism had no Scriptural basis, without 
 implying that, when found, Scriptural authority should be 
 used to maintain an exclusively Episcopalian polity as the 
 
 * Cartwright himself did not believe in, or practice, separation from the 
 Anglican communion, however. 
 
164 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Presbyterians maintained an exclusively Presbyterian one; 
 but it was perhaps inevitable, in the face of Presbyterian 
 attack and argument, that AngHcanism should make, with 
 Presbyterians, but in opposition to them, the logical step 
 to maintenance of a divinely instituted and exclusive form 
 of ecclesiastical polity. This logical advance was not made 
 decisively in Elizabeth's reign. A theory of divinely ap- 
 pointed Presbyterianism or Episcopalianism was antago- 
 nistic to the political dominance which the Queen insisted 
 upon maintaining, 1 and to which, for the sake of self- 
 preservation, the Church was compelled to assent. Angli- 
 canism, however, was turned toward the theory of an apos- 
 tolical episcopal succession, and as soon as governmental 
 opposition was withdrawn by the death of Elizabeth, it 
 proceeded to develop within its ranks a sectarianism as 
 contracted as that of its enemies. 
 
 The suggestion of Hooker In his "Ecclesiastical Polity," 
 that reason had to rule in all cases even though arguing 
 from a basis of verbally inspired Scripture, served as better 
 ground for the apologetic of a Church so subservient to 
 royal power and political policy as was the Anglican Es- 
 tablishment. That the rule of reason was, however, as op- 
 posed to Episcopalianism as to Presbyterianism, was a 
 fact which neither Hooker and his party, nor the party 
 of opposition, recognized until many years after our pe- 
 riod, when men began to ascribe their conversion to Ro- 
 man Catholicism to the teachings of the "Ecclesiastical 
 Polity." 
 
 Of less real Importance than the advocacy of a particular 
 form of church polity by the Presbyterians, was their oppo- 
 sition to Anglicanism upon doctrinal grounds. Presbyterian 
 polity was Inseparably linked with the extremes of Calvln- 
 istlc doctrine. Anglicanism was, as we have pointed out 
 
 » Had Elizabeth set up claims to rule by divine right, as did her successor and 
 the French monarchs, there would have been no necessary antagonism between 
 a divinely appointed Episcopal organization and her dominance. But Eliza- 
 beth's power was not based on "a divine right" theory. 
 
Protestant Dissent 165 
 
 above, tied to no articulated system of dogma; Its stand- 
 ards were indefinite and theologically inclusive. This gave 
 adequate grounds to Presbyterians for condemnation of 
 Anglican belief, independently of their condemnation of 
 Anglicanism on the score of polity. Accusations of Luther- 
 anlsm were not relished by many of the bishops. Most of 
 them classed together, "wolves, Papists, Lutherans, Sad- 
 ducees and Herodians," ^ and asserted that, "as he [the 
 Devil] is unable to restore popery altogether, he is endeav- 
 ouring, but imperceptibly and by degrees, to bring us 
 back to Lutheranlsm." 2 They were for the most part 
 Calvinlstic themselves, but, from the standpoint of tolera- 
 tion, it is fortunate that their Calvinism did not express 
 itself decisively in the creeds and articles of the Establish- 
 ment. Whitgift's attempt to impose the Calvlnistic Lam- 
 beth Articles upon Anglicanism fortunately failed. We 
 have Elizabeth to thank for this, however great be the 
 reproach we may feel justified In casting upon her for less 
 beneficent exercise of her royal power. The liberality re- 
 sulting from this freedom from dogmatic excluslveness, gave 
 occasion for some of the most strikingly intolerant utter- 
 ances of Presbyterianlsm. They felt that the Church was 
 too generous, too broad, its charity too closely allied to lack 
 of zeal In the Lord. They objected that some of the prayers 
 of the English Service were too charitable in view of what 
 could properly be asked of the justice of God. "They," 
 the Radicals said, "pray that all men may be saved with- 
 out exception ; and that all travelling by sea and land may 
 be preserved, Turks and traitors not excepted ... in all 
 their service there is no edification, they pray that all men 
 may be saved." ^ Undoubtedly some men should be damned. 
 The doctrinal opposition of the Presbyterians did not result 
 in an increased hardening of Anglican dogmatic standards 
 
 * Zurich Letters, no. cviii. 
 
 * Ibid., no. cxxx. Cf. ibid., nos. cxxiv, cxi, cxxi, ccxv. 
 
 » Nares, Burghley, vol. in, p. 348. Cf. "First Admonition," Puritan Mani- 
 festoes, p. 39; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk, v, chap, xxvn, sec. i, p. 346. 
 
1 66 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 comparable to the increased rigidity of its ecclesiastical 
 polity. We even find in Hooker statements which indicate 
 that the prevalent Calvinism was too uncompromising for 
 the Anglican Establishment. 
 
 Incidental to Presbyterian defense of an exclusive New 
 Testament ecclesiastical polity, insistence upon Calvinistic 
 theology, and attack upon Anglicanism, Presbyterianism 
 has some points of interest deserving of mention. One of 
 the most insistent and important claims made for Presby- 
 terianism is that it is in general, and was in particular dur- 
 ing the reign of Elizabeth, the champion of liberty and 
 democracy. Were this true, minor considerations of narrow 
 theology and polity would sink into oblivion, when com- 
 pared to the great service thus rendered to the cause of 
 toleration. The justification for these claims is found, 
 ordinarily, in the fact that in Parliament the chief defenders 
 of the liberties of Parliament in opposition to the absolutism 
 of Elizabeth were also found in opposition to the Estab- 
 lished Church. 1 The questions which gave rise to the 
 greatest assertion of Parliamentary right were, during the 
 time when the Presbyterian controversy was at its height, 
 questions of ecclesiastical polity and reform. The union of 
 the question of national liberty with the question of eccle- 
 siastical dissent was natural. Further, it is obvious that 
 during this period the champions of national liberty were 
 champions also of ecclesiastical dissent. But the obvious 
 fact does not state the truth quite accurately. The greatest 
 champions of the liberties of Parliament took occasion to 
 voice their claims as questions of any sort gave them occa- 
 sion to do so. During this period the questions of Church 
 abuses, and the right to consider them, were the ques- 
 tions about which the conflict with the government and the 
 Queen centered. At a later time these topics had sunk into 
 the background, and the fight for Parliamentary liberties 
 went on over the question of patents and monopolies. In so 
 
 1 Whitgift, Works, vol. i, pp. 42, 262; vol. ll, pp. 264, 398. 
 
Protestant Dissent 167 
 
 far as ecclesiastical dissenters were the champions of liberty, 
 we would not deny to Presbyterians their fair share in any 
 glory that may be derived therefrom. But they have no 
 exclusive claims. Alongside of Presbyterians in this oppo- 
 sition were those within the Church itself, by no means 
 advocates of Presbyterian doctrines, those whom we call 
 Precisians, those actuated merely by desire to embarrass the 
 bishops, lovers of liberty to whom the religious questions 
 merely gave occasion for opposition to encroachments upon 
 it by the sovereign, other types of dissent more truly demo- 
 cratic in their religious and ecclesiastical theory than the 
 Presbyterian.^ Presbyterians were allied with these oppo- 
 nents of royal absolutism ; that was the only possible escape 
 from the consequences of their religious and ecclesiasti- 
 cal principles; but their championship did not arise from 
 the liberal character of those religious and ecclesiastical 
 opinions. 
 
 Presbyterian principles of ecclesiastical organization were 
 not democratic, but aristocratic. Appeals to fears of Eng- 
 lishmen that the bishops were seizing, or would seize, 
 excessive power similar to that possessed by the Catholic 
 bishops might touch a real danger, but were not consistent 
 w^ith proposals to set up a governing ministry like that of 
 Scotland or Geneva. Arguments against concentration of 
 wealth In religious men's hands, to the deprivation of the 
 poor, arguments against religious rank and lordship, as 
 contrary to Scriptural example, have in themselves nothing 
 to do with championship of democracy and came with bad 
 grace from those who proposed to establish such an aristo- 
 cratic and exclusive system as the Presbyterian. An eccle- 
 siastical system of standards which would limit church 
 membership to those who accepted a dogmatic theological 
 doctrine so precise as that of Calvin, Is, In the last analysis, 
 as undemocratic as its theology. However aristocratic is the 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., no. cccxxi; Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, 
 P- 390. - - 
 
1 68 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Episcopalian form of government, it was one of the glories 
 of Anglicanism that it was inclusive and liberal in its theo- 
 logical requirements. Outward conformity to established 
 forms it may have demanded; submission of the private 
 judgment to the confines of a theological system it did not. 
 Even subscription to the doctrinal articles which it asked 
 was made liberal by the indefinite character of those articles, 
 an indefiniteness which admitted of interpretation conso- 
 nant with a whole range of theological opinion. Presby- 
 terian Calvinism certainly fails to satisfy one of the most 
 important requisites of any democratic system, individual 
 freedom. 
 
 To one unprejudiced by adherence to any sect it must 
 be hard to see the justice in Presbyterian claims to cham- 
 pionship of civil and religious liberty. Presbyterianism was 
 not tolerant; it was not democratic in ecclesiastical or 
 theological theory. Its purpose was the substitution on 
 a national scale of theocratic, exclusive Calvinism for po- 
 litical inclusive Episcopalianism. Ecclesiastically it was 
 exclusive, theologically it was intolerant. Nor can we see 
 in its theory of the relationship between Church and State 
 any great contribution to the principles of liberty and tol- 
 eration. 
 
 Condemning as they did all other forms and all other 
 doctrines, upon the basis of Scriptural truth, it might have 
 been expected that Presbyterians would advance the toler- 
 ant suggestion that such obvious Scriptural authority be 
 left to work conformity and uniformity by its simple pres- 
 entation in preaching and teaching. As we have seen, how- 
 ever, they felt that the force of truth works but slowly, and 
 that the need for acceptance of Presbyterian ecclesiastical 
 and theological dogma was urgent. They proposed that the 
 government compel the acceptance of both at once. The 
 relations, therefore, between Church and State were not to 
 be severed, but to be made closer, in order, not that political 
 needs might be served by the Church, but that political 
 
Protestant Dissent 169 
 
 power might do the will of God as interpreted by the 
 Presbyterians. 
 
 They would beare men in hand that we despise authoritie, and 
 contemne lawes, but they shamefully slaunder us to you, that so 
 say. For it is her majesties authoritie we flye to, as the supreme 
 governour in all causes, and over all persones within her domin- 
 ions appointed by God, and we flie to the lawes of this realme, 
 the bonds of all peace and good orders in this land. And we 
 beseche her majestic to have the hearing of this matter of Gods, 
 and to take the defence of it upon her. And to fortifie it by law, 
 that it may be received by common order through out her 
 dominions. For though the orders be, and ought to be drawne 
 out of the booke of God, yet it is hir majestie that by hir princely 
 authoritie shuld see every of these things put in practise, and 
 punish those that neglect them, making lawes therfore, for the 
 churche maye keepe these orders, but never in peace, except the 
 comfortable and blessed assistance of the states and governors 
 linke in to see them accepted in their countreys, and used.^ 
 
 The Queen was not to dictate to the new Establishment as 
 she dictated to the Episcopalian one. 
 
 No civil magistrate in councils or assemblies for church matters 
 can either be chief moderator, overruler, judge, or determineer, 
 nor has such authority as that, without his consent, it should not 
 be lawful for ecclesiastical persons to make any church orders 
 or ceremonies. 2 Church matters ought ordinarily to be handled 
 by church ofhcers. The principal direction of them is by God's 
 ordinance committed to the ministers of the church and to the 
 ecclesiastical governors. As these meddle not with the making 
 civil laws, so the civil magistrate ought not to ordain ceremonies, 
 or determine controversies in the church, as long as they do not 
 intrench upon his temporal authority. 'T is the princes province 
 to protect and defend the councils of his clergy, to keep the peace; 
 to see their decrees executed: and to punish the contemners of 
 them: but to exercise no spiritual jurisdiction. "It must be 
 remembered that civil magistrates must govern the church ac- 
 cording to the rules of God prescribed in his word ; and that as 
 they are nurses so they be servants unto the church; and as they 
 rule in the church, so they must remember to submit themselves 
 
 1 "Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 130. Cf. Theses Martinian<R, 
 Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, p. 309. 
 
 2 But cf. the Act of Uniformity on this point. 
 
170 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 unto the church, to submit their sceptres, to throw down their 
 crowns before the church, yea, as the prophet speaketh, to lick 
 the dust off the feet of the church." ^ 
 
 Rhetorical as this language undoubtedly Is, it is strikingly 
 similar in sentiment, as well as expression, to the language 
 of some of those great bishops of Rome whom the Protestant 
 Reformers denounced so heartily. This presents clearly 
 enough the relationship which it was proposed should exist 
 between Church and State when Presbyterianism was 
 established. This was essentially the true position of 
 Elizabethan Presbyterianism, although we find the point 
 obscured by numberless protestations of ministerial humil- 
 ity. They were loyal inasmuch as they were whole-heartedly 
 opponents of her most dangerous enemies, the Papists. 
 They acknowledged her supremacy in temporal things, and 
 over spiritual persons in temporal matters. 
 
 If the question be, whether princes and magistrates be neces- 
 sary in the church, it holdeth that the use of them is more than of 
 the sun, without the which the world cannot stand. If it be of 
 their honour, it holdeth that, with humble submission of mind, 
 the outward also of the body, yea the body itself, and all that it 
 hath, if need so require, are to be yielded for the defence of the 
 prince, and for that service, for the which the prince will use them 
 unto, for the glory of God, and maintenance of the common- 
 weal th.^ 
 
 They were humble and unpretentious Inasmuch as they 
 were suppressed and felt their lack of power. In spite, there- 
 fore, of these protestations the Presbyterians came into 
 conflict with the government and were subject to suppres- 
 sion by the government. 
 
 The religious acts intended primarily for the suppression 
 of Papists afforded the legal basis for the prosecution and 
 the Presbyterians protested that " lawes that were purposely 
 
 * Quoted in Madox, Vindication of the Church of England, p. 122. Cf. also, 
 " Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 93; Cartwright, apud Whitgift, 
 Works, vol. I, p. 390; ibid., pp. 27, 377; Zurich Letters, nos. clxxxvii, cxciv. 
 
 ' Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 20. Cf. also, ibid., vol. 1, pp. 21 , 
 79, 82, 105. 
 
