Sill ' •
YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY Gift of
W. H. Owen

A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
OF ENGLAND

A HISTORY OF
THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND

BY THE

REV. M. W. PATTERSON
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1914
All rights reserved

CONJUGI DILECTISSIMAE

PREFACE
TO SECOND EDITION
The point of view from which this book is written may be
stated thus. The author holds that the Church of England is
not in any sense a State Church, nor a creation of Henry VIII.
and Elizabeth, deriving, as it does, its title-deeds from a very
different source. On the other hand, the author is not one of
those — to use a famous epigram — who believe that the Church
of England was " Protestant " before and " Catholic " after the
Reformation. The Church of England, in his view, is both
Cathohc and Protestant ; and while he would not care to deny
that serious errors and blemishes disfigured the course of the
Reformation movement, he would emphatically contend that
the Reformation, so far from being a thing which requires
apology, has been in every sphere of life, both in thought and
action, the source of incalculable blessings to the English people.
The author has made it one of his special aims to bring out the
close connection, that has existed in successive ages, between
the Hfe of the Church and the contemporary politics. After
1714 the connection is less obvious.
The second edition of this work is a mere reprint of the first
edition, except that Appendix IV. has been rewritten, and some
alterations have been made in Appendix II. and Appendix V.
Some few errors have also been corrected.
In passing this second edition for the press, the author desires
specially to thank Dr. Watson, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical
History at Oxford, Archdeacon Hutton, and Canon Simpson of
St. Paul's for kindly criticism of the book. He is quite con
scious that the later part of English Church History {i.e. from
1660) is inadequately treated in this volume. Two courses

vi Preface
were open to him— either to leave the book as it is, or else to
enlarge its second portion. But this latter alternative would
have necessitated the expansion of the work into two volumes.
On the whole it was thought best to leave the book as it is ;
but the author hopes at a subsequent date to write a history
of Anglican theology since the Reformation.
The author wishes also to thank many teachers both at
Oxford and Cambridge and our public schools who have found
his work of some use, and written to say so. From one kind
of critics, namely, the extreme High Chiurchmen, who control
a portion of the " reUgious " and also of the secular press,
the author neither expected nor desired a favourable reception.
Since this book Wcis first issued from the press three years
ago, only two events of any importance have occurred in the
external history of the Church.
A Bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of the
Welsh Church is before Parliament, and this measure clearly
foreshadows a subsequent attack on the Estabhshment in
England. The House of Lords acting as a supreme court of appeal has
denied the right of a certain clergyman to repel from Com
munion a man who had married his deceased wife's sister, though
these marriages are contrary to the law of the Church.
These events have raised in a crucial form the whole question
of the relations of Church and State. We may hope that it is an
exaggeration when a writer in the current number of the Quarterly
Review (July 1912) declares that England is quickly becoming a
non-Christian country. But events are moving so rapidly, the
divergence of moral standard is becoming so wide, the control of
the Church by the State so irksome that Churchmen may well
welcome, in no distant future, release from any union with it.
Trinity College, Oxford,
September 1912.

CONTENTS

CBAPi PAOB
I. The Church in Britain before the Anglo-Saxon
Conquest  i
IL The Anglo-Saxon Conquest and the Roman Mission 4
III. The Work of the Scotch Missionaries till the
Synod of Whitley, 664  18
IV. Wilfrid and Theodore : The Organisation of the
Church  26
V. The Church to the Norman Conquest — The Coming
OF THE Danes — Alfred and his Successors . 40
VI. The Church under the Norman Kings . . , 59
VII. The Conflict of Church and State — Henry II. and
Thomas Becket  89
VIII. The Church and the Great Charter . . .110
IX. The Church in the Thirteenth Century . .123
X. The Church and the Wycliffite Movement . .150
XI. The Church at the Close of the Middle Ages . 171
XII. The New Learning and the Early Years of
Henry VIII.  192
XIII. The Reformation under Henry VIII. . . . 208
XIV. The Reign of Edward VI. and the Growth of
Protestant Influences  247
XV. The Marian Reaction and the Elizabethan
Settlement  269
XVI. The Church under Elizabeth — Puritanism and
Romanism  296
XVII. The Church under the Early Stewarts — The
Laudian Regime  310

viii Contents
CHAP. PAGE
XVIII. The Long Parliament and the Puritan Revolt . 344
XIX. The Restoration and the Revolution . . 356
XX. The Church from 1714-1833 — Rationalism and
THE Evangelical Revival .... 380
XXI. The Oxford Movement and the Victorian Era . 400
Principal Dates  427
APPENDICES— I. Bishoprics on Eve of Norman Conquest . . 57
II. Doctrine Concerning Sacrament of Holy Com
munion  242
III. Synopsis of Reformation Parliament . . . 244
IV. Sacrificial Aspect of Holy Communion . . 267
V. The Ornaments Rubric  291
VI. Anglican Orders  293
VII. Lists of Popes, Archbishops, Kings . . . 422
Index  433
MAPS
Map of Dioceses Old and New under Henry VIII. 458
Map of Dioceses in 1909  459

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

, CHAPTER I
THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN BEFORE THE
ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST

The circumstances under which the Church was planted in the origin of
ChurchBritain,

British Isles are quite unknown. There are plenty of legends Church m

connecting its foundation with one or other of the Apostles;
but the most famous legend is that which Tennyson has worked
into the " IdyUs of the King," connecting the British Church with
Joseph of Arimathffia. " That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury
And there the heathen prince, Arviragiis
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build ;
And there he built with wattles from the marsh
A httle lonely church in days of yore."
The legend tells of the cup " From which our Lord
Drank at the last sad supper with His own,"
which " Arimathaean Joseph journeying brought
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord ;
And there awhile it bode : and if a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven and disappear'd."
Such is the beautiful legend of the Holy Grail, but the real
history is much more prosaic.
Professor Ramsay has pointed out that St. Paul at a very
A

2 The Church of England
early stage contemplated the Christianising of the Roman
Empire, and that his missionary journeys were carried out
along the lines of the great Roman roads ; the political unity
and stability of the Roman Empire, no less than her splendid
roads, paved the way for the expansion of the Christian Church.
In Britain, as elsewhere, the Church followed in the wake
of the Roman Empire. We do not know precisely how Chris
tianity came : a rhetorical passage in Tertullian seems to show
that Christianity had reached these islands by 208. It is
possible, but not quite certain. The tradition found in later
writers, that during the Diocletian persecution (298) St. Alban
was massacred at Verulam (St. Albans), and two other martyrs
at Caerleon, may rest on a reliable foundation. The probability
is that during the third century individual Christians on their
separate errands, for purposes of trade and the like, came to
Britain from Gaul and Germany — we know that there was
much intercourse — and that so the Church in Britain gradually
British grew up. We gain clear light for the first time in 314, when
ii'^fourft ^^ ^"^^ *°^*^ *^^* three British bishops, Eborius from York,
century. Restitutus from London, Adelfiug, probably from Lincoln,'
attended the Council of Aries ; they were accompanied by a
presbyter, Sacerdos, and a deacon, Arminius. We know that
three British bishops also attended the Council of Ariminum in
359, and that they were the only three bishops (out of more than
four hundred who attended the council) to avail themselves of the
imperial grant for the support of bishops who could not afiord
the expense. In the course of the fourth century the native
population of Britain was rapidly Christianised. About this
Romano-Celtic Church we do not know much. It is clear that
it was a fully organised Episcopal Church ; it had at least three
bishops, and, as on the Continent, these bishops had their sees
in the large towns ; the Christian emblems, e.g. XP, Afi, marked
on cups and rings which have been foimd in excavations, show
that the Christian faith had spread over all parts of the Roman
province of Britain. The Church was not confined to those
who were by birth Romans; indeed the specifically Roman
elements in the population — the army and the civU service — do
not seem to have been largely Christian ; there is no clear sign of
Christianity to be found in the army stations of Caerleon, Chester,
1 " De civitatq colonja Lopdinensinm " (probably a clerical error for " Linden-
slum").

Before the Anglo-Saxon Conquest 3
and the Roman waU. This is just what we find elsewhere.
" Christianity never became a religion of the camp," says Dr.
Hamack, speaking of the pre-Nicene Church, " because it fell
to the soldier much oftener to perform idolatrous actions (the
regimental colours being sacra)." The Romano-British Church
then was predominantly Celtic, and its poverty may be inferred
from the poverty of the British bishops who attended the
Council of Ariminum. Of the Romano-British Church fabrics
none has survived. The best authorities are of opinion that
no Roman work in situ is to be found at St. Martin's, Canter
bury ; but in the year 1893 the foundations of a fourth century
Christian church were excavated at the old Roman town of
Silchester. It was a church with an apsidal west end, with
two aisles, and in fact it is of the same type as other fourth
century churches in Italy, Africa, and S5^a.
After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain Rg^an
in 410, the British Church still remained : if it produced a legions
heresiarch in Pelagius, it produced also the Apostle of Ireland in
St. Patrick. This debt was to be repaid at a later time by
the Irish mission of St. Columba. In the middle of the fifth
century there is good reason for believing that in its ritual and
observances the British differed little from the Roman Church.
When it re-emerged a century later, we find differences that
led in the sequel to important consequences.
After the year 410 the Britons lived an uneasy and harassed
existence, combating their old enemies, the Picts and Scots.
In 449 the Anglo-Saxon conquest began.

CHAPTER II
THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST AND THE ROMAN
MISSION
Anglo- In the year 449 our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were living in
conquest *^^ Country that lies about the Elbe and Eider ; they had never
been brought into contact with the Christian faith or with the
civilisation of Rome. Driven by pressure from behind, various
swarms of these German folk set out to win new lands for them
selves in Britain. Basing their expeditions on islands such as
Thanet and Wight, they swarmed up the rivers of Britain, using
them as arteries of commimication with the interior ; the
solitary exception to this rule was the Thames, where the
fortified port of London blocked their way ; they then spread
over the land till their progress was stayed by striking on the
great natural barriers of forest and marsh. The net result was
that by the middle of the sixth century seven independent
kingdoms had been formed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples — Kent,
the South Saxons (Sussex), the West Saxons (Wessex), the East
Saxons (Essex), East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia.
Scholars have long been divided as to whether the Anglo-
Saxon conquest was a war of extermination or not — that is to say,
was the Anglo-Saxon conquest a cataclysm which uprooted and
swept before it the whole of the Romano-Celtic civiUsation ? or
did the Anglo-Saxons retain and adapt a great portion of it ?
It wUl be sufiicient in this place to say that Roman civilisa
tion in Britain had alwa}^ been of an exotic character ; if the
Celts were in some degree Romanised, Rome in its turn was
Celticised ; in Britain Rome had never struck her roots so deep
as in Gaul. A careful examination of language, religion, law,
and the land settlement tends to show that though a certain
number of the Romano-Celts may have remained in their old
homes as hewers of wood and drawers of water, speaking broadly,
the war was one of extermination. Celts and Teutons did not
to any great extent commingle. As the Teutons advanced, the

The Roman Mission

5

Celts were swept westwards, taking refuge in the inaccessible
forests and moimtains of the west. And so a result ensued in
England strikingly different from that produced by a similar
conquest in Gaul. But it is with religion alone that we are here
concerned. The Galilean Church has a continuous history ; for ^
the heathen Franks were Christianised by their Celtic subjects :
"Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit"; but in England the
(British Church retired westwards, together with the Celts (its
memories preserved by the ever-living legend of King Arthur) ;
national hatred of the Saxon was so fierce that not the slightest
attempt was made by the conquered Celts to win their con
querors for Christ.
Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers continued their heathenism ; Heathen-
their religion, such as it was, consisted in a kind of nature- jf'""'^"'"'
worship. Eostra (Easter) was the goddess of the radiant dawn ; Saxons.
Tyr was the god of the clear sky (Zeus), Thor the god of thunder.
The sun and the moon were objects of worship. They retained
their behef in pixies or fairies, and watersprites, and all kinds
of magic, which they used for working weal to their friends and
woe to their enemies.
The British Church in England contributed nothing directly
towards the evangelisation of the Anglo-Saxons ; indirectly it
did, for St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, Wcis a natiye of
Britain, and it was from Ireland that St. Columba came to
lona in Scotland in the sixth century ; and it was by mission
aries from lona in the seventh century that the larger part of
England was won to the faith of Christ.
The Church of England can be compared to a mighty river,
rolling on through the ages, fertilising and freshening the whole
life of the English people at the successive stages of its growth.
As we trace that river back to its source, we find that its volume
was formed from the confluence of two streams, the one Roman,
the other Scotch. With these we wOl deal in order.
There can be no question that evangelisation first came The
to the Anglo-Saxons from Rome in the mission of St. Augustine, ^°sTion
597. And yet so far as the mission from Rome is concerned,
it is not to Augustine, but to the great Pope Gregory, that we
must look as our apostolic father. It was Gregory who first
formed the great design of converting the English ; it was
Gregory who sent Augustine's mission ; it was Gregory's faith
and perseverance which carried the day against the timidity

6 The Church of England
and indecision of Augustine. Tradition, repeated by Bede,
teUs how Gregory (585), when a mere monk at the head of
St. Andrew's monastery, was one day passing through a Roman
market-place thronged by newly arrived merchants and would-be
purchasers. Among the bales of goods exposed for sale he saw
some English boys. The boys had fair complexions, sweet faces,
and glorious fair hair ; struck by their beautiful expression,
Gregory asked what country they came from. " From the island
of Britain," said the trader, " where all the people look like them."
" And," said Gregory, " are the islanders Christian, or are they
still caught in the errors of paganism ? " " They are pagans."
" Alas," said Gregory with a sigh, " that such bright faces
should be in the power of the Prince of Darkness ! What is the
name of their tribe ? " " They are called Angli." " Rightly
so," said Gregory, " for they have an angelic face, and as such
ought to be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. And what is
the name of the province from which they come ? " " Deira."
" Well said again ; plucked from the wrath (de ira) of God,
and called to the mercy of Christ.' And what is the name of
their king ? " " Aelle." " Then Alleluia must be sung in their
country as praise to God the Creator."
FuU of enthusiasm for the missionary work thus presented,
Gregory immediately got leave from the Pope to set out for
Britain ; but the people's love for the Abbot of St. Andrew's
was so great that they broke in upon the Pope and insisted on
his recall.
When Gregory succeeded to the papal see in 590 his thoughts
again turned towards the English. His first idea was to have
English boys purchased and trained for mission work among
their own people. But this was not found practicable. In
Gregory 596 he took the Step, so momentous for the future of England,
Aurastine °^ Sending Augustine, the Abbot of St. Andrew's, with a party
596- ' of forty monks to carry the glad tidings of the gospel to
England. Gregory no doubt had heard that a door had been
opened in England by the marriage of Ethelbert, the King of
Kent, to Bertha, daughter of Charibert, King of Paris. This
marriage had only been sanctioned by the lady's father on the
condition that she should be allowed to foUow freely her own
religion, and enjoy the services of her chaplain Liudhard.
Augustine and his companions set out from Rome in the
spring of 596. Crossing the Alps, they had by midsummer

The Roman Mission 7
made their way to Aix, in Provence. But here timorous counsels
prevailed ; they heard how fierce and savage the English
were, how barbarous their language ; in faintness of heart they
sent Augustine back to Rome, and asked for permission to
relioquish the appointed task. Gregory refused in a letter full
of encouragement, tact, and love, reminding them bf the etemal
reward that awaited work for God, and concluding with a prayer
that he himself might witness the fruit of their labour in the
etemal kingdom. Thus encouraged, and after a time provided
with Prankish interpreters, Augustine and his company landed
on the shores of Kent at Ebbsfleet, at Eastertide, 597. They The
immediately sent a message to Ethelbert, announcing that they caches
had come from Rome — ^how fuU of awe the name of the imperial Kent, 597.
city must have sounded to the barbarian king ! — and that they
had brought him good tidings, which, if he listened to them,
would ensure him eternal joy in Heaven, and a kingdom without
end in the presence of the living and true God. Afraid of magic
that might be used within a building, Ethelbert consented to
meet the missionaries in the open air. The mission advanced
to meet the king in procession ; at its head came a magnificent
silver cross, and a picture of our Lord painted on wood ; then
came the monks, chanting litanies, in which they prayed for the
etemal safety as well of themselves as of those to whom they
came. " Beautiful words and promises," said Ethelbert when he
had heard their message ; and though he would not promise to
desert his own faith, he gave them a royal welcome, promised •.
them a home at Canterbury, and leave to make converts if
they could among Ms people. So in processional form the
monks crossed the river and marched to Canterbury. Just
one month before the death scene of Columba at lona, the
band of monks, headed by the silver cross and the painted
picture of our Lord, made its entry into Canterbury, the monks
chanting in unison the Htany, " We beseech thee, O Lord, in all
Thy mercy, that Thy fury and Thy wrath may be turned from
this city and from Thy holy house ; for we have sinned. Amen."
Living the apostolic life of the primitive Church, spending
their time in constant prayer, in vigils, and fasts, preaching the
word of God, contemning worldly things, the missionaries soon
won their way to the hearts of the people. On June i, a weefeEtheibert
before the death of Columba, Ethelbert himself was baptized, V°°'"'^'*'^-

Augustinethe first
Archbishop of
Canter
bury.

Gregory
sends
Augustine the pall.

8 The Church of England
and the great mass of his people foUowed him to 'the font. And
so Kent was nominaUy Christianised. FoUowing instructions
already received from Gregory, Augustine crossed the sea and
received consecration as Archbishop of the English from Ver-
gilius. Archbishop of Aries. The mission of Augustine ceased
to be merely a Roman mission. The Church of England had
been founded. The fabric of an old British church was given
to Augustine by Ethelbert ; after restoration it was dedicated
to Christ the Saviour, and made the cathedral church of Canter
bury. Outside the waUs of Canterbury Augustine also began the
building of a church and monastery, as a home for his feUow
monks. This church was afterwards known as the Church of
St. Augustine.
Now that the Church of the English was founded, various
problems presented themselves for solution. What was to be
the organisation of the new Church ? What was to be Augustine's
attitude to the bishops of the British Church, which was still
strong in the west ? For instruction on these and other points
Augustine sent two of his companions, Laurentius and Peter, to
Gregory. The larger part of his letter to Gregory dealt with
points of ritual and ceremonial purity, and showed no real great
ness of soul.
In his answer Gregory took a wide and statesmanliKe point
of view; he bade Augustine, by selection from the Roman,
GaUican, and any other liturgies, form such a liturgy for the
English people as would be suitable for them, since " things are
not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake
of good things." He explained to Augustine that none of the
bishops of Gaul was to be under his jurisdiction, but he gave
him metropolitan rights over aU the bishops of Britain. This
grant was no doubt intended to include jurisdiction as weU over .
the bishops of the ancient British Church as over such new
bishops as Augustine himself might consecrate.
In 6oi Gregory sent a fresh mission to England. Its leaders
were MeUitus, Justus, and Paulinus. By them he sent sacred
vessels and vestments, ornaments, relics, and books. Further,
they brought Augustine a fall and a letter. At this point it
wUl be well to explain exactly what the fall was.
The paU was a vestment conferred originaUy by the Emperor
then by the Pope with the Emperor's consent on distinguished
prelates who were not always metropolitans. In course of time

The Roman Mission 9
it became an important instrument for building up the papal
power, for after a while the Popes insisted that —
(pi) They alone could give the paU ;
(6) That no one could exercise metropolitan powers until
he had received it.
And by this means the Popes secured the submission of all
metropolitans. In form the paU became graduaUy fixed to
the shape that can be seen in pictures of the archbishops.
It is a band of white wool passing over both shoulders,
with pendants in front and behind, marked in each case by
four purple crosses.
This was now sent to Augustine by Gregory as a sign of his Gregory's
metropolitan authority ; in his letter Gregory sketched the orgrnisa"^
scheme of organisation that he contemplated for the English tion of the
Church : there were to be two provinces, each with twelve England"
suffragan bishops, respectively under an Archbishop of London
and an Archbishop of York. Of the two archbishops preced
ence was to be taken by the one who was senior in consecration.
Gregory's scheme was never exactly carried out ; the stubborn
paganism of the East Saxons and the logic of events caused the
metropolitan see of the southern province to be fixed, not at
London, but at Canterbury. In the north Christianity spread
neither as far nor as rapidly as was contemplated and, after the
flight of Paulinus from York in 633 (see p. 16), no bishop of
York received the paU tiU Egbert in 735. Gregory's plan had
to be modified.
There was one other matter on which Gregory gave his
advice — a matter fuU of perplexity to missionaries both then
and now.
WhUe urging Ethelbert to utterly extirpate paganism, he
pressed on the English missionaries the line of compromise ;
his advice was that heathen temples should not be destroyed,
but cleared of idols and turned into Christian churches ; the old
pagan festivals were to be given a Christian significance and
continue as Christian feast-days. The result was very char
acteristic. Here, as in other countries, a large amount of the
old pagan customs survived in Christian forms. Christianity
incorporated them into itself^and baptized them into the service
of Christ. Thus the festival of Eostra (the goddess of the
radiant dawn) became the festival of our Lord's resurrection.
The days of the week retained names drawn from the Norse

lo The Church of England
theology ; harvest festivals continued as thanksgivings to God
for His bounty ; with results not so desirable, the worship of
saints was substituted for that of pagan deities, the cult of holy
wells replaced that of water-sprites.
MeanwhUe the Church in Kent grew. Augustine was anxious
to come to some understanding with the British Church, and
secure its co-operation in the work of evangelising the Anglo-
Differences Saxons. But various differences from Roman usage in order
Romlnind ^'^'^ discipline had by this time established themselves among
British the British ; the cycle for determining the date of Easter, the
""^"^ ^' exact shape of the tonsure, the ritual in baptism, were different.
What was more, they refused to recognise the supremacy of the
Roman bishop.
With Ethelbert's help, a conference was held at a place
caUed in later times Augustine's Oak, between Augustine and
the British bishops. The Britons naturaUy refused to foUow
the Roman customs, and though Augustine is said to have
clinched his arguments by restoring sight to a blind man, when
the British bishops had faUed to do so, the Britons stiU refused
submission untU they had communicated further with their own
people, and been authorised to forsake their ancient customs.
To a second conference there came seven British bishops
and a number of learned doctors, many from their famous
monastery of Bangor-is-Coed (near Chester). But before coming
they consulted one of their saintly hermits and asked him
whether they should submit to Augustine. " Certainly," said
the saint, " foUow him if he is a man of God." " How can we
find out ? " they asked. " Our Lord," answered the saint, " said,
' Take My yoke upon you, and leam of Me, for I am meek
and lowly of heart.' If therefore Augustine is meek and lowly
of heart, believe that he himself has taken the yoke of Christ
and is offering it to you ; but if he is mde and proud, clearly he
is not of God, nor ought you to heed his words." " But how,"
replied they, " shaU we prove him?" "Contrive," said the
hermit, " that Augustine may come first to the place of meeting,
and if he rises to greet you on your arrival, you can know that
he is the servant of Christ, and obediently hsten to his words ;
but if he treats you with scorn, and wUl not rise to greet you!
then let him too be treated with scorn by you."
The test was duly applied, and Augustine unfortunately did
not rise to greet them. Further, he denounced many of the

The Roman Mission ii
customs which they foUowed as contrary to Catholic tradition,
and demanded that at any rate —
(i) They should adopt the Roman cycle for calculating
Easter ;
(2) In the rite of baptism they should follow the Roman
form;
(3) They should co-operate with him in preaching the word
of God to the Anglo-Saxons.
The British bishops refused to comply, and emphatically Roman
rejected the Roman claims of supremacy, and more particularly fgcted by'
Augustine's claim to be their archbishop. Thereon Augustine British
is said to have prophesied that as the British would not receive
peace from their brothers, they would receive war from their
enemies, and that having refused to preach the word of life to
the English, they would receive death from them as retribution.
This prophecy did not require any undue political, let alone
spiritual, insight ; the chronicler found its fulfilment in the
battle of Chester, 616.
MeanwhUe Augustine's own work lay within narrower limits.
In 604 the East Saxons and their king, Saebert, were temporarUy
Christianised. Augustine consecrated MeUitus as their bishop,
whUe Ethelbert buUt him a church, dedicated to St. Paul, as the
seat of his bishopric in London. Augustine also consecrated
Justus to the bishopric of Rochester for work among the men
of West Kent. It was doubtless due to the influence of the
Church that Ethelbert published a code of laws — the first code
of laws ever published among the English peoples. In the
same year, 604, Augustine was caUed to his rest. Gregory, Death of
whose death had preceded that of Augustine by a few months, ^'a^Vugus.
was a far greater man. We find in Gregory an altogether loftier tine.
spirit, and a wider, more statesmanlike outlook. Augustine had
the confined vision of a mere monk; from time to time his
narrow-mindedness is provoking : in his dealings with the
British bishops he seems to have shown considerable want of
tact and inabUity to understand their point of view. He was
proud of his alleged power to work miracles, and drew down on
himself the gentle reproof of Gregory. StiU his life was simple
and self-sacrificing ; and even though the see of Canterbury has
been fUled by wiser men, stUl it was he, and not another, who
led our forefathers to the faith of Christ. He is at any rate to
us the Roman Apostle of the English.

12 The Church of England
Augustine was succeeded in the see of Canterbury by
Laurentius. An era of trial, however, awaited the Church;
Pagan both in Kent and Essex a pagan reaction followed the death
reaction, ^f ^j^gjj. Christian Kings. In Essex the sons of Saebert were
headstrong young men and refused Christian baptism. MeUitus
therefore refused to give them a share of the bread and wine
in Holy Communion. But lUce the young barbarians they were,
the monarchs cried out, " We have no need to enter that font,
but we desire to eat that bread ; " and when MeUitus stiU refused,
he was expelled the kingdom, and retired first to Canterbury,
and then to Gaul. The result was that the East Saxons re
mained pagans for another forty years. The most that can be
said for the results of the Roman mission in Essex is that an
atmosphere was created which made easier the work of per
manent evangelisation later on.
In Kent the paganism of Ethelbert's son and successor, Ead-
bald, was so violent, the relapse of the Kentmen to heathenism
so complete, that Laurentius thought of foUowing MeUitus and
Justus in their flight to Gaul ; the legend ran that he was
stopped by a miracle. Before departing he paid a visit to
Eadbald, and showed him his back covered with bmises.
Eadbald in indignation asked him who had dared to inflict
such bruises on a man of his rank. Then Laurentius told him
how St. Peter had appeared to him in a vision the previous night,
and after upbraiding him for his meditated flight, had chastised
him as a penance. Eadbald, overcome with penitence for the
suffering he had caused Laurentius, immediately became a
Christian, and did aU he could to promote the work of the Church
in Kent. A further step of progress was now taken by the Church,
and here again a marriage played an important part. The
Edwin of greatest King in England at this time was Edwin of North-
Northum- yjnbria. He had married Ethelburh, the sister 'of Eadbald,
King of Kent. But one of the conditions of the marriage was
that Ethelburh, being a Christian, should be aUowed to take a
Christian chaplain with her to Northumbria. Edwin himself
Paulinus held out hopes of his own conversion. So Paulinus, consecrated
Northura- ^^ ^ bishop by Justus, who was now ArcEbis'fiop of Canterbury,
bria. accompanied the lady to her northern home. For some time
Edwin hesitated ; he aUowed his infant daughter to be
baptized ; he promised that he himself would become a Christian

The Roman Mission 13
in the event of his success in a campaign on which he was entering
against the West Saxon King. The victory was won, but Edwin
stiU halted, even though the Pope himself wrote encouraging
letters to him and his Queen. Paulinus then made use of a
wonderful vision Edwin had seen in years gone by. Driven
as a youth from his home in Northumbria, Edwin after many
perUs had made his way to the court of Redwald, King of East
Anglia. Warned by a friend that Redwald meditated sur
rendering him to his enemies, Edwin was sitting in perplexity
outside the palace in the dark, when an unknown figure approached
and asked him what he would do for the man who promised to
confirm the wavering fidelity of Redwald, to restore him to a
throne that would surpass in splendour those of aU previous
English Kings, and to give him advice that would lead him to a
- better and more useful life than any of his kinsfolk had enjoyed.
Edwin promised that he would obey him in aU things. The
unknown figure then laid his hand on Edwin's head and said,
" When this sign shall come to you, remember this conversation,
and delay not to fulfil your promise."
Paulinus, by some means or other having gained knowledge
of this vision, now made use of it for his holy purpose.^ One
day when Edwin was sitting by himself pondering on the
deep things of religion, Paulinus came and laid his hand on his
head and asked him whether he recognised the sign. The King
expressed his willingness to become a Christian himself, but
suggested a conference with his witan, that they might come
with him to the font.
A meeting of the Northumbrian witan was therefore held at Northum-
Goodmanham, and the King asked his councUlors singly for their ^cceptl''^"
opinions. Coifi, the pagan high priest, in a delightfuUy naive Chris-
fashion, put forward a frankly materialistic view : " I for my "^""y-
part think that the religion we have observed heretofore is
perfectly useless; no one of your people has more studiously
worshipped our present gods than I, and yet many have received
from you greater favours, and are indeed more prosperous in
every way than I am. Now, if the gods had been good for
anything, they would have done more for me than for others.
• Plummer apud Baed. ii. c. 9, suggests that Paulinus may himself have been
the mysterious stranger. If Paulinus had been in East Anglia, and made
acquaintance with Edwin there, it would have been a reason for sending
him to Northumbria,

14 The Church of England
So, if on consideration you find this new faith to be better and
stronger, let us welcome it without delay." One of the nobles,
who must often have brooded on the mystery of life, took up the
tale in a nobler strain. " So methinks, O King, is the Ufe of
men here on earth as though when you are sitting at diimer with
your nobles at winter tide, the hearth kindled in the middle of
the hall with flame, whUe without the winter rain and storm are
raging, a sparrow should quickly fly through the haU, coming
in at the one door and going out by the other ; for the time that
it is within the hall it is untouched by the winter storm, but
after a brief space of calm it returns into the wintry night and
speeds from sight. So is the life of man ; for a short time it is
seen ; what foUows, what precedes, we know not at aU. There
fore if this new teaching brings us more certaru knowledge, it
certainly ought to be received."
The craving for some knowledge of a future Ufe, in Britain
as elsewhere, led the heathen to a knowledge of Christ. The
witan gladly listened to Paulinus as he preached the words of
life. Coifi himself, at the bidding of the King, took the lead.
Casting off his heathen vestments, he caUed for arms and a war-
horse (the high priest, by the old religion, was forbidden to carry
arms or ride except upon a mare). Girt with a sword, a
lance in hand, he rode to the heathen temple, whUe the common
people, seeing him in this new role, thought he had gone mad.
Hurling the lance at the temple as an act of profanation, he bade
his companions fire it ; and soon the heathen temple was burnt
to ashes. Edwin, his thegns, and crowds of the Northumbrian
people were baptized, Easter 627.
Round the wooden oratory in which he had been baptized
Edwin began the buUding of a great stone basihca — afterwards
completed by Oswald and dedicated to St. Peter — as the cathedral
church of Paulinus. For the next few years aU went weU;
Paulinus moved in Edwin's train ; wherever Edwin went,
Paulinus accompanied him, preaching the gospel of Christ;
over the moors and hUls of the modem Yorkshire to some of
the wUdest and most desolate portions of England the Christian
message was borne. But the labours of Paulinus were ahnost
entirely confined to Deira, the southern half of Edwin's
kingdom ; it was there that he spent his time preaching to the
people and baptizing them in the rivers. For in Bemicia,
i.e. between the Forth and the Tees, we are told by Bede that

The Roman Mission 15
at the commg of St. Aidan not a symbol of the Christian faith,
not a single church, not a single altar had been erected.
MeanwhUe in East AngUa the work of Christ was being
done. In 631 Sigbert, who when an exUe in Gaul had already e. AngUa
become a Christian, mounted the East Anglian throne. The bTpeHx'^
conversion of the East Anglians was chiefly the work of andFursey.
Felix, a Burgundian, who was sent to Sigbert by Archbishop
Honorius. His efforts were seconded by those of Fursey,
an Irish monk gifted with remarkable spiritual vision, who won
many souls both by his preaching and the saintliness of his
life. It was at Dunwich that Felix fixed his episcopal see, and
in connection with the church founded a school.
In Northumbria Edwin's reign was drawing to a close.
_ He had been a great King, and had established his influence over
a large part of Britain."" But his power was no longer what it
had once been. It was threatened by the rise of the great
Mercian kingdom under Penda, the champion of paganism, pendaof
Penda is the last of the great heathen Kings of Britain. It Mercia.
seemed as though expiring paganism made one last great effort
to show what it could produce. Penda was a really great man ;
he rallied to his standard all the heathen feeling he could find
in England ; he threw off the Northumbrian supremacy, wrenched
from Wessex the country of the Hwiccas, formed an alliance with
the ancient British King, CadwaUon of Gynned (North Wales),
.though he was a Christian, and attacked Edwin. On the
battlefield of Hatfield, 633, Edwin's army was overthrown,
and Edwin himself was kUled. Northumbria was devastated
by CadwaUon, who, in spite of his Christianity, glutted the fury
of his national hate with acts of barbarism, sparing neither
age nor sex, desecrating sacred buUdings, and perpetrating
indiscriminate massacre. This " hateful year," 633-634, famous The "hate.
for the defeat of Edwin, the devastation of the country andf"'"/^"-
the apostacy of Edwin's successors, was long remembered in
the annals of Northumbria. The materialism which had led
Coifi to reject the pagan gods now showed itself in reverse
fashion. It seemed as though the Christian God had been
round lacking in the day of battle ; many of the Northumbrians
relapsed into paganism, and among them the two royal princes
who succeeded respectively to the thrones of Bemicia and Deira
(for at the death of Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom had
been divided). So evil were the times, 50 threatening the

1 6 The Church of England
Flight of aspect of affairs, that Paulinus himself fled the country and
Paulinus. returned to Kent. But the deacon, James, with conspicuous
heroism, remained behind, ministermg, in spite of the violence
and apostacy which he saw on every side, to the spiritual wants
of a smaU corner of Deira. The time of trial soon passed away,
for in the foUowing year, 634, two princes of the exUed
royal Bernician line came to the rescue. These two princes,
Oswald and Oswy, had taken refuge in Scotland among the Scots,
who had crossed over from Ireland. There they had faUen in
with the monks of Columba, the saintly abbot of lona, and had
received at their hands Christian baptism. Oswald planted the
cross as the standard of his army at Heavenfield, a spot eight
mUes north of Hexham and close to the old Roman waU ; and
then, addressing his army, said, " Let us kneel down and pray
the almighty and true God to defend us from our proud and cruel
foe ; for God knows that we have undertaken a righteous war
for the salvation of our race." Hatfield was avenged by
Oswald, Heavenfield, for Oswald won a glorious victory over CadwaUon,
Norfhum- ^34' ^^^ established his power as King over the whole of
bria, 634. Northumbria. His reign marks an important era in the spread
of Christianity, and under his aegis the Christian faith made a
series of permanent advances over Britain. But the evangelisa
tion was done by Scotch, not by Roman missionaries; of the
glories of this Scotch mission we wUl speak in the next chapter.
It was, however, a Roman missionary, Birinus, who converted
Wessex Wessex. Birinus was an ItaUan monk sent to work among
b°"Krinus *^® English by Pope Honorius. Having been consecrated by
the Archbishop of MUan, he landed on the shores of Hampshire,
635, and so successful was his preaching that CynegUs, King of
the West Saxons, and most of the men of Wessex, adopted the
faith. Oswald came on a visit to marry the daughter of CynegUs,
and himself stood sponsor to his father-in-law when he was
baptized at Dorchester-on-Thames. It was at Dorchester that
Birinus fixed his bishop's stool. Birinus continued his labours
tiU his death in 650, but at a later date the see of the West
Saxon bishopric was removed to Winchester.
Work of To summarise, then, the work done by the Roman mission :
bishoprics had been founded at Canterbury, Rochester, Dunwich,
Dorchester; Kent and Wessex had been Christianised; the
East Saxons had acknowledged the Christian faith and then
relapsed, but the way had been prepared for future efforts;

Romanmission.

The Roman Mission 17
East Anglia had been converted by the joint efforts of the
Burgundian Felix and the Irish monk Fursey ; in Northumbria
the mission of Paulinus had prospered for a whUe, but on the
faU of Edwin Northumbria had relapsed, and Paulinus had
fled the country. In the whole of Bemicia there Wcis not a
single church, and in Deira we only read of two ; but the deacon
James was working with heroic zeal.
The British Church had directly done nothing, the Roman
mission had done much, but there was ample room for the
magnificent missionary enthusiasm of the Scotch. It is to the
Scotch more than to the Romans that we owe the conversion of
the English people.

B

CHAPTER HI
THE WORK OF THE SCOTCH MISSIONARIES TILL
THE SYNOD OF WHITBY, 664
St. Col- The early history of Columba, the founder of the famous
umba. monastery at lona, is wrapt in the obscurity of legend. He was
a scion of the Irish royal house, being a great-great-grandson of
Niall of the Nine Hostages. One of the earUest disputes on
record about copyright is said to have been the cause of his
missionary work in Scotland. WhUe on a visit to St. Firmian
at Moville, his admiration was so excited by a beautiful trans
cript of the Psalter, that by clandestine work he made a copy
of the book ; but Finnian claimed the copy, and the matter
was referred to Diarmid, the titular King of Ireland ; the verdict
of the royal judge was, " To every cow her calf, to every book its
copy." Columba in bitter wrath raised his clans in revolt, and
inflicted a severe defeat on Diarmid. But shortly afterwards,
in bitter grief for the lives that had been lost, Columba vowed
to win as many pagan souls for Christ as Christians whose death'
in battle he had caused. And so began Columba's self-imposed
exile from Ireland ; crossing with twelve foUowers to the British
Monastery kingdom of Dalriada in Scotland, he foimded the monastery
of lona. Q^ ji^jj^ (563), and for thirty years made it the centre of his
romantic missionary work among the Picts. It was a month
after St. Augustine landed in Kent that Columba breathed his
last. Columba was a typical Irishman, by no means a perfed^^
character, but in nature most lovable ; he was passionate in '
every way — fierce in his hatred, fierce in his love, fierc6|
in his work and self-sacrifice for Christ ; vindictive at one
time, at another full of the tenderest love, his was a nature*
abounding in contrasts ; but above aU he was a man, a great
personality. And so it was that at his death the monastery of
lona had many daughter houses both in Scotland and Ireland,
and over these Columba ruled. He was a man with great love
for erring men ; he was fuU of sympathy with nature and the
dumb creation — many beautiful stories of his influence over
18

Work of the Scotch Missionaries 19
animals are recorded — and he was a man of deep spnritual
insight. The type of Christianity which he established at lona Celtic
was Irish, and in strUcing contrast with that of Rome. Irish ^'"'l^-
Christianity was often marked by extravagant asceticism and "^'"'^'
was monastic in character. The Irish knew nothing of a diocesan
and orderly episcopate ; the unit of Irish Christianity was the
monastery, ruled by its priest abbot. Under his ecclesiastical
rule some of the monks were kept in episcopal orders to carry
on the specificaUy episcopal work of confirmation, ordination,
consecration. And so it came about that the abbot ruled over
men who were in point of ecclesiastical rank superior to him.
The ofiice of abbot generaUy descended to founder's kin. It
was from this Celtic monastery in lona that the leaders of the
northern Church in England were to come. It was by the Celtic
missionaries from lona who settled at Lindisfame that the
greater part of England was won for Christ. The century that
foUows their coming was the most briUiant in the ecclesiastical
history of England.
In Wessex and East Anglia Celtic missions co-operated with
the Romans ; in the two kingdoms of Northumbria, in Essex and
Mercia, the ultimate conversion was due almost entirely to the
Celtic monks, whUe Sussex, the neighbour of Kent, was Chris
tianised by WUfrid, a pupU of Lindisfame, though himself the
keenest advocate of the Roman claims.
When Oswald had established himself in Northumbria, in
his eagerness to restore the Christian faith, his thoughts naturaUy
turned to lona, the home of his exUe. He asked the monastery
of lona to send him a Christian bishop. The first bishop sent
from lona returned in despair ; he reported the failure of his
mission, which he assigned to the rough, stubborn, and un
manageable nature of the Northumbrian people. Then out
spoke Aidan, " Methinks, brother, you have been unduly hard
on these unlearned folk ; you have not foUowed the apostolic
rule of giving them first the mUk of gentle doctrine, tUl, graduaUy
nourished by the word of God, they would have been able to
take and practise God's more perfect and exalted rules." The Scotch mis-
grace of wisdom sat upon the lips of the speaker and seemed to thumbria,"^'
mark him out for the mission. So Aidan was consecrated 635.
bishop and sent to Northumbria, 635; and there for sixteen
years he laboured under the two Northumbrian Kings, Oswald
and Oswine. Of aU the early fathers of our Church Aidan had

20 The Church of England
the most ChristlUce character. Bede, though he wrote at a
time when the questions at issue between Roman and Celtic'
Christianity had been settled in favour of the former, and there
fore with reference to the Easter question says that Aidan's
zeal was not according to knowledge, is never tired of singing
his praises ; holiness and gentleness, simplicity and sympathy,
radiated from his presence. He preached the words of life, and
he lived none other than he taught.
There is an island off the coast of Northumbria, now caUed
Aidan at Holy Island, but then caUed Lindisfame. It was here that
ferne'^ Aidan founded a monastery, modeUed on that of lona, and fixed
his see. Here he was close to Oswald's royal city of Bamburgh,
and here, when he wanted, he could live the life of seclusion that
had become so dear to him at lona.
That island, rich in historic memories, was the cradle of our
northern Christianity ; here was the home of Aidan, Cuthbert,
Cedd, and Wilfrid. From it as his centre Aidan conducted his
His mission missionary joumeys ; almost always on foot, he journeyed from
Nonhu - P^^*-^ *° place, preaching, whUe the saintly Oswald stood by his
bria. side interpreting — at any rate at first — ^the Celtic tongue to his
hearers. Oswald was indeed a nursing-father to the Church,
fostering at every step Aidan's work. He completed the stone
minster at York ; in all parts of the kingdom churches rose as
witnesses to the faith of Christ. Nor were these men unmindful
of education. Aidan himself founded a school for twelve EngUsh
youths, attached to the monastery of Lindisfame, from which
many iUustrious churchmen were to come. We read, too, that
Aidan frequently purchased slaves and trained them as his
pupUs for the priesthood. The monasteries then were almost
the only places for education, and numbers of monasteries were
buUt round the country-side. Aidan trained his monks as they
walked to beguUe the tedium of the way by meditations on
Scripture or recitations of the Psalter. If Aidan on his travels
saw any men, rich or poor, near his path, turning to them he would
urge them, if pagan, to the grace of holy baptism ; if Christians,
he would strengthen them in the faith and urge them by word
and deed to chastity and goodness of life. Severe on the sins
and vices of the rich, he was full of love and charity to the poor,
A story wUl iUustrate. On one occasion Oswine, Oswald's
successor in Deira, had presented Aidan as a gift with a richly
caparisoned horse. Riding the horse (which was for him a rare

Work of the Scotch Missionaries 21
occurrence), Aidan soon afterwards met a poor man begging for
alms. He immediately dismounted and gave the beggar the
horse. Hearing of it, the King shortly afterwards said to Aidan,
" Were there not poorer horses, or other less valuable presents,
to give a beggar ? " " What are you saying, O King ? " said Aidan.
" Is yon son of a mare dearer to you than yon son of God ? "
On cinother occasion Oswald won Aidan's conspicuous approval
by his charity. It was a royal banquet : on the table was a
silver salver covered with the royal feast. A servant entered
and said that without a large number of poor men stood asking
for alms. The King immediately ordered the banquet to be
given to the poor, and the sUver salver to be broken in little
pieces and distributed among them. For seven years, 635-642,
Oswald and Aidan worked together, preaching the gospel, helping
the poor, and founding schools. But then came disaster :
Oswald was a powerfiU King, but Penda, the pagan King of
Mercia, his constant rival, stiU lived. On the fatal field of
Maserfelth (Oswestry), Oswald was defeated and slain by Penda.
He died as he had lived, with a prayer on his lips. " The Lord
have mercy on the souls of my men," said Oswald, faUing to the
earth. Men fabled that the grass grew greener and that miracles
were wrought from the dust of the ground where OsWald fell.
On Oswald's death, Oswy his brother succeeded to the
northern half of the kingdom, whUe Oswine, a kinsman of the
old King Edwin, became monarch of Deira. With Oswine
Aidan lived on terms of tenderest friendship. But in 651
Oswiue was assassinated at the instigation of Oswy, and Aidan Death of
only survived his dear friend for eleven days. Having reunited ' ^"' ^''
the whole of Northumbria, Oswy ruled it tiU the year 671.
His reign was marked by events of great importance. In the
battle of the Winwaed, 655, Penda, the great champion of
paganism, was overthrown and slain. Oswy's power was greater
than that of any of his predecessors. He not only was for a
time direct ruler of the whole of Mercia, but he bore sway also
over Picts and Cumbrians and Welsh ; with the advance of his
power the Christian faith also advanced.
In 654 Sigbert, King of the East Saxons, became a Christian.
Sigbert was a friend of Oswy, and often when on a visit Oswy Essex con
pomted out to him how foolish it was to worship idols of ^"'^'^'
wood and stone instead of the Eternal and Almighty God, the
Creator of all things. Sigbert was convinced, and, together

of Mercia.

22 The Church of England
with his nobles, was baptized by Finan, Abbot of Lindisfame ;
Cedd, one of Aidan's pupUs, was consecrated as bishop, and
began the work of evangelisation in Essex.
Conversion The Mercians too were converted by Cedd and his brother
Chad, 656. Thus the Church rapidly spread. Monasteries
sprang up on every side ; Oswy himself, in fulfilment of
a vow, founded no less than twelve after his victory over
Penda. AU this work of evangelisation in Northumbria,
Mercia, Essex, was done by missionaries whose central station
was at Lindisfame. There is no more brUliant epoch in the
history of our Church than that which is Ulummated by that
glorious group of northern missionary stars, Aidan, Oswald,
Cuthbert, Cedd, Chad, WUfrid.
By this time, then, the Church was firmly established in
England ; in every kingdom of the heptarchy, with the
solitary exception of Sussex, the gospel was preached. But so
far we have followed two separate lines of Christian develop-
Coiiision of ment, the Roman and the Celtic. These two separate streams
were now to meet and struggle for the mastery. Even in
Northumbria there was a strong Roman party ; if Oswy inclined
to the Celtic rule, his wife and his son, Alchfrith, the sub-
king of Deira, were strong supporters of the Roman system ;
the other leaders of the Roman party were James the deacon,
the old coadjutor of Paulinus, Benedict Biscop, and the young
presbyter WUfrid. WUfrid, the son of a Northumbrian noble,
had been with Benedict Biscop on a pilgrimage to Rome. At
Rome and Lyons he had seen something of the grandeur of
Roman order and Roman ritual. From the Archbishop of
Lyons he had received the tonsure, and on his retum from abroad
had been made by Alchfrith Abbot of Ripon. WUfrid was
more Roman than the Romans themselves.
Oswy for many reasons desired a definite settlement of the
points at issue. SociaUy, the difference between the two parties
on the time of keeping Easter was very troublesome. In the
year 663, whUe he would be keeping the Celtic Easter, his
wife would be going through the austerities of Holy Week.
Politically the religious difference between Bemicia and Deira
might lead to a recrudescence of political quarrels. On the
religious side many of the Celtic party were disturbed by the
saying of the Romans that they were running or had run m vaui.
So Oswy summoned a conference to meet at Whitby in Lent,

Scotch and
Roman
Chris
tianity.

Synod of
Whitby
t64.

Work of the Scotch Missionaries 23
664. The leaders on the Roman side were AgUbert, formerly
Bishop of Wessex, WUfrid, and James the deacon ; on the
Scotch, Colman, the Abbot of Lindisfame, HUda, the Abbess of
Whitby, and Cedd. The ostensible points at issue — the shape
of the tonsure and the date of keeping Easter — were in them
selves trivial. But the vital matter at stake — the leadership
of Rome or of lona — was one of crucial and far-reaching im
port. Oswy opened the proceedings, emphasising the importance
of uniformity, and pouiting out that the matter in dispute was
the value of the respective traditions. Colman, when called to
state his case, briefly declared that the date of the Celtic Easter
could be traced back through St. Columba to the authority of
St. John.
WUfrid in reply showed that as a matter of fact the Celts
were not foUowing the reckoning of St. John, and asserted that
the date of the Roman Easter rested on the authority of St.
Peter. He then broke into loud invective against the fraction
of obstinate islanders who rejected the customs of the universal
Church in Africa, Asia, Europe, and pitted their own authority
against that of the whole civilised world. Columba's action was
due to lack of knowledge ; he would certainly have adopted the
Roman usage if he had been told that its authority was derived
from St. Peter, to whom our Lord had said, " Thou art Peter,
and on this rock I wiU buUd My church . . . and I will give
thee the keys of the Idngdom of heaven." Oswy cleverly took
up the point. Turning to Colman, he said, " Is it true that these
words were said by our Lord to St. Peter ? " " It is true," said
Colman. " And was ever such power given to your Columba ? "
" No," was the answer. " And are you both agreed that the
keys of the kingdom of heaven have been given to St. Peter by
our Lord ? " " Yes," they replied.. " WeU," said Oswy in con
clusion, " I have no wish to quarrel with the door-keeper, but
I wish to the best of my knowledge and abUity to obey his
rules in aU things, lest haply when I come to the doors of the
kingdom of heaven, St. Peter, who is proved to hold the keys,
may turn away, and there may be none to unlock them."
Oswy therefore decided in favour of the Roman usage, victory of
WUfrid's argument was, if Colman had known, capable of refuta- ^°™™
tion, but the motives which led to the decision are of no import
ance as compared with the results. The Celtic colony at
Lindisfame was broken up. Colman, with the greater part of

24 The Church of England
his monks, returned to lona. Our heart goes out to them in
sympathy, as they wended their homeward way to the desolate
regions of the north.
itsimpor- The first rivet of the Roman yoke which was to gaU so
tance. sorely the necks of succeeding generations was firmly fastened.
But the decision cannot be regretted ; the advantages which
ensued are conclusive proof that the decision foUowed the true
line of progress. How was this ?
(i) Unity. First, the decision gave unity to the English Church ; its
strength was not to be dissipated by the quarrels of rival and
antagonistic parties ; the chief feature in English politics down
to the Norman Conquest was the predominance of centrifugal
tendencies ; it was good that one disintegrating force should be
removed ; it was weU that political were not to be increased
by ecclesiastical divisions. The unity of the Church was in
due time to give the State a pattern of unity. As there was one
English Church, so in time there was to be one English State.
(2) Civiiisa- Secondly, the decision brought England into the main stream
tion. qJ civUising influences which then centred at Rome. As Dr.
Harnack says, " The Roman Church brought Christian civilisa
tion to young nations ; it gave them somethmg which was
capable of exercising a -progressive educational influence ; up to
the fourteenth century it was a leader and a mother ; " it was
the Roman Church which "supplied the ideas, set the aims,
and disengaged the forces." Rome was the centre of letters,
arts, and general culture.
(3) Thirdly, the decision gave strength to the Church. By
Strength, ^iev union with Rome she was graduaUy to gain ecclesiastical
independence, and so to escape the omnipotence of the State
in the spiritual sphere — a fact which became of great importance
after the Norman Conquest.
(4) Govern- Lastly, the decision gave the Church governance. It was
just in this respect that the Celtic Church was eminently lacking ;
the Celtic Church was magnificent in its missionary enterprise,
but it could not organise ; and it was in her power of organisation
that the Roman Church conspicuously excelled.
" Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento," was the
inspiring motto which VergU gave to the Roman Empire. The
organising power of the Roman Empire was inherited by
the Roman Church. Rome gave to England its organised
parochial and diocesan system.

ance.

Work of the Scotch Missionaries 2 5
So whUe we regret the passing away of the golden age of
Celtic saintliness, let us not forget the great advantages which
foUowed from the decision of Whitby. The evUs which were in
course of time to ensue were beyond the vision of man, hidden
in the womb of the future.

CHAPTER IV
WILFRID AND THEODORE: THE ORGANISATION
OF THE CHURCH
The history of the Church of England in the forty years which
foUowed the synod of Whitby closely centres round the Uves of
two Ulustrious men, Wilfrid and Theodore of Tarsus. WUfrid
for his services at the synod of Whitby had been chosen, in 664,
as Bishop of the Northumbrians, but in characteristic fashion
he had scorned consecration by merely English bishops. He
went to Gaul, and with the magnificent ceremony that was so
dear to his heart he was consecrated at Compiegne by AgUbert,
Bishop of Paris, and eleven other bishops.
He delayed for a year his retum to England. We know not
the cause of this dUatory sojourning abroad, but Oswy could
not ignore the spiritual needs of Northumbria, and therefore
appointed Chad in his place.
In 666 WUfrid on his retum found Chad occupying his see.
Feeling perhaps that his deprivation was not undeserved, he
retired to the monastery at Ripon, of which he was head, and
assisted in the episcopal work of Mercia and Kent. s
The Church of England had now passed out of the merely
missionary stage, and was in great need of a master mind to
organise it as a permanent institution qualified to perform the
continuous spiritual work of a national Church. If unity of
ritual, custom, and order had been seemed at the synod of
Whitby, there was as yet no unity of government ; in the con
fusion born of political struggles sees were left vacant, and the
framework of a diocesan episcopate was rapidly disappearing.
The dioceses in almost every case were too large, and needed
subdivision ; the Church required organs of self-government,
the parochial system demanded extension, there was enormous
need for educational work. In the providence of God Theodore
of Tarsus was raised to do the requisite work.
In 667, when the archbishopric of Canterbury was vacant
the two Kings, Oswy of Northumbria and Egbert of Kent, com-
(6

Wilfrid and Theodore 27
bined '.' sendmg their joint nominee to Rome for consecration.
On the unexpected death of this nominee at Rome the Pope, at Theodore
the request, it is said, of the two Kings, appointed Theodore, a Ardf."""
Greek moim^of Tarsus, to the vacant archbishopric. Unlikely bishop,
though at first sight it seemed (for he was sixty-seven years ^'^'
of age and unaccustomed to the rigours of a northern cUmate),
Theodore was just the man required by the situation. He
lived to the ripe age of eighty-eight, and only died in 690,
having done a work that has been of determining influence over
the Church of England down to the present day. He arrived
at Canterbury in 669. His first step was to make a tour of
visitation throughout England ; in York he told Chad that his
consecration had been irregular, and that he must retire from the
see. Chad meekly consented, saying, with characteristic humUity,
that he had never thought himself worthy of the episcopate;
but Chad's lowliness of heart and spirituality of mind made a
deep impression on Theodore, who appointed him, after reordina
tion,^ as Bishop of the Mercians. MeanwhUe WUfrid was
re-estabUshed as Bishop of York. Both WUfrid and Theodore
were fiUed with the Roman spirit and idea of ecclesiastical order.
Both of them, though perhaps WUfrid to a greater extent, had
an imperious cast of mind. They might reasonably have been
expected to co-operate in the work of organising the EngUsh
Church. But it was not to be. Whether it was that Theodore Quarrel of
was determined to divide WUfrid's enormous diocese of York, Theodore
whUe WUfrid was equaUy determined that no division should frid.
take place to diminish his power, or whether the grounds of
quarrel were more general, and lay in the inabUity of two such
haughty natures to work in harmony, is uncertain; for a
mystery lies over their quarrel. But quarrel they did, and
Theodore's reforms had to be carried out in the teeth of Wilfrid's Theodore's
opposition, and in defiance of papal buUs procured by WUfrid *°''''-
in his favour. Theodore's work in his twenty years of metro
poUtan authority may be considered under various heads.
First, he restored the disordered framework of diocesan (i)Organis-
government, consecrating bishops to Rochester, to East Anglia, ^•o™3^
* He re-ordained him seemingly as a Quarto-deciman. It veas the rule of
the Eastern Church to re-ordain Quarto-decimans, and Theodore was an Eastern.
The Celtic Church wras not really Quarto-deciman. But both the Celts and the
Quarto-decimans differed from the orthodox Church in their computation of the
date of Easter, and were therefore confused.

