OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION. The Times of April 23, 1891: "It is written, suitably to its purpose, in a simple, direct, and interesting style. We need not say that 'Anglican' views of the traditions and position of the Church are given full expression." The Standard oi Oct. 17, 1891 : Mr. Hore never seeks to conceal the fact that he is a devoted son of the Anglican Church ; but he is studiously fair to the Roman Catholics on one side and the Nonconformists on the other, and never overstates his case against either." The Globe of April 20, 1891 : "This tells the Story of the Church more completely and yet more tersely than any other volume with which we are acquainted. Here may be found all that is necessary to an intelligent understanding of the past and present of the great institution with which the Author has to do. Mr. Hore begins at the beginning with the Celtic forerunners of the Church and brings his narrative down to the publication of ' Lux Mundi.' " The Morning Post of June 22, 1891 : "To compress the story of the English Church into 500 pages, and to give a full description of its growth and progress, without making the record a mere string of dates and names devoid of interest or life, is no easy task. Mr. Hore, however, has achieved it triumphantly, and his thoughtful work will rank for thoroughness of treatment and attractiveness of style with Mr. Green's ' Short History.'" The Saturday Review of May 30, 1891 : "There is no surer safe- guard against schism than is derived from an acquaintance with the char- acter and historical basis of the claims which the Church makes upon the loyalty of its members, and we therefore welcome the Rev. A. H. Hore's book as a means of spreading much sound information about the Church's history. While writing specially for young people, he has wisely refrained from adopting a different style of treatment from that which would be equally appropriate in a book for more advanced students." The Athenaum of July 25, 1891 : "As far as England is concerned it is most comprehensive, even such recent events being included as the publication of 'Lux Mundi,' and the judgment in the case of Read and others v. the Bishop of Lincoln. Mr. Hore writes from the very intel- ligible standpoint that the Reformation did not create a new Church but eradicated abuses." ii Opinions of the Press on tht First Edition. The Guardian of July 29, 1891: "It seems to us an excellent work of its kind. Mr. Hore writes from the point of view of one who believes that the Church of England of the nineteenth century is identical with the Apostolic Church and the Church of St. Augustine, and rightly traces out its continuous history through all the perils and dangers that have beset it. He brings the tale down to the publication of ' Lux Mundi' in 1889, and the Archbishop's judgment in the Lincoln case, 1890. i . . We can say with some confidence that this is the best short Church history of the Church of England with which we are acquainted." The Record of June 26, 1891: "We congratulate Mr. Hore on having supplied in his History of the Church of England the very pressing want of a Short History of the English Church in quite as satisfactory a way as we could expect a High Churchman to supply it. ... He evidently studies to be fair, and recognises the immense good done by the Evangelicals. . . . Mr. Hore's book is distinctly good. He means it, as he tells us, for schools and families. . . . But it is itself worthy of the attention of 'more advanced students,' and we expect it will be read chiefly by these. For there are many University men to whom the ' Out- lines of English Church History' demanded of them by their examiners form the chief bugbear in their final examination ; men who shrink from ' Perry ' and find ' Cults ' insufficient. To such as these we unhesitatingly suggest Mr. Hore's volume. They will certainly find it the best for their purpose, for it is full enough, it is clear, it is, generally speaking, sound in judgment and trustworthy in details." The Church Times of August 21, 1891 : "The Text is as readable as history written truthfully can be Controversial matters are treated with scrupulous fairness, and in a right spirit ; . . . there is a surprising amount of information packed into this single volume of 500 pages. . . . The re- mark often made, we fear with some reason, that members of the English Church are unable to give a reason for their Churchmanship, will be ren- dered impossible if clergy and men of influence will do their best to get this volume into wide circulation ; ... all who ask us to recommend a good popular Church History, should make a note of Mr. Hore's work. . . . The Author has most ably proved the continuity of the English Church from the time of St. Augustine, and in a long series of events from 597 to 1890, has omitted nothing of vital importance." The Church Review of July 30, 1891 : "The matter is well-arranged ; style clear and simple. ... The author has worked out his theme learning, skill, and commendable impartiality. He does not shrink from exposing the dark as well as the brighter side of his country's and Church's HUtory." HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, tfor Scbools anfc families. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, FOR Scbools ant> ^families. BY THE REV. A. H. MORE, M.A., TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. AUTHOR OF "CHURCH AND NO CHURCH," "EIGHTEEN CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND," "THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND FROM WILLIAM in. TO VICTORIA. A New Edition. Sames jparfeer ant) Co. 6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET STRAND, LONDON; AND 27 BROAD-STRF.ET, OXFORD. l8 95 . PRINTED BY JAMES PARKER AND CO., CROWN YARD, OXFORD. PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. A KNOWLEDGE of English Church History, especially amongst the rising generation, is a desideratum of the present day. Un- historical and imaginary assertions are put forward by opponents to mislead people, especially the young and uninstructed, as to the true nature of their Church. They are taught that the Church to which they belong is of comparatively modern date ; that it was founded at the Reformation, before which it was Roman- Catholic, and since which it is Protestant ; that the State estab- lished and endoived a new Church with the Cathedrals and Parish-churches and endowments taken from the older Church. The student of Church History is enabled to detect the fallacy of such statements, and the more he reads the more he is convinced that they are entirely false and devoid of authority. He will understand how such claims as were made by Rome in the later Middle Ages would have been impossible in the days of Gregory the Great, and that the Church of England has more in common with the Church of the earlier period than has any other Church or Community in the land. When once the Pope got a footing in England, as he did at the Norman Conquest, and again in the reign of John, it was difficult to get him out again. But the Church no less than the State was always endeavouring to do so ; and the Reformation was only the crisis of what had been going on for centuries. We hear much now-a-days about the Divorce and the avarice and immoral character of Henry VIII., but they are mere accidents in the case ; for after the Art of Printing was invented, and people began to read and think for themselves, the Reforma- tion was a mere matter of time ; and when the crisis came it was viii PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. the Clergy, and not the laity of England, who first suggested the withdrawal from the allegiance of the Pope. The object, in which they eventually succeeded, was not to make a new Church, but to preserve the identity of the old Church ; not to do away with anything Catholic ; but to purge out what was uncatholic ; and to bring it back to the purer faith of the days of SS. Gregory and Augustine, and the age of the Apostles. The Author in putting forth a new edition of the present work has availed himself of several improvements which friends and friendly critics have suggested. He has enlarged considerably on the late judgments of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; for he cannot but think that those judgments (and not least that of the Privy Council) inaugurate a new and important departure, or rather a return to old paths, in the History of the Church of England. January, 1893. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE Author in the present Volume aims at setting before the younger members of the Church of England a concise, but continuous, History of their Church from the earliest preaching of Christianity in this country to the present time. His Eighteen Centuries of the Church in England having been long out of print, it has often been suggested to him that he should publish a shorter edition, specially adapted for use in Schools and Families. Of the excellent works which exist on the subject, some, as Dean Hook's and Canon Perry's Histories, seemed too long for the purpose ; another, Canon Jennings' Ecclesia Anglicana, was written for more advanced students ; whilst the work published by the S.P.C.K., entitled Turning Points of English Church History, purposes to put forward some of its principal points and not to give a connected History of the Church of England. The opponents of the Church were never more active than they are now. Erroneous and unhistorical assertions are freely made to mislead people as to the true nature of the Church of England. Young people especially are taught to believe that their Church was founded at the Reformation ; that before that time the Church in England was Catholic, since then Protestant ; that at the Reformation the State established and endowed a new and Protestant Church with the cathedrals and parish churches and endowments taken from the older and Catholic Church. The Author, whilst avoiding controversy as far as possible, has put forward the plain facts of history. The standpoint of the Church of England is, that it is the original Church of the Country; that the Church in the present day has more in common with that founded by St. Augustine and the Celtic \ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. missionaries than has any other Church or community ; that we are the rightful and historical heirs of that Church ; that by degrees new and uncatholic principles had crept into it ; that long before the sixteenth century, owing to the intrusion of a foreign element, the Church had become fearfully corrupt ; that the Renaissance, or the period which saw the birth of the New Learning, opened the eyes of the nation to its corruptions ; that a Reformation was looked upon not only in England, but in other Catholic countries also, as absolutely essential ; that the object of the English Reformation (even if it was not all that could have been desired) was to eradicate those corruptions which were like weeds encumbering a fair garden ; not to do away with anything Catholic ; not to make a new Church : but to bring the old Church back to the purer religion which existed in earlier and more Catholic days. It will be observed that in treating of the Reformation Period, the Author has deviated from the general plan of the work, and has placed the events under the different years in which they occurred. The history of the Reformation alone is sufficient to fill volumes ; and he found that by this method, which he has followed through the Tudor and Stuart times, he could compress more events into the necessarily limited space at his command. The book is compiled principally from original sources ; for the history of the nineteenth century he has drawn largely on a work of his own, The Church in England from William III. to Victoria. As few foot-notes as possible have been appended, as being only calculated to distract the mind of the reader ; although when secondary authorities have been quoted, he has thought it only meet and just to mention the sources from which his information is derived. 4 ADELAIDE CRESCENT, WEST BRIGHTON, February i, 1891. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE CELTIC FORERUNNERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 177597- (Page i.) CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 597 681. (Page 21.) CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 664 803. (Page 44.) CHAPTER IV. THE ASSERTION OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 690 1066. (Page 69.) CHAPTER V. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE THRONE AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1066 1154. (Page 96.) the Apostle of Burgundy. In 589 Columban, a monk from the c 1 8 The Celtic Forerunners of the Church of England. Irish monastery of Bangor, crossed into Gaul, and establishing himself in the Vosges, founded three monasteries ; the first at Anegray, and when that became overcrowded, another at Luxuei!, eight miles distant, and the third at Fontaines, he himself presiding over all as abbot ; introducing his own rule and discipline, and the British customs and the British rule for observing Easter. After labouring there for twenty years, he incurred the anger of the king, and was driven from the country ; he then went to Metz, and from thence to Switzerland, where he laboured for some time in the neighbourhood of Zug ; afterwards he went into Italy, where in 613 he founded the monastery of Boboioin the Apennines, and there he died and was buried in 615. St. Gall, the countryman and pupil of St. Columban, having been prevented from accompanying St. Columban into Italy, remained behind in Switzerland (of which he is called the Apostle), where he founded the monastery which after him is called St. Gall, and died probably in 645. In connection with St Columban some interesting facts illus- trative of the independence of the Celtic communion are recorded. Being charged by the Gallic Bishops with observing customs differing from the Roman Church, he told them that he only observed the customs of his national Church, which was inde- pendent of the Church of Rome. In a letter to Pope Gregory the Great, he explained the differences of ritual ; and in another to Pope Boniface IV., though he magnified the Church of Rome as being honoured by the tombs of SS. Peter and Paul, he gives the chief honour to Jerusalem as the place of our Lord's Resurrection. 3. TJie Scottish C/iurrf.The Gospel had been preached to the Southern Picts in the early part of the fifth century (the date ; variously given between 410-432) by St Ninian, the son )f a British chief, who was consecrated a missionary bishop by . Martin of Tours, and is called the Apostle of the Southern Having fixed his See at Whithern in Galloway, he built The Celtic Forerunners of the Church of England. 19 and dedicated there to St. Martin a church not made (as was usual amongst the Britons) of wood, but after the Roman custom of white stone, whence the church received the name of Can- dida Casa, which became the name of the See. After his death his work was continued by St. Kentigern (St. Mungo), also the son of a British Prince, called the Apostle of Strathclyde m , who having been consecrated a bishop about A.D. 552 was "divinely"' guided to Cathures, now called Glasgow, the See of which he founded. But to St. Columba (521 597), not to be confused with St. Columban, the title of the Apostle of Scotland pre-eminently belongs. In A.D. 563 Columba (a name meaning "dove"), a man, we are told, of royal birth and abbot of one of St. Patrick's monasteries, having founded in Ireland 37 churches with mo- nastic societies, crossed over with twelve companions to Scotland on a mission to the Northern Picts. Having obtained from the king of the country the little island of Hy, better known as lona, he founded the monastery over which he ruled as abbot ; and making it his head-quarters, he laboured on the neighbouring shores of Scotland and the North of England. lona soon became a famous seat of religion and of learning, the head of other monasteries in Scotland and Ireland ; the centre from which, as we shall see in the next chapter, proceeded a noble band of missionaries who carried the Gopsel through the greater part of pagan England. Columba never became a bishop, and the Culdees (Colidsei, or Cultores Dei), as his followers were called, were always ruled over by the "Abbas et Presbyter" of lona. This was from respect to the memory of their founder, and not from any prefer- ence of the Presbyterian system over Episcopacy ; Columba often entertained bishops with the honour due to a higher order. Holy orders were always conferred by a bishop, as in other places; the imposition of the right hand of the abbot completing the m It is, however, to St. Cuthbert, whilst Prior of Melrose, about 660, that the title of Apostle of the Lowlands justly belongs. 20 The Celtic Forerunners of the Chiirch of England. ceremony. But within the monastery, bishops (" more inusitato,'* as Bede calls it), in matters not affecting their office, were subject to the Abbot. Columba died, at the age of seventy-six years, on June 9, 597, the same year that Augustine arrived in Britain. At the time of his death our English forefathers were as much pagans as when first they set foot in Britain one hundred and fifty years .before. CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 597 681. GREGORY and the slave-boys at Rome Gregory sends a mission under Augus- tine to Britain Faint-heartedness of the Missionaries Ethelbert, King of Kent Mission settled at Durovernum (Canterbury) Conversion of Ethel- bert Great success of the mission in Kent Augustine consecrated Arch- bishop of the English Churches built Canterbury Cathedral Four new missionaries arrive Gregory's advice to Augustine Conferences with the Bishops of Wales Failure of The time of observing Easter Conversion of the King of Essex Mellitus. Bishop of London Justus, Bishop of Rochester Death of Augustine State of the mission at his death Laurence, Archbishop Opposition of the Irish bishops Relapse in Kent And in Essex Reconversion of Eadbald, King of Kent Mellitus, Archbishop Conversion of Northumbria King Edwin Hilda Paulinus, Bishop of York Honorius, Archbishop Conversion of East Anglia Penda, King of Mercia Overthrow of the Northumbrian Church Flight of Paulinus Oswald, King of Northumbria Aidan Reconversion of Northumbria Conversion of Wessex Defeat and death of Oswald Oswin Oswy Death of Aidan Conversion of Mercia Reconversion of Essex Cedd, Bishop of London Conversion of Sussex, A.D. 681. THE German conquerors of Britain so long as they were at war with Britain observed a unity of councils and interests amongst themselves ; but no sooner had they conquered the country than they turned their arms against each other. So that instead of there being one united England, the country became broken up into several kingdoms, called generally but inaccurately the Saxon Heptarchy, of which first one and then another gained the victory and supremacy over the rest. One of these wars opens to us an interesting tale of British history. There had been war between the English of Deira under their king, Ella, and the English of Bernicia under their king, Ethelric. A group of three boy-slaves taken in the war were one day exposed for sale in the market-place of Rome. This was 22 The Founders of the Church of England. probably sometime between the years A.D. 586 588". Their white bodies, their fair faces and golden hair, so unlike those of the swarthy Italians, attracted the attention of a young Deacon who chanced to be passing by. He was told by the slave-owner that they were English, or as the Latin form would be, Angles. " Not Angles but Angels would they be," was his remark, " if only they were Christians." "Whence did they come?" he asked. "From Deira." The word at once suggested to him that they might be snatched (de ira) from the wrath of God. " Who was their king ? " " Ella." Again the resemblance to Alleluiah seemed to him of good omen. He went to the Pope and offered himself to go as missionary to the English people, and he even started upon the journey. But so beloved was he at Rome, and so ill could he be spared, that the people clamoured for, and the Pope ordered, his return. A few years afterwards, A.D. 590, the young Deacon was him- self, much against his own wish, chosen Bishop or Pope of Rome, under the title of Gregory I., or as he is generally known, Gregory the Great. At that time there was trouble enough to occupy his thoughts at home. To such a depth of degradation had Rome fallen, and so lamentable was its condition, as to lead people to suppose that the end of the world was at hand. The Lombards were overrunning Italy, the Tiber had overflowed its banks and destroyed the granaries of corn, and a severe pesti- lence (from which Pope Pelagius II. died) had followed. Nor was the state of the Church any better ; Gregory himself compared it to "an old and violently shattered ship which admitted the water on all sides, its timber rotten, shaken by daily storms." And yet he recognized as part of his high calling the evangeliza- tion of the heathen world, and could turn his thoughts to Britain, which for a century and a half had been severed from Western Christendom. He had never forgotten the scene in In the former year Gregory returned to Rome from Constantinople, whither he had gone as Envoy from the Pope, in the latter year King Ella died. The Founders of the Church of England. 23 the market-place at Rome, and he was now in the position to carry out the project which he had so long at heart. So A.D. 596 he despatched to Britain a mission of forty monks under Augustine, Prior of the monastery which he had himself founded on the Ccelian Hill, at Rome, and of which he had been the Abbot. It is doubtful whether under ordinary circumstances the fierce worshippers of Woden would have been willing to renounce their own religion, and to adopt that of the hated Briton. There were indeed certain traits in the English character which were capable of being turned into a purer channel than Paganism, and which rendered them amenable to the softer influence of Christianity. But the time and circumstances were particularly favourable for the conversion of the English. Ethelbert, the King of Kent, at that time the most powerful of the kingdoms of the heptarchy, had married Bertha, the daughter of Charibert, the Christian King of Paris, on the understanding that she should be allowed to follow her own religion. She brought with her to Britain her own chaplain, a retired French Bishop, named Luidhard, and restored the old British church erected during the Roman occupation close to Canterbury and dedicated to St. Martin. No doubt her example had some weight with the English people; and accordingly we learn from one of Gregory's Epistles that the English had ex- pressed to him a desire for Christian instruction. Still they remained heathens, and Gregory blamed the French bishops for their lukewarmness in not attempting to convert them. It is strange that Gregory with his vast knowledge of mankind, and the great resources ready to his hand, had not selected a man better suited for the work than Augustine. Augustine's one recommendation was the holiness of his life ; but neither he nor his companions appear to have possessed any special aptitude for missionary work. Their monastic training had not adapted them for so vast and arduous an undertaking; and no sooner was Augustine thrown on his own resources than the weak points in his character began to reveal themselves and his courage to fail 24 The Founders of the Church of England. him. When the monks of Lerins, whom they visited on their road, told them (with much exaggeration) of the dangers which were before them, and of the fierce character of the English people, the missionaries lost heart, and sent Augustine back to Rome to request the Pope that they might be relieved from the task. But they misunderstood the character of Gregory, who was not a man to be so easily daunted. Administering a gentle rebuke, he encouraged them to resume their journey, and gave them commendatory letters to ^Etherius, Bishop of Lyons, and to other bishops and princes of Gaul. Thus armed, these "strangers from Rome" travelled onwards, and having provided themselves in Gaul with interpreters, landed soon after Easter, A.D. 597, in the Isle of Thanet. Thither a few days afterwards Ethelbert went to meet them. The missionaries approached him, bearing such emblems of Christianity as his wife's use must have rendered familiar to him : a lofty silver Cross, and a sacred banner with the figure of the Saviour painted on it. They chanted their Litany, and an interpreter explained the object of their mission. The king heard them at- tentively. "Fair words and promises," he said, "are these, but inasmuch as they are new and doubtful, I cannot give up all that I and the English people have so long observed." This was as much as they could have expected at the first meeting. He allowed them to preach, and appointed them a lodging in the stable-gate at Canterbury (Durovernum) and pro- vided for their sustenance. Onward they marched to Canterbury, Augustine the dark and swarthy Italian, head and shoulders taller than his companions, leading the way. Again they lifted up the silver Cross and the painted banner, and chanted their Litany: "We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy wrath ind Thine anger may be removed from this city and from Thy holy house, for we have sinned. Alleluia." Arrived at Canterbury, they celebrated their services in the little Church of St. Martin. Soon by their preaching, as well as by their holy and self-denying lives, their frequent prayers and The Founders of the Church of England. 25 fastings, they met with the desired success ; and on Sunday, June i, the great triumph was achieved by the baptism of the King. Finding the work thus prospering in his hands, Augustine, following the instructions given him by Gregory, went to Gaul, where he was consecrated, on November 16, Archbishop of the English by Virgilius the Metropolitan of Aries. Returning to Canterbury he received from the King (who is said to have retired to Reculver) the gift of his palace as a residence ; he soon found the men of Kent ready to follow the example set them by their king, so that Gregory was enabled to announce in a letter to the Patriarch of Alexandria that by Christmas Day of that year 10,000 converts had been made to Christianity. Thus the mission was established, and the little Church of St. Martin outside the city was soon found inconvenient for the numerous converts. But Augustine had discovered within the city the ruins of a building which the Christians in Britain, both Romans and native Britons, had used before the heathen northmen had swept over the country. This British Church, King Ethel- bert allowed Augustine to restore. He named it Christ Church, and that name still belongs to the Cathedral of Canterbury, which occupies the spot. Although from lapse of time no stone or brick of the old Church now remains visible to the eye, the spot is undoubtedly the same, and Christians are still worshipping where Christians worshipped two centuries before Augustine's arrival. But, English laws forbidding burial of the dead within the city, Ethelbert gave also a site outside the walls on the north-east ; here the Archbishop laid the foundation of the monastery, which at first took the names of SS. Peter and Paul, but afterwards that of St. Augustine ; this was to serve the double purpose ; as a place of study for missionary work, and a resting-place for his own body after death b . On this site, as much as possible of the ancient structure being preserved, was built in 1844 the noble b It was the burial-place of the first ten Archbishops ; the custom was first changed in the case of Cuthbert, the eleventh Archbishop, who in 758 was buried within Canterbury Cathedral. a6 The Founders of the Church of England. College of SL Augustine, with the view of carrying out the purpose which SS. Gregory and Augustine had so much at heart, the education of missionaries to foreign lands. In the spring of 598 Augustine despatched two messengers, Laurence a priest, and Peter a monk, to Rome, asking for additional help, and also for the advice of St Gregory in the management of his province. Gregory had much to occupy his thoughts at the time ; he was also suffering from ill health ; which perhaps may account for his not sending to Augustine the assis- tance and information which he asked, till 60 1. In that year, however, Gregory sent Augustine four new missionaries, three of whom were Mellitus, Justus, and Paulinus ; with them he sent vessels, altar-cloths, and vestments, and an Archbishop's Pall for Augustine, He also sent a valuable present of books ; a Bible in two volumes, two copies of the Psalms, two of the Gospels, a book of lives of the Apostles and Martyrs, and a Commentary on the Gospels and Epistles. Augustine founded at Canterbury a school for the children of his converts : thus, and by means of the little library supplied by SL Gregory, he laid the foundation of that learning which made England, and Canterbury in particular, so famous in later times. Augustine's questions to Gregory were some of them of such a very simple character as to indicate on the part of the Arch- bishop a narrow mind, arising, perhaps, from his monastic training and want of character. Amongst other matters he consulted him as to the difference between the Roman and Gallican Liturgies ; with the former Augustine had been familiar at Rome, whereas he found the latter in use at St. Martin's. Gregory answered that though Augustine had been accustomed to the use of the Church at Rome, yet whatever he found in the Roman or Gallican or any other Church, that he should select and teach the English who were still new in the faith. St Gregory, in anticipation of the success and extent of the mission, drew out in answer to Augustine's questions a grand scheme for his guidance. The Pope probably thought that Augus- The Founders of the Church of England, 27 tine's See was established in London. There were, according to the plan proposed by Gregory, to be two Archbishops, each with twelve suffragan bishops under him ; one was to be in London ; and for the See of the other he selected York, probably because York had been the capital of Roman Britain ; and the two Archbishops were to take precedence after Augustine's death, according to seniority. Thus London and not Canterbury was to be the See of the Southern Metropolitan ; local associations, however, with Canterbury, the cradle of English Christianity, proved too strong, and so the seat of the Primacy has never been, removed. Augustine had asked Gregory how he was to deal with the bishops of Gaul and Britain. Gregory replied that he should exercise no manner of jurisdiction in Gaul, but he committed the bishops of Britain to his authority. The Pope, because he had given Augustine mission, thought he could confer on him juris- diction also over the British bishops. This, however, he had no- power to give, because when Britain ceased to be a province of Rome the British bishops were no longer under the See of Rome. Augustine relying on the authority which Gregory thought to give him sought to come to an understanding with the bishops of Wales, and for this object held in the year 603 two conferences with them, the first at a place known as Augustine's Oak, on the river Severn. Augustine was narrow-minded and unconciliatory,. two great faults in a missionary. He at once accused them of heresy; he told them they did many things contrary to the Church ; he tried to persuade them to practise Christian unity, and then to join him in his work of preaching to the Gentiles. This dictatorial manner was not a good commencement. The Celtic bishops were as intractable as Augustine ; but their opposi- tion to him arose probably from his being the representative of Canterbury and of the hated Saxons rather than the represen- tative of the Pope. The first conference met wich no success; so a second was 28 Tht Founders of the Church of England. held : at which seven bishops and many learned men .from the monastery of Bangor-Iscoed, under their abbot, Dunawd or Dinooth (as Bede calls him), were present. On their way to the Conference they consulted a holy hermit as to whether they ought at the bidding of Augustine to abandon their traditions. " If he be a man of God," the hermit replied, " follow him." But how were they to know this ? " If he did not rise to them," the hermit said, " he could not be like Christ, meek and lowly in heart, and his words should not be regarded." Augustine received them sitting. He asked them to comply with him on two points, the proper time of observing Easter and the Roman mode of conferring baptism. These points of difference between the Roman and Celtic Churches were not with regard to matters of doctrine, but of ritual, and arose from the long isolation of the Celtic Churches from the rest of Christendom. The Celtic Churches, it may be here observed, kept their Easter on Sunday, and therefore were not like the Quarto-Decimans of the second century, who following the rule of the Jewish Passover, kept Easter 09 the fourteenth day, whether it fell on Sunday or not, of the first Jewish month. The Council of Nice had decided that Easter should always be kept on a Sunday. But since that Council the change was (A.D. 458) made according to a more perfect astronomical rule, which long afterwards prevailed. Of that change, however, the Celtic Churches, cut off as they were from the other Churches of Christendom, were ignorant, and still kept Easter according to the Nicene rule. The difference as to baptism referred probably to the trine immersion of the Romans and the single immersion of the Celts. The Celtic bishops followed the advice of the hermit. " If he will not rise to us now," they said, "how much more would he contemn us if we were under his subjection?" so they re- According to Welsh tradition these bishops were : I. of Caerfawydd, called Hereford; 2. Teilo, i.e. Llandaff; 3. Llanbadarn Fawr ; 4. Bangor ; 5. Llanelwy, i. e. St. Asaph ; 6. Weeg; 7. Morganwg. The Founders of the Church of England. 29 solved that they would do none of these things, nor receive him as their Archbishop. Augustine left them with words of warning : " if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they would suffer from them the vengeance of death." These words spoken at random had a terrible fulfilment ; but not till nine years after Augustine died, so that it could not be in any way attributable to him. In 613, at the battle of Chester, Ethel- frith, King of the Northumbrians, observing the monks of Bangor- Iscoed praying for his Welsh enemies, fell upon and slew twelve hundred of them d . The bitter disappointment with which Augustine returned to Canterbury was no doubt in some degree compensated by the brighter prospect which opened out nearer home. Sigebert or. Sabert, King of Essex, son of Ethelbert's sister Ricula, was con- verted to the faith by Mellitus, one of the four missionaries who arrived in 601 ; and Mellitus in 604 was consecrated the first Bishop of London. Ethelbert and Sabert together built the Cathedral of St. Paul, or East Minster, in London ; and Sabert, as was afterwards believed, built the West Minster which, under Edward the Confessor, rose into Westminster Abbey. In the same year a third See was created at Rochester ; there Ethelbert at his own expense built a Cathedral, which Augustine, in memory of the monastery on the Ccelian Hill at Rome, dedi- cated to St. Andrew, and over this See Justus became bishop. Redwald, King of the East Anglians, was also induced by Ethelbert to receive baptism. But under the influence of his wife, he thought to make a compromise between paganism and Chris- tianity. In the same temple he erected two altars, a large one for "Christ's sacrifice," and another for the worship of idols. Thus he was only half-hearted, and no bishop was appointed to his kingdom. On May 26, 604, two months after the death of Pope Gregory, Augustine died, and was buried in the churchyard of his yet unfinished monastery. d Seep. 14. 30 The Founders of the Church of England. It will have been seen how deep a debt of gratitude the Church of England owes to SS. Gregory and Augustine. They were the two earliest founders of the Church of England. Some people, in dread of Romanism, attempt to detract from or to minimize the great debt which England undoubtedly owes them. But the religion of the Rome over which St. Gregory presided and modern or mediaeval Romanism are two almost different religions, and it is not too much to say that the post- reformation Church of England comes nearer to the doctrine of St. Gregory than does modern Romanism. Gregory himself was no Pope in the modern acceptation of the term. He laid no claim to the infallibility of the Church of Rome. No doubt he would have willingly magnified his office, and have acted on the theory of the papacy, which for more than two hundred years had been developing and advancing its pretensions. But he disclaimed in the strongest language the claim of any patri- arch to be a universal bishop, and denounced it as the sign of antichrist. In every station of life Gregory the Great exhibited those qualities which prove a man to be not only in name, but really great. " Nothing," says Dean Milman e , " was too great, nothing too small for his earnest personal solicitude." From the most minute points of ritual, from matters affecting the temporal and spiritual powers of Rome, he passes to the conversion of Britain, and to the condemnation of the title of Universal Bishop when it was assumed by John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. He laboured diligently as a preacher. To him the Church is indebted for that plain song which after him is called the Gre- gorian Chant, which forms the basis of Church singing in the present day. His one great error was not to have secured a man more fitted for the missionary work amongst the English kingdoms than was St. Augustine. Gregory seems scarcely to have realised the im- portance of the work he was undertaking in the mission to * Latin Christianity, i. 439. The Founders of the Church of England. 31 Britain. His missionaries were second-rate men, such as England would not think of sending out now-a-days to her colonies or to the barbarian tribes of India or Africa. Augustine was not a Selvvyn, nor a Patteson, nor a Mackenzie ; he failed through lack of the qualities which made those bishops successful missionaries. When we hear of people being converted by thousands in a few weeks, we are inclined to doubt whether the seed sown sunk deep into the soil. People were too apt to embrace Christianity be- cause their kings had become Christians before them. Augustine left as he must have thought three firmly-established Sees : even this fell far short of the scheme of Gregory ; and yet two of these Sees soon relapsed into idolatry. Still he did much, even if he might have done more. He first broke the ground; he sowed the seeds which other missionaries following after him watered. He laid the foundation, as Bede says, " nobly " of the Church of England. He renewed the union with Western Christendom which the German conquest of England had de- stroyed. He founded the See of Canterbury, the second Patri- archate of the West, and from him the Church of England derives the succession of its bishops. He also laid the foundation of English unity ; for whilst there were at least seven kings in the heptarchy, there was only one Archbishop, and only one recog- nized law, the law of the Church; so then through him the lesson was taught that if the several kingdoms were presided over by one archbishop, they might be united also under one king. Yet there were some things done by him which we could desire had been done otherwise. He laid, or at least cemented, the long-lasting enmity between the Roman and Celtic Communions in Britain. Through him, too, Latin instead of English became the language of the public worship of the country. He failed to see that the same reasons which led men to pray in Latin at Rome required that they should pray in English at Canterbury. As Latin at that time was, as French in the present day, the language of diplomacy, the absurd custom, opposed though it was to the practice of the primitive Church, became established, and was 3 a The Founders of the Church of England. confirmed at the Norman Conquest, of people being supposed to pray in a language which they do not understand. The second Archbishop of Canterbury was Laurence, one of the original missionaries from Rome, whom Augustine had him- self consecrated as his successor. Laurence, a man more con- ciliatory than Augustine, tried to heal the schism which Augustine's indiscretion had fomented between the Roman and Celtic com- munions. He hoped to find the Irish more tractable than the bishops of Wales with regard to the observance of Easter : he and his brother bishops addressed a letter to " our most dear brothers, the lords, bishops, and abbots throughout all Scotia," i.e. Ireland. The letter shows how deeply seated was the difference between the two communions ; it speaks of the bishops having expected better things from the Irish than from the Welsh bishops ; but they had found that Dagan, an Irish bishop, when recently on a visit to Canterbury, had refused even to eat in the same house with the Roman missionaries f . They also wrote to the priests of the Britons, but with no greater success. The primacy of Laurence saw the Canterbury Mission brought to the very verge of ruin. King Ethelbert died after a reign of fifty-six years in 616, and was succeeded by his son Eadbald (616 640). Eadbald had married his father's widow (for after Bertha's death, Ethelbert had taken to himself another wife), and hating a religion which forbade such a union, renounced Chris- tianity. The kingdom of Essex, after Sabert's death, also relapsed into paganism. Whilst Mellitus, the bishop, was celebrating Mass in St. Paul's, Sabert's three sons, bursting into the church, insisted on his giving them some of the white Eucharistic Bread such as he had given to their father. Mellitus told them that they must first be baptized washed, as their father had been, in the laver of salvation but that if they despised the laver of life, they might not eat of the Bread of life. This they refused to do, and told 1 Probably Dagan had heard at Canterbury some reflexions cast by the Roman on the Celtic communion. The Founders of the Church of England. 33 Mellitus that if he would not comply with their wishes in so small a matter, he would not be allowed to stay in their kingdom. Mellitus was thus forced to leave Essex. Disheartened by these adverse circumstances, the three bishops resolved on abandoning the English mission and returning to Rome. Mellitus and Justus did actually cross over to Gaul, and Laurence was only prevented by a supposed miracle from follow- ing them. The night before his intended departure he caused his bed to be prepared in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul. In the dead of the night St. Peter appeared to him, reproved him for his cowardice and scourged him with "apostolical severity." Next morning Laurence appeared before the apostate king, told him of the miracle and showed the marks of scourging on his body. The King frightened at what he saw and heard, forsook his idolatry and renounced his unlawful marriage, and for the rest of his life he cordially supported the Archbishop, and became to the Church a second Ethelbert. Thus was Kent reclaimed to the faith : under Eadbald's rule many churches arose in his kingdom ; one the venerable Church of St. Mary on the heights of Dover Castle s ; he also built a church at Folkestone, where his daughter Eanswith, who founded there a religious society, is still remembered as a local saint. He reinstated Justus in the bishopric of Rochester ; but Eadbald did not possess the same influence as his father had over Essex ; the Londoners refused to receive back Mellitus, and for thirty-eight years London and Essex were lost to Christianity. Archbishop Laurence died in 619, and Mellitus then became the third Archbishop of Canterbury. When Mellitus died in 624, Justus being the only bishop of the Roman mission remaining, virtually appointed himself the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury, and consecrated Romanus as his successor at Rochester. The centre of importance now shifts to the North of Britain, to the kingdom of Northumbria, which had become the most power- ful of the kingdoms of the heptarchy. Edwin, who has left his name * Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. iii. D 34 The Founders of the Church of England. in Edinburgh (Edwin's burg), son of that Ella whose name Pope Gregory had associated with Alleluia, having in 617, by the aid of Redwald, King of East Anglia, defeated and slain in battle the King Ethelfrith, became himself King of Northumbria and Bret- walda, or Lord of Britain. In 625 he, being himself a pagan, married Ethelburga, sister of Eadbald, King of Kent, on condition that she should be allowed to follow her own religion. Edwin not only accepted the terms, but promised that he would himself embrace Christianity, if his wise counsellors thought it more worthy than his own faith. Ethelburga took with her as chaplain and bishop to her northern Court, Paulinus, one of the four mis- sionaries whom Gregory had sent to Augustine in 60 1, and was also accompanied by James, a Deacon. For some time Paulinus met with but little success. But on Easter-Eve, A.D. 626, Edwin narrowly escaped death from the hands of an assassin, sent by Cuichelm, son of Cynegils, under-king of the West Saxons ; and on that same night Ethelburga, the queen, was safely delivered of a daughter. Believing that these events were due to the prayers of Paulinus, Edwin not only allowed his daughter to be baptized under the name of Eanfleda, but promised to become a Christian himself if he should gain the victory over his enemy Cuichelm. The victory was gained ; Edwin, however, still hesitated till he had taken counsel with his wise men at Godmundham, a place about twenty-three miles distant from York. The high-priest Coifi. first gave his advice, which was founded on his own interests. The pagan religion in his opinion contained neither virtue nor utility, for, he said, no man's worship had been more devout than his, yet no man had received from it fewer benefits than himself. If the gods were good for anything they would have favoured him who had served them so well. The advice next given by an aged thane presents an interesting picture of the simplicity of the age : " The present life of man, O King, as compared with that which is unknown, is like the swift flight of a sparrow through your room in winter, when there is a good fire in the midst, whilst storms of wind and rain prevail The Founders of the Church of England. 35 without. Whilst it is within, it is safe from the wintry storm, but after a short space of fine weather it vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which it had emerged. So is the life of man ; his existence is visible for a short time, but of what went before or what is to follow afterwards we are entirely ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it justly deserves to be followed." Next spoke Paulinus, and so convincing were his words that Coifi said there was no longer room for doubt : he proposed him- self to set fire to the temples and the altars at which they had served without receiving any benefit. Mounted on the king's charger, the people the while thinking he was mad, he hurled a spear into the pagan temple at Godmundham and ordered it to be set on fire ; and on Easter Day, 627, King Edwin himself, with his grand-niece Hilda, then thirteen years of age, and many of his witan, or -council of wise men, were baptized in a small wooden church which Edwin had hastily built at York. Edwin appointed York as the See of Paulinus, and on the spot where now stands York Minster he commenced a noble church to be dedicated to St. Peter. So great was the success attending the ministry of Paulinus that for thirty-six days he was engaged in baptizing in the neighbouring rivers of the Glen and the Swale (for as yet there were no baptis- teries in Britain) the people who flocked to him. For six years the King and the Bishop laboured together in spreading the Gospel not only in Northumbria, but also in the neighbouring country as far as Lincoln, so that a large part of Northern Britain had through their means the Gospel preached to them. Such is the account given by Bede of the first conversion of Northumbria. It must however be added that by others h the conversion of Edwin is attributed to a Welshman, named Run or Rum, the son of Urgben. The only way of reconciling the two accounts is to suppose that Run and Paulinus are the same h Nennius and the Annales Cambrise, 36 The Founders of the Church of England. person ; that Run may have gone to Rome and been there or- dained, and changed (as was not uncommon) his Celtic name for the more euphonic Roman name of Paulinus. Bede's simple account however seems preferable. Meanwhile what was the condition of the Canterbury mission in Britain? Archbishop Justus died in 627, and in that same year Romanus, Bishop of Rochester, was drowned at sea whilst return- ing home from Rome. So that now Paulinus was the only bishop left in Britain. Under these circumstances Pope Honorius I., who must have been far from gratified with the collapse of the Roman mission, appointed an Italian, named like himself, Honorius, who was consecrated at Lincoln by the sole ministry of Paulinus, fifth Archbishop of Canterbury. Two palls were sent from Rome, one for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the other to confer the rank of a Metropolitan on Paulinus. Previously to their arrival Paulinus had ceased to be Bishop of York. But before the great calamity, to be mentioned presently, occurred to Paulinus and the See of York, another kingdom, that of East Anglia, had been converted to the faith. That kingdom had for some time been lingering on the confines of Christianity. Its king Redwald had, as related above, thought to combine to- gether Paganism and Christianity, and his son Eorpwald having been induced by Edwin, King of Northumbria, in 628 to embrace and practice a more real Christianity, was in the same year as his conversion murdered by his lukewarm subjects. His brother Sigebert, who succeeded, having himself when an exile embraced Christianity in Gaul, determined to complete the work begun by his brother in East Anglia. Providentially, as it would appear, there arrived at that time at Canterbury a Burgundian monk named Felix; him Sigebert, on the recommendation of Archbishop Honorius, accepted to preach in his kingdom ; Felix was in 630 consecrated a bishop by Honorius, and fixed his See at Dunwich on the Suffolk coast Two years afterwards he was joined by a : ltic monk named Fursey, from Ireland, and by their joint means the Church was firmly established in the kingdom of East Anglia. The Founders of the Church of England. 37 And now must be related the terrible calamity which befel the Church in Northumbria. Penda, King of Mercia, was during the whole of his long reign the champion of Paganism and the bitter foe of Christianity; at one time it appeared that under him all the kingdoms of the heptarchy would be united in paganism, and Christianity in Britain be exterminated. The Welsh, hoping to avenge their defeat by Ethelfrith, King of Northumbria, at Chester in 613, now united themselves under Cadwallon, the Christian King of North Wales, and formed an alliance with Penda against Edwin: and on October izth, 633, Edwin and his son Osfrid were defeated and slain in a battle at Heathfield, near Doncaster. This was a sad blow to Christianity. Paulinus, with the queen Ethelburga and her young daughter Eanfleda, fled to Canterbury : Ethelburga retired into a convent which she founded at Lyminge, and Paulinus accepted the See of Rochester, vacant through the death of Romanus. James the Deacon, and with him no doubt others, more resolute than Paulinus, stood their ground, and thus prevented the faith from utterly dying out in Northumbria. But the Roman mission in that kingdom was overthrown and Paganism for a time re-established. What would Pope Gregory have thought had he lived to witness the faint-heartedness of his missionaries ? To each of the first four Archbishops of Canterbury all of them Italians and all sent to Britain by Gregory the stigma of cowardice attaches. Au- gustine -would have forsaken the mission and turned back at Lerins ; Laurence, his successor, was at one time on the very point of leaving England in despair ; Mellitus, Bishop of London, and Justus, Bishop of Rochester, both afterwards Archbishops of Canterbury, actually deserted their posts and fled from the king- dom ; and now the same tale is repeated of Paulinus. Truly the missionaries of Gregory were not ambitious of the martyr's crown. The conversion of Northumbria, so nobly begun, so feebly abandoned, was to be accomplished by other than Roman mis- sionaries. Ethelfrith, King of Northumbria, had left three sons, Eanfrid, 3 8 The Founders of the Church of England. Oswald, and Oswy, all of whom became kings in Northumbria > and one daughter. Eanfrid, the eldest, succeeded Edwin in Ber- nicia, and Osric, Edwin's nephew, succeeded him in Deira ; both of them had been Christians, but both renounced the faith, and were killed in battle by Cadwallon. Oswald, the second son, " a. man beloved of God," Bede says of him, became in 634 king of a united Northumbria, and Bretwalda. At the end of that year, with " an army small in number but strong in faith in Christ,' r Oswald, himself fixing a Cross into the ground and bidding his soldiers kneel before it, defeated and slew Cadwallon at the battle of Heavenfield, near Hexham. Heavenfield more than made up for Heathfield, and Oswald was to the Church all that Edwin had been before him. His first thought was the re-establishment of Christianity in his king- dom, and as he had spent his early days amongst the Celtic missionaries at lona, he turned to lona for a missionary. The first sent to him was Gorman, a man of stern and unbending character, who meeting with no success returned disheartened to lona. "Brother, might it not have been your own fault? did you forget God's word to give them the milk first and then the meat?" The speaker was Aidan, one of the brothers in the monastery. All eyes were turned towards him, and it was at once agreed that Aidan was the fittest person to head the mission to Northumbria. Bede describes him as a man of the greatest gentleness and piety. Having been consecrated a bishop, he received from Oswald the island of Lindisfarne for his See : from Lindisfarne he discharged his missionary duties, and thence- forward Lindisfarne became the centre of the Celtic, as Canter- bury was of the Roman, mission \ Monks from lona flocked to Lindisfarne, from whence they went forth under Aidan's direction, establishing missionary centres throughout Northumbria and Yorkshire. Aidan and Oswald were the models of a primitive bishop and a Christian king ; Aidan travelled on foot, the King, eC WaS m ^ transferred to Chester-le-Street, and in 995 to The Fotinders of the Church of England. 39 who had learnt the Irish language at lona, acting as interpreter, a sight which Bede might well term " beautiful." Aidan formed a school of twelve English boys, whom he trained for mission work in their own country ; churches and monasteries arose everywhere, built and endowed by the king's bounty, on the model and dis- cipline of lona. Through Oswald also the way was paved for the conversion of Wessex. It would appear that Pope Honorius, having heard of the failure of the Roman mission in Northumbria, and of the desertion of his post by Paulinus, determined to send into Britain another mission, independent of Canterbury: so in 634 he de- spatched thither a Roman monk named Birinus, with instructions to apply for consecration not to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but to Asterius, Bishop of Milan, who was at the time residing at Genoa. Birinus having received consecration at his hands, landed in Hampshire, with instructions to direct his labours to the middle of Britain. But finding that Wessex was steeped in Paganism, and that its conversion had not even been attempted by the Roman mission, he determined not to proceed further inland, but to confine his labours and to preach the Gospel to the kingdom of Wessex. At that very time Oswald arrived in Wessex to seek the daughter of its king, Cynegils, in marriage. Under the preaching of Birinus and the holy example of Oswald, the King felt a strong "drawing to the faith," and was baptized at Dor- chester, near Oxford, Oswald, who soon afterwards married his daughter, , standing as his Godfather ; and in 634 Dorchester was made the See of Birinus. We must now return to the kingdom of Northumbria, which was visited by another great calamity. On August 5, 642, the good King Oswald was slain by Penda in a battle fought near the town which after him is called Oswestry. He died as he had lived ; Bede tells us he " ended his life in prayer ;" his last words being a prayer for his army, " Lord, have mercy upon their souls." His body, mutilated by the enemy his head and arms being severed from his body was recovered the next year by Aidan, 40 The Founders of the Church of England. and buried at Lindisfarne, and eventually placed in the coffin of St Cuthbert, at Lindisfarne. William of Malmesbury tells us that when the coffin of St. Cuthbert was opened in 1104, the head of St. Oswald, king and martyr, was found between his arms ; hence the common representation of St. Cuthbert, holding the head of St. Oswald in his hand. Oswald was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Oswy, who had married Eanfleda, the daughter of Edwin and Ethelburga, and by Oswin, son of Osric, in Deira. Oswin, to judge from his description as drawn by Bede, must have been an almost perfect character ; " too good for this world," Aidan said of him. Tall and beautiful in person, kindly in manner, eminent for piety, he recalled to Aidan the memory of his beloved Oswald. But Oswy coveted Deira, and in order to possess himself of it, he caused him to be murdered on August 20, 651. This was the one great blot on Oswy's life ; it broke Aidan's heart, who only sur- vived Oswin eleven days. The story is told how a young shepherd lad, Cuthbert, the future saint, whilst watching his sheep on the Lammermoor Hills, saw in a vision the soul of Aidan being carried up by angels into heaven. The vision determined the young shepherd's future life ; he resolved to devote himself to the monastic life, and entered the monastery of Melrose under the Abbot Eata and the Prior Boisil. After the murder of Oswin, Northumbria became united under Oswy ; Christianity was firmly established in the kingdom, and the days of Paganism in Britain were numbered. One struggle more, however, Penda determined to make against the advancing Christianity. He had in 654 defeated and slain in battle Anna, the Christian king of the East Anglians. Oswy tried to bribe him by gold and costly presents to keep the peace ; but his endeavours were in vain. Penda rejected all terms. Seeing that he must fight, Oswy vowed that, if he were victorious in battle, he would dedicate to the service of God his young daughter Elfleda, and found twelve monasteries. The battle that was to decide between Christianity and Paganism was fought at Wing- The Founders of the Church of England. 41 field, on November 15, 655 ; Penda was defeated and slain, and with him fell Paganism. Oswy performed his vows ; he gave land for the building of twelve monasteries, and placed his daughter in the monastery of Hartlepool, of which Hilda was superior. But before Penda's death, although he himself continued to the end a pagan, his own kingdom of Mercia had been converted to Christianity. Penda's hatred of Christianity was based, as it would seem, on political rather than religious grounds. The pagan king, when he saw that his kingdom was becoming gradually more and more hemmed in by the advancing faith, thought it necessary to fight for his independence ; but when the time came he offered no obstacle to the conversion of his kingdom. The con- version of Mercia was due to his son Peada, "an excellent youth and most worthy of the title of king," Bede says of him. Peada in 653 sought in marriage Atheleda, daughter of Oswy, King of Northum- bria. Oswy refused his consent to the marriage unless Peada accepted the true faith, and Oswy's son Alchfrid, who had married Penda's daughter, was also urgent in the same cause. When Peada heard the Gospel preached, he was so struck with " the promises of the heavenly kingdom and the hope of resurrection and future immortality," that he declared he "would willingly become a Christian even though he were refused the virgin." He embraced Christianity, and was baptized by Finan, the successor of Aidan in the See of Lindisfarne. He took with him from Northumbria four priests, one of whom was Cedd, a Northum- brian, brother of St. Chad and afterwards Bishop of London, another Diuma, a Scot, to preach the Gospel in Mercia. The mission met with great success, and in 656 Diuma was consecrated first bishop of the Mercians by Finan, and placed his See first at Repton, from whence it was afterwards transferred to Lichfield, the capital of the kingdom. About the same time that the Church was established in Mercia, Essex was reclaimed to the faith by means of Scotch Missionaries. A friendship existed between Sigebert, afterwards surnamed the Good, King of Essex, and Oswy, and on one of the 42 The Founders of the Church of England. frequent visits of the former to the Northumbrian Court, he was so convinced of the truths of Christianity that he was baptized by Finan at the same time as Peada. Returning from Northumbria, he took with him Cedd to preach in his kingdom, and Cedd was that same year (654) consecrated to the See of London by Finan and two other Scotch bishops. Thus nearly forty years after its relapse, Essex was recovered to the faith, but it was recovered not by Roman, but by Celtic missionaries. The conversion of Sussex (the last converted to Christianity of the English kingdoms) belongs in point of time to the next chapter. In order, however, to give an uninterrupted account of the conversion of the English kingdoms, it must be mentioned here. Its conversion was due to Wilfrid, of whom we shall hear more later on, but one point in whose history we must here briefly anticipate. A small monastery seems to have existed at Bosham, but its services were confined to the inmates, and little or no impression was made on the surrounding country. The king and queen of Sussex had been already converted to the faith, when in 68 1 Wilfrid, banished from his See of York, sought refuge in the country. No rain had fallen for three years, and the country was afflicted with a sore famine. The people, ignorant of the art of deep-sea fishing, were reduced to so great misery that in companies of forty and fifty they threw themselves from the rocks into the sea. It was at such a time that Wilfrid came amongst them. He taught them the art of deep-sea fishing which they so much needed, and thus gained their affections, so that they the more readily listened to and accepted the gospel which he preached to them. The King gave him the Isle of Selsey for a residence ; Selsey afterwards became and remained the See of the Bishopric till the Norman Conquest, when in 1070 it was transferred to Chichester. At Selsey, Wilfrid founded a monas- tery, which he made the centre of mission-work not only in Sussex, but also in the Isle of Wight and in Wessex. Thus in little more than eighty years our English forefathers The Fmcnders of the Church of England. 43 were converted to Christianity. It will have been observed how much England is indebted both to Roman and Celtic missionaries. To sum up briefly the work done. Kent was converted by St. Augustine, A.D. 597. East Anglia, by a Burgundian monk named Felix and an Irish monk named Fursey, in 630. Wessex,. by Birinus, sent by Pope Honorius, in 634. Northumbria, primarily by a Canterbury mission under Paulinus, and when that "ailed, by Scottish missionaries in 635. Mercia, under the Scots n 653. Essex under Cedd, who was consecrated Bishop at Lindisfarne, in 654. Sussex, under Wilfrid in 68 1. CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 664 803. THE Celtic and Roman Communions in Britain Wilfrid Council of Whitby, A.D. 664 The English Churches brought under one faith Cuthbert and the monks of Lindisfarne Archbishop Deusdedit Wilfrid, Bishop of York Deposed from his See Chad, Bishop of Lindisfarne Archbishop Theodore Benedict Biscop Wilfrid reinstated Chad, Bishop of Lich- field Synod of Hertford Wilfrid again deposed Appeals to the Pope, who decides in his favour Wilfrid thrown into prison Converts the kingdom of Sussex Synod of Hatfield Cuthbert becomes Bishop of Lindisfarne Death of Theodore The National Church Flourishing state of the Church John of Beverley Aldhelm Albinus Bede Al- cuin Monasticism Bede's Ecclesiastical History The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Archbishop Brightwald Council of Easterfeld Wilfrid again in trouble Again appeals to the Pope Council of Nidd Death of Wilfrid Archbishopric of York Egbert first Archbishop Two papal legates sent into England Council of Calcuith Archbishopric of Lich- field Council of Cloveshoo, A.D. 803 St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany Willibrord Alcuin and Charlemagne Pilgrimages. FOR many years two rival communions existed side by side in the English Churches, the Roman, with its centre at Canterbury, and the Celtic, of which the centre was at Lindisfarne. The principal difference between the two communions was with regard to the time of observing Easter. So long as Aidan (635 651) and Finan (651 66 1) presided over the See of Lindisfarne, the Celtic customs remained unchallenged; but when after their death Colman, a man in holiness their equal but intellectually their inferior, became Bishop of Lindisfarne, a collision between the two communions became inevitable. Moreover Colman was pitted against Wilfrid, who, a man of eminent ability, was an upholder of the Roman customs, and who soon became and remained (except during the period of his suspension) for more than forty years the most influential bishop in the land. The Rise of the National Church of England. 45 Of the preliminary history of this remarkable man a short ac- count may here be given. Born in 634, the son of a thane in Bernicia, he at the age of fourteen years found service in the Northumbrian court, and was sent by Eanfleda, the wife of King Oswy, to the monastery of Lindisfarne. Educated there under the Scotch monks, it might have been supposed he would have acquired the Celtic views of Church discipline, and been an adherent of the Celtic communion. But on the contrary, being, says Bede, "a clear-sighted youth," he saw that the way to virtue taught by the Scots was not perfect, and he imbibed a dislike of everything Celtic and a preference for everything Roman. The queen continued to be his patroness, and by her he was sent first to the court of Kent, and in 654, in company of Benedict Biscop, a nobly-born Northumbrian, to Rome. At Rome his Roman preferences and Celtic antipathies became more pronounced and more deeply rooted, and on his way home he received the Roman tonsure at Lyons, reaching Northumbria at the end of 658. In 66 1 Wilfrid was appointed by Alchfrith, the son of King Oswy, to the monastery which he had founded a few years before at Ripon. Alchfrith at first belonged to the Celtic communion, and had placed his monastery under the charge of Eata, the Abbot, and Cuthbert, one of the monks, of Melrose. But under the influence of his mother Eanfleda, who was a niece of Ead- bald, King of Kent, and who had been brought up in the Roman communion, he was induced to leave the Celtic and join the Roman party ; whereupon he dismissed the monks of Melrose, and placed Wilfrid as Abbot over the Ripon monastery. The Northumbrian court was at that time divided on the Easter question. The queen, her son Alchfrith, and Wilfrid, favoured the Roman communion. The King, Oswy, seems to have been a kind of Gallio in the matter ; though he had himself been brought up in the Celtic communion, and "loved Colman for the goodness that was in him, "yet he had committed his son's education to so staunch a Romanist as Wilfrid. But the diversity 46 The Rise of the National Church of England. of doctrine necessitated a diversity of practice at the court, and it so happened on a certain occasion that whilst one party was celebrating the festivities of Easter, the other was observing the Lenten fast. The Queen, unlike the King, was in earnest in her creed, and was not likely to alter her practice; neither would the King tolerate the divisions which existed at his court. In order, therefore, to decide the great point of difference between the two communions, Oswy allowed a famous council to be held in 664 in the monastery at Streneshalch, or (to call it by its Danish and modern name) Whitby, which Hilda, the former Abbess of Hartlepool, had in 657 founded, one part being devoted to men, the other to women. Deusdedit, Archbishop of Canterbury, did not attend the council, for the position of the Archbishop was at that time little more than that of a diocesan Bishop. The King presided ; on the Celtic side were Colman, Cedd, Bishop of London, and Hilda the Abbess; on the Roman, Agilbert, who had in 650 succeeded Birinus as Bishop of Dorchester, and Wilfrid. Colman, as spokesman of the former party, referred the Celtic customs to St. John (in this however he was wrong) and to St. Columba ; Wilfrid, though he was a strong Romanist, did not found his argument upon any papal authority, but referred the Roman custom to St. Peter, to whom our Lord had given the keys of heaven. " Is it true, Colman," asked the King, " that the keys of heaven were given to St. Peter ? " Colman admitted that it was true. " Then," said the King, " I will not oppose the door- keeper of heaven, lest when I present myself I find no one to open to me the door." Thus the Easter controversy was settled in favour of the Roman party. It was a foregone conclusion; the victory was due to the marvellous organizing and unifying power which has ever distinguished the Church of Rome. The council was of the greatest consequence, not only to the Church of Britain, but to Britain itself. Through it the Churches of Britain were brought under one faith and into communion with the other Churches of Christendom. The Celtic episcopacy was effectually eradicated The Rise of the National Church of England. 47 from the Church of Britain, and the Roman episcopate left alone and undisputed. Had the decision of the Council been different, so long as two conflicting systems were left to exist side by side, there could have been no national Church ; and thus the position, not only of the Church, but also of the State of England, would have been altered ; for it was the oneness of the national Church that laid the foundation of the future oneness, and through it of the prosperity, of England. And moreover it was the triumph of Catholic truth. But it led to a schism. Several indeed of the Celtic party adopted the Roman usage, amongst whom were Cedd, Bishop of London, Eata, the Abbot of Melrose, and Cuthbert But with Colman and many others of the Celtic party, the change was np such easy matter; Colman resigned the See of Lindisfarne, and ac- companied by the greater part of the Scotch monks, retired to lona. Tuda, who although ordained in Ireland conformed to the Roman usages, succeeded Colman, and became the first Roman Bishop of Lindisfarne. Eata was, by the request of Colman, set over the monks of Lindisfarne. But to enforce upon the monks the decision of the Council of Whitby was a difficult task for Eata. Under him the abbey of Lindisfarne was so torn asunder by the endless disputes between the advocates of the Roman and Celtic usages, that he summoned Cuthbert, who had been labouring as Apostle of the Lowlands, to become" Prior of Lindisfarne, in order to establish there the Roman rule. Even Cuthbert met with strong opposition, but in time his gentle temper prevailed, and the monks of Lindisfarne were won over to the Roman party. In the same year as the Council of Whitby Britain was visited by a severe pestilence, which carried off, amongst others, Ear- conbert, King of Kent, Deusdedit, the Archbishop of Canterbury % Damian, Bishop of Rochester, Cedd of London, Boisil, Prior of Melrose (revered afterwards as Saint Boswell), and Tuda, the lately Frithona, the first native Archbishop, succeeded Honorius in 655, and took the Roman name of Deusdedit. 48 The Rise of the National Church of England. appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert succeeded Boisi! as Prior of Melrose : Wilfrid succeeded Tuda in the Northern Bishopric, and transferred the See to York, which had been marked out by Pope Gregory for the second Archbishopric. But the See of Canterbury being vacant, and as there were not three bishops in England whom he considered to have been canonically conse- crated, Wilfrid went to Compiegne, in Neustria, and was there consecrated a bishop with unusual pomp by Agilbert, the former Bishop of Dorchester, who had after the Council of Whitby been appointed to the Archbishopric of Paris, and twelve other bishops. Wilfrid was so honourably treated on the continent that he was in no hurry to return to Britain, and it was not till A.D. 666 that, accompanied by a retinue of one hundred and twenty attendants, he left Paris and arrived in Northumbria ; only, however, to find that by his delay he had incurred the anger of King Oswy, and that he had been superseded in his diocese by Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, brother of the late Bishop Cedd of London. Wilfrid thereupon retired, more quietly than might have been expected of him, and resumed the Abbacy of Ripon, occasionally performing episcopal duties in Mercia and Kent The See of Canterbury was kept vacant after the death of Deusdedit for two years, after which the two leading kings in Britain, Oswy of Northumbria the Bretwalda, and Egbert, who had succeeded Earconbert as King of Kent, wishing to elect a bishop who would be acceptable both to the Roman and Celtic parties, chose a Kentish priest named Wighard; and as there was no Metropolitan in Britain, and no Bishop who would not be objected to by one party or the other, they despatched him to Rome, there to be consecrated by Pope Vitalian. Wighard, however, died of a pestilence at that time prevailing in Rome. Whereupon the Pope (as it would appear at the request of Oswy) -" according to the tenour of your letter," he wrote to Oswy (this may have been a pious fraud on the part of the Pope ; but it gave him ground for action) proceeded himself to appoint the Archbishop. Having first offered the Archbishopric to Adrian, The Rise of the National Chtirch of England. 49 a monk from a convent near Monte Casino, who refused it, he selected Theodore, a monk, like Saul, of Tarsus in Cilicia, a hale old man of sixty-six years of age, and of great repute for learning, and he deputed Adrian and Benedict Biscop (who was then present on a second visit to Rome) to accompany him to Britain. A better or more judicious appointment than that of Theodore could not have been made. He was a Greek, and was thus not unacceptable to the Celtic party ; he was appointed by the pope, and this would make him acceptable to the Roman party. But Theodore was still a layman ; he had also received the Greek tonsure ; it was therefore necessary for him to remain some time longer in Rome, till he had gone through the different Orders of the ministry, and received the Roman tonsure. So Theodore and Benedict Biscop were not able to reach Britain till May, A.D. 669, some time, however, before the arrival of Adrian ; and Biscop was appointed abbot of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul at Canterbury till such time as Adrian should arrive. When Theodore first came to Britain, the Church was little more than a collection of unconnected and independent mission stations. There were no parish churches, no clergy resident amongst the people. The bishop and clergy lived together in the bishop's house or monasterium ; and from thence priests and monks issued forth to evangelize the neighbouring country. The king at his own expense built a church, which became the cathedral of the diocese, the royal chaplain being the bishop. Besides the cathedral there were few or no churches, Crosses being set up here and there, at which the missionaries preached and said Mass. The Primate at Canterbury was little more than a diocesan bishop like the other bishops ; he had probably never passed the boundaries of Kent, and was unknown beyond his own diocese; and the Primacy was in danger of being over- shadowed and eclipsed by the great Bishopric of Northumbria. So soon as Adrian arrived in Britain, Theodore started with him on a general visitation of the kingdoms, with the definite ob- ject of asserting his own position and of organizing and grouping 50 The Rise of the National Church of England. the various dioceses around the See of Canterbury. He was thus engaged for three years. Wherever he went he insisted on the carrying out of the decision of the Council of Whitby. In some cases he seems to have acted in a hard and despotic manner. Arrived in Northumbria, he found that Chad was Bishop of Lindisfarne, and he immediately detected a flaw in his consecration. When Chad was appointed bishop the See of Canterbury was vacant through the death of Archbishop Deusdedit, and Chad was consequently consecrated by Wini, Bishop of Winchester, assisted by two Celtic bishops. Moreover he had been appointed to a diocese from which the Bishop, Wilfrid, had been uncanonically extruded, and which therefore was not really vacant. Theodore told him he had not been properly consecrated. " If you consider I have not received the episcopate rightly of which I never thought myself worthy, but which I undertook for the sake of obedience to command," said Chad, " I willingly resign." So the meek and gentle Chad was deposed from the Bishopric of Lindisfarne, and went back to his beloved abbey of Lastingham, and Wilfrid was reinstated in his See. But Theodore was so struck with the gentleness of Chad's character, that after having himself supplied any canonical defect in his Orders, he obtained for him from Wulfhere, King of Mercia, the See of Lichfield. Chad only held the See for three years ; he died on March 2, 672, a day since commemorated as a black-letter day in the Calendar ; his name is still venerated at Lichfield, the cathedral of which is dedicated to his memory. On September 24, 673, the first provincial Synod of the Church of this country, which was also the first of our national assemblies, met under Theodore at Hertford, and was at- tended by all the leading bishops of Britain, with the exception of Wilfrid, who was represented by his proxies. At this Council a body of canon-law was drawn up. The first canon prescribed the orthodox observance of Easter ; the seventh provided for the holding of an annual synod on August i, at Cloveshoo. As the English dioceses were of immense extent and generally com- The. Rise of the National Church of England. 5 1 mensurate -with the kingdoms of the heptarchy, it was proposed in the ninth canon that there should be an increase in the episcopate. No decision, however, was arrived at on the subject. Notwithstanding this Theodore determined to divide the overgrown dioceses, and in this, as he had not the law to support him, he met with considerable opposition. In 675 he deposed Winfrid, Bishop of Lichfield, "for disobedience," his disobedience probably being opposition to the division of his diocese. But in Northumbria Theodore met with more serious resistance from Wilfrid, who had re-established his See at York. Oswy, King of Northumbria, having died in 670, was succeeded by his son Egfrith. Wilfrid seriously offended the new king. Having given the veil to his first wife, Etheldreda, in the convent of Coldingham (with regard to which he certainly was wrong, for he acted without her husband's consent or approval), he next objected to Egfrith's second marriage with Ermenburga, sister of the King of Wessex. Egfrith thought he had the right to marry again, on the ground that his first wife was dead to him. Through his own injudicious conduct Wilfrid made an enemy of the Queen, a proud and violent woman, who also turned the King against him. Theodore, who perhaps viewed with a feeling akin to jealousy Wilfrid's great pomp and popularity, and who might think he was laying the founda- tion of the independence of the See of York, took the part of the King and Queen, and without even consulting him in the matter, first divided his diocese and afterwards deprived him of his See. To York, Bosa, a monk from Hilda's monastery, was appointed, Eata, Abbot of Lindisfarne, becoming Bishop of the united Sees of Lindisfarne and Hexham, and Eadhed being .appointed to Lindsey. Wilfrid was not the man to sit still under such an act of in- justice. In his younger days he had come much in contact with places which owned obedience to Rome, and he in consequence over-estimated the power of the Pope in Britain. Smarting under the treatment he had met with from Theodore ; thinking also, it may be, that the Pope who had appointed Theodore was the proper 52 The Rise of the National Church of England. judge of the Archbishop's misconduct, he took a course unpre- cedented in England, and set an example which afforded an unfortunate precedent in future times, by appealing to the Pope at Rome. It was imagined that in his journey to Rome he must needs pass through Gaul, in which country an attempt was made to way-lay him ; and from the similarity between the two names, Winfrid, the deposed Bishop of Lichfield, was actually mistaken for him and maltreated. Wilfrid, however, did not pass through Gaul, but being driven by contrary winds on to the coast of Friesland, the land beyond the Zuyder See, he devoted the time during which he was delayed there to sowing the seeds of Christianity amongst the wild Frieslanders. Arrived at length in Rome, he found that a messenger sent by Theodore had arrived before him. If Wilfrid was not justified in his appeal to Rome, it would have been perhaps a wiser and more dignified course if the Archbishop of Canterbury had ignored it altogether. However, a council held in the Lateran Basilica, which was attended by fifty bishops, gave judgment in Wilfrid's favour. Elated with his success he returned to England in 680, the bearer of a letter to which the papal bitlla (whence papal letters were called bulls} or seal was attached, ordering Theodore to reinstate Wilfrid, and to attend a council (the sixth General Council), to be held on March 21 at Constantinople. Theodore did neither; the king summoned his council of wise men, in which, instead of confirming the pope's decision, it was decided that Wilfrid's appeal to Rome constituted a further offence. Wilfrid was thrown into prison, where he remained for nine months. After he was released from his captivity, being banished from Northumbria, he sought an asylum first in Mercia and afterwards in Wessex ; but in both kingdoms the relentless animosity of the King and Queen pursued him. It was at that time and under such circumstances that he found a refuge with the King of Sussex, which led to the conversion of that kingdom to Christianity b . b See p. 42. The Rise of the National Church of England. 53 Theodore, although he did not obey the Pope's summons to the Council of Constantinople, yet, in order that no doubt might exist as to the orthodoxy of the Church of which he was Arch- bishop, convened a Synod to Hatfield on September 15, A.D. 680, to enquire into its faith on the question of the Monothelite heresy . The Church was declared to be orthodox, the Monothelite heresy was condemned, and the decrees of the first five General Coun- cils were accepted. Theodore continued his work of reorganizing the English dioceses. In 68 1 he divided the united dioceses of Lindisfarne and Hexham, Eata continuing to hold the former, and Trumbert being appointed to the latter. In 684 Theodore deposed Trum- bert, and Cuthbert was elected to succeed him. For nine years Cuthbert had been leading the life of an anchorite on Fame Island, opposite to Bamborough. Many endeavours were made in vain to induce him to accept the bishopric, and it was not till the king himself, with " many religious and great men," went to him to the island, that he was persuaded that it was the will of God that he should accept the bishopric, and with tears he was induced to " bow his neck to the yoke of the episcopate." Cuthbert was thus first appointed to the See of Hexham. But out of deference to him Eata resigned to him the See of Lindis- farne, with which Cuthbert had been so long connected, himself accepting Hexham. Cuthbert, however, only continued Bishop of Lindisfarne for one year and three quarters. At Christmas, 686, feeling that his end was near, in order the better to prepare himself for it, he returned to his hermit life on Fame Island. On March 20, 687, the end came, and he was buried at Lindisfarne d . c This heresy, which arose A.D. 630, attributed only One Will (n6vov OeA to our Lord. It was condemned at the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 680. At this Council Pope Honorius I. was denounced as a Monothelite heretic. Pope Leo II. (680 683) also anathematized him by name : " Anathematizamus nee non et Honorium ; " and for three centuries successive Popes on their accession repeated the anathema. d In 875 the monks of Lindisfarne, flying from fear of the Danes, carried his 54 The Rise of the National Church of England. Theodore died A.D. 690, at the age of eighty-eight years. Shortly before his death he desired to be reconciled with Wilfrid, whom he must have felt he had treated unjustly. Theodore and Wilfrid accordingly met in London at the house of Bishop Earconwald, and there the reconciliation was effected. Wilfrid's enemy, King Egfrith, had been killed in battle in 685 ; and through Theodore'^ intercession with the reigning King of Northumbria, Wilfrid was restored to the Bishopric of York, only however as it had been remodelled by Theodore. The primacy of Theodore, following close on the Council of Whitby, marks an important epoch in the history of the English Church. The English Churches which had become one in rite at Whitby were made one in discipline under Theodore 6 . When Theodore first became Archbishop, it appeared as if there would be as many distinct and independent Churches as there were kingdoms of the heptarchy. If others founded Churches, Theo- dore organized them into one National Church. His presence in the several dioceses brought about the recognition of his primacy, and made the position of the Archbishop of Canterbury a national one. " He," says Bede, " was the first Archbishop whom all the English Church obeyed." "Before his time," says the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, " the bishops had been Romans, but from this time they were English." So that the National Church of England has been established twelve hundred years. Theodore increased the number of bishops from almost the same number as the kingdoms of the heptarchy to seventeen, and confined the bishops to their own dioceses (parochice) he paved the way for the later division into parishes by giving the nobles and great landowners the right of patronage; they were thus induced to build and coffin about from place to place till, in 883, it found at Chester-le-Street a temporary, and in 1 104 a permanent resting-place at Durham. See p. 38. It is difficult properly to designate the Church at this time. It may be called the English Church because it was the Church of the English peoples ; but it could not be the Church of England, because there was not as yet one kingdom of England. The Rise of the National Church of England. 55 endow churches for their families and dependents, and to secure more regular services than they had hitherto obtained from the occasional visits of itinerant clergymen. During the primacy of Theodore an important advance was made in the services and ritual of the Church ; church music was cultivated and church architecture developed. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the sister monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, a man not inferior in learning to Theodore and Adrian, during his several visits to Rome, brought away with him pictures and altar- vessels for the churches, and vestments for the clergy; thus encouraging a taste for the fine arts. He also brought with him from Rome John, the arch-chanter and Abbot of St. Martin's, by whom the northern clergy were instructed in the Gregorian Chants and in matters of ritual. Biscop and Wilfrid alike promoted church architecture. Instead of the wooden edifices with which the Irish and Scotch missionaries had been contented, they erected churches of stone, with leaden roofs, and with glazed windows instead of mere apertures in the wall. When in 674 Biscop founded the monastery of Wearmouth, he built the church of stone, "after the Roman fashion which he always loved." He brought over from France skilled masons and glass-makers to make windows for the church, the cloisters, and refectory, thus teaching the art, hitherto unknown in Britain, of making glass and working in stone. When, A.D. 682, he built the monastery of Jarrow, ever memorable as the abode of "the venerable" Bede, he repaired to Rome for the fifth time, and brought back with him a large collection of books, and pictures, and vestments. Wilfrid, when- he rebuilt the Cathedral of York, filled the windows with " such glass as permitted the sun to shine within." At Ripon he built the church of polished stone, with ornamental pillars and porches, and arched vaults and winding cloisters. His church at Hexham was even more sumptuous, so that it was said that no church on this side of the Alps could compare with it. Most valuable of all was the impetus which the primacy of 56 The Rise of the National Church of England. Theodore gave to learning. Under him the National Church became pre-eminently a learned Church. Before his time, students from Britain as well as from the Continent used to flock to the Irish monasteries as being superior to any in their own country. Theodore brought back the learning which had been banished from Britain by the English Conquest. He himself, " the philo- sopher," as he was styled, was deeply versed both in Greek and Latin, and in ecclesiastical literature. Hitherto Latin had been the principal, if not the only, language taught in the schools of Britain ; through Theodore the knowledge of Greek as well as of Latin was promoted. His no less gifted friend Adrian was, says Bede, " exceedingly skilled in Greek and Latin ;" " a foun- tain of letters, and a river of art." Theodore made the monasteries schools of secular and religious learning for the clergy and the laity ; and the nunneries became places of education for women. Libraries were founded which became celebrated over the Continent ; one especially famous was that founded by Wilfrid at York. The library commenced by Augustine at Canterbury was added to. At the school which Augustine founded in that city a number of eminent men were educated under Adrian; amongst them John, revered in after times as the sainted John of Beverley, who became Bishop of Hexham in 687, of York, 705. There also was educated Aldhelm, one of the most learned men of the time. When he was Abbot of Malmesbury that monastery became under him so famous that scholars from France and Scotland flocked to his teaching. When, A.D. 705, his kinsman, Ini, King of Wessex, divided the diocese of Winchester, Aldhelm became the first Bishop of Sher- borne. Another of the scholars of Canterbury was Albinus, the successor of Adrian in the abbacy of that city, to whom Bede tells us he was indebted for many facts in his history. Bede says that the scholars of Theodore and Adrian were equally well versed in Greek and Latin as in their own lansruasre : a succession of O O t scholars followed through the long period of peace that ensued; so that learning when it was at its lowest ebb on the Continent The Rise of the National Church of England. 57 was at its height in England, and lasted on till the Danish invasions. Amongst all the learned scholars of the time, the name of the Venerable Bede (673 734), the father, as he has been called, of English literature, stands supreme. Born on the site where one year later Benedict Biscop founded his monastery of Wearmouth, and being left an orphan at seven years of age, Bede was com- mitted to the care of Biscop, by whom, when in 682 he built the neighbouring monastery of Jarrow, he was transferred thither and placed under the charge of the Abbot Ceolfrith. At the age of nineteen he was ordained deacon, and at the age of thirty priest, in both instances by John of Beverley, at that time Bishop of Hexham. His own words best describe the manner of his life. " All my life long I spent in that same monastery, giving my whole attention to the study of the Holy Scriptures. ... I always held it sweet to learn, or to teach, or to write. I received the Diaconate in my nineteenth, and the degree of the Priesthood in my thirtieth year, both by the ministry of the most reverend John. . . . From the time of my taking Priests' Orders until my fifty-ninth year, I have taken care to make these short extracts from the works of the Fathers for my own benefit and that of those connected with me, and occasionally to add something of my own after the model of their meaning and interpretation." " In Bede the whole learning of the age seems to be summed up," says Mr. Green f . He engaged himself in every kind of literature and science then known, and forty-five works remained after his death to attest his unflagging industry. Of all his works that which concerns us most is his " Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," which he wrote at the request of Ceolwulph, King of Northumbria, and without which we should have been almost wholly ignorant of the early history of our Church. This great work he brought down to A.D. 731. He died on Ascension Day, 734, working hard to the last hour of his life, that he might finish his translation of St. John's Gospel. As the end drew near ' Short History, p. 38. 5 8 The Rise of the National Church of England. one of his scholars said to him, " Dearest master, there is one chapter wanting, and it is difficult for thee to question thyself.'' "No," he said, "it is very easy; take thy pen and write quickly." The evening came; "There is yet one sentence to write out," said the scribe. " Write quickly," said Bede. " Now it is finished," said the boy. "Thou hast spoken truly; it is finished," said Bede ; he then chanted the Gloria Patri, and as he uttered the words, The Holy Ghost, he breathed his last. Second only to Bede, Alcuin (735 804) holds a distinguished place as a scholar in the history of the Middle Ages : of him a short account will be given later on in this chapter. The names of Benedict Biscop and Bede bring prominently for- ward the subject of Monasticism, which forms so important a feature in the early history of the Celtic and English Churches. The first Evangelizers of England were monks ; monks of Rome, as SS. Gregory and Augustine, and monks from the Celtic monasteries of Ireland, lona, and Lindisfarne. Monasticism was a necessity in the early days of Christianity, and therefore from the first it took deep root in Britain, and lasted on through good report and evil report, to receive its death-blow at the Reformation. If we would form an idea of the early monasteries we must discard all ideas of later mediaeval accretions. People when they visit the ruins of some old monasteries think that the monks of old were an idle and ignorant set of men. Nothing can be further from the truth. Labour of some kind, physical or mental, for rich and poor, learned and unlearned, was the rule in the early monasteries. All sorts and conditions of men found there a home Kings, wearied with the cares of government, or suf- fering perhaps from remorse for some crime, embraced the religious life; princes and nobles; ladies of high, not unfre- quently of royal, birth, sought in the monasteries the only safe asylum to be found in those dangerous times. From the mon- asteries went forth missionaries, often men of noble birth, to carry the light of the Gospel not only to England, but to Germany and the far-distant parts of Europe. The Rise of the National Church of England. 59 It is difficult to imagine what England would have done with- out the monks. Land required to be reclaimed, marshes drained, lands ploughed, and houses built. Whilst some monks were engaged in agriculture, others worked at trades and manufactures, or on the various works which the community and neighbourhood required. Soon a few huts grew up around ; in time these swelled into villages, and villages into towns. The monasteries were the national schools, the monks the national teachers. The monks too were the physicians of the sick, and the friends of the poor, where no other provision was made for their comfort ; there were then no poor laws, no need of poor rates. Other still higher and more lasting benefits were conferred by the monasteries on society. Before the art of printing was invented it is to the monks the world is indebted for whatever spiritual or historical knowledge is preserved. Some wrote the history of their own times; others prepared the service and devotional books for the Church ; others were engaged in illuminating manuscripts (and how beautiful these were our own age can testify), especially of the Bible ; three Latin copies of the Bible were made in the monasteries of Wear- mouth and Jarrow alone. To show the deep debt of gratitude which England owes to the monks, we need only refer to two works, one already men- tioned, the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede. The other is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the most valuable documents in the possession of any nation which, next to Bede, is the chief authority for our early Church History. For this work we are indebted to the monks ; one manuscript (as is supposed under the direction of King Alfred) having been written in the Monastery of Winchester ; another in that of Canterbury ; another at Abingdon ; another at Worcester ; another at Medeshampstede (Peterborough) s. It is easy to understand how an overstrained ideal led in time * For the collection and preservation of these manuscripts, which were swept away at the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII., we are indebted to Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton. 60 The Rise of the National Church of England. to extravagance and spiritual pride and still worse evils, deadening and corrupting the natural affections. Corruption and decay and open vice, and the recurrent need of reformation became, as time went on, the universal rule of monastic life. Freed from the control of bishops, and subject only to a far-distant pope, the monks suffered from want of supervision and discipline. Even as early as the age of Bede we find a falling away in the monastic system ; Bede in a letter to Egbert, Bishop of York, inveighs against the evils of the monasteries, and advocates an increase of the episcopate from the confiscation of their revenues. The monasteries became an evil and a burden to the country. Many people became monks, solely to escape the public duties imposed upon them by the state. Monasteries grew too numerous and acquired too large a share of the public land. The monks instead of being religious became landlords. Nobles and rich men pro- cured the conversion of folkland, or public land, into bocland, thus freeing themselves from the services of the state; they asserted their rights to marry, and supported their wives and families from revenues intended for the Church ; and then another evil followed ; the monasteries became hereditary, and a general decay of learning, in places intended for learning and piety, was the result h . We must now return to our history. After the death of Theodore, the See of Canterbury was kept vacant for two years, after which Brightwald (693 731), Abbot of Reculver, a man of royal birth, was appointed to the Primacy. Fresh disputes arose with Wilfrid. Egfrith was succeeded in the kingdom of Northumbria by his natural brother Aldfrid. For some time after his restoration to his diocese Wilfrid managed to keep himself quiet But fresh disputes arose, and it was proposed again to divide his diocese, and to convert his beloved monastery of Ripon into a cathedral. Wilfrid objected k See chap. iy. The Rise of the National Church of England. 61 to the proposed plan, and the Archbishop assembled a council at Easterfield in Yorkshire to settle the matter. Wilfrid was asked whether he would comply with the decrees of the late Archbishop ; in other words, whether he would consent to the partition of his diocese. He pleaded the papal decision in his favour ; he asked whether they dared to compare the decrees of an Archbishop of Canterbury with those of the most holy Popes of Rome, Agatho, Benedict, and Sergius ? He appealed to the great benefits which he had himself conferred upon the Church. Who but he had rooted out the errors of the Scotch schismatics ? (this was with reference to his part in the Council of Whitby ;) had brought back the right observance of Easter ? had introduced the antiphonal chant? and established the Benedictine rule for the true monastic life? Again he appealed to Rome. This new appeal was decided to be a fresh offence; he was adjudged to be contumacious, was deposed and excommunicated ; and so strong was the detestation of one who preferred a foreign to an English jurisdiction, that no one would eat in his company ; food blessed by him was thrown away ; the sacred vessels \vhich he had used were deemed polluted. Again the old man, verging now on seventy years of age, bent on foot his way to Rome, whither the Archbishop also had sent his envoys. The contention of both sides was laid before a council assembled in that city, which devoted four months, and seventy sittings, to their consideration. Again the matter was decided in Wilfrid's favour, but with no greater success than before. The King refused to alter a sentence issued by himself, the Archbishop, and all the dignitaries of the land, "for any writings coming, as you call it, from the Apostolical See." But with the Archbishop it was different. He was alarmed by threats from Rome. The King Aldfrid died, having, according to the statement of his sister, the Abbess Elfleda, expressed on his death-bed contrition for his conduct to Wilfrid, and his intention, had he lived, of reinstating him. The Archbishop convened another synod on the river Nidd, near Knaresborough, which was 62 The Rise of the National Church of England. attended by the young King and all the chief men of the kingdom. All the bishops present, Bosa of York, John of Beverley, and Eadfrith of Lmdisfarne, sided against Wilfrid. But every one, Wilfrid amongst the rest, was wearied with the interminable con- test The Archbishop mediated, and a compromise was effected ; the papal decrees were not accepted, and though Bosa died that same year (1705), Wilfrid was not restored to the See of York. To that See John of Beverley was translated from Hexham, Wilfrid succeeding him at Hexham and retaining his monastery at Ripon till 709, when he ended his stormy life in the monastery of Oundle. Archbishop Brightwald dying in 731 was succeeded by Tatwine, who only held the Primacy three years, and was succeeded by Nothelm (735 740). Nothelm when a priest had undertaken a journey to Rome for the sake of copying MSS. for the English libraries, which were at that time acquiring a European fame; and, says Bede, he " with the leave of the present Pope Gregory, searched into the archives of the holy Roman Church, and found there some epistles of the blessed Pope Gregory (i.e. St. Gregory the Great) ; and returning home .... brought them to be inserted in my history." The great event in Nothelm's primacy was the erection of the See of York into an Archbishopric. Theodore's object had been to keep the See of York, which after the flight of Paulinus had sunk into the rank of the other Sees, as a mere suffragan See of Canterbury. Nothelm being familiar with the Epistles of St. Gre- gory, must have learnt from them the scheme proposed by that Pope for instituting a second archiepiscopal See at York. He was also himself in favour of the scheme. At that time the See of York was held by Egbert, a cousin to Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, to whom Bede dedicated his history. Bede, in the letter before referred to, which he wrote to Egbert, whilst he advocated the foundation of new bishoprics, advocated also the carrying out of the scheme of Gregory and the erection of York into an archi- episcopal See. The Rise of the National Church of England. 