Protestant Dissent 171 
 
 made for the wicked, be made snares by you to catch the 
 godly." ^ Until the drastic legislation of 1593, the provision 
 of the act,^ which demanded that all clerics below the dig- 
 nity of bishop should subscribe to "all the articles of reli- 
 gion which only concern the confession of the true Christian 
 faith and the doctrine of the sacraments" comprised in the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, served as the legal basis of restraint 
 upon the nonconformists. The phrase was interpreted by 
 the bishops to mean that by the act subscription was re- 
 quired to all the Articles, those relating to the government 
 as well as those relating to the doctrine of the Church.^ 
 The opponents of the bishops interpreted it as meaning 
 that subscription was required by the act to the articles of 
 religion only. Under the leadership of Whitgift the Church 
 proceeded, by means of the Ecclesiastical Commission and 
 the oath ex officio, to subject the dissenters to great hard- 
 ships. In this course Whitgift had the support of the 
 Queen, although he was impeded sometimes by the oppo- 
 sition of members of her Council. For the most part, how- 
 ever, this unofficial governmental opposition was not 
 exercised because of favor to Presbyterian principles, but 
 because of dislike for the ecclesiastical aggrandizement of 
 the bishops and their harshness. A great deal of the severity 
 shown during this period was due to the personal character 
 of the men in charge of ecclesiastical affairs, men like Whit- 
 gift, Bancroft, and Aylmer, rather than to a consistent 
 regard for the principles of the Establishment. The oppo- 
 sition to their proceedings by Cecil and other men of influ- 
 ence was excited by humanitarian principles, rather than 
 by intellectual or religious sympathy with those who 
 suffered from the proceedings of the bishops. 
 
 1 "An Exhortation to the Byshops to deale Brotherly with theyr brethren," 
 Puritan Manifestoes, p. 67; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 11, Illustrative 
 Documents, p. 2i. 
 
 * 13 Eliz., c. 12. 
 
 ' D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 160, 184; Strype, Whitgift, bk. iii, App., 
 no. xvi. 
 
172 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 Convinced as they have been of the injustice of charges 
 of dislo3^aIty made against the Presbyterians, defenders of 
 that system have usually dismissed the charges as having 
 no other basis than the vindictiveness of the bishops, with 
 their cry of "Disloyal to the Church, Disloyal to the 
 Queen." ^ Without holding a brief for the ecclesiastics, we 
 find more reasonable ground for the prevalence of these 
 charges on the part of both ecclesiastical and secular lead- 
 ers, and for their acceptance by the Queen. Elizabeth was 
 not so subject to the influence of her bishops that she would 
 permit them to impose their merely ecclesiastical hatreds 
 upon her. The men supposed to have the greatest influence 
 upon her personal opinions were not subservient to the 
 bishops nor in sympathy with them ecclesiastically. 
 
 To a man like Cecil, with his high conception of the royal 
 prerogative and power, the ecclesiastical conditions in 
 Scotland were sufficient reason for rejecting Presbyterian- 
 ism. The Presbyterian theory of the relation between 
 Church and State would subordinate the Queen to the 
 clergy. 2 That the advocates of such theories should be sup- 
 pressed and restrained by the Queen was inevitable. She 
 had a high conception of her position and she was deter- 
 mined to maintain It. The statutes of the realm gave her 
 the advantageous position in such a contest; she could 
 legally suppress such variations. But had this not been 
 true, it is certain that she would have used her prerogative 
 in spite of law; interpretation of an ambiguous phrase In the 
 statute of 1 57 1 was by no means the full measure of the 
 lengths she would have gone had it been necessary. Yet 
 there is In her attitude little that suggests religious intoler- 
 ance. Such measures as she took, or were taken at her 
 
 1 Parker Corresp., nos. cccxxv, cccxxvi, cccxxxi, cccxxxui, ccclxix; "Second 
 Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 92; Whitgift, Works, vol. i, pp. 20, 393, 
 423, 466; vol. n, pp. 263, 399; Usher, Reconstruction, vol. I, p. 45, note 2. 
 
 * Zurich Letters, nos. xxxviii, note 3 ; clxxxv ; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. xciv; 
 Hooker, Works, App., no. ii to bk. v of Ecc. Pol.; Cooper, Admonition, p. 86; 
 Parker Corresp., no. Ixii. 
 
Protestant Dissent 173 
 
 direction, have in them nothing of the spirit of religious 
 persecution. EHzabeth was influenced by no rehgious nar- 
 rowness in her treatment of any of the bodies of dissent; 
 poHtical poHcy was the absolutely controlHng motive in 
 her suppression of nonconformity in all its phases. This 
 may seem an extreme statement in view of the measures 
 taken by her ecclesiastical ofificers, evidently at her direc- 
 tion; but the degree of coercive power she placed in their 
 hands was determined by the political necessity she felt 
 for maintaining her supremacy over the ecclesiastical 
 establishment of the realm, not by the positive ecclesias- 
 tical intolerance of spirit which actuated some of the bishops 
 who administered that power. In the case of the Presby- 
 terians, rabid anti-Catholic propaganda, appealing to 
 national sentiments of detestation for the Papacy, threat- 
 ened not only the stately forms and ceremonies which she 
 loved, but, more important still, it endangered that policy 
 of conciliation and moderation toward non-political Cath- 
 olics which she felt compelled to maintain in the face of its 
 unpopularity with some of her closest advisers, and, during 
 the last twenty years of her reign, with a great body of the 
 best educated and most conscientiously loyal of her sub- 
 jects. The extreme, uncompromising attitude of Presby- 
 terianlsm toward all that savored of Catholicism was not 
 to her liking. She preferred the old forms. The Church 
 of England was sufficiently compliant, and there was room 
 in its policy for such winking at Catholicism as secular 
 politics made necessary. Elizabeth was willing to use the 
 radical element as a means of keeping political Catholicism 
 in check, but did not intend that the extremists should so 
 gain the upper hand that loyal and merely religious Cath- 
 olics should be forced into opposition to her. 
 
 Similarly, the exclusive ecclesiastical polity of the Pres- 
 byterians and their mathematical system of theology, 
 which carried with them active condemnation of those Con- 
 tinental churches which were not Genevan in form and 
 
174 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 doctrine, might be supposed to threaten the friendship 
 which she wished to maintain with all forms of Protestant- 
 ism, Lutheran as well as Calvinistic. There is little direct 
 evidence to prove that this aspect of Presbyterianism was 
 given much consideration, but the conclusion that this may 
 have in part influenced the attitude of the Queen, is at 
 least reasonable, in view of her desire to be regarded as the 
 champion of all anti-papal movements. That repression of 
 Presbyterian leaders and thought would alienate their Con- 
 tinental sympathizers, may have in part determined the 
 fact that it was not against Presbyterian dissent that the 
 most severe and persistent repression was directed, but 
 against those types of nonconformity which originated in 
 England itself and were, therefore, not representative of a 
 wing of Continental reform. 
 
 With the assistance of the bishops, Elizabeth was made 
 to feel the full force of any possible arguments that could 
 be urged against the Presbyterians on the score of disloy- 
 alty. Absurd as such charges were from the standpoint of 
 the personal feelings of the representatives of the move- 
 ment, there was, nevertheless, that in their theory and their 
 writings which might easily be interpreted as more disloyal 
 than was mere condemnation of the Established Church. 
 
 NON-PRESBYTERIAN DISSENT 
 
 In regard to the opinion and practice of the nonconform- 
 ing Protestant movements which did not ally themselves 
 with Presbyterianism, and have a different development, 
 and other theories of relationship to the Established Church, 
 to the State, and to the other religious communions, it is 
 difficult to generalize. There developed from the early op- 
 position to the Anglican Establishment a variety of minor 
 movements and sects, other than the Presbyterian. The 
 most important of these, though marked by the widest di- 
 versity, belong to that group of ecclesiastical and religious 
 sects from which the Congregational theory and system of 
 
Protestant Dissent 175 
 
 ecclesiastical organization developed. We include under the 
 genetic name of Congregational the Barrowists, the Brown- 
 ists, the Anabaptists, and with reservations the opinions of 
 Penry, Greenwood, Robinson, and the writer or writers 
 of the Martin "Marprelate Tracts," and individuals who 
 share the essential characteristic of the group, but who are 
 not to be classed definitely with its main divisions. Our 
 interest is not primarily with the minutiae of the ecclesias- 
 tical or religious beliefs of individuals, and it is not neces- 
 sary to regard minor phases of dogma and practice in the 
 opinions of individuals which seem to separate them from 
 the leaders of the Congregational movement. 
 
 The idea at the root of all the somewhat heterogeneous 
 groups of religious opinion thus classified was the idea that 
 the Church should not be an inclusive body whose stand- 
 ards of belief and admission to membership were dictated 
 by state policy.^ Current opinion required that all men 
 belong to the Church ; hence kindliness of heart and of judg- 
 ment required that all men be admitted easily or even com- 
 pelled to enter the ecclesiastical body established by law.^ 
 This opinion the Congregational groups rejected. They 
 would have no easy application of the parable of the wheat 
 and the tares so far as church membership was concerned. 
 Barrow in the Fleet Prison in 1590 wrote: — 
 
 Never hath all kinds of sinne and wickedness more universally 
 raigned in any nation at any time yet all are received into the 
 church, all made members of Christ. All these people with all 
 these manners were in one daye, with the blast of Q. Elizabeth's 
 trumpet of ignorant papistes and grosse idolaters, made faithful 
 Christians and true professors. ^ [The Church of England is com- 
 posed of] all the profane and wicked of the land. Atheists, Pa- 
 pists, Anabaptists, and heretics of all sorts, gluttons, rioters, blas- 
 phemers, purgerers, covetous, extortioners, thieves, whores, 
 
 1 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. ii, pp. 29, 32. 
 
 » Cardwcll, Doc. Annals, vol. i, pp. 321, 383, 387; Strype, Whitgift, vol. in, 
 p. 71. 
 
 » Barrow's examination, printed in Arber, Introd. to Mar prelate Controversy, 
 
 pp. 41-48. 
 
176 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 witches, connivers, etc., and who not, that dwelleth within this 
 land, or is within the Queen's dominions.^ 
 
 Free from the State and all outside control, the local church 
 should be made up of individuals conforming to, and judged 
 worthy by the standards of belief and practice determined 
 upon by a group already accepting and living according to 
 those standards. Browne defined the church as 
 
 The Church planted or gathered in a company or number of 
 Christians or believers, which, by a willing covenant made with 
 their God, are under the government of God and Christ, and keep 
 His laws in one holy communion. The Church government is the 
 lordship of Christ in the communion of His offices, whereby His 
 people obey His will, and have mutual use of their graces and 
 callings to further their godliness and welfare.^ 
 
 Thus their idea of a church was that of a body of spiritu- 
 ally fit persons united for worship together and for com- 
 munion with God. Because the local church thus stood by 
 itself, self-sufhcient and with full authority to create its 
 own machinery of administration, and to formulate its own 
 doctrinal standards, within the ranks of Congregationally 
 organized churches we find great diversity of opinion and 
 practice. 
 
 The standards are usually as narrow religiously as those 
 of Presbyterianism, for the ideal to be reached was absolute 
 truth and holiness of life, and in the pursuit of absolute 
 truth, men of ability or of spiritually earnest zeal, though 
 often unlearned, in that day sought to express their spirit 
 in the statements of dogmatic theology, rather than in the 
 formulation of the broad principles essential to the reli- 
 gious life. They felt that these religious truths might be 
 formulated by the unlearned as well as by the learned and 
 
 * Barrow, Brief Discovery of the false Church, vi, 9. Cf. Whitgift, Works, 
 vol. I, pp. 382, 385; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. in, chap, i, sec. 7; Works, vol. 11, 
 p. 63, note 18. 
 
 * Cf. Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. ll, pp. 60, 139; Hooker, Works, vol. il, 
 p. 63, note 18. 
 
Protestant Dissent 177 
 
 attacked the Presbyterians for emphasis on an educated 
 ministry. 
 
 These Reformists howsoever for fashion sake they give the 
 people a little liberty to sweeten their mouths and make them 
 believe that they should choose their own ministers, yet even in 
 this pretended choice do they cozen and beguile them also, leaving 
 them nothing but the smoky, windy title of election only, enjoin- 
 ing them to choose some university clerk, — one of those college 
 birds of their own brood, — or else comes a synod in the neck of 
 them, and annihilates the election whatsoever it be.^ 
 
 This contempt for the aristocracy of learning and this demo- 
 cratic confidence in the people may have been promoted by 
 the fact that lay readers were employed in the services of 
 the Established Church. Mechanics and artisans took part 
 in, and conducted parts of the services of the State Church, 
 and hence the people saw no great incongruity when men in 
 humble circumstances assumed independent leadership.^ 
 
 Browne, who is usually regarded as the father of Congre- 
 gationalism, had a hard time to find enough men to accept 
 his formulation of rules of faith and practice to make a 
 church, and parted with his congregation in anger because 
 some would not agree to the rules he laid down. It is char- 
 acteristic of the local church principle, however, that each 
 local church recognizes the other churches, whatever their 
 polity. Congregational, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, as 
 true churches of Christ, although Anglicanism and Presby- 
 terianism might be regarded as corrupted by mistakes and 
 condemned for unchristian refusal to practice the principles 
 of religion as the Congregationalist understood them. 
 
 And in the meane tyme (as yt becometh us to iudge) we are 
 perswaded that her Maiestie and many thowsandes of her Sub- 
 iectes (who as yet differ in iudgment amongst themselves and 
 from us in many thinges) are the deare Children of God, and 
 heyres of saluation through faith in Christ Ihesus, etc.^ 
 
 ^ Barrow, quoted in Dexter, Congregationalism, p. 239. 
 2 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 11, p. 29. 
 .' Ibid., p. 69. Cf. also pp. 67, 84, 104. 
 
178 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 _CongregationalIsts make a great deal of the ecclesiastical 
 liberalism of Congregational principles, but neglect the facts 
 of withdrawal upon religious grounds from communion with 
 English and Continental Protestants.^ Religiously Congre- 
 gationalists were more precise and intolerant than either 
 Anglicanism or Presbyterianism, but ecclesiastical narrow- 
 ness and intolerance are foreign to the principles upon which 
 the system of local churches is based. Owing to the narrow- 
 ness of accepted religious principles in almost all of the 
 Congregationalist churches, this ecclesiastical tolerance did 
 not extend to the individual. Churches were regarded as 
 the units and were to be permitted a freedom and looseness 
 of cooperation that appeared anarchistic in Elizabeth's day. 
 Yet, as it was thus more individualistic and democratic, so 
 it was a less effective form of organization than Presby- 
 terianism or Anglicanism. 
 