2 8 The Church of England
to Lichfield, and Winchester, and restoring WUfrid to York,
By 673 the whole body of EngUsh bishops recognised the
metropolitan authority of Canterbury, and thus the original
scheme of Gregory for the organisation of the JEnglish Church
was tacitly overruled.
(2) Con- Secondly, in the year 673 Theodore took the memorable
ciiiar unity, g^^p ^j summoning a councU of the whole English Churqh to
meet at Hertford. In this assembly various canons were pa^ed;
they were for the most part ancient decrees adapted where
necessary to English needs : the Roman Easter was to be
observed ; no bishop was to trespass on another's diocese ;
no monastery was to be disturbed by a bishop ; no monk was
to migrate without his abbot's leave ; no cleric was to leave his
diocese or be received in another without the leave of his former
bishop ; annual synods of the whole Church were to be held at
Clovesho ; bishops were to take precedence according to their
dates of consecration ; the numbers of the episcopate were to
be enlarged ; the law of marriage regulated. These canons
are important in themselves ; but the councU is far more
memorable for other reasons : aU the bishops of the EngUsh
Church except the simoniacal Bishop Wina were present either
in person or by proxy ; the metropolitan authority of Canterbury
was everywhere recognised ; the synod of Hertford was the
first councU of the whole English Church — ^but it was even more
than this : its work, as Dr. Stubbs says, was " the first constitu
tional measure of the coUective English race." It was a far
cry to the days of Edward I. and the first national Parliament.
But it is unquestionable that the unifying of the Church pre
pared the way for the unifying of the State. Englishmen were
members of the one Church before they were members of the
one State of England.
(3) Sub- Thirdly, Theodore then proceeded to the important work of
dio' eses°*^ Subdividing the enormous dioceses and increasing the episcopate.
East Anglia was subdivided into two, Mercia into five dioceses;
the subdivision of Wessex was hindered by political circum
stances, but Theodore's scheme was carried out shortly after
his death by its partition into the two dioceses of Winchester'
and Sherborne. It was in the north, where Wilfrid presided
over the unwieldy diocese of York, that Theodore encountered
the most serious opposition. The diocese of York extended
over the whole country from the Forth to the Wash ; it is

Wilfrid and Theodore 29
ridiculous to suppose that adequate episcopal supervision could
even approximately have been given to such an enormous
diocese, and on the main point Theodore was unquestionably
right. But it would seem that he showed a want of tact.
Making use of the strained relations which existed between
WUfrid and Egfrith, King of Northumbria, Theodore, without
the knowledge of Wilfrid, arranged with the King the partition
of WUfrid's diocese into four separate dioceses. This was the
beginning of the long and bitter quarrel between WUfrid on the
one hand and the civU and ecclesiastical authorities in England
on the other. It wiU be sufficient in this place to say that, in
spite of the papal bulls which WUfrid procured, the scheme of
Theodore in its chief features was maintained ; the result, after a
quarrel which lasted thirty years, was that the immense diocese of
York was subdivided into three or four bishoprics, and there
can be no doubt that the subdivision did lead to increased
efiiciency of administration.
Fourthly, Theodore checked the extravagance of asceticism (4) Educa-
by turning it into educational channels. In the school attached *'°°'
to the monastery at Canterbury both Theodore and his friend
Hadrian gave instruction. Many pupUs from aU sides came to
receive teaching from the archbishop and the Abbot Hadrian
in grammar, logic, phUosophy, astronomy, ecclesiastical arith
metic, theology, Latin, and Greek. The school of Canterbury
was the model followed by the even more famous school of
York in the next century. Theodore's knowledge of Greek was
especiaUy useful in the diffusion of Greek learning.
Lastly, it is sometimes stated that Theodore was the founder (s) Exten-
of the parochial system. But this statement gives a wrong p^^ochiai
impression. The system by which the whole of England was system.
graduaUy divided into parishes, in each of which a priest was
placed, speciaUy responsible for its spiritual welfare, had no
actual founder. It graduaUy grew up. In the earliest days
the missionary work was generaUy done by monastic settle
ments, but as the monks graduaUy retired from missionary
activity in the world, and became in some cases exempt from
episcopal control, they were replaced by secular clergy working on
parochial lines. This movement was no doubt in process during
Theodore's time, but we know from Bede that in 6go the whole
\ of England was not yet mapped out into parishes, and that
! there were many viUages in which there was no parish priest.

30 The Church of England
Death of In 690 Theodore was called to his rest. It would be
Theodore, ^ifiicult to exaggerate the importance of the work, on which
God so signaUy set His blessing. His share in the creation of
English unity, ecclesiastical and civU ; his diffusion of Eastern
culture among English scholars ; his creation of schools which
were in their turn to send forth English scholars such as
Alcuin to restore culture in Europe — aU these give hun a great
claim on the gratitude of Europe, and especiaUy of England, and
have laid up for him an imperishable memory.
Career of But if Theodore was a greater man, WUfrid has m some ways
WUfrid. tjje more romantic history, including, as it did, an episcopate of
more than forty years (665-709), repeated quarrels with the tem
poral power, expulsion from various sees, three pUgrimages to
Rome, imprisonment, shipwreck, offers of temporal and spiritual
lordships abroad, and the missionary work of a pioneer in Frisia
and the South Saxon kingdom. The key to his career is to be
found in his Roman sjmipathies. No Englishman has ever been
HisRo- so instinct with the Roman spirit, with aU its developments,
mamsm. good and bad. He was almost the first EngUshman to make a
pUgrimage to Rome, 653. Returning to England, he became
Abbot of Ripon in 661. In 664 he was the protagonist of
Roman claims at Whitby ; the same year he was elected
Bishop of Northumbria, and with a truly Roman scorn for
English consecration, went for his consecration to Gaul ; in
669 he was restored to his see at York by Theodore ; shortiy
afterwards he quarreUed -with King Egfrith because he en
couraged Egfrith's wife to desert her husband and enter a
nunnery ; in the meantime the splendour of Roman ceremonial
had been introduced by him into the monastery of Ripon,
and the magnificence of Roman buUding into a church at
Hexham that had not its equal this side of the Alps (? 675).
In 678 Theodore, in conjunction with Egfrith, arranged the
division of WUfrid's diocese. WUfrid immediately appealed to
the Pope — he was the first Englishman to do so. On his
way to Rome, crossing the Channel, he was driven by a storm
out of his course to Frisia, and preached to the heathen Frisians.
Having obtained a papal buU mainly in his favour, WUfrid
returned ; but King Egfrith roundly declared that it had been
obtained by bribery. The papal buU was not only ignored,
but for nine months WUfrid was kept in prison, 681. The five
years which followed, 681-686, are reaUy the most glorious in

Wilfrid and Theodore 31
WUfrid's career. They were spent in evangelising the last of
the English kingdoms (that of the pagan South Saxons) and the
Isle of Wight. When WUfrid arrived m Sussex he found the
people in terrible straits of famine. There had been a con
tinuous drought for three years, and the people were reduced
to such despair — ^Bede teUs us — that, joining hands fifty at a
time, they would throw themselves from the cliffs into the sea.
WUfrid taught them the art of net fishing, and supporting them
selves from the produce of the sea. In their gratitude they Conversion
gladly listened to his teaching, and so the last of the English °^ ^•^^¦^^
kingdoms was won for Christ. For five years WUfrid laboured
with unflagging zeal and love. In 686 a reconcUiation
took place between himself and Theodore, and WUfrid was
restored to the curtaUed bishopric of York and the monastery
of Ripon, WUfrid thus accepting Theodore's subdivision of his
original diocese. But he was never reaUy satisfied with his
new position, and shortly after Theodore's death, there was a
new quarrel, simUar in its nature to the old, between WUfrid
and Aldfrith, the King of Northumbria. WUfrid was again
exUed, 691, and for eleven years acted as Bishop of Leicester.
In 702, at a great coimcU of the whole Church held under
Archbishop Bertwald in Northumbria, WUfrid refused assent
to the decrees of Theodore, and with indignant language re
caUed his services to the Church, especiaUy his share in estab
lishing the Roman Easter, and his introduction of the Roman
chants. (In characteristic fashion he did not mention his
missionary work in Frisia and Sussex.) Again he appealed to
the Pope, and journeyed once more, on his own feet, if the
chronicler is to be believed, to Rome — a wonderful feat for an
old man of seventy. Again the Pope decided in WUfrid's
favour, and finally in 705 a compromise was effected by
Archbishop Bertwald at the Pope's bidding. Osred, the new
King of Northumbria, was a boy, and at the councU of the
Nidd, 705, it was arranged that WUfrid should be restored
to the bishopric of Hexham and the monasteries of Hexham
and Ripon. In 709 WUfrid died. If his career is analysed,
it wiU be seen that the cause of his many troubles was his
opposition to national sentiment and his overbearing, uncon-
cUiatory temper. He had the characteristic Roman lust for
ecclesiastical domination ; his haughty temper could not brook
opposition. Humble and lowly in his own private life, he was

Activities of Church.

Monasti
cism.

3 2 The Church of England
bent on magnifying his ecclesiastical of&ce and the claims of
Rome. He was the fore-runner of Thomas Becket. Yet with
aU this he was fuU of love for the poor, a zealous missionary to
the heathen, eager to win souls for Christ. His was a mixed
nature, of a type that has often been found in ecclesiastics.
The latter half of the seventh century was marked by
the supremacy of Northumbria ; but this supremacy had
already passed away, and with the deaths of Theodore and
WUfrid the first big chapter in the history of the Church of
England closes. The framework of the diocesan organisation
was completed, but to get a full idea of the infant Church, its
activities and forms of life must be briefly noticed. Of these
the most important was the monastic, and though the history
of monasticism, taken as a whole, is a mournful record, it is
right to say that monasticism, when true to its own ideal, did
in ages of heathenism and violence perform conspicuous service.
A band of brothers living a common life in a monastery
is exceUently adapted for work in the mission field. Starting
from the monastery, they could go out on their missionary tours,
and then retum to it as the home and centre of their spiritual
life. Complete detachment from earthly ties and utter self-
renunciation were calculated to impress, as nothing else could,
a primitive and chUdUke age. In the anarchy and violence of
the times, a monastery, too, was the only refuge for learning,
and one of the few centres for the diffusion of civUising influ
ences. These reasons wiU largely explain why so much of
early English Christianity, whether drawn from Rome or lona,
was of the monastic type. The monastic life itself assmned in
different places different forms. There was the life of the
anchorite or hermit, living alone in a desolate cell or cave.
There were many anchorites among the Scots, but in English
Christianity few were to be found, though the great Cuthbert
himself lived for a time the life of an anchorite m Fame
Island, 676, and the great Abbey of Crowland was buUt in
after days to commemorate the virtues of the hermit Guthlac,
a Mercian noble who renounced a worldly Ufe to dweU among
the fever-haunted fens of Lincohi, and to contend, as he be
lieved, with evU spirits clothed in bodUy forms (d. 716). But
hermit-Ufe was never common in England ; the usual form of
monastic life was " coenobite "—the monks dwelt together,
with a common dormitory and common refectory; but in

Wilfrid and Theodore 33
monasteries modeUed on the Scotch type, such as that of
Lindisfame, the monks- dwelt and slept in separate cells, and
asceticism took a more extravagant shape. The monasteries
which traced their origin to Roman sources were modeUed on
the rule drawn up by St. Benedict at the beginning of the sixth
century, and based on the three principles, renunciation of the
world and worldly possessions, perpetual vows, and obedience.
This rule was not perhaps strictly observed at the outset ; it
was more strictly foUowed under the influence of WUfrid and
Benedict Biscop in the last thirty years of the seventh century,
the golden age of early English monasticism.
The first missionaries to England, both from lona and Rome, Mission
were monks ; in the early days of the conversion the work was ^^y Con
done almost entirely by monastic settlements. Augustine with asteries.
his monks settled at Canterbury ; they lived together as coeno
bites, and the cathedral church was served by monks; it was
a " regular " foundation. In the same way Aidan, the first
Bishop of Northumbria, settled with his monks in the monastic
foundation of Lindisfame. But in course of time, as the monks
increasingly retired from life in the world, and in some few
cases gained papal exemption from episcopal visitation, it
became necessary to take up the active work of Christianising
the people by means of secular clergy, i.e. clergy living in the Replaced
world and not under a special rule (regula) of life. Hence we ^^^'^
find that most of the later cathedral foundations were founda
tions of secular clergy, and as the Church became graduaUy
established, the parochial system, worked by secular clergy,
covered the whole field of the Church's work among the people.
MeanwhUe the monasteries were domg a great work of their
own ; to the weary they offered rest from the world and spiritual
contemplation — many kings and princesses, with others, retired
into them ; to the young they offered education ; to students,
repose and opportunity for literary work. The monasteries
were the cradles of EngUsh poetry and English history. Many
of them were famous in some particular line ; the features
coimnon to aU were the life of spiritual devotion, and the practice
of asceticism. A large portion of each day was spent in the chapel : from Life in a
attendance at the seven canonical hours, matins, terce, &c., •"™^='*'y'
nothing but iUness or absence abroad would excuse the monk.
Benedict's idea was that he should never be idle, but lead the
C

34 The Church of England
strenuous life, for, as he said, " Idleness is the enemy of the
soul." So the whole day was one busy round ; there was the
manual work of agriculture— sowing, ploughing, mUking, garden
ing, &c. ; there were other forms of labour, such as gold-work,
painting, music, copying manuscripts, writing history. Some
Different of the monasteries supplied the cathedral church with clergy,
^pes of ^jjjjg others were especiaUy famous for their learning ; of these
asteries. the most famous tiU the end of the seventh century were the
school of Theodore and Hadrian, attached to the monastery of
Canterbury, the school founded at the monastery of Malmesbury
by Aldhelm, a pupU of Theodore, and afterwards Bishop of
Sherborne, and the schools attached to the famous foundations
of Benedict Biscop at Wearmouth, 674, and Jarrow, 681.
Theodore's work as a teacher has already been mentioned ;
the foundations at Wearmouth and Jarrow were famous for
their splendid stone buildings and their glass windows (a great
novelty), for their ornaments and vestments, for the great
library and splendid treasures brought them from Rome by
Benedict Biscop. Manuscripts in aU these monasteries were
eagerly copied and splendidly Uluminated. Above aU, Jarrow
is famous as the home of the Ulustrious and venerable Bede.
To him we wUl return. It was to Jarrow that pupUs flocked
from aU quarters for instruction by Bede. One of his pupUs was
Egbert, who afterwards became the first Archbishop of York.
Egbert in his turn founded the even more famous school at
York ; its glories were renowned aU over Europe ; from it
came the iUustrious Alcuin (d. 804), who was caUed by the
Emperor Charlemagne to undertake the charge of his own palace
school, and diffuse English culture among his Frankish kingdoms.
Many great characters were produced by early EngUsh
moucisticism ; three of them, at any rate, cannot be passed over
in sUence — HUda, Cuthbert, Bede. ,
Hilda. HUda was a royal lady (b. 614), great-niece of Edwin, the
great King of Northumbria. Bede tells the story that shortly
before HUda's birth her mother dreamed that she found in her
bosom a most costly necklace ; and as she gazed at it, it shone
with such surpassing brUliance that its splendour fiUed aU
Britain. The dream was fulfilled : intellectual and spiritual light
flowed forth from the abbey of Whitby, of which HUda was
both foundress and ruler. The contrast has often been remarked
between the seclusion in which Greek and Roman women dwelt.

Wilfrid and Theodore 35
and the prominent place assigned to women from the earliest
times among Teutonic peoples. Of this prominence HUda is
a conspicuous instance. The abbey at Whitby was a double
foundation for men and women, modelled on a type which was
common both in England and Europe. HUda ruled both over
monks and nuns ; among her pupUs she numbered no less than
five future bishops : she was indeed a wonderful teacher ; born
with great natural gifts and powers of leadership, she added to
them by her large and varied experience of life. For thirty-
three years she lived in the splendour of a court; for thirty-
three years in the seclusion of conventual life. In her, as
Lightfoot has pointed out, Teutonic, Roman, and Celtic influ
ences met ; she had the sobriety of a Teutonic nature ; the
teaching of the Roman PauUnus won her to the Christian faith,
and she foUowed Edwin to the font ; with the Celtic Aidan she
Uved on terms of fondest affection. She was first Abbess of
Hartlepool, and then the foundress and nUer of Whitby. Herself
adorned with all Christian virtues, she taught them by her
words and life to her spiritual sons and daughters. Above aU,
she laid emphasis on " peace and love " as the crown of life ;
her sagacity brought kings and princes to her gates in quest of
counsel and advice ; but she loved equaUy rich and poor, the
great ones of the earth and men of low estate. A diligent searcher
of Holy Scripture, she made this the basis of all her teaching.
But Whitby was famous not only for its school of theology, but
even more as the cradle of English poetry. Caedmon was the Caedmon.
first of aU English poets. A cowherd on the monastic farm,
he discovered his poetic gift in a remarkable way. It was the
wont of the farm hands, when their dinner was over, to suig
turn by turn to the accompaniment of the lyre. But Caedmon
could not sing, and as the lyre drew near to him he would rise
•and leave the house for his own home. One night he had done
so, and going to the cowshed had faUen asleep. In a dream
some one came to him and said, " Caedmon, sing me something."
He answered, " I cannot sing, and that is why I have left the
feast." " But you must sing," said the other. " What must
I sing." " Sing me the beginning of things created." Im
mediately Caedmon began to suig verses in his sleep to the
praise of God the Creator. On awaking, Caedmon remembered
the words which he had sung in his sleep, and added to them
more. Having told the baUiff of tbe gift he bad discovered, he

36 The Church of England
was taken to the Abbess HUda. HUda thanked God for this
wonderful art, and received Caedmon into the number of her
monks ; in the years that followed Caedmon wrote many poems
on sacred subjects taken from Holy Writ. " Others after him
tried to write sacred poems," says Bede, " but none could equal
Caedmon."
Cuthbert. Cuthbert has ever been in the north of England a figure
stUl greater than HUda. Through the haze of legend it is hard
to distinguish the real features of the man. Both in life and death
miracles were fabled to abound wherever Cuthbert went. The
cult of saints reached its most famous development in England
during the Middle Ages in the cult of St. Thomas Becket. But
the cult of St. Cuthbert, at any rate in the north of England, was
not inferior to that of Becket. It was the centre round which the
great palatinate jurisdiction of Durham grew. Yet Cuthbert
was not a pioneer in mission work, nor a great buUder, nor
statesman, nor writer ; his episcopate lasted a brief two years.
He took the Roman side in the great question of the date of
Easter, and this may account for something of his fame.
The Northern Church needed a Roman saint. A further
reason may be found in the incredible hardships to which he
subjected his once powerful body ; he would stand aU night
in the sea to mortify the flesh ; for ten years he lived the life
of a solitary hermit, barely eating, hardly ever seeing a soul,
shut up in a solitary cell on Fame Island. This extreme
asceticism strongly appealed to the mode of religious thought
then predominant, though the saner judgment of to-day rejects
it as irrational. But there were other nobler qualities to be
found in St. Cuthbert. His missionary fervour in earUer days
was quite extraordinary. The people round Mehrose were
addicted to aU forms of magic. Cuthbert spared no trouble
to convince them of their foUy and win them to the love of
Christ. His great strength of body he used to a nobler purpose
than ascetic endurance when he crossed the precipitous moim
tains and penetrated to almost inaccessible cottages, that he
might visit those in trouble, and give them the message of the
divine love. His sympathy was so great that even the greatest
sinners would reveal to him their secret sins, and crave forgiveness
from God. Nor did his sympathy stop with man ; if the stories
told are worthy of belief, he seems, like many saints, to have had
mysterious influence over animals ; tbe sea-fowl were his especial

Wilfrid and Theodore 37
friends, and some of them were called by his name ; the seals
dried his feet ; the eagle procured him food.
The mam facts of his life are soon told. As a boy, like
David or Amos, he tended his sheep on the hiUs, and as he
tended them God spake to him. Legend told how he saw a
vision of angels bearing to heaven a newly departed soul.
Waking his comrades, he told them of his vision, and some days
later he learned that Bishop Aidan had on that night passed
to his rest. Leaving his sheep, he rode immediately to the
monastery of Melrose and craved admission, in 651. His
energy and devotion were such that he soon became provost of
the convent ; in 664, having accepted, though a Celt, the Roman
Easter, he was sent as prior to Lindisfame. A difficult task lay
before him, for it was Cuthbert's duty to introduce the Roman
usages among the Celtic monks ; but they could not long resist
the love, the patience, the self-denial of his life. After a whUe
the craving for solitude grew on Cuthbert ; the extravagant
spirit of Celtic monasticism asserted itself, and for nine long
years he lived like a hermit on Fame Island. On the re-arrange
ment of the Northumbrian dioceses in 685, Cuthbert, against his
wiU, was raised to the bishopric of Lindisfame. His episcopate
of activity and love lasted only for two years, and then once
more he retired to his hermit life at Fame and shortly afterwards
died. But the story of his travels after death is more famous
than his life. Driven from their home at Lindisfame by the
Danish terror in the tenth century, the monks carried with them
the remains of Cuthbert ; saUing for Ireland, they were driven
back to the English coast by a storm, and Cuthbert's own book
of the gospels was washed overboard ; in great distress, they were
miraculously guided to a point above high-water mark, where
Cuthbert's volume was found uninjured. For seven years the
monks wandered, tUl finaUy they fixed their home at Chester-le-
Street, six mUes from Durham, 883. A hundred years later,
990, they fled from a fresh Danish invasion, tUl finally the
bones of Cuthbert found rest in the stately cathedral of Durham.
There is one more character of our early Church which claims
attention. Bede, a pupU of Benedict Biscop, lived the quiet Bede.
and uneventful Ufe of a scholar at the monastery of Jarrow,
673-735. Entering the convent at seven years of age, Bede
spent the whole of his life within its precincts ; were it not
for his labours, hardly anything would be known of the leaders

38 The Church of England
of our early Church. Augustine, Aidan, Theodore, would be little
more than names. Bede was a very learned man : Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, were all famUiar to him, especially the works of
Vergil. His whole delight was in learning and teaching ; but
he never aUowed his literary labour to interfere with his devo
tions, and attendance at the canonical hours. Alcuin reports
that Bede once said, " I know that angels visit the canonical
hours and the gatherings of the brethren. What if they did not
find me among them ? Would they not say, ' Where is Bede ?
Why comes he not with the brethren to the appointed prayers ? ' "
Bede wrote on aU kinds of subjects — on Scripture, on natural
science, on arithmetic, on St. Cuthbert ; but the book which
by the clearness of its style, the beauty of its stories, and the
value of its information has won for him an imperishable place
among English authors is The Ecclesiastical History of the
EngUsh People. Bede is the scholar-saint, one of the finest
products of the whole monastic system. The story of his death
is well known ; giving lessons to his pupUs, chanting the Psalms,
offering prayer and thanks to God, meditating on Scripture,
he spent the days. At last the end drew near ; he was dicta
ting to his scribe his translation of St. John's Gospel ; " For I
would not that my children should read a lie after I am
gone." " There is stUl one chapter wanting," said the boy
Wilbert, " and it seems hard for thee to be questioned further."
" It is easy," said Bede ; " take thy pen, mend it, and write
quickly." At the ninth hour Bede called the monks and dis
tributed among them his little gifts, sajdng, " The time of my
departure is nigh at hand, for my soul longs to see Christ my
King in His beauty." " Dear master," said the boy, " there is
stUl one sentence not written down." " Good," he said, " write
it down." After a little space the boy said, " Now it is written."
"Thou hast weU said," replied Bede; "it is finished; take my
head in thy hands, for it joys me much to sit opposite my holy
place where I was wont to pray, that so sitting I may caU upon
my Father." So there, sitting on the floor of his ceU, singing the
" Gloria Patri et FUio et Spiritui saiicto," he breathed his last,
and his pure spirit entered the presence of God.
Bede has always been known by the name of the " Venerable
Bede." There are many legends to account for the name ; but
the most beautiful is that which teUs how, when Bede was an
old man, his sight grew very dim. Some mockers came to him

Wilfrid and Theodore 39
and said that the church was fuU of people wanting instruction
in the Christian faith. Bede went up into the pulpit, and in
the belief that the church was fuU, though it was reaUy empty,
preached a sermon. And at the end, the angels, who alone
thronged the church, said " Amen, very venerable Bede."
The early Church of England produced many types of saint- Missionary
ship ; her activities were manifold. WhUe Bede was living his E°gii°i^.
quiet and uneventful scholar's life at Jarrow, other Englishmen men in
were engaged in missionary work, carrying the gospel to the £^™^°y'
heathen races of Frisia and Germany. Of these the most famous
were S. WUlibrord of Northumbria, who took up WUfrid's work
in Frisia, and after a long life of missionary work died in 739,
and Boniface, the Apostle of Germany. Boniface, born in
Devon circ. 680, was consecrated Bishop by Pope Gregory
in 723, and laboured in Frisia, Thuringia, and Bavaria. In 743
he fixed his archiepiscopal see at Maintz, and for many years
he worked among the German tribes, assisted by other English
missionaries. He crowned his splendid missionary life with a
martyr's death in Frisia, 755.

Spiritual decline in
eighthcentury.

Decay of
mon asticism.

CHAPTER V
THE CHURCH TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST-THE
COMING OF THE DANES— ALFRED AND HIS
SUCCESSORS
The golden age of the early English Church was over ; the
eighth and ninth centuries mark a period of general decline.
It was not that the Church feU into dogmatic heresy, or raised,
as in a later age, high ecclesiastical pretensions against the
State. The decline was marked by stagnation and loss of all
ideals ; the lower nature of man re-asserted itself ; religion
was stifled in an atmosphere of sloth, impurity, worldUness.
Even before the death of Bede the downward movement had
begun ; the letter written by Bede to his friend and former
pupU Egbert,! the first Archbishop of York, 734, reveals to
us the decline, and the evidence of this letter is confirmed by
the canons of the councU of Clovesho, 747. The canons of
the councU show that by this time the parochial system was
firmly established. But they also show a great increase of
moral evU. The monasteries were subjected to the severest
criticism both by Bede and the councU ; almost everywhere
monastic disciplme had been relaxed ; too often they were mere
places for amusement, sometimes they were hotbeds of vice ;
we hear of the ceUs of nuns which were simply homes of gossip,
feasting, and drunkenness ; both nuns and monks, we are told,
lived in beautiful coloured clothes, instead of sober garb, and
spent their lives in a round of amusements. The monasteries
were too often the resorts of minstrels, musicians, and buffoons.
Bede especiaUy denounced the pseudo-monasteries, which took
the name simply to escape exemption from secular duties and
service to the State. There were many such in Northumbria, of
• It will be remembered that Gregory the Great's scheme for the organisa
tion of the English Church had contemplated two provinces and two metro
politans, each with twelve suffragan bishops. But the plan, on the flight of
Paulinus from Northumbria, had fallen through. Egbert was the first Bishop of
York who both received a pall and actually exercised metropolitan authority.
40

The Church to Norman Conquest 41
no profit to God or man ; too often their rulers were married
men, and the so-caUed monasteries descended as hereditary
estates to their chUdren. Bede urged Egbert to hold visitations
regularly and put them under stringent supervision. SimUar
orders were given to the bishops by the councU of Clovesho.
But the decay of monastic life was only the most marked -
symptom of the general decline. We learn from this same letter
of Bede that some of the bishops neglected their spiritual
duties and associated with frivolous and scandalous friends ;
many of the clergy were given to excessive drinking — a national
vice even in those early days — and more keen, so we leam from
Alcuin towards the end of the century, on digging out foxes and
hunting hares than on their spiritual duties. Avarice had
corrupted both bishops and clergy. Bede pointed out to Egbert
that the bishopric of York was stUl far too large for adequate
supervision ; there were in it many parishes which had no
priests at aU, and never saw their Bishop. Bede urged the
imperative need of subdividing the diocese, and reminded
Egbert of Gregory's scheme, by which York ought to have
twelve suffragans. Many of the clergy were quite uneducated
and knew no Latin ; and for their use Bede says he has trans
lated the Creed and the Lord's Prayer into English. The laity
were even more ignorant, and there was a general neglect of
the Holy Communion.
The picture that we have of the internal condition of the
Church in the eighth century is far from pleasant, and shows
that the degradation of the ninth century was not simply the
result of the Viking invasions. The decline of religion was
already far advanced when the Vikings came and carried the
work of destruction stUl further. The latter half of the eighth Supre-
century is marked by the supremacy of Mercia under Kmg Offa, Mercia^
737-796- ""^^^
Offa was in many ways a great King. He established his
lordship over East Anglia, Essex, and Kent ; he wrested Oxford
shire from Wessex, and as a protection from the Welsh he raised
the great dyke known as Offa's Dyke, running from Chester to
the Wye. On the Continent, too, he made a great impression.
It is clear from the correspondence of Charles the Great that he
regarded Offa as the one great Englishman of the time. But
from an ecclesiastical point of view his reign was reactionary,
though marked by the foundation of many monasteries, of

First visit

42 The Church of England
which the great monastery of St. Albans is said to have been
one. His ecclesiastical innovations were unhappy. The first
of these innovations was the visit of two Papal Legates in
of'papai y86. It was the first and only visit of Papal Legates to
Legates, g^^gj^^ before the eve of the Norman Conquest, but neverthe
less the begummg of a yoke which in course of time was found
unbearable. The second mnovation was even more unhappy.
Offa, like many kings of a later age, wished to see his kingdom
of Mercia ecclesiasticaUy self-contamed. Kent at this time was
dependent on him, but this dependence might not last. Ofia
did not want Mercia to be ecclesiasticaUy subject to the aUen
archbishopric of Canterbury ; he realised the unifying power
of the Church, and wished to use it for the consolidation of his
power in Mercia. Kent, too, was in a state of poUtical con
fusion ; the comparative stabUity of the archbishop's position
rendered him the most important man in Kent. His influence,
if used against Offa, might undermine the Mercian King's
supremacy. So Offa was not sorry to aim a blow at the arch-
Lichfieid bishop's importance. He persuaded the Pope, in retum for an
anarch; annual payment, to ratify the creation of a third English~archi-
bishopric, ¦ -^ , T • U£ 1J
787-802. episcopate at Lichfield.
At the legatine synod of Chelsea, 787, which was attended
by the bishops of the province of Canterbury, and also by Offa
and his witan, Lichfield was raised to metropolitan dignity,
and more than half of the sees dependent on Canterbury trans
ferred to the new Archbishop of Lichfield. It is to be noted
that the creation of this new metropolitan see was not effected
simply by the Pope, but by an English synod. It was, however,
a reactionary step. The Church had hitherto stood for unity
among the English nations. A clerk was at home in aU the
kingdoms ; a Mercian priest, for example, could officiate in-
aU the churches; bishops and archbishops were drawn from
natives of all the kingdoms ; the see of Canterbury was held
by men of Wessex and Mercia as weU as by men of Kent. The
first collective activity of the English people had been in the
ecclesiastical assemblies. This unifying influence had already
been mjured by the erection of York into a metropolitan see.
But this creation merely recognised an accomplished fact, an
existing separation ; for right down to the Norman Conquest,
even in the days when all England was united under the house
of Wessex, Northumbria remained very much apart from the

The Church to Norman Conquest 43
rest of the kingdom. It was owing to Northumbrian indifference
that Harold was defeated at Hastings. Even so, it can hardly
be doubted that the existence of two separate ecclesiastical
provinces in England has been a source of weakness to the
English Church. But the creation of a new archiepiscopal see
at Lichfield was a wanton attack on the Church's unifying
influence. If Mercia was to have a metropolitan see at Lichfield,
it would also be reasonable that Winchester should have the
same position in Wessex. And so, instead of one, there would
have been seven churches, respectively conterminous with each
of the heptarchic kingdoms. The Church would have become a
dividing force instead of a uniting bond. LuckUy no permanent
injury was done ; for Cenwulf, Offa's successor, after a Kentish
rising in which assistance was given him by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, agreed to the abolition of the new archiepiscopate,
and Lichfield returned to the obedience of Canterbury in 802.
2ut Jhe aimual payment to Rome did not stop, and seems to
have been the origin of Peter's pence, a tax of a penny on each Peter^s
hearth, which was regularly paid to Rome after the ninth'P®"'^'-
century. In this same synod of Chelsea the payment of tithes Tithe.
was ordered, and as Offa and his witan were present, henceforth
the payment was made compulsory by secular law.
Offa died in 796, but even before his death a presage had
been given of the coming storm. In 793 Danish pirates viking
had appeared off the coast of Northumbria, and had sacked the '"^^'on-
cradle of our northern Christianity, the monastery of Lindisfame.
During the century which followed, England never knew a time
of rest tiU the victories of Alfred. Into every nook and cranny
of the land the Danes made their way, plundering on all sides.
York was taken in 867. Whitby was destroyed ; Wear
mouth anitjarrow, Crowland, Ely, and Lindisfame (for the second
time) were sacked. These are mere instances of the universal
devastation. In East Anglia the King, Edmund, after defeat,
on his refusal to deny Chilst, was bound to a tree and riddled with
arrows tUl he died. Over his bones at a later time, in 903, the
stately abbey of Bury St. Edmunds was raised.
The success of these pagan plunderers was due to many Causes of
causes — to the high state of their organisation, and the wonderful ^^^^^^_
co-operation between different bands, to their splendid " intelli
gence department " — they always contrived to come just at the
right moment and to the right places — to their mUitary efficiency.

Alfred,871-901.

His share
in unifi
cation of
country.

44 The Church of England
the superiority of their arms, the paralysing rapidity of their
movement, based on their navy, and theU habit, as soon as they
landed, of sweeping together all the horses m the neighbourhood,
and not least to the divisions and dissensions of the English
people. Mercia and Northumbria were antagonistic to the
newly-risen supremacy of Wessex under Egbert and his de
scendants, whUe in their attack on the West Saxon power the
Danes were assisted by the co-operation of the Corn-welsh. It
is sufiicient in this place to say that at the time of the accession
of Alfred in 871 the Danes had made themselves masters of
Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent. In some cases the
old royal famUies had been kiUed off. Wessex itself was over
run and hard pressed, and it seemed as though England would
once more become wholly pagan. But at this critical moment a
deliverer arose in the person of Alfred. Alfred is the model
Christian King. But the Alfred of legend is a different person
from the Alfred of history. The Alfred of legend is the King
of all England, the inventor of trial by jury, the creator of the
English navy, the divider of England into shires and hundreds,
the founder of the University of Oxford. But the legend has a
basis of fact ; it has seized on real sides of the King's activity,
and then exaggerated or distorted them. If Alfred was not the
first King of aU England, he did prepare the way for the unifica
tion of aU England under his successors. Driven back into the
marshes of Athelney in Somerset by Danish victories, at the
opening of his reign, Alfred after careful preparations emerged
to win the great victory of Ethandim. By the peace of Wed-
more, in 878, the Danish King, Guthrum, became a Christian,
and received the baptismal name of Athelstan ; the boundary
between Alfred's kingdom on the one hand and the Danish
kingdoms on the other was carefiUly drawn m 885 — up the
Thames, then up the Lea, then to Bedford, then up the Ouse to
Watling Street, and then along Watling Street to Chester. Thus
Alfred did more than merely save Wessex from the Danes ;
under him Wessex became a centre for the deUverance and
union of the whole coimtry ; before his time, Mercians and East
Anglians, and Kentmen and Northumbrians had looked upon
the King of Wessex as a conqueror ; they now looked upon him
as a deUverer. Alfred did not form England into a single
kingdom, but it is true that he took the first steps in this direc
tion. By the treaty of Wedmore the frontier of Wessex was

The Church to Norman Conquest 45
thrust forward by the annexation of half of Mercia ; under
Alfred's successors the rest of England was graduaUy incorpo
rated. Similarly Alfred was not the creator of the shires and
hundreds. Wessex was divided into shires before his time,
and the Danelagh was only so divided by his successors. It
is an absurd anachronism, based on a sixteenth century in
vention, to say that Alfred was the founder of the University His edu-
of Oxford ; but he did take a great interest in education. There ^^J^^'
was nothing over which Alfred mourned more sadly than the
decay of reUgion and learning. At the beginning of his reign
he teUs us that there was not a single priest south of the Thames,
and very few south of the Humber, who could understand
Latin. To remedy this state of affairs he took many steps ;
he estabUshed a court school for the sons of the upper classes ;
in his introduction to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care,
a copy of which he sent to every one of his bishops, he em
phasised the importance of education, and urged that " all the
freebom youth of England be set to leEtrn English writing, and
that those be taught Latin whom it is proposed to educate
further and promote to higher office." It was with an educa
tional purpose that Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and
elsewhere ; and since bricks and mortar are of no use without
living teachers, he imported teachers both from Britain and
abroad — Plegmund from Mercia, whom he afterwards made
Archbishop of Canterbury, Grimbald from Flanders, John the
old Saxon, and the famous Asser (the author of Alfred's Life)
from St. David's. As the knowledge of Latin was almost extinct
in England, Alfred himself translated various Latin works, that
the English youth might have text-books for study. The most
famous of these translations were The General History of Orosius,
a book written at the beginning of the fifth century with the
intention of showing the horrors of pagan times, and God's
providential purposes in graduaUy ameliorating the conditions
of human Ufe ; Boethius' Consolatio, philosophic reflections
written by the statesman Boethius when imprisoned by the
Ostrogothic King Theodoric in 522 ; Gregory the Great's
Pastoral Care, a guide book for the use of the priest in the
confessional ; Gregory's Dialogues, stories of a somewhat absurd
character with a religious moral. A translation of Bede's
Ecclesiastical History has also been assigned, but perhaps wrongly,
to Alfred. It is to be noted that in all these works Alfred did

His mili
tary work,

His legis
lation.

46 The Church of England
not merely reproduce the originals, but made additions and
comments of his own, adapting them to his own purposes.
Thus in the body of Orosius' history he made two large inser
tions, the one a description of the geography of North and
Central Europe, the other the narratives of two northern
voyagers. Most important of all, it was under Alfred's inspira
tion that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was started — our chief
authority for the centuries which foUowed. And so in a very
real sense Alfred may be styled the founder of English, prose and
English history. The activities of this extraordinary man
were manifold. He was a mUitary leader of no mean order;
he saw that if the Danes were to be crushed, it was imperative
to command the sea. Though his ships were unsuccessful, credit
must nevertheless be given Alfred for his insight. He re
organised the army and led it to victory.
He was a legislator ; not in the sense that he was the author
of great legal changes ; his code of laws was simply, as he tells
us, a selection from the laws of his predecessors, Ini, Offa, Ethel
bert. But in this code of laws the essentiaUy reUgious nature
of the man came out ; the Teutonic customs were given a
Christian colouring ; crime was identified with sin ; justice
meant for him not simply the old Teutonic custom, but moral
right ; the system of money payments in atonement for crime
was wrongly but characteristically explained as an attempt of
Christian bishops to mitigate the ferocity of the times ; the
code started with the Ten Commandments, and a negative version
of the golden rule as its preamble.
Alfred was the captain, the lawgiver, the saint, the scholar,
the teacher of his people. It is not therefore wonderful that
one of the most conspicuous features of his reign was the growiog
strength of the monarchy ; his reign was marked by the exten
sion of the King's peace and the growth of the idea of treason.
It is in Alfred's reign that the first law of treason is found.
The Church exalted the kingly office, and represented treason
as a heinous offence — the crime of Judas, who betrayed his
Lord. The chief authority for the life of Alfred is the so-caUed
Life of Asser ; but Asser's Life of Alfred has had its authenticity
called in question ; the best authorities are now agreed that
Legend of Asser's life contains a genuuie nucleus crusted over with legend
to glorify an imaginary saint called St. Neot, Many of the

Growing strengthof king
ship.

St. Neot.

The Church to Norman Conquest 47
stories familiar to us from our chUdhood are parts of this hagio-
logical romance. The story of Alfred beginning his reign in an
unkingly way, skulking in Somersetshire tiU he was rebuked by
St. Neot ; the story of the cakes, and the story of the mysterious
iUness with which Alfred was afflicted, must all be relegated to
the lumber-room of hagiology. Alfred was the ideal Christian
King ; his activities were all controUed and inspired by his love
of God and sense of duty to his people, " My will," he said,
" was to live worthUy as long as I Uved, and after my death to
leave to them that should come after, my memory in good
works." Alfred's wish has been fulfiUed. So long as England
lives, the memory of the blameless King, his lofty character,
and his splendid achievements will be handed down the
generations. Let us turn once more to directly religious questions. The Effect of
effects of the Viking invasions on the life of the Church were Pa^'!''
° mvasions
marked and deplorable. It is true that within a hundred years on religion.
from the times of Alfred the Danes were all Christianised, and
had contributed no less than three archbishops to the English
Church. But the evU results were none the less conspicuous.
PoUticaUy, the division of England into the Danelagh and the (a) Sepa-
English portion was a great source of weakness ; ecclesiastically, north" from
the Church of York was almost entirely cut off from the fuller south.
life of the southern Church, though to secure some hold over
the Archbishop of York the see of Worcester, from the year
963, was either bestowed on himself in plurality or else (j) Extinc-
on one of his kinsfolk. Several bishoprics in the north and b?^ "pj-i^j
east, such as Lindisfame, Hexham, Dunwich, Lichfield, dis
appeared, in some cases for ever ; churches and monasteries lay (c) Des-
in ruins ; the clergy became uneducated and worldly — some- ctarches°
times they were found in command of armies. Even where
monasteries survived or were restored, they were monasteries (</) Decay
merely in name ; if there were monks, they were monks merely {jfe.*^'"'"^
in the sense that they had succeeded to monastic property;
m reality they were secular clergy, generaUy married, living a
decadent and often a degraded life.
Alfred did much to check this decline. He contributed Alfred
towards the restoration of churches ; he took steps to diffuse f "check
education and restore English learning to something of its the decline.
former glory. But this work coiUd not be accomplished rapidly ;
it was only possible to prepare the way for future generations.

Edward
and
Athelstan

England
unified.

48 The Church of England
He founded, among others, a monastery at Athelney,^ but as
monastic life was now distasteful to EngUshmen, he found it
necessary to import Frankish clergy. It is probable that these
clergy were reaUy seculars ; but at any rate they were unmarried
and wiUing to live the " ccenobitic " life. The restoration of
real Benedictinism, and the substitution of "regulars" for
" seculars " was the work of a later age. Alfred died in 900
or 901. His work was continued by his successors. His son
Edward, 901-924, incorporated East Anglia and Danish
Mercia in the dominions of the house of Wessex, whUe the most
important ecclesiastical event of the reign was the increase of
the episcopate of Wessex from two to five. Edward's son
Athelstan, 924-940, completed the incorporation of the
Danelagh by the annexation of Northumbria and the defeat
of a combined host of Danes, Scots, and Cumbrians at the
unknown site Brunanburh, 937. Athelstan was the first
King of united England. Thus it wUl be seen that from the
time of Alfred, the leadership in the unification of England was
no longer taken by the Church, but by the monarchy. But if
the lead was taken by the monarchy, the efforts of the Kings
were ably seconded by the clergy.
In this consolidating policy the chief instruments and advisers
were the prelates of the Church. Bishops became secular states
men ; in the ages of anarchy much work of a secular nature
had been thrown on the bishops, as a more permanent element
than the fleeting Kings. The episcopal activities became
secularised. This secularisation now continued, but it took the
statesmen, form of bishops being the advisers and ministers of the King.
The movement had both a good and a bad side. It was bad in
so far as it withdrew the bishops from their directly spiritual work,
and made them either mere leaders of a party in the State, such
as Stigand, or the ministers of a wicked and extortionate King
such as Ralf Flambard ; but it was good in so far as it brought
the State under Christian influence, and supplied to good and
far-sighted Kings wise and learned advisers such as Dunstan.
The permanent aUiance between the house of Wessex and the
see of Canterbury can be dated from the year 838. That
alliance found its definite and most complete expression in
' A jewel found near Athelney in 1693, and now in the Galleries at Oxford,
with the inscription, ".Alfred me haet gewercan," is an interesting memorial
of Alfred's connection with Athelney,

Church men as
secular

The Church to Norman Conquest 49
Dunstan, who was at once the Archbishop of Canterbury and
" the Prime Minister of Edgar's consolidating policy."
The most conspicuous feature of the relations between Organi-
Church and State from the time of the Danish invasions is their nations of
Church
closeness ; the organisations of Church and State were closely and state
interwrought. The bishops became mere nominees of the bought.
King, though the form of election by the Bishop's Church was
retained. By the eleventh century a bishop was consecrated
in obedience to a royal writ, and was by the King invested with
the insignia of his office, a crozier and a ring.
ConcUiar activity of the Church disappeared : we hear no
more of Church councUs meeting to pass canons ; canons were
replaced by archiepiscopal constitutions issued on the royal
authority. The witan, which was attended both by bishops
and secular thegns, discussed and determined aU business,
whether secular or ecclesiastical. The bishop took his seat not
only in the witan, but in the shire court, which again dealt with
aU causes, both civU and ecclesiastical. It was in the shire
court, and not in a special court of his own, that the bishop
administered God's law. Besides this, the bishop would no
doubt have a penitential discipline, enforced in the last resort
by excommunication, over both clergy and laity. SimUarly
the parish priest would take part in the local life of the viUage,
and if ^ there was a local court, take part in its work. He would
generally be a married man, of the same social rank as the
viUagers, and a sharer both of their duties and festivities. As
for his religious duties, he would generaUy say mass daUy m
the parish church.
Thus both in the higher and lower grades of the social
structure, Church and State, things ecclesiastical and things
secvUar were closely interwrought. The Church had become
worldly ; no ascetic or other self-sacrificing ideal was set before
the people by the clergy ; a regeneratmg force was needed and
found in a reformed monasticism.
The -glories of early English Christianity had largely centred Decay of
in her monasteries, but English monasticism had f aUen on evU asticism.
days, and was now practically extinct. The monks who existed
were only monks in the sense of holding lands which formerly
belonged to monasteries. These monks were reaUy secular
» The village probably had no court or tun-moot unless a lord had " sac and
soc ¦' over the whole of it, and therefore held a kind of feudal court.

50 The Church of England
clergy, often married, and not in any form living a " common "
life. In many cases monastic lands had been alienated, and the
abbacies were mere appanages in the gift of the King or some
other secular person.
The greatest churchman of the tenth century was Dunstan.
His life has a double importance. He was the first of that
long roU of ecclesiastical statesmen for which the Middle Ages
were so famous. He was the predecessor of Lanfranc, Roger
of Salisbury, Becket, Wykeham, Beaufort, Wolsey. His Ufe
also witnessed, and he was a leading agent in, the regeneration
of monasticism and the introduction of the reformed Benedictme
rule into England.
Career of Dunstan was bom in the year 925 of noble parentage;
Dunstan, j^g ^^^ educated by Irish pUgrims at the Abbey of Glastonbury,
where he showed, even as a boy, the combmation of an ecstatic
temperament — he frequently saw the devU — ^with great practical
gifts. He became extremely skUled as a craftsman, a maker
of organs and beUs, whUe the beauty of his transcripts of
manuscripts awakened the admiration of aU. The gay lUe of
Athelstan's court had no attractions for him. Having taken
monastic vows, he was in 943 appointed by King Edmund the
Abbot of Glastonbury. At Glastonbury Dunstan re-introduced
the " common " life, and increased the monastic as against the
secular element. But the important part of Dunstan's work
at Glastonbury was educational. His most famous pupU was
Ethelwold, who was made prior of Glastonbury and then Abbot
of Abingdon. It was Ethelwold who became the leader in the
introduction of the reformed Benedictine rule into England;
for he 'sent one of his monks to the famous monastery of Fleury
in France to leam the rule, and on his retum Ethelwold intro
duced it into the monastery at Abingdon.
Another famous Englishman named Oswald also went to
Fleury and learned the rule. MeanwhUe political events had
led to Dunstan's banishment. Dunstan had become the chief
adviser of Edred, Edmund's successor, on affairs of State; in
the witan he was the foremost man. But in 955 Edred was
succeeded by Edwy. Edwy was a mere boy of fifteen, in
fatuated with love for a lady named Elfgifu, a near kins
woman, within the Church's prohibited degrees. This fatuous
Edwy's youth, in the middle of his own coronation feast, offered a public
coronation „,.,. ,,,,,,
feast. affront to his assembled nobles by leaving the haU to seek the

The Church to Norman Conquest 51
society of the lady and her mother. Dunstan, on the instruction
of the assembled nobles, went out and brought him back. But
it is abstud, as Dr. Stubbs points out, to argue from this that
Dunstan was a precursor of HUdebrand, anxious to humUiate
the royal before the ecclesiastical power. The deed was done
by the express order of the witan and to vindicate the law of
marriage ; the humUiation of Edwy was richly deserved, but
was the accident, not the purpose, of Dunstan's action. The
struggle of parties at the English court during the next three
years, and the grounds of the struggle, are somewhat obscure.
But in 956 Elfgifu was able to gratify her spite by securing
the banishment of Dunstan. This banishment is only of im
portance because it was spent by Dtmstan at the Flemish abbey
of Blandinium in Ghent, and enabled him to see what life in a
real Benedictine convent was like.
In 957 the English north of the Thames revolted from
Edwy, and chose his brother Edgar as their King ; parties
seem to have divided on political, and not on ecclesiastical lines,
though, as subsequent events showed, Edwy's party was anti-
monastic, whUe the monastic party favoured Edgar's cause.
Edgar when seated on the throne immediately recalled Dunstan,
and appointed him Bishop of Worcester, and presently gave
him also in plurality the bishopric of London.
In 959 Edwy died, and Edgar became the King of all Edgar
England, while in the foUowing year Dunstan became Arch- j^^°s-
bishop of Canterbury. For sixteen years the two men, Edgar Arch-
and Dunstan, laboured together, and it is almost impossible in cantS-°'
the policy that was carried out to say where the influence of the bury.
one man ended and the other began. Dunstan was the " Prime
Minister " of the poUcy that aimed at the administration of
equal justice between rich and poor, between Dane and English,
and the maintenance of order by the organisation of the
hundred system. Dunstan's zeal for education was conspicuous,
and this was a primary duty of the many religious foundations
estabUshed or restored in Edgar's reign. To his credit also
we must assign the renewed intercourse between the Church of intercourse
England and the Churches of France and Flanders. But the foreign
burning ecclesiastical question of the reign arose from the churches.
attempt to introduce into England the reformed Benedictinism. Restora-
The reformers wished to expel the seciUar clergy who were ''™ °*^
'^ . ^'^ mon-
in de facto possession of the ancient monastic property, and to asticism.

52 The Church of England
restore it to real monks, who would Uve according to the strict
Benedictme rule. Dunstan's* attitude towards this question
has been misrepresented. He has been described as entering
into a relentless crusade against the married clergy. As a
matter of fact, there was no fresh legislation of the reign directed
against the married clergy as such, whatever preference Dunstan
may personally have had for a celibate clergy. The matter at
issue was quite different, namely, were the ancient monastic lands
and buUdings to be taken from married seciUar clergy and
restored to true monks, who woiUd live the common life according
to the strict Benedictine rule ? The wider question of the
general celibacy of aU the clergy was not raised. As to the
special issue, there can be no doubt that Dunstan welcomed the
introduction of a strict monastic discipline ; had Dpnstan been
in opposition, the substitution of monks for secular clergy could
never have been carried out in the thorough way it was ; but the
leadership of the movement was with Ethelwold, Bishop of
Winchester, and Oswald, Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop
of York., Dunstan did not expel the secular clergy from his own
cathedrals, Worcester, London, Canterbury, though they were in
origin monastic foundations. This expulsion of the seculars
was probably the reform about which Dunstan was least keen,
as it tended to create much discontent and Ul-feeling.
The heart and soul of the movement was Ethelwold, Bishop
of Winchester ; even Oswald did not show the same thorough
ness, for at York the seculars were not expeUed, whUe at
Worcester, Oswald, leaving the seculars in possession, founded
a new Benedictine monastery and transferred to its church his
bishop's stool. It was Ethelwold who, beginning with his
own cathedral at Winchester, relentlessly expeUed aU seculars
whom he fovmd in possession of monastic property. In this he
was backed by Edgar ; for it was to the monastic party that
Edgar owed his throne. This, too, accounts for the glowing
praise awarded Edgar by his monkish biographers, when the
popular songs embodied in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle show
that Edgar was anything but a reputable character.
The movement in favour of a stricter monasticism carried
all before it ; Edgar himself founded or restored forty
monasteries. Before the tide spent its force, one half of the
cathedral chapters were restored to monks ; there was a general
' See at length Memorials of St. Dunstan. Introduction by Stubbs.

The Church to Norman Conquest 53
rise in the standard of purity, the sanctity of the marriage tie
was more generaUy recognised ; the celibacy of priests was
encouraged ; there was a revival of religious life, and many
new churches were buUt. The Benedictines have always been
famous for their educational work, and the new monastic schools
did something for the restoration of the learning which the
Danes had destroyed.
To retum to Dunstan : after the death of Edgar in 975 Death of
a temporary reaction set in, and on the accession of Ethelred ^^jfe^em
the Redeless in 978 Dimstan retired from political life of Dun-
to more spiritual work at Canterbury. We have a pleasing ^'^°' '^ "
picture drawn of the archbishop's closing years ; we see him
in constant attendance at the spiritual offices of the Church;
administering charity to the poor, correcting manuscripts, and
in his leisure moments showing his old skUl as a craftsman
and musician. The new King loved not Dunstan's ways, nor
did Dunstan love his. WhUe Ethelred mismanaged public
affairs, Dunstan in his private sphere did what he could to
promote peace between man and man, to protect widows and
orphans, to teach aU the people who flocked to hear his words,
to steward the resources of the Church. Dunstan was a great
man ; he was a stem upholder of the moral law even against
the mightiest. A noble whom he had excommimicated for
contracting an unlawful marriage obtained a papal brief in his
favour. Dunstan boldly disobeyed it. But in Dunstan there
was nothing of the extreme ascetic. Setting on one side the
miraculous element in which his life is embedded by the
chroniclers, we may confidently assert that he was a man of
widespread culture and varied activities who crowned a life of
public service with a useful and industrious old age. Dunstan His death,
died in 988. MeanwhUe evU days had overtaken England. '^^•
Ethelred's reign, 978-1016, was marked by an unbroken series
of disasters ; the earls who represented the old royal lines of the
heptarchic period kept alive the feeling of provincial separatism
and warred both against each other and against the King.
" Wheresoever the carcase is, there wiU the eagles be gathered
together." So when the tidings of Ethelred's weakness and
the disorders of his kingdom went roimd the northem coast of Renewal
Europe, bands of plundering Danes quickly renewed their °[,^j^'^''
attack. Ethelred, with incredible foUy, tried to buy them off,
and, that he might have the requisite money, began the hateful

54 Tk^ Church of England
tax of the Danegeld. Twenty years of desultory fighting and
efforts to buy off the invading swarms followed. In 1002
Ethelred added crime to foUy by the mdiscriminate massacre
of peaceful Danish settlers on St. Brice's Day. This in its turn
led to an organised invasion of England by the great Danish
King, Swegen, in 1012, made memorable by the massacre of
Archbishop Elphege of Canterbury. Elphege refused to in
crease the burdens of the poor by raising his ransom from them,
and after one of their drimken orgies the Danes attacked
him with the bones of the oxen on which they had just fed,
and beat him to death. The traitor Edric Streona, Earl of
Mercia, assisted Swegen, and finally, in 1016, on Swegen's
death, his son Cnut became the King of aU England. Ethelred
had married Emma of Normandy, and the old English royal
Cnut's famUy took refuge across the seas m Normandy. Cnut reigned
reign. Q^gj. England wisely and weU for nineteen years, 1016-1035.
He is an exceptional instance of a man improved by the pos
session of power ; the opening of his reign shows us a blood
thirsty and tyrannous ruler, but he quickly developed into a
sagacious, peaceful. God-fearing man. He identified himself with
the English people, and soon became a thorough Englishman,
making England the centre of his northern empire, and employ
ing Englishmen in Denmark and his other northem possessions.
His love for his people and his genuine religious feeling are seen
in his letter of 1028 written from Rome to the English people.
He had gone to Rome on pUgrimage in the preceding year, and
he encouraged his people to do the like. He was generous in
his gifts to churches and monasteries, but viewed as a whole the
era of 1016-1066 was one of religious exhaustion and decline ;
church preferment was increasingly used as a reward for political
and secular service. Cnut treated his chaplains as secretaries,
and then rewarded them by the gift of bishoprics ; there was
growing worldliness on aU sides, and simony was rife. The
brighter side of the picture is to be found in the influence of
Christian feeling on legislation, and the success of English
missionaries among the heathen peoples of Scandinavia and
Denmark. Cnut was not great like WiUiam the Conqueror. He did
not create an administrative system which would survive his
death. The peace which signalised his reign depended on his
own personality. On his death in 1035 anarchy ensued ;

The Church to Norman Conquest 55
his two sons, Harold and Harthacnut, were godless, drunken
young men ; fortunately they only lived for a few years, and
in 1042 the old English royal line was restored in the person
of Edward the Confessor. With the reign of the Confessor the Edward
Norman Conquest began. The court of the Norman Duke was ^^^^^l'
to Edward what the court of Louis XIV. was in a later age to reig" ^
Charles II. Edward was the son of a Norman mother, and '°4^-i°fiS-
therefore closely related to the ducal house ; he had spent a
large portion of his life in exUe in Normandy, and on his retum
brought with him many of his Norman and other contmental
friends. Pious, gentle, and weU meaning, he was at the same
time a thoroughly weak King, easUy led, with none of the capacity
needed for riding the whirlwind of those tempestuous times.
In short, he was only fit for a monastery, and not at aU for
kingship. The reign of Edward was a prolonged struggle
between the national party, headed by Godwme, the first Earl
of Wessex,! and his son Harold, and the party of the foreigners,
of whom the chief were Eustace of Boulogne and Robert of
Jumieges, created successively Bishop of London and then
Archbishop of Canterbury. The most marked feature of the
reign tUl 1052 was the promotion of foreigners, especially
Normans, to high secular and ecclesiastical office. Many of
the bishops so appointed, such as Ulf, the Norman Bishop of
Dorchester, were quite unworthy, and Robert of Jumieges,
who was said to have such influence over Edward as to make
him believe a black crow white, was nothing more than a
mischievous charlatan.
The quarrel between the national and foreign parties reached
its climax in 1051 over an affray that had occurred between
the men of Dover and the men of Eustace of Boulogne. God-
wine, in whose earldom Dover lay, took the EngUshmen's part,
with the result that he was banished. But in the following
year he returned amid general rejoicings of the English
people. The foreign party was definitely worsted ; from
1052, whUe retaining an ornamental position at the court,
they were excluded from aU political influence. Robert of
Jumieges was evicted from the archbishopric of Canterbury ;
Stigand, the Bishop of Winchester, was promoted to the metro
politan see, but continued to hold the bishopric of Wmchester
^ Cnut was the English King who first dissociated the English kingship from
Wessex, and made Wessex an earldom.