63 Accordingly Egbert obtained the pall of a metropolitan from Pope Gregory, and became the first Archbishop of York in 735. In 737 Ceolwulf resigned his throne and became a monk at Lindisfarne, being succeeded in the kingdom of Northumbria by Eadbert, the brother of Archbishop Egbert. The two brothers, the King and the Archbishop, worked hand in hand together, the King governing the State, the Archbishop the Church, till the year 758, when the King received the tonsure and became a monk in Egbert's monastery at York. Egbert was a prelate of great learning and eminence, and presided over the See of York thirty-two years. Amongst other works he published a Pontifical, a book of Ritual, and a Pcenitential, but the collection of Church laws known as the " Excerptions " has been wrongly attributed to him, and are a work of later date. His chief fame, however, was as founder of the Cathedral School at York, which he entrusted to the care of Ethelbert, who succeeded him as Archbishop ; the school soon acquired fame from having Alcuin first as a scholar and then as "magister scholarum." Alcuin tells us that Ethelbert was "a pattern of goodness, justice, piety, and liberality ; he guarded the lambs of Christ from the fold, bearing back on his shoulders the wanderers, fearing neither kings nor earls if they misruled." After holding the Archbishopric for thirteen years he resigned it to Eanbald, another of his pupils in the school at York, and retired into a monastery, in order that he might devote himself more thoroughly to God. Ethelbert and Eanbald were, like Egbert, prelates of great eminence. Unfortunately after a time disputes for precedence arose between the two Metropolitans of Canterbury and York, and caused for many years no little scandal to the Church. But from the time of Egbert to the present day there have been two, and, except for a short period, only two, Metropolitans over the Church of England. Nothelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was succeeded by Cuthbert, translated from the See of Hereford, who held the See of Canter- bury from 759 765. To him succeeded Jaenbert (766 790), 64 The Rise of the National Church of England. and during his primacy a third Metropolitan See, that of Lichfield, was created. For some time the kingdom of Wessex held supremacy over the other kingdoms. When the power of Wessex waned, and Mercia became the most powerful of the English kingdoms, and Offa, King of Mercia (755 796), who was able to treat as his equal with Charlemagne, King of the Franks, became Bretwalda, the kingdom of Kent and also that of Northumbria having its Arch- bishop, Offa and his Witenagemot thought Mercia ought to have one also. The difficulty was how to obtain the Pall from Rome, without which Offa's Archbishop would not be on an equality with the other two. He applied to the Pope, Adrian I., who was only too glad to get a footing in England. He is said to have received a large bribe from Offa ; at any rate he was able to make his conditions, which were more valuable than gold, that two legates should come to England and hold a council. The terms were conceded, and a precedent, the first and only one in Saxon times, was set ; two legates arrived, and a council was held at Calcuith (probably Chelsea) in 787*. In vain Jaenbert, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, opposed the mutilation of his See ; Lich- field, under its Bishop, Higbert, was raised into an Archbishopric, and even took precedence of Canterbury. Offa, out of gratitude to the Pope, made a grant of 365 mancuses towards the lighting of St. Peter's and the relief of pilgrims to Rome ; the donation gave rise to what was afterwards known as Peter Pence; what was thus at first a voluntary gift was afterwards claimed by the Pope as his right. Offa is said to have founded the abbey of Verulam, since called St. Albans. Higbert was the first and only Archbishop of Lichfield. Ethel- hard, the successor of Jaenbert, obtained the consent of King Cen- wulf, who succeeded Offa, and also the consent of Pope Leo III., who declared that " the partition of the Archiepiscopal See had 1 The 1 7th Canon of the Council ordered the regular payment of tithes to the Church. The Rise of the National Church of England. 65 been unjustly made," to the reduction of Licuneld to its former status, and the Archbishopric was abolished by a Synod held at Cloveshoo, A.D. 803. The council declared that Adrian's consent had been obtained by "surreptitious means and deceitful argu- ments," a conclusive argument, if not against the honesty, yet against the infallibility of the Pope. It also made an attempt to remedy the prevalent abuses of the monastic system ; it pro- nounced excommunication on any layman who should assume the government of a monastery, and the monks were forbidden to elect as Abbot any secular man who had not been brought up to the monastic life, and been entered within some Order. The eighth century was the golden era of the Anglo-Saxon Church. At the time when Christianity was losing ground in the East of Europe, and the so-called dark ages were com- mencing, it was gaining ground in the West, mainly owing to the zeal and energy of English missionaries, who, emulating the zeal of their Celtic forerunners, carried the light of the Gospel to their still pagan relations on the Continent. Although missionaries from these shores had before preached in that country, the conversion of Germany as a whole is assigned to an Englishman, Winfrith, the Apostle of Germany, better known as St. Boniface (680 755). Born at Crediton, and brought up in the monastery of Nursling, in Hampshire, he, about A.D. 715, joined in Frisia the Englishman Willibrord, who had been con- secrated by Pope Sergius as Bishop of Utrecht. Meeting there with little success, owing to the opposition of Radbod, the pagan chief of the Frisians, he returned to Nursling, where he remained till A.D. 718, when he visited Rome with a commendatory letter from Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, and obtained the sanction of Pope Gregory II. to his preaching amongst the heathen tribes of Germany. Hearing of the death of Radbod, he rejoined Willibrord in Frisia ; and after three years went into Hessia, where he bap- tized many thousands of Hessians. In 722 he paid a second visit to Rome, and was consecrated there by Pope Gregory (who exacted from him an oath of obedience to the Roman See) as a F 66 The Rise of the National Church of England. missionary Bishop, and his name was changed from Winfrith to Boniface. On the accession of Gregory III. he received the Pall of an Archbishop, and having erected and organized several episcopal Sees in Bavaria, he became, A.D. 745, Archbishop of Mentz (Mayence). After a time, although seventy years of age, he again yearned for Frisia, the scene of his early labours, and thither he returned, only to suffer martyrdom, together with all his companions, numbering fifty-two, on Whitsun Day, 755. Boniface has been accused of being a missionary zealous for the Papacy rather than for Christianity. Yet he was no blind adherent of Rome, and even on one occasion withstood Pope Stephen II. But at a time when Christianity was at a low ebb in the East of Europe, and Rome was the great bulwark against the dangers which beset the Church, he was a strong, perhaps too strong an adherent of the Papal See. In a letter to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, he styles himself "Legate of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome ;" speaks of his having effected the submission of the German Church to Rome, and proposes that Cuthbert should follow his example in England. Cuthbert being much of the same mind with Boniface, with permission of the King of Mercia, convened a Synod, A.D. 747, at Cloveshoo, at which the King of Mercia presided. At this Synod several useful canons were enacted, one of which was that the people were to be instructed to say the Creed and the Lord's Prayer in their mother tongue. But when the question of the submission of the English Church to Rome was brought forward, it was at once dropped ; and it was determined that " if there is anything which a bishop could not reform in his own diocese, he was to bring it before the Archbishop in synod, and publicly before all, in order that it might be reformed." It was through its missionaries that Britain had been brought into political relations with the continent. And now France and the German Empire were indebted to Britain for the revival of literature. Pepin, the father of Charles Martel, and great-grand- father of the Emperor Charles the Great (or Charlemagne), is said TJie Rise of the National Church of England. 67 to have been baptized by Willebrord. Pepin the Little, the father of Charlemagne, was consecrated King of the Franks by the English missionary Boniface. The schools of Britain and Ireland were at that time the best in Christendom ; and of all the schools in Britain Archbishop Egbert's school at York, where, as stated above, Alcuin, the foremost scholar of the age, was educated and taught, ranked first. It was to England, therefore, that Charle- magne, when he wished to revive the almost extinguished literature of France, turned for help. He had met Alcuin at Parma in 781, on the return of the latter from Rome, whither he had gone to procure the pall for Eanbald, the Archbishop of York, and at Charlemagne's request Alcuin took up his abode at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). There Alcuin acted not only as tutor to Charlemagne's family, but also as instructor and confidential adviser to the emperor himself; and it was in this latter capacity that he was employed in England between 790 792 in arranging a treaty of peace between Charlemagne and Offa, King of Mercia. So successful did Alcuin prove as a teacher that schools were set up and learning spread throughout the German empire ; and when in his old age, A.D. 796, he settled down as Abbot of Tours, the schools of Tours, under him, became in France what the school of York was in England. At the end of the seventh century and beginning of the eighth, intercourse between the Churches of Rome and England, which had hitherto been infrequent became common. Great veneration had always been felt in England for Rome, where the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul were supposed to rest, and pilgrimages to their tombs became popular. Cadwalla, King of Wessex, after a short reign (685 688), resigned his crown and went on a pil- grimage to Rome, where he was baptized by Pope Sergius I., and there, that same year, whilst "still in his baptismal robes," he died. His successor Ini, after a long reign (688 728), followed his example, and went on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he became a monk. Ccenred, King of the Mercians, in company with Offa, the young King of the East Saxons, went on a pilgrimage in 709 68 The Rise of the National Church of England. to Rome, and received the tonsure, and died there. The prac- tice once set by kings became common amongst all classes of the people, noble and ignoble, priests and laity, men and women. It however led to great scandal, so that about A.D. 743 Archbishop Boniface (the Apostle of Germany) wrote to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking of the disgrace brought upon the English Church by the pilgrimage of women, even of nuns, to Rome; there was, he said, scarcely a city in France or Italy in which some depraved English woman might not be found. CHAPTER IV. THE ASSERTION OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 690 1066. THE Royal Supremacy in Anglo-Saxon days not Erastian The King the Vicar of God Papal supremacy unknown The Archbishop and Bishops high officers of state Union of the ecclesiastical and civil courts The Church not endowed by the State Tithes Unity of the Church preceded the unity of the State England becomes one under Egbert The Danish troubles Disastrous to the Church, but particularly to the monasteries King Ethelwulf's donation Murder of Edmund, King of East Anglia King Alfred The Danelagh Character of Alfred Revival of Monasticism Alfred's care for learning Contests between the Regular and Secular Clergy Odo Dunstan A fresh revival of Monasticism Dunstan as a statesman Dunstan opposes the Pope Siric, Archbishop of Canterbury Murder on St. Bryce's Day Sweyne The Danegeld Murder of Archbishop Elphege Canute becomes King of England His character Goes on a pilgrimage to Rome Edward the Confessor King His Norman tastes Tries to Romanize the Church of England Robert, Abbot of Jumieges, appointed Archbishop of Canter- bury Alien priories The Normans expelled from England Robert appeals to Rome Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury Edward builds Westminster Abbey Its Consecration Death of Edward His character Assertion of the Royal Supremacy in the laws of Edward Harold King William, Duke of Normandy, goes to the battle of Hastings with the Pope's blessing Crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey. To be the supreme ruler over all persons ecclesiastical as well as civil in 'their dominions was the undoubted prerogative of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Nor was the Royal Supremacy of the Erastian character which some people might be inclined to imagine it to have been. Religious ideas in those days pervaded everything. Church and State were one and the same body under different aspects, and the King being supreme over the State was necessarily supreme over the Church also. The true ideal of the union between Church and State was realised, viz., that it is the office of the Church to make the State religious, the State in return protecting the Church in its rights. 70 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy The Royal Supremacy, if there was to be a king at all, was founded upon reason. It comes within the province of the supreme ruler in the state to promote the physical health of his people ; if so, he must promote morality as conducive to health, and the Church as the teacher of morality. The supremacy of the King really meant the supremacy of the nation. The Kingship was not in those days hereditary but elective. Britain indeed recognized the principle that a king ought to be of the family and lineage of kings. The choice so far was limited to one family, if only it supplied a suitable can- didate, but it was not limited to the eldest or any particular individual of that family. In the election of the King the clergy necessarily had great weight. The election rested with the Witan, which exercised it in general assemblies, wherein it is probable every freeman in the nation had a vote. Most of them, however, could not have been rich enough to take the long journey which the voting necessitated ; the election, therefore, must have fallen into the hands of men of rank and wealth, amongst whom the bishops, to whom belonged the sacred office of anointing and consecrating the elect, must have had a preponderating influence. The King being in this manner elected was the embodiment and representative of the people. From that time forward a mysterious greatness attached to him ; he was looked upon as something sacred, as something different to and infinitely greater than other people. As in the heathen days the King had been distinguished by some religious sanction, so in the later years of the heptarchy he was anointed and consecrated to God by Christian ceremonies, and was thus hallowed to be the Head of the Church. He was, like Saul, the "anointed of the Lord ; :) the Christus Domini; and was thus made the Vicar of God in his dominions '. This Royal Supremacy may seem strange to us in the present day, but it was by no means strange to people living in times and See p. 94. over the Church of England. 71 under circumstances so dissimilar to our own. We have said that Rome, the scene of the martyrdom and as containing the tombs of SS. Peter and Paul, was held in high veneration ; but the idea that the Pope was in a special sense the successor of St. Peter was yet in its infancy, and the idea of a universal papal supremacy was not then invented. Of the two, the Eastern Patriarch was a greater personage than the Pope, and the Archbishop of Canter- bury (the Pope of another world as he was called) was the highest spiritual authority recognized in Britain. The Royal Supremacy was of course limited, and did not confer or involve the power of performing apostolical or sacerdotal offices. This was derived from God, the kings only claiming an external power to appoint the persons and places by whom and in which these offices were to be performed. The Royal Supremacy was founded on the supremacy of the Bible, on the supremacy of the Church, on the supremacy of the Councils and of the Creeds. The King had no power to alter or determine the faith of the Church ; his supremacy over the Church he exercised through spiritual persons, in the same manner as the civil government was carried on by lay, and not unfrequently by spiritual persons also. In time, the temporal arm being more powerful than the spiritual, the Church suffered from the oppression of kings, although even then it might well be doubted whether of the two the Pope was not the harder taskmaster. But in the early days of the heptarchy the Royal Supremacy was exercised for the good of the Church. Kings were in truth its nursing fathers and queens its nursing mothers, so that the confidence which was reposed in the kings was not thrown away. But at the same time Britain never lost its hold upon the kings. Every law and every appoint- ment made by them required the sanction of the Witan ; and if the King failed to govern the Church for the good of his subjects, the same power which made had the power of deposing him. The King possessed great influence in the election of bishops. It is indeed difficult to pronounce with any degree of certainty as to what was the exact mode of appointing bishops in Anglo-Saxon 72 TJie Assertion of the Royal Supremacy times. Sometimes the King alone; sometimes the King together with his Witan ; sometimes the clergy and laity of the diocese seem to have elected the bishops ; but in whatever manner the election was made, it was always subject to the approval of the King. The usual course seems to have been for the King to recommend, but not to force the clergy and laity in the election, and for them to elect the person recommended to them by the King. Next to the King the Archbishop of Canterbury possessed the highest authority in Britain. In one respect his authority and power was even greater than that of the kings, or even than that of the Bretwalda himself, for whilst they could only claim the obedience of one kingdom, the authority of the Archbishop extended over the whole Church and all the kingdoms alike ; he was the head of an organized system, all the officers of which were bound to him by professions of obedience. The Bishops, too, were important officers of the state, and held a rank next to that of the Earls. Each kingdom had its Witenage- mot, or Assembly of Wise Men, in which the Bishop or Bishops of the kingdom, as men eminently qualified by their wisdom, sat And later on when England became one, and the national Witena-gemot, which answers to the more modern Parliament, was established, the Bishops together with the Abbots had seats in it (as Bishops still have in the House of Lords), and formed the majority of the assembly. The Bishops had their own courts and held their own synods (at which the King was often present) for purely spiritual causes and regulating the affairs of their dioceses. But besides having their own courts the Bishop or Archdeacon sat with the ealdorman or sheriff(shire-reeve) in the Shiremoot or County Court, exercising a special authority in causes affecting morality or which concerned the clergy ; the parish Priest also sat in the Hundred Moot ; but the clergy in criminous causes until later times stood on the same footing with the laity. From the earliest times the Bishops and clergy as being the over the Church of England. 73 most learned part of the community held high, the bishops even the highest, offices in the realm. This arrangement was more beneficial to the State than it was to the Church ; for the Bishops and clergy being engaged in matters of state became statesmen rather than churchmen ; they became secular and neglected their episcopal and clerical duties. The Church did not go to the State in formd pauperis. From the earliest times it possessed its own property, and the property of the Church of England is older than any other kind of property in the land. No fact in history is more certain than that the Church never received its endowments from the State ; if for no other reason, yet because it was endowed at a time when there were several kingdoms and before there was one kingdom or state of England. This property the Church then, as ever since, expended for the good of the State ; performing the Church services, visiting the sick, educating the poor, without any pay- ment from the State. The duty of the members of the Church to provide religious edifices, and the revenues of the Clergy, and to defray the expenses of the Church-services, was recognized from the earliest times to the present day. The property of the Church arose from the piety, or in some cases it might be from the superstitions of kings, and nobles, and rich landowners. It would not be difficult to show that it was left to the Church, which has continued ever since to be the national Church of England. For it must be borne in mind that in those days one Catholic Church was recognized, outside of which it was held that there was no salvation. Dissenters and Non- conformists would then have been held to live in deadly sin, and it was never contemplated that such property would be alienated from its original purpose. Similarly it could not have been left to Roman Catholics ; the supremacy of the King alone was recognized, and the Pope had no footing in England. The Church of the present day is the same as the early Church of England; more than any other Church in harmony, in doctrine and discipline, with the Church, 74 T/if Assertion oftJie Royal Supremacy to which the property was left ; and whatever robbery was com- mitted by Henry VIII. at the Reformation was robbery from the Church of England, not from the Church of Rome. One chief mode of providing for the services of the Church was by tithe, the payment of which goes back to the earliest origin of the Church of England. The custom, says Sir William Blackstone, was "possibly contemporary with the planting of Christianity amongst the Saxons by St. Augustine." Amongst the Jews the tithe belonged to the tribe of Levi, and those who withheld the payment were denounced in Scripture as robbers of God. So in the very early days of the Christian Church the practice derived from Scripture prevailed everywhere, of Christians devoting the tenth of their earnings to religion. In Britain tithes were at first paid to whatever Bishop or Church the tithe-payer preferred, so- long as the tithe was actually paid. Archbishop Theodore induced landlords to pay their tithes to their own church, and their own priest The payment was at first voluntary, but in time land- owners by their wills made it a charge upon their property ; when once made it was inalienable, and their estates descended to their heirs with the charge upon it. So that the payment of the tithe was simply the condition on which a person inherited an estate, and it became so general that it was presumed by the common law to be payable except on evidence being produced to the contrary. That tithes were paid in England in the eighth century appears from the " Excerptions," attributed (but wrongly) to Archbishop Egbert, and the Epistle of Boniface to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury. The laws of Ini, A.D. 693, had enforced the pay- ment of Church-scot for divine service. But tithe was first made imperative by the legatine Council of Calcuith, A.D. 787 b , which being attended by the King and ealdormen had the authority of a Witenagemot, and which the King and nobles as well as the bishops who were present bound themselves to obey. The first distinct enactment on the subject was however made by King Athelstan (925940), son of Edward the Elder and grandson of k See chap. iii. p. 64. over the Church of England. 75 King Alfred, in his Witenagemot, which enforced the payment to the Church of the tenth part of the live-stock of the year's income. The Supremacy of the Kings which existed when Britain was divided into several kingdoms continued when Britain was brought under one king and one government. The union which existed between the several Churches, and the close connexion between Church and State was building up the union of the kingdoms. In completing the unity of the Church Theodore was, though unconsciously, laying the foundation of the unity of the State. One Archbishop over all the kingdoms suggested the idea of one king ; the Church Synods were the first of our national gatherings ; in these synods the Bishops met not as Bishops of Northumbria, or Kentish, or Mercian bishops, but as Bishops of a national Church ; thus was suggested the idea of a national parliament; the canons passed in those synods were the origin of our statute law c At the time of Theodore's death, the consolidation of the king- doms of the heptarchy seemed faint and distant, but for the next hundred years the Church was exercising an ever-deepening in- fluence on English feeling, and the unity of the State was only a question of time. First one kingdom of the heptarchy and then another had been supreme. The kingdom of Kent, the supremacy of which had favoured the introduction of Christianity, declined at an early period, to be succeeded after a short interval by Northumbria, which in its turn fell at the end of the seventh century. For a time Mercia and Wessex contended for the mastery, till Offa of Mercia (757 796) became the most powerful king Britain had yet known, and the English kingdoms became under him for a time united. But soon after his death the overlordship- passed to Wessex in the person of Egbert (802 838), and with Wessex it remained. Mercia and Northumbria still had their own kings, but they were subject to Wessex ; so that Egbert, although he could not as yet be termed " King of England," was c Green's History of the English People. j6 The Assertion oftJie Royal Supremacy " lord of Britain " as no other king had been before him. Britain had become one nation, as the Churches of Britain had become one national Church one hundred and fifty years before ; so that with Egbert the history of the heptarchy ends, and the history of England begins. Scarcely had Britain become one nation and free from internal troubles than a period of terrible calamity to the Church and nation set in, and the intellectual pre-eminence which had distin- guished Britain in the eighth century was succeeded by a long period of political as well as of religious and intellectual darkness. The Danes, a people of the same race and speaking a dialect of the same language as the English, began a series of invasions on the country. Pagans themselves, they hated Christianity for a double reason ; both because Charlemagne in his conquests had forced it on them as a badge of slavery, and because they regarded the English as apostates from the faith of Woden. They had begun their ravages on Britain so early as A.D. 787, in which year they landed in Wessex; again in 793 they made a descent on Northumbria, and burnt the monastery and slew the monks of Lindisfarne ; and in the following year a similar calamity befel the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. But towards the end of Egbert's reign their attacks became more formidable, and A.D. 833 he was defeated by them in a battle. During his lifetime, however, they were kept tolerably under control, but from 836 1 01 6 their invasions were almost incessant, and the history of England is made up of the ravages they committed. Once again we have a repetition of the same wanton cruelties which had been before committed by the English ; Christianity persecuted, priests and monks slain at the altar, whole cities levelled to the ground, the same promiscuous slaughter of men ; women and children driven into exile. Coming at first as mere bands of robbers, they began by degrees to settle down in the country, till at length they succeeded in conquering it, and from 1 01 6 1035 Canute the Dane was King of England. A period of such terrible calamity to the Church and nation over the Church of England. 77 affords little groundwork for ecclesiastical history, and yet its consequences so affected the Church that it cannot be passed over in silence. The lust of plunder blended with religious fanaticism directed the ferocity of the Danes chiefly against the Church and the monasteries, the wealth and undefended condition of which marked them out as an easy and valuable object of attack. To the monasteries the people were accustomed to entrust their wealth for protection ; on them rich presents of gold and silver chalices, and books in rich and jewelled bindings, had been freely lavished. Year after year the destruction of some valuable monastery is recorded. Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow were, as we have seen, the first to perish. The destruction of Bardney, Croyland, Medeshamstede, Ely, Repton, Coldingham, Whitby, and every monastic institution in Northumbria, followed. And since in the monasteries the books and all the learning of the land were deposited, on their fall followed a general decay of learning and of every peaceful art. In some places Wednesday in each week was set aside as a day of supplication, and a clause was inserted in the Litany, " Against the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us." On the death of Egbert, in 838, his son Ethelwulf succeeded him as King of Wessex. Nearly the whole of his reign was taken up with the Danish wars. Ethelwulf was a pious king, and had been educated for the priesthood (although there is no evidence of his having ever taken Orders) under St. Swithin, Bishop of Winchester (852 862). In the year 855 Ethelwulf made, at the instigation it is supposed of Bishop Swithin, "for the good of his soul and the prosperity of his kingdom and people," a grant of the tenth of his own lands, free from all tribute, to the Church ; as it is expressed in one of his charters, " the portion of my lands which I have in heritage." In that same year, taking advantage of a short respite which the land was enjoying from the Danes, Ethelwulf went on a pilgrimage to Rome, whither two years before he had sent his son Alfred, at that time a child seven years of age, in company of Swithin. At 78 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy Rome he made several liberal donations, confirming the gift of Peter pence, and rebuilding the hospital for English pilgrims, which had been burnt down in the preceding year. With regard to his donation to the Church Ethelwulf only did what other kings and ealdormen and noblemen ever since the days of Ethelbert, King of Kent, had been in the habit of doing. His grant was no national enforcement of tithes, nor endowment of the Church by the State. Such an order Ethel- wulf was not in a position to make ; nor would he have been obeyed if he had made it, for some of the under-kingdoms still had their own rulers and managed their own affairs. After Ethelwulf, his three eldest sons reigned from 858 871, during which time the Danes completely overran the country, which was overwhelmed in apparently hopeless ruin. In 870 they attacked and defeated East Anglia ; Edmund, the under-king, thinking thus to stop the dreadful havoc and slaughter which they were inflicting on his people, surrendered himself a prisoner to his enemies. It was proposed to him that he should renounce Christianity ; on his refusing to abandon his faith and defying his foes they showed him no mercy ; having bound him in chains and severely beaten him, they tied his naked body to a tree and first shot him to death with arrows, and afterwards beheaded him. Thus died on November 20, 870, King Edmund. After some years his body was recovered and buried in a neighbouring town, ^ince called after him Bury St. Edmunds. In 871, Alfred, who was born at Wantage, A.D. 849, the youngest son of Ethelwulf, succeeded to the throne of Wessex. In 875, Lindisfarne was, for a second time, ravaged by the Danes, and the monks fled away, taking with them, as has been before mentioned, the body of St. Cuthbert. It seemed at that time as if Christianity would perish altogether out of England. In 878, Alfred had himself to seek a refuge in a little island in Somerset- shire, called Athelney. Though reduced to great straits he never lost heart ; here he collected a large army, with which he attacked and defeated the Danes in a great battle near Ethendun (probably over the Church of England. 79 the modern Edington), in Wiltshire, and forced them to surrender. Their leader, Guthrum, and his followers agreed to receive the faith, and were baptized, Alfred standing as sponsor to Guthrum, who received the name of Athelstan. A treaty was concluded with them at Wedmore. Alfred knew that he was not strong enough to drive them out of England, so he determined to do the next best thing, and instead of having them as enemies to convert them into friends. The larger part of England was given up to them, and a line, corresponding with the modern Watling-street, was drawn between the two people, the land conceded to the Danes being termed the Danelagh, the land of the Danish law. Thus the Danes became members of the Church of England, and a body of Christianized Anglo-Danes, living under the same laws as the English, was settled in the country. This was a great gain for England, for the Church made the Danes less cruel and more inclined to peace, though doubtless many of them were pagans still, and many little better than semi-pagans. They were not yet Eng- lishmen, but a great advance 'was made, and now that they were members of the Church of England, it could only be a matter of time before English and Danes were amalgamated into one nation. Alfred's character, as it has been pourtrayed to us, seems to have been almost perfect. He was called " the Truth-teller," and " the Great." When he was in Rome, in his early years, the Pope took him for his "Bishopson," and hallowed him as a future king. Thus early was he marked out for his high destiny, and nobly did he fulfil it. He devoted himself to the good of his country and his endeavour was to live wholly for the good of his people. " So long as I have lived, I have striven to live worthily ; " such was his noble boast. On his wedding-day he was struck down by a painful disease, from which he never recovered, and it seems wonderful that he could have accomplished all that he did. Asser, his biographer, tells us that he divided the twenty-four hours into three parts, eight hours for public duties, eight for study, eight for bodily necessities. He would rise from his bed in the night and repair to church for prayer, and attended Mass every 8o Ttie Assertion of the Royal Supremacy morning. His money he divided into three parts, one for his family, one for the Church, and one for the poor. It is with Alfred, the Christian legislator and the reviver of learning, that we are mostly concerned. His work as a legislator was simple and unpretending. He merely made a digest of the laws which had been enacted under former kings, Ethelbert, Ini, and Offa ; " those which seemed to me rightest, those I have gathered and rejected others," he said. His laws he prefaced with the Ten Commandments. Labour on Sunday was forbidden, and severe punishment decreed against robbery and immorality. When he became king, learning was almost extinct in England, and those who desired it had to seek it abroad. We have already seen how that the fervour of monasticism had begun to cool so early as the eighth century. Even then people were unwilling to adopt the restraints which it imposed upon them ; the Danes effected the wholesale destruction of monasteries ; and if here and there a monastery was left, its resources and possessions were seized by the kings of England to defray the expenses of the wars. From one cause or another, but owing principally to the destruction of the monasteries, clergy and laity were equally steeped in ignorance. " There was a time," said Alfred, " when foreigners sought learning and wisdom in this island ; now we are compelled to seek them in foreign lands. When I began to reign I cannot remember one priest south of the Thames who could explain his service-book in English." His own education had been greatly neglected in his early years. His father, Ethelwulf, had on his return from Rome, married, as his second wife, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of the West Franks. Under her care, but not before he was twelve years of age, he acquired the first rudiments of learn- ing, which he afterwards further cultivated himself, and when a respite from the Danish Wars occurred, tried to instil amongst his people. Alfred did his best, but with only partial success, to revive the monastic system. He founded three monasteries, one at over the Church of England. 81 Shaftesbury for women, over which he appointed his daughter, Ethelgifu, as abbess ; and two others for men, one at Athelney, as a memorial of the days he had passed there, the other at Winchester. His foundation of the University of Oxford is now allowed to be a fabrication. But to promote the cause of educa- tion in his kingdom he sought for teachers not only from all parts of Britain but also from the Continent. At his invitation there came to England, Grimwald, of Rheims, to preside over his abbey at Winchester 3 , and John of Old Saxony to rule over the monastery at Athelney. With them were associated Phlegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury (890 914), Asser, Bishop of Sherborne, his biogra- pher, Werefrith, Bishop of Worcester, and his own kinsman, St. Neot. More important still was the work which he did as an author. It is probable that to Alfred England is mainly indebted for the inestimable treasure of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He himself translated Orosius' History, at that time the popular manual of history ; Boethius' Consolation of 'Philosophy, Pope Gregory's Pas- toral Care, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. He also translated portions of the Bible, and was engaged on a translation of the Psalms at the time of his death at the early age of fifty-two, A.D. 901. The work of uniting Danes and English into one nation, which was begun by Alfred, was carried on with hard fighting and fre- quent reverses under his successors. But in the reign of Edgar (959 975) tne Anglo-Danes confessed themselves beaten, and Danes and English became incorporated into one united kingdom of England. The chief features in the history of the Church of England between the death of Alfred and the Norman Conquest were the revival of monasticism, and the frequent contests which ensued between the secular and regular clergy. For notwithstanding Alfred's endeavour to restore it, monasticism again declined after d Grimwald afterwards refused the Archbishopric of Canterbury. G 82 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy his death ; the regular, and not they only, but the secular clergy likewise, relapsed into ignorance, and still worse into vice. The Danish invasions which proved so fatal to the monasteries had the effect of exalting the secular over the regular clergy. Many of the older monasteries were from time to time rebuilt, and some new ones were added ; but these were rarely tenanted by regular or even unmarried clergy. Secular clergy occupied them, and took into them their wives and children. Nor was this all : the monasteries became hereditary ; and the clergy, leading lazy lives and sunk in ignorance, frequently refused to perform the services of the Church. The monasteries became hotbeds of vice and iniquity. Thus monasticism in England was practically extinct, or at best it existed only in name. The monks either adopted secular professions, or betook themselves to monasteries on the Continent, particularly those of Fleury and Ghent. A revival of the Church was absolutely necessary, and if there was to be a revival at all it must begin with the monasteries. The restoration of the monastic system is due partly to Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, but principally to his successor in the Primacy, Dunstan. Odo and Dunstan, but especially the latter, were the uncompromising opponents of the marriage of the clergy, whether regular or secular. In this matter they were, to say the least, injudicious. For at the very time when their zeal and energy were being exercised against the married clergy, a laxity of morals widely prevailed, and concubinage existed to a frightful degree, not only in England but throughout Europe. However, to establish a uniform celibacy amongst the secular as well as the regular clergy ; to remove the secular and to place regular clergy both in the monasteries and cathedrals, and to introduce a strict obser- vance of the Benedictine rule this was the object of the Reformation of the tenth century. Odo, born in East-Anglia, of a noble but pagan Danish family, influenced by the preaching of a Christian missionary, at an early period of his life embraced Christianity, in consequence of which he was banished from his home, and took Holy Orders. In his over the Church of England. 83 youth he had been a soldier, and he continued to be a soldier after his ordination; in 926 he was consecrated to the Bishopric of Ramsbury, a See which, as well as those of Wells and Crediton, had been founded in 909 by Edward the Elder, the son and successor of Alfred. In 937 the Bishop of Ramsbury was present at the battle of Bruneburgh, where he was engaged in the hottest part of the fight. On the death of Wulfhelm in 942 he was pro- moted to the See of Canterbury. Hitherto he had lived as a secular ; but thinking that none but a monk was fit to be a priest, and that none but a Benedictine was fit to be a monk, and not finding the kind of monastery which he wanted in Eng- land, he went to Fleury, where a monastery existed on the model of that which St. Benedict had founded on Monte Casino. At Fleury he assumed the habit of a Benedictine monk, and after he became Archbishop of Canterbury he took every opportunity of introducing the Benedictine rule into England. By some he was called Odo "the good," but from his hard dealing with the secular clergy he gained from others the name of Odo " the severe." It remained for Dunstan to carry out more thoroughly the work which Odo had begun. Dunstan, a man who was held in high honour in his lifetime, and was canonized after his death, but whose memory has been tarnished by monkish fables of miracles which he never did and never pretended to do, was a man of royal birth ; having also as his uncles Athelm, the predecessor of Wulfhelm in the See of Canterbury, and Elphege, the Bishop of Winchester. Born A.D. 924, and educated at the Abbey of Glastonbury, his great talents and learning brought him at an early age into notice at court, from which, owing to the jealousy of the courtiers, he was soon banished ; to court, however, he was recalled in 945, and at the early age of twenty-one was appointed by the King to preside over the Abbey of Glastonbury. Dunstan at once set about and effected a much needed reform in the Abbey ; there he established a school, which with those of Worcester and Abingdon, soon became one of the first schools in England. Shortly afterwards he entered upon his career as 84 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy a statesman, and became the leading counsellor of the Crown. The Danelagh in the north of England was in a state of revolt under Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, and it was owing to the vigorous measures of the King, acting under the advice of Dunstan, that the rebellion was quelled, and Wulfstan was in 952 taken prisoner and deposed. About 956 he again fell out of favour with the Court, and being outlawed he sought a refuge in the monastery of Ghent, where he found the Benedictine rule carried out in all its completeness. When Edgar, a mere boy, became king, in 957, Dunstan was recalled, and was in that year consecrated to the Bishopric of Worcester; in 959 he was raised to the See of London, holding Worcester in commendam. In 959 Archbishop Odo died. Alfsin, Bishop of Winchester, who, through the influence of the secular clergy, was nominated to succeed him, was, on his journey to Rome to fetch the pall, frozen to death on the Alps. Brighthelm, Bishop of Wells, was next nominated, but before his election was completed, Edgar, who had hitherto been king only of part, became sole King of England ; thereupon the election of Brighthelm was set aside, and Dunstan was appointed Arch- bishop of Canterbury. Thenceforward he was the leading man in England both in Church and State. His appointment to Canterbury was a victory to the monks ; and Dunstan, with the zealous support of Edgar, set himself to carry out thoroughly the work begun by Odo. A fresh impetus was given to the movement by the consecration in 961 of Oswald, a Dane, and nephew of the late Archbishop Odo, to the See of Worcester ; and of that of Ethelwold, the " Father of Monks," as he was called, in 963, to the See of Winchester. Ethelwold had been educated at Glastonbury under Dunstan about 954 he was appointed, through Dunstan, Abbot of the Monastery of Abingdon, which he rebuilt, and into which he introduced the Benedictine rule. No sooner was he appointed to his Bishopric than he obtained an order from the King for ejecting the secular clergy from the Abbey of Winchester. over the Church of England. 85 Under Dunstan and the Bishops of Worcester and Winchester, supported as they were by the King, the regulars gained a com- plete ascendancy, and it is said that in Edgar's reign forty-seven monasteries were either built or recovered from the secular clergy in England. The secular clergy complained to the King of the treatment to which they were subjected. Edgar summoned in 969 a Council to Winchester, which was attended by the King and Queen, and the great men of the kingdom, to decide the matter at issue between the regulars and seculars. The controversy was said to have been decided by a miracle. A voice from the Crucifix hanging in the council-room " That be far from you, that be far from you " prevented the judgment being given in favour of the regulars. Thenceforward Oswald (so long as he continued Bishop of Worcester) and Ethelwold were zealous in ejecting those of the secular clergy who refused to accept the Benedictine rule. But strange to say, Dunstan, although he sympathized with and thoroughly approved of the course of the two prelates, never ejected the secular clergy at Canterbury ; Oswald also when he was Archbishop of York, which See he held from 972 992, was equally tolerant of the secular clergy. Dunstan was not only a scholar and a Church reformer, but also the leading statesman of the day. He stands first, says Mr. Green e in that line of Church of England statesmen which, beginning with him and counting in their number Lanfranc and Wolsey, ended in Laud. Edgar reigned, but Dunstan ruled. It was Dunstan's object as a statesman to unite English and Danes into one people. This was done not by one single act, but by recognizing the rights conceded by Alfred to the Danelagh, by treating the Danes as Englishmen, employing them in the public service of the country, and promoting them to high places in Church and State. It was through Dunstan's influence at Court (though he was at the time only eighteen years of age) that the Dane Odo was raised to the See of Canterbury. Through him e Short History, p. 53. 86 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy Oskytel, another Dane, was, A.D. 950, made Bishop of Dorchester, and promoted to the Archbishopric of York in 958. Through the influence of Dunstan, Oswald was appointed Bishop of Worcester in 961, and Archbishop of York in 972. In like manner the consecration of Edgar, which was postponed till 973, was solemnized by both Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the one a Dane, the other an Englishman; this being the first occasion on which the Archbishop of the Northern Province, who had of late years been regarded as the Bishop of the Danelagh, and had not unfrequently supported the Danes against the English, was associated with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the coronation of an English King. It was by such means, and through the agency of Dunstan, that the work of amalgamating the English and the Danes into one people was affected in the reign of Edgar. It was owing to Dunstan that the reign of Edgar, who was surnamed the Peaceful, was on the whole one of peace and glory to England. Florence of Worcester f relates how that on one occasion Edgar's barge, at the helm of which sat the King himself, was rowed on the Dee by eight vassal-kings, one of whom was a Dane. Through Dunstan's judicious statesmanship, the name of Britain passed in Edgar's reign into that of Engla-land, or England, the land of English- men. The King, at any rate in his early life, had been a man of profligate habits, and Dunstan exercised a powerful moral influence over him. On one occasion Dunstan enjoined on him a penance for seven years, during which time he was prohibited from wearing his crown ; when the penance was ended Dunstan, at a solemn meeting of clergy and laity, himself set the crown upon the King's head. In the history of Dunstan we have another clear proof of the independence of the Church of England from that of Rome. A certain Earl had contracted a marriage within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and Dunstan, in 970, excommunicated ' A chronicler and monk of Worcester, died A.D. in 8. over the Church of England. 87 him. The Earl appealed first to the King and afterwards to Rome ; the Pope wrote to Dunstan a positive command to restore him to communion. " When I see the excommunicated person," said Dunstan, " penitent for his faults, I shall willingly obey his Holiness' commands ; but till this happens God forbid that I should do anything to cause the nobleman to continue in his sin and insult the discipline of the Priesthood." The sequel shows how much better a spiritual guide Dunstan was than the Pope. Seeing that Dunstan took no notice of the Pope's order the nobleman repented ; he abandoned his unlawful marriage, assumed the dress of a penitent, and coming barefooted cast him- self with tears at the Archbishop's feet. Dunstan was softened, but concealed his tenderness for an hour ; when he could restrain himself no longer he melted into tears and gave him absolution. Though in Edgar's reign the regular system was established in the monasteries, the secular clergy would not give up the contest. After Edgar's death in 975 a reaction in favour of the seculars occurred, and civil war was only averted by the energy of Archbishops Dunstan and Oswald. Some of the nobles expelled the regulars from the monasteries situated on their estates, and reinstated the secular clergy with their wives and children. The boy-king, Edward (afterwards canonized as St. Edward the Martyr), took the side of Dunstan and the regular clergy. A Council was held at Calne in 978 to decide the controversy. The floor of the part of the room where the opponents of Dunstan sat gave way, and some were hurt and some killed, whilst Dunstan and his party kept their seats unharmed. The accident was attributed to a judgment from heaven, and the cause was thus decided in favour of the regulars. But in 979 a wicked deed was done. "No worse deed," it was said, " was done amongst the English since they first sought the land of Britain." Edgar had left two sons : Edward, who succeeded him as king, by his first wife, and by a second wife, Ethelred. The step-mother, however, in order to secure the crown for her own son, caused the young King Edward (hence 88 TJie Assertion of the Royal Supremacy called the Martyr) to be murdered. This cruel murder, added to the decision of Calne, threw the victory completely into the hands of the regulars ; the regular clergy got the upper hand, and having got it, held it till the Reformation. But from the time of Dunstan a deep-rooted enmity, highly prejudicial to religion, existed between the regular and secular clergy. After Edgar's reign the glory of England waned, and with Ethelred (979 1016), called the Unready, i.e., one who would not listen to the rede or advice of others, who became king after the murder of his half-brother Edward, a period of great calamity set in. Whilst Dunstan lived the King was guided by his judg- ment; but Dunstan died in 988. Again and again the Danes returned, and in 991 Siric, Archbishop of Canterbury, counselled the King and Witan to buy them off by the payment of ten thousand pounds. This was the worst course that could have been adopted, for the prospect of receiving money only made the Danes more desirous to return. The payment to the Danes was the foundation of the Danegelt, which soon became an annual and ever-increasing tribute. Their invasions then entered on a new and more dangerous phase. The Danes came no longer as mere independent bands of pirates, but as a united nation of warriors, with the settled determination of annexing to themselves the Crown and government of England. We must now turn to another body of Northmen with whom the history of England and of the Church is henceforth so closely connected. Whilst the Danes were committing their ravages in England, the Normans, a people coming, as their name implies, from the North, under their leader, Rollo or Rolph, conquered and wrested from the French that part of France which after them is called Normandy, and there they settled down, as Guthrum and the Danes had before settled in England. Rolph was at the time a pagan, but in 921 he and his followers were baptized, and the Normans adopted the French language and French customs. In 1002 Ethelred married Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of over the Church of England. 89 Normandy, and thereupon an intimate connexion sprung up between England and Normandy. But on November i3th (St. Bryce's Day) in that year Ethelred with his Witenagemot com- mitted a treacherous and dastardly act, which gave Sweyne, King of Denmark, an excuse for again invading England. On that day, although there was at the time peace between the Danes and English, a general slaughter of the Danes in England without respect to station, or age, or sex, took place ; even the Christian Princess Gunilda, sister of Sweyne, after her husband and children were murdered before her eyes, meeting, by order of the King himself, the same fate. The vengeance which Sweyne took was terrible. Again and again he invaded England to avenge his sister's death. Many towns were burnt and sacked, and the Danegelt rose in ion to the immense sum of .48,000. Not content with this, in 1012 the Danes attacked and pillaged Canterbury, which was surrendered to them by a traitor, and burnt the Cathedral ; and when Archbishop Elphege remonstrated with them on the cruelties they were inflicting on helpless women and children, they made him a prisoner, and demanded as his ransom 3,000 pieces of silver. In vain the people begged the Archbishop to accept the terms ; in vain they offered to sell the Church plate to pay the ransom ; he refused to give to the pagans treasures which had been con- secrated to the service of God. The Danes bound him in chains and carried him about with them in their ships from place to place. This lasted for seven months, which he employed in preaching to the Danes, many of whom he converted to Christianity. In April, 1012, they arrived at Greenwich. There on the 1 3th of that month they held a great feast. Intoxicated with wine, they demanded of him the payment of the ransom ; " Money, Bishop, money ! " was the cry which met him on all sides. Gold and silver, he told them, he had not, but what he had, the knowledge of the true God, that he would give them. The ground was strewed with bones, the remnants of their drunken feast, and with these and stones and other missiles they attacked him till 90 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy he sunk dying on the ground, when one Dane whom he had con- firmed the day before, more merciful than the rest, in order to release him from his sufferings killed him with his battle-axe. When their drunken fury was spent, they felt some compunction for their conduct, and delivered his body to his friends, by whom it was taken to London, and temporarily interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. The next year Sweyne, accompanied by his son Canute, came again to England, and having driven out Ethelred, who took refuge in Normandy, became himself King of England. In 1014, on his road to plunder Bury St. Edmunds, where the body of the martyr-king, Edmund, was interred, Sweyne was smitten by a fatal illness, and on the same night he died. For a time Ethelred resumed the Crown of England ; but after his death, and that of his noble son Edmund Ironside in 1016, with whom Canute had for a time shared the throne, Canute became by the common voice of Danes and Englishmen sole King of England (1016 Canute was at that time twenty-two years of age, and had been baptized, although at what period of his life he received Baptism is uncertain. His accession to the throne seemed to open out a gloomy prospect to the Church. His life had hitherto been that of a savage barbarian ; his first acts as king were a series of murders, and it appeared as if he would be as cruel as his father Sweyne had been before him. Soon, however, his character underwent a complete change, and he became the model of a wise and zealous Christian king. In 1017 he married Emma, the widow of Ethelred. He ruled over England not as a foreigner but as an Englishman, and we are told that of all his dominions he loved England best ; consequently he was more beloved by the English than he was by the Danes. Under the advice of Ethelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury (1020 1038), he abolished all distinctions between Danes and English, so that they became more thoroughly than before fused into one nation, and his reign of eighteen years was one of peace and order. over the Church of England. 91 The conversion of the savage and cruel Dane speaks well for the efficiency of the Church of England. He was much influenced by Archbishop Ethelnoth, and although the Church had been the centre of the national resistance to the Danes, he sought its friendship, and became its liberal benefactor. His will was no- doubt signified in a somewhat arbitrary manner ; he carried the Royal Supremacy to a degree never known before in England ; and under him the dangerous precedent was established of the King by his sole act electing the Bishops, and investing them with the ring and crozier. But we are told that he favoured merit wherever he found it amongst the clergy. He also chiefly, but it would appear not exclusively, favoured the regular rather than the secular clergy, and rebuilt and enriched several monasteries which had been destroyed by the Danes. Amongst his noblest act, was the foundation in 1020, in memory of Edmund, King, Saint, and Martyr, of a Benedictine Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, which became in time the richest monastery, next to that of Glastonbury, in England. He built memorial churches in places where his battles had been fought, and appointed Priests to pray for the souls of those who had fallen there; and in Essex, at Essendon, where his last battle had been fought with Edmund Ironside, he raised in 1020 a church, "an mynster of stone and lime," the Canterbury chronicler calls it, of which he appointed Stigand Priest, and which (the See of Canterbury being vacant) was consecrated by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York. In 1023 he translated the body of Archbishop Elphege, who was afterwards venerated as St. Alphege the Martyr, from St. Paul's to Canterbury. Canute went (probably in 1027) on a pilgrimage to Rome. From Rome he wrote a letter to the Archbishop and Bishops and people of England. He told them that he had gone to Rome to visit the sanctuary of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, chiefly because he had learnt from wise men that St. Peter had received from God great powers in binding and loosing, and carried the keys of the kingdom of heaven. His object in going there was, he said, to pray for the forgiveness of his sins and the 92 The Assertion of the Royal Supremacy welfare of his people. He told them that he had obtained from the Pope an abatement of the expenses incurred by the Arch- bishops ;n obtaining the pall. He had humbly vowed to God to amend his life, to rule his kingdom with justice and to give equitable judgment. He adjured the Bishops and Government of England to take care that all dues belonging to God, according to the old laws, be paid ; viz., plough-alms, the tithe of animals, and Peter-pence ; and also on the Feast of St. Martin the firstfruits of grain to every parish church, called civic-sceat. If these dues were not paid, defaulters would be fined according to the law. Tradition testifies how nobly he carried out his own vows. And he added to the glory of his reign by sending missionaries under Bishops ordained in England for the conversion of Denmark. Thus not only had the English and Danes become one nation, but the English royal family was supplanted by the Danes ; only however for a time. The love which England bore to Canute was turned into hatred against the violence and oppression of his sons who succeeded him, and in 1042 Edward, surnamed the Con- fessor (a man better suited to the cloister than the throne), son of Ethelred, was elected king. Edward, though nominally an Englishman by the accident of his birth, was thoroughly Norman in his tastes and habits. Having spent seven years of his life in Normandy, he had lost all sympathy with the English people, and introduced into England Norman habits, appointing Normans to high places in Church and State. French was spoken every- where, and became the language of the Court and of the pulpit. He did his best to destroy the national Church by placing foreigners over it, in the hope of Romanizing England ; he failed in the attempt because the English feeling in behalf of the Church was too strong for him. But by introducing Normans into England, and by his Norman predilections, he laid the foundation of the Norman Conquest ; by his zeal for the Pope he paved the way for the Pope's ascendancy in England. Robert, Abbot of Jumieges in Normandy, was appointed Bishop of London in 1044, and in 1050 promoted to the See of over the Cfmrch of England. 93 Canterbury. Ulf, another Norman, a man so ignorant that he could scarcely go through the ordinary services of the Church, the King made Bishop of Dorchester. When in 1051 Spearhafoc, Abbot of Abingdon, was, with the approval of the King and the Witenagemot, nominated to the See of London, Robert refused to consecrate him on the ground that the Pope had forbidden it ; and William, another Norman, was consecrated in his place. Archbishop Robert exerted so strong an influence over the King that, as the saying of the day went, if he told the King a black crow was white he would believe it. Nothing was better calculated to further the power and authority of the Popes than the alien priories which were at this time founded in England by Archbishop Robert. These priories, though situated in England, were attached not to English but Norman monasteries, and were filled with Norman monks ; thus English property was handed over to the Roman Church, and this was another manner in which the interests of the Normans were furthered in England. The English were disgusted with foreigners being placed over their Church. The union between Church and State was as para- mount as ever ; and they determined to uphold the National Church, and to thrust out the foreigners. Earl Godwin, whose daughter the King had married, was at that time the most power- ful man in England, and the zealous opponent of the Normans. The Archbishop in consequence hated him, and did all in his power to influence the King against him. He was so far successful that Godwin and his sons were outlawed, arid the foreign party in England triumphed for a time. It was during the period that Godwin was in exile that William, Duke of Normandy, came to England on a visit to the King, on which occasion the King is said to have made him the promise (which of course without the consent of his Witenagemot he had no power to do) of the succes- sion to the throne. But soon the common voice of England clamoured for Godwin's return, and by the advice of the Witen- agemot the Normans (and amongst them Archbishop Robert 94 TJie Assertion of the Royal Supremacy and Bishop Ulf) were driven out, the former leaving his pall behind him in England ; but William, the Norman Bishop of London, was " on account of his goodness " allowed to retain his See. Robert appealed to the Pope, a practice which, unknown on the part of a prelate in England since Wilfred's time, was common in Normandy. The Pope, as might have been expected, decided in his favour, but his judgment was disregarded in England ; Stigand, Canute's Priest at Essendon, who in 1043 had been consecrated to the See of Elmham, and in 1047 translated to Winchester, was intruded into the Primacy, which was not canonically vacant, hold- ing with it the See of Winchester in commendam. At first he used the pall left by Robert, but afterwards one that was sent to him by an anti-pope. Edward had made a vow in his youth to go on a pilgrimage to Rome, but being forbidden by the Witenagemot to desert his post lie sent to Rome to request a dispensation, which was granted on condition that he should either build a new monastery or rebuild on a larger scale the West Minster which had been founded by Sabert, King of Essex, on Thorny Island. The King set him- self to the latter task, and lived just long enough to witness the completion of the choir and transepts of Westminster Abbey, and that part of the building being ready for Divine Service, the Con- secration took place on December 28, 1065. Edward the Con- fessor died on January 6, 1066. His many virtues blinded people to his faults, and the simple piety and gentleness of his character long endured in the affections of the English people. In later times when England was trodden down by its Norman Conquerors, the people were urgent in their demands for a return to " the laws of good King Edward." No stronger assertion (it may be mentioned) of the Royal Supremacy is anywhere to be found than in those laws of Edward the Confessor, which, with those of Henry I. and Magna Charta have been regarded ever since as the palladium of English liberty. The King is there styled Vicarius Summi Regis (the Vicar of God), and he is over the Church of England. 95 appointed to reverence above all things and to protect God's Holy Church s. Harold, the son of Godwin, succeeded to the throne, and was crowned in Westminster Abbey, not by Stigand, but by the Archbishop of York. Before Harold became king, he, following the popular devo- tion of the day, went on a pilgrimage to Rome. He was a favourer of the secular rather than of the regular clergy. Of his liberality to the Church, the foundation of the Abbey at Waltham, which was consecrated in 1060 by the Archbishop of York, is a lasting memorial. But his reign was short. The battle of Senlac or Hastings was fought on October 14, 1066. England had always observed an independence of Rome, for which the Pope owed it no love or gratitude. The Pope now saw an opportunity of gaining a footing in England if the Normans were successful. William, Duke of Normandy, went to the battle with .a consecrated banner, and the blessing of Pope ,Alexander II. Harold fell, and with him fell the Anglo-Saxon Dynasty. On Christmas Day, William L, the first Norman King of England, was crowned in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York. s " Ut super omnia sanctam veneretur Ecclesium Ejus, et regat, et ab injuriosis defendat, et malificos ab ea evellat, et destruat et penitus dis- perdat." CHAPTER V. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE THRONE AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1066 1154. DECLINE of learning and religion in England at the time of the Norman Conquest William I. desirous to have the Church of England on his side Anomalous position of Archbishop Stigand Two papal legates at the king's request sent into England Stigand and other Bishops deposed Norman architecture Bishop Wulfstan Archbishop Lanfranc Disputes between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York The King refuses to do homage to the Pope The separation of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Courts Church and State brought into conflict Synod of London The " Use of Sarum " The Church of England brought into nearer conformity to Rome Death of Lanfranc Lanfranc a supporter of clerical celibacy Clerical celibacy not prescribed by the Bible or primitive Church Council at Worcester Lanfranc the first to teach in England the doctrine of Tran- substantiation His controversy with Berenger The Homilies of Elfric opposed to Transubstantiation Character of William II. Keeps the See of Canterbury vacant for more than four years, and appropriates the revenues Anselm appointed Renewed disputes between the two Arch- bishops Quarrels between the King and Anselm Anselm goes to Rome Attends the Council of Bari Henry I. recalls Anselm Quarrels between the King and Archbishop Anselm again goes to Rome The King seizes his revenues Return of Anselm Anselm a strong advocate of clerical celibacy Death of Anselm Canonized Henry keeps See of Canterbury vacant five years Quarrels between the two Archbishops William of Corbeuil Archbishop of Canterbury The Legatus natus and Lrgattis a latere Reign of Stephen Battle of the Standard Henry of Blois papal legate Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury. BY the time of the Norman Conquest the reformation of the monasteries and the revival of learning effected by St. Dunstan had died out, and there was a marked decline of learning and religion in England. The English seem to have had a natural aptitude for acquiring the vices which their conquerors brought with them, and from the Danes they learnt habits of gluttony and drunkenness. And unfortunately they not only learnt what was bad, but they also unlearned the good which they possessed before. William of The Conflict between the Throne, who succeeded him, was a brave soldier and nothing more, who being engaged at one time in a Crusade to the Holy Land, and afterwards in a war against the King of France, spent most of his time away from England. His reign therefore has left little mark on the civil history, and still less on the ecclesiastical history, of England. CHAPTER VII. THE INTRUSION OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY INTO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. H99 1272. KING John and Pope Innocent III. Disputed election to the See of Canter- bury The Pope elects Stephen Langton Wrath of King John England placed under an Interdict John excommunicated Threatened with de- position John becomes the vassal of the Pope Langton arrives in England And absolves the King Fatal mistake on the Pope's part The interdict taken off The whole kingdom united against John Lang- ton and the Barons The Army of God and of the Church Magna Charta signed The Pope annuls it Death of John Langton enters a protest against John's submission to the Pope Henry III. becomes king Langton an advocate of clerical celibacy The thirteenth century the golden era of English Churchmanship The encroachments and ex- actions of Rome The National and the Roman parties in England Rise of the Friars Their exemption by the Pope from the Bishops The Popes claim the right of appointing the Archbishops Edmund Rich Boniface of Savoy The Popes' greed for money Their claim to the patronage of livings Opposition to the Pope Cardinal Otho at Oxford St. Edmund of Pontigny Deputation of Barons to the Council of Lyons List of grievances against the Pope drawn up Contributions to the Pope forbidden Growth of the national movement against the Pope Provisions commenced by Hadrian IV., the only English Pope Appeals to Rome Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln His stormy episcopate His opposition to the Pope His remonstrance to the Pope Dies excom- municate His character Archbishop Sewall de Boville Opposes the Pope Dies excommunicate The Barons prepare for war Simon de Montfort Guy Foulquois the Pope's legate The Barons' victory at Lewes Parliament Defeat and death of de Montfort at Evesham Cardinal Othobon. JOHN, who is generally considered the worst king that ever reigned in England, was elected King by the people over his nephew Arthur, a boy twelve years of age, the son of his elder brother Geoffrey. From 11981216 Innocent III., one of the The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy, ere. 143 ablest, and in many respects one of the best amongst the Popes, presided over the Church of Rome. No Pope had ever carried the Papal pretensions so high as Innocent. By him the spiritual power was held to be as much greater than the temporal as the soul is than the body, eternity than time, Christ than Csesar, God than man. The Pope was the " vicegerent of God ; he stands between God and man, less than God, more than man." Such was the great Pope with whom the weak and vacillating King of England was soon to be brought into open hostility. At the commencement of John's reign Hubert Fitzwalter was Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as Papal legate, and so long as Hubert lived John was kept under control; but when, on July 12, 1205, he, to the great distress of the nation, but to the great relief of John, died, the ecclesiastical troubles of the reign began. For a long time there had been disputes between the monks, who were the chapter of the cathedral of Canterbury, and the Bishops of the Province, as to their respective rights in the election of an Archbishop. In the night following the death of Hubert, the monks, thinking to secure the election, assembled, and without asking the King's permission, chose Reginald, their sub-prior, a man unknown beyond the precincts of the monastery, as Archbishop ; and him they despatched, under promise of the strictest secrecy, in company of some monks, to Rome, to obtain the pall and consecration from the Pope. But Reginald was so elated by his unexpected good fortune, and so carried away with vanity, that he travelled with great pomp and ceremony; and no sooner had he arrived in Flanders than he could no longer keep the secret, but openly proclaimed his election. This so shamed the monks that they now applied to the King for the fonge d'elire. John was very angry with them ; he himself elected John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, who was invested in the temporalities of the See, and started off for Rome. But just as the monks in their election of Reginald had omitted to consult the King, so the King had now forgotten to consult the suffragan 144 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy Bishops of the Province of Canterbury, who therefore complained to the Pope of this violation of their rights. The Pope saw and seized the opportunity of extending his power in England. After a year and a half he settled the matter. He rejected both Reginald and the Bishop of Norwich ; he told the monks that the election rested with them, but at the same time he compelled them, under the threat of anathema, to elect Stephen Langton, an Englishman, a profound Biblical scholar, and a Roman Cardinal 8 . In vain the monks pleaded the necessity of obtaining the King's sanction; Innocent told them that it was not needed when an election was made at Rome ; so the monks, with one exception, acquiesced, and Langton was on June 17, in 1207, consecrated by the Pope Archbishop of Canterbury. Innocent, although he was deter- mined the King should not have the appointment, was sincerely desirous of appointing the best Archbishop that could be found. He little thought he was appointing the very man who would do more than any one else to bridle the Pope's authority in England. A better appointment than that of Langton could not have been made; it was, however, a usurpation of the undoubted rights of the King of England. John received the election with defiance. He declared that he would rather die than allow such an infringement of his prerogative, and that he was resolved to carry through the election of the Bishop of Norwich ; he threat- ened to cut off all communication with Rome ; and he wreaked his vengeance upon the offending monks by expelling them from their monastery and confiscating their goods. Regardless of the King's threats, the Pope bestowed the pall on I^angton with his own hands, and charged the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to place the kingdom under an interdict, in case Langton was prevented from taking possession of the See. When these prelates waited upon John, and entreated him with To Langton we owe the division of the entire Bible into chapters. into the Church of England. 145 tears to submit, he swore by God's teeth that if any one dared to put his kingdom under an interdict, he would send them packing to Rome, and confiscate their goods ; if they were the subjects of the Pope, he would pluck out their eyes, slit their noses, and so return them to the Pope. The Pope stood firm, and no less firm was John. The Pope on March 23, 1208, placed the kingdom under an interdict; a sentence which was tantamount to reducing the innocent, no less than the guilty, to a state of heathendom. The Archbishop, who resided during the interdict at Pontigny, prevailed with the Pope to grant some relaxation ; and so the private baptism of infants and the Sacraments for the dying were allowed. But all religious services in the churches were forbidden. No sound of the church bells was heard; the dead lay unburied, or buried in ditches without the ministration of a priest ; a curse was felt to rest on the whole kingdom; even the monasteries were closed. It is difficult to realise in imagination the extent of misery which the closing of the monasteries alone entailed, when the sick and dying were unable to obtain relief through those accustomed and indeed the only channels. The Cistercians alone refused, but were soon compelled by the Pope to conform to the interdict. John, on his part, retaliated by banishing from England the clergy who observed the interdict, by confiscating their goods, and inflicting penalties on their families. A Bishop of Lincoln, elected in, 1209, sought consecration at Pontigny at the hands of the Archbishop, and his goods were in consequence confiscated. In the dioceses of Winchester, Durham, and Norwich, the inter- dict was wholly or in part unobserved. After two years the Pope proceeded to excommunicate the King. John cared no more for the excommunication than for the interdict. He seized the estates of the clergy, and several Bishops were forced to fly the country. At length in 1212, Stephen Langton, accompanied by the Bishops of London and Ely, represented to the Pope the crimes of John and the miseries of the English Church and nation. The Pope threatened to depose L 146 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy the King, and to entrust Philip Augustus, King of France, with its execution. The threat of deposition was to John a far more serious matter than the interdict or the excommunication. More- over Peter of Wakefield, a hermit, increased his fear by prophe- sying that by the following Ascension-day he would cease to be king. John was terribly alarmed. Finding himself opposed by the Clergy, the Barons, and the people of England, he felt that he stood alone in his kingdom, and he made the most humiliating terms that an English king had ever made, and that too, not with the King of France, but with the author of all his mis- fortunes, the Pope. On May 15, 1213, Pandulf, a skilful diplomatist, acting in behalf of the Pope, met the King at Ewell, near Dover. He pointed out to him the seriousness of his position, and how that his only hope lay in a reconciliation with the Church. Influ- enced by his advice, John, on the day before Ascension-day, surrendered his kingdom to the Pope, receiving it back on condition of his doing fealty to the Pope, and on his promising to the See of Rome a yearly payment of one thousand marks. The King also promised to acknowledge Langton as Archbishop, and to repay the money which he had exacted from the Church. Thus the hermit's prophecy was fulfilled ; John had by Ascension- day ceased to be King, but all the same John hanged him for a false prophet b . Invited by John, whose word, however, he would not trust with- out guarantees, the Archbishop arrived in England on July 16, and in company with other exiled Bishops, visited the King at Winchester. John came forth to meet them, and, throwing himself at their feet, craved forgiveness ; he swore allegiance to Holy Church, and that he would annul all bad laws, and observe the good laws and customs of the country c . Thereupon, although fc In 1222 Pandulf became Bishop of Norwich. "The King swore on the Holy Gospels that he would love and defend to the best of his power, against all adversaries, Holy Church, and that he would bring back the good laws of his ancestors, and especially the laws of King Edward." Mat. Paris. into the Church of England. 147 the kingdom was still lying under the interdict, the Archbishop granted him absolution. At Michaelmas, the Pope's legate, Nicolas, Cardinal Arch- bishop of Tusculum, arrived in England, and at a Council held in St. Paul's on October 3, John again resigned his crown, receiving it back from the legate as the Pope's gift, and paid the first instalment of the tribute. Thereupon the interdict was taken off the kingdom. Thenceforward John became the favourite son of the Pope; the Pope threw his shield over a king who was both a traitor and a murderer d , and espoused his cause against the Barons, the people, the Archbishop and the Church of England. John, though a traitor, was a very clever one. Without a friend in England (for his low debaucheries made him an unsafe and unwelcome guest in any family) ; a man without religion, a scoffer of Priests and Sacraments ; thinking at one time of throwing himself upon the aid of Islam, he clutched at the last straw by securing the friendship of the Pope. But whatever it was on John's part, it was a fatal blunder on that of the Pope. England rebelled against this unjustifiable usurpation, and from the hour that John did homage to and became the vassal of the Pope, commenced that spirit of resistance to Rome which has characterized the history of the Church and State of England from that time to this. We have hitherto dealt with Langton as the Archbishop of Canterbury ; in what follows we shall see in him one of the wisest and most patriotic statesmen, and most strenuous upholder of the liberties of the Church and country that England has known. No sooner had John's ecclesiastical troubles ended, than the political troubles of his reign commenced. The whole kingdom, Normans as well as English, Barons as well as Clergy, became united as one people in a common cause against the King's disgraceful act. d There can be little doubt that John contrived the death of his nephew Arthur. 148 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy John summoned the Barons to accompany him in an expedi- tion against the King of France. So universal however was the indignation, and so strong the detestation in which he was held, that the Barons, who were not bound to go out of England, refused to follow him. John determined to punish them for their disobedience. They found a leader in Archbishop Langton, who had returned to England with the firm determination of uphold- ing the ancient laws and customs of the realm. He had acted with consummate foresight in exacting an oath from John at Winchester, that he would observe the laws of the land. The Barons had hitherto acted in their individual interests ; he now persuaded them to act together, as a distinct order of the realm, for a definite object. The first step in this direction was taken at a great Council, which, composed not only of Bishops but of Barons and chosen people throughout the country, was held at St. Albans onAugust"4, 1213; the first instance of representatives of the whole nation attending a National Council. The Council ordained that the old Saxon laws of Edward the Confessor, which had been adopted as the basis of the Charter of Henry I., should be observed. The Charter of Henry, which had been long lost, Langton discovered and produced at a second Council held in St. Paul's on August 25, in which all classes of the people were represented, a true therefore, although not yet so in name, Parliament of the realm. This was the charter which John had sworn to obey, and it was at once welcomed as the basis of national action ; and on this charter the Bishops and Barons determined to stand, and if ne- cessary to die for their rights. John returned in October, 1214, from an unsuccessful expedition against the King of France; on the feast of Epiphany, 1215, he met the Barons in London, and enraged with the terms they offered, and secure as he thought in the favour of the Pope, he determined to bring them to sub- mission. The compact which they had made in St. Paul's the Barons confirmed on November 22, at Bury St. Edmund's. Backed by the Papal legate, John swore he would never into the Chitrch of England. 149 consent to the charter, and tried to detach the Clergy from the Barons by offering them freedom of election to Bishoprics. He surrounded himself with foreign mercenaries, and he took the Cross and the vows of a Crusader, against whom it was a sacrilege to make war. But the Clergy, Barons, and people all stood together as one man. They called their army the Army of God and of the Church, and appointed Robert Fitzwalter as their Marshal. Langton then presented a list of their demands to the King. " Why do you not demand my kingdom also ? " asked John ; and he swore by God's teeth that he would never yield. But now the few supporters who had hitherto stood by him deserted him, and joined the Army of God and of the Church. Finding himself with only seven knights on his side and with a whole nation against him, he saw that his cause was hopelessly lost; he bowed his back to necessity and yielded to their demands. He still flattered himself, indeed, that his friend the Pope was Suzerain of England, and that no charter would be valid without his consent. He summoned the Barons to meet him at Runnymede, a meadow near Windsor, on June 15, 1215, and there he signed although his oath was not worth the paper it was written on, for he never meant to keep it Magna Charta. This was the first act of a united people, after English and Normans had realized their national identity. It was Langton's act. By that charter, which probably more than any act of his life has rendered his name famous in English History, Langton ob- tained for the country the fundamental principles of English liberty ; and just as the first clause in the charter of Henry I. declared that " God's Holy Church should be free," so the first article of Magna Charta declared that " the Church of England shall be free," and secured to the Church its rights and the free election of its Bishops. The ink with which the charter was written was scarcely dry, when the perjured King revolted from the Barons and sent Pandulf to Rome to represent that as he was the Pope's vassal, an insult had been offered to the Pope no less than to himself ;. 150 TJie Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy and to request the Pope to annul the charter as having been extorted by rebellion in disregard to the Suzerainty of the Holy See. The Pope called the charter a base and unlawful composi- tion and of no value e . He asked, " Is it true ? do these Barons mean to dethrone their King, who has taken the Cross and is under the protection of the Holy See ? Do these Barons dare to transfer the patrimony of the Church of Rome ? By St. Peter, we will not permit this outrage to go unpunished." The Pope of Rome took upon himself to annul the law of England. On August 24 he issued a bull, in which, after declar- ing that England was a fief of Rome ; that the King had no power to act without the Pope, that the conduct of the Barons was a piece of audacious wickedness and contempt of the Holy See, he sent his commissioners into England to annul Magna Charta, forbade the King to observe it, and placed the same injunction upon the Barons. The bull was treated by the Barons with contempt, the Pope then ordered Langton to excommuni- cate them. Against Langton, whom he had expected to find a pliant tool, the Pope was especially wrathful, not only on account of the support he gave to the Barons, but also for his opposition to his legate, Nicolas. Langton refused to execute the bull, and was in consequence suspended, and the suspension was confirmed by the Pope at the Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, at which Langton himself was present ; and although it was after- wards taken off, he was not allowed to return to England before 1218, after John was dead It was perhaps out of gratitude to Langton that the Chapter of York in 1215 elected his brother Simon as their Archbishop ; the Pope, however, now claimed the right of annulling the election of the Chapter, and Walter de Grey, Bishop of Wor- cester, was appointed in his stead. The news of the death of Innocent III., which occurred on July 1 6, 1216, was received with thanksgiving in England on "Compositio vilis et turpis, verum etiam illicita et merito ab omnibus reprobanda." Wendover, 328. into the Church of England. 151 account of the aggression and the calamities which he had inflicted on the Church and country. John died on the following October 14. We have now seen how that through the tyranny and vices of the worst of all its kings, and by a reckless abuse of the Royal Supremacy, the Papal Supremacy was intruded into England against the united voice of the Clergy, the Barons, and the people. The intrusion was never acquiesced in. The nation complained that the Pope had taken an unfair advantage of John's position at a time when he was detested and forsaken by all classes of the people; and Stephen Langton, as the representative of the English people, entered a protest in writing against John's sub- mission to the Pope. John's reign, disastrous and fatal as it was to the independence for more than three hundred years of the Church and State of England, was notwithstanding one of the most important reigns in English history ; for to his reign are traced, and that through the instrumentality of the Archbishop and the Church, the first out- lines of a national parliament and the foundations of English liberty. John was succeeded by his son, Henry III., a boy of nine years of age, and the successor of Innocent was Honorius III. (1216 1227). The late King had entrusted the guardianship of his young son to Pope Honorius, who exercised it first through his legate Gualo, and after 1218 by Pandulf. The King was crowned at Gloucester, and was required to do homage to the Pope. Langton returned to England in May, 1218, and by him a second coronation was performed at Westminster, with a further ceremony on May 17, 1220. Pandulf resigned his lega- tion on July 19, 1 22 1, and, according to a promise which Langton had obtained from Pope Honorius, no other legate was appointed during his Primacy. The patriotic Archbishop died on July 9, 1228. The worst feature in Langton was the severity with which he enforced celi- bacy on the clergy. But it must be borne in mind that he had 152 Tlie Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy been brought up in the bosom of the Church of Rome ; in that Church he had held important offices ; he had been a Prebend in Notre Dame, Chancellor of the University of Paris, and was Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus ; and the celibacy of the clergy was a distinct feature in the Roman Communion, which differed therein from the Greek and Anglican Churches. Lanfranc and Anselm had tried, but without success, to enforce it in England. But at a Synod held at Osney, near Oxford, in June, 1222, at which Langton presided, more than one Canon was enacted which spoke of the wives of the clergy as concubines ; if the clergy refused to put away their wives, they were to be deprived of their benefices, their wives were to be forbidden the churches ; and if they persisted, were to be excommunicated and handed over to the secular authorities, and at their death to be denied Christian burial. The thirteenth century was a golden era of English Church- manship ; it was the age of Langton, St. Edmund, Grosseteste, and the two Cantilupes, Walter Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester (1237 1266), and his nephew, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford (1275 1282), who was canonized in 1320 by Pope John XXII. That century which witnessed the rise and growth of the Papal supremacy and exactions in England, was also that in which our Church Convocations came into existence, and our national par- liament, the outlines of which were foreshadowed under John, gradually took shape. Of the thirteenth century the reign of Henry III. (1216 1272) covers more than half. Henry was a religious man, if at least a man can be called religious whose word no one could trust, but he was a thorough Romanist, and his inglorious reign was marked by Popes of masterly minds. By them the whole ad- ministration of the country was overturned. By sending their legates a latere into England, they suspended the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury; through them they assumed the power of convening national assemblies ; instead of the Chapters enjoying the freedom of electing their Bishops, as John had pro- into the Church of England. 153 mised, the Popes set aside their choice, and thus practically had the election in their own hands ; they usurped the right of pa- tronage, and appointed Italians and other foreigners, men so hated that instances occurred of their being subjected to lynch law ; and appeals from the highest tribunals of the land had to be taken before the Court of Rome. Pope Honorius spoke of himself as Sovereign of England ; he adverted with sorrow to the death of John, " vassal, and dear friend of the Church," and addressed the young King as "our vassal." Instead of resenting this vassalage, as Henry grew up his mind became more and more filled with papistical ideas. The Church of England, no less than that of Rome, was pre- sided over by able and patriotic rulers, but the King was con- stantly thwarting them, and so alienating the Church and the country. He became the slave of the Popes, whose will, even when they were most wrong and exacting, he rarely opposed ; or if he did, they had only to threaten in order to bring him into subjection. No country was so rich as England ; in no country was there so pliant a king as Henry ; from no country, therefore, was money more easily extorted by the Popes. And yet to England the Pope's demands for money were particularly offensive, inasmuch as it was not devoted to spiritual purposes, but to the aid of the Pope against his enemy, that enemy being the ally of England. The Popqs kept their own collectors in England to gather the taxes which the legates imposed ; there were also in the kingdom Italian bankers and money-lenders, named Caursines, who, although acting in defiance of the common law, were counten- anced by the Popes, and who were always ready to advance money at usurious interest to meet the papal requirements, ham- pering thereby both the clergy and laity. In consequence of these illegal exactions, there was no country in Europe in which so strong a feeling against the Pope existed as existed in England ; and this feeling was sometimes more accentuated on the part of the clergy than on that of the laity. 1 54 Tlie Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy Owing to this feeling there arose two parties in the country ; one the national party, consisting of the Clergy, the Barons, and the people ; the other the Romanist party, consisting of the King, the foreigners whom the King and Pope introduced into England, and the Pope's strong allies, the Monks and Friars. Of the rise of the Friars, one of the most remarkable revivals in the history of the Church, and one of the most important events in the ecclesiastical or civil history of England in the thirteenth century, a short account must here be given. In the early years of the thirteenth century, though the Church numbered many able Bishops, there was much need of reform in the Church. Ever since the time of Langton and the Great Charter it had been doing a great and important service for the State, and had sided with the people against the Pope and King. In doing this work it had become popular. Bishops and Deans held high office in the State ; not only were they thus drawn away from their religious duties, but the Church became political rather than religious. It was the worldliness and incompetence of the clergy ; non-residence ; the neglect of preaching and other duties, that gave rise to the Mendicant orders, a movement somewhat akin to that of the Methodists in the eighteenth century. To these causes must be added yet another, viz. the de- generacy of the monks. The monks had grown wealthy, and were living easy and comfortable lives ; religion was neglected by them and so lost its hold upon the people. Moreover, the cities were growing in wealth and importance, and the people were gathering more and more from the rural districts into the towns ; the pauper population in the towns, as it increased in numbers increased also in misery; at their best the monas- teries, which were built in secluded districts, far from the busy haunts of men, could have effected but little good under these altered circumstances. Some revival, therefore, was absolutely necessary. It was during such times that the Mendicant Orders, or Preaching Friars (freres, brothers) first came to England. They consisted of four prin- into the Church, of England. 155 cipal orders the Dominicans or Black Friars, who came here about A.D. 1221; the Franciscans, Grey Friars or Minorites, 1224; later on came the Carmelites or White Friars, 1250 ; and the Augustines or Austin Friars, 1252. Of these the most im- portant were the Dominicans, founded by Dominic Guzman, a Spaniard of noble birth ; and the Franciscans, founded by Francis, a native of Assisi. The primary principle of the older monks had been to fly from the world ; the profession of the Mendicants was the reverse of this. To go into the world ; to have no houses or possessions of their own ; to live a life of poverty, in the narrowest cell and on the hardest fare; to carry thence the Church to the poor; to identify themselves with the outcasts of the people; to travel bare-footed in a coarse serge frock with a rope girdle around their waists ; to live on alms, and to abide in any house where they were bidden; such was the life at first led by the Friars. Wherever there was sin and misery, there we find the Friar taking up his abode. Near the shambles of Newgate, on a spot appro- priately called Stink-lane ; at Oxford, on the swampy ground in the parish of St. Ebbe ; by the town-gaol at Cambridge ; by the waterside at Norwich ; preaching in the market-places or the cor- ners of the streets in homely language such as the poorest could understand ; frequenting hospitals and lazar-houses, which others were afraid to enter ; tending the lepers, and giving them the kiss of peace. -A great revival in religion took place; crowds hung upon their words and asked their blessing ; rich people gave up their possessions to take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedi- ence, and went forth to help them in their work. But before long the vow of poverty was evaded. Begging at first for others, they soon took to begging for themselves, and then the evils of mendicancy began to show themselves. They were not allowed to -possess property, but they were allowed the me of it. At first they found but little favour at Rome, but soon they basked in the favour of the Pope ; in him they vested their earnings, to be applied, however, to their own use. This inge- 156 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy nious contrivance enabled them to beg with all the greater impor- tunity, and to receive money bequeathed to them by will. Before long, whilst boasting of being the poorest, the Mendicants became the richest order in Christendom. So early as A.D. 1259 they had amassed immense wealth and erected magnificent buildings ; they were to be found no longer in the hovels of the poor, but in the halls of the rich and the palaces of princes. They became a power in the universities ; under their influence Oxford and Cam- bridge became great centres of education and learning ; and from the ranks of the Friars proceeded those learned men and distin- guished schoolmen who so largely moulded the religious and philosophical thought of England ; Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas from the Dominicans ; Roger Bacon, Alexander of Hales, and Duns Scotus from the Franciscans. Pope Alexander IV. (1254 1261) exempted the Friars from the jurisdiction of Bishops and the authority of the Parish Priest ; they thus became subject only to the Pope. They were allowed by the Pope (to the subversion of all discipline) to preach in the churches, to administer the Sacraments, to hear confessions and to grant absolution, and to bury the dead, without asking the permission of the Parish Priests or the license of the Bishops. In return for these privileges they gave their whole allegiance to the Pope, and became his militia and faithful allies against the Bishops and clergy and also the Baronage of England. We must now enter more into detail in order to understand how the Popes used the supremacy which they had acquired under John in England. Pope Innocent III. having appointed Langton, Gregory IX. (1227 1241), the successor of Honorius III., claimed that as a precedent for his appointing Langton's successor in the See of Canterbury. The Chapter of Canterbury had elected Walter Hemersham, a monk from their own monastery. But here they overlooked the rights of the King and the Suffragan Bishops. Three commissioners, the Bishops of Rochester and Chester and the Archdeacon of Bedford, were accordingly despatched by the into the Church of England. 157 King to Rome with the bribe of the tenth of the revenues of England and Ireland to the Pope towards the expenses of his war against the Emperor, in order to disuade him from confirming the election. Thereupon the Pope subjected Hemersham to an examination, and he was rejected as incompetent. The Pope, however, insisted on making the appointment himself; and although he ultimately sanctioned the King's nominee, Richard Grant, Chancellor of Chichester, yet a bad precedent was set, or rather confirmed, by which the Pope claimed the right of passing over, if he chose, the King's nominee. And of this, succeeding Popes readily availed themselves. Richard Grant only held the Primacy from 1229 1231. The King sanctioned the election of Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, a man of unblemished character, as his successor. But Neville was a favorer of Magna Charta and of the national party. So the Pope condemned him on the ground that he was too strong a politician, and told the monks that if he were elected, he would sever the kingdom from its allegiance to Rome, and that the people of England would only be too willing to follow him. John, Prior of Canterbury, was next chosen; he was rejected by the Pope for want of learning. Next John Blunt, a scholar of repute, was rejected on the ground that he was a pluralist. The Pope then took the matter into his own hands, and com- pelled the monks to elect Edmund Rich, the future St. Edmund (or Edmund of Abingdon as he was called, after his native town), Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral, a man of holy life and conver- sation, and he was on April 2, 1234, consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Edmund showed himself the champion of the national party against both King and Pope, and set himself to remedy the evils which weighed upon the Church. His very first act was to visit the King, and to tell him on April 9, in plain language, that if he persisted in his illegal courses, he would, by the request of the Barons and the advice of the Bishops, excom- municate him. But he was so persecuted by the Pope and King 1 58 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy that his health broke down, and in 1240 he left England in despair f . A man of very different character succeeded Edmund Rich as Archbishop. In 1236 the King had married Eleanor of Provence, a woman who thoroughly despised England and the English people, and who, through the advancement of her relations, tried to build up a foreign party in the kingdom. Henry, unfortunately, thought it the duty of a good husband to provide for his wife's needy relatives ; accordingly dignities and high offices in Church and State were lavished upon them ; thenceforward England swarmed with foreigners from Provence and Savoy, and the weak king entirely fell into the hands of these favourites. One such appointment was that of Boniface of Savoy, the Queen's uncle ", a violent and worldly-minded, as well as illiterate man, who was only in Deacon's orders, to the See of Canterbury ; the Chapter dared not resist the nomination; the Pope was desirous of obliging the King; and Boniface was consecrated Archbishop at Lyons on January 15, 1245. He held the Primacy (although he did not take possession till 1249) from 1245 1270. He proved the mere creature of the Pope, and when the civil war broke out in England he detached himself from the national party of the Bishops and Barons, and espoused that of the King and the Pope. But the Pope claimed feudal as well as spiritual rights in England. Innocent III. desired power and influence first ; his successors sought power also, but above all things money, and to enrich themselves and their Italian nominees from the English benefices. The King allowed the Pope a free hand, because he wished himself to benefit in the same manner. The list of papal exactions commences in 1226. In that year Pope Honorius, through his nuncio, one Master Otho, whom he sent into the kingdom against the remonstrances of the Barons and the unanimous voice of the Clergy, demanded two prebends ' See infra, p. 161. The Savoy Palace in the Strand was built by another of her uncles. into the Church of England. 159 from every cathedral and collegiate Church, and a similarly exor- bitant contribution from every monastery and convent throughout the country. The Pope's reasons were somewhat original, and do credit at any rate to his ingenuity. He pleaded that the holy Church of Rome had been accused of avarice ; the charge, he said, was true, and he allowed that avarice was the root of all evil. To obviate such a scandal for the future, he had, he said, hit upon the above expedient, and it was the duty of her sons to alleviate the wants of the Roman Church. A council was held at Westminster, the demand was dismissed, and, as might have been expected, with laughter. The King, however, treated Otho with great honour, and by him, although he was only a Deacon, and not by the Archbishop of Canterbury, his son Edward, afterwards Edward I., King of England, was baptized ; Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who afterwards married Henry's sister, and the future leader of the Barons against the King and his Godson, standing as one of the sponsors. In 1229 Gregory IX. demanded through his nuncio the pay- ment of the tenths which the King had promised to the Pope, as a bribe, to induce him to sanction the appointment of Archbishop Grant; and the demand was accompanied with a threat of ex- communication in case of refusal. The Barons at first rejected the demand, but the Bishops, having been intimidated into yielding to the Pope's threats, they followed their example, Ralph, Earl of Chester, alone standing firm against it. To meet the demand, the Bishops were driven to the necessity of selling or pawning the Church plate. That the Popes cared nothing for the spiritual good of England goes without saying ; for had they done so they would not have appointed to benefices foreigners who were ignorant of the Eng- lish language, who cared nothing for the people, and never came near England. The Popes knew that the clergy in England were anti-papal to the core. It was, therefore, their policy to lessen the numbers and thereby the influence of the native clergy, and thus to weaken the national party; whilst by appointing foreigners 160 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy who were friendly to Rome they promoted the interests of the Roman party. Pope Gregory also claimed the right of setting aside the pa- tronage both of Bishops and lay patrons. He adduced Scriptural authority for this proceeding. Englishmen, he said, "must not take it amiss that foreigners dwelt amongst them, for God is no respecter of persons? Nothing was more opposed to English feeling than the appoint- ment of foreigners, and this right claimed by the Pope of inter- fering with English patronage. The matter was speedily brought to an issue. In 1229 a clergyman, who had been appointed to a living by the patron, Sir Robert Twenge, was rejected by Walter Grey, Archbishop of York, acting under the Pope's orders. The conduct of the Pope and the Archbishop created general indigna- tion throughout the country. A secret society, connived at by some of the leading statesmen, was formed in 1231, headed by Sir Robert Twenge himself, under the name of Will Wither. It assumed a common seal, representing two swords, and bearing the inscription, Ecce duo gladii. Letters from " the whole body of those who prefer to die rather than be ruined by the Romans " were freely circulated, and a widespread insurrection was the result. They seized the tithes collected for the Pope; they trampled his bulls under foot. The barns of the foreigners were destroyed, and the corn distributed amongst the poor ; and the foreigners were in danger of their lives. The Pope wrote to the King : he reminded him how much he and his father were in- debted to Rome ; he complained of the treatment suffered by the ministers of the Holy See ; how that one had been cut in pieces, another left half-dead ; their credentials were torn up, the Pope's bull trodden under foot, and the Italian clergy so ill-treated that it seemed as if one of the ten persecutions was re-acted and Nero brought back to life. The Pope accused the English Bishops with connivance. The Barons, in their turn, complained to the Pope that never since the first preaching of Christianity in Eng- land had their rights been so set aside ; they thought it right to into the Church of England. 