 Presbyterianism had an orderly sense consonant with its 
 propaganda to establish a particular form of church gov- 
 ernment; it attempted, with a reasonable degree of success, 
 to keep within the letter of the law.^ The groups of Congre- 
 gationalism were not allied to any one form of ecclesiastical 
 organization, strictly speaking, nor indeed to any one form 
 of theological doctrine. They lacked, therefore, the sense 
 of organization cohesiveness. Hooker summed it up in the 
 statement, "Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom 
 in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men 
 would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, 
 but in some wilderness by themselves."^ Congregationalism 
 did not undergo that institutional hardening which made 
 the Presbyterian movement at least capable of under- 
 standing Anglican concern at divergence, and patient to 
 
 ^ Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 11, p. 83; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, App. 
 no. ii, p. 63, note 16; bk. iii, chap, i, sec. 10, p. 224; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, 
 no. Ixii. 
 
 2 Cf. Strype, Whitgift, vol. in, pp. 262, 283, 284; vol. ii, p. 84; Usher, Pres- 
 byterian Movement, pp. 92, 93, 31, 36, 38. 
 
 * Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. i, chap, xvi, sec. 6. 
 
Protestant Dissent 179 
 
 use Intelligent and orderly methods of displacing it. The 
 lack of unity, ecclesiastically and dogmatically, in Congre- 
 gationalism, moreover, prevented the concerted action 
 which Presbyterianism was able to bring to bear in the 
 attack upon the Established Church. 
 
 In spite of the inadequacy of its ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion, or perhaps because of it, the whole group is charac- 
 terized by a religious enthusiasm and intense religious fer- 
 vor that are foreign to the Anglican Church, and in great 
 part to Presbyterianism also. It is this intensity of religious 
 feeling, as distinct from intellectual conviction of the truth 
 of theological dogma, rather than the championship of their 
 own Congregational polity, that lies at the basis of their 
 condemnation of others. Toward Catholics this antagonism 
 goes to great lengths. The expressions of denunciation and 
 invective reach a heat even more fervid than that of the 
 most enthusiastic Presbyterian. "That most dreadful! 
 Religion of Antichrist, the great enemye of the Lord Ihesus, 
 and the most pestilent adversary of the thrones of kinges 
 and Princes"^ was so much an object of horror that lan- 
 guage seemed to fail to express the depth of their abhorrence. 
 Here, too, lay essentially the cause of their denunciation 
 of the Anglican Church. Although their attacks, like the 
 attacks of Presbyterians, are directed against the cere- 
 monies, the government, the officials, the courts, and the 
 abuses of the Church, there is in their polemic a note of 
 burning zeal that sometimes almost reaches the height and 
 earnestness of the most fierce denunciations of the prophets 
 of Israel. 
 
 This emotional intensity is interesting. It is the very 
 stuff from which religious intolerance is made. Curiously 
 enough, and unusual in the history of religion, it is a ferv^or, 
 however, which is essentially liberal and tolerant as com- 
 pared with contemporary religious opinion. 
 
 1 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. II, p. 82 ; Waddington, Penry, pp. 113, 1 14. 
 Cf., however, the language of the Second Scotch Confession of 1580 (Schaflf, 
 Credo iii, pp. 480 et seq.). Luther too went pretty far in this way. 
 
i8o Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 ... It is to no purpose that her Maiesties subiectes should be- 
 stowe their tyme in learning, in the study and medytation of the 
 word, in reading the wrytinges and doinges of learned men and 
 of the holy Martyrs that have bene in former ages, especyally 
 the wrytinges published by her Maiesties authorytie, yf they 
 may not without danger professe and hold those truthes which 
 they learne out of them, and that in such sort, as they are able to 
 convince all the world that will stand against them, by no other 
 weapons then by the word of God. . . . Imprysonment, yndyte- 
 mentes arraignmentes yea death yt selfe, are no meet weapons 
 to convince the conscyence grounded upon the word of the Lord, 
 accompanied with so many testimonies of his famous seruantes 
 and Churches.^ 
 
 Whether one agrees with the religious opinions of Browne, 
 or indeed with Christianity itself, one must recognize an 
 earnestness here, even in their anger against other forms 
 of their religion, which is comparable to the anger of their 
 Master against the scribes and Pharisees. The spirit of 
 Christ's "Woe unto ye scribes and Pharisees" was in the 
 utterances of those Congregationalists, who denounced their 
 fellow Christians as He denounced his fellow Jews for the 
 abandonment of the true principles of religion, truth, and 
 uprightness, and substituted rites and ceremonies and the 
 incidents and unessentials of organization. It is sometimes 
 difficult to tell whether Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, and 
 even Catholicism were most concerned about diversity from 
 the truths which they believed religiously essential or about 
 diversity from their particular form of worship. Congrega- 
 tionalism was intolerant of such substitution of form and 
 ritual for the truths of the religion of Jesus Christ as they 
 saw them. Because this was true, the attacks of Congrega- 
 tionalists were directed against the ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion of Anglicanism, and against the connection between 
 the State and the Church which had established and main- 
 tained the Anglican organization; and the grounds of that 
 attack were religious, not merely ecclesiastical, as some 
 
 1 Penny's "Confession and Apology," Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. ii, 
 p. 87. 
 
Protestant Dissent i8i 
 
 writers maintain. Congregationalism was not fighting 
 essentially for the creation of a new form of ecclesiastical 
 organization. Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism as we 
 know them in the United States would not have been exter- 
 minated by Congregationalists, nor would Catholicism it- 
 self, except as it claims to be the only agent of salvation 
 upon earth. Their tolerance, however, did not extend to 
 the permission of life and the protection of the State for the 
 agnostic and the atheist, or those who denied such essential 
 elements of the Christian faith as the Triune character of 
 the Godhead and the everlasting damnation of sinful men. 
 Their zeal made them more intolerant of such crimes against 
 traditional Christianity than was Anglicanism, for their 
 religious feeling was of primary importance and had not 
 sunk into the background of an ecclesiastical system. 
 
 Congregationalists were chiefly subject to condemnation 
 by the government, the Establishment, and the Presby- 
 terians because they attacked the current theory that gov- 
 ernmental unity was dependent upon ecclesiastical and 
 religious unity. This position necessarily undermined the 
 favorite doctrine of the age in regard to the headship of the 
 sovereign over the Church.^ Such tenets were, to the minds 
 of the average Elizabethan Englishmen who occupied posi- 
 tions of trust in Church and State, utterly irreconcilable 
 with political loyalty to the Queen and to the nation. Prot- 
 estations of submission and loyalty ^ could not convince 
 them. Further, the Congregational system of church organ- 
 ization was essentially democratic and brought Congrega- 
 tionalists in for a persecution more relentless than that 
 directed against the followers of Cartwright ; ^ monarchical 
 and aristocratic antagonism to democratic sentiments re- 
 garded them as more dangerous. The development of an 
 
 1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. viii, chap, r, sec. 2; Parker Corresp., no ccl; Bur- 
 rage, English Dissenters, vol. I, p. loi; vol. 11, pp. 28, 63, 64, 78. 
 
 * Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 11, pp. 78, 79. 
 
 8 Elias Thacher and John Copping were hanged in 1583 for "dispersinge of 
 Browne's bookes." 
 
1 82 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 economic and intellectual aristocracy, interested in for- 
 warding social and economic movements antagonistic to 
 its own supremacy, is a matter of comparatively recent 
 growth. In Elizabeth's day and for long after, religious 
 and secular aristocrats were opposed on grounds of eco- 
 nomic interest to all movements which looked to the pop- 
 ulace for the creation of a church. 
 
 A second fault is in their manner of complaining, not only be- 
 cause it is for the most part in bitter and reproachful terms, but 
 also because it is unto the common people, judges incompetent 
 and insufficient, both to determine anything amiss for want of 
 skill and authority to amend it.^ 
 
 Congregationalism could hope to win from the powers of 
 the realm no such freedom of worship as was granted to the 
 foreign congregations in London and elsewhere, ^ for Con- 
 gregationalists were not so important commercially, indus- 
 trially, and politically as were these refugees;^ and could 
 not, it was thought, safely be allowed exemption from laws 
 binding on all Englishmen. 
 
 1 Cranmer's letter to Hooker, Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, App., no. ii, p. 65; 
 cf. Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 467. 
 
 2 S. P., Dam., Eliz., vol. xxiii, no. 67; Parker Corresp., nos. cxli, cxcvi, and 
 note i, ccxlv, ccxlvii, cccxxii; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. ll, p. 118. 
 
 3 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. i, p. 118. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth is not altogether an encouraging 
 field to the idealist seeking in the past for the first rays of 
 the light of tolerance. Catholics were fined, imprisoned, ' 
 suffered death/ Protestants who refused to accept the ex- 
 isting regime endured hardships no less severe. Govern- 
 ment compelled adherence to its own Church and that 
 Church stood for no great principle of religious freedom. 
 In the realm of religion no commanding personality stands 
 as the leader or the embodiment of his age; still less as a 
 beacon light to the thought of succeeding ages. Two ecclesi- 
 astics alone, Fox and Hooker, are known to-day outside the 
 halls of theological learning: the one as the author of a work 
 which has perpetuated religious and theological bitterness 
 founded upon falsehood and bigotry; the other remembered 
 for the literary style of his prose, but for no great contribu- 
 tion to religious thought or feeling. No single voice was 
 raised to free the minds of men from the restraints of theo- 
 logical and ecclesiastical dogma. The sovereign herself 
 stood for no heroic principle of power or right. Her vices 
 even were not impressive. Her genius for deceit gave her a 
 certain distinction even in a Christendom skilled in lying; 
 but Elizabeth's accomplishments were so petty in positive 
 statesmanship demanding bold imagination and vision as 
 to excite no wonder by their courage and audacity. No 
 statesman under her formulated a bold and striking na- 
 tional religious policy which left his name impressed upon 
 the institutions of his creation. Bickerings hardly worthy 
 the name of religious struggles ; an expedient policy so ab- 
 ject as almost to deny the existence of principle; repression 
 without the excuse of a burning faith in an abstract ideal ; 
 
1 84 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 these are the superficial characteristics of the age. Yet the 
 importance of the Elizabethan age in the history of tolera- 
 tion stands upon a sure foundation. 
 
 When Elizabeth ascended the throne of England more 
 than a generation had passed since Luther had stirred the 
 souls of men by his proclamation of revolt. His call to arms 
 as it echoed over Europe had roused men of all nations to 
 range themselves in fighting mood upon one side or the 
 other. Religious enthusiasm, national feeling, a new vision 
 of moral and intellectual life had stirred Catholicism and 
 Protestantism alike to the very depths. No longer were 
 ideas and ideals to be passively received and held; they 
 became banners to lead armies by, the standards for which 
 men joyfully flung away their strength. Hatred, unreason- 
 ing and unreasonable, obscured high purpose and lofty aim; 
 in the name of religious faith both sides descended to unex- 
 plored depths of savagery and cruelty. But such sacrifice 
 could not continue. Here and there in Europe evidences of 
 returning sanity were seen. Vicious combat brought desire 
 for peace, and the realization that ultimately an adjustment 
 of its religious quarrels must be made if European civiliza- 
 tion was to endure manifested itself in the first vague grop- 
 ings for some basis of settlement. In Germany a certain 
 basis of toleration in a small territorial setting was offered 
 by the Peace of Augsburg. In France the wisdom of L'Hopi- 
 tal attempted to secure an adjustment upon humane prin- 
 ciples only to be defeated by the militarist elements which 
 broke down the first slight barriers of moderation and left 
 us the memory of St. Bartholomew's Eve. In England the 
 same groping took form in a policy which may appear petty, 
 but which, at least in the maturing consciousness of the 
 national State, created a national Church. The pettiness 
 of England's compromising religious policy may be for- 
 gotten and forgiven in the wider significance which that 
 policy has as one phase of a general European adjustment. 
 
 That the withdrawal of England from the jurisdiction of 
 
Conclusion 185 
 
 the Papal See afforded no occasion for dramatic declaration 
 of principles makes no less important, in the history of reli- 
 gious toleration, the character of that withdrawal and the 
 attempted adjustment of the religious questions of the age. 
 It is true that the history of intolerance as well as the his- 
 tory of tolerance during the reign of Elizabeth is largely the 
 story of the problems raised by the Catholic question. It is 
 true that all the elements in the English religious situation 
 reflect in their spirit the fact of the Catholic presence. But 
 the fundamental fact that rises above all confusing issues is 
 the unmistakable one that the government formulated and 
 proclaimed a policy designed to meet the dangers of papal 
 politics, not by more persecution but by less. 
 
 Primarily the complexities and difficulties of the political 
 situation at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign defined the 
 nature and extent of governmental toleration. The Queen 
 and her officials plainly declared, and their actions backed 
 up the declaration, that the consciences of men should not 
 be violated by interference with their purely religious be- 
 liefs so long as conscience was not made the shield and ex- 
 cuse for opinions so depraved as to involve the Queen's 
 subjects in acts of open violence against the State. Such 
 was the degree of toleration made possible by the patriotism 
 and the religious indifference of the nation and by the per- 
 sonal character and convictions of the nation's leaders. 
 The association of English Catholics with the ambitions of 
 Mary Stuart, with the schemes of Philip of Spain, the ac- 
 tivity of Jesuits upon the Continent and in England aroused 
 in the nation and in many of its leaders a sense of danger 
 and a strong enmity which threatened this policy. Presby- 
 terianism advocated the extermination of all who adhered 
 to the Roman Catholic faith, and although itself subject 
 to governmental restraint, added strength to that element 
 in the kingdom which upon other grounds opposed the 
 lenient attitude toward the most active religious enemies 
 of the Queen and the nation. Anglicanism also, to a lesser 
 
1 86 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 degree, as it developed an independent ecclesiastical con- 
 sciousness sometimes displayed a desire to force Catholics 
 into the fold of the English Establishment more insistent 
 than was compatible with the purposes of the Queen and 
 her councillors. The aggressive measures of the papacy com- 
 pelled the abandonment in part of the liberality at first 
 proclaimed and maintained. Yet the incentives to more 
 drastic measures, whether from Catholic excess and treason 
 or from Protestant prejudice, were never so powerful as to 
 force the government to substitute for the policy it had at 
 first assumed a policy of Catholic extermination. 
 