Increased
power of
Papacy,

William's claim to
throne.

56 The Church of England
in plurality. This appointment was destined to have important
consequences ; for Robert, from a canonical point of view, was
stUl lawfully archbishop ; Stigand was declared a schismatical
intruder, and Robert's reinstatement ordered by the Pope. In
1053 Godwine died, but Harold, his son, succeeded to his position
and influence as Earl of Wessex. Harold was a more reUgious
man than his father, and, unlike Godwine, he gave lavishly to
the Church. But he continued to support Stigand in his schis
matical occupation of the see of Canterbury, though Stigand
was regarded as a usurper by the English Church itself, and
bishops-elect sought consecration either abroad or from Eldred,
the Archbishop of York.
In 1058 Stigand at last received a pall from Pope
Benedict X., but this did not mend matters, for Benedict was
denounced as a usurper of the papal see in 1059, ^"^^ f^^ ^'^^'
ceeding Popes, inspired by HUdebrand, the future Gregory VIL,
made adherence to the antipope Benedict a ground for further
denunciation of the schismatic Stigand. Stigand had the
distinction of excommunication by five successive Popes.
Among the other foreign influences which made themselves
felt in England was the increased power of the papacy. Envoys
of the English Church attended various papal councUs during
the course of Edward's reign, but a further step was taken
jn 1062 when Pope Alexander II. sent two papal legates to
England, an action which had no precedent except the legatine
mission sent in the days of Offa. The legates are said to have
secured the choice of the saintly Wulfstan to the bishopric of
Worcester. On 3rd January 1066 Edward the Confessor died.
In the hard times that were to come men looked back with regret
to the good old days of Edward the Confessor ; but to the eye
of the historian those days seem neither good nor glorious.
Perhaps his greatest title to fame was his foundation of West
minster Abbey. It was dedicated just six days before his
death. The end of Anglo-Saxon kingship was now at hand.
On Edward's death, Harold, Godwine's son, the brother-in-law
of the late King, was chosen by the witan King of England, and
crowned as such, not by Stigand, but by Eldred, Archbishop of
York. Harold, no doubt, did not wish to compromise his position
by a schismatic coronation. But the crown was also claimed
by the Norman Duke WUUam. The grounds on which he based
his claim were these : pst, that the succession had been promised

The Church to Norman Conquest 57
him by his kinsman, Edward the Confessor (probably in 1051) ;
secondly, he urged an oath made him by Harold (probably in
1064). Harold had been shipwrecked on the French coast and
faUen into WiUiam's power ; WUliam had ungenerously forced
an oath on him, and then shown him that the altar at which he
had pledged his faith was full of the most venerable relics in all
Normandy. This oath now enabled WUUam to denounce Harold
for perfidy and breach of a feudal obligation, but the exact
nature of the oath is uncertain. Some accounts make it more,
some less specific. William's right to the EngUsh throne was
really nil; for it was with the witan that the right to elect a
King lay, and no promise of Edward the Confessor or oath of
Harold could possibly defraud the witan of their right or fore
close the question of the succession in WiUiam's favour.
There was a third ground which WUliam skilfuUy used to
win support for his invasion. To the papacy he represented
his plan of conquest as a crusade ; the English nation and Church
he denounced to Pope Alexander as adherents of the schismatic
Stigand, and as people who had never paid proper deference to
the see of Rome. He himself, if successful, would reform the
Church of England and bring it under proper papal control.
The influence of HUdebrand secured a favourable answer from
the Pope, and Alexander sent WUliam a ring and a consecrated
banner The conquest of England was invested with all the
halo of a religious crusade. On the battlefield of Hastings, 1066, Battle of
all the heroism of Harold and our Anglo-Saxon forefathers Hastings.
was fruitless. Norman archery and Norman cavalry prevaUed,
and WiUiam became King of England.

APPENDIX I
BISHOPRICS IN ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE
NORMAN CONQUEST
Province of Canterbury.
I. Canterbury,/. 597.
2. Rochester, / 604 (for West Kent).
3. London, f, 656 (originally 604) (for Essex).
4. Elmham, /. 673 (for Norfolk and Suffolk).

5 8 The Church of England
J. Winchester, /. 662 (for Hants and Surrey).
6. Sherborne, / 705 (enlarged by union in 1058 of Ramsbury or
Wiltshire see to old bishopric of Sherborne).
7. Selsey, /. 709 (for Sussex).
8. Wells, / 909 (for Somerset).
9. Exeter, f. 1049 (Crediton, f. 909 for Devon, removed to Exeter
1049).
10. Lichfield, f. 656 (originally for Mercia).
II. Worcester,/ 679 (for Hwiccas).
12. Hereford, / 676.
13. Dorchester/ 869 (originally/ 634).
B. Province of York.
I. York, / 625, revived 664. Archbishopric 735.
2. Durham, / 995 (Lindisfame,/ 679 ; Chester-le-Street,/ 883).

CHAPTER VI
THE CHURCH UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS
The Norman Conquest constituted the opening of a new era Norman
in English history. A sound itistmct has always led EngUshmen ^°°^g ^^^
to regard the year 1066 as marking a fresh start in the national era.
life. The effects of the Norman Conquest cannot be measured
by the mere fact that some thousands of Normans conquered
England and imposed themselves as an upper stratum on the
Anglo-Saxon popiUation. Whether we look to home or to
foreign affairs, things secular or things religious, we find a new
departure. England was brought into the full stream of
European politics, and took her place as one of the great
European powers. The whole of her foreign policy for centuries
to come was determined by the fact that the Norman Duke
became the English King. But if this was the case in foreign
politics, a simUar result followed in home affairs. It was of
critical importance that a line of strong-wUled kings, with a
genius for organisation and government, established itself on
the English throne. That which Carlyle calls the " pot-bellied
equanimity " of the Anglo-Saxons required discipline and drUl,
and they got it, both in the secular and religious spheres, from
Norman driU-sergeants. The most important result then of
the Norman Conquest was the creation of an extremely strong
kingship. " AU things, both human and divine," says the old
chronicler, "waited on WUliam's nod," and it was the existence
of a strong monarchy which differentiated the history of post-
conquest England alike from the history of Anglo-Saxon England
and that of foreign countries such as Germany or France. Both
in Germany and France the power of the central government
crumbled away under the disintegrating influence of feudalism.
The problem in every feudal state was to find the centre of
gravity, but WUliam and his great successors, Henry II. and
Edward I., scotched feudalism, and buUt up a strong central
govemment on the mins of the power of the great nobles. In
the Anglo-Saxon constitution the strongest part had been the
59

6o The Church of England
substructure of shire and hundred courts. It was m the upper
regions of govemment that the old system had been signally
deficient. Great kings such as Alfred or Cnut had arisen from
tune to time, but they had left no adequate administrative
system behind them, with the result that when they passed away
the power of the kingship passed with them. Everything
depended on the personality of the monarch. With the coming
of the Normans this was changed. The genius of the Normans
lay in articulation, organisation, govemment. The success of
WiUiam sprang not merely from his articulation of the system
of feudal tenure and his organisation of the feudal levy ; it did
not arise merely from his retention of everything in the Anglo-
Saxon which could give strength to his govemment — such things
as the old local courts of shire and hundred, the old national
levy of the fyrd, and the Danegeld ; it was pre-eminently due
to his innovations. For though in form the settlement was
conservative — WUliam posed as lawful King, and asserted his
intention to preserve the old law of King Edward — ^in point of
fact he introduced far-reaching changes. By scattering the
estates of his nobles,^ by insisting that aU landowners, no matter
whom they held from primarUy, owed allegiance first to him
self, by using the sheriff, like the French intendant of a later
age, as the government man for almost aU purposes in the shire,
and especially as a check on the great nobles, WUliam greatly
reduced the power of the baronage in the political sphere. But,
further, he created a strong administrative machine for central
govemment, which was now or shortly afterwards called the
Curia Regis. It was only left for his great successors, Henry I.
and Henry II. , to bring the local and central governments into
connection by means of judges of assize, who went out frora
the Curia Regis and visited the local courts for financial and
judicial business. This splendid machuie of govemment sur
vived the misrule of Stephen and the neglect of Richard I., and
contributed in no smaU measure to the power of the English
monarchy. Another, perhaps the most important, single inno
vation of WiUieim in the temporal sphere, was the use he made
of sworn recognitors or jurors — representatives of the country
side. For example, twelve recognitors were employed from each
* It is disputed whether this was intentional. As William only conquered
the land gradually, and had many claimants for land to satisfy, it was impossible
to give many large estates in the south-east of England,

The Church under Norman Kings 6i
county to make known the old laws and customs of King
Edward's time ; again, they were used to decide questions of
fact hi judicial disputes. It was from this method of " recogni
tion " that in after ages both the House of Commons and the
whole system of trial by jury were to grow. Hence this
innovation was all-important.
In his govemment William was successful. Speaking roughly,
we may say that the first half of his reign (1067-1076) was spent
m completing the subjugation of the Anglo-Saxons. Then-
attempts to overthrow the alien King faUed, owing to their lack
of co-operation with each other. Different parts of the country
rose at different times, and with different objects. At one time
it was Wessex, at another Mercia, at another Northumbria ;
one rising would have for its object to make Harold's son King,
another would aim at the restoration of Edgar the Etheling
to the throne. One thing stands out clearly : WiUiam found his
safety in the fact which had rendered the very conquest possible
— that is, in the antagonism between Wessex and Northumbria,
or rather in the antagonism between the house of Leofric —
whose two heads, Edwin and Morcar, had been Earls of
Northumbria and Mercia — and the house of Godwine. AU the
revolts were punished by WUliam with ruthless severity. During
the second part of his reign, 1076-1087, the old English popula
tion gave WUliam little trouble. The dangers he had to face in
those years came from his great barons, such as Roger, Earl of
Hereford, and Ralf, Earl of Norfolk, or from the revolt of his
own son Robert; whUe the King of France was always glad
to support any rebel against his too powerful vassal the Norman
Duke. But if the Norman Conquest marked the begmning of far- Ecciesi-
reaching changes in the temporal, it did so no less in the spiritual ^"nges.
sphere. It has often been said that the Church of England was
papaUsed by the coming of the Normans. But this statement Growth
is only true under great reservations. The papacy had at one po^e^^
time gained greatly in European estimation owing to the success
of St. Augustine's mission to England, and the waning of its
actual influence in the ninth and tenth and the first half of the
eleventh centuries was due to the depths of infamy and degrada
tion to which the see of St. Peter had sunk. It is no matter for
surprise that when the Cluniac movement for Church reform
had really taken root, and had captured the papal throne itself.

62 The Church of England
the power and prestige of the papacy lUiewise uicreased in
England as elsewhere. But if the English Church was brought
more under papal mfluence after 1066, it is no less true that in a
real sense it was saved from the papacy. For if the Norman
Conquest had not taken place, aU the probabUities lead us to
suppose that the weak Anglo-Saxon Church would have been
borne along by the rising tide of ecclesiasticism, and more
thoroughly papaUsed than in point of fact it was during the
Norman reigns. For WiUiam, as we shaU presently see, put very
severe restrictions on the power exercised by the Pope in
England.
Cluniac The Cluniac movement had started from the monastery of
movement. Qy^y in Burgundy, in the second quarter of the tenth century.
The novelty in this movement was the plan by which daughter-
houses founded from the monastery of Cluny remained dependent
on the parent house. The Abbot of Cluny was the head of
the whole Cluniac " congregation," and appointed the priors
who, under him, were the rulers of the dependent houses. All
the Cluniac houses were regarded merely as parts of the mother
convent, and from time to time sent representatives to the
chapter of Cluny.
Its aims. The aim of this Cluniac movement was to purify the Church
in head and members. The Church was not doing the work
that our Lord had intended it to do in the world. Society was
thoroughly pagan, hardly leavened by the Christian faith.
Violence, anarchy, fraud, lust, selfishness, formed the social
atmosphere ; self -conquest and self-sacrifice were hardly knovra
in ordinary secular life. But if the world was to be won and
conquered for Christ, the Church must first reform herself. In
her warfare against evU she must be organised as an army, and
(i) Papal submit to the absolute rule of one earthly commander — ^the
absolutism. pQpg Forged decretals, invented for such a pious purpose, were
at hand to support the papal claims, but the real justification
for the rise of the papal monarchy is to be found m the necessities
of the time ; the primary need was to curb brutal violence by
an organised moral power. But further, if the Church was to re
generate society, it seemed to reformers absolutely necessary that
the Church should be removed from secular influences. How
could a worldly and seciUarised Church hope to effect a reforma
tion ? How could a Church of which the rulers depended for
advancement on kings aind potentates exercise a moral discipline

The Church under Norman Kings 63
over them ? A moral censorship could never hope to be successful
if dependent on the very people whom it was intended to correct.
In the eyes of the Cluniac reformers, to free the Church from lay
influence two things were necessary. First, simony had to be (a) Des-
rooted out. A custom had grown up by which kmgs appointed of"'imon
to bishoprics and abbacies, and invested the prelates even with °""°"^"
the ring and the crozier, the insignia of their spiritual office.
In plain words, bishops, abbots, and others frequently bought
their appointments, so that it was impossible for them to
make adequate protest against immorciUty and violence in high
places. The first article, therefore, in the Cluniac programme
was to denounce lay investiture. In the second place, the
Cluniac reformers denounced the practice of clerical marriage, (3) Clerical
though this practice was common among the secular clergy over '^^^'''^°y-
the whole of Latin Christendom. The primary motive which
instigated them was not the influence of ascetic ideals. It was
the feudaUsation of the Church which they especiaUy feared.
They were afraid of what the French caU " id6es de famUle " ;
they feared the creation of a clerical caste, and the conversion of
ecclesiastical cures into hereditary benefices descending from
father to son, with aU the scandal and lack of spiritual force
which might ensue. In many cases, too, there would be danger
that Church property might be alienated to the sons and other
relations of the clergy.
There was stiU another reason of practical policy which
influenced the Cluniacs. They fuUy realised that the clergy
could not be emancipated from secular influences unless they
were freed from the entanglement of wives and chUdren. Women
and chUdren are always an encumbrance to an army ; and if the
Church was to be organised as an army, and animated with one
purpose — the conquest of the world — this in their eyes could only
be done by giving the clergy freedom from f amUy distractions.
Thus the Cluniacs had three practical aims in view — to
establish a papal absolutism, to root out simony, and to enforce
clerical celibacy. It wUl be seen that WUliam and his great
coadjutor, the Italian Lanfranc, whom he appomted to the
archbishopric of Canterbury in 1070, though in general sympathy
with the reformuig programme, considerably watered the wine
of Cluniac doctrine for English consumption, and hi practice
modified its principles so far as these applied to the marriage
of the clergy and the custom of lay investitme.

64 The Church of England
Lanfranc. Lanfranc was a remarkable man : born about the year
1005, the son of a civic magistrate at Pavia, he studied Roman
law, and very soon secured distinction as an advocate. For
some unknown reason he crossed the Alps, and in the year
1039 opened a school, which soon became famous, at Avranches
in Normandy. Crowds of pupUs flocked to hear him from all
parts of Europe. A momentous event soon happened. On a
journey to Rouen, he fell at nightfaU into the hands of robbers,
who stripped him of his clothes and bound him to a tree.
Lanfranc tried to pray and repeat his office, but to his shame and
dismay he found that, havuig devoted so much of his time to
secular learning, he could not remember it. He immediately
vowed that if God would deliver him, he would renounce the
world, enter the humblest monastery he could find, and dedicate
himself wholly to the service of God. Released the next morning
through the kindness of passers-by, he made his way to the
poor and humble convent of Bee, which Herluin, a Norman
knight, was buUding. Lanfranc entered the brotherhood. At
the abbot's advice he opened a school, and soon the monastery
of Bee became the centre of thought and culture for Western
Europe, sending forth year by year men noted for their learning
and piety, such as Anselm, afterwards Pope Alexander IL,
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ivo of Chartres, the
learned canonist. Lanfranc had a wide range of knowledge,
both secular and religious. It was he who refuted Berengar at
the councUs of Rome (1050) and Tours (1055), upholding against
him the mediaeval view of the sacrament of Holy Communion.
In 1045 he had been made Prior of Bee. His first contact with
the Norman Duke did not seem a likely prelude to the future
intimate co-operation of the two men. William, in defiance of
the Church, had married MatUda, a lady within the prohibited
degrees of kinship. Lanfranc publicly denounced the marriage,
and WUliam ordered him out of Normandy. Lanfranc was
obeying his behest, and riding a lame horse, the best the
monastery could furnish, when he met WUliam. " Where are
you going ? " said the Duke. " I am going out of Normandy as
fast as I can," said Lanfranc ; " and if you wiU be so good as to
give me a better horse, I wiU be even more quick in obeying your
command." The Duke was pleased by the retort, and entered
into conversation. No doubt the two men took stock of each
other's character ; if Lanfranc realised the strong will and

The Church under Norman Kings 65
infiexible severity of WiUiam, WiUiam as certainly realised how
astute and valuable a counseUor Lanfranc might be to him.
The result was that he restored Lanfranc to his office,
whUe Lanfranc in his turn undertook to plead WUliam's cause
at Rome. At Rome Lanfranc was successful. The Pope consented to
sanction WiUiam's marriage on the condition that he and his
wife shoiUd found two monasteries in Normandy. This was
done : two convents were founded at Caen, that of the Holy
Trinity, by MatUda, for women, and that of St. Stephen, by
WUliam, for men. In 1066 Lanfranc was appointed Abbot of
St. Stephen's by WUliam. In 1070 he was offered the see of
St. Augustine, and on the urgent advice of Herluin, his old
abbot at Bee, Lanfranc accepted the offer and became Arch
bishop of Canterbury. He had found his true sphere, for his Effects of
genius lay in the field of diplomacy and statesmanship. The con^u^e"!
reorganisation of the English Church was the work conjointly on Church.
of WUliam and Lanfranc. The first marked feature of change ^i person-^
in the post-conquest Church was one of personnel. There was a ^^•
gradual substitution of Norman for English bishops, an elimina
tion of English in favour of Norman abbots. This change was
not effected by any sweeping act of severity. Stigand was
deposed from the archbishopric of Canterbury as schismatic, and
with him feU his brother, the Bishop of Elmham ; the Bishop of
Durham was expeUed for treason ; some sees were already fiUed
by foreigners. By the end of the year 1070, only two sees were
retained in native hands, those of Worcester and Rochester.
Siward, the English Bishop of Rochester, died in 1075, whUe
Wulfstan, the saintly English Bishop of Worcester, survived
the Conqueror and only died in 1095, a solitary link of connection
with the old Anglo-Saxon episcopate. It would seem that at
one time Lanfranc meditated his deposition, but on second
thoughts relinquished the attempt. A legendary account of the
circumstances which led Lanfranc to desist is found in a later age.
The story ran that Wulfstan, when brought before the King
and councU in Westminster Abbey, refused to give up his staff
of office to Lanfranc, and said that he would only restore it to
him from whom he had received it — Kin^- Edward. He then
advanced- to Edward the Confessor's tomb, and appealed to
his old master Edward to witness that he had only accepted the
pffice of bishop at the urgent request of the Kmg, the bishops.

66 The Church of England
the nobles, the monks and common people ; that now a new
Kmg, a new law, and a new Primate had arisen, chargmg him
with presumption in havkig accepted the of&ce ; that he would
resign his staff not to them, but only to him who had given it.
Thereupon he strack the tomb with the staff, saymg, " Take it,
my lord king, and give it to whomever it shall please thee."
The solid marble of the Kmg's tomb opened to receive it, and
neither the King nor Lanfranc was able to wrench it from its
clasp. The meaning of the miracle was obvious : WUliam and
Lanfranc craved forgiveness from Wulfstan and confirmed him
in possession of his see. The marble released its grasp and
restored the staff to Wulfstan.
Such is the legend ; the fact was that Wulfstan retained his
see, and richly did he deserve to do so ; he aided the Norman
bishops in their episcopal work, but his fame chiefly rests on his
splendid achievement in rooting out the Bristol slave trade.
Wulfstan retained his see, but Normans fiUed aU the other
bishoprics and abbacies. The new bishops were, generaUy
speaking, men of learning, strong-wUled administrators, and yet
not completely unsympathetic to the conquered race. WiUiam's
choice of abbots was not so successful, though doubtless the
abbots had a hard task to fulfU, as the monasteries were hotbeds
of national feeling. WUliam's most imfortunate selection was
that of Thurstan, a truculent ruffian, to the abbey of Glaston
bury. When the monks refused to give up the old Gregorian
chants and adopt a new system of music invented by William
of Fecamp, their abbot chased them with archers into the choir
of the church, and shooting at them, slew some and wounded
others, desecrating even the altar with their blood.
But Thurstan was quickly removed from Glastonbury and
sent back in disgrace to Caen — to be restored in after days to
Glastonbury for a money bribe by WiUiam Rufus.
Another unfortunate choice of William was that of Paul to
the abbey of St. Albans. But Abbot Paul did not inflict any
outrages on the living. He reformed the discipline of the house,
and is famous for the enormous minster which he buUt. But
he did outrage English feeling by insolent behaviour towards
the dead, sweeping away, when he rebuUt the minster, the
tombs of the old English saints, and revUing them as ignorant
barbarians. A brighter side to the relations between these
Norman abbots and the native English is fonn4 ip a story abouf

The Church under Norman Kings 67
this same Abbot Paul. He wished to furnish the tower of his
new minster with bells ; two of the bells were given by an
English thegn, Ligulf, and his wife. To buy his beU Ligulf sold
a number of sheep and goats, and when he heard the bell ringing
in the tower, " Listen," he said in the English tongue, " how
sweetly my goats and sheep are bleating." His wife presented
a second bell, and when she heard it ringing in sweet harmony
with the other she thanked God for it as a token of the harmony
of her own married life. StiU there can be no doubt that as
a general rule the Normans were hard taskmasters, and the
relations existing between the Norman prelates and the English
laity and minor clergy can never have been of a very cordial
nature. A further step of assimUation to the continental churches
was taken when, by the councU of London in 1075, it was (*) Sees
ordered that where bishops' sees were fixed in viUages they f^™""^*^
should be removed to the large towns. Thus Sherborne gave villages to
way to Old Sarum, Selsey to Chichester, Lichfield to Chester, °''" '
Dorchester-on-Thames to Lincoln, Wells to Bath, Elmham to
Thetford in 1078, and then to Norwich in iioi.^ In Gaul the
towns had been the centres of public life, and the bishoprics
from the earliest times had been placed in them. But in
England the great towns had not held the same dominant
position ; from the nature of the Anglo-Saxon settlement and
the circumstances of the evangelising mission the bishoprics had
been rather territorial or tribal. Henceforth the bishop's stool
was to be fixed in some large town.
A more important change, pointing to the renewal of ecclesi
astical life and the influence of Climiac ideals, was the revival of (c) Revival
synodal action. As pointed out in a previous chapter, a striking councUs!
characteristic of the later Anglo-Saxon period was the free and
easy interchange between Church and State ; the lines separating
' The English bishoprics throughout the Middle Ages remained from this time
almost the same. ' ' Bath and Wells " was substituted for Bath towards the middle
of the fifteenth century ; the see of Chester was moved to Coventry, and after a time
the style of Coventry and Lichfield became customary. Two new bishoprics were
created — Carlisle from Scotland, won by William II., and Ely, carved out ofthe
see of Lincoln. Thus the English sees to the reign of Henry VIII. were —
Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury or Sarum, Exeter,
Bath and Wells, London, Norwich, Ely, Lincoln, Worcester, Hereford, Coventry
and Lichfield, York, Carlisle, Durham.
The Welsh bishoprics were St. Asaph, Bangor, St. Davids, Llandaff.

68

The Church of England

Williammaintains
authority over
Churchcouncilsandbishops.

them had grown faint, the distinction between thuigs spu'itual
and things secular had become blurred, and the functions of the
two powers had almost been merged in each other. .Spiritual
and temporal cases had been decided m the same court, whether
that court was the witan or the shire-moot. But times were
changed. It was part of the Cluniac programme to draw a
sharp distinction between the clergy and laity, between thmgs
temporal and things spiritual. Hence we find that clerical
synods were employed throughout the Norman reigns to effect
ecclesiastical changes and to transact ecclesiastical business.
The custom arose, which was followed in a later age, of ecclesi
astical assemblies meeting at the same time as the councUs of
the tenants-in-chief. But over these clerical assemblies WiUiam
exercised considerable control. If Eadmer is to be beUeved,
WUliam definitely laid down that no assembly of bishops was
to ordain or prohibit anything except that which was agreeable
to his wUl, and had been first ordained by himself. If WiUiam
reaUy insisted on this, he claimed in this respect as much as
Henry VIII. ever claimed in the Act of the submission of the
clergy. But it is clear that WiUiam and Lanfranc were in
substantial agreement on questions of Church policj', and that
Lanfranc was left free to carry out this policy by suitable canons.
Further, WUliam forbade bishops to excommunicate any of his
barons for a criminal offence except with his permission. This
seems a strange claim for WiUiam to put forward, but it must
be remembered that in those days, when the weapon of excom
munication was so readUy used, the King might, by a side wind,
be deprived of his own power ; to have any dealings with an
excommunicated person might involve a man himself in the
penalty of excommunication, and therefore a king, by inter
course with his excommunicated baron, might become ipso facto
himself excommunicate, and this might involve the release of
his subjects from their aUegiance. In any case, it is certain that
WUliam intended to keep a firm hold on the Church, and that
Lanfranc modified the strict Cluniac principles to suit his wishes.
He did this in other directions also ; there was nothing on which
the Cluniac reformers were so interested as the questions of
clerical celibacy and lay investiture.
In the matter of clerical celibacy, the Cluniac rule was
relaxed, whUe in the matter of lay investiture it was, so far
as the Conqueror was concemed, dropped altogether.

The Church under Norman Kings 69
A councU held at Rome in 1074 had peremptorUy forbidden
the clergy to marry, ordered those clergy who were already
married to separate from their wives, and declared the sacra
ments of no effect if administered by married clergy. But, in
spite of this, Lanfranc took a far mUder line in England. The
affak was brought before an English Church councU at Win
chester in 1076. A distinction was there drawn between the
capitular and the parochial clergy. The former, whether they
belonged to secular or monastic foundations, were absolutely
forbidden to marry, and if they were married they were
ordered to separate from their wives. But though marriage (d) Clerical
was forbidden for the future to all the clergy, and bishops <=«>'''^<=y-
were commanded to refuse ordination to married men, it was
expressly laid down by the councU that the parochial clergy, if
married, should not be compelled to dismiss their wives.
And this was done in spite of the fact that the sympathies
of Lanfranc himself were altogether with monasticism. This Monasti-
can be seen from the fact that he made his own cathedral coura^ed.
chapter at Canterbury completely monastic, and when Walkelin,
Bishop of Winchester, strongly took up the view that much of a
chapter's work could more adequately be done by seculars, and
proposed to undo the work of Ethelwold (see p. 52), and
substitute seculars for regulars in the cathedral chapter of
Winchester, Lanfranc sternly forbade him, and obtained a buU
from Pope Alexander denouncing and prohibiting the scheme. ^
Again, the prohibition of lay investiture was a most important
part of the Cluniac policy, but here again Cluniac principles were
relaxed in favour of the Conqueror. DetaUs are obscure, but
it is clear that Gregory VII. (HUdebrand) did not try to forbid
lay investiture in England as he did in Germany. Gregory
seems to have recognised the right of lay investiture as a special
privUege which had been enjoyed by the English kings, and to
have confirmed it for WUUam's life-time. But if Cluniac
principles did not secure victory all along the line in England,
they did win a great triumph in WUUam's ordinance for the
^ The net result of the Norman settlement was that the cathedrals were
almost exactly divided between monastic and secular foundations. York,
London, Exeter, Lichfield, Wells, Hereford, Lincoln, Salisbury, Chichester,
were served by seculars, as were also the four Welsh sees; while Canterbury,
Winchester, Durham, Rochester, Worcester, Norwich, Ely, Bath, Coventry
were monastic. The see of Carlisle was served by Augustinian canons, and
therefore stood in an intermediate position.

(«) Crea
tion of
separatespiritualcourts.

Relations
with the,
papacy.

70 The Church of England
separation of the ecclesiastical from the secular jurisdiction.
The greatness of the triumph, and the subsequent trouble m
which it mvolved the relations of Church and State, were only
to be revealed in the course of the subsequent centuries. By
this famous ordinance WUliam laid down — (i) that bishops and
archdeacons were no longer to hear ecclesiastical causes in the
secular courts ; (2) that ecclesiastical causes were to be tried by
canonical and not by secular law ; (3) that no spuitual causes
were to come before laymen ; (4) that contempt of the ecclesi
astical court should be penal, and punishment should be enforced
by the King's ofiicers.
The trouble that ensued in after times rose from the fact
that there was no definition of " ecclesiastical " or " spiritual
causes." The century which foUowed witnessed the expansion
of the " canons " into a highly organised system of jurisprudence,
modeUed in form on the old Roman civU law. This " canon
law " was codified about the year 1140 by Gratian. The
Decretum Gratiani was in origin an unauthoritative text
book, but its excellence was so great that an appeal to the
Decretum was very soon regarded as settling any matter in
dispute. Thus an enormous body of ecclesiastical law grew
up, administered universally in all the ecclesiastical courts of
Latin Christendom. This law was regarded as emanating from
the papal Curia, or at any rate the papal Curia was regarded as
the supreme court of appeal for its interpretation, and therefore
secured an enormous increase of influence over Western Europe.
WUliam and Lanfranc thoroughly understood each other, and
under them the dual system of courts worked smoothly enough ;
but tribunals are notoriously liable to encroach and extend
their jurisdictions. Add to this the fact that there had been
no attempt at definition of " ecclesiastical causes," and it is plain
that aU the material for an ugly quarrel between the secular
and ecclesiastical jurisdictions was prepared. A spark only
was needed to fire the train. But trouble did not arise m an
acute form for nearly a hundred years.
FuiaUy, the relations between the papacy on the one hand,
and WiUiam and Lanfranc on the other, must be considered.
The Norman Conquest of England had been represented to the
Pope as a crusade to recover a schismatic kingdom, and WiUiam
had received a blessing on his enterprise, with a ring and banner
from Pope Alexander II. The relations between WiUiam and

The Church under Norman Kings 71
Alexander were always most cordial m character, and this
friendliness was cemented when Lanfranc, Alexander's old
master at Bee, was made Archbishop of Canterbury. But
when the imperious HUdebrand in 1073 mounted the papal
throne as Gregory VII. the intimacy was not the same. It is
true that Gregory always professed a special affection for
WUliam. There were few kings of that age who were so careful
of and so generous to churches ; there were few kings who
carried out the Cluniac programme of reform as far as William
did, by the extirpation of simony, the encouragement of monas
ticism, and the prohibition of clerical marriage. It is true, too,
that WUUam and Lanfranc showed the greatest deference to
Rome, and aUowed the papal supremacy, " according to the
canons," over the faith and administration of the English Church.
But there were limits to their submission. When Gregory boldly
preferred a claim of suzerainty over England, WUliam with equal
decision repudiated the claim : " Fealty I have refused to offer,
nor will I ; for I neither promised it nor do I find that my pre
decessors did it to your predecessors." But at the same time
he promised to see that Peter's pence were more regularly
collected and sent to Rome.
Lanfranc, if allowance be made for his position, adopted
the same attitude. Gregory wrote rebuking him for his lack
of reverence to the apostolic see, since his elevation to the
position of English metropolitan. Lanfranc in reply protested
that there was no change in his sentiments towards the papal see,
and promised obedience according to the canons. The decision
about fealty, he wrote, was WUliam's own, not in accordance
with his advice — " Suasi sed non persuasi." For the reasons
which guided William's decision, he referred Gregory to the
King's letter. It wiU be seen that Lanfranc's reply was
couched in very cautious language. He did not profess unlimited
obedience to Gregory, but only according to the canons, and he did
not definitely state the exact nature of the advice he had given
WUliam. It may weU have been that as a matter of form he
had given WiUiam counsel to yield, whUe secretly he approved
of the decision to reject the papal claim.
The relations between the Pope and archbishop became
even more strained as years went on. There is a letter extant
in which Gregory upbraided Lanfranc for his neglect to appear
at-Rome^and threatened him with suspension from his episcopal

72 The Church of England
office if he did not appear before the papal Curia withm a specified
time. There is nothmg to show that Lanfranc was in the least
degree moved by the papal threat. On the contrary, when the
Emperor set up a rival Pope to Gregory in Clement IIL, Lanfranc
wrote to a correspondent an extremely guarded letter. He
rebuked his correspondent's vituperation of Gregory and glorifica
tion of Clement. England had not yet, he said, decided between
the two claimants ; when she had heard both sides she would be
better able to do so ; at the same time he (Lanfranc) could not
but believe that the Emperor's action had been guided by
weighty reasons, and could not have been rewarded by such a
victory without the mighty aid of God. This Ulustrates a
further principle laid down by WiUiam in his dealings with the
papacy. The principle, in Eadmer's words, was this : " He
would not aUow any one in aU his dominions to accept the man
who was appointed Pontiff of Rome as the representative of the
Apostle, save at his own bidding, or any way to receive his
letters, unless they had been first shown to himself." ' This
maxim of policy was probably laid down at the time of Gregory's
struggle with the Emperor's anti-pope. It clearly enabled
WUliam to put severe restrictions on the papal power, and
was the germ of the later Praemunire legislation. t-i
The greater part of the ecclesiastical changes at the time of
the Norman Conquest have now been passed in review. WilUam
and Lanfranc had done a great work in restoring order, tighten
ing discipline, diffusing knowledge, raising standards, at the cost,
certainly, of considerable injustice, and of the intrusion of un
sympathetic foreigners. StiU it was a great work. The English
Church had been forced to assimUate the high though severe
spirit of reform that had spread from Cluny and Rome. Two or
three minor matters ought not to be passed over in sUence.
Lanfranc was a determined upholder of the rights of his see
against aU men. For example, in 1070 he declined to con
secrate Thomas of Bayeux as Archbishop of York unless he
first made a profession of canonical obedience to the see of
Canterbury. Thomas refused, and Lanfranc declined to proceed
with the service of consecration. The dispute was refefred to
the papacy, and by papal command decided at the councU of
Windsor in 1072. It was laid down by the councU that both
Thomas and his successors in the see of York owed canonical
obedience to Lanfranc and his successors in the see of Canterbury.

The Church under Norman Kings 73
In a simUax fashion Lanfranc protected the lands of the Church
of Canterbury against the illegal encroachments of Odo, the
Conqueror's half-brother and Earl of Kent.
Lastly, the great changes in architecture introduced by the Norman
Normans must not be passed over. Many abbeys, such as the ^^^^^^
Conqueror's own abbey of Battle, erected on the site of the battle
of Hastings, or Paul's Abbey at St. Albans, were built in the
Norman style. In almost every instance the Norman bishops
built new cathedrals or rebuilt the old, so as to make them new.
Thus after Canterbury Cathedral had been burnt to the ground
in 1067, it was rebuilt in the Norman style on the model of
St. Stephen's at Caen. The new buUding was completed by
1074 ; men knew not whether to marvel most at the glory of
the buUding or the speed with which it had been done. The
chief features of Norman architecture are massiveness and
simplicity ; the square towers and the rounded arches supported
by massive piUars speak to us stiU of the greatness and strength
of the Norman race. The greatest builder of WUliam's reign
was Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester. He is famous as the
architect of the Tower of London. Examples of Norman work
can •stUl be seen in the transepts of Winchester and Ely, in the
. nave of Durham, and in a number of our parish churches.
WUliam the Conqueror died in the year 1087. He was wiUiam
succeeded in England by his son, WUliam Rufus. According to R"fus.
the dying wish of the Conqueror, Lanfranc crowned him King.
WUliam Rufus inherited the vices, but not the virtues, of his
father WUliam the Conqueror had been bloody, ruthless, and
cruel; but he was not wantonly cruel, if there was no end to
gain ; his bad quaUties were in some measure redeemed by his
love for his wife, and by the conviction that he was commissioned
by God to exercise governance. He hated lawlessness ; he had
a strong sense of order, and stem feeling for justice. Morality
to him meant something ; to WUliam Rufus it meant nothing
at aU. But the worst features in Rufus' character were not
revealed tUl Lanfranc's death in 1089. As long as Lanfranc
lived, his vices were held in check, though already, in answer to
the reproaches of the archbishop, he had made the ominous
reply that a man could not keep aU his promises. But after
Lanfranc's death he threw shame to the wmds and showed his
true nature to be that of a blasphemous profligate. His vices were
not simply those of the ordinary sinner, but nameless in their

74 The Church of England
wickedness. He was an open revUer of God ; on his recovery
from his dangerous Ulness of 1093 — an Ulness in which his fear
had led him to make aU manner of promises for good — he said
to Bishop Gundulph, " By the Holy Face of Lucca " (this was his
favourite oath), " God shall never have me a good man for the evU
He has brought upon me." On another occasion, when certain
Englishmen had escaped by the ordeal, he is reported to have
said, "What ! God a just judge ! Damnation to the man who
thinks this." Of God WUliam Rufus was a blasphemous mocker ;
to his subjects he was an oppressive tyrant ; his generosity,
when he showed it, was nothing but a wasteful squandering of
money on wicked men and unlawful objects ; he was avaricious
to the last degree, wringing money indifferently from clergy and
laity, organising the different feudal imposts so as to extort
the uttermost farthing from his victims. Those who lived with
him bear witness that he never rose from his couch without
being a worse man than when he went to bed, nor went to bed
without being a worse man than when he rose. The chief
instrument of his fiscal tyranny was Ralph Flambard (i.e. Fire
brand), the son of a low-bom priest, whom he origuially employed
in his chancery and advanced tiU he finaUy made him Bishop
of Durham. Ralph is said to have gained his name because,
like a fiame of fire, he pushed himself at the expense of others.
He was a man of boisterous wit, entirely without scruples. His
skUl in finance and legal chicane made him extremely useful to
WUliam; wherever money had to be extorted, Ralph had the
knowledge of law and the cunning necessary to bolster up a
claim. He it was that organised the system of feudal rules
by which, as the old chronicler asserts, " the King would be
every man's heir " ; the law of " escheats," " wardships," and
feudal dues was developed by him; vacancies in abbacies and
bishoprics were prolonged, so that the revenues of the Church
as well as of the laity might be poured into the royal coffers.
But tiU Lanfranc's death the extortion and wickedness both of
WUUam and Ralph were kept in check. One interesting case
that arose while Lanfranc stiU lived must not be passed over in
sUence, because it bore on the relations between England and
Rome, and foreshadowed simUar troubles in the near future. In
the openuig year of Rufus' reign a rebeUion of certain nobles
was supported, under circumstances of aggravated treachery,
by WiUiam of St. Calais, Bishop of Durham. He was summoned

The Church under Norman Kings 75
before the King's court and ordered to do him justice on the Case of
charge of treason. But WiUiam of St. Calais persistently denied ^'cakjf
the competence of the court to try him, and claimed that a
bishop could not be judged by laymen ; such a trial, he asserted,
would be against the canons, and therefore he appealed to the
apostolic see of Rome. It is to be noticed that the charge on
which the bishop was arraigned was not in any sense of an
ecclesiastical nature — he was charged with treason ; further,
it is clear that neither Rufus nor Lanfranc refuted directly his
Tight to make such an appeal. Times had changed since the
Conqueror occupied the throne. The actual result was that
the bishop left England, and the temporalities of the see of
Durham were seized by the crown. William of St. Calais, after
going abroad, thought better of prosecuting his appeal before
the Pope ; in a short time he was foimd in England again, recon-
cUed to the King and his protagonist against Anselm, when
Anselm preferred, with better justification, a somewhat simUar,
appeal. For four years after Lanfranc's death (1089-1093) William Death of
Rufus kept the see of Canterbury vacant, and appropriated its ^^g"*^^^""^'
revenues, exacting large fines for the renewal of tenancies,
whUe he fixed smaU rents for the future, and adopting other
measures of a simUar nature. He had already done this with
the abbacies and other bishoprics ; but the scandal was now
far greater ; for the Archbishop of Canterbury was not like an
ordinary bishop ; there had been an Archbishop of Canterbury
before there had been a King of England, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury was admittedly the first and independent counsellor
of the crown. During these four years the moral and spiritual
condition both of laity and clergy greatly declined ; the bishops
and abbots were the fountains of spiritual discipline, and in the
abeyance of their power the secular clergy and the monks some
times got out of hand, whUe the immoralities of Rufus' court
had a contagious and evU effect. The scandal was enormous, and
loud clamour, which Rufus ignored, arose for the appointment
of a new archbishop. But at last the King fell dangerously
UI, and in terror of imminent death, vowed that he woiUd, in
the event of his recovery, amend his ways, stop his extortions,
and protect the Church. In his fear of death, he nominated
Anselm, the Abbot of Bee, to the see of Canterbury.
Anselm is the greatest and saintliest figure who has ever Anselm.

76 The Church of England
occupied the seat of St. Augustine. Born about the year 1033
at Aosta, under the shadow of the Alps, he was sprung from
noble parentage. Taught by his mother that there was one God
in heaven ruling over all things, Anselm as a chUd thought that
heaven rested on the Alpine mountains. In a dream one night he
thought that he ought to climb the mountains and hasten to the
palace of the great King, God. But before he started on the
ascent, he saw at the foot of the mountain women servants of
the King reaping the harvest, but they were doing it slackly,
and Anselm resolved to teU the great King. Having climbed
the mountain, he entered the royal palace and found God
alone with His steward. By the command of God the whitest of
bread was brought him by the steward, and with it he was
refreshed in the presence of God. When Anselm awoke, lUce a
simple and innocent chUd, he thought that he had really been
in heaven, and had been refreshed with the bread of God, and
openly said so. The dream was prophetic, for Anselm con
stantly lived in the presence of God, and fed on His spiritual life.
In course of time Anselm crossed the Alps, and after learning
from Lanfranc, followed him to Bee. The pupU far surpassed
his master in the profundity of his thought, in the genius and
Anseim's daring of his speculations. Anselm penetrated into the deep
writmgs. thijigg Qf Qq(J^ j^^Q tjjg mysteries of the incarnation, and of
human life. In his Monologion and Proslogion he tried by
a priori reason to show the necessity of the existence of God,
and his work marked a new departure in the history of European
thought ; whUe in his Cur deus homo ? written during his
troubles, partly in England and partly in his Italian retreat,
he probed the mystery of God's purpose in the incarnation.
But Anselm was not only a daring and profound thinker ; his
nature was lovable in every way ; he had great love for chUdren,
and his chief care Wcis to mould the characters of yoimg men.
This was the man of transparently simple and saintly character
whom Rufus on his sick-bed nominated to the see of Canterbury.
Anselm was at the time Abbot of Bee. He had come to England
at the earnest intercession of Hugh Lupus of Chester, a friend
who was very iU, and he had seized the opportunity to look
after the English possessions of the monastery of Bee. Rufus
summoned him to his bedside to give him spiritual counsel, and
then, to Anseim's dismay, designated him as archbishop. Anselm
refused the office ; an extraordinary scene foUowed. The clerics

The Church under Norman Kings 77
at the bedside beset him with their clamour. " Would he strive Anselm
against God ? Did he not see Christianity almost rooted out of a"™-"^'^*^
England, immorality rampant, and the Church well-nigh dead ? " bishop,
Pressing the pastoral staff against his tightly clenched hand, '°'^"
they hurried him to a neighbouring church. " Ah, my friends,"
said Anselm, " do you know what you are doing ? The plough
of the Church in England is borne by two strong oxen, the
King and the Archbishop of Canterbury ; one of these oxen,
Lanfranc, is dead ; wUl you yoke me, an old and feeble sheep,
with a fierce, untamed buU ? " He warned them that no good
would come of it, and that the Church wotUd be even more
desolated and destroyed than formerly.
On his recovery Rufus, though he repented of and rescinded
his other good resolutions, confirmed the appointment of Anselm.
Anselm said he woiUd consent to accept the archbishopric on
three conditions: (i) aU lands belonging to the see of Canter
bury must be restored as Lanfranc had held them; (2) the
King must accept him as his special counseUor in things religious ;
(3) Anselm had already, in Normandy, acknowledged Urban II.
as Pope, and rejected the claims of the antipope, and could not
renounce his acknowledgment. WiUiam granted the first of
these conditions, but no definite agreement was arrived at
conceming the other two points. Finally Anselm, after being
released from his obligations by the monks of Bee, the Duke of
Normandy, and the Archbishop of Rouen, did homage to the
King, and was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury (December
1093). But he soon foimd that in the immoral atmosphere of
the time, without aid from the King, he was almost powerless
for good. His troubles with Rufus immediately began, and Rufus
proved continuous. The King instituted vexatious suits agauist ^"f"*'^
the archbishop's tenants. Anselm offered the King 500 marks Anselm.
as a contribution to the expenses of the war with his brother
Robert. The King rejected the sum as inadequate and demanded
1000 marks. Anselm felt that he could not wring such a sum
from his impoverished tenants ; glad to be relieved from the
mere appearance of simony, he gave the 500 marks to the poor,
instead of to the King. When Anselm asked WiUiam for leave
to summon a councU, " that Christianity, which now in many
people had almost wholly perished, might be restored," WUliam
bluntly refused. " What woiUd you get out of it ? " " If not
T, then God, and you would, I hope, get somethmg," Anselm

78 The Church of England
replied. " Enough," said WUUam, " talk no more about it."
When Anselm asked that the vacant abbacies should be filled
Rufus retorted, " What has that to do with you ? Are not the
abbeys mine ? and cannot I do with them what I like ? " " They
are yours," repUed Anselm, " to defend and guard as their
advocate, not yours to attack and destroy. We know that
they belong to God, that they may support His servants, not
that they may support your expeditions and wars." The King
was highly incensed, and told Anselm that his predecessor,
Lanfranc, would never have dared to speak so to the Conqueror.
When Anselm shortly afterwards desired a renewal of friendship,
Rufus sent him the message, " Yesterday I regarded you with
great and to-day with greater hate, and be sure that to-morrow
and the day after I wUl regard you with ever keener and more
bitter hatred." It was clear to Anselm that in the face of
royal hatred he could effect no reforms. So at the beginning of
1095 he asked WiUiam for leave to visit the Pope and fetch his
pall (see p. 8). It is clear that at this time the possession of
the paU was not in England considered absolutely necessary for
the exercise of metropolitan authority ; for Anselm had already
consecrated a bishop, and had proposed to hold an ecclesiastical '
council ; but the position of an archbishop without a pall was
certainly irregular. At this point a question of principle
emerged. The Conqueror had reserved to the crown the right
of recognising the Pope. No subject was to recognise any
man as Pope except at the King's bidding. So when Anselm
asked leave to visit the Pope for the purpose of fetching the
pall, Rufus instantly replied, " From which Pope ? " " From
Urban," Anselm answered. The King immediately charged him
with a breach of the customs of the realm. TechnicaUy, the King
was right ; for England had not as yet recognised either of the
two rival Popes, Urban and Clement. But moral right was
altogether on the side of Anselm ; for before accepting the
archbishopric he had warned Rufus that he had already, as
Abbot of Bee, recognised Urban, and could not withdraw his
aUegiance. It was not even the case that WUliam was really
hesitating between the two Popes, for he himself presently re
cognised Urban; but he saw, that Anselm had technicaUy put
hunself in the wrong, and, with a quick eye for the weak
pomt in his opponent's armour, he- thought that he could use the
affair either to humUiate Anselm or get rid of him altogether,

The Church under Norman Kings 79
At the Primate's request a council of bishops and secular nobles
was summoned to decide whether it was possible for Anselm to
keep both his fealty to the King and his obligation to the Pope.
In the councU the bishops showed themselves self-seeking time-
servers, and formed an excellent foil to Anselm, who acted with
single-minded devotion to the truth as conceived by himself.
Strangely enough, it was William of St. Calais, the erstwhUe
advocate of Roman claims, but now a royal partisan, who led the
bishops in their efforts to make Anselm surrender his position
and acknowledge the customs of the realm. Anselm stood his
ground, and finaUy said, " Whoever wishes to prove that because
I refuse to renounce my obedience to the Pope, I am violating
the fealty due to my earthly King, let him come forward, and in
the name of God he wUl find me ready to answer him as I ought
and where I ought." In other words, Anselm claimed, as Arch
bishop of Canterbury, the special privUege of being tried only
by the Pope. He appealed to Rome. The temporal lords, in
contrast to the self-seeking bishops, took Anseim's part, with
the result that the whole affair was adjourned. In the mean
time WiUiam tried to get rid of Anselm by bribing the papal
Curia to depose him ; but it was no use ; the paU was brought
to England by a papal legate ; WUliam had to acknowledge
Urban, and Anselm finally assumed the pall, taking it, not from
WiUiam's hands, but from the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral.
Relations between the King and Primate did not improve.
WiUiam soon sought a safer ground of quarrel than a dispute
over spiritual obligations. He charged Anselm with a breach
of his feudal duty to the King by inadequate equipment of the
soldiers sent by him to the King's Welsh war. Neither Anselm
nor the King seems to have regarded this charge as seriously made,
but Anselm realised that the Kmg was bent on a quarrel, and that
this being so, all hopes of checking immorality or reforming the
Church were vain. So he took the inomentous decision of
asking the King's permission to leave the country and seek
spuitual counsel from the Pope whUe he let the King know that
in any event, with or without his permission, he would certainly
go. It was undoubtedly a violatipn of the ancient customs for
a man in Anseim's position to leave the country without the
King's permission. But Anselm maintained that his duty to
God must come first,, and the King grudgmgly at last gave his
consent, Anselm took his fareweU with the words, " My lord, I

Anselmleaves the
country, 1097.

Anselm at Rome.

Lay in
vestitureanathe matised.

80 The Church of England
go ; not knowing when I shall see you again, I commend you
to God ; and as a spiritual father to a beloved son, as Arch
bishop of Canterbury to the King of "England, I would fain,
before I go, give you God's blessing and my own, if you refuse
it not." " I do not refuse it," said the King. So Anselm
raised his right arm, and made the sign of the cross over the
head of the King. Thus the saint and the sinner parted, never
to meet again (October 1097) . Anselm was not, however, aUowed
to leave the country without the indignity of having his baggage
searched by the King's order at Dover. It is weU to pause at
this moment and notice what exactly Anselm had done. It is
clear that he had acted with transparent honesty ; it was a case
of his conscience protesting against violence and wrong. In
any strict sense of the term he had not appealed to the Pope ;
he was not trying, like Becket in after times, to preserve
the privileges of the clerical order ; it was because he saw that
right and duty were powerless in the England of that day against
wrong and wickedness, that he refused to share the responsi
bUity, and resolved to seek spiritual counsel from the head of
Christendom. No sooner was he gone than WUliam began to
plunder the estates of the see of Canterbury. MeanwhUe
Anselm journeyed by easy stages to Rome^only to find dis-
Ulusionment. Urban II. , who was then Pope, is famous as the
author of the first crusade, which he had preached and started
at Clermont in 1095. But it was soon clear that Urban was too
wary to embark on a conflict with the Red King. He treated
Anselm with conspicuous honour, he lodged him in the Lateran,
he saluted him as " Pope of a second world," he asked Anselm
to expound before the Greek envoys the doctrine of the procession
of the Holy Ghost at the council of Bari (1098) ; in the councU
of Rome (1099) Anselm was given the seat of highest honour.
But though the Pope used threatening language to Rufus'
envoys, and expressed his determination to excommunicate
him unless he did speedy justice to Anselm, it soon became
evident that his threats would not go beyond words. The day
after the councU of Rome, Anselm left Rome and returned to
Lyons. The synod of Rome was important, not only because the
decrees of former councUs against simony and clerical marriage
were renewed, but because anathema was pronounced against all
laymen who gave investiture of spiritual benefices to clergy, and
against aU clergy who received such investiture from laymen.