161 awaken their Lord, who " was now sleeping in St. Peter's vessel," otherwise "the children might be provoked against their father." The Pope found it judicious to yield; he told the Barons he would not interfere with the rights of lay patrons ; but Matthew Paris tells us he made no scruple of invading those of Bishops, Abbots, and Clergy. In 1237 Cardinal Otho was at the King's request sent into England to reform the Church. He was by no means a person acceptable to the Barons, for fear of whom he went about attended by a body-guard. In the year of his arrival he held a council at St. Paul's, where certain constitutions were agreed to. The next year he went to Oxford to correct abuses in that University, and took up his abode in Osney Abbey. There he was as unpopular as he had been in London. His servants treated some under- r^raduates with such insolence that a riot ensued, in which the clerk of the kitchen, who was the legate's own brother, was killed. The wrath of the students was next directed against Otho himself, "the fleecer of the land, and the gulf of Roman avarice," as they called him. Otho managed to fly by night to the King at Wal- lingford, and there he put the whole University not only the delinquent undergraduates, but the masters, the heads of colleges, and the Chancellor under an interdict. The Bishops, and espe- cially Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese Oxford was situated, defended the University, and reminded the legate that the fault lay primarily with his own servants ; the interdict, however, was only removed after representatives of the University had done penance in London by walking barefooted from Cheap- side to Durham House, where the legate resided. In 1240 the Pope's legate forbade the King to bestow any Church preferment on the English clergy until three hundred Roman clergy had been provided for. At that time Edmund Rich was Archbishop of Canterbury. It was then that he expostulated with Pope and King on the robbery of the Church's liberties and possessions. This last piece of Papal tyranny was more than he could endure ; his life, Matthew Paris M 162 Ths Intrusion oftht Papal Supremacy tells us, became intolerable, and finding that King and Pope were in league against him, he determined to seek a voluntary exile ; so in 1 240 he left England h , and took up residence for a time at Pontigny in France, and from thence went into the Priory of Soissy. Grief, owing to the ill-usage he had suffered in England, and excessive abstinence, soon terminated his life, and on Novem- ber 1 6 of that year he died. In 1248 the patriotic Archbishop, although it was opposed by the King and his successor in the See of Canterbury, Boniface of Savoy, was canonized by Innocent IV. as St. Edmund of Pontigny. Though Innocent IV. (1243 1254) canonized Archbishop Edmund, the opponent of an avaricious Pope, Matthew Paris tells us he impoverished the Church more than all his predecessors put together. In 1244 he sent into England "another harpy," one more intolerable than any nuncio who had been sent before, " Master Martin." The Barons told Martin plainly that if he did not immediately leave England he would " be cut in pieces." In vain he implored the King to give him a safe conduct out of the kingdom. The King, disgusted with the " execrable extortions " of the Pope, *br a time joined the national party, and told the Papal nuncio he might go to a place which is not generally named in polite society ; and he had to make his way out of England as best he could. In 1245 a deputation from England under Earl Bigod and several other Barons went in the name of the English baronage and commonalty to lay before the Council assembled at Lyons, where the Pope was then in exile, a statement of the national grievances and the extortions of the Pope '. They complained that the English benefices were held by foreigners, men who could not speak English, and were otherwise incapacitated; that Italians drew above 60,000 marks annually from the Church, * See above, p. 158. 4 The Pope had asked for an asylum in England, but England was unwilling to receive him. Matthew Paris says of the Papacy, " Factor usque ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat" into the Church of England. 163 a: sum larger than the revenues of the Crown; and that this, coupled with the non obstante clause in the bulls, was an intoler- able imposition. What galled them most was the annual pay- ment of the thousand marks covenanted by John ; they said that it had been protested against from the first, and that neither their ancestors nor themselves would endure such a badge of slavery. The Barons returned to England without obtaining any redress for their grievances, and were obliged to wait until they could find a leader in order to avenge themselves on the foreigners in general and the Romans in particular. In 1246 the King himself, who still inclined to the patriotic side, in a Parliament assembled in London, laid a list of griev- ances before the Bishops and Barons. Article I. set forth that not content with Peter-pence, the Pope wrested a large sum of money from the clergy against the King's wish, and that this was .a manifest breach of the customs and privileges of the realm. Article II. complained of the Papal encroachment on the right of patronage. Article IV. complained of Italians being appointed to Church benefices, and of the English being cited by the Pope's authority into foreign courts. On these points the King, Bishops, and Barons were all agreed, and they were laid before the Pope. The King himself wrote to the Pope, that unless an end was speedily put to such oppressive practices, the consequences were likely to prove very unfortunate both to the court of Rome and to himself. The Bishops and Abbots wrote that the exactions of the Pope's ministers had made a terrible commotion in England, and that the people were on the verge of rebellion, and disposed to throw off their allegiance to the Pope. The remonstrance of the Barons was couched in still stronger language. They had hitherto forborne, they said, out of respect to the Apostolic See, but unless their grievances were redressed, and his Holiness put a check on these disorders, the consequences would be fatal to the Pope. Not only were these protests sent to Rome, but proclamations were issued throughout England forbidding the contribution of a 164 The Intrusion cf the Papal Supremacy single penny to the Pope's demands. The Pope, unwilling to have his revenues diminished, determined to run the risk, and not to make the least abatement in his exactions. At the last moment the King's courage gave way; the endeavours of the Bishops, Barons, and Commons were defeated; the hopes of English liberty lost, and Church and State continued to be the prey of Papal avarice. Still the national movement continued to gain force. During the episcopate of Fulk Bassett, Bishop of London (1244 I2 59)r two Papal nominees, trying to instal themselves as Canons in his cathedral, were killed by the populace. Again, when in 1256 Pope Alexander IV. (1254 1261) claimed from them, through his legate, a tenth of their income for three years, the Bishops refused to allow it. Fulk Bassett declared that rather than submit he would lay his head upon the block, and Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, in equally expressive language : " I will be hanged first." The claim first put forth in the Pontificate of Alexander for firstfruits, i.e. the first year's income of bishoprics and benefices, became, till the Reformation, a permanent source of revenue to the Popes, producing, it was calculated, an annual income of ^40,000. There were more ways than one by which the Popes invaded the patronage of the Church. First there were expectatives in form of letters addressed to the Bishops, requesting that some one whom the Pope recommended should be appointed. Then there were mandates, slightly more imperative, putting the matter in such a manner that the Bishops could not refuse. Next by provisions, which had first come into vogue under Hadrian IV. (Nicolas Breakespeare, 11541159), the only Englishman who ever filled the Papal throne the Popes claimed beforehand the appointment to livings whenever they should become vacant; these were either sold in the Papal market, or were reserved for Italians. Fifty or sixty livings were in this way sometimes heaped upon the same person, a system hateful alike to laity and clergy ; to the former, because these foreigners who resided away drew into the Church of England. 165 from England the wealth of the country ; to the clergy, because they usurped the benefices which ought by rights to have been theirs. The Popes also claimed to appoint to all benefices which became vacant by the death of incumbents at Rome (vacantes in curia). Appeals from England to Rome, which before the Xorman Conquest had been almost unknown, reached their height in the thirteenth century ; and as these appeals were very numerous, and there were frequently many litigants at Rome, vacancies caused in this manner were not unfrequent. The foremost Prelate of his time, the great scholastic and ec- clesiastical reformer, was Robert Grosseteste, or Greathead, Bishop of the then enormous diocese of Lincoln (1235 1253). As Rector Scholarum at Oxford he infused new life into the studies of the University, and when he became Bishop of Lincoln his thoughts were turned to the great questions which were dis- turbing Church and State. He was a thorough Catholic ; a firm supporter of the Pope when he was right, but his equally strong opponent when he was wrong (for the doctrine of Papal infalli- oility was not then the teaching of the Church) ; an advocate of clerical celibacy; the warm friend of the Friars, whom he em- ployed to supplement the deficient zeal of his clergy, and encouraged as teachers of the University of which he was Chan- cellor. Whilst he regarded the Canon law and the authority of the Church with the deepest respect, he strongly advocated the teaching of the Bible, and in a letter to the Regents in Theology at Oxford urged the importance of lectures in the Old and New Testaments, and suggested that the morning, as the best part of the day, should be devoted to their study. His episcopate was of a very stormy character, and his zeal as a reformer, which sometimes outran his discretion, brought him into conflict with people who ought to have been his friends. A quarrel with the Dean and Chapter of his cathedral began in 1239; the Bishop excommunicated the Proctor, and deposed the Dean, and the Chapter excommunicated Grosseteste's Dean ; the 1 66 TJis Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy matter was at length referred to Pope Innocent IV., and eventually decided by him at the Council of Lyons, A.D. 1245, in Grosse- teste's favour. From this uncompromising Prelate Pope Innocent was rash enough to demand, in 1247, through two Franciscan monks, 6,000 marks as the portion of the diocese of Lincoln for Papal exigencies. Grosseteste indignantly refused to allow the extor- tion, and from that time his eyes were opened, and he who had hitherto been the Pope's staunch ally became his firm opponent. He found that Innocent IV. had impoverished the Church of England more than all his predecessors together, and declared that his nominees withdrew from the country 70,000 marks annually, an amount which he calculated to be three times as large as the whole revenue of the Crown. In 1253 Pope Innocent appointed by provision his nephew Frederic di Livagna, a boy not yet in Holy Orders, to a Canonry in Lincoln Cathedral, and ordered Grosseteste to instal him. Grosseteste refused, and addressed a letter of honest but respectful remonstrance to the Pope, the strongest which had yet appeared from the pen of an English Bishop against the Pope's usurped power. Next to the sin of Lucifer and that of Antichrist, he wrote, there cannot be a greater opposition to the teaching of our Saviour and His Apostles than to destroy men's souls by depriving them of the pastoral office. Of this sin those are guilty who receive the profits without performing their sacerdotal office. Those who appoint such unqualified persons are most to blame, especially in proportion to their high station. The holy Apostolic See, which has received its authority for edification and not for destruction, can never countenance such a horrible prevarication, which would amount to a forfeiture of its authority ; indeed, such persons might be said to sit in the chair of pestilence with the devil and antichrist Nor can any one in communion with the Church obey such commands ; on the contrary he ought to oppose them with the whole of his power. For this reason, with regard to such commands as he had received in plain contradiction to into the Church of England. 167 the Catholic Faith, " I filially and obediently refuse to obey " (filialiler et obedienter non obedio). " What old doting man is this," said the Pope, " who has out- lived his brains and manners, and presumes to censure my conduct ? " The Pope proceeds to speak of him as such a pro- digy of a wretch that he ought to be punished in a manner that the world should be amazed at his punishment; "for is not his Sovereign, the King of England, our vassal, nay, is he not our slave ? " In vain the Cardinals told the irate Pope that Grosseteste was a most holy Prelate, a great philosopher, an eminent preacher, and a divine remarkable for boldly rebuking and prosecuting scandals, whilst his letter to the Pope was strongly supported by argument, and that he has advanced nothing but truth. The Pope excommunicated the Bishop, and under that sentence he died on October 10, 1253. Matthew Paris gives the character of Grosseteste : " He was a clear refuter of our lord the Pope and of the King ; the rebuker of Prelates, the corrector of monks, the instructor of clerics, the supporter of scholars, the preacher to the people, the persecutor of the incontinent, the sedulous searcher into the Scriptures, the mallet and despiser of the Romans. . . . In his episcopal duties he was sedulous, venerable, and unwearied." The University of Oxford after his death expressed the deep gratitude it owed him, and attempts were made, although without success, for his canonization. The mantle of Grosseteste fell on Sewall de Boville, who became Archbishop of York on the death of Walter de Grey in 1256^ When Pope Alexander IV. appointed Giordano, an Italian, a man ignorant of the English language, to the Deanery of York ; and again, when he appointed other Italians to benefices in his diocese, Sewall not only refused to institute them, but told the Pope that when our Saviour commissioned St. Peter to feed k Walter de Grey (see p. 150) had held the See for forty years. He bought the house known as York Place for the Archbishops of York, which in the reign of Henry VIII. was converted into a royal palace under the name of Whitehall. i68 TJie Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy His sheep, He did not commission him to flay and eat them. Truly the English prelates did not sit quiet under the Papal aggressions. The Pope excommunicated Sewall, as his predecessor had ex- communicated Grosseteste, and Sewall died broken-hearted on May 10, 1258, appealing to Heaven against the Pope's injustice. The evils arising from the Papacy had now reached a point that they had become intolerable. The misgovernment of Henry and the rapacity of the Popes was undoing all that Langton and the Great Charter had done. No one could trust in the word of Henry, for no sooner was his oath taken than the Pope absolved him from keeping it. The country was, in 1258, suffering under a grievous famine, yet new demands were made upon it by the King and Pope. The Pope was thoroughly hated alike by the Clergy and Barons and people of England. The Barons deter- mined to liberate the country from the Pope and the Papal tax- gatherers ; they saw that the evils which beset the land could not be removed by ordinary or peaceful methods, so they prepared for war. They found a leader in Simon de Montfort, who, a foreigner by birth, had been the friend of Grosseteste, and was brother-in-law of the King. The Pope took the side of the King against the Church and national party, and at the request of Henry sent over his legate, Guy Foulquois, to England. Archbishop Boniface, however, met the legate at Boulogne, and told him how that a Roman who had lately come over had been torn in pieces by the mob, and that a legate's life was not safe in England. The legate did not allow his zeal to outrun his discretion, and wisely remained at Boulogne ; from thence he and the Archbishop determined to excommunicate the Barons. But to introduce Papal documents into the kingdom at such a time was certain death to the bearer. Boniface sent over to request the attendance at Boulogne of certain of the Bishops, viz., those of London, Winchester, Worcester (Walter Cantilupe), and Chichester. To them was confided the excommunication of the Barons. But it was well known that these Prelates were favourable to the national party. into the Church of England. 169 They managed in some way to get rid of the obnoxious documents ; according to one version they allowed themselves to be robbed of them at sea by some pirates ; according to another the documents were seized on their arrival at Dover and thrown into the sea. On May 13, 1264, the national party, undismayed by the threats either of the Archbishop or legate, met the King's forces at Lewes. De Montfort's army, which was however weakened by the defection of many of the Barons, wore (as the Army of God and of the Church had done before) white Crosses on their backs and breasts, and before going into battle knelt in prayer and were shriven by Cantilupe, the aged Bishop of Worcester. The King's army was defeated, and he himself and his son Edward taken prisoners. By the victory of Lewes, De Montfort became in all but name King of England, and the country for a time breathed again. A Parliament, the famous Parliament, as it is called, of Simon de Montfort, containing all the essential elements of our modern Parliaments, met at Westminster on January 20, 1265. The custom had for some time prevailed of summoning two Knights from every shire to sit in the National Council De Montfort went further than this, and summoned two representatives from the boroughs and cities to sit together with the Knights and Nobles and Bishops in the Parliament of the realm. This was the first National Council in which the Lords spiritual and temporal, the Knights of the shire, and the burgesses and citizens, met together for the general business of the nation. How dear the cause for which De Montfort was contending was to the Clergy of England may be judged from the fact that no fewer than one hundred and seventeen members from the higher Clergy met together ; whilst the divisions of the Barons had assumed such formidable propor- tions that only twenty-three members of the lay nobility were found to take their seats in Parliament. The dissensions among the Barons were fatal to the cause of the National Party ; the difficulties of De Montfort increased day by day, and his Govern- ment was tottering to its fall when, on August 4, 1265, his army 170 The Intrusion of the Papal Supremacy, &c. was defeated by the young Prince Edward, and he himself and his son were killed at the battle of Evesham. Thus the National cause, the cause of liberty and of the Church against the Pope and King, seemed to be irretrievably lost In February of the same year the legate, Guy Foulquois, was elected Pope under the title of Clement IV. (1265 1268). After the defeat at Evesham and the death of the champion of the Church, the new Pope did not miss the opportunity of retaliating for the scant respect shown him at Boulogne. In March, 1266, he sent over his legate, Cardinal Othobon, a man particularly obnoxious to the English as being one of those numerous aliens who held property in England, and he immediately excommuni- cated the Bishops of London, Winchester, Worcester, and Chichester. Beyond this the legate is chiefly known from the valuable body of Constitutions enacted at a council in London in May, 1268, some of which still form part of the ecclesiastical law of England. CHAPTER VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1272 1384. HENRY III. succeeded by Edward I. The Pope appoints Kilwardby Arch- bishop And Peckham Statute of Mortmain Of Circiimspecte Agatis Revenues of the clergy Archbishop Winchelsey Pope Boniface VIII. The Bull Clericis Laicos The Clergy, under the advice of Winchelsey, refuse a supply to the King And are outlawed The Pope's claim to- jurisdiction over Scotland The Bull Unam Sanctum Winchelsey driven into exile The Parliament of 1295 The Prcemunientes clause Convo- cation From this time a constant opposition to the Pope's supremacy kept up by Parliament and the clergy Parliament of Carlisle Edward II. King -Winchelsey recalled Commencement of the decline of the Papacy Boniface VIII. Pope Clement V. Pope The Babylonish Captivity Changed condition of the Papacy John XXII. Pope Imposes Annates Provisions The Clergy drawn into closer connexion with Rome Diminished influence of the Clergy in England Protest of King Edward III. against the Pope Increasing claims of the Pope in the appointment of the Archbishops First Statute of Provisors Of Pmnranire New Statute of Pramunire Pope Urban V. claims the tribute promised by King John Unanimous resolution against it by the Three Estates Popes and Kings in league together Deterioration cf the Clergy Hostile feeling against the Clergy William of Wykeham deprived of the Chancellorship Protest of Parliament in 1376 The Friars Contest between the regular and secular Clergy Thoresby Fitz-Ralph Piers Ploughman's Vision Rise of Wicliffe His early life Goes as Commissioner to Bruges Summoned before Courtney, Bishop of London And before a Council of Bishops at Lambeth The Great Schism in the Church of Rome Wicliffe and the Friars Wicliffe attacks- the doctrines of the Church Murder of Archbishop Sudbury Wicliffe 's Poor Priests Courtney, Archbishop The Earthquake Council Sup- pression of Lollardy Wicliffe's Bible Death of Wicliffe. HENRY III. died on November 16, 1272, and was succeeded by his son Edward I., who was thirty-three years of age. Edward was desirous (at any rate so long as it suited him) to act constitutionally both in Church and State. But he was guided as most Kings of England at that time were, by two con- tradictory principles. If Church and State did what he wished,. 172 The Struggle for the Independence he would be a constitutional monarch ; if they differed from him he was quite as ready to fall back on his royal prerogative as any King who went before or followed him. He was, for instance, theoretically opposed to any undue interference on the part of the Pope ; but his practice was altogether at variance with his theory. When he wanted to make use of the Pope or to get any advantage through him, the Church must look after itself, and for all that he cared might suffer harm. He would banish an Archbishop, and he did banish Archbishop Winchelsey for adhering to a Pope when it was contrary to his wish ; but when he wanted money, he would make a bargain with the Pope at the expense of the Church ; he would allow the Pope to take for three years the first- fruits, if the Pope would not oppose his seizing the tenths, of English benefices. On the death of Archbishop Boniface in July, 1 2 70, the choice of the monks of Canterbury fell on their Prior, Adam de Chittenden. Prince Edward, as he then was, wished Robert Burnell to be appointed to the Primacy : Pope Gregory X. mediated between the two, and in the plentitude of his power annulled the nomina- tion of both, and knowing the value of the Friars to the Papal See he appointed Robert Kilwardby(i273 1279), a Dominican Friar, to the post But Kilwardby did not answer the expectations of the Papal court, so Nicolas III., who became Pope in 1277, appointed him to the cardinalate of Oporto, by which a vacancy was caused in the See of Canterbury. Prince Edward had now become King of England. He again favoured the election of Burnell, who had in 1275 been conse- crated to the bishopric of Bath and Wells, and the monks of Canterbury elected the King's nominee. The Pope who had long usurped the right of election to benefices vacated by the death of the incumbents at Rome, now claimed a similar right with regard to the resignation of the Archbishop at Rome, and he appointed John Peckham (1279 1292), a Franciscan Friar, and a man of considerable reputation, to the Primacy ; Edward, wishing to stand well with the Pope, did not oppose the appointment. of the Church of England. 173 Peckham was a fussy and litigious little man, not over patri- otic, and, like the Friars generally, ready to side with the Pope rather than with the King. The King and Primate soon came into collision. Peckham, in August, 1279, convened a Synod of Bishops at Reading, in which several Canons were passed interfering with the King's prerogative in ecclesiastical matters. Edward was angry, and made the Archbishop withdraw them and understand that they had a very different man from his father to deal with. The King by the advice of Burnell, the Chancellor, and in opposition to the wishes of Peckham, obtained the passing by Parliament, in 1279, of the celebrated Statute De Religiosis or Mortmain. Lands given to the Church were released from services to the State, and so were said to be held en morte main (in a dead hand). The Act provided that no person, religious or otherwise, should buy or sell or receive by reason of any other title, any lands or tenements in such a manner that they should come into Mortmain. The Statute of Circumspecte agatis, passed in 1285, defined the limits between the temporal and spiritual courts. It recognised the rights of the latter " to hold pleas in matters purely spiritual, such as offences for which penance was due, tithes, mortuaries, churches and churchyards, injuries done to clerks, perjury, or defamation." Archbishop Peckham died on December 8, 1292. Before the election of his successor was confirmed by the Pope, the King summoned the clergy of both provinces to meet him afc Westminster on September 21, 1294, and demanded of them a supply for a war which he had just entered upon with France. He would be contented with nothing less than the half of their revenue, and threatened them with outlawry in case of their refusal. The clergy were alarmed at the demand, and the Dean of St. Paul's fell dead from fear in the King's presence ; but the demand was conceded. The whole revenue of the clergy was at that time ^200,000, that of the Province of Canterbury being 174 U te St rll SS? e f or M IC Independence approximately ^160,000, of York, ^"40,000. So that the tenth which vas so frequently demanded of the clergy amounted to ^20,000. On this occasion the King received no less a sum than ;ioo,ooo a . In the same year Robert Winchelsey, who was the King's nominee, became Primate (1294 1313). The King little thought that he would find in Winchelsey as strong a partizan of the Pope as ever his predecessor had been, and the formidable leader of an ecclesiastical opposition against himself. In 1294 also Boniface VIII. was elected Pope. Boniface failing to comprehend the altered conditions of the times, put forth higher contentions for the Papacy than even Hildebrand or Innocent III. had done. The two swords (St. Luke xxii. 38) were represented by him as symbolic of the spiritual and temporal power of the Pope. On February 24, 1296, he issued the famous bull, Chricis Laicos, which asserted the authority of the Pope over all property of the Church in every part of the world, and forbade the clergy from taxing themselves, and the laity from demanding from them taxes for the exigencies of the State except by his permission. Boniface's predecessors, desirous of keeping on good terms with so powerful a King as Edward, had shown their willingness to oblige him, and on more than 'one occasion had sanctioned his collecting the tenth from the revenues of the clergy. But the King was unwilling to seek the Pope's consent to his taxing his OAvn clergy, especially as they now had a place in Parliament, or, if ,they preferred it, their own Convocation, in which to tax them- selves. His wise friend and able counsellor, Robert Burnell, had died in 1293. In 1296 the King made another demand upon the clergy. Winchelsey was alarmed with the idea that the King was determined to .make the Church a mere Department of the State, and backed by the bull of Boniface he put himself in open antagonism to him. Convocation was summoned in January, 1297, to consider the matter. The Archbishop produced the Stubbs' Const Hist., vol. ii. of the Church of England. 175 Papal bull ; the clergy refused to comply with the King's demand On the ground that it was forbidden by the Pope. The King thereupon told them that if they would not support the Govern- ment, the Government would not protect them. A general outlawry of the clergy was decreed ; their goods were seized ; their lives were in danger, and the property of the Archbishop, even to the last saddle-horse in his stable, was forfeited to the King. Thus were the clergy starved into submission : the Arch- bishop, however, remained firm and adhered to the spirit of the bull. On June 27, 1299, the Pope issued a bull claiming jurisdiction over Scotland, on the ground that Scotland had always been from the earliest times a fief of Rome, and he warned the King, through the Archbishop, against continuing a war in which he was engaged with the Scots. The King laid the bull before the Parlia- ment which met at Lincoln on January 20, 1301. The laity in Parliament thereupon addressed to the Pope a letter conveying a distinct denial of his claim over Scotland. The remonstrance signed by the whole assembled baronage, numbering one hundred, declared that "our Sovereign Lord the King is by no means obliged to own the jurisdiction of your court or to submit to your Holiness' sentence with respect to his sovereignty over the king- dom of Scotland, or indeed in any other temporal matter what- soever" How little regard Boniface paid to the Lincoln remonstrance anay be judged from the bull Unatn Sanctam, issued in 1302, in which he declared that in matters of doctrine " it is altogether necessary to salvation that every human creature should be subject to the Roman pontiff." In 1302 the See f Worcester having become vacant, the Chapter under license from the Crown elected one of their owa body. Winchelsey refused to confirm the election ; and the Pope provided William Gainsbrough, a Franciscan, a staunch adherent of Rome, and conferred on him the temporalities and spiritualities of the See. The King however would not allow this interference 1 7 6 T/k Struggle for the Independence of the Pope, and exacted from Gainsbrough an oath of renuncia- tion, and fined him a thousand marks for having accepted the grant at the Pope's hands. The Bishops and Clergy had refused to join in the Lincoln remonstrance. For this opposition to his will the King's whole wrath fell upon Winchelsey, whom he regarded as a traitor. Winchelsey, however, managed to escape punishment so long as his friend Pope Boniface lived. But after the death of Boniface in 1303 he requested permission from the King to leave the king- dom. " Permission to leave the kingdom I willingly give tliee," said the King, "but permission to return, never!" Clement V. was at the time Pope. Winchelsey left the kingdom in 1305 and remained in exile till the death of Edward, but only to meet with harder treatment from the Pope whom he served as a friend than he had met with from the King. With the reign of Edward I., says Mr. Green b , " begins modern England, constitutional England." The mantle of Simon de Montfort fell upon Edward The lessons which he had learnt from the misgovernment of his father and grandfather ; from the oppression of the Popes and the rebellion of the Barons ; above all from the character of De Montfort, who although his enemy on the field of battle was his uncle and godfather, were not lost on him. He laid to heart the lesson that henceforth it would be impossible for a King of England to sacrifice the rights of the Church and nation, or be the blind followers of Rome as John and Henry had been; but that he must carry out the work of Langton, and Edmund Rich, and Grosseteste, and De Montfort, and develope the principles of Magna Charta. De Montfort's parliament was reproduced, but in a more per- fect form, in Edward's Parliament of 12515. The King wanted money, and he recognised the principle that " what touches all should be approved by all." It was of course impossible to take the votes of all the people individually, so he determined that the taxation cculd be best effected through a representative assembly. b Short Hist., p. 169. of the Church of England. 177 What made Parliament necessary made Convocation also necessary to him. In the Parliament of 1295 the three estates of the realm , Clergy, Nobles, and Commons, assembled and sat in the same house d . The clergy were represented by their Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Deans, Archdeacons, and elected Proctors. The Prelates were, like the Barons, summoned to the Parliament by the King's special writs. The lay Commons were summoned by writs addressed to the Sheriff directing them tp send to Parliament two knights from every shire, two citizens from every city, and two burgesses from every burgh. But the clergy were summoned by a different form. Into the parliamentary writ of the Bishop a clause known as the prczmuni- entes clause e was for the first time inserted, premonishing him to bring with him to Parliament the Priors and Chapter of his cathedral and the Archdeacons, in person ; as well as one Proctor to represent the Chapter, and two Proctors to represent the paro- chial clergy of the diocese. But the clergy had already a Parliament of their own. They had been long accustomed to assemble in their Provincial Synods, or Convocations of Canterbury and York, which, convened by special writs issued by their respective Archbishops, met with the meeting of Parliament. In their Convocations the clergy were in the habit of regulating the spiritual business of the province, and passed canons for the government of the Church. In 1283 the Convocations took the shape they have ever since borne ; viz., Pro- vincial Synods presided over by the Archbishop, attended by the c The first place was given to the clergy, says Dr. Stubbs, Const. Hist., from a reverential feeling. Mr. Freeman points out in his " Growth of the English Constitution" that the King cannot be an estate; the correct ex- pression is, " The King and the three estates of the Realm." d It was not till A.D. 1332 that Parliament was divided into two House=, the Bishops and Abbots sitting with the Nobles in one, and the Commons in another. c So called from the first word, pramunienteS) an old form of pramonentes, premonishing. N 178 Tht Struggle for the Independence Bishops and dignitaries of the Church, and chosen Proctors from the cathedral chapters and the clergy of the diocese. Having, therefore, these assemblies of their own, the clergy were opposed to being taxed in the secular Parliament, and preferred to be taxed by their representatives in the Convocations of Canter- bury and York. Thus their summons for the purposes of taxation to Parliament, although, strange to say, the form is con- tinued to the present clay, remained from the first inoperative. The Kings, so long as they got the money from the clergy, did not trouble themselves as to how it was raised, whether in Convocation or Parliament. The estate of the clergy, although they declined to sit in Parliament, retained the right of petitioning, and occa- sionally, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal, obtained the passing of statutes, to which the assent of the Com- mons was not perhaps more necessary than the assent of the clergy was to statutes passed on the petition of the Commons. But this privilege of the clergy the Commons more than once resented f . With this completed organization of parliamentary government commences that series of anti-papal legislation which is so characteristic a feature in the history of the Church and Parlia- ment of England. From this time a constant opposition to the pretended supremacy of the Pope was kept up. Parliament passed acts against it, the clergy entered protests, the independence of the Church was again and again asserted. The interests of the Kings and troubles at home postponed the consummation ; but the extinction of the Papal supremacy was only a matter of time. In 1307, the last year of the King's life, a petition was presented by the Earls and Barons to the Parliament which met in January at Carlisle, complaining of the exactions made on the Church by the Pope's authority. The first article complained of the ex- travagant number of provisions of the best Church preferments conferred on Italians and other foreigners who were non-resident in England. The third was directed against the Pope's claim ' See Stubbs' Const. Hist., ii. 408 and 396. of the Church of England. 179 to the first-fruits of vacant benefices, " a thing never heard of before." The fourth was against the demand of Peter-pence, which trebled the original amount. The Papal nuncio, William de Testa, was summoned before Parliament, and could make no defence except that he had acted under the Pope's commission. A declaration was drawn up with the concurrence of King, Lords, and Commons, that these grievances, oppressions, and extortions should no longer be permitted in the King's dominions. The clergy, however, no doubt under fear of excommunication, with- held their consent to the declaration. The King did not wish to quarrel with Pope Clement, and legislation on the matter was carried no further. On July 7, 1307, Edward I. died, and was succeeded by his son Edward II. (1307 1327), and Archbishop Winchelsey was recalled from exile. The reign of Edward II. stands in strong contrast to that of his father. He was intellectually and morally weak, and, as was always the case under weak kings, the Pope was left to do much as he liked, and there was no anti-papal legis- lation. But the Papacy was gradually though certainly working out its own fall. Its decline commenced in the pontificate of Boniface VIII. His next successor but one, Clement V. (1305 1314), who was a Frenchman and elected in the interest of France, inflicted a heavy blow, from which it never recovered, on the prestige of Rome by removing the Papal chair from Rome to Avignon. For nearly seventy years (1309 1377), a period which Italian writers compare to the Babylonish captivity, not Rome but Avignon, which, though situated in territory belonging to the King of Sicily, was on the confines of France, was the seat of the Papacy. During that time all the Popes and the majority of the Cardinals were Frenchmen. The secession to Avignon was fatal to the independence of the Popes, who sunk into mere dependents of the Kings of France. All the conditions under which the Popes had hitherto enlisted the respect and reverence of Christendom were now i So The Struggle for the Independence changed. The Court at Avignon was fearfully corrupt, venal and sensual. Notwithstanding this the rapacity of the Popes by no means diminished. On the contrary it increased ; for finding their Italian revenues decrease, they thought it necessary to invent other methods of filling their exhausted exchequer. England became more than ever the scene of Rome's greed, whilst at the same time it became more jealous than ever of Rome's exactions. The secession at Avignon synchronizes with England's war with France ; so that it came to this, that English money was paid into the treasury of her enemies to enable them to prosecute the war against her. On the death of Archbishop Winchelsey, the Chapter of Can- terbury unanimously elected Thomas Cobham, sub-dean of Salisbury, a man of noble birth and a renowned scholar, who afterwards became Bishop of Worcester, to succeed him. The King determined to have Walter Reynolds, the son of a baker at Windsor, appointed. Reynolds was a sporting-man and much famed in theatrical entertainments, which gained him the King's favour. He had also been Edward's tutor. On which of those grounds the King chose him does not appear. The King applied to the Pope to annul the election of Cobham. Clement was willing to gratify the King, and appointed Reynolds (1313 1327) by provision to the Archbishopric. Acting under the influence of France the Cardinals elected in 1316 as successor to Clement V. the Bishop of Oporto, who became Pope under the title of John XXII. (13161334). John, a little deformed man, the son of a cobbler, reserved to himself all the benefices of Christendom ; he imposed the pay- ment of Annates on ?J1 benefices, those of Bishops and Abbots alone excepted (his successors extended the payment to them also), accumulating thereby an incredible sum of money from England. In vain the lay estates in Parliament declared that " they neither could nor would tolerate such a state of things any longer." Yet the exaction of Annates continued till the Refor- mation. of the Church of England. 181 On the death of Reynolds, the Pope at first thought of himself appointing to the vacant Archbishopric by provision ; eventually he confirmed the election of the Chapter and the King, and Simon Mepeham became Archbishop (1328 1333). To succeed Mepeham, John Stratford (1333 1348) was trans- lated from the See of Salisbury. Here the Pope took high ground. The translation of a Bishop from one diocese to another was considered by him equivalent to a divorce between man and wife, and the Pope claimed that he alone could sanction such a divorce. He did not set aside the election of Stratford, but he professed to take no notice of the King and Chapter, and that the translation was made by his authority. By the system of provisions .\he appointment to the English Episcopate had now to a large extent passed from the hands of the King into those of the Pope. In 1317 John XXII. provided for the Sees of Worcester, Hereford, and Durham; in 1319 for Rochester; in 1320 for Lincoln and Winchester; in 1322 for Lichfield ; in 1323 for Winchester ; in 1325 for Carlisle and Norwich; in 1327 for Exeter and Hereford; in 1329 for Bath and Wells; in 1333 for Durham; in 1334 for Winchester and Worcester. In like manner the presentation to livings had been usurped by the Popes. A great injustice was thus caused to the patrons. Another hardship inflicted on them was that if they withstood the Pope's nominees they were summoned to Rome to answer for their conduct in the Papal court. Edward II. was deposed in 1327, Archbishop Reynolds, who owed everything to him, taking part against him ; (however, it is only just to state that he died of shame for the part he had played). Edward III. (1327 1377), son of Edward II., suc- ceeded to the throne. The clergy being to a great extent appointed by the Popes were naturally drawn into closer communion with the Church of Rome. From this an evil consequence resulted, viz., that the Ro- manist clergy became unpopular and lost their influence over the 1 82 The Struggle for the Independence laity. Patriotic Archbishops like Stephen Langton and St. Ed- mund had given place to Archbishops of the type of Kihvardbyv Peckham, and Winchelsey, who though men of piety and zeal had favoured the anti-nationalist and Roman party. And though even Reynolds, as well as Mepeham and Stratford, strove to stem the abuses which prevailed, the laity were becoming alienated from the Church. Symptoms of the diminishing influence of the Church began to show themselves, and in 1340 the Chancellor- ship of England, which had hitherto been held by a cleric, was conferred on a layman, Sir Robert Bourchier. Two lay Chan- cellors succeeded him, but the Chancellorship was recovered to the Church in 1345 in the person of John Ufford, Dean of Lincoln. . In 1343 Pope Clement VI. (1342 1352) announced that he made a provision of two thousand marks per annum out of the next vacant benefices, not being Bishoprics or Abbeys, for two Cardinals. Whatever may have been the feelings of the English clergy, the laity still preserved their antagonism to the Court of Rome. The foreigners who came to England to collect the money were ordered to leave the kingdom on pain of imprison- ment, and the King wrote a strong letter of remonstrance to the Pope. He reminded him that the Kings and Nobles had richly endowed and granted privileges to the Church of England ; whereas now, by the system of provisions sanctioned by the Apostolic See, the wild boar out of the wood doth root up, and the wild beasts of the field devour, the vineyard. Incapable men, ignorant of the language and who do not reside in the country, usurp the places which ought to be held by the national clergy, persons well quali- fied for the pastoral office by their learning and probity. Thus the King was deprived of the services of men who might be useful to the Government. By these provisions the rights of patronage were maimed, whilst the jurisdiction of the Crown was baffled by appeals to a foreign authority. The commission given to St. Peter by our Saviour was, said the King, not to shear of the Church of England. 183 the sheep but to feed them ; to strengthen the brethren, not to depress them. At the same time the King, regardless of the means he employed to attain his ends, did not hesitate when he could make use of him to turn the Pope's usurped supremacy to his own advantage. In 1349 the Chapter of Canterbury, on the death of Archbishop Stratford, without waiting for the conge d'elire, elected Thomas Bradwardine, the King's confessor, to succeed him in the Primacy. The King would, under other circumstances, have approved of Bradwardine, but this was an infringement on his prerogative ; so he wrote to Pope Clement VI. to appoint Ufford, Dean of Lincoln, by way of provision. The Pope was only too glad, and Ufford was accordingly provided. Ufford, however, died before his consecration, whereupon the Pope himself appointed Bradwardine. Bradwardine died on August 26 of the year of his consecration. Simon Islip (1349 1366) was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in succession to Bradwardine. His appointment marks the commencement of a new era in the relation of England and the Popes. In the bull of confirmation of Islip's appoint- ment, Pope Clement VI. assumed a power hitherto unheard of in England; the Archbishop was declared to be appointed "per provisiones apostolicas, spretu. elect tone facto, de eo s ." Thenceforward the custom in episcopal appointments was for the King to nomi- nate, the Chapter to elect, and the Pope to provide. In the case of translations the Pope claimed the sole right ; and translations from this time became frequent Matters had now reached such a crisis that the Church and nation would tolerate it no longer. The laity of England had always kicked against the abuses of the Papacy, and now the clergy, except those who were the nominees of the Pope, bore him little love on account of his abuse of patronage. Both clergy and laity were united. As remonstrances hitherto made to the Pope had proved of no avail, Parliament brought its weight to bear : the Statute Book till the end of the fourteenth century abounds with * Quoted, Hook's Arch, of Cant., iv. 114. 1 84 The Struggle for the Independence anti-papal legislation, and the reign of Edward III. is of great importance as commencing a string of statutes which were never repealed, but which remained on the Statute Book till the Reformation. In February, 1351, the first Statute of Provisors was unani- mously passed by the Lords and Commons. It enacted, that if the Pope collated to any ecclesiastical dignity or benefice in England, the collation was to escheat to the Crown for that term. O ' If any one should procure Reservations or Provisions from the Pope he should on conviction be fined and imprisoned. He was also obliged to find sufficient surety not to offend in a similar manner for the future, nor to sue any process in the Court of Rome. This Statute was followed in 1353 by the first Statute of Prtzmunire, which condemned to outlawry, forfeiture, and impri- sonment, any Englishman who should take into foreign courts causes, the cognizance whereof belongs to the King's courts. In 1365 a new Statute of Pr&munire was passed against the jurisdiction of the Papal court. Pope Urban V. (1362 1370), thinking to set these statutes at defiance, demanded in 1365 the tribute of one thousand marks promised by King John, with the arrears of thirty-three years, and threatened to cite the King to Rome in case of default. It must be mentioned that this tribute, although paid in the feeble reigns of John, Henry III., and Edward II., had been repudiated by Edward I. and Edward III. The demand put forth by Urban at the time when the Papal court at Avignon was acting in the interests of France, and when the Statute of Prcemunire had only recently been passed, was, to say the least, singularly injudicious. By this latest insult the temper of the nation was thoroughly aroused. The three estates of the realm unanimously resolved in 1366, that neither John nor any other king could bring his realm and dominions under such servitude and subjection without the consent of Parliament, which had not been obtained. The acknowledgment and promise to pay tribute to Rome was con- of the Church of England. 185 trary to John's coronation oath ; and they pledged themselves to resist with all their force and power any attempt of the Pope against the King. The King, to show his indignation at the Pope's demand, stopped for a time the payment of Peter-pence. Even Urban hesitated to imperil the Papacy by any further demands, and, says Mr. Green, the claim of a Papal lordship over England was never again heard of h . Still the Pope and King were frequently in league together to defeat the laws of the land, and religion was brought to a low ebb. Without crediting all we hear, it can easily be believed that the state of the Church of England was the reverse of satisfactory. The Popes granted the clergy dispensations ; in fact, there was scarcely a law that was not frequently dispensed with. The same person sometimes held several benefices, and a Bishop two or three bishoprics, dispensations of non-residence being granted to them. Almost all the higher offices of State were filled by the clergy ; they were chancellors, justiciars, diplomatists, ambassa- dors ; we read of Bishops being engaged in crusades and wars ; their presence in their cathedral cities was rare, the visitation of their dioceses a mere ceremony of pomp and show rather than of edification and instruction. The clergy were, as we have seen, often foreigners, ignorant of the English language; even when they were Englishmen, the services were said in Latin, which the people did not understand at all, and the Priests but little ; preaching had fallen into disuse, few having the gift and still fewer the inclination to preach ; mass Priests many of the clergy were, who could just read their missals and breviaries, and no more, scarcely able to say by heart the Pater Noster, the Credo, and the Ten Commandments. The lower clergy are described as given over entirely to care- lessness and worldliness, spending their time in public houses, addicted to gambling and revelry, profane swearers, given to excess themselves and tempting others to follow their example. h History of the English People, ii. 445. But surely the assertion is pre- mature. i86 The Struggle for the Independence But when we hear them charged with immorality, we must bear in mind what that accusation meant. The clergy were forbidden to marry, but they did marry, and their wives were called concu- bines, and they concubinary priests. The spirit of discontent which showed itself in 1340 had gone on increasing and now began to vent itself on the Church of England. The Baronage under John of Gaunt threatened the Prelates ; they complained of the chief offices of the State being held by clergymen ; William of Wykeham was in 1371 forced into resigning the Chancellorship ; a socialistic spirit which threatened the spoliation of the Church prevailed amongst the middle and lower classes. A complaint was made in the Parliament of 1376 that the im- positions of Rome were intolerable. That by the death or translation of Bishops the Popes sometimes extorted five times its yearly revenue from one See ; that Cardinals and other foreigners resid- ing in Rome enjoyed several of the best Church preferments. That in that year the Court of Rome had claimed the first-fruits of all the benefices in England ; that of the Cardinals, who now numbered thirty, all with one or two exceptions were the enemies of England. In short the rapacity of the Popes was the plague of the country, and those who acted on the Pope's provisions should be banished from England. The Friars, the allies of the Pope, being freed by him from episcopal jurisdiction, instead of continuing the reformation which they had set on foot in the thirteenth century had become the enemies of the Church and a nuisance to society. The secular and regular clergy were always quarrelling amongst themselves, the Monks with the Friars, and both with the seculars. If the Friars were refused the churches, they would erect their ambulatory pulpits under a Cross, from which they railed against the sloth and ignorance of the Parish Priest ; if any one was refused absolution from his parish clergyman, the Friars were only too willing to give it him. They came to be regarded in the parsonage-houses as snakes in the grass ; they were the butt of every tavern ; they of the Church of England. 187 were exhibited in pot-house pictures as foxes preaching with a sheep muffled up under their cloaks; as apes sitting by a sick man's bed with a Crucifix in one hand and with the other in the sufferer's fob '." The two principal orders of Friars were opposed to each other in matters of faith ; the Franciscans being the teachers, the Do- minicans the opposers,of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Always fighting against each other, in one respect all the Friars were alike, viz., in making proselytes to their own Order. Noblemen, and commoners also, were afraid to send their sons to the Universities, lest they might be seduced before arriving at mature age into joining the ranks of the Friars. Parents preferred to bring up their children as tradesmen or farmers ; the University of Oxford had fallen off to one-fifth of its former numbers, and there was reason to fear lest the supply of clergymen should fall short. This state of things had not gone on unopposed. Thoresby, successively Bishop of St. Davids (1347); of Worcester (1350); Archbishop of York (1352 1373), and Chancellor of England from 1349 1356, had in vain written against the evil doings of the Friars. Fitz-Ralph, who had been himself appointed by Papal provision first to the Deanery of Lichfield and in 1347 to the Archbishopric of Armagh, in the conflict between the regular and secular clergy took the part of the latter. In his Apology against the Friars, and also in his sermons, he taught that mendicancy was neither prescribed in the Bible by Christ, nor by apostolical practice, nor by primitive tradition ; that the Friars had departed from the rule of their order and usurped the duties of the Parish Priest. The Friars complained to their ally, the Pope, and in 1357 he was summoned to defend himself before Innocent VI. at Avignon. The Pope sided with the Friars, and wrote to the English Bishops not to interfere with them. The Satirist, supposed to have been William Longland, who wrote, about 1370, " Piers Ploughman's Vision," exposes in severe 1 Professor Blunt's Reform., p. 44. 1 88 The Struggle for the Independence terms the immoral condition of Society, the corruptions of the Church, and the divisions amongst the Friars. He complains of men having taken away the honour of God, of the worldly- mindedness of the Priests, and asserts that the Pope is antichrist He represents himself as one in search of a Creed, but the sectarianism of the clergy baffled him ; he could learn nothing from them except that the Dominicans advised him not to be a Franciscan and the Franciscans advised him not to be a Dominican. And so with the other orders. A reform of the Church was urgently needed, and a great reformer arose in John Wicliffe (circ. 1324 1384), the fore- runner, or as he has been considered by some the actual author, of the Reformation. Of the early life of Wicliffe little is known for certain. Born in Yorkshire, he was educated at, or at any rate became a Fellow and in 1361 Master of, Balliol College, Oxford, to which last office none but a Fellow of the College was eligible. In the same year he resigned the Mastership and left Oxford to reside at his Rectory of Fillingham in Leicestershire, to which he had been presented by his College. He soon, however, returned to Oxford, where between the years 1363 1365 he occupied rooms, which he rented, in Queen's College. In 1363 he was appointed by Archbishop Islip as first head of Canterbury Hall, which occupied the site of the present Canterbury Quadrangle of Christ Church, and which had been founded by Islip, two years before, as a mixed foundation of regular and secular clergy. He did not, however, hold the appointment long, for Islip's successor in the See of Canterbury, Simon Langham (1366 1368) who had himself been a Benedictine Monk, changed the College into a foundation for monks only; Wiclifie and his followers were superseded. In 1368, in order that he might better attend to his duties in the University, he exchanged his living of Fillingham for that of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, about fifteen miles distant from Oxford. Wiclifie's fame at the University soon spread to the Court. of the Church of England. 189 In 1365 his advice was asked with respect to the tribute de- manded by Urban, which had been unanimously repudiated by the three estates of the realm k . Wicliffe wrote a state paper on the subject, and the tax was never again paid. The anti-papal zeal which he displayed greatly added to his popularity at Oxford, where he now became the acknowledged leader. About 1370 he took his D.D. degree, which involved the delivery of Divinity lectures in the University. In 1374 he was appointed second on the Commission which was sent to Bruges, under John of Gaunt, to confer with the papal represent- atives on the subject of Provisions. No practical results, however, followed from the Commission. There was a collusion between Pope and King, who well understood how they could be useful to each other ; the system of provisions received no check ; some illusory concessions were made ; the Pope undertook to give up reservations for the future, whilst the King on his part promised that the numerous foreigners who at present held English benefices should not be subjected to penalties under the statute of Provisors. At Bruges Wicliffe gained an insight into Papal corruptions by no means flattering to the Pope. Nor did the Pope ap- parently conceive any great affection for Wicliffe. Wicliffe, who just before he went to Bruges had been presented to the Rectory of Lutterworth, was on his return only rewarded with the prebend of Aust in Worcester Cathedral; whereas his coadjutor on the Commission, John Gilbert, Bishop of Bangor, was in 1375 appointed by a Papal Bull to the more lucrative See of Hereford, from whence he was in 1389 translated to St. David's. In February, 1377, Wicliffe was summoned by Courtney, Bishop of London, to appear before the Convocation assembled in St. Paul's on the charge of erroneous teaching. He was attended by John of Gaunt, and Percy the Earl Marshal. He and John of Gaunt had one thing and one thing only in common, k See p. 184. i go The Struggle for the Independence viz., their opposition to Church endowments ; but even on the abstract question they agreed on entirely different grounds. Wicliffe because he thought them an hindrance to spiritual work, John of Gaunt because he desired the spoliation of the Church. The unnatural alliance between the two did not improve Wicliffe's position with the clergy. No man was so unpopular with them as John of Gaunt, who had turned the clergy out of the offices of state, and had confiscated the revenues of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester (1367 1404). On the present occasion Gaunt vowed that he would bring down the pride of the Prelates ; and his intemperate language led to an angry scene between him and Courtney, which brought on Wicliffe a moral defeat. The insult offered to their Bishop excited the anger of the Londoners, and John of Gaunt's palace at the Savoy was only saved from destruction by the mediation of Courtney. Wicliffe waxed bolder and bolder in his teaching; and in the following year he was, in obedience to bulls issued by the Pope, summoned to appear before a council of Bishops at Lambeth. But now the rumour had spread abroad that legates sent by the Pope were sitting in judgment upon him, and the national spirit of hostility to Papal interference was aroused. It was no longer John of Gaunt, but the populace of London, that advocated the cause of Wicliffe ; an angry mob threatened the palace of Archbishop Sudbury (1375 ^Si); a "d the Princess of Wales, the mother of the young King, Richard II., who was virtually regent, and was in favour of Wicliffe, forbade the Bishops to proceed further in the matter. In 1377 the Papal throne was moved back again from Avignon to Rome. No sooner, however, had this taken place than in 1378 the great schism of the West, through which Wicliffe declared that " Christ had cloven the head of Anti-Christ," broke out, and shook the Papacy to the centre. One Pope sat at Avignon and the other at Rome, the one excommunicating the followers of the other, so that all Christendom rang with their of the Church of England. igi mutual invectives and anathemas, and was under the ban of excommunication of one Pope or the other. In 1379 Wicliffe was brought to death's door by fever at Oxford. The Friars, who were his enemies, bade him prepare for death : "I shall not die but live," he told them, "and declare the evil deeds of the Friars." He did live, and his language became louder and stronger than ever. He had now begun the trans- lation of the Bible, and his belief that the Bible was the sole authority in matters of faith increased. In 1381, from attacking the corruptions of the Church he passed to the attack of the doctrine of Transubstantiation ; and thus exposed himself to a charge of heresy. Many of his friends refused any longer to countenance him, and he stood alone ; a meeting of twelve doctors was summoned by the Vice-Chancellor to consider the heresy; the University over which he had exercised so powerful an influence joined in condemning him. Wicliffe refused to accept the judgment, and appealed not to the Pope but to the King. And in that year, unfortunately for Wicliffe, the insurrection of the peasants under Wat Tyler broke out, in which Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered. Sudbury, both as Bishop of London and afterwards as Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was an unpopular man. Pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury had long been held in high favour by the people; but the idleness and dissoluteness which too often attended them were amongst the prevalent scandals of religion, which " Piers Ploughman " severely repro- bated. When the pilgrims were thronging from London to Canterbury, Sudbury, at the time Bishop of London, was bold enough to warn them that the indulgences they sought there could avail them nothing. The mob cursed him to his face, .and foretold that he would die a violent death. In 1379, when he had become Archbishop of Canterbury, he was appointed Chancellor, and in the latter capacity he, in 1381, supported an obnoxious tax, which only added to his unpopularity. 1 92 TJie Struggle for the Independence By the cruel murder of Sudbury the anger of the London populace was appeased, and the honour of St. Thomas of Can- terbury was supposed to be avenged. Sudbury and Wicliffe had been on friendly terms, so that Wicliffe, instead of being in any manner, as he was accused of being, the author or abettor of it, could have felt nothing but horror at the tragical death of the Archbishop. But the murder of Sudbury wrecked the cause of Wicliffe; John Ball, a clergyman, was one of the fomenters of the insurrection. The discontented taught that villains and gentry, being born from one father and mother, Adam and Eve, were all equal. How then, they asked, could the gentry be greater lords than they? Ball preached to these discontented spirits at Blackheath from a text " When Adam delved and E%'e span, \Vho was then the gentleman ? : ' He confessed at his trial that he held the opinions of Wicliffe, and was afterwards executed at St. Albans for a traitor. Such advocacy did much harm to Wicliffe. The insurrection was widely attributed to him : his poor priests, whose office it was to supplement the Latin Services of the Church with instruction in their own language, such as the poor could understand, were accused of socialism ; and all hope of a reform of the Church under Wicliffe had to be abandoned. Wicliffe's old enemy, Courtney, succeeded Sudbury as Arch- bishop 1 , and to him the Friars appealed against their common enemy. Referring to this alliance, Wicliffe remarked that now "Pontius Pilate and Herod were made friends together." The new Archbishop summoned Wicliffe to appear before a Council held in the chapter-house of the Black Friars in London. Th? Council, composed of Bishops and other clergy of his Province, and known as the Earthquake Council, from an earthquake which occurred at its first session, met on May 19, 1382, and Wicliffe's writings were condemned. 1 Courtney, Bishop of Hereford, 1370; of London, 1375 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1381 96. of the Church of England. 193 Courtney sent down an order to the Vice-Chancellor at Oxford to prohibit heretical teaching in the University. But the new Vice-Chancellor, Rygge, and both the Proctors, were favourers of Wicliffe, and considered the order an infringement of their privileges. The Vice-Chancellor was accordingly summoned before a second Council, which met at the Black Friars on June 12. He submitted, and attended the Council; by the Council four clergymen, one of whom was Dr. Nicholas Herford, Wicliffe's friend and pupil, were condemned as heretics, and excommuni- cated. The Crown issued a royal writ in support of Courtney for the suppression of the Wicliffites at Oxford. Thenceforward Lollardy at Oxford was to all appearance suppressed. But the intellectual life of the University disappeared, and a decline in learning and religion for some years followed, only to be relieved by the birth of the " New Learning." Wicliffe himself was allowed to retire in peace to his living at Lutterworth, an immunity for which he was probably indebted to the Papal Schism. There he completed his translation of the Bible. From Lutterworth he was summoned to appear before the Pope, but the summons arrived too late. His work was done ; old age had crept rapidly upon him ; during Mass in the Church of Lutterworth, on December 28, 1384, he was seized with a stroke of paralysis, from which he died on the last day of the year. CHAPTER IX. THE PAPAL VICTORY OVER THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 13841453. THE results of Wicliffe's teaching His Bible condemned How far he was the author of the Reformation The Lollards New Statutes of Provisors and Prsemunire Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury The statute de Haretico Comburendo Sir John Oldcastle Bishop Pecock Continua- tion of the Great Schism in the Church of Rome The Cardinals unite against the corruptions of the Papacy Council of Pisa The two Popes deposed John XXIII. elected Pope Council of Constance Pope John deposed and imprisoned Martin V. elected Communion in one kind decreed by the Council Failure of the Councils Martin's object to make national Churches subject to, and Bishops the mere servants of, the Popes Martin the founder of Ultramontanism His conduct towards Archbishop Chicheley His scheme for lowering the Archbishop of Can- terburyBeaufort, Bishop of Winchester, appointed a Cardinal The denationalizing of the Church of England Death of Martin Council of Basle Pope Eugenius IV. Continues the system of denationalizing the Church Kemp, Archbishop of York, appointed a Cardinal Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishops of Canterbury till the end of century all made Cardinals Thus the Church of England became Romanized The Wars of the Roses. THERE was some harm intermixed with much that was good in Wicliffe's teaching. It is, however, impossible to form a just estimate of his character unless we bear in mind the state of the Church at the time he lived, which was corrupt from the Friar at the foot to the Pope at the head. Whatever may have been his faults, Wicliffe was certainly a religious man, and the iron entered into his soul when he viewed the scandals which beset the Church ; and if Wicliffe the reformer was to blame, much more were the Popes who caused the scandals which called the reformer into being. Wicliffe's great grievances were the wealth of the Church, the worldly-mindedness of the Friars, and spiritual persons mixing themselves up in secular business. He evidently did not at first The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 195 mean to advance as far as he proceeded afterwards. He began as the friend of the Friars, and was not opposed to their profession of evangelical poverty ; he could at first speak of the Pope in terms of reverence, and declared that all Christians were bound to obey him. He turned against the Friars when he found that they had become a nuisance to society ; that they were worldly- minded, and evaded the rules of their order. It was against the Pope as a secular ruler that he revolted; against his greed of money, his oppression of national Churches and his abuse of patronage. He held that the clergy had no right to be rich, no right even to their endowments, and that these were a hin- drance to their spiritual work. If they mixed themselves up in affairs of State, or enjoyed property, then they brought them- selves within the domain of the State, and it was the duty of the State, if necessary, to interfere, and even to deprive them of their temporalities. He could not believe that the wicked had any place in God's Church, but that on the contrary they were ipso Jacto excluded from it ; if this were true, the conclusion he drew from it necessarily followed, viz. that the sin of the minister invali- dated the work of his ministry. It is easy to understand the weak points of such teaching, and to see how it led to the increase of the anti-church feeling which pervaded the upper, and to the socialistic spirit which prevailed amongst the lower, orders of society. So that Wicliffe must be regarded rather in the light of a revolutionist than in that of a reformer, and the Church may be thankful that the Reformation was not carried out under him. He was a man to pull down a. house, not to build one up. He would have pulled down the Church of Rome, but would have left no foundation whereon to build the superstructure. Wicliffe's chief glory was undoubtedly his translation of the Bible, and his enabling people to read their Bible in their own language. Sir Thomas More asserted that Wicliffe's was not the first translation. This to a certain extent is true. From the time of Bede the Bible was an heirloom of the Church and part of the 196 The Papal Victory over the Church of England, national life of England. English translations of certain portions- of the Bible had been made from very early times, so that Alcuin could tell his hearers that the "reading of the Holy Scriptures is the knowledge of everlasting happiness." It is clear that in order to read their Bible the people must have had the Scrip- tures in their own language. But Wicliffe's was the first translation of the whole Bible ever made, not only into English, but into any European language. He did not himself translate the whole of the Bible; in part of the Old Testament he was assisted by Dr. Nicholas Herford, and a second and improved edition was produced shortly after- wards by John Purvey, his assistant at Lutterworth. Wicliffe's Bible might no doubt have been better ; but why did not the Pope, who so interested himself in the Church of England, and why did not the English Prelates, who complained of Wicliffe's translation, help him to make it better, or bring out a better translation of their own ? At the time that he wrote, the Greek language did not form part of University teaching, and was little known in England. His Bible was not, therefore, translated from the original Greek nor from the Hebrew, but was a translation from a translation. The wonder is that it was so good and free from error ; yet so good was it thought to be that the authorized version of King James I. drew largely upon it. In the early years of the fifteenth century, before the art of printing was invented, the cost of Wicliffe's Bible was 2 i6j. 3^. The price, of course, at the time when money was ten times its present value, greatly hindered its circulation. But people kid great store on its possession. Some who could not afford to buy the whole would give a load of hay for some favourite chapters. And this was at a time when the possession of the Bible was a dangerous one. To read it was heresy, and heresy soon became the direct road to the stake. It was not approved of at Rome, where Wicliffe was anathematized by successive Popes. Nor was it better approved of in England. It was not, however, the reading of the Bible, but the reading of unauthorized translations, more The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 197 especially that of Wicliffe, which was condemned by the English Bishops. Archbishop Arundel, in the sermon which he preached at the funeral of the "good Queen Anne," praised her as a reader of the Scriptures. But in his primacy an order was made that no one should auctoritate sua> translate any part of the Holy Scripture into the English language ; and that no book, tract, or treatise composed "in time of John Wicliffe or since, or to be composed hereafter, be read in part or in whole, in public or in private, under fear of the greater excommunication." Nevertheless the Bible could never, after once Wicliffe had thrown it open, be a sealed book. The forbidden treasure was hidden under the floors of houses ; people would escape to the woods, or sit up all night with barred doors to read it in safety ; and not unfrequently scraps of the Bible were together with their possessors committed to the flames. The historian Knighton says that Wicliffe had rendered the Bible so common that " the Gospel is cast abroad and trodden under foot of swine." In what sense can it be said that Wicliffe was the forerunner or the author of the Reformation ? In England he rather retarded than hastened the Reformation, for the violent measures that followed and were attributed to his teaching rendered the move- ment under him unpopular. Still, after the publication of the Bible, the Reformation in England was only a matter of time. But on the Continent Wicliffe's teaching had more immediate results than in England. Under ordinary circumstances no country would seem less likely than Bohemia to be influenced from England, but King Richard II. had married a Bohemian princess, the "good queen" Anne, and she was a favourer of Wicliffe's doctrines. Wicliffe, during his retirements at Lutter- worth, seems to have composed an immense number of Gospel Tracts, which being carried thither by ladies and attendants at her Court, after the Queen's death in 1394, received in Bohemia an extensive circulation. Lupus, Bishop of Prague, is said to have consigned no fewer than two hundred of these, as containing heresy, to the flames. Wicliffe's opinions were caught up by 198 The Papal Victory over the Church of England. John Huss, and by him circulated in Bohemia ; thus it may be said that Wicliffe begat Huss, and Huss begat Luther, and Luther begat the Reformation in Germany. The followers of Wicliffe were nicknamed Lollards , some of them holding more, some less, the doctrines of Wicliffe. Under the same name was included a heterogeneous mass of religious and political fanatics, however alien they might be from Wicliffe's opinions. The Lollard party mostly comprised the lower orders of society, although it extended also in some measure to the higher classes, and even to the Court itself. The Lollards became dangerous members of the community, both in Church and State ; they lost all reverence for the Church's teaching ; they would willingly have pulled down the churches and monasteries in the land, and have confiscated the revenues of the clergy; and so quickly did the party grow that not many years after the death of Wicliffe the half of England was said (although doubtless with much exaggeration) to be Lollards. During the reign of Richard II. (1377 1399), both his mother and wife favouring their party, no active persecution of the Lollards took place. It was, however, thought expedient to revive legislation against the Court of Rome, and fresh statutes of Provisors and Praernunire were accordingly enacted. In 1390 a statute of Provisors was passed, confirming and enlarging the former statute, and decreeing penalties of imprisonment and for- feiture of goods and chattels on offenders against the Act. Now, however, the two Archbishops, Courtney of Canterbury and Arundel of York, thinking no doubt that the former statute of Provisors was sufficiently stringent against the Pope, entered their protest, to the effect that they could in no wise consent to any statute in restraint of the Pope's power, or to the subversion or weakening the liberty of the Church. In 1393 a new statute of Prcemunire was passed, and now this statute met with the approval of the Archbishops and the other Bishops. It forbade all attempts to procure " at Rome or else- Perhaps from Lolium, tares. The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 199 where any translations, processes, bulls, instruments, or other things which touch the King, against him, his crown, and realm." Offenders against the Act were to be put out of the King's pro- tection and their goods forfeited to the King's use. The chief offenders against these Acts were the Kings them- selves. One of the accusations brought against King Richard in 1399, and which led to his deposition, was that he had applied to the Pope for help in his difficulties. Parliament declared that the rights of the Crown had been at all times so free that neither the Pope nor any external power had any right to interfere with the same. Arundel, who succeeded Courtney as Archbishop of Canterbury, was the bitter opponent of the Lollards. Thomas Fitz Alan, son of the Earl of Arundel, was in 1373 appointed Archdeacon of Taunton, and in the next year, when only twenty-one years of age, was preferred by a Papal bull to the Bishopric of Ely, whence he was provided to the Archbishopric of York in 1388, and was provided again to the See of Canterbury (1396 1414). In 1397 he was sentenced on a charge of heresy to banishment, and took refuge with Pope Boniface IX. (1389 1404), who was disposed to befriend him. King Richard II., however, acting in violation of the laws of Provisors, influenced the Pope against him ; he was accordingly deprived of his See and translated to that of St. Andrew's, Roger Walden, the King's treasurer, succeeding him for a time at Canterbury. After Richard II. was deposed, Arundel was reinstated by the new King in the Archbishopric of Canterbury. It was to Arundel and the clergy that Henry IV. owed his throne. To the first Convocation assembled in his reign Henry declared his intention of being the protector of the Church, and told the Bishops to take measures for the suppression of heresy. His declaration was the prelude to that system of persecutions which, for two hundred years afterwards, were the disgrace of England. Hitherto, although heresy was by the common law punishable with death, hindrances had been placed on the infliction of that 200 Tlie Papal Victory over the Church of England. punishment. But in 1401 the Statute de Hceretico Comburendo was passed, and under it Lollards were subjected to the extreme penalty of the law. Heretics were to be proceeded against according to the Canon law ; if convicted by the Bishop of the diocese they were to be fined and imprisoned. They were allowed to recant once, but if they refused to do so were to be handed over by the Bishop to the secular magistrates ; and if then found guilty of heresy, the sheriffs and their officers were " forthwith in some high place before the people to do them, to be burnt," " to the end that such punishment might strike fear into the minds of others." Though Lollardy had been put down at Oxford, its sup- pression does not seem to have answered Arundel's expectations, and for some years after Wicliffe's death a Lollard spirit continued to smoulder in the University. The authorities were called upon in vain to eradicate it. But in 1411 Arundel deter- mined to exercise his authority as Chancellor, and with that view, accompanied by a splendid retinue, visited the University. The Heads of Houses, however, refused somewhat unceremoniously to admit him as Visitor ; they were glad to receive as a friend one of so exalted a position, but the University declared that they were exempt from his visitation. Arundel appealed to the King, who decided in his favour, and the decision was confirmed by Parliament. A council of Bishops was then held at Oxford, and a severe statute passed against Lollardy. Upon those who disseminated it the greater excommunication was decreed ; can- didates for degrees were required to abjure it, and every Head of a House was to make enquiry, at least once a month, whether there were any Lollards amongst the students of his college. For some years after the Statute de H&retico Comburendo was passed the Lollards formed a numerous and important party in the House of Commons, and availed themselves of whatever strength they possessed by attacking the Church of England. In 1404 and again in 1410 measures were proposed by them in that House for confiscating the temporalities of the Church. In 1410 TJie Papal Victory over the Church of England. 201 the Commons petitioned the King for the abolition or the mitiga- tion of the obnoxious Statute de Haretico Comburendo. Their agitation met with little success, and the King only answered the petition of the Commons by signing the warrant for the burning of John Bradby, a Lollard tailor of Worcestershire, who accord- ingly was burnt at Smithfield on March T, 1410. The most important victim amongst the Lollards was Sir John Oldcastle, or Lord Cobham as he called himself by right of his wife. He had been brought under the influence of the religious teaching of Wicliffe, but afterwards drifted into those socialistic opinions which were incidental to Lollardy. The Lollards declared that with him as their leader they were ready to maintain their cause with an army of 100,000 men. Scarcely had Henry V. ascended the throne when information reached him at Eltham that Oldcastle was marching upon London at the head of 25,000 men. The King crushed the movement at the outset; Oldcastle managed to escape for a time to Wales, but thirty of his followers were executed. Three years afterwards (1417) he was captured; having been examined as to his religious opinions he was found guilty, and refusing to recant he was sentenced both to be hanged and to be burnt, the former as a traitor, the latter as a heretic. By a decree of the Council of Constance passed on May 4, 1415, Wicliffe's writings were ordered to be burnt, his bones to be disinterred and cast out. In 1427 Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln (1419 1431), who when an undergraduate, and even to the time when he was Junior Proctor at Oxford in 1407, had been a warm adherent, but afterwards became an equally strong opponent of the Wicliffite party, founded, with a view to extirpating the Lollard heresy, Lincoln College, Oxford, from which any Fellow tainted with it " was to be cast out like a diseased sheep from the fold." The vindictive order of the Council of Constance was in 1428 carried out by Fleming; W'icliffe's bones were exhumed from Lutterworth churchyard and burnt, and the ashes thrown into the Swift, that flows by 202 The Papal Victory over the Church of England. Luttenvorth ; the Swift bore them on to the Avon, the Avon to the Severn, the Severn to the sea, to be dispersed, it was said, like his teaching, into all lands. The case of Bishop Pecock, who was mistaken for a Lollard, shows that the scare of Lollardy had not died out in the middle of the fifteenth century. Reginald Pecock had been a Fellow of Oriel, and was a man of considerable learning, but withal of considerable vanity, and one who in the present day would be considered an Ultramontane. Whatever were his faults he was a man of more liberal views than were in vogue in his days, and he thought it better to convert the Lollards than to burn them. For this he was accused of Lollardism, and barely escaped burning himself. In 1444 he was consecrated to the See of St. Asaph. In a sermon which he preached in 1447 at St. Paul's Cross an out-door pulpit in front of St. Paul's Cathedral he maintained the highest pretensions of the Pope; he affirmed that Bishops were only the Pope's delegates, from whom they receive their Bishoprics by provision, for which, therefore, it was only just that they should pay first-fruits or annates. The Bishops and Clergy had by that time advanced far in their allegiance to Rome, but this teaching went further than they were inclined to tolerate, and they were so disgusted with the attack on their independence that they thought at first of impeaching him for treason. Pecock had in 1449 published a book entitled, The Repressing of over much blaming the Clergy, in which he advocated against the Lollards the very highest doctrines of the Church. The Pope was so pleased with this that in 1450 he translated him to the See of Chichester. To impeach Pecock for his sermon at St. Paul's Cross would therefore be tantamount to attacking the Pope himself. But in 1456 Pecock, with a view of converting the Lollards, published another work, A Treatise on Faith, in which he inad- vertently used certain expressions which could be so strained as to lay him open to a charge of Lollardy. He was in conse- TJie Papal Victory over the Church of England. 203; quence expelled from the House of Lords, his books were pronounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bourchier, to be heretical, and he himself condemned to be burnt or to abjure. He preferred the latter course. On December 4, 1457, clad in his episcopal robes, he abjured at St. Paul's Cross all the heretical opinions which he held, and many others which he never held, or at any rate never taught (for he was so frightened, he scarcely knew what he said) ; he handed his books to the executioner to> be cast into the flames ; his life was spared ; but he was deprived of his See. The Pope sent over three bulls ordering him to be restored ; but these bulls the Archbishop and Bishops, backed up by the King, refused to receive as contrary to the statute of Provisors. Another Bishop was appointed to Chichester, and Pecock was kept in close confinement, attended with much cruelty, till his death in Thorny Island. In spite of all that Councils and Popes and Bishops could da to extirpate it, the spirit which Wicliffe raised in England, though it slumbered, never slept till the time of the Reformation, and when the Reformation came, both Universities (and it would appear Cardinal Wolsey himself) were to some extent infected by it. Meanwhile the great schism in the Church of Rome continued,, and the Church of England was not blind to the scandal which it brought upon Christendom. In 1408 the subject of the divi- sions in the Papacy as well as measures for promoting the union, of Christendom were brought before Convocation under Arch- bishop Arundel. Both Houses, and they were joined by the two- Houses of Parliament, signified to the Pope and Cardinals their determination that no more money should be sent from England to Rome till the Papal schism was ended. Nor were the complaints confined to England. Murmurs against the corrupt state of the Church arose from all quarters. It engaged the attention of the princes of Europe. High dig- nitaries of the Church of Rome recognized the necessity of a reform. The Cardinals of the two opposing parties, though. 204 The Papal Victory over the Church of England. the division of their allegiance to the contending Popes had originally caused the schism, had grown weary of the inter- minable conflict. So they agreed to unite in a common cause, and to reform the Church by means of general councils, to which, according to the Canons of the primitive Church, the Popes were subordinate. The first council, that of Pisa, was accordingly summoned in March, 1409, by the allied Cardinals, with the view to reforming and reuniting the Church under one head. Besides twenty-two Cardinals, it was attended in person or proxy by two hundred Archbishops and Bishops, and about the same number of Abbots. A deputation from England, amongst whom was Chicheley, Bishop of St. David's, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was sent under Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury, to attend it, with in- structions to consent to whatever the Council might decree to promote Christian unity. Hallam presented a memorial com- plaining " of the papal exemptions granted to the monasteries, of appeals to Rome, and of dispensations for pluralities and non- residence." At the first session the two Popes were cited to attend, and on their non-appearance were pronounced to be contumacious, and on June 5 were deposed, as guilty of perjury and heresy. A new Pope was elected, who took the title of Alexander V. (1409 1410), and the Council was dissolved on August 7. On the death of Alexander, John XXIII. (1410 1415) was elected Pope by the Cardinals. The deposed Popes refused to renounce their dignity, so that the Council only rendered matters worse, for now there were three instead of two Popes. But if the Council did nothing else, it re-established the rule of the primitive Church, that the Popes are amenable to general Councils. The Council of Constance (1414 1418), attended by repre- sentatives of all the Western kingdoms, twenty-six Princes, one hundred and forty Counts, twenty Cardinals, seven Patriarchs, twenty Archbishops, ninety-one Bishops, six hundred Abbots and Doctors, about four thousand Priests, and presided over by the The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 205 Emperor Sigismund, met on November 5, 1414. Hallam again, as well as the Bishops of Bath and Hereford, were appointed as episcopal delegates to the Council, which was also attended by an embassy of about four hundred persons from England. On March 2, 1415, John offered to resign, if the two other Popes, Gregory and Benedict, would resign also. A number of enormous crimes were however laid to the charge of Pope John ; he was branded as " an adulterer and violator of nuns ;" all three Popes were deposed, and John was sentenced to imprisonment, which he underwent for three years, first at Heidelberg, and then at Mannheim. On November i, 1417, a Roman Cardinal, Otto di Colonna, was elected Pope under the title of Martin V., and was acknowledged by the whole of Europe. Thus the chief object, the reunion of the Papacy, for which the Council had been sum- moned, was effected, and the great schism of the West, after having lasted close on forty years, terminated. No Reform of the Church was effected at the Council. But, June 14, 1415, an important decree was made that the Com- munion should be administered to the laity in only one kind ; i.e. of Bread. The 'two decrees which pronounced the Pope to be inferior and subject to Councils were from the first illusory : and important only so far as they showed the general sense of the Church. The Popes well knew that princes and rulers cared little how corrupt the Papacy was, so long as its corruption ministered to their purposes. So the Papal pretensions remained as high, and became even higher than before. The Council of Constance had thought to establish the inde- pendence of national churches. So far from effecting this, it only increased their dependence upon Rome. Martin V. (1417 1431), more than any of his predecessors, succeeded in making himself the universal Bishop. Other Popes had allowed that Metro- politans had some independent rights. Martin established the rule, which his successors till the Reformation carried out, that all Churches are entirely subject to Rome ; that Archbishops and Bishops are the mere servants of the Pope ; and he declared, in 2o6 The Papal Victory over the Church of England. opposition to the Councils of Pisa and Constance, that the Popes were superior to general councils. With Martin V. who may be regarded as the founder of Ultramontanism, a new era commenced for the Church of England. Nothing so much excited the anger of Martin as the Statute of Praemunire. He said that it was opposed to the liberty -of the Church, contrary to divine and human laws, and to the Old and New Testaments ; and he laid his commands on Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury (1414 1443), an d the Archbishop of York to obtain its annulment Martin's scheme was to lower the Archbishop of Canterbury 7 in order to exalt his own power. In his letter to the two Archbishops he put the name (and there can be little doubt but that he did it designedly) of the Archbishop of York before that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The gentle spirit of Chicheley was ill-suited to cope with the irascible Pope. He was weak enough to bring the matter before Parliament in 1427. He declared that to grant provisors was part of the Pope's supremacy ; that the salvation of their souls depended upon their giving the Pope satisfaction ; he warned them that a Papal interdict might follow their refusal. Parliament however remained firm, and the Statute so obnoxious to the Pope was neither then nor afterwards repealed. Pope Martin vented his wrath upon Chicheley. Hitherto, whenever an English Prelate was raised to the Cardinalate, it had been the rule for him to resign his English preferment But now Martin inaugurated the system of appointing an English Archbishop or Bishop as residential Cardinal in England, to act as his delegate and agent in watching over the Church of Eng- land. So early as 1417 he had endeavoured to make Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and second son of John of Gaunt, a Cardinal But the powerful King, Henry V., was then on the throne; and to him Chicheley made his complaint. Henry forbade Beaufort to accept the office, and the project fell to the ground. But under a weak King like Henry VI., Martin suc- ceeded, and on May 24. 1426, Beaufort was appointed Cardinal The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 207 Priest of St. Eusebius. The Pope also tried to appoint Beaufort as legate in England over Chicheley's head, but this scheme was effectually opposed by Chicheley himself. Thus a great step was taken by the Pope to the denationalizing the Church of England. The authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury was seriously impaired and that of the Pope raised to an unprece- dented height. The office of a Cardinal was second only to that of the Pope himself, so that now the Pope could appoint to the highest dignity in the Church, and confer a power which Archbishops and Bishops were bound to obey. Notwithstanding the statutes of Provisory and Prcemunire^ Pope Martin continued to provide for English Livings and Bishop- rics. He, says Collier 1 ', assumed the disposal of all Bishoprics by way of provisions, made void the election of the Chapters, and in two years provided thirteen Bishops in the province of Canterbury. Pope Martin died on February 21, 1431. A third Council met at Basle on July 23 of that year, with the professed object of effecting a union between the Greek and Latin Churches, and of promoting the reformation of the Church in its head and branches. The supremacy of Councils over the Popes was reaffirmed ; some slight improvements were decreed, and the Papal appointments to benefices by means of provisions were forbidden. Pope Eugenius IV. (1431 1439), who had suc- ceeded Martin, did all in his power to discredit the Council and to transfer it first to Ferrara and afterwards to Florence. The Council, however, continued its sittings at Basle and deposed Eugenius, and elected an anti-pope, Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who took the title of Felix V., in his place. But Europe was by this time tired out by the endless contentions and schisms in the Papacy, and Eugenius regained possession of the See. Eugenius carried out the plan of denationalizing the Church of England even further than his predecessor. Thus in 1438 he fc Eccl. Hist., ii. 647. 208 The Papal Victory over the Church of England. conferred the Bishopric of Ely, to be held by him in commendam, on the Archbishop of Rouen. Eugenius is also said to have licensed a man who was an absolute fool and not in Holy Orders, to hold a rich Archdeaconry and twelve prebends, which he never visited, but spent his time in drunkenness and debauchery . In December, 1439, he created Kemp, the Archbishop of York, a Cardinal ; Cardinal Beaufort was still alive ; thus there were two Prelates in England occupying a higher position than the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. The plan inaugurated by Martin of governing the Church of England by Roman Cardinals was followed on by his successors and continued till the Reformation. On the death of Chicheley, John Stratford (1443 1452) became Archbishop of Canterbury, to be succeeded by John Kemp (1452 1454), Archbishop of York. Kemp was not only a Cardinal, but the Pope's legate a latere ; he was thus just as much a Romanist and worked for the Pope quite as effectually as any other Roman Bishop. Thomas Bourchier (1454 1486), who succeeded him as Archbishop, was in 1465 appointed a Cardinal. So also was John Morton (1486 1500). Henry Dean (1501 1503) was a Papal Legate, but he was Archbishop of Canterbury scarcely long enough to be created a Cardinal. Thus the Archbishops being dignitaries of the Church of Rome, and the Bishops being provided by the Popes, Arch- bishops and Bishops became the adherents, it might be said the tools, of Rome. The Church was Romanized and became a mere branch of the Church of Rome. Its nationality was destroyed. The nation and Parliament having their thoughts and time con- jentrated on the Wars of the Roses had little time to devote to the interests of the Church, and the Church of England remained in subjection to Rome till the Reformation. The Roman Church too became absorbed in politics, the Papacy was a political rather than a spiritual power, the Pope a secular ruler, who interested himself but little in the course of the religious c Gascoigne's Liber Veritatum (Theological Dictionary). Ed. J. E. T. Rogers. Oxford, 1881. * The Papal Victory over the Church of England. 209 feeling and the desire of reform which was going on in other quarters. If, however, the Councils of the fifteenth century did nothing else they at any rate established some useful principles. One has been already mentioned, viz. that the Popes were subordinate to Councils, and that the Popes are not, but that General Councils are, infallible. Another was a return to the practice of the early Christian Councils, which were convened not by the Popes, but by the Emperors. For if the Council of Basle was not, yet certainly the Council of Constance was, recognized by the whole Church, and the Council of Constance was summoned and presided over by the Emperor Sigismund. But failures as the Councils were, a great change in the state of Europe was at hand. CHAPTER X. THE RESULT OF THE NEW LEARNING UPON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 14531529. THE Fall of Constantinople Danger to Christendom Flight of Greek scholars to Italy Florence the Cradle of the New Learning Its advo- cacy by the Popes Nicolas V. Pius II. His inconsistency The Medici family Printing discovered Increased sale of books Impetus given to learning in England Public schools Foundation of new col- leges at Oxford and Cambridge The Trivium and Quadrivium Caxton introduces the printing-press into England Disastrous period of Eng- land's history Students from England go to Italy Linacre Grocyn Colet Lilly Account of Colet Religious form of the New Learning in England Effect of the New Learning on the Continent Savonarola Colet lectures at Oxford on St. Paul's Epistles Greeks and Trojans at Oxford Erasmus goes to Oxford His opinion of Oxford Colet ap- pointed Dean of St. Paul's Founds St. Paul's School Opposition in London to the New Learning Bishop Fitz-James Colet accused of heresy Archbishop Warham decides in Colet's favour And appoints him to preach before Convocation The New Learning at Cambridge Erasmus and Bishop Fisher The Lady Margaret professorships Founda- tion of Christ's and St. John's Colleges Debt of gratitude owed by Cam- bridge to Erasmus and Fisher Prominent position henceforward of Cambridge Erasmus' Greek Testament Erasmus accused of being a Lutheran Foundation of Brasenose College Bishop Fox at Oxford Founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corrupt state of the Papacy Language of Bellarmine Councils and Counter-Councils Martin Luther in Germany The Lutherans called Protestants End of the Wars of the Roses Henry VIII. King Work published in his name against Luther Defender of the Faith Henry in favour of the New Learning Was the Reformation necessary ? Corrupt state of the Papacy Reforma- tion in Church of Rome Was the Church of England guilty of schism ? The unity of the Church broken by the division between the Eastern and Western Churches Charitable conduct of the Church of England towards the Church of Rome Archbishop BramhaH's definition of schism The object of the English Reformation to restore the old National Church, not to make a new one Character of Henry VIII. The English Reforma- tion a proof of an overruling Providence Henry desires a divorce from his wile Katharine Cardinal Wolsey Appointed legate ct laterc Cam- peggio sent by the Pope to England to try the question of the divorce with Wolsey Anger of Henry Fall of Wolsey His death His founda- tions at Oxford and Ipswich Crumwell Cranmer. The Result of the New Learning, e^v. 211 THE fifteenth century, the boundary-line between mediaeval and modern times, between what came to be known as the Old and New Learning, ushered in as it was by a period of moral and intellectual stagnation, witnessed in its progress a series of events, unequalled perhaps, certainly unsurpassed, in importance in an equal space of time in the world's history. Not least important of these was the fall of Constantinople and the extinction of the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, the Christian world was startled by a disaster of appalling mag- nitude. On that day the Christian city of Constantine was taken by the Turks, under their Sultan, Mahomed II., and the Turks gained a position in Europe which they have never since lost. The Christian temple of Sophia, the metropolitan cathedral of the Eastern Church, built by Constantine to commemorate the Wisdom of God, the Second Person in the Trinity, was converted into a heathen mosque, and the Eastern Church re- ceived a blow from which it has never recovered. Danger from the same source soon afterwards threatened Rome itself. It may be asked, Why did not Christendom unite as of old under the banner of the Pope against the advancing infidel ? The answer is only too plain. The Popes no longer possessed the confidence or respect of Europe. The reigning Pope, Nicholas V. (1447 1455) would, if he could, have rescued Europe from the Turks : and shame and sorrow at the fall of Constantinople are said to have hastened his death. Calixtus (1455 1458) came next, but his short pon- tificate was marked by no important events, although an attempt was made in vain to unite the Christian Princes in a Crusade. Pius II. (1458 1464), the next Pope, assembled in 1459 a Council at Mantua, in the hope of promoting a Crusade against the Turks, and he too died of a broken heart because he could not induce the Church to join him. A like attempt was made by Paul II. (1464 1471) and Sixtus IV. (1471 1484), but their appeals to the Princes of Europe were ineffectual. That the Church of England was sensible of the danger which 212 The Result of the New Learning beset the Christian world we have evidence in the Collect composed in the Primacy of Archbishop Bourchier, and which still stands amongst the Collects of Good Friday, for the con- version of Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics*. But when, A.D. 1464, it was rumoured in England that the Pope was appealing for money for the defence of Christendom, the nation, too often deceived by the Popes to trust them any longer, fell back upon the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, and the Government forbade any public fund to be raised in the country. But good in a manner little to have been expected came out of evil. The immediate result of the fall of Constantinople was the restoration after a long abeyance of the Greek language (the original language of the New Testament) and Greek liter- ature first into Italy, and then from Italy into the other countries of Europe. Latin being the language of Rome, and that in which public business was transacted throughout the Western Empire, had for a long time been the language, to the almost total exclusion of Greek, taught in the Western Schools, the Greek language for a similar reason being maintained in the Eastern Empire. In the West the Greek heathen authors were mostly known through the medium of Latin translations, the Scriptures also being known through the Latin version. It is evident that any work in its translation from one language to another is likely to lose much of its original meaning. Especially was this the case with regard to the Bible, and the Latin, which was the only version in use, came to be regarded as if it had been the original language, and free from error. Whereas a meaning had often been imported into it which the original text did not warrant, and which a knowledge of the Greek language could alone remove. Greek scholars from Constantinople with their valuable MSS. of Greek authors, sought a refuge in Italy, where they met with an enthusiastic reception. Florence became at once the cradle Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, v. 287. upon the Church of England. 