 The fundamental defect in carrying out the government's 
 policy of toleration, however, was not the opposition of the 
 Catholics, not the activity of the Presbyterians, not the 
 ambitions of Anglicans, but the retention of a state ecclesi- 
 astical establishment and the idea that ecclesiastical unity 
 was essential to political unity. It was upon this basis that 
 the adjustment proposed by the Elizabethan government 
 rested and it was foredoomed to ultimate failure. The con- 
 formity of all men to one ecclesiastical organization, how- 
 ever liberal its doctrinal standards and however formal the 
 degree of conformity demanded, implies a simplicity or a 
 hypocrisy of which men are not so universally guilty. Cer- 
 tainly such a programme could not succeed in an age that 
 had developed two forces so antagonistic as Catholicism 
 and Protestantism. But that the government should have 
 abandoned the accepted belief of the times and permitted 
 complete freedom of worship by no means follows. The 
 religious forces with which it had to deal were themselves 
 too intolerant to enjoy freedom or to employ it intelli- 
 gently. Freedom would have defeated its own ends; free- 
 dom would have brought religious strife utterly beyond the 
 control of the forces of order. Modern tolerance may regret 
 the failure of the Elizabethan attempt, it may clearly recog- 
 nize the causes of that failure, but only fanatical love of an 
 ideal not yet universally understood in our own time will 
 
Conclusion 187 
 
 refuse to do homage to the measure of success which, with 
 the material at its disposal, Elizabethan England was able 
 to attain. 
 
 Elizabethan ecclesiastical and religious bodies reacted to 
 the Catholic danger and to the governmental policy, but the 
 attitude of all toward the spirit of tolerance was also de- 
 termined by their reactions upon one another and by char- 
 acteristics peculiar to themselves. 
 
 The Elizabethan Establishment was the work of men 
 temperamentally opposed to extreme theories of church 
 government and was from policy fundamentally tolerant 
 as well as inclusive. The doctrinal standards which were 
 set up and the form of the organization itself were such 
 as would imply the least strain upon the consciences and 
 prejudices of the Englishmen whose formal allegiance to 
 its Establishment the government demanded. The polit- 
 ical purposes of the Establishment were clear and the 
 function of allegiance to the Church as a test of loyalty to 
 the Crown most evident. Conformity at the first to most 
 of Elizabeth's subjects meant little more than this, but as 
 Catholic opposition became more uncompromising and as 
 Protestant discontent with the religious and ecclesiastical 
 features of the State Establishment became more pro- 
 nounced and clear-cut, Anglicanism developed an ecclesi- 
 astical consciousness of its own worth and excellence in 
 only a minor degree dependent upon its position as an arm 
 of secular politics. The vigorous attack of Presbyterianism 
 upon the Establishment aroused it to defense of itself, not 
 by appeal to its political and national functions alone, but 
 also by championship of the desirability of the Episcopalian 
 organization for its own sake. More radical Protestantism, 
 both in England and upon the Continent, was regarded 
 with less brotherly warmth, and arrangements which had 
 at first been borne as mere expedients became the objects 
 of earnest defense. 
 
 Presbyterianism, which was the most persistent and 
 
1 88 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 irritating Protestant enemy Anglicans liad to face, presented 
 in Elizabeth's reign few aspects of tolerant spirit. Its lack 
 of power and the necessity, imposed upon it by its weak- 
 ness, of assuming the postures of petition, were responsible 
 for whatever evidence of Presbyterian tolerance .may be 
 discovered. The insistence upon a New Testament ecclesi- 
 astical polity and the importance given by Presbyterianism 
 to the form of the ecclesiastical organization as a part of 
 the gospel were more mediaeval in tendency than was the 
 retention by Anglicanism and by the government of the 
 idea of national conformity to a state ecclesiastical estab- 
 lishment. Further, the close connection of the Presbyterian 
 form of organization with the cold and precise theology 
 of Calvin made Presbyterianism dogmatically, as well as 
 ecclesiastically, intolerant of all other forms of the Chris- 
 tian religion. Anglicanism developed its own peculiar 
 ecclesiastical organization and doctrinal standards and 
 built into them a spirit that has at all events the virtues 
 of humanness and practicality. English Presbyterianism 
 adopted ready-made a system of church government and 
 the carefully articulated process of reasoning or argument 
 upon which that system rested. It adopted, too, the most 
 consistent and mathematically exact system of theology 
 that Christianity has developed, — Calvinism entire as it 
 was laid down by its creator. Presbyterianism was thus 
 furnished with an ecclesiastical and dogmatic pattern to 
 which it insisted that all organized Christianity must con- 
 form. All its direct influence was toward greater intoler- 
 ance. 
 
 Of the ecclesiastical and religious movements developed 
 during the reign of Elizabeth, the one which contained most 
 possibilities of adjustment to modern ways of thinking was 
 the Congregationalist, but it was of least influence upon 
 Elizabethan thought and action, and in her reign developed 
 little beyond the initial stages. The group was religiously 
 and moi;alIy fired by intense earnestness and inspired to 
 
Conclusion 189 
 
 righteous indignation and intolerance of the abuses and 
 shame of scholastic Protestant ecclesiasticism. It proposed 
 to destroy the strongest bulwark of national and ecclesi- 
 astical intolerance, the connection between Church and 
 State, but, except as a forerunner and a source of later 
 development, the Congregationalists are of no importance 
 for the history of tolerance in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Political considerations caused the formulation and pro- 
 mulgation of the one definite theory of religious toleration 
 that the reign of Elizabeth offers us, and political causes 
 also prevented the theory being carried to its logical con- 
 clusion, but the success of Elizabethan politics, our judg- 
 ment of the character of Elizabethan policy, is not to be 
 determined by its religious effects alone. Whatever the 
 success or failure of the attempt at religious adjustment the 
 policy which dealt with the religious situation dealt also 
 with greater things. It was in the days of Elizabeth that 
 the England of to-day was taking shape in commerce, in 
 literature, in national policy. Labor was being faced as a 
 national problem, the theories and the practice of finance 
 were becoming modern, England was entering upon its 
 period of commercial expansion. In response to this new 
 wealth and enlarged outlook England was reveling in the 
 creations of a released and profane imagination. Govern- 
 mental policy not only for the time freed England from the 
 more savage manifestations of religious hatreds and thus 
 released her energies for development along these lines, but 
 the religious aspects of governmental policy also directly 
 contributed to that development by giving to the nation a 
 great church in which centered much of high national pride. 
 
 Society transforms Itself slowly, Irrationally, with curious 
 inconsistencies. Social groups form alliances and antago- 
 nisms rationally impossible. Tolerance and intolerance exist 
 side by side. Tolerance In Elizabeth's reign did not in the- 
 ory keep pace with national economic, literary, and patriotic 
 
190 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth 
 
 development. The reign had weakened but not cast off the 
 hold of Roman Catholicism upon the nation. Anglicanism 
 had become a great national force with a strong hold upon 
 the affections of Englishmen. Presbyterianism had formed 
 a compact ecclesiastical group. A few, ill-organized cham- 
 pions of church freedom and religious liberalism had begun 
 to make their voices heard in the land. Greater bitterness 
 and more savage quarrels would interfere with the free 
 development of the national spirit, but already was visible 
 the ultimate triumph of that sounder principle of national 
 unity which recognized the element of variety in a har- 
 monious whole — a principle which only the modern world 
 has realized. In this field, therefore, as in others, the age of 
 Elizabeth is the threshold to our own. 
 
 THE end 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 
 
 Two purposes have controlled the preparation of this biblio- 
 graphical appendix: the wish to lighten the foot notes, and the 
 desire to provide a bibliography that may prove useful to other 
 American students. Completeness is impossible; rigid selection 
 would have excluded many works here mentioned. The mention 
 of less reliable works with critical comments will perhaps assist 
 American students who are venturing into this field. The atten- 
 tion given to pre-Elizabethan and general works is necessary to 
 a preliminary understanding of the topic and period. In this por- 
 tion of the bibliography many omissions would be serious were 
 the purpose other than that of providing introductory material 
 for the study of Elizabethan ecclesiastical and religious history. 
 
 The manuscripts of the period of Elizabeth are, of course, not 
 available in America ; but the American student who has an oppor- 
 tunity to spend some time in England will find great collections 
 opened to him and every facility for work offered at the Public 
 Record Office, the British Museum, and the Lambeth Palace 
 Library. For the student who is familiar with considerable detail 
 of the reign of Elizabeth the best introduction to the manuscripts 
 is undoubtedly the collection of State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, 
 in the Public Record Office. These are conveniently bound and 
 represent every phase of the Elizabethan age, so that the student 
 who intends to specialize in this field will be abundantly repaid 
 by reading the whole series. Other series of papers have been 
 arranged and catalogued or calendared so that their use presents 
 few difficulties to the beginner. Unfortunately, how^ever, great 
 masses of manuscript material exist, particularly those under the 
 control of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, which have never 
 been prepared for use and are, furthermore, not opened under 
 ordinary circumstances to examination by foreign students. 
 
 Many great collections of printed sources are available in 
 American university libraries. For such material consult, E. C. 
 Richardson, Union List of Collections on European History in 
 American Libraries (Princeton 1912; Supplement: Copies Added 
 1912-1915, ibid., 1915; A. H. Shearer, Alphabetical Subject Index, 
 ibid., 1915). 
 
 The Calendar of the State Papers, Domestic, for the reign of 
 
194 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 Elizabeth has been published by the Government and may be 
 found in several of the larger American libraries. For the student 
 without access to the documents themselves the calendars serve 
 as a very fair substitute, although the Domestic Calendar for^the 
 earlier years of Elizabeth's reign is too summary in character to 
 be entirely satisfactory. The later volumes are much more com- 
 plete. The Foreign Calendar, the Venetian Calendar, the Calendar 
 of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs preserved in 
 the Archives of Simancas, and the Calendar of the Carew Papers 
 assist in making access to the documents themselves less impera- 
 tive. The Statutes of the Realme (printed by command of His 
 Majesty King George the III, 1819) is, of course, essential to 
 any study of English history. Simonds D'Ewes, Journals of all 
 the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the 
 House of Lords and House of Commons, revised and published by 
 Paul Bowes (London, 1682), is necessary for the study of Parlia- 
 mentary history during the reign. Tudor and Stuart Proclama- 
 tions, 1485-1714, calendared and described by Robert Steele, under 
 the direction of the Earl of Crawford (vol. i, England, vol. 11, Scot- 
 land and Ireland, Oxford, 1909), is a work required constantly for 
 that phase of Elizabethan administration, and makes access to 
 H. Dyson, Queene Elizabeth's Proclamations (1618), less impor- 
 tant. J. R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council of England (New 
 Series), throws much light on many topics and is essential for an 
 understanding of the activity and importance of the Council in 
 Elizabethan government. In the Reports from Commissioners, 
 Inspectors and Others (35 vols. , London), the MSS. of the Duke of 
 Rutland comprise four volumes and contain much of interest and 
 importance. Thos. Rymer, Foedera conventiones literae et cujusgue 
 generis acta publica (20 vols., London, 1726-35), is indispensable. 
 Other collections of first-rate importance are Spencer Hall, 
 Documents from Simancas relating to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 (London, 1865); P. Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions 
 in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2 vols., London, 1740-41); State 
 Papers of Sir Ralph Sadler (ed. Clifford, Edinburgh, 1809); Sir 
 Henry Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History. 
 
 Several smaller but very useful collections should be found in 
 every college library. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitu- 
 tional Documents (Oxford, 1898); A. F. Pollard, Tudor Tracts, 
 1532-1^88 (An English Garner, Westminster, 1903); Pocock, 
 Records of the Reformation (2 vols., Oxford, 1870). 
 
 Printed letters, papers, and writings of Elizabethan statesmen 
 available are, W. Murdin, Burghley State Papers (London, 1759) ; 
 Samuel Haynes, Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 195 
 
 the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary 
 and Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1542 to i^yo ; transcribed from 
 the original letters left by Wm. Cecil, Lord Burghley (London, 1740) ; 
 The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Including all his Occa- 
 sional Works (ed. Spedding, 7 vols., London, 1861-74). 
 
 Biographical works sometimes quote largely from the sources, 
 but are usually of little assistance to the historical student be- 
 cause of inaccuracy of quotation and the tendency to make a hero 
 of the subject of study. Further, biographies are often written 
 without a clear understanding of the age, and tend, therefore, to 
 produce distorted estimates. These defects are more usually 
 found in the older books. Edward Nares, Memoirs of the Life and 
 Administration of the Right Honourable, Wm. Cecil, Lord Burghley 
 (3 vols., London, 1828-31), is, forinstance, almost useless. M.A.S. 
 Hume, The Great Lord Burghley ; A Study of Elizabethan State- 
 craft (New York, 1898), on the other hand, is the work of a mod- 
 ern\ scholar thoroughly familiar with the sources for the whole 
 rei^ of Elizabeth. Of similar importance is Karl Stahlin, Sir 
 Fra\icis Walsingham und seine Zeit (Heidelberg, 1908). 
 
 Of the great biographical collections the Dictionary of National 
 Biography is indispensable as a guide, but will, for the special 
 student, serve as little else, for its summary character gives it 
 rather more than its full measure of the disadvantages of all 
 biographical material. Such collections as Arthur L Dasent, 
 Speakers of the House of Commons (London and New York, 191 1) ; 
 John Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of 
 the Great Seal of England (10 vols., London, 1868); E. Foss, A 
 Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England (9 vols., London, 
 1848-64), may sometimes prove helpful if used intelligently. 
 
 For English constitutional and legal history the classical his- 
 tories remain useful, although extreme caution should be exer- 
 cised, for statements of fact are often wrong and theories anti- 
 quated. Henry Hallam, The Constitutional History of England 
 from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II with a 
 continuation from George III to i860, by Thos. Erskine May (5 
 vols., New York and Boston, 1865), is a convenient edition of this 
 old work. Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead, English Constitu- 
 tional History from the Teutonic Conquest to the Present Time (5th 
 ed., revised by Philip A. Ashworth, London and Boston, 1896), 
 should be checked by other histories and special articles. The 
 only contemporary account of the English Constitution is that of 
 Sir T. Smith, De Republica Anglorum (London, 1583). Sir W. 
 Stanford, Exposition of the King's Prerogative (London, 1567), is 
 well worth examining. 
 