The Church under Norman Kings 8i
and became the " men " of temporal lords. This decree ran
directly counter to the received custom of England and Normandy,
and was the source of a new dispute between Church and State.
On the 2nd August noo Rufus met his death by accident
whUe hunting in the New Forest. He was succeeded by his
brother Henry I., who immediately wrote to Anselm, urging his Accession
retmn to England, and apologising for the fact that, owing to °^ ^^^J
the dangers of the time — he had in eye the claims of his brother
Robert — he had not been able to await the Primate's home
coming, but had been crowned by the Bishop of London. He
promised Anselm a cordial welcome and money for his journey.
On the 23rd September noo Anselm landed once more in Anselm
England, amid signs of popular joy. Henry I., apart from his Engkn^^
private life, was a far better man than his dead brother. He
had a lofty conception of kingship, and expressed his intention
of undoing the wickedness of his brother, and ruling justly.
Amid other clauses of his charter, he promised that he would give
freedom to the Church, and not despoil the revenues of vacant
sees and abbacies. But the happy relations existing between the
King and Anselm were soon clouded. Rufus, on the Primate's
departure, had seized the estates of the archbishopric ; these
estates were stiU in the King's hands, and Henry demanded that
Anselm should do homage to himself on their restitution, and
receive investiture from his hands. Henry, beneath suavity of
manner, had the iron wiU of his father. He was determined to
maintain the " ancestral customs " and retain his power over
the Church. But the reign of Rufus and of some continental
princes had shown the subservience to the crown of prelates
bound to it by such close feudal ties. The practice was an
obvious opening for simony. Further, Anselm had been present Quarrel
at the councU of Rome, in which he had heard anathema pro- *'^.'?' '""
' ^ vestitiues.
nounced on aU those who received lay investiture. He replied
to Henry that it was impossible for him, in defiance of the decrees
of the Roman councU, to receive such investiture. " If the lord
king wUl keep these decrees, there wiU be good peace between
us ; if not, my stay in England is useless ; for I could not live
in communion with those who received bishoprics or abbacies
from you by such investiture. I have not returned to England to
remain here at the cost of disobedience to my spiritual chief, the
Roman Pontiff." The King was greatly disturbed ; his brother
Robert had just returned from the crusade clothed in a halo of
F

82 The Church of England
romance. It was certain that he would claim the English crown ;
it was equally certain that a section of the Norman lords would
support him. What if Anselm should join this disaffected party,
and Robert should win his support by the concession of the
right of lay investiture ? There is no evidence to show that
Anselm ever contemplated such a step. But Henry was alarmed ;
he suggested a compromise ; the question should be postponed
tUl envoys could be sent to the new Pope, Paschal, and see
whether they could gain for the English King the privUege
of exemption from the decree about investitures. Anseim's
attitude to this question of investitures should be carefuUy
noted ; it was not in itself to him a matter of principle. He
himself, without the faintest scruple, had received investiture
from the guilty hands of Rufus. The question was to him merely
an affair of spiritual obedience to the Pope and Church. Since
the time of his investiture by Rufus the councU of Rome had
absolutely forbidden the practice. Let the Church rescind the
decree, or let the Pope relax its operation, and Anselm would
willingly conform to the " ancestral customs." But tiU that
was done, never.
MeanwhUe, during the absence of the envoys at Rome,
Anselm did two acts of real service to Henry at the outset of
his reign. First, in the matter of his marriage, Henry wished
to marry Edith or Matilda, a daughter of the King of Scotland,
and a descendant through her mother from the old royal
line of Wessex. But it was stated by some that MatUda was
a nun. MatUda denied that this was the case ; she had been
forced by her aunt Christina to wear the veU, but she had always
refused, so she said, to take the vows. Anselm and the assembled
lords held an inquiry ; they supported her contention, and
declared that the lady was free to marry the King. Anselm
himself performed the marriage rite. The marriage is interesting
as a symbol of the fusion which was going on between the
Norman and the old English population. Queen MatUda was
throughout, even in the days of his absence from England, a
correspondent and friend of Anselm.
In a second matter Anselm also helped the King ; when Robert
invaded England in iioi, Anselm did aU he could to preserve the
Anglo-Norman lords in their aUegiance to Henry. It was owing
to him, more than others, that Robert's invasion was a faUure.
MeanwhUe the envoys had returned from the Pope. Paschal,

The Church under Norman Kings 83
in his letter to the King, absolutely refused to relax the decree
about investitures, and Anselm consequently refused to accept
the " customs." But Henry did not wish to press matters to
a rapture ; for he was not yet firmly seated in his saddle.
Robert of Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the most powerful
and turbulent of the barons, was threatening revolt. Anselm
agreed that a second embassy, comprising envoys both of the
King and himself, should be sent to Rome. The royal envoys
were to threaten Paschal with the loss of English obedience ;
Anseim's envoys, whUe informing the Pope of the anti-papal
feeling which in this matter actuated the nobles, were directed
to bring back a definite papal decision. On the return of the
embassy, Anselm published his letter from Paschal, in which
lay investiture was without reservation condemned. The
King's envoys, while not denying the authenticity of Paschal's
letter to Anselm, nor that this was the public decision of the
Pope, yet asserted that Paschal in private had assured them
that if Henry acted as a Christian King he would not enforce
against him the decree against investiture. No other course
was open than to send a third embassy to the Pope, and ask
him for his real decision. Paschal indignantly denied the truth
of the royal envoys' story, and pronounced an unqualified con
demnation on the practice of lay investiture. But Henry was
not to be baulked. He had just appointed a clerk named
Roger, who had originally attracted his attention by the speed
with which he read the service of the mass, to the see of Sarum
— ^this Roger, afterwards known as Roger of Salisbury, became
one of the greatest chanceUors — and he had invested him and
other bishops-elect with the insignia of their ofiice. But the tide
was rising against Henry, and even bishops-elect were beginning
to repudiate royal investiture. Henry then turned to Anselm
and asked him whether he himself would not go to Rome and
try to secure some modification of the papal attitude. Anselm
was attached to Henry, and Henry had already, in the autumn
of 1 102, allowed Anselm to hold a councU of the sort that he
had requested of Rufus, for the reformation of the morals both
of clergy and laity. So Anselm, with some reluctance, consented.
" But if I arrive at the apostolic seat, you must know that I
shaU not advise the Pope to do anything that wUl prejudice the
Uberty of the Church or my own honour." To which the barons
replied, " The Kmg wUl send his own ambassador to make known

84 The Church of England
his desires and the needs of the realm. You need only corro
borate the truth of their witness." So Anselm once more went
to Rome, traveUing this time in the King's peace (1T03). At
Rome he met WUliam of Warelwast, the King's ambassador and
an old opponent of his own. When the matter came before the
papal court, the King's envoy, after putting the royal case, ended
with the threat, " Whatever may be decided this way or that,
know all men present that my lord the King of England wUl not,
even to save his kingdom, allow himself to lose the investiture
of churches." " Nor even to save his life — I speak it in the
presence of God — ^wUl Paschal ever aUow him to have them with
impunity," was the Pope's immediate retort. Anselm immedi
ately left Rome, and was escorted over the Appenines by the
famous Countess Matilda. WUliam of Warelwast remained
behind, and secured a letter from the Pope for Henry, couched
in temperate language, and including a congratulation on the
birth of his son. But on the main point the Pope was firm.
Royal investiture could not be allowed. At Piacenza WiUiam
overtook Anselm, and they journeyed together as far as Lyons.
At Lyons WUliam, on taking his leave from Anselm, gave him
a verbal message from the King, " If you return with the intention
of being such to him as your predecessors were to his, he wUl
gladly welcome your return." " Is that aU ? " said Anselm.
" I speak to a man of understanding," replied WUliam. " I
understand your meaning," answered Anselm. This was
followed shortly afterwards by a letter from Henry to the same
purport, and a friendly correspondence foUowed between Henry
and his Queen on the one part and Anselm on the other. This
went on for two years. The line taken by Anselm was the same
throughout. He had no objection to the customs as such ; if
the Pope would rescind or relax the decree against investitures,
he would gladly return and be to Henry what Lanfranc had
been to Henry's father. FiuciUy an interview took place between
Anselm and Henry in 1105, and when the Pope had authorised
Anselm to anmU the excommunication against those bishops
who had received royal investiture, he returned to England in
1 106 amid scenes of popular enthusiasm, the Queen herself going
to meet him, in the absence of the King, who was in Normandy
of°iio7 ^ fighting the Tenchebrai campaign against his brother. In
concerning jjqj, ^ compromise On the question of investitures was finally
tures. reached in a conference at London between the King and the

The Church under Norman Kings 85
bishops. The compromise was a model for the Concordat of
Worms in 1122 between Pope and Emperor on the same subject.
Paschal had conceded to Henry the payment of homage by
bishops, and so a settlement was easUy effected. The King
agreed that henceforth no bishop or abbot should be invested
by the King or any layman with the gift of his pastoral staff
and ring ; Anselm on his part conceded that no one elected
bishop or abbot should, by reason of homage done to the King,
be deprived of consecration.
The terms of the compromise were reasonable ; they recog
nised the fact that the spiritual office did not come from the
King ; on the other hand, the prelate, besides holding a spiritual
office, was a territorial magnate, and it was reasonable that for
these, in a feudal society, he should do homage to his lord the
King. But the Church was saved from absolute feudaUsation.
Anselm himself did not long survive the settlement of the dis
pute ; the remaining months of his life were disturbed by inter
mittent attacks of Ulness. It was in lucid interspaces that he
wrote his last work, Concerning the Agreement of Foreknowledge,
Predestination, and the Grace of God with Free Will. On Palm
Sunday 1109 his life was clearly ebbing to its end ; one of the
monks by his bedside said to him, " My lord father, you are
going, as we see, to the Easter Court of your Lord." " And
indeed," replied Anselm, " if it is His wiU, I shall gladly obey.
But if it should rather be His will that I should stay till I can
solve a certain problem conceming the origin of the soul, I
would gladly accept the gift, for I know not whether any one
wiU solve it when I am gone." Three days later, as the day Death of
was dawning, he feU asleep, to rest after the struggles emd ^^f-™'
tempests of his life in the bosom of Christ. It was not tUl the
year 1494 that he was canonised by the Roman Church, and
then — such is the irony of history — he was canonised by the
Borgia Alexander VI. , one of the worst in the whole line of
Popes. That Anselm was a saint is plain. He had lived a life
of transparent honesty, of simple, high-handed purpose ; he
had been a thinker of no ordinary type. He is perhaps the
greatest of aU the archbishops of Canterbury.
Other events of Henry I.'s reign were, from an ecclesiastical
point of view, unimportant. For five years after Anseim's
death, in defiance of the promise in his charter, he kept the
see of Canterbury vacant, and appropriated its revenues. In

86 The Church of England
1114 Ralph d'Escures, the Bishop of Rochester, was translated
to Canterbury, and on his death in 1122 WiUiam of CorbeU
was appointed to succeed him. During their tenure of the see
the perennial struggle went on as to the primacy of Canterbury
over York. More important were encroachments attempted by
the papacy. The Pope wished to have a more unportant part
in the appointment of bishops; he also desired to extend his
authority by the appointment of legates. But Henry strongly
maintained his claim that no legates should be admitted except
at his own invitation. WUliam of CorbeU was the first arch
bishop to be appointed legatus natus ; ^ this precedent was
followed in the years which foUowed, and if it made the power
of the archbishop more derivative than formerly, it at any rate
saved England from the constant intrusion of foreigners coming
as legates a latere from Rome.
Henry I. died in 1135 without any surviving male issue ;
before his death he had attempted to secure the succession
of his daughter MatUda, by exacting oaths from his barons
that they would receive her as Queen. But the oaths were
Accession not kept ; Stephen, the son of the Conqueror's daughter Adela,
1135.^^ ^"' though he had himself taken the oath, claimed the crown and
was accepted as King. When MatUda prosecuted her claim
before the papal court, Stephen had a number of good reasons
for breaking his oath. The oath had been extorted from him
by force ; he had been released from his oath on the King's
deathbed ; he had sworn to MatUda " as heir," but he had
discovered she was not the heir ; in fact she was Ulegitimate,'as
her mother was a " nun," and Henry I. had had no right to marry
her. Whatever were the reasons, the Pope recognised Stephen's
claim. Stephen was a brave and generous man, but he had
neither a clear head nor a strong wUl. The problem of a feudal
state always was to find the centre of political gravity, and it
was quickly discovered that the centre of gravity in England
was not Stephen. Feudalism as a disintegrating force has
never been seen more clearly than it was in the England of
Stephen's reign. Each feudal lord did that which was right in
his own eyes ; they all buUt castles, and there were as many
tyrants as there were castles. The poor people everywhere
1 i.e. legate by virtue of his office, as distinguished from special legates sent
from the Pope (a latere).

The Church under Norman Kings 87
suffered, and the anarchy that prevailed throughout the reign Civil war.
taught every one the need of a strong central hand to keep
lawlessness in check. Stephen, besides his own weakness of
wiU, had special difficulties to contend with. He was not the
real heir to the throne ; throughout his reign, an excellent rival
candidate, first MatUda the ex-Empress, and then her son Henry
of Anjou, was in the field. Further, Stephen had only been able
to attain the crown by means of special compacts which he had
made with London, the Church, and certain of the great barons.
Hence these bodies always assumed that a breach of contract
on Stephen's part, ipso facto justified their throwing off allegiance.
It is no part of our task to trace the course of the conflict, with
its ups and downs, between Stephen and Matilda. The barons
behaved in a thoroughly selfish fashion, supporting now one,
and now the other side. Their aim was simply to secure their
own feudal independence. The anarchy was ended by the Peace Peace of
of WaUingford, 1153. Stephen was to reign during his life, and ^^'''"^'
Henry of Anjou was to succeed him. In the meantime Stephen
was to restore order by resuming the rights and estates which
the barons had usurped, and by destroying the adulterine or
unauthorised castles. The value of the settlement was never
reaUy tested, as Stephen died in the following year and was
succeeded by one of the greatest of English kings, Henry II. The
The history of the Church in Stephen's reign can be briefly ^^^'ing'^
told. The most influential ecclesiastic at the beginning of the Stephen s
reign was not the archbishop, WUliam of CorbeU, but Stephen's '^*'^""
own brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester. The Church, led
by Henry of Winchester, took an important part in securing
the throne for Stephen. Henry of Winchester went baU for
his brother's good behaviour towards the Church, whUe Stephen
promised in return free canonical election to bishoprics. He
also promised that he would restore aU Church possessions seized
since the Conqueror's death, and that during vacancies he would
not appropriate Church revenues. It is needless to say that
these promises were not kept, but on their strength he was
crowned King by the archbishop. The Primate died in ri36,
but the see of Canterbury was not fiUed tUl 1139, when Theobald,
Abbot of Bee, was appointed. It is said that Henry of Win
chester was alienated from the King by the fact that he himself
was not made archbishop. To soothe his wounded pride, he
was created legate by the Pope, and therefore took precedence

88 The Church of England
of the archbishop. TiU the year 1139 the bishops remained
loyal to the King. But he then, with consummate folly, alienated
his staunchest friends. There was a small f amUy ring of bishops
which concentrated in its hands the whole judicial, financial, and
administrative power of the State. The head of this famUy was
Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the justiciar ; his son and nephew
were respectively chanceUor and treasurer, whUe yet another
nephew was Bishop of Lincoln ; seeing the great barons buUding
castles, they did the same to secure themselves. The King had
the incredible folly to arrest and throw them aU into prison, on
the charge of treason. The outrage on the episcopal office
immediately set the whole body of the clergy in opposition.
The infiuence of the Church was arrayed on the side of
MatUda, and even Henry of Winchester deserted his brother.
After a whUe the sympathies of the people were alienated
by the arrogance of MatUda, and Henry of Wmchester verted
once more to the King's side ; but his day of power was gone,
for the successors of Pope Innocent did not renew his legatme
authority. At the conclusion of the struggle between Stephen
and the Angevin party it was Archbishop Theobald who
mediated between the parties and brought about the Peace of
WaUingford, by vUtue of which Henry II. ascended the throne,
1154. The primacy of Theobald did not mark any particular
era in the history of the English Church. He was chiefly re
markable for the number of able men he coUected round him.
Of these the most notable were Thomas, son of GUbert Becket,
Roger, afterwards Archbishop of York, and John of Salisbury,
the Primate's secretary and the greatest scholar of his time.

CHAPTER VII
THE CONFLICT OF CHURCH AND STATE— HENRY IL
AND THOMAS BECKET
The twelfth century was marked by the realisation in practice
of the Cluniac programme ; it witnessed the consolidation
of ecclesiastical power under the papal monarchy. Papal
claims which in noo excited wonder and surprise in England,
by the end of the century passed unchaUenged.^ The extension Causes of
of the papal power by the system of legates has already been |f°p^pai
noticed. It was a regular instrument employed for under- power.
mining the power and independence of the episcopate. The
Archbishop of Canterbury was either put in subordination to
one of his own suffragans, and often to foreigners much inferior
to him in ecclesiastical rank, or else he was driven in self-defence
to accept the position of legatus natus. The result of the system (i) Use of
was the confusion of the metropolitan with the legatine authority ^^^ ^^'
of the archbishop, a weakening of ecclesiastical discipline, and
an insidious extension of papal at the cost of episcopal power.
Further, a right to interfere in the appointment and translation
of bishops had already, in 1114, been preferred by the Pope,
but this claim was not allowed, even in practice, for many years
to come. It is dif&cult in every case to distinguish between the
causes and the effects of this extension of papal power. In
many cases, notably in the growth of the canon law, the effect (2) The
in its turn became a cause ; arising from the extension of the '^^°™ ^'"'
papal power, the canon law in its turn became a powerful influence
in its further growth. The very nature of the papal claim
was itself a chief support to its cause. The papal monarchy
arose in an age of brutal violence and oppression ; it represented
¦^ e.^. in England no Pope was acknowledged from 1085-1097, i.e. there was
no decision between the claims of Pope and antipope. Bishops and abbots, in
the struggle of Anselm against William II., seemed to half-beUeve in the independ
ence of the national Church.
The right of the Pope to summon bishops to his court was questioned, the
fallibility of his judgment enunciated in 1120 by distinguished clerics.
89

90 The Church of England
the majesty of law and right as against the reign of naked force,
the superiority of moral claims to those of mere violence ; it
was the homage paid to morality as something higher than mere
(3) Leader- strength. It was this need of curbing feudal violence, and not
Hi&e-^ the tissue of fraud and forgery known as the Isidorian decretals,
brand. which really created the papal power. The leadership of
HUdebrand and the continuity of papal policy were powerful
(4) The auxUiaries. The crusades, too, so greatly increased the papal
crusades, prggtige that some have thought them deliberately planned by
the Popes with this end in view. But this idea is as certainly
wrong as it is true that the increase of papal power followed
from them. The first crusade was preached by Urban II. in
1095, and at his instigation m5rriads of men from France
and Italy, and in a less degree from Germany, swarmed to the
East to rescue the holy places from the infidel. From a
strategic and political point of view the blow was weU timed ;
the advance of the Saracens, Turks, and other Mohammedan
races against the Eastern Empire was checked; the kingdom
of Jerusalem and other Frankish principalities were established
in Palestine. But the important thing to notice in this
connection is that the whole movement was instigated and
organised by the papacy. The Kings of Germany, France, and
England had their hands far too fuU to take any part in the
first crusade which established the Frankish kingdoms in
Palestine. The consequence was that the crusaders' success
^eatly enhanced the prestige of the papacy. It had stood
forth as the leader of Christendom against the infidel and had
been successful. In other ways, too, the crusades contributed
to the aggrandisement of the Church ; warriors going to the
East often made the Church their heir, or the Church advanced
money to needy knights and in return received liens on their
property, or cnisading vows were commuted by Popes and
bishops for money payments. In many ways, therefore, the
crusades increased the power of Pope and Church both over
the minds and the property of lajmien.
(s) Monas The Same effect was produced by the monastic revival of the
tic reviva . ^^gjf^jj century ; in the history of Westem Christendom the
monastic movement continuaUy repeated itself ; successive
waves of monasticism broke over the surface of Europe, always
with the same result ; thousands of men, mspked by the ascetic
ideal, sought the solitude of the wUdemess, that they might

The Conflict of Church and State 91
serve God in isolation from the world and secular influences ;
we read with astonishment of their austerities, of wattled huts,
or even the open skies for their covering, of water and berries
for their food ; each new order sought to recall monasticism to
its primitive austerities, but in every case history repeated its
cycle ; poverty gave way graduaUy to luxury ; stately chapels
and buildings took the place of the original huts ; the world
reasserted itself in the very heart of monasticism.
The spirit of self-abnegation fostered by the crusading furor
led to a fresh monastic movement. To it we may trace the rise
of the Carthusians, the Cistercians, the Premonstratensians, Orders of
the CarmeUtes, and other orders. They were a protest against '"°"^s-
the relatively comfortable existence into which the Clvmiacs and
older Benedictines had sunk. The first half of the twelfth
century was marked in England by the foundation of many
new monastic houses. The first to establish itself was the order
of Savigny — its earliest house was that of Furness in 1124 — ¦
but in 1147 the fifteen English houses of the order were ab
sorbed into that of the Cistercians. The Cistercian order was The
reaUy founded by Stephen Harding, an Englishman, the third order."^'^"
Abbot of Citeaux ; its aim was to realise the old ideal of poverty,
chastity, obedience, and in its early days the contrast was
vividly drawn between the wealth of Cluny and the " importunate
poverty " of Citeaux. The earUest Cistercian house in England
was that of Waverley (1129), in Surrey; it was a daughter
house from l'Aum6ne, in the diocese of Chartres ; Tintern was
founded from the same parent house in 1131. The Cister
cians never took the same root in the south of England that
they did in the north. It was a maxim of the Cistercians to
choose sites for their abbeys far from the haunts of men ;
but the south of England was more civUised and populated
than the north ; the secluded valleys and wUd moors of the
north, especiaUy those of Yorkshire, furnished sites of the
sort desired. In 1131 a body of monks sent by the great St.
Bernard of Clairvaux (one of the five original parent houses
of the Cistercian order), founded the abbey of Rivaulx ; from
RivaiUx, Melrose was founded ; in 1132 a secession from the
Benedictine house of St. Mary's, York, led to the foundation of
the great abbey of Fountains ; whUe KirkstaU was a daughter-
house of Foimtains, established in 1147. By the year
I152 there were already fifty flourishing Cistercian houses

92 The Church of England
in England. They did a great work in clearing forests, in
draming fen land and reclaiming it for cultivation ; but there is
little likelihood that they did anythuig for secular education in
the twelfth century ; they lived in districts too remote from
human habitation. Lastly, the order founded by GUbert of
Sempringham ought to be mentioned as purely English ; by
1154 there were already eleven houses of the order.
This monastic movement was a protest against the secularisa
tion of the Church and the violence of the age. The monks
bore witness to the fact that there was something nobler than
the life of the worldling ; they called men to the higher life of
walking with God ; doubtless in later days the monasteries
degenerated into houses where a confortable, even luxurious and
useless life was led ; but in the economy of God they have borne
witness to the world and played their part in making the higher
life of communion with God accessible to man. The share
taken by them in the extension of papal influence remains to
be noticed. It has already been pointed out that the Norman
kings found the English monasteries centres of strong national
anti-Norman feeling, and it was partly with the aim of crashing
this patriotic spirit that the Conqueror and his successors had
set over them Norman abbots. But in course of time the
Norman dynasty became English in its policy and anti-papal
in its sympathies ; both King and bishops were opposed to the
aggressive policy by which the papacy tried to make them
dependent on itself; the monasteries, on the other hand, were
constantly trying to emancipate themselves from episcopal juris
diction — the Cistercian order especiaUy led the way — and to
secure this "emancipation they claimed subordination, apart from
Monas- their own officers, to the Pope alone. Hence they ceased to
teries be ccutrcs of national feeling, and became the hotbeds of papal
cGntrcs of k t
papal in- influence, which they continued to be tUl their dissolution by
Henry VIII. Monastic exemptions from episcopal control can
be traced to Anglo-Saxon times, but the earlier exemptions
were very moderate in character. By the thirteenth century
many monastic bodies — even when they were cathedral chapters
— had ousted episcopal control of every sort. Once more a blow
at ecclesiastical discipline in the Church of England had been
dealt by the papacy. It was fraught with untold mischief for
the future.
But the greatest source of papal influence and its chief

fluence.

The Conflict of Church and State 93
contributing factor was the growth of the canon law^ and the
whole system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is impossible
to understand the controversy of Henry II. with Becket unless
the canonist point of view is understood. The canon law was Canon law.
a mixed body of jurisprudence drawn from various sources.
The early Christian emperors had encouraged bishops to arbitrate its growth.
in the disputes of Christians with each other ; thek awards and
the penitential discipUne connected with confession were the
germs from which the later jurisdiction grew. The canon law
can be traced to its origin in these awards and the canons
passed by the great councUs of the Church in the fourth and
fifth centuries. These were reinforced as time went on by the
decretals of the Bishops of Rome. Various collections of these
canons and decretals were made. Then in the ninth century
the famous forgery of the Isidorian decretals was sprung upon
an unsuspecting world. There decretals, purporting to come
from the Popes of the first four centuries, were intended to
emphasise certain principles — that ecclesiastical power was
of superhuman origin, that bishops were sacrosanct, that the
Bishop of Rome was supreme. About the year 1140 the
Decretum Gratiani was pubUshed. Gratian harmonised the
" authorities " on ecclesiastical questions, weighing them
against each other, and so produced his famous compUation.
After this date the decretals issued by successive Popes
increased in volume, and in 1234 aU the canons were authori
tatively codified by Gregory IX. ; in 1298 Boniface VIII.
issued the Sext, a codification of the decretals issued since
1234 ; these were foUowed by further collections, the Clementines
in 1317, and the Extravagants, 1500.
The canon law was a marveUous system drawn from many
sources ; it was more scientific than any other system of law
operative in the Middle Ages. Much of it, especially its form, was
borrowed from the old civU law of Rome, though the chapters
on marriage had to be entirely rewritten, and many other
chapters were altogether new. The whole canonical jurispru
dence and jurisdiction greatly increased the power of the Pope.
The papal Curia became the court of final appeal for the whole of
Latin Christendom. But this was not aU. The Pope had not
merely the right to hear cases on appeal ; many a court which
* On the whole subject, see Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law,

94 The Church of England
sat in England and elsewhere administered justice, not by
reason of right inherent in its ecclesiastical president, the bishop,
but by virtue of a papal rescript. Besides this, the Pope had
the right, which he constantly exercised, of evoking cases at
any stage in a process, from the ordinary ecclesiastical courts.
The resrdt was writ large in the paralysis of ecclesiastical discipline
in mediaeval England and mediaeval Europe. If a bishop was
prosecuting a clerk, the clerk had only to appeal to the Pope,
and the bishop found himself in a position of defendant to a
suit at Rome. The evasions and delays thus rendered possible,
when coupled with the venality of the Roman court, paralysed
all effective discipline. Well would it have been if Henry II. and
his successors had been able to check the system of appeals to
Rome.
Its sphere. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the courts Christian — i.e. the
ecclesiastical courts — covered at least half the whole field of law.
They claimed jurisdiction either because the subject of dispute
was ecclesiastical in nature, or because a party to the suit was
of a particular status. Thus under the former head they claimed
jurisdiction not only in matters purely spiritual, such as ordina
tion, divine service, and heresy, but also in matters less purely
spiritual, or altogether temporal, such as — (i) advowsons (i.e.
the right of presentation to benefices) ; (2) lands belonging to
the Church ; (3) tithes and burial fees ; (4) all questions con
cerning marriage and legitimacy of chUdren ; (5) wiUs ; (6) the
whole sphere of contract, under the head of perjury ; (7) im
purity, slander, simony, usury, &c.
Under the latter head the Church claimed cognisance wherever
one of the parties was a cleric, and on the Continent it claimed
suits involving widows and orphans.
Thus it wUl be seen that the sphere demanded by the Church
for the courts Christian was enormous. On behalf of the
Church's demand it should be noticed that the ground was
occupied by the Church for the simple reason that in many
cases the State had not attempted to occupy it. The law of
evidence employed by the ecclesiastical was better than that
adopted by the secular courts ; accused people were not con
demned on mere hearsay evidence ; indeed the canonical juris
prudence was as yet in many ways more scientific and complete
than the secular law ; it was not untU the tangle of secular
customs and laws had been woven into a coherent system by

The Conflict of Church and State 95
bishops skUled in the canons, sitting as royal judges, that the
common law was fit to be compared to the canon law. The Defects in
main defect in the spiritual jurisdiction has already been pointed *^ j^J"'
out ; it was frequently paralysed by appeals and evocation of diction.
suits to Rome ; it was intolerable that cases affecting the rights
of king and baronage and nation should be transferred to
an alien and sometimes hostile court. A further defect lay
in the fact that the ecclesiastical courts provided no adequate
system of penalties ; they could not, even for the greatest crimes,
infUct the penalty of death ; their maximum punishment was
lifelong imprisonment ; and since bishops did not like to incur
the expense of buUding prisons and maintaining criminals, the
usual penalties were simply those of penance and fine, with the
result that many " hardy criminals " walked at large.
It wUl be seen from this short review of the canonical system
that Becket's claims cannot be called a monstrous absurdity ;
they were simply the claims put forward by canonists all over
Europe. We now come to the Becket controversy. Let us
look at its two protagonists.
Henry II., the first of the house of Anjou, ascended the Accession
throne of England in 1154. His reign was one of the most n.fiTsI.
important in English history. In private life a profligate. His char-
notorious for the paroxysms of demoniac ^ anger into which he ^<=ter.
sometimes feU, in his public career he generaUy showed great self-
restraint and relentless determination to secure the ends which
he had set before himself. Though irreligious and lawless in
his own life, he respected the outward forms of religion, and
was resolved to secure the supremacy of law in his dominions.
The feature in his character which most struck his contem
poraries was his extraordinary restlessness and terrific energy.
It cannot be said that he was t5nrannical, except when he had
some special end to serve ; it cannot be said that he was an
ideal king, consumed, like Alfred, with love for his people. Far
from it ; he was simply a hard-headed, strong-wUled man who
saw that from a weU-governed kingdom more money could be
* The old legend ran that an early Count of Anjou married a lady of unknow-n
birth, but extraordinary beauty. This lady would never, when in church, stay till
the host was consecrated in the communion. By the count's order she was one
day seized by four knights on attempting to leave the church before the consecra
tion. She thereupon sailed through the window of the church, leaving her cloak
in the knights' hands. Thus the whole Angevin house was thought to be sprung
from the devil. — Girald. Came., De Instr. Prin., iii. c. 27.

96 The Church of England
raised and a firmer basis for his own power laid down. His
reforms, it is true, brought a measure of prosperity to his
subjects, but it was not primarUy for this purpose that they
were adopted. Henry had a lofty ideal of kingship, and an iron
sense of order ; the aim of his foreign policy was to keep his
own possessions secure, and prosecute any lawful claims he
might have through the marriages of himself and his sons. He
had no wider scheme of conquest. In home affairs his pur
pose clearly was to be master in his own dominions, to make
his power felt with equal incidenee in aU parts of his empire,
to tolerate no " imperium in imperio." There were only two
powers likely to challenge the aims of his internal policy ; those
powers were the baronage and the Church ; and it was therefore
to reduce the power of the Church and baronage that Henry
He crushes sct himself. So far as the barons were concerned, his task was
feudalism, .j-q " eliminate feudalism " from the sphere of govemment.
The steps he took to secure this en(J cannot be discussed at
length in this place ; in the judicial sphere he reorganised the
central court of the King, he annexed to the crown thfe whole
criminal jurisdiction, and by the creation of fresh writs protected
all freeholds in the royal courts, thus reducing the franchises of
the feudal barons ; he gave further extension to the repre
sentative principle by the employment of local recognitors
(juries), both for the presentment of criminals and for trials;
he adopted the device of his grandfather by which justices went
out from the central Curia Regis to visit all the shire courts for
fiscal and judicial business, and by so doing he introduced one
uniform common law, i.e. the law of the King's court, into every
corner of the land. He undermined the feudal levy by en
couraging the practice by which mUitary service was commuted
for money payments ; he raised new official famUies, and by so
doing depressed the administrative importance of the baronage.
In his struggle with the feudal lords Henry was successful ;
it was otherwise m his struggle with the Church, or rather with
Becket — for the Church as a whole sided with the King. It
wiU be seen that Henry was the author of far-reaching reforms in
Trieste the sphere of justice. The aim of those reforms was to limit
ecciTsL's-^ privUeges, to abolish anomalies; as a part of this comprehensive
ticai juris- schemc he endeavoured to destroy clerical immunities, and
diction. reduce the privUeges of the ecclesiastical courts which the
Conqueror had set up. The protagonist in defence of the clerical

The Conflict of Church and State 97
immunities and the ecclesiastical courts was Thomas Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury. Now if we regard this struggle from
the point of view of a twentieth century democrat, to whose
heart the abolition of privUege and cast-iron uniformity are
dear, our sympathies must go with Henry ; but if we do so, we
only show a lack of historical imagination. We must take into
account the fact that for 350 years most Englishmen thought
Becket in the right, and from this point of view it says Uttle for
Henry's statesmanship that he should have been centuries in
advance of his age. Who was Becket ? After his death a halo Thomas
of legend quickly gathered round his career ; the story soon ^'='^''^'-
grew that Becket was the son of his father, GUbert Becket, and
a Saracenic princess. GUbert, according to the story, was taken His early
prisoner in Palestine by a Saracenic chief, and owed his escape '^^'^*^'"'
to the love of the chief's daughter. Unable to live without him,
though she only knew two words of his language, "GUbert"
and "London," by their aid she traced him to his home, was
baptized, and then married to him. Thomas was her son. But
the truth is far more prosaic than the romance. Thomas was on
both sides of Norman parentage by blood ; by birth and breeding
he was English (for by this time the upper classes of Norman and
Saxon were fused into a single people). His father, GUbert, was a
London merchcint in good position, who frequently entertained
distinguished foreigners. By one of these distinguished strangers
Thomas was introduced into the house of Archbishop Theobald,
and took his place in the circle of able men whom Theobald
coUected round him. The Archbishop noticed his great abUity,
and encouraged him to spend a year in study of the canon law
at Bologna, the great Italian law university. He employed
him in the delicate mission sent to the Roman Curia to secure
the papal condemnation of the proposal to crown Eustace,
Stephen's son, as King. Thomas was successful. FinaUy
Thomas was introduced by Theobald to King Henry, and at his Chancellor.
suggestion he was appointed ChanceUor of the realm, 1155.
An extraordinary friendship rapidly grew up between the
two men. Though already Archdeacon of Canterbury, Becket
was only in deacon's orders, and his ecclesiastical duty
rested very lightly on his shoulders. The two men became
inseparable boon companions, sharing together their sports, their
hunting, their jousts, their banquets. A typical story wUl
show the intimate terms on which they lived ; one cold winter'sG

98 The Church of England
day they were riding along a street in London ; the King saw
a poor old man coming along in a threadbare coat. " Would it
not be a kmdness," he said to Thomas, " to give him a thick,
warm cloak ? " When the poor man came up the Kmg hailed
him, and asked him if he would like a good cloak ; then putting
his hands on Becket's shoulders, the King tried to remove, whUe
Becket strove to retain, his magnificent scarlet cloak ; the
knights in attendance hurried up to find out the sudden cause
of this scuffle between the two friends ; but the friends were too
intent on the scuffle to give them any information ; finaUy, of
course, the King was victorious, and the ChanceUor's rich cloak
went to the delighted beggar. In Henry's amours alone Becket
had no part. Magnificent pageantry was dear to the ChanceUor's
heart ; in the tournament and war he had no rival, unhorsing
the most famous knights ; in the Toulouse war, 1159, he
brought to the host no fewer than 700 knights, the flower of the
whole army. Besides aU this, Thomas' versatUity was such
that he had a perfect genius for work and business. It was
characteristic of him throughout, that whatever he did, he did
heartUy ; in whatever position he was placed, he played the
role to the life ; as ChanceUor a great part of the business of
the realm feU upon his shoulders. The Chancellor was responsible
for the administration of escheats and the estates of vacant sees.
Thomas managed these in a way that was very advan
tageous to the royed coffers ; it was he who arranged the
exaction of the" Toulouse scutage and the imposition of an
arbitrary feudal tax (donum) on the lands of the Church in
1159. His capacity for business was of enormous value to
the King, and explains in part Henry's vexation when Becket,
after his promotion to the archbishopric, resigned his office.
Bishop Stubbs has pointed out that the great churchmen of this
time can be divided into three classes ; those who were merely
secular statesmen rewarded for their official services by bishoprics,
such as Roger of Salisbury ; those who were professional ecclesi
astics, such as Henry of Winchester — their special interests being
the interests of the Church and the ecclesiastical profession;
lastly, the class of saints, such as Anselm, who sought primarUy
the higher life and the glory of God. Thomas Becket tried to
fUl aU these parts in succession. Hitherto he had been the
ecclesiastical statesman, at once the ChanceUor of the King and
the recipient of m^y ecclesiastical prefernje^its. But in j:i6|

The Conflict of Church and State 99
Archbishop Theobald died, and in the foUowing year Henry
nominated Becket to the vacant see. Rumour, and, it was
said, the wish of Theobald himself, had marked out Becket as
the future archbishop. There can be little doubt that Henry's
heart was already set on a comprehensive reform in the ad
ministration of justice, and on the aboUtion of the scandal by
which criminous clerks escaped adequate punishment. With
Becket as archbishop-chanceUor, he thought that all violent
coUision between Church and State in the course of this much-
needed reform could be avoided. Church and Crown would be
" Two rivers gently fiowing side by side."
Becket, both as ChanceUor and Archdeacon of Canterbury,
must have learnt how urgent was the need to amend the scandal.
But Henry had completely mistaken the character of his
friend. They were both in Normandy, and Becket was on the
point of starting to England on other business when Henry
informed him of his intention to make him archbishop. Becket
answered, with a grimace at his own splendid apparel, " What a
saint you desire to put in that saintly seat, and over that saintly
convent ! " And then, with words of warning, he went on : " But
be assured that if by God's providence it should so happen,
the grace and intimate friendship which you now show me wUl
soon be turned into the bitterest hate. For I know that you
wiU make oppressive exactions, and that even now you are
planning many changes in matters ecclesiastical which I could
not calmly aUow." The King paid no attention to the threat,
and treated it as a jest. On the 2nd June, 1162, Becket was Becket
ordained priest, and on the following day he was consecrated o/canter-^
Archbishop of Canterbury. In the middle of the consecration hury.
service he took the precaution of getting from the King's repre
sentatives, the yoimg Henry and the justiciar, a full release from
aU secular obligations. The consecration took place on the
octave of Whitsunday, and Becket ordained a new feast to be
kept thenceforth on that day in honour of the Holy Trinity. It Trinity
was from England that the observance of Trinity Sunday spread ^"""^^y-
over Latin Christendom.
Becket now left the first stage in his career far behind ;
the outward form of his life whoUy changed ; he adopted the
monastic habit, and ever after wore a hair shirt next his skin ;
penances and scovirgings became part of bi$ daUy routine ; be

loo The Church of England
spent much of his time m prayer and readmg of Scripture ; every
night with his own hands he washed the feet of thirteen beggars.
Theobald had doubled the alms given by the archbishop to the
poor ; Becket in his turn doubled the amount given by Theobald.
As before, he was lavish in his display and sumptuous in his
hospitaUty ; but now, whUe the gay knights partook of a luxurious
repast, the archbishop sat apart, eating little, surrounded by
friars and learned monks, whUe an attendant read to them some
edifying book. Becket seems to have taken Anselm for his
model, but his efforts at saintship were never quite successful.
Anseim's saintliness was natural, and sprang from the unconscious
goodness of his soul ; his opposition to the crown had been
on matters almost whoUy spiritual. Becket's opposition was
mainly to secure immunities for a particular class — the clergy ;
his saintliness was too artificial and too conscious ; we never
can help feeling that he was constantly asking himself, " What
would a saint do ? What would Anselm have done under these
circumstances ? " But we must not be too hard in our judg
ment ; after aU, it shows no ignoble quality in a man, if he tries
to live up to the trust of a great office to which he has been
appointed. The causes of estrangement and then quarrel rapidly
Becket multiplied between the archbishop and the King. He greatly
ciiamfeUor- irritated the King by the immediate resignation of the ChanceUor's
ship. office, 1162, thus intimating that the old days of secular
service were over. In July 1163, a scene occurred between
the King and Primate at the councU of Woodstock, over a
certain tax called the sheriff's aid. Hitherto this tax had been
paid straight to the sheriff, but the King now proposed to annex
it to the royal treasury. The exact point of the change is
somewhat obscure, but Becket firmly opposed it, constituting
himself the champion of the sheriff or people. " We wUl not give
them to you as revenue, mj' lord king, saving your good pleasure ;
but if the sheriffs and their officers do us adequate service, we
will not faU to give the aid to them." " By God's eyes," swore
the indignant King (it was his favourite oath), " they shaU be
Quarrels given as revenue, and enroUed in the Kmg's roU. What right
with the have you to contradict, when no one is attempting to wrong
your men ? " " By those same eyes," replied Becket, " my lord
king, they shaU not be paid from any land of mine, not a penny
from the possessions of a single church." Becket seems to have

The Conflict of Church and State loi
carried the councU with him. Shortly afterwards, the Primate,
having had a dispute with a certain tenant-in-chief of the crown
over Church patronage, excommunicated him before getting
the royal licence. This was a gross breach of the ancient customs
of the realm (see p. 68). But the most serious matter in
dispute was over the punishment of criminous clerks. It was Criminous
a question of growing scandal; for "clerks" included not'^^'^^"
merely bishops, priests, and deacons, but men in minor orders
as well, such as those of sub-deacon, acolyte, &c., and the
Church claimed that clerks of all sorts should be tried in the
ecclesiastical courts and subjected merely to ecclesiastical
punishments, i.e. at the most, imprisonment. It seemed in
tolerable to churchmen that the priest who was able to " make
God " in the mass should under any circumstances be treated
like a common malefactor and punished by laymen. " Touch
not My anointed" was their answer to any such proposal.
There was this much to be said on behalf of the clerical claim :
the law of evidence was more strict in the ecclesiastical than in
the secular courts, and it was so much to the good that prisoners,
even when guUty, should be saved from the barbarous mutUa-
tions often infUcted in the temporal tribunals. On the other
hand, there can be no doubt that this system of clerical privUege
led to the escape, without due punishment, of many criminals.
A number of such scandals had already been brought to Henry's
notice ; it was said that since the beginning of his reign no
fewer than a hundred of such murders, apart from other crimes,
had gone unpunished. Henry was determined on a drastic
reform ; he was resolved that clerks found guUty by an ecclesi
astical court should be degraded, and then transferred to the
secular arm for punishment.
In a councU held at Westminster (October 1163) the whole
question of the criminous clerks was raised. Becket, to whom
compromise of any sort was detestable, took up the definite
position that laymen could not judge clerks, and that it was
contrary to the canons for a clerk to be punished twice. The
clerk must suffer punishment, if at aU, by the judgment of the
ecclesiastical court, and must not be remitted for further punish
ment to laymen. " Nee enim Deus iudicat bis in id ipsum" —
" God Himself does not punish twice the same offence." The
King then turned to the bishops and raised a stUl wider question.
Would they, or would they not, accept the ancient customs of

I02 The Church of England
the realm ? The bishops, led by the Primate, replied evasively
that they would do so, "saving their order" ; then answer was
tantamount to a refusal. The Kmg was furious ; but two
months later Becket was persuaded by papal envoys to give a
private promise to obey " the customs." Henry was not, how
ever, content with a private promise ; m January 1164, in the
great councU held at Clarendon, near Salisbury, a committee
of barons was appointed to draw up a table of the " ancient
customs of the realm," so far as they concemed the relations of
Church and State. The result of this committee's labour was
Constitu- the famous document of sixteen clauses known as the Con-
aarendon, stitutions of Clarendon. Of these constitutions the most im-
1164. portant were the foUowing : —
I. As to advowsons (i.e. the right of presentation to churches),
if a dispute arose, it was to be determined in the King's court.
3. Clerks accused of crime were first to be brought into the
King's court to make answer ; in every case such clerks were
then to go for trial to the ecclesiastical court, whUe the royal
judge was to send an officer into the court Christian to watch
the case on behalf of the crown. If the clerk was found guilty,
he was then in every case to be handed over to the secular arm
for punishment.
4. Archbishops, bishops, and beneficed clergy were in no
case to leave the realm without the leave of the King ; and if
they did leave the realm, they were to give security that they
would not seek any harm to the King or realm.
7. No tenant-in-chief of the King or royal officer was to be
excommunicated, nor his lands placed under an interdict, unless
the King, or in his absence the justiciar, had first been consulted.
8. Appeals were to go from the archdeacon to the bishop,
and from the bishop to the archbishop ; and if the archbishop
faUed to do justice, final resort should be had to the King, that
by the King's order the matter might be settled in the court
of the archbishop ; no appeal was to go further without the
King's leave.
\N.B. — This was of course aimed against appeals to the Pope.]
9. If a dispute arose about land, which a clerk asserted was
held by franc-almoign,^ but a la3nnan asserted was held by
* i.e. on the condition of spiritual service of which the nature was not
expressly stated. A man, X, would often give land to a monastery on condi
tion that the monks should consult X's spiritual wel&re.

The Conflict of Church and State 103
lay fee,i a jury was to be empanelled by the royal judge to
decide this preliminary question, and according to the deci
sion they gave, the case would then go for trial either to the
ecclesiastical or to the secular court.
n. Archbishops, bishops, and aU the beneficed clergy of
the realm who held from the King by tenure-in-chief,
held their possessions from the King as baronies, and were
answerable for them to the judges and officers of the King, and
followed and did aU royal rights and customs, and, like the rest
of the barons, ought to be present at the trials of the royal
court, tiU a matter arose in court which might affect life or
limb. 2
12. When an archbishopric or bishopric or abbey was vacant,
it ought to be in the King's hand, and the King was to take
from it aU revenues as his own. And when provision was
made for the vacant church, then the King ought to summon
the more important members of that church, and the election
should take place in the chapel of the King, with the assent of
the King, and by the counsel of the clergy whom he had
summoned for that purpose. Thereupon the person elected
was to do homage and fealty to the King as his Uege lord,
for his life and limbs and his worldly honour, saving his order,
before he was consecrated.
15. Pleas conceming debts, whether due under pledge of
faith or not, were to be within the royal jurisdiction.
16. Sons of viUeins ought not to be ordained without the
consent of the lord on whose land they were known to have
been bom.
Such was the substance of this famous document ; on it
various questions arise. First, were they, as the King claimed,
a fair representation of the ancient customs ? Secondly, were
they a violation, as Becket contended, of the canon law ?
Thirdly, the constitutions were, as we wUl see, formaUy renounced
by Henry II. at Avranches in 1172 ; but the further question
stUl remains as to how the matters in dispute were actuaUy
regulated for the rest of the Middle Ages.
First, then, were they reaUy the ancient customs ? Restric- were they
the ancient
^ i.e. by knight service, or any other free tenure, such as socage. customs?
' The canons did not allow clerics to sit as judges in cases which would
involve the mutilation or death of the prisoner if foimd guilty.

I04 The Church of England
tions on papal briefs, and the rule that no tenant-m-capite
should be excommunicated without the King's leave, had been
clearly laid down by the Conqueror; it had always, since the
Conquest, been the case that great Church dignitaries, like other
barons, owed temporal service for their estates ; the rule
about canonical election had been to a certain extent variable,
but Henry was at least claiming no more influence than his
ancestors had certainly enjoyed. It has always been disputed
whether the course proposed for the trial and punishment of
criminous clerks was an innovation or not. Professor Maitland
has emphasised the fact that Becket, so far as we know, never
challenged Henry's definite statement that his proposals were
the ancient customs. His admirers could only retort that our
Lord's words were not " I am the custom," but " I am the
Truth," and therefore Maitland infers that the general inference
is in favour of the truth of Henry's contention. But this
argument cannot reaUy be pressed very far. Becket regarded
the question from what, to him at any rate, was a far higher
point of view, viz. was the practice right ? The fact of the
matter is that we have not a sufficient knowledge of the pre
cedents to give a definite answer ; the precedents we have are
mostly those of State trials, and it is certain that in State trials
the law would have been strained to breaking point. We know
that the Conqueror and Lanfranc had no hesitation in arresting
Odo of Bayeux and trying him on a charge of treason. Lanfranc's
ready wit had suggested a distinction between the Bishop of
Bayeux and the Earl of Kent. In Stephen's reign royal rights,
in this as in most other things, \were surrendered, but from
Stephen's reign no fair argument as to the original custom can
be drawn. No definite answer therefore can be given to the
question whether the method proposed by Henry for the trial
of criminous clerks was an innovation or not.
Were they Secondly, were Henry's proposals contrary to the canon
the canSn° ^^^ ^ Doubtless in many respects they were ; the Pope
law? condemned, out of the clauses already given, clauses i, 3, 4, 7,
8, 9, 15. If we confine our attention to the clause about the
criminous clerks, it is clear that those parts of it which required
the accusation of the clerk before a temporal judge, and the
sending of a royal officer to witness the trial in the ecclesiastical
court, were repugnant to the canon law ; but on the most
important point, viz. that of double punishment, it would

The Conflict of Church and State 105
seem that Becket was wrong ; his view was certainly not the
view of Gratian, and at a later date Innocent III. definitely laid
down that double punishment was not agamst the canons. The
mediseval Church had little hesitation about degrading a heretic
clergyman and then handing him over to the secular arm to
be burnt. Thirdly, how were the points in dispute actually settled for How were
the rest of the Middle Ages ? Advowsons were retained for the [n^dhpute"
King's court ; in the matter of criminous clerks the Church in settled?
large measure won the day. For the most trivial, and also
for the most heinous offences, i.e. those of treason, and offences
against the forest law, clerks got no benefit of clergy; but in
the case of felonies, such as murder, clerks were first accused in
the King's court ; in every case they were sent on, at the bishop's
request, to the ecclesiastical tribunal, but if they were convicted
they were not sent back for punishment. Benefit of clergy
became an ever-growing scandal.
Appeals to Rome, with the connivance of the King, continued
in increasing volume ; it was an appeal to Rome in a marriage
suit — that of Henry VIII. — ^which was to be the occasion of
the Reformation.
Clause 9 represented the low-water mark of the royal claims ;
in the sequel, Henry II. and his successors claimed for the secular
tribunals the cognisance of aU cases touching land of every
description. Clause n was maintained. The appointment to bishoprics
and abbacies has a tangled history ; election to abbacies was a
matter of comparative indifference, but the King maintained a
strong hold on the appointments to bishoprics (see p. 155). As
to clause 15, the Church was trying to annex the-whole sphere of
contract for her tribunals ; during the century which foUowed
she largely realised this claim, but not afterwards. With the
practical disappearance of vUleinage in the fourteenth century
clause 16 became obsolete.
Let us now return from this digression to the main thread
of our narrative. When these constitutions were presented to '
the bishops at Clarendon, under the leadership of Foliot, Bishop
of London, .they were minded to reject them as intolerable.
But Becket, to the surprise of aU, accepted them with an odd
reservation. " It is the wish of my lord the King that I should

io6 The Church of England
perjure myself : for the present I submit, and incur the perjury,
but I shall do penance for it in the future as best I may." Thus
the wind had been taken out of the saUs of the bishops, and they
submitted. Thomas was then immediately seized by a fit of
remorse at his own weakness, and refused to affix his seal to the
instrument. The Pope, at his request, released him from his
promise. But /Henry was not a man to be easUy baulked : in
September 1164 Thomas was summoned to appear before the
King's court on a charge of denying justice to John the Marshal ;
he refused to appear, and was then summoned to answer for his
contempt at a councU of the King that was to be held at North
ampton on 6th October. At the councU the King caUed for an
account of aU the revenues which had passed through Thomas'
hands as ChanceUor. Thomas pleaded the discharge which had
been given him by the Justiciar on the King's behalf before his
consecration, but Henry repUed that the discharge had not been
authorised by himself. It was clear that the King intended his
ruin. Thomas therefore adopted an uncompromising position.
He forbade his suffragans, the bishops, to take any further part
in the proceedings against him ; if they did, he appealed against
them to the Pope ; he refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction
of the councU. A dramatic scene foUowed. Becket, having first
significantly celebrated the mass of the first martyr, St. Stephen,
at an adjoining church, took his cross in his own hands, and
with the crucifix defiantly Ufted up, he stalked into the councU
chamber. " A fool," said Foliot, Bishop of London, " you
ever were ; a fool you are stiU, and ever wUl be." The bishops,
overawed by the Primate, were aUowed to appeal against him
to the Pope, and were on that ground excused from joining in
the judgment of the lay barons. The lay barons passed sentence
of condemnation on the Primate, and the Justiciar, Robert of
Leicester, was sent to the outer chamber, where Becket was
sitting, to announce their decision. But Robert had hardly
begun to speak when Becket interrupted him. " Judgment !
what are you doing ? Judgment is a sentence given after trial.
I have not pleaded, therefore you cannot judge me, whether
guUty or no. I am your father ; you are lords of the palace,
lay powers, secular persons ; I wUl not hear your judgment."
Seizing his cross, the Primate swept majesticaUy out of the haU,
amid the taunts of the courtiers, who cried " Traitor ! "
Within a few days Becket left the country and hurried to

The Conflict of Church and State 107
Sens, where the Pope, himself an exUe, was living. We cannot Becket
foUow in detaU the story of Becket's exUe on the Contment, England.
but the attitude of the chief characters in the dispute from
1164 to 1170 can be briefly explained. Pope Alexander was Attitude
himself in the middle of his struggle with the great emperor, °^ ^°^
Frederic Barbarossa ; he was at this time (n64) an exile from
Rome. His sympathies were naturaUy with Thomas, who was
engaged in a straggle simUar to his own with the lay power.
But his position was far from easy, and had to be modified to
suit the varying exigencies of the political situation. He did
not wish to lose the English obedience, and the situation was
for him exceedingly critical when Henry's envoys at the CouncU
of Wiirzburg approximated to Frederic Barbarossa and the
side of the antipope. The Pope had to trim his saUs ; thus
when Becket, in 1166, excommunicated seven of Henry's
counciUors, including the Justiciar, Richard de Luci, and
threatened Henry himself with a like fate, these sentences were
suspended by the Pope ; in 1167 the Pope actuaUy autho
rised Roger of York, in manifest derogation of the rights of
Canterbury, to crown the King's son, the young Henry, in the
event of Becket's absence. But as the Pope's prospects in his
struggle with the Emperor and the antipope improved, this
licence was withdrawn ; the Pope's general attitude was one
of sjnnpathy with Becket, and endeavour to arrange a com
promise between him and Henry.
Louis, the King of France, rejoiced at the quarrel, and was and Louis
glad to keep it open, because it was such an embarrassment to °^ France.
his hated rival, the King of England.
Henry and Becket themselves conducted their dispute in a
way which did little credit to either party. Henry showed
pettiness of spirit in his persecution of Becket's friends and
relations, and m his threat that he would expel aU the Cistercians
from England if the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny continued
to give Becket hospitality. The threat was only efficacious in
so far as it made Becket change his residence to the Benedictuie
abbey of Sens.
Becket showed little of the Christian spirit of meekness, and
exhausted the whole armoury of spiritual thunder ; in 1166
he excommunicated seven of Henry's councillors, and he
followed this up by excommunicating, among others, two of
his suffragans, of whom one was Foliot, Bishop of London. In

io8 The Church of England
June 1170, further fuel was added to the fire of dispute,
when Henry, in derogation of the rights of the Church of Canter
bury, had his son crowned by Roger of York, in defiance of
prohibitions both from the Pope and Becket.
After many attempts to effect a compromise, after mter-
views between the King and Becket, which either Becket spoUed
by his reservation in the words " saving my order," or the Kmg
by refusing to give the kiss of peace, a settlement between the
two men was finaUy arranged at the meeting of Frdteval (June
1170), if indeed that can be caUed a settlement, which was based
on merely suppressing discussion on the main questions at issue.
Not aword was said about " the customs," the original cause
of dispute, but Henry promised restitution to Becket and his
friends, and amends to the see of Canterbury in the matter
Becket of the coronation. On the 1st December 1170 Becket amid
returns popular rejoicing landed ouce more in England. But he returned
with thoughts of fire and vengeance ; he had already smuggled
into England papal letters suspending the bishops who had
taken part in the coronation of the young Henry. He offered
to absolve the bishops if they would swear to obey the Pope's
orders, but at the instigation of the Archbishop of York they
appealed from him to the King. On Christmas Day Becket
went further, and again excommunicated Robert de Broc and
other vassals of the King. Meanwhile the excommunicated
bishops had made their way to Henry's court in Normandy
and told him of Becket's doings. Henry was furious, and cursed
those who did not avenge him on a single priest. "What
sluggards and cravens I have nurtured, and bred in my realm :
they keep no faith to their lord, when they aUow him to be
mocked so foully by a lowborn clerk." The words which were
to have such a fatal issue had been uttered : four knights
immediately made their way to Canterbury, and in his own
cathedral, on the steps of the north transept, the archbishop
and is was shamefully murdered. " No traitor," he said to his
^Id!^'"" murderers, " but archbishop and priest of God. To God,
and the blessed Mary, and the patron saints of this church,
and to the blessed martyr Denys, I commit myself and the
cause of the Church." The monks came to recover the arch
bishop's body : they stripped him of his clothes, and when
they saw the hair shirt next his skin, and his body swarming
with vermin, in rapt admiration they exclaimed, " See what

The Conflict of Church and State 109
a saint he was ! " Evidently in those days cleanliness was not
considered next akin to godliness. In 1173 Becket was canonised
by the Pope : but in spite of this canonisation he has no true
claim to saintship. His conduct was in many ways heroic ;
yet he died a martyr not to the verities of the faith but to the
privUeges of the clergy : we cannot help feeling that he was
devoid of true statesmanship and many of the higher Christian
virtues. His assassination caused the King passionate grief :
for three days he confined himself to his room, neither eating
nor drinking, nor seeing any man, calling God to witness that
he was not responsible for the awful deed.
In 1172 at Avranches he cleared himself before papal legates constitu-
of all complicity in the crime, and formally abrogated the Con- ^^^l^^°
stitutions of Clarendon.^ On his retum to England in 1174 1172.
he did public penance : he made a pilgrimage to the murdered
Primate's tomb at Canterbury, and was publicly scourged by
the assembled monks : we can imagine the pleasure with which
Thomas would have regarded such a humUiation of the temporal
power. In the next few centuries the cult of Thomas Becket
became the most fashionable cult in England : many churches
were dedicated to him : innumerable cures were said to have
been wrought at his tomb or even by the invocation of his name :
pUgrims flocked to his resting-place, and the magnificence of
his shrine, far-famed for its gold and jewels, became one of the
chief wonders of England. When Henry VIII. broke with
Rome, one of his first acts was to order the elimination of
Becket's name from all the service-books, to plunder the shrine
and scatter the ashes of him who in the Middle Ages had been
the greatest champion of clerical privUege and Roman rights
against the secular power. But in the twelfth century the real
danger was that of royal absolutism. It was good for Henry II.
and other kings to leam that there were spheres of life and
thought which their despotism could not reach, and much less
conquer. ' Though the constitutions were formally abrogated, many of their provisions
were retained in practice ; see above, p. 105.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CHURCH AND THE GREAT CHARTER
The reign of Henry II. loses much of its personal interest after
the martyrdom of Becket ; but the death of the archbishop
would seem to have indirectly disengaged the slumbering forces
of anarchy. There was a great feudal rising both in England
and Normandy in 1173 : the remaining years of the great
monarch's reign were continuously disturbed by troubles within
his own famUy insidiously fostered by the French King : the
King's sons were constantiy rising in revolt against their father.
But these revolts have no great intrinsic interest. The arch
bishops who followed Becket were not men of conspicuous abUity.
Accession In 1189 Henry was gathered to his fathers, and his son Richard
i'^hSq"'^ reigned in his stead. Richard was a great warrior. Con
sternation had fUled Westem Europe at the news that Jerusalem
had faUen before the onset of the great Saracenic leader Saladin
in 1187. The faU of almost aU the other Christian strong
holds in Palestine quickly foUowed. Europe went to the rescue.
The First the Emperor, the great Barbarossa, led a crusade, but unfor-
crusade. tunately met his death whUe bathing in a stream in the course
of his journey to the Holy Land. Richard and PhUip of France
started for the East in 1190, and were successful in the recapture
of Acre from Saladin, but recriminations broke out between
the different sections of the crusading army, and PhUip, after
quarrelling with Richard, returned to France in 1191, and
Richard, after patching up a truce with Saladin, started for
Richard England in October 1192. Unfortunately he was taken prisoner
on his homeward journey (1193) by Leopold, Duke of Austria,
and held to ransom by the Emperor Henry VI. He did not
regain his freedom tiU February 1194. Richard took very little
interest in England except as a mine from which he might draw
resources first for his crusade, and then for the aimless feudal
fightuig in which he spent the rest of his reign. During his
ten years of rule he lived less than seven months in England.
So far as England was concerned, the chief importance of tbe
;i9

taken prisoner,

The Church and the Great Charter in
reign lay in the fact that the admuiistrative and judicial system
devised by Henry II. struck root, and received further develop
ment. The careers of Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, of Baldwin
(1185-1190), and Hubert Walter (1193-1205), Archbishops of
Canterbury, and Hugh of Lincoln Ulustrate typical sides of
ecclesiastical life ui the Middle Ages. Baldwin's prolonged
struggle with his chapter — the monks of Christchurch — is char
acteristic of the suits in which so many mediaeval bishops engaged
with their cathedral chapters. Geoffrey was an illegitimate
son of Henry II., a man of purely secular interests foisted on
an unwUling Church : he too engaged in a prolonged strife with
the chapter of York about their respective rights ; and the
perennial dispute about the relation of York to Canterbury
again came to the surface. The careers both of Baldwin and
Geoffrey likewise Ulustrated the evUs involved in the system of
appeals to Rome. Extensive bribery was necessitated, and
discipline was undermined. Hubert Walter belonged to the
class of ecclesiastical statesmen, being more a man of State
than an ecclesiastic ; he concentrated in his own person the
positions of Archbishop and Justiciar. As Justiciar (1194-1198)
he deserved the credit of developing the representative principle
and the administrative system of Henry II. But as Justiciar
he was also responsible for the heavy taxation which led to
the rising of the London plehs in 1196. He also caused its
leader, Fitzosbert, to be dragged from sanctuary to execution.
This led to a protest which the monks of Christchurch lodged
with Innocent III. They complained that Hubert Walter was
so immersed in the obligations of his secular office that he had
no time for his proper archiepiscopal work. Innocent III.
insisted that Richard should release him from his secular work
as Justiciar, and Richard, who was rather sore at Hubert's failure
in 1197 to secure from the barons a force of three hundred
knights to serve him abroad, consented (1198). On John's
accession in the foUowing year, he resumed the secular duties
of ChanceUor tUl his death in 1205.
Hugh of Avalon or Lincoln was of a very different type. He Hugh of
belonged to the saintly class of churchmen : a Carthusian monk, Lincoln
he had been brought by Henry II. to England that he might
be Prior of Witham, one of the three monasteries foimded by
the King in atonement for Becket's murder ; in 1186 he was
in3.de, much against IU? own incljriatioo, Bishop of I^incoln,

112 The Church of England
Hugh's character was one of singular charm and sweetness ;
but he was fearless in denouncing oppression of the poor, and
in refusing to give spiritual benefices as a reward for secular
service. In 1198 when Richard boldly demanded from the great
councU a force of three hundred knights equipped to serve him
refuses to abroad for a whole year, Hugh led the way in the refusal of the
lb"roa'd°°''' demand. " I know that the Church of Lmcohi is bound to
give mUitary service to the King, but in this kingdom only :
outside the bounds of England no such service is due. I would
sooner return to my native soU than be a bishop here and subject
to oppression the Church entrusted to my care." The barons
followed the lead given them, and the King had to withdraw
his demand. Hugh's mother-wit and the charm of his nature,
despite his outspoken and frank rebukes, won him the real affec
tion both of Henry II. and Richard. Even John could not
faU to treat him with marks of respect, though Hugh openly
showed his mistrust, and pointed the King to a sculptured relief
of the last judgment, in which certain kings were being sent
down to eternal punishment. A characteristic feature in Hugh's
character was his capacity for inspiring animals with affection.
As of Columba, Cuthbert, and St. Francis of Assisi, so of Hugh
beautiful stories are told in this connection. The most famous
is that of Hugh and the swan. Just about the time when he
became Bishop of Lincoln a beautiful wUd swan appeared at
Stow. It was very fierce, and kUled many of the other swans.
But on Hugh's advent, the wUd swan fed from his hand, and
became quite tame, retiring to the lake when he departed, and
ever on his return coming back to greet him with signs of joy.
And so it came to pass that Hugh was always represented in
pictures with the swan as his companion. In 1200 the saintiy
bishop died, having just lived to see the beginning of John's
Accession reign. John ascended the throne in 1199 ; the true heir, accord-
ofjohn, jjjg ^Q modern notions, was his nephew, Arthur of Brittany.
But hereditary right had never prevaUed in England to the
entire exclusion of the elective principle. At his coronation
it is said that Archbishop Hubert Walter, with a presage of the
coming evU, enunciated the elective character of the English
monarchy, as a warning to John that obedience would be con-
His char- ditional on good govemment. John is perhaps the worst King
who has ever reigned in England : he was unjust and extor
tionate ; he was irreligious and yet fuU of superstition ; he was

acter.