213 of the New Learning, and the Greek language the golden key by which that learning was to be unlocked, the numerous errors of the Vulgate exposed, and the true meaning of the Bible revealed. In order to learn from these Greek scholars the knowledge of the Greek language, students from all parts of Europe flocked to Italy. At Rome itself there was a succession of learned Popes, who, fortunately not seeing how fatal to the Papacy the New Learning would be, became its liberal patrons. Nicolas V. was a munificent encourager of learning. He invited to Rome the most distinguished scholars of the time, and took the Greek scholars under his patronage. He, the founder of the Vatican library, in order to obtain books for it, despatched his agents to all parts of Europe ; to the monasteries of Germany and England, and to the ruins of the libraries of Constantinople. Such was his zeal in the cause, that in his short Pontificate of eight years he gathered together a library of four thousand books, forming, it was said, the noblest library that had existed since that of the Ptolemies at Alexandria. Second only to Nicolas as an encourager of the New Learning was Pope Pius II., the next successor but one to him in the Papacy. At the Council of Basle, he, as yneas Sylvius Piccolo- mini, had stood forward the strong opponent of Papal usurpation, and maintained that the Popes were subject to General Councils. No sooner, however, did he himself become Pope than he ex- hibited a remarkable instance of inconsistency in asserting the claims of the Pope, and in advocating the very errors of which he had been so vigorous an opponent. He defended himself by saying that as ^Eneas Sylvius he had been a heretic, but as a Pope he had become orthodox. None the less his due meed must be given to him as a patron of learning. At Florence the New Learning found liberal patrons in the family of the Medici. Cosmo de Medici (1389 1464) was the father of a long line of princes coeval with and to a great extent the patrons of the spread of literature. He himself, on whom 214 The Result of the Neiv Learning his grateful countrymen bestowed the title of Pater patria (father of his country), gave a hearty and liberal welcome to the exile scholars. The study of Plato was revived in his house by a Greek fugitive. He himself instituted an academy for the study of the Platonic philosophy, which afterwards materially, but by no means advantageously, affected the religion in Italy of the fifteenth century b . He also founded the noble library of San Marco, en- riching it with Greek, and Latin, and Oriental manuscripts. A still greater favourer of learning was his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, who added to the library which his grandfather had founded, and instituted academies for study, employing scholars to collect books from every part of the world. Just before the revival of classical literature (humanism, or the culture of humanity, as it was called) the art of printing was in 1450 invented by Gutenberg at Mayence : and a few years earlier was discovered the art (without which the invention of printing would have lost half its value) of making paper from linen. Hitherto books had either been written by a slow and tedious process of handwork, or were struck off from wooden blocks ; when pub- lished they were chained up in the monasteries, or were the possession of learned scholars, or the favoured few. The price of books soon diminished by four-fiths of their former price ; their purchase was thus facilitated ; copies of the Scriptures and of the early Fathers were multiplied and eagerly caught up ; and during the next thirty years more than ten thousand editions of books were published in Europe. An impetus had been given in England to learning by the foundation of the great public schools of Winchester and Eton, the former in 1382 by William of Wykeham, the latter by King Henry VI. in 1441. The development also of the collegiate k It must be mentioned that philosophy formed an element of Christianity from the earliest times Platonism being the orthodox philosophy of the primi- tive Church, and Aristotle coming into vogue with Scholasticism probably with the object of showing to unbelievers that Christianity was not opposed to Reason. upon the Church of England. 215 system paved the way for the reception in England of the New Learning. Kings and Bishops, instead of founding, as formerly, monasteries, founded colleges as schools of learning c . During the fourteenth century had been founded at Oxford, Exeter College, by Walter de Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, A.D. 1314, who also founded a grammar school at Exeter; Oriel, by Ed- ward II., A.D. 1325; Queen's, by Philippa, wife of Edward III., A.D. 1340; Canterbury Hall, by Archbishop Islip, in 1361; St. Mary of Winchester, in Oxford, since called New College, by William of Wykeham, A.D. 1379. In the fourteenth century were founded at Cambridge : Michaelhouse, afterwards merged into Trinity College, A.D. 1324; Pembroke Hall, A.D. 1347; Gonville Hall, A.D. 1348; Trinity Hall, A.D. 1350; Corpus Christi College, A.D. 1352; Clare Hall? Later on (in the fifteenth century) was founded at Oxford by Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, Lincoln College, A.D. 1427 ; All Souls by Archbishop Chicheley in 1438 ; Magdalen in 1458 by Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, who had previously been Head- master of Winchester and Eton. At Cambridge were founded in that century, Queens' College, in 1448, at the request of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI. ; King's College in 1449 by Henry VI.; Catharine Hall in 1475. The Trivium and Quadrivium of the Schoolmen formed the staple of education d , and notwithstanding the development of the public school and the collegiate system, learning in England, as in most other countries, was at a low ebb, and at Oxford the number of students had considerably sunk, although the numbers given by historians are much exaggerated. In 1476 Caxton introduced the first printing-press into England. c Previous to the fourteenth century only three colleges existed at Oxford, University, Merton, and Balliol ; and one (Peterhouse) at Cambridge. d The former included grammar, rhetoric, and logic ; the latter arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, to the almost total exclusion of the Scriptures. 2 1 6 The Result of the New Learning Hitherto the clergy had possessed the monopoly of learning, such as it was, for even they were steeped in ignorance. Thenceforward knowledge was thrown open to the masses ; the Bible formed a prominent feature in education, and people were enabled to judge for themselves how far the mediaeval Church had departed from the teaching of the Bible and the primitive Church. The sale of books was, however, at first slower in this country than elsewhere ; this was owing probably to the Wars of the Roses ; and only one hundred and fifty books were printed in England during the remaining years of the fifteenth century. The period between 1455 X 4^5 was taken up with the Wars of the Roses, and was one of the most disastrous in English history ; the Popes seized on the troubled state of the land for the further extension of their power; consequently during that period the New Learning made less progress than it would other- wise have done, in England. No sooner, however, were the Wars of the Roses ended, than students from England made their way to Italy with the object of learning Greek from the Italian teachers and introducing it into England. Amongst the foremost of these the names of four Oxford men stand conspicuous; Linacre, who, elected in 1484 a Fellow of All Souls College, became Professor of Medicine at Padua, and is best known as the founder of the College of Physicians ; Grocyn, who having been educated at Winchester, was elected in 1467 a Fellow of New College, and was in 1483 appointed Divinity Lecturer at Magdalen ; Colet, educated at Magdalen, who was afterwards Dean of St. Paul's and founder of St. Paul's School in London ; Lilly, who became the first Head- master of Colet's School, and who gained at Rhodes such a knowledge of Greek as enabled him to become the editor of the Greek Grammar which even to the present century continued in use in the public schools of England. Of this party the first who reached Italy were Linacre and Grocyn, whose visit to that country extended from 1485 1491. On their return to England, Colet, who had just taken his M.A. upon the Church of England. 217 degree, caught from them the contagion of the New Learning, and determined to follow their example and to go to Italy. John Colet was born in London in 1467, the eldest and sole surviving child of Sir Henry Colet, a wealthy London merchant, who was twice Lord Mayor of London. He had thus ample means at his disposal ; notwithstanding which Colet, who ended his life as a Reformer, began it as a pluralist, and when he was only nineteen years of age, and before he was in deacon's orders, he held, through an abuse which then prevailed, several valuable Church preferments. In 1493 he started for Italy with the ex- clusive object of studying the Greek language, in order that he might discover the true meaning of the Greek Testament. He returned to England 1496, was ordained, and took up his abode in Oxford. From the first the New Learning assumed in England a more practical and a more truly religious form than on the Continent. In Florence the excitement with which it was ushered in led, in the round of the fashion and amusements which were patronized by Lorenzo the Magnificent, to dissipation and to a general neglect of morality ; to an indifference to religion ; the neglect of the services of the Church, and a denial or depreciation of the Christian revelation. A reformer arose in Giorolamo Savonarola (1452 1498), a Dominican monk and Priest of San Marco, who preached to the Florentines of the doom which hung over their city, and exhorted them to repentence. For a time he exercised a strong influence over the people, and multitudes answered to his call. Unfortunately his preaching, from being solely religious, assumed a political character, which brought him into collision with Rome and its wicked Pope, Alexander VI. In May, 1497, he was excommunicated by the Pope, and in May, 1498, he to- gether with two of his companions was hanged and then burnt in the great Piazza of Florence. Colet returned to England untainted with the semi-infidelity which had followed the New Learning in Italy, and determined to take his stand, not on the old and intricate theology of . 2 1 8 The Result of the New Learning the Middle Ages, but on the plain teaching of the Bible and the Creed. Linacrc and Grocyn had before his return introduced the study of Greek into Oxford. Of Linacre it was said that it was doubtful whether he was a better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or physician. Grocyn was delivering a series of lectures on the Greek language before the University. Colet's object in residing at Oxford was to give gratuitous lectures in St. Paul's epistles. His course of lectures, which extended over the years 1497 1504, were attended not only by seekers after the New Learning, but also by bigots of the Old ; not only the undergraduates, but doctors and dignitaries of the Church went to hear him. When young students sought his advice, he would tell them to keep to the Bible and the Apostles' Creed, and to leave divines to dispute as they chose about the rest. But the new teaching was by no means favourably received by their adversaries of the Old Learning. A rivalry between followers of the Old and followers of the New Learning seems to have had its origin in Grocyn's lectures on Divinity. Greek was looked upon by the senior members of the University as an almost heretical exposition ; even the under- graduates rushed into the fray, and became divided into two parties, the one from its enmity to the Greek language being designated Trojans, the other Greeks. In 1498, when Grocyn, Linacre, and Colet were lecturing in the University, Erasmus, a native of Rotterdam, the father as he had been styled of classical studies in England, being prevented by poverty from going to Italy, went to Oxford. His purpose in going there was to learn Greek, and he became a pupil of Grocyn, whilst he also attended the lectures of Colet, with whom he, from the first, contracted an intimate friendship. At Oxford he found all that he desired, " not shallow learning, but profound and exact, both Latin and Greek," and was thoroughly influenced by the Oxford Reformers. " I have found in Oxford," he wrote in 1498, " so much polish and learning, that now I hardly care about going to Italy. . . . When I listen to my friend Colet, it seems like upon the Church of England. listening to Plato himself. Who does not wonder at Grocyn's knowledge ? What can be more deep and refined than the judg- ment of Linacre ? When did nature mould a temper more gentle, endearing, and happy, than the temper of Thomas More e ? " In spite, however, of this flattering account given by Erasmus, it does not appear that learning was quite so flourishing at Oxford as he describes it. The opposition it met with from leading mem- bers in the University, and the contentions between Greeks and Trojans probably kept it down ; so that we find Anthony Wood declaring, that in 1508, "the Greek language, from whence the greater part of knowledge is derived, was at a very low ebb, or in a manner forgotten." In 1504 Colet was appointed, through the influence of Arch- bishop Warham, who was a firm friend and supporter of the New Learning, to the Deanery of St. Paul's. He soon became the first preacher of the day, and in London he carried out the work which he had commenced at Oxford, of delivering lectures and sermons on the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Commandments. His father having died in 1505, Colet deter- mined to devote a portion of the large fortune which he derived from him in building and endowing St. Paul's school, over which he placed Lilly as Head-master. The example which Colet set was soon followed by others, so that it is said that more grammar schools were founded in England in the thirty years which pre- ceded the Reformation than in the three hundred previous years. The New Learning was not at first received more favourably in London than it had been in Oxford. It was said that Lollards crept into St. Paul's to hear Colet preach. Fitz-James, who was appointed to the Bishopric of Rochester in 1497, and of Chiches- ter, 1503, became in 1506 Bishop of London. He had been Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and was a Scotist, and a narrow-minded and violent partizan f . There were many of the e The future Chancellor of England. ' Or follower of Duns Scotus, a schoolman of the Franciscan Order, the violent opponent of the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, who belonged to the Dominican Order. 22O The Result of the New Learning London clergy amongst the opponents of Colet's teaching, which they considered heretical. Bishop Fitz- James was one of these. He also viewed with dislike and suspicion Colet's foundation within the very precincts of his own Cathedral. There was, too, a difference in their mode of preaching between the men of the Old and those of the New Learning ; the former read their sermons, the latter preached extempore. When Colet preached against the coldness of written sermons, the Bishop of London thought he preached against him ; he also scented Lollardy in his sermons. So he and the clergy of St. Paul's charged him with heresy before the Archbishop of Canterbury. Warham, however, was himself a man of learning and a favourer and patron of the New Learning. He saw that it was a party manoeuvre trumped up by the Bishop and the clergy of St. Paul's against their Dean. He not only gave judgment in Colet's favour, but he appointed him in 1512 to preach the sermon at the opening of Convocation, of which Colet availed himself to attack the shortcomings and faults of the clergy. Colet with his many virtues had his faults, one of them being an overbearing temper towards those who differed from him. But he had the courage to rebuke Henry VIII. for his faults, especially his warlike propensities. Henry, who was not in general fond of such plain speaking, took the rebuke in good part : " This doctor," he said, " is the doctor for me." And he made him one of his Chaplains. The New Learning did not obtain a footing at Cambridge till some years after it had gained an ascendancy at Oxford, and then it was owing to Erasmus and to Fisher, the pious Bishop of Rochester (1504 1535) and Chancellor of the University. In 1506 Erasmus was enabled, mainly owing to the generosity of Warham, to go to Italy, whence he returned to England in 1509. It was by Fisher's invitation that Erasmus went to Cam- bridge, to teach there the knowledge which he had acquired at Oxford. At Cambridge he occupied rooms in Queens' College, of which Fisher had been President. In 1497 Fisher had been upon the Church of England. 221 appointed as her Confessor by Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII., and it was probably by his advice that she founded the Professorships which bear her name at Oxford and Cambridge (to the latter of which Fisher was ap- pointed the first Professor) and the Lady Margaret Preachership at Cambridge. Influenced by him, the Lady Margaret founded in 1505, and largely endowed, Christ's College, Cambridge; and after her death St. John's was founded in 1511, according to a scheme drawn up during her lifetime ; the endowments in both cases being derived from the revenues of monasteries. It was through Fisher's influence that Erasmus was in 1511 ap- pointed to the Margaret Professorship of Divinity, and that the New Learning, when once it obtained a footing in the University, met with much less opposition at Cambridge than it had at Oxford. Fisher, though his faith in the Pope remained unshaken, was thoroughly in sympathy with the New Learning-; and though he did not possess the practical discernment of the times, which was evident to his juniors in years and inferiors in ability, yet he was the most learned and the most influential of the bishops of the day. To Bishop Fisher and to Erasmus the University of Cambridge owes a deep debt of gratitude. In 1516 Erasmus was able to give as good an account of that University as he had before given of Oxford, and declared that " it could compete with the best Universities in the world." And there is one undeniable fact ; that whereas Cambridge had hitherto occupied an inferior position to Oxford, after the time of Erasmus this inferiority dis- appeared, and Cambridge took and occupied for many years the leading position and exerted the greater influence of the two Universities upon the Reformation. It was during his residence at Cambridge that Erasmus pre- pared his great work, the edition of the Greek Testament, of which he procured the publication at Basle in 1516. By this work, in the preparation of which he had the hearty approval of Archbishop Warham, Fisher, Fox, Bishop of Winchester, and other Bishops, a new era was opened to biblical criticism. 222 The Result of the New Learning The Monks called him a Lutheran in disguise, and said that he laid the egg which Luther hatched. But the Monks hated him, and Erasmus bore no greater love to the Monks than they had for him, not only because he thought them hypocrites, but because they were the enemies of the New Learning. There was no doubt much in common between Erasmus and Luther. Luther was probably the only living man who sur- passed him in knowledge of the Fathers. That Erasmus sympathised with the earlier movement of Lutheranism is evi- dent. But he was no Lutheran, and disliked being called or considered a Lutheran; his sympathy with Luther was rather with the man of literature than the reformer. Erasmus must be regarded in the light of a critic rather than a man instigated by feelings of religion. There was a tinge of Rationalism in his teaching, and he has been called by some the father of rational- istic theology. When staying in London before he went to Cambridge he wrote, in the house of Sir Thomas More, his Morice Encomium, or praise of folly, in which he exposed the follies which existed in the Roman Church, and the system of Papal Indulgencies, not sparing the Pope himself. But he died as he had lived, a Roman Catholic. Notwithstanding this, however, Erasmus, by his Greek Testament and other works, by his advocacy of the Scriptures, and his exposure of the corruptions of Rome, stands out as the most remarkable figure in the age preceding the Reformation, of which he was the unconscious promoter. The New Learning, notwithstanding the recurrent contentions between Greeks and Trojans, continued to advance at Oxford. By the statutes of Brasenose, issued in 1521, the old scholastic curriculum, "Sophistry, Logic, Philosophy, and afterwards Di- vinity .... for the advancement of Holy Church and for the support and exaltation of the Christian Faith," was appointed for the studies of the undergraduates. But Richard Fox, Bishop of Exeter (1487), of Bath (1492), of Durham (1494), and of Winchester (1501), was carrying on in the University a work upon the Church of England. 223 similar to that of Fisher at Cambridge. Fox is generally con- sidered as the Founder of the professorial system, in which, however, he seems to have been preceded at Cambridge by Fisher and the Lady Margaret. Though a Demy of Magdalen College, Fox being driven from Oxford by the plague, finished his education at Cambridge, be- coming Chancellor of that University in 1500, and Master of Pembroke Hall in 1507. At one time he had thought of founding a monastery, but was dissuaded from his purpose by Hugh Old- ham, Bishop of Exeter, who told him that it was more fitting to "provide for the increase of learning and for such as should do good to the Church and Commonwealth." He then showed his sympathy with the New Learning by his foundation in 1516 of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for twenty Fellows and twenty Scholars, together with Professors of Greek and Latin, whose lectures were to be open to the whole University. This seems to have been the first provision made in either University for instruction in the Greek language. Unlike William of Wykeham, Archbishop Chicheley, Bishop Waynflete, Bishop Fisher and the Lady Margaret, all of whom endowed their institutions from the spoils of the monasteries, Fox's College and Professorships were founded at his own expense. Fox also established Grammar Schools at Grantham and Taunton. At the time of this Renaissance and spread of the New Learning, of which Italy was the source, what was the state of the Church and of the Papacy ? The language of Bellarmine, a Cardinal and Bishop of Capua, and nephew of a Pope (Marcellus II.), thus describes it as "A complete abandon- ment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments, no discipline in morals, no erudition in sacred literature, in divine things no reverence ; religion almost extinct." The Papacy was darkened by the deepest corruptions of those who were called the Vicars of Christ. Under Innocent VIII. (1484 1492), when the Papal Court was marked by the greatest profligacy, the Pope himself being the father of seven illegitimate children by different 224 The Result of the New Learning- mothers, it might have been supposed that vice had attained its greatest height. The pre-eminence, however, attaches to his successor, Alexander VI. (1492 1503). The College of Cardinals had grown so corrupt that, fearing to have too strict a Pope set over them, they elected Borgia, the most wicked of their number, the "Nero amongst the Popes" Mosheim calls him, who was able to bribe all but five out of the sixty-nine Cardinals to vote for him. He, the father of the infamous Coesar Borgia, openly sold the Cardinalates, and under him Christendom was scandalised with the most heinous vices which had ever polluted the Papacy even in the dark ages. After a life of notorious villainy he met his death by drinking poison, which it was supposed he had himself prepared for a Cardinal whose wealth he coveted. Julius II., who was Pope between 1503 1513, cared nothing for the Church, and his Pontificate was almost entirely devoted to military enterprise. In 1511 some of the Cardinals who were opposed to Pope Julius summoned a council to Pisa (which was afterwards re- moved to Milan), before which they summoned him to appear, and on his non-appearance suspended him for contumacy. Julius summoned a counter-council to the Lateran Palace in 1512, which pronounced the Cardinals to be guilty of schism. After his death the Council re-assembled under his successor, Leo X., who was Pope from 1513 1521. The question of the reform of the Church was brought before the Council ; but it was soon dropped ; and the Council was dissolved on March 1 6, 1517. The idea of reforming the Church by means of Councils, or through the Pope, had to be abandoned, and the Conciliar movement gave place to a National one. On October 31 of that year Martin Luther (1483 1546), an Augustinian monk, born at Eisleben, nailed to the Church door at Wittenburg ninety-five theses, in which he attacked the system of Indulgences, the sale of which Pope Leo had instituted throughout Europe, through his agent, a Dominican Friar named Tetzel. In 1520 the Pope issued a bull excommunicating Luther, upon the Church of England. 225 to which Luther replied by denouncing the Pope as antichrist, and by publicly burning the bull at Wittenberg ; and the same year he wrote his treatise, On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church. In 1522 Luther published his translation of the New Testament, and subsequently, in 1530, one of the whole Bible, into the German language ; a work in which he received valuable assistance from the Greek scholarship of Melanchthon, who held a position second only to that of Luther in the Reformation in Germany. At the Diet of Spires' in 1529 the Imperial and Roman party decided to stop the German Reformation by force, and from their protest against this decision the Lutherans gained the name of Protestants. In 1530 the Emperor Charles sum- moned a council to Augsburg, where the Lutherans put forth their Confession, which, drawn up by Melanchthon, thenceforward became, under the name of the Augsburg Confession, the Lu- theran standard of faith. In England the Wars of the Roses had ended in 1485, when the country was at last free to devote its attention to domestic affairs. Henry VII., who ascended the throne in that year, notwithstanding his inordinate love of money, was a man of pure life, conscientious in his Church appointments, and an encourager of the New Learning. His son, Henry VIII., succeeded him in 1509, at the age of eighteen years. When Henry VIII. became King, it seemed little likely that under him would be accomplished the extinction of the Papal Supremacy in England, for no man was a more zealous Papist, or more devoted to the interests of the Roman Pontiff than he was. During the lifetime of his elder brother Arthur he had been educated as a younger son, with a view to holding some high position in the Church, probably the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The taste which he had acquired for theological study never left him; he was a fair scholar and good linguist caring beyond everything else for his own power and his own pocket, yet in feeling well disposed towards the Church. So far from countenancing the Reform movement in Germany, he Q 226 The Result of the New Learning entered the lists as the champion of the Pope against Luther ; by a work published in his name and by his authority in 1521, The Treatise on the Seven Sacraments, in answer to Luther's Babylonish Captivity, he gained from the Pope for the Sovereigns of England the title of " Defender of the Faith." He continued a life-long opposition to Lutheranism ; and when, in 1538, an attempt was made under the influence of Crumwell to effect a union between the English and Lutheran Churches, it met with his uncompromising opposition. At the same time he was heartily in favour of the New Learning, and being so, he could not be hostile to the only logical conclusion of that movement, viz., its application to the Reformation of the Church. Was a Reformation of the Church of England necessary under the circumstances of the times ? We will quote the opinion of the late Dr. Dollinger, probably the most learned Roman Catholic of his times : "The condition of things," he says, "had become intolerable, and a great purification in the sixteenth century had become a pressing need. The process might have been accomplished without the divisions which grew out of it ; but, historically considered, the Reformation was inevitable, and while no room was allowed in the bosom of the ancient Church, a breach of unity was the necessary consequence." " If," says the same learned writer, " the Church had been what it is now, there would have been no Reformation." The English nation, as we have seen again and again, had been ever since the reign of King John thoroughly anti-papal. The clergy had for more than two hundred years been as much opposed to the Pope as were the laity ; though of late years the Popes, by the power which they had usurped of providing to Bishoprics and Livings, had succeeded in drawing the clergy over to their side, and so Romanizing them. But by means of the New Learning the English nation, not only the clergy, but the laity also, had come to know more and understand better the * Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches. npon the Church of England. 227 true meaning of their Bible ; they had become better acquainted with the history and the rights and the independence of the national Church of England. The Papacy which had recently been held by such Popes as Alexander VI. and Julius II. was rotten from head to foot ; and Leo X. had only added the last straw when the sale of indulgences forced on the Reformation in Germany. England was willing and Henry VIII. at that time was willing to submit the matter of reformation to a General Council. This would have satisfied England, where no change in doctrine, but merely a change in the discipline of the Church, was demanded. Even the Popes themselves, if there had been religious and willing Popes, might have reformed the Church had they so desired. The proof of this lies in the fact that when the crash of the Reformation came, more than half of Europe was at first lost to Rome. But when Rome at last awoke from its slumbers and raised the moral and intellectual tone of its clergy, the tide of Reformation not only stopped, but was rolled back ; and within forty years Protestantism was driven back from the vast regions which it had at first conquered, to be confined within the more modest area which it still holds. The important question is often asked : Was the English Church guilty of schism at the Reformation ? It is not a suffi- cient answer that we have our succession of Bishops, for the object qf episcopal succession is the unity of the faith. But a schism implies previous unity. The great Schism, however, which divided the Eastern and Western Churches took place nearly five hundred years before. The separation, therefore, of the Church of England at the Reformation was not a separation from the whole, but only part of Christendom ; if, therefore, there cannot be separate branches of the Catholic Church, the Church had been in a state of Schism for centuries through the separation of East and West. It is necessary to define in what unity consists and what schism is. There never has been, and it is nowhere in- 228 The Result of the New Learning timated in Scripture, that there would be one earthly head of the whole Church. Our Saviour's prayer for the oneness of the Church refers to a oneness in faith. The unity of the Church consists in having the same Creeds, the Sacra- ments, an Apostolic Ministry, and holding no doctrines which are opposed to the General Councils. The Church of England has all these marks, and acknowledges in the Creed One Catholic and Apostolic Church, of which Christ is the Head. The Church of Rome excommunicates all who do not acknowledge the Supremacy of the Pope. The Church of England on the con- trary acknowledges the Orders of the Church of Rome, and admits Roman Catholics to Communion. This difference does not prove the Church of Rome to be the more Catholic, but it shows it in the light of the more uncharitable of the two. Archbishop Bramhall h defines schism as the culpable separation from the Catholic Church. His authority may well be quoted at some length. "It cannot be supposed," he says, "that the Apostles and Catholic Fathers were schismatics. Yet there were dissensions between Paul and Barnabas ; Jerome and Ruffinu.s branded each other as heretics ; Chrysostom and Epiphanius refused to worship together; the African and Roman Churches- contended together; yet it cannot be supposed that Augustine and Cyprian were schismatics. The guilt of separation rests on those who caused it The external separation was made by the Roman Church; Henry VIII. only claimed the same Su- premacy as Edward the Confessor, to be 'the Vicar of Christ in his own kingdom.' It was only from the abuses and innova- tions of Rome that England separated, and it remained the same garden as before the Reformation, only cleared from its weeds. If there was a schism it was decreed in Convocation, and particu- larly by Roman Catholics, and Bishops Tunstall, Stokesley, Gar- diner, and Bonner must have been schismatics. And we were all thrust out by the Papal Bulls, how then could we be schismatics ? " k Bishop of Deny, 1634; Archbishop of Armagh, 1661. upon the Church of England. 2^9 The above definition of schism is dispassionate and conclusive. The Church of England claims that the English Reformation of the sixteenth century was an essentially conservative movement, a return to the old paths ; no sudden revolution, but merely the climax of what had been going on ever since the reign of Henry III. To enforce the existing laws of the land; not to make a new Church, but to bring back the old national Church, with the same doctrine and discipline as in the times of SS. Gregory and Augustine; to eliminate the distinctively Roman, but not Catholic, element which had crept into it ; this is what the Church of England professes to have been the object of the English Reformation. And if this involved separation from Rome, the separation having been caused not by the Church of England but by the Church of Rome, the fault must rest with her ; unless .she can prove, not by her own mere statement, which is worth nothing, but by historical facts, that the Papal Supremacy was a part of the early English constitution and not a new or mediaeval importation. Once more it is objected that to a licentious King like Henry VIII. the Church of England owes the Reformation. As far as that objection goes it might be asserted with equal truth that it was to King John that England owes Magna Charta, the Charter of her liberties in Church and State. We cannot tell, and need not know, why it is so ; but history tells us over and over again, and the history of the Church of Rome witnesses to the fact, that God often does employ such unworthy instruments to carry out His great purposes. At the same time it is evident that the Church of England is not so much affected by Henry's character as is the Church of Rome with that long series of Popes whose avarice and wickedness created the Reformation. And if Henry was a wicked King, it must be remembered that he had before him the example of the wicked Pope, Alexander VI. We would rather contend that nothing in the history of the world affords a stronger proof of an overruling Providence than the English Reformation. The Church of England lay at the 230 T)u Result of the New Learning King's mercy; and if Henry was an arbitrary despot in civil matters, what could be expected of him in matters affecting the Church? Yet unlike the other Churches of the Teutonic race we preserved our Catholic identity, and no one can say that we owe this to the piety of Henry VIII., to the honesty of Crumwell, or to the fortitude of Cranmer. The proximate cause of the English Reformation was the revival of learning ; the immediate cause was the question as to the supremacy, which was brought about by Henry's divorce. On June 3, 1509, Henry, under a bull of dispensation from Julius II., married at first under protest from Archbishop War- ham, who however afterwards performed the marriage ceremony Katharine, the widow of his elder brother Arthur, who had died a mere boy. The marriage was in clear contravention to the Bible, therefore Pope Julius (a Pope whose warlike propensities rendered him scarcely less disreputable than Alexander VI.) had no power to grant it. After being married to her for eighteen years, and having only one child, Mary ; having, moreover, formed an attach- ment for Anne Boleyn, a maid of honour to the Queen, he professed remorse of conscience, and asked in 1527 Pope Clement VII. (1523 1534) to dissolve the marriage. The most powerful subject in England at that time was Cardinal Wolsey. Born in 1470, the son, as was said, of a butcher at Ipswich, he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and at Oxford he probably made the acquaintance of Colet and Erasmus, and became favourably disposed towards the New Learning. He soon found a valuable patron in Fox, Bishop of Winchester, through whose influence he was taken into the service of Henry VII., and by him he was in 1508 appointed to the Deanery of Lincoln. On the accession of Henry VIII. he was admitted to his friendship. In 1513 he became Bishop of Tournay in France, and in 1514 was appointed to the See of Lincoln, from which he was in the same year translated to York,, holding several other valuable preferments in commendam ; soon afterwards he became Chancellor. In 1515, at the urgent request -upon the Church of England. 231 of Henry, he was made a Cardinal ; in 1518 was appointed legate a, latere in England, first with Campeggio and afterwards as sole legate; finally in 1523 he became legate for life. As Chancellor he was the most powerful officer in the State ; as legate he was the highest officer in the Church. He was now one of the most powerful men in Europe ; his wealth was immense, and he was nearly obtaining the Popedom. Wolsey believed that the question of the divorce could only be settled by the Pope. The King employed him to negotiate his divorce with Clement VII. The Pope was in a difficult position. He did not like to declare a dispensation granted by Julius II. to be void, and he had strong reasons for keeping well with the most powerful sovereign in Europe, the Emperor Charles V., who was Queen Katharine's nephew. Thinking thereby to please Henry, he sent Campeggio as his legate to try the case with Wolsey in England. This was the highest flight the Pope had ever taken ; for the Pope to summon the King, not before the national Courts but before his own legates, was a thing hitherto unknown in England. Campeggio arrived on October 9, 1528. The Court of the Legates was solemnly opened on June 18, 1529, and con- tinued to sit till July 30. On the part of the King appeared Gardiner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Bonner, the future Bishop of London ; on the part of the Queen, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Ridley, both future martyrs. The Queen refused to appear, and demanded that the case should be transferred to Rome to be tried by the Pope himself. The Court was then adjourned without coming to a decision. But this last act of the Pope with regard to the divorce was a greater degradation than had been put upon the kingdom since the days of King John ; it was more than the King would tolerate, the very thing to disgust the nation, and to prepare it for throwing off the Pope's supremacy. There was no wide-spread objection in England to the King's divorcing Katharine ; with the religious question people concerned themselves but little. On the con- 232 The Result of the New Learning trary, they wished Henry to marry some foreign princess, in the hope that an heir might be born to the throne. But there was a general repugnance amongst clergy and laity, and a disgust amongst the matrons of England at the idea of his marrying Anne Boleyn. Wolsey, like every one else, was disgusted with the King's intimacy with Anne Boleyn, and she in revenge brought about his ruin. Wolsey, by acting as the Pope's legate a. lafcre, had broken the law of the land, and had incurred the penalty of prsemunire. But it was a flagrant act of injustice on the part of the King to enforce it against him. Henry had himself obtained the post for him, had granted him under the great seal his license to hold it, and he had allowed him to perform its duties for many years. Henry had also, in 1524, conferred on Campeggio, who, like Wolsey, was a legate d latere, the See of Salisbury. But for this one offence all Wolsey's dignities, except the Sees of York and Winchester, were taken from him ; his property, even his two colleges which he was founding at Oxford and Ipswich were confiscated, and he retired, a disgraced and ruined man, to York. The next year he was arrested on some new charge, and on his way to London to answer to it, he was forced by illness to stop at Leicester Abbey, where he died broken-hearted on No- vember 30, 1530. Wolsey was not a man whom we can admire ; he was proud, avaricious, a pluralist (although for that matter most Bishops of that time were the same) ; he lived more like a layman than a clergy- man, and his morality was more than questionable. Still he would have done much for the Church. Not a learned man himself, and a statesman rather than a divine, he was too saga- cious not to see the advantage of connecting himself with the New Learning. In order to promote it he proposed to found two colleges, one at Oxford, on a scale of magnificence hitherto unequalled in England or in Kurope, for secular clergy, and the other as a feeder to it at Ipswich. He obtained the sanction in 1524, under two bulls of Pope Clement V1L, to sequestrate the revenues of twenty-four monasteries, amounting to ,2,000. For upon the Church of England. 233 his college at Oxford, to be called Cardinal College, he procured the suppression of the Benedictine monastery of St. Frideswide, on the site of which the first stone of his new college was laid in 1525, when the work was suddenly cut short by his fall*. One great misfortune, especially to the Church, followed on the fall of Wolsey, for he was succeeded as the King's chief adviser by a bitter foe to the Church, Thomas Crumwell, the son of a black- smith at Putney ; a man whose one virtue was his attachment to his patron, Wolsey, and the one desire of whose life was to ingra- tiate himself with the King. In the summer of 1529, Cranmer, a man destined to play an important part in the history of the Church, first appears on the scene. Born in 1489, and graduating at Cambridge, where he enjoyed no special reputation for learning, he became a Fellow of Jesus College. Having taken as his wife the daughter of an inn-keeper at Cambridge, he had to resign his fellowship, which however, as she died within the year, he was able to resume. Driven from Cambridge by the plague which visited that city in 1529, he was residing with two of his pupils at their father's house at Waltham, where he met two Cambridge friends, Gardiner, the Secretary of State, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Fox, afterwards Bishop of Hereford. Their conversation fell on the all-absorbing topic of the day, the King's divorce. Cranmer expressed the opinion that the matter should be referred to the principal universities of Europe, and the ecclesiastical courts of England. This fell in with the King's approbation. Cranmer was sent for and appointed 4 one of Henry's Chaplains, and was from that time, next to Crumwell, the King's principal adviser. Everything was now ready to Henry's hand for carrying out 1 In 1532 Henry VIII. refounded the college, but on a reduced scale, under the name of Henry VIII.'s College, and on its becoming the See of the new Uishopric in 1546, with a Dean -and eight Canons, it received the name, which it still bears, of Christ Church. 234 The Result of the New Learning, &c. his cherished object of re-establishing the Royal Supremacy. There was one point in which all Englishmen alike were agreed, and that was to abolish the mediaeval usurpation of Rome, and to- re-establish the old constitutional supremacy of the King of England. CHAPTER XL THE RE-ASSERTION OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 15291547. MEETING of the Reformation Parliament Act passed against Rome Com- plaint of Convocation Introduction of Papal Bulls forbidden The Church placed under Prcemunire The two Convocations compound with the King The Southern Convocation refuses to acknowledge him as Supreme Head without limitation The Northern Convocation Convo- cation petitions against Annates Supplication against the Ordinaries The King's demands upon the Clergy Annates abolished Death of Archbishop Warham Cranmer Archbishop Annuls the King's mar- riage with Katharine A Papal Bull declares the marriage to have been valid Act for the Submission of the Clergy and the Restraint of Appeals The Papal Supremacy first abolished by Convocation Then by Parlia- ment The Royal Supremacy re-asserted by the Act of Supremacy Act for Suffragan Bishops Act of Succession Execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More Crumwell appointed Vicar-General Visitation of the Monasteries First Act of Suppression The. Pilgrimage of Grace Paul III. excommunicates Henry Second Act of Suppression New Sees created- -Lay Rectories Lay Patronage Destruction of Libraries Parties in the Church Tyndale's Bible Convocation petitions the King for an authorized translation of the Bible The Ten Articles In- junctions Miles Coverdale's Bible Institution of a Christian Man Matthews' Bible Arrival of Lutherans in England The King opposed to union with them Second body of Injunctions Cranmer s, or the Great, Bible The Whip with Six Cords A Liturgical Revision pro- posed by Convocation The reading of the Bible in the Church Services advocated by Convocation A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Alan The Litany The Primer Act of Parliament ordering confiscation of colleges and chantries The King's death Summary ot Reformation under Henry VIII. The Council of Trent The English Reformation restored what was old, the Council of Trent introduced what was uew. 1529. On October 17, W-olsey surrendered the Great Seal, and Sir Thomas More succeeded him as Chancellor. The Reformation Parliament met on November 3, and con- tinued its Sessions for seven years. The first blow was soon 236 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy struck at the Pope's supremacy. In the first session a Bill was brought into the House of Commons declaring that any person who, after the next April i, should procure at the Court of Rome any license or dispensation for holding a plurality of benefices, should incur a penalty of seventy pounds, and lose the whole profits arising from them; and any one obtaining from Rome a license for non-residence should pay a fine of twenty pounds. The Bill met with great opposition in the House of Lords, where the Prelates formed a majority ; they, however, yielded to pressure and the Bill was passed. It was not, however, approved of by the clergy of the Con- vocation of Canterbury. They addressed the King, asking his protection in the rights granted them by the constitution, and complained that Parliament had without consulting them invaded their liberties ; whereby it hazarded its salvation, and laid itself open to the censures of the Church. 1530. On September 19, a royal proclamation was issued forbidding the introduction of Papal Bulls into the kingdom. The King finding that the clergy were his most strenuous opponents in the matter of the divorce, determined to humble them. In December the whole nation was declared to be under prsemunire in having acquiesced in Wolsey's legatine authority. The clergy were told that the King was willing, " upon a reason- able composition and a full submission, to pardon them." 1531. The Southern Convocation met on January 21. They agreed to compound with the King, by paying him ; 100,044, the Northern Convocation afterwards agreeing to pay ^18,840 ; an enormous sum at that time, equal to nearly two millions of modern money. But even this did not satisfy the King; he demanded that the clergy should acknowledge him to be the only protector and supreme head of the Clergy and Church of England (ecclesicc et cleri Anglicani cujus protector et supremuin caput is solus est). In other words, the King demanded the same authority over the Church which the Pope had before exercised. The clergy would not, nor could they by the constitution of over the Church of England. 237 England, have objected to the King's supremacy in ecclesiastical as well as in civil matters ; but they did object to calling him head of the Church. The Southern Convocation, under the guidance of Bishop Fisher, refused to allow the title; in February, however, they agreed to it, but only with the limitation as far as is permitted by the law of Christ {quantum per Christi legem licet}. Subject to this limitation it was agreed to by nine Bishops, sixty-two Abbots and Friars in the Upper House, and by a majority of the Lower House. But the Northern Convocation, which in the vacancy of the See of York met under the presidency of Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, stood out longer, and did not give its assent till the May following. Tunstall was willing to allow that the King was supreme head in his dominions over the clergy in temporal matters, but he feared that the words as they stood might imply a spiritual supremacy*. The King wrote to Tunstall saying that the latter had strained his meaning ; that he only claimed such authority over spiritual men as was allowed to other sovereigns of Europe, in the same sense as St. Paul allowed that he stood at Caesar's judgment seat where he ought to be judged. With this explanation Tunstall was satisfied, and he afterwards wrote to Cardinal Pole in justification of the King's title. In this year Convocation petitioned against the payment of Annates or First-fruits to the Pope, and that in case the Popu should persist in the exaction, England should withdraw from his allegiance. 1532. There had been a long-standing jealousy on the part of the Commons against the Church, somewhat akin to that of the Liberationists in the present day ; the endowments of the Church had suffered from the rapacity of laymen, and revo- lutionary ideas of disendowment had been for many years rife. Scarcely had the matter of pramunire been settled than the a And so indeed it proved, for the limitation was disingenuously omitted in the Act of Parliament of 1534. 23$ The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy Commons attacked the Church. In January they drew up a Supplication against the Ordinaries, their principal grievance being the right which Convocation had exercised from time immemorial of making laws, constitutions, and ordinances with- out the assent of the King or laity. There were it may be mentioned three kinds of Ecclesiastical Synods in England; (r) the Diocesan, which were called together by the Bishop of the Diocese; (2) the Provincial or Convocation, which the Archbishop of the Province convened at his own will; (3) the National, from both Provinces, which the King, although this was considered a contravention of the Church's rights, summoned at his pleasure. The Diocesan Synods were allowed to remain as before. It was the second kind of Synods, or Convocation, to which the Commons objected. The King went further than the Commons, and demanded of the clergy (i) that they should not for the future enact, pro- mulge, or put in execution new Canons without the royal consent ; (2) that thirty-two Commissioners should be appointed by the King, sixteen from the two Houses of Parliament, and sixteen from the Clergy, to review the ancient constitutions, and to abrogate and annul such as they considered contrary to the King's prerogative royal; (3) that all other constitutions which were agreeable to the laws of God and the King should remain, the King's consent being first given to them. To the second demand, the Bishops, under the advice of Fisher, refused their consent. The Lower House were for yielding, but the Bishops stood firm ; and the King contented himself with the undertaking of the Bishops that they would not enact, promulge, 0r put in ure new Canons without the King's authority. Thus the submission of the clergy, which had begun in their ac- knowledging the King as supreme head of the Church so far as the law of Christ permitted, was completed. Having gained the victory over Convocation, the King next set himself to the suppression of the Pope's supremacy. In this all over the Church of England. 239 the Bishops, except Fisher, and all the leading Divines in England, including Gardiner, who in 1531 had been appointed to the See of Winchester, and Bonner, at that time Archdeacon of Lincoln, were at one with the King. An Act of Parliament, pursuant to the petition of the Convoca- tion in the previous year, was passed, abolishing, under certain provisions, the payment of Annates to Rome. The preamble sets forth the reasons for this Act, viz., that great sums of money had in this manner been drawn out of England, amounting to no less than ;i6o,ooo, since the second year of King Henry VII. Also because the Annates were originally granted for maintaining the war against the infidel It was now enacted that if the Pope refused or delayed to grant palls or bulls from Rome to the King's nominees, the King might empower the Archbishop of the Province, or any two Bishops of the realm, to perform the acts of consecration. In May, Sir Thomas More resigned the Great Seal, and was succeeded by Aubrey, the Speaker of the House of Commons, a man entirely under the influence of the King. On August 22 Archbishop Warham died ; Cranmer, who on a visit to Germany in this year had taken as his second wife the niece of Osiander, a follower of Luther, was nominated as his successor. 1533.- In January the King married Anne Boleyn. The Pope could not have been over-pleased with the King's choice of an Archbishop, but the Papal bulls, in approval of the appointment, having arrived, Cranmer was on March 30 conse- crated at St. Stephen's, Westminster, to the Archbishopric of Canterbury by the Bishops of Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Asaph. Cranmer would, if he had been able, have gladly declined the perilous honour. The position of an Archbishop of Canterbury at such a time was the most difficult that any man could have been called upon to fill. He was placed between the followers of the Old Learning and those of the New, and he was expected to satisfy both ; Cranmer, not being a man of great intellectual 240 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy power, and not endowed with much firmness of will, or with strong Church principles, was carried about from side to side, from one school of thought to another, now a Romanist in doctrine, now a Lutheran, now a Calvinist, and satisfied no party. The difficulties of his position became at once apparent. He was required to swear allegiance to the Pope and the King, to two masters who had nothing in common, and who were soon to be brought into open hostility with each other. He swore to the Pope that he would be faithful and obedient to St. Peter, and to the Holy Church of Rome, to my lord the Pope and his successors; that he would not discover their counsels, and would defend their regality against all men. To the King he swore that he would henceforth utterly forsake all clauses, words, sentences, and grants which he had or should have hereafter from the Pope's holiness in virtue of his Bishopric . . . and he acknowledged to hold his Bishopric from him only" Cranmer took the oath to the Pope- under a mental reservation, that he did not intend to bind him- self by that oath to "do anything contrary to the laws of God, to the King's prerogative, or to the commonwealth and statutes of the kingdom." But it is evident that he was taking the oath in one sense, whereas he knew that the Pope administered it in another. Both Houses of Convocation ; the leading Canonists of the day ; and the principal Universities of Europe, having (in some cases under much pressure) decided that the dispensation granted by Pope Julius II. was unlawful, and therefore that Henry's marriage with Katharine was void from the first ; Cranmer, acting with other Bishops, at his Court held at Dunstable on May 23, annulled the marriage; and on May 28 confirmed at Lambeth the marriage which the King had already contracted with Anne Boleyn. On July 9 the Annates Act became law. 1534. The Pope issued in March a bull declaring the marriage with Katharine to have been lawful, and threatened to excom- over the Church of England. 241 municate Henry if he did not return to her. Thus the rupture between Rome and England was complete. Parliament met on January 15. A Bishop was ordered to preach on every Sunday at St. Paul's Cross against the Pope's supremacy, in order, no doubt, to prepare the minds of people for the important series of Acts which were passed in Parliament this year. The first Act of importance was passed on March 30, entitled an "Act for the Submission of the Clergy, and the Restraint of Appeals." The preamble embodies, but in exaggerated lan- guage, the Submission of the Clergy made two years before. It sets forth that, " the King's humble and obedient subjects, the clergy of this realm, have not only acknowledged according to the truth that the Convocation of the said clergy is, always has been, and ought to be, assembled only by the King's writ, but also submitting to the King's Majesty, have promised in vcrbo saccrdotii that they will never from henceforth presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure, enact, promulge, or execute any new Canons, Constitutions, Ordinances, provincial or other . . . unless the King's most royal assent and license may to them be had, to make, promulge, and execute the same." The Statute now enacted that Convocation could henceforth only be assembled by the King's writ, and that nothing could be executed there without the King's license. Nothing, however, is stated to recognize the right of the King to draw up or impose Canons without the consent of the clergy. The latter part of the Statute was the confirmation of a previous Act forbidding appeals of every kind to Rome. On March 31 the Convocation of Canterbury, and on May 5 that of York (and on this point both men of the Old Learning and those of the New agreed), declared that "The Pope has no greater jurisdiction conferred on him by God in Holy Scriptures in the Kingdom of England than any other foreign Bishop." Thus the Papal Supremacy was abolished by the Synodal action of both Provinces of Canterbury and York before it was abolished by 242 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy Parliament. It is thus evident that the statement made by the historian, Mr. Froude, that " the Bishops and clergy never con- sented as a body to any measure of Reformation except under the judicious compulsion of Henry VIII." is based on misconception and entirely unfounded. Another Act passed this year was confirmatory of the former Annates Act, but now Annates were entirely abolished. It also enacted that no person should henceforth be presented or nomi- nated by the Pope to any Archbishopric or Bishopric within the realm. The same Act then proceeds to regulate the election of Bishops. Upon the vacancy of a See the King was to send his conge d'elire to the Dean and Chapter, and if they failed to elect in twelve days, then the Crown was to nominate the person by Letters Patent, and to signify the election to the Archbishop with orders to confirm and consecrate the elected person. And if the persons appointed to elect and consecrate failed to perform their re- spective duties for twenty days, they were to fall under prsemunire. The Act forbidding the payment of Annates and that for the Restraint of Appeals struck at the root of the Papal Su- premacy ; the former depriving the Pope of his executive power, the latter abolishing his appellate jurisdiction in England. The mediaeval system of Appeals was destructive of the national independence. The preamble to the Act for the Restraint of Appeals sets forth that : in England there are two bodies, the spiritual and the temporal ; of which that part called tfie spiri- tuality or the English Church whenever any cause of the law divine or of spiritual learning comes in question, has always been thought sufficient of itself to determine all doubts and to " ad- minister all such duties and offices as to those causes spiritual doth appertain." For the future all persons who should take any appeals to, or procure any censures from, Rome, should be subject to praemunire. All causes were to be settled in Eng- land, temporal matters in the temporal courts, spiritual matters in the spiritual courts. It is then stated how that, laws had been over the Church of England. 243 made in restraint of appeals to Rome in the reigns of Edward I., Richard II., Henry IV., and other Kings. It was now enacted that appeals lay from the Archdeacon to the Bishop, and from the Bishop to the Archbishop, whose decision should be final, except in cases affecting the Crown, when a further appeal was allowed to the Upper House of Convocation. By another Statute it was declared that the King had no inten- tion "to vary from the Catholic faith of Christendom, or in anything declared in Holy Scripture and the Word of God to be necessary to salvation." In November the Act of Supremacy was passed, embodying the formulary agreed to by Convocation, but omitting the qualifying Clause, so far as is lawful by the law of Christ. The Act declares that the King " justly and rightfully is and ought to be supreme head of the Church of England, and is so recognized by the clergy of the realm in their Convocation ; yet, nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof .... to repress and extirp all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses here- tofore used in the same ; be it enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the King, his heirs and successors, Kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted and reputed, the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England, called Anglicana Ecclesia" It is further added that "the King shall have full power from time to time to visit, reform, correct, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormi- ties, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may be lawfully reformed b ." In this year an Act reviving an old office of episcopal curates was passed. The Act sanctioned the appointment of Suffragan Bishops, and named twenty-seven towns from which the Suffragans might take their titles. In the spring of the year the Act of Succession was passed, by which the King's marriage with Katharine, who thenceforward was to be styled Princess Dowager, was declared void, and the !l This Act was repealed by I & 2 Philip and Mary, and never revived. 044 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy succession vested in the children of Anne Boleyn, to the exclusion of Mary, the daughter of Katharine. Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were committed to the Tower, not for objecting to the succession (for with this both acknowledged their compliance) but to make the form of oath prescribed in the preamble. In the autumn the " Treason Act " was passed, with a view, it was sup- posed, to their destruction. 1535. Sir Thomas More, the most distinguished of English laymen of his time, and the pious Bishop Fisher, the most learned and able of the Bishops, the valued friend of Henry's youth, and now venerable with the weight of fourscore years, were executed, the latter on June 22, the former on July 6. Paul III. (1534 1549), the successor of Clement VII., by imprudently conferring a Cardinal's hat upon Fisher, had increased the anger of Henry against him, and was thus to a great extent instrumental in his death. But the Pope as well as every one else was horrified by the cruel act ; and at the unanimous solicitation of his Cardinals he prepared a bull of excommunica- tion and deposition against Henry, absolving his subjects from their allegiance. Every one, not only throughout England but throughout Europe, was disgusted with the bloodthirsty tyrant who could condemn to death such men as Fisher and More. In one matter, and oiu matter only, men of the Old and those of the New Learning, all Englishmen in short except the monks and friars, went with Henry, viz., the abolition of the Papal Supremacy. In that respect all had been done in a thoroughly constitutional manner through Parliament and Convocation. Henry liked governing through Parliament, so long as it did what he wanted and he could control it ; no doubt if Parliament opposed him he would have managed without it. With regard to the Royal Supremacy over the Church, though Henry had strained it to the uttermost, yet he had only returned to the old constitution, and the Anglo-Saxon laws of Edward the Confessor. The Papal Supremacy was now abolished, and the Royal over the Church of England. 245 Supremacy re-asserted. Henry loved power much, but if there was one thing which he loved more it was money, and an easy mode of obtaining it now presented itself to his mind. The monasteries were considered immensely rich, which, owing to the frequent assaults made upon them, they certainly were not. A scurrilous pamphlet called The Supplication of Beggars, written by one Simon Fish, and which had called forth from Sir Thomas More another pamphlet entitled The Supplication of Souls, had greatly exaggerated the wealth of the monks. The monasteries had long been considered a fair field for plunder. The Kings had seized their revenues to help them in their wars. Others had devoted their property to educational purposes. It was only going one step further to utilize them to Henry's private purposes. Henry's first act as Supreme Head was to appoint Crumwell, an able man, but one of defective education and little principle, as his Vicar-General or Vice-Gerent (a title probably borrowed from the Vicar Apostolic of the Roman See) ; he made him supreme over the Archbishops and Bishops, with power to reform abuses and to hold a general visitation of Churches and monasteries. The holding of such an office by a man like Crumwell was more objectionable and more obnoxious to the feelings of religious people in England than even that of the Papal Legates had been. A general visitation of the monasteries by visitors ap- pointed by Crumwell commenced in October, the jurisdiction of the Bishops being meanwhile suspended. 1536. The monasteries had few friends, and the King was not one of these. With the exception of the Abbots, who sat in the House of Lords, all the monks, and the mendicant orders also, were the opponents of his Supremacy. They were the allies of the Pope against the Church of England. They had had their day and their work was done, and Henry declared it to be his inten- tion to devote their property to more useful objects, viz., the foundation of schools and the increase of the Episcopate. Many of the monasteries were no doubt corrupt; but their visitation 246 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy was undertaken with the view of detecting abuses, and their con- demnation was a foregone conclusion. Some of the visitors were themselves men of indifferent character and of no principle. The visitation of the smaller monasteries, such as had a revenue under ^200 a year, was commenced first. A declara- tion known as the Black Book was submitted to Parliament on> February 4. These monasteries were reported to be corrupt, and a bill for their suppression was brought forward. It had by no means an easy passage through the House of Commons; the King, however, gave it a helping hand by hinting to the Commons, " I will have it passed or I will have some of your heads c ." So it passed the Commons ; the Abbots, hoping thus to save themselves, helped it through the Lords, and in this manner the first Act of Suppression was passed. Three hundred and seventy-six houses were dissolved, and their property, the annual revenue of which was valued at ^3 2,000, besides ^100,000 worth of plate and jewels (sums representing more than a million of the modern currency) was handed over to the King. By this first Act of Suppression it was calculated that ten thousand persons were thrown on the world deprived of the means of subsistence some at an advanced age, others to swell the ranks of sturdy beggars, at a time when acts of vagrancy were punishable with death. No wonder that a deep feeling of indignation was aroused in the country. Especially was this the case in the North of England, where one rebellion broke out at Louth. in Lincoln- shire, in October, 1536, and another of a more serious character in the same year, in Yorkshire, in which the whole nobility of the North, accompanied by 100,000 men, were engaged, headed by a county gentleman named Aske. They took the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Priests carrying Crosses headed the insur- gents ; whilst the Crucifix and the five Wounds, and a chalice and Wafer were inscribed on their banners or on their sleeves. The rebellion, however, was fruitless, and the insurgents were c Spelman'i History of Sacrilege. over the Church of England. 247 dispersed by promises to which they trusted but which were soon broken ; their leaders were punished with the greatest severity ; whole districts were given up to military executions, and the country was covered with gibbets. The Reformation Parliament was dissolved on April 4. 1537. The Pilgrimage of Grace only impelled Crumwell to- wards the suppression of the larger monasteries. The Commis- sioners had reported that in them " thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed." It availed them nothing; so the visitation of the larger monasteries commenced in the summer. 1538. The visitation was continued through this year. Of the twenty-eight mitred Abbots, twenty-four knowing that their doom was fixed, thinking thus to gain better terms for them- selves, made a voluntary surrender. St. Thomas Becket was a saint particularly disliked by the King; he had triumphed over a King of England, and was looked upon as the embodiment of the Papal against the Royal Supremacy. His shrine at Canter- bury was now plundered by order of the King ; all its valuable treasures, said to have filled twenty-six carts a , were confiscated to Henry; and by an order of Convocation in 1542 the name of the saint who for three hundred years had been accounted as one of the greatest saints of the Church was erased from the Calendar. In this year the Pope, Paul III., issued his bull of excommu- nication and deprivation against the King. The bull states that Henry, not contented with the murder of Priests and Prelates, now exercised his rage against the dead, and had barbarously insulted St. Thomas of Canterbury, Archbishop and Martyr, canonized by one of the Pope's predecessors, famous for miracles wrought at his tomb, and venerated by almost all Christendom. 1539. The second Act of Suppression of the monasteries was passed in the spring of this year, and a yearly revenue rated at ^131,607, with moveables valued at ^400,000, accrued to the d See p. 140. 248 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy King. The whole number of monks is supposed to have been about 100,000. a large proportion of the population, which at that time numbered only about three millions. Twelve of the mitred Abbots were executed. The mitred Abbots who had not surrendered were those of Glastonbury which claimed to be the oldest monastery, and which, next to Westminster, was the richest in England of Colchester and Reading; they were all executed. The Abbot of Glastonbury was "Richard Whiting, an old man of fourscore years, respected and beloved for his piety and charity. He was arraigned at Wells and condemned on a charge of high treason for having sent the plate and money of the Abbey to the rebels in the North; all he did was to conceal them so as to prevent their falling into the sacrilegious hands of the Commissioners. In vain he asked to be allowed to take leave of the monks of the abbey before his execution. He was dragged on a hurdle through the streets of Glastonbury to Glastonbury Torre outside the town, and there, under circumstances of great brutality, he was executed. The King had, on a plan suggested to him by Wolsey, promised to create twenty-one new Bishoprics out of the spoils of the monasteries ; had he done so, the Church would have gained more than it lost by the dissolution. Under the second Act of Suppression, six new Sees, and those very inadequately endowed, were founded, viz., Oxford, from the Abbey of Osney, with the Dean and Canons of Christ Church for its Chapter ; Gloucester, from the Abbey of St Peter, in Gloucester; Bristol, from the Monastery of St. Augustine, in Bristol ; Peterborough, from the Abbey of Peterborough; Chester, from the Monastery of St. Werburgh ; and Westminster, soon to be annexed to the See of London. To these must be added the foundation, as secular Chapters under a Dean, of seven Chapters which had hitherto been served by monks, viz., Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, Ely, Carlisle, Norwich, and Worcester, which, together with the newly-founded Sees, are known as the - Cathedrals of the New Foundation ; the remaining Cathedrals, which had before been over the Church of England. 249 served by secular Canons, being known as the Cathedrals of the Old Foundation. This, with the foundation of a few grammar- schools, is all that was done for the Church. One proof of the worthlessness of the charges brought against the monasteries is found in the fact that in the new foundations which arose on the ruins of the monasteries, the Abbots and Priors became the first Bishops and Deans, whilst the new Canonries and Prebends were conferred on the monks. An immense amount of misery followed the dissolution of the monasteries, and as many as seventy-two thousand persons are said to have died at the hands of the executioner during the reign of Henry VIII. Previously to the dissolution, the spiritual Peers had greatly outnumbered the temporal Peers in the House of Lords; but now that there were no longer Abbots and Priors, the influence of the Bishops on Parliament, and of the Church on the nation, visibly diminished. Nor was this all ; a legacy of evil lasting to our own times was bequeathed to the Church. Lay Rectories arose. It was com- puted at the time that the tithes of half the benefices in England had been impropriated to the monasteries. They appointed for the performance of the parochial duties a vicar, who sometimes utterly neglected the rights of the parishioners, by which a great hardship was inflicted on the parish. At the dissolution, the opportunity of restoring to the Church these endowments, which were her own, was lost. Instead of this being done, the abbey lands and tithes fell into the hands of Lay Rectors, being either given to the favourers of the Court or sold at an easy price to the landed gentry, who put as much as possible into their own pockets ; the vicarial tithes being paid on the smallest scale to some half-starved clergyman to perform the duties of the parish. Sometimes an old broken-down monk or friar who could scarcely mumble out the Matins was appointed as the parish Priest, his meat and drink being his sole stipend; in a large number of parishes, and those populous parishes and market-towns, there 250 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy was no clergyman at all. Men of education were unwilling to be ordained to such miserable penury ; so the Bishops were forced to admit the lowest of the people to the Priesthood ; the ignor- ance and the immoral lives of this new class of clergy became a scandal to the Church; the Bishops soon refused to ordain such candidates, and then followed another, but under the cir- cumstances a necessary, evil pluralities. Since the dissolution of the monasteries the influence of the lay clement has been a marked feature in the Church of England. About four thousand laymen, either in their own gift or as trustees, are now the patrons of Church preferments ; from the Queen with the Bishoprics, and Deaneries, and Canonries> and about four-hundred and fifty livings, the Lord Chancellor with seven hundred, to the nobility and gentry with the rest. Nor is the catalogue of evils yet exhausted. One evil en- sued which could never be remedied. There was scarcely a religious house which did not possess a library. At a time when the art of printing had only been recently discovered, these libraries were the depositories of the learning which had de- scended from early times ; in them were preserved the records of our Convocations, the Acts of Parliaments, as well as the hereditary documents of private families. If not destroyed they were sold as waste-paper; some books were used "to scour candlesticks, some to rub boots, some sold to the grocers or soap- boilers, and some sent over sea to bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times in whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations ; a single merchant purchasing at forty shillings a-piece two noble libraries to be used as grey-papers e ." No wonder that under such circumstances the seeds of that dissent from the Church were sown which were soon to grow into a large tree, with such fatal consequences to both Church and State. There was at the time no wide-spread desire within the Church for any changes in doctrine. The men of the Old Learning would have preferred no change at all. But the ' Spelman's Curse of Sacrilege. over the Church of England. 251 men of the New Learning soon became subdivided into two parties, the moderate reformers, headed by Cranmer, who would not have objected to some change in the Church's formularies to meet the altered circumstances of the times ; and the ultra- reformers, the progenitors of the Puritans of a later date. These last again consisted of two parties, one which wished for a closer union with the Protestants, as the Lutherans in Germany were called ; the other, the Sacramentaries (so called from the peculiar views which they held regarding the Sacrament of the Eucharist), the residue of the Lollards, whom nothing short of the religioi> of Zwingle and Calvin would satisfy. Over and above these there was a host of fanatics in the land. There were Predestinarians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy Men, Arians, Unitarians, Men of the Family of Love,. Libertines. The Reformation under Henry had, through its violence, ruined a noble cause. Here then was the beginning of sorrows. The sins of a Government, like those of an in- dividual, are sure to find it out, and of the consequences of Henry's injustice the Church, in the days of his successor, Charles I., had to pay the penalty. Henry's religion was chiefly political. Alike to Lutheran and Calvinistic principles he was thoroughly opposed. But he was in favour of the New Learning, and to meet its more moderate adherents some liturgical, if not doctrinal, changes were necessary. Henry was , in a great measure guided by Crumwell ; and if in some of the new formularies a tinge of Lutheranism is dis- covered, it must be attributed to Crumwell and his followers. In order to give some account of the liturgical changes effected in the Church we must now retrace our steps. 1530. Ever since the days of Wicliffe a feeling had prevailed that the people had a right to the Bible in their own language. The Bishops of the Old Learning objected to unauthorized translations of the Bible as being calculated to propagate error, but they took no trouble to produce an English Bible of their own. The first English translation which issued from the printing 252 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy press was that of Tyndale. In 1526 William Tyndale, a Glou- cestershire man by birth, who had been a Franciscan monk, but had shaken off his obligations, put forth at Worms an English translation of the New Testament made from the original Greek, liut the translation was far from satisfactory, words being trans- lated to suit his own peculiar views, and such as to convey an heretical meaning f . Tunstall, who was at that time Bishop of London, bought up all the copies that could be found and caused them to be burnt at Cheapside. Tyndale's translation \vas also denounced by men of the New Learning, such as Arch- bishop Warham and More. The money, however, derived from Tunstall's purchase only enabled Tyndale, with the help of Miles Coverdale, to prepare an edition of the Old Testament, translated from the Hebrew; a work which was cut short by the death of Tyndale, who was burnt at Villefort, near Brussels, in 1536. As unauthorized translations were disapproved of by Bishops alike of the Old and New Learning, the people demanded an authorized edition of the Bible which should be free from the errors complained of. 1534. In this year Convocation having petitioned the King for an authorized translation, Cranmer distributed parts of the Bible with that view amongst several of the Bishops and leading divines. 1536. In this year Ten Articles, the first formulary of the English Church and the first of a long series which ended in the XXXIX. Articles, largely based upon the Augsburg Confession, were published, "devised by the King's Highnes Majestic to stablish Christen quietnes and unitie among us, and to avoid contagious opinions," and were sanctioned by Convocation. They consisted of two parts, the first five relating to doc- trine, the last five to " the laudable customs of the Church." Part I. Belief is enjoined (r) In the Bible, the three Creeds and the first four General Councils. (2) In Baptismal Regenera- ' Tyndale translated St. Matt. xvi. 18, " Upon this rock I will build My over the Church of England. 253 tion. (3) In Penance, as a Sacrament consisting of Contrition, Confession to a Priest, and amendment of life. (4) In Transub- stantiation in the Holy Eucharist. (5) Justification by faith attended by good works. Part II. (i) Images were pronounced valuable to excite de- votion, but were not to be worshipped. (2) The saints were to be honoured but not with the honour due to God. (3) The holy saints in Heaven ought to be prayed to, in order that they may pray for us ; and Holy Days in memory of Christ and His Church were to be observed. (4) Rites and Ceremonies of the Church were to be observed, such as vestments, sprinkling with holy water, carrying candles on Candlemas-day, sprinkling ashes on Ash-Wednesday, bearing palms on Palm Sunday, and setting up the Holy Sepulchre on Good-Friday. (5) Purgatory; it being good and charitable to pray for souls departed. Early in the year, and not long after the Ten Articles ap- peared, Crumwell issued a body of Injunctions to the Clergy. Some of these were as follows : (i) prescribed, that in all parishes and places of preaching the King's Supremacy was to be set forth and maintained once every Sunday for a quarter of a year, and afterwards twice a year at least. The clergy were likewise to preach against the Pope's usurped authority. (2) In the articles lately set forth by the King, and agreed to by the Bishops and clergy in Convocation, those relating to faith must necessarily be believed, whereas those relating to rites and ceremonies are of a lower class. (5) The clergy were to cause the people to learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue. (7) Every person or proprietary of a Church was to provide a Bible in Latin and English to be laid in the choir for every one to read at their pleasure. But they were to caution the people against falling into controversy about difficult passages. People were to read it with modesty and sobriety, and when they wanted explanation were to apply to persons of learning and character. (8) Deans and other clergy were not to frequent public-houses, but to avoid intemperance and unlawful diversions 2 54- The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy such as tables and cards, and to employ their leisure hours in reading the Bible. (10) Every beneficed person who has at least ;ioo a year should maintain a scholar either at a Grammar School or the University. In October, Coverdale's Bible, partly translated out of " Douche and Latyn," and partly a reproduction of Tyndale's, appeared, issued from a foreign press, with a dedication to the King. In this year Gardiner, who had been in 1531 consecrated Bishop of Winchester, published his important treatise, De Verd Obedientid, against the Pope's supremacy e. St. Peter, he says, enjoyed no primacy over the other Apostles in Scripturis de primatu Patri nulla facta est mentio : nor is there " a single syl- lable for the Bishop of Rome's Primacy in the Bible." Prece- dence amongst the Apostles belonged to St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem. He observes that the ancient Kings of England exercised ecclesiastical supremacy. Even if some Kings owned the Pope's supremacy, it was not de jure divino. He tries to prove the supremacy of the King from the New Testament ; but teaching and administering the Sacraments belongs to the clergy. And though the title of Head of the Church, as applied to the King, is a new title, yet it is only the expression of an old truth under a new name. 1537. In May, The Institution of a Christian Man, known as the Bishops' Book, was drawn up by a committee appointed by the King, of forty-six clergymen, including all the Bishops ; and having been approved by Convocation, it was published as a compromise between the men of the Old and those of the New Learning. The Institution contained an explanation of the Apostles' Creed ; the Seven Sacraments (in the Ten Articles only three Sacraments were mentioned), of which the Eucharist, Bap- tism, and Penance are the most necessary ; the Ten Command- ments ; the Pater Noster ; the Ave Maria (not as a prayer, but a hymn); and an explanation of the doctrines of Justification and Purgatory. As to Justification, the Institution explains that * Bonner wrote the Preface to the Second Edition. over the Church of England. 255 although no Good Works on our part can reconcile us to God and procure His favour, yet the observance of our Saviour's commands, and offices of justice are necessary. As to Purgatory, the doctrine is commendable and has continued since the first ages of Christianity ; but the belief that the Pope's pardons at certain places, or before particular images, are available for de- livering souls out of Purgatory is condemned. In this year the Bible known as Matthew's Bible (a fictitious name), made up from Tyndale's and Coverdale's Bibles, was put forth by the royal printer, and received the approval of Cranmer, and the King's sanction. The probable author was John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign. 1538. In this year a deputation from the Protestant Princes of Germany arrived in England to advocate a union of the English Church with the Lutherans. So early as the year 1531, and on several other occasions, Henry had sought the opinion and advice of Melanchthon and the Reformers on the Continent, and had invited Melanchthon to come to England. Melanchthon, how- ever, refused to accept the invitation, in consequence of the im- pression he had formed, especially after the execution of Anne Boleyn, of the King's character. The present terms proposed by the Lutherans would have reduced the Church of England to the Lutheran level and to the acceptance of the Augsburg Confession. To such a union Henry was entirely opposed. In October, a second body of Injunctions was issued by Crumwell. The clergy were ordered to "provide one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same to be set up in some convenient place within your Church where your parishioners may most commodiously resort and read the same." No person was to be deterred, but on the contrary all were to be exhorted to read it. Every Sunday the clergy were to repeat in English some portion of the Lord's Prayer, or the Creed, or Ten Command- ments, till the people had learnt the whole by heart. They were also to remove such images as had been turned to a superstitious 256 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy use ; not to suffer any candles to be set before them, except on the Rood-loft, and the light before the Sacrament, and that before the Sepulchre. 1539. All the former translations being more or less unsatis- factory, Cranmer's, or the great Bible, the work probably of the Bishops who had been commissioned for the task in 1534, appeared. That translation remained in use in the Church till it was superseded by the Bishops' Bible in 1568. In spite of the order in the Injunctions of 1536 that it was not to be made a subject of controversy, the Bible soon became the common subject of popular discussion, which led to much irreligion and profanity. The King complained that the Bible was made the cause of wrangles and disputes in every tavern and ale-house. He had also reason to suspect that people, influenced to a great extent by the Lutherans, who had lately come to England, were mistaking the Catholic character of the Reforma- tion. Crumwell had now lost all influence over him. Owing to these causes, a reaction took place in his mind and conduct, which resulted in the anti-reforming and persecuting Act of the Six Articles, the Whip with Six Cords, as it was called. Its professed object was to stop all controversies in religion, and to establish a uniform belief. It originated with a lay-lord, the Duke of Norfolk, and received the assent of Parliament and Convocation, but met with the strenuous opposition of Cranmer. The preamble of the Act sets forth that the King " is by God's law supreme under Him of the whole Church and Congregation of England ; " and that the Six Articles were agreed to by Convocation and Parliament. They enacted that (i) In the Sacrament of the Altar there re- maineth after Consecration no substance of bread and wine, but the Substance of Christ, God and Man. (2) Communion in both kinds is not necessary by the law of God. (3) Priests may not marry. (4) Vows of Chastity are binding. (5) Private masses are meet and necessary. (6) Auricular Confession to a Priest is necessary, and should be frequently used. over the Church of England. 257 The penalty attached to the breach of these articles was terribly severe. Any one writing or preaching against the first was to suffer death and the forfeiture of his estates, as he would do for high treason. Disobedience to any of the other articles was to be punished, the first offence by forfeiture of goods, and the second by the death of a felon. Latimer, Bishop of Wor- cester, and Shaxton of Salisbury, at once resigned their Bishop- rics; the latter, however, in 1546 altered his opinion, and allowed " these articles to be true in every part." Cranmer sent his wife abroad, and many of the reforming party left the country ; but there is reason to believe that the Act, as regards its penalties, was almost entirely inoperative, and it was repealed by i Edward VI. 1540. Crumwell, who had so long been the King's chief adviser, and who on April 1 7 was appointed Earl of Essex, had now to suffer the same punishment which he, acting both as prosecutor and judge, had meted out to the poor Abbot of Glastonbury, and on July 28 was executed on Tower Hill. 1542. The first step in the way of Liturgical revision, and of reading the Bible in the English language at the services of the Church, was taken by Convocation. On February 17, the Archbishop moved that agreeably to the King's wish, all mass- books, antiphoners and portuises should be examined, that the name of the Pope and of Thomas Becket should be expunged from them; that they should be purged from all apocryphas, feigned legends, superstitious oraisons, collects, versicles, and responses; and the names of all saints not mentioned in the Scriptures or other authentic doctors removed. It was ordered that the examination should be entrusted to the Bishops of Sarum and Ely, each of them to be assisted by three members of the Lower House of Convocation. A new edition of the Sarum Breviary was at the same time issued, with an order that it should be observed throughout the Province of Canterbury h . It is not known how far the two Bishops advanced in their work ; but it is probable that if Henry had lived, a thorough revision of the h See Procter on Book of Common Prayer, c. ii. S 258 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy Service Books would have been made in his reign. As it was, the foundation, to be carried out by his successor, was laid by Henry VIII. 1543. It was also ordered by the Upper House of Convocation that on every Sunday and Holyday the curate of the parish should, after the Te Deum and Magnificat, read one chapter of the New Testament in English, and when that was finished he should begin the Old Testament, in each case without exposition. In his Injunctions, published this year, Bonner, Bishop of London, ordered that every parson, vicar, or curate, should every day read a chapter of the New Testament, with some approved comment upon it In January an Act of Parliament was passed relating to con- troversies in religion, and allowing to the laity the reading of the Bible, with certain limitations. It enacted that Tyndale's false translation of the Bible and other religious books in the English tongue, contrary to the Articles of Faith, should be repressed; also all books impugning the Sacrament of the Altar, or maintaining the damnable opinions of the Anabaptists, were prohibited; as also the reading of the Bible by any below the degree of gentle- men and gentlewomen. It was, however, lawful for all persons to read the Psalter, Primer, Paternoster, Ave, and Creed in the English language. A book was this year published by a committee of eight Bishops and other clergymen, which had been appointed by the King's order (whence it was called The King's Book), with the approval of the "Lords, both spiritual and temporal, and the nether House of Parliament," entitled A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man, which though commenced in 1540 was not published till May of this year. The book was a revision of and similar to (although with additions and corrections) the Bishops' Book, but asserted more strongly the Royal Supremacy and the doctrine of transubstantiation. The preface states that in order to turn his people from superstitious practices, the King had authorized the Bible to be translated into English, Some over the Church of England. 259 people, however, through a spirit of pride and contention, had wrested the holy text into a diversity of opinions, and it was in order to recover them to union and agreement that he, by the advice of his clergy, set forth this summary of religion. 1544. The next step taken by Convocation at the King's sug- gestion was to compile in English from various old Litanies, which had long been used in Processions, one Litany for use in Church. It was authorized by an order in Council, on June 1 1 of this year, under the title of "An Exhortation unto Prayer thought meet by the King's Majesty and his Clergy, to read to the people in every Church after Processions. Also a Litany with suffrages to be said or sung in the time of Processions." This Litany, certain prayers to saints and angels, and the clause " from the tyranny of Rome and all its detestable enormities " being omitted, is almost identical with the Litany used in Church at the present time. 1545. Primers, or books of private devotion in their own lan- guage, containing the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, were probably in use amongst the Anglo-Saxons, and one such English Manual, under the name of Primer, can be traced back to the fourteenth century. In the early years of the Reformation, Primers were published by various persons, although without any ecclesiastical authority ; such as Marshall's Primer m 1 535> an d Hilsey's (Bishop of Rochester) in 1539. These were superseded by the authorized Primer of Henry VIII. in 1545, which having been compiled by Cranmer and approved by Convocation was put forth under the title of " The Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his clergy to be taught, learned, and read, and none other to be used, throughout his dominions." It included the Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, prayers for Matins and Evensong, and Compline, the Litany, and some admirable prayers for private use. It explained the Holy Eucharist as the " lively Bread of the blessed Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sacred Cup of the precious and blessed Blood." 260 The Re-assertion of the Royal Supremacy The King's greed not being satisfied with the spoils of the Monasteries, he began to cast longing eyes upon the property of the secular clergy, and in his last Parliament an Act was passed, ordering the confiscation of the property of all colleges, chantries, hospitals, fraternities, and guilds, consisting of secular clergy. Under this Act the two Universities were included, and were only, on their petitioning the King, exempted from its operation. The Commissioners appointed to carry out the Act set vigorously to their work ; more than two thousand chantries and chapels, with a hundred and ten hospitals, were given over to the King ; the work was only stopped by the King's death on January 28, 1547, to be continued under an Act passed in the first year of the reign of his successor for vesting the remaining chantries in the King. It will have been seen what important reforms were effected under Henry. The Papal Supremacy was abolished, and the Royal Supremacy re-asserted; the Bible translated; various superstitious usages abolished ; the public services of the Church revised ; and a manual of private devotion authorized. Henry did not wish for a doctrinal reformation ; he revolted against the Pope, not against the doctrine held by the Church of Rome. He wrote to Cardinal Pole that it was not his object to break the historical continuity of the Church ; " not to separate himself or his realm from the unity of Christ's Church, but inviolably at all times to keep and observe the same, and redeem the Church of England out of captivity of foreign powers heretofore usurped therein." To establish his own supremacy was his great aim. He died as he had lived, a holder of Roman doctrines ; he firmly held to the end the Roman belief in Purgatory, and left a sum of money to be spent in Masses for his soul. He was a cruel and remorseless persecutor of all persons who differed from him, and it is said there were as many executions for religion in his reign as there were in that of Mary. He burnt on one and the same day (July 30, 1540) six people, three for holding the doctrines of the reformers, and three, over the Church of England. 261 Priests and Doctors of Divinity, for supporting the supremacy of the Pope ; and by way of showing his impartiality, a Romanist and a Reformer were bound to the same hurdle, and were thus drawn to Smithfield. The Church of Rome, after it had excommunicated Henry and lost England, followed the example of England. The Council of Trent (1545 T 563) was called for the purpose of reforming the Church. The Pope decreed that it should be called "The Holy CEcumenical and General Council of Trent." But it was not (Ecumenical nor General, for, unlike the Councils of the Early Church, it was summoned by the sole authority of the Pope ; it represented only a part of Christendom, and neither the Greek Church nor the Church of England was represented. It improved the discipline, and it raised the moral character of the Church of Rome. But instead of recurring to antiquity, as the Church of England had done, it sanctioned those very superstitions and errors which the New Learning had condemned and the Church of England thrown off; it established twelve articles of faith contained in the Creed of Pius IV., the greater number of them then declared for the first time, and required to be received on oath as necessary to salvation '. ' The Creed of Pius IV. decreed these twelve articles : I. Seven Sacra- ments. 2. Trent doctrine of Justification and Original Sin. 3. Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass. 4. Transubstantiation. 5. Communion in One Kind. 6. Purgatory. 7. Invocation of Saints. 8. Veneration of Relics. 9. Image Worship. 10. The Roman Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches. II. Swearing obedience to the Pope. 12. The receiving the decrees of all Synods and of that of Trent The oath taken to this Creed is " Hanc veram Catholicam fidem extra quam nemo salvus esse potest, voveo, spondeo, et juro." See Wordsworth's "Theophilus Anglicanus." CHAPTER XII. THE IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN TEACHING INTO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 15471558. EDWARD VI. King The Protectorate The Protector Somerset an ultra- Protestant His sacrilegious conduct The parties in the Church Gardi- ner Ridley Latimer Hooper The Bishops take out new commissions A General Visitation ordered The Former Book of Homilies The In- junctions The Paraphrase of Erasmus Repeal of Penal Statutes Canon passed in Convocation for Receiving the Communion in Both Kinds Ratified by Parliament Four Petitions from the Clergy Act of Parlia- ment for confiscation of the remaining chantries Grammar-schools of King Edward VI. Cranmer's Catechism Commission for revising the Service Books The Sarum Use The Order of the Communion published The First Prayer-book of King Edward VI. The Act of Uniformity Difference between the Prayer-book and the Sarum Use ^Marriage of the Clergy Second Visitation ordered The Ordinal Gardiner and lionner deprived and their Bishoprics conferred on Poynet and Ridley Removal of Altars ordered Cranmer invites foreigners into England Peter Martyr Bucer Fagius Alasco A reform of the Prayer-book demanded Hooper refuses to be consecrated to the See of Gloucester in the Episcopal vestments Beginning of the Ritualistic Controversy Re- vision ot the Prayer-book The new Prayer-book and the new Act of Uniformity General dislike to the new Prayer-book Doubtful whether it ever came into use Forty-two Articles The Church Catechism Death of the King Mary, the new Queen, strongly attached to the Old Learning Her character Decay of learning during her reign Gardiner her chief adviser Communion in One Kind restored by Act of Parlia- mentSeveral laws passed in the last reign repealed The Queen marries Philip of Spain The Queen determines to restore the Papal Supremacy Cardinal Pole arrives in England And re-establishes the Papal Supre- macy Development of the Marian persecution Latimer and Ridley, and some months afterwards Cranmer, burnt at Oxford Restoration of the Church lands by the Queen Pole Archbishop of Canterbury Holds visitations at the two Universities Death of the Queen And of Pole. 1547. Edward VI. a boy of nine years old, Henry's son by his third wife, Jane Seymour, succeeded to the throne. The young King is described as being of an amiable and gentle disposition; but, to judge from his behaviour to his two sisters, The Importation of Foreign Teaching, 6>v. 263 and the complacency with which he regarded the execution of his two uncles, we may well doubt the amiability of his temper. He was certainly a very precocious youth; he died, however, before he was sixteen years of age, so that it is evident that the changes which took place in his reign were owing rather to his guardians than to himself. Two worse guardians than the Protector Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland it is impossible for a young King to have had. By his father's will the young King was placed under a regency of sixteen Councillors, until the time that he should reach the age of eighteen years. Only two of these Councillors, Archbishop Cranmer and Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, were Bishops; the name of Gardiner is conspicuous by its absence. Wriothesley, the Lord Chancellor, was a strong anti-reformer. The will of the late King fell into the hands of the Earl of Hertford (soon to become Duke of Somerset), the young King's uncle, and was by him quickly set aside. The form of Govern- ment was turned into a protectorate under Somerset. Somerset was an ultra-Protestant but of Calvinistic, not Lutheran, views. The Bishop of Durham and the Lord Chancellor were soon excluded from the Council ; thus the Council was left without a check, and the ultra-reforming party was in the ascendant from the commencement of the reign. The conservative character which marked Henry's last years seems to indicate that he considered the Reformation had advanced far enough. The Protector Somerset, however, was determined to carry it to its furthest possible limits, and took care to surround the young King with advisers like-minded with himself. Somerset, in his zeal for Protestantism, set the example of wanton sacrilege, and under him the Reformation became deformation and spoliation. In the general scramble which followed the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. he had contrived to obtain the estates of three monasteries ; as Protector, he was enabled to appropriate five or six more: 264 The Importation of Foreign Teaching amongst these was the Abbey of Glastonbury, which he assigned as a woollen manufactory to French and Walloon refugees. He also secured for himself the revenues of a deanery, the treasurer- ship of a cathedral, and four of its best prebends. It could not be expected that such a man would be much shocked at the desecration of churches. At one time he had intended to pull down Westminster Abbey, in order to build on its site a palace for himself; and was only turned from his purpose by gifts of money. As it was, in order to make room for the splendid palace which he built in the Strand on the ground where now stands Somerset House, he destroyed the Parish Church of St. Mary-le-Strand ; in order to furnish apartments for his servants, the town-houses of three Bishops, those of Llandaff, Lichfield, and Worcester, were pulled down and their chapels desecrated. For his pleasure-gardens, the chapel and charnel- house in St. Paul's churchyard were levelled to the ground, five hundred tons of bones being carted away to serve as manure for the neighbouring fields. On the fall of Somerset, Dudley, Earl of Warwick (afterwards Duke of Northumberland), became the head of the Government and the King's guardian ; he was a man thoroughly devoid of Christian principle, and still more unscrupulous than Somerset. A man of unbounded avarice and ambition, he, like Somerset, heaped upon himself the spoils of churches and of chantries. He advocated reform in the direction of Protestantism, solely because it was popular ; but when he was brought to the scaffold, he died a Papist, and confessed that he had all along been a hypocrite, that he had only promoted the Reformation for his own interest, whilst all the time he was a Romanist. In the early years of Edward the parties within the Church were numerically the same as they had been in the reign of Henry, but with their differences more marked and more clearly defined. They may respectively be called the Anti-Reformers, the Reformers, and the Ultra-Reformers. The first party was represented by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, with whose into the Church of England. 