"low church" prayerbook of 1552 an nexed as a schedule to the Act sion to the approaching parliament. The result was that the commission, after making only two material alterations, recommended the "low church" prayer-book of Edward VI. (1551), which, after submission to the council, was attached as a schedule to the Act of Uniformity passed near the end of the session, and entitled, “ An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer in the Church, and Administration of the Sacraments."1 After the enactment of laws declaring that firstfruits and tenths should again be vested in the crown,2 that all religious after enact houses refounded by Mary should be suppressed and their proing other important perty given to the state; that the queen's title to the throne legislation; was as good as her father's or brother's had been, and as good as her sister's at any time since the passage of 35th Henry VIII., upon which Elizabeth's right really rested; that any attack upon the queen's title by writing should be treason on parliament a first conviction,5- parliament was dissolved on the 8th of May, 1559. May. of Uniformity; dissolved in spirit of under the presidency 3 Defiant In striking contrast with the compliant spirit of Elizabeth's convocation first parliament, whose composition in the popular branch had no doubt been influenced by Cecil in the protestant interest,6 of Bonner; stands that of the convocation which sat by its side under the presidency of Bonner, and in which the Marian bishops and clergy, speaking in behalf of the entire "spirituality of Engprotest of land," presented a protest to the lords in which they embodied the Marian their convictions in five articles, asserting in an extreme form bishops and clergy the cardinal propositions of the older faith. The unsuccessful Elizabeth's yet vigorous opposition thus made at the outset admonished the council that in order to bring the church establishment reorganiza- into harmony with the new system, it should at once underepiscopate; take the reorganization of the episcopate. At the queen's against innova tions; tion of the 409. sent to the sheriffs, see Strype, vol. i. p. 32; Clarendon Papers, p. 92. The archbishopric of Canterbury being vacant, the bishop of London presided. 8 Five new peers of protestant principles had been added to the upper house at the coronation. Including these, the lay peers numbered sixty-one, of whom eighteen failed to attend Elizabeth's first parliament. 5 I Eliz. c. 5. The act of 1 & 2 Phil. & Mar. c. 10, was reenacted and applied to Elizabeth. Attacks by words were made treason on a second conviction. 9 Wilkins, Conc., vol. iv. p. 179; 6 As to the lists of court candidates Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 79. removal fur Supremacy; bishops Kitchin of the vacan blem; see of Can accession seven vacancies already existed in the twenty-seven1 English bishoprics, and before parliament could meet the number was swelled by death to ten. At the close of the session but fifteen diocesan bishops remained in the realm, two having fled from their posts in order to find security abroad. The means of removing those who remained was means of readily supplied by the Act of Supremacy, which provided nished by that every bishop who should refuse the oath of allegiance the Act of should be deprived of his see. And yet, in spite of that pen- all the alty, every one of the fifteen, except Kitchin, bishop of Llan- refused the daff, refused the oath when it was offered by the commission- oath, except ers to whom a general visitation 6 of the church was intrusted Llandaff; in the summer of 1559. How to fill up the twenty-six vacan- how to fill cies thus existing in such a way as to comply at once with the cies a diffilaw of the land and with the requirements of the theory of cult proapostolic succession became a question of serious difficulty. It was of course all important that the vacant see of Canter- the vacant bury should be given a new incumbent whose spiritual lineage terbury; should be beyond all question, and whose legal title should rest upon the provisions of the revived statute of the 25th of Henry VIII., which made it necessary that the election of an archbishop should be confirmed and his consecration performed by at least four of the episcopate.8 Before the deposition of the Marian bishops had been fully accomplished, a commission was issued by the crown on the 9th of September, 1559, to six bishops, commanding them or four of them to meet, confirm, and consecrate Dr. Parker, who had on the 1st of August been elected by the dean and chapter of Canterbury to the pri- the first macy of the kingdom. This commission, whose action would attempt to have removed the difficulty, proved abortive through the refu- Dr. Parker; 1 There were besides several suf- oath of allegiance, see the imperfect fragans. record in Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 245. 