196 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 Of the histories of the English law, W. S. Holdsworth, A His- 
 tory of English Law (vol. i, London, 1903), is the most readable. 
 J. Fitzjames Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England 
 (3 vols., London, 1883), is not entirely satisfactory, but has its 
 uses. Sir Edward Coke, Institutes (many editions, the one used 
 was that of London, 1809), and Sir William Blackstone, Com- 
 mentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books (ed. by Thos. M. 
 Cooley, 2d ed., 2 vols., Chicago, 1876), are necessary works. 
 James Dyer, Reports of Cases (London, 1794), presents much of 
 value. The student of the working of the law will also find much 
 of interest in The Middlesex County Records, vol. i. Indictments, 
 Coroners Inquests, Post-mortem and Recognizances from 3rd 
 Edward VI to the end of the Reign of Elizabeth (ed. John Cordy 
 Jefferson, published by the Middlesex County Records Society). 
 Miscellaneous special works and articles of use are D'Jardine, 
 Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England 
 previously to the Commonwealth (a pamphlet; London, 1837); 
 Crompton, L'Office et authorite de Justices de Peace (ed. 1583); 
 George Burton Adams, "The Descendants of the Curia Regis" 
 (American Historical Review, vol. xiii, no. i); Dicey, The Privy 
 Council (Oxford, i860); Conyers Read, "Walsingham and Burgh- 
 ley in Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council" {English Historical Re- 
 view, vol. xxviii, p. 42); Record Commission Publications, vols. 
 l-iii: Cases before the Star Chamber in the Reign of Elizabeth ; C. A. 
 Beard, The Office of Justice of Peace in England (New York, 1904). 
 
 For ecclesiastical law and administration the classic is probably 
 Sir Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of 
 England (2d edition by his son W. G. F. Phillimore, 2 vols., 
 London, 1895). Felix Makower, The Constitutional History and 
 Constitution of the Church of England (trans. London, 1895), is the 
 only work covering that field, but it is inadequate in many re- 
 spects. Richard Burn, The Ecclesiastical Law (8th ed. by R. P. 
 Tyrwhitt, 4 vols., London, 1824), is an old work, but for the stu- 
 dent of the Tudor period, not a specialist in the ecclesiastical law, 
 forms a convenient book of reference for terms and processes. Of 
 primary importance is the Report of the Royal Commission on 
 Ecclesiastical Courts (London, 1883, 2 vols.). G. C. Brodrick and 
 W. H. Freeman tie. Collections of Judgments of the Judicial Com- 
 mittee of the Privy Council in Ecclesiastical Cases relating to Doc- 
 trine and Discipline (London, 1865), contains much historical 
 material of value in the introduction, although written in defense 
 of a particular theory. W. F. Finlason, The History, Constitution 
 and Character of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Con- 
 sidered as a Judicial Tribunal; Especially in Ecclesiastical Cases 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 197 
 
 (London, 187-), is representative of a type of partisan discus- 
 sion. 
 
 For the study of Parliament several works of varying degrees 
 of excellence exist. The old Parliamentary History of England, 
 from the earliest period to the year 1803 (36 vols., London, 1806-20, 
 vols. 2-12; William Cobbett's Parliamentary History from the 
 Norman Conquest to the year 1803) will not prove inviting to the 
 modern student. Edward and Annie G. Porritt, The Unreformed 
 House of Commons, Parliamentary Representation before 1832 
 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1903), is a modern work that should not be 
 neglected. C. G. Bayne, "The First House of Commons of Queen 
 Elizabeth" {English Historical Review, vol. xxiii, pp. 455-76; 643- 
 82), is a special study of an interesting Parliament. 
 
 For the Council and administration, besides works already 
 mentioned, special studies should be consulted, such as Conyers 
 Read, "Factions in the English Privy Council under Elizabeth" 
 {American Historical Association Annual Report, 191 1, vol. i, 
 pp. 109-20), for a brief summary. Other articles will be found in 
 the English Historical Review. Charles A. Coulomb, The Admin- 
 istration of the English Borders during the Reign of Elizabeth (Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania Series), deals with one of the most inter- 
 esting phases of administration. 
 
 The political histories of the Tudors are legion, and because of 
 the political character of ecclesiastical and religious history dur- 
 ing the period, they treat that phase in considerable detail. A. F. 
 YoWdLvd, Political History of England from Edward VI to the Death 
 of Elizabeth (sixth volume in the series. Political History of Eng- 
 land, edited by W. Hunt and R. L. Poole), is one of the best 
 more recent introductions. The opinions and interpretations 
 offered by J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey 
 to the Death of Elizabeth (12 vols., 1863-66), should not be accepted 
 as authoritative, but his work remains the best detailed account 
 covering the whole period. Green, History of England (many edi- 
 tions), is interesting reading. Some works covering sections of the 
 Tudor period are more useful than the general works. E. P. 
 Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to 
 the Death of Elizabeth (vol. i. New York, 1913), deals with a period 
 somewhat neglected by historians and will do much to correct 
 the current impression that Elizabethan history ended with the 
 defeat of the Armada. 
 
 For Henry, Edward, and Mary the following are of first-rate 
 importance: Moberly, The Early Tudors (Epoch Scries); Pollard, 
 Henry VIII (London, 1902); J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII, 
 from his A ccession to the Death of Wolsey (ed. by J . Gairdner, 2 vols., 
 
198 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 London, 1884); A. DuBoys, Catherine d'Aragon et les Origines du 
 Schismc Anglican (Geneva, 1880, trans, by C. M. Yonge, 2 vols., 
 London, 1881); N. Harpsfield, Treatise of the Pretended Divorce 
 between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon (ed. N. Pocock, 
 Camden Society, 1878); Paul ¥v\e6.r[iQ.n,AnneBoleyn,a Chapter of 
 English History, 1527-1536 (2 vols., London, 1884); Literary 
 Remains of Edward VI (Roxburghe Club, ed. J. G. Nichols, 2 
 vols., London, 1857); Sir J. Hayward, Life and Reign of Edward 
 VI (London, 1630) ; P. F, Tytler, England in the Reigns of Edward 
 VI and Mary (2 vols., London, 1839) ; Chronicle of Queen Jane and 
 Queen Mary (Camden Society, London, 1850); J. M. Stone, The 
 History of Mary I, Queen of England, as found in the Public 
 Records, Despatches of Ambassadors, in Original Private Letters, 
 and Other Contemporary Documents (New York and London, 
 1901); Zimmerman, Maria die Katholische (Freiburg, 1891); 
 Friedman, "New Facts in the History of Mary, Queen of Eng- 
 land" (Macmillan's Magazine, vol. xix, pp. 1-12). 
 
 For English life and thought during the reign of Elizabeth: 
 Rye, England as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and 
 James (1865); E. P. Cheyney, Social Changes in England in the 
 i6th Century (Philadelphia, 1895); Mandell Creighton, The Age 
 of Elizabeth (Epochs of Modern History, New York, 1884) ; H. D. 
 Traill, Social England (vol. iii. New York and London, 1895): 
 Harrison, Elizabethan England (Camelot Series); Hubert Hall, 
 Society in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1886), an excellent correc- 
 tive for poetic views; Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft 
 in England from 1558-1718 (American Historical Association, 
 Washington, 191 1), a remarkable study; Payne, Voyages of 
 Elizabethan Seamen (First Series, Oxford, 1893); Saintsbury, 
 Elizabethan Literature; J. W. Burgon, Life and Times of Sir 
 Thomas Gresham (2 vols., London, 1839). 
 
 For economic history: W. J. Ashley, Introduction to English 
 Economic History (London, 1892); W. Cunningham, The Growth 
 of English Industry and Commerce; David D. Macpherson, An- 
 nals of Commerce (4 vols., London, 1805); J. E. T. Rogers, The 
 History of Agriculture and Prices (vol. iv, Oxford, 1882); W. A. 
 Shaw, History of Currency (London, 1895); R. Ruding, Annals 
 of the Coinage (3d ed. by Aherman, 3 vols., London, 1840); 
 S. Dowell, History of Taxation (2d ed., 4 vols., London, 1888). 
 
 For the life of Elizabeth: Frank A. Mumby, The Girlhood of 
 Queen Elizabeth told in Contemporary Letters (New York, 1909); 
 Wiesener, The Youth of Elizabeth, 1 533-1558 (English trans., 2 
 vols., London, 1879); M. A. S. Hume, The Courtships of Queen 
 Elizabeth (New York, 1896, London, 1898); William Camden, 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 199' 
 
 The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess, Eliza- 
 beth, etc. (London, 1675); J. Stow, Annates, continued to the End 
 of 1631 by E. Howes (London, 1631); E. S. Beesly, Queen Eliza- 
 beth (London and New York, 1892; Twelve English Statesmen); 
 Mandell Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (New York and London, 
 1900); Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, a series 
 of letters of distinguished persons of the Period (London, 1838); 
 Collins, Queen Elizabeth's Defence. 
 
 For the European situation: Arthur Henry Johnson, Europe 
 in the i6th Century, 14Q4-1S98 (Periods of European History, 
 London, 1900); M. Philippson, Westeuropa im Zeitalter von 
 Philipp II, Elisabeth u. Heinrich IV (Onckcn Series, Berlin, 
 1882); Henri Forneron, Les dues de Guise et leur epoque (2 vols., 
 Paris, 1877); and by the same author, Histoire de Philippe II 
 (2 vols., Paris, 1881-82); J. W. Thompson, The Wars of Religion 
 in France, 1559-1576. The Huguenots. Catherine de Medic, and 
 Philip II (Chicago, 1909). Cf. also M. A. S. Hume, Philip II of 
 Spain (Foreign Statesmen, ed. by J. B. Bury, London, 1897); 
 State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (ed. by 
 J. K. Laughton, vol. i, 1894, Navy Record Society Pub.). 
 
 For Scotland and Alary Stuart: David Calderwood, The His- 
 tory of the Kirk of Scotland (ed. by Thomas Thomson, vols, i-vi, 
 Edinburgh, 1842-45), one of the older histories of considerable 
 importance. J. Spottiswoode, History of the Church and State of 
 Scotland (Spottiswoode Society, Edinburgh, 1851; ist edition, 
 London, 1655); Thomas Wright, History of Scotland (3 vols., 
 London and New York, 1856); Peter Hume Brown, History of 
 Scotland (Cambridge Historical Series, ed. G. W. Prothero, 3 
 vols., Cambridge, 1899-1909); Mathieson, Politics and Religion, 
 a Study of Scottish History from the Reformation to the Revolution 
 (2 vols., Glasgow, 1902) ; P. Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of 
 England (London, 1875); David Hay Fleming, The Reformation 
 in Scotland, Causes, Characteristics, Consequences (Lectures deliv- 
 ered at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1907-08, London, 1910) ;. 
 State Papers of Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, Calendar (vol. 
 I, Edinburgh, 1898); Antoine Louis Paris, Negotiations, lettres, et 
 pieces diverses relatives au regne de Frangois II (in Collections de 
 documents inedits sur Vhistoire de France, vol. 19, Paris, 1841); 
 Prince A. Labanoff, Lettres, instructions et memoir es de M. S., 
 reine d'Ecosse (7 vols., London, 1844); J. H. Pollen, Papal Nego- 
 tiations with Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish History Society Pub., 
 vol. xxxvii, Edinburgh, 1901); H. Machyn, Diary (Camden 
 Society, London, 1847); J. Anderson, Collections relating to the 
 History of Mary Queen of Scotland (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1727-28) ; 
 
200 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 R. S. Rait, Relations between England and Scotland (London, 
 1901); Agnes Strickland, Mary Queen of Scots, Letters and Docu' 
 ments connected with her Personal History (3 vols., London, 1843) ; 
 The Bardon Papers, Documents relating to the Imprisonment and 
 Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (edited for the Royal Historical 
 Society by Conyers Read with a prefatory note by Charles 
 Cotton, Camden Society, 3d Series, vol. xvii, London, 1909). 
 
 Printed collections of sources for ecclesiastical history are 
 numerous. D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnce Britannice (4 vols., Lon- 
 don, 1739), is indispensable. Anthony Sparrow, A Collection of 
 Articles, Injunctions, Canons, Orders, Ordinances and Constitutions 
 Ecclesiastical with Other Publick Records of the Church of England 
 (4th impression, London, 1684), contains many things of value. 
 Edward Cardwell, Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of 
 England from i546-iyi6 with notes historical and explanatory 
 (2 vols., Oxford, 1839), is sometimes inaccurate, and the historical 
 notes are of little value, but is a convenient collection. Gee and 
 Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History (New 
 York and London, 1896), is the best of the more recent collections. 
 W. H. Frere, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the 
 Reformation (3 vols., London, 1910), has superseded all other texts. 
 
 Among the publications of various societies will be found prac- 
 tically all the works and writings of Anglican divines. The publi- 
 cations of the Parker Society especially give easy access to great 
 quantities of such material. Among the most important works of 
 this character published by the Parker Society are: The Corre- 
 spondence of Matthew Parker, comprising letters written by and to 
 him from A.D. 1535 to his Death A.D. 1572 (edited by John Bruce 
 and Thomas T. Perowne, Cambridge, 1853); the Works of John 
 Jewel (edited by John Ayre, 2 vols., 1848-50) contain "The 
 Apology of the Church of England," "The Defence of the Apol- 
 ogy," "The Epistle to Scipio," "A View ©f a Seditious Bull," 
 "A Treatise of the Holy Scriptures," "Letters and Miscellaneous 
 Pieces"; the Works of Sandys (London, 1842); Edmund Grindal, 
 Remains (edited by William Nicholson, Cambridge, 1843); Works 
 of Whitgift (edited by John Ayre, Cambridge, 1851); Zurich Let- 
 ters, or The Correspondence of Several English Bishops and Others 
 with some of the Helvetic Reformers, during the Reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth (trans, and edited by Rev. Hastings Robinson, 2d edi- 
 tion chronologically arranged in one series, Cambridge, 1846). 
 The works of Cranmer, Coverdale, Hooper, Latimer, Bale, Brad- 
 ford, Bullinger, Becon, Hutchinson, Ridley, and Pilkington also 
 have been published by the Society. For further information see 
 the Parker Society's General Index (Cambridge, 1855). 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 201 
 
 The Anglo-Calholic Library contains considerable material of 
 first-rate importance, and the Camden Society publishes many 
 things not easily procured elsewhere. Lists of the publications of 
 these series should be consulted. Camden Society publications of 
 great value, not conveniently mentioned elsewhere, are: J. Fox, 
 Narratives of the Reformation (ed. J. G. Nichols, 1859) ; John Hay- 
 ward, ylwna/5 of the First Four Years of Queen Elizabeth (edited by 
 Bruce, 1840) ; Mary Bateson, A Collection of Original Letters from 
 the Bishops to the Privy Council 1564 (Camden Miscellany, vol. ix, 
 London, 1893). 
 
 The older biographies are worth consulting for the documents 
 they incorporate, although their accuracy cannot be depended 
 upon. The labors of John Strype (died 1737) produced several 
 lives, published in the Oxford edition of his works (other editions 
 are available in some of the larger libraries), among them the 
 lives of Parker, Grindal, Whitgift, Aylmer, Cheke, Smith, Cran- 
 mer, all with abundant collections of sources. 
 