The Church and the Great Charter 113
blasphemous and craven ; he was ungrateful and adulterous.
He was not devoid of abUity, and yet he was in every way con
temptible, even in his oaths : where the Conqueror had sworn
" by the splendour of God," and Henry II. " by the eyes of
God," John used the meaner oath of " by the feet of God " or
" by the teeth of God." John reproduced aU the vices, but
none of the virtues, of his predecessors : in a contemplation of
his character plausible grounds might be found for belief in the
diaboUc origin of the Angevin famUy. Though evU was over
ruled for good, his reign was a miserable and abject faUure.
In the first place, it was marked by the mutUation of the Angevin Break-up
empire : in 1203 he foully murdered his nephew, Arthur of °^^"f *^'"
Brittany. Philip of France was quick to seize the opportunity :
he cited John to appear before him, \and on his non-appearance
declared the forfeiture of John's French fiefs. Normandy and
Anjou were quickly lost ; by 1206, of aU John's continental
dominions. South Guienne alone remained to him. Nothing can
excuse his contemptible faUure to maintain his rights. But for
England the severance of Normandy and Anjou from her crown
was unquestionably a gain : the consolidation of England into
a united nation, and the creation in her of a national feeling,
were impossible so long as her leaders were half-English and
half-French. Secondly, the death of Archbishop Hubert in 1205
marked the rupture between the crown and the Church. This Breach be-
aUiance had been strained by the quarrels which the crown had ^^^"hand
provoked with Anselm and then with Becket. But in some Crown.
ways Anselm and Becket had not represented the feeling of
the English Church, which was more insular and national than
they in sentiment ; the great foe of both crown and people
had been the baronage, and the Church had on the whole con
sistentiy sided with the crown against feudal oppression. This
aUiance was now destroyed by John.
The circumstances of his quarrel with the Church were these.
In 1205 Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died ; its causes.
thereupon, the younger section of the monks of Christchurch,
intending to force the situation, secretiy elected their subprior
Reginald, and despatched him to Rome for the papal confirma
tion. They swore Reginald to secrecy ; but Reginald, when he
got to Flanders, could not deny himself the luxury of telling
others that he was archbishop-elect. All the other parties
interested in the election of a primate on hearing the news were
H

Stephen Langton
electedarchbishop.
John re
fuses to re
ceive him.
Interdict.

114 The Church of England
naturally indignant. The bishops of the province reasonably
claimed a right to be consulted, and lodged an appeal with the
Pope. The elder monks protested agauist the way in which
the younger inonks had proceeded, and lodged another appeal.
John was extremely indignant at the infringement of the royal
rights. He had intended to nominate a creature of his own,
John Gray, Bishop of Norwich ; he induced the monks stUl
resident at Christchurch to renounce their appeal and elect
Gray. Having secured this election, he invested Gray with the
revenues of the see, and then sent to Rome for papal confixma-
tion of the choice. But, unfortunately, John had to deal with
the greatest of all the Popes, Innocent III., a master of craft and
diplomacy, while he himself played his own cards extremely
UI. It was not likely that, when two or three appeals were
actually before the papal court, Innocent would aUow John to
settie offhand the matter in dispute. Innocent simply announced
his own determination to try the question in dispute, and in
vited the different parties to send representatives with plenary
powers. All the parties complied. Avowedly, John authorised
the representatives of the chapter to elect whom they would.
But he secretly exacted from them an oath that they would elect
Gray. He also sent a lavish supply of gold to facUitate the
decision in his favour. But in the diplomatic game John was
completely outplayed. Innocent quashed the elections both of
Reginald and of Gray as irregular. He rejected the claim of the
bishops to share in the election, and he then persuaded the pleni
potentiary monks, in spite of the oath which they had taken to
John, to elect Stephen Langton, a distinguished Englishman,
resident at Rome, and a cardinal of the Church. Thus John had
been completely out-manoeuvred. If he had been a wise man,
he would have accepted his defeat with what grace he could.
But he absolutely refused under any circumstances whatever
to receive Langton as archbishop. Innocent quickly resorted
to ecclesiastical thunder. In 1208, he placed the whole of
England under an interdict. It was an odd method for punish
ing John, since only the religious and those who cared for
spiritual things would feel the loss of spiritual privUeges. As
a matter of fact, the interdict was never very strictly enforced.
Marriages were stUl celebrated, though only in the porches of
churches ; baptism was administered, but in private houses ;
burials were conducted as usual, though not in consecrated

The Church and the Great Charter 115
ground ; the churches were for the most part closed, the Holy
Communion not administered, except to the dying. A notable
relaxation was, however, made in favour of monastic bodies,
so that for many people opportunities to attend divine service
cannot have been lacking. It is clear that the mass of the
people bore the interdict with equanimity. " Provisions were
plentiful," so we are told by the chronicler, and this fact
explained their indifference.
John retaliated by the seizure of Church property, and in
no case left more than a pittance to support the defrauded
clergy. Most of the bishops and many of the clergy fied the
country. But the confiscation of clerical possessions made it
easy for the King to reduce the ordinary taxation, and the
relief from the never-ending scutages and aids at first won
him popular support. But troubles with Scotland, Wales, and
Ireland, and the baronial discontent soon made taxation once
more necessary.
In 1209, Innocent III. excommunicated John, and in 1212, John ex-
took the further step of deposing him from bis kingship, and caj^d'by'
bribing PhUip of France with the prospective inducement of innocent.
pardon for all his sins to carry the sentence into execution.
PhUip accepted the invitation for his son Louis.
John was now thoroughly alarmed. A certain hermit, Peter
of Pontefract, had prophesied that within a year he would lose
his crown, and John, though irreligious, was intensely super
stitious. The prophet was seized and marked for execution.
But John was most imeasy. He knew well the utter disaffec
tion of his barons; he had profoundly angered them by his
disgustuig immoralities, by his violation of their wives, and
sisters, and daughters. He had strained the feudal law of
wardships and marriages, and oppressed them with numberless
fiscal exactions. He could not rely on the affections of the
common people ; circumstances were greatly changed from the
time when their levy had turned out with enthusiasm to help
the crown against baronial revolts. John felt that in his own
kingdom he was without a party. And so he made a complete John sub-
and abject submission to the papacy ; he announced his wUling- ™'/g^der
ness to receive Langton as archbishop and give him all marks his crown
of his royal favour ; he promised to restore Church property, '° P^P^'^y-
and make ample compensation for every injury he had done.
But he went further — he surrendered his crown to the papacy.

1 1 6 The Church of England
Henceforth England was to be a papal fief. John and his
successors. Kings of England, were to pay the Pope one thousand
marks yearly as tribute. Thus the prophecy of the hermit
Peter was fulfiUed in a way that Peter had never contemplated.
The surrender was a disgraceful transaction — disgraceful not,
perhaps, to Innocent, who only used his opportunities, but
certainly to John, from whom the suggestion and initiative came.
Innocent treated England henceforth as a part of the patri
mony of St. Peter. The submission may in the immediate
future have saved the English crown for John and his son. It
certainly increased for the time the papal power; but the
ultimate results were disastrous even to the papacy, since it was
the political power exercised by the Pope during the succeeding
reign, and the fiscal exactions flowing from his sovereignty,
which created the strong anti-papal feeUng that finally led at
the Reformation to the complete expulsion of his power from
England. The collapse of John quickly foUowed. His crushing exactions,
his cowardice and poltroonery, when he first coUected an army
and then returned without making any attempt on the French
King, disgusted all parties. In Stephen Langton the barons
had discovered a patriot and a leader. It was Langton who,
at a meeting of bishops and barons held at St. Paul's, produced
the charter of Henry I., as a standard of the long lost liberties
which they wished to see restored.
In 1213, Geoffrey Fitzpeter, the Justiciar, died, and John
appointed his own creature, Peter des Roches, to succeed him.
When John heard of his faithful servant's death, he is reported
to have said, with characteristic ingratitude, " When he gets
to hell, he wUl find there Hubert Walter, and can carry my
greetings." The King then made desperate attempts to break
up the coalition which confronted him. He tried to detach the
Church from the barons by issuing a charter of freedom to the
English Church ; he directed that the oath of aUegiance should
be taken by the whole body of freemen ; he demanded a re
newal of homage from the tenants-in-chief ; he took the vow of
a crusader that he might involve aU who raised their hands
against him m the guUt of sacrUege. But his efforts were fruit
less; the barons in accord demanded their rights, the Church
chSta ^^^ London held fast to the cause of EngUsh liberty, and John
1215. ' was compeUed to sign at Runnymede Magna Charta. The

The Church and the Great Charter 117
importance of Magna Charta has been greatly exaggerated. Its import-
Extravagant estimates of its importance have been made since gerated?^"
the days of Sir Edward Coke and the early Stewarts. Reformers
have constantly represented their innovations as a restoration
of long lost rights. This was what the parliamentary party
did in the reigns of the eaily Stewarts. Sir Edward Coke and
others read mto Magna Charta all kinds of things ; e.g. trial by
jury and the principle of " no taxation without representation,"
wluch are not to be found in it at aU. Indiscriminate eulogies
of the Charter have been repeated by Chatham, Burke, and
many other great English leaders. Even Stubbs' description of
it as " the first great public act of the nation after it has realised
its own identity " is somewhat of an exaggeration. But it is the
tendency in these days to go to the other extreme, and to unduly
depreciate the Charter and dismiss it as a reactionary and purely
feudal document. What is the amount of truth in this con
tention ? Was the Church reaUy a partner to a reactionary
and feudal policy ?
We must certainly admit that — (i) The document was feudal was it re
in character. It was for the most part a bargain for the removal a'="°"a''y''
of what were considered abuses in the sphere of feudal justice
and feudal taxation. (2) The " freeman " of the Charter did
not mean what we mean when we talk of " the man in the
street." The phrase certainly excluded the viUeins, who were
two-thirds of the whole population; and (3) on the vUleins
practically no special rights were conferred. (4) The taxes
dealt with were purely " feudal " taxes. No attempt was made
to regulate taxation of personal property, nor the customs,
though these were to be the most important sources of taxation
in the future. (5) The Great Charter did not represent the high-
water mark of constitutional development already reached.
There was no mention of representative juries, though these
had been already used in the assessment of taxation, &c. ; the
" great councU " contemplated was a purely feudal assembly
of tenants-in-chief, though already in 1213 representatives from
each town in the royal demesne had been summoned to a great
assembly at St. Albans. (6) Several clauses were distinctly
reactionary, notably the clause (§ 34) about the issue of the
writ praecipe, which undid part of Henry II. 's reforms and
increased the feudal at the expense of the royal jurisdiction, and
the clause (§ 39) which, so far from establishing trial by jury,

1 1 8 The Church of England
reaUy aimed at the creation of a court of feudal peers. The
great barons did not thuik that the King's judges were good
enough to try them. (7) There is no sign that " the commons"
gave any overt assistance to the baronial party. But granted
Real im- that aU this is true, it does not prove that Magna Charta is not
Magn"a'^^ °^ a great landmark in English history. No one m his senses would
Charta. dream of looking for the programme of the nineteenth century
Chartists or twentieth century radicalism in a thUteenth century
document. What is the real importance of the Charter ?
First, the great danger of the time was royal absolutism and
royal tyranny. The creation of a strong administrative system
by Henry II. had made the crown so extremely powerful that
the balance of the constitution seemed in danger of being over
turned. It was all-important that the rights of others, the
Church, the barons, freemen, the towns, should be put into writing.
Vagueness was always in favour of absolutism; the mere fact
that there were definite rights as against the crown, put into
writing, made for the growth of liberty. There was a written
document to which, in cases of dispute, an appeal could be made.
Hence it was that throughout the Middle Ages Magna Charta
was a definite rallying-point for constitutional opposition to the
crown. Before their close, the confirmation of Magna Charta
had been thirty-eight times demanded and granted. Secondly,
the charter provided a type for future reform. It has been
described as a typical English document. But it was reaUy
the founder of the type ; i.e. in Magna Charta there is no state
ment of abstract theories, such as were to be found at a later
age in the French declaration of the Rights of Man or in the
simUar American declaration. Abstract theories, with the
notable exceptions of those of the Divine Right of Kings and
the Social Contract, have played a very smaU part in English
history. Magna Charta is a typical English document because
it is so practical. It is a mere summary of actual abuses and
a bargain for their abandonment. It claims nothing new, but
enunciates — or claims to enunciate — simply the old customs.
England is a land, as the poet sings —
" Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent."
Thirdly, principles were embodied in the Charter capable of
progressive interpretation. The Charter laid down, for example,

The Church and the Great Charter 119
that no arbitrary feudal taxes were to be taken without
" common consent of the realm." This principle could easUy
be extended, and was extended in later years, to the customs
and to taxes on personal property. Again, the Charter laid
down the principle that there was to be no arbitrary imprison
ment, but only imprisonment after a lawful trial ; the law
nught require alteration, but here was embedded the whole
prmciple of personal liberty. The Charter may in the main
have merely secured liberty for " freemen " (yet others than
manorial lords were freemen, and, as a matter of fact, the
Charter secured privUeges for London and the burghers of
the towns), but "freeman" is a phrase capable of progressive
interpretation. With the emancipation of the vUleins, it
quickly came to include them. What the barons gained to
day, it was quite certain that the common people would gain
to-morrow. It is also to be noticed that the clause (§ 60) in which it is laid
down that " aU in our realin, whether clerks or laymen, shall
observe in their dealings with their men the lUce customs and
liberties with those which we have granted to our men," was
inserted on the initiative of the Church and baronage. It may
be the case that the " commons " gave no active assistcince
to the barons, but the barons clearly counted on their passive
support, and could not have effected what they did without it.
That the "commons" should not have actively assisted the
King shows how completely times had altered since 1173. From
these and other such considerations it is clear that Stubbs was
right when he declared that " the whole of the constitutional
history of England is a commentary on this Charter."
Men's motives are generaUy mixed — they are never wholly
good nor whoUy bad ; and therefore, though we should be unwise
to maintain that the leaders of the Church and baronage were
actuated solely by disinterested regard for the common good,
it is none the less clear that considerations of public welfare
largely instigated their action. In procuring this Charter of
Liberty for the English people, the Church of England, led by
Langton, took a great and meritorious part. It would be
outside our province to enumerate the various checks which the
Charter imposed on royal oppression in the spheres of taxation
and justice and the forests. But it is important for the purpose
in hand carefully to note clause i, which was added at Langton's

Freedom of
Church
secured.

Its mean
ing.

The Pope
annuls the
Charter
and sus
pends Langton.

Accession of Henry
III., 1216.

120 The Church of England
suggestion, and couples together indissolubly the liberties of
the Church and the liberties of all freemen of the realm.
" We have granted to God, and by this our present charter
have confirmed for us and for our heirs for ever, that the Church
of England shall be free (" quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit"),
and shall have its rights untouched and its liberties uninjured
. . . we have also granted to aU freemen of our realm all the
annexed liberties ... to hold for themselves and their heirs
from us and our heirs for ever." The liberty of the Church
no doubt meant freedom from excessive taxation, such as John
had extorted from them against their wUl in 1207, the right
of canonical election to vacant sees and abbeys, and aU the
acknowledged privUeges of the ecclesiastical courts. It did not
mean freedom from the Pope.
Langton, the archbishop foisted on the English Church by
the papal see, had acted throughout as an English patriot.
He was one of the great nursing-fathers to English Uberty.
But he was soon disowned by his spiritual superior. Pope
Innocent III. This great Pope either knew nothing about
English politics — which is unlikely, as Rome was then the centre
of all international knowledge — or else cared nothing for English
liberty. John had surrendered to Innocent his kingdom, and
Innocent in his turn was ready to do all he could to maintain
his submissive vassal and his own grasp over England. Innocent
wUlingly annuUed the Charter and released John from his solemn
oath ; the papacy thus readily, as ever throughout the Middle
Ages, helping to undermine the sense of truth and honour in
public obligations. The barons retaliated by summoning Louis,
the son of the French King, to their aid. Langton was suspended
by a papal legate for refusing to excommunicate the barons,
and summoned to Rome. The Pope forbade the French King
to send any assistance to the baronial party, or injure in any
way John, a feudatory of the papal see ; but Louis adopted the
role of a disobedient son, and was secretly assisted by his father.
He came to England. The papal legate thundered his ex
communications, and John showed some skUl in the mUitary
operations which foUowed.
The difficulties of an impossible situation were soon ended
by the deaths of Innocent (July 1216) and of John in the follow
ing October. The situation rapidly cleared. Henry IIL, a
mere boy of nine years, had been bequeathed by John to the

The Church and the Great Charter I2i
care of Gualo, the papal legate, and was immediately crowned by
him in the abbey church of Gloucester. The new government
was in the hands of Gualo, the legate, WiUiam Marshall, the
Regent, and Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester. Their
first act was to reissue the Charter in the King's name. The Reissue
chief cause of the baronial rising had been distrust of John, charter.
but this factor was now eliminated. There was no reason for
continuing the struggle against the young Henry, when the
original cause of revolt had ceased. Louis had made him
self unpopular, and after the reissue of the Charter many of
the barons left him for the King. Louis was defeated at Lincoln
(1217), and by the treaty of Lambeth, in return for 10,000 marks,
resigned all his claims. Henry III. retained the crown as a
feudatory of the papal see.

CHAPTER IX
THE CHURCH IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
Precocious The thirteenth century has been described as a brilliant but
the"tWr-^ precocious age. AU kinds of new ideas were germinating. Not
teenth all of them by any means attained maturity ; but whatever
cen ury. ^j^^ direction in which we look, the age was fruitful in promise,
pregnant with glorious possibilities. In some spheres achieve
ment itself was great — ^witness the splendour of Gothic archi
tecture. It was an age of intellectual ferment, marked by the rise
of the scholastic phUosophy and the foundation of universities.
It was a century of great political development, spanning,
not in England alone, the transition from purely feudal councUs
to representative parliaments.
It was an age of famous lawyers : an Edward I. of England ;
a Louis IX. of France ; a Frederic II., the wonder of the world ;
an Alfonso of CastUe.
It witnessed the great religious movement of the friars —
the Franciscans, with their efforts to reach the poorer sections
of the towns, a stratum of society untended by the ordinary
ministrations of the Church ; the Dominicans, with their zeal
to check the spread of heretical opinions that flooded into
Europe from the East, and from the Arabs of Spain. The
century marked the final faUure of the Popes to set up on earth
the regnum Dei. The darker side of the picture is to be found
m the corruption of Church and papacy, despite the struggle
after higher ideals, and, for England, in the wearisome mis
government of Henry III. These were the throes which pre
ceded the birth of the nobler life that animated the times of the
first Edward.
Henry III. Henry III. was a mere chUd of nine years when he ascended
the English throne, and he never grew up to the matured
wisdom of real manhood. He was a person of cultivated and
refined tastes, but as the ruler of a kingdom he was whoUy
incompetent. Such ideas as he had were fantastic in character

The Church in Thirteenth Century 123
and, from the point of practical statesmanship, entirely futUe.
The story of his reign, so far as it is necessary for our purpose,
can soon be told. It divides into five periods.
(i) 1217-1227. This was the period of the King's minority. His reign.
marked by the growth in power of the Council, as distinct from
the King, and by the continuous interference of the papacy in
the govemment of the realm. For the good administration of
this period credit is chiefly due to the papal legates, Gualo and
Pandulph, to William Marshall, the Regent, and, after his
death in 1219, to Hubert de Burgh.
(2) 1227-1232. This period was notable for the papal en
croachments, but abuses were held in check by De Burgh tUl
his dismissal in 1232.
(3) 1232-1258. This was a time of extraordinary misgovern- Misgovern
ment, marked by the growth on every side of foreign influences. '"^°'"
The King was a plaything in the hands of foreign favourites,
mostly his wife's relations, Savoyards, such as Boniface of
Savoy, made Archbishop of Canterbury, and WUliam of
Valence ; or else the King's half-brothers, sons of Isabella of
Angoulfime. From this period dated the hatred of outlandish
men so characteristic of the mediaeval EngUshmen. Another
feature of the misgovernment was the crushing extortions of
both King and Pope. The King needed money to finance futUe
expeditions to France and to replace the treasure squandered
on favourites. The Pope needed money for his prolonged
struggle with the Emperor, Frederick II. There were also
constant complaints about the King's violation of the Charters,
and of his faUure to appoint ministers of State. He tried to
rule by himself, without Justiciar, Chancellor, or Treasurer, and
so became personaUy responsible for the total breakdown of
government. The opposition to the foreign influences of the Pope
and the favourites graduaUy gathered head under the leaders
of the Church, such as Edmund Rich (d. 1240) and Robert
Grosseteste (d. 1253), and the leaders of the barons, such as
Gloucester and, greatest of aU, Simon de Montfort. The climax
came when Henry III. accepted the SicUian crown for his son
Edmund in 1255, and made England responsible to the Pope
for a sum of 140,000 marks. The whole affair was an insidious
attempt of the Pope to make England fight his batties against
the imperial famUy of the Hohenstaufen. The Sicilian crown
bad already been twice offered to Richard of Cornwall, the

124 ^^^ Church of England
King's brother, but Richard had had the sense to refuse the
gift. " It was," he said, " as though the Pope should offer to
seU or give you the moon, and tell you to go and take it." Kmg
Henry III. was not so wise as his brother.
The barons could endure the misrule no more. Not content
with a mere renewal of the Charter, they endeavoured, under the
leadership of De Montfort, to remodel the whole of the existing
executive system. This is the chief feature of the fourth period
of the reign.
Provisions (4) 1258-1265. By the Provisious of Oxford the monarchy
of Oxford. ^^ practicaUy put into commission. The King was to be con
trolled in all his actions by a baronial council of fifteen. To
this councU aU the chief ministers of State were to be responsible.
It was the beginning of the attempts that continued for cen
turies to secure responsibUity of ministers. There were to be
three Parliaments a year, attended by the councU of fifteen
and twelve representatives of the baronage. The scheme of
government propounded by the barons in 1258 broke down,
partly because it was in advance of, and partly because it was
behind, the requirements of the age. It was in advance of the
age because times were not yet ripe for such a revolutionary
change as to wrest from a King the right to appoint his own
ministers. It was behind the requirements of the time because
no solution for the constitutional difficulty could be adequate
which ignored the rising political importance of the county
Their courts and the chartered boroughs. Add to this the division
failure. between the progressive and the conservative wings of the
baronial party, and the papal hostUity to such far-reaching
change, and the reasons for the baronial faUure are obvious.
Parliament By 1265, Simon de Montfort's ideas had widened. His
of 1265. xmaA had been liberalised by his intimacy with Grosseteste,
Bishop of Lincoln, and the leaders of the Franciscan move
ment, such as Adam Marsh. Moreover, since the baronial
party had been broken up by intemal divisions, it was necessary
to form a party on a broader basis ; so, extending the applica
tion of the representative principle, he took the memorable step
of summoning to Parliament representatives of both towns and
counties.
Battle of Simon's triumphs were short-lived. In the battle of Evesham
Evesham. (1265) he met With defeat and death. But his work had been
done, " They come on biavely, but it was from me they

The Church in Thirteenth Century 125
learned their order," said Simon when he saw the royalist
troops advancing against him at Evesham. But the young
Edward had leamt from Simon something more valuable than
even the disposition of mUitary forces. He inherited from him
those principles of liberty, justice, and ordered progress which
Simon had, in some measure at least, derived from his intimacy
with the great churchmen Grosseteste and Adam Marsh.
(5) 1265-1272. The last period of Henry III.'s reign is without
interest. A noticeable feature is the softened feeling in all the
characters concerned. The King did not drive matters hard
against the adherents of De Montfort. There were no com
plaints of misgovernment. In 1268 the young Edward started
for the East on a crusade, only to be recaUed by the news of
his father's death in 1272.
Such in outline was the reign of Henry III. In mediaeval
times the life of the Church and the life of the State were so
interwoven that it is often impossible to describe the one
without the other. The activity of the Church has never been
in a vacuum, and cannot be understood apart from the sphere
in which it worked.
Let us now, retracing our footsteps, mark some of the more Encroach-
salient features of Church life during these years. The most ™^^^y_
prominent fact was the increased influence and encroachments
of the papacy on both Church and State.
(i) First we must notice the novel extension of legatine (i) Exten-
power. Papal legates had come to England from time to time fg°°tf4
in preceding reigns, but in Henry III.'s reign the exercise of power.
legatine power was imprecedented. To begin with, it was much
more continuous. Gualo was legate from 1216 to 1218, Pandulph
from 1218 to 1221. On the departure of the latter. Archbishop
Langton obtained a promise from Honorius III. that no other
legate should be appointed m his (Langton's) lifetime. This
promise was kept, but after Langton's death many other papal
legates and nuncios, such as Otho, 1237-1240, and Ottobon
1265-1268, were sent from Rome and resided in England.
Furthermore, these legates were not charged with purely spiritual
business ; their functions were often political. Innocent III. and
his successors interpreted as a very real thing the suzerainty
accruing to them from John's cession of the kmgdom. Gualo
and Pandulph interfered in and controlled every detail of
temporal admuiistration. But to the nation at large this

(2) Ap
pointmentto bishop-

(3) Fiscal
encroachments.

[a) Peter's
pence. (l) Tribute,

126 The Church of England
exercise of political power by papal legates was naturaUy dis
tasteful. (2) The second form of papal encroachment was interference
in election to bishoprics. The electing chapters were between
the hammer and anvU, the King and the Pope. In spite of the
charters the King brought extreme pressure on the chapters
to elect creatures, and not seldom discreditable creatures, of his
own. In the frequent disputes between the chapters and the
King lay the Pope's opportunity. Since papal confirmation to
episcopal elections was necessary, the whole election was con
stantly reviewed by him. A few instances wUl Ulustrate.
In 1228, on the death of Langton, there was a dispute be
tween the King and the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury.
The King refused to accept the candidate chosen by the monks ;
the monks applied to Rome for the confirmation of their choice,
but the King, by a lavish promise of money, induced the Pope
to " plough " the monks' elect on his theological examination.
He was reported by the examiners to have answered not only
badly, but disgracefully ( ' ' non solum male sed pessime ") to certain
questions on divinity ! The Pope thereupon quashed his elec
tion, and, UlegaUy stretching his power, actuaUy appointed,
without any form of canonical election, Richard le Grand. On
Richard's death in 1231 the Pope, for various reasons, quashed
no fewer than three successive elections of the monks of Christ
Church, and finally induced them to elect Edmund Rich.
In 1239, when the chapter of Winchester elected Ralph
NeviUe, its choice was voided at the King's wish by the Pope.
On WUliam of Valence's death, the choice of the Winchester
chapter, William of Raleigh, was confirmed by the Pope, in
defiance of the King.
From these and other such instances it wiU be seen that the
Popes had acquired a considerable power of interference in
episcopal elections. By a judicious use of their power pf con
firmation, they had defrauded the English Church, and, ignormg
her rights, had themselves appointed bishops to English sees.
(3) The thud and most important form of encroachment
was in taxation. In this as in many other enormities the Pope
was assisted by the docUity of his royal vassal. Pope and King
in coUusion drained the English mUch cow dry. Papal taxation
was of various kinds, (a) Peter's pence had originated in the
eighth century, and continued. (6) The tribute of lobo marks

The Church in Thirteenth Century 127
promised by John for himself and his successors was paid through
out the reign. But this was not enough. The Pope proceeded
to demand subsidies, (c) In 1226 the papal nuncio demanded (c) Sub-
a certain proportion of the cathedral and monastic revenues. ^''^'^^'
The Pope lamented that a stigma of avarice attached to the
Roman see, because of the enormous fees payable by those who
had to transact business at Rome. To remove this stigma, he
proposed that a grant, which would render the exaction of such
fees unnecessary, should be made yearly from the cathedral and
monastic revenues. But the bait was too obvious, and the
English prelates, led by Langton, were not so easUy caught.
The consideration of the matter was postponed. In 1229 Pope
Gregory IX., who was in the middle of his struggle with the
Emperor and sorely in need of money, demanded, in coUusion
with the King, one-tenth of aU property, lay and clerical. The
barons, led by the Earl of Chester, absolutely refused to make
such a grant, but the clergy were forced to submit. The coUec
tion of the tax in many places provoked popular risings. In 1240
the legate Otho demanded one-fifth of all goods, while in 1246
the Pope required no less than one-half of the whole ecclesiastical
revenues of the country. Crushing exactions were raised from the
people untU the climax was reached at the time of the SicUian
business in 1255-1258. In 1258 the King announced to Parlia
ment that the realm was pledged to the Pope for the sum of
140,000 marks. This led to the explosion marked by the pro
visions of Oxford. But these demands for the Pope himself
were not aU. In 1250 Henry III. had taken the vows of a
crusader, and he was empowered by the Pope to levy taxation
on the clergy for the purpose. (3) "Provisions" were another (<i) Pro-
device for raising money. In defiance of the rights of patrons, ^'^'°"^-
the Popes nominated foreign favourites, generaUy Italians, to
English livings. Most of these foreigners never came near
their cures ; at the best starveling vicars were appointed to
do the work, whUe the revenues flowed abroad to reward
ItaUan friends and servants of the Pope. The most whole
sale instance of these papal provisions was found in 1240, when
the Pope demanded from three of the English bishops that
they should make provision by canonries or livings for three
hundred Italian clerks, before any further preferment was
conferred on an Englishman. But the system of providing for
dependants had grown to be second nature with the Popes.

12 8 The Church of England
(<) Annates. There was the same wearisome tale year by year, (e) Another
source of papal revenue was foimd in annates. The Pope to
wards the end of Henry's reign began to claim the first-fruits
of bishoprics and valuable livings. This demand was further
developed in the fourteenth century, and the sums so derived
became a valuable asset of the papail exchequer. But the tale
(/) Pro- of extortion did not end even here. (/) Enormous sums were
curations. levied Under the name of " procurations " by the papal agents
and coUectors. These were fees payable to support the dignity
of papal envoys. Money, plate, provisions — ^nothing of the
sort was amiss. Master Martin, the papal envoy in 1242, was
afraid lest he should be thought to collect trifles ; he was of
opinion that the smaUest present made him should be thirty
marks, and he had a special liking for desirable palfreys as a
gift ! The King, after inquiry, in 1245 made the astonishing
discovery that 60,000 marks — a sum three times greater than
the royal revenue — flowed year by year out of England to sup
port Romans and other Italians. In 1253 Grosseteste found
that the income derived by foreign ecclesiastics from England .
had risen to 70,000 marks. Can anything be urged in extenua
tion of the papal action ? This much may be said on behalf
of the Popes. They were placed in an extremely difficult situa
tion. They had thought it necessary, as a part of their duty
to Latin Christendom, to wage a relentless war against the
Emperor Frederic II. To them Frederic II. was detestable,
not only on political grounds, but as a supporter of Saracenic
and heretical opinions. To them he was Antichrist, and in
fighting him they held that they were fighting the battle of the
whole of Christendom ; and though we can see that the dominat
ing factor in the papal struggle against Frederic was lust for
temporal dominion, this was not so clear either to them or their
contemporaries.
Fatal effect Placed, as they often were, in a critical position, the Popes
prestige.' found that they could only finance their cause by taxation of
the faithful and by providing their supporters with valuable
benefices in foreign countries. But the policy was short-sighted.
It resulted in a glaring scandal, fatal to the spiritual interests of
the countries concerned, and damaging in many ways to the
moral credit of the papacy. Rome lost its hold on the affections
of the English people. The chroniclers on every page denounce
" the yawning gulf of papal needs," " the greed and avarice of

The Church in Thirteenth Century 129
the Romans." In I23r a secret society was formed of " men
ready to die rather than tolerate the Romans beneficed in Eng
land." Outrages foUowed at which the Justiciar himself, Hubert
de Burgh, was thought to connive. Foreign ecclesiastics were
attacked by masked men. The bams of absentee Romans were
piUaged. The papal coUector became the best-hated man in Hatred felt
England. A single story wiU iUustrate the general feeling. coUector'
Master Martin was supposed to have brought from Rome blank
parchments with the papal seals affixed, so that he could write
on them whatever he wished. His extortions were so severe
that the baronage, in 1245, sent a messenger ordering him to
leave England immediately. Martin went to the King, but
the King was irritated, and told Martin that he could with
difficulty restrain the barons from tearing him in pieces.
Martin, in alarm, asked for a safe -conduct out of the
kingdom. The King, without his usual urbanity, answered,
" The devU take you and give you a safe-conduct through
hell." Martin was, however, given an attendant to escort
him to Dover. On their journey they came across a group of
people gathered by a wood. Martin in terror said to his at
tendant : " Alas ! what I feared has happened — see, they are
going to attack us. Ah ! my friend Robert, have you son,
grandson, kinsman, or friend for whom you desire ecclesiastical
promotion ? I am ready to obtain aU you demand." Robert
politely declined, but teUing Martin to wait, he said that he
would find out the purpose for which the men were assembled,
and, if necessary, would show them the King's warrant. Having
approached the group, be found that the men were engaged
in the harmless occupation of negotiating a sale of timber ;
but retuming to Martin quickly, he told him that the men were
with difficulty prevented from tearing him in pieces, and urged
him to hurry, and in the event of his escape never again come
near the country.
More serious evidence of the antagonism felt towards the
Roman extortion is to be found in the protest of the Berkshire Protest of
rectors against the legates' demands in 1240. The Berkshire fectors."^^
rectors pointed out that the Roman Church had its own patri
mony, that other Churches had theirs ; that estates had been
given to the English Church by princes and nobles to promote
religious life in England and that the patrimony of the English
Church was not tributary to Rome, In 1245 the nobUity of

Protest of
English
nobility.

Protest of
Grosse teste.

130 The Church of England
England through theu envoy presented to the Pope at the
CouncU of Lyons a spirited protest against the whole system
of Roman extortion and reservation of benefices for foreigners.
They pointed out that the tribute promised by John had never
been authorised by the councU of the realm, and that the
exercise of legatine authority in England without the King's
consent was unlawful. In 1250 Grosseteste, the great Bishop
of Lincoln, read a memorandum before the Pope and cardinals
denouncing in fierce terms ecclesiastical abuses and tracing
them to their origin in the Roman court itself, especiaUy to the
system of provisions. He told them plainly that the work of
a parish priest, with aU its duties of preaching, teaching, and
administering charity, could not be performed by the hirelings
of an absentee rector, especially when these hirelings did not
receive sufficient to support life. In 1253 Grosseteste boldly
refused obedience to a papal letter in which he was bidden to
provide Innocent IV.'s nephew, Frederic de Lavagna, with a
canonry of Lincoln. To the papal envoy he wrote an outspoken
refusal. " The letter is not in harmony with apostolic holiness,
but is utterly at variance therefrom. ... It cannot be, there
fore, that the apostolic see, to which has been given by our Lord
power for edffication, and not for destruction, should issue a
command so hateful . . . nor can any one who is faithful to the
said holy see obey commands such as this, even though they
should emanate from the highest orders of angels . . . but
must of necessity resist them with his whole strength . . . out
of filial obedience I decline to obey — I resist, I rebel." When
the purport of this letter was reported to Innocent, he is said
in his wrath to have shouted out : " Who is this old dotard
that dares to judge our deeds ? " and he then proceeded to
threaten that he would make Grosseteste an example and
warning to the whole world, and that " our vassal, nay, our
slave," the King of England, would be made to imprison him.
He was only dissuaded from any rash step by the cardinals,
who pointed out that the letter was founded on truth, and
that Grosseteste himself was Catholic, more saintiy and learned
than they.
It is unnecessary to Ulustrate at greater length the anta
gonism and resentment bred by this foolish policy, even in
devout churchmen, who never dreamed of denying the theoretical
supremacy of the Pope over tjie Church of Christ.

The Church in Thirteenth Century 131
Let us turn to other sides of Church life. The first half
of the thirteenth century has often been called the Golden
Age of English Monasticism, but it is difficult not to look on Monasti-
this description as exaggerated. The original monasticism of "^™-
England had been of a missionary type. It was in a large
measure by monks that England had been converted. At a
later time the monasteries, especiaUy those of the Benedictines,
had been homes of learning. The Cistercians had done other
work of a secular kind. WhUe the older monasteries had been
pioneers in agriculture, the Cistercians, having settled chiefly
in the north, took to the work of pasture. They became large
sheep-owners, and with the growing expansion of the wool trade,
the greatest English industiry in the thirteenth and following
centuries, they became the most wealthy body in England.
There is doubtless something fine in the ideal of monasticism. its ideal.
It represents the craving for a life in communion with God,
apart from the distractions of the world. Its keynote is self-
consecration and the life of prayer. But the wisest leaders
of monasticism have seen, and history has shown the truth of
the view, that when asceticism is left to itself, i.e. divorced from
missionary zeal and learning, it quickly degenerates. The
mere life of prayer and praise to God is of littie value if a man
does not also work for the things for which he prays and gives
thanks to God.^
The Cistercians in the twelfth century did not engage in Decline of
educational activity at aU ; and within two generations they '^'^'^'^'^"^'
had become a byword for pride and avarice. The monasteries
remained of great influence because they were large and wealthy
land-owning corporations, but as a spiritual force they rapidly
declined. They became centres in which large bodies of men
lived a comfortable and respectable, and in many ways privUeged,
existence. But the life was essentiaUy narrow. Magnificent
buUdings were raised, some of which stiU survive. The
chronicles of the monks are the source of our knowledge of
those bygone centuries ; their beautifully Ulustrated service
books do infinite credit, so far as they go, to the monastic
artists; the staple industry of the wool trade was developed
^ St. Francis of Assisi pithily summed up this truth: "Tantum religiosus
est bonus orator quantum est bonus operator " — " A man is a good prayer only
in so far as he is a good worker ' ; and compare the remark attributed to St. Benedict
himself, " Orat qui laborat."

132 The Church of England
by the Cistercians ; but as the years went on the inteUectual
life of England ceased to beat within the monastic waUs.
An attempt had already been made by Archbishop Baldwin
(1185-1193) to divert part of the monastic revenues from
Christ Church, Canterbury, to the foundation of a secular college.
His aim was in this way to utilise some of the monastic wealth
for the promotion of learning. The monastery of Christ Church
fearing, probably with good reason, that Baldwin meditated
further encroachments on their wealth and privUeges, resisted
his scheme. Attempts at concUiation faUed. A wearisome
struggle, involving both Pope and King, ensued between the
monastery and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and ended finaUy
in 1200 in the defeat of the Primate. It was almost the last
effort to use monastic property for educational purposes before
the Reformation. But it is interesting to note that the in
fluence of Christ Church thenceforth continuously declined.
Its share in the election of the Primate became shadowy. After
the death of Baldwin only one more monk, Simon Langham
(in 1362), was ever to sit in the seat of St. Augustine, though
that seat from the Norman Conquest tUl the end of the twelfth
century had been almost continuously occupied by monks.
Grosse- The career of Grosseteste throws much light on the state of
attitude to t^^e English monasteries in the thirteenth century. Grosseteste
the monas- jg described by the great chronicler of St. Albans, Matthew Paris,
as " the hammer and cruel persecutor of the monks (religiosi)."
But being a monk, Matthew Paris wrote with prejudice. As
a matter of fact, Grosseteste was an admirer of the monastic
ideal. We gather from the record of his visitations, that in the
monasteries as a whole there was little serious immorality ; but
he seems to have discovered a considerable departure from the
monk's vow of absolute poverty, as we find him ordering the
destruction of property owned by individual monks. When
monks faUed to keep their vows, Grosseteste was indeed severe.
His com- But his general cause of complaint against the monaistic bodies
a'ainst ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ faUed to assist adequately in the general work
them. of the dioceses. Much of his time was occupied in disputes
with monasteries. The cause of these disputes was either the
attempts by the monasteries to reject episcopal visitation, or
else the inadequate provision made by them for the spiritual
care of the parishes, whose tithe they had appropriated. AU
the Cistercian houses enjoyed, by papal grant, exemption from

The Church in Thirteenth Century 133
episcopal visitation. Some other houses had gained simUar
privUeges. But most of the older Benedictine monasteries
were stUl under the visitatorial powers of the bishop. Grosse
teste held very strictly the view that it was the duty of a
bishop to visit all the churches in his diocese, and it was this
lofty conception of episcopal duty which brought him into
coUision with monastic houses, and involved him in a six years'
struggle with his own dean and chapter.
The appropriation of livings by monastic bodies gave rise to Appropri-
growing scandal. It was said that in the thirteenth century more f/yi™ °L
than two-thirds of the whole number of livings were so appro- monas-
priated. The original idea of the parochial system was that m '^"^^'
every parish there should be a priest, supported by the endow
ment of land and tithe, and responsible for the spiritual care of
his parishioners. In many cases absentee rectors made arrange
ments with a monastery by which the monastery paid the
rector an annual sum, and became responsible for the parish
duty. In many other cases the advowson of the Church and
its endowments had, in course of time, been assigned outright
to the monastery. In such cases the monastery might make
one of three arrangements. It might either itself undertake
the duty of the Church, sending one of the monks to conduct
the services ; or it might make a temporary arrangement with
some secular clerk ; or it might appoint a perpetual vicar (i.e.
deputy). This third arrangement was in such cases obviously
the best. A temporary hireling or visitor from the monastic
body could clearly not perform in any adequate way the con
tinuous duties that devolve on a parish priest.
It was to promoting the appointment of perpetual vicars Grosseteste
where churches were appropriated to monasteries, and to advocates
securing them adequate stipends, that Grosseteste devoted much ment of
of his energies, and in so domg he often found himself in collision Pf(f£g|"*
with conventual bodies; but his efforts in this matter, even
against exempt houses, were crowned with considerable success.
Vicarages were created in large numbers.
The monasteries in the thirteenth century were lacking in Friars
missionary zeal. The friars arose to cover one portion of the \^^°'^
field left open. They differed from monks in important re- monks.
spects. The monk was the apostie of the country, the friar of
the towns. The ideal of the monk was a life of contemplation
and retirement from the world. The ideal of the friar was a life

134 The Church of England
of work in the world. Monasticism lived on endowments.
The friars even in their decadence were true to their rule of
poverty ; their friaries never boasted of magnificent churches ;
where property was given them it was vested in corporations of
towns as a trust for the brethren. The friars were throughout,
to use the words of Brewer, " the products of the voluntary
system." The two great orders of friars were those of the
Franciscans^ and Dominicans,^ founded respectively by St.
Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic in the second decade of the
thirteenth century. These two orders originally differed in
Aim of the their primary object. The Dominicans were founded to resist
cans!'"'" the wave of materialistic and Manichean ^ heresy that threatened
to fiood Europe. The revived study of Aristotle had re-entered
Europe through Spain, whither the Moors had brought Arabian
translations of the great Greek phUosopher. The Aristotelian
writings of Averroes (d. 1198) had much influence. But Averroes
had, unfortunately, developed the most antichristian parts of
the Aristotelian phUosophy, such as the eternity of matter
and the denial of human immortality. Oriental beliefs of a
Manichean type were the basis of the Albigensian heresy,
which spread over Provence in the early years of the thirteenth
century. It was to check the growing power of these
materialistic and Oriental heresies, and to restore the purity of
the faith, that St. Dominic founded his order. The Dominicans
were intended to be essentiaUy a learned and a preaching order.
They were to be in very truth watch-dogs. of the Lord (Domini
canes), set to ward off from the fold the wolves of heresy. A
branch of the Dominican order settled in England, at London,
Oxford, and elsewhere, as early as 1221, meeting with cordial
welcomes from Archbishop Langton and from Grosseteste.
Aim ofthe St. Francis had a different object in view. The son of a
Francis- wealthy merchant at Assisi, he surrendered aU that he had, to
foUow Christ. The character of St. Francis was perhaps more
Christ-like than any other character in history. His mission
was to the poor, the outcast, the suffering, and particularly
to lepers, the abhorred pariahs of the mediaeval age. To the
* The Franciscans were also called Friars Minor or Grey Friars.
• The Dominicans were also called Friars Preachers or Black Friars.
• The most prominent feature in Manichean heresy was the belief that every
thing which had to do with matter, e.g. marriage, property, churches, sacraments,
was evil

cans.

The Church in Thirteenth Century 135
rural districts the monasteries were to some extent centres
of religious and civUising influence ; every parish had, or was
supposed to have, a priest responsible for its spiritual needs
and the care of the sick and poor. But there was one section
of the popiUace over which the parish priest either did
not dare or did not care to exercise his pastoral office ; this
section was the mass of very poor people who congregated
in the suburbs of the towns. The weU-to-do merchants and
craftsmen lived in the higher portion of the town, protected
against misfortune and illness — so far as possible — by member
ship in guUds. Over them the clergy exercised due pastoral
care. But there was none to keep simUar watch over the un-
guUded mass of the very poor who dwelt in suburbs, down,
perhaps, near the river-bank, under every circumstance of
physical, moral, and spiritual degradation. These suburbs were
a festering mass of dirt, poverty, and loathsome disease. It
was there that leprosy, imported by the crusades, found a ready
lodgement. The conditions under which this part of the people
lived was one of nameless horror. Their wits sharpened by
intercomse with their like, they quickly became a prey tb
spiritual as weU as physical diseases, to weird forms of un
conscious heresy. Those were the people to whom the
Franciscans went as apostles of mercy. The Franciscan was
essentiaUy an apostle to the town. He took seriously his vow
of poverty. To win the poor he became poor ; clothed in a
scanty cloak, living upon alms alone, he came to these poor
people as a ministering angel. The career of the Franciscan
order iUustrates both the merits and dangers of the volimtary
system. Its early history signaUy displays its merits. Where
the Church with its wealth had hitherto faded, there the
Franciscans succeeded. Their success was indeed remarkable,
for the friars were in a special sense janissaries of the Pope,
and in the days of Henry III. the Pope was not popular in
England. But the Franciscans' labour of love towards the poor,
sick, and friendless, above aU to the lepers, for Christ's sake,
could not but win its due reward. Within thirty years of its
arrival in England the Franciscan brotherhood numbered 1242.
In the activities of the Franciscans various other features must Character-
be noticed. First, they set a new style of preaching ; the older pranc^s-"'^
orders and the parochial clergy had to a large extent neglected cans.
the work of preaching ; the Franciscans not only saw its

136 The Church of England
supreme importance, but also adopted a more racy style ; their
addresses were full of witty anecdotes. As their founders had
discouraged learning, the Franciscans took life itself as their
school, and their sermons were founded on meditation and the
experience of those among whom they moved. They loved to
dweU on the human side of our Lord's life, on His practical works
of mercy and healing. Secondly, as the Franciscans spent much
of their time in tending lepers and other sick people, by the
nature of their caUing they were bound to study medicine. The
friars in their poverty were unlikely to be plundered, and for
this reason were much used as messengers by the Popes, often
into distant countries. Thus the Franciscans gained knowledge
of many lands and their products. It was therefore no accident
that many doctors were found among their members, or that
scientffic inquiry was given a great impetus by them. It was
no matter of chance that Roger Bacon, the pioneer of real
experimental phUosophy, and in some ways the greatest man
of the thirteenth century, was a Franciscan friar. St. Francis
himself had prohibited study, both religious and profane. On
being told that a great doctor, Alexander of Hales, had joined his
order, he was reported to have said, " I am afraid, my son, that
such doctors wUl be the destruction of my vineyard. They
are the true doctors who exhibit good works for the improve
ment and edffication of their neighbours." " Suppose," he said
on another occasion, " that you had learning enough to know all
things, that you were acquainted with all languages, the courses
of the stars, and all the rest, what is there in that to be proud
of ? A single demon knows more on these subjects than all the
men in this world' put together. But there is one thing that the
demon is incapable of, and which is the glory of men — to be
faithful to God." ' But his followers very soon found it necessary
to modify his views about learning. Experience convinced them
that to win for Christ the souls among whom they worked, mere
works of charity would not suffice. In England they were en
couraged by Grosseteste to study ; for he told them that unless
they cherished study and divine learning, it would certainly
happen to them as to other orders — that they would walk in
Friars the darkness of ignorance. The Dominicans had already settled
come to jjj Oxford in 1221, and the Franciscans in 1224 followed their
example. A school was set up in their friary at Oxford, and no
* See Sabatier's St. Francis of Assisi, English trans., p. 281,

The Church in Thirteenth Century 137
less a person than Grosseteste himself undertook the post of
reading lectures there to the brethren. Before long lectureships
were set up in other of their settlements. The Oxford school
of Franciscans quickly made its mark. Franciscan professors
from England were much in demand at continental universities.
From the Oxford school were to come in later generations such
great schoolmen as Duns Scotus and Ockham. The systematic
study of theology was begun, but the Franciscans never allowed
their preaching to be involved in dialectical subtleties. All
their learning was brought to the test of life and adapted to their
audiences. They became all things to all men. To the simple
they were simple ; to the learned they were learned. At Oxford
they evolved a scientific theology. Their aim, to use the words
in which Dr. RashdaU describes the scholastic philosophy as a
whole, was " the fusion of the highest speculative thought of the
time with its profoundest spiritual convictions; the reconcUia
tion of the new truth of the present with the kernel of truth em
bodied in the traditional creed." They found Aristotle enthroned
in the schools. Through the Arabian translations introduced
from Spain, through the diffusion of Greek MSS. after the sack
of Constantinople in 1204, the works of Aristotle had found
their way into Europe. From Aristotle the Franciscans and
others learnt logical method, precision of terms, and the whole
range of the Aristotelian learning. To the " Ethics " the
Franciscans with their practical bent gave special attention.
It could not be expected that the friars would be altogether
welcomed by the parochial clergy and the monks. They were The friars
regarded as interlopers, and undoubtedly they did encroach, decline"!
as the years passed by, on the parochial system. They were
accused of using the confessional to acquire influence at the
expense of the parochial clergy ; they became unpopular for
their papalism ; in the fourteenth century they sank to the
level of idle mendicants, quacks, and hucksters, bringing down
upon themselves the weU-merited satire of Langland and
Chaucer and the stern denunciation of Wycliffe. In their fall
they revealed aU the evUs of the voluntary system ; when clergy
and preachers are dependent for their very livelihood on the
people to whom they minister, how can they boldly preach the
gospel or denounce vice ? They must inevitably faU to the
level of the society in which they live. But this is to anticipate.
In the early part of the thirteenth century the University of

138 The Church of England
Rise of Oxford, as we have seen, was rising into eminence as a place of
^Orford! religion and learning. The university, or studium generale,
was one of the typical products of the Middle Ages. A studium
generale was an institution to which students from aU parts
were invited, and a seat of learning in which at least one of the
higher studies, theology, law, or medicine, was pursued. In
every studium generale there was also a guUd of masters. The
universities on the Continent derived their origin from the
cathedral schools. But Oxford, lying as it did in the diocese
of Lincoln, did not grow up under the shadow of a cathedral.
It is probable that the University of Oxford owed its rise to
an exodus of English scholars from the University of Paris in
1167 at the time of Henry II. 's quarrel with Becket; but the
distinctive features of a university were not found at Oxford
till close on the end of the twelfth century. The office of
Chancellor of the university emerged about the year 1214.
Grosseteste, when he presided over the schools of the university,
was simply caUed, " Master of the schools." On the Continent
the Chancellor of the university was a member of the cathedral
chapter. But the Chancellor of Oxford, no doubt owing to the
distance, was never a member of the Lincoln chapter. Though
theoretically the bishop's officer, he very soon became quite in
dependent. We have already mentioned the fame which Oxford
acquired through its Franciscan teachers. Before the close
of Henry III.'s reign the Oxford Franciscans had already
produced two great men^— Adam Marsh, the doctor illustris,
famous both for his learning and practical genius, the friend of
Grosseteste and Simon de Montfort ; and Roger Bacon, a man
of extraordinary versatUity, interested alike in medicine, physical
science, mathematics, theology, and phUosophy. Roger Bacon
was the father of experimental science ; bom at a later age, he
might have achieved as much as his more famous namesake.
Confined for long tracts of time to the forced seclusion of a
cloister, deprived of papers and materials for his work by ignorant
friends, it was only when Pope Clement IV. relaxed the rules
of his order that Bacon was aUowed to show the fruit of his
research and thought. His insight into the scientific future was
marvellous. With prophetic gaze he saw the advent of tele
scopes, steamships, suspension bridges, flying machines, and
gunpowder. His was a precocious genius ! The distuiguishing
feature of Oxford University, i.e. the coUegiate system, had its

The Church in Thirteenth Century 139
origin at the close of Henry III.'s reign in the foundations of
University and Merton Colleges. Hitherto aU undergraduates
had lived in halls rented from the townspeople. If the
small population of England and the difficulties of travel are
taken into consideration, the number of undergraduates was
quite extraordinary. They seem to have numbered at least
three thousand, i.e. they were as numerous as they are to-day.i
They were a turbulent society, fond of rioting, anti-papal in
sympathy — ^witness the riot that marked the visit of the papal
legate in 1237 — full of interest in politics, adherents of the
reforming De Montfort party, a society in which thought rapidly
fermented, often with strange results.
Before closing this brief survey of Henry III.'s reign it will
be well to say a few words about the bishops of the time and
the workings of the parochial system, so far as these subjects
have not been already passed under review. Some of the Bishops of
bishops were mere creatures of the King, and far from being ^'^^'^"
ornaments of the sees they filled. It was difficult, therefore,
for the bishops as a whole to denounce undue secular interference
in things ecclesiastical, as they found in 1253, when four of their
number waited on the King to claim freedom for ecclesiastical
elections, and the King in his reply pointed out that the whole
four of them owed their appointments to royal pressure exercised
on the chapters ; and he expressed a hope that they would
first set an example by resigning sees thus unlawfuUy gained.
The appointment of Boniface of Savoy, the uncle of the Queen,
and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1245-1270, was one of the
most scandalous. He was quite unfitted for his exalted position ;
when forced on an unwiUing chapter in 1243, he was only a
sub-deacon. He was not consecrated by Innocent IV. till 1245,
and actuaUy not enthroned at Canterbury tiU 1249. He spent
most of his time in wringing money from his diocese and pro
vince, and tr5mig to make good his claims of universal visitation
over the whole province of Canterbury, thus involving himself
and others, e.g. the dean and chapter of St. Paul's and his
suffragan bishops, in constant litigation. How unsuited he was
for his position is best iUustrated by the story of his attempted
visitation of the priory of St. Bartholomew's in London. The
prior being absent, the sub-prior and brethren escorted him
with an honourable procession into the church. But when the
' Others put the number as high as 15,000.