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, regulating the appointment to bishoprics, was revived by 1 Eliz. c. I. See above, p. 154. The death of Pole left Canterbury vacant, and he was soon followed by the bishops of Bristol and Rochester. Bishops of Worcester and St. Asaph. 4 It was assumed that the two bishops abroad would also refuse. Burnet, vol. i. p. 576. For the history of the visitation, carried on by the crown under 1 Eliz. C. 1, § 17, and whose main purpose was no doubt the administration of the 8 See Strype's Parker (Parker's letter with notes by Cecil), p. 40. 9 Tunstall of Durham, Bourn of Bath and Wells, Pole of Peterborough, Kitchin of Llandaff, and Barlow and Scory, bishops of Bath and Chichester, who had been deprived under Queen Mary. failure of consecrate commission with the sanitary clause; sal of Tunstal, Bourn, and Pole, three of its members, to obey the royal mandate, by reason of which they were all deprived before the end of September, thus leaving Kitchin as the only diocesan bishop in the kingdom. In the face of such diffithe second culties a second commission, with a sanitary clause1 which undertook to cure all defects by virtue of the royal supremacy, was, on the 6th of December, directed to Kitchin of Llandaff; to Scory, formerly of Chichester, now elect of Hereford; to Barlow, formerly of Bath, now elect of Chichester; to Coverdale, formerly of Exeter; to Bale, bishop of Ossory in Ireland, and to Hodgkins and Salisbury, suffragan bishops of Bedford and Thetford, commanding them, or any four of them, to confirm and consecrate the archbishop elect. Scory, Barlow, Coverdale, and Hodgkins obeyed the mandate by confirming his election in Bow Church on the 9th, and by consecrating him at Lambeth on the 17th, according to the form adopted near the end of the reign of Edward VI.2 Thus installed, the new archbishop, whose title became the vital link binding the reign of Ed- new to the old episcopate, proceeded, with the assistance of ward VI.; those who had taken part in his own consecration, to consecrate all the other bishops elect, who were taken either from among the Calvinistic refugees who had returned from Geneva and Frankfort, or from those who in the preceding reign had been conspicuous in the cause of the Reformation.3 Parker finally consecrated according to a form which existed in the he takes part in the consecration of all the rest. Spirit of resistance manifested by the bishops did The spirit of resistance manifested by the Marian bishops to the inauguration of the new system does not seem to have extended after their deprivation to the inferior clergy, as only not extend about a hundred cathedral dignitaries and eighty parochial priests are said to have been deprived or to have resigned by reason of the oath which the commissioners tendered. to the inferior clergy. 1 Fœdera, vol. xv. p. 549. 2 Lingard claims that that form was not then recognized by law. "The use of the ordinal of Edward VI. had been abolished by parliament in the last reign, that of the catholic ordinal by parliament in the present."- Vol. vi. p. 17. He further says, in Appendix, note C, that "on the illegality of that ordinal, both Parker and Cecil were agreed," citing Strype's Parker, p. 40. 3 The Church of England view of this important transaction is clearly stated by Blount, Reform. of the Church Before of Eng., vol. ii. pp. 385-395; the Roman Catholic view by Lingard, vol. vi. pp. 16-18, and Appendix, note C. Lingard admits that the famous Nag's Head story, which pretended that the consecration of Parker was a mere burlesque that took place at a tavern of that name, is a pure "fable." Copies of the official documents which prove the consecration at Lambeth beyond all doubt are printed in Bailey's Ordinum Sacrorum in Ecclesia Angli cana Defenso, 1870. 4 Such is the assertion of Burnet, Strype, Camden, and Heylin, based on Church definitely cause of mation; send repre to the Articles of the end of the year 1559 the work was over, and the English English Church, whose clergy were thus severed from their Roman allegiance, definitely ranged itself on the side of the Reforma- allied to the tion, a result which was formally emphasized in the summer the Reforof 1561 by Elizabeth's refusal of the invitation of Pius IV. to Elizabeth send representatives to the Council of Trent.1 The changed refused to conditions thus brought about made it possible for convocation sentatives to make a definite statement of the distinctive principles of Council of the reorganized national church, such as had been put forward Trent; by Edward VI. in the Forty-two Articles, which, suspended during Mary's reign, had not yet enjoyed the honor of a revival. In order to