 Other collections of works and biographies are Thomas Cran- 
 mer. Remains and Letters (Jenkyns ed., 4 vols., Oxford, 1833), 
 which should be used in connection with Pollard, Thomas Cran- 
 mer (1903) ; Henry Geast Dugdale, Life and Character of Edmund 
 Geste (London, 1840); the works of Richard Hooker have been 
 published in whole or part many times, but the edition of Rev. 
 John Keble, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. 
 Richard Hooker, with an account of his life and death by Isaac 
 Walton (2 vols., 3d American from the last Oxford edition, New 
 York, 1857), contains much valuable supplementary material. 
 The writings of Bancroft have not all been reprinted, but his 
 Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised 
 within this Island of Brytaine under Pretence of Reformation and 
 for the Presbyterian Discipline (London, 1593) was reprinted in 
 1640 and in 1 7 12 and large extracts are given in Roland G. Usher, 
 Presbyterian Movement as illustrated by the Minute Book of the 
 Dedham Classis (Camden Society Pub.). Other works of Ban- 
 croft are noted elsewhere. Ralph Churton, Life of Alexander 
 Nowell (Oxford, 1809), is a life of one of the less conspicuous of 
 the Elizabethan divines. 
 
 W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (New Series, 
 7 vols., 1868-76), contains much material, but is written from the 
 standpoint of a vigorous and somewhat narrow ecclesiastic; it 
 serves rather to throw light upon the opinions of latter-day 
 Anglicanism than upon the period with which it deals. F. O. 
 White, Lives of the Elizabethan Bishops of the Anglican Church 
 (London, 1898), is another collection worth examining. 
 
202 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 First and early editions of Elizabethan ecclesiastical and reli- 
 gious literature are not readily available in America, but some 
 good public collections exist. That of the Prince Library, now 
 incorporated in the Boston Public Library, contains among other 
 things three copies of Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, possibly 
 the only copies in America. The McAlpin Collection in the 
 Union Theological Seminary, New York City, is prolmbly the 
 most complete in this country and contains much not to be 
 found in any other American collection, both of the works of the 
 Elizabethan Anglicans and of their opponents. The collection is 
 now being catalogued by Dr. Charles Ripley Gillett and it is to 
 be hoped that the catalogue will soon be printed. In the mean 
 time it is difficult to say just what will be found thercbut the 
 writer has seen A Brief Discoiirs off the troubles hegonne at Franck- 
 ford in Germany Anno Domini 1554, in an edition of 1575; Bucer, 
 On Ap par ell (1566) ; Coverdale's Letter (1564) ; Parker, Advertise- 
 ments (1564) ; The Judgement of the Reverend Father Master Henry 
 BiiUinger (1566); Grindal's Visitation Articles (1580); Penry's 
 Defence (1588); Thomas Bilson, Perpetual Government of Christ's 
 Church, etc. (London, 1593); [Bancroft] Conspiracie for Pretended 
 Reformation, viz. Presbyteriall Discipline; R. Cosin, Racket, Cop- 
 pinger, etc. (London, 1593); Thomas Cooper, An Ad?nonition to 
 the People of England (London, 1589); J. Lily, Pappe with an 
 hatchet. Alias A figgefor my God sonne or Cracke me this nut (1589) ; 
 Richard Bancroft, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the g of 
 Februarie anno 1588 (London, 1588); J. Udall, Demonstration of 
 the truth of Discipline (1589) ; Whip for an Ape and Marline; John 
 Davidson, D. Bancrofts Rashnes in Rayling against the Church of 
 Scotland (Edinburgh, 1590); The Execution of Justice in England 
 for maintenaunce of publique and Christian peace, etc., by William 
 Cecil (London, 1583). Other early editions available in America 
 are Matthew Sutcliffe, Treatise of Ecclesiastical Discipline (1591); 
 also Sutclifife, De Presbyterio (about 1590) ; Christopher Goodman, 
 How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their siibjects (Geneva, 
 1558); John Bridges, Defence of the Government Established in the 
 Church of England for Ecclesiastical Matters (1587) ; Richard Cosin, 
 Apology of and for Sundry Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesias- 
 tical (1593); Sir John Harrington, Brief View of the State of the 
 Church of England. 
 
 There is some tendency on the part of modern students to 
 neglect the older historians on the score of their undoubted preju- 
 dices and inaccuracy; but the student who does so will deprive 
 himself of valuable assistance. The prejudices of the older histo- 
 rians are by no means craftily concealed, and with the number of 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 203 
 
 printed sources and calendars available inaccuracies can rather 
 easily be checked. With care in regard to these things the modern 
 student will find much of interest and profit in many of the fol- 
 lowing: J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials . . . of the Church of 
 England (3 vols., Oxford, 1822), and the same author's Annals of 
 the Reformation and Establishment of Religion and other various 
 occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's 
 Happy Reign (7 vols., Oxford, 1824), both abundantly supplied 
 with collections of papers, records, and letters. Gilbert Burnet, 
 The History of the Reformation of the Church of Englajid : a new 
 editio7i carefully revised and the records collated with the originals 
 by Nicholas Pocock (7 vols., Oxford, 1865), includes Wharton's 
 Specimen of Errors. Both Strype and Burnet write from the 
 standpoint of Anglicans. John Lingard, A History of England 
 
 from the First Invasion of the Romans (5th ed., 8 vols., Paris, 
 1840), is the work of a Catholic of considerable breadth. Jeremy 
 
 ' Collier, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain Chiefly of Eng- 
 land from the First Planting of Christianity to the End of the Reign 
 of King Charles the Second : with a Brief Account of the Affairs of 
 Religion in Ireland (ed. by Francis Barham, 9 vols., London, 
 1840), from the standpoint of a strong Tory and Jacobite at the 
 period of the Revolution of 1688. C. Dodd [H. Too tell]. Church 
 History (ed. M. A. Tierney, 5 vols., London, 1839-43), written 
 by a Catholic priest as an antidote to Burnet. Peter Heylyn, 
 Ecclesia Restaurata, or the History of the Reformation of the Church 
 of England (ed. by James Craigie Robertson and printed by the 
 Ecclesiastical History Society, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1849), and 
 Thomas Fuller, Church History of Britain (ed. J. S. Brewer, 6 vols., 
 London, 1837), were written by clerics of the English Church who 
 adhered to Charles I and to the High Church Laudian party. 
 W. Corbett, Protestant Reformation (ed. F. A. Gasquet, 2 vols., 
 London, 1896), with which it may be interesting to compare 
 Charles Hastings Collette, Queen Elizabeth and the Penal Laws, 
 with an Introdiiction on Wm. Cobbett's ''History of the Protestant 
 Reformation.'' Passing in review the Reigns of Henry VIII, Ed- 
 ward VI and Mary (Protestant Alliance, London, 1890). Henry 
 Soames, History of the Reformation of the Church of England 
 (4 vols., London, 1826-28), and the same writer's Elizabethan 
 Religious History (London, 1839), are less interesting than the 
 older works. 
 
 The examination of more recent writers on the Church, cover- 
 ing the whole or parts of the Tudor period, will convince the 
 careful American student, unprejudiced by national and ecclesi- 
 astical sympathies, that in some respects even greater care is 
 
204 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 required in their use than is the case of the older historians. 
 Documents and sources are used more accurately, there is little 
 or no conscious polemic purpose, and prejudices are less obvious, 
 but the student who compares the equally scholarly work of a 
 modern Anglican cleric, a modern Catholic priest, and a noncon- 
 formist scholar will often find widely divergent conclusions equally 
 honest. Religious and national prejudices are so difficult to escape 
 that the student should be on his guard constantly, both in his 
 own work and in estimating the work of even the most conscien- 
 tious of modern scholars. 
 
 Richard Watson Dixon, History of the CImrch of England 
 from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (6 vols., of which 
 vols. V and vi were compiled from the notes and papers of Canon 
 Dixon by Henry Gee), is one of the fairest written by an Anglican 
 clergyman. It is frankly stated that the writer's standpoint is 
 that of a Church of England cleric. James Gairdner, The English 
 Church in the i6th Century (1902), and the same author's History 
 of the English Church from Henry to the Death of Mary (1902), 
 covering part of the same period, while not entirely free from 
 faults, are most excellent. W. H. Frere, The English Church in 
 the Reig7is of Elizabeth and James I, 1558-1625 (in the History of 
 the English Church, edited by W. R. W. Stephens and W. Hunt, 
 London and New York, 1904), is a scholarly introduction to the 
 period, although Frere's patience with the Puritans is not always 
 unstrained. John Hunt, Religious Thought in England from the 
 Reformation to the Last Century (3 vols., 1870), is a somewhat 
 older work deserving examination. To the same class belongs 
 John Henry Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England (2 vols., 
 New York, 1882). Henry Gee, Elizabethan Clergy ajtd the Settle- 
 ment of Religion, 1558-1564 (Oxford, 1898), is a scholarly treat- 
 ment of one phase of the subject, but this Anglican treatment 
 should be compared with the study of the same subject by a 
 Catholic scholar, Henry Norbert Birt, The Elizabethan Religious 
 Settlement ; A Study of Contemporary Documents (London, 1907). 
 Gilbert W. Child, Church and State under the Tudors (London and 
 New York, 1890), is as clear-sighted as any work the student can 
 wish to examine. On the same topic as Arthur Elliot, The State 
 and the Church (London and New York, 1896), a great deal of 
 literature of historical value will be found arising from the recent 
 attempts to bring about disestablishment. Roland G. Usher, 
 The Reconstruction of the English Church (2 vols.. New York and 
 London, 19 10), is a brilliant work written by an American scholar. 
 S. F. Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation 
 in England (reprinted with an introduction by A. W. Hutton, 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 205 
 
 London and New York, 1899), is the work of one of the most able 
 of the older English scholars and deals with early and pre-Eliza- 
 bethan topics. These essays should be studied carefully. Bishop 
 Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Mediceval and Modern 
 History (Oxford, 1900), is, naturally, scholarly and suggestive. 
 
 Histories of particular dioceses are published by the Society 
 for Promoting Christian Knowledge in a series called Diocesan 
 Histories. Of particular interest are J. L. Low, Durham (London, 
 1881); R. H. Morris, Chester (London, 1895); H. W. Phillott, 
 Hereford (London, 1888) ; R. S. Ferguson, Carlisle (London, 1889). 
 For the Universities consult J. B. Mullinger, History of the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, and Anthony k Wood, Historia et antiqui- 
 tates universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxonia?, 1674). Thomas Baker's 
 History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, has 
 been edited by J. E. B. Mayor (2 vols., Cambridge, 1896). Among 
 the many local histories published by local history societies and 
 antiquarians William Watson, Historical Account of the Ancient 
 Toivn and Port of Wisbeach (Wisbeach, 1827), will be very helpful. 
 
 For Convocation, T. Lathbury, History of the Convocation of the 
 Church of England (ist ed., London, 1842; 2d ed., London, 1853) ; 
 F. Atterbury, Rights and Privileges of an English Convocation (2d 
 ed., London, 1701). G. Nicholsius, Defensio Ecclesice AnglicancB 
 (London, 1708), has an interesting section on "homiliarum in nas- 
 cente Reformatione usus," and some material on the same topic 
 will be found in J. T. Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles and 
 Homilies (London, 1897). 
 
 On the Prayer Book there are several works of first-rate im- 
 portance, but the following will prove particularly useful: F. 
 Proctor and W. H. Frere, New History of the Book of Common 
 Prayer (London, 1901); Nicholas Pocock, The Reformation and 
 the Prayer Book (London, 1879); F. A. Gasquet, Edward VI and 
 the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1890); J. Parker, The First 
 Prayer Book of Edward VI (Oxford, 1877); N. Pocock, Troubles 
 connected with the First Book of Common Prayer (Papers from 
 the Petyt MSS., Camden Society, London, 1884) ; L. Pullan, His- 
 tory of the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1900); H. Gee, The 
 Elizabethan Prayer-book and Ornaments (London, 1902); E. C. 
 Harrington, Pope Pius IV and the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 For the Thirty-nine Articles cf. E. C. S. Gibson, The 39 Articles 
 (2d ed., London, 1898); C. Hardwick, History of the Articles of 
 Religion (Cambridge, 1859). 
 
 For the WtnrgxQs: Liturgies of Edward VI (Parker Society, edited 
 by J. Kelley, Cambridge, 1844) ; Liturgies set forth in the Reign of 
 Elizabeth (Parker Society, edited by Clay, Cambridge, 1847). 
 
2o6 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 For episcopacy and the apostolic succession consult: Bishop 
 Hall, Episcopacy by Divine Right Asserted ; E. E. Estcourt, Ques- 
 tion of Anglican Ordinations (London, 1873); Stubbs, Apostolical 
 Succession in the Church of England; John Bramhall, On Apostolic 
 Succession of the Church of England , in Works (ed. by A. W. 
 Haddon, 5 vols., Oxford, 1842-45); Samuel F, Hulton, The Pri- 
 macy of England (Oxford and London, 1899); Francis Johnson, 
 A Treatise of the Ministry of the Church of England; Pierre Francois 
 Courayer, Dissertation on the Validity of the Ordinations of the 
 English and of the Succession of the Bishops of the A nglican Church ; 
 with the proofs establishing the facts advanced in this work (Oxford, 
 1844). The works of Saravia should be examined, especially De 
 diver sis gradibus ministrorum (London, 1590). He defended the 
 episcopal forms and the succession during the last years of 
 Elizabeth's reign and had considerable influence upon the 
 Anglican divines. There are long quotations from sixteenth- 
 century Anglican writers in A. J. Mason, The Church of England 
 and Episcopacy (Cambridge, 1914). 
 
 For an understanding of what Erastianism is, cf. J. N. Figgis, 
 " Erastus and Erastianism " {Journal of Theological Studies, 
 vol. II, p. 66). 
 