Rich.

140 The Church of England
brethren explained to him that the right of visitation belonged,
not to the archbishop, but to the Bishop of London, Boniface,
bursting into a terrible fit of rage and swearing, rushed at the
sub-prior and, to quote the words of Matthew Paris, " im
piously struck with his fist the holy priest, belabouring the old
man's venerable face and hoary head, shouting, ' This is the
way to treat you English traitors.' " The sub-prior's splendid
cope was destroyed, and the sub-prior himself was forced against
the woodwork dividing two stalls, and suffered permanent in
temal injury from the archbishop's violence. A scuffle foUowed,
and in the scuffle it was noticed, much to the horror ot those
present, that the archbishop was wearing a coat of maU beneath
his episcopal robes. Boniface's attendants simUarly attacked
the other monks, and the church was defUed with blood. It is
needless to say that in the constitutional struggle between the
King and the reforming party, Boniface sided with the King.
But aU the bishops were not like Boniface. Two great leaders
Edmund of the national party in Church and State were found in Edmund
Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1234-1240, and Robert
Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, i235-r253. Medieval bishops
could never resist the temptation to dispute with their cathedral
chapters over their respective rights, nor the luxury of endea
vouring to assert doubtfiU claims of visitation over other bodies.
A considerable part of Edmund Rich's primacy was taken up
with disputes of this nature, but his primacy is more memorable
for his opposition to the alien and unconstitutional party of the
King's advisers, headed by Des Roches, and for the relative
independence of his attitude towards the Pope ; on more than
one occasion he ignored the papal jurisdiction. But Edmund
Rich was a saintly ascetic and scholar, little suited to the active
life of a leader of men. In 1240, fiUed with despair at the
extortion and encroachments of Pope and King, he retired to
the monastery of Pontigny, and shortly afterwards died.
Robert Grosseteste was the greatest bishop of the thirteenth century.
In our sketch of the Franciscans the important part played by
Grosseteste's friendship towards them has already been noticed.
He was, in the first place, a prince of learning. We coiUd not
have a better judge than Roger Bacon, and the latter describes
His learn- him as " perfect in divine and human wisdom." In fact, he
'"^" was as versatUe as Roger Bacon himself. PhUosophy, theology,
science, poetry, agriculture, law, medicine, aU attracted his

Grosseteste,

The Church in Thirteenth Century 141
interest. He was a great believer in the correlation of the
sciences and the ultimate unity of aU knowledge. He was one
of the first to encourage knowledge of original texts, Greek and
Hebrew, in preference to the current second-hand translations.
It was under his direction that the first translation from the
Greek of Aristotie's " Ethics " was made. But greatly though he
valued Aristotle, his admiration was not blind. In the sciences
he saw the fuU importance of the experimental as against the
a priori method of Aristotle. In theology his constant appeal His appeal
to the text of Holy Scripture must be noted. He was a famous '"^g^'^'
preacher, and often preached, we are told, to the people in the
EngUsh tongue — a great departure. His attitude to the papal His atti-
see ought perhaps to be more clearly defined. We have seen papacy.
him attacking abuses which had their centre in the papal court
itself. We have seen him blankly refusing to institute a person
presented to a prebend by papal provision. On more than one
occasion he boldly opposed papal extortions. But we must
not, on that account, picture him as a precursor of the Reforma
tion. He was nothing of the kind. He was, on the contrary,
a loyal son of Rome, and never dreamed of questioning the
supremacy of the Roman see any more than of questioning the
supremacy of the King, whose extortions and misgovernment
he likewise opposed. Though he denounced the system of
provisions, because it imperUled the salvation of souls, on the
other hand he quite recognised the duty of loyal churchmen
to support the Roman Church when in distress by grants of
money. Writing in 1246, he asserted that it would have been
like " the sin of witchcraft " and " the crime of idolatry," to
have refused the papal demand for money when " our spiritual
father and mother are driven uito exUe, on every side persecuted
and despoUed of their patiimony." But as the situation of the
Popes became more normal, Grosseteste was as forward as any
in opposing papal extortion. He was a papalist, and it was
because he saw that the moral foundations of both Pope and
Church were being undermined that he bitterly attacked such
misgovernment. His aim throughout was to strengthen the
papacy and save it from itself. He was essentiaUy a reformer.
In the political sphere he S3mipathised with the progressive Political
party, and detested the continuous misgovernment of the King, p^^'jg^
He was throughout the champion of popular rights against
royal tyranny ; and for Simon de Montfort, with whom he was

' ' A great
bishop."

142 The Church of England
on intimate terms, he wrote a work on the " Principles of King
ship and Tyranny." His wish was to bring into line the re
forming parties in Church and State. But to no churchman
did he yield in his desire to maintain intact clerical immunities,
and to remove the Church from secular influences. He saw
too clearly what secular influence meant when exercised by a
King like Henry III. But above aU things Grosseteste was a
great bishop. Men owed to him quite a new conception of the
episcopal office. His aim was to raise throughout his vast
diocese the standard of clerical and parochial efficiency. He
set other bishops an example in refusing to admit improper
nominees to benefices. WhUe he was stUl bishop-elect, a monk
brought him a mere deacon for institution into an ecclesiastical
benefice. The deacon was clothed in scarlet, and wore rings on
his fingers. Grosseteste, after a few questions, was confirmed in
his estimate of the man, and severely rebuked the monk be
cause he had brought for institution a man who showed by his
dress and gait that he was far better adapted to the slaying
than the saving of souls. But the greatest innovation in
Grosseteste's episcopacy was his determination to carry out a
systematic visitation of his whole diocese. No English bishop
had ever attempted this before. Non-exempt monasteries
and the parochial clergy were alike visited. Grosseteste went
through every rural deanery, summoning both the clergy and
people to meet him. The people were bidden to bring their
chUdren for confirmation and to confess their sins. From this
systematic visitation many results foUowed. We have already
mentioned the persistency with which he urged the formation
of perpetual vicarages. His aim always was to promote the
spiritual welfare of the parishes. Further, having gained
knowledge of the state of his diocese, in 1236 he issued constitu
tions to his clergy. These constitutions and others of the same
nature, together with the decrees of the legatine councU of 1237,
Parish life, throw Considerable light on the state of contemporary parish
life. They show the prevalence of drunkenness, of orgies at
funeral wakes, of fairs held ui churchyards, of carnivals held
within cathedral precincts. AU these Grosseteste tried to put
down. In his constitutions he urged his clergy to mstruct
their parishioners, by means of the English tongue, in the Ten
Commandments, in the meaning of the sacraments, and in the
Christian faith as contained in the creeds, The clergy were to

Visitation of his
diocese.

The Church in Thirteenth Century 143
be dUigent in reading the Holy Scriptures and instructing the
young in the elements of the faith. They were not to be
married, nor engaged in secular occupations, nor frequenters
of taverns. AU beneficed clergy were to take priests' orders,
if they had not already done so, and reside in their parishes.
One point calls for attention. It is clear from the constitutions
of this and the foUowing centuries that the attempt to enforce
clerical celibacy was not successful. The clergy were men ;
the attempt to impose on them compulsory celibacy caused a
growing scandal. Many of them lived with women who were
thek wives in everything but name. But this persistent viola
tion of the Church's order must have diminished their own self-
respect and lessened their moral influence over the people.
In 1253 Grosseteste died. Whether we regard him as the
advancer of learning and encourager of the friars, or as the
nationalist leader against papal encroachments, or as the close
aUy of the progressive party in the State, or as the great bishop,
we must admit that he was one of the grandest figures of the
thirteenth century
In 1272 Edward I., though stUl away on crusade, succeeded Accession
to the English throne. Edward I. is one of the greatest m the °l^^^l^^
whole line of English Kings. In private life he was pure, true,
and high-minded ; in public life he showed an instinctive sym- Character.
pathy with his people ; he was a nursing father to their con
stitutional life. His reign was one of legal definition, in which
the rights of the crown and the different sections of society were
fixed with precision. The one feature in Edward which marred
an otherwise noble character was a tendency towards legal
chicane — to take his pound of flesh when that pound was legaUy
his ; to sacrifice the spirit whUe observing the letter ; he never
encroached on the rights of others, but he was fuUy resolved to
maintain his own. His motto, graven on his tomb in Westminster
Abbey, was " Pactum serva" (keep troth). He may not have
always foUowed this maxim duri''g his father's reign, when his
filial duty and his political obligations puUed him different ways ;
but once King, he observed it almost though not quite uniformly.
The reign of Edward I. may be regarded in many ways as Compared
completmg the work of Henry II. Henry II. had brought 7i'_"' "'°'y
Ireland into dependence on England. Edward I. subdued the
principality of Wales (1276-1284) ; he cdso effected the sub
jugation of Scotland (1292-1307) ; but the fruits of bis work

144 T"^^ Church of England
were thrown away by his unworthy son and successor. The
internal policy of both Henry II. and Edward I. was the same.
They desired the consolidation of the kingdom under a national
monarchy. But Edward had a genuine sympathy and love for
his people which Henry II. never had. Edward desired to
take them into partnership. He was the founder of the English
Parliament. The powers which were Ukely to thwart both Kings in their
aim at national consolidation were twofold — the baronage and
the Church. FoUowing in the footsteps of Henry II. , Edward I.
desired to " eliminate feudalism " from the sphere of government.
By his use of the quo warranto writs, Edward reduced the
feudal jurisdictions ; he discarded the feudal levy, and fell back
on the ancient obligation incumbent on every citizen of serving
in the host ; by " commissions of array " he caUed out the
number of troops that he required. Men were bound to bear
arms, not according to their tenure, but according to their
wealth. Again, the councU of the nation was transformed.
Edward I. was the founder of the House of Lords and the
House of Commons. In the former the right to sit was
henceforth, speaking broadly, conferred by writ, not by tenure ;
in the latter representation, not tenure, was the qualffication
for membership. Similarly in the sphere of taxation, the
guiding principle was no longer to be tenure, but the
amount of a man's wealth. A man was to be taxed no
longer because he held by a certain tenure of land from the
crown, but according to his wealth. In his resolve to reduce
Edward the power of the baronage Edward succeeded. But to eliminate
Church from the Church every factor antagonistic to national unity
was more difficult. For in its essence the Church was inter
national. The Church of England, including as it did all the
people of England, recognised the supremacy of the Roman
bishop in things spiritual. The Pope was the source of spiritual
jurisdiction. The situation had been further complicated by
John's cession of the kingdom to the Pope as suzerain, and by
the fact that the Pope, often in collusion with King Henry IIL,
had, as we have seen, made many administrative encroach-
Reiations mcuts. Edward's relations to the papacy can soon be explained.
to papacy. Neither in 1273, on the death of Boniface, nor in 1278, was he
able to secure the primacy for his great minister Robert BurneU.
Though he induced the monks of Canterbury in 1278, and the

The Church in Thirteenth Century 145
monks of Wmchester in r28o, to elect BurneU to the vacant sees
of Canterbury and Winchester respectively, ui each case the
Pope refused confirmation, fearing, no doubt, that BurneU would
unduly support the royal, as against the papal, power. Edward
had perforce to 5deld, and acknowledge the power which the
Popes by encroachment had gained over the elections to
bishoprics. But when the Popes in the bulls which confirmed
elections professed to confer the temporalities as well as the
spkitualities of the sees, Edward was quick to resent the ag
gression, and refused to give or restore the temporalities tUl the
bishops had renounced the offensive clause of the papal bull.
In 1296 a more critical cause of quarrel arose when Edward
Boniface VIIL, the last of the great mediaeval Popes, issued ^uu**
the famous buU, "Clericis Laicos," which, under penalty of "Cierids
excommunication, forbade the clergy to pay taxes to princes, ^"^°^'
and princes to demand such taxes from the clergy. Boniface VIII.
may have had the laudable desire to check wars which were
financed in large measure by taxation wrung from the clerical
estate, but to aU temporal rulers the claim seemed monstrous.
It was a critical moment in Edward's reign, as danger was
threatening both from France and Scotland, when the clergy,
headed by Archbishop Winchelsey, obeyed the bull and refused
to pay taxes. Edward instantly replied in the only possible
way. He outlawed the clergy. If they would not pay for,
neither would they obtain, the protection of the law. The clergy
soon yielded, and the Pope had to explain away his buU by
pointing out that it did not forbid the clergy to make voluntary
grants. It was little to Edward whether they made voluntary
grants or paid taxes, so long as the money came into the royal
treasury. So the crisis passed.
In 1299 Boniface made another extraordinary claim. By a
buU issued at Anagni he asserted that Scotland was a fief of the
Holy See, and forbade Edward to disturb it. Edward referred
this bull to a Parliament held at Lincoln in 1301. The Parlia
ment was memorable for a reply to the Pope framed by the
baronage of England. The barons indignantly denied the Barons
validity of the papal claim. They bluntiy told the Pope that ^^"L'imy.'
" neither did the Kings of England answer, nor ought they to
answer, concerning their rights in the aforesaid kingdom, or
other their temporalities, before any judge, ecclesiastical or
secular, by reason of the free pre-eminence of the estate of their
K

146 The Church of England
royal dignity and custom imbrokenly preserved at all times."
They then proceeded to declare, "that our aforesaid lord the
King, for the rights of his kingdom of Scotland or other his
temporalities, shaU in no wise answer judiciaUy before you . . .
neither shaU he send into your presence proctors for that pur
pose." It is to be noted that the clergy, probably at the in
stigation of Winchelsey, did not co-operate with the baronage
in this reply.
In 1307 a petition was presented to the Kmg in ParUament
against the abuse of papal provisions and other papal exactions.
But no definite action was taken ; for Clement V., formerly
subject of Edward, was now Pope, and by the suspension of
Winchelsey, whom Edward bitterly hated for his action in 1297,
had earned the gratitude and goodwiU of the King. Just at
the end of his reign Edward feU back on the less national and
less noble attitude of conniving in return at papal extortion.
With the Church as a whole Edward's attitude was no less
firm, confronted as he was by two such resolute archbishops
as Peckham, a Franciscan friar (1279-1292), and Winchelsey
(1294-1313).
Edward's The words of the Osney chronicler, " Ut esset clerus sicut
T'ch^'h ®* populus," admirably sum up the King's attitude. He was
determined that the Church should form no " imperium in
imperio " ; churchmen must claim no privUeges which did not
harmonise with their duty as citizens ; ' they must pay taxes
on a new and more accurate assessment, the taxatio of
Nicholas IV., drawn up in 1291 ; they must be huidered from
accumulating more land in mortmain (1279) ; the jurisdiction
of the ecclesiastical courts must be strictiy limited, and the
limitation enforced by royal prohibitions. The clergy, accord
ing to Edward's idea, were to sit as an estate, and co-operate
with the two other estates in Parliament. In the history of
Edward's relations with the Church the critical years were 1279,
1285, 1294-1297.
In 1279 Peckham, in an ecclesiastical councU at Reading,
had threatened with excommunication aU those who inter
fered with the spiritual courts ; he also interfered with matters
purely secular by ordering the clergy to post a new copy of
Magna Charta annuaUy in cathedral and coUegiate churches.
Edward summoned him before his coimcU and caused him to
rescind the objectionable decrees. Peckham, undaunted, m. a

The Church in Thirteenth Century 147
councU held at Lambeth in 1281, again tried to extend the
jurisdiction of the spiritual courts.
But his aggressive policy was boldly stopped by the King, statute of
In 1279 tli^ great statute of Mortmain was passed, forbidding Mortmain.
the further accumulation of lemded property by religious bodies.
The motive which prompted this act was the loss sustained, by
the King and other lords, of feudal dues, such as escheats, ward
ships and marriage fines. In future if any man alienated land
to a religious body, his immediate superior could retake pos
session, and if he faUed, then the lord next above him; whUe
the King, in default of mesne lords doing their duty, was en
titled to ultimate re-entry.
In 1285 the King, by the writ of circumspecte agatis, carefully vvrit of
defined the limits of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Sec"/*"
The years 1294-1297 were the most critical in Edward's agatis.
reign. In 1294 he was threatened with danger from every side.
Madoc revolted in Wales ; war with France was imminent,
over Gascony ; whUe the Scotch formed an aUiance with the
French and were ready for rebeUion. The critical position in
which Edward found himself led to oppressive taxation. The
King demanded from the assembled clergy one-half of their
revenues; the clergy were without a leader, as Peckham had
died in 1292, and the see of Canterbury was stUl vacant ; under
a threat of outlawry they were compelled to yield. But the
poUtical atmosphere did not clear.
The year 1297 was the most dangerous through which the Crisis of
Kmg ever passed. The war with France continued ; a national '^'^"
rising in Scotland under Wallace threatened the English power ;
Edward was driven by force of circumstances into many high
handed and arbitrary actions ; at the most critical point in his
whole career he found himself thwarted by the coalition of
baronial and clerical opposition. The barons, led by Bigod,
Earl of Norfolk, and Bohun, Earl of Hereford, were actuated by
thoroughly selfish motives. On technical quibbles Bigod and
Bohun refused to serve the King abroad. In reality the barons
were jealous of the concentration of the old earldoms in the
royal famUy and the growth in other ways of the royal power ;
their chief aim was the winning of social privUeges for them
selves. The situation was quite different from that of 1258. In
1258 the barons had to do with a weak and faithless King, who
had consistently misgoverned, but in 1297 the King was Edward,

148 The Church of England
a man who had spent the best years of his life in developing the
constitutional action of his people, who had laid down the great
constitutional maxim, " that the thing which touches aU shaU
be approved of aU," and had summoned the model Parliament
of 1295. The clergy were now led by Archbishop Winchelsey, and
Bull of their position was complicated by the bull " Clericis Laicos " (see
Laicos."^ above). Boniface explained away his bull, and the clergy
henceforward made voluntary grants to the crown in convoca
tion. The policy of Winchelsey was not far-sighted ; the clergy
by ceasing to grant taxes to the King would inevitably have
lost all share in controlling the national policy. It was easy to
see the result which would follow from such blind obedience to
the bull " Clericis Laicos." The reign of Henry III. had made
it abundantly clear that by coUusion between King and Pope
taxes on the Church would be levied for avowedly spiritual
objects, and then devoted in part to the royal needs. The real
sufferer would inevitably have been the Church of England.
However that may be, Edward never forgave Winchelsey for
the humUiation to which he had been exposed, and when op
portunity offered, did not forget to repay him in kind. The
second and by far the greatest result of those critical years
Model Par- was the calling of the model Parliament in 1295 ; lords spiritual
12^^" ' and temporal, representatives of shkes and boroughs, and the
lower clergy were aU summoned. The clerical assemblies or
convocations had led the way in the development of the
representative principle. OriginaUy clerical assemblies had
consisted of prelates only. In 1225 Langton had summoned
in addition proctors for the cathedral and monastic chapters;
in 1258 archdeacons were summoned with letters of proxy
Growth of from their clergy. Finally, in r283, the convocation of Canter-
^^onvoca- |j^].y reached the form it subsequently retained. To it were
summoned the bishops, abbots, deans, archdeacons, together
with two representatives from the clergy of each diocese and
one representative from each chapter.
Edward adopted this system of representation in his summons
of the clerical estate to the model Parliament of 1295. The
bishops were summoned separately, and in what is known as
the praemunientes ^ clause of the writ were forewarned to bring
' This clause is still retained in the writ summoning a bishop to Parliament. He
is bidden to come forewarning (^lemunientes) his dean and archdeacon and the

The Church in Thirteenth Century 149
with them their greater clergy in person, and the representatives
of the diocesan clergy and cathedral chapters. It is to be noticed
that the clergy, except the prelates, very soon gave up attendance
in Parliament. They were content to be represented by their
bishops, and preferred to vote their grants to the crown in
convocation. A third result of these critical years, 1294-1297, was the
confirmation of the charters — a fitting close for the century of Confirma-
which they had been a great achievement. This confirmation ''hart'ers. *
was wrung from the reluctant Edward by the combined op
position of the great barons and the clergy under Winchelsey.
The King was extremely powerful, and it was no doubt well
that the monarchy should be reminded of the limitations on its
power. But it was ungenerous to take advantage of such a
King as Edward when he was involved in national embarrass
ments due to no fault of his own. Edward never forgave the
humUiations which Winchelsey in this and other matters had
brought upon him.
In 1305 the Archbishop of Bordeaux, a subject of Edward,
became Pope as Clement V., and did not scruple to sacrifice
Winchelsey to the wishes of the King. Accused by the King
of tieasonable plots, Winchelsey was in insulting terms sus
pended and summoned to Rome (1306). In 1307 the great
King, when on his march northwards to punish the Scots, died
at Burgh-on-Sands.
representatives of the clergy also to attend. N.B. — The forms of summoning a
bishop to Parliament and to convocation differ. To Parliament a bishop is
summoned by a writ straight from the crown. In the case of convocadon, when
the Archbishop of Canterbury has received from the crown the writ authorising
convocation to meet, he writes to the dean of the province {i.e. the Bishop of
London) bidding him summon the suffragan bishops of the province. In the
province of York, the Archbishop, on receipt of a writ from the crown, summons
his suffragans and other clergy directly by his own writ.

CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH AND THE WYCLIFFITE MOVEMENT
With Boniface VIII. the mediaeval papacy fell. His successor,
Clement V., unable to face the troubles fomented for him in
Italy by the French King, moved the papal court in 1305 to
Avignon. Avignon was just outside the frontiers of France
proper, but from this time the papacy passed under French
influence, and became a sateUite of the French crown. For
"Avig- more than seventy years this " Avignonese captivity " con-
captlvUy '¦ tiiiued. In the luxurious climate and surroundings of Avignon,
the corruptions of the papacy found a favourable soU, and shot
up in rank profusion. It was hardly possible for the Pope,
when his French leanings were notorious, to pose as an embodi
ment of the moral law, or as an impartial arbiter between nations.
When England was presently involved ia a hundred years' war
with France, it was not likely that she would regard the Pope as
other than a hated alien. She soon came to regard the money
that flowed from England to Avignon as wealth used to finance
her enemies. There was a rhyme current in England shortly
after 1356— " Now is the Pope become French, and Jesus become English ;
Now will be seen who will do more, the Pope or Jesus."
The reign of Edward II. (1307-1327) calls for little notice.
He has rightly been called the first King of England since the
Norman Conquest who was not " a man of business." His
tastes were low, and he delighted in the society of bargees and
grooms ; he had the misfortune of constantly forming attach
ments to unworthy favourites, such as Piers Gaveston. The
one redeeming feature in his character was perhaps his constancy
to them. But his whole reign was a series of miserable personal
squabbles. His opponents were equally worthless. Society was
demoralised, and the bishops raised by the King to the episcopal
ofiice were court intriguers, whose predominant features were
avarice and worldliness. The worst of the lot was perhaps
150

Church and TVycliffite Movement 151
Orleton, Bishop successively of Hereford, Worcester, and Win
chester. In the treasonable plot by which the King was de
posed, and then crueUy murdered, Orleton played an odious
part. He is said to have sent a message as cryptic as a Delphic
oracle to secure at once the murder of the King and his own
safety ("Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est"). One
event of ecclesiastical importance must not be omitted in a
notice of his reign. In 1312 the great order of crusading knights Suppres-
known as the Templars was suppressed. This was done by the xempiarl!
Pope at the instigation of the French King, who desired to annex
the French property of the order. Like aU societies with secret
rites of initiation, the Templars were unpopular. Mysterious
tales, not tmlike those told about the primitive Christians, were
widely prevalent. Rumour spoke of their secret murders, their
blasphemies, their devU-worship, their incestuous orgies. The
tales were whoUy improbable. But despite its great services
in the past, the order was dissolved ; its property in England
was handed over to the other great crusading order, the Knights
Hospitallers. In 1327 Edward III. succeeded to the throne ; his reign of Reign of
fifty years is memorable, not for the glorious victories— Sluys, m^"
Cregy, Poictiers — with which his name is associated in popular
imagination, but for very different reasons. Even if we look
to his mUitary career, the glamour of his great victories must
not make us forget that if the early stages of his war brought
glory and conquests, the later stages were marked by loss and
faUure. The bald fact remains that as a result of his reign
England was stripped of her foreign possessions. At his death
in r377 she owned less territory in France than she did in 1327.
Probably Edward never desired the French crown at all ; his
policy was dictated by a desire to succour the Low Countries,
to which England was attached by commercial interests. But
apart from changes produced in the art of war, the struggle was
important. A noticeable feature of the age was the growth of
national feeling. It was the age in which vernacular literature —
at once a sign and a cause of the change — sprang into existence.
If Italy had her Dante, England had her Chaucer and her
Wycliffe. The war with France fostered the growth of national
feeling; beginning as a quarrel between princes, it ended as a
strife between nations. But with the rise of nations the old
mediaeval idea of the unity of Christendom under its two heads,

Bastard
feudalism.

Effects of
BlackDeath,1349'

152 The Church of England
Pope and Emperor, passed away. The conception of " national "
churches was not far distant.
There was a second important result which issued from this
prolonged war. The old methods of raising troops were found
inadequate. Edward began the system of raising troops by
indenture of agreement. The King, for example, wanted a
thousand men. He would make a contract with a nobleman by
which, in return for a fixed sum of money, the nobleman engaged
to put at his disposal a thousand men for a certain period.
This was the origin of that " bastard feudalism " which terrorised
the country-side, overthrew the administration of royal justice,
and substituted for it the violence of armed retainers. The
soldiers who returned from Edward's wars glutted with plunder
of the French were not likely to retum to the quiet dulness of
country life. They remained in the service of the great lords
and wore their livery, whUe the lords in their turn engaged to
" maintain " the causes of their men in the courts of law. The
result can be seen in the pages of the Paston Letters ; juries and
judges were bribed or intimidated by great nobles; the verdicts
of the courts were overridden by acts of violence ; quarrels
between great nobles were settled by private war ; the county
courts were broken up by scenes of violence, and representatives
favoured by the local magnates were returned to Parliament.
Society approached nearer and nearer to the breakers of anarchy.
The sins of the fathers were visited on the chUdren. The
character of Richard II. must always remain a problem, but it
is quite a plausible reading of his character to maintain that in
the last act of the drama of his reign, when he made a bold bid
for absolute power, he was only seeking a refuge from anarchy,
and trying to create for himself what the Wars of the Roses
created for the Tudors.
In the pages which foUow we shaU have to trace the mediaeval
Church in its decadence and decline. It is only fair to realise
that the demoralisation of the Church was only part of the
general demoralisation, and that it was difficult for true religion
to flourish amid the avarice, the worldliness, the injustice, the
rapine that marked the dissolution of society. The " spirit of
the age " was against it.
There was one other event in Edward III.'s reign which
acted as a powerful solvent on the structure of social life. The
Black Death visited England in 1349, and again in 1362-3. The

Church and Wycliffite Movement 153
immediate moral effects were, as ever in times of plague, twofold.
Some men were driven by it into extremes of asceticism and ^'
penitence, whUe others, to make them forget the horrors of life,
plunged into the grossest forms of excess and self-indulgence.
The mortality was fearful. We have no accurate returns of
those who perished, but the mortality among the parochial
clergy was enormous. It is pleasant to know that the clergy
stood manfuUy to their posts. As gaps were made in their line
by death, others stepped forward to fill their places. The
effects of the Black Death on learning were disastrous; the
standard of knowledge required from candidates for ordination
was necessarUy lowered. Many further changes of permanent
importance also foUowed from it. Owing to the faUure of heirs
and the inabUity of smaUer landowners to work their land at a
profit, estates were concentrated in fewer hands, and this con
centration contributed in part to an increase in power of the
nobles and the " bastard feudalism " described on the preceding
page. The terrible mortality amongst workmen raised the
rate of wages, in spite of legislation which attempted to stop
the rise. The " poor parson " amongst others benefited by
the change ; however much wealthy bishops might denounce
the poor parson's " avarice," he could not be got to do a
vicar's work for the former income of five marks. His rate of
pay was almost doubled. The attempts of landlords to revive
the labour-services of vUleins, which had already been com
muted for money payments, was the chief cause of the great
peasant rising in 1381. To the Black Death, again, must in
part be assigned the decline of monastic life.
This period, though important in the history of our Church
and nation, is not a pleasing era. There is a better side to
the picture ; but the predominant note is one of regress and
decline. The age was one of so-called chivalry. But the chivalry
splendour of chivalry was tinsel, masking under a fair exterior
selfish and caUous cruelty. There was a code of honour, but
among " gentlemen " only ; war was a " tournament," the
sport of " gentlemen," but there was also the desolation by fire
and sword of peasant homesteads. There were elaborate forms
of courtesy to the lady of your love, but little regard for the
real virtue of women. Edward III. was a typical product of
his age. The splendid feast with which he celebrated the institu
tion of the order of the Garter (1349), the starving and plague-

movement.

154 The Church of England
stricken people without — these two should be companion
pictures.
Anti-papal In the more directly religious history of the reign, two move
ments have to be traced ; the one is anti-papal, and the other
anti-clerical. It has already been pointed out that the Pope,
now resident at Avignon, had become a satellite of France.
The luxurious standard of living practised at Avignon made
revenue an even more urgent cause of anxiety to the
papal court than formerly. Papal exactions of aU sorts con
tinued ; the fees and fines incident to the exercise of juris
diction were maintained, annates and first-fruits helped to
sweU the papal treasury ; to reward and support the members
of his court the Pope provided them with English bishoprics
and benefices which he had reserved often in the life-time of
the existing holders. The Pope deserved credit for the fact that
in his provisions the claims of learning were sometimes re
cognised ; after the statute of Provisors had been passed, English
learning did not meet with its due share of preferment. To
wards the end of the century a cry arose in Oxford and reached
Parliament in London that the statute should be so far modffied
as to validate aU papal provisions issued in favour of Oxford
students. But taking the system as a whole, provisions were
a glaring scandal. An event which happened in 1349 wiU
Ulustrate. An ass was actuaUy introduced into the assembled
company of Pope and cardinals at Avignon, with a petition tied
to his neck asking that he too might be given a bishopric !
Statute of After repeated protests of King and Parliament, recourse
was had to legislation. In 1351 the first of the famous Statutes
of Provisors was passed. Its aim was to secure the rights of
patrons. Asserting that the holy Church of England was
founded by the ancestors of the King and his barons to teach
the law of God, and to exercise hospitality and charity, the
statute proceeded to enact that elections to bishoprics should
be free, subject to the royal licence and assent ; that whenever
the Pope provided and patrons faUed to appoint to benefices,
the patronage for that turn shoiUd lapse to the crown ; if
candidates provided by the Pope tried to assert their rights,
they were to be kept in prison till they paid a fine at the King's
discretion, and undertook not to prosecute their case further at
the Roman court.
It is to be noticed that smce the year 1239 ^^ Popes had

Provisors 1351

Church and Wycliffite Movement 155
made no attempt to infringe on the rights of lay patrons ; and
the Statute of Provisors, though it covered the cases of usurpation
on lay as well as spiritual patronage, was not really devised
to protect laymen. Advowsons belonged to the lay tribunal
(see p. 102), and laymen were adequately protected already
by the royal courts. The statute was specially devised to
protect the rights of spiritual patrons, who were placed in a
rather deUcate position, since they acknowledged the Pope as
their spiritual father, and could hardly bring an action which
challenged papal appointments before the temporal courts.
Henceforth, if bishops did not do their duties as patrons, the
right of appointment was to lapse to the crown.
Thus a considerable check was placed on papal provisions,
but the terms of the statute were often evaded by collusion
between King and Pope. This is proved not only by other
evidence, but also by the fact that the statute had to be re-
enacted in 1390, and the penalties for its infringement increased
to exUe and forfeiture of goods.
So far as the statute referred to bishoprics, it did, however, Appoint-
secure its end. Henceforth royal nominees were almost in- Sshoprics.
variably chosen, but, to cover the Pope's discomfiture, they
were also backed by papal provision. The real victory lay
with the King. Court favour and the administrative work of
a statesman became the high-road to episcopal preferment.
The method by which a bishop was henceforth appointed may
be seen in the case of WUliam of Wykeham. In 1366 the monks
of St. Swithun elected Wykeham, the King's nominee, to the
vacant see of Winchester. The King thereupon wrote to the
Pope asking him by way of provision to appoint Wykeham ; and
he himself made Wykeham guardiain of the temporalities of the
see. The Pope then advised Wykeham that in the time of
the late bishop he had reserved the appointment, and was now
seeking a proper successor. In the meantime he appointed
Wykeham administrator of both spirituals and temporals of
the Church of Winchester. FinaUy, after a delay of nine more
months, he issued a bull providing Wykeham to the see of
Winchester. Wykeham was then consecrated, and received
from the Kmg the temporalities, no doubt renouncing the
offensive words in the papal buU which professed to grant him
the temporalities as weU as the spiritualities.
Thus the Pope retained his formal rights in the appomtment

156 The Church of England
to bishoprics ; he also made good his claim to actuaUy appoint
when a bishop was translated from one see to another.
First Two years after the first Statute of Provisors, another anti-
of Pri"- papal step was taken in the first Statute of Praemunire (1353).
munire. The Statute did not directly name the Roman Curia, but was
'^^^' directed against those who took out of the realm any plea
cognisable in the royal court, or sought to impugn in any other
tribunal decisions given by the royal court. Any one so doing
was to be summoned before the King's court, and in the event
of non-appearance to be outlawed and forfeit his goods. The
consent of the prelates is not mentioned in the text of the
statute. In 1365 the statute was re-enacted in a form which ex
pressly named the papal court, and was further amplffied in
Re-en- the great Statute of Praemunire, 1393. Against the Acts of
1393!' -"-^^S ^"^^ ¦"¦393 *^® prelates in ParUament lodged a protest.
The aim of all these Prasmunire Acts was to check the system
of papal provisions and the chaUenging of royal presentations
in the papal courts. The Statutes of Praemunire did not in
any way interfere with the wide sphere of jurisdiction aUowed
the ecclesiastical tribunals by the temporal power.
These important Acts of Provisors and Praemunire were
henceforth, though imperfectly observed, the great bulwarks of
the national Church against the encroachments of Rome. It
was in vain that Martin V. (1417-1431), beat agamst the bars
of the cage, and threatened Archbishop Chichele with excom
munication if he did not secure the repeal of the obnoxious
statutes. A bit had been put in the papal mouth which neither
King nor Parliament was wUling to remove.
In the year 1365 the Pope was injudicious enough to demand
the arrears of the tribute promised by King John for himself
and his successors. This claim was emphatically rejected by
Papal Parliament, and the papal suzerainty renoimced. For a whUe
renoimced ^^^^ ^^ payment of Peter's pence was discontinued. It was
1365- ' possibly on this occasion, but more probably in 12^74, that
Wycliffe was employed by the King to write an answer re
butting the papal claim. The papal power over the English
Church was clearly being loosened. Langland (? 1330-1400) in
his Vision of Piers the Plowman, though he never questioned
the theoretical powers of the papacy, denounced the Pope for
pUlaging the Church, chaUenging the royal rights within the

Church and Wycliffite Movement 157
realm, and, like a warlike prince, hiring soldiers to fight his
battles. " And God amende the Pope that pileth [pillages] holy Kirke
And cleymeth bifor the Kynge to be keper over Crystene,
And counteth not though Crystene ben culled [killed] and robbed,
And fynt [finds] folke to fyghte, and Cristene blode to spille [spill
Christian blood].
Agene [contrary to] the olde lawe and newe lawe as Luke thereof
witnesseth
Non occides : mihi vindictam, &c.
It semeth by so himself hadde his wille [if he has his will by himself],
That he reccheth [recks] right noughte of al the remenaunte."
After the papal schism of 1378, when there were two Papal
obediences, and rival popes were anathematising and fighting ij^s"" °^
each other, Wycliffe came to regard the papacy as Antichrist,
a thing accursed. He challenged the whole theory of papal
power, and denied the papal claims as unscriptural.
The anti-ecclesiastical movement in Edward III.'s reign can Anti-eccie-
be traced with equal clearness. The movement was not in its ^^"g'^i^ent
early stages 'against the clergy nor the clerical estate as such,
but against the worldliness and secularisation of the Church,
and the practical abuses by which its administration was dis
figured. Under Wycliffe it finaUy passed into an attack on
its whole theory and doctrine.
The feeling against the monasteries manifested by towns Evils in the
which had grown up beneath their shadow was not, perhaps, EgJ'em'!
typical. But stiU it showed the trend of the times. It was not
likely that vigorous town communities should -view with favour
the retention by monasteries of obsolescent feudal rights, or the
claims of monastic bodies to maintain their exemption from
national burdens. On more than one day of wUd riot at Bury
St. Edmunds, at St. Albans, at Canterbury, the burgesses
attacked the monasteries and sent the monks scudding for then
lives. The evUs under which the Church laboured, the hypocrisy
of monks and friars, the abuses that clustered thick round the
whole system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the traffic in sin for
money — all these in indelible terms are portrayed for us by
Chaucer and the popular writers of the time. They wUl be
considered in the foUowing chapter. Both in Langland and
Chaucer the loosening of old ideas and the disengaging of new
conceptions is manifest. In Langland's Vision of Piers the Plow-

158 The Church of England
Langland's man the ideal character is the plowman. He alone can guide
^i:nt^ man to Truth where priests f aU ; the life of honest labour is held
Plowman, up as the ideal ; not priestly pardon, but purity of life, wUl gam
God's forgiveness; the universal brotherhood of man is enun
ciated. In the mystic sequel of the poem the plowman seems to
be identified with our Lord Himself. It is clear that for Langland
at any rate the monastic ideal was out of date. It was Lang
land who pronounced a prophetic doom over the monasteries —
" Ac there shal come a kyng and confess yow religiouses [monks],
And amende monyales [nuns], monkes and chanouns,
And putten hem to her penance ad pristinum statum ire
And thanne shal the Abbot of Abyndoun, and alle his issu for evere,
Have a knokke of a kynge and incurable the wounde."
Attack on In the graver records of the nation the same anti-ecclesiastical
political movement can be traced in an attack on the political power
power of r sf
ecciesi- and endowments of the Church. Great ecclesiastics occupied
astics. most of the high offices of State ; this arose from the fact that
the King appointed to bishoprics men who had done good work
in temporal administration, but the result was a grievous pro
fanation of the episcopal office. Bishops had no time for the
spiritual care of their dioceses, and deputed their work to
hirelings. Reformers like Wycliffe abhorred this seciUarisation
of the Church, and the giving of preferment to men who had
won distinction in the civU service of the King. He was no
doubt thinking of his rival Wykeham when he said, " Lords
wUl not present a clerk of learning and of good life, but a kitchen
clerk or a penny clerk (i.e. accountant) or wise in building
castles . . . though he cannot weU read his psalter."
First lay Lay lords objected to the emplojmient of clerical ministers,
ChanceUor ^ecause they thought it precluded them from the enjoyment of
offices which were their due. The beginnings of the movement
against the appointment of clerics to high State office can be
traced to the year 1340. In that year the first lay ChanceUor,
Sir R. Bourchier, and the first lay Treasurer were appointed.
But the employment of clerical ministers was too useful to the
King to be Ughtly abandoned. In 1371, when WUliam of
Wykeham's clerical ministry was discredited by faUure m the
French war. Parliament petitioned that great offices of State
should henceforth be fiUed by laymen only, on the ground that

Church and Wycliffite Movement 159
clerics were not responsible in every case to justice. WUliam
of Wykeham resigned the chanceUorship, and a lay ministry
was appointed.
It was in this Parliament of 1371 that the first proposal Attack on
was seriously made for the confiscation of Church endowments, dowments""
We are told by Wycliffe that " a certain lord, more skUful 1371-
than the rest," to support this policy of disendowment, told
the foUo-wing fable. Once on a time the birds held a meeting,
and there came to it an owl which was without plumage.
On the pretext of exhaustion and cold, in trembling tones he
asked the other birds to give him feathers. Moved with pity, the
other birds gave him feathers tUl he was covered with plumage
not his own — a sorry sight. Presently, however, a hawk swept
down ui quest of prey, and the birds, to defend themselves
against his assaults or escape them by flight, asked the owl
for the retum of their feathers. And when the owl refused,
each seized his own feather by force, and so escaped from
perU, leaving the owl without any plumage, more miserable
than at first. The moral of the tale was that, in view of
imminent danger from France, the King and the nobles might
resume the property that in past days they or their ancestors
had given to the Church.
The last years of Edward III. were a time of profound gloom, Last years
marked by discontent at home and faUure abroad. The King °j j-^'^*^'"'*
himself was sinking into an inglorious grave, the plaything of
courtesans and worthless nobles. His eldest son, the Black Prince,
was stricken with mortal disease, and John of Gaimt, Duke of
Lancaster, was more than suspected of aiming at the crown.
In 1376 the " Good Parliament " impeached the King's mistress,
and the worthless favourites, who were creatures of Lancaster.
Wykeham took a prominent part in the impeachment. By Attack on
so doing he earned the bitter enmity of Lancaster, and after the Wykeham
Parlicunent men had gone home he was summoned before the
councU, found guUty of malversation in his ministry of 1367-1371,
fined 960,000 marks, and deprived of his temporcilities. Need
less to say, the accusations leveUed against Wykeham were
groundless. The charge was preferred out of political spite.
Before the old King had breathed his last, Wykeham had re
ceived the royal pardon. But already a revolutionary move
ment had arisen within the Church ; its leader was Wycliffe, a
famous Oxford teacher and a chaplain of the King.

i6o The Church of England
By a curious irony of fate the stem moralist Wycliffe found
himself in political aUiance with Gaunt. Wycliffe, because he
believed that a return by churchmen to apostolic poverty
would lead to apostolic purity. Gaunt, because he and his
party wanted a share in ecclesiastical plunder, were agreed in
demanding disendowment.
Into Wycliffe's beliefs and teaching it wiU be necessary to
go in detaU. But first let us glance at the leaders of the
orthodox conservative party. The two leading bishops were
undoubtedly Courtenay, Bishop of London, a younger son of
William of the Earl of Devon, and WUliam of Wykeham, Bishop of Win-
ham-s Chester. Wykeham was sprung from a lowly stock, and had
career and never been to the university. In r347 ^e had passed into the
opinions. j-Qygj service, and gained distinction as a clerk of the royal
works, and then as architect. Part of Windsor Castle was buUt
by him. In 1364 he was made Lord Privy Seal, and Froissart
the chronicler could 'write : "At this time there reigned a priest
in England caUed Sir WUliam de Wican, and this Sir WUliam de
Wican was so much in favour with the King of England that
by him everything was done, and without him they did nothing."
For his services to the King, Wykeham was rewarded with
numberless benefices. Prebends were showered upon him, and
he was the greatest pluralist of the age. By the receipt of one
living — Pulham, in the diocese of Ely — he had exposed himself to
a prosecution at the hands of the deprived Bishop of Ely in the
papal court. In 1367 he had become Bishop of Winchester,
and had as Lord ChanceUor presided over the ministry from
1367-1371. From 1389-1391 he was again to hold the seals.
But he certainly never was the leader of the national party in
the Church against the Pope, as his biographer maintains.
Wykeham was a very great man, ever memorable for his magni
ficent foundations at Winchester and Oxford. He had real
goodness of heart and gentleness of temper, as he showed in
1382 when he pleaded for gentle treatment of the Oxford
Chancellor Rygge, who was accused of Wycliffite heresy. He
was a great bishop, bountiful to the poor, splendid in his
generosity, but leader of the national party in the Church against
the Pope he certainly was not. His views on Church order
and doctrine were eminently orthodox and conservative, his
sympathies entirely opposed to those of Wycliffe.
Wycliffe. WycUffe was born about the year 1324 at HipsweU, near

Church and Wycliffite Movement i6i
Richmond, in Yorkshire. Going to Oxford, he became a feUow
and then master of Balliol (1361) ; shortiy afterwards he ac
cepted the living of FUlingham, and then, after other prefer
ment, he was finaUy presented by the crown to the living of
Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he died in T384. But
during the years 1361-1382 he spent a large part of his time
in Oxford, getting leave of absence from his benefice for pur
poses of study. He was also a royal chaplain, and one of the
envoys sent in 1374 to negotiate at Bruges with the representa
tives of the Pope about papal claims.
Wycliffe was the most famous doctor of his time at Oxford, Wycliffe a
and the last of the great schoolmen. He was also the morning f^e'Refof-
star of the Reformation. From his constant reference to Scripture mation.
as the final court of appeal in disputed matters of doctrine and
discipline, he was known as the " evangelical doctor." Besides
this, he was the first to foreshadow the only possible liaes on
which, things being as they were, reformation of the English
Church could proceed — that is to say, reformation would have to
be imposed on the Church by the power of the State, and would
involve a considerable measure of disendowment. Henry VIIL,
consciously or unconsciously, proceeded on the lines laid down
by Wycliffe. It was only after 1380 that Wycliffe proceeded to
attack the central doctrine of the mediaeval Church, i.e. Tran
substantiation, or the change of the substance of the bread and
wine in the Sacrament of the Altar. Before 1380 his attacks had
been mainly directed against the worldliness of the Church, its
endowments and jurisdiction. The great schism of 1378, and the
unedifying spectacle of rival Popes cursing andfighting each other,
led him to an attack on the whole idea of the papal power.
The grounds of Wycliffe's attack on the Church are to be The De
found in his work, De dominio civili. The main thesis of this ^^^J"'"
book was that aU dominium is founded on grace. It is easy
to see that this thesis is far-reaching in tendency and capable
of producing revolutionary results. Dynamite was embedded
in the doctrine ; the application of a fuse was likely to cause
an explosion dangerous both to Church and State. Dominium
may mean one of two things. It may mean either "owner
ship " or " lordship." Let us take these two senses in turn.
"If you are in a state of grace," -wrote Wycliffe, "you have
a right to all the things you own ; if you are not in a state
pf grace, you have a right fo none of them ; nay, more, if you

1 62 The Church of England
are in a state of grace you have a right to aU things. ' AU
things are yours,' said the apostle, ' whether thmgs present
or things to come.' Your right is only limited by the corre
sponding right of aU others who are in a state of grace." The
Commun- logical Conclusion of the doctrine woiUd be a communism of
'doctrine'.^ saints and a pauper class of sinners.
Or again, taking dominium in the sense of " lordship," Wycliffe
said that if you are in a state of grace you have a right to the
authority or lordship which you exercise ; but you have no right to
it at aU if you are not in a state of grace. The logical conclusion
would be the right of rebellion against unjust rulers, whether in
Church or State. It must not be supposed that Wycliffe made
this practical use of his doctrine. He never applied it at aU to
temporal lordship or lay ownership. As his paradoxical sentence
ran, " God must obey the devU," by which he meant that his
doctrine was only transcendentaUy or ideaUy true. Had it not
been for the FaU of man, the ideal which he had sketched would
have been true to actual life. Unfortunately, sin having entered
the world, temporal lordship and ownership had become a
necessity. The kingdom of heaven was not of this world ;
the righteous man had indeed the right to all things now, but
he would only actuaUy enjoy them hereafter. For the present,
submission to imjust rulers and unjust lay landlords was in
practice altogether right. The anarchism and communism
latent in the doctrine were seen in the peasant rising of
1381. The upper classes were thoroughly alarmed by the
revolt, and in reaction driven into opposition both to the
political and religious views of Wycliffe. Henry IV., it has been
well said, came to the throne both as a "saviour of society"
and " a protector of the Church."
But it must not be supposed that there was any direct con
nection between the teaching of Wycliffe and the rising of 1381.^
The Wycliffite preachers may have expounded the pure doctrine
of their master, undUuted by his reservations. But this is a
mere matter of presumption. There is little evidence to support
the view. Both Wycliffe's teaching and the rising of 1381
may have owed their origin independently to the hard conditions
of life prevaUing and to the discontent smouldering beneath the
surface of society. But when dealing wth the Church Wycliffe
''¦ See, however, the poem in Wright's "Political Songs,'' vol. i., 235, connect
ing Wycliffe wjth Joljn ^aU i and cp. Fascicvli ^izaniorupif p. 273.

Church and Wycliffite Movement 163
had no scruples in pressing his theory to its logical conclusion.
Churchmen of all sorts were living worldly and secular lives ; the
whole ecclesiastical system was an elaborate contrivance de
vised to put money into the hands of priests ; the clergy were Attack on
not in a state of grace, and had no right to the worldly riches memr'and
which were stifling their spiritual life. A return to apostolic hejrarchi-
poverty was eminently needed. It was clearly the duty of tution of '
temporal rulers to release the clergy from secular influences by tiie Church
a gigantic scheme of disendowment. Tithes might rightfuUy
be withheld from a wicked priest by the authorities of his parish.
Nor was this aU. Neither Pope nor bishop nor priest, if living a
sinful Ufe, had any power at aU. Absolution from a sinful man
was a farce, sacraments administered by such men valueless,
excommunications fulminated by them ridiculous. Indeed
coercive jurisdiction by ecclesiastics was altogether wrong. It
was no part of the spiritual authority given them by God. God
was the Lord Paramount. AU men equally were tenants-in-
chief of God, holding from Him on the same conditions of service.
There was no such thing as mesne tenure intervening between
God and the individual man. Thus Wycliffe, like Luther at a
later age, restored the immediate relation of the individual
soul to God, and eliminated as quite unnecessary the whole idea
of priestly mediation. The ground was cut from under the
hierarchical constitution of the Church.
In 1377, at the instigation of Courtenay, Bishop of London, Wycliffe
Wycliffe was summoned to appear before the Primate, Sudbury, her^y^ °'
and the assembled bishops at St. Paul's, to answer for his writings.
Wycliffe came supported by John of Gaunt and Henry Percy,
Earl Marshal of England. Taunts and threats passed between
Gaunt and Courtenay ; the mob burst in, and the trial ended
in confusion, but not before the Londoners had showed that,
though they loved Wycliffe, they hated stUl more John of Gaunt.
Towards the end of the same year, papal bulls reached the King,
the archbishop, Courtenay, and Oxford University, ordering the
arrest and trial of Wycliffe. But his second trial in 1378 ^Vyclifre
before the two archbishops at Lambeth was equaUy abortive, second
Once more the London mob burst in, and stopped the process, time.
Wycliffe's influence both at the court, in London, and in Oxford
was strong enough to prevent his conviction. With the out- Wyciiffe
break of the great schism in 1378 Wycliffe became fiercer m his papa^.**
opposition to the papacy, and denounced it as Antichrist.

1 64 The Church of England
He attacks In 1380 he took a step forward, and attacked the doctrine on
staStia^on. which the priestly power was buUt. Transubstantiation of the
elements in the Sacrament of the Altar was, he declared,
absurd. It was indisputable that the appearance of bread and
wine remained after the consecration of the elements, and
Wycliffe maintained that accidents could not possibly remain
without their substance. We cannot foUow Wycliffe through
the refinements of scholastic logic which he employed, but his
own view approximated to that known in a later age as con-
substantiation. The substance of bread and wine remained,
but the real presence of Christ was also superadded. Speaking
generaUy, WycUffe shrank from too close a definition of the
nature of our Lord's presence in the sacrament. But he had
gone too far for the leaders of the Church. Even John of Gaunt
turned against him, and bade him keep sUent on the eucharistic
mystery. Undaunted, Wycliffe reiterated his ¦views. But the
peasants' revolt in 1381 and Wycliffe's daring attack on tran
substantiation produced reaction both in Church and State.
Archbishop Sudbury had been murdered by the peasants, and
Courtenay, the old opponent of Wycliffe, was made archbishop.
Earth At a councU of bishops and others held under the presidency of
council. Courtenay, Wycliffe's teaching on the Mass, and on other doctrines
Wycliffe's of the Church, was condemned as heretical (1382). This councU,
conde'mned as it was disturbed by an earthquake, is always known as the
ashereti- "earthquake councU." The chancellor and proctors of Oxford
University were summoned before it, and compeUed to join
in the condemnation. But the infiuence and numbers of the
Wycliffite party at Oxford were so great that it was not tUl pressure
had been exercised by the King himself, that Wycliffite teachers
at Oxford were suspended. Almost aU of them, however, re
tracted, and were reinstated in their positions. The astonishing
thing is that the arch-heretic himself was aUowed to live quietly
at Lutterworth tUl his death in 1384. It says much for his in
fluence over aU classes of society, from the court downwards.
It was not tUl 1428 that his body was disinterred, his remains
burnt, and his ashes thrown into the river.
Wycliffe's Two Other branches of Wycliffe's work must be noticed. He
emphasis .^^^g^ convinced that preaching was unduly neglected. To spread
ing. a knowledge of evangelical truth among the people he instituted
an order of " poor preachers," who carried his teaching over a
great part of the midlands and the south of England, Though a

Church and Wycliffite Movement 165
learned man himself, Wycliffe had a somewhat petulant contempt
for learning ; he thought that there was no need for his " poor
preachers " to know any book save the Bible ; and this fact,
coupled with the exclusion of his foUowers — Lollards,^ as they
were caUed — from the universities, explains their comparative
faUure to become an influential force.
Wycliffe's other great achievement was the translation of Wycliffe's
the whole Bible into the vemacular English. Assisted by two ^T^the^''™
or three of his foUowers, he was the author of the first English buu.
Bible. About 170 MSS. of this Bible are still extant. The
attempt of a recent writer to question Wycliffe's authorship of
these 170 copies, and represent them as copies authorised by
the Church, has quite broken down. The leaders of the Church
were consistently opposed to the broadcast dissemination of the
Scriptures among the common people. The licences stUl extant
in which various people are authorised to possess copies of the
Bible are by themselves convincing evidence that the ordinary
man was not aUowed without a licence to own it.
It was to the Bible that Wycliffe in his later years looked His appeal
as the sole fountain of religious truth. AU doctrine, aU points '° ¦^'*'*'
of ecclesiastical order, had to be verified and justffied from
Scripture. It was to preach the gospel contained in the Bible
that Wycliffe sent forth his poor preachers.
If we take a general survey of Wycliffe's teaching, we see that Wycliffe's
it was in the main destructive. With an eagle eye he pierced to a^^hoi'e^ ^^
the weak point in the system of the mediaeval Church — that is to
say, the mercenary spirit which was eating out its life. But
the doctrine expounded in the De dominio was exaggerated
and stored with revolutionary djmamite. It prescribed too ex
treme and too anarchic a remedy. It also may be said that
Wycliffe's language in denunciation of the existing ecclesiastical
system was unduly violent. But this extravagance was character
istic of the age, and for centuries to come remained a feature of
theological and other forms of discussion. Beyond question
Wycliffe's greatest achievement was his translation of the
Bible. In the field of construction he was never given an op
portunity to buUd, but his ideal would seem to have been a
national Church modeUed on Presbyterian lines, with the Bible
as the one basis of its faith.
• The name " Lollard " is derived from a word meaning " to sing or drone."
So " Lollard " = " Canter." The name in origin was opprobrious.

1 66 The Church of England
History of The further history of the Lollards can soon be told.
iMds'"'' '^'^^ main centres of then activity were the districts round
London, Oxford, Leicester, and Bristol. They followed, and in
some cases exaggerated, the teaching of their master. Like
Wycliffe, they took the Bible as their sole rule of faith ; like him,
they denounced transubstantiation and the wealth and secularity
of the clergy ; but though the genius of Wycliffe's teaching was
antagonistic to the symbolism of the mediaeval Church, they
went further than he in the bitterness of their attack on image-
worship. With them Sabbatarianism began, and their enemies
accused them of sanctimonious hypocrisy.
The Lollards of the first generation were not, however, of
such stuff as martyrs are made of ; the persecution was not
severe, and the Lollards, when brought before their bishops,
recanted. Richard II. , in his epitaph at Westminster, claims
that " he overthrew the heretics." Whatever may have been
Richard's own attitude to Lollard beliefs, they were certainly
influential among his courtiers, and regarded with favour by
his own Queen, Anne of Bohemia. From England these beliefs
were carried to Bohemia, the Queen's old home ; there they
struck root and issued in the Hussite movement, which involved
Bohemia in civil and foreign war for a generation. It was for
his Wycliffite beliefs, that John Huss, when he had come to the
Council of Constance under a safe-conduct from the Emperor
Sigismund, was foiUly betrayed and murdered (1415).
Accession In 1399 a successful revolution placed Henry IV. on the
of^Henry throne of England ; his father, John of Gaunt, had in the
old days been an aUy of Wycliffe, but it was partly by the
aid of the Church that Henry had been successful. Severer
days were therefore in store for Lollard heretics. In 1401 the
Statute De Statute De heretico comburendo was passed ; this law, however,
heretico ^^^ ^^^ involve any innovation in policy, but simply made
iurendo. statutable the common law. It was for the Church to determine
what was heresy, and try heretics ; she then handed them over
for burning to the secular arm. This had already been done
in 1222, when a deacon out of love for a Jewess had recanted his
faith. But England had not as yet been much troubled with
heretics. In 1401, to •vindicate the authority of the canon law,
and before the statute De heretico comburendo had passed through
Parliament, WUliam Sawtre was convicted of heresy before a
spiritual court, and handed over to the secular arm to be burnt.