265 opinions agreed the future Archbishop, Reginald Pole, who was at that time an exile on the Continent. This party wished to be independent of, but not antagonistic to, Rome, and would have been contented with the Reformation as Henry had left it, at any rate till Edward should come of age. Then there were the two parties into which the New Learning was broken up ; one under Cranmer, who soon after Henry's death drifted into a more Pro- testant position, and Ridley, who in the first year of the new "cia;n was appointed Bishop of Rochester, and in 1550 was trans- late to London. This party favoured a complete antagonism to Rome, and desired that the Church of England should be brought into closer doctrinal conformity with the reformed Churches of the Continent. The other, a more advanced section of the New Learning, was the anti-Ritualistic party, headed by Hugh Latimer, late Bishop of Worcester, and by Hooper, who in 1551 was ap- pointed to the Bishopric of Gloucester. Hooper had, under fear of the Six Articles of 1539, fled from the kingdom and sought a refuge in Switzerland, in which country he made the acquaintance of Bullinger and Calvin, and found the Calvinistic Churches more to his taste than the Lutheranism of Germany. He was a pious man, although of sour and repulsive temper; impulsive and firm to his principles. Returning from Switzerland, he wished to abolish all ritual from the Church of England and to reduce it to the level of Calvinistic bareness and simplicity ; he has been called, and, so far as the ritualistic controversy is concerned, rightly called, the Father of English Non-conformity. So that owing to him the contest about ritual, the forerunner of troubles ever since in the Church of England, commenced. In February, even before the King was crowned, the Bishops were required to take out new commissions for exercising their jurisdiction ; an intimation that they did not exercise their office as successors of the Apostles, and that they had no jurisdiction independent of the Crown. It is impossible to acquit Cranmer of his share in this Erastian arrangement ; in fact, he is said to 266 The Importation of Foreign Teaching have petitioned for the new licence ; that " his authority termin- ating with the late King's life, his present majesty would please to entrust him with the same jurisdiction." In the beginning of May a general Visitation of the country was ordered, and the Archbishop issued his mandate by virtue of a royal letter, suppressing all episcopal jurisdiction, and all preaching except by the Bishop in his Cathedral and clergymen in their Collegiate or Parish Churches. The whole kingdom was divided into six circuits, which were apportioned out between thirty visitors, most of whom were laymen, who were furnished with Injunctions prescribing the mode that was to be adopted in the performance of divine service. To each circuit a preacher was assigned, whose business it was to bring back people from superstition, and to dispose them for the intended alterations ; a book of twelve Homilies was drawn up (known as the Former Book of Homilies), but which was not sanctioned by Convocation, to be preached by the less learned of the clergy, who were unskilled in writing original sermons. Of these Injunctions the most important only need be mentioned. Injunction (i), The clergy were to preach four times a year against the pretended power of Rome, and in support of the King's supremacy. (3) Images which had been abused were to be taken down and no more wax candles were to be burnt before any image ; and only two lights on the High Altar were to remain to signify that " Christ is the Very Light of the world." (4) Every Sunday, when there was no sermon, the Paternoster, Creed, and the Ten Commandments were to be read from the Pulpit (7) Within three months an English Bible of the largest volume, and within twelve months Erasmus' Paraphrase of the Gospel, were to be placed conveniently for use in the churches. (9) No one was to be admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar before he could repeat in English the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. (21) During High Mass the Epistle and Gospel were to be read in English in addition to one Chapter of the New Testament at Matins, and into the Church of England. 267 one chapter of the Old Testament at Evensong after the Mag- nificat. (22) The Litany was to be distinctly said or sung in English before High Mass by the Priest and Choir in the midst of the church. All Shrines, Tables, Candlesticks, Paintings, and other monuments of feigned miracles, were to be taken away and destroyed. (24) The Holydays were to be spent in religious services, although work on those days was allowable during harvest. There was also a Bidding-Prayer, which in- cluded those departed in the Faith of Christ, Both the Homilies and the Paraphrase of Erasmus were ob- jected to by the anti-reforming party, more especially by Gardiner, who was in consequence, on September 25, committed to the Fleet prison. Bonner, although he himself probably composed one of the Homilies, was amongst the objectors, and he was also committed to the Fleet ; but relenting soon afterwards, was released; Gardiner remaining in prison some time longer. Parliament met on November 4, and was continued by pro- rogations during the whole reign. Convocation met on the following day. The clergy of the Lower House immediately complained to the Archbishop of the Statute of the Six Articles, that so long as it was unrepealed it was unsafe for them to express their opinions. An Act of Parliament was immediately passed re- pealing all penal laws against religion ; amongst them the Statute de ffceretico Comburendo, and that of the Six Ar- ticles. Convocation next passed a Canon nullo redamante for receiving the Communion in both kinds. In the same month (December) an Act of Parliament was passed to the same effect and ratified by the Crown ; Communion in both kinds being pronounced more agreeable to the first institution of the Sacrament, to the common use and practice of the Apostles, and of the Primitive Church for the space of five hundred years and more after Christ's Ascension. The Statute added that the restoration of the practice was not to be considered as condemning any other 268 The Importation of Foreign Teaching Church outside his majesty's dominions*. It was also declared to be more agreeable to apostolic and primitive use that the Priest should receive with the people than alone. The Lower House of Convocation in the same month, through their Prolocutor, the Dean of St. Paul's, presented four petitions to the Archbishop: (i) That the Committee appointed under the Statute made in the 35th year of Henry VIII. to review the Ecclesiastical Laws be revived; (2) That the clergy of the Lower House might agreeably to the Prcemunientes Clause in the Bishop's writ be admitted to sit in Parliament with the House of Commons according to ancient usage b . If this was denied them, they requested that no bills affecting the clergy or the Christian religion might be passed without the assent of the clergy. (3) That the work of the Bishops and others who had been appointed in the last reign to revise the Church services might be laid before Convocation. (4) That the payment of first-fruits might be moderated, and some allowance made to the clergy to defray their expenses in the first year of their appointments. The next Act of Parliament did away with the conge d'elire and the election by the Dean and Chapter, and enacted that for the future the Archbishoprics and Bishoprics should be conferred by the King's nomination in his Letters Patent. It also declared that " all jurisdiction, spiritual and temporal, is derived from the King's Majesty, as supreme head of these Churches." The Protector, under the pretence that Masses for the dead gave rise to superstition, advocated the destruction of such chantries, free chapels, and colleges as remained after Henry's spoliation. In this Somerset had a double purpose. First of all he wanted a share in the spoils himself; and then he wanted, The Eucharist was to be received in both kinds "except necessity other- wise requires;" i.e., probably, if through the suddenness of the illness wine could not be obtained. b The custom began to be discontinued about the time of Henry VI., and was by degrees entirely stopped. into the Church of England, 269 by conferring some of the property on the courtiers, to buy off their jealousy of the more than royal splendour that he meant to adopt. The money derived from this source was, under the Act of the last Parliament of Henry VIII., to be devoted to good purposes, such as alms-houses and grammar-schools ; whether it would have been so devoted by Henry admits of doubt. The Commons, however, saw through Somerset's device, and understood that such was not his intention. So did Cranmer, who strongly opposed it in Parliament ; even Bucer, in his honest indignation, exclaimed that " the Church-robbers, who held and spoilt Parish Churches, were the sinews of antichrist." But all was to no purpose. An Act of Parliament was passed on December 14, and the remaining chantries went the same way as the mon- asteries and the other chantries had gone before them. The destruction of the monasteries had brought loss and ruin to schools and the two Universities. Latimer complained that there were 10,000 fewer scholars in England than there had been twenty years before. All that was now done for education was to set aside a small sum for the endowment of the twenty- two grammar-schools, which are known under the name of Edward VI. 's Schools. 1548. The Injunctions of the previous year had ordered the removal of such images as had been abused ; but now, on February u, Somerset and the Council wrote to Cranmer or- dering the removal of all images, on the ground that "the Catholic Church did not, for many years, make use of such representations." In this year Cranmer's Catechism, "A Short Instruction to Christian Religion for the singular profit of children and of any people " (not to be confounded with our Church Catechism), was published. It contained an exposition of the Ten Command- ments, arranged after the Roman usage, and of three Sacraments, Baptism, the Eucharist, and Penance. The Canon which had recently been passed in Convocation, 270 The Importation of Foreign Teaching and the Act of Parliament, as to the reception of the Holy Eucharist in both Kinds, rendered a change in the Missal im- perative. The work of the Bishops of Ely and Salisbury, who had been appointed in the previous reign to revise the Mass books, Antiphoners, and Portuises (or Breviaries), had been for some time suspended, from a fear of the reactionary statute of the Six Articles. But now that that statute was repealed they were at liberty to continue their labours. They therefore (with others added to their number) recommenced their labours at Windsor in January, 1 548, " having respect to the pure religion Christ taught in the Scripture, and the practice of the primitive Church e ." There was no necessity to make a new Prayer-book, but only to compile out of the various uses one national Prayer-book. There were several uses in the Church services, such as those of Sarum, York, Hereford, Lincoln, and Bangor, the principal and most generally received being that of Sarum. The first office that passed under the review of the Committee was the Missal, and the first result was the publication of The Order of the Communion, which, whilst it retained the Latin Office, as far as the Communion of the Priest, gave the form of Communion for the people in English. The new book was issued with a Royal proclamation on March 8, with an order to the Bishops for its coming into use at Easter. The reform of the Breviary would naturally follow on that of the Missal. The committee continued their labours and finished their work on the Breviary in November. They then applied themselves anew to the Missal, and completed the translation of the whole into English; which was styled The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly called * The committee consisted of the two Archbishops Cranmer, of Canter- bury, and Holgate, of York ; the Bishops of London (Bonner), Durham (Tunstall), Worcester, Norwich, St. Asaph, Salisbury, Coventry and Lich- field, Carlisle, Bristol, St. David's, Ely, Lincoln, Chichester, Hereford, Westminster, Rochester (Ridley) j with several Doctors of Divinity. into the Church of England. 271 The Mass. Thus the First Prayer-book of King Edward VI. was completed. There can be little doubt, from what was the universal practice, that it was submitted to and approved by Convocation in the session which began on November 24, being a part of the work contributed to the Committee origin- ally appointed in 1542, and which had already drawn up the Order of Holy Communion. Unfortunately the Journals of Convocation relating to this period were destroyed in the great fire of London. On December 19, the Book was laid before the House of Commons, and on the following day before the House of Lords. 1549. On January 15 the Prayer-book, although opposed by eight Bishops of the Old Learning, passed the House of Lords, and on January 21, or seven days before the termination of the second year of King Edward's reign, the House of Commons. It was ordered by the Act of Uniformity to be taken into use on Whitsun Day, June 9 ; on that day, therefore, it came into general use. It was, however, published on March 7, and many of the clergy made use of it as soon as they could obtain copies, before the day prescribed by the Act. In the same year a Commission was issued to six Bishops to draw up an Ordinal. In the preamble of the Act of Uniformity the Book of Common Prayer is pronounced to have been composed by the aid of the Holy Ghost. It is not without meaning that it is styled "The Book of Common Prayer." In this respect the Prayer-book of the Church of England is unique, and this is one benefit which the Reformation has given us. Some parts of the Church Services must necessarily be performed by the clergyman alone; but Common Prayer obviously means that with the exception of those parts all is to be done in common by Priest and people ; there is to be no counting of beads on the part of the people, no mumbling of the prayers by the Priest, but all is to be said in a clear and audible voice, so as to be understood by the poorest and more ignorant of the Congregation. 272 The Importation of Foreign Teaching The principal differences between the new Prayer-book and the Sarura use were : The compression of the Seven Hours, which were better adapted for monastic than parochial use, into the daily Matins and Evensong; the restoration of the Cup in the Holy Communion ; the reading of the whole Psalter through in order, instead of a few Psalms being read daily and the rest omitted; the selection of the Lessons from the Bible only; the substitution of the English for the Latin language. But in substance the new book was identical with the older books, the Communion Office being an adaptation of the Missal or Mass ; and our Matins and Evensong of the Breviary. Cran- mer, who was at this time by no means attached to the highest party in the Church, declared that it was the same which had been used in the Church for fifteen hundred years. Cranmer meant that it is a translation from Latin and Greek Rituals which had been for that length of time in use in the Catholic Church; and if here and there some part cannot be traced back to ancient offices, it is traceable to the reformed Breviary of the Roman Church drawn up by Quignon, Cardinal of Santa Croce in Jerusalem, under the sanction of Pope Clement VII. A considerable portion of the Preface concerning the Service of the Church is a translation of a passage in Quignon 's Breviary. The marriage of the clergy, though it had met with the approval of both Houses of Convocation, met with strenuous opposition from Parliament. A Bill permitting the ordination of married men had been thrown out by the House of Lords in 1547 ; but on February 19, 1549, an Act was passed allowing the marriage of the clergy ; but an opinion was expressed in the preamble that " it were better for priests and other ministers of the Church to live chaste and without marriage, whereby they might attend better to the ministry of the Gospel and be less distracted with secular cares." A second Visitation of the country was ordered in the autumn of this year, with the view of seeing that the new Prayer-book was propeily observed, and of enforcing uniformity. The instructions into the Church of England. 273 supplied to the visitors especially direct that no minister should counterfeit the Popish Mass. Amongst the matters objected to are : the Priest's kissing the Lord's Table ; washing his fingers during the Communion Service ; crossing his head with the paten ; shifting the book from one side to the other ; breathing upon the bread or chalice ; showing the Sacrament openly before the distribution ; ringing or sacrying of bells ; setting any light upon the Lord's Board at any time ; or using any ceremonies that are not prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. No person might maintain the doctrines of Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, images, relics, lights, holy bells, holy beads, holy water, palms, ashes, candles, sepulchres, creeping to the Cross, oils, chrisms, altars, beads, or any such abuses or superstitions. There was to be no more than one Communion in the same church on the same day, except on Christmas Day and Easter Day. An order in Council was issued on December 25, ordering that all the old service-books should be destroyed. 1550. Agreeably to an Act of Parliament passed on January 31, a committee of " six prelates and six other men learned in the law" was appointed to draw up a form " for making Archbishopsj Bishops, Priests, and other ministers." In February, "The Form and Manner of Making and Consecrating of Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons," was signed by eleven out of the twelve Commissioners, Heath, Bishop of Worcester d alone refusing to sign it, and being in consequence committed to the Fleet prison. Bonner, Bishop of London, and Gardiner, of Winchester, were this year committed, the former to the Marshalsea and the latter to the Tower, for preaching sermons less favourable to the new order of things than the Council expected, and were deprived. Bonner was succeeded the same year by Nicolas Ridley, trans- lated from Rochester, and Gardiner in 1551 by John Poynet, a man of considerable ability, but of notoriously immoral character, who had succeeded Ridley at Rochester. d Appointed Archbishop of York IS55 T 274 The Importation of Foreign Teaching A pleasant trait in Ridley's character was his kindness and courtesy during Bonner's imprisonment to Bonner's mother and sister, who continued to reside at Ridley's palace at Fulham, the place of honour being always assigned to " our mother" Bonner. But Ridley, during a sojourn of three years on the Continent, had 'become thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of Zwingle and the foreign reformers. Soon after the death of King Henry, some of the London clergy, without any authority except their own, had set about mutilating the churches and destroying the images ; on February 10, 1547, the curate and churchwardens of St. Martin's, Ironmonger-lane, were charged before the Privy Council with pulling down images and setting up the Royal Arms in place of the Altar Cross. Before he was appointed to the See of Rochester, when he was one of Cranmer's chaplains, Ridley had given encouragement to the practice by a dangerous sermon which he preached at St. Paul's Cross, advocating the demolition of images. In both his dioceses, he, without the least shadow of legality, before the order for their removal had been issued by Government, ordered the Altars to be removed, and that the Eucharist should be adminis- tered in the middle of the churches at tables which the Romanists designated Oyster Boards. On November 19 an Order in Council was issued for the entire removal of Altars in churches, and setting up tables in some convenient part of the chancel instead ; and letters were sent to every Bishop, and one to Ridley in particular, to that effect It might now have been expected that sufficient concessions had been made, and that even the ultra-reforming party would have been contented with the work of the Reformation. The Prayer-book was favourably received by the clergy and by the moderate men both of the Old and New Learning, and the removal of the images and Altars ought to have satisfied the most extreme reformers. But the Reformation was developing itself during the minority of the young King in a manner which Henry had never contemplated; and under the Protector Somerset into the. Church of England. 275 Zwinglo-Calvinism gained an ascendency in the country. The Prayer-book of King Edward VI. had been drawn up without any foreign interference. Calvin had in 1545 published at Geneva a Prayer-book of his own, and he was so hostile to the English Prayer-book that he tried to turn the minds of Cranmer and the Protector against it and in favour of his own views. After Henry's death, the Archbishop, who had been tossed about be- tween Romanism, and Lutheranism, and Erastianism, settled down in a more Protestant position ; it was charged against him, and the charge created much scandal : " the Archbishop did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England became a Christian nation." His endeavour now was to make England the head of the reformed Churches, whether Lutheran or Calvinist ; and that, not by levelling the latter upwards, but by bringing the Church of England down to their level. He had, it is true, acquiesced in the Prayer-book of 1549 ; but it was probably only lest the public should be alarmed at too sudden a change, and he was only biding his time to introduce another Prayer-book. At the invitation of Cranmer, a number of distinguished for- eigners were now settled in the country. Cranmer did not limit himself to one nation or one school of thought. Italy, Switzer- land, and Germany were all put under contribution. There came to England Peter Martyr, and Bucer, and Fagius, and Alasco the Pole, They agreed in nothing amongst themselves except hatred of the English Prayer-book, with which, as they did not understand English, they were only acquainted through imperfect Latin translations. Bucer and Fagius were appointed to Theological Lectureships at Cambridge, Peter Martyr to the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford. To Alasco was made by Bishop Ridley the grant of the Grey Friars Church, and to his spiritual care were entrusted all the foreign Protestant communities in London. A small but noisy body of English agitators, who objected that the Prayer-book was nothing but the Mass and Breviary in 276 The Importation of Foreign Teaching English, looked to these men to join the ultra-reforming Bishops in revolutionizing the Church of England. The Protector Somerset's rule was quickly hastening to its close, and in the autumn of 1549 he was deprived of his office, and was committed to the Tower, although he managed for a time to regain his liberty by the forfeiture of his goods, and the payment of an annual fine. The King's new guardian, the Duke of Northumberland, found that it was to his interest to favour the Ultra-reformers. Several leading Bishops of the Church party, Gardiner, Tunstall, Heath, and Day of Chichester, as well as Bonner, were in prison. Cranmer was too cautious to suit Northumberland, and for a time retired from his busy life. Thus Hooper had the opportunity of instilling his principles into the Court, his dislike to the Prayer-book, but particularly to the prescribed ornaments and vestments of the Church. The young King (and there is reason to believe that Cranmer after a time joined him) was led by these influences towards a further revision of the Prayer-book. The question of a revision was however in this year defeated in both Houses of Convoca- tion, and there was a wide-spread feeling against further changes. But the ultra-reformers were very violent. Calvin wrote to Cranmer complaining of the corruptions of the Prayer-book. The King is said to have threatened to have it altered on his own authority ; and it was probably fear of such a danger that induced Convocation to delegate its authority to a Royal Com- mission. It was composed chiefly of members of their own body; but there are no records to show for certain in what manner and by whom the revision was made. The revision commenced in the autumn of 1550. 1551. In July, 1550, Hooper had been nominated to the See of Gloucester. He however refused to accept the Bishopric if he should be obliged to wear the episcopal robes, the livery, as he called them, of " the harlot of Babylon," at his consecration. In vain his foreign friends Bucer and Peter Martyr, violent opponents as they were of vestments, even of the surplice ; in into the Church of England. 277 vain Cranmer and Ridley tried to overcome his scruples. Pres- sure was brought upon Cranmer to perform the consecration without the vestments. Cranmer, however, remained firm, and on January 27, 1551, Hooper was committed to the Fleet prison. After a time he relented, and was on March 8 consecrated in the episcopal robes Bishop of Gloucester. From that day the unhappy anti-ritualistic controversy commenced, which was destined to overwhelm Church and State in a common ruin. 1552. Somerset was beheaded in January, on Tower Hill, on a charge of felony. Parliament met on January 22, Convocation meeting as usual on the following day. The Second Act of Uniformity, with a new Prayer-book attached to it, passed both Houses of Parliament on April 6, and the new Prayer-book was ordered to come into use on November i (All Saints' Day). There is no proof that this Second Prayer-book of Edward VI. ever received the sanction of Convocation ; it seems to have been imposed only by State authority. The length of time before it was to come into use is one indication of the apathy with which it was from the first generally regarded. The Act of Uniformity speaks as if Parliament was half ashamed of it. It says that the First Prayer-book was "a godly order agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church." Of the Second Prayer-book it says that it was rendered necessary because " divers doubts and disputes have arisen as to the way in which the (former) book was to be used . . . rather by the curiosity of the minister and mistaken than from any worthy cause." Even Cranmer himself, weak and pliant as he was in the hands of the foreign reformers, complained of the unquiet spirits which de- manded the revision of the First Prayer-book ; " which can like nothing but that is after their own fancy. If such men should be heard, although the book was made every year anew, yet it should not lack faults in their opinion." Three editions of the new Prayer-book were made, but all in so unsatisfactory a manner, that further publications were stopped by an Order in Council on September 27. Its suppression was 278 The Importation of Foreign Teaching probably due to the general dislike with which it was regarded both by the Clergy and laity. There is no evidence to show that it ever came into use. Edward VI. died in the following year : and both the Acts of Uniformity were repealed by i Mary II. 2. 1553. This year saw the publication of Forty-two Articles of Religion. The existence of parties, those of the Old and New Learning, holding different views in the Church of England ; the extravagant doctrines advocated by the advanced section of the latter, carried, as they were, still further by the violence of the Anabaptists and other sectaries ; at the time when the Council of Trent was sitting and drawing up canons for the Roman Catholic Church, rendered some authorized confession of faith on the part of the Church of England necessary. Cranmer still perse- vered in the hope, which he held in common with Melanchthon, of uniting the foreign Protestants and the Church of England in one Protestant league under the King of England. In pursuance of an Order in Council, issued in 1551, he, taking the Lutheran documents, and especially the Augsburg Confession, as his model ; after having probably consulted his friend Ridley, drew up in 1552 Forty-two Articles, and submitted them to certain Bishops and other divines for their approval. They were after- wards, on November 24, sent to the Council, who kept them in their hands till March, 1553, when, having been ratified by the King, they were returned to the Archbishop. There is no absolute proof that they received the sanction of Convocation ; it is however probable, or almost certain, that they did, for Convocation was in session from March 19 to April i. On May 20, pursuant to an Order in Council, they were taken into circulation. It is probable that in this year the first part of our Church Catechism, of which Poynet, Bishop of Winchester, is supposed to have been the author, was published, with the sanction of Convocation. Edward VI. died on July 6, 1553. With respect to Edward it may be said that the Church was into the Church of England. 279 felix opportunitate mortis. That nothing worse happened than did happen, the Church is indebted not to the life but to the death of Edward. Had he lived much longer, there is little doubt but that a third Prayer-book would have been issued, by which the Church of England would have been dragged down to the level of Zurich and Geneva, and entirely cut off from the Catholic Church. The reign of Mary, accompanied though it was with a temporary disaster, afforded a breathing-time to the Church, during which it had the opportunity of taking stock as to the past and realising its position for the future. The greatest enemies of the Reformation were the Reformers themselves ; the greatest enemies to the Church of Rome were the Romanists in the reign of Mary. During the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., owing to the rapacity of the former, and the extravagant teaching advocated in the reign of the latter, no great national zeal had been shown in the cause of the Reformation. The people taught by the New Learning fully understood how that the Papal usurpation had been the cause of great abuses in England ; but they preferred to risk the return of Romanism rather than endure the irreligion and lawlessness, the rapacity of Somerset and the hypocrisy of Northumberland, which had characterised the reign of the Protestant King, Edward VI. This is sufficient to explain the readiness with which the nation returned to the Roman Catholic religion in the reign of Mary. Edward thought that he, a boy sixteen years of age, had the right and power to arrange the succession to the throne. Shortly before his death he, in his anti-Roman zeal, drew up a document debarring his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the throne, on the ground of their illegitimacy, and setting the crown on Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant. On July 10, Lady Jane was proclaimed Queen. On July 1 6, Bishop Ridley, in a sermon preached at St. Paul's Cross, branded both Mary and her sister as bastards. Notwithstanding this temporary ebullition of Protestantism, 280 The Importation of Foreign Teaching Mary was on July 20 proclaimed Queen, with demonstrations of the greatest joy. Mary's life had been one of great hardship. Cranmer, the Archbishop, had passed the sentence of divorce upon her mother; had pronounced herself to be illegitimate ; and had joined the plot against her succession. She was strongly attached to the religion of the Old Learning ; yet Edward and the Privy Council tried to force her religion. The religion of the New Learning she associated with her mother's wrongs. It could not be ex- pected, therefore, that she would entertain any very kindly feelings towards the Reformation. Yet she was ready to ac- quiesce in it so far as it had advanced in the reign of her father. The anti-papal frenzy of her brother's reign she thoroughly abhorred. She loved Spain, her mother's country, and hated England and everything English, and England in return hated her. So that when she came to the throne there were but few whom she could call her friends in England. There is no reason for supposing that Mary was naturally of a cruel disposition, her character indeed compares not un- favourably with that of the other Tudor sovereigns. If she became cruel, whilst much of the cruelty of her reign was due to her Spanish husband, much must also be attributed to the cruel treatment she had received. We talk about the "bloody Queen Mary" and the leniency of Elizabeth. It is from no desire to minimise the cruelties of Mary, (but at the same time injustice must not be done to her,) that justice compels the asser- tion, that in the matter of religious persecution the reigns of her father and brother who preceded, and of her sister who followed her, were much on a par with her reign. Clarendon states that under Henry more people were put to death than under Mary. In Mary's reign, which lasted five years and four months, there were 277 burnings; Elizabeth's reign lasted forty-five years, during which there were 4,000 religious executions, the proportion of political plots under each of them being about equal. into the Church of England. 281 During the reign of Mary, there was a general decay of learning in England, the only set-off against this being the foundation at Oxford of Trinity College in 1554, and of St. John's in 1555, and the refoundation of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge in 1558. In the first days of her reign the imprisoned Bishops were restored to their Sees and the reforming Bishops committed to the Tower. On August 12 the Queen made a declaration in Council that, although her own conscience was stayed in the matters of religion, yet she was resolved " not to compel or strain others, otherwise than as God should put in their hearts a persuasion of the truth." On August 23, Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, became Lord Chancellor and the Queen's chief adviser. Gardiner, more than any leading man, represented the dominant feeling of the country. He had always held firmly to the doctrines of Rome ; but he was in favour of a moderative reformation, although opposed to the destructive element of Edward's reign. So long as the Queen remained under his guidance, she was contented that matters should remain as they were left at Henry's death, and showed no disposition to restore the Papal Supremacy. On September 13 Latimer was consigned to the Tower as a seditious preacher, where on the next day he was joined by Cranmer, and on October 4 by Holgate, Archbishop of York. Parliament met on October 5, and was opened with High Mass in Latin. Convocation met the next day. In the second session of Parliament, which commenced on October 24, an Act was passed annulling the divorce of Henry VIII. and Katharine. In the preamble it is stated that "Thomas Cranmer did most ungodly, and against law, judge the divorce upon his own unad- vised understanding of the Scriptures .... which they con- sidering, together with the many miseries which had fallen on the kingdom since that time, which they did esteem plagues sent from God for it ; therefore they declare the sentence given by Cranmer to be unlawful and of no force from the beginning." 282 The Importation of Foreign Teaching In Convocation. Bonner being President, and Dr. Weston having been chosen Prolocutor, it was resolved to restore Communion in one kind and the Elevation of the Host. The Book of Common Prayer and the Forty-two Articles were condemned, and a return to the use of Sarum advocated. Another Act of Parliament repealed the Acts of Uniformity, the marriage of the clergy, and the laws respecting religion, passed in the last reign, and restored the services of the Church as they existed in the last year of Henry VIII. 1554. On March 8, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were removed from the Tower to Oxford, and imprisoned in the common gaol called Bocardo. There was a wide-spread wish that the Queen should marry Reginald Pole, an Englishman of Royal descent, who although a Cardinal was not yet in Priest's Orders. On July 25, in oppo- sition to the wishes of Gardiner, she married Philip, Prince of Spain, son of her cousin, the Emperor Charles, she being thirty- eight and he only twenty-seven years of age, and twice a widower. From that time Gardiner's influence was at an end ; Philip and Mary both resolved to subject England once more to the Pope ; the government of the country was practically in the hands of Philip, the embodiment of bigotry and crueltry ; and the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition towards heretics were the consequence. On November 24, Reginald Pole, who, as stated above, was only a Cardinal deacon, and who had been living in exile for twenty years, arrived in England. In order to prepare the way for the Papal Supremacy, Pole threw out a bribe to the great men of the kingdom that the Pope would confirm them in their possession of the abbey and chantry lands. This was a con- vincing argument, and had no doubt much weight. On Novem- ber 30, St. Andrew's Day, Pole, acting as the Pope's legate a latere, at the request of both Houses of Parliament and of Convocation, the King and Queen and the leading people in the kingdom kneeling humbly before him in Whitehall, absolved England "from all heresy and schism, and from any judgment, censure, into the Church of England. 283 and pain," and restored " the prodigal Son " to " the unity of our mother, the Holy Church." By an Act of Parliament passed in December, the Papal Supremacy was once more established in England, and the title of Supreme Head of the Church was taken from the Sovereign. 1555. The laws which had been passed in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. against heresy having been revived in the pre- vious year, many Bishops and clergymen and laymen fled from the country. The Marian persecution now rapidly developed itself. Yet the work did not proceed quickly enough to suit the King and Queen. On May 24 a Royal circular signed by Philip and Mary was issued, complaining of the Bishops not using greater strictness in the extirpation of heresy. Even Bonner must have been included in this notice. To Bonner more than any one other person the odium of the cruelties of this reign attaches. In his diocese no fewer than one hundred and twenty- eight persons suffered for heresy ; at the Guildhall Sessions for the trial of heretics he is said to have assailed the Recorder and jury with oaths and curses, exhorting them to spare none. Yet even he, coarse in manner and cruel in disposition as he was, seems to have revolted from the disgusting task. The proto-martyr of the Marian persecution was Rogers, a Pre- bendary of St. Paul's, the supposed author of Matthew's Bible, who was burnt at Smithfield on February 4. On February 9 Hooper, B,ishop of Gloucester, was burnt in his cathedral city. On March 30 Farrar, Bishop of St. David's, was burnt at Car- marthen. After remaining in prison at Oxford for a year and a half, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were brought to their trial, Cran- mer on September 12 in St. Mary's Church before Brookes, who had succeeded Hooper as Bishop of Gloucester 6 , acting under a commission from the Pope ; and Ridley and Latimer on Sep. tember 30 in the Divinity School. Cranmer being an Arch- 8 Brookes was himself deprived under Elizabeth and died in prison. 284 The Importation of Foreign Teaching bishop, it was necessary that the report of the proceedings against him should be sent to Rome, and his fate was delayed till the Pope's decision should arrive in England. Ridley and Latimer were condemned as heretics, and having been first degraded, were on October 16 burnt in Canditch opposite Balliol College. Old Latimer's words when brought to the stake have become household words, "Play the man, Master Ridley. We shall to-day light such a fire in England as I trust shall never be put out." In November the Queen declared to the House of Commons her intention to restore the Church-lands which were held by the Crown. She could not, she said, with a good conscience receive the tenths and first-fruits of ecclesiastical benefices. A bill was accordingly on the 23rd instant brought into the House of Com- mons to enable her to surrender the first-fruits and tenths to the Church, to be disposed by the legate for the relief of the clergy. The bill was strongly opposed in the Commons, and only passed that House by 193 to 126 votes, having, however, an easy passage through the House of Lords. In the same month Gardiner died. Gardiner has never had justice done to him, nor received the credit which he deserves. He is often classed with Bonner ; no two men were more unlike. Gardiner was not averse to the burning of a heretic ; few people in those days were ; least of all the Protestant champion, Cran- mer. Gardiner had himself been persecuted and cast into prison ; but how did he behave when restored to power? His bitterest enemy was the Duke of Northumberland ; yet when the Duke was a prisoner in the Tower he visited him and pleaded for his life. No one opposed him more than did Peter Martyr; yet when Martyr was in trouble for his doctrines, Gardiner, who was Lord Chancellor, pleaded for him, and supplied him with the means of departing from the country. Cranmer, a comparatively unknown man, was appointed over his head to the Primacy; through Cranmer's influence he had been committed, on most frivolous charges, to prison ; yet to him, on one occasion, Cran- into the Church of England. 285 mer owed his liberty, and to the end of his life Gardiner did all in his power to save him. Bonner, so long as his patron Crumwell lived, followed him with the meanest flattery, favoured the Reformers, and set up in St. Paul's Cathedral no fewer than six Bibles. He declared that the Pope exercised in England "an atrocious and bitter tyranny, and while he was called a servant of servants, was but a rapacious wolf in the clothes of a sheep." On the fall of Crumwell he showed towards the latter the deepest ingratitude, and from that time turned Romanist and a bitter persecutor. 1556. The sentence against Cranmer arrived from Rome. He was condemned to death. Cranmer appealed from the Pope to a General Council. That was of no avail. Being deprived of all his orders and dignities he was handed over to the secular arm. He tried to save his life by making, in all, seven recantations. At last, finding there was no hope, he repented of his weakness, and on March 21, holding over the flames his right hand, which had signed the documents of recantation, he was burnt on the same spot where Ridley and Latimer had suffered before him. Cardinal Pole, who had been on March 20 ordained a Priest of the Church of England, in the Grey Friars in Greenwich, was on March 22 consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in the same church by Nicolas Heath, Archbishop of York, Bishop Bonner of London, and five other Bishops. In the previous year he had succeeded Gardiner as Chancellor of Cambridge, and in 1556 he was appointed Chancellor of Oxford University, where he had formerly been educated at Magdalen College. He held visita- tions at both Universities. In that of Oxford in this year he ordered the body of the wife of Peter Martyr, who had once been a nun, to be disinterred from Christ Church Cathedral and to be cast out upon a dunghill. 1557. During Pole's visitation of Cambridge in this year, the remains of Bucer and Fagius were exhumed and burnt 1558. Pole only enjoyed his latest honour of the See of Can- terbury for a short time, dying on November 18. The Queen, 286 The Importation of Foreign Teaching, &f. worn out with trouble; neglected by her husband, whom she dearly loved; overwhelmed with grief at the loss of Calais; knowing that she was hated by her subjects ; involved in a quarrel with the Pope, who was the bitter enemy of Spain, her husband's country ; feeling that the Roman Creed in England would die out with her died only a few hours before Pole, on November 17. Pole had not an easy part to play in England. Although a firm upholder of the Pope's supremacy, he was somewhat in- clined to Protestantism in doctrine. At the Pope's request he had refused to succeed Gardiner as Lord Chancellor, and his divided allegiance incurred for him the suspicion of the Privy Council, and rendered him unpopular in England. At the same time he was too much of an Englishman to be acceptable to the Pope. He was an object of dislike to the new Pope, Paul IV. ( X 555 1 559)> against whom he was put in opposition by Mary for the Papacy, and by whom he was accused of Lutheran ten- dencies. The Pope threatened to revoke his legatine com- mission, and summoned him to appear to answer to a charge of heresy before the Inquisition. The Queen, however, who had a will as strong as her father's, would not allow him to go to Rome, and he was continued in his legatine office. The Roman Catholic reaction under Mary gained at one time a firm footing in the country. Had she continued to follow Gar- diner's advice, and had a moderate instead of a rash and cruel policy been pursued ; had she abstained from persecution ; had she listened to wiser counsellors than the Pope and the numerous Spaniards who held office in the Court, it is probable that the work of the Reformation would have been undone, a lasting impression have been made, and the Church of England of the future have continued as Henry had left it. But just when Eng- land was being recovered to Rome the fires of Smithfield broke out, and so England was lost to Rome for ever. CHAPTER XIII. THE RISE OF PURITANISM IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 15581603. DOUBTS as to Elizabeth's religious views Return of exiles from the Continent Bring back a fondness for Calvinistic doctrine and Presbyterian disci- plineThe Elizabethan Bishops Review of the Prayer-book determined upon Insulting message from the Pope The Queen crowned by Ogle- thorpe, Bishop of Carlisle Tenths and First-fruits reclaimed for the Crown The Supremacy Act Theological conference between Romanists and Reformers The Queen wished the First Prayer-book of Edward VI. to be adopted as the basis of the new Prayer-book The Second Book, . however, adopted The Queen consents on condition that the Ornaments prescribed in the First Book should be restored The Act of Uniformity The Bishops deprived all except one, arid 189 clergy deprived John Jewel The Elizabethan Injunctions Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury- -The Nag's Head Fable Other Bishops consecrated The Pope offers to sanction the new Prayer-book Jewel's challenge to the Church of Rome Jewel's Apology of the Church of England The Queen takes Other Order The XXXIX. Articles The Second Book of Homilies End of the Council of Trent Dislike of the returned exiles, both Bishops and Clergy, to Church ceremonial Indecent manner of performing the services Book of Articles The Advertisements Their object Never authorized The Puritans Their influence at both Uni- versities Thomas Cartwright The Geneva Bible The Bishops' Bible Seminaries The oath taken by the Seminarists The Pope excommuni- cates Elizabeth Opposition of Roman Catholics to the Pope Severe Acts passed against Rome Cartwright becomes the leader of the Puritans Whitgift Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge The Orders of Wandsworth Death of Archbishop Parker Grindall, Archbishop of York, appointed to succeed him Increase of Puritanism under him He opposes the Queen Suspended First mission of Seminarists under Persons and Campion sent to England- Severe laws against the Romanists Whit- gift Archbishop of Canterbury The Brownists Emmanuel College, Cambridge, founded in the interest of the Puritans Richard Hooker Hooker and Travers The Spanish Armada Martin Marprelate Tracts Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity The Lambeth Articles Death of the Queen Character of Elizabeth. 1558. ELIZABETH, daughter of Henry VIII. by his second wife, Anne Boleyn, succeeded her sister as Queen. She was twenty-five years of age, and her long reign extended from 288 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. 1558 1603. The fortunes of the Church of England were now in the hands of Elizabeth, either to make or to mar, and her conduct was greatly influenced by that of the Pope. What direction her religion would take; whether she would follow her ultra-Protestant brother or her Romanist sister, under both of whom she had conformed, or would pursue a middle course, she was in no hurry to make known. St. Paul's Cross, the usual oracle of the day, was dumb. Little could be gathered from her own practice. In her chapel the same ornaments were retained as had been in use under Mary. There was a Crucifix and lighted tapers on the Altar; she held the doctrine of the Real Presence, and she acknowledged that she did "now and then pray to the Virgin*." But then, on the other hand, she forbade a Bishop, Oglethorpe of Carlisle, to Elevate the Host; and she was opposed to the marriage of the clergy. It was easier to pronounce what the faith of the Queen was not, rather than what it was. It certainly was not Zwinglian nor Calvinistic. And she was bent on uniformity. There was one article in her faith in which she was positive enough, and that was her own supremacy. So that it might be conjectured she would have liked the Reformation to remain as it was at her father's death, with England freed from the supremacy of the Pope ; and no doubt with the Services in English, and the First Prayer-book of Edward VI. But supposing the Reformation must proceed further, which party would she favour ? There still existed numerically the same parties which ex- isted before, but with their differences more accentuated, in the country. There were the Romanists, who thought that the Reformation under Edward had proceeded too far. There were the Anglicans, who, on the whole, were contented to leave the Reformation as it was. And those who, for want of a better name, we will call the Protestants, who were soon to develop into Puritans. These parties the politic Queen would have reconciled, if she Strype's Annals. The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. 289 could. She was soon obliged to abandon all hope of satisfying the first. She then tried to conciliate the two other parties. Unfortunately, at the very commencement of her reign, the Protestant party was reinforced by the return of the exiles, who during the Marian persecution had taken refuge in Strasburg, Frankfort, Basle, Zurich, and Gerieva, to reconcile whom to the Church of England was impossible. From the Lutherans on the Continent these refugees had found but little sympathy. Although the Lutherans were glad that they had thrown off the yoke of Rome, they would "be satisfied with nothing short of their assuming the Lutheran yoke instead. But to these exiles the Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation was only one degree less objectionable than the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation. They therefore threw themselves into the arms of Calvin and his followers ; they returned home with all their affections centred on the countries which had showed them hospitality, with no love for England, and still less for the Church of England, with a deep-rooted preference, many of them for doctrinal Calvinism, most of them for Presbyterian discipline. Agreeing amongst themselves only in hatred of episcopacy; objecting to forms of prayer and to all outward ceremonial ; they watered the seed which Hooper had sown, and which was soon to bring forth an abundant harvest. It was this heterogeneous mass, with which she had nothing in common, that the Queen set about the impossible task of pleasing.- The Bishops whom she appointed mostly belonged to this party. They made war upon the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England; they ordained, often perhaps because they could find no better, the lowest of the people ; anyhow the old Catholic ministry died out, and made room for an unlearned set of Calvinistic clergy. The outcome was Puritanism : the fertile cause for the next hundred years of calamities in Church and State. The Queen failed to see that what began in hatred to the Church would develope into hatred of the crown. At an early u 290 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. period in her reign the Puritans formed a majority in the House of Commons ; by her tact and discipline they were kept tolerably under control, so long as she lived ; under her successor they went on, however, increasing in numbers and influence ; yet one reign more, and they were strong enough to overwhelm Church and Throne in a common ruin, to murder the Archbishop and the King, and to make the use of the Prayer-book penible. The Queen acted in a cautious and conciliatory manner. Her State Council consisted both of Romanists and Reformers ; she retained eleven of Mary's counsellors, to whom she added eight favourable to the Reformation, and she took as her principal advisers Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, and Sir Nicolas Bacon, who was made Lord Keeper. In order to prevent discontent, and to sink as much as possible the discordant elements in the country, a committee of divines was appointed to make a revision of the Book of Common Prayer to be presented to Parliament on its meeting. It consisted of Parker, late Dean of Lincoln, who had been Chaplain to Anne Boleyn ; Bill, late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge ; May, late Dean of St. Paul's ; Cox, late Dean of Westminster ; Grindall, Whitehead, Pilkington ; with Sir Thomas Smith, a Doctor of Civil Law, as chairman. Later on Dr. Gheast was added to the com- mittee. The committee began their work in December. A proclamation was put forth on December 28 prohibiting preaching without a special license until Parliament should meet ; but liberty was given to read the Epistles and Gospels in English, so long as it was done without preaching, as well as the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Litany. The rest of the Church service was to be according to the rubric of the Missal and Breviary. According to the usual custom at the accession of a sovereign, messages had been sent to the various Courts of Europe to an- nounce the Queen's accession. She opened communication with the Pope, Paul IV. (1555 1559), through Sir Edward Carne, the English Ambassador at Rome, for her recognition by the Papal See. The Rise of Puritanism in tJie Church of England. 291 The future of the Church of England depended in a great measure on the Pope's action. To acknowledge Elizabeth as Queen was to acknowledge the lawfulness of the marriage of her mother, Anne Boleyn, and to cancel Rome's solemn judgment in Katharine's favour. That the Pope would go so far as that it "was unreasonable to expect. But he went out of his way to make himself coarse and offensive. He refused to acknowledge her title on the ground that she was illegitimate, and therefore de- barred from inheriting the throne ; that her accession to the throne of England, which was a fief of the Holy See, without his sanction was an act of impertinence. Perhaps he was ignorant of the fact that the throne of England was not hereditary, but elective ; that the monarch reigned by the will of the people ; so that his answer was not only offensive to the Queen, but an inter- ference with the constitution of England. The Queen took no present notice of the Pope's conduct beyond the withdrawal of her Ambassador from Rome. Philip, King of Spain, the widower of her sister Mary, answered the Queen's communication to his court by an offer of marriage, undertaking to procure a dispensation from Rome to allow it. She took some time to consider the matter; but after the insolent conduct of the Pope, she had no alternative but to refuse an alliance which it would require the favour of the Pope to sanction. Thenceforward the King of Spain was the Queen's bitter enemy. 1559. Elizabeth was crowned in Westminster Abbey on January 15. The See of Canterbury being vacant, the first in rank amongst the Prelates was Heath, Archbishop of York ; but he wao in favour of the religion established under Mary. The Bishop of London would come next in order ; but Bonncr was offensive to her ; it is said that when the Bishops met her on her way from Hatfield to London and kissed hands, she turned away from Bonner in disgust. There was a great dearth amongst the Bishops. During the last days of Mary's and the early days of Elizabeth's reign no fewer than eleven Bishops 29 2 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. had died of the quartan ague, which was then prevalent in the country. Whether the remaining Bishops were present or not at the coronation is doubtful. At any rate the service was performed by Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, who officiated in the gorgeous robes which he had borrowed from Bonner for the occasion. The service was performed by way of com- promise, with a mixture of the old and new rituals, the Litany being read in English, and the Gospel and Epistle the one in Latin and the other in English. Parliament met on January 25, Convocation being opened with High Mass on the following day. A bill was at once introduced into Parliament to annul the statute of Philip and Mary, and to restore to the Crown the tenths and first-fruits which Mary had given to the Church. In vain the Bishops opposed the bill; it was unanimously voted by the temporal peers and easily passed the House of Commons. On April 29 was passed, "An Act for restoring to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over the State, ecclesiastical and spirit- ual, and abolishing all foreign powers repugnant to the same " The Queen refused to take the title of Supreme Head, and would only accept that of Supreme Governor. The sense in which she claimed the title was afterwards explained in an Admonition in the Elizabethan Injunctions: "Her Majesty neither doth, nor ever will, challenge any authority otherwise than was challenged and lately used by the noble Kings of famous memory, Henry VIII. and Edward VI., which is and was of ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this realm ; that is under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms, dominions, and countries, of what state, ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them." This Act, however, invested the sovereigns of England with power far beyond the old constitutional limits of the Royal The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. 293 Supremacy, a power scarcely less than that which had been exercised by the Pope. It empowered the Queen and her successors to erect the High Commission Court for the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; to appoint by letters patent under the Great Seal such persons as she should deem fit for exercising under the Crown all manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Act also empowered the Queen to appoint visitors to " visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, -and enormities which by any manner, spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, re- deemed, corrected, or amended." This was a terrible power given by Parliament to the Queen over the Church. But there was an important proviso. No person appointed by the Crown to execute spiritual jurisdiction shall have power to determine any matter to be heresy except what has been adjudged to be heresy by the Canonical Scriptures, or any of the first four General Councils, or any other General Council, or "shall be ordered, judged, or determined to be heresy by the High Court of Parliament of the realm, with the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation; anything in the Act to the contrary not- withstanding." The Supremacy Act repealed all the Acts passed in the reign of Mary, and restored and revised those of Edward VI. It also restored the conge, d'elire in the election of Bishops. On February 28 the clergy of the Lower House presented cer- tain articles to the Upper House of Convocation, in defence of the religion established under Mary : (i) That in the Sacrament of the Altar the natural Body and Blood of Christ are present under the species of bread and wine. (2) That after consecration the substance of bread and wine no longer remains. (3) That the real Body of Christ is offered in the Mass as a propitiatory sacri- fice of quick or dead. (4) That the supreme power over the Church militant was given to St Peter and his successors in the Holy See. (5) That the authority for settling matters relating to 294 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. the doctrines and discipline of the Church belongs to the hierarchy and not to the laity. These articles having been put by Bonner into the hands of the Lord Keeper, it was determined that a theological conference between the Romanists and Reformers should be held in West- minster Abbey, on March 31, by Bishops and clergy selected from both parties. On the part of the Romanists the Bishops of Win- chester, Chester, Lincoln and Lichfield, and four other clergy were appointed : on that of the reformers were Scory, late Bishop of Chichester, Cox, Whitehead, Grindall, Home, late Dean of Durham, Gheast, Aylmer, and Jewel. The Lord Keeper Bacon and the Archbishop of York presided. The ques- tions to be decided were three in number, (i) Whether it was agreeable to the Bible and the Primitive Church for the services to be conducted in a language not understood by the people. (2) Whether national Churches have power to change rites and ceremonies, so long as it is done to edification. (3) Whether it can be proved from the Bible that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead. It was agreed that the discussion which took place before the Privy Council, many members of the House of Lords and some of the Commons, should be carried on in writing. On the first day it was conducted with order and decorum ; but on the second day the Romanists, finding themselves unequal to the task they had undertaken, broke the terms to which they had agreed. The Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln behaved with so much violence, even threatening to excommunicate the Queen, that they were committed to the Tower for contempt of court. So the Conference was broken off. The Committee which was appointed to prepare the Prayer- book applied themselves to their task. But there were two Prayer books in existence, the First and Second Prayer-books of Edward VI. The Queen and Parker and also Cecil preferred a recurrence to the First Prayer-book, and to remodel it in a higher rather than a lower direction. But her Council were guided by The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. 295 the consideration that, whilst it was impossible to satisfy the Romanists, it was politic to consult the wishes of the exiles from abroad. They therefore proposed that the Second Prayer-book should be selected as the one to be presented to Parliament to be attached to a new Act of Uniformity. The Committee finished their work in April. The Second Book of King Edward VI. was adopted ; and no vestment, except the surplice, was to be allowed at any of the services ; and the communicants might stand or kneel as they thought fit. But the Queen was unwilling to consent to so simple a pro- cedure. If not very particular about doctrine, she was at any rate fond of a high ritual. So a compromise was effected. The Queen was willing to accept the Second Prayer-book of King Edward VI., so long as the ornaments which had been prescribed in the First Book, but omitted in the Second, were allowed. The Book submitted to Parliament was therefore the Second Book of King Edward VI., with certain alterations, and with the ornaments of the Church and the vestments of the minister, which had been prescribed by the First Prayer-book. The principal alterations were : A table for proper lessons on Sundays was added. The first Rubric directed the " morning and evening prayer to be used in the accustomed place of the church, chapel, or chancel," instead of " in such place as the people may best hear." The minister was directed "at the time of Commu- nion and >at all other times of his ministration to use such orna- ments of the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI." In the Litany, the clause " From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us," was omitted. Elizabeth was styled " our gracious Queen." In the Communion Office, the form of delivery in the First Book, " The Body . . . Blood ... of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given . . . shed ... for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," were combined with the words in the Second Book : " Take and eat ... drink . . . this in remembrance that Christ died for thee . , . that Christ's 296 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. Blood was shed for thee ; and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving . . . and be thankful." The Rubric also known as the Black Rubric, as to kneeling in the Holy Communion, was omitted. The Act of Uniformity to which the new Prayer-book was attached, having passed the House of Commons, was taken to the House of Lords. There it was opposed by the Archbishop of York and by eight Bishops, and passed on April 28 only by three votes. The Act of Uniformity contained this proviso : " Pro- vided always and it be enacted, that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI., until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's majesty, with the advice of her commissioners appointed and authorized under the Great Seal of England for causes eccle- siastical, or of the Metropolitan of this realm." The new Prayer-book was ordered to be taken into use on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24. It was however in use in the Queen's Chapel on Sunday, May 12, and on the following Whitsun Day in St. Paul's, and before the end of the month was in general use throughout the land. A Latin form of the new Prayer-book being allowed to be used in the two Universities and in the Colleges of Eton and Win- chester, a Latin translation was in the following year, at the request of the Universities, published by Walter Haddon. Haddon, who had been a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, was in 1552 intruded by the Privy Council into the Presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, in the place of Owen Oglethorpe, who was deposed for his opposition to the changes introduced by King Edward VI. Haddon's translation, however, was little more than (with the necessary changes) a reproduction of the translation of the First Prayer-book of King Edward VI., which had been made in 1549, at the request of Cranmer, by Alesius, or Aless, a Lutheran, for the use of Peter Martyr and Bucer. The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of -England. 297 The time had now arrived when it was necessary to enforce the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. When the Oath of Allegiance was presented to them, all the Bishops, except Kitchin of Llandaff, refused to take it, and were deprived by the High Commission Court. But out of the whole body of clergy, num- bering 9,400, not more than 189 throughout the whole land refused to conform to the new Prayer-book ; they were therefore deprived of their benefices or other appointments. On June 18, 1559, John Jewel (1522 1571) preached a famous sermon at St. Paul's Cross. In the reign of Mary, Jewel, who was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, being the friend of Peter Martyr, was marked out for martyrdom, and under the fear of death and torture he renounced his allegiance to the Church of England. Soon, however, repenting of his weakness he escaped to Frankfort, and lived on the Continent, principally in the house of Peter Martyr, till the Marian persecution ended. Returning to England after the death of Mary, he brought with him many of the tenets of the foreign reformers, and the Calvin- istic objection to the clerical vestments ; but at the same time he was deeply impressed with the Catholicism of the Church of England as opposed to the mediaevalism of Rome. The Roman Catholics were charging the Church of England with novelties. In his sermon at St. Paul's Cross he dared opponents to defend their objections from the Bible or the primitive Church. On July 19 a general visitation of the country was determined upon, and a body of fifty-three Injunctions, similar to those of King Edward VI., was published for the general guidance of the clergy and laity. Not least important, certainly the most curious, was that concerning the marriage of the clergy, of which the Queen was the vigorous opponent. By the twenty-ninth Injunc- tion no priest nor deacon was thenceforward allowed to take a wife without permission of the Bishop and two Justices of the Peace dwelling near the place where the woman dwelt ; and any clergyman who should act otherwise was incapable of min- istering the Gospel and Sacraments, and was debarred from all 298 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. Church preferment. Other Injunctions prescribed that : images, though not ordered to be removed (and the Queen still retained the Crucifix in her own chapel), should not be restored in places where they had been already removed ; the Common Prayer was to be sung with a clear pronunciation ; organs and other instru- mental music should be permitted ; no Altars were to be taken down except by the curate and churchwardens ; the Holy Table was to stand in the place where the Altar had usually stood, except during the Communion, when it was to be so placed within the chancel that the minister might be best heard. In the Holy Communion, bread, round in form, but plain, without any figure upon it, was to be used instead of ordinary bread. All the Dioceses with the exception of Llandaff being now vacant, it was necessary to fill up the vacant Sees. But how was this to be done ? There was no Archbishop of Canterbury or York, and only one Diocesan Bishop. Consecration by a single Bishop, though uncanonical, is valid. Fortunately there was no difficulty in finding in England the number of Bishops canonically required for a Consecration. There were living in England three Bishops who had been ejected from their Sees in Mary's reign ; Miles Coverdale, deprived Bishop of Exeter ; Barlow, late of Bath and Wells, bishop elect of Chichester; and Scory, late Bishop of Chichester, bishop elect of Hereford. Besides these there were Bale, Bishop of Ossory ; Hodgkin, Suf- fragan Bishop of Bedford, and a Suffragan Bishop of Thetford. There was also the Diocesan Bishop, Kitchin of Llandaff. On July 1 8 the conge d'elire was issued to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury authorizing them to elect an Archbishop in succession to Pole. On December 17, Matthew Parker ( X 559 * S75)i was consecrated at Lambeth Archbishop of Canterbury, by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale and Hodgkin, all of them wearing their episcopal robes, except Coverdale, who, from some reason unknown, officiated in his cassock. The sermon was preached by Scory. Parker had been educated at Benet College, Cambridge, The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. better known in later times as Corpus Christi College, of which in 1544 he was elected Master. In 1535 he had been appointed Chaplain to King Henry VIII., and in 1537 to Anne Boleyn. In 1552 he became Dean of Lincoln. In Mary's reign he was deprived of the headship of his College and of his Deanery, yet, though a married man, he did not, like many others, seek a refuge in foreign countries, and was thus untainted with the " Germanical Natures," as he called them, of the exiles. A better appointment to the Primacy could not in those stormy times have been made. Although no doubt less attached to a high ritual than the Queen, yet he was a strong asserter of order and decorum ; a thorough Catholic, opposed alike to Papacy and Puritanism. And what was of the greatest con- sequence, he was well learned in the history of the Church, and of the early Fathers, in the liturgies and doctrines of the primitive Church. Besides this learning he was acquainted with the writings of Luther, Zwingle and Calvin, and knew too much of their books to feel any inclination to follow those authors. He was a discreet man, but his great danger was lest he should carry discretion too far; and so it happened; he was too timid, and always in fear of offending the Puritans. It was through his influence over the Queen that the Church became swamped during Elizabeth's reign with anti-ritualistic Bishops-; and so during his primacy, and owing greatly to his. own action, the Vestiarian contest, fraught with such fearful consequences, gained strength. How impossible it was to satisfy the violent Church agitators of that time may be learnt from the fact that the Puritans only hated him in return for what he did for them, with a hatred that pursued him after death. In the reign of Charles I. they destroyed the monument which had been raised over his remains, dug up his coffin, and threw out his bones on a dunghill. It would be an idle waste of time to dwell upon the Nag's Head fable : amongst other reasons, because the full record of 300 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. Parker's consecration is to be found in the register of Lambeth Palace. Equally useless would it be to refute the doubts cast on Barlow's consecration. It is true that the register of Barlow's consecration has been lost; so also has the register of other Bishops, amongst them that of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, been lost, yet no one has ever doubted that Gardiner was rightly consecrated. The doubts did not arise, till in Parker's case forty-five years, in that of Barlow till eighty years after the event. They were invented by Romanists as an attack of a forlorn hope on the Church of England. They have been disproved over and over again by Anglican writers, and have been discredited by the leading Roman Catholics, Bossuet, Courayer, Tournay, Lingard, Charles Butler, and Dollinger, who speak with the greatest certainty of the validity of Anglican Orders. As to the validity of our Orders it may be well to quote the highest Roman Catholic authority of recent years, the lately deceased Dr. Dollinger. He stated that he "had no manner of doubt as to the validity of the episcopal succession in the English Church." "The fact that Parker was consecrated by four rightly consecrated Bishops, riti et legitimk> with imposition of hands and the necessary words, is so clearly established, that if one chooses to doubt the fact, one could with the same right doubt one hundred thousand facts. . . . The Orders of the Roman Church could be disputed with more apparent reason V Immediately after his own consecration, Matthew Parker, as- sisted by Barlow, Bishop of Chichester, Scory, Bishop of Here- ford, and Hodgkin, consecrated other Priests as Bishops. On December 2 1 there were consecrated at Lambeth : Edmund Grindal to the Bishopric of London ; Cox to Ely; Meyrick to Bangor ; Sandys to Worcester d . b Conferences at Bonn, 1874 and 1875. Afterwards Archbishop of York (15701576) and of Canterbury (1576 -1583). d Afterwards Bishop of London (15701577) and Archbishop of York (1577-1588). The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. 301 1560. On January 2 1 there were consecrated by Parker and three other Bishops : Bullingham to Lincoln e ; John Jewel to Sarum ; Young to St. David's f ; Davies to St. Asaph ". On March 24 were consecrated Edmund Gheast to Rochester 11 > Berkeley to Bath ; Bentham to Coventry. On August 1 8 Pope Paul IV. died, thus being frustrated in his intention of excommunicating the Queen. The new Pope, Pius IV. (1560 1565), was a man of gentler temper, and more inclined than his predecessor to conciliation. The changes made in the Book of Common Prayer ; the omission from the Litany of the petition against the Pope ; the permission of the vestments in the Holy Communion ; the use of music in the church services, recommended themselves to Romanists as well as Anglicans. The Church had become again a truly na- tional Church. The Pope censured severely the harshness of his predecessor ; and in May, 1560, sent his nuncio, Vincentius Parpaglia, with his apostolical benediction to the Queen, together with a -jtter, ad- dressed Carissimce. in Christo filiee Elizabeths regince Anglice, announcing his readiness to authorize the English Prayer-book, if only the Queen would receive it from him and give her adhesion to the See of Rome. That this letter was authentic there can be little doubt. Cam- den the historian mentions it. But the chief witness is Lord Coke ; and there is no more reason to doubt his statement than, to use the words quoted above of Dr. Dollinger, to doubt " one hundred thousand other facts." Lord Coke at different times of his life was Solicitor General, Attorney General, Speaker of the House of Commons, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In his charge as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas at the Norwich Assizes on August 4, 1606 e Afterwards Bishop of Worcester. f Afterwards Archbishop of York (1561 1568). f Afterwards Bishop of St. David's. h Afterwards Bishop of Sarum (1571 1577). 302 The Rise of Puritanism in the Church of England. {only about three years after the Queen's death), he said that Pope Pius wrote a letter to the Queen, " in which he did allow the Bible and Book of Divine Service ... to be authentic and not repugnant to truth. . . . That he would also allow it unto us . . . I have often times heard avowed by the Queen herself her own words . . . and I have conferred with some Lords that were of the greatest reckoning in the State, who had seen and read the letter which the Pope had sent to that effect 'V Had such a proposal been made earlier it is difficult to imagine what result it might have exercised on the after-course of the Reformation. The coarse and insulting language of the preced- ing Pope had rendered such terms impossible ; the laws of Eng- land precluded the entrance of a Papal nuncio into the kingdom ; .and the Queen's own dignity forbade her acknowledging a power which had so grievously and wantonly insulted her. The Pope also invited the Queen to send representatives to the Council of Trent. But the Council of Trent was not considered in England to be a canonically assembled Council. The Queen also was invited in different terms to those addressed to the other Catholic Princes of Christendom, and she refused to be placed in the same category as the Protestant Princes. On June 18 Jewel, now Bishop of Sarum, renewed the chal lenge which he made to the Roman Catholic Church in the previous year. He adduced several propositions which he defied any learned man of his adversaries, or all the men alive, to bring one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Father, or from the Bible, or the example of the Primitive Church, to prove that they existed for six hundred years after Christ. We will here mention some of the most important points which he challenged : Communion in one kind. Praying in a language which people and that pluralities should not be allowed. At the Coronation of James at Westminister on St. James' Day all the Bishops were present. The Queen refused to receive the Holy Communion; she said that she had once changed the Lutheran religion for Presbyterianism, and she thought that was as much as could reasonably be expected of her a . 1604. The King, although he expressed his belief that the Church of England was agreeable to the Word of God and to the primitive Church, yet, because some corruptions, in the lapse of time, might have crept into it, expressed his willingness to listen to the objections raised against it by the Puritans. For this purpose he arranged for a Conference to be assembled at Hamp- ton Court Palace on January 14. On the part of the Church nine Prelates appeared ; amongst them being Archbishop Whitgift ; Bancroft, Bishop of London, who on account of the Archbishop's great age took the leading part ; Tobias Matthew, of Durham ; and Bilson, of Winchester. Amongst the other clergy were Launcelot Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, the deepest theologian of the day; Barlow, Dean of Christ Church, the chronicler of the Conference; Overall, Stanley's Mem. of Westminster, p. 86. Y 322 The Grou'th of Puritanism Dean of St. Paul's ; and Dr. Field, Chaplain to James and the author of the treatise " Of the Church V On the side of the Puritans the deputies were Reynolds, Presi- dent of Corpus, who was considered the first scholar of the day and the equal of Cardinal Bellarmine c in controversial theology, and Sparkes, from Oxford ; and Chaderton and Knewstubbs, from Cambridge. All of them were men of learning. But it was evident, it might be from the badness of their cause or from superior learning opposed to them, that they failed to support their reputation. The deputies of both parties were appointed by the King. The King himself presided. On the first day, Saturday, January 14, the King and some of the Church party sat with closed doors. This was unfortunate, as it might argue an unfair preference for the Church on the King's part. It was not unreasonable that the King, who had been brought up a Presbyterian, and was therefore sufficiently ac- quainted with Puritanism, should desire to learn something about the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, but it would have been better if he had sought his knowledge at a different time and some other place. The principal points on which the King desired information were with regard to the Prayer-book, Confirmation, Absolution, and lay Baptism. With respect to Confirmation the Bishops declared that although Baptism was complete without it, yet that it was authorized by the Apostles and the primitive Church. Bancroft defended the Absolution in the daily prayers, as well as that in the Communion Office and in the Visitation of the Sick. It was agreed that the Bishops should consider whether the words Remission of sins should not be inserted into the Rubric before the General Absolution. The King stood firm against lay Bap- tism, and it was suggested that the words curate, or lawful b Published in 1606. In 1610 Dr. Field was appointed Dean of Gloucester. * A Jesuit controversialist and author (1542 1621). in the Church of England. 323 minister, should be inserted into the Rubric of Private Baptism d . On the second day (Monday) the Puritans stated their objec- tions under four heads : 1. Doctrine. They requested that the Lambeth Articles might be incorporated into the XXXIX. Articles. Against these latter also they raised several objections. They objected to the clause in the XVIth., " After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin." To the XXIIIrd. as to any one preaching or administering the Sacraments in the con- gregation before he is lawfully called. To the XXVth., which speaks of Confirmation as a corrupt following of the Apostles. But when they suggested that Confirmation might be performed by a Priest, the King broke out with his favourite aphorism, " No Bishop, no King." Reynolds objected that the Church Catechism was too short, and requested that a new English translation might be made of the Bible. Both of these points the King granted conditionally. As to a better observance of the Lord's Day both parties were agreed. 2. The Ministers of the Church. Reynolds complained of pluralities, and requested that all parishes might be supplied with preaching ministers. Bancroft, in reply, urged the necessity of a praying ministry, for that many persons confined the duty of the clergyman to the pulpit, and that the number of the Homilies should be increased. The question of pluralities the King promised to refer to the Bishops. 3. The Revision of the Prayer-book. Reynolds objected to the sign of the Cross in Baptism, to the surplice because it was worn by the Priest of Isis, to the ring and the words in the Marriage Service, " with my body I thee worship," and to the Churching of Women. These objections the King ruled to be d But no statute' has ever defined what a lawful minister is, and the civil courts have decided that lay Baptism is still legal. 324 The Growth of Puritanism frivolous. Reynolds also objected to lessons being taken from the Apocrypha. 4. Church Government. Reynolds advocated the liberty of prophesying*. This called up to the mind of the King painful reminiscences of the Scotch Presbytery, and he met it with coarse and offensive language. He told the Puritans he now understood their objections ; if the Bishops were out and they in, he knew what would become of the Royal Supremacy, for " No Bishop, no King." It can scarcely be said that the Puritans had a fair hearing. The King considered himself a great master of king-craft ; he was said to be the " wisest fool " of the day ; his language to the Puritans was from first to last unbecoming and violent He now told Reynolds that the Puritans must either conform "or I will harrie them out of the land or hang them." It might have been wished also that Bancroft's language had been more guarded and moderate, whereas it was such that it drew down on him a rebuke evep from the King. On the third day of the Conference, January 18, the four Puritan deputies were called in to hear read to them the altera- tions on which the King, by the advice of the Bishops, had determined. The Puritans agreed to the alterations. Chaderton, however, requested that some godly ministers in Lancashire might be excused the surplice and the sign of the Cross. Knewstubbs made a similar request for some honest ministers in Suffolk. The King here interrupted : " This is the Scottish argument," he said, " I will have none of their arguing." The Puritans made the best of the matter, and gave out that the Hampton Court Conference had resulted in their favour. But in reality it had dashed their hopes to the ground. They left the Conference with embittered feelings, and their hostility to the Church of England increased. The alterations which had been agreed to by the Conference having been submitted to a committee of Bishops and Privy- Counsellors, the King, by letters patent, issued on February 9, in the Church of England. 325 ordered them to be inserted in the Prayer-book. But they were not submitted to Convocation. The King justified this proceed- ing on his part by virtue of the Act of Uniformity of 1559, which gave the Crown power to take " other order for or concerning any ornament, rite, or ceremony, appointed or prescribed in the book commonly called The Book of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, and other rights and ceremonies of the Church of England." The principal results of the Hampton Court Conference were : (i) The Canons of 1604; (2) the addition (probably the work of Dr. Overall, Dean of St Paul's, and Prolocutor of Convo- cation 8 ) of the concluding part on the Sacraments to the Church Catechism; and (3) the Authorized Translation of the Bible. The aged Archbishop fearing that the Puritans would form a majority in the new House of Commons, arranged for a meeting of Bishops to be held at the Bishop of London's Palace at Fulham. On his way thither he caught a severe cold, and died on February 29. Parliament met on March 19, Convocation meeting on the following day. Bancroft, the See of Canterbury being vacant, pre- sided. In the eleventh session a digest of Canons, numbering one hundred and forty-one, was made by Bancroft from the articles, injunctions, and synodical acts of the two previous reigns. They passed both Houses of Convocation, and were afterwards ratified by the King's Letters Patent, but were not submitted to Parliament These Canons of 1604, when not opposed to the Statute or Common Law, are still binding on the clergy ; but as they were not confirmed by Act of Parliament they are supposed not to be equally binding on the laity. The Canons are entirely opposed to Puritanical principles. When Bancroft, on his becoming Archbishop, put them in force, many of the clergy (three hundred according to the Puritan calcu- lation, but according to the Church only about a sixth of that Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1614; of Norwich, 1618. 326 The Growth of Puritanism number) refused to conform, and were in consequence de- prived. On July 22 the King wrote to Bancroft to inform him that he had appointed a committee of fifty-four learned men to make a new translation of the Bible. When Reynolds, at the Hampton Court Conference, had proposed a fresh translation, Bancroft opposed it on the ground that " if every man's humour should be followed, there would be no end of translations." But now to the King's proposal he gave his hearty consent and co- operation. On December 4 Bancroft was translated from London to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. 1605. James offended the Romanists no less than the Puri- tans. When first he arrived in England he had promised pro- tection to the former, if only they behaved as loyal subjects : but by a proclamation issued in February, 1604, he banished all Jesuits and Romanist priests from England. A conspiracy, known as the Gunpowder Plot, was now framed by the Jesuits for blowing up the two Houses of Parliament on their meeting on November 5, in the hope that the King and the Prince of Wales being mur- dered, and the principal opponents to Rome being removed, the kingdom would be recovered to Romanism. The plot was dis- covered, and most of the ringleaders were either killed in their attempt to escape, or were afterwards executed. Garnett, the Provincial of the English Jesuits, admitted, though he himself had taken no active part in it, his knowledge of the plot, but excused himself on the plea that it had been revealed to him under the Seal of Confession. Dr. Overall, Dean of St. Paul's, explained to him that the Seal of Confession was limited to the past, and did not extend to the future commission of crime. Garnett was executed. There is no reason for believing that the Roman Catholics in England were, as a body, in any manner connected with the plot In fact there is strong evidence to the contrary. The King, in his speech at the Meeting of Parliament on November 9, in the Church of England. 327 exculpated the Romanists as a body from the conspiracy. And it must be borne in mind that at that time a feeling almost amounting to a schism existed between the Jesuits and the secular party ; and the Jesuits found to their dismay that the latter held aloof, and viewed the conspiracy with the greatest horror f . 1606. The immediate consequence of the plot was the passing of some severe laws against papist recusants, and the enforcement of an oath of allegiance. The new oath was directed against the doctrine that princes excommunicated by the Pope might be deposed or murdered by their subjects. Part of the oath ran thus: "I do further swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever." Blackwell, the Roman Arch- priest in England, condemned the plot as "a detestable and damnable practice, odious in the sight of God, and horrible to the understanding of men." But to \h&form of the oath many a conscientious Romanist, who would otherwise have signed it, demurred; the Pope, Paul V. (1605 1621), issued two briefs against it, and declared that no Roman Catholic could take it without dishonour to God ; and removed Blackwell from his post of Arch-priest. In this 'year the right was given to the two Universities of presenting to all livings in the gift of Roman Catholic patrons, Oxford appointing to the Southern, and Cambridge to the Northern Province. 1607. In this year the committee for the revision of the Bible, which had been appointed in 1604, entered upon their work. Their numbers had now been reduced from fifty-four to forty- seven. They were divided into six companies, of which two sat at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cambridge. Amongst the translators who sat at Westminster were Launcelot Andrewes, 1 State Papers, Domestic, December 2, 1605. 328 Tlie Growth of Puritanism and Overall, and Barlow, Dean of Chester, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. At Cambridge there sat amongst others, Chaderton, the first Master of Emmanuel College, who had represented the Puritans at the Hampton Court Conference. At Oxford sat Harding, President of Magdalen, Reynolds, President of Corpus, Ravis, Bishop of Gloucester, late Dean of Christ Church *, Abbot, Master of University (the future Archbishop of Canterbury), and Miles Smith, who wrote the Preface to the Bible. Certain rules had been laid down for their guidance. The Bishops' Bible, which was the one ordinarily used in churches, was to be followed, and as little altered as the original meaning permitted. The old ecclesiastical words were to be retained. No marginal notes were to be affixed, except for the explanation of Hebrew and Greek words. 1610. On October 21, three Bishops for Scotland, Spottes- woode for Glasgow, Lamb for Brechin, Hamilton for Galloway, were consecrated in London by the Bishops of London, Ely, Rochester, and Worcester. Archbishop Bancroft died on November 2, at the age of sixty- five. He was a staunch, if somewhat of a high and dry eccle- siastic, without the ability or the will to conciliate adversaries ; a firm opponent of Puritanism ; a strong asserter of the divine origin of Episcopacy, holding that Episcopacy and heresy were radically opposed. During his Primacy the Puritans were kept under restraint ; his vigorous administration put a different outward appearance on the Church of England, and the Church was nearly rescued out of the hands of the Puritans. The services were solemnly performed : the Fasts and Festivals better observed ; the surplice generally worn, and the use of the cope revived h . But he had not conciliated the affections of the Puritans, and their hatred of the Church was as strong as ever. Clarendon says that Bancroft disposed the clergy to a more solid course of study than they had been accustomed to ; and if * Ravis appointed Bishop of London in this year. h Collier's CLurch Hist., ii. 687. in the Church of England. 329 he had lived, would quickly have extinguished all that fire which had been kindled at Geneva ; or if he had been succeeded by Bishop Andrewes or Bishop Overall \ the infection would easily have been kept out." There was a general expectation that he would have been succeeded in the Primacy by Andrewes, Bishop of Ely, the most learned and eminent of the Bishops k . 1611. But Abbot, Bishop of London, a supporter and a man thoroughly 'in sympathy with the Puritans, had written a book which gave as incorrect a description as was possible of James' character ; he described him as being zealous like David, learned as Solomon, religious as Josias, careful of spreading the truth as Constantine, just as Moses, undefiled as Jehoshaphat or Heze- kiah, clement as Theodosius. The King's vanity was flattered, and Abbot, to the dismay of Churchmen and the joy of the Puritans, was on April 9 appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. George Abbot was born at Guildford in 1562, the second of three illustrious brothers, of the eldest of whom we shall hear more presently, and the youngest was Sir Maurice Abbot, Lord Mayor of London. George Abbot having inherited the puri- tanical predilections of his parents, who had suffered persecution under Mary, was admitted in 1578 a member of Balliol, and at once threw himself into the puritanical spirit of the University 1 . In 1597, at the age of thirty-five, he was elected Master of University College, his elder brother Robert, a man of equally puritanical views with himself, becoming in 1609 Master of Balliol. In 1 600 George Abbot, who had in that same year been appointed to the Deanery of Winchester, was elected to the office of Vice-Chancellor, to which he was re-elected in 1603 and 1605. In 1603, whilst Abbot was Vice-Chancellor, a man of com- pletely different stamp and opposite Church views first became a prominent member of the University. In that year William Laud, who was then thirty years of age, and a Fellow of St. John's, 1 This was a slight slip, for Overall was not consecrated a Bishop till 1614. " Andrewes, Bishop of Chichester, 1605 ; Ely, 1609 ; Winchester, 1619. i See p. 318. 330 Th> Growth of Puritanism was elected Proctor ; he was also Divinity Lecturer of his college, and availed himself of the appointment to instil Church principles, which were then almost unknown at Oxford, into the minds of the undergraduates. Dr. Buckeridge, the President of the College, was a man like-minded with Laud. In his capacity as Proctor, Laud set himself against the Puri- tanism that prevailed, and at once became a power in the University. He was the leader of the growing Church party, as Abbot was the leader of the Puritanical party. Abbot en- deavoured to get rid of Church ceremonial altogether ; Laud was bent on restoring the decent ceremonies of the Church, especially as regarded Altars. A conflict between two men of such opposite principles was inevitable. In 1606, for a sermon preached at St. Mary's, which was supposed to contain certain popish pas- sages, Laud incurred the public censure of the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Airey, President of Queen's. This increased Abbot's enmity against him ; the Puritan spirit of the University was aroused ; for a time Laud was subjected to a bitter persecution, and any one who was seen speaking to him in the streets was branded as a Papist. On June 9 Dr. Buckeridge, President of St. John's, was conse- crated Bishop of Rochester, and thus the Presidency of the Col- lege fell vacant. Abbot did all in his power to influence the Chancellor, and through him the King against Laud, whom he stigmatizefl as in heart a Papist. The King, however, decided in Laud's favour ; Laud not only became President of St. John's but also Chaplain to the King. In this year the committee to whom the revision of the Bible was entrusted completed the task, and the Bible which has continued to be the Authorized Version to the present day was published. The object of a new translation, says Dr. Miles Smith in the Preface, was " not to make of a bad a good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones to make one principal good one." The Psalms, and Gospels and Epistles in the Prayer-book in the Church of England. 331 continued till the last revision of the Prayer-book in 1662, and the Psalms in the present day, to follow the older translation. 1612. In this year Robert Abbot, the brother of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was appointed Chancellor of Oxford Uni- versity. The Puritan party sustained a severe loss from the death, on November 6, at the age of nineteen, of the King's eldest son, Prince Henry, the "darling of the Puritans," as he was called. Their grief at his loss knew no bounds; and their dislike of Prince Charles, the next heir to the throne, proportionably increased. 1614. Laud was appointed to a prebend of Lincoln. 1615. Laud became Archdeacon of Huntingdon. On De- cember 3 Robert Abbot was consecrated Bishop of Sarum (1615 1618) by his brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury. 1616. Laud became Dean of Gloucester. Here, as at Oxford, he was stigmatized as a Papist. The meaning of the accusation it is not difficult to understand. Dr. Miles Smith, as a reward for his share in the translation of the Bible, had been in 1612 consecrated to the Bishopric of Gloucester. Smith was a learned Oriental scholar, but an advanced Calvinist ; under him the cathedral was falling into decay, and the services resembled those of a conventicle. Laud restored order and reverence into the services of the cathedral, and removed the Altar from the body of the church to the chancel wall. The Bishop declared, and it was, believed that he kept his word, that he would never again enter the cathedral whilst Laud was Dean. 1618. The King needlessly, and much to the Archbishop's disgust, wounded the feelings of the Puritans, by sanctioning a " Book of Sports," which allowed Sunday amusements. The Puritans regarded Sunday as a Fast-day rather than a Feast. To do any work on that day, much more to indulge in any amuse- ment, was pronounced by some of their party to be as great a sin as to commit murder or adultery. The Book of Sports declared that after service on Sunday the people might enjoy such pastimes 332 TJie Growth of Puritanism as dancing, May-games, Whitsun-ales, Morris-dances, and the like. The declaration which was drawn up by Moreton, Bishop of Chester, was ordered to be read in all the churches; this, how- ever, the Archbishop refused to allow in his own church at Croydon. The whole blame of the proceeding was thrown by the Puritans on Laud. James, who prided himself on his attainments, and was ready to take part in any and every theological dispute that occurred, could not refrain himself from sending deputies to the Synod of Dort in 1618. Arminianism, so called from its author, Jakob Harmensen, or rather from the Latinized form of his name, Arminius, was the opposite to Calvinism, and derived its birth in Holland in the last years of the sixteenth century. The Prince of Orange summoned a Synod to Dort to decide the Five Articles of controversy, hence called the Quinquarticular controversy, between the Arminians and the Calvinists. James was an author, and had entered the lists of Protestantism against Cardinal Perron, and of Calvinism against Vorstius, the successor of Arminius in the Professorship of Theology at Ley den. He was thus bound to Calvinism. The Prince of Orange also favoured Calvinism ; the Synod was mostly composed of Calvinists, so that Arminians, as might be expected, did not receive fair play, and they were excommunicated. The decision of the Synod, however, in no way affects the Church of England. Nor on the other hand was the charge of Arminianism, which we shall soon find so fre- quently brought against Laud and his followers, true, for the Laudians differed in many essential points from Arminianism, which also at a later period lapsed into Pvationalism and Socin- ianism. 1621. Laud was, under strong opposition from Archbishop Abbot, appointed to the See of St. David's ; thereupon he re- signed the Presidency of St. John's, in which he was succeeded by William Juxon. Three others were nominated to Bishoprics at Translated to Lichfield, 1619 ; to Durham, 1632. in the Church of England, 333 the same time with him : John Williams, who was consecrated to Lincoln on November 1 1 n , the other two being John Davenant to Sarum, and Valentine Carey to Exeter, consecrated on No- vember 1 8, the same day as Laud. A sad calamity had lately befallen Archbishop Abbot ; whilst engaged in hunting (a sport at that time indulged in by clergy as well as laity) he had killed a keeper. The question was raised both at home and abroad whether an Archbishop, having blood on his hands, was not by the Canon law incapacitated from his office. Abbot indeed received the forgiveness of the King. Still Laud refused to be consecrated by him, and was consecrated by five Bishops, one of whom was Dr. Monteigne, Bishop of London. George Monteigne, it may here be mentioned, had been con- secrated in 1617 to the See of Lincoln, one of the consecrating Bishops being Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato,.who, though afterwards he became a convert to the Church of England, had been originally consecrated in the Roman Catholic Church. So that if Romanists are captious about Archbishop Parker's con- secration, even if there were any ground for their objections, which there is not, there is no doubt that Laud received his consecration in the same channel through which Roman Catholic Bishops now-a-days derive theirs. 1622. In this year Laud's " Conference with Fisher," which has always been considered one of the most able refutations of Popery, was published. The mother of the Marquis, or Duke, as he afterwards became, of Buckingham, had been induced by Perse, a Jesuit, who went by the name of Fisher, to join the Church of Rome. Laud did not by his book succeed in reclaim- ing the mother to the Church of England ; but even his Puritan enemies admitted that " he muzzled the Jesuit, and smote the Papist under the fifth rib ," and he stopped the royal favourite from following his mother's example. D Translated to York, 1641. Quoted, Hook's Archbishops, xi. 55. 334 7? ie Growth of Puritanism, 6^. 1625. King James died on March 17. During his reign the gulph between the Puritans and the Church of England was visibly and materially widened. James was, by his arbitrary and overbearing, though at the same time weak and vacillating charac- ter, pursuing a course opposed to the wishes of the people, and watering the seeds already sown, which were sure to bring forth their fruit under his successor. Under him the skirmishing, the prelude of the great battle which was to follow, began. CHAPTER XV. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM OVER THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1625 1660. CHARLES I. King Influence of Laud Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, Laud's opponent The Puritans a power in the State The King marries a Roman Catholic wife The Puritans form a majority in the new House of Commons Case of Montague Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells Case of Mainwaring John Cosin incurs the wrath of the Puritans The House of Commons complains to the King of the growth of Arminianism Laud appointed Bishop of London Laud as a Statesman Hencefor- ward his troubles incessant Declaration prefixed to the XXXIX. Articles The Vow Laud Chancellor of Oxford He accompanies the King into Scotland The King's intention to introduce the English Prayer- book into Scotland Death of Abbot Laud Archbishop of Canterbury and Juxon Bishop of London Lamentable indiscretion of Laud Visita- tion of his Province Improper use of the Holy Table Laud opposed by Williams Prynne The Canons and Prayer-book for Scotland Stony Sabbath The first step in the war between Charles and Scotland The Tables The Solemn League and Covenant The Short Parliament Convocation centinues to sit after dissolution of Parliament And enacts Canons The Et Catera oath The Long Parliament meets The late proceedings of Convocation condemned The Committee for Scandalous Ministers Laud impeached and committed to the Tower The Com- mittee of Religion The Smectymnuan Controversy Episcopacy in Scot- land abolished Williams appointed Archbishop of York The Grand Remonstrance Ten Bishops committed to the Tower But released The Bishops excluded from the House of Lords Commencement of Civil War The Root and Branch BUI passed A Committee for Plundered Ministers The Westminster Assembly of Divines A Directory for Public Worship Execution of Laud Character of Laud The Directory takes the place of the Prayer-book The Prayer-book forbidden Execu- tion of the King The Commonwealth The Triers Testimony of Evelyn Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy The Nation desires the return of King Charles II. 1625. Charles I. at the age of twenty-five years succeeded to the throne, but it was to a throne encumbered with embar- rassments, which he himself soon increased. Proud and reserved, he presented thus far a contrast to the coarse and undignified 336 TJie Triumph of Puritanism bearing of his father; but like him he was narrow-minded, with a firm belief in the Divine right of Kings. Not discerning the altered circumstances, nor how opposed his views were to the spirit of the times, he thought to be supreme over Parliament as the Tudors had been before him. As to his moral character, he was in every relation of life a good man ; he was also devoutly attached to the Church of England, with no bias towards Rome, but with a strong repugnance to Puritanism. As soon as James died, Archbishop Abbot receded and Laud came to the front ; both the King and the favourite Buckingham were admirers of Laud, who at once took a high place in the counsels of the nation. Williams, a man of considerable ability, but of a not over-scrupulous conscience, was Laud's prominent and bitter opponent amongst the Bishops. In 1619 Williams had been appointed to the Deanery of Salisbury, and in 1620 to that of Westminster, which last appointment he afterwards held in commendam with the See of Lincoln. In 1621 he was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal by James, and up to that .time he had been a High-Churchman and a friend of Laud. On the accession of Charles he was deprived of the Great Seal ; thenceforward he favoured the Puritans, and was Laud's opponent. When Charles came to the throne, the Church of England was prosperous on the surface, but underneath was slumbering a volcano which was soon to burst with terrible violence. In a reign in which the history of the Church is so closely bound up with that of the State, it is difficult to draw the line between the civil and ecclesiastical history of the country. The Puritans had of late been a power in the State, and soon formed a majority in the House of Commons. Their religion gave the tone to their politics ; they sided against the King, because the King was opposed to their religious principles ; had he favoured them, they would have made no objection to his government, however despotic. The House of Commons had become more powerful than the over the Church of England. 337 House of Lords, and they determined to make their power felt. If the King wanted money, it rested with them to grant or to withhold it, and they used this power as a terrible engine against both the Throne and the Church of England. The two great questions during Charles' reign were: (i) Whether the will of the King or of Parliament was to be supreme; (2) Whether the old National Church of England was to continue the Church of the country, or whether there should be a new Church and new Prayer-book to suit the views of the Puritans. It was the general wish of the country that Charles should marry a Protestant. He made the fatal mistake of his life in marrying, on June 13, 1625, a Roman Catholic, Henrietta Maria, sister of the King of France. The new Queen brought to England in her train twenty-nine Roman Catholic priests, for whose services a chapel was fitted up in St. James's Palace, and who did their best to convert English Churchmen to the Church of Rome. So hateful was the marriage in England that it was looked upon as a judgment from Heaven, even greater than the plague which was at the time devastating the country. The first Parliament of the reign met on June 18. On July 8 the Commons, the majority of whom were Puritans, set forth a list of grievances, and presented to the King a petition for a rigid enforcement of the penal laws against Papists, and that " none of his subjects not possessing the true religion by law established should be admitted into the service of his most royal consort." The King promised them redress, but he pro- mised more than he was able to perform, for by his marriage- settlement he had pledged himself to grant toleration to the Romanists, and at that very time his palace was filled with Romanists who had come from France to join in his wedding festivities. The King soon showed his contempt for Parliament. Richard Montague, a clergyman of some note, who had once held but had resigned the Deanery of Hereford, and who still held a Fellowship at Eton with a Canonry of Windsor; a man much z 338 The Triumph of Puritanism skilled, as Fuller says, " in the Greek and Latin languages, in the Fathers and ecclesiastical antiquities," had in 1621, in the reign of James, published a pamphlet in which he defended the Church of England as distinguished from Romanism on the one hand, and from Puritanism on the other The pamphlet gave offence to the Puritans, who regarded it as favouring Arminianism and Popery ; it was condemned by the House of Commons, and (but very leniently) by Abbot. On the accession of Charles, Montague published a forcible reply in defence of himself, styled Appello Ccesarem, which he dedicated to the King. He was not, he said, Arminian, or Cal- vinist, or Lutheran : " For Arminianism, I must and doe protest before God and His angels, that the time is yet to come that I ever read word in Arminius." For this pamphlet he was sum- moned before the House of Commons, and required to find bail in ^2,000 to appear before them in the next Session. Laud, together with the Bishop of Oxford, and Buckeridge, Bishop of Rochester, complained that the House of Commons had usurped the functions of Convocation. Further steps against Montague were for the present stopped by the abrupt dissolution of Parlia- ment on August 6. 1626. A new Parliament met on February 6, but there was no change in the spirit of its members. Montague was again attacked, and a committee of religion was appointed, by which he was condemned as a disturber of the peace of Church and State. On June 20 Laud was translated to the See of Bath and Wells. On September 25 Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, died, to the great loss of the Church, and Laud succeeded him as Dean of the Chapel Royal. 1627. On April 27 Laud was made a Privy Councillor. In July, Archbishop Abbot was by an arbitrary act suspended from his office, and in October a commission was issued to Laud and four other Bishops to execute the archiepiscopal duties. over the Church of England. 339 In July, Roger Maimvaring, Rector of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, a clergyman of Erastian principles, preached two sermons before the King, attributing to the office of King an absolute power over Parliament ; asserting that the King might impose taxes as he liked, without consulting Parliament ; that " Parliaments were not ordained to contribute any right to the King, but for the more equal imposing and more easy exacting of that which unto Kings doth appertain by natural and original law and justice as their proper inheritance." Abbot condemned the sermon. 1628. The third Parliament of the reign met on March 17, and at once appointed a committee to enquire into the cases of Montague and Mainwaring. At the same time a much more famous Churchman, John Cosin, came into collision with the Puritans. Cosin (born 1594), who had been a Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, became librarian to Overall, first at Lichfield and afterwards at Norwich, in 1624 Canon of Durham, and in 1625 Archdeacon of the East Riding. He was the personal friend of Neale, Laud, and Montague, all objects of dislike to the Puritans. Cosin had excited the anger of the Puritans by his " Collection of Private Devotions," published in 1627, as well as by the part he had taken in the beautifying of Durham Cathedral ; also with respect to the position of the Altar in the cathedral, and of that of the celebrant at the Altar, the Altar lights, and the vestments. On June, 14 the House of Commons presented a remonstrance to the King, in which they complained of the growth of the sect of the Anninians, who were no better than Papists ; and they resented the appointment of Arminians, especially Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Neale, Bishop of Winchester, to high places in the Church. The King was offended, but the remon- strance did not influence him. Monteigne, Bishop of London, in order that he might be re- moved from that important See, which suffered much from his neglect, having been first offered the See of Durham, which he refused, was rewarded with the Archbishopric of York in succes- 340 TJie Triumph of Puritanism sion to Tobias Matthew, and in July the King appointed Laud to the See of London. How little regard Charles paid to the opinion of Parliament may be inferred from the fact that in August of this year he appointed Montague to the Bishopric of Chichester a The two Houses of Parliament sentenceed Mainwaring to a fine of ;i,ooo and to suspension for three years; but in 1636 he was appointed to the Bishopric of St. David's. On August 23 the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated, and thenceforward Laud, with Wentworth (to be created in 1639 Earl of Strafford), became the King's principal advisers. The duties of a statesman, for which he did not possess the necessary qualifica- tions, were, as we learn from his own words, opposed to Laud's natural inclination, and were at variance with his episcopal duties. Thenceforward he had to bear the unpopularity of the King. His position drew on him the obloquy which attached to all the King's ministers ; on him in particular fell, and not without some show of reason, the blame and odium of the Courts of High Commis- sion and the Star Chamber. From this time till the day of his death his troubles were incessant. One of Laud's first acts in his new See was to draw up the Royal Declaration which is affixed to the XXXIX. Articles. The Puritans had placed a Calvinistic sense on the Articles; the Declaration forbade any but the literal and grammatical sense to be put on them. But this did not please the Puritan party ; they objected that it was done to favour the Arminians, "the spawn of Papists." On November 6 Archbishop Monteigne died, and was suc- ceeded in the See of York by Samuel Harsnett, translated from Norwich. In December Abbot was restored to the King's favour; but since Laud's appointment to London Laud's authority in the Church became paramount, and that of the Archbishop was prac- tically at an end. In 1638 he was translated to Norwich. over the Church of England. 341 1629. Parliament met on January 20. In this session Oliver Cromwell, who had been elected M.P. for Huntingdon, for the first time spoke in Parliament. A resolution known as the Vow was drawn up in the House of Commons in answer to the Royal Declaration. It set forth : We, the Commons, "do claim, pro- test, and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion, which were established by Parliament in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth. . . . And we reject the sense of the Jesuits, Arminians, and all others wheresoever they differ from us." The names of Laud, Neale, Cosin, Montague, and Mainwaring were freely used as being preachers of "flat Popery." With the religious question was mixed up a remonstrance against levying tonnage and poundage without the consent of Parliament. The King forbade the Speaker to put the question to the House. Thereupon a scene of wild confusion followed. The Speaker prepared to leave the House, but was forcibly held down in his chair ; a protest was made against the illegal conduct of the King, the first article of which declared, " Whosoever shall by fa- vour or countenance seem to extend Popery or Arminianism, shall be reputed a capital enemy of the Commonwealth." On March 10 the King dissolved Parliament, and no Parliament met for eleven years. Thus the rupture was complete. The constitution of the country was now an absolute monarchy, the King being his own Prime Minister. 1630. In April Laud, notwithstanding the opposition of Wil- liams, who as Bishop of Lincoln was the Visitor of four colleges, was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. 1632. In this year Neale, Bishop of Winchester, Laud's friend, and only a degree less hated than Laud by the Puritans, succeeded Archbishop Harsnett in the See of York b . 1633. In June the King, in company of Laud, Bishop of b Neale seems to have held at different times more episcopal appointments than ever fell to the lot of an English Bishop. In all six. He was Bishop of Rochester, 1608; Lichfield, 1610; Lincoln, 1614; Durham, 1617; Win- chester, 1628; Archbishop of York, 1632. 342 Th: Triumph of Puritanism London, paid his first visit to Scotland, a visit particularly un- fortunate in connexion with future troubles in England. Scotland, as regarded both clergy and laity, was more intensely Puritan than England. The Reformation in that country took place later than in England, but it was of a much more sweeping character, and under the guidance of John Knox was shaped on the princi- ples of Geneva and on the model of the most rigid Calvinism. There was in Scotland a bitter antipathy to England and everything English ; and the Church of England was placed on a par with the Church of Rome. James, in his dislike to Puritanism, had thought to re-establish Episcopacy in Scotland, and (as we have before seen c ) three Bishops for Scotland had been consecrated in London in October, 1610. The introduction of Episcopacy into Scotland caused much jealousy and discontent amongst the Presbyterian clergy, and now the minds of the Scotch people were much agitated lest Charles should follow out his father's project for enforcing con- formity with the Prayer-book. It had been Charles' intention to introduce the English Prayer-book into Scotland during his present visit. But when the Scotch Bishops urged on him the danger of such a plan, he desisted for a time, but before he left Scotland he requested the Bishops themselves to draw up a Scotch Prayer-book. Archbishop Abbot died on August 4, 1633, soon after the King's return from Scotland, and Laud was appointed to succeed him in the Primacy. Juxon succeeded Laud in the See of London. Laud's archiepiscopal troubles soon commenced through a la- mentable act of indiscretion on his part. Through his advice the Book of Sports, which had given such offence to the Puritans when first published in 1618, was now, by the King's command, republished ; and a step unpopular in itself was rendered doubly so by an order that the King's command should be read in all parish churches throughout the land. Some of the clergy c See p. 328. over the Church of England. 343 obeyed, some refused ; others read it together with the Fourth Commandment, adding by way of comment, " This is the law of God, that the law of man." 1634. At the beginning of the year the Archbishop entered upon a general visitation of his province. The protection of the Holy Table, and its right position in the church, had been from the first an object of his care. In cathedral churches the Altars usually stood under the eastern wall. But in parish churches the custom had come in vogue of moving them into the body of the church at the time of the celebration of the Holy Communion, and had led to much irreverence. The Altar was sometimes made the receptacle of the hats and great-coats of the congregation ; or was used as a table on which the Churchwardens cast up their accounts, as a desk for school children, or as a work- ing-board for carpenters. Laud now, as he had done before, ordered that Altars should stand at the east end of the church, raised above the floor of the church, and be fenced in with a rail at which the communicants could kneel, to protect them from irreverence. Laud's most notable opponent in this seemly observance was Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. He first objected altogether to Laud's right of v.sitation of the Diocese, on the ground that Pope Innocent IV. had granted an immunity to his predecessor, Bishop Grosseteste. When this was decided in the Archbishop's favour by the Lords of the Council, Williams afterwards himself held a visitation of his Diocese, and to gain the favour of the Puritans, he ordered the Communion Table to be placed in the middle of the church, with a rail all round it, instead of at the east end, with a rail before it. But by degrees the influence of Laud prevailed ; the Bishops were induced to order the removal of the Altars to the east end, and that they should be screened in with a rail. He inculcated also the use of copes in cathedrals, the discontinuance of extempore prayers in the pulpit much to the disgust of the Puritans and greater reverence in the services of the Church. 344 TJie Triumph of Puritanism One of Laud's sturdiest opponents was a clever but hot-headed young barrister named Prynne, who having graduated at Oriel College, Oxford, became afterwards a fanatic in the cause of Puritanism. He published a bulky tome called Histrio-Mastix, or The Scourge of Stage-players, in which he attacked not only the stage, with respect to which there was at the time much room for improvement, but the Sunday amusements permitted by the Book of Sports, the Bishops and clergy, music in cathedrals, Christmas festivities, and reflected on amusements to which the Queen was addicted. The book was a tedious composition of i, 006 closely printed pages, and would have attracted little notice but for the prominence which was given to its author. He was brought before the Star Chamber ; the book was pronounced a dangerous and malicious libel ; he was sentenced to deprivation of his university degree and degradation from the bar; to pay a large fine, to be imprisoned for life, and to lose both his ears in the pillory. The odium of this cruel sentence fell upon the Archbishop, although he declared that he had no more to do with it than any other member of the Star Chamber. Prynne became the favourite of the people, and was looked upon as a martyr. Thenceforward he was Laud's persistent enemy to the end of his life, and was the barrister employed at his trial to pre- pare the case against him. 1635. A body of Canons drawn up in England, without the advice being asked of any Convocation of the Scotch clergy or the consent of the Scotch Privy Council, and resting on the sole authority of the King, were ordered to be received in Scotland. They were not confined to matters of religion only, but alarmed the people with high doctrines of the Royal Supremacy and pre- rogative, and with some enactments which seemed to them to sa- vour of Popery. They were regarded as an infringement on its religious liberty, and an attempt on the part of the King to sub- ject Scotland to a new form of government in Church and State. 1636. The Prayer-book as drawn up by the Scotch Bishops d * See page 342. over the Church of England. 345 having been revised in England by three Prelates, Laud, Juxon, Bishop of London, and Wren of Norwich 6 ; and having undergone certain alterations at their hands, after being ratified by the King, was in December sent back into Scotland to come into use in all the churches in that country on the following July 23. 1637. When the appointed Sunday arrived, the opposition which the Prayer-book encountered was overwhelming. The Sunday is still known as " Stony Sabbath," or " Casting of the stools." As soon as Dean Hanna began the service in Edinburgh Cathedral he was assailed with a volley of stones, and a three- legged stool aimed at his head by a woman fortunately missed its mark. The Bishop when he mounted the pulpit met with no gentler treatment, and trying to make his way out of the cathedral nearly lost his life. The clergy in the other churches of Scotland met with similar outrage. The futility of compelling a nation to worship God against their conscience was manifest ; nor can Laud be acquitted of his share in this imprudent act. When he was Dean of Gloucester he had tried to induce James, and afterwards, when Bishop of London, to induce Charles, to introduce the English Prayer-book into Scotland. The catastrophe was then only averted, as we have seen before, by the Scotch Bishops. Now the national feeling was thoroughly outraged; all classes of the laity joined the dissentients. The Bishops and clergy were regarded as their enemies and the abettors of superstition. The attempt to force the Prayer-book on Scotland was the first step that led to the war between that country and the King. The blame was cast upon Laud and the Bishops. Prynne from his prison denounced the Bishops as devouring wolves and Lords of Lucifer. Bastwick, a physician, in his Litany denounced them as despisers of Scripture, patrons of idolatry, servants of the devil. Burton, a London clergyman, inveighed against them as sons of Belial, robbers of souls, factors of antichrist. Their coarse invectives did not harm the Church, but the cruelty of e Wren, Bishop of Hereford, 1635; Norwich, 1635 ; Ely, 1638. 346 The Triumph of Puritanism their punishment did. They were taken before the Star Chamber as " trumpets of sedition." They were sentenced to an equally savage punishment as had been inflicted on Prynne three years ago ; and Prynne was sentenced to an extra mutilation. As they passed along the streets of London, thousands of people flocked around them and greeted them as martyrs ; and in the country through which they travelled to their respective prisons, their journey was like a triumphal procession. Laud, as a member of the Star Chamber, was branded as an enemy to the liberties of the country, and a monster of inhu- manity. On July 7 a paper was affixed to the Cross in Cheapside declaring that the " Arch-wolf of Canterbury had his hand in the persecution of the saints and shedding the blood of the martyrs." It so happened that in this particular trial Laud had kept aloof, because "the business had some reflexion upon himself;" he said he left the prisoners to God's mercy and the King's justice. In November four revolutionary committees known as The Tables were formed in Edinburgh, and practically assumed the government of Scotland. 1638. One of the first acts of the Tables was the production of a Solemn League and Covenant, which was on March i signed by remonstrants of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes, in the churchyard of the Grey Friars in Edinburgh. They swore " by the great name of the Lord our God to defend their religion, and to resist Prelacy both in England and Ireland, that is, Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Arch- deacons, and all other ecclesiastical offices depending on that hierarchy." The King began now to understand the serious consequences of his conduct, and sent the Marquis of Hamilton as his com- missioner into Scotland to treat with the covenanters. By his advice the King drew back step by step. He promised them a General Assembly to settle the affairs of the Church, to be followed by a Parliament, and he withdrew the obnoxious Liturgy over the Church of England. 347 and Canons. But when in return he expected them to renounce the Covenant, the clergy and laity with one voice decided that they would as soon renounce their baptism as renounce the Covenant. A General Assembly met at Glasgow on November 21, and sat for seven days. The Scotch Bishops refused to recognize the Assembly, and in the name of the King the Marquis of Hamilton on November 28 dissolved it. The Assembly, not- withstanding the royal prohibition, continued its Session till December 20 ; it abolished Episcopacy, renounced Arminianism, and adopted Presbyterianism as its creed. Professing to be subject to the King, it practically adopted a republican form of govern- ment. It decreed that its acts, sentences, and censures should be obeyed throughout Scotland ; and it passed sentence of de- position and excommunication upon the Scotch Bishops. Nor did it stop here ; an address was drawn up to the people of England requesting them to join the Covenant, and an agent was sent to London to gain over adherents to its party. 1639. Scotland was now in open rebellion. The King saw that war was inevitable, and on January 26 he issued a letter commanding the nobles and gentry of England to meet him at York by April i, for an expedition against Scotland. The King marched to the frontier with an army of 20,000 men. The Scots were united. The English people felt that the cause of Scotland was the cause of England, and the cause of liberty, and they had no heart for war. So the King consented to an insecure peace, and returned to England on August i. But before long differences again arose with Scotland ; the Scots adhered to their Covenant ; and the King in his difficulties had no other resource but to summon Parliament. 1640. On April 13 the Parliament known as the Short Parliament, from its only sitting twenty-three days, assembled, and the King selected to preach the sermon at its opening Wren, Bishop of Ely, next to Laud the most unpopular of the Bishops. Convocation met on April 14. 348 The Triumph of Puritanism The new House of Commons observed great moderation, and was more respectful to the throne than any which had sat since Elizabeth's reign f . All their anger was turned against Laud. They complained of Popish ceremonies such as Altars, bowing to the East, Crosses, Crucifixes ; as well as of the acts of the High Commission Court ; of the Book of Sports ; and of all the grievances under which the nation had suffered for the last eleven years; and they refused to grant a supply unless these grievances were remedied. Thereupon the King on May 5 dissolved Parliament. The blame of the dissolution was thrown on Laud. Libels were posted up in the city : one of these, on May 9, invited the rabble of London " to hunt William the fox for breaking up the Parliament.-" In the week following a mob of five hundred men made a midnight attack on Lambeth Palace, and threatened to tear the Archbishop in pieces. Laud had been forewarned, and means had been taken for his protection; and the King insisted on Laud's taking up his abode in the Palace of Whitehall. The Houses of Convocation were placed under the charge of the train-bands of Middlesex. On the dissolution of Parliament, Convocation was usually dissolved also. But Convocation had received a Commission under the Broad Seal authorizing it to revise the old Canons, and to make such new ones as it thought fit, for the better govern- ment of the Church. But as it had not completed this work when Parliament was dissolved, Convocation continued to sit, the law officers of the Crown having stated their opinion that as Parliament and Convocation were summoned under different writs, Convocation might continue to sit after the dissolution of Parliament, until it was also dissolved by a distinct writ. Convocation therefore continued to sit till May 29, and voted a large subsidy to the King, and enacted seventeen Canons. The Canons, which were at first favourably received, were soon loudly clamoured against The first, entitled "Concerning the ' Macaulay, i. 95. * over the Chiirch of England. 349 Royal Power," " declared for the Divine right of Kings and their independence of every earthly power." The seventh, "A Decla- ration concerning some rites and ceremonies," recommended bowing towards the Altar. But it was the sixth, " An oath en- joined for the preventing of all innovations in doctrine and government," which, directed though it was equally against Rome and the Scotch Covenant, was the most obnoxious to the people and to Parliament. It ran thus : " I do swear that I do approve the doctrine and discipline or government established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary to salvation. And I will not endeavour by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, to bring in any Popish doctrine contrary to that which is so established ; nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of this Church by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons, et ccetera, as it stands now established, and as by right it ought to stand." The obnoxious words et ccetera, inserted for brevity's sake, plainly referred to other digni- taries and officers of the Church. Yet people asked what does the et ccetera mean ? On all sides the Et Caitera Oath, as it was called, met with objections, and many of the clergy refused to take it. The famous Parliament, known as the Long Parliament, met on November 3. The King addressed its members on their assembling in conciliatory language. One of its first acts was to release the prisoners, Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, and to restore to his diocese Bishop Williams, who had been sentenced to a heavy fine, as well as suspension and imprisonment in the Tower, by the Star Chamber and High Commission Court. On November u, Pym, the Leader of the House of Commons, im- peached Lord Strafford of High Treason. On November 29 he was committed to the Tower. On November 6 A Grand Committee of Religion was appointed by the House of Commons to receive petitions against the clergy. On December 15 the House condemned the late proceedings in Convocation. A resolution was passed, nullo contradicente, that 350 The Triumph of Puritanism * the Clergy of England, convened in any Convocation or Synod, had no power to make any constitutions or canons, or any acts whatever, in matters of doctrine or discipline, to bind the clergy or laity, without the consent of Parliament. The next day it was resolved that the grants made by the late Convocation to his most excellent Majesty were contrary to the laws, and not binding on the clergy. On December 18 Laud was impeached by the House of Com- mons of High Treason. He was described as the sty of all the pestilential filth which infected the country, the author of all the evils under which it suffered, He it was that brought the Earl of Strafford to his high preferments ; he had promoted all the Popish Bishops, Bishop Mainwanng, the Bishop of Bath and Wells (Pearce), of Oxford (Bancroft), and Bishop Wren ; the wolves who have devoured Christ's flock. He was a great fire- brand, " an angry wasp leaving his sting in everything." On December 19 the "Committee for Scandalous Ministers " was appointed. The gravest charges which could be brought against the clergy were such as bowing at the name of Jesus, and were classed under superstition and malignancy. Clergymen accused often by the meanest and worst of their parishioners were condemned as scandalous and malignant, and depnved. Archbishop Neale died on October 31. 1641. On January 31 Commissioners were appointed by the House of Commons for the visitation of churches. They were " to demolish and remove out of churches and chapels all images, Altars, or tables turned altar-wise, crucifixes, superstitious pic- tures, and other monuments and relics of idolatry." Thus com- menced the period of vandalism which lasted for the next nineteen years, and which committed irreparable havoc in our cathedrals and parish churches. On February 26 fourteen articles of impeachment against Laud were taken from the Commons to the House of Lords. The substance of a few may be mentioned. Article I. accused him of subverting the laws of the realm by persuading the King to levy over the Church of England. 351 money without the consent of Parliament ; V. of causing a per- nicious set of Canons to be published without lawful authority ; VII. of endeavouring to introduce Popery ; VIII. of presenting none to ecclesiastical benefices except such as were popishly affected or otherwise unsuitable ; X. of endeavouring to reconcile the Church of England to that of Rome, and allowing a Popish hierarchy to be established in England ; XIII. of introducing innovations of religion into Scotland, and stirring up war between the two countries. On March i he was committed to the Tower, where he had to remain three years and ten months, and from whence he only emerged for his trial and for his execution. On March 12, Strafford, under an Act of Attainder, was beheaded on Tower Hill. The King had promised him that Parliament should not touch a hair of his head. Juxon, Bishop of London, told the King he ought in no case to recede from his promise. But Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, persuaded him that " a King had a public and a private conscience, and that he might do as a King from his public conscience that which militated against his private conscience as a man," So the King gave his reluctant consent to the Attainder. On March 5, by the advice of Williams, on whom now devolved the chief management of ecclesiastical affairs, a Committee of Religion, of which he was chairman, was appointed by the House of Lords^consisting of twenty lay peers and ten Bishops (of whom four only, Williams, Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, Hall, Bishop of Exeter, and Morton, of Durham, consented to act), to enquire into innovations in doctrine and discipline which had been made since the Reformation, and a sub-committee, consisting mostly of doctrinal Puritans, was appointed to prepare matters for the committee. The Commissioners held six sittings in the Jeru- salem Chamber. Most of their proceedings were directed against Laud. They complained (amongst other matters) of the practice of private confession ; of the Altar with a canopy over it, with candles lighted in the daytime ; of the Communion Table being 352 The Triumph of Puritanism turned altar-wise and called an Altar, and that people were taught to bow towards it ; that the clergy said the prayers turning to the East; that there was a credence or side-table on which the elements were placed before consecration. Numerous changes in the Prayer-book were demanded. The names of certain saints should be omitted from the Calendar ; Apocryphal lessons changed ; the " sure and certain hope " in the Burial Office altered into "knowing assuredly that the dead shall rise again." But a Bill for the abolition of Deans and Chapters which was brought into Parliament in May threw the Committee into a state of discord and confusion, so the Committee was broken up without any results arising from it. On May 2 1 a " Root and Branch Bill " for abolishing Bishops and all other chief officers of the Church was brought into the House of Commons, and passed the second reading; and on June 15 it was voted that Deans and Chapters and the lower offices should be done away with. But for the abolition of Episcopacy Parliament was not yet ripe, and the Bill was for the present dropped. But now not only was Laud in the Tower, but two other Bishops, Wren and Pearce, had been impeached, and it was known that other Bishops were to be impeached also, so that the Bishops awoke to their danger, and even Williams saw the injurious consequences of his opposition to Laud. Hall, Bishop of Exeter, the most learned of the Bishops since Andrewes, put forth a remonstrance defending the Episcopacy and the discipline of the Church. This was answered by Smectymnuus, a name derived from the initials of five Puritans who took part in the Controversy ", and the Smectymnuan controversy followed, in which Bishop Usher took the side of the Bishops, and the poet Milton wrote in favour of the Smectymnuans. On June 28 Laud addressed a letter to the University of * Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew New- comen, William bpurstow. over the Church of England. 353 Oxford, lamenting the helplessness of his condition and resigning the Chancellorship. On July 5 the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court were abolished. In the autumn of the same year the government of the Church by Bishops was formally declared in Scotland to be contrary to the Word of God, and the abolition of Episcopacy in that country was confirmed by the King. The abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland excited the hopes of the Puritans that the King would be induced to sanction the abolition of Episcopacy in England also. But the case of Epis- copacy in England stood on different ground to that of Scotland ; the King stated his belief that Episcopacy was the form of Church government most agreeable to the Word of God, and that he was ready to seal his belief with his blood. To leave no doubt on the subject he filled up the vacant Sees. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, was appointed to the Archbishopric of York ; Winliffe, Dean of St. Paul's, was appointed to Lincoln ; Hall was translated from Exeter to Norwich ; Bryan Duppa from Chichester to Sarum ; Skinner from Bristol to Oxford ; and Prideaux, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Divinity, was appointed to Worcester. In August the King went to Scotland, and whilst he was in that country he learnt that a rebellion under circumstances of horror and great bloodshed had taken place in Ireland, and that some 40,000 English and Scotch Protestants had been put to death by the Romanists. With the cry for vengeance which arose in England was mingled a suspicion of the King's conduct. On November 22 A Grand Remonstrance was drawn up in the House of Commons and, after a hot debate, carried by eleven votes. It set forth, with much exaggeration, all the miseries which the country had suffered from the misgovernment of the King ever since he came to the throne, and the inference intended to be drawn from it was that a King who had proved himself so incapa- ble in the past would be equally incapable for the future. A a 354 The Triumph of Puritanism The Presbyterian party had not forgotten nor forgiven the passing of the Canons after the dissolution of the Short Parlia- ment, and they now used them as a pretext for impeaching thirteen of the Bishops who had taken part in the Convocation, and in December ten of them were committed to the Tower. 1642. After eighteen days' imprisonment the Bishops were released. But on February 6, 1642, all jurisdiction was taken from the Bishops and vested in a Committee of the House of Commons ; the King, on the advice of his law officers, influenced also it is said by the Queen, and believing it to be the only way of saving the Church, reluctantly gave his consent to their exclu- sion, thus losing their votes, from the House of Lords. So long as the Church retained its power the Puritans knew that the Throne was safe, and thus the first blow was struck at the Crown through the Church. On January 3 the King had mortally offended the House of Commons by first sending there the Attorney-General, and after- wards going himself in person, to impeach five of its members of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords. The attempt failed, the accused members having been warned in time, and having made their escape. But the attempt to coerce the House of Commons was a deadly blow to the privileges of Parliament and parliamentary government. After this, war between the King and Parliament was inevitable, and both parties prepared for the conflict. The forces of the country were equally divided ; on the side of the King were the Church party and the nobles and country gentlemen ; whilst on the side of Parliament were the Puritans, consisting chiefly of the farmers and tradesmen. On August 22 the sword was first drawn and the civil war had commenced. But Parliament could not look for success without the aid of the Scots, and the Scots would only give them help on condition of their embracing Presbyterianism. There must be one and the same confession of faith, and uniformity must commence with the abolition of Prelacy and Papacy ; for " what hope can there be of over the Church of England. 355 one confession of faith till Prelacy be plucked up root and branch, as a plant which God hath not planted?" These terms, except as to the abolition of Episcopacy, were distasteful to the House of Commons ; but the Scots would listen to no other. So now the " Root and Branch Bill " which failed to pass in the former session was renewed, and passed the Commons in September, passing the Lords four months later. In this year a Committee for Plundered Ministers was appointed. The plundered ministers were those Puritans who having been intruded into the benefices of the malignant (that is, loyal) clergy had been ejected by rightful authority. A general ejectment of Church of England clergy was now effected, and Puritanical ministers were everywhere appointed in their place. 1643. The Scots next required the English to adopt the Solemn League and Covenant. On June 12 the Lords and Commons passed an ordinance " for calling an assembly oi learned and godly divines and others to be consulted with by Parliament for the settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing the doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations." This assembly, known as the Westminster Assembly of Divines, consisted of one hundred and thirty ministers, (by far the greater number of whom were Presbyterians, some Independents, and some avowed Erastians),and thirty laymen. There were at first amongst them a few Episcopalian clergymen, some of them being Prelates : Archbishops Williams and Usher, the Bishops of Dur- ham, Exeter, Worcester and Bristol ; other clergymen were Drs. Hacket, Hammond, and Sanderson ; but when the King issued a proclamation prohibiting the assembly, the Episcopalians refused to act on it. On September 25 the Westminster Assembly met members of the House of Commons in St. Margaret's Church, and there signed the Solemn League and Covenant. 1644. The Covenant was ordered to be taken by every person of the age of eighteen by February 2 of this year. 336 The Triumph of Puritanism The Scots thirsted for the blood of Laud He had indeed been harshly treated. Having been committed to the Tower on March- 1, 1641, and having been subjected to a ruinous fine, he was on March 12, 1644, brought to his trial on the charge of High Treason. The case against him was drawn up by Prynne, who had visited him in prison and robbed him of his private papers, which were essential to his defence. The trial lasted till Novem- ber. The ability with which he conducted his defence and rebutted every calumny brought against him ; his conscious inno- cence and intrepid bravery won for him the admiration of all, even of Prynne. But it was a foregone conclusion, as he himself said he had been " sifted to the bran ; " and yet his judges expressed their unanimous opinion that they found no treason in him. So the impeachment was turned into a Bill of Attainder, which was passed in November in the House of Commons. In October a Directory for Public Worship, in place of the Prayer-book, was issued by the Assembly of Divines. On December 19 Parliament appointed Christmas Day to be observed as a solemn Fast 1645. On January 4 the Bill of Attainder against Laud was passed in the House of Lords. In vain Laud pleaded a pardon which he had received from the King ; it was pronounced worth- less against the voice of Parliament. The only boon, and that against the wish of the House of Commons, granted to him was that he might be beheaded instead of hanged. So on January 10 he was executed on Tower Hill. A great diversity of opinion exists as to Laud's character. Some people shut their eyes to his faults ; others regard him as the embodiment of bigotry, narrowness of mind, and vindictive- ness of temper. The truth probably lies in the mean between the two. His faults, and perhaps they were not few, were the faults of the time, rather than of the man. If he had lived a generation earlier or a generation later, his name would have descended with a different fame to posterity. The age in which he lived over the Church of England. 357 was the most unhappy in which the lot of such a man could possibly have been cast. The clergy had been degraded through the rapacity of the Tudors ; the earnest laity, if they were not Romanists, were Puritans. He was not what would be con- sidered in our days an advanced ritualist. His aim was simple decency in the Services ; not to introduce a high ceremonial, but mere reverence into the Church of England. His motives were misunderstood when he lived, and are misunderstood now ; hence the injustice which has been heaped upon his head. He was accused of being a Romanist. We in our days under- stand the meaning of the accusation. Then, as now, the mere observance of the Church's laws was branded as Romanism. He was no Romanist. By his learning he confuted the Jesuit Fisher; in the book which he wrote against him he justified the English Reformation ; accused the Church of Rome of being the cause of the schism between the Churches of Rome and England, and refuted out of the writings of the early Fathers the infallibility of Rome. It was he who induced Chill ingworth, the future champion of Protestantism, to leave the Church of Rome and to return to the Church of his baptism. It was his opposition to Romanism which made for him an enemy in the Queen. He was hated by the Romanists. " I was in Rome," wrote Evelyn, "when the news of Laud's death arrived; there were great rejoicings, in Rome at it. They spoke of his murder as of the greatest enemy the Church of Rome had in England being cut off, and the greatest champion of the Church of England silenced." He was accused of being an innovator. He was no innovator ; on the contrary he laboured to preserve what was old against unauthorized novelties ; and if we have in the present day our ancient Prayer-book, it is to Laud we are indebted for it. He was accused of having no sympathy with the Puritans. How could it have been otherwise ? They were trying to pull down the Church, and the only terms they offered were open war 35& The Triumph of Puritanism or unconditional surrender; and he chose the former as the lesser of two evils. In every position which he occupied, as Chancellor at Oxford, as Dean, as Bishop, as Archbishop, he left his mark for good. When he first went to Oxford, the University was, as has been already stated, at its lowest ebb. When Evelyn went there in 1637, he found it exceedingly regular under the discipline which Laud had established. The best test of his character is to be found in the deep love which his friends and those who knew him well bore towards him. He must have been a man of ability, for although his enemies ascribe his rise in life to Court favour, no common man could possibly have risen step by step to the high honours which he held. That he was a generous patron of learning even his enemies allow ; no one ever accused him of a love of money ; and of his great munificence, the Church and his University are sufficient witnesses. The virtues of the man and of the Churchman must not how- ever blind us to the faults of the statesman. As a statesman he was in a false position. However injurious it might be to the Church, there was some show of reason for Bishop-statesmen in the Middle Ages, for the clergy were at that time the only part of the community who possessed the barest rudiments of learning. But such an office in the middle of the seventeenth century was an anachronism. Laud, too, was an advocate of the Divine Right of Kings ; and yet he must have known that the throne of England was elective, and not hereditary. He was one of the judges in the hated courts of the High Commission and the Star Chamber, and the odium and cruelty of those courts was visited upon him. All Laud's surroundings were against him. Short in stature ; of undignified and ungainly appearance ; of a sour and irritable temper ; with a sharp and angry-sounding voice ; a stranger to the art of conciliating ; too much inclined to lean on the secular arm, and to apply force where persuasion would have done better. over the Church of England. 359 Such were amongst his faults ; and they were faults easily de- tected and magnified by his enemies. It had been his desire to be buried in the chapel of his old college of St John's. At first his headless trunk was interred in the churchyard of All Hallows, near the Tower of London, where the body of the martyr Bishop Fisher had been buried a hundred years ago. After the Restoration his bones were transferred to the Chapel of St. John's College, where they lie buried under the Altar. The Directory for Public Worship having been approved by the General Assembly of Scotland, had been returned to England, and on January 4 Parliament passed an ordinance for it to be taken into use, and forbidding the use of the Prayer-book. On August 23 another ordinance was passed for the more effectual putting into use of the Directory. One clause of the ordinance ran as follows : " It is further hereby ordained by the said Lords and Commons that if any person or persons what- soever shall at any time or times hereafter cause to be used the aforesaid Book of Common Prayer in any Church, Chapel, or place of public worship, or in any private place or family within the kingdom of England, or dominion of Wales, or port or town of Berwick ; then every such person so offending shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of ^5, for the second offence the sum of ;io, and for the third offence shall suffer one year's imprisonment without bail or mainprise ; and further, every minister who does not strictly keep to the Directory for Public Worship, shall every time he offends forfeit forty shillings.'' Any one writing or preaching against the Directory was liable to a fine not less than ^5 nor more than ^50. On St. Bartholomew's Day (the first Black Bartholomew) the Prayer-book was suppressed, and every one who possessed it was compelled to give it up, and those of the clergy who refused to take the Directory were deprived of their livings. 1646. The Puritans were now divided into two principal religious bodies, the Presbyterians and Independents. To this 360 The Triumph of Puritanism latter party Oliver Cromwell, who had been educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, belonged, and under him it soon became supreme in the House of Commons and in the army. Cromwell's Ironsides, as they were called, had defeated the King at Marston Moor in July, 1644, and in the more decisive battle of Naseby in June, 1645. The King's cause was now utterly lost. On May 5 he took refuge in Scotland, hoping that the Presbyterians would help him against the Independents. The Scots insisted upon his taking the Covenant, and establishing Presbyterianism in England. In December the Westminster Assembly put forth two Cate- chisms, a larger and a shorter Catechism ; and a Confession of Faith consisting of thirty-three articles to take the place of the thirty-nine articles. 1647. The King not agreeing to the terms offered him by the Scotch, they on July 30 surrendered him to the English Parliament. 1649. It was the wish of Cromwell to save the King's life, but the military saints determined on his death ; they even threatened Cromwell, and a mutiny broke out which he could with difficulty quell. A revolutionary tribunal was on the first day of the new year appointed by the Commons for the trial of the King. On January 20 he was brought to Whitehall ; the next day his trial commenced ; on the 2jth he was sentenced to death ; on the 3oth he followed the Primate to the scaffold, and was beheaded at Whitehall. Thus the triumph of the Puritans was complete, having first pulled down the Church, they next destroyed the throne of England. Juxon was with the King in his last hours. Cromwell would not allow the funeral to take place in Westminster Abbey, so the King's body was taken to Windsor to be interred on February 7 in St. George's Chapel, the Bishop of London being present to officiate. The Governor of Windsor refused to allow the Burial Service to be read ; " it was not lawful," he said ; " the Common over the Chtirch of England. 361 Prayer-book had been put down, and he would not suffer it to be used in that garrison, or where he commanded." So King Charles was buried without the Service. 16491660. For eleven years after the King's death England was governed through the army, the officers taking the place of magistrates. There was no King, no House of Lords; the Church was in abeyance; the government of the country, nominally a republic, was in reality a despotism, limited only during Cromwell's lifetime by the wisdom and moderation of the despot. The clergy were obliged to take an oath, called the "Engagement," to the republican government In March, 1654, thirty-eight commissioners, called " Triers," most of them Inde- pendents, some Presbyterians, and a few Baptists, were appointed to examine candidates for Orders, and also with a retrospective power over those already ordained. Cromwell, himself an Independent, was in favour of toleration, except for the Papacy and, what he thought as bad, Episcopacy. The Presbyterians "that insolent sect," as he called them, " which would tolerate none but itself" hated and denied toleration to any but themselves. To them also Cromwell granted toleration. But the Prayer-book was forbidden by law to be used even in private houses. Still its use, even inside the churches, was to some extent connived at ; and some of the sequestered Bishops, notably Skinner of Oxford, conferred ordination. But in 1655 Evelyn tells us that a sharp persecution commenced, and that it was necessary to confine the Church Services to private houses. Even this was attended with much danger. He describes a service held in London, at which he and his wife were present, on Christmas-Day, 1657. The soldiers interrupted it, and asked how they dared, contrary to an ordinance, observe the superstitious day of the Nativity, and attend Common Prayer, which was only the Mass in English. " As we went up to receive the Sacrament," says Evelyn, " the miscreants held their muskets against us, as if they would have shot us at the Altar, but yet suffered us to finish the office of Communion." 362 The Triumph of Puritanism, &{. The number of the ejected clergy, without reckoning curates, masters of hospitals and schoolmasters, has been computed at 7,000 out of a total of 10,000. Of the ejected Prelates, says Mr. Walker h , one, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded without any colour of law ; and one, Williams, Archbishop of York, joined the faction which had ruined his brethren ; eighteen died in poverty ; only nine survived the Commonwealth, and one of those (Wren, Bishop of Ely, uncle to Sir Christopher Wren) had been imprisoned for eighteen years. On the ejected clergy, a pension, or as it might be called a starving, in some cases only a fifth of their benefices, was conferred. As the great majority of them were married men, it is clear that fully thirty thousand persons were turned out on the world to get their livings in the best way they could. But Presbyterianism never gained a firm footing in England. The Presbyterians finding the power of the Independents supreme in the State, and their own power on the wane, took themselves off to the Livings from which they had expelled the rightful owners. And thus the Westminster Assembly came to an end. Cromwell, when it was too late, found out his mistake, and would willingly have restored the Church and the Monarchy. His last years were consumed with remorse and bitterness. He died on September 3, 1658. Eighteen months of anarchy ensued ; disunion pervaded the army ; and the nation, sensible of its degradation, longed for the restoration of the Church and of the Throne ; even the Presbyterians, now that they were thrown into the background, desired the return of the King. h Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 57. CHAPTER XVI. THE RESTORATION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1660 1689. THE Declaration from Breda issued by Charles II. Deputations from Par- liament, and also from the Presbyterians, wait upon him The Prayer- book and the National Church restored The vacant Sees filled up Juxon Archbishop of Canterbury The Savoy Conference Convocation authorized to review the Prayer-book The review completed The Cor- poration Act The new Act of Uniformity The Ornaments Rubric Black Bartholomew The Dissenters of the present day not the descen- dants of the Puritans Parliament badly disposed to the Puritans Baxter and Kidderminster The King's Declaration The Conventicle Act Agreement between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Clarendon The Five Mile Act Such persecuting Acts harmful to the Church The Fire of London Second Conventicle Act The Duke of York de- clares himself a Romanist The Second Declaration of Indulgence Withdrawn The Test Act Archbishop Sheldon dies, and is succeeded by Sancroft The Titus Gates Conspiracy Act of Parliament against Romanists The Exclusion Bill rejected Fourteen Bishops voting against it The Meal -tub Plot The Rye House Plot Ken consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells The King dies in the Roman Catholic Communion The Caroline Divines The Cambridge Platonists Hales of Eton Chil- lingworth The Religious Societies The Accession of James II. Tries to Romanize the Church of England James announces his intention of an- nulling the Test Act Opposition of Parliament Compton, Bishop of London, protests Roman Catholics appointed to high offices in the State and in the Church High Court of Commission Sharpe preaches in defence of the Church of England Compton brought before the High Commission Court and suspended James attacks the Universities Case of Magdalen College, Oxford The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience The Declaration republished Opposition of the Archbishop and Bi- shops They are committed to the Tower Their trial and acquittal The Prince of Orange invited to England The King for some time holds out, but yields when it is too late lie flies from England. 1660. A Convention Parliament (that is a Parliament sum- moned without the royal writ), in which the Presbyterians largely predominated, met on April 26. On May i, A Declaration from Breda was read before both Houses of Parliament, in which the 364 The Restoration of the National Church of England. King, Charles II., promised : " we do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom ; and we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as, upon mature deliberation, shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence. On May 4, deputations of both Houses were sent to the Hague to conduct the King to England. At the same time a deputation of Presbyterian Divines, including Reynolds, Calamy, and Manton, waited upon him, and requested that " such things might not be pressed upon them in God's worship which even by those who used them were owned to be matters indifferent, and by others were considered unlawful." The King answered that he should refer such matters to Parliament, which was the best judge as to what indulgence and toleration was necessary. They next petitioned him against the Book of Common Prayer; he told them he "thought it the best in the world." They then requested that the Surplice might not be worn by his own Chaplains, because it "would give great offence to the people." The King indignantly refused their request; he told them "he would not be restrained himself when others had so much in- dulgence ; that the surplice always had been reckoned a decent habit, and constantly worn in the Church of England till these late times ; . . . that though for the present he connived at disorder, he would never discountenance the ancient and laudable customs of the Church in which he was bred." On May 8 the two Houses of Parliament proclaimed Charles II. King. On May 25 the King landed at Dover. Immediately after his arrival the Prayer-book was taken into use again in Canterbury Cathedral, and in the Chapel of Whitehall. The Bishops took possession of their Sees, and such of the clergy as survived the rebellion their livings. Thus the reign of Puritanism came to an end, and the National Church was restored together with the Throne. The Restoration of the National Church of England. 365 Only nine of the Bishops survived the rebellion. Of the two Archbishops, Laud had perished on the scaffold, and Williams, Archbishop of York, notwithstanding his numerous preferments, died in 1650 in poverty. Matthew Wren, after twenty years' confinement in the Tower, and Pearce, who had also been imprisoned, were restored to their Bishoprics. It was neces- sary to fill up the vacant Sees. Bryan Duppa was translated from Salisbury to Winchester. The aged Juxon, Bishop of London, was promoted to Canterbury; Accepted Frewin, formerly Presi- dent of Magdalen College, Oxford, and since 1644 Bishop of Lichfield, to York. On October 28 were consecrated in Henry VHth.'s Chapel, Gilbert Sheldon to the See of London 8 , Henchman to Salisbury 1 *, Morley to Worcester , Sanderson to Lincoln, Griffith to St. Asaph. On December 2, amongst others, were consecrated, Cosin to Durham, Bryan Walton, the author of the Polyglot Bible, to Chester. Gauden, the editor, but who now claimed to be the author, of the Eikon Basilike, to Exeter d , Sterne to Carlisle 6 . Jeremy Taylor received no higher reward than the Bishopric of Down and Connor, to which he was appointed in this year. The great Dr. Hammond, who had been nominated to the See of Worcester, died before his consecration, as also did Dr. Fuller, the Church historian, who was marked out for a Bishopric. The Presbyterians still continued their demands, which, mainly owing to Baxter, were nothing short of the concession on the part of the Church of all its points of difference with the Puritans. The King, however, thought proper, with the view to promoting union, to issue on October 25, a "Declaration to all his loving subjects of his kingdom of England and dominion of Wales concerning ecclesiastical affairs," in which he promised a review of the Prayer-book. The Convention Parliament was dissolved on December 29. Archbishop of Canterbury, 1663. b Bishop of London in 1663. * Bishop of Winchester, 1662. d Bishop of Worcester, 1662. e Translated in 1664 to York. 366 The Restoration of the National Church of England, 1661. On January 6 Gilbert Ironside was consecrated to Bristol, and Reynolds to Norwich. Everything was done to please the Puritans, and to induce them to join the Church. Reynolds was the only one who accepted a Bishopric. ' The See of Coventry and Lich field was offered to Calamy, and that of Hereford to Baxter, the intruded Vicar of Kidderminster, but refused in both cases ; Deaneries were in several cases offered to, but refused by, other leaders of the party. In obedience to the King's Declaration, a Conference, known as the Savoy Conference, met on April 15, at the Bishop of London's lodgings in the Savoy, consisting of twelve Bishops and twelve Dissenting Ministers, with assessors on both sides. Archbishop Frewin, in the absence of the aged Juxon, presided. On the side of the Puritans, the most conspicuous were Reynolds, Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Tuckney, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, Dr. Conant, Regius Professor of Divinity, and Wallis, the Professor of Geometry, at Oxford. Sheldon, on the part of the Church, declared that they were all contented with the Book of Common Prayer, and the Presbyte- rians were invited to state their objections. The latter put forth several objections, such as to the observance of Lent, Saints' Days, the Apocryphal Lessons, the word Priest, the Collects, the Catechism, the Surplice, the Marriage Ring, the Cross in Baptism, and kneeling in the Holy Communion. Baxter offered as an alternative to the Prayer-book a "Reformed Liturgy" of his own composition. The Bishops were not ready to agree with the Presbyierians that the points objected to were contrary to the Word of God ; but the Puritans would be contented with nothing short of their abolition; thus there was no common basis between them, and the Conference, after continuing to sit till July 24, ended with very little practical result The King was crowned on April 23. A Parliament, the Cavalier Parliament, as it is called, met on May 8, 1661. The new Parliament, in which the Presbyterians had dwindled down to a minority of about fifty members, was composed chiefly of TJie Restoration of the National Church of England. 367 young men who, with a faint remembrance of the evils under which the nation had suffered under the Stuarts, were keenly alive to the tyranny under which they had themselves suffered under the Commonwealth. Hence, says Lord Macaulay, " it was more zealous for Royalty than the King, more zealous for episcopacy than the Bishops." On May 20, the King announced his intention of marrying Katharine of Braganza. The marriage was solemnised according to both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Rituals. Thus Charles' wife, his mother, and his sister, who had married the Duke of Orleans, were all Romanists. In July, whilst the Savoy Conference was still sitting, an order was made in Parliament that "A Committee be appointed to review the several laws for confirming the Liturgy of the Church of England, and to make search whether the original book of the Liturgy annexed to the Act passed in the 5th and 6th years of King Edward VI. be still extant, and to provide for an effectual conformity to the Liturgy of the Church for the time to come." On October 10 Royal letters were issued to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in November to the Archbishop of York, authorizing Convocation to make a review of the Prayer-book. The Convocation of Canterbury, to which that of York sent delegates, met on November 21. A committee of eight Bishops, Wren of' Ely, Skinner of Oxford, Warner of Rochester, Cosin of Durham, Morley of Worcester, Henchman of Salisbury, Sanderson of Lincoln, and Nicholson of Gloucester, was ap- pointed. The Committee met at Ely House, and at once commenced their work, Dr. Bancroft, Chaplain to Bishop Cosin, acting as Secretary. To guide them in the work they had the valuable assistance of Cosin, who had been Librarian and Sec- retary to Bishop Overall, and was himself the most learned ritualist of the day. Cosin had brought with him a copy of the Prayer-book as it stood after the revision of James I., and with his own notes, on which he had expended the labour of 40 years, 368 The Restoration of the National Church of England, as against the proposed Prayer-book of the Presbyterians, on which Baxter had expended fourteen days. They were therefore able to proceed rapidly with the review. On November 23 a portion of the work was sent to the Lower House of Convoca- tion, which returned it on the 27th with a schedule of amend- ments. The whole work was finished by December 20, and was unanimously subscribed by both Houses of Convocation of both provinces. In December of this year the Corporation Act was passed, which compelled all officials in municipal Corporations to receive the Holy Communion " according to the rites of the Church of England : " to renounce the Solemn League and Cove- nant, and the " traitorous position of the legality of taking arms by the King's authority against himself or his officers." Whilst Convocation was engaged with the Prayer-book, Par- liament was passing a new Act of Uniformity. 1662. For two months the Prayer-book appears to have been detained by the King in Council. But on February 25 it was brought to the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, and passed in that House without examination. From thence it was taken to the Commons. On March 17 it was resolved in the House of Commons that that "shall be the Prayer-book to which the Act of Uniformity should relate." On March 18 the thanks of the House of Lords were conveyed to Convocation by the Lord Chancellor for the pains it had taken in the Revision. On May 19 the King signified his approval of the Prayer-book. Thus our present Prayer-book comes down to us with the authority of Convocation, of Parliament, and of the King f . At the revision of 1662 as many as 600 alterations, mostly verbal, and of no importance from a doctrinal point of view, are said to have been made. In view of recent controversies which have arisen with respect to it, a few words must be said about { To conciliate the Presbyterians a concession was made by the re-insertion of the Black Rubric, which had been absent from the Prayer-book from 15591662, The Restoration of the National Church of England. 369 what is known as the Ornaments Rubric. Here the conduct of the Bishops was firm. Instead of yielding to the noisy clamour of the Puritans, and retaining the Geneva gown, they adhered to the usage of the Church of England. They might easily have referred to the Second Prayer-book of King Edward VI. of 1552; or to the Advertisements of Elizabeth; or to the Canons of 1604. Can it be supposed, especially as the question of ritual was more vehemently debated at that time even than it is now, that they would have acted with such wanton carelessness as to say one thing when they intended exactly the opposite ? In the Prayer-book of 1552 it was enjoined that "the minister at the time of Communion, and at all other times of his ministra- tion, shall use neither alb, vestment, or cope." But the revisers of the Prayer-book of 1662 having before them this and all the formularies on the subject, take no notice of them, but pre- scribe an entirely new rubric, viz., that " such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their mini- stration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI." That is to say, a via media was adopted between the excessive ritual which prevailed before the second year, and the lower ritual prescribed under the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI. The Act of Uniformity prescribed that " every Parson, Vicar, or Minister shall, before the Feast of St. Bartholomew, 1662, after the reading of the said book, declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the said book in these words : "I do hereby declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the book entitled the Book of Common Prayer," &c. As St. Bartholomew's Day, which in that year fell on a Sunday, had been chosen by the Puritans for the suppression of the Prayer-book in 1645, so St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, which also fell on Sunday, was to see its restoration. Accordingly, on that day (Black Bartholomew, as the Puritans called it) the new Act Bb 37 Tlie Restoration of the National Church of England. of Uniformity came into operation, and beneficed persons were required : (i) to declare their unfeigned assent and consent in the Prayer-book ; (2) their repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant ; and (3) to be episcopally ordained. Episcopal ordination was the great stumbling-block. Not so much that the Puritans of that day objected to Episcopacy in itself. Baxter and his followers denied that they took the ground of the old non-conformists. They did not, like them, scruple about trifles ; but they desired " a Catholic union on the broad basis of the essentials of Christianity." They were entirely different to the Dissenters of the present day, who can in no sense claim to be the descendants of those early Puritans. Unlike them, Baxter and his party approved the principle of a National Church, and were unwilling to be classed with Separa- tists. They held government under Bishops to be reasonable^ but they did not consider it essential ; and many of them had conformed both under Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. But they believed that the Bishops and the Presbyters belong to the same order; and having once received Presbyterian ordination, they felt that Episcopal ordination would cast a slur on their former orders. More conciliatory measures might perhaps have been adopted in dealing with them. The King, in his Declaration from Breda, had promised them liberty of conscience, but it was subject to the approval of Parliament. He could have felt no strong affection for the Puritans who had murdered his father. He had spent some time amongst them in Scotland, a king in name, but in reality a State prisoner. He had been forced by the Scots to conform to their worship, to take the Covenant, and to listen to their long tedious sermons abusing his father's tyranny and his mother's idolatry. Yet he did his best to carry out his Declaration, when he offered promotion in the Church to their most prominent leaders. It was not therefore his fault, and much less was it the fault of the Church, if his intentions could not be carried out. It was not with the Church, nor with the King, that the The Restoration of the National Chut ch of England. 371 Puritans had to reckon, but with Parliament But Parliament, and especially the House of Commons, bore no great love towards them. This can scarcely be wondered at. During their short triumph the Puritans had thoroughly opened the eyes of the nation. They had upset everything, murdered the King and Archbishop, made it penible to use the Prayer-book, turned the clergy out to starve, trampled on the consciences of the laity. The action of Parliament, therefore, must not be regarded so much in the light of intolerance, as a sign of detestation of the tyranny of the Puritans when in power, and a precaution against its repetition. On Black Bartholomew some eight hundred Puritans were ejected from the benefices to which they had been illegally appointed. The Puritans overstate the number of those ejected, Baxter placing it at eighteen hundred, Calamy at two thousand. But even at the highest calculation they were not a quarter of the Episcopalians v ho had been before ejected, and whose benefices had been usurped by the Presbyterians on no lawful authority. The Puritans compared the St. Bartholomew's Day of 1662 to that of St. Bartholomew's Day which witnessed the cruel massacre of the Huguenots in France. Many of those ejected were no doubt pious and learned men ; but it is difficult to understand how they could have been comprehended on their own terms in a Church the very essence of which is Episcopacy. No new principle, but only the old one, was enforced at the Restoration. Many of the livings were held by men of low stamp and of no education, mostly Presbyterians. It was the first duty of the Bishops to enquire whether they had been properly, i. e. episcopally, ordained ; they must either accept Orders in the Church of England, or they must be ejected from those livings which were meant for and had always, until the last few years, been held by Episcopalian clergymen. There were difficulties on all sides. Some clergymen, not Presbyterians, had been intruded into benefices, the Incumbents of which were still living. Such an one was Baxter, intruded 372 TJie Restoration of the National Church of England. Vicar of Kidderminster. Baxter had been Episcopally ordained, and had met with signal success in that parish ; Kidderminster loved Baxter and Baxter loved Kidderminster. He acknow- ledged Episcopacy and had strong ideas of submission to authority ; he said that " the murder of the King struck him to the very heart." When brought before the infamous Jeffreys, he said, "I have been blamed by the Dissenters for speaking respectfully of Bishops." "Baxter for Bishops," exclaimed Jeffreys, "that is a merry conceit; rascals like yourself, Kidder- minster Bishops, snivelling Presbyterians." Such was the prevalent feeling, but expressed in less coarse terms, towards those aliens who held the Church Livings. But what was to be done? Dance, the rightful vicar, was alive, and wanted to return to his Living ; could he be expected to resign it for an intruder like Baxter? The Bishop of Worcester, Morley, was himself tainted with Calvinistic views ; with him Baxter pleaded his call from the parishioners; but the Bishop was forced to confess, " neither did I nor any other Bishop commit to his care the cure of souls in that or any other Parish in the Diocese." So Baxter's connexion with Kidderminster was severed. From St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, the name of Puritan disappears, and that of Dissenter or Non-conformist takes its place ; the ejected Puritan develops into the modern Dissenter and the history of modern Dissent commences s. Notwithstanding the Act of Uniformity, the King in December of 1662 put forth a Declaration "based on that power of dispensing which we conceive to be inherent in us ; " in which he declared his " resolution to maintain the Act of Uniformity, only he should dispense with certain matters in it." Thus he entered on the same path which was afterwards to prove so fatal to his brother, James II. Parliament, however, told him plainly, * In 1862 the Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians celebrated the Bi- centenary of Nonconformity, and a Memorial Hall was in 1875 opened in Farringdon Street, London, built at a cost of ,70,000, to commemorate the event. The Restoration of the National Church of England. 373 that the "laws of Uniformity then in being, could not be dispensed with but by Act of Parliament." Charles, less obstinate than his brother, resigned, although only for a time, his project. 1664. The country was suffering under a series of calamities, and constant plots against the Cavalier Parliament, which were said to have been fomented by the Presbyterians, were discovered. Lord Chancellor Clarendon openly accused them of encouraging, through their preaching, schism and rebellion. The anger of Parliament was turned against the Presbyterians ; hence arose the various Acts which were now passed against those who refused to conform to the Church. The first of such Acts was the Conventicle Act, which rendered any person above the age of sixteen who should attend any religious meeting, where more than five people besides the household were assembled, in which the Book of Common Prayer was not used, liable to a fine and imprisonment, and for the third offence to transportation to the American plan- tations. In this year, by a verbal agreement between Archbishop Sheldon, the successor of Juxon in the Archbishopric of Canter- bury (1663 1677), an arrangement (in favour, as it was supposed, of the clergy who always paid more than their fair proportion of taxes) was made, whereby the clergy abandoned their ancient right of taxing themselves in Convocation, and were thence- forward to be included in the taxation of the laity. The effect of this arrangement was, that Convocation was rendered thence- forward less necessary than previously to the Crown ; a succession of prorogations which had hitherto been impossible, was resorted to, which were a prelude to the later virtual extinction of Convocation. As a plausible set-off, the inadequate composi- tion was granted to the clergy of sending (like the lay por- tion of the community) members to Parliament ; but even this right was taken from them in 1802. 1865. Notwithstanding the Conventicle Act, the ejected minis- 374 The Restoration of the National Church of England. ters continued to hold their meetings and to preach in secret. Parliament, therefore, which in consequence of the Plague, at that time raging in London, held its sittings in Oxford, passed the Five Mile Act, by which all non-conforming ministers were obliged to take an oath that " it is not lawful under any pretence whatever to take arms against the King ... or those commissioned by him . . . and that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of government in Church or State." No person in Orders, unless he took the oath, was allowed to come within five miles of any city, or borough, or parish of which he had been minister. And no one who refused to take the oath or to frequent the services of the Church, might teach in any public or private school. To the infringement of this Act was attached a penalty of forty pounds and six months' imprisonment These were terribly persecuting Acts. We read in conse- quence that many hundreds of the Nonconformist clergy, with their wives and children, had neither roof to cover them nor bread to eat. Many of them had no more than eight or ten pounds a year to keep a whole family. Many gained a living by following the plough on six days of the week, and this after the greatest frugality only enabled them to provide the coarsest fare for their families. Such cruel acts could not but be harmful to the Church, for Presbyterians and Independents, who had nothing else in common, became thenceforward united in their hostility to the Church, which has continued from that time to this. 1666. The plague ceased in February of this year, only to be immediately followed by the great fire, by which two-thirds of London, including St Paul's Cathedral and eighty-nine churches, were reduced to ruins. The fire was imputed to the Noncon- formists, with what amount of justice it is impossible to say ; against Roman Catholic and Protestant Dissenters alike, which- ever were at the time most unpopular, such accusations were common. 1670. But since the penal laws, in consequence of the The Restoration of the National Church of England. 375 ravages of the plague, had been allowed to fall into abeyance, a second Conventicle Act was passed with a view to their stricter observance. A fine was imposed on people attending a dissent- ing chapel ; any magistrate might enter the chapel and disperse the assembly : and so rigorously was the Act enforced that it was said not a single conventicle was left in England. In this year the Lord Chancellor Clarendon was deposed, and the Cabal Ministry was formed. Louis XIV., King of France, and Charles II. joined in a secret treaty at Dover, in which Louis agreed to give Charles money to rule without Parliament, in return for which Charles stipulated that he and his brother should openly join the Church of Rome. The temper of the country, however, prevented the design being carried out so far as Charles was concerned. 1672. The Duke of York (the future King James II.) now declared himself a Roman Catholic. In this year Charles, now under the influence of the Cabal, with the desire of benefiting the Roman Catholics, issued a second Declaration of Indulgence. All penal laws, those against Protestant and Roman Catholic dissenters alike, were to be suspended ; but whilst a certain number of places of worship were to be set aside and licensed for the former, Roman Catholics were not required to have their chapels licensed, but might hold their services in their own houses. 1673. , The Declaration was received with the greatest aversion throughout the country. It was evident that a blow was being struck against the Church, and that the King was resolved to bring back Romanism into England. The Protestant Dissenters refused to accept a boon which they were to share with Roman Catholics. The hatred against the Puritans, which had existed since the Restoration, now subsided, and the old hatred of Rome was intensified. The Bishops were strongly opposed to the Declaration; and the Lord Chancellor, Bridgeman, who had succeeded Clarendon, thought it so objectionable that he refused to annex the great seal to it. 376 The Restoration of the National Church of England. The House of Commons, considering the Declaration as an infringement of the constitution, passed the resolution : " That penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended except by Acts of Parliament ; that no such power had ever been claimed by the King's predecessors, and therefore that the late ' Declaration of Indulgence ' was contrary to the law." The King, for a time, made a stand : but now signs of disunion began to manifest themselves in the Cabal ; Lord Shaftesbury, to whom the arbitrary measure was chiefly due, deserted the King, and declared the Declaration to be illegal ; the King was obliged to yield, and the Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn. Soon afterwards the Commons unanimously resolved that " a Bill should be brought in for the ease of His Majesty's subjects, who are dissenters in matters of religion from the Church of England." The Bill however was thrown out in the Lords. The Commons now saw plainly that danger from Romanism was imminent, and feeling their own strength, passed the Test Act (the famous Act, which with the Corporation Act remained unrepealed till 1828). It was entitled An Act to prevent dangers which may happen from Popish recusants, and required all who held offices, either civil or military, to receive the Holy Com- munion according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and to subscribe a declaration against Transubstantiation. The bill had an easy passage through the Commons, and afterwards passed, under stronger opposition, the House of Lords ; and the Duke of York was obliged to resign his post of Lord High Admiral. 1677. On November 4 of this year, the Princess Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, married the Prince of Orange, an event of great importance in the future history, not only of the State, but also of the Church of England. On November 9 Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, died h , h In 1669 the Sheldonian Theatre was built by Sir Christopher Wren at the sole cost (,25,000) of Sheldon, for the performance of the Commemora- tion and other functions, which had hitherto desecrated St. Mary's Church. The Restoration of the National Church of England. 377 and was succeeded by Sancroft, Dean of St. Paul's, who perhaps owed his advancement not a little to his exalted ideas of royalty and the doctrine of passive obedience. 1678. At a time when the feeling of the country was in a highly inflammable state; when the heir-presumptive to the Throne was a Roman Catholic; when the King himself was supposed to favour the Church of Rome; an impostor named Titus Gates threw the whole country into a state of alarm. The son of an Anabaptist, he had taken Orders in the Church of England, and held a living which he was obliged to resign on the ground of the badness of his character ; he then turned Romanist and entered the College of St. Omer, afterwards returning to the Church of England. This man invented from his own brain an alleged conspiracy on the part of Jesuits and Roman Catholics to murder the King, and to set James on the throne, their object being to establish Romanism as the religion of England. The dead body of Sir Edmund Godfrey, a magistrate for Westminster, before whom Gates had sworn the conspiracy, was found in a field, near London, on October 17. Colman, the Duke of York's Secretary, in whose possession some incrimin- ating Popish documents were found, and three Roman Catholic priests, were accused by Gates of complicity in the murder, and were executed. The gaols were filled with Roman- Catholics. An Act of Par- liament was passed requiring a strict oath from both Houses against Transubstantiation, the Adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass as used in the Church of Rome. A proviso, however, was attached to the Act, that "nothing contained in it should extend to His Highness, the Duke of York." 1679. The Cavalier Parliament having sat for more than seventeen years was dissolved. 1680. The King being in want of money, the Commons of the new Parliament refused to vote him a grant without he gave his consent to the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne. 378 The Restoration of the National Church of England. The King promised to give his support in any way to the Protestant religion, so far as was consistent with " the succession of the Crown in the legal course of descent." On November 2, the Exclusion Bill, the object of which was to exclude the Duke of York from the throne, was brought in, and on November 1 5 passed the House of Commons by seventy- five votes; but after an angry debate, the King himself being present, was rejected by sixty-three against thirty votes in the House of Lords, fourteen Bishops voting with the majority. But a discovery having been made that Gates was an impostor, a reac- tion in favour of the Duke of York now set in. It was at this time that the names of Whigs and Tories first came into vogue, the former maintaining that the country would never be safe under a Romanist King, the latter insisting on the divine right of Kings. 1681. The Parliament was dissolved on January 18, to be succeeded by a Parliament (which sat at Oxford) on March 21. The King was now at the height of his power ; though he ex- pressed his willingness to assent to any plan by which religion might be promoted, he refused to alter his mind as to the succession. After seven days this Parliament also was dissolved, and the King, till his death, governed the country without Parliament. 1683. The office of false informer having been found a profit- able one in the case of Oates, a plot known as the Meal-tub Plot (from some incriminating papers being found in a meal-tub) was charged by a notorious and already convicted criminal, named Dangerfield, against the Presbyterians, who were now accused of a design to murder the King and the Duke of York. In the same year the Rye House Plot was designed by people despairing of having the evils of which they complained redressed through Parliament, the object being to assassinate the King and the Duke of York at a farm-house called the Rye, in Hertfordshire, on their return journey from Newmarket. 1685. On January 25, Ken was consecrated to the See of Bath and Wells. It is pleasant to be able to say anything in TJie Restoration of the National Church of England. 379 Charles' favour, but with all his faults he was careful in the appointment of Bishops. During one of his visits to Winchester, where he was at the time building a palace, not finding sufficient accommodation for his suite, he demanded of Ken, who was a Prebendary of the Cathedral, the use of his prebendal house for Nell Gywnne. " Not for his kingdom," was Ken's brief but decisive answer. So far from being offended, the King said to one of the courtiers, "although I am not good myself, I can respect those that are." And when the See of Bath and Wells became early this year vacant, through the translation of Dr. Mew to Winchester, Charles appointed to it Ken, " the little fellow," as he called him, " who refused to give poor Nelly a lodging." The next month Ken was called upon to attend the death-bed of the King. On February 2 the King was struck down by a fatal illness. Under such a tutor as Hobbes, the Patriarch, as he has been called, of Freethinkers, who accompanied him in his exile, and on whom he bestowed a pension as a mark of his regard, it could scarcely be wondered that Charles was ill-grounded in the truths of Christianity. Whatever he may have been during his life hating Puritanism and wavering between infidelity and Romanism, inclining to the former when in health and spirits, and to the latter in his few serious moments he at any rate avowed himself a Romanist on his death-bed. In his illness, Sancroft and Ken (whom we are told of all the Bishops Charles liked most) stood by his bedside. Burnet says Ken spoke as one inspired but 'nothing could induce the King to receive the Eucharist at their hands. To find a Roman Catholic Priest at such a time when severe penal laws existed against Nonconformists, was no easy matter. But there happened to be dwelling at Whitehall a Benedictine monk named Huddleston, who having saved the King's life at Worcester, had ever since been regarded as a privi- leged person, and at his hands Charles received the last Sacraments of the Roman Church. He died on February 6, regretted only for one reason, that of leaving his brother James as his successor. 380 The Restoration of the National Church of England. The seventeenth century is considered the golden era of the Church of England ; the century which created that standard, the result of years of patient study and intimate acquaintance with the early Fathers, which characterizes Anglo-Catholic theo- logy. Never did any branch of the Catholic Church boast of such an array of divines in an equally limited period. It is impossible here to give more than some of the principal names and dates. Andrewes, 1555 1626. Laud, 1573 1645. Hall, 1574 1656. Usher, 1581 1656. Cosin, 1594 1672. San- derson, 1587 1663. Bramhall, 1593 1663. Hammond, 1605 1660. Jeremy Taylor, 1613 1667. South, 1633 1716. Pearson, 1613 1686. Barrow, 1630 1667. Brian Walton, 1600 1661. Chillingworth, 1602 1644. Thorndike, d. 1672. Ken, 1637 1711. Comber, 1644 1699. Stillingfleet, 1635 1699. Bull, 1634 1710. Beveridge, 1637 1708. George Herbert, 15931632. Side by side with them was growing up a school of divines, mostly Cambridge men, known as the Cambridge Platonists, who were destined to leave a lasting influence upon the Church. Chief amongst these were Benjamin Whichcote (1610 1683), Provost of King's College. Ralph Cudworth (1617 1688) (a vigorous opponent of Hobbes), appointed in 1644 Master of Clare Hall, 1645 Professor of Hebrew, and 1654 Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. Dr. Henry More (1614 1687), who was offered in 1654 the Mastership of Christ's College, but refused it in favour of Dr. Cudworth. Others were Culverwell and Worth- ington, Fellows of Emmanuel ; Dr. Richard Cumberland, the author of De Legibus Natures disquisitio Pkilosophica, appointed Bishop of Peterborough in 1672 ; and an Oxford man, Dr. Wil- kins, Bishop of Chester, in 1668, who married Cromwell's sister. Following the Christian Platonists of the second and third centuries, the Cambridge Platonists strove to prove that religion and philosophy were reconcileable ; that God had given two lights, one that of Scripture, and the other of reason, to lead men into the truth. They valued Christianity rather on its practical The Restoration of the National Church of England. 381 than dogmatic side, and attached less value than more orthodox Anglicans to the Sacraments and to Church authority. Hence they were called men of latitude, or Latitudinarians. They re- ferred their opinions to Hales of Eton (1584 1656) and William Chillingworth (1602 1644). Hales in 1636 published a tract on Schism, in which he advocated a dispensation from all tests ; he became infected with Socinianism, from which, however, he was rescued by Laud, who made him in 1639 a Canon of Windsor ; but he was ejected from his preferments at the Com- monwealth for refusing to take the prescribed oaths. Chilling- worth, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, one of the most famous Controversialists of the English Church, inclining at one time to Arianism, was at another led to Rome by the Jesuit Fisher, but reclaimed by Laud; and in 1637 he published his famous work, " The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way of Salva- tion." He never rose to the highest dignities in the Church, owing to his scruples with regard to signing the Thirty-Nine Articles. Such were some of the principal Latitudinarian clergy; but even they pale into insignificance beneath the more orthodox divines who flourished about the same time. It is a melancholy but instructive fact, that at the very time the Church enjoyed such a high standard of influence, the morality of the nation was at its lowest ebb ; and there is no reign of English history, save perhaps that of John, on which an Englishman looks back with greater shame and humiliation than the reign of Charles II. We need not look far for the cause of this. When the Restoration was effected, the rebound from the high pressure enforced under the Commonwealth was sudden and dangerous ; it is impossible to make men religious, as the Puritans sought to do, by law, and when the restraint was removed a general licentiousness and infidelity followed. The nation revelled in its freedom, and burst out into a reaction of frivolous amusements and criminal indulgencies. The example of a good and moral King would have done much to covaiteract 382 The Restoration of the National Church of England. the evil. But Charles had seen too much of the Puritans not to understand them ; he thought them hypocrites ; he ridiculed their absurdities, and determined to free himself from their restraints, and unfortunately from religion also. The higher classes were only too ready to follow the example set them by the King and the Court ; so the seeds, if not then first sown, were at any rate watered, which were sure to lead in time to a chronic indifference to religion, and which, beginning with the Court and the upper classes, communicated themselves too surely to the lower classes of the community. The Church of England has never been wanting to the nation in the time of its greatest need. So now, about A.D. 1685, Religious Societies of Churchmen, principally under the guidance of Dr. Horneck, Preacher at the Savoy Chapel, and Dr. Beveridge, at that time Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, began to be founded in London, and from London to extend themselves into the country. The members of these Societies bound themselves to a holy and religious life, to receive the Holy Eucharist at least once a month, and to carry out the principles of the Church of England. No person under sixteen, and until he was confirmed, was admitted into the Societies. Through their means the Holy Communion was celebrated on every Sunday, and sermons preached in many of the London churches to prepare people for receiving the Holy Eucharist. At their meetings no prayers were allowed but those of the Church, such as the Litany ; but none might be used which belong peculiarly to the clergyman. By means of these Societies many people were induced to attend regularly the Services and Sacraments of the Church ; many were converted from Romanism, and Baptists and other dissenters brought into the Church. When, therefore, James II. came to the Throne in February, 1685, the ruins of the Church caused by the Commonwealth had been well-nigh repaired, and the Church of England was, not only in name but in reality, the Church of the Nation. Never had it been more efficient, never did it stand higher in the affections of 77ie Restoration of the National Church of England. 383 the people. It was known, indeed, that James was a Roman Catholic, but the nation was ready to condone this, for though they hated Romanism much, bitter experience led them to hate Puritanism more. They were strongly attached to their Church, but they were ready to support the divine right and passive obe- dience in civil matters ; but in one respect the feelings of all classes of the community, Churchmen and Dissenters, were alike ; there must be no tampering with the Church, no encroachment on it by the Crown. Never did King of England begin his reign under better auspices than James II. He owed everything to the Church, for, but for the opposition of the Bishops to the Exclusion Bill, he would long before have been an exile. At his accession he promised the Privy Council that he would support the Church ; he proved unfaithful to it, tried to undo the work of the Restor- ation and to Romanize the Church. He brought with him more than the usual stubbornness of the Stuarts ; nothing would deflect him from his purpose ; the nation had to choose between the King and their Church : and we shall see how they threw over the former and clung to the latter. On February 8, the first Sunday after his accession, James attended the Mass of the Roman Communion. At his coronation on April 23 (the Feast of St. George, the patron Saint of England) he ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury to abridge the service, and Sancroft was weak enough to comply ; the Holy Communion was omitted, as was also the usual presentation to the Sovereign of an English Bible. The first Parliament of the reign, which consisted almost entirely of Tories and Churchmen, met on May 19. The King repeated the promise which he had made to the Privy Council at his accession, that he would preserve the Government in Church and State " as it is now by law established." But at its second ses- sion on November 9 he announced to Parliament his intention of setting aside the Test Act in favour of the Roman Catholic officers in the Army. It was part of the royal prerogative to remit penal- 384 The Restoration of the National Church of England. ties inflicted for the violation of the Test Act. Hence it was argued that the difference between pardoning offenders against a statute and abrogating the penalties beforehand, was only a detail of administration within the competence of the Sovereign to regulate. But Parliament had recently determined the point ; when, in 1662 and again in 1672, Charles claimed a similar right, it told him plainly, as we have seen, that he was exceeding his prerogative, and Charles had sense enough to withdraw from an untenable position. James, on the contrary, announced that he would consider any man his enemy who opposed the repeal of the Test Act, and, when Parliament told him he was acting illegally, he suspended the Act on his own authority. Compton, Bishop of London, in the name of the clergy, protested against this high- handed proceeding, and was removed from his office as Dean of the Chapel Royal. James treated Parliament like his successors afterwards treated Convocation, only allowing it to assemble to undergo the formalities of being prorogued. 1686. At the end of this year the King sent Lord Castlemaine as Ambassador Extraordinary to Rome, with instructions to " reconcile the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the Holy See, from which for more than an age they had revolted by means of the Northern heresy'." James now openly set the Test Act in defiance. He appointed Roman Catholics as Privy Councillors, and to civil and military offices. He allowed four Roman Catholics to be consecrated under the title of Vicars Apostolic to exercise episcopal functions in England. The royal chapels were used for the Roman services. Romish processions, carrying a representation of the Pope, paraded the streets of London. Obadiah Walker, a Roman Catholic, was appointed Master of University College, Oxford, and Massey, another Roman Catholic, Dean of Christ Church. 1 The next occasion when a special envoy was sent by a British sovereign to the Pope was 200 years afterwards, when, in December, 1887, the Duke of Norfolk was sent as Envoy Extraordinary from Queen Victoria, bearing to His Holiness gifts and congratulations on his jubilee. The Restoration of the National Church of England. 385 Thus not only did a Roman Catholic become Head of the most important College at Oxford, but also a high dignitary in the Church of England. The same year the Bishopric of Oxford was conferred on Samuel Parker, a clergyman of doubtful allegi- ance to the Church. Whilst the King was thus favouring to the uttermost the Church of Rome, he did all in his power not only to depress the Church of England, but to prevent it from defending itself. He had issued an order to the Bishops, " prohibiting all the inferior clergy from preaching on controversial points of divinity ;" and by way of enforcing the order, he revived the High Court of Com- mission, of which he appointed the infamous Jeffreys as Presi- dent. Sancroft, the Archbishop, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, and Crewe, of Durham, were appointed Commissioners. Sancroft refused to act on it, and was in consequence forbidden the Court. In the month of June, Dr. Sharp, one of the leading clergy of the day, Rector of St. Giles', London, and Dean of Norwich, preached a sermon in which he defended the Church of Eng- land. James called upon Compton, Bishop of London, to sus- pend him. This of course would have been unjust, and Comp- ton refused to comply with the King's order ; he was thereupon summoned before the High Commission for the sole offence of re- fusing to condemn one of the clergy unheard, and was himself suspended,. 1687. The King next proceeded to attack the two Univer- sities : and began with Cambridge. In the spring of this year he sent an order to the Vice- Chancellor to admit one Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to the degree of M. A., " without administer- ing any oaths whatever, notwithstanding any law or statute to the contrary." The Vice-Chancellor refusing to comply with this order was suspended by the High Court of Commission from his office and from the Headship of his College. But a more memorable invasion of rights took place with regard to Magdalen College, Oxford, which enjoyed the richest c c 386 The Restoration of the National Church of England. foundation at either University. Upon the death of the Presi- dent, James issued a mandamus to the Fellows to elect Farmer, a man of notoriously immoral character, and a recent convert to Rome, as President ; and when he was forced to withdraw him on account of his character, he next ordered them to elect Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford. The Fellows, however, had, according to the rules, elected Dr. Hough, one of their own body ; in con- sequence of which the President and all the Fellows except two were expelled. Parker became President, and when he died in 1688, Bonaventure Giffard, a Roman Catholic Bishop in fartibus, succeeded him, and the College was turned into a Roman Seminary. In this same year James, not contented with granting dispensa- tions for particular cases, determined to repeal all penal laws and all tests, and with this view, on April 4 there appeared in the Gazette, "A Declaration for Liberty of Conscience." The pre- amble set forth that the King cannot but "heartily wish that all his subjects were members of the Catholic Church, yet in his opinion conscience ought not to be constrained ;" that by virtue of his prerogative he issued the Declaration of Indulgence ; he declared it to be his "will and pleasure that the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and the several tests and declarations mentioned in the Acts of Parliament in the 25th and 30th years of his brother's reign," should no longer be required. The design of the Declaration was evident, and Churchmen and leading Pro- testant Dissenters alike denounced it as illegal. 