 The older histories of the nonconformists and dissenters are 
 many of them prejudiced in the extreme and misrepresent facts 
 and motives, but should be examined as carefully as the Anglican 
 histories of the same class. Neal, History of the Puritans, should be 
 read in connection with Madox, Vindication of the Church of Eng- 
 land against Neal. Benjamin Hanbury, Historical Memorials 
 Relating to the Independents (1839-44); Marsden, History of the 
 Early Puritans; Samuel Hopkins, The Puritans or the Church, 
 Court, and Parliament of England during the Reigns of Edward VI 
 and Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., Boston, 1859-61), a common book, 
 but of little value; Benjamin Brook, Lives of the Puritans (3 vols., 
 London, 181 3), is little more than a series of brief biographical 
 sketches, sometimes useful in locating particular men, but of no 
 historical value. John Brown, The English Puritans (Cambridge, 
 1912, Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature), is a good 
 recent introduction to the subject. Henry W. Clark, History of 
 English Nonconformity from Wiclif to the close of the igth Century 
 (vol. I, 1911, deals with the period up to the early Stuarts; vol. II, 
 London, 1913, The Restoration). Champlin Burrage has written 
 and published much on various phases of English dissent and all 
 his work is worthy of examination, some of it indispensable. Of 
 his writings the following are important : The Early English Dis- 
 senters in the Light of Recent Research, 1550-1641 (2 vols., Cam- 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 207 
 
 bridge, 1912. Vol. i, History and Criticism ; \o\. 11, Illustrative 
 Documents, many of them, hitherto unpublished), is a most schol- 
 arly treatment from the factual standpoint, and the introduction 
 contains a valuable discussion of the literature. C/., also, Cham- 
 plin Burrage, The Trtie Story 0} Robert Broivne, i550-i6jj, Father 
 of Congregationalism (London, 1906); The 'Retraction' of Robert 
 Broxone, Father of Congregationalism, being a Reproof e of certeine 
 Schismatical persons [i.e., Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood and 
 their Congregation] and their Doctrine, etc., ivritten probably about 
 1588 (London, 1907); The Church Covenant Idea; Its Origin and 
 its Development (American Baptist Publication Society, Phila- 
 delphia, 1904) ; John Penry, the So-called Martyr of Congregation- 
 alism as revealed in the Original Record of His Trial and in Docu- 
 ments related thereto (Oxford and London, 1913); Elizabethan 
 Puritanism and Separatism. The work of Henry M. Dexter is also 
 important, although of somewhat different character and perhaps 
 not so accurate as that of Burrage. Cf. Dexter, Congregationalism, 
 What it is. Whence it is. How it Works, etc. (Boston, 1865); Con- 
 gregationalism as Seen in its Literature (New York, 1880); The 
 True Story of John Smyth, the se-baptist as told by himself and his 
 contemporaries (Boston, 1881). For the Congregational and Bap- 
 tist development: R. W. Dale, History of English Congregational- 
 ism (London, 1907); John Clifford, The Origin and Growth of the 
 English Baptists (London, 1857); Thomas Crosby, A History of 
 the English Baptists from the Reformation to the Beginning of the 
 Reign of King George I (London, 1738) ; and for the Anabaptists, 
 H. S. Burrage, The Anabaptists of the i6th Century (American 
 Society of Church History Papers, vol. iii, pp. 145-64. 1891); 
 John Waddington, John Penry, the Pilgrim Martyr, 1559-^593 
 (London, 1854), may prove of some assistance. 
 
 For the Martin Marprelate controversy: William Pierce, An 
 Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts, A Chapter in the 
 Evolution of Religious and Civil Liberty in England (New York, 
 1909), and the same winter's Marprelate Tracts, 1588, 13 8q, with 
 notes historical and explanatory (London, 191 1), are the best 
 books on the subject. William Maskell, A History of the Martin 
 Marprelate Controversy; Edward Arber, An Introductory Sketch 
 to the Martin Marprelate Controversy {English Scholars' Library) ; 
 H. M. Dexter, Martin Marprelate Controversy, present the views 
 of older scholars. Many of the original tracts, and some of the 
 replies as well, are in the McAlpin Collection in the L^nion Theo- 
 logical Seminary Library. For detailed literature see Pierce, 
 Introduction, and Tracts. 
 
 Other writings of the dissenters and nonconformists will be 
 
2o8 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 found in various collections and libraries. W. H. Frere and C. E. 
 Douglas have edited Puritan Manifestoes, A Study of the Origin of 
 the Puritan Revolt. With a reprint of the Admonition to the Parlia- 
 ment and kindred documents, 1572 (Society for Promoting Chris- 
 tian Knowledge, in the Church History Society Publications, vol. 
 Lxxir, London and New York, 1907). Arber, English Scholars' 
 Library, contains many things and the list for that series should 
 be consulted. It contains a reprint of Brief Discourse of the 
 Troubles at Frankfort; ] . Udall,^ Demo7istration of the Truth of 
 Discipline ;l](\a.\\, Diotrephes, Pappe with a Hatchet, is printed in 
 Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, edited by George Saintsbury. 
 
 For the Presbyterians and their leaders in Elizabeth's time, 
 there is abundant source material, but few works of first-rate 
 importance. Benjamin Brook, Memoirs of the Life and Writings 
 of Thomas Cartwright (London, 1845), is still, so far as the writer 
 knows, the only life of that eminent and vigorous Presbyterian, 
 and it is to be hoped that a new one will soon take the place of 
 Brook's work. Roland G. Usher, The Presbyterian Movement in 
 the Reign of Queen Elizabeth as illustrated by the Minute Book of the 
 Dedham Classis, 1382-1^89 (Camden Society, 1905), presents 
 an interesting theory with considerable backing of fact. W. A. 
 Shaw, "Elizabethan Presbyterianism " {English Historical Review, 
 vol. in), is worth reading. 
 
 Three works touching the Familists are the chief source for the 
 English group: Henry Nickolas, An Introduction to the holy under- 
 standing of the Glass of Righteousness ; J. Knewstubs, Confutation 
 of certain monstrous and horrible heresies taught by H. N. 1579; and 
 John Rogers The displaying of an horrible sect of gross and wicked 
 heretics, naming themselves, the Family of Love ; with the lives of the 
 Authors etc. (London, 1578). 
 
 For the Catholics in England during the reign of Elizabeth a 
 great deal of material has been published, much of it unfortu- 
 nately, whether written by Anglican, Catholic, or nonconformist, 
 not very reliable. Arnold Oskar Meyer, England u. die Katholische 
 Kirke unter Elisabeth u. den Stuarts (vol. i unter Elisabeth, Rom, 
 1911; translated, St. Louis, 1916), is a scholarly work by a Ger- 
 man who has carefully studied the documents. Ranke, Analecte 
 in die Romische Papste (translated in the Bohn Library) is still a 
 very useful work. F. G. Lee, Church under Q. Elizabeth (2 vols., 
 1880), is a work by no means fair, but suggestive in many respects. 
 Nicholas Sander, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, pub- 
 lished 1585 with a Continuation of the History by the Rev. Edward 
 Rishton (translated with an introduction and notes by David 
 Lewis, London, 1877), is an excellent example of contemporary 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 209 
 
 Catholic writing. Catholic Tractates of the i6th Century (ed. T. G. 
 Law, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1901), gives further ma- 
 terial of somewhat the same character. Raynaldus, Annates 
 Ecclesiastici, should most certainly be used although on many 
 points not to be depended upon. For the Council of Trent the 
 old classical histories of Sarpi and Pallavicino remain the best 
 works. 
 
 For the Popes: W. Voss, Die Verhandhmgen Pius IV mit den 
 kathoUschen Machten (Leipzig, 1887); an article by Maitland, 
 "Queen Elizabeth and Paul IV" {English Historical Review, vol. 
 XV, p. 326); Mendham, Life and Pontificate of Pius V (London, 
 1832; supplement, 1833). 
 
 Works of value in the study of the treatment of the English 
 Catholics are: Phillips, Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy (Lon- 
 don, 1905) ; T. E. Bridgett and T. F. Knox, The True Story of the 
 Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth (London, 1889); 
 T. F. Knox, Records of Anglican Catholics under the Penal Laws 
 (London, 1878); Bishop Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests 
 and Other Catholics of Both Sexes that have suffered Death in England 
 on Religious Accounts from 1377-1684 (ed. T. G. Law, Manches- 
 ter, 1878) ; Charles Buller, Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish 
 and Scottish Catholics since the Reform (3d ed., 4 vols., London, 
 1822) ; Cardinal Manning, Calendar of Martyrs of the i6th and lyth 
 Centuries (London, 1887); T. G. Law, A Calendar of the English 
 Martyrs of the i6th and lyth Centuries (London, 1876) ; Pollen and 
 Burton, Lives of the English Martyrs, 1 583-1588 (1914), is the 
 latest. All these works must be used with considerable cau- j 
 
 tion. i 
 
 The work of J. H. Pollen, a modern Catholic scholar, deserves ! 
 
 the highest consideration. Cf. especially his Unpublished Docu- 1 
 
 merits relating to the English Martyrs (vol. i, 1584-1603, Catholic ; 
 
 Record Soc. Pub. v, 1908); Acts of the English Martyrs hitherto 
 unpublished (London, 1891), and various articles in The Month. ] 
 
 Especially "Religious Terrorism under Q. Elizabeth" (March, j 
 
 1905); "Politics of English Catholics during the Reign of Q. i 
 
 Elizabeth" (1902); "The Question of Queen Elizabeth's Sue- ' 
 
 cessor" (May, 1903). ! 
 
 Consult also the following : F. A. Gasquet, Hampshire Recusants, j 
 
 a story of their troubles in the time of Elizabeth (London, 1895); J 
 
 J. J. E. Proost, Les refugies anglais et irlandais en Belgique a la \ 
 
 suite de la reforme religieuse etablie sous Elisabeth et Jacques I; 
 Guilday, English Catholic Refugees on the Continent (vol. i, 1914); 
 M. A. S. Hume, Treason and Plot, Struggles for Catholic Supremacy , 
 
 in the Last Years of Q. Elizabeth (new edition, London, 1908) ; the ; 
 
 I 
 
 N i 
 
210 Bibliographical Appendix 
 
 article by R. B. Merriman, "Notes on the Treatment of the Eng- 
 lish Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth" (American Historical 
 Review, vol. xiii, no. 3), is by an American scholar and exceed- 
 ingly fair. 
 
 On the Bull of Excommunication two of the most interesting 
 contemporary pamphlets are Bullce Papisticce ante hrennum contra 
 sereniss. Anglice Francice et HihernicB Reginam Elizabetham et 
 contra inclytum Anglice regnum promulgatce Refutatio, orthodoxcegue 
 Regince et Universi regni Anglice defensio Henrychi Bullingeri 
 (London, 1572), and A Disclosing of the great Bull and certain 
 calves that he hath gotten and specially the Monster Bull that roared 
 at my Lord Bishops Gate. (Imprinted at London by John Daye.) 
 On the same topic see M. Creighton, "The Excommunication of 
 Q, Elizabeth " {English Historical Review, vol. vii, p. 81). 
 
 For the Jesuits consult : Robert Persons, The First Entrance of 
 the Fathers of the Society into England (ed. J. H. Pollen, Catholic 
 Record Society, Miscellanea, vol. 11, 1906); Henry Foley, Records 
 of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (8 vols., London, 
 1877-83) ; Ethelred L, Taunton, The History of the Jesuits in Eng- 
 land, 1580-1773 (Philadelphia and London, 1901); T. G. Law, 
 Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars in the 
 Reign of Queen Elizabeth with a Reprint of Christopher Bagshaws' 
 'True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbich' (London, 1889). 
 Biographical material: Richard Simpson, Edmund Champion, a 
 Biography (London, 1867); The Letters and Memorials of Wm. 
 Cardinal Allen, 1532-1 5 g4 (edited by the Fathers of the Congre- 
 gation of the London Oratory, London, 1882); Morris, Life of 
 Father John Gerard (London, 1881). 
 
 For the student particularly interested in the development of 
 toleration and liberty the following books are suggested: James 
 Mackinnon, A History of Modern Liberty (3 vols., London, 1906- 
 08, vol. II, The Age of the Reformation, and vol. Ill, The Stuarts). 
 Sir Frederick Pollock, "The Theory of Persecution," in Essays on 
 Jurisprudence and Ethics; Schaff, Religious Liberty (in Publica- 
 tions of the American Historical Association, 1886-87); Mandell 
 Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance (Hulsean Lectures, 1893- 
 94, London and New York; 1895); J. O. Bevan, Birth and Growth 
 of Toleration (London, 1909); Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 
 Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. One of the best studies is A. A. 
 Seaton, Theory of Toleration under the Later Stuarts (Cambridge, 
 191 1), and it has an introduction of primary importance. C/., 
 also, C. Beard, The Reformation of the i6th Century in its relation 
 to modern Thought and Knowledge (London, 1883). H. T. Buckle, 
 History of Civilization in England (2 vols., New York, 1891, from 
 
Bibliographical Appendix 211 
 
 the 2d London ed.), takes a view now somewhat antiquated, but 
 worth considering. The intellectual aspects of the develop- 
 ment are ably presented by J. B. Bury, A History of Freedom 
 of Thought {Home University Library), and in greater detail by 
 J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought (2 vols., New 
 York, 1906). 
 
Index 
 
INDEX 
 
 Act for the Assurance of the Queen's 
 Supremacy, 30. 
 
 Act for the Better Enforcement of 
 the Writ de Excommunicato Capi- 
 endo, 30. 
 
 Act of Supremacy, 21-24, 29, 67, 72, 
 105. 
 
 Act of Uniformity, 21-24, 72, 97, 105, 
 142. 
 
 Acts of Parliament, religious, 70, 73, 
 80, 82, 97, 150. 
 
 Advertisements, Parker's, 142. 
 
 Agnostics, Congregationalists intol- 
 erant of, 181. 
 
 Anabaptists, 69 n., 131, 134, 175. 
 
 Anglican Church, 5, 64, 142. See also 
 Established Church. 
 
 Anglicanism, 93-130, 161, 180, 187, 
 190. 
 
 Answer e to a certen Libel intituled An 
 Admonition to the Parliament, An, 
 
 155- 
 Anti-Vestiarians, 159. 
 Apostolic succession of bishops, lio- 
 
 15- 
 
 Ascham, 16. 
 
 Atheists, Congregationalists intoler- 
 ant of, 181. ^ 
 
 Aylmer, Bishop, 25, 157. 
 
 Bacon, 80, 114, 147. 
 
 Bancroft, Bishop of London, 47, 68, 
 
 113. 117- 
 
 Barlow, Bishop, 43, 1 10. 
 
 Barrow, 175. 
 
 Barrowists, 131, 134, 175. 
 
 Bell, Speaker, 151. 
 
 Bible, publication of official, 117; pri- 
 vate interpretation of, 120. 
 
 Bigotry, 90. 
 
 Bishops, opposed religious changes, 
 18; refused to debate with reform- 
 ers, 19; removal of Catholic, 23; 
 selection of Protestant, 25; courts 
 of, 76; apostolic succession of, iio- 
 15. 
 
 Blackstone, 73. 
 
 Book of Common Prayer, 10, 1 1 n., 70, 
 
 97i 117. 150; of Edward VI, 20. 
 Book of Discipline, 157. 
 Book of Homilies, 20. 
 Bridges, Dr. John, 158 n. 
 Browne, 176, 177, 180. 
 Brownists, 131, 134, 175. 
 Bullinger, 146. 
 