Church and Wycliffite Movement 167
It was the first of the burnings for heresy which were to be Burnings
such a lamentable and prominent feature of the two succeeding ^°^ ^^'^^^'i-
centuries. Other burnings followed. In 1410, for example, John
Badby, a tailor of Evesham, suffered at the stake. In 1414 a
further statute was passed ordering the justices to make inquest
for heretics, and hand them over to the spiritual courts.
Arundel, who succeeded Courtenay and was archbishop
from 1396-1414, took a leading part in the suppression of
LoUardry. Armed with the authority of the King as well Oxford
as that of the Church, Arundel m 141 1 made a solemn P'^^|^^'^°y'
visitation of the University of Oxford. A bonfire was made
at Carfax of heretical books, and the University thoroughly
purged of Wycliffism. It was from this visitation of Arundel
that the decline of Oxford as a place of independent thought,
not to speak of numbers, can be dated.
Hitherto part of the strength of LoUardry had lain in the
patronage of knights. But with the accession of Henry V. a
stiU more vigorous attempt was made at its extirpation. Sir
John Oldcastie, an old friend of the King, influential by reason of oidcastie
his estates in Kent and on the Welsh marches, was accused, ^n" pm'to
convicted by an ecclesiastical court, and handed over to the death.
secular arm. He was given a forty days' respite, in which he
escaped. It was to Oldcastie that an ancient anti-Lollard poem
referred in the words —
" Hit is unkyndly for a knight
That shuld a kynges castel kepe,
To bable the Bible day and night
In restyng time when he shuld slepe;
And carefely away to crepe,
For alle [from all] the chief of chivalrie.
Wei aught hym to waile and wepe
That suyche lust hath in loUardie."
In 1414 the Lollards rose in fruitless revolt to aid Oldcastie.
Oldcastie himself escaped, but after three years of skulking
among the Welsh mountains he was captured and put to death
in r4i7. From this time onwards LoUardry was driven under- Loiiardry
ground ; deprived of aU leadership among the gentry, it found ^"Jg"
its home amid the smaU shopkeepers and tradesmen and peasants, ground.
As a religious force it never became extinct tUl it was merged
in the Lutheran and Protestant movements of the sixteenth
century. From time to time it came to the surface. Thus m

of Lollard
movement.

Pecock'sRepressor,

1 68 The Church of England
East Anglia about the year 1425 there were so many flourishing
LoUard congregations that the Bishop of Norwich instituted
prosecutions for heresy against some hundred persons. Most
of them recanted, but several perished at the steike. Con
tinuously down to the year 1521 we find a succession of Lollard
martyrs burnt. We cannot but admire the bravery of the men
who chaUenged the hitherto unquestioned and immemorial
Importance tradition of the Catholic Church. The LoUards did a great
work, that cannot be measured by the actual success of their
own movement. Their importance lay in the fact that they
created the atmosphere which rendered it possible for the
sixteenth century reformation to live. They were pioneers,
preparing the way, and showing that a new presentment of the
Christian faith was possible. The chief centres of their infiuence
remained the same, though East Anglia and Somerset should be
added to the list
That LoUardry remained a living force is shown by the
pains which Pecock, the Bishop of Chichester (1450-145 7),
took to rebut its leading tenets in his Repressor of over
much blaming of the Clergy (1455). The book itself involved
Pecock in trouble, and led to his prosecution for heresy.
He was forced to recant, and for the remainder of his life was
closely confined in prison, without pen or paper or books. His
great crime was that he had actuaUy appealed to reason, and
tried to show to Lollards the reasonableness of Church teach
ing; incidentally, it is true, he had questioned whether the
Apostles' Creed had actuaUy been composed by the Apostles, and
had been known to say, " Pooh ! Pooh ! " when passages of old
doctors had been quoted against him.
His book is interesting not merely because it was written in
the vernacular English, but also because its argument is of
intrinsic value and a cogent criticism of Lollard bibliolatry.
Adopting the method foUowed later by Hooker in a simUar
dispute with the sixteenth century Puritans, Pecock showed
that the Bible could not possibly, and was not intended to,
cover the whole range of practices lawful for Christian men.
Otherwise, "How shaU we dare to wear breeches, which the
Bible does not mention ? " He argued that the Bible pre
supposed reason, and was not intended to reveal that which
the natural reason could discover for itself. Customs and
practices of the Church, if reasonable, did not require the support

Its criti
cism of
LoUardry.

Church and Wycliffite Movement 169
of a text from Scripture. The Lollard idea that the meaning
of Scripture was so plaui that it could not be mistaken even by
an uneducated man was absurd. Endowments were reasonable,
and Church wealth, if put into the hands of laymen, would be
more and not less misused. In the destructive part of his
criticism Pecock was eminently sensible. He showed that LoUard
tenets were unreasonable ; but he was not successful in showing
that image-worship and pUgrimages and many other practices
and institutions of the mediaeval Church were themselves
reasonable. He had, however, appealed to reason, and not
crushed the Lollard pleas by mere ecclesiastical anathema, and
therefore he suffered.
The fifteenth century did not mark an important era in
the history of the English Church, though the tone of its re
ligious life graduaUy deteriorated. The Lancastrian policy of
alliance with the Church did not prevent Henry IV. from exe- Execution
cuting Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, for complicity in bishop
one of the risings of the Percies (1405). When Innocent VII. Scrope.
excommunicated aU those who had shared in his execution, the
King is said to have sent him the dead prelate's coat of armour,
and asked him whether " this be thy son's coat or no," to which
the Pope wittUy retorted, " An e^vU beast hath devoured him."
Abroad the early part of the fifteenth century was occupied Conciiiar
by the "concUiar" effort at reform. Councils of the Western movement.
Church assembled to attempt its drastic reform in head and
members. The two most important coimcils were those of
Constance (1414) and Basle (143 1). The CouncU of Constance,
though guUty of the murder of Huss, succeeded in bringing the
great schism to an end by electing as Pope, Martin V. (1417), Great
the founder of the modem papacy. But the concUiar move- g„^g™
ment was doomed to faUure. The Pope was jealous of the
councU's authority ; there were constant disputes as to whether
the Pope was superior or inferior to a general councU ; finaUy at
Basle, in 1431, the movement ended in open war between them ;
national rivalries within the councU prevented united action.
Most important of aU, there was no real effective desire for reform
in any quarter ; the council of Basle not only re-opened the schism
by the creation of an antipope, but itself proceeded to grant
indulgences, though shortly before they had been the object of
its own denunciation. By the middle of the fifteenth century ^^^g^jf? "'^
it was clear that concUiar reform was impossible. The year movement.

170 The Church of England
Decline of 1471 Opened a new era in the degradation of the papacy and
papacy. Church. Under Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) the papacy was com
pletely secularised and became a frankly Italian temporal power,
with a policy organised on Machiavellian lines. Sixtus elevated
nepotism into a political principle, and debased the moral
currency by conniving at the assassination of Medici rivals in
Florence. He was, however, a great patron of Greek authors
and famous painters. The papal court became the centre of
humanism. His successor. Innocent VIIL, was an easy-going
man, acknowledged his Ulegitimate children, and was famous
for his profligate appointments to the CoUege of Cardinals.
Under the Borgia, Alexander VI. (1492-1503), the papacy
reached its very nadir.
Dissolution In England there was little of importance to record. In 1414
prior's. *^^ alien priories (i.e. priories which were mere dependencies
of foreign houses) were seized by the crown and dissolved. The
bishops of the time were often cadets of noble famUies, and
did not rise to a high standard. Honourable exceptions were
Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury (1414-1443), founder of
All Souls' College, and Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, and
founder of Magdalen College, Oxford. Chichele had to suffer
continuous abuse from Martin V. because of the statutes of
Provisors and Praemunire. In 1428 he pleaded in Parliament
for their repeal — needless to say, without success. The
story which has gained currency through its adoption by
Shakespeare, that Chichele instigated the renewal of the French
war in order to divert attention from the endowments of the
Church, seems to be groundless. In 1428 an evU precedent was
set when Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, was aUowed to retain
his bishopric in spite of the cardinal's hat which he had accepted
in 1426. His example was foUowed by the archbishops who
succeeded Chichele. Kemp, Bourchier, and Morton were all
cardinals of the Roman Church. The natural result foUowed
that these archbishops tended to act more and more by virtue
of the authority delegated to them from the Pope rather than
by the inherent right of their archiepiscopal office.
It was an evU age. English society was passing through
the throes of dissolution ; but these throes were to issue in the
birth of a new and fairer England. The internecine feuds of
the nobUity, culmuiatmg in the War of the Roses, laid the
foundations of the Tudor monarchy.

CHAPTER XI
THE CHURCH AT THE CLOSE OF
THE MIDDLE AGES
The torch of the Church's spiritual life at the close of the
Middle Ages was burning very low. But it would be a mistake
to pass judgment on her from a mere review of her public per
formances. From contemporary records we hear much of her
great officers, bishops and abbots, and of her relations to the
State, but of her inner life we hear littie. The ordinary hum
drum story of parish life offered littie " copy" or opening for
picturesque narrative. And yet it is by this inner spiritual
life, by the work of the parish priest among his flock, by his
daUy witness tb the gospel, by his preaching of repentance and
the hope of forgiveness and the coming of the kingdom of God,
when " the darkness and the curse of this dim universe " wUl
pass away ; it is by this, and not by her record as an " estate of
the realm," nor by the political action of her bishops, that judg
ment for good or iU must be finaUy passed on the mediseval
Church of England. The tale is not all evU — far from it. The
glorious monuments in architecture and other forms of art
bequeathed to us could not have sprung from a body wholly
corrupt and without ideals. StUl there were very serious
evUs and abuses. The canker which preyed upon her vitals
was the love of Mammon ; simony — that is, the selling of Prevalence
spiritual privUeges for money — was her besetting sin. The ° ^""""y-
enormous sums that had to be paid by newly-appointed bishops
could not but be simoniacal in character, and episcopal and
legatine constitutions show clearly enough that the parochial
clergy must sometimes have sold the sacraments for money.
The worst form that this simoniacal spirit took was the wholesale
traffic in sin. However different the theory of the confessional Traffic in
and the system of indulgences may have been from its practice, °'"'
there can be little doubt that in practice many a man paid his
171

172 The Church of England
money and took his choice of sins. In a popular poem, " The
Complaint of the Plowman " we read —
" They saine [say] that Peter had the key
Of heven and hel, to have and hold.
I trowe Peter tooke no money
For no sinnes that he sold."

and in
dulgences.

Theory of The theory of the confessional was that contrition or real sorrow
sionar ^^'^ ®™^ ^^ necessary for absolution and that absolution gave
remission from etemal punishment ; but apart from and beyond
eternal punishment, temporal punishment in this world or the
next (purgatory) had still to be reckoned with. This temporal
punishment was often commuted for money payments. The
theory of " indulgences " went on much the same lines. We
are often told by Roman Catholic and some other writers that
indulgences granted by the Pope (as a part of his supreme
jurisdiction) did not obviate the need of penitence and absolu
tion, nor did indulgences profess to remove guUt nor " etemal
punishment." An indulgence (sold for money) was simply a
commutation for temporal punishment (in this world or the
next) ; this certainly was the view taken by the CouncU of
Trent and the greatest mediaeval theologians, but it was not
the view taken by some official documents emanating from the
Roman See, which seem to imply that indulgences gave re
mission not only of temporal punishment, but dso of guUt and
its penalties. In any case the ordinary layman could not be
expected to make such a nice distinction as that between eternal
punishment and myriads of years of temporal punishment.
The net result too often was that a man by the purchase
of an indulgence thought he had secured immunity from
divine punishment. Why should he not sin again, and then
purchase a like immunity ? The system of indulgences was
closely connected with the idea of a treasury of merits. The
merits of Christ, the good works of men stiU li-^g, and of the
saints in heaven, formed an inexhaustible store, of which the
key was kept by the Pope ; and so it came to pass that emissaries
from the Pope hawked indulgences round the parishes of Eng
land. The pardoner, or hawker of indulgences, also did a great
trade in relics by imposing on the yokels. We see him at work
in the pages of Chaucer —

The par
doner.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 173
" With him ther rood a gentil Pardoner
That streight was comen fro the court of Rome.
His walet lay biforn him in his lappe
Bret-ful [brimful] of pardoun come from Rome al hoot.
But of his craft fro Berwik into Ware [in Hertfordshire].
Ne was ther swich another Pardoner.
For in his male [bag] he hadde a pilwe-beer [pillow-case],
Which that, he seyde, was our lady veyl [our lady's veil].
He seyde, he hadde a gobet [small portion] of the seyl,
That Seynt [Saint] Peter hadde, whan that he wente
Up-on the see, til Jesu Crist him hente [caught hold of].
He hadde a croys of latoun, ful of stones [cross of latoun-metal
set with precious stones]
And in a glas he hadde pigges bones.
But with thise relikes, whan that he fond
A poure [poor] person [parson] dwelling up-on lond [up country]
Up-on a day he gat him more moneye
Than that the person gat in monthes tweye [two].
And thus, with feyned flaterye and japes [tricks]
He made the person, and the peple, his apes."
In a later passage the pardoner himself describes his method
of procedure —
" First I pronounce whennes that I comme,
And then my buUes [bulls] shewe I, alle and somme [one and all]
That no man be so bold, ne preest ne clerk
Me to destourbe of Cristes holy werk ;
And after that then telle I forth my tales,
Bulles of popes and of cardinales.
Then shewe I forth my longe cristal stones,
Y-crammed ful of cloutes and of bones
Then have I in latoun a sholder-boon [shoulder-bone]
Which that was of an holy Jewes shepe [sheep].
' Good men,' seye I, ' tak of my wordes kepe ;
If that this boon be wasshe in any welle,
[f cow, or calf, or sheep, or oxe swelle,
Tak water of that welle, and wash his tonge
And it is hool [whole] anon.' "
At the close of the pardoner's tale to the Canterbury
pUgrims, Chaucer humorously makes him say —
" But sirs, o word forgat I in my tale,
I have relikes and pardon in my male [bag],

174 ^^^ Church of England
Whiche were me geven [given] by the Popes bond.
If any of yow wol [will] of devocioun
Offren [offer], and han myn absolucioun
Cometh [come] forth anon and kneleth [kneel] heer adoun [down]
And mekely receyveth my pardoun."
The pardoner then invites the host to begui, but the host
pours coarse ridicule on the pardoner's relics. It is clear that
these pardoners, envoys of the Pope, played on the ignorance
and credulity of the people to amass wealth.
Friars and In the confessional, the friars were said to be especiaUy
sionS' accommodating ; a contemporary popular song teUs us —
" Thai say that thai distroye synne,
And thai mayntene men moste therinne ;
For had a man slayn al his kynne,
Go shryve him at a frere,
And for lesse than a payre of shone
He wyl assoil him clene and sone,
And say the synne that he has done
His saule shal never dere [harm]."
To fiU their coffers, the friars were also in the habit of selling
" letters of fraternity " and promises of burial in their churches.
Men were persuaded that this would secure them spiritual
advantages. The same traffic in sin was found in another form in the
ecclesiastical courts. Money was not only secured by the ex
cessive fees payable, but by the substitution of fines for other
forms of penalty. One of the most disagreeable figures in the
The sum- whole of mediaeval society must have been the "summoner"
or " apparitor " («.e. subordinate official). He lived on black-
maU. Having discovered the scandalous secrets in other men's
lives, unless he was " squared " by handsome payments, he
haled the unfortunate persons before the ecclesiastical tribunals.
His method of procedure is revealed to us by Chaucer in "The
Friar's Tale."
" A slyer boy was noon [none] in Engelond,
For subtilly he hadde his espiaille [set of spies],
He coude spare of [let oft] lechours oon or two
To techen him to foure and twenty mo.
For thogh this Somnour wood were as an hare [should be as mad as a
hare],
To telle his harlotrye I wol nat spare.

moner.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 175
This false theef, this Somnour, quod the Frere [quoth the Friar]
Hadde alway baudes redy to his hond,
That tolde him al the secree that they knewe.
... A lewed man
He coude somne, on peyne of Cristes curs [on pain of excommunication]
And they were gladde for to fille his purs
And make him grete festes atte nale [at the ale-house].
And right as Judas hadde purses smale
And was a theef, right swich a theef was he ;
His maister hadde but half his duetee."
In the sequel of " The Friar's Tale," the summoner in the
midst of his blackmaU was carried off by the devU.
Among other abuses of the ecclesiastical system two stood
out pre-eminently — benefit of clergy and the right of sanctuary, ggnegt ^f
About benefit of clergy enough has been said in a preceding clergy.
chapter. The net result was that on charges of felony, murder,
and such like, aU clerks (and at this time any one who could
read and write was reckoned as a clerk) were handed over
to the jurisdiction of the bishop, and as the penalties in the
spiritual courts were slight, they in most cases escaped adequate
pimishment. The pri^vUege of sanctuary was another device sanctuary.
which assisted in the escape of criminals and fraudulent debtors.
Every church had the privUege of sanctuary ; the felon or
fraudulent debtor had simply to take refuge in the nearest
church, and bid defiance to the officers of the law. Even if
he was starved out by cutting off his supplies he was legally
aUowed to go scot-free on abjuring the realm. Too often he
gave the slip to those who followed him and reappeared in some
other part of the countiy to continue his unhallowed work.
The rights of sanctuary had come prominently before the public
eye in 1378. In the Spanish war two knights named Schakel
and Haule had taken captive a CastUian nobleman. The noble
man had returned to Spain to raise his ransom, leaving his son
as a hostage. John of Gaimt, who was claiming the CastUian
crown, thought that the young nobleman would be a convenient
pawn in negotiation, and succeeded in procuring an Act of
Parliament, ordering the two knights to produce the captive.
Schakel and Haule, refusing to produce him, were committed to
the Tower, but presently, fearing for their safety, escaped and
took refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. Not to be
baulked, the officer§ of the duke violated the sanctuary, and in

national ?

176 The Church of England
the midst of a scuffle, Haule and another man were slain. The
bishops excommunicated the violators of the sanctuary ; but in
the Parliament of Gloucester the whole system of sanctuary
was attacked as an abuse. Wycliffe wrote a treatise in con
demnation of it. Unfortunately the ecclesiastical privUege was
too well grounded in custom to be abolished, or even reformed.
Papal The other great source of ecclesiastical abuse was one already
courts. mentioned in a preceding chapter. It was the paralysis of all
effective discipline, owing to the exemptions from episcopal
control conferred by the Popes, and the system by which papal
tribunals sitting either in England or Rome acted both as
courts of appeal and courts of first instance. It was often the
case that the Archbishop himself would appear as a litigant,
before one of his own suffragans who was acting as a papal
delegate.
¦Was the There was a theory popular some little time ago, and backed
ch'^'^h^V by the authority of great names, which maintained that the
England Church of England durmg the Middle Ages was, relatively speak
ing, a national antipapal Church. But this theory in the light
of fuUer investigation must be altogether discarded. The
mediaeval Church of England was papalissima. By the old
theory it was maintained that the Church of England in its
convocations felt itself free to pick and choose among the canons
of the Westem Church, to choose one and reject another ; that
in the English ecclesiastical courts the law administered was
simply those canons which had been accepted by the English
Church ; the canons accepted were said to be comprised in
the Provinciate drawn up in 1430 by Lyndwood, the chief legal
officer of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But this view woiUd
seem to be quite mistaken. Professor Maitiand has sho^wn that
an undue proportion of the canon law was formed from papal
rescripts, delivered in answer to cases, real or imaginary, which
were referred from England to the Pope; that Lyndwood's
Provinciate was simply a text-book of additional provincial
canons, presupposing on every page the validity of the whole
of the canon law, and that any provincial canon of the English
Church, if contrary to a canon of the universal Church, was
ipso facto in the English ecclesiastical courts regarded as void.
The attempts by Acts of Praemunire and Provisors to limit the
papal power were acts, not of the English Church, but of the
English State, taken in defiance of the accredited organs of tbe

Church at Close of Middle Ages 177
Church — that is to say, the convocations of Canterbury and York
and the parliamentary bench of bishops. The medieval Church
of England was assuredly not national in the sense of antipapal.
Taking om: stand at the close of the Middle Ages, let us see Papal
what the powers actuaUy exercised by the Pope over the English ov^^he
Church and nation were. Rights of a purely temporal nature Church of
based either on the general superiority of the spiritual to the "^^" '
temporal or on the special ground of John's cession of the
kingdom were already obsolete. The spiritual primacy of the
Pope as vicar of Christ was recognised. In the sphere of law
and jurisdiction the Pope was regarded as the source of
ecclesiastical law and its supreme interpreter ; in all matters
ecclesiastical, including marriage and wUls, the papal jurisdiction
was supreme, except in so far as the operation of the ecclesi
astical law was impeded by the law of the land; in taxation
the Pope received from England Peter's pence, commuted for
an annual payment of £201, gs., the fees payable in the papal
courts, annates from bishoprics and benefices, and sometimes
voluntary grants from the clergy as a whole. In addition to
this, the Pope had made good various claims of an admini-
stiative nature. No primate could perform any valid archi
episcopal action tUl he had received the pall. The reception
of legatine authority by each archbishop made him specially
a representative of the Pope in England. In the fourteenth
century and even earlier the Pope had so far encroached as to
make direct appointment of bishops, but after the passing of the
Statute of Pro^vdsors this abuse was held in check, though the
statute was often nulMed by collusion between King and Pope.
Most appointments were made conjointly, the Pope and King
independently appointing the same person, whUe the rights of
the chapters were reduced to a mere shadow.
In spite of statutes, the Pope stiU retained in practice the
power of pro^viding to some of the lower benefices. All these
papal rights continued tUl the " bonds " of Rome were broken
by Henry VIII.
Before closing our re'view of the Middle Ages, let us briefly
pass in review the various classes of clergy, and some spheres of
life in which church influence was speciaUy felt.
The bishops varied enormously in character, but the general character
road to a bishopric was through the service of the Crown. Thus ^^^^ ^
bishops tended rather to be good men of business than true
M

178 The Church of England
fathers in God. The dioceses ^ were often large and unwieldy,
especially for an age in which good roads were imknown.
Exeter, Winchester, Lincoln, York, Coventry and Lichfield would
have over-taxed the energy even of a vigorous and industrious
man. But on the average bishop his duties sat very lightly.
Bourchier during the ten years of his episcopate of Ely only
once officiated in his cathedral, and that was on the day of his
appointment. The bishops were in aU cases large landed pro
prietors. The Bishop of Winchester had no fewer than fifty
manors, not to mention feudal franchises in Winchester and the
right of controUing St. GUes' fair. A large portion of time must
have been consumed in the management of the episcopal domains.
The spiritual functions of a bishop, if he did his duty, were not
very different in kind from those which he has to-day. Inter
minable meetings, it is true, did not take him away from his real
business, but the work of confirmation, ordination and admini
stration fell on his shoulders. There was not, however, the same
method as to-day either in confirmation or ordination. A bishop
did not annuaUy make a circuit of his diocese, confirming in
stated places and at stated times. A synod of the Church had
urged the confirmation of a chUd before three years of age, but
the whole work of confirmation was performed in a very hap
hazard fashion. The number of those ordained in a single year
was quite extraordinary. We even hear of more than a thousand
ordained within a year in a single diocese. Many of these men
were no doubt ordained to minor orders, and did not intend to
proceed further. But even so the numbers were very great.
Though theoreticaUy there was supposed to be an examination
to see that candidates for orders were competent, the examination
can have been little better than a farce. The excessive number
of clergy ordained, often to no cure of souls, brought discredit
on the whole order.
The bishop had also to preside over the coercive jurisdiction
of his diocese, to give leave of non-residence — alas, too freely — to
rectors and vicars, and to consecrate churches.
If he Wcis a good bishop, like Grosseteste, he would hold a
visitation of his diocese. Unfortunately the bishops were often
non-resident, being detained by their duties at court, and the
guardianship of the flock was deputed to hirelings, often to
bishops drawn ex partibus infidelium.
' See the map on p. 458.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 179
The cathedral chapters, over which a dean or prior presided. Cathedral
had succeeded in eliminating the authority of the bishop so '^ ^P'^"-
completely that to this day a bishop has less authority in his
own cathedral than in any other church of his diocese. The
great officers of a secular cathedral were supported by separate
prebends ; there was the precentor, responsible for the music ;
the chancellor, who was supposed to have special charge of
the educational and theological interests of the diocese ; the
treasurer, whose duty it was to guard the ornaments, vestments,
and treasure of the church.
These great dignitaries were often absentees, sometimes
Roman cardinals. In their lives and in those of the subordinate
canons, misappropriation of revenues and other grave irre
gularities were of frequent occurrence.
The most important part of the Church's life must always parochial
be found in the silent, unobtrusive working of the parochial '=''='^gy-
system. Unfortunately this is just the part of the Church's
work which does not figure conspicuously in contemporary
records. It was far too humdrum and ordinary to attract
the historian's notice. We can read in episcopal registers of
clerical delinquents. When monasteries are claiming the tithe,
or insisting against bishops on their rights as appropriators
notices of parochial life are to be found, but they throw little
light on the working of the parochial system as a whole. The
poet Gower drew a gloomy picture of aU classes of clergy, but
we can be sure that his picture was overdrawn. The records of
the Black Death show that the clergy stood splendidly to their
work amidst scenes of plague and devastation. The most
beautiful character in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is that
of the poor parish priest, the brother of the ploughman.
" But riche he was of holy thoght and werk
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche,
His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve."
This parish priest was dUigent in teaching and preachmg,
charitable to the poor, and the pattern of a Christian life.
Neither storm nor thunder would hmder him from , visiting
the most distant members of his parish, rich and poor ; he never

i8o The Church of England
forsook his parish for life m London, nor endeavoured to get
appomtment to a chantry. We may hope that this parish
priest was typical of his class. The public spirit, and feeling
of hearty goodwiU that animated parish life at the close of
the Middle Ages, and made the church the centre of local
patriotism, speaks volumes in favour of the parish clergy as a
whole. There were evUs, no doubt ; the standard of clerics was
for a tune lowered by the wholesale destruction of the Black
Death ; the level of leaming declined, and it was to raise the
level of leaming among the secular clergy that Wykeham
avowedly founded his colleges at Winchester and Oxford. The
evUs produced through the appropriation of parishes by monastic
houses has been already pointed out (see p. 133). Absenteeism
was a curse of the mediaeval Church through aU its grades.
The vicars and stipendiary priests employed by monasteries
were generaUy not so weU educated as the rectors. In passing
judgment on the clergy as a whole, we must not forget that
it included in its ranks almost aU the educated people of
the country. But most of these " clergy " were in minor
orders, and engaged in purely secular work as accountants
and secretaries. The clergy were dra^wn from aU ranks of
society, from the vUlein upwards to the cadets of noble famUies,
who almost monopolised in the fifteenth century the highest
preferments. The ordinary parish clergyman gained his educa
tion at a grammar or convent school, and if he showed abUity
he might have spent a couple of years at a university. In the
episcopal registers we find that leave of absence from his parish
was often given to a rector for purposes of study at Oxford.
Parish preaching was not the dead letter it has sometimes
been supposed ; four times a year the priest was bidden by
episcopal constitutions to instinct the people in English in the
Creed, the Ten Commandments, the gospel commands, the
seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven principal
virtues, and the seven sacraments. Manuals providing the
clergy with forms for this instruction are stiU extant. Such
teaching, if properly given, would have covered the whole range
of the Christian life. The ignorance of the Bible in the Middle
Ages has been exaggerated. No doubt the number of those
who were in any sense educated was smaU. But the pictures in
the churches which acted as " books to the unlearned,'' and the
miracle plays — so common a feature in parish and guUd life —

Church at Close of Middle Ages i8i
presupposed a considerable knowledge of Scripture and the
gospel story.
The parish priest would say mass in the parish church at
any rate on Sunday and great feasts — sometimes daily ; very
likely he would hold an elementary school for the children, and
he was generally la^vish in charity and hospitality. The one
great blemish on the character of most of the parish clergy was
their faUure to keep their vows of celibacy. Too often they
were wedded in everything but name. The blame must partly
be assigned to those who laid on men's backs burdens too
hard for them to bear; but the sense of sin involved in dis
obedience to the command of the Church must have diminished
the self-respect of the clergy and the regard felt for them by
their parishioners. The punishments imposed on the incon
tinent by their ordinaries were comparatively Hght.
The chantry system was exposed to great abuses. Chantries Chantry
were founded by donors that prayers might be said for their P'^'^^'^-
souls. In addition to this, the chantry endowment often made
some provision for educational or charitable work. The
chantry priests were generaUy supposed to assist in the work of
the parish. But as a whole they brought discredit on their order.
At the Reformation the chantries were altogether swept away,
and the wealth that had been devoted in part to charitable
and educational work was ¦wickedly squandered. In this age
it is almost impossible to conceive how fully the parish church The pari.-.h
was the centie of local life ; the corporate sense and the public " '
spirit with which it was instinct are simply amazing. It
was the one place where all men could meet on an equal
footing. The splendid churches which were buUt are a tribute
to the power which the Church held over the minds and affec
tions of the people. The parish church was the great object of
local pride. The yokels might live in hovels, and the comfort
even of the manor hall might be of a rather squalid description,
but God's house had to be a thing of joy for the whole parish.
The buildings themselves were of beautiful proportions, and.
nothing was spared in money or labour to make the interior
worthy of its purpose ; painted glass, carved screens, pictures,
peals of beUs, rich sUver ornaments, and tapestries were lavished
in rich profusion. The astonishing thing is that the work
was financed by contributions from aU classes; the poor, the
middle classes, the manorial lords all made their gifts.

1 8 2 The Church of England
Every parish church became a very store-house of treasures,
, tUl the Reformation pilliage swept most of them away. This was
the price — a heavy price — that we had to pay for the blessings
of the Reformation. In most parishes there was a church-
house ; originaUy a bake-house or brew-house, it developed
into a centie for entertainments. The mediaeval Church
was pre-eminently the mother of the arts — sculpture, wood-
carving, silver work, tapestry, illumination of MSS., all grew
up under her fostering care. A few words must be said about
The her influence on the rise of the modern drama, and on architecture.
the'dse of*^ The modern drama had its cradle in the very heart of the
the drama. Church's ritual. It was in the effort to bring realisticaUy before
the congregation the central facts of the Christian faith, such as
the Resurrection and the Incarnation, that dramatic dialogue
and symbolical action first arose. The scene of the dramatic
dialogue and action was the church. This practice was ex
panded and grew tUl we find the whole drama of the Resurrection
represented in a regular play. But as the interest in the human
side of dramatic situations grew at the expense of the didactic
purpose, the plays, though stUl based on religious scenes taken
from the Old and New Testaments, and intended to Ulustrate the
drama of man's redemption, became in time more secular, and
were moved first to the churchyard and then to the viUage
market-place. In most places these mystery and miracle plays
became associated with the festival of Corpus Christi. Their
management was generally in the hands of guUds. GuUds for
all purposes, social, phUanthropic, trading, religious, were a very
prominent feature in mediseval life. At great festivals they loved
to take part in ritual pageantry. Thus the Church sowed the
seed from which the drama of Shakespeare was afterwards to
come. But the greatest achievements of the Middle Ages were
Architec- those of architecture. The spirit of the age sought in its cathedrals
'"'^^* and churches its unique expression. Literature was stUl in its
infancy^ r^nd creative genius found in the frozen poetry of stone
its readiest vehicle of utterance. Architecture was rooted in
profound spiritual convictions, and acted as the handmaid of
Religion. The principle of Gothic architecture, Coleridge has
said in his Table Talk is " infinity made imaginable." The
pointed arches and pointed windows beckoned men Godward,
and told forth the upward asphration of the human heart.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 183
The Norman' style lasted in England till about it66. Then
came the Early English style, in which the doors, arches, and
windows were lancet-shaped. About the year 1266 the Early
English gave way to the Decorated style, ¦with its equUateral
arches. The windows, now larger and divided into lights by
muUions or bars of masonry, were adorned above with beautiful
flowing tracery; ornamentation became richer. About the
year 1366 this style in its turn was succeeded in England by
Perpendicular, with which the name of William of Wykeham
is associated. The Perpendicular style is peculiar to England.
The window arches are flattened, and the muUions dividing
the lights are carried from the base right to the top of the arch.
It is from these perpendicular muUions that the style derives its
name. The muUions in the upper parts of the windows are
often crossed by horizontal bars called transoms. Good examples
of the Early English style are to be found in Salisbury Cathedral
and the choir of Worcester ; of the Decorated style in Exeter
Cathedral and York Minster ; of the Perpendicular in Magdalen,
Winchester, and New CoUeges.
Monasticism in England at the close of the Middle Ages was Decline of
far gone in decline. It had long ceased to represent a fervent ^^^]
spiritual life ; pride, luxury, ease are the three qualities that
the popiUar songs pick out as characteristic of the monk. In
the Canterbury Tales, the chief interest of the monk is repre
sented as himting, horses, and dogs; he thought the rule of
St. Benedict out of date. By the fifteenth century all enthusiasm
for leaming had disappeared from the monasteries ; their
chronicles were not what they had once been, their contribution
to education relatively smaU. The fact of the matter was that
the monkish ideal was antiquated. Langland, in holding up
the Ploughman as one who led the ideal life, had in fact
pronounced the death-kneU of monasticism. The coming age
looked on an active life as superior to one of contemplation and
prayer. A new feature in the history of monasticism was the
complaint of poverty. That poverty was no doubt due to a
number of reasons : the exactions of papacy and crown had con
tributed something towards it ; many of the monasteries had
overbuUt their resources; in return for the gift of capital
sums they had in some cases pledged their revenues to provide
perpetual pensions. But the chief cause of their impoverish
ment was the simple reason that the monastic ideal no longer

the friars.

184 The Church of England
appealed in the same way as formerly to the lay mind, with the
result that the hitherto contmuous stream of gifts suddenly
faUed. A certam number of the smaUer religious houses had by
papal leave been suppressed and their revenues devoted by
Wykeham and others to the foundation of coUeges. The alien
priories had been dissolved in I4r4, and their estates used,
among other purposes, to endow Eton CoUege and AU Souls.
In 1489 the visitation of the Abbey of St. Albans by Archbishop
Morton led to a discovery of much disorder and vice, but as a
nUe the larger monasteries were free from serious immorality.
The nunneries seem to have preserved a high level throughout.
Decline of The friars had attempted to cover a field untouched by
other agencies of the Church. The greatness of their work in
its early stages has been sketched in a preceding chapter, but
in their decline they proved the absolute faUure of the voluntary
system. They became as bad as, if not worse than, the people
to whom they ministered. In the later thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries they had produced great inteUectual leaders among the
schoolmen, such as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas
among the Dominicans, Duns Scotus and WUliam of Ockham
among the Franciscans; but in the fifteenth century their in
teUectual was as marked as their moral decline. There is a
consensus of opinion among our authorities that the friar was
simply a compound of various forms of wickedness.
" All wyckedness that men can telle
Regnes ham [reigns them] among
Ther shal no saule [soul] have rowme [room] in helle,
Of frers ther is suche throng,"
says a contemporary poem. Indeed the picture of the friar is
so overdrawn that we cannot but suspect professional jealousy.
The different orders of friars by their mutual hatreds gave the
common enemy occasion to blaspheme. All friars were objects
of profound dislike to the monastic and parochial clergy. The
monks hated them because they diverted offerings which would
otherwise have come to themselves; the parochial clergy, be
cause they intruded into their parishes, came between the priest
and his flock, especiaUy in the confessional, and diminished his
fees. At Oxford they were disliked for the proselytising zeal
with which they enmeshed in their net rich young men and

Church at Close of Middle Ages 185
made them join their order. Some of the dark colours in the
picture may be due to the discrepancy between the splendour
of the original ideal and the dimness of the present actuality.
Whatever the reason, there is a wonderful consensus in the
picture drawn of the friar in his decadence. Shameless
effrontery, gluttony, immorality, yet withal a shrewd mother-
wit and power of racy anecdote, were assigned to him. The
friar is often represented as visiting the women folk in the
absence of their husbands. " The Summoner's Tale " in Chaucer
iUustrates this and other sides of his activity. On that oc
casion the husband Thomas was feigning Ulness in bed —
" ' Ey, maister ! wel-come be ye by Seint John 1 '
Seyde this wyf, ' how fare ye hertely ?'
The frere aryseth up ful curteisly,
And hir embraceth in his arms narwe [closely, narrowly],
And kiste hir swete, and chirketh as a sparwe
With his lippes : ' Dame,' quod he, ' right weel.
Thanked be God, that yow yaf soule and lyf,
Yet saugh I nat this day so fair a wyf.
I wol with Thomas speke a litel throwe [while],
Thise curats been ful necligent and slowe
To grope tendrely a conscience.'
........
' Now by your leve, O dere sir,' quod she,
' Chydeth [chide] him weel, for Seinte Trinitee.
He is as angry as a pissemyre [ant],
Though that he have al that he can desyre.'
' O Thomas ! je vous dy [tell], Thomas ! Thomas I
This maketh the feend, this moste ben amended 1 '
' Now maister,' quod the wyf, ' er that I go.
What wol ye dyne ? I wol go ther-aboute.'
'Now dame,' quod he, 'Je vous dy sanz doute,
Have I nat of a capon but the livere,
And of your softe breed nat but a shivere [slice],
And after that a roasted pigges heed.'
' Now sir,' quod she, ' but o word er I go ;
My child is deed [dead], withinne thise wykes two,
Sone after that ye wente out of this toun.'
' His death saugh I by revelacioun,'
Seith this frere, ' at hoom in our dortour [dormitory].
I dar wel seyn that, er that half an hour

1 86 The Church of England
After his deeth, I saugh him born to blisse
In myn avisioun, so God me wisse 1
... . . . • •
And up I roos, and al our convent eke,
.....*•¦
Te Deum was our song, and nothing elles,
Save that to Crist I seyde an orisoun.
For sir and dame, trusteth [trust] me right weel,
Our orisons been more effectueel,
And more we seen of Cristes secree things
Than burel [lay] folk, although they weren kinges.' "
In the conclusion the husband, who had been merely pre
tending Ulness, played a coarse jest on the friar, and chased
him out of the house. The tale illustrates the friars' attention
to the women folk, their disparagement of the parochial clergy
and annexation of the confessional, their gluttony, and claim
to possess greater spiritual privUeges than others.
The fourteenth century Song against the Friars brings simUar
charges ; their gluttony calls forth this elaborate satire —
" Men may se by their contynaunce
That thai are men of grete penaunce,
And also that thair sustynaunce
Simple is and wayke.
I have lyved now fourty yers
And fatter men about the neres [kidneys]
Yit sawe I never then are these frers,
In contreys ther thai rayke [roam].
Meteles [without meals] so megre are thai made
And penaunce so puttes hem doun,
That ichone [each one] is an hors-Iade [load]
When he shall trusse of town [pack up and depart from town]."
In this same song the friar appears as the professional
beggar, hawking wares about like a pedlar, especiaUy wares
that wUl please women ; their skUl in bargaining, and theu
destruction of domestic happiness through immoral practices
are speciaUy mentioned.
" Thai dele with purses, pynnes, and knyves,
With gyrdles, gloves, for wenches and wyves ;
.......
Al that for women is pleasand
Ful redy certes have thai ;
But lytel gyfe thai the husband,
That for al shal pay.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 187
There is no pedler that pak can here
That half so dere can selle his gere,
Then a frer can do.
For if he gife a wyfe a knyfe
That cost bot penys two,
Worthe ten knyves, so mot I thryfe,
He wyl have er he go."
And as to their immorality —
" Iche man that her shal lede his life,
That has a faire doghter or a wyfe,
Be war that no frer ham shryfe [shrive them].
Thof women seme of hert ful stable,
With faire byhest [promise] and with fable
Thai can make thair hertes chaungeable
And thair likynges fulfille."
The facUity with which the friars granted absolution in
return for money is attacked in another verse (see p. 174). In
conclusion the author prophesies that the friars, like the
Templars, shall be pulled down and destroyed by the King.
Another song on the Franciscans shows us the extraordinary
pieces of ritual pageantry by which they sought to impress and
win the favour of the common people. We read of a tree or cross
fastened high in the sky on which was set a figure of our Lord
equipped with wings ; of a friar with bleeding wounds in his side
and hands and feet to represent our Lord ; of yet another friar
in a cart of fire, figuring Elijah. This suggests to the author
the thought that the friars ought all to be burnt. He ends by
attacking them for preaching poverty, but living luxuriously in
mansions bought with the price of murder and whoredom.
Verily, corruptio optimi pessima.
A word perhaps ought to be said upon pUgrimages. Most Piigrim-
men at some time of their life went on pUgrimage. The rich, ^^^'
if they could not go themselves, hired others to go for them.
The most famous places of pUgrimage were the Holy Land
(so long as that was possible), Rome, and Compostella.
Boniface VIII. in 1300 offered a plenary indulgence to all those
who visited Rome in that year of jubUee.
But each country and district had its own local shrine ; the
chief shrines in England were those of St. Thomas of Canterbury
and Our Lady of Walsingham. At these shrines the manufacture
of and trade in relics went on apace. Towards the close of the

1 8 8 The Church of England
Middle Ages these pUgrimages — witness the pages of Chaucer —
were regarded by many as nothing but a pleasant holiday.
A more useful side of the medieval Church's life was to
be found in its educational activity. Besides the elementary
Schools, schools kept by the parish priests and others, there were
grammar schools of various sorts. It would seem, however,
that the educational work for which credit has been given to
the monasteries has been much exaggerated. Towards the
close of the Middle Ages the smaUer houses seem to have had no
schools at aU ; the larger monasteries had schools for their novices,
but did not encourage the presence of outsiders. The sons of
the country gentlemen were not sent to them. In the fifteenth
century education was generaUy neglected in all the monastic
houses. The greater part of educational work had passed into other
hands. There were grammar schools of all sorts. At Bury
St. Edmunds and St. Albans and other places there were
grammar schools to which the abbeys acted as trustees. The
schools attached to the cathedrals were some of the oldest
institutions in the country. There were other schools built
in connection with guUds or hospitals, or founded by private
benefactors in connection with collegiate churches. Many of
these disappeared with the dissolution of the chantries at the
Reformation. In great manor houses there was often a special
grammar master employed to instruct the young gentry. Tower
ing above all these schools at the close of the Middle Ages were
Winchester the Splendid foundations of Winchester and Eton. Winchester
° ^^^' College was founded by WiUiam of Wykeham with the avowed
purpose of raising up a learned secular clergy — the ranks of
the clergy having been so sadly thinned by plague. In 1378
Wykeham obtained a papal bull from Urban VI. authorising
the foundation of the college ; in 1382 he was given the roysd
licence ; in 1387 he began to buUd, and in 1394 the college was
opened. Apart from the magnificent scale on which the college
was founded — it was to be- a foundation for a warden, ten fellows,
a headmaster, an usher, seventy scholars, chaplains, and choristers
— there were two novelties in Wykeham's conception. In the
first place, though a close connection was to be maintained
between Winchester and New CoUege, Wykeham's other founda
tion at Oxford, Winchester was to have quite a separate existence.
The primary purpose of Winchester was to be a grammar

Church at Close of Middle Ages 189
school for boys. It was not to be a mere dependent on, or the
accident of an Oxford college. The seventy scholars were to be
drawn from the middle classes. Secondly, in addition to the
scholars, pro^nsion was made for commoners ; ten sons of distin
guished men, nobles and others, special friends of the college,
were to be admitted for instruction with the scholars, provided
that thereby no expense or charge should be laid upon the
foundation. It is the expansion of this element — there are
now 380 commoners at Winchester — that has determined the
character of English public school life, and gives WUliam of
Wykeham the right to be called the founder of the English
public schools. In his foundation of Eton (1443), Henry VI.
foUowed the lines laid do^wn by Wykeham.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Oxford was at Oxford
the zenith of its influence. The number of students was University.
enormous. In two Franciscans — Duns Scotus (d. 1308), the
" subtie " doctor, and WUliam of Ockham (d. 1349), the " in-
¦vincible " doctor, it had produced two of the greatest school
men. Oxford was the home of liberal culture, for the faculty
of arts as distinguished from any of the higher faculties, such
as theology, predominated. In 1376 the great Oxford move
ment associated with the name of the schoolman and reformer
Wycliffe was inaugurated. The methods by which this move
ment was stamped out have been already indicated. The
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at Oxford were also marked
by the growth of the coUegiate system. The need of discipline Growth of
amid a riotous population — there were continual rows between "^o'^^s^^-
the students themselves, besides the town and gown rows — the
necessity of precaution against the growth of heretical opinions,
the scarcity of books, and the stimiUus to learning that would
come from corporate Ufe devoted to that pursuit, led to the
foundation of coUeges. Queen's College was founded in 1340,
St. Marie CoUege of Winchester in Oxford, better known as
New CoUege, in 1379. Wykeham's foundation of New CoUege, lUje
that of Winchester, was on a splendid scale. From his provision
that instruction should be given to his scholars within the
waUs, Wykeham has been aptly termed " the founder of the
Oxford tutorial system." Arrangements were made for aU
kinds of studies — ^the civU law, the canon law, astronomy,
medicine, arts, and theology. All Souls was founded in 1438 by
Chichele, Magdalen by Waynflete in 1458. Many Benedictine

Decline of
universities.

Revival of
Greekleaming.

190 The Church of England
monasteries also set up dependent houses at Oxford for their
student monks ; for example, the Benedictine monastery at
Durham had already in 1286 set up a haU, known later as
Durham College. During the Middle Ages, Cambridge was,
when compared with Oxford, unimportant ; but simUar coUeges
were during these two centuries founded there.
In spite of her splendid endowments, Oxford at the be
ginning of the fifteenth century was in a state of rapid decline.
The old scholastic philosophy was played out, and the new
learning of the Renaissance had not yet entered. The steps taken
by Church and State to extirpate Wycliffite tenets had given
a blow to independent thought ; the rewards of study were
doubtful ; for patrons, it was said, appointed their own favourites
or relations to livings, and ignored the claims of leaming.
Oxford petitioned that the statute of Provisors might be re
laxed so that the Pope as of yore might " provide " learned
clerks. There can be little doubt that the decline of learning
simply reflected the condition of the times. War and anarchy
and the throes of social dissolution do not provide a soU in
which learning thrives. But before the accession of the Tudor
dynasty a new spirit was already moving on the face of the
waters. The revival of Greek learning initiated by Grosseteste
in the thirteenth century had not borne fruit. But now a
movement directed to the same purpose was to have a happier
issue. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453
had led to the diffusion of Greek MSS. and leaming, which
found a ready home in Italy. WiUiam Sellyng, an Oxford
student and Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury (1472), had
studied under the famous scholar Politian at Bologna (1465).
From Italy SeUyng brought back to Canterbury some Greek
MSS., and some knowledge of Greek. Linacre, the distinguished
physician, learnt Greek from Sellyng. In i486 he was intro
duced by Sellyng to Politian and shared in the lessons given
to the chUdren of Lorenzo de' Medici; from their Greek tutor
Chalcondylas, Linacre gained his knowledge of Greek.
Chandler, the warden of New CoUege, appointed Cornelio
Vitelli to lecture in Greek at New CoUege (1473), and Grocyn
learned his elements from Vitelli. After two years of continuous
Greek study in Italy Grocyn returned to Oxford and gave public
Greek lectures. He was the real pioneer of Greek learning in
England. At his feet sat Colet, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More.

Church at Close of Middle Ages 191
We have passed into the era of the Renaissance learning, and
have left the Middle Ages behind us.
To realise that old-world life, when the Church stiU stood Close of
erect, penetrating into every corner of man's life from the cradle ws.'*
to the grave, and exercising a spell that subdued the mind of
man, is almost impossible. The difficulty has been described
by Froude ^ in beautiful language : " And now it is all gone — like
an unsubstantial pageant faded ; and between us and the old
English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the
historian wiU never adequately bridge. They cannot come to
us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them.
Only among the aisles of the cathedral, only as we gaze upon
their sUent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint concep
tions float before us of what these men were when they were
alive ; and perhaps in the sound of church beUs, that peculiar
creation of medisval age, which faUs upon the ear like the
echo of a vanished world." ' History of England, I. 62.

tion.

CHAPTER XII
THE NEW LEARNING AND THE EARLY YEARS OF
HENRY VIII
Renais- Jug gj-g, of the Renaissance had now dawned. The old age had
passed away, and was replaced by an era which was riUed by
new ideas in almost every sphere of life. "Renaissance " means
"re-birth," and aptly expresses the fresh departure which was
taken at this time by the human spirit. The age was pre
eminently one of exploration and scientific investigation. The
universe was interrogated and forced to yield many of its
secrets. The spirit of inquiry was abroad; and the closing of
the old trade routes by the Turks, who, after the capture of
Constantinople in 1453, dominated the Eastern Mediterranean,
made it necessary for traders to discover a new route to the
Indies. It was in pursuit of this quest that Vasco da Gama
Hnn^""'" ^ ¦'^497 finally circumnavigated Africa, and Christopher
Columbus found his way to the coast of America. These dis
coveries, in their turn, quickened the pulses of thought. The
world was found to be much larger than men had ever previously
imagined ; an inteUectual shock was produced by the discovery
of human races living under conditions and in a stage of ci^vdlisa-
tion totaUy different from those of Europe. A simUar shock
might be produced to-day if it were found possible to open up
communications with the different planets, and their conditions
of existence were found to be entirely different from those
famUiar to us upon the earth.
The prescriptive usages and customs of the Old World were
brought to the bar of reason, and asked to clear themselves
from the charge of absurdity. Man's inteUectual range was
widened; the flora and fauna of the New World, strange geo
graphical and physical phenomena, gave an impetus to the
inductive and scientific spirit. The discoveries of science ex
tended the knowledge and power of man. It was in 1507 that
Copernicus expounded his ¦vdews on the solar system. Hence-
IS2

The Early Years of Henry VIII 193
forth the earth could no longer be regarded as the fixed centre
of the universe, for whose sake the sun shone by day, the moon
and the stars by night. The earth was discovered to be one of
many planets revolving round one of many suns. It was in this
era also that many mechanical instiuments were invented, inventions
T^e art of printuig was discovered in 1438 ; the telescope and
compass, though dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, became a power in the hands of Copernicus and
Columbus ; the feudal castie, feudal armour, and feudal chivalry
feU before the invention of gunpowder and the roar of cannon.
But the Renaissance meant something more than the ex
ploration of the physical universe and discovery of scientific
instruments. There was a revived interest in man himself.
In Italy, the cradle of the Renaissance, the movement was
essentially artistic and literary. The old ascetic ideals gave
way to the love of beauty and the joy of life ; the great Italian
painters, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian, por- Painting.
tiayed bodies of perfect physical beauty. The fifteenth century
also witnessed in Italy a progressive interest in scholarship and Scholar-
learning ; the ancient classics of Greece, so clear in idea, so ^ 'P"
beautiful in style, exercised once more a spell over the human
mind. Popes Nicholas V. (1447-1455) and Pius II. (jEneas
Sylvius) in Rome, the Medicis in Florence, made Italy the centre
of this humanistic culture. The life of an Italian scholar in
those days is vividly brought before us by George Eliot in
Romola. The critical and scholarly spirit stiuck deep root.
The Laurentian Library was founded at Florence, the Vatican
Library at Rome (1453). The great printing presses of Aldi and
Froben and others were not slow in giving to the world first
editions of the great classical writers, such as VergU, Homer,
Aristotle and Plato.
On the political side, the age was marked by the creation Nationai-
of great states. The dominating political ideas of the mediaeval '™'
era had been those of Empire and Papacy. Europe was a
unity ; on its secular side known as the Empire, on its religious
side as the Church ; over this unity Emperor and Pope were
supreme. This theory, however much belied in practice, con
troUed political thought. The sense of nationality was only
formed very slowly, and in England sooner than elsewhere ;
in the early feudal ages, divisions were rather social than
national. There were feudal princes, barons, knights, and
N

1 94 The Church of England
agricultural labourers, mostly unfree ; but the ties unitmg feudal
knights aU over Europe were closer than those which in any
particular country united the feudal knight with his serf. It
was only very graduaUy that these social Imes of division were
replaced by national lines. Partiy as a result of her insular
position and her strong kings, but chiefiy as the result of the
Hundred Years' War, a sense of nationality was formed earlier
in England than elsewhere. But sunUar results foUowed in
most other countries. France was unified by the end of the
fifteenth century, Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, being
absorbed in 1488. Spain had been unified and formed into a
great nation by the maoriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and IsabeUa
of CastUe in 1474 ; only in Italy and Germany did the sense
of nationality lag behind ; unity in each country had been
sacrificed to the idea of a Holy Roman Empire. If the German
King had confined his attention to Germany there would have
been no reason for his faUure in the task in which the Kings
of England and France succeeded. The creation of a strong
monarchy on the ruias of feudalism had been the task set before
aU these rulers.
In Italy the problem of national unity was more difficult
than elsewhere, for the Popes had entered the lists with claims to
temporal dominion, and from the thirteenth century tUl 1870
proved an insuperable bar to the creation of an Italian national
state. Even in Italy, however, the spirit of nationality was
not dead, and in Germany, though its strength grew faint, it
was stiU alive.
Economic SociaUy, the Renaissance era was one of great and increasingly
change. greater economic change. Society in feudal times had been
almost static ; land had been regarded as a means for feeding
so many men, or supplying so many soldiers ; the typical manor
was agricultural and self-supporting ; the volume of trade had
been very smaU. But for reasons which we have partiy in
dicated, and cannot develop further, aU this was rapidly
changing. Society became more and more capitalistic and com
petitive in structure. The " monied " man had come to stay ;
the volume of trade rapidly increased; land was worked on a
great scale, not to provide for immediate consumption, but to
satisfy a world market. Men made haste to become rich and.
accumulate wealth.
The preceding sketch wUl give a glimpse mto the spirit o|

The Early Years of Henry VIII 195
the age. It is intended to explain the general conditions which
rendered possible the rise of the Tudor despotism in England,
and of other despotisms elsewhere. The special conditions which
favoured the rise of the Tudor monarchy were the general Rise of
weariness of civU anarchy and the internecine stiife by which despotism.
the old baronage had exhausted its stiength in the Wars of the
Roses. AU ages are ages of tiansition, but this was an age of
tiansition in no ordinary sense of the term ; men felt that there
was need of a strong hand to guide them through the social,
economic, political, and religious changes in which they were
enveloped. Of liberty they had enjoyed too much. What they
desired was order, and hence in England the Tudor monarchy
arose. Sir Thomas More was only reflecting the general belief
when he wrote : " The springs both of good and evU flow from
the Prince over a whole nation as from a lasting fountain."
A new spirit, then, a spirit of inquiry which chaUenged and
criticised aU things, was abroad. Europe was in a state of
fermentation, and the Church was faced by a question of crucial
importance. What was to be her attitude to the New Learn- Attitude
ing ? Would the new wine burst the old bottles ? CoiUd, and °o ^e^
would, the Church assimUate the New Learning, and adapt Learning.
herself to all that was tiue and good in it, or would this new
force dissolve and rend in pieces her unity ? The New Learn
ing and criticism were bound to show, indeed had already sho^wn,
that many claims of the Church were based on manifest forgeries,
such as the Donation of Constantine.^ But the ¦wisdom of
Nicholas V. and iEneas Sylvius prevented for a time the
threatened explosion by taking the Renaissance scholars into
their ser^vice.
The scientist in his experiment sometimes separates elements
held in chemical combination by means of an electric current.
The mediseval Church held in solution diverse elements. What
would be the result when the electric current of the New
Learning was passed through it ? The mediaeval Church — to
use the words of Harnack — was a fabric embracing such
disparate elements as " the gospel and holy water, the priest
hood of aU believers and the Pope on his throne, Christ the
1 The Donation of Constantine professed to be a grant of the Western World,
made circ. 338, to the Pope by Constantine on his transference of the seat of
govemment to Constantinople. Tbe Donation was a forgery of the eighth or
ninth century.