1688. On April 27 the King republished his Declaration, and this no doubt would have passed over as quietly as the former one, had it not been followed on May 4 by an order in Council that it should be read during divine service on the 2oth and 27th of the month in the churches and chapels of London and ten miles round, and on 3rd and loth June in all other churches and chapels throughout the kingdom. This new order was received with general indignation amongst all classes of the community, Tories as well as Whigs, Dissenters The Restoration of the National Church cf England. 387 as well as Churchmen. All eyes were directed towards the Prelates. Sancroft, the Archbishop, hesitated not a moment, and a meeting of Bishops and clergy was convened by him to Lambeth on May 18. Besides the Archbishop seven Prelates were present : Comp- ton, of London, Lloyd, of St. Asaph, Ken, of Bath and Wells, Turner, of Ely, Lake, of Chichester, White, of Peterborough, Trelawney, of Bristol ; and the following clergy : Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector of St Martin's, Sherlock, Master of the Temple, and Grove, Rector of St. Andrew's, Undershaft. It was agreed that the Declaration ought not to be read ; and a "humble petition" was signed by Sancroft and six of the Bishops (Compton being under suspension did not sign) to be presented to the King. It was Friday, and as the Declaration had to be read on the following Sunday, and therefore no time could be lost, the six Bishops (Sancroft having been forbidden the Court did not accompany them), at ten o'clock that same night, obtained an interview with the King and presented their petition. The King called it a standard of rebellion, and told the Bishops that they should feel his displeasure. The Bishops answered, " The will of God be done." That night the petition (how, and by whom, was not known) was printed and cried about the streets of London, and soon all England knew that the Bishops had withstood the illegal measures of the King. Sunday came, and the churches were crowded in anxious ex- pectation of what the clergy would do. In London only four clergy, men read the Declaration, one of them being Timothy Hall, one of the most obscure of the London clergy. When Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, who was also Dean of Westminster, began to read it, the congregation left the Abbey. Of the whole clergy of England, numbering about ten thousand, only some two hundred read it, and then the greater part of the congregation left the churches. The Primate and the six Bishops were cited to appear before 388 The Restoration of the National Church of England. the King in Council on June 8, when they were ordered to find bail to answer at Westminster a charge of false and malicious libel. This, however, as Peers of the realm they refused to do, and were thereupon committed to the Tower. Their journey thither, which was made by water, resembled a triumphal procession, the people in the boats falling on their knees and asking their blessing. The trial took place at Westminster Hall, on June 29. Of the four Judges, two pronounced the Petition to be a libel, two were for the Bishops. The jury sat all night in consultation, and at ten o'clock next morning returned a verdict of Not Guilty. The verdict was everywhere received with the wildest en- thusiasm. The King was at the time visiting the camp at Hounslow Heath, and the shouts of joy from the soldiers first conveyed to him the unwelcome tidings. It told him more than he liked to confess, that he had alienated all classes of his subjects ; that Tories no longer held to passive obedience ; that the nobles, the gentry, the clergy, the universities, the Protestants of all sects, all stood aloof from him, and now the very soldiers whom he had himself raised forsook him. At night London was one blaze of light; bonfires burnt in every street; rows of seven candles, to represent the seven Bishops, lighted up every window. The Bishops were represented as the saviours of the nation, and of the liberties of the people ; and were compared (somewhat irreverently) to the Seven Golden Candlesticks and to the Seven Stars at Christ's right Hand. Meanwhile the country was thrown into excitement by the news that on June 10 an infant heir to the Throne was born, who every one felt sure would be brought up in the Roman Faith. No time could now be lost. On the very day of the Bishops' acquittal, an invitation signed in cypher by seven leading men in England, one of them being Compton, Bishop of London, was despatched to Holland to invite the Prince of Orange, the husband of James's daughter Mary, to come to England to in- tervene on behalf of the liberties and religion of the country. The Restoration of the National Church of England. 389 Still unwarned by the popular feeling, the King, although implored to do so by the most devout Roman Catholics, refused to give way. He dismissed the two judges who had favoured the Bishops. He ordered the Archdeacons throughout the country to report the clergy who had refused to read his Declara- tion. The Archdeacons made common cause with the Bishops, and only one report was sent. Sprat resigned his place on the High Commission. In October the King nominated Timothy Hall to the See of Oxford. Not until warned of his danger by the King of France did James yield. He then saw, when it was too late, that his whole hope lay in the Church of England, and in more than one interview with them he sought assistance from the Bishops whom he had treated so ill. They gave the best advice which the circumstances permitted; he thanked them, and followed their advice just so far as he liked and no further. He removed the suspension of Compton ; he dissolved the High Commission Court; re-instated the Church of England magistrates whom he had deprived of office ; restored the President and Fellows of Magdalen, and requested the Archbishop to frame some Collects suitable to the present danger. But it was too late. On November 5 William of Orange, accompanied by his Chaplain, Gilbert Burnet, landed at Torbay and marched on to Exeter. Lamplough the Bishop fled, and was rewarded by James with the long-vacant Archbishopric of York. A solemn Te Deum was sung in the Cathedral of Exeter. Every day added to James's misfortunes. One by one his friends fell from him. Then followed his son-in-law, the Prince of Denmark (a loss, however, which did not trouble him much), and at length, as a crown of sorrow, his own daughter Anne forsook him. On December 23 James, after a previous un- successful attempt, escaped from England never to return, and on the same day William of Orange entered London. CHAPTER XVII. HIGH INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1689 1714. THE Declaration of Rights William III. and Mary elected King and Queen The Bill of Rights Character of William Toleration and Compre- hension already advocated by the Church Gilbert Bumet The Bills for Comprehension and Toleration Toleration Act becomes law Oppo- sition in the Commons to the Comprehension Bill They advise the sum- moning of Convocation A committee of Bishops and Priests appointed to draw up subjects for Convocation The Lower House objected to be styled Protestant Failure of the Comprehension Scheme By the Tolera- tion Act the Dissenters placed on the same footing of establishment with the Church The Non-jurors The Latitudinarian Bishops Archbishop Tillotson His death Tenison Archbishop Death of Queen Mary Commissions appointed to distribute the Crown patronage Tenison as well as Tillotson the opponents of Convocation The spread of scepticism Dr. Bury's Naked Truth Sherlock and South Bingham deprived of his Fellowship The King's Directions The Injunctions A Convoca- tion demanded Wake and Atterbury Convocation summoned after a suppression of eleven years Decay of morality and of the Church services The Church puts forth new life The Societies for the Reformation of Manners The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Dr. Bray The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts The Church did not retrograde during the reign of William The Act of Settlement Death of James II. And of William Character of Queen Anne The Tory Government The Bills against Occasional Confor- mity The Queen restores to the Church the firstfruits and tenths Queen Anne's Bounty The Whigs in power The Memorial of the Church of England Vigorous measures against Romanists The Church in Danger The Sacheverell Case The cry of the Church in Danger prevails and a Tory Government comes into power The Occasional Conformity Bill passed The Church at its highest point of influence An Act of Parliament passed for building fifty new churches in London Only a very few built Able Bishops and clergy in the reign of Anne Great activity in the Church Somewhat marred by the Latitudinarian Bishops Case of Whiston And of Dr. Clarke Attempt to unite the Protestant Communities of Prussia under the discipline of the Church of England Defeated through the supineness of Tenison The Schism Act The death of the Queen. IF the Church stood high in the affections of the nation at the commencement of James Il.nd's reign, at the end of his High Influence of the Church of England. 391 reign it stood still higher. It was to the Church that the State was indebted for the termination of that struggle between the Crown and the people which had been going on for nearly one hundred years. It was the Church that won the victory for Church and State. A Convention Parliament, which met on January 22, 1689, declared that James having abdicated the government, the Throne was vacant. A Declaration of Rights was drawn up on February 13. It condemned the misgovernment of James, and denied the right of the King to dispense with laws or to exact money except with the consent of Parliament. It bound the Sovereign to maintain the religion and laws of the Church and Realm, and it elected William III. and Mary to reign together as King and Queen. The House of Commons unanimously voted its thanks to the clergy and Church of England for the stand they had made against Popery, for their refusal to read the King's Declaration of Indulgence, and their opposition to the Ecclesiastical Commission. The Convention Parliament was dissolved on February 6, 1690, and by the new Parliament which succeeded it the Declaration of Rights was turned into a Bill of Rights. The succession to the Throne was settled, after the death of William and Mary, on the children of Mary, and in default of such issue on her sister Anne and her heirs, and next on the heirs of William. William of Orange was by birth a Presbyterian, by education a Calvinist. He was opposed to Episcopacy ; he had no taste for the Services of the Church, and disliked even the simplest points of ritual, such as the Surplice and the Cross in Baptism. Though called to be the Defender of the Faith, he did not understand the faith or worship of the Church of England, which he placed on a level with the Protestant churches of the Continent. In no relation of life was he an estimable character ; and in addition to certain moral disqualifications, a cold and forbidding manner made him generally disliked in England. 392 High Influence of the Church of England. His religion he made subservient to his politics. The Bishops opposed him, and therefore he was not inclined to favour the Church. He favoured the Dissenters, not so much for the reason that he was a Dissenter himself, but for the same reason that he preferred Whigs to Tories because he found them more useful to him. He disliked Roman Catholics ; but he would have favoured them also, and indeed on one occasion he expressed his willingness to do so, if only he found them subservient to his purposes. Before William and Mary came to the Throne plans had been set on foot by the Church, not only for toleration, but also for comprehension of Dissenters. The reminiscence of Puritan intolerance had been buried in the bigotry of James, and a spirit of religious freedom had been gaining ground in the Church. The penal laws passed in the reign of Charles bore very hardly upon dissenters both Roman and Protestant. Sancroft, the Archbishop, was an advocate of toleration. At the very time when the Bishops were resisting James's Declaration of In- dulgence, Sancroft, in connection with the leading Churchmen of the day, was actually engaged in a scheme for toleration and comprehension. We have more than one instance of this in Sancroft's history. The memorable Petition of the seven Bishops, which was drawn up in his handwriting, declared that there was no want of " due tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom they were willing to come to such a temper as should be thought fit, when that matter should be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation." And in articles which he issued to the Bishops of his province immediately after his trial, he enjoined the clergy to have "a very tender regard to our brethren, the Protestant Dissenters." The Revolution, so far from furthering, frustrated comprehen- sion. The first Bishop appointed by William was his chaplain, Gilbert Burnet, in 1689, to the See of Salisbury. Burnet was a Scotchman by birth and a Presbyterian on his mother's side. After his Ordination he exhibited extreme Latitudinarian opinions. High Influence of the Church of England. 393 He would communicate with the Churches of Holland and Geneva, dispense with the surplice, with the Cross in Baptism, and with subscription to the XXXIX. Articles. When he was appointed to the See of Salisbury, Sancroft thought him a Presbyterian in disguise, and refused to consecrate him ; but with his character- istic weakness Sancroft issued a commission to three of his suf- fragans to act in concert with the Bishop of London in his place. Sancroft was a staunch Churchman, and the comprehension which he advocated compromised no essential point of doctrine or ritual. It was owing to the Erastianism of Burnet that the plan of comprehension failed ; and to this day it has never been renewed. Comprehension and toleration found an advocate in the Earl of Nottingham, the Secretary of State, of all the ministers of the Crown the most acceptable to Churchmen. In March, 1689, he brought two Bills into the House of Lords : the one for " uniting their Majesties' Protestant subjects," known as the Bill for Com- prehension ; the other for " exempting their Majesties' Protestant subjects, dissenting from the Church of England, from the penal- ties of certain laws," known as the Bill of Toleration. Both Bills passed the House of Lords in April, and were taken to the House of Commons. In the House of Commons, however, the two Bills met with different treatment. The Toleration Bill had an easy passage and became law ; far otherwise was it with the Bill of Comprehen- sion. It was a Bill with regard to which the Church ought to have been consulted. The Commons, therefore, refused even to discuss it, and voted that " Convocation should be summoned, according to ancient usage, in time of Parliament." To this pro- posal the House of Lords agreed. Burnet, shrewder in his generation than Tillotson, opposed the plan, for he saw how fatal it would be to his scheme of comprehension. The King, how- ever, adopted the advice of Tillotson, Dean of St. Paul's, a man equally Latitudinarian with Burnet, and determined to summon Convocation. 394 High Influence of the Church of England. In the meantime, however (September 19), he issued a com- mission to ten Bishops and twenty Priests, to draw up subjects to be submitted to Convocation. The Commission seems to have been fairly enough selected. The Latitudinarians, however, at once assumed the lead, and they proposed so many alterations, chiefly in the Prayer-book, as amounted to nothing short of an attempt to Presbyterianize the Church. Convocation met on November 20, and after the election as Prolocutor of Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, who was chosen in preference to Tillotson, the Latitudinarian candi- date, was prorogued to December 4. On that day the King sent a message to Convocation, in which he spoke of the interest he took in " the Protestant religion in general, and particularly of the Church of England." The Bishops at once agreed in a vote of thanks to the King for the royal message; not so, however, the Lower House. Burnet in- sisted that the Church of England was Protestant ; Jane, on the other hand, objected that the term Protestant was equally ap- plicable to Socinians, Anabaptists, and Quakers. At last a via media was adopted, and an address, not compromising the Church, was agreed to. The King saw through it, and was displeased, but he returned a gracious answer. The Lower House of Convocation was far from being pleased with the recommendations of the Commission, and feared that the King intended to Presbyterianize the Church of England, as he had done to the Church of Scotland, where Episcopacy had lately been abolished. So evident was the feeling of the House that the scheme of the Commissioners was not even presented to it. The failure of comprehension was, however, to a great extent due to the Nonconformists themselves. They well knew that there was no bond of union between their different sects. They felt that it was to their interest to keep up a strong faction in Church and State, and they feared lest the Presbyterians might gain a preponderating influence over the other sects. But in any case the Church, in that it preserved the Prayer-book unmutilated, High Influence of the Church of England. 395 owes a debt of gratitude to the Lower House of Convocation. A bad feeling was however engendered between the two Houses ; and the foundation of disputes and of great misfortunes to the Church was laid. The Toleration Act has been called the Magna Charta of Dissent. It was the first Act which recognized the right of public worship outside the Church of England. It did not indeed relieve Dissenters from the Corporation and Test Acts, nor did it extend itself to Popish recusants or deniers of the Trinity. But it legalised Dissent. Hitherto Nonconformity had been an offence against the State. When the State legalised and pro- tected Dissent, a new era to Church and State commenced. The Church ceased to be the National or the Established Church (as some people call it) in the same sense that it was before. The Revolution did one of two things; either the Church of England was disestablished, or Dissent was established with it ; there is now in England either no established religion, or there are some two hundred established religions. The last day appointed for taking the oath to the new King and Queen was February i, 1690. The form of oath was, "I do sincerely promise and swear to bear true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary." When that day arrived six Prelates, viz. Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canter- bury, Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Turner, of Ely, Frampton, of Gloucester, Lloyd, of Norwich, and White, of Peterborough, together with about four hundred of the clergy, refused to take the oaths (whence they were called Non-jurors\ and were de- prived a . Amongst the Non-jurors of the second Order of the clergy the most conspicuous were ; William Sherlock, Master of the Temple b , Hickes, Dean of Worcester, and Jeremy Collier, the Church a In England the number of Non-jurors was not large. But in Scotland all the Bishops and about 700 of the clergy were Non-jurors. b He afterwards took the oath, and was appointed to the Deanery of St. Paul's. See p. 399- 396 High Influence of the Church of England. Historian, Charles Leslie, Chancellor of the Diocese of Clogher, and John Kettlewell, Vicar of Coleshill. Conspicuous amongst the laity were Dodwell, Camden Professor at Oxford, and the pious Robert Nelson, author of the Companion of the Fasts and Festivals of the Church. Sancroft died on March 24, 1693. In November, 1694, two Non-jurors were consecrated Bishops by Lloyd, Turner, and White, viz. Hickes, as Suffragan Bishop of Thetford, and Wag. staffe, of Ipswich. Ken disapproved of the proceeding. At a later period Jeremy Collier was consecrated a non-juring Bishop. It was no easy task to find amongst the leading clergy men willing to accept the Sees of the non-juring Bishops, whom they held to be uncanonically deprived. Beveridge refused Ken's See of Bath and Wells, whereby he lost all hopes of preferment in William's reign. Sharp refused the See of Norwich, vacant by the deprivation of Lloyd, and must have equally offended the King. But Sharp, though a High Churchman, was beloved by every one, and Tillotson amongst the number. Eventually the Sees of the Non-jurors were filled up, and were mostly conferred on Latitudinarians. Tillotson reluctantly ac- cepted the Primacy, and was consecrated on May 31, 1691. Sharp was on July 5 consecrated to the See of York, vacant by the death of Lamplough. Hough, the late President of Mag- dalen, had been, on May 1 1 of the preceding year, consecrated to the See of Oxford c , vacant by the death of Timothy Hall. Tillotson, a sincerely religious and estimable man in private life, was a Latitudinarian ; some people would call him a large- hearted man, but he carried his large-heartedness too far for an Archbishop of Canterbury, whose duty it was to discourage heresy and schism. Not only was he the friend of leading Churchmen, such as Archbishop Sharp and Robert Nelson, but also of Firmin the Socinian, Howe the Nonconformist, and Penn the Quaker. He objected to the Athanasian Creed. It was his custom to administer the Holy Communion to people sitting instead of e Translated to Lichfield in 1699 ; Bishop of Worcester, 1717 1743. High Influence of the Church of England. 397 kneeling ; he would walk about the church administering first to those who were in their pews, and then to those at the Altar-rails, he himself not going within but standing without. People accused him of being an Atheist, a Deist, an Arian, a Socinian ; the charges were untrue, but it may at least be said that he was lukewarm in matters of doctrine and discipline, and was thus far an accomplice with the King in his hostility to the Church of England. Tillotson did not long survive his appointment to the See of Canterbury, dying on March 23, 1694, at the age of sixty-four years. On his death Queen Mary wished Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, to succeed him. Stillingfleet was a Latitudinarian, but not of the pronounced type of William's Bishops. When he was only twenty-four years of age he published an Irenicum, in which he made large overtures to the Dissenters. He proposed that the sign of the Cross in Baptism should be omitted ; the surplice taken away ; that Dissenters should be required to sign only thirty-six of the XXXIX. Articles; that the Apocryphal Lessons should be changed and the Rubrics corrected. It is true he afterwards apologised for the work on the ground of his youth. Still he was at the time reckoned as a Latitudinarian, but not sufficiently so to satisfy William and the Whig Government ; so he was passed over, and Tenison, a Latitudinarian scarcely less pronounced than Tillotson or Burnet, translated from Lincoln, was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury (1694 The King is said to have left the Church appointments chiefly in the hands of the Queen. Doubtless the Low Church notions which she received from her husband were considerably strength- ened by the influence which Burnet and Tillotson exercised over her. Mary had no High Church tendencies, and it is possible that the example of her father, for whom she shewed but little reverence, might have driven her into the opposite extreme. Yet High-Churchmen like Hooper and Ken had been her Chaplains at the Hague, and it is scarcely possible that she could altogether 398 High Influence of the Church of England. have approved of the Latitudinarian Bishops with whom the Church was being swamped. At any rate she incurred the wrath of William when in 1691 she appointed Hooper to the Deanery of Canterbury ; and certainly it was a bold step, for the King had, on more than one occasion, put his veto on Hooper's promotion. A few days after Christmas, 1695, between the death of Tillotson and the appointment of Tenison to the Archbishopric, Queen Mary died of small-pox. On her death, the King adopted a plan which might, in theory at least, have been advantageous to the Church. He appointed two Commissions, each consisting of six Prelates, to dispense the patronage of the Crown. On the first Commission, appointed in 1695, he placed Archbishops Tenison and Sharp, Lloyd, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Burnet Patrick, Bishop of Ely, and Stillingfleet ; and on the death of Stillingfleet in 1699, ne nominated More, Bishop of Norwich, in his place. These Commissioners were to recommend for vacant appointments one or more persons to the King; and no Secretary of State was allowed to recommend any one who had not first received the approval of the Commissioners. The Bishops whom he placed on the Commission were mostly Latitudinarians, and so for the remainder, as in the early part of his reign, Church preferments were generally bestowed on Whig and Latitudinarian clergymen. That the plan was regarded as a party one is plain, for when the Tories came into power in 1701, the ministers urged the King, although without success, to dissolve the Commission ; and one of the first acts of the government in Queen Anne's reign was to dissolve it. Tenison, no less than Tillotson, was the opponent of Con- vocation. During the Primacy of Tillotson, and for the first six years of that of Tenison, Convocation was in abeyance. During its long suppression a wave of scepticism and infidelity broke over England. When people's minds were thus unre- strained by authority, the spirit fostered by Latitudinarianism got abroad of every one forming his own judgment on matters High Influence of the Church of England. 399 of doctrine. This rationalizing spirit showed itself in two ways ; firstly, in the denial of the Divine Nature of our Saviour, which developed into Unitarianism ; secondly, in the denial of all revealed religion, and consequently of the Bible, which later on acquired the name of Deism. Under one or both of these heads may be ranged the various controversies which agitated the Church of England during the last years of the seventeenth and throughout a great part of the eighteenth century. In 1690, Dr. Bury, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, had been deprived by the Visitor, Dr. Trelawney, Bishop of Exeter, for a work entitled The Naked Truth, which contained heterodox views on the Trinity. Controversy begets controversy, and Churchmen, with the best "possible intentions, but the most unfortunate consequences, set themselves to the task of explaining the necessarily mysterious doctrine of the Trinity. In 1693 Dr. Sherlock, the most unpopular clergyman of the day, who having at first refused the oaths to William and Mary, afterwards conformed and was appointed to the Deanery of St. Paul's, wrote (in reply to a Socinian work lately published) A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Ever-blessed Trinity, his intention being to prove that that doctrine contained nothing opposed to right reason. His work, however, laid him open to attack, for he described the Tri-Unity as Three Minds or Spirits, a definition which savoured of Tritheism. South, Canon of Christ Church, and Public Orator at Oxford, rushed into the fray, and unmerci- fully attacked Sherlock's book. But now South represented the Three Persons in the Trinity as modes, properties, and affections of the Divine substance, of which Sherlock availed himself to accuse him of Sabellianism. One disputant seemed to support the Trinity whilst he lost the Unity ; the other to preserve the Unity but to lose the Trinity. In 1695 Joseph Bingham, Fellow of University College, Oxford, was condemned by the Hebdomadal Board and deprived of his Fellowship on an accusation of preaching in a University Sermon from the text, " There are Three that bear record in Heaven," 400 High Influence of the Church of England. Tritheism and Arianism. It was said at the time that the Heads of Houses in condemning the doctrine preached by Bingham had condemned the Nicene Creed. But one of its most learned sons was thus driven from the University. The Church, how- ever, received its consolation in the famous work which he wrote in his retirement, the Origines Ecclesiastics, the Antiquities of the Christian Church. The King was induced by Tenison to issue Directions with the view of stopping the strife. But great harm had been already done. Men's minds were unsettled. The Unitarians declared that they were ready to accept the Prayer-book, if such were the views on the Trinity which the Church held ; the unhappy con- troversy was seized upon by the ungodly, and the opponents of all religion, to attack the Church, which was charged with holding unscriptural views on the Trinity. Tenison in his enmity to Convocations, preferred the Erastian policy of governing the Church through the civil power, and advised the King, instead of summoning Convocation, to revive the Tudor custom of issuing Royal Injunctions. The Injunctions, which were dated February 15, 1695, were unexceptionable enough in themselves, prescribing to the Bishops rules as to how they were to govern their Dioceses. But the questions arise : Why could not the Bishops govern their Dioceses without the inter- ference of the King ? and why should an Archbishop of Canter- bury request an Anglicised Dutchman, a King who was a Presbyterian and a Calvinist, to teach the Bishops their duty ? The history of Convocation had been for ten years little more than a series of prorogations, without any business being trans- acted. At length the nation grew weary of Tenison's policy, of the Church being governed by Royal Directions, and the Bishops being taught their duty by Royal Injunctions, and com- plaints were made of the constant prorogations of Convocation as a violation of the constitution. In 1697 appeared a Letter to a Convocation Man concerning the Rig/its, Powers, and Privileges of Convocations, which asserted High Influence of the Church of England. 401 the right of Convocation not only to assemble with every meeting of Parliament but to proceed to business without the royal licence. Different sides of the question were taken, the principal disputants being Wake d , on one side, and Atterbury, a Student of Christ Church 8 , on the other. Wake was supported by White Kennet f , Gibsons, and Dr. Humphrey Hody, Atterbury by Dr. Hooper h . Whilst this controversy was going on a Tory government came into power, on the express understanding that Convocation should be allowed to meet and deliberate. It accordingly met on February 10, 1701, Dr. Hooper, in consequence of the illness of Dr. Jane, being chosen Prolocutor. But the two Houses met in no friendly feeling to each other. The Lower House felt that the Archbishop and others amongst the Bishops were ill disposed to Convocation. The Bishops were unconciliatory, the Lower House dictatorial. The latter proceeded to censure books, one of which was Christianity not Mysteriotis, by Toland, a Deist, and on March 20 laid the resolutions which they had passed on the subject before the Upper House. The Bishops disapproving of this course, Convocation was prorogued till May 8, the Lower House continuing to sit, and refusing to be prorogued except through their Prolocutor. Convocation met again on May 8, and on May 30 the Lower House presented to the Upper a representation of their sense of the Bishop of Sarum's (Burnet's) Exposition of the XXXIX. Articles, as being opposed to their meaning, dangerous to the Church of England, and derogatory to the Reformation. Thereupon the Archbishop prorogued Convocation. In this manner arose the disputes, lasting over sixteen years, which only ended in the suppression of Convocation. d In 1705 Bishop of Lincoln; Archbishop of Canterbury, 17161737. ' Bishop of Rochester, 1713 1723. ' Bishop of Peterborough, 17181728. Bishop of Lincoln, 1716; of London, 1723 1748. h Bishop of St. Asaph, 1703; of Bath and Wells, 17041727. Dd 402 High Influence of the Church of England. Notwithstanding the good effected by the Religious Societies, the seeds of immorality and irreligion sown under Charles II., though kept under during the short reign of James II., brought forth an abundant harvest at the time of the Revolution. Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, describes the clergy in general as leading moral lives. We cannot accept as altogether unprejudiced the authority of even so good a man as the Non-juror Kettlewell, but neither on the other hand can his testimony be disregarded. A change for the worse, he tells us, set in with the accession of William and Mary. Many of the clergy were remiss in their duties, many of them non-residents, holding more than one cure apiece. The public prayers of the Church, which had been much frequented in the reign of James, were now neglected ; the catechising of children disused ; there were few communicants in the churches of London and West- minster; still fewer in the cathedrals, so that the alms barely sufficed to cover the expenses of the Bread and Wine. The nation was falling under such a general corruption of morals and principles, that, says Burnet, "it gave us great apprehensions of heavy judgments from heaven." The Church, however, was still high in popular esteem, the memory of the seven Bishops being fresh in the minds of the people. Instead of losing ground, it not only maintained its doctrine and discipline under the Latitudinarian Bishops, but put forth new life, so that probably at no time since the Refor- mation did it exhibit greater strength and vigour than during the last years of the seventeenth century. In the last decade of the century occurred one of the most remarkable of the many remark- able revivals in the Church of England. In 1692 Societies for the Reformation of Manners, a kind of offshoot from the Religious Societies, were formed, differing from them however on two points. Firstly, the new Societies were not confined, like the Religious Societies, to the Church of England, but included Dissenters also. Secondly, their object was not so much the promotion of personal piety amongst themselves, as the High Influence of the Church of England. 403 carrying out the laws against profanity and vice, inspecting dis- orderly houses, and summoning delinquents before the judges and the magistrates. Archbishop Tenison and several of the Bishops, and also Robert Nelson, thought well of these Societies ; others, on the other hand, as Archbishop Sharp, and Nicholson, Archdeacon of Carlisle 1 , thought the object might have been more effectually accomplished through means of the Church Services than by informing against criminals. Archbishop Sharp suggested that there should be more frequent Services on Wed- nesdays, Fridays, and Saints'-days ; daily Services in populous towns ; and monthly communions. He doubted also whether these Societies might not come under the Conventicles which were forbidden by the 12th and 73rd Canons. The Societies ended, as might have been expected, in failure. Englishmen do not like informers ; it was easy enough to hail before the magistrates, and to punish a poor man who was found drunk in the streets; but the rich escaped with impunity; the magistrates also, often guilty themselves, discouraged the work of the Societies. The same spirit, however, which called these Societies into being led also to the formation of a Society for providing gratuitous instruction to the poor, promoting a cheap publication of Bibles and Prayer-books, and the work of foreign missions. On March 8, 1698, five gentlemen (one of whom was Dr. Bray), belonging to the existing Societies, the Religious Societies, and the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, met together in London, and formed the Society which at first assumed the name of the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge, but later on exchanged it for that of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The objects of the Society were (i) The education of the poor; (2) The care of the Colonies; (3) The printing and circulating books of sound Christian knowledge. Dr. Bray, whom Compton, Bishop of London, had in 1796 1 Bishop of Carlisle, 1702 (the first Bishop appointed in Anne's reign) ; of Derry, 1718; Archbishop of Cashel, 1727. 404 High Influence of the Church of England. appointed as his Commissary in Maryland, but who had not yet left England, was requested to lay before the Society a scheme for relieving the spiritual destitution of the Plantations, in which (and especially in England's most important colony, America) the Church's system was almost entirely unknown. Under the auspices of the Society, Dr. Bray, abandoning high prospects of preferment at home, left England, at his own expense, in December, 1699, and reached Maryland in the following March. Whilst in America he was able to estimate the spiritual wants of the rapidly growing Colonies, the great need of extra clergy, and of a Bishop for Maryland ; and on his return to England he persuaded the Society to provide libraries for the use of the clergy in North America. The extra work thus entailed on it was too great for one Society. Dr. Bray therefore proposed to form a separate Society for propagating the Gospel in our foreign plantations; and in May, 1701, he succeeded, through the instrumentality of Archbishop Tenison and Bishop Compton, in obtaining a Royal Charter for a new Society, under the name of the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." Thus Dr. Bray may be considered to have been the founder of our two oldest Church Societies. The work initiated by him did not commence a moment too soon, for religion in America was languishing for want of Church teachers, and the Charter granted to the new Society recounts how that the people were given over, not only to Romish and Jesuit priests, but to Atheism and Infidelity. One of the original objects of the S. P. C. K. was the establish- ment of Charity Schools, and at its first meeting the erection of Schools for the poor in and about London was taken into consideration. It was in this manner that Charity Schools were first established by the Church. The schoolmaster was required to be "one who frequents the Holy Communion, and who is approved by the Minister, before he is licensed by the Ordinary." He was to instruct the children in the principles High Influence of the Church of England. 405 of the Christian Religion, as laid down in the Church Catechism, and also in the Whole Duty of Man^. He was to be diligent in correcting the beginnings of vice, more especially lying, swearing, taking God's name in vain, and profaning the Lord's Day. He was to teach them to pray at home, to say grace at meals, and to take them on every Sunday and Holyday to church, and to teach them to behave reverently there. So rapidly did the Charity Schools increase, that when the first Assembly took place in 1704 in St. Andrew's, Holborn, as many as fifty-four schools, numbering 2,131 children, had been formed. By 1712 one hundred and seventeen schools, comprising 5,000 children, had been built in London and West- minster : and during the same period five hundred schools had been established in England and Wales ; and the work extended to the Colonies. Owing to such causes the Church, weakened though it was through the secession of some of its ablest Bishops, if it did not make progress, certainly did not retrograde. The King bore no good will to the Church of England, and during his reign it was exposed to great dangers. The King's religion was, how- ever, guided by his own interests : he was conscious that the Church was deeply rooted in the affections of the people ; not- withstanding the opposition of the Archbishop, he had latterly allowed Convocation to meet ; and so long as the Church had its Convocations (that is, so long as it was allowed the same right as was allowed to Dissenters, of managing its own business), it was able to hold its own against foes without, and still worse, against treacherous friends within the fold. In 1700 a cruel act of Parliament was passed, banishing Roman Catholic Priests from England, and offering a reward of ^100 to such persons as should discover and lead to the conviction of a Roman Catholic Priest in the performance of his duties. k A work published in 1659, of which Dr. Richard Allestree, who after- wards became Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Divinity, and Provost of Eton, is supposed to have been the author. 406 High Influence of the Church of England, Roman Catholics who inherited an estate before they were eighteen years of age were compelled on reaching that age to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, and the Test ; in default of which they were debarred from holding or purchasing any estate, and their estates devolved upon their next of kin, being Protestants. Nor were they allowed to send their children abroad to be educated in their own faith. The Act, however, was drawn in such vague language as to render its enforcement difficult, so that it remained little more than a dead letter. The young Duke of Gloucester having died in 1700, a new Act of Settlement was passed the next year, whereby Parliament settled the Crown on " the most excellent Princess Sophia, Elec- tress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late Sovereign Lord, King James the First, of happy memory," and on the heirs of her body, being Protestants. On September 17, 1701, James II. died at St. Germain's, having to the last conjured his son to renounce all rights to the Crown of England if it involved a charge of faith. The greatest indignation was felt in England when it became known that James' son was recognized by the King of France, and by the Pope, as King of England under the title of James III. An Act of Abjuration was passed imposing an oath on all clergymen, Fellows of Colleges, and schoolmasters, both to abjure King James and his descendants, and also to recognize King William, not only as before as de facto, but also as a rightful and lawful King. The Act was still pending when William was, on February 20, 1702, thrown from his horse; he was so weak- ened by the accident as not to be able to sign his name, and could only affix his stamp to the Act, when he died on March 8. The reign of Queen Anne (1702 1714) forms an interregnum between the Presbyterian who preceded and the Lutheran King who followed her. She was a devout danghter of the Church of England ; untainted with the Romanism of her father, the High Influence of the Church of England. 407 Latitudinarianism of Tenison, or the Scepticism of the times ; narrow-minded no doubt indeed it was said that she was the stupidest person in the kingdom except her Lutheran husband, Prince George of Denmark, who had a seat in the House of Lords as Duke of Cumberland ; but she was one against whose character no scandalous voice was ever raised. She chose as her spiritual adviser Dr. Sharp, the Archbishop of York, who preached her Coronation Sermon on April 23, 1702. She was quite willing and ready to abide by the settlement made at the Revolution, but inclined to favour the Tories rather than the Whigs ; or the High Church party rather than the Low Church, terms which then first came in vogue and which in those days were only another mode of expressing Tories and Whigs. At the opening of the new Parliament it was found that the last elections were entirely reversed, and doubly the number of Tories, or friends of the Church, were returned to the House of Commons. The first object of the Tory majority was to endeavour to pass a Bill against Occasional Conformity. The Test Act, which required all holders of offices to receive the Holy Communion in the Church of England, whilst it was effectual against the Roman Catholics, was ineffectual against the less conscientious Protestant Dissenters. These last qualified (as the expression of the day went) for office by receiving the Holy Com- munion from the Church once a year, whence they were called Occasional Conformists. One of the number was the Queen's husband, who, being a Lutheran, had to qualify for the post of Generalissimo of the Forces and High Admiral. The Bill which in 1703 passed the House of Commons enacted severe punishments against the Occasional Conformists ; but it was so altered in the House of Lords that the Tories refused to accept it. In November of the same year a similar measure (but to which the Government and the Queen were now opposed) was defeated in the House of Lords. In 1 704 a party in the House of Commons proposed to tack High Influence of the Church of England. it on to the Bill of Supply (hence they were called Tackers}, which the Lords must either altogether reject or pass entire, but which they had not power to alter. This device, however, was defeated in the Commons by 251 to 134 votes, and the Bill was sent to the House of Lords without the tack, and was there defeated by 71 against 50 votes. In 1704 the Queen attested the reality of her religion by restoring to the Church the first-fruits and tenths, which Henry VIII. had annexed to the crown, which Queen Mary restored, and Elizabeth again seized. It was only an act of simple justice, and the restoration to the Church of what was its own. Yet Queen Anne's Hounty, "for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy," stands out as an honourable memorial of her who was called the good Queen Anne. The elections to the Parliament of 1705 were carried on with much bitterness of feeling. The Queen, who from her wavering conduct with regard to Occasional Conformity was supposed to be going over to the Whigs, had become unpopular with the clergy ; Dissent was increasing ; several of the Bishops were sup- posed to be lukewarm ; the Church was represented as being in danger; a violent pamphlet by one Dr. Drake, entitled The Memorial of the Church of England, represented the Church to be sick with hectic fever, which, if not cured, would destroy it ; the Tories were divided into Tackers and Non-Tackers, whilst the Whigs were united. In this manner the Whigs came into office ; the New Parliament assembled in October ; and the Occasional Conformity Bill was allowed to sleep till 1711. A Protestant frenzy seems now and then to have come over the country during Queen Anne's reign. A circular issued by the Privy Council on April 4, 1706, directed the clergy to make a return of the number of Papists and reputed Papists in their parishes. This was followed on April 1 1 by a proclamation for putting in force the laws against persons endeavouring to convert her majesty's subjects to the Roman Catholic faith. Such vigorous measures were due to the great affection which High Influence of the Church of England. 409 the nation felt for the Church, and the fear of any cause which might endanger it. This feeling was intensified by the union in 1707 of England and Scotland. It was feared that danger might arise to the Church from the addition of fifteen Presbyterian Peers to the House of Lords and forty-five Presbyterian members to the House of Commons. There was, doubtless, ground of alarm when the union lay between two countries, in one of which Presbyterianism, in the other Prelacy, was held in abhorrence. The union materially affected the relations between Church and State. The English Parliament ceased to be in theory the laity of the Church of England, and Presbyterians could and did thenceforward vote in Parliament on all questions affecting the Church. It was a matter upon which Convocation reasonably expected to be consulted. Convocation, however, was arbitrarily prorogued till the Act of Union was passed. Still the High-Church feeling went on increasing, and the country showed every disposition to side with the Church. The successive prorogations of Convocation ; the admission of Pres- byterians into Parliament ; the evasion of the Test Act by occasional conformity, called up once more the cry of the Clnirch in Danger. The Queen had again veered round to her old Tory predilections, and had offended the Whigs by her appointment of Tories and High-Churchmen to Bishoprics. The country was already in a state of excitement, when an event, insignificant enough in itself, threw the whole country into a blaze, caused the overthrow of the Whig ministry, and brought the Tories back into power. Henry Sacheverell, the grandson of an Independent minister, and son of a Low-Church Incumbent at Marlborough, where he was born in 1672, became a Demy, and in due course Fellow, of Magdalen College, Oxford. Having taken his D.D. degree in 1708, he preached on November 9, 1709, before the Lord Mayor, a sermon entitled Perils from False Brethren, in which he attacked the principles of the Revolution, and alluded to the Lord Trea- surer Godolphin under his well-known nickname of Volpone or 4io High Influence of the Church of England. Fox. The best course would have been for the government to leave him alone ; instead of that they honoured him with a State trial. He was a vain man, of little learning, who had hitherto been treated with contempt by his own party. But now he was raised to the highest pinnacle of fame. The people who thought him persecuted took his part ; High Church and Sacheverell was the cry of the hour ; the Queen attended his trial ; and though he was condemned by the House of Lords, and his sermon con- demned to be burnt by the public hangman, yet he gained a moral victory ; wherever he went he was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm, and soon afterwards the Queen herself rewarded him with the valuable living of St. Andrew's, Holborn. But the matter was far from ending thus. The Tories having gained the ear of the Queen induced her to dissolve Parliament. The cry of the Church in danger drowned all other voices, and the fear that the Church was really in danger was the cause of a crushing defeat of the Whigs and the overthrow of the Whig Government. The Tories restored to power now seized the opportunity of bringing forward their favourite Occasional Con- formity Bill, which easily passed both Houses of Parliament, and became law in 1711. On March 15 of that year another Proclamation was issued against the Papists, ordering them to remove from the cities of London and Westminster. The Church was now at its highest point of influence, and the new Government saw that by favouring the Church it would enlist the people of England. Eighty-nine churches were de- stroyed in the great fare ; the population of London was rapidly increasing, but no increase was made in church accommodation. The two Houses of Convocation (Atterbury, who was at that time Dean of Christ Church, being the Prolocutor) presented in March, 1711, an address to the Queen on the spiritual destitution of the Metropolis. Parliament and Convocation were at one in the matter, and an Act of Parliament was passed for raising the sum of ^350,000 by a duty for three years of one shilling High Influence of the Church of England. 411 on every chaldron of coals unloaded in the city, towards the building of fifty new churches in London. During the remainder of Queen Anne's reign the building of the new churches made considerable progress ; but after the Hanoverian succession and the depression of the Church by the State, when there was no Convocation to supervise the work, the funds were miserably squandered ; only a few churches, and those very extravagantly, were built, and thus the opportunity, as far as Parliament was concerned, was lost for ever. To the excellent type of Bishops who were appointed must be attributed to a great extent the influence which the Church exercised in Queen Anne's reign. During that reign, which extended over twelve years, only seventeen Bishoprics fell vacant. She offered to re-instate Ken, but he refused the See. George Hooper, the friend of Ken, first appointed to St. Asaph, and thence translated to Bath and Wells. Beveridge, a learned Theologian and one of the originators and principal directors of the Religious Societies, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1704 1708. George Bull, the famous author, amongst other valuable works, of the Defence of the Nicene Creed, for thirty years the able champion of the Trinity and of our Lord's Divinity, who had been passed over by successive governments till he attained the age of seventy- one years, Bishop of St. David's, 1705 1710. William Wake, Bishop of Lincoln, 1705 1716. Offspring Blackall, Bishop of Chester, 1708 1716. Sir William Dawes, who bore the repu- tation of being the first scholar of the day, Bishop of Chester, 1708, Archbishop of York, 1714 1724. Fleetwood, Bishop of St. Asaph, 1708, of Ely, 1714 1723. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. Smalridge, Bishop of Bristol, 1714 1719. Such were amongst the appointments made by the Queen. When the Whig Government complained of her High-Church and Tory appointments, she was obliged to make some concessions. Dr. More, who had on the deprivation of the Non-juror Lloyd been in 1691 intruded into the See of Norwich, was in 1707 translated to Ely; and Dr. Trimnell, another Whig, was in 1708 4i 2 ffigh Influence of the Church of England. appointed to Norwich 1 . In 1710, Dr. John Robinson was appointed to the See of Bristol, and on the death of Compton became Bishop of London (1714 ^723), an entirely political appointment ; he was a diplomatist, but it does not appear that he had any other claim for a Bishopric. On the death of Jane, the Queen wished to appoint Smalridge to succeed him as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford ; the Government, however, insisted on the appointment of Dr. Potter (afterwards, in 1715, Bishop of Oxford; 1737 1747 Archbishop of Canterbury), who, although a Whig, was a High-Churchman (a combination which the Queen did not understand), and Potter was appointed. There were also amongst the lower clergy many learned authors, such as Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, who published shortly after the Queen's death The Connection between the Old and New Tes- taments ; Wall, Vicar of Shoreham, in Kent, the author of the work on Infant Baptism ; and Bingham, the author of the Origincs Ecclesiastics. At no period had the Church shown greater activity than in the reign of Anne. We read in 1709 of prayers morning and evening in most of the churches of London and Westminster ; of services at five and six o'clock in the morning at which five hun- dred people sometimes attended. In 1714 sixty-five churches could be specified in which there were daily prayers, and in most of the other churches there were prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays. In country parishes prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays were the general rule ; in cathedrals there was a weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist ; and in town churches if there was not a weekly there was at least a monthly celebration. It is, however, clear that ever since the Puritan rule, the number of Communions made had diminished, and we read of the Queen herself (as a mark of advanced Churchmanship) receiving the Communion once a month. The chief stress was evidently laid on Morning and Evening Prayer. 1 Bishop of Winchester, 1721 1723. High Influence of the Church of England. 413 The influence of Archbishop Tenison and the Latitudinarian Bishops appointed by William somewhat marred the work of the more orthodox clergy. During the reign of Anne the disputes between the two Houses of Convocation became fixed and embittered. The Lower House, which was mostly composed of High Churchmen, felt aggrieved with the action of the Arch- bishop and Burnet, and the other Latitudinarian Bishops. When, in 1707, the Union between England and Scotland was being arranged, we have seen how Convocation was prevented from discussing it through a prorogation lasting over three weeks. But at the meeting of Convocation after the Sacheverell excitement, Atterbury, the High Church champion, was appointed Prolocutor in preference to White Kennet, the Low Church candidate. It was probably through Atterbury's influence with Government that in the Royal license summoning the Convocation, which met in November, 1710, the Archbishop of Canterbury was not, according to usual custom, nominated as President. Compton, Bishop of London, and Hooper, of Bath and Wells, were named to that office, and to them were afterwards added Atterbury's friend, Trelawney, of Winchester, Robinson, of Bristol, and Bull, of St. David's. An incident, however, occurred in which both Houses agreed. Whiston, who was Chaplain to Bishop More, and had been preacher at the Lectureship founded by the Hon. Robert Boyle in 1691, put forth heretical opinions on the subject of the Trinity, maintaining that the Arian view was the correct one m . In 1708 he published an essay on the Apostolical Constitutions. After reading the history of the first two centuries, he got a craze into his head that Arian doctrines were the doctrines of those ages ; that the Athanasian Creed is unscriptural ; and that the Apostolical Constitutions were " the most sacred of the Canonical Books of the New Testament." In consequence of his opinions, m The Boyle Lectureship was founded for a course of eight Lectures to be preached annually in defence of the Christian Religion against Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahomedans. 414 High Influence of the Church of England. Whiston was in 1710 expelled from the University of Cambridge, of which he was Lucasian Professor in succession to Sir Isaac Newton. In that year he published a work which he dedicated to Convocation, in which he asserted that the Arian doctrine is the true one, and that the Son and the Holy Ghost are inferior to God the Father. Both Houses of Convocation con- demned the book ; but the matter ended in nothing ; Whiston continued a member of the Church till 1747, when he joined the Baptists. A new Parliament, and with it a new Convocation, met in February, 1714. In that year another case similar to that of Whiston came before Convocation, in wbich Dr. Clarke, who was like Whiston, a Chaplain to Bishop More, and had like him also been in 1704 and 1705 Boyle Lecturer, was the principal actor. Clarke was at first orthodox, and had published an answer to a work of the Deist Toland. But about 1706 he came to hold the opinion that the Athanasian Creed was not the doctrine of the Primitive Church. In 1712 he published his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity ; "this was the commencement of a new era in polemics V Clarke denied that he was an Anti- Trinitarian ; he maintained that his view of the Trinity was the doctrine of the Bible and of the Church of England. He differed from Whiston inasmuch as he claimed that the XXXIX. Articles were capable of an Arian interpretation, and Arian Subscription thenceforward became a point in the Trinitarian Controversy. In 1713 he claimed the right to omit such parts of the Prayer-Book as did not agree with his views. He, how- ever, made a submission, such as it was, in 1714, and thus evaded the condemnation of Convocation. Thus Convocation, not being thwarted by Government, was putting forth its strength, and a general unanimity between the two Houses was beginning to manifest itself when it was cut short by Queen's Anne's death. An interesting attempt was made during her reign of uniting " Van Mildert's Life of Waterland. High Influence of the Church of England. 415 the Protestant Communities of Prussia, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, in the faith and under the Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of England. Frederick I., King of Prussia, by the advice of his Chaplain, Dr. Jablonski, who had spent many years in England, approved of the scheme ; it was warmly supported in England by Archbishop Sharp, Bishop Smalridge, of Bristol, and by the Queen; and also by Dr. Johann Ernest Grabe, a learned Prussian, living in England, who had at first thought of joining the Church of Rome, but who having been convinced that the Apostolical succession was equally valid here, received orders in the Church of England. The plan, however, collapsed by the supineness of Tenison and the opposition of the Whigs and Nonconformists. The last year of the reign was unfortunately marked by one of those unjustifiable measures against Dissenters which are always so injurious to the Church. The Schism Act obliged every keeper of a public or private school to produce to his Diocesan a certificate of his having received within the year the Holy Eucharist in the Church of England, and having subscribed the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. The Bill, the object of which was to prevent Dissenters from keeping or teaching in schools, passed the House of Commons by 237 to 126 votes, and, with certain amendments, the House of Lords also. It was to come into operation on August i, 1714. On that day the Queen died. CHAPTER XVIII. RELIGION DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1714 1800. CHARACTER of George I. Three Parties in the kingdom High-Churchmen confused with Jacobites High-Churchmanship of the eighteenth century The Test Act The Church rendered powerless by the State Sir Robert Walpole Hoadley created Bishop of Bangor Convocation sup- pressed The Bangorian Controversy Hoadley translated to Hereford, and two years afterwards to Salisbury Activity of the Dissenters The Jfegium Domini Atterbury deprived and banished Wake Archbishop of Canterbury The attempt at union between the Anglican and Gallican Churches The Non-jurors Their attempt at union with the Eastern Church Character of George II. Queen Caroline Hoadley appointed Bishop of Winchester The Quakers' Relief Bill Gibson Bishop of London Change in the Calendar Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act Clarke and Waterland The Deists Their principal opponents : Bentley, Sherlock, Conybeare, Berkeley, Warhurton Butler's Analogy Able Defenders of the Faith in the eighteenth century Potter Archbishop of Canterbury Herring and Hutton, Archbishops of Canterbury, both Latitudinarians Seeker Archbishop George III. ascends the throne John Wesley Law's Serious Call The Methodists at Oxford Charles Wesley Whitfield The two Wesleys go to Georgia Failure of their mission Wesley and Peter Bohler Field-preaching Preaching Houses Lay Preaching The Wesleyan Conferences The Countess of Hunt- ingdon The College at Trevecca Death of Whitfield The Calvinistic Controversy Schismatical acts of John Westey Death of Charles Wesley And of John Wesley The Trinitarian Controversy Clayton's Essay on SpiritJones of Alconbury Francis Blackbume He attacks the Charge of Bishop Butler Objections to the Prayer-book - -Law, Bishop of Carlisle The Feathers Tavern Petition Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff Paley Change in Subscription at Cambridge Dr. Priestley Dr. Samuel Horsley The King's preference for Protestant and hatred of Romish Dissenters Acts in favour of Dissenters The College of Maynooth founded Increase of Dissent Act of Union between England and Ireland The King's opposition to Roman Catholic emancipation Neglect of England to send Bishops to America America asserts its independence Bishops consecrated for America The Bishoprics of Nova Scotia and Quebec founded. AT the end of Queen Anne's reign it might have been expected with confidence that a long period of prosperity to the Church had set in. Convocation met regularly for business ; the disputes between the two Houses were in a fair way of settlement ; the Religion during the Eighteenth Century, 6r. 417 orthodoxy of the Church was well guarded ; a Tory government was in power, and the Tories, the professed friends of the Church, formed a large majority in the House of Commons. The Electress Sophia, the unbaptized Lutheran, as people called her, having died a few weeks before the Queen, her son, George I., succeeded to the Throne, and was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on October 20, 1714. His accession to the Throne was hailed with joy by the Dissenters. But the accession of a German, who as far as he had any religion at all was a Lutheran, but who had qualified, by changing his religion, for the Throne, was regarded with dismay. He had not a single quality, scarcely even that of a gentleman, which fitted him to be King of England. Thoroughly ignorant and illiterate, unable to speak a word of English ; a man of notoriously immoral character ; in a word, there was no station of life, if we except that of a soldier, in which he did not hold a bad pre-eminence. At the time of the Hanoverian succession there were three political parties in the State. There were the Jacobites, who were thoroughly opposed to the House of Hanover, and would favour the return of the Stuarts under any terms. There were the Tories, who were also opposed to the Hanoverians, and inclined to favour the Pretender, but whose first care was the Church of England. And there were the Whigs, who (whether they themselves were Churchmen or not) were united in sympathy with the Dissenters, and who considered that the return of the Stuarts would be disastrous to the National Church, which all parties were determined to uphold. A Jacobite insurrection in 1715 was easily suppressed, but the new King felt that the Jacobites were his avowed enemies. But in the same class with the Jacobites he placed the Tories, and in the same class with the Tories he placed High Church- men a . This was unfortunate in the extreme to the Church. This term is not used in any invidious sense ; in those days no hard and fast line was drawn between High and Low Church ; it was rather between the orthodox and the latitudinarian clergy. E e 4i 8 Religion during the Eighteenth Century Much lasting evil accrued to it from the identification of High Churchmanship with one set of political opinions. No two things can be more opposed to each other than the High Churchmanship of the eighteenth and the High Churchmanship of the nineteenth century. No greater scandal to religion existed than the Test Act (the "picklock to a place," as the poet Cowper called it), under which noted worldlings and libertines received the Holy Eucharist, in order that they might obtain or retain offices. Yet of that Act the Tories, and amongst them the High Churchmen, were the principal advocates. This Ecclesiastical Toryism b was at the root of most of the evils which beset the Church in the eighteenth century. It affected a political rather than theological Creed. Of a rigid and narrow character, it would tolerate none but itself. Having thrown off the Catholic element, and lost the fervour and depth of the Church of England, it set its face against everything like zeal and enthusiasm. Doing nothing itself, it tried to prevent others from doing anything. It ignored the fact that there are not one, but three historical parties, and that no one party to the exclusion of the others has a monopoly in the Church of England ; that Evangelicals, however extreme, having a common interest in the Prayer-book and formularies of the Church, are very different even from moderate Dissenters. It did its best to drive out Evangelicals, and its lack of sympathy caused the revolt of the Methodists from the Church. The Church is blamed, and not without some reason, for the low depth to which the Church and country fell in the eighteenth century. But the truth is, the State so paralysed the Church as to render it to a great extent powerless. And this it did in two ways : firstly, by depriving it of its Covocation, its chief line of defence ; and secondly, by appointing Bishops mostly on political grounds, and scarcely ever from solely religious considerations. In January, 1715, the Parliament of the last reign was dissolved, b See Abbey and Overton, i. 136. in the Church of England. 419 and when the new Parliament met on March 17, there was found to be in it a large preponderance of Whig members. The King threw himself completely into the hands of the Whigs, who he believed would be more faithful to him than the Tories. Sir Robert Walpole, educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, was the statesman who for a quarter of a century after the accession of George I. (with a break of only four years) bore almost autocratic sway in England, and was the persistent foe of the Church. It is almost impossible to imagine anything lower or more disgraceful in a minister than to use the patronage of the Crown as portions for his illegitimate daughters. Yet this is what his own son, Horace Walpole, tells us he did ; he says that he gave a Living of ^700 to Keene (afterwards Bishop of Chester) to marry one of his illegitimate daughters. The first act of the Hanoverian government was to suppress Convocation ; an act quite as unconstitutional as the suppression of Parliament by the Stuarts had been. Benjamin Hoadley, who was born of a Puritan family, and graduated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge, had rendered himself notorious in the reign of Anne. In September, 1705, he preached a Sermon before the Lord Mayor of London, which brought down on him the censure of Compton, Bishop of the Diocese. .But in 1710 the Whigs, who were then in power, requested the Queen that she would bestow some reward upon him for his eminent services in Church and State. No reward, however, came to him in her reign. Soon after the accession of George I., Hoadley was made one of the King's Chaplains, and in 1715 was consecrated Bishop of Bangor. On March 31, 1717, he preached in the Chapel Royal of St. James a sermon from the text, "Jesus answered, My King- dom is not of this world." He asserted that Christ never intended to found such a Visible Church as the Church of England, and he impugned Ecclesiastical government and penal statutes. Hoadley's sermon, together with a book which he had written, 420 Religion during the Eighteenth Century were brought before Convocation on May 3. Archbishop Tenison having died in December, 1715, and Gilbert Burnet in March of that year, the two principal opponents to Convocation amongst the Bishops were thus removed. To succeed Tenison, Wake, translated from Lincoln, became Archbishop of Canterbury ( 1 716 1737); Atterbury also, the powerful advocate and supporter of Convocation, was now a member of the Upper House ; there is little doubt that Hoadley's teaching would have been con- demned. But the leaders of the Whig government were impressed with the belief that Convocation was not well affected towards them, and threw their shield over Hoadley. Before the Com- mittee, which had been appointed for that purpose in the Lower House, had presented their report on Hoadley's case to the House of Bishops, Convocation was, by special order from the King, prorogued, and was never since, till recent times, allowed to assemble for the transaction of business. It met, voted an address to the Crown, and that was all. Out of the Hoadley case arose the Bangorian Controversy, which began in a " Letter to the Bishop of Bangor," written by Dr. Snape, Provost of Eton and Canon of Windsor. Other disputants against Hoadley were Dr. Thomas Sherlock in a pamphlet entitled, " A Vindication of the Corporation and Test Acts ;" Dr. Hare, Dean of Salisbury, himself a Latitudinarian, but of a less pronounced type than Hoadley d ; and the most formidable of all, William Law, a famous Non-juror, in " Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor," which Hoadley did not answer, for the reason, it was said at the time, that they were unanswerable. Hoadley, however, continued to bask in the royal favour. Having held the See of Bangor for six years, during which he is said never to have visited it, he was rewarded in 1721 by Sherlock, Bishop of Bangor, 1728; ofSarum, 1734; of London, 1748 1/61. Son of the Sherlock mentioned p. 399. " Hare, Dean of St. Paul's, 1726 ; Bishop of St. Asaph, 1727 ; of Chichester, 17311740. in the Church of England, 421 being translated to the See of Hereford, and in 1723 to Salisbury. The King had at his accession declared that he would allow Toleration to Protestant Dissenters,- " as agreeable to Christian charity, and so necessary to the trade and riches of this great kingdom." The Dissenters accordingly began as early as 1715 to agitate for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, as well as against the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts. In December, 1718, a Bill was brought into Parliament "for strengthening the Protestant interest in these kingdoms," by which the repeal of the last two Acts, and of some clauses in the two former Acts, was proposed. The Bill was opposed by the two Archbishops, Wake and Davves, and Bishops Atterbury of Rochester and Smalridge of Bristol, but supported by Hoadley, by White Kennet of Peterborough, Gibson of Lincoln, and Willis of Gloucester, the two last of whom were on their road to promotion. The part relating to the Test and Corporation Acts was withdrawn, and the Bill was then passed. Lord Stanhope, who introduced the Bill, promised the Dissenters that a con- venient season would soon arrive for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The convenient season did not come for one hundred and nine years ; although in nearly every year after the accession of George II. an Indemnity Act was passed, allowing Dissenters to hold office just as if those Acts had no existence. In 1721 the Quakers' Affirmation Bill, relieving that body from certain supposed disabilities, was passed, Archbishop Wake, and Potter, Bishop of Oxford, protesting against it. Government likewise showed its goodwill to the Dissenters in a more substantial form. The Regium Donum, an annual gift from the State to the Dissenters, which had its origin in 1672, was largely increased 6 . The King called the Dissenters his hearty friends, but he hinted to them that he expected them at the approaching elections to vote for members favourable to the * At the time it was abolished in the nineteenth century it had reached the sum of ^39,740. 422 Religion during the Eighteenth Century Hanoverian government. " An unpleasant suspicion," say dis- senting authors, " was cast upon the whole business ;" " some people persisted in looking upon it as a bribe to secure Dis- senters' votes*." The champion of the High Church party, and the formidable opponent to the Hanoverians, was Dr. Francis Atterbury, who having been first Dean of Carlisle, and afterwards Dean of Christ Church, was at this time Bishop of Rochester. Had Queen Anne lived, it is more than probable that he, and not Wake, would have succeeded Tenison at Canterbury. Atterbury, like a large number of the clergy, was a strong Jacobite ; indeed it is related how that, immediately after the Queen's death, he pro- posed to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross, and himself to head the procession in his lawn sleeves. Walpole at first tried to win him over to his party, and is said to have offered him as a bribe the reversion of the See of Winchester, with a pension, till a vacancy occurred, of ^5,000 a year. Atterbury refused the terms, and his fate was sealed. On August 24, 1722, he was committed to the Tower under suspicion of holding a treasonable correspondence with the Stuarts. That he had been dabbling in politics in a manner to lay him open to suspicion there is little doubt, but as to the extent of his guilt there was a wide divergence of opinion. The clergy mostly stood by him, and during his confinement in the Tower he was prayed for in the London churches under pretext of bad health; as one afflicted with the gout. On May 6, 1723, he was summoned to the bar of the House of Lords. Only one Bishop, Gastrell of Chester, who had been with him at Westminster School, spoke in his favour. He was sentenced to deprivation and banishment, and on June 16, 1723, he left England. That in his banishment he espoused the cause of the Stuarts is no proof of his former guilt : he died an exile in Paris on Febru- ary 15, 1731, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Wake, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, was a man of more ' Skeats; Stoughton. in the Church of England. 423 Catholic spirit and of deeper learning than his predecessor. In 1693 he had published a work of considerable importance at a time when a theological apathy was gaining ground and the Patristic writings were either unread or subjected to disparage- ment, An English Version of the Genuine Epistles of tlie Apos- tolical Fathers. The Archbishop, although a strong supporter of the Royal Su- premacy, spoke in the strongest terms of the necessity of Convo- cation and the rights of the Church. It is, he says, to be hoped", that such a thing could not happen in a Christian kingdom, but if a prince should neglect his duty with regard to Convocation, and the need of the Church should require it, in that case "I conceive it would be the duty of those who are the fathers and governors of it to apply to him for his permission to come together." He then proceeds to deal with the possibility of a refusal: "They must meet, consult, and resolve on such measures as by God's assistance they think their unhappy circumstances to require, and be content to suffer any loss or to run any danger for so doing." But the truth is, the Bishops were themselves in fault; the eighteenth-century Bishops were no lovers of Convocation. There was nothing throughout the eighteenth century which prevented Convocation, if the Bishops had been so minded, from deliberating upon business affecting the Church, although it could not pass Canons without sanction from the Crown. But the Bishops knew well that synodal action would bring discomfiture on their body as nominees, for State purposes, of the Crown ; and manifest their own shortcomings, and inferiority to the clergy, over whom they were appointed to rule. During Wake's primacy an attempt was made for a union between the Anglican and Gallican Churches, on the basis of the formularies of the Church of England. The proposal emanated from Dr. Du Pin, Head of the Theological College of the Sorbonne, in which he received the assistance of Dr. Gerardin, * Essays on Ecclesiastical Reform, p. 69. 424 Religion during the Eighteenth Century another Doctor of the Sorbonne. He drew up a Commonitorium, which offered no objection to the greater part of the XXXIX. Articles ; which allowed the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist in both kinds ; Divine Services in the vernacular language, and the marriage of the clergy. From first to last Wake insisted upon the orthodoxy of the Church of England ; he would not yield to the Pope a primacy of jurisdiction, although he would give him a primacy of rank as the Bishop of the once imperial city. The Jesuits were furious, and threatened Dr. Gerardin with the Bastille. Pope Clement XL expressed his admiration of Wake, and said it was a pity he was not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. The correspondence, however, was cut short by the death of Dr. Du Pin and Dr. Gerardin. An interesting although unfruitful correspondence may here be mentioned which took place between the Non-jurors and the Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches with the view to union between the two. When King James died it might have been hoped that the breach between the Non-jurors and the Church would have ended. And on the death of Lloyd, who with the exception of Ken was the last of the non-juring Bishops, Nelson and Dodwell did return to the Church. When Queen Anne offered to re-instate Ken in his Bishopric of Bath and Wells, and when Ken refused the offer, he could no longer be regarded as a Non-juror but as a Bishop who had vacated his See. But after the abortive Rebellion of 1715, steps were taken by the government to enforce the oath of Abjuration. Thereupon a second secession took place; and it was then that William Law, the successful opponent of Hoadley in the Bangorian controversy, joined the Non-jurors, and was in consequence deprived of his Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In Law the Church lost one of its saintliest and most learned members, one who exercised an abiding influence in the Church throughout the eighteenth century. To Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, published in i729 h , Dr. Johnson k Exactly one hundred years before Keble's Christian Year. in the Church of England. 425 attributed his first religious impressions ; it inspired not only the two Wesleys and Whitfield, but also Henry Venn and Scott the Commentator ; so that Law, a High Churchman, may be regarded as the Father both of Wesleyism and Evangelicalism. His Christian Perfection exercised an influence second only to the Serious Call. In 1734 Law embraced the views of Jacob Behmen, or Boehm, the German Mystic; but although he was afterwards regarded by some as a mere Mystic and Enthusiast, he never abandoned the Catholic doctrines to which he adhered through life. In 1716 "A Proposal for a Concordate between the Orthodox and Catholic Remnant of the British Church and the Catholic and Apostolic Oriental Church," was drawn up by the Non-jurors and sent into Russia, where the Czar was deeply interested in the movement. The Non-jurors put forward the points on which they agreed, and a few points on which they differed from the Eastern Churches. The Patriarchs refused to make any concessions, and accused the Non-jurors of being educated in Lutheran Calvinism. This accusation the Non-jurors refuted, and the Czar requested in 1722 that two of the body should proceed to Moscow. Shortly afterwards, however, the Czar died ; the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent copies of the proposed agreement to Wake, who took no notice of the papers sent him, and so the matter dropped. It would be unprofitable to follow on the later history of the Non-jurors, and their division into Usagers and Non-usagers, the former desiring, and the latter opposing, a return to the usages under the first Prayer-book of King Edward VI. The failure of the Rebellion of 1745 weakened the party, and their numbers dwindled away ; and though Non-jurors might here and there be found till the end of the century, yet the Non-juring schism came practically to an end by the firm establishment of the House of Hanover on the accession of George III. On June 3, 1727, on his journey from England to Hanover, 426 Religion during the Eighteenth Century George I. died from a paralytic stroke, and was succeeded by his son, George II. George II. was from a moral point of view no better than his father. As Prince of Wales he had borne an intense dislike to Walpole, but soon after he became King he found he could not do without him. In 1705 the King had married Wilhelmina Caroline, the daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg- Ansbach, She was born at a time when Lutheranism, never a lofty and spiritual religion, was at its religious nadir, dry, marrowless, and unspiritual, spending its energies on abstract polemical theology. It was extremely unlikely that any Prince or noble would derive any religion at all from the Lutheran pastors of that time. Yet until her death, on November 20, 1737, she was the chief, and as Walpole always acted on her advice, the sole dispenser of the Church patronage of the Crown. Horace Walpole tells us that the Queen's study of divinity had weakened rather than enlightened her faith " she was at least not orthodox." This explains her sympathy for the Latitudinarian party in England. The King admired the ability of his wife, and though with his little mind he was jealous of her, and tried to make people believe that " the Queen never meddled in his business," yet he was quite helpless without her. She naturally appointed as Bishops those who favoured her own views. Her wrong ideas with respect to the Trinity made her an admirer of the Arian Clarke 1 , and there is no doubt but that for his scruples as to Subscription, Clarke would have been raised to the Episcopate; and it was said that she actually recommended him for the Primacy on the death of Tenison. The way the Queen promoted Hoadley was disgraceful in the extreme. George II. called him a canting hypocritical knave, and said he did not believe a word of the Bible k . And yet this was the man who, having been already appointed to three different Sees 1 See p. 414. k Hervey Memoirs, ii. 41. in the Church of England. 427 in the reign of George I., was in the reign of George II. promoted to the See of Winchester. The manner in which Hoadley obtained the See of Winchester gives an insight into the way in which Bishops were appointed at that time. In the first Parliament of the reign, which assembled in January, 1728, the Whigs formed a large majority. The Dissenters determined to turn this majority to their own advantage, and in 1730 besieged Walpole with their agitations for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Walpole was in a dilemma; he found himself bound to the Dissenters; but another election was not far distant, and he knew that if he obliged them, the High Church party to a man would vote against the government. He could only think of one way out of the difficulty, and that was through Hoadley, the friend of the Whigs and the Dissenters. But Hoadley was not in the best of tempers with the government, for the Bishopric of Durham, which he expected would have been given to him, had in 1730 been conferred on Dr. Chandler, Bishop of Lichfield '. Hoadley was induced to use his influence in calming the Dissenters, but only by the promise of the See of Winchester, whenever it should become vacant. On the death of Willis, Bishop of Winchester, Walpole and the Queen, having forgotten all about the promise to Hoadley, were on the point of offering the vacant See to Potter, Bishop of Oxford, whereupon Hoadley reminded Walpole of his promise, which Walpole told the Queen it would be scandalous to break. Thus Hoadley in 1734 became Bishop of Winchester. He lived till 1761 ; thus he was a Bishop for forty-six years, and during that long period he was the means of the silencing of Con- vocation, and in other ways of doing more harm to the Church than any single individual in the eighteenth century. A monu- ment to his memory, on which a list of his virtues is recorded, may be seen in Winchester Cathedral. In the year in which Hoadley became Bishop of Winchester 1 Chandler was accused of having paid .9,000 for the See. 428 Religion during the Eighteenth Century there was another general election, in which the Dissenters again gave Walpole their cordial support, and the Whigs maintained a large, although somewhat diminished, majority. Still Walpole feared the opposition of the High Church party, so that when the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts was brought forward in March, 1736, and again in March, 1739, it was opposed by Walpole and the Government, and defeated by large majorities. Walpole, however, was led to favour the Quakers, whom he found particularly useful to him in elections. In March, 1736, he supported the Quakers' Relief Bill, which passed the House of Commons by 164 to 48 votes, only to be rejected in the House of Lords, where fifteen Bishops voted against it. King, Queen, and Government were deeply incensed against the Bishops. The King denounced them as "a parcel of black, canting, hypocritical knaves." Walpole pronounced all the Bishops to be one as bad as the other. The Queen's language with regard to Gibson, Bishop of London, was too coarse to be quoted. During the long illness of Archbishop Wake, Gibson was virtually Primate, and was so confessedly the leading Bishop of the day, that he was commonly styled the heir apparent of Canterbury. But Walpole never forgave Gibson, and through his vote on the Quakers' Relief Bill he lost the friendship of Walpole and, it was supposed, the Primacy also. If we except the heresies and the non-juring schism, there are few ecclesiastical events of interest during the reign of George II. We may notice, however, the change which was made in 1752 in the Calendar, in order to assimilate it to that used in most other European countries. We have seen how the differences with respect to Easter between the Celtic and Roman communities in Britain were settled at the Council of Whitby m . But in the im- perfect state of astronomical science grave doubts had since arisen on the subject, and in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII. had, with the view of promoting a more accurate mode of keeping Easter, effected a reform in the Calendar. This plan was adopted in m See p. 46. in the Church of England. 429 England in 1752 ; a change was then made in the Calendar with regard to Easter, and the year, instead of commencing as before on March 25, thenceforward commenced on January i. The Parliament of 1753 was marked by two Acts, one entitled " An Act to permit persons professing the Jewish religion to be naturalized by Parliament ; " the other for the better preventing of clandestine marriages. The former Act easily passed the House of Lords and without any opposition from the Bishops. It met, however, with violent opposition in the House of Commons, but eventually passed by a majority of forty-one votes. The Government supported the Bill, because they saw that it would promote their own influence amongst the members of the Jewish communion : but they did not reckon on the reception it met with out of Parliament. Every part of the country resounded with invectives against the Ministry and the Bishops, and so universal was the indignation that on the very first day of the November Session of the same year the Government, in fear of the approaching elections, brought in and carried a Bill for its repeal. By Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753, private marriages, and especially marriages performed by a set of men known as the Fleet clergy", were to a great extent prevented. The Act pre- scribed that all marriages should be celebrated after banns pub- lished on three successive Sundays in the parish church : that a Register of the marriages should be kept, the punishment for destroying or falsifying which was death ; and that no marriages except those of Jews and Quakers should be solemnized by any except clergymen of the Church of England, with the service of the Prayer-book. The eighteenth century was pre-eminently a century of contro- versies. Dr. Clarke, notwithstanding his submission to Convocation n These were clergymen who, themselves prisoners for debt, performed marriages within the rules or liberties of the Fleet prison. See p. 414. 43 Religion during the Eighteenth Century in 1714, soon imported a new departure into the Trinitarian con- troversy. In 1718 he introduced into his Church of St. James', Westminster, a form of Doxology, which ran thus : " To God, through Christ His Son, All Glory be;" or "To God, through Christ His Only Son, Immortal Glory be." Dr. Robinson, Bishop of London, compelled him to desist from this practice, but in 1719 Clarke, with Whiston and some others, drew up a petition to Parliament against the Athanasian Creed ; the petition was, we are told, treated with disgust by Lord Nottingham. In that year Dr. Daniel Waterland, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, published his first considerable work, A Vindication of Chrisfs Divinity, being a Defence of some Queries relating to Dr. Clarke's Scheme of the Holy Trinity, which led to a contro- versy between him and Clarke. In 1721 Waterland again attacked Clarke in the Case of Arian Subscription Considered ; and in 1723 in a Second Vindication of Chrisfs Divinity. Clarke died on May 17, 1727, leaving an Exposition of tJie Church Catechism, which was published the next year. In his Remarks on this work, Dr. Waterland observes that Dr. Clarke, in explaining the answer in the Church Catechism which states the belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, says nothing of God the Son and Holy Ghost ; he never asserts the Divinity of either, never so much as gives them the title of God. Water- land, in the early years of the eighteenth century, did a similarly useful work to what Bull had done for the Church in the later years of the seventeenth century, and utterly demolished Clarke and his teaching. But the same soil which was congenial to heretical views on the Trinity was congenial also to other heresies. A set of men called Deists, following the map lined out by the Latitudinarians, began to ask What is Truth ? Next, What is the Bible, which professes to lead men into Truth ? Then, What is this Christ of Whom the Bible speaks ? By Reason alone, they asserted, were such questions to be decided. So early as 1696 Toland, an Irishman, who had been a Roman in the Church of England. 431 Catholic, but turned Dissenter, published in London a book entitled Christianity not Mysterious, his object being to show that the Bible contains nothing mysterious, nor above or contrary to Reason. The work was censured by Convocation in England, and was condemned by the Irish Parliament to be burnt by the common hangman. Lord Shaftesbury, whom Voltaire called the boldest of the English Deists, published in 1711, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, in which he called in question the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. Anthony Collins, who was educated at Eton and King's Col- lege, Cambridge, published in 1709 Priestcraft in Perfection, and in 1713 his principal work, A Discourse of Freethinking. This work called forth many answers, amongst them one in the same year by Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled, Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Phileleu- therus Lipsiensis, for which Dr. Bentley received the thanks of the University. So far from being silenced. Collins, in 1724, published A Dis- course on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, in which he maintained that the Prophecies in the Bible were allegorical. This work called forth no fewer than thirty-five answers, one being from Dr. Chandler, at that time Bishop of Lichfield. Woolstcn, a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, published in 1721, The Moderator between the Infidel and the Apostate, to shew that the English Miracles could not prove Christ to be the Messiah. In that year his College deprived him of his Fellowship, on account of the scandalous character of his writings. In Six Discourses on the Miracles of Christ, published in 1727, 1728, 1729, he allegorized the Miracles of Christ as Collins had the Prophecies. This work elicited no fewer than sixty answers, the principal being from Dr. Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of Bangor p , The Trial of the Witnesses of the P See p. 420. 43 2 Religion during the Eighteenth Century Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Woolstan was indicted for blas- phemy, and was committed to the King's Bench, in which he died in 1731. Matthew Tindal, who had been a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and had been converted to and reverted from Romanism, was called, from the constructive character of his writings, The Christian Deist. In 1730 he published Christianity as old as the Creation, which thenceforward became the standard work of Deism. He maintained in it that the Law of Nature is so perfect that nothing can be added to it, and that Christianity, except in name, was nothing new. Much the same line of argument was taken by Dr. Morgan, who also called himself a Christian Deist, and by Thomas Chubb, a tallow-chandler at Salisbury. If Chubb was the Apostle of Freethinking to the Lower, Viscount Bolingbroke occupied that position in relation to the Upper Classes. Having been a Secretary of State in the reign of Queen Anne he fled from England on the accession of George I., and made on the Continent the acquaintance of Voltaire and Montesquieu. In 1735 he wrote from France Letters on the Study of History, in which he violently attacked Christianity. He spoke of gentlemanly vices, and adapted his religion to sinners of rank and fashion. Bolingbroke, however, appeared on the scene after Butler's Analogy was published, when the reign of Deism was practically ended. The Church was ably defended against the Deists. Besides those already mentioned were : Conybeare, Dean of Christ Church i, in the Defence of Revealed Religion, published in 1732 ; Berkeley, Dean of Derry r , in Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher in 1732 ; and Warburton, Dean of Bristol 5 , in the Divine Lega- tion of Moses, published in 1738. But a work surpassing all was the Analogy of Butler l , the result of twenty years' hard reading at * Bishop of Bristol, 17501755. r Appointed Bishop of Cloyne, 1734. Bishop of Gloucester, 1760 1779. ' Bishop of Bristol, 1738; of Durham, 17501752. in the Church of England. 433 the very time when Deism was at its height, and published in 1736. Thanks to such champions of the Faith Deism was driven from the field. It was not, however, eradicated ; it revived in the scepticism of Hume and the sneers of Gibbon, the his- torians ; it was disseminated amongst the lower classes by Payne's Age of Reason (1793), and was only at length stamped out by the Evangelical Movement at the end of the eighteenth cen tury. Scarcely ever, even amongst the Caroline Divines, can the Church of England boast of more able writers and more learned defenders of the Faith than during the reign of the first two Georges. When we bear in mind amongst the Prelates the names of Wake, Potter, Atterbury, Gibson, Sherlock, Butler, Conybeare, Warburton, and Wilson, of the Isle of Man the last the model Bishop of that or any other age ; amongst the secono order of clergy, Bentley and Watr rland ; it will easily be under- stood that if the State had left the Church its Convocation, in other words, if the same justice had been meted out to the Church as to the Dissenters, the Church would have been well able to give a good account of itself. But, with rare exceptions, practical and efficient rulers of the Church the Bishops were not. At a time when heresy was rife, when it was said that Christ and the Apostles were constantly on their trial in matters touching the Faith, the leading Bishops and Priests instead of residing in' their dioceses or parishes, spent their time in writing learned books and in defending the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Potter, translated from Oxford, was, in succession to Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1737 1747. On Potter's death the Primacy was offered to Bishop Butler, who is said to have declined it on the ground that it was too late to support a falling Church (rather a weak reason from so great and good a man). Two Archbishops were then in turn appointed who had little else to recommend them than their unorthodox views. The first of these was Thomas Herring, who after holding several minor Ff 434 Religion during the Eighteenth Century preferments, was in 1731 appointed Dean of Rochester, and in 1737 Bishop of Bangor, holding the Deanery of Rochester in commendam. In 1742 he was translated to the Archbishopric of York, whence, having rendered valuable assistance to the Government in the insurrection of 1745, he was in 1747 raised to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He was a Latitudinarian. Of the Prayer-book of the Arian Clarke he said, "I have read it, and have approved the temper and wisdom of it." Dr. Waterland, the champion of the Church against Clarke's heresy, although he is said to have been offered the Bishopric of Llandaff, never attained to the Episcopate. The highest honours conferred on him were the Chancellorship of York Cathedral in 1724, by Archbishop Dawes, a Canonry of Windsor in 1727, and in 1730, by Bishop Gibson, the Archdeaconry of London. And Herring died Archbishop of Canterbury ! On his death in 1757, Herring was succeeded by Dr. Hutton, who had before followed him first to Bangor, and afterwards to York. Hutton, however, died within a year of his appointment to the Primacy, and of him little can be said except that, like Herring, he was a Latitudinarian and a patron and admirer of the notorious Blackburn", who was collated by him in 1750 to the Archdeaconry of Cleveland. Hutton was succeeded by an Archbishop of a very different stamp, Dr. Thomas Seeker, Bishop of Bristol, 1735 1737, of Oxford, 1737 1758, with which last See he (since 1750) held the Deanery of St. Paul's. Seeker, like Bishop Butler, was born of Dissenting parents, and was educated with the view to be- coming a Dissenting minister. Butler was the first of the two to conform , and in 1714 entered at Oriel College. He afterwards induced Seeker also to conform, and Seeker, after one year's residence at Exeter College, Oxford, received a degree by diploma, and was ordained in 1722. Bishop Newton * says that Seeker was too considerable a man See p. 443. 1 Bishop of Bristol, 1761 1782 ; Author of Dissertations on the Prophecies. in the Church of England. 435 to live without enemies. Though he baptized, confirmed, mar- ried, and crowned George III., yet either from his coldness of manner, or because he was too sound a Churchman, he was not a favourite with the King. In his Primacy a different mode of dispensing the patronage of the Crown commenced. Hitherto the Archbishop of Canterbury had the direction, or at any rate a voice, in ecclesiastical appointments ; henceforward the Ministers engrossed all the powers in their own hands y. George IL, dying on October 15, 1760, was succeeded by his grandson, George III. ; and at length England was governed by one of the Hanoverian family who was a moral and religious man. His intellect was not of a high order, and although he had a capable tutor in John Thomas (Bishop of Peterborough, 1747, of Sarum, 1757, of Winchester, 1761 1781), yet, owing to the constant interference of his mother, his education was stunted, and he grew up to manhood and old age stubborn, ignorant, and narrow-minded. He took a wife from one of the principalities of Germany, a homely, estimable little woman, but with as narrow an understanding as his own, who was born and lived a Lutheran to the end of her life. George III. called himself a Churchman ; he did not like the Athanasian Creed, and always avoided re- peating it ; of the Catholic character of the English Church and the Prayer-book it is no wonder that with his narrow education and Lutheran surroundings he was incapable of forming a correct judgment. From the accession of George III. to the end of the century, if we except the Methodist revival, there was little of distinctive Church history. John Wesley's life (1703 1791) covers nearly the whole of the eighteenth century, in which the revival which bears his name was the most important ecclesiastical event. At the very time when the Deistical controversy was at its height, when the intellect of the Church was directed in attacking the strongholds of infidelity, when Bishops were absentees from ' Autobiography of Bishop Newton, i. 119. 436 Religion during the Eighteenth Century their dioceses, and the clergy were non-resident in their parishes, when a gross licentiousness was corrupting the morals of the nation, John Wesley arose to give an impulse to the dormant spirit of the Church, and to infuse life into a body where life was wanting. Nothing was further from his mind than to create a schism ; Methodism, in fact, was nothing more than the rise of another of those religious societies, of which his own father had been a prominent member, and which had effected so much good in the Church at the end of the seventeenth and in the early years of the eighteenth century. John, the second son of Samuel Wesley, was born at Epworth Rectory in 1703, and proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1720. At Oxford his favourite studies were a Kempis' Imita- tion of Christ, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, but more especially Law's Serious Call, to which last he attributed the revival which bears his name. In 1726 he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln College, after which he acted for a short time as his father's curate. In 1726 his younger brother, Charles, proceeded, on a West- minster Studentship, to Christ Church. Whilst an undergraduate he gathered together a small society of men like-minded with himself, at first for the study of the Classics, but soon afterwards for prayer and religious study, especially that of the Greek Testa- ment. This was the origin of Methodism, of which, therefore, Charles, and not John, Wesley was really the founder. In 1727 John Wesley, on being elected a Tutor of his College, returned to Oxford, and thenceforward, from his learning and position in the University, became the leader and life and guiding spirit of the movement. George Whitfield, who was born in 1714 at the Bell Inn, Gloucester, of which his father was landlord, was admitted as a Servitor of Pembroke in 1732, just a year after Samuel Johnson was compelled by poverty to leave the same College. He soon joined the little community, numbering at that time about fifteen, under the two Wesleys. We have now before us the three in the Church of England. 437 principal agents in the Methodist movement, John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitfield. The early Methodists were staunch Churchmen ; they bound themselves, after the manner of the earlier Religious Societies, to live by rule ; to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and throughout Lent, and to receive the Holy Communion once every week at St. Mary's. They encountered at Oxford much contempt and persecution ; the Master of Pembroke threatened to expel Whit- field if he continued to visit the poor ; they were contemptuously styled Sacramentarians, the Holy Club, the Godly Club, the Enthu- siasts, but the general term which survives to the present day was Methodists. In 1735 John Wesley, accompanied by his brother Charles, left England to go as a Missionary under the S.P.G. to the newly founded Colony of Georgia. Here some weak points in his character, one of which was a sad lack of discretion, manifested themselves, and the mission was a lamentable failure. Having remained there little more than a year and three months, he left the Colony (his brother Charles having left before him) and arrived in England a few months after Whitfield, who had at the age of twenty-one years been ordained Deacon by Dr. Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, had left it for Georgia. On board the ship which took him to America John Wesley made the acquaintance of some Moravians, an occurrence which exerted a powerful influence on his future life. To a holy man, a Moravian minister named Peter Bohler, he ascribes his conver- sion in the month of May, 1738 : " Till the last few days," he says, " I have never been a Christian." In 1740, however, when he had learnt more of the system, he formed a different opinion, and broke away from Moravianism altogether ; not, however, before Moravianism, with its peculiar doctrines of instantaneous conversion and personal assurance, had left its mark upon him, as shown by the bands and class meetings which thenceforward formed a feature in Methodism. There being no Bishops of the Church of England in America, 438 Religion during the Eighteenth Century Whitfield was compelled to return at the end of 1738 for the purpose of taking* Priest's Orders. Soon afterwards he adopted the plan of field-preaching, and on February 17, 1739, preached his first open-air sermon at Kingswood, near Bristol. At first Wesley could not bring himself to follow Whitfield's example, but after a few months, calling to mind that the Sermon on the Mount was a remarkable precedent, he too on May 2, 1739, preached his first open-air sermon. It was whilst preaching at Bristol that Wesley first encountered those symptoms of religious hysteria which so often afterwards followed his preaching, and which were probably referable to the French Prophets and Convulsionists who found an asylum in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Thence- forward the Methodists met with opposition from the parochial clergy, and, with rare exceptions, from the Bishops also, and the parish churches were closed against them. It cannot be said that the treatment which Wesley received reflects credit upon the Church. He probably exercised wider influence and did more good than all the Bishops together. His measures were no doubt sometimes injudicious. But he felt he had a work to do, which was neglected by others, and he was determined to do it ; if the Bishops and clergy would join him, so much the better ; if not, he would do it without them. In May, 1739, Wesley, without the sanction of the incumbent of the parish or of the Bishop of the diocese, laid the foundation of the first Preaching House in the Horse Fair, at Bristol. In the same year he opened the Foundry at Moorfields, London, of which he became the minister. In 1740 he left the Society of Fetter- Lane, where hitherto he, in common with the Moravians, had held their meetings. After the foundation of the first house at Bristol, preaching- houses increased rapidly. At first only regularly-ordained clergy- men were allowed to preach in them. Soon, however, the preaching-houses developed into chapels, in which laymen were admitted to officiate. Thenceforward lay-preachers became an in the Church of England. 439 important element in the movement, and were allowed by Wesley to use the Book of Common Prayer. In 1741 doctrinal differences arose between Wesley and Whit- field, the latter of whom was a Calvinist. Wesley hated Calvinism; he declared he would rather be a Turk, a Deist, an Atheist, than a Calvinist. Methodism now became broken up into two parties, the one under the guidance of John Wesley, the other under Whit field and the Countess of Huntingdon. Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, the Noble and Elect Lady, as she was called, took Whitfield under her special patronage. She was a woman of unbounded charity ; ever zealous in doing good according to her lights ; impatient of opposition, and some- what of a female Pope. She built chapels in various parts of the kingdom ; she objected to be considered a Dissenter ; so long, therefore, as she was able she appointed regularly- ordained clergymen, and not till these drew back did she appoint laymen to officiate in them. She and everything connected with her was Lady Huntingdon. The congregations who worshipped in her chapels were Lady Huntingdon's Connexion; the ministers who officiated in them were Preachers in Lady Huntingdon's Connexion. For the training of her preachers she in 1768 founded a College at Trevecca, called Lady Huntingdon's College (which was in 1792 removed to Cheshunt), over which she placed an excellent clergyman, Mr. Fletcher, best known as Fletcher of Madeley. There the students were boarded and educated at her expense for three years, after which they were expected to enter the ministry of some denomination of Dissenters. Wesley found it necessary to warn his followers against Calvinism. At the Conference of 1765 he declared that when Satan found he could not stop their work in any other manner, he "threw Calvinism into their way, and then Antinomianism, which struck at the root both of inward and outward holiness." In 1770 Whitfield died in America. Though he and the Wesleys were opposed on the doctrine of Calvin, yet resentment between 44 Religion during the Eighteenth Century them never seems to have taken deep root. In his will, Whitfield spoke of the two brothers as his " honoured and dear friends," and John Wesley, in the funeral sermon which he preached on him, said he wished to pay every respect to "so good and great a man." Still Wesley stood firm in his opposition to Calvinism. He warned his followers in the Conference at Bristol in 1771 : "Take heed to your doctrine; we have leaned too much upon Calvinism." The Countess of Huntingdon called this language "Popery un- masked" and because Mr. Fletcher and the Master of her College at Trevccca refused at her dictation to disavow the minutes of the Conference, they were removed from their offices. A controversy, in the highest degree discreditable to the clergy (Fletcher alone excepted) who took part in it, followed. We will dismiss it in the words of Southey : " It is scarcely credible," he says, "that persons of good birth and education, and of unquestionable goodness and piety, should have carried on controversy in so vile a manner and with so detestable a spirit, if the hatred of Theologians had not unhappily been pro- verbial." In 1784, when Wesley was enfeebled by the weight of more than fourscore years, he took the most unhappy step of his life. The appointment of Bishops to rule over the Church in America had met with almost uninterrupted opposition from successive governments in England From time to time a Bishop here and there was found to advocate it. But during the prevalent torpor of the eighteenth century the general character of the Episcopate was so lowered, and the spiritual office so merged in the temporal, that the Bishops seem to have forgotten that they were the successors of the Apostles. Habituated to the idea that their rights and powers depended upon the will of Kings and Parliament ; labouring under some vague scare of premunire ; they cared little about conferring on others that gift which is held to be essential to the constitution of the Christian Church. in the Church of England. 441 This neglect afforded Wesley an excuse (certainly an inde- fensible one) for performing a direct act of schism, when on September 2, 1784, he attempted to confer the office of Super- intendents on Doctor Coke and Mr. Asbury, and of Presbyters on Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey, in the Church in America. Wesley being himself only a Priest, it is evident that he could not confer the Priesthood, much less an Order higher than he possessed himself, on others. But from this misguided act of one who professed to be a High Churchman, the sect of so-called Episcopal Methodists took its rise. His action also paved the way for the general secession from the Church, of which after his death his followers in England were not slow to avail themselves. In the same year, in order to provide for the government and perpetuity of his connexion after his death, Wesley drew up and caused to be formally enrolled in chancery, A Deed of Declaration. It entrusted the management of all the property belonging to the Society to one hundred Preachers, to whom he gave unlimited power to settle and regulate its affairs. In 1787 he went one step further than that which he had taken with regard to the American Episcopate, when he set apart three ministers for Scotland, a country in which the Episcopate already existed. In 1788, Charles Wesley, the sweet singer of the movement, died in his eightieth year; and on March 2, 1791, he was followed to the grave by John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth year. If, with the schismatical acts of his later life before us, we can accept his own words, John Wesley remained a High Churchman to the end of his days. He was certainly not a High Churchman in the high-and-dry sense of the eighteenth century ; he was the last to have wished to be placed in such a category ; he professed to take as his model the doctrine and discipline of the Primitive Church. What he was at first that he declared he remained to the end. In 1774 he describes his practice on Christmas-Day: " During the twelve Festival-Days we had the Lord's Supper 44 2 Religion during the Eighteenth Century daily ; a little emblem of the primitive Church." His followers in the present day affirm that many years before his death (and they assign the year 1746 as the precise date) he had thrown overboard his High Church tendencies. In a sermon preached in 1789 he said: "I hold all the doctrines of the Church of England ; I love her Liturgy ; I approve her plan of discipline ; I dare not separate from the Church ; that I believe it would be a sin to do." A year before his death he wrote : " I live and die a member of the Church of England ; and no one who regards my judgment will ever separate from it" Once more we must refer to the unhappy controversies of the century. Notwithstanding the awakening which took place under the Wesleys ; in spite of Dr. Bull's great work, The Defence of the Nicene Creed ; although Whiston and Clarke had been demolished by the inexorable logic of Waterland, the contest on the subject of the Trinity continued to drag on its intermin- able length ; by the middle of the century the Presbyterians had become merged in Unitarians ; and the poison of Latitudin- arianism fostered by Bishops had embedded itself deeply in the Church. Robert Clayton, who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, was a friend, and imbibed the Arian principles, of Clarke. By Clarke he was introduced to that patroness of free-thinkers, Queen Caroline, through whose interest he was in 1 730 advanced to the Bishopric of Killaloe, from whence in 1735 he was trans- lated to the See of Cork, and in 1745 to that of Clogher. In 1751 he published An Essay on Spirit, with the object of establishing the inferiority of the Son and the Holy Ghost to God the Father, and of preparing the way for corresponding altera- tions in the Prayer-book. In 1756 he proposed in the Irish House of Lords the expungement from the Prayer-book of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds. The Irish Bishops resolved upon taking proceedings against him, but Clayton, being warned that he might lose his Bishopric, was seized with a nervous fever, in the Church of England. 443 and died on the very day that he expected the censure of the Bishops to be pronounced, Feb. 26, 1758. Dr. Herring was, as we have already seen, an admirer of Clarke. When he was Archbishop of Canterbury he favoured the Comprehension in the Church of Dissenters, alterations in the Prayer-book and Articles, and the omission of the Athanasian Creed. When Chandler, a Presbyterian minister, proposed to him that some changes should be made in the XXXIX. Articles, "Why not?" said his Grace; "it is the impertinences of men thrusting their own words into the Articles instead of the Words of God which have occasioned much of the divisions in the Christian Church to the present day." He added that the Bench of Bishops were of the same mind with him. The Bishops, however, as it appears, were more inclined to be liberal than the Dissenters ; the latter manifested no eagerness for Comprehension, and were " angry with Chandler for his conduct in this affair." In 1749 John Jones, Vicar of Alconbury, published an anony- mous work, entitled Free and Candid Disquisitions relating to the. Church of England, in which he attacked the Faith of the Church, and advocated trenchant alterations in a Latitudinarian direction in its services and ritual. Amongst the notable Latitudinarians of the day was Francis Blackburne, Rector since 1739 of Richmond, in Yorkshire. John Jones' work was too "milky" for Blackburne, who in 1750 published An Apology for it, which went much further than Jones' work, but for which he was in the same year appointed by Archbishop Hutton to the Archdeaconry of Cleveland. In 1750 Butler, the author of the Analogy, was translated from Bristol to Durham. In his first and only Charge as Bishop of Durham, delivered in 1751, at a time when public worship and the outward forms of religion were suffering under a general decay, he not unreasonably dwelt on the importance of external religion. In 1752 Blackburne anonymously attacked the Charge, and accused Butler of a propensity to Popery. 444 Religion during the Eighteenth Century In a sermon preached on Christmas-Day, 1753, Blackburn e expressed his objections to the Prayer-book, to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, to the observance of Christmas-Day and other Festivals. In order to obtain his Archdeaconry he had been called upon to sign the XXXIX. Articles ; his scruples were, however, removed by reading a book written by Clarke, and some arguments of Dr. Edmund Law, Archdeacon of Carlisle. But as his doubts went on increasing, it might be expected that he would have resigned the Archdeaconry. But not so ; Black - burne said he had "a wife and family." Instigated by Dr. Law he organized a systematic movement against Clerical Subscription, and in 1766 published anonymously, The Confessional, or a full and free Enquiry into the right, utility r , and success of establishing confessions of faith and doctrine in Protestant Churches." The indignation of the clergy, more especially of Archbishop Seeker, was extreme. Blackburne, however, found a staunch friend in Dr. Law. Law asserted that he would not defer to the Church's, nor to any other interpretation of the Bible than his own z . A vigorous controversy with regard to Blackburne's work, in which some eighty pamphlets were published, lasted from 1766 1772. In February of the latter year a Petition known as the Feathers' Tavern Petition, signed by about two hundred clergy- men, was presented to Parliament, praying for relief from the burden of Subscription, and for the rights of Protestants to in- terpret Scripture without being bound to any human interpre- tation. In Parliament the Petition was rejected by 217 to 71 votes. It was more favourably received at Cambridge than at Oxford. Dr. Watson, Regius Professor of Divinity in the former Uni- versity, afterwards (1782 1816) Bishop of Llandaff, wrote in favour of it; Paley", although he did not sign it (he could 1 In 1769 Law was appointed to the See of Carlisle, holding with it the Mastership of Peterhouse, Cambridge, to which he had been appointed in 1754. In 1787 he died an Arian. Author of The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1705), Hoi a in the Church of England. 445 not afford, he said, to keep a conscience) published an anonymous defence of a pamphlet written by Dr. Law, now Bishop of Car- lisle, who advocated the Petition. A change was from this time made in Matriculation at Cam- bridge. Subcription to the XXXIX. Articles was no longer required, but simply a Declaration : "I do declare that I am bona fide a member of the Church of England as by law es- tablished." At the close of the year a Petition was presented to Dr. Corn- wallis, Archbishop of Canterbury (1768 1783), by some clergy- men, amongst whom was Dr. Porteus b , for alterations in the Liturgy so as to render Subscription easier. The Archbishop consulted with his brother Bishops, and in February, 1773, he gave it as their decision " that nothing can in prudence be done in the matter." The endless Trinitarian Controversy sprung up again towards the end of the century. In 1782 Dr. Priestley, a renowned natural philosopher, who was born a Calvinist, became an Arminian, and eventually a Socinian, published in 1783 a work entitled The Corruptions of Christianity, in which he made a violent attack on the Creeds, especially with regard to our Lord's Divinity, and discipline of every Church in Christendom. Dr. Samuel Horsley, however, at that time Archdeacon of St. Albans, completely destroyed Priestley's credit as a scholar and theologian. Priest- ley was thenceforward looked upon with suspicion, even in Birmingham, where he had exercised the ministry since 1781; in 1791 the memorable Birmingham riots occurred. A number of Unitarians openly avowed their approval of, and their intention to commemorate, the excesses of the French Revolution; and advertisements to that effect were posted over Birmingham. On the appointed day riots broke out ; two meeting-houses as well as Priestley's private house, his valuable library, and philosophical Paulina (1790), View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), Natural Theology (1802). b In 1776 appointed to the See of Chester, and in 1787 to that of London. 446 Religion during the Eighteenth Century apparatus, were destroyed ; Priestley, in danger of his life, fled to London ; finding himself no better off there, he in 1794 went to America, where he died in 1804. Dr. Horsley, the able defender of the doctrines of the Trinity, at the end, as Waterland was in the early years, of the eighteenth century, was rewarded in 1788 with the Bishopric of St. David's, whence he was in 1793 translated to Rochester, holding with it, as was usual at that time, the Deanery of Westminster. In 1802 he received the Bishopric of St. Asaph, dying on October 4, 1806. The state of the country at the accession of George III. was particularly favourable to the toleration of Dissenters. The last battle had been fought and lost by the Stuarts in 1745. Eng- land, says Lord Macaulay, made by Pitt " the first country in the world, was drunk with joy and pride. . . . Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the Constitution. . . . The Church was drowsy and indulgent. . . . The great civil and religious conflict which began at the Refor- mation seemed to have terminated in universal repose." Dissent began to show signs of returning life, and with returning life soon renewed its claims. The King was fond of Protestant Dissenters, but was never weary of expressing himself that he " hated all Roman Catholics ; " this will explain why he opposed Roman Catholic Emancipation with the same stubbornness with which he opposed American freedom. On April 3, 1772, a Bill brought into the House of Commons for releasing dissenting ministers and schoolmasters from sub scribing to the XXXIX. Articles was disliked by the Kins and the Bishops, and was defeated by a large majority. Ar Act, however, with the same object was passed in 1779. In 1778 concessions were made to the Roman Catholics b) the repeal of the Act of 10 & n William III. entitled An Ad to prevent the further growth of Popery. Thenceforward all thai was required from Roman Catholics was subscription to an oath of allegiance to the King and a disclaimer of the Pope's authority in the Church of England. 447 over England, or his power to absolve people from obedience to the Government as by law established. A Bill brought into the House of Commons on March 28, 1787, for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, com- plaining of the degradation to religion and the hardship entailed on the clergy by these Acts, was defeated by 178 to 100 votes. Another Bill in the following year, and one again in 1790, met with a similar fate. The agitation for the repeal of those Acts was not renewed for nearly forty years. In 1791 the profession of the law was thrown open to Roman Catholics ; but the army and navy were still closed to them. In 1793 a further act of justice was rendered by the Irish Parliament to Roman Catholics. In that year they were enabled to vote in elections to Parliament, to serve as officers in the army, and to attain in it to the highest ranks, those of Commander- in-Chief, Master General of the Ordnance, and General on the Staff being alone excepted. In 1795 a vote was made in the Irish Parliament, authorizing the building and supporting a College of Maynooth for educating Irishmen for the Roman Catholic Priesthood. A sum of ^"40,000 was granted in the first instance, and afterwards ^8,000 annually. If the Church was hampered, Non-conformity was as certainly favoured by the State throughout the eighteenth century. Con- sequently Non-conformity immensely increased in numbers. In 1736 there were only six Meeting-houses in Wales. At the com- mencement of the century Non-conformists throughout England were only one out of twenty ; at the end of the reign of George I., one out of twenty-five of the population. By the end of the century, the Meeting-houses in Wales numbered one thousand ; Non-conformity in England had grown to at least a fourth of the population. Between 1792 1798 Ireland was in a state of open rebellion. A series of outrages in that country led to the conviction that it could never be governed peaceably unless it was united to 448 Religion during the Eighteenth Century England. On July 2, 1800, the Act of Union received in England, and on August i in Ireland, the Royal assent It was determined by the Act that " the Church of England and Ireland, as now by law established, be united into one Protestant Church, to be called the United Church of England and Ireland." Mr. Pitt, who had formerly opposed, now saw the necessity for Roman Catholic Emancipation. The stubbornness of the King prevented it, and the Emancipation was not granted till 1829. In the last quarter of the century the enmity of the State and the helplessness to which it had reduced the Church brought forth bitter fruit. Whilst the dominion of England was rapidly extending itself, no attempt was made either to convert the heathen or to prevent the Colonists from relapsing into heathen- ism ; no churches were built, no schools were planted in their midst. We will confine ourselves to the greatest of our Colonies, America. America was under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. It was said that for part of a diocese to be 3,000 miles distant from its Bishop was unparalleled in the history of the Church. It was urged that England ought to send out Bishops to America, if for no other reason, yet on the ground of humanity. For not only did the journey between America and England entail an expenditure of at least ;ioo, but it was calcu- lated that of those who crossed the water for the purpose of obtaining Orders, nearly a fifth part lost their lives from a pre- vailing epidemic. As one consequence, candidates from America for Orders were few in number ; as a further consequence, many of the churches were left without clergymen. To fill the vacancies, clergymen went out from England, but they were frequently men who were under a ban, and went out to escape the superinten- dence of Bishops in their own country. Pitt is said to have expressed an opinion that had the Church of England been efficiently represented in America, America would not have separated from England. It is a melancholy reflection what good might have resulted if the State had left the in the Church of England. 449 Church unhampered in its action. The Colonies would still have separated from England, but it might have been in friendship and not in hostility. The first blood of the civil war between England and America was shed in 1775. It is worthy of notice that in the northern provinces of America none of the clergy, who were mostly mis- sionaries under the S.P.G., were known to join the ranks of the insurgents. But in the provinces south of Pennsylvania, where no particular reverence for Episcopacy was felt and a lower tone pre- vailed amongst the clergy, one third of the number joined the Revolution ; and at the close of the war two of them had risen to the rank of Brigadier-General. When peace was concluded, the Church in America was wasted and well-nigh destroyed. But good came out of evil. No sooner was the war ended than some Americans sailed for England to seek Ordination from Dr. Lowth, Bishop of London. The Bishop, however, could not admit them to Orders without requiring from them engagements incompatible with their recently-acquired independence. For a while he staved off the difficulty by obtain- ing an Act of Parliament, enabling him to confer Orders on American citizens ; but the Act did not extend to Bishops. Dr. Seabury, having been elected as their Bishop by the clergy of Connecticut, came to England to obtain consecration, and the See of Canterbury being vacant through the death of Dr. Corn- wallis, applied to Dr. Markham, Archbishop of York. As, how- ever, Seabury could not take the oath of allegiance to the King of England, and the Archbishop could not, or thought he could not, consecrate him without it, Seabury had recourse to the Church of Scotland, which was not hampered with such restrictions, and on November 14, 1784, was consecrated at Aberdeen by three Bishops of that Church. A desire, however, still prevailed in America to obtain consecration from the Archbishop of Can- terbury, the alterius Orbis Papa; and all difficulties being re- moved by an Act of Parliament, Drs. Provoost and White were on February 4, 1787, consecrated Bishops for America 450 Religion during the Eighteenth Century, ere. by Drs. Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Markham, of York ; Moss, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; and Hinchclifte, of Peter- borough. Thus America was placed in a position to consecrate for the future its own Bishops. The State, awoke by the rude shock of the American war, at length grew sensible of its responsibilities, and no longer refused to allow Bishops to be consecrated to the Colonies. The progress made during the remaining years of the century was slow, only two Bishoprics being founded, that of Nova Scotia in 1787, to which Dr. Charles Inglis, Rector of Trinity Church, New York, was appointed, and that of Quebec in 1793, of which Dr. Jacob Mountain became the first Bishop, CHAPTER XIX. THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1800 1833. MOORE, Archbishop of Canterbury The zeal and energy of the Evangelicals The Serious Clergy Hervey Grimshaw Berridge Romaine Top- ladyFletcher Rowlands Henry Venn Rowland Hill Effect of the French Revolution on England The later Evangelicals Porteus, Bishop of London The two Milners Their Church History Newton Scott Scott's Commentary Cecil Simeon Wil berforce The Church Mis- sionary Society The Religious Tract Society The British and Foreign Bible Society Controversies respecting it The Education of the Poor The Lancaster and Bell Systems The British and Foreign School Society The National Society Sunday Schools The influence of the Evan- gelicals The better side of their teaching Their weak side Neglect of the Daily Service Their preference of Sermons Increase of Dissent- Great need of Reform in the Church Want of churches And of clergy Pluralities a necessity Poorness of the Sees Pluralist Bishops Poor- ness of Livings Poorness of Curacies Lord Harrowby's Act Slight increase in the Colonial Episcopate The Incorporated Church-Building Society Manners Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury Character of Bishop Watson of Llandaff The Welsh Bishops Aristocratical Bishops State of the churches And of the Services Repeal of the Test and Corpora- tion Acts The Roman Catholic Emancipation Act The Whig Party return to power Hostile spirit to the Church The Reform Bill Threatened attack upon the Prayer-book Effect of the Reform Bill upon the Church What were the Bishops doing? Howley Archbishop of Canterbury A Latitudinarian spirit abroad And at Oxford Oriel College Whately Arnold Hampden Blanco White Arnold's idea of Church Reform Hampden's Bampton Lectures Signs of awakening in the Church Van Mildert Christopher Wordsworth Henry Handley Norris Joshua Watson Hugh James Rose Bishop Jebb Alexander Knox Attempt at Reunion with Church of Rome Bishop Blomfield Foundation of Lampeter College And of King's College, London Dr. Lloyd, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford William Palmer New- man Pusey Hurrell Froude Keble's Christian Year The Provostship of Oriel Keble's Sermon on National Apostasy. THE nineteenth century dawned upon a sleeping Church. From 1783 1805 Dr. Moore, translated from Bangor in suc- cession to Dr. Cormvallis, was Archbishop of Canterbury. He 452 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century was not, like so many of his Episcopal brethren, a hanger-on of the Aristocracy ; on the contrary, he was the son of a butcher. He was not an active Archbishop. We are told that he "avoided all activity but that of Christian piety and spiritual duty ; " " he did nothing to inflame the minds of Dissenters on the one hand, or to alarm the friends of orthodoxy on the other ." Of one thing he certainly took care, viz., that his family should not relapse into obscurity. His son died in 1865, the total of whose receipts from the Church was estimated at .753,647, and his average income from the Church seems to have been no less than ;i 2,000. At the commencement of the century the so-called Evangelical, or Low Church party, almost wholly monopolised the zeal and energy of the Church. From about the middle of the eighteenth century there had existed a small body of clergymen, not numerous enough to be called a party, scattered thinly here and there over the country, who, in contradistinction to the ordinary Church-and-State parson of the day, were known by the name of the Serious Clergy. They were pious, hardworking, some of them rather eccentric clergymen. They were not Methodists ; some were opponents of John Wesley. Their doctrine and discipline were akin to that of the Dissenters ; most of them held the Calvinistic tenets cf Whitfield, and lived on terms of intimacy with the Countess of Huntingdon ; but they formed a link between the Methodists and that later school of Evangelicals which for about fifty years held an almost undisputed sway in the Church of England. Of this earlier generation of Evangelicals our space permits us to give little more than the mere names. First in order comes James Hervey (1714 1758), Rector of Weston Favell and Collingtree, author, amongst other works, of Meditations among the Tombs, and Theron and AsJ>asio, who, when an undergraduate of Lincoln College, was one of the early Methodists at Oxford under Charles Wesley. Nicholls' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 95. on the Church of England. 453 William Grimshaw (1708 1763), Incumbent of Haworth, was known as the Mad Parson; he, however, did a great work, and died of a fever contracted in visiting a sick parishioner. His Diocesan, the Archbishop of York, felt obliged to remonstrate with him on his invasion of the parishes of other clergymen, but, at the same time, recognized the good work he was doing. " How many communicants had you when you went to Haworth?" he asked. "Twelve, my lord," was the answer. "How many have you now?" "In the winter 300 to 400, in the summer near tO 1200." John Berridge (1716 1793) had been a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and was in 1755 appointed by that Society to the living of Everton. So popular was he as a preacher, that his church was overcrowded, and, like Wesley and Whitfield, he was forced to resort to field-preaching. Like Grimshaw he was an itinerant and irregular clergyman. His Bishop on one occasion sent for him : " Do you know who I am ? " asked the Bishop. "Yes," was the answer; "poor sinful dust and ashes, like myself." More refined than the two last was William Romaine (1714 I 795)> son f a French Protestant, who sought refuge in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a suc- cessful preacher in several parishes in London. When he was preacher at St. George's, Hanover Square, the church used to be so crowded that the pew-holders complained to the Rector } Dr. Trebeck, of the pressure. The Rector was himself jealous of Romaine's popularity, and Romaine received notice to quit. Augustus Montague Toplady (1740 1778) is now mostly remembered by one of the most beautiful hymns in the English language : " Rock of Ages, cleft for me." He was a diligent clergyman, an able preacher, and beloved in his parish ; but a man of unamiable temper, who bore a not very creditable part in the Calvinistic controversy b . A man of more saintly life than John William Fletcher (1729 6 bee p. 440. 434 U te Dawn of the Nineteenth Century 1785), or De la Flechere, a native of Nyon in Switzerland, who became Vicar of Madeley, it is impossible to imagine. He has been already mentioned as presiding over the College of Trevecca in Wales", and having been forced by the Countess of Huntingdon to resign his post on account of his siding with John Wesley in the Calvinistic controversy. Wesley designed him as his successor in the government of the Wesleyans, but he died of consumption in 1785, in Wesley's lifetime. At a time when most of the W'elsh clergy neglected their duties, and many of them were men of immoral lives, Daniel Rowlands (1713 1790) stands out as an instance of the opposition of the Welsh Bishops to hardworking (if somewhat irregular) clergymen. He was at first Curate to his own brother, who held three livings in Wales in plurality. His communicants ranged from 1,500 to 2,500, and people thought nothing of travelling fifty or sixty miles to hear him preach. The Rector having been drowned in 1760, the Bishop was requested by the parishioners to appoint Daniel as his successor. The neigh- bouring clergy, however, who bore him no good will, influenced the Bishop of St. David's against him. The Bishop took the unusual step of promoting his son over his head, and Daniel became Curate to his own son. A new Bishop, Dr. Samuel Squire, was appointed in 1761, and he went a step further than his predecessor, and altogether revoked his licence. His fol- lowers, however, built Rowlands a large chapel in the parish of Langeitho, in which he continued his ministry. The Bishop repented of his conduct when the mischief was done, and it was too late, for a rent was made in the Welsh Church which it was difficult to mend. Amongst the earlier Evangelicals the name of Henry Venn (1725 1797) is conspicuous. Though he excelled as a preacher and a zealous clergyman, he is best known in the present day as the author of the Complete Duty of Man, a work which was published in 1763 from a Calvinistic point of view to counteract e See p. 439. on the Church of England. 455 the Whole Duty of Man ; and which next to, although intel- lectually far beneath, Law's Serious Call, became one of the doctrinal books of the period. It is difficult to determine whether Rowland Hill (1745 1833), the younger son of Sir Rowland Hill, ought to be numbered amongst the earlier or later Evangelicals. Even as an undergraduate at Cambridge he took to itinerant preaching, and became a great admirer of the Countess of Huntingdon. He was more of a Dissenter than a Churchman ; he was refused Ordination by no fewer than six Bishops, and never proceeded beyond Deacon's Orders. But as a preacher he was second only to Whitfield, and he continued his ministrations for some- thing like fifty years, admitting Dissenters to preach in Surrey- street Chapel, in the Blackfriars-road, London, which was opened in 1783". These Evangelicals were not appreciated as they ought to have been. They had their faults no doubt, but who amongst the so-called orthodox clergy was entitled to cast the first stone at them ? To give them their due credit, they were not the drones of the Church; still they were only few in number. In 1738 John Wesley wrote to Peter Bohler that he knew only two clergy- men in England who professed Evangelical opinions. Romaine said that when he began his ministry (about 1740) he knew of only six or seven, but before he died in 1795 he could number five-hundred Evangelical clergymen. We must now pass on to the later generation of Evangelicals. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a wave of infidelity, the effects of which were most conspicuous in France, broke over Europe. The errors of the Deists, which had been effectually refuted in England in the first half of the century, found a more congenial soil in France. The excess of wickedness in that country, where the Bible was ridiculed, Christianity proscribed, and a religion under the Goddess of Reason established in its d Rowland Hill was the author of the hymn, "We sing His love who once was slain, " &c. 456 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century place, alarmed England and its Church, by showing to what a depth of degradation a nation might fall when the Church is asleep and its voice silent. It was at such a time that the Evangelicals put on their armour, and assumed strength. They awoke England to a sense of its responsibilities ; they turned the tide which had set in with the Hanoverian succession ; and to them the nation, humanly speaking, owes its salvation. Porteus, Bishop of London (1787 1809), may be called the Bishop of the party; Cowper was their poet ; the two brothers, Joseph and Isaac Milner, their historians. Others amongst the clergy were, Newton, the Nestor of the party, Scott, the Commentator e , Cecil and Simeon ; amongst the laity were, William Wilbcrforce, Hannah More, Lords Dartmouth and Teignmouth, the Thorntons, two rich mer- chants residing at Clap ham, which under its Rector, John Venn, son of Henry Venn, became a bond of union, from which the name of the Clapham Sect was derived. The Milners, Joseph (1744 1797) and Isaac (1751 1820) were the sons of a wool-stapler at Leeds. They both graduated at Cambridge, Isaac coming out as Senior Wrangler with a note of Incomparabilis attached to his name. In 1778 he was elected President of Queens' College, and in 1791 was appointed Dean of Carlisle, the same year in which Dr. Vernon (afterwards, 1808 1847, Archbishop of York) was appointed to the Bishopric of that See. The two brothers were the authors of the Church History which bears their name. But they were not impartial writers. Joseph Milner was accused of being a Methodist ; although no Methodist, he was deeply imbued with Calvinism. Hence he treats his part of the subject from a Calvinistic point of view; he labours to prove, but he failed to prove it for the reason that it was not true, that the narrow views of his party were from the days of the Apostles the doctrines of the Church. Unfortunately the work was stopped by the death of the e Grandfather of the late Sir George Gilbert Scott, R.A. on the Church of England. 457 author when it had only been brought down to the middle of the thirteenth century. It did not, however, suffer through falling into the more competent hands of the Dean, who carried it on to the middle of the sixteenth century ; and one-sided and open to objection as his portion of the work is, enough of it remains to make us wish that it had been further prosecuted. John Newton (1725 1807) had been a slave-owner, and at one time had fallen to the lowest depth of degradation and sin. He says in his Narrative of His own Life, which he published in 1764, that if he were to give a detail of his wicked- ness "the book would have been too shocking to bear a reading." He attributes his conversion to a terrible storm at sea in 1748, when " the Lord sent from on high and delivered me from deep waters." He was a changed man ; in 1764 he took Holy Orders and was licensed to the Curacy of Olney, where the Vicar, Moses Browne, was non-resident, and left the appointment of a Curate to Lord Dartmouth. At Olney the former slave-dealer made the acquaintance of the poet Cowper, who hated the slave-trade with his whole soul. Newton employed Cowper as a kind of curate, and with him he composed the Olney Hymns, published in 1779. Though he was no Antinomian himself, he filled Olney with Antinomians ; he acknowledged his inability to restrain the "gross licentious- ness " of the parishioners, and was driven away by " the incor- rigible spirit in the parish which he had so long striven to reform." In 1779 he was appointed by Mr. Thornton to the living of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard- street. Thomas Scott (1747 1821) followed him at Olney. "When Newton left it," he said, "it swarmed with Antimomians, and when I, about a year after, became curate of the parish, most of the professors of the Gospel were Dissenters. ... In a popula- tion of 2,500, often not 100 got together of a Sunday morning until the end of the service, and half these from other places." Scott himself, from his own confession, did no better ; his con- gregations, he said, were seldom above fifty or sixty. 458 TJie Dawn of the Nineteenth Century Scott's line was not so much as a preacher as an author. In 1779 he published his Force of Truth, in which he describes his search after and his obtaining the truth, and how the Evan- gelical system took possession of his mind. But his chief work was the Commentary on the Bible, which contends with Venn's Complete Duty of Man and Milners' History for the palm of Evangelical literature at that time. The work was written under great difficulties, with no libraries to refer to, no friends to consult with, and under the keen pressure of poverty It need not, therefore, be wondered that it is deficient in accurate scholarship, and bears but slight impress of critical and historical study. It is one of the books to which the late Cardinal Newman in his Apologia attributes his early impressions. Two men, however, of widely different schools, the late John Mason Neale and Mr. Spurgeon, agree in speaking of it in strong terms of condemna- tion. The former says it was such as it might have been thought "no man would have condescended to write down;" and the latter says though " in the family Scott will hold his place," yet "I know I am talking heresy, but I cannot help saying that for a minister's use Scott is mere milk and water good and trustworthy, but not solid enough in matter for full - grown men." Richard Cecil (1748 1810) was a man of larger mind than the other Evangelicals whom we have mentioned. "I never forget that I am a Priest," he says. He did not believe that everything which a Roman Catholic did must necessarily be bad. " If the Papists," he said, " have made too much of some things, Protestants have made too little. . . . The Papist puts the Apo- crypha into his Canon ; the Protestant will scarcely regard it as an ancient record. Papists consider Grace as inseparable from the Sacraments ; Protestants too often lose sight of them as instituted means of conveying Grace." At Cambridge there was a small body of Evangelicals headed by Dr. Milner, President of Queens' College, amongst whom were Professor Jowett, Professor Parish, a Senior Wrangler, and In- on the Church of England. 459 cumbent of Christ Church, and Simeon. Of all the Evangelicals Charles Simeon (1758 1836), a Fellow of King's College, of which he became Vice-Provost in 1790, who was from 1782 Vicar of Trinity Church, stood highest and did the most enduring- work for his party. On two or three evenings in the week he would hold meetings at King's similar to those which had been held at Oxford by the early Methodists for study and for prayer. For fifty years Simeon resided in Cambridge, and from him the Evangelical party acquired the name of Simeonites. Through his long career at Cambridge he gained immense influence over the clergy. In every part of the country he could point to clergymen who had received from him instruction in Theology, which it was at that time impossible to obtain except through private sources; everywhere were to be found clergymen who revered him as the guide of their youth, and the friend and counsellor of their maturer years. In 1816 Simeon set himself to purchasing the advowsons of livings in popular watering-places and large towns, to which he appointed clergymen of like views with himself. These livings are now in the hands of a body of five persons known as the Simeonite Trustees. William Wilberforce (1759 1834), a Member of Parliament, the friend of Pitt, and a brilliant orator, was the secular leader and the great ornament of the party. His work, the Practical View of the prevailing System of professed Christians ; published in 1797, though it laid claim to no deep theological learning, and took for granted the views of his own party, exerted an influence second only to Law's Serious Call. The inheritor from his uncle of a large fortune, he devoted a fourth and not unfrequently a third part to works of charity, and there was scarcely any scheme of importance in which he did not interest himself. He founded a Society, on the model of those founded at the end of the seventeenth century, against the prevailing immorality of the day ; against the profanation of the Lord's Day, swearing, 460 TJie Dawn of the Nineteenth Century drunkenness, licentious publications, and disorderly places of amusement ; and by such means a reformation of manners was effected amongst the upper and middle classes. But it is chiefly through his opposition to the slave-trade that his name lives in history. The first motion for its abolition he brought forward in 1789, and he persisted through life in his noble enterprise. After his death (but in the same year in which he died, 1834) the law was enacted that slavery should be for ever abolished through- out the British Colonies, possessions and plantations. To the Evangelical party four societies, founded in the last year of the eighteenth and the early years of the present century, owe their origin, the Church Missionary, the Religious Tract, the Bible, and the British and Foreign School Societies. The first in point of date was the Church Missionary Society, which was founded on April 12, 1799, entirely by the Evangelical party, amongst whom the names of Scott (who was the Secretary), Simeon, Venn, Newton, Wilberforce, and Thornton are con- spicuous. The S.P.G. had been founded mainly for the support of English clergymen who had gone out to "the plantations, colonies, and factories of this kingdom." No organized attempt had hitherto been made by the Church of England to deal with Paganism ; this was now done by the C.M.S. Not finding sufficient clergymen of the Church of England willing to undertake the work of Missionaries, the Committee enlisted ministers of the Lutheran connexion of Germany, and among the first missioners no fewer than twenty were Germans in Lutheran Orders. In 1 80 1 the Religious Tract Society was established on the basis of united action between Churchmen and Dissenters, for the production and circulation of Evangelical literature. From the first the Committee was composed of an equal number of Clergymen and Dissenters, one Secretary being a member of the Church of England, the other a Non-conformist. On March 7, 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, with the object of the circulation of the Scriptures on the Church of England. 461 at the lowest possible price in various languages, and without note or comment, so that all denominations of Christians might join the Society. Lord Teignmouth was its first President; amongst its Vice-Presidents were Bishops Porteus, Barrington of Durham, Burgess of Salisbury, and Fisher of Exeter ; amongst its supporters were Warren, Bishop of Bangor, and Mansel, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge f , as well as two Arch- bishops and other Irish Bishops. The circulation of the Scrip- tures without comment met with much opposition from the clergy ; lances were broken at Cambridge between Dean Milner and Dr. Herbert Marsh, Margaret Professor of Divinity ; and between Dr. Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, and the President of the Society. The Committee was from the first composed of an equal number of Churchmen and Dissenters. At the time the Society was founded, translations of the Bible in fifty languages existed ; since then the Society has promoted the distribution of the Scriptures in about two hundred and six languages or dialects; it has circulated more than a hundred and twenty millions of Bibles and Testaments, and portions of the Bible, at a cost of between nine and ten millions sterling. The great instrument during the eighteenth century of pro- viding for the education of the poor was the S.P.C.K. At the end of the century the work was conducted through the rival systems of Joseph Lancaster and Dr. Andrew Bell, the latter of whom, when a chaplain in India, had in 1792 introduced into the schools of Madras the Monitorial, or as it came to be called, the Madras, system. A pamphlet which he wrote on the subject fell into the hands of Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker and shoemaker at Southwark, who opened there a school on the monitorial system, he himself teaching the children whilst he plied his trade. In 1807 the British and foreign School Society was founded for the development of the Lancastrian schools ; the teaching in which was to be undenominational, the Church Catechism being forbidden. f Bishop of Bristol, 1808 1820. 462 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century The Bishops, fearing that danger threatened the Church from the Lancastrian system, began to awake out of their slumbers, and it was found desirable to establish a national system of education on Church principles. Accordingly, in 1811, the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church was founded. Sunday Schools had already been, if not first founded, yet established on a more permanent footing about 1781 by Robert Raikes, a printer, and Mr. Stock, Incumbent of St. Aldate's, Gloucester. Raikes was himself a Churchman ; he gathered the children together from all parts of the city, and first took them to the services in the Cathedral, and then instructed them in the Church Catechism, and in reading and writing. Sunday Schools rapidly increased in Gloucester and other parts of the kingdom. They were strongly supported by the Evangelical party; but distinctive Church teaching was not uniformly adopted in them, and they were managed by mixed committees of Churchmen and Dissenters. Rowland Hill is said to have introduced them into London. In 1785 a Sunday School Union was formed in London; and in 1803 it was reported to that Society that there were 7,125 Sunday Schools in Great Britain, numbering 88,860 teachers and 844,728 pupils. But this report did " not include all the Sunday Schools in Great Britain, as there were many that did not report to the Sunday School Union." In their lives the Evangelicals were pious Christians and la- borious parish priests. They did a great work in promoting missions, in diffusing the Bible, and stopping the slave-trade ; they triumphed over the Latitudinarian School, which had exer- cised for so long a paramount influence, and they eradicated the last vestiges of Arianism. In order to understand what an Evangelical or Low Church- man was, we must understand the High Churchman of the period. It was a time when Church doctrine was everywhere lowered. The High Churchman of the beginning of the nine- on the Church of England. 463 teenth century was of a very different type from the High Churchman between the time of Laud and the end of Queen Anne's reign. The Doctrine of the Apostolic Succession had died out with the Non-jurors. That there were exceptions during the eighteenth century does not disprove the rule. High Church- manship, as it was considered, was indeed abundant, but it was a Church-and-State religion ; with it the Corporation and Test Acts were everything, and the very name of Church was merged in that of Establishment. If such was the Creed of the High Churchman, what could be expected of the Low Churchman ? It would be a mistake to pass an indiscriminate judgment in this respect on the Evangelicals. There was a positive as well as a negative side in their belief. They professed to be attached to the Prayer-book, to some parts of it more than others. They felt strongly with respect to the sin of schism. Newton upheld the value of the Fathers in the interpretation of Scripture. Simeon spoke of the inexpressible sweetness of the Prayer-book ; it was to him (in his own words) "marrow and fatness." Nothing could be plainer than his defence of the Baptismal Office. Fasting he held to be a help to the spiritual life. Cecil described the Sacraments as means of conveying Grace, and was precise in requiring order and decency in Divine Service. Hervey spoke of the little infant washing away its native impurity in the Laver of Regeneration. Wilberforce upheld the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, and was no advocate of extreme Sabbatarianism. Such were the views of the leaders of the party. Where then were the defects in their teaching ? They professed to love the Prayer-book, but their teaching was not the teaching of the Prayer-book. They loved the doc- trine of the Church, but it was their own interpretation of it. They paid no heed to the fact that the Prayer-book is little more than an adaptation of the ancient Service-books. They laid more stress on Sermons, which lasted frequently an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, than on the Prayers and Sacraments. They 464 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century coined a system of theology utterly unlike that of the Prayer- book, and to invest it with an air of consistency they invented the theory that the identity of the Catholic Church was broken and Protestantism established at the Reformation. Thus they regarded the Church of England as little more than the wealthiest and most respectable of the Protestant Sects, from which, except through the use of the Prayer-book, they had little to distinguish them. Whatever Church doctrines and principles were at variance with their own they denounced as popery, and they had little sympathy with Churchmen who refused to acknowledge their Shibboleth. Hence they were more in touch with the teaching of Dissenters than with that of the majority of Churchmen. Personal election, experimental religion, these were the tests of Gospel truth. The epistle of St. James was less to their mind than that to the Romans. How to reconcile the two they concerned themselves but little. So long as a person had faith, he was saved ; he need not trouble himself about good works ; some went so far as to say that they were a hindrance to faith. Others might have virtues, but unless they had a personal Assurance of salvation, they were not only not saved, but had not advanced one step on the road to salvation. Nothing can be plainer than the language of the Rubric concerning the Daily Service. But the Evangelicals magnified family prayers, as savouring more of individual liberty, above the Daily Service ; they could indulge at home in extemporaneous prayers and expoundings which suited their temperament better than the sober prayers to which they were confined in Church. They knew little reason for going to Church, except to hear sermons, and as sermons were only preached on Sundays, the Church remained closed from week's end to week's end. It can scarcely be wondered that the Evangelicals, by confusing the boundary-lines between Church and Dissent, greatly increased the number of Dissenters. . Here was a fatal blot on Evangeli- calism. Evangelical clergymen frequently became Dissenters on the Church of Eng'and. 465 themselves, or led their hearers to become Dissenters. No fewer than thirteen young men, converted by Henry Venn, entered the Dissenting ministry, chiefly as Independents. Rowland Hill had his meeting-house in London. Thus the movement gave an immense impetus to Dissent, creating it in Wales and developing it everywhere else. The Evangelicals, therefore, although they did much to promote personal piety, and so far sowed the seed and prepared the ground for a future revival, were not the men to carry out the revival themselves. Let us contrast the Evangelical Bishop Porteus with his successor in the See of London, Dr. Blomfield. Porteus left behind him a princely fortune; but during his episcopacy not a single church was built in London. Bishop Blomfield died a comparatively poor man ; and at the end of an episcopate of twenty-eight years (1828 1856, only seven more than that of Dr. Porteus) he could point to nearly two hundred churches which he had consecrated. A few words are sufficient to show the inefficient state of the Church, and the need of reform in the early years of this century. The population was rapidly increasing and crowding into the towns and cities; but no new churches were built to meet the demand. There were about 10,600 parishes, and only 10,300 parochial clergy; in other words there were at the best three hundred more parishes than there were clergy ; and of these clergy more than half were non-resident. There were many valuable livings, but these were often regarded by patrons as provisions for younger sons, for tutors, and some- times for incompetent persons ; who were appointed without the least regard to their fitness, for the performance of the smallest amount of perfunctory services. A large majority of the livings being insufficient to support clergymen of a higher social stamp and more liberal education than the mere hedge-parson the unpreaching Minister of the Canons of 1604 pluralities were to a certain extent a necessity. The system has been defended, and that too by able and pious men, on the ground that it was dangerous to multiply this class Hh 466 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century of person, as must be the case where the poverty of endowment is so general as to preclude gentlemen of education from under- taking them. The poorness of the Sees often, it may be said generally, necessitated the Bishops holding a living in commendam. A good type of Bishop was Bishop Blomfield. In 1820 he was appointed to the onerous living of St. Botolph, London, worth ^2,000 a year. Between 1824 1828 he held the Bishopric of Chester, but so small was the stipend that he held St. Botolph with it. It was perhaps a necessary evil ; but the poorness of a Bishopric would scarcely in the present day be considered an excuse for holding together two preferments, the duties of one or the other of which a Bishop must necessarily neglect. But, necessary though the evil might be, the fact remains that both amongst Bishops and Incumbents, pluralities and con- sequent non-residence were the rule, and not the exception. In 1832, out of the twenty-six Bishops there were only six who were not Pluralists. Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, was Dean of Canterbury. Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, was Dean of St. Paul's. Jenkinson, Bishop of St. David's, was Dean of Brecon and Dean of Durham. Murray, Bishop of Rochester, was Dean of Worcester, Rector of Bishopsbourne, and Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, was Sub-Dean of Canterbury. His brother, the Bishop of Chester, was Prebendary of Durham and Rector of Waverton. Blomfield, Bishop of London, was Provincial Dean of Canterbury. Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, was Provincial Precentor of Canterbury. Carey, Bishop of St. Asaph, was Archdeacon of his Diocese. Carr, Bishop of Worcester, was Canon of St. Paul's. Grey, Bishop of Bristol, was Prebendary of Durham. Maltby, Bishop of Chichester, was Preacher at Lincoln's Inn. Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, was Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Phill- potts, Bishop of Exeter, was Prebendary of Durham. Nor does this catalogue exhaust the list of Episcopal Pluralists &. * See Walpole's History of England, vol. iv. Unless such a state of things was related at length it would hardly be credited. on the Church of England. 467 The value of Benefices was miserably inadequate. In 1802 there were 5,555 Benefices (more than half the whole number) with a stipend of only ^50 a year ; large numbers were as low as j3> an d not half were provided with Parsonage Houses. A curious arrangement prevailed by which one set of clergymen received the revenues (such as they were) and lived away, and did nothing in their parishes, whilst another, on a miserable income, did what little work was done; whence they, and not the Incumbents, received the name of Curates, or those who had the cure of souls. From returns made to the Bishops in 1810 the salaries of i, 600 Curates are known ; a number sufficiently large to serve as a measure for the rest As many as one thousand received stipends under ^50 a year. When, in order to remedy this state of things, Lord Harrowby in 1812 introduced a Bill into the House of Lords, the Bishops, twenty-one of whom were themselves non- resident Incumbents of livings, complained of the Bill as an encroachment on private property, and gave it their opposition. The Bill, notwithstanding the opposition of the Bishops, was passed. It enacted that no Curate should be paid a smaller stipend than ;8o, or the whole value of the living if it was less than that sum ; and from ^80 the stipend was to rise, in propor- tion to the value of the living, to .^150. One of the proudest monuments of the Church in the present day is the Colonial Episcopate. But in the early years of the century the Church had little in that respect to be proud of. Since the foundation of the two Bishoprics at the end of last century no further progress was made till 1814. In that year the See of Calcutta was founded, and Dr. Middleton was appointed first Bishop. He died in 1822, and on June i, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated as his successor, whose usefulness was cut short by an accident in 1826. In 1824 two more Colonial Bishoprics were founded, viz. Jamaica, of which Christopher Lipscomb, and Barbadoes, of which William Hart Coleridge, was appointed the first Bishop. These were the only Colonial 468 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century Sees which had been established at the period with which we are now concerned. The whole number of churches built or rebuilt in England and Wales during the first seven years of the century was only twenty-four. In any parish, any layman or dissenting minister could by paying sixpence open a place of worship, provided it was not for the services of the Church of England. But to build a church for the services of the Church of England, or subdivide a parish, was a matter of very difficult and com- plicated machinery. But in 1818 the Incorporated Church Building Society was formed, and the foundation of the Society to a great extent determined the whole revival of the Church's usefulness. Its effects were at once apparent; for whereas between 1801 1820 only ninety-six churches, between 1821 1830 as many as 308 churches were consecrated. A few words must be said concerning the Prelates. On the death of Archbishop Moore in 1805, the Prime Minister, Pitt, wished the Primacy to be conferred on his former tutor at Cambridge, Dr. Pretyman, Bishop of Lincoln. But the King, so soon as he heard of the late Archbishop's death, rode over to the Deanery of Windsor, and saluted the Dean, Dr. Charles Manners Sutton, as " My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury." On the next day Pitt arrived at Windsor, and recommended Pretyman for the See; the King, however, persisted, and Dr. Manners Sutton became Archbishop of Canterbury (1805 1828). Dr. Manners Sutton, who graduated as a Wrangler at Cambridge in 1777, became Dean of Peterborough, and in 1792 Bishop ot Norwich, and two years afterwards Dean of Windsor, holding that Deanery with his Bishopric. At the time of his translation to the Archbishopric he lay under the imputation of profuse extravagance. During his Primacy, however, he interested him- self in the various good works and the religious societies which were then organized, and befriended the leading Churchmen of the time. A somewhat curious piece of paternal advice given in on the Church of England. 469 1814 to the newly consecrated Bishop of Calcutta is attributed to him : " Remember, my Lord Bishop, that your Primate on the day of your consecration denned your duty to you; that duty is to put down enthusiasm, and to preach the Gospel." "It is a remarkable fact," said Mr. Gladstone 11 , "that two hundred and ten years ago the Welsh people were the most zealous Church people in the country." The fact can hardly be credited that for a hundred and fifty years after the Revolution not a single Welshman was appointed to any Welsh Diocese. The Bishops were appointed without the slightest regard for the Welsh people. And what was the result ? These alien Bishops lived, as a rule, away from Wales ; and the Welsh clergy being under no spiritual supervision became a degenerate class, utterly indifferent to their office, and in many cases leading grossly scandalous lives. At the same time the Bishops displayed the most rapacious nepotism, preferring to the highest appoint- ments to the Deaneries, Canonries, and the richest livings their relations and friends who were unable to peform the Church services in the Welsh language. Pluralities and non-residence culminated in Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff (1782 1816). Hoadley, in the early years of the eighteenth century, had held the See of Bangor for six years without, it was believed, ever putting his foot within it Watson seems to have surpassed even this record. Having, as a Sizar at Cambridge, graduated Second Wrangler, he was in 1764 ap- pointed Professor of Chemistry, of which he informs us in the Anecdotes of his Life, "I knew nothing at all." In 1771 he became Regius Professor of Divinity, for which, judging again from his own account, he was no better qualified. He was, he tells us, " much unconcerned about the opinions of Councils, Fathers, Churches, Bishops, and other men as little inspired " as himself. " My mind was wholly unbiassed, and I had no prejudice against, no predilection for, the Church of England" Having strong interest he was appointed to the Bishopric of h Speech at Mold in 1873. 470 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century Llandaff. In that capacity he depreciated the XXXIX. Articles, except such as were directed against the Church of Rome ; advocated a Revision of the Prayer-book, and the omission from it of the Athanasian Creed ; and acknowledged the Unitarians as Christians. He never resided in his Diocese, but lived at Cal- garth Park, near Ambleside, where he employed his time in farming, and although his was the poorest Bishopric of all, he boasts that through various preferments which he held he became the richest Bishop on the Bench. On this side of the border the Church, as Sidney Smith said? "was dying of dignity." In 1815, of the two Archbishops, one was the son, another the grandson, of a Peer. Of the Bishops, one was a Peer in his own right ; two were sons, one the grand- son, two brothers, two connexions of Peers ; seven had been tutors to noblemen, and two tutors to Ministers. So that out of the twenty-six Bishops no fewer than nineteen owed their advancement to their aristocratical connexion. Nothing could be less edifying than the Churches and the Church Services. Modern improvements, as they were called, but which were in reality modern barbarisms, had done their fatal work. The high roof cut down ; the windows robbed of their stained glass ; the frescoes hidden beneath a dozen coats of whitewash ; the naves, aisles, and even choirs blocked up with hideous high-backed pews, often with curtains drawn around them ; the pulpit overhanging the Altar ; the head of the Curate scarcely visible above the service-books ; the square box tenanted by the nasal-toned clerk ; a basin the miserable substitute for the font ; the meanly-clad Altar having on it exactly what it ought not, and not having what it ought; the common black bottle containing the wine for the infrequent Communions ; everything in short bore the impress of slovenliness and neglect, and dese- cration of God's House. One word as to the services. The Rubrics enjoining the daily service were rarely, if ever, observed. The Holy Eucharist was celebrated generally once a quarter, sometimes even less fre- on the Church of England. 471 quently, at the most once a month. The Cathedrals were open for prayers, but where were the worshippers? The Parish Churches were opened on Sundays, but how to make the services attractive seems to have been the last thing to engage the atten- tion of the parish clergyman. There was the duet before the silent congregation between the parson and clerk; the prayers emphasised and the sermon monotoned; hymns, as we have them now, were a thing unknown. No music varied the dulness of the service except one, or at most two, metrical Psalms, taken, when the Old Version of Sternold and Hopkins was too bad to be tolerated any longer, from the scarcely better New Version of Tate and Brady. In a word, if we can imagine a state of things exactly the opposite of what it ought to be, we shall have then formed some idea of the state of the Church and of the services in the early part of the present century. Just when it was most needed help came to the Church through a source and by means the least expected. The revival may be attributed to two Acts of Parliament which at first appeared to good and wise men at the time to threaten the down- fall of the Church ; those Acts were the Repeal of the Corpora- tion and Test Acts in 1828, and the Roman Catholic Emancipa- tion Act in 1829. When viewed in the light of history the Repeal of these Acts proved to be an advantage to the Church for a double reason; firstly, because it removed the only re- maining causes of complaint which Non-conformity could reason- ably bring against the Church ; and secondly, because it awoke the Church out of its slumbers, and showed that unless it set its house in order a worse thing would befall it. The year 1830 ushered in an entirely new era. In that year the Whig party, which had, with short intervals, been in opposition for sixty years, became dominant in the State, and it was sup- posed that their return to power boded no good to the Church. A spirit of Reform was abroad in the State, and reform in the State implied reform by the State in the Church also. It was evident that when everything was in motion the Church would 472 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century not long be allowed to stand still. The popular view was that the Church of England had been created by the State at the Reformation, and endowed with the property of the Roman Catholic Church, and that, therefore, the State which gave had the right of taking away and disposing of the endowments as it pleased. A climax evidently was at hand ; pamphlets and newspapers were violent in their cries against the Church. They attacked it on the grounds of its enormous wealth, which they exaggerated ten-fold ; on its antiquated forms, its State mono- polies, the tithes of its Rectors, the baronies of its Bishops, on Church rates, and every part of the Establishment '. A new phase in the relations between Church and State at once commenced. The Reform Bill of 1832 ; the confiscation by Parliament, in close succession to that event, of ten Irish Bishop- rics ; a threatened attack upon the Prayer-book, showed unmis- takeably that danger was at hand, and warned the Church as to what it might expect, if it were to drift, as appeared too probable, into a mere department of the State. Nothing short of a revolution in the relations between Church and State was effected by the Reform Bill. The State was no longer in the position of a Church-member, but of an alien from the Church. When not only Romanists and Dissenters of various sects, but Rationalists, and Deists, and Unitarians might have seats in Parliament and legislate for the Church, a very different state of things was inaugurated from that which had hitherto existed when Church and State were one and the same com- munity, only under different aspects. The Sovereign, it is true, remained nominally in communion with the Church ; but the advisers of the Crown, those in whom the appointments of the Archbishops and Bishops were vested, might thenceforward be its deadliest foes. What were the Bishops doing in the House of Lords when the Reform Bill was passing through its various stages ? Dr. Howley, 1 Mozley's Essays, ii. 164 on the Church of England. 473 translated from the See of London, was Archbishop of Canter- bury (1828 1848). He was a highly estimable Prelate. But the question naturally occurs, Of what use are the Bishops in the House of Lords, unless it is to safeguard the Church ? Unfor- tunately the Bishops (and not for the first time when their help was needed) sat with folded hands, and took the very opposite course to what it is reasonable to suppose they ought to have taken. Their votes were sorely needed by the Government to pass the Reform Bill. In the first Reform Bill, which was brought forward in 1831, twenty-one Bishops voted against it, and the Bill was lost ; when it was carried in 1832, it was only by nine votes in the House of Lords. Surely the Bishops might have made some terms for the Church, terms which were obviously just, and would have, in the altered conditions between Church and State, commended themselves to the Ministers. They might have insisted upon equal justice being shown to the Church as to the Dissenters, the right of regulating its own affairs and having its own Convocation. Instead of that they mismanaged matters from first to last ; they disgusted their friends, and exasperated the Government ; the people insulted them in public ; the Palace of the Bishop of Bristol (Dr. Gray) was burnt down ; and, worst of all, the impression gained ground that the Dissenters were the friends, and the Church the enemy, of the people. At the time that danger threatened from the State, a Latitudin- arian spirit was once more raising its head within the Church itself. Even at Oxford, the supposed seat of orthodoxy, and at Oriel, at that time the intellectually leading College in the Uni- versity, a speculative liberalism had taken root ; two opposing schools were struggling together for pre-eminence, and it appeared only too probable that the less orthodox of the two would gain the mastery. At Oriel there was a triumvirate of Latitudinarian Fellows. Of these the first in time was Richard Whately, who, elected a Fellow in 1811, was Bampton Lecturer in 1822. In 1825 he became Principal of St. Alban Hall ; in 1830 Professor of Political 474 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century Economy; and between 1831 1863 Archbishop of Dublin. Thomas Arnold, elected Fellow in 1 8 1 5, was between 1827 1842 Head Master of Rugby; and Renn Dickson Hampden, elected in 1814, was in 1832 Bampton Lecturer, taking for his subject, " The Scholastic Philosophy in its relation to Christian Theology." In 1836 he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, and between 1848 1868 he was Bishop of Hereford. In 1814 Blanco White, a Spaniard on his mother's and an Irishman on his father's side, went to reside at Oxford, and became a prominent guest in the Oriel Common Room, the inti- mate friend of Whately and Hampden. The history of his life shows what a dangerous companion in a Common Room a man of Blanco White's literary tastes and talents and heretical tenden- cies was likely to be. Ordained in 1799 Priest in the Church of Rome, he fell in 1802 into infidelity ; his belief, such as it was, in God, returned for a while, and in 1814 he signed the XXXIX. Articles and took duty in the Church of England. In 1818 he threw over the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity ; he returned again to a right belief in 1825, and again performed the duties of a clergyman in the Church of England. In 1829 lie was landed in doubts respecting the English Church, which to his mind approximated too nearly to that of Rome. Nevertheless, Whately, when he was appointed to the Archbishopric of Dublin, allowed Blanco White to accompany him, and to take up his residence in the Archbishop's palace. In 1835 Blanco White professed him- self a Unitarian, and, not wishing to compromise the Archbishop, he left his roof, and died a Unitarian in 1841. The faith of Whately, who was never considered a particularly orthodox man, did not probably improve in Blanco White's hands. Whately was so dissatisfied with the Creeds and ceremonies and orders of the Church, that he was prepared to sanction a violent change in the way of a liberal reformation. Dr. Thomas Arnold, more perhaps than any other single individual, was the founder of the modern Broad Church party, and he had unusual means of spreading his views through the en the Church of England. 475 influence which he exercised over his pupils at Rugby. Though he entertained scruples on certain parts of the XXXIX. Articles, he took Deacon's Orders in 1818, but did not proceed to Priest's Orders till after he became Head Master of Rugby. Arnold was fully impressed with the need of reform in the Church. In his reforming theory he was supported at Oxford by Whately, Hampden, and Hinds, the last of whom was conse- crated to the See of Norwich in 1849*; but it proceeded on a destructive policy, and he advocated a surrender to Dissenters of nearly all that Churchmen considered of vital importance, with the view to popularizing the Church. In 1833 (the same year in which the first of the Tracts for the Times saw the light) Arnold's Ideal of a Christian Church was given to the world in a pamphlet on Church Reform, and later on by his Fragments on the Church. The alliance between Church and State, which is a mere accident, he made the essence of a Church. According to his view it appertains to the civil magistrate to fix the doctrines of the Church ; and Ordination is simply the appointment of public officers of the Crown. The Athanasian Creed is the "provoking and ill-judged language of Trinitarians," and "a stumbling-block to good Unitarians." The Church might well include good Arians ; the House of Commons might so modify Comprehension as to include Dissenters, the Church of England using the churches in the morning, the Dissenters at other times of the day. Arnold's Latitudinarian views startled Churchmen and those whom he called orthodox Dissenters alike ; and yet there was a talk of promoting him to the Episcopate. Hampden was in April, 1833, appointed Principal of St. Mary Hall. His Bampton Lectures, which few attended and still fewer understood, were considered unorthodox, and brought down on him the condemnation of the Heads of Houses. But more distinctly unorthodox views were expressed by him in a pamphlet published in 1834, entitled Observations on Religious JDissenf, k Resigned, 1857. 47 6 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century with particular reference to the Use of Religious Tests in the Uni- versity. Creeds he asserted to be mere matters of opinion ; he advocated the abolition of Subscription to the XXXIX. Articles ; and spoke of putting Unitarians on the same footing as any other Christians. Enough has been said to show that the Church was in danger, and that a crisis of some sort, either from the State without or the Church within, was at hand. The Church must become either better or worse. It could not stand still. The Wesleyan movement had run its course and lapsed into schism. The Evangelical movement had reached its climax, and began to decline. There remained the Broad Church and the High Church parties. The future lay between a school of thought which had its roots in Philosophy rather than Revelation, and a school which was grounded on Revelation, and on the doctrines and discipline of the purest ages of the Church. It was a question whether the Broad Church or the High Church should be the Church of England of the future. In the former case there would be an expungement from its services, certainly of the Athanasian, probably of the Nicene, possibly of the Apostles' Creed; in the latter case she must reclaim her Catholic birthright. The intellectual and spiritual activity of the Church returned to it in its hour of need. Outside the Evangelical party signs of awakening had already begun to manifest themselves, but it was the awakening of individuals working for some special object, such as the National Society, the Colonial Episcopate, or the Church Building Society. Amongst these workers must be men- tioned William Van*Mildert, in 1814 appointed Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Divinity l ; Charles Lloyd, ap- pointed to the same office in 1822 ; and Christopher Wordsworth, younger brother of the poet, who was Rector of Lambeth and Chaplain to Archbishop Manners Sutton, and was in 1820 elected Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Others were Henry 1 Bishop of Llandaff, 1819; of Durham, 18261836. on the Church of England. 477 Handley Norris, Incumbent of a church at Hackney, who held a Prebendal Stall at Llandaff, and was in 1825 presented to a non-residentiary Canonry in Canterbury Cathedral ; Joshua Wat- son, who, like Wilberforce amongst the Evangelicals, took his share in every good work of the period ; and Hugh James Rose, who in 1826 delivered at Cambridge his Discourses on the Com- mission and Duties of the Clergy, who from 1827 1833 was a Prebendary of Chichester, and from 1829 1833 Christian Ad- vocate at Cambridge. But the two who perhaps more than others conduced to the revival were Bishop Jebb, of Limerick (1822 December, 1833), and his friend Alexander Knox. Alexander Knox (1757 1831), a descendant of the Scotch Reformer, was a High Churchman and a Whig (a rare combina- tion at a time when High Churchmanship connoted Tory princi- ples rather than a system of Theology) ; and a Whig he remained till his death. He advocated Roman Catholic Emancipation and the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. A friend both of John Wesley and of Bishop Jebb, he has been called the channel and mediator between' the Wesleyan and Tractarian movements. It seems at first strange to attribute the Oxford Revival to John Wesley. But it was to John Wesley that Alexander Knox attributed his High Church principles ; those principles he communicated to his friend, Bishop Jebb ; Bishop Jebb handed them on to William Palmer" 1 ; and Palmer's works supplied a desideratum in the Church of England, and paved the way to the doctrinal and ceremonial restorations which have since followed. The names of Bishop Jebb and Alexander Knox are connected with an interesting movement made in 1824, the first (if we except that of the Non-jurors) made since the days of Archbishop Wake, towards a re-union of Christendom. In that year Dr. D'Oyle, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin 01 See p. 480. 4?3 The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century (1819 1834), wrote a letter, which created a considerable stir at the time, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of Re-union. A proposition was in consequence published by some English clergymen that ten divines (one of whom was to be Bishop Jebb) should be appointed from the Church of England and the Church of Rome to consider the matter. Dr. D'Oyle stated his opinion that there would be little difficulty in reconciling the Tridentine Decrees with the XXXIX. Articles. He agreed with Alexander Knox that there was no real difference between the Churches on the doctrine of Transubstantiation ; it was, he said, " essentially included in the doctrine of the Real Presence ; so is that of the Sacrifice of the Mass." Dr. Murray, who in 1823 was appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, declared that there would be little difficulty if only the Church of England would be true to its own principles. Though he advocated the cause of union, Dr. D'Oyle vigorously assailed the position of the Church of England. Equally vigorous in its defence and in retaliating upon the Church of Rome was Knox. He adopted the principle of St. Vincent of Lerins, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; that he adduced as a test of the Catholicity of the two Churches ; there could be no union with Rome, he said, except on that basis ; but he was forced to the conclusion that whilst the Church of England adopted it, the Roman Church held such an appeal to be treason. In such ways Knox sounded the first note of the movement, which was soon to change the whole face of the Church of England. The clergy, grown more sensible of their responsibilities, began to take a wider interest in theological subjects. This was much aided by the publication of the religious periodicals, which were now either first published or fell under more effectual editorship. In 1819 the Christian Remembrancer, mainly through the instru- mentality of Mr. Norris and Mr. Joshua Watson, first sprung into life. The British Critic, which originated in Jones of Nayland in the last century, fell about 1824 into the able hands of High Churchmen, and especially Mr. Norris. And another excellent on the Church of England. 479 publication, the British Magazine, in 1832 came under the editor- ship of Hugh James Rose n . In 1822 Bishop Burgess, of St. David's (1803 1825), laid the foundation-stone of St. David's College, Lampeter. He had found the livings in his diocese too poor to attract University men, and that the clergy were in consequence an ill-educated, and not unfrequently a drunken and immoral set of men. The College, which he founded on the Oxford and Cambridge model for the education of the clergy, was, in consequence of his transla- tion in 1825 to the See of Salisbury, opened in 1827 by his suc- cessor in the See of St. David's, Dr. Jenkinson. In 1828 King's College, London, almost a University in the scope of its studies, was founded, strictly in connection with the Church of England. Between 1826 1828 Dr. Lloyd, the Regius Professor of Divinity, delivered at Oxford a course of lectures in which the history and origin of the Prayer-book formed a prominent part, and the Church services were traced back through the Roman Missals and Breviaries to their original sources. These lectures were attended by all the earlier promoters of the Church revival, except Mr. Keble. who had left the University in 1823. To these lectures one of the most prominent amongst its earliest members ascribes the commencement of the movement : " I do remember," says Mr. Oakley, " to have received from them an entirely new notion of doctrine;" and "I have no doubt his teaching had a most powerful influence on the movement." In 1828 William (afterwards Sir William) Palmer migrated as a graduate from Trinity College, Dublin, to Oxford, where, though incorporated at Worcester, he was attracted to the more congenial atmosphere of Oriel. His chief aim in going to Oxford was to gain materials for a work which he was preparing on Liturgiology. Mr. Palmer had first formed the idea of his book when preparing for the careful course of examination which Dr. Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, had adopted for his Ordination examinations. 11 Perry's Student's Eng. Ch. Hist., iii. 178. 480 TJif Dawn of the Nineteenth Century Mr. Palmer commenced his book in 1826, but he for a while discontinued it, finding that a similar work had been already com- menced by Dr. Lloyd . But on Bishop Lloyd's premature death in 1829, Palmer was persuaded by Dr. Burton, Dr. Lloyd's suc- cessor in the Regius Professorship, to continue his work. So in 1832, the Bishop's collections being added to his own, Palmer was able to bring out the Origines Liturgicce, or Antiquities of the English Ritual with the Dissertation on Primitive Liturgies?. We must return to Oriel College, Oxford. In 1823 John Henry Newman, in 1824 Edward Bouverie Pusey, in 1826 Robert Isaac VVilberforce and Richard Hurrell Froude were elected Fellows of that Society. In 1824 Newman was ordained and became Curate of St. Clement's, Oxford. In 1825, when Whately became Principal of St. Alban Hall, he appointed Newman Vice- Principal this appointment, however, the latter, when in the following year he accepted a Tutorship of his own College, vacated. At that period of his life Newman was a member of the Bible Society, which was generally identified with the Low Church party ; frequented the parties at St. Edmund Hall, which, under its Vice-Principal, Mr. Hill, was the Head Quarters of the Evan- gelical party at Oxford ; and when the Record newspaper was started in 1828 he was one of its earliest subscribers. In June, 1827, Keble published the Christian Year, which opponents stigmatized as fons et origo ma/i, and which was afterwards publicly burnt at Oxford. Probably no devotional book has ever attained so wide a circulation. But the anger which it caused at the time amongst a section of Broad and Low Churchmen, and the favour with which it was received by the Church generally, served as an indication of the spread of Church principles. In 1828 Pusey was elected to the Regius Professorship of Hebrew, to which a Canonry of Christ Church is attached. Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, 18271829. P Three years afterwards he published his Treatise on the Church of England. on the Church of England. 481 In the same year Copleston, Provost of Oriel, was appointed to the Bishopric of Llandaff. For the vacant Provostship, Haw- kins and Keble were put in nomination ; Newman, who was then a Low Churchman, and also at that time knew little of Keble, voted for Hawkins, and Hawkins was elected. To the Vicarage of St. Mary, Oxford, to which was attached the hamlet of Littlemore, and which was vacated by Hawkins' election, Newman succeeded. The Church suffered a great loss by the death, on May 31, 1829, a - the early age of forty-five years, of Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, whose learning and wise counsel would have exercised an invaluable influence in the difficult times which were soon to follow. He was succeeded in the Divinity Chair by Edward Burton, who was also Canon of Christ Church and Rector of Ewelme, where, at a time when such an arrangement was very rare, he introduced open seats into the church q . In the See of Oxford Dr. Lloyd was succeeded by Richard Bagot, son of Lord Bagot. On July 14, 1833, Keble preached at St. Mary's his famous Assize Sermon on National Apostasy ; " I have always," said Newman, "considered and kept that day as the start of the Religious Movement of 1833." We have now before us the chief events which preceded, and the principal authors of the important revival of which the Church is reaping the benefit at the present time. He too died in 1836, at the early age of forty-one. ii CHAPTER XX. THE AWAKENED LIFE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A.D. 1833 1892. STATE of the Church in A.D. 1833 The Meeting at Hadleigh Rectory The Association of friends of tlie Church The two Addresses to Arch- bishop Howley The Tracts for the Times Froude's Remains Dr. Hampden appointed Regius Professor of Divinity Tract XC. Jerusalem Bishopric Suspension of Dr. Pusey Secession of Newman and others to Rome Newman's character as drawn by Bishop Thirlwall and Dr. Dol- linger Dr. Hampden appointed to the See of Hereford The Eccle- siastical Commission The Dioceses of Ripon and Manchester created The Peel Districts Tithe Commutation Act The Court of Delegates The Judicial Committee of Privy Council The Gorham Case Cardinal Manning and others Secede The Papal Hierarchy in England St. Bar- nabas, Pimlico Revival of Ritual The limits of lawful Ritual Liddell v. Westerton St. George's-in-the-East Riots Impetus given to Ritualism St. Alban's, Holbom The Ritual Commission Martin v. Mackonochie The Purchas Case Public Worship Regulation Act approved of by the Bishops generally The Church Association The Church Union The Church of England Working Men's Society Changes in the Court of Final Appeal The Six Points of Ritual Action of the Church Associ- ation The imprisoned Clergymen Prosecution of the Bishop of Lincoln Archbishop Benson's Judgment Judgment of the Privy Council Ritual- ism rendered popular through the Church Association The Association's Scheme of Future Policy Convocation Church Congresses Diocesan Conferences And Synods The Central Council The Houses of Laymen Extension of the Colonial Episcopate Elementary Education Act Board Schools Free Education Act The Woodard Colleges The three Conferences at Lambeth Essays and Reviews Dr. Colenso New Sees created Keble College The Pusey House Lux Mundi Selwyn College The new Translation of the Bible The Church Discipline Act of 1892. BY the year 1833 the opinion had become deeply settled that the Church of England, if it was to be saved at all, must be saved on different lines from those of the Evangelical or Broad Church parties. A new party had arisen at Oxford of which Newman (whose opinions had undergone a considerable change) was chief, which penetrated to the root of the matter, and saw that the evils which threatened the Church arose from people dwelling too much The Awakened Life of the Church of England. 483 on the Establishment, and too little on the Apostolic element of the Church. In the long vacation of 1833, Newman being at the time absent on the Continent, Hurrell Froude and William Palmer resolved in the Oriel Common Room to form an Association for maintaining the rights and principles of the Church. The plan was communicated to Mr. Keble and Hugh James Rose, and a Conference was held at Hadleigh, of which the latter had been Rector since 1830. The first-fruits of that Conference were the Tracts for the Times. Newman returned to Oxford on July 9. In the autumn of the year an Association of Friends of the Church was formed, one of its objects being to maintain the rights of the Church and to withstand all deviations from the Primitive Church and Apostolic rale. One address, signed by about 7,000 clergymen, and an- other, mainly drawn up by Joshua Watson, on the part of the laity, and signed by upwards of 230,000 heads of families, con- taining a declaration of attachment to the Church, were pre- sented to Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury. From these two addresses may be dated the turn of the tide which had threatened to overwhelm the Church. Dr. Pusey was not fully associated with the movement till 1835 and 1836, when he published his Tract on Baptism, and started the Library of the Fathers. From his position as a Canon of Christ Church he gave the movement a recognized status, and from that time its adherents were called Puseyites. The Tracts for the Times, from which the name of Tract- arians was derived, were published between 1833 1841. The principal contributors were Newman, Pusey, Keble, all of them connected with Oriel, and Isaac Williams, a Fellow of Trinity. The first Tract sketches out the scheme which it was proposed to follow ; it enlarges upon the Apostolical Succes- sion as an heirloom of the Church of England, and the great central doctrine on which all others hinge. This it was asserted was the only ground on which Roman and Protestant Dissenters 484 The Awakened Life of the Church of England. could be met; the neglect of the services of the Church, in- frequent Communions, and the desecration of Festivals, whilst they led some to Prayer and Bible Meetings, led others to the more captivating services of Rome. When on the death of Dr. Burton, in 1836, Dr. Hampden was appointed by Lord Melbourne to the Regius Professorship of Divinity, the Tract-writers for the first time, and then in union with all classes of Church people, acted together as a body in opposition to the appointment. A Statute was passed in the University Convocation that the new Professor should not be allowed the usual vote in the appointment of Select Preachers at St Mary's. By the end of 1837 the movement had spread over the whole of England; but the Bishops and both Houses of Parliament looked on it with little favour. Hurrell Froude's life was cut short by consumption in 1837 ; the Church sustained a further loss from the death in 1838 of Hugh James Rose. Froude's Remains caused great alarm not only amongst opponents, but also amongst friends, for he was wont to express himself in terms of praise of the Church of Rome, and in strong language against the Reformation. In January, 1841, appeared the famous Tract XC., written by Newman, and entitled Remarks on certain passages in the XXXIX. Articles. The object of the Tract was to show that the Articles did not contradict any Catholic doctrine, nor anything in primi- tive Christianity, but only the later accretions of the Church of Rome ; that they were of an elastic character, and so drawn up as to admit of subscription in their grammatical sense on the part of persons who differed widely in their judgment of Catholic doctrines. But in those days an idea prevailed (and it has not bean entirely eradicated in these last years of the nineteenth century) that everything held by the Church of Rome was ne- cessarily, and without defence, bad. The Tract was met by a protest on March 9 from four Tutors, one of whom was the late Archbishop Tait, at that time a Fellow The Awakened Life of the Church of England. 485 and Tutor of Balliol. On March 15 it was condemned by the Heads of Houses, and before the end of the month the Tracts were, in deference to Dr. Bagot, the Bishop of Oxford, discon- tinued. They had however done their work ; long-forgotten truths had been brought to light; the result was an increased taste for theological study amongst the clergy, greater devotion amongst the laity, more frequent services, and increased Com- munions. On May 19, 1841, as a protest against the Tractarians, the foundation-stone was laid at Oxford of the Martyrs' Memorial, designed by the late G. Gilbert Scott and built to commemorate the martyrs Crammer, Ridley, and Latimer, " who had so large a share in restoring our branch of the Catholic Church to primitive orthodoxy, and who for the maintenance of the Scriptural truth which was embodied in its Articles and other .Formularies, suf- fered death in this city." The appointment, to be made alternately by the Crown of England and the King of Prussia, of a Bishop for Jerusalem, where there was already a canonically appointed Bishop of the Greek Church, although supported by Archbishop Howley, and Blomfield, Bishop of London, met with strong opposition from the High Church party in England. On November 7, 1841, Michael Solomon Alexander, a converted Jew, was consecrated to that See. Shortly afterwards the Lutheran King of Prussia arrived in England to stand as sponsor to the Prince of Wales, an incident which was much opposed by prominent Churchmen, whose opposition was by no means favourably regarded at the Court of England. In May, 1843, Dr. Pusey preached in Christ Church Cathedral a sermon, The Holy Communion a Comfort for the Penitent. The Vice-Chancellor appointed a board, consisting of Anti-Tractarians, to report on the sermon. Dr. Pusey was condemned, and sus- pended for two years from preaching before the University. Unfortunately the Oxford party became split up into two sections, the one led by Pusey, Keble, and Hook (the last of 486 The Awakened Life of the Church of England. whom had been in 1837 appointed to the Vicarage of Leeds) r which adhered to the original purpose of the Tracts ; the other, which may be called the Romanizing party, under Newman, Ward, and Oakley, the two last Fellows of Balliol. In September, 1843, Newman, thinking that his place in the movement was lost, resigned the Vicarage of St. Mary's, Littlemore included, where a church had been built, the first stone of which was laid in July, 1835, as a Chapel-of-Ease to St Mary's. Events now followed each other in rapid succession. In the latter part of 1844 Ward published his Ideal of a Christian Church, in which he claimed to hold " the whole*cycle of Roman doctrine," and in February, 1845, he was condemned in the Oxford Convocation, and deprived of his degrees. In April, 1845, the country was thrown into a ferment through Sir Robert Peel's scheme of a grant of .30,000 a year to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. Oakley, Incumbent of Margaret-street Chapel, London, who- until 1838, when he came under Newman's influence, had been a Broad Churchman of the Whately and Arnold School, having written to the Bishop of London, claiming to hold, as distinct from teaching, all Roman doctrine, and challenging the Bishop to take proceedings against him, was taken at his word, and brought down upon himself in June the condemnation of Sir H. Jenner Fust, Judge of the Court of Arches. On October 8, Newman wrote from Littlemore to some friends : " I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Pas- sionist .... I mean to ask of him admission into the one fold of Christ." He was thus received into the Church of Rome a . On November i of the year in which Newman seceded, Oakley was received into the Roman Catholic Communion by Dr. Wiseman in the chapel of Oscott ; Ward, Faber, who had been a Fellow of University, and since 1843 held the College Living * John Henry Cardinal Newman, born February 21, 1801, died August u^ 1890. The Awakened Life of the Church of England. 487 of Elton, together with some less conspicuous converts, followed in quick succession. On November 30 of that eventful year Samuel, son of the Evangelical Wilberforce, was consecrated to the See of Oxford, in succession to Dr. Bagot, translated to Bath and Wells. The loss of such a man as Newman did for some time incalculable harm. The secessions to Rome filled the country with indignation and mistrust of the Oxford Movement, and cast suspicion on those of the party who remained faithful to the Church, so that the High Church party seemed to have a taint upon them. But when we count up the losses, it is only just that we should look on the other side of the pictured When we reflect on the converts who went to Rome, it must be borne in mind that defections to Protestant Dissent, which under the Evangelicals had assumed formidable proportions, stopped in a large degree with the Tractarian movement. We will here quote the opinion of Newman's character as given by the late Bishop Thirlwall of St. David's. " He was," he says, " essentially sceptical and sophistical, without the power of taking firm hold of either speculative or historical truth. He was always craving in the piety of his conscience for truth, and being unable to satisfy the craving by any mental operations of his own, and fearing that he would always be in a sea of doubt, he took refuge under the wings of an infallible authority." "If," said Dr. Dollinger, one of the most learned members in his day of the Church of Rome, "Newman, who knew early history so well, had possessed equal knowledge of modern Church history, he never would have become a Roman Catholic." England may take to itself this comfort. Had it not been for the Catholic revival within the Church of England, Rome would almost certainly before now have made long strides b The whole number of clergymen who joined the Church of Rome from 1833 1878, according to a list of Rome's recusants published in the While- hall Revietv, was 385, many of whom had not been advanced Churchmen at all. 488 The Awakened Life of the Church of England. towards the recovery of its hold upon England. But with the death of Cardinal Newman in 1890, and of Cardinal Manning on January 14, 1892, the great men whom Rome gained from the lethargy bequeathed to the Church of England by the Georgian era passed away, leaving no successors ; and the Romeward movement at the present day retrogrades rather than advances. In 1847 Lord John Russell, in order as he said "to strengthen the Protestant character of our Church, so seriously threatened of late by defections to the Church of Rome," appointed Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford, in succession to Bishop Musgrave, who was appointed, on the death of Dr. Edward Vernon Harcourt, to York. Fifteen Heads of Houses put forth an address expressing their confidence in him ; thirteen Bishops, on the contrary, addressed a remonstrance to the Prime Minister. An unsuccessful attempt was made against the confirmation of the appointment in Bow Church on January IT, 1848. Archbishop Howley having died in February, Dr. Hampden was consecrated on March 26 by the new Archbishop, Dr. Sumner, translated from Chester. We must now travel back to events which followed after the Reform Bill. The Reform Bill having made Non-conformity a power in the State, it was impossible that the Church could be left undisturbed. The first step taken in the new direction was the appointment by the Government of Lord Grey of a com- mission "to inquire into the revenues and patronage of the established Church." The commission was appointed by letters patent in 1831, and was renewed in 1833 and again in 1834. In 1835 and in 1836 it presented four reports to Parliament. In 1836 the Ecclesiastical Commission was constituted a permanent corporate body, to hold property, to receive Episcopal and capitular incomes, and to form schemes for ecclesiastical purposes. Of this commission all the Bishops were by an Act of 1840 constituted members. To remedy the incongruous state of things which was brought to light, three Acts of Parliament were passed. The Episcopal TJie Awakened Life of the Church of England. 489 Act in 1836, the Pluralities Act in 1838, and the Catliedral Act in 1840. By the Episcopal Act a redistribution of Dioceses was made. Since the reign of Henry VIII., when the population of England was only four millions, no new Sees had been created. Two new Dioceses, those of Ripon and Manchester, were now founded, and Dr. Charles Thomas Longley, Head Master of Harrow, was on November 6, 1836, consecrated to the former See ; and by nearly equalizing the revenues of all but the five principal Sees, the translation of Bishops from one See to another was to a great extent obviated. The number of twenty-six Bishoprics, however, was thought inviolable ; the Bishoprics of Gloucester and Bristol were united to provide for the new See of Ripon ; and a similar process with regard to Bangor and St. Asaph was contemplated for Manchester. But on the death of Dr. Carey, Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1846, Dr. Bethell, Bishop of Bangor, refused to accept the additional diocese. Dr. Thomas Vowler Short was then translated from Sodor and Man to St. Asaph, and St. Asaph and Bangor continued to be separate Sees just as they were before St. Augustine came to Britain. On January 23, 1848, Dr. James Prince Lee was consecrated first Bishop of Man- chester. By the Pluralities Act a suitable provision was made against pluralities, and for the settlement of a resident clergyman in every parish. Cap. 106, Sect. 80, of the Act empowered a Bishop to order two full Sunday services with sermon in every parish of his diocese, without regard to population, and if the population is not sufficiently provided for by such means, he can require a third service. To provide the money necessitated by the Pluralities Act, the Cathedral Act was, although under strong opposition, passed. By the provisions of that Act non-residentiary canonries amount- ing to about three hundred and sixty, the corporate incomes of the residentiary canonries above the number of four (with a few exceptions), were appropriated and entrusted to the management 49 The Awakened Life of the Church of England. of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Out of the income arising; from these and similar sources the Commissioners pay to the Archbishops and Bishops, Deans, Canons residentiary, and Arch- deacons, certain fixed stipends ; the surplus being devoted to the general benefit of the Church. It was some years before the direct advantage of this Act was felt; for in 1843 Sir Robert Peel forestalled the increment of the revenue by inducing Parliament to impose upon the fund a tax of ^30,000 a year for the creation, with a stipend of ^150 a year each, of two hundred new districts in the mineral, ship- ping, and manufacturing towns ; and the sum of ^iS,ooo went to Queen Anne's Bounty to pay the interest of the sum bor- rowed to effect the anticipation of the future income. Another important Act of Parliament, Tfie Tithe Commutation Act, was passed in 1836. Previous to that Act the Rector of a parish was entitled to the farmer's tenth wheat-sheaf, his tenth pig, his tenth sack of potatoes,