 Calendar of English Martyrs, 50. 
 
 Calvin, 65, 136. 
 
 Calvinism, 10, 99, 165, 188. 
 
 Campion, Jesuit missionary, 40, $1. 
 
 Capias, Writ of, 32. 
 
 Cartwright, Thomas, 119, 133, 135, 
 154, 160-65, 181. 
 
 Catechism, Nowell's, 98. 
 
 Catholicism, Roman, 9, 14, 125, 173, 
 186. 
 
 Cecil, Sir William, 13, 18, 21, 61, 98, 
 141, 172; quoted, 39, 68. 
 
 Ceremonies, religious, 109, 141; a 
 cause of dissent, 135, 138, 152. 
 
 Chancery, Court of, 31. 
 
 Church, a, Congregationalist idea of, 
 176. 
 
 Church, the, and the secular courts, 76. 
 
 Church and State, 64-92, 122, 153, 
 168, 172, 180, 189. 
 
 Church of England. See Established 
 Church. 
 
 Clergy, removal of Catholic, 19, 23; 
 required to take oath of supremacy, 
 22; selection of Protestant, 26; in- 
 competent, 26, 95, 102; restraints 
 on, 98; illiterate, 100; lack of mor- 
 als of, 102; opposed use of habits, 
 142-45. 
 
 Clerical offices, desire for, 15, 100. 
 
 Commissions, Ecclesiastical, 70; of 
 Royal Visitation, 23, 27; of Review, 
 
 73- 
 Common Pleas, Court of, 78. 
 Confiscation of property for absence 
 
 from church, 55. 
 
2l6 
 
 Index 
 
 Conformity, 22, 54. 
 
 Congregationalism, 135, 174-82, 188. 
 
 Congregationalists, 134, 135, 174-82. 
 
 Continental Protestantism, 15, 115, 
 128, 137, 145. 
 
 Convocation, 18, 150. 
 
 Cooper, Bishop, loi, 113, 149, 151. 
 
 Copping, John, 181 n. 
 
 Cosin, 74. 
 
 Council, the, 12, 18, 74, 77, 84-87. 
 
 Court of Arches, 80. 
 
 Courts, 84; ecclesiastical, 71-82; sec- 
 ular, 76. 
 
 Covenant, the, 10. 
 
 Cox, 20, 53. 
 
 Cranmer, iii, 182. 
 
 Crown, power of the, 72-76. 
 
 Defence of the Answer e, 157. 
 
 Democracy of Presbyterianism, 166. 
 
 Disloyalty, Presbyterian, to Queen, 
 172. 
 
 Dissent, 116, 129; causes of, 90; 
 Protestant, 131-82. 
 
 Doctrinal standards, Anglican, formu- 
 lation of, 96-99. 
 
 Ecclesiastice Discipline . . . Explicato, 
 
 157- 
 
 Ecclesiastical apologetic, 117. 
 
 Ecclesiastical polity, 135, 161, 164. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker's, 164. 
 
 Ecclesiastical theory, formulation of, 
 105. 
 
 Edward VI, 14. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 5, 183; alleged ille- 
 gitimacy of, 7; attitude toward the 
 Pope, 8; attitude on the religious 
 question, 12-16, 33, 57; her first 
 Parliament, 18-22; and the clergy, 
 25, 88, 145, 147; second Parliament, 
 28-33; excommunication of, 37; the 
 royal prerogative of, 59, 82 ff.; 
 power over Church, 59, 67-71, 82, 
 92, 165; opposed religious zeal, 98, 
 163; attitude toward Presbyterians, 
 172-74; stood for no heroic prin- 
 ciple, 183. 
 
 Enchanters, repression of, 32. 
 
 Episcopacy, exaltation of, 121. 
 
 Erastianism of Established Church, 
 70, 93, 108. 
 
 Established Church, 93-130; under 
 Henry and Edward, 14; inaugura- 
 
 tion of, 22-28; excommunfcation 
 from, 31; and Catholics, 35-63, 185; 
 success of, 33; compulsory attend- 
 ance, 41, 54, 94; national character 
 of, 65-66, 88; a compromise, 94, 
 128; justification of, 105; desire of, 
 for autonomy, 116; and Protestant 
 dissent, 131^.; and Presbyterians, 
 135, 188; and Congregationalists, 
 135. 179-81. 
 
 Establishment. See Established 
 Church. 
 
 Excommunication," 30-32, 72; of 
 Elizabeth, 37. 
 
 Executions of Catholics, 50. 
 
 Exhortation to the Bishops, etc., 152. 
 
 Exiles, Protestant, 12; Catholic, 52. 
 
 Familists, 131. 
 
 Family of Love, 136. 
 
 Fielde, 149, 151. 
 
 Finlason, 85. 
 
 First Admonition to Parliament, 149, 
 
 155. 159- 
 Foreign dangers to England, 8, 9, 28, 
 
 45- 
 Forty-two Articles of Edward VI, 
 
 97- 
 Fox, 183. 
 
 Franchises, 78, 81. 
 Frankpledge, 81. 
 
 Gentry, influence of, 59. 
 
 Government, intolerance of, 6, 186, 
 189, 191; caution of, on religious 
 question, 11-17; moderation of, 14, 
 29; and the Catholics, 35-63. 
 
 Greenwood, 175. 
 
 Grindal, Bishop, 79, 103, 139, 142, 
 145. 
 
 Habits, controversy over use of, 138- 
 
 52. 
 Hammond, Dr., 112. 
 Hay ward, 67. 
 
 Henry VHI, 14, 67, 72, 80. 
 Heresy, 21, 97. 
 High commission, the, 71, 74- 
 High Court of Delegates, 72, 80. 
 Historical apologetic for Established 
 
 Church, 106. 
 Hook, 157. 
 Hooker, 114, 116, 118-24, 164, 178, 
 
 183. 
 
Index 
 
 217 
 
 Horn, 137 n., 139. 
 Huguenots, 28. 
 Humphrey, Dr., 143, 146. 
 
 Imprisonment of Catholics, 54. 
 
 Indifference, religious, 13. 
 
 Intolerance, definition of, 2; varieties 
 of, 3; religious, 3-4; checked by 
 religious indifference, 14; checked 
 by government, 90; Elizabeth's in- 
 fluence on, 92; ecclesiastical theory 
 a cause of, 109; Anglican, 124, 128; 
 Presbyterian, 154, 159-63; Congre- 
 gationalist, 178. 
 
 James, King, 117. 
 
 Jesuits, 46, 47, 127, 185; banishment 
 
 of, 40, 53- 
 Jewel, 106, III, 118-24, 138; quoted, 
 
 12, 13, 19, 25, 68, 138. 
 Justices of the peace, religious acts 
 
 enforced by, 30, 76. 
 
 King's Bench, Court of, 31, 71, 78. 
 KnoUys, Sir Francis, 60, 114, 141. 
 Knox, John, 10. 
 
 Landaff, Bishop, 23. 
 
 Laudian Church idea, the, 129. 
 
 Laws against Catholics, 39-42 • 46; 
 
 administration of, 48-63; against 
 
 Protestant dissenters, 46. 
 Leicester, Earl of, 141. 
 L'Hopital, 184. 
 
 Loyalty to the Queen, 14, 16, 46, 54. 
 Luther, 15, 179 «., 184. 
 Lutheranism, 161, 165. 
 
 Marprelate Tracts, 131 w., 175. 
 
 Martyr, 19. 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, claim of, to 
 
 throne, 8-11, 28, 42-45, 185. 
 Mary Tudor, 7, 13. '"*» 
 Mass, saying of, prohibited, 41. 
 "Mediocrity" of Anglican clerg>', 95; 
 
 of Anglican Church, 129. 
 Mildmay, Sir Walter, 141. 
 Ministry, educated, opposed by Con- 
 
 gregationalists, 177. 
 Moderation of Anglican Church, 65. 
 
 National character of Establishment, 
 
 65- 
 New Testament, authority for Pres- 
 
 byterian organization in, 153, 159- 
 
 63, 188. 
 Nonconformists, 171. 
 Northumberland, Earl of, 36. 
 Nowell's catechism, 98. 
 
 Oath ex officio mero, 117, 171. 
 
 Oath of supremacy, 23, 29-31, 61, 77. 
 
 Oglethorpe, 19. 
 
 Organization, church, Anglican form 
 of, no, 128; Congregationalist forni 
 of, 136; Presbyterian form of, 159. 
 
 Palatinates, 79, 80. 
 
 Papacy, attitude toward Elizabeth, 
 8, II, 98; historical claims of, re- 
 jected by Protestants, 106; Protes- 
 tant opposition to, no, 126, 137, 
 146. 
 
 Parker, Archbishop, 31 «., 88, 93, 106, 
 140-45, 151; quoted, 26, 29, 68, 
 loi. 
 
 Parkhurst, 139. 
 
 Parliament, 40, 67, 70, 83, 150; Eliz- 
 abeth's first, 18-22; Elizabeth's sec- 
 ond, 28-33. 
 
 Parsons, the Jesuit, 27, 40, 51. 
 
 Patriotism at basis of Anglican 
 Church, 65. 
 
 Paul IV, Pope, 9, II. 
 
 "Peculiars," 79. 
 
 Penalties, 41, 48, 55, 72. 
 
 Penry, 175, 180. 
 
 Philip of Spain, 9, 12, 28, 44, 185. 
 
 Pilkington, 69, 139. 
 
 Pius IV, Pope, 28. 
 
 Pius V, Pope, excommunicated Eliz- 
 abeth, 37. 
 
 Politics and religion, 8-34. 
 
 Pope, attitude of, toward Elizabeth, 
 8, II, 28, 37. 
 
 Prayer Book. See Book of Common 
 Prayer. 
 
 Preaching prohibited, 12; licenses 
 ' for, 117. 
 j Precisianists, 125, 132, 134, 138, 159. 
 
 Prerogative writs, 78, 81. 
 ! Presbyterianism, and Anglicanism, 
 j 104, 119, 134. 152, 187; opposition 
 I to Catholics, 126, 159, 185; intol- 
 
 i erance of, 154, 159-63. 168, 181: 
 form of organization of, 159; based 
 on authority of the Scriptures, 160. 
 
 Presbyterians, 5. 47. 159-64. 
 
2l8 
 
 Index 
 
 Press censorship, 117. 
 
 Priests, 27, 53, 102. 
 
 Prophesyings, 141. 
 
 Protestant dissent, 131-82. 
 
 Protestant dissenters, attitude of 
 Anglicanism toward, 124. 
 
 Protestantism, 14, 103, 186. 
 
 Protestants, 20, 38, 93, 118; return of 
 exiled, 12; Elizabeth's attitude to- 
 ward, 12; impatience of, with gov- 
 ernment, 12, 20; candidates for 
 clerical offices, 25; in Scotland, 44; 
 did not oppose union of Church and 
 State, 69; Anglican intolerance of, 
 128. 
 
 Provincial commissions, 71. 
 
 Puritans, 60, 125, 128, 131-34. 
 
 Reason, the rule of, in Anglicanism, 
 
 163. 
 Rebellion of the Northern Earls, 
 
 35- 
 
 Recusants, 42, 53, 57, 117. 
 
 Reformation, the, 10. 
 
 Religion, intolerance in, 3-4; and 
 
 politics, 8-34; of England, changes 
 
 in, 13; indifference in, 14. 
 Religious houses annexed to Crown, 
 
 22. 
 Religious liberty, 166. 
 Reply to an Answere made of Doctor 
 
 Whit gift, A, 157. 
 Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission 
 
 of 1832, 79. 
 Rest of the Second Replie, The, 157. 
 Reynolds, 141. 
 Rights, special, 78. 
 Rites and ceremonies, 107, 150. 
 Robinson, 175. 
 
 Roman Catholics. See Catholics. 
 Royal Commission, 72; of Visita- 
 tion, 23, 27, 71. 
 Royal headship of Church, 66-71, 
 
 122. 
 Royal prerogative, the, 82. 
 Royal \'isitation. Commission of, 23, 
 
 27, 71. 
 
 Sandys, 93, loi, 139, 153. 
 
 Scotland, 10, 44, 172. 
 
 Scripture, authority of, 120; for Pres- 
 byterian form of organization, 159; 
 for Episcopal form of organiza- 
 tion, 163. 
 
 Second Admonition to Parliament, 
 
 154-56, 169. 
 Second Replie, The, 157. 
 Second Scotch Confession, 179 n. 
 Secular courts and the Church, 76. 
 "Seekers," 131. 
 Segregation of Catholics, 55. 
 "Separatists," 132. 
 Smith, Sir Thomas, 141. 
 Spiritual life of the Church, 99-105. 
 Star Chamber, the, 74-77, 84, 117. 
 State and Church. See Church and 
 
 State. 
 Strype, 87. 
 Sturmius, 16. 
 Supremacy, Act of, 21-24, 29, 67, 72f 
 
 Taxation of Catholics, 53, 57. 
 
 Thacher, Elias, 181. 
 
 Thirty-nine Articles, the, 94, 97, II7, 
 171. 
 
 "Three Articles," 117. 
 
 Tolerance, hope of Catholics for, 47; 
 advance of England toward, 63, 
 91; effect of union of Church and 
 State on, 89; defects in govern- 
 ment's policy of, 183, 186; success 
 of government's policy of, 189. 
 
 Travers, Walter, in, 114, 157. 
 
 Turner, Dean of Wells, 141. 
 
 Uniformity, Act of, 21-24, 72, 97, 
 105, 142. 
 
 Universities, 78 «.; graduates of, re- 
 quired to take oath, 31. 
 
 Vestiarian controversy, 90, 141-47, 
 
 156. 
 Vestments. See Habits. 
 Viewe of the Churche that the Authors 
 
 of the late published Admonition 
 
 would have planted, etc., 152. 
 Visitation, Commission of Royal, 23, 
 
 27, 71. 
 
 Walsingham, 40, 45, 57, 141. 
 
 Westmoreland, Earl of, 36. 
 
 Whitglft, Dr. John, 98, 113, 117, 129, 
 143 n., 165; controversy with Cart- 
 wright, 154-57- 
 
 Wilcox, 149, 151. 
 
 Witches, laws against, 32. 
 
 Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo, 31. 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
THIS BOOK ^' 
 
 ^i^ 
 

 I 
 
 ! 
 
1 4 DAY USE 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 the 
 
 .ne last date stamped below, or 
 Renewed books are subjeato'" 
 
 TT> 21A-60t71-3,'65 
 %336sl0)476B 
 
 General Library .