supply temporarily the want of such a formulary, Eleven Articles were compiled under the eye of the new the Eleven archbishop in 1559 or early in 1560,2 and published in 1561, 1559-61; which, although never officially promulgated by the crown, were considered as binding on the clergy3 down to the meeting of the memorable convocation, assembled, after an interval of four years, in January, 1563. In this first convocation of the Thirtythe church as reorganized by Elizabeth, which sat under the cles presidency and intellectual guidance of Parker, who drew his adopted in theological ideas largely from Cranmer, the Forty-two Articles convocation of 1552-53, after various additions and subtractions, were finally under the adopted as the famous Thirty-nine Articles, which in the sum- of Parker; presidency mer of 1563 were, according to the Act of Submission, ratified by the crown under the great seal and promulgated as a reviewed in canon of the Church of England. In the next convocation, made that met in 1571, these articles were reviewed and the royal ratification given anew; and by an act of parliament passed clergy by in the same year it was provided that they should be sub- parliament; 6 the visitors' report. As to the form subscribed by those who submitted, see Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 255. 1 First Parpalia was sent, and then Martinengo, as nuncios; but Elizabeth would permit neither to land in England. "From that time all treaty with Rome was entirely broken off. Pius the Fourth proceeded no further." -Burnet, vol. i. p. 591. See elaborate note upon the subject in the State Papers, Dom. Eliz. 175. ? Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 220. 3 Wilkins, Conc., vol. iv. p. 195 sqq. The articles are printed in Hardwick's Hist. of the Articles, Appendix IV., and Parker so esteemed Cranmer that 5 For the text of the articles and a critical history of the making of them, see Hardwick's Hist. of the Articles; Blount, Reform. of the Church of Eng. vol. ii. pp. 381-385. 6 13 Eliz. C. I2. nine Arti 1563, in a which sat 1571, and binding upon the act of character of work; Roman Catholics and extreme scribed by the English clergy, who, with more or less satisfaction, have accepted them as a standard of doctrine for over composite three hundred years. Thus it was that Elizabeth, with the Elizabeth's aid of parliament and convocation, finally succeeded in placing the Anglican state church upon a permanent basis by fusing her father's external policy of national independence with the scheme of internal reformation of dogma and ritual formulated in Edward's reign under the guidance of Cranmer. Such a settlement necessarily involved not only the uncompromising hostility of the Roman Catholic party, who could not accept the royal in lieu of the papal supremacy, but also that of the accept the extreme protestants of the anti-sacramental school, generally result; known as Puritans, who earnestly protested against the continuance of the episcopal system, the sacrificial character of the communion, and the retention of certain of the ancient ceremonies which the new formularies perpetuated. The result was a bitter and uncompromising warfare against both of the opposing factions carried on to the end of Elizabeth's reign through a series of persecuting and disabling statutes, whose contents will be summarized in the two following sections. protestants both refused to a bitter warfare against both. Struggle of with the party : 3. By the Act of Appeals,1 enacted by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth reenacted by Elizabeth,2 the theory of the identity of church catholic and state was distinctly embodied in terms which declared that "both their authorities and jurisdictions do conjoin together, in the due administration of justice, the one to help the other." Proceeding upon that basis, the ecclesiastical leregulation gislation of Elizabeth assumed that the regulation of religious of religious worship was a state function to be exercised through parliaworship assumed to ment, and that all subjects who failed to accept or comply with the forms thus provided should be punished by the law of the state. It was further assumed that to acknowledge the right of the pope to interfere with such legislation was a step punish the towards treason, and that to act by his command in opposition to the law of the land was actual treason.3 Upon these prinformity to ciples were framed the acts of Elizabeth designed to punish the offence of non-conformity to the established church, some be a state function; statutes designed to offence of non-con the state church; 1 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. See Amos, Reformation Statutes, pp. 256–262. 2 I Eliz. C. I. 8 See Sir J. F. Stephen, Hist. of the Crim. Law, vol. ii. p. 477. |