196 The Church of England
Redeemer and St. Anne." There were accretions to the faith
and practice of the primitive Church, in such things as the
doctrine of transubstantiation, the withholding of the cup from
the laity, the invocation of saints (which among the ignorant
often meant gross polytheism), the whole machinery of the con
fessional, indulgences, the worship of relics, pilgrimages, &c.
That which the Church required was a reduction of her faith
and practice by reference to first principles ; light would be
given by the fresh knowledge and the critical method of the
New Learning. We shaU see how the Church in England and
elsewhere dealt with the problem.
HenryVlI. Henry VII. ascended the English throne in 1485, and at his
death in 1509 left a fuU exchequer and a securely established
dynasty. He had created the Star Chamber in 1487, and by
humUiation of the nobles he had increased the power of the
Crown. Speaking broadly, we may say that the key of his
policy was to make England politicaUy self-contained. He
renounced the Lancastrian policy of French conquest ; he con
solidated the monarchic power at home, and paved the way
for the future union of England and Scotiand by the marriage
of his daughter Margaret to James IV.
Ecclesiastically the reign calls for little notice ; the King
maintained amicable relations with the Popes, and pursued the
old Lancastrian policy of friendship with the Church. Ecclesi
astics, of whom the most notable were Morton and Warham,
successively Archbishops of Canterbury, and Bishop Fox, were
employed in high State office. The selection of State officials
from the episcopal bench appealed to the avarice of the King
as a means of relieving the royal exchequer ; but the employ
ment of bishops in secular office did not contribute to ecclesi
astical' efficiency, and continued an abuse, which aU reformers
would have wished to end. Rumblings of distant thunder
might perhaps have been heard, if there had been ears to
hear. Thus a visitation of the monasteries was conducted by
Archbishop Morton on the injunction of the Pope ; papal
bulls were obtained to limit the rights of sanctuary ; benefit
of clergy was restricted by an Act of Parliament in 1490.
But these presages of a coming storm passed unnoticed. To
aU appearances the Church stood proud and erect, like a lofty
tree, little conscious that she was to be laid low by the hurricane
which presently burst upon her. In 1509 the " majestic lord "

The Early Years of Henry VIII 197
who was fated " to break the bonds of Rome " and commit Accession
England irrevocably to the Protestant party in Europe, mounted vin!"'^^
the throne of his ancestors. Henry VIII. was a wonderfiU
man, masterful in the highest degree — more masterful than any
monarch who has ever occupied the English throne ; whatever
he took up — athletics, learning, diplomacy, religion — he and no His
other was to be King of men. We stand aghast as we read the mentr"
record of his reign, of the wives and ministers whom he be
headed, of the defiance hurled in the face of popes and kings,
of his claims to make and unmake doctrine, to make and to
unmake wives, to legitimate and then bastardise his various
chUdren, of the tiemendous changes carried through in Church
and State, of the reign of terror, in which nobles of the bluest
blood were brought to the block, of the ease with which he
moulded Parliament to his wiU, as though the Parliament were
clay and he the potter. The chief feature in his character was His char-
his extraordinary self-wUl. As Wolsey said at his faU to Master ^"^'^"
Kingston, " He is sure a prince of a royal courage, and hath a
princely heart, and rather than he wiU either miss or want
any part of his wUl or appetite, he wiU put the loss of one half
of his realm in danger ; therefore if it chance hereafter you to
be one of his privy coimcU, I warn you to be weU advised what
matter ye put in his head, for ye shaU never put it out again."
And Sir T. More said the same to CromweU : " If you wUl foUow
my poor advice, you shaU in your counsel-giving to his grace
ever teU him what he ought to do, but never what he is able
to do ; for if a lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any
man to rule him."
Morality for Henry was swaUowed up in legalism, and
legalism meant for him the expression of his own wiU for the
time being. If his appetite or wUl carried him in one direction,
his choice was soon ratified by his conscience as the expression
of absolute right, and forthwith embodied, if need be, in an
Act of Parliament. For Henry associated the nation and
ParUament with him in aU his actions, however oppressive.
The State had come of age, and was no longer to be under the
tutelage of the Church. The phUosophy of MachiaveUi had
carried the day. Henceforth the index to right was to be the
wUl of the State ; salus populi, mterpreted m the narrowest
sense, was to be the criterion of right and wrong ; it mattered
not whether this mvolved caUous cruelty and oppression of

198 The Church of England
individuals, nay, it mattered not whether the King had to wade
through pools of blood, ff only the State (or the prince) secured
its wUl and its own safety. No scruples of conscience would
bar the way. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that
Basis of his Henry misinterpreted the feelings and ambitions of his people,
power. Qj. ^^ imagine that no popular support lay behind his policy.
On the contrary, it was because Henry represented so accurately
the feelings of his people that he was able to do what he did.
He had no standing army with which to coerce them. He
depended throughout on their support. No doubt some of his
actions, such as the divorce of Catherine and the dissolution
of the monasteries — at any rate in the north of England — ^were
unpopular. But this only brings out the more clearly the fact
that, in the general trend of this policy, he had popular approval
behind him. It would probably be a true estimate of the
situation if we said that Henry was just ahead of his people,
anticipating by a little their wishes, and making articulate the
desires which in them were inarticulate, and dimly groped for
expression. If Henry VIII. had not taken the nettle firmly in
his grasp by renouncing the papal claims, or if he had thro^wn
the power of the monarchy into the scale in support of the
papal claims, there is no doubt that the papal power might
have lasted in England a generation or even two generations
longer ; but there can be no conceivable doubt that the
The Re- Reformation and the overthrow of the papal power woiUd have
[neviteUe come in England as weU as in Germany. Thunderbolts do not
come from a blue sky, and the critic must be blind indeed if
he does not see that the work of Henry VIII. foUowed in the
logic of history, and was only the close of a long movement
which dated as far back as the Norman Conquest. But this
was, at the moment of which we are speaking, stUl in the womb
of the future. The accession of Henry VIII. was welcomed
with enthusiasm. The young King was extiemely popular.
He was conspicuous for his strength and manly beauty ; athletic
attainments have always appealed to Englishmen, and the King
was famous for his skUl in outdoor sports. He was pre-eminently
a sportsman ; at tennis, at shooting, at hunting, at yachting,
he was head and shoulders above his feUows. But by none was
his accession greeted with greater joy than by the friends of
S'the'Slw ^^^ ^^^ Learning. For Henry was known to be its warm
Learning, friend. Lord Mountjoy wrote to Erasmus, " This King of ours

The Early Years of Henry VIII 199
is no seeker after gold or gems or mines of sUver. He desires
only the fame of virtue and eternal life. I was lately in his
presence. He said he regretted he was stUl so ignorant. I
told him that the nation did not want him to be himself
learned ; the nation wanted him only to encourage learning. He
replied that without knowledge life would not be .worth our
having." And Henry himself wrote to Erasmus, " Give me the
pleasure of assisting and protecting you as far as my power
extends. It has been, and is, my earnest wish to restore Christ's
religion to its primitive purity, and to employ whatever talents
and means I have in extinguishing heresy and giving free
course to the word of God."
The revival of Greek leaming and humanism in England The Re-
wUl always be associated with the Ucimes of three great men, in England
the Oxford reformers, as they have been called — John Colet,
Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More. The movement, which in
Italy degenerated into a refined sensuality and frankly pagan
ideals of life, assumed a severer and more moral form in Germany
and England. John Colet was the son of an ex-Lord Mayor Coiet.
of London, bom in 1467 ; he had ¦visited Italy to study Greek
in 1495 at the time when the scandals of the Borgia regime
were at their height — ^Alexander Borgia was Pope — and he may,
perhaps, have listened, though we have no evidence on this
point, to the fiery denunciations of the age by the prophet
Savonarola. On his return to Oxford he delivered public
lectures (1496-7) on the Pauline Epistles. These lectures opened Lectures
a new era in the history of biblical exposition ; hitherto, the paui.'
Bible had been regarded as a storehouse of detached texts, and
the plain meaning of Scripture had been twisted and distorted
by aUegorical and other fantastic methods of interpretation.
Colet tried to reaUse the man St. PaiU as he worked and lived,
and the special circumstances of the churches to which he wrote.
In his eyes the purity of primitive Christianity had been defUed
by the accretions of scholastic phUosophy and by the mediseval
Church. For Duns Scotus and St. Thomas Aquinas he had no
good words ; in his eyes it was far better to keep to the early
Fathers, to the Bible, and the Apostles' Creed. His great aim
was to get back to St. Paul and to Christ Himself. As Erasmus
¦wrote, " Colet's aim is to bring back the Christianity of the
Aposties, and clear away the thoms and briars with which it is
overgrown."

200 The Church of England
In 1505 Colet was made Dean of St. Paul's, and he con
tinued m London the work begun at Oxford ; and five years
later he founded St. Paul's School— the first-fruits in England
of the New Learnmg— " to increase knowledge and worshippmg
of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and
manners in the chUdren." Colet's whole being was consumed
with zeal for the reform of the Church. The traffic in, and the
worshipping of relics, as can be seen from Erasmus' accoimt of
his visit with Colet to Becket's shrine, fiUed him with disgust.
But it was the sensuality and worldliness of the Church that
caUed forth his severest censures. Preaching before Convoca
tion in 1512 he denoimced the depraved lives of the clergy as
far the worst form of heresy then current, and vehemently
attacked the lack of spirituality in the bishops, " men more
worldly than heavenly, wiser in the spirit of this world than in
the spirit of Christ." It was probably in the discussion on
heresy which foUowed in this Convocation that an old divine
quoted St. Paul's authority for putting heretics to death. He
had got hold of the text in which St. Paul says, " A man that
is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject"
(Titus Ui. 10). The old man quoted from the Vulgate, but un;
fortunately his Latin was not his strong point, and he thought
that " de-^vita " meant " put out of life " ! In 1519 Colet died.
He was removed from the scene before the storm broke, and
before men had to choose their course at the parting of the ways.
Erasmus. Erasmus of Rotterdam, born in 1467, was not an Englishman ;
he was a citizen of the world, at home in all countries. But he
came to England on repeated ¦visits and stayed here consider
able periods of time. In Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester — for Erasmus was always poor
— he found some of his kindest patrons ; in Colet and Sir
Thomas More, two of his dearest friends. Natural affinities
drew them together ; Erasmus was not endowed with the
moral earnestness of Colet, but his point of ¦view was substanti-
aUy the same. He had, however, gifts which Colet lacked, and
these gifts soon won him a European reputation. His clear
style and lively play of humour gave him, as they gave Voltaire
in a later age, the ear of educated Europe. He made people
laugh, and, as the sparkle of his wit was always used to mock
obscurantist teachers and methods, he made many enemies.
The colossal absurdities in the lives of the saints, the trafficking

The Early Years of Henry VIII 20 1
of spiritual pedlars, the foolery of indulgences, the exhibition of
relics, such as the Virgin's mUk at Walsingham, Our Lady's
petticoat, St. Anne's comb, St. Thomas of Canterbury's shoes —
" not presented as innocent aids to religion, but as the sub
stance of religion itself " — the crass stupidity of the monks, the
use of confession as an instrument of priestly wickedness, made
a splendid target for the shafts of his mocking satire. Erasmus'
great desire was to reduce Christianity to its first principles ;
he positively hated the old scholastic theology. " I wonder,"
he wrote in 1518, " what the Turks wUl think when they hear
about instances and causes formative, about quiddities and
relati^vities, and see our theologians cursing and spitting at each
other, the Nominalists and Realists wrangling about the second
person of the Trinity, as if Christ was a malignant demon ready
to destioy you if you made a mistake about His nature.
Reduce the articles of faith to the fewest and simplest."
Erasmus loathed the monks as obscurantists who opposed
the study of Greek, the work of Reuchlin, the Hebraist, the
publication of his own New Testament, and all other manifesta
tions of the New Learning. Erasmus' great work — the New His ¦¦ New
Testament in Greek with a new Latin translation — was published ment,"
in 1516. It was the first-fruits of biblical criticism, great not ^si6.
because of its intrinsic merits, but because it started biblical
criticism on its future career and laid down a right method —
that is to say, the critical comparison of MSS. — for the discovery
of the tiue text. But this was not all. The prefaces of the book
and the annotations were a chaUenge leveUed at the abuses of
the Church. Erasmus, however, wished to reform the Church
from within : his New Testament was published under Leo X.'s
encouragement, and his ideal was the Church regenerated by a
reforming Pope. Erasmus stood for reform, whUe Luther stood Compared
for revolution. Erasmus rejoiced in the artistic splendour and Luther.
graceful culture of Iffe in Rome; to Luther they were anti
christ. To Erasmus dogma of aU sorts was anathema ; Luther
was a bom dogmatist. Erasmus saw that Luther was bent on
constructing a new fabric of dogma in some ways more revolting
than that of Rome. He saw also that aU immediate hope for
learning would be spoUed by the outbreak of religious war.
Hence when the storm came in the second decade of the
sixteenth century, the two men went different ways. Though
Erasmus had questioned the divine origin of the papal power.

202 The Church of England
he clung to the papacy, and died in communion with the Roman
Church.
sirT. Sir Thomas More was the third of the Oxford friends, though
^°''^- ten years their junior. His temperament was of the most
charming kind. " Nature never framed anything gentler,
sweeter, happier, than the temper of Thomas More. His whole
house breathes happiness, and no one enters it who is not the
better for the visit," wrote Erasmus. His quick appreciation
of the ridiculous, his perennial store of ready wit, his delight in
fun, made him a most lovable companion. More, according to
Colet, had greater genius than any other man in England. He
had also a strong religious sense. Religion was no added adorn
ment to, but the basis of, his whole life. As he looks down upon
us from the canvas of Holbein, his face reveals a look of wistful
craving and the strain of melancholy, which VergU found in
the face of the young MarceUus and without which the highest
beauty is incomplete. More had deep spiritual yearnings, and
as we look at his face, we can weU imderstand the truth of
Erasmus' statement that he would often, and with the force of
tiue conviction, talk with his friends of the life to come. For
some years More had serious thoughts of becoming a monk, or
at least a priest, but he finaUy decided otherwise. He married
and took to the law, and became in time Lord Chancellor.
If More's one enthusiasm was for Catholic truth, his other
enthusiasm was for humanism and the New Learning. It
remained to be seen whether he could harmonise the two. More
His Utopia, was a true chUd of the Renaissance. His Utopia, published
in r5i6, is a typical product of the Renaissance spirit, and shows
extraordinary power of detachment from the social, economic,
political, and religious atmosphere in which he had grown up.
In the second part of Utopia (which was written first), Ralph
Hythloday, the traveUer, was made to describe an imaginary
land which he had visited in the far west. The social arrange
ments of Utopia were quite free from the absurdities that were
to be found in Europe ; everything was based on pure reason.
¦ We are astonished when we find that More, in his description
of Utopia, anticipated the line that reform has taken in the
succeeding centuries ; some of these ideas, such as State
hospitals and Socialism, have not been realised even yet. But
in Utopia there were State hospitals, there was a mUd penal
code, there was a six hours' day — aU men had to do some

The Early Years of Henry VIII 203
manual labour, and no one was aUowed to do more than six
hours a day. (" This was quite enough," More explains. " The
poor had to work longer in Europe simply because priests and
monks and gentiemen and beggars had to be supported in idle
ness.") The Utopians practised cremation ; there was a
thorough system of education ; they aU cultivated the pleasures
of the mind. Their to'wns were garden-cities ; there was no
such thing as private capital ; there weis no poverty. They
thought it " madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his
face or to waste it by fasting, unless by renouncing his own
satisfaction he can either serve the public or promote the happi
ness of others." Their priests were few and married. In religion
the Utopians differed from each other, but every man was
allowed to hold his own belief, as there was complete religious
toleration. They held that " no man ought to be punished for
his religion," and that God Himself " might inspire men in a
different manner and be pleased with this variety." Their
public profession was, however, the worship of one God, " the
Father of aU," and their public worship was undenominational
in character, and therefore arranged in such a way as not to
offend the particular beliefs of the different sects. There was,
however, one exception to this toleration. No man could be
appointed to public office who disbelieved in the immortality
of the soul and the existence of God, because men of this sort
must have base and sordid minds.
The Utopians showed an interest, very typical of the Renais
sance, in Greek leaming, and in scientific inventions, such as
the compass and printing. In the course of the book, More
characteristically chaffs the idle monks and friars.
But the extraordinary thing about More is that his own
public and private life was in direct antagonism to the precepts
put forward in Utopia. His loyalty to the Roman Catholic
Church carried him in the opposite direction : his master passion
was devotion to the mediseval faith : he denounced any de
parture from the creed and practice of Rome as sinful, and
persecuted the sinners. He perished at the block, a martyr to
the Roman creed. Henry VIII. dragged him to high State
office — "'Dragged' is the word," says Erasmus, "for no one
ever struggled harder to gain admission there, than More
struggled to escape " — and he put him to death for his adherence
to Rome. He did not realise that a nation's most valuable

204 The Church of England
asset is its great men. In the essentials of his belief. More
closely resembled Erasmus ; he ridiculed the " barbarous
niceties" and "logical tiiflmg" of the scholastic phUosophy.
He acknowledged the worldliness and secularity of churchmen ;
he realised the abuses of monasticism, of image worship, of
pUgrimages, of relics, and of indulgences, but thought that, if
reformed, they stUl ought to find a place in Catholic practice.
He welcomed the light of the New Learnmg and biblical
criticism. He shared Ersismus' desire for a reformation of the
Church from within. But he was always the more conservative
of the two, and, as Erasmus himself confessed, a little inclined
to superstition. He was determined, above aU, not to break
the unity of the Western Church, or throw off the papal
supremacy. Such were the three men known as the Oxford
reformers. By the opening of Henry VIII.'s reign the New Learning
had definitely established itself in England. The King, Warham,
Fisher, and Fox were its patrons — its most briUiant lights were
Colet and More. When a party formed itself at Oxford, imder
the name of " Trojans," to ridicule and crush this new Greek
learning. More wrote at Henry's command to the authorities of
the University, scornfuUy bidding them to suppress the revUers
of Greek. Henry VIII.'s great minister. Cardinal Wolsey (1312-
1529), gave his fuU support to the New Leaming. FoUo^wing in
the footsteps of Wykeham and Wajmflete, he secured a papal
bull (1524) authorising him to suppress monasteries with less
than seven inmates, and with the wealth thus acquired he
Christ founded Cardinal CoUege (afterwards caUed Christ Church) on
Church a sumptuous Scale, intending it to become the centie of the
by Wolsey. New Learning at Oxford. A further part of his scheme was to
found a grammar school at Ipswich, which was to feed Christ
Church, as Winchester fed New CoUege. But this part of the
scheme was not, after Wolsey's fall, carried out by Henry.
Wolsey. With Wolsey's character, his love of splendour and ceremony,
his arrogcmce and his avarice, we have littie in this place to do.
His foreign policy, by which he endeavoured to maintain a
balance of power between Charles V. and Francis I., the Empire
and France, the kaleidoscopic changes in the grouping of
European States, the skiU of Wolsey's diplomacy, must be passed
over in sUence. But we must try to define his ecclesiastical
views.

The Early Years of Henry VIII 205
In a sense he occupied the position of a conservative Was
reformer. And this in some measure explains the hatred with J^ormer^
which both Romanists and Protestants of the next generation
regarded him. Protestants hated him because he consistently
refused to carry out the King's divorce at the cost of rupture
with Rome : Romanists hated him because by his dissolution
of the small monasteries he started the ball rolling and prepared
the way for Cromwell's more comprehensive measures. But it
is only in a very restricted sense of the term that Wolsey can
be caUed a reformer. In so far as he diverted wealth from the
effete to the living parts of the Church, in so far as he saw that
aU tiue improvement must be based on education, and that
the Church could be reformed in the light of the New Learning,
to that extent he was a reformer, but no further. He was
clearly not a reformer in the doctrinal sense. He hated the
" pernicious sect of Lutherans." And if we take reform in the
narrower sense recognised by Romanists, how coiUd the Church
have been freed from worldly and secular influences by one
who embodied in his own person aU the worldliness of the
mediseval ecclesiastic ? How could Wolsey have put down
pluralism and non-residence when he was one of the greatest
pluralists in England, holding one archbishopric, various
bishoprics, not to mention smaUer benefices, and when he was
continuously an absentee from his various cures ? With what
face could Wolsey have put down concubinage of the clergy,
when he himself had an Ulegitimate famUy ? How could any
adequate reform of the ecclesiastical courts have been carried
through by Wolsey's legatine authority, when it was just this
legatine authority which had undermined and destroyed all
discipline in the English Church ? Wolsey as a reformer is
a quite impossible conception.
Two events during his tenure of high State office showed the Case of
danger ¦with which the Church was threatened. In the year Hunne,
1514 Richard Hunne, a well-to-do merchant of London, refused »Si4-
to pay a mortuary fee to his parish clergyman. The cleric
thereupon sued Hunne for his fee in the ecclesiastical court,
and Hunne retaliated by suing the clergyman in a praemunire
before the King's Bench, for halmg him before a " foreign "
court. Hunne lost his case, and was imprisoned by the Bishop
of London on a charge of heresy. People were presently horrified
to learn that be had been found dead in his ceU under very

2o6 The Church of England
suspicious circumstances. He may have committed suicide, but
stiong suspicion feU on Dr. Horsey, the Bishop's chanceUor, of
having murdered him. A coroner's jury returned a verdict of
wUful murder against Horsey, and thereupon Fitzjames, Bishop
of London, wrote a letter to Wolsey, begging him to ask the
King to hold an inquiry and drop the prosecution against
Horsey. But the letter was remarkable for the reason aUeged
by the Bishop for his request. He asserted that, if his chan
cellor were tiled by any twelve men in London, he would be
condemned, though he were as innocent as Abel, because the
Londoners were so favourable to heresy. The King did as he was
asked, and, after holding an inquiry, directed his attorney to
Its import- drop the prosecution. This story is of value because it Ulus-
^"''®' tiates the sort of exactions which made the clergy unpopular,
the gulf that separated clergy and laity, and the extent to
which unorthodox ¦views had made progress in London.
The other story iUustrates the coUision between the two
jurisdictions, lay and spiritual, and almost exactiy foreshadows
the situation which arose fifteen years later. In 15 12 Parliament
passed an Act abolishing benefit of clergy for aU clerks in minor
orders who were guilty of robbery and murder. This Act was
to be in force tiU a new Parliament met. Shortly before the
expiry of the Act the Abbot of Winchcombe violently attacked
it in a sermon at Paul's Cross (1515), as infringing the law of
God. Thereupon the King held a councU, at which the matter
was discussed before him. The Abbot of Winchcombe took one
Case of side, and Dr. Standish, the warden of the Grey Friars of London,
standish. ^i^g Qtjjgj. Standish had the better of the argument. He
exposed the uncritical use made by the Abbot of the text
" Touch not mine anointed," pointing out that the words were
spoken by David, not by Christ, and referred not simply to
clergy, but to aU God's people as distinct from the heathen.
When the Abbot urged that the Act was contiary to the
decretals, Standish pointed out that the non-residence of bishops
was equaUy forbidden, and yet was common enough. The
matter wsis not, however, aUowed to rest here. Convocation,
towards the end of the year, summoned Standish before it, and
demanded a clear answer as to whether, in his opinion, lay
judges were entitled to summon clerks before their judgment-
seat, and whether papal decrees were not binding, if contrary
to the usage of the land, Standish immediately appealed to the

The Early Years of Henry VIII 207
King. The King summoned another councU, attended by the
judges, and the judges decided that Convocation, by question
ing the action of a royal councUlor, had rendered itself liable to
the penalties of prsemunire ; they also went out of their way
to assert that the King could very weU hold a Parliament with
out summoning to it any spiritual lords whatever, who only sat
in Parliament by ¦virtue of their temporal possessions. Wolsey
realised the perUous position in which the Church was placed.
He went down on his knees, represented to the King that the
Church had not the least intention of questioning his preroga
tive, and begged that the matter might be referred to the Pope.
The affair was aUowed to drop, and the Act limiting benefit of
clergy was not renewed. But Henry clearly defined his position,
assertmg that Kings of England had never had any superior
but God, and that he himself would ever support in this matter
the rights of the Crown.
In 1529 Wolsey was dismissed from the Lord ChanceUorship,
and retired to his see of York. In the following year he was
arrested on a charge of high teeason, and on his journey south
ward to stand his trial, he died.
The immediate cause of Wolsey's f aU was the matter of the ¦Wolsey's
divorce, into which we shaU go in the foUowing chapter ; but f^''"'^-
the phUosophic reasons lay deeper. Wolsey was essentiaUy the
man of a transition era, though he wsis more mediseval than
modem in his conceptions. He was the last in the roU of the
great ecclesiastical ministers of the Middle Age. The orbit of
his faith was fixed by his belief in the papal supremacy and in
the unity of Latin Christendom. But the force of nationalism
was too stiong for the maintenance of this idea ; the new wine
was about to burst the old botties.

CHAPTER XIII
THE REFORMATION UNDER HENRY VIII

Origins of
Reformation.

(a) anti
clericalmovement.

The occasion of a revolution or war has always to be carefuUy
distinguished from the deep-seated causes from which that
revolution or war arises. The actual point on which the English
and Transvaal Governments quarreUed before the recent war
was one of trifling importance in itself ; but the real cause of
war was a conflict between two ideals of civUisation. The question
involved was British or Dutch supremacy over the whole of
South Africa.
Now the occasion of the revolution which resulted in the
repudiation of all papal authority over England was the attempt
of Henry VIII. to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon. But
this was not the cause of the Reformation. If that had been
aU, on the death of Catherine, or at any rate on the death of
Henry, the old relationship between Rome and England would
have been restored. If Henry VIII. had not quarreUed with the
Pope over the matter of the divorce, the Reformation would
have come aU the same, though in point of time it would have
been later, and the circumstances would have been different.
For the Reformation in England and elsewhere was the result
of converging forces ; the ground had long been prepared and
mined. Henry VIII. only led his subjects on to the final rush
at the papal citadel. Let us briefly sketch what these con
verging forces were.
First, there had been in England from the fourteenth century
a movement which was not so much anti-papal as anti-clerical.
That movement had taken different forms at different times.
Sometimes, as in 1340 or 1371, it had aimed at the exclusion
of prelates from high State office ; sometimes it had exhibited
hostility to the accumulation of landed property by the Church,
or had even demanded a considerable measure of disendow
ment (1376) ; sometimes it had assumed the form of an attempt
to restrict the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, as in
1 164 and 1285, and limit its abuses, Clerical privUeges, such
*o8

Reformation under Henry VIII 209
as benefit of clergy and sanctuary, had periodically caused
trouble. Abundant ridicule had been poured by Chaucer and
others on pardoners, monks, friars, pUgrimages, and relics.
Secondly, the antipapal movement had roots in a very [i] Anti-
distant past. Both WUliam I. and Henry II. had tiled, not PXment
unsuccessfuUy, to limit the papal power in England. John had
surrendered the national rights, but from the reign of Henry III.
the antipapal feeling grew apace. With Edward I. antipapal
legislation recommenced. The Avignonese capti^sdty, makmg the
papacy a sateUite of France at a time when England was in
continuous war -with that country, deeply discredited it in the
eyes of Englishmen, and resulted in the various statutes of
Provisors and Prsemunire, passed in the reigns of Edward III.
and his successor. The great schism (1378-1417), followed the
A-vignonese captivity, and the spectacle of rival Popes anathe
matising and excommunicating each other led Wycliffe to
denounce the papacy as Antichrist. If a stiong king had come
to the throne at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the
Reformation might have been emtedated 130 years. During
the whole of the fifteenth century England was distracted by
intemal stiife. But the papacy showed no signs of amending
its ways. The great schism was closed in 1417, but neither the
revolutionary attempts of the Hussites, nor the attempt at
conservative reform marked by the conciiiar movement, had
the least success. The papacy became more and more secular
in its aims. The abuses of the papal court shot up in rank
profusion ; the financial extortion of the Curia became a by
word ; rules of discipline were passed, that exemptions from
them might supply grist to the papal mUl. Popes had Ulegiti
mate famUies, took infidelity under their ffigis, led condottieri
in the wars, connived at assassination ; the papacy became a
frankly Italian power, directing its State policy on the prin
ciples of MachiaveUi ; after 1494 it was continuaUy the play
thing of France or Spain.
Thirdly, Wycliffe had started a doctrinal revolt from Rome, (c) Doctri-
The LoUard movement had been driven underground, but it "^ "^^^^ ''
survived, as the e-vidence shows, among the lower middle class,
especiaUy in the large towns ; after 1520 support came from
the Lutheran movement in Germany ; in 1526 Tyndale published
abroad his English version of the New Testament, and many copies
were smuggled into England. Tbe fulness of time was come.
o

{d) The
divorce.

2IO The Church of England
English Takmg our stand in the year 1528, we may say that the
^JLs''''''" Church of England contained three , parties withm its fold.
There were the old adherents to the strictly mediseval point of
view ; of these the most conspicuous was perhaps Fitz- James,
Bishop of London ; there were the adherents of the New
Learning, men who had no sympathy with Luther, and no
desire for severance from Rome, but, at the same time, were
interested in the New Learning and biblical criticism, and
anxious to reform the Church from within, and stop its grow
ing worldliness. The most distinguished representative of this
school was now Sir Thomas More. And lastly, there was the
Protestant party, which had so far in England no great leader ;
its strength was not yet suspected.
The immediate occasion of the rupture with Rome was the
matter of the King's divorce. Strictly speaking, the King's
claim was not for a divorce, but for a declaration of the nuUity
of his marriage ; he tried to prove that he had never reaUy been
married to Catherine of Aragon, on the ground that Catherine was
originaUy wedded to his elder brother, Arthur, and a marriage
with a deceased husband's brother contravened the law of the
Church. It was tiue that Pope Julius II. had, by a bull dated
26th December 1503, given a special dispensation for the
marriage. There had at the time been misgivings about the
right of the Pope to grant such a dispensation, but nothing
further would have been heard about them if Henry had not
on other grounds desired the divorce. We must try to analyse
the motives by which the various characters in this miserable
business were actuated. Henry's own account was that his
scruples were first raised in 1527 by the Bishop of Tarbes, the
envoy of the French King. When negotiating for the marriage
of the Princess Mary with a French prince, the Bishop of
Tarbes had raised the question of her legitimacy. According
to Henry, his scruples had been aroused ; after studying the
Levitical law (Lev. xx. 21), which had laid a curse of chUd-
lessness on such marriages, and comparing this with the fact
that a number of male chUdren born to hun by Catherine had
died in infancy, he became convinced that his marriage had
been sinful, against the law of God, and therefore no marriage
at aU in the strict sense of the term. The dangers to which
the realm was exposed through the lack of a male heir also
oppressed him. In the event of the King's death without a

Henry'smotives.

Reformation under Henry VIII 211
male heir, there was every danger of a disputed succession. No
queen had ever yet sat on the English throne. There would be
Yorkist, Tudor, and even Lancastiian claimants, and every
possibUity of a new War of the Roses. But even if Mary were
aUowed to succeed, her marriage would involve England in
danger ; it might lead to England's absorption in some foreign
State, or, if she married an English nobleman, might provoke
ci^dl war. A male heir was absolutely necessary, and this could
only be secured by the King marrying a second wife.
Thus Henry had something to say for himself. Far be it
from us to justify him in his action. He was the victim of
self-wUl and lust, and behaved in a brutal and caUous way
to the lady who had been his Queen. His scruples were un
doubtedly qmckened by, if they did not originate from, the fact
that he had faUen desperately in love with Anne Boleyn ; but,
if lust had been the sole motive for his action, like many kings
before and since, he could have taken the lady of his choice
to be his mistress. Future events were to show that Anne
Boleyn was not so careful of her honour as to forbid the enter
tainment of that idea. It is to be noted that in the first stages
of the divorce question, Henry as a matter of fact based his claim
on technical flaws in the buU of Julius ; it was only when he
discovered that a papal brief of the same date (26th December
1503) and the same purport as the buU, was in existence — a
brief against which the same technical flaws could not be urged
— that he changed his ground, and maintained that the whole
action of Julius II. had been ultra vires, inasmuch as the Pope
could not abrogate the law of God.
Wolsey, too, came out discreditably from the whole affair ; Woisey's
the idea of the divorce did not originate with him. Cavendish, "^*"
his gentleman usher and biographer, teUs us that Wolsey prayed
the King upon his knees to give up the idea. But when he
found the King's purpose inflexible, he thought that by marry
ing the King to a French princess he might cement a French
aUiance with England. He did not know of the ardent love-
letters which were already passing between the King and Anne
Boleyn. Anne was no friend of Wolsey; for Wolsey, at the
King's bidding, had already separated her from Lord Percy,
and Anne had vowed that if it ever lay in her power, she would
do the cardinal displeasure. Moreover, Anne was connected by
marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, Wolsey's enemy.

212 The Church of England
When Wolsey found that Henry was determined to marry Anne,
by the alternate use of threats and of entreaties he endeavoured
to induce Pope Clement VII. to acquiesce in Henry's wishes.
The Pope's The Pope was in a difficult position. He did not like the
position, j^gg^ q£ ,-gyoij.jjjg Qj. quashing the bull of Julius. That was a
dangerous game for an infallible, or almost infallible. Pope to
play. He thought, like most other people, that Catherine was
being treated abominably. StUl, if political reasons had not stood
in the way, the Papal Chancery would have been equal to the
emergency, and would have discovered some technical flaws
making it possible to set aside the dispensation of Julius.
The Popes of this era were usuaUy kind to Kings in the matter
of wedlock. Emanuel of Portugal (i495-r52i) had been aUowed,
by dispensation of Alexander VI. , to marry his deceased wife's
sister, and then had married as his third wife the niece of his
two former wives. The Duke of Suffolk's case presented an
even closer analogy. Owing to a pre-contract of marriage, he
had required a papal dispensation to inarry Margaret Mortimer.
But scruples, or other reasons, led him to doubt the validity
of the papal dispensation, so he divorced Margaret Mortimer,
and married the lady to whom he was pre-contiacted, and
Clement VIL, in 1528, by buU confirmed the divorce !
Unfortunately, owing to political reasons, Clement could not
do the same thing for Henry VIII. He was wUling that Henry
should have two wives, but he could not aUow him to divorce
Catherine. The crucial fact was that the influence of the
Emperor Charles V. was paramount in Italy, and Catherine
was Charles V.'s aunt. The Pope could not afford to offend
Charles V. In 1527 Rome had been sacked by the imperialist
troops, and for some time Clement had been a prisoner. The
King and Wolsey desired the Pope to grant a form of com
mission, by which the divorce case could be settled without
appeal ; but the Pope was unwiUing to grant the kind of com
mission which would preclude his power of finaUy revoking the
suit to Rome. For a short time in 1528 French influence
looked as though it might predominate in Italy, and, yielding to
Wolsey's ad misericordiam appeal, the Pope finaUy did grant a
commission of the kmd required to Cardinals Campeggio and
Wolsey. Campeggio, however, was stiaitly enjoined not to aUow
the decretal out of his hands, but to keep it secret, and delay
matters as long as possible.

Reformation under Henry VIII 213
Campeggio finaUy arrived in England, October 1528. Having
faUed to persuade Henry to give up the idea, and having faUed
to induce Catherine to take the veU, Campeggio and Wolsey
finaUy opened their court (May 1529). But the political situa
tion in Italy had again changed. French infiuence had failed
to maintain itself, and Charles V. had re-established his
supremacy. He and Francis I. had temporarUy arranged their
differences, and papal support was secured by the promise that
Florence should be restored to the Pope's famUy, the Medicis.
Campeggio had already burnt the papal decretal ; his court met
for the last time on 23rd July 1529, and adjourned tUl ist October,
but it was fated never to meet again. The Pope finaUy revoked Divorce
the hearing of the divorce case to Rome. The consequence of voked^to
this was that Wolsey, ha^ving faUed to secure the divorce by i^o™^.
papal co-operation, was dismissed from office in disgrace.
The Great Seal was given to Sir Thomas More. Not that sir t.
More approved of the divorce ; on the contrary, he frankly ciSnceiior.
expressed his disapproval. But Henry was at that time mag
nanimous enough to let More know that he would be employed
in other ways, and might think what he liked about the " King's
affair." From the time of Wolsey's fall Henry VIII. was his
own " Prime Minister." Thomas CromweU, who rapidly became
the chief spirit in his counsels, was always subordinate to the
King. He is said ^:o have suggested to Henry that he should
make himself head of the Church and dissolve the monasteries,
thus making himself the richest King in Europe ; but sugges
tions were the most which Cromwell offered ; the ruling mind
was that of the King, whUe CromweU was a useful servant,
because he was entirely wanting in religious and moral sense,
and was withal a hard-headed man of business, skiUed in adapt
ing means to ends.
Thomas CromweU was the son of a Putney blacksmith. In Thomas
early years he seems to have lived the life of a rake, and had ^''°'"^^"-
been compeUed to flee the country ; he had been in turn a
soldier of fortune, ser-ving in the Italian wars, a merchant, a
money-lender, a lawyer. In i5r4 he entered Wolsey's service,
and made himself useful as an agent in the suppression of the
monasteries from which the revenues of Cardinal College were
derived. By 1529 he had devoured the new phUosophy of
MachiaveUi, for we know that he advised Reginald Pole to give
up old-fashioned views and read the practical views of a modern

2 14 The Church of England
writer, and offered to lend hun MachiaveUi. In 1529 CromweU
managed to dissociate hunself from Wolsey, and shortly after
wards entered the service of the Cro^wn, becoming a Pri^vy
CouncUlor in 1531. His mcessant activity, his power in execu
tion, his money-making capacity, his msight into character and
motives, his utter lack of conscience, his belief in absolutism,
made him an ideal servant for Henry VIII.
MeanwhUe Henry was resolved to carry the matter through
and marry Anne Boleyn, even at the cost of rupture with Rome,
Reforma- and for this purpose he caUed together the Parliament, which
Pari'iament "^^* ^"^ 3"^^ November 1529. This Parliament, in the seven
meets, years of its existence, carried through the most sweeping changes,
'^^'" and before its close severed every tie which connected England
with the papacy. There is no doubt that this Parliament was,
to a certain extent, packed by the King, but probably no more
than was usual in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In
some ways it showed a fair amount of independence. We wUl
not be far wrong in assuming that it represented those classes
in England who had political inteUigence. It is noteworthy
that at an early stage in its history the King, by creation of
new peers, secured a lay majority in the Upper House. The
Parliament was to carry out a lay and anti-clerical policy. In
First its first session — ^3rd November to 17th December 1529 — ^no overt
session. g|gp ^g^ taken against the papal power. Clerical extortion was
restricted by the passing of a Probate Act and a Mortuaries
Act, by which the fees payable for wUls and burials were
reduced to a reasonable sum. By a Pluralities Act an effort
was made to diminish the scandals of pluralism and absenteeism,
though exceptions were made for various classes of people.
But the statute was an indirect blow at the papacy, as many
of the absentees were creatures of the Pope, rewarded for their
service by the revenues of livings which they never visited.
Outside the walls of Parliament the chief interest of the year
arose from a suggestion of a Cambridge FeUow, Thomas Cranmer,
that the King should take the opinion of the universities of
Europe as to the lawfulness of a papal dispensation to marry a
deceased brother's wife. Hdnry was delighted with the idea.
Oxford and Cambridge were induced to give a guarded reply
in the King's favour, as also were the French universities and
the university of Bologna. Henry might now plead that the
views of the learned world were in his favour ; but to show

Reformation under Henry VIII 215
that he was no heretic, he published in this same year an order
commanding the destruction of aU heretical works, such as those
of Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingli, and Tyndale. Henry himself had
already in 1321 written a book denouncing Luther, and had in
retum been given by the Pope the title, " Defender of the
Faith," a title that has been retained by his successors.
The second session of the Parliament was held from i6th Second
January to 31st March I53r. It was occupied with other than ^^"'°"-
ecclesiastical business ; but Henry had the audacity to inform
the clergy in Convocation that, by recognising the legatine
authority of Wolsey, they had all incurred the penalties of
prsemunire. The real culprit, if culprit there was, ought to
have been Henry himself, as it was by his connivance and
authority that Wolsey had exercised his legatine power. The
clergy were told that they could only procure pardon by paying
an enormous fine, and recognising Henry as " Supreme Head
of the Church of England." Ultimately the Convocation of
Canterbury secured pardon by the payment of £100,044, 8s. 8d.,
and the Northern Convocation made a corresponding grant of
£18,840, OS. lod. But a difficulty arose over the title " Supreme King re-
Head." Archbishop Warham suggested the compromise of f°|^prem?
adding the words, " as far as the law of Christ aUows." Even Head" by
so, the clergy did not welcome the royal command. " SUence tion.™"^^"
wiU give consent," said Warham; and one of the clergy, on
behalf of the others, shouted out, "Itaque tacemus omnes" —
" We are aU sUent."
The third session of the Parliament was held from 15th Third
January to 14th May 1332 ; in it the first overt steps were ^^^^°^'
taken against the papacy.
On i8th March the Commons presented to the King a
supplication against the ordinaries. Four drafts of this petition SuppUca-
are to be found in the Record Office, marked with corrections Jhe'ofdi'."^'
by CromweU's own pen. It is difficult, therefore, to suppose varies.
that this petition was not instigated by the Crown and merely
fathered on the Commons. The supplication denounced Con
vocation's legislative independence of the Crown and laity, the
excessive number of holy days, the abuses (especiaUy the fees
payable) in the ecclesiastical courts, and in tiials for heresy,
the subtle interrogatories conceming the high mysteries of our
faith by which the simple or unlearned man was trapped.
The supplication was referred to Convocation, which drew

Reply of
bishops.

2 1 6 The Church of England
up and presented a reply to the King at the end of AprU. In
this reply the bishops denied that there was any such discord
or want of charity between the bishops and their flocks as the
petitioners suggested. The right to frame canons was grounded
upon the " Scripture of God " and the determmation of Holy
Church. Any canons repugnant to Scripture or the teaching
of the Church they would repeal, but could not undertake to
submit their canons to the Royal Assent. The clergy had no
desire to interfere with the Kmg's prerogative or the laws of
the realm ; wrongs might have been done in individual cases
by the church courts or their officials, but, generaUy speaking,
the charges of extortion and injustice were untrue. They
agreed that men ought not to be trapped in trials for heresy by
" subtle interrogatories " ; stUl heresy ought to be stamped out.
This answer did not satisfy the King ; he asserted that it showed
the clergy to be but half his subjects ; and he was not content
Submission till OU the 15th May he had wrung from Convocation the fuU
" Submission of the Clergy," by which —
(i) They acknowledged that Convocation could not meet
without the King's ¦writ ;
(2) They promised not to enact, promulge, or execute any
new canon without the royal licence and assent ;
(3) A committee of 32 people (aU appointed by the King),
16 spiritual and 16 lay, was to revise the canon law.
Those canons which a majority of the 32 should find
to be repugnant to the law of God, the prerogative of
the King, and the law of the land were to be abrogated,
whUe the rest were to hold good.^
This submission was, as we shaU see, embodied in 1534 in an
Act of Parliament.
On the same day (15th May) that the clergy presented their
submission to the King, Sir Thomas More resigned the chan
ceUorship and retired into private life. As the King's policy
developed, he found hunself so opposed to it, that it was im
possible for him to give it countenance by retaining office. It
was not only of the submission wrung from the clergy that

of Clergy
in Convo
cation.

Resigna
tion of Sir
T. More.

' It is to be noted that when the work of a similar commission was presented
to Parliament (i 571) in the Reformatio legum, no action was taken on its report,
and therefore to this day, all those parts of the canon law which are not re
pugnant to the King's prerogative and the law of the land are technically
valid.

Reformation under Henry VIII 217
More disapproved ; for in addition to a statute limiting benefit
of clergy. Parliament in this session passed, under compulsion,
an Annates Act. In each House of Parliament the royal Annates
presence itself was found necessary to secure for it a bare °'"
majority. The statute recited the enormous sums (£160,000)
which had been paid to Rome by way of first-fruits since 1487,
a sum quite " importable " in spite of the fact that " our said
sovereign the King, and aU his subjects, as well spiritual as
temporal, be as obedient, devout, catholic, and humble chUdren
of God and Holy Church as any people be within any realm
christened." Henceforth no such first-fruits were to be paid by
the archbishops and bishops, but they were to be consecrated
without such payments ; papal buUs, required by bishops-elect,
were to be purchased on a fixed and moderate tariff. The King
was in the meantime to induce the Pope, if possible, to agree to
a moderate composition for the annates. The statute was not
to take effect immediately, but the King was empowered, if the
Pope did not prove reasonable, to make it operative by letters
patent. This last clause was a clever move by the King, as it
enabled him to put the requisite pressure on the Papal See.
When the Act had been passed, the third session of the
Parliament closed (14th May). MeanwhUe Henry was as deter
mined as ever to marry Anne Boleyn. He stUl cherished the
hope of attaining his end through French influence. In October
1532 he took Anne Boleyn in state to meet Francis at Boulogne.
On 22nd August Archbishop Warham died, his end pre- Death of
maturely hastened by the anxious time through which he had ""
passed. It was necessary to appoint a successor. Gardiner,
who after Wolsey's faU had been elevated to the see of
Winchester, had some claims to the post, but he had irritated
Henry in this year by his opposition to the submission of the
clergy. The man chosen to succeed Warham was Thomas
Cranmer, the author of the suggestion that the uni- Cranmer
versifies should be consulted about the legality of Henry's Ar'ch-^'*
marriage with Catherine. At this time he was acting as Henry's bishoji
agent to the Emperor Charles V. He had been a widower,
but had just married as his second wife the niece of the
German divine Ogiander. This was not a qualification likely
to commend him to a strict medisevalist. But Henry probably
wanted as Archbishop a man who was less wedded to mediseval
ideas than he was himself. Cranmer had no desire to become

2x8 The Church of England
archbishop. "Nolo episcopari" was in his mouth something
more than a mere form. It was a perilous task in those
stormy times, when gales were blowing from every quarter, to
pUot the ship of the Church. The pUot needed a stiong nerve
and an iron wUl. Whatever other qualities Cranmer had, he
certainly had not these. He was not bom by nature to ride
the storm and control the whirlwind. His life, except in its
great closing scene of martyrdom, was not cast in the heroic
mould. His temperament was timid and shrinking, more
feminine than masculine ; he was gentle and humane, averse to
persecution, and ever inclined towards the mUder methods of
persuasion ; he was a man of deep piety, devotional by nature,
with an exquisite command over the cadences of the English
language. The Prayer-Book is his work and his legacy to the
Church of England. But he was pliable and 5delding ; if there
is much to admire, there is also much to deplore in his career.
No man with a delicate sense of honour could have done some
of the things which Cranmer did. But it is easy for a writer,
sitting in his arm-chair, to pass such criticisms ; in that age of
cumulative perUs, when faced by a King like Henry VIIL, it
was difficult for any man to act uprightly. Henry now played
his cards with wonderful shrewdness. By the beginning of 1533
he knew of Anne Bole3ni's interesting condition ; it was im
perative that the chUd, which he expected in September, should
be born in lawful wedlock ; he was anxious that there should
be no flaw in Cranmer's archiepiscopal position. If Cranmer
was once the unquestioned Archbishop of Canterbury, and if
an Act prohibiting aU appeals to Rome had been passed through
Parliament, then Cranmer could hold a court, declare his
marriage with Catherine nuU, and his marriage with Anne
Boleyn (which was secretiy solemnised in January I53'2) valid.
It is needless to say that the King did not communicate the
second part of his plan to the Pope ; but Cranmer appUed for
papal buUs in confirmation of his appointment to the see of
Canterbury, and here Henry's craft came in. He indicated to
the Papal Curia that by the Act of Annates the King was
empowered to withhold or not to withhold the annates from
England, as he pleased. By a judicious use of bribery, and by
the threat that, unless the buUs were quickly given, the annates
would be withheld, he secured the bulls, confirming Cranmer's
appointment m less than the usual time. On 30th March 1533,

Reformation under Henry VIII 219
Cranmer by papal bull was consecrated Archbishop of Canter- Cranmer
bury. He took the oath of loyalty to the Pope, though, acting marri^age
with dubious honour, he publicly protested beforehand that he wi'h
had no intention of keeping his oath. On 23rd May 1533, after void, and
holding a court, he declared that Henry's marriage with Cathe- "'•^?^^*
rine was void ; on 28th May he declared, after inquiry, that good.
the King was lawfuUy married to Anne Boleyn ; on ist June
he crowned Anne Boleyn as Queen ; and when, to Henry's disgust,
the chUd born was a girl — the future Queen Elizabeth — Cranmer
acted as godfather at her baptism.
Already Parliament in its fourth session — 4th February to
7th AprU 1533 — had passed the Act in restraint of appeals. Fourth
The Act, after rehearsing the fact that " England is an empire ?^^je°"rkint'
governed by one supreme head and King . . . imto whom a of appeals.
body compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms
and by names of spirituality and temporaUty . . . ought to
bear next to God a natural and humble obedience," and that
appeals to Rome in cases of marriage, wUls, and tithes had
given rise to great inconveniences, proceeded to enact that
henceforth no appeals of any sort should go outside the realm.
The ultimate court of appeal should henceforth be the Arch
bishop's court, or, where the King was concerned, the Upper
House of Convocation.
It was not to be expected that the Pope should take these
blows " Ijdng down." He prepared a buU of excommunication,
and on nth July 1533 declared Henry's marriage with Anne Pope de-
Boleyn nuU and void. Henry retaliated on 7th November by r^gtf^th"^"
appealing to a general councU against the Pope. Parliament Anne void.
met for its fifth session on 15th January 1534, and continued
its sittings tiU 30th March 1534. This session was marked by Fifth ses-
the definitive breach with Rome. Four important Acts were ^'°"' ^^'^'
passed. I. The Act of the submission of the clergy and restraint of (1) Act of
appeals. The provisions of the submission of the clergy (1532) to^the^^'™
were embodied in the Act and given statutable authority ; the clergy.
Act in restiaint of appeals (1533) was confirmed. No appeals
of any sort were to go to Rome, under the penalty of prsemunire.
But a court of final appeal from the Archbishop's court was
created ; henceforth an appeal was to lie from the Court of
Arches (i.e. the Archbishop's court) to the King in Chancery,
who was thereupon to appoint delegates to determine the case.

2 20 The Church of England
[This court, afterwards known as the Court of Delegates,
remained, with the exception of Mary's reign, the supreme court
of ecclesiastical appeal tUl 1832, when the Court of Delegates
was abolished, and the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction was
transferred to the judicial committee of the Pri^vy CouncU.]
(2) Annates 2. An Act in restramt of annates and making provision for
^ongi"^ appointment to bishoprics. By this Act aU payment of annates
d'iiire. was absolutely forbidden ; henceforth no papal buUs were to
be sued for, and no archbishop was to receive a paU from Rome .
The King was to nominate to a vacant bishopric ; he was to
send a conge dlMre to the dean and chapter, or to the prior
and convent of the church concerned, with a letter missive
prescribing the man they were to elect ; if they faUed to elect
as ordered, then the King was to appoint by letters patent.
When the candidate had been thus elected or nominated, he
was to do fealty to the King ; the King should thereupon direct
an archbishop or bishops to confirm the election and consecrate
the bishop-elect. A dean and chapter refusing to elect, or a
bishop refusing to consecrate, or any one acting contrary to
the statute, should incur the penalty of praemunire. With the
exception of the reign of Edward VI. (when an Act was passed
authorising the King to appoint to aU bishoprics by letters
patent) and the reign of Mary, this statute has remained in
force tUl the present day. In the form prescribed for appoint
ing to a bishopric Henry was returning in essentials to the
custom that had been observed in England during the twelfth
century. The form of concurrent appointment to a bishopric
by a papal buU was an innovation of the later Middle Ages.
But when the King forbade the Archbishop to receive the paU
from Rome, he was returning to a custom more ancient than
that of the English Church ; for though the paU was in
origin merely complimentary (see p. 8), aU archbishops since St.
Augustine had received it as a symljol of their metropolitan
authority.
(3) Act 3. An Act forbidding papal dispensations and the payment
dfspensa- °^ Peter's pence. By this Act aU payments of whatever nature
tions and to Rome Were prohibited ; the necessary licences and dispensa-
pence.^ tions Were to be secured from the Archbishop of Canterbury at
fitxed fees ; no Englishman was to leave England for the purpose
of attending an ecclesiastical councU ; monasteries hitherto
exempt from the bishop's visitation were to be subject to

Reformation under Henry VIII 221
visitation by the Crown. But in passing this Act the King and
realm did not " intend to decline or vary from the congregation
of Christ's Church in any things concerning the very articles of
the Catholic faith of Christendom, or in any other things
declared by Holy Scripture necessary for salvation." The
appeal to Holy Scripture was a distinctive feature of the
Reformation. 4. The first Act of Succession, after declaring the King's (4) First
marriage with Catherine " dowager to Prince Arthur " null and Session. "'^'
contiary to the law of God, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn
valid, proceeded to settle the Crown on the issue of the King
and Anne, and to ordain that an oath shoiUd be taken by all
subjects to " the whole effects and contents of this present
Act." But the specific form of oath was not prescribed.
Parliament adjourned on 30th March 1534.
A reign of terror, happUy with few parallels in English
history, now commenced. Hundreds of people, some of
them the most distinguished subjects of the Crown, perished
at the block or gaUows, suffering all the ghastly penalties
prescribed by the mediseval law for high treason, simply
because they would not renounce the papal power, which but the
other day had been accepted without question by the whole of
Latin Christendom.
Elizabeth Barton and her votaries were the first victims of Elizabeth
this tyrarmous regime. Elizabeth Barton, or the Holy Maid of '^°"'
Kent, as she was called, was a hysterical clairvoyante, who
passed into trances and declared her visions of the saints and the
messages they gave her. Many of her " inspired " utterances
were in denunciation of sin. Her clients numbered some of the
greatest in the land, including Warham, Fisher, More, and the
King himself. Unfortunately, some of her employers tiled to
make political use of the poor girl ; like many other clair-
voyantes, when the ¦visions did not come, she was driven into
imposture, and invented them. She denounced Henry's deser
tion of Catherine, and foretold that within seven months he
would be driven from his kingdom. An Act of attainder against
the maid and her accomplices was passed through Parliament.
She and her chief supporters were executed at Tyburn on
20th AprU 1534. The names of Sir T. More and Bishop Fisher
were at first included in the attainder ; it was only m its last
stages that Sir T. More's name was removed from the Act, whUe

222 The Church of England
Fisher was only attainted of misprision of treason, and he was
aUowed to compound for his fault by a payment of £300.
More and MeanwhUe More and Fisher had been imprisoned for refusing
Fisher im- ^q ^^^ ^jjg ^.^^ mentioned va. the Act of Succession. Henry
prisoned, had been exasperated by the fact that, on 23rd March 1534,
Pope de- Clement VII. had at last given his long-deferred decision on the
riag?'«Mt"' question of his marriage with Catherine, declaring the marriage
Catherine valid. Aunc Bolcyn was disliked, and most people in England
^' ¦ agreed with him. The divorce of Catherine had never been
popular ; great sympathy throughout had been felt and shown
for the sorely iU-used lady, and Clement VII. was only doing
an act of very tardy justice. It was almost the last thing he
did, for in September of this year he died. The new Pope was
Paul III. But Henry was not the man to be foUed of his
purpose ; it was more than ever necessary that the chief men
in England should acknowledge the rightness of his action. On
the 31st March, under royal pressure, the Convocation of Canter
bury definitely decided, " That the Bishop of Rome has not ui
Scripture any greater jurisdiction in the kingdom of England
than any other foreign bishop." ^ SimUar decisions were secured
from the Northern Convocation and the universities. Members
of Parliament took the oath mentioned in the Act of Succession
on the last day of the session, and in the weeks which foUowed
crowds of other people, clergy and laity, did the same. On
13th AprU Sir Thomas More and Fisher were invited to do like
wise. The exact terms of the oath had not been prescribed in the
text of the statute, but had been drawn up by commissioners.
More and Fisher were wUling to swear to the succession of
Anne Boleyn's chUdren. Whatever they might privately think
of it, they would acknowledge the fait accompli. Parliament
had a perfect right to fix the succession as it chose. But their
conscience would not siUow than to swear an oath ^ which
' Again we must note the appeal to Scripture, which was a distinctive
feature in the Reformation, and the fact that from 1534 onwards the Pope is
only styled in official documents the " Bishop of Rome."
^ The important part of the oath was as follows : —
" Ye shall swear to bear faith, truth, and obedience alonely to the King's
Majesty, and to his heirs of his body of . . . Queen Anne begotten . . . and
not to any other within this realm, nor foreign authority or potentate ; and in
case any oath be made or has been made by you to any person . . . that then
ye are to repute the same as vain and annihilate ; and that to your cunning, wit,
and uttermost of your power . . . you shall observe, keep, maintain, and defend

Reformation under Henry VIII 223
involved repudiation of obedience to the Pope, and an under
taking to maintain and defend the whole contents of " the said
Act " against aU manner of persons.
Cranmer would gladly have welcomed such a compromise ;
every consideration of justice, equity, and gratitude recom
mended it ; but the King was like a waU of adamant. More and
Fisher must take the oath in toto, or suffer the extreme penalty.
They were therefore sent to the Tower. MeanwhUe the King
was more successful with the monasteries and friaries. The
Friars Observant, the Carthusians, and the Friars of Sion were
the only bodies which gave him tiouble. The Carthusians and
Friars of Sion finaUy for the time being yielded to threats.
But the order of Friars Observant, continuing in its stubborn
ness, was dissolved, and the friars were either dragged to im
prisonment in the Tower or dispersed among other religious
houses. Parliament met for its sixth session on 3rd November 1534, Sixth
and was not prorogued tUl 4th February 1535, and passed four i«^!°i535.
important Acts.
I. The Act of Succession (November 1534) was re-enacted, (i) Act of
and statutable authority was given to the form of oath pre
scribed by the commissioners.
2. The annates that had been formerly paid to the Pope (2) Annates
were annexed to the Crown. So the Church did not escape the crown.
le^vy of this " importable " tax ; the payment of annates con
tinued, but was to be made to the King, and not to the Pope.
The arrangement lasted tiU Queen Anne, in 1704, restored them
to the Church, and made them the nucleus of a fund (Queen
Anne's Bounty) for the augmentation in value of poor livings.
3. The Act of Supremacy, November 1534, gave the title (3) Act of
" Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England," without macy!"
the clause by which the clergy had qualified their grant of the
title in the Convocation of 1532. By royal proclamation in
January 1535, Henry added the titie of " Supreme Head " to Meaning of
the royal style. If the exact meaning and significance in 'I'supreme
Henry's eyes of this title is to be determined, it must be remem- Head."
bered that the doctrine of the royal supremacy was enunciated
the said Act of Succession, and all the whole effects and contents thereof, and all
others Acts and statutes made in confirmation, and this ye shall do against all
manner of person . . . and in no wise suffer to be done . . . anytliing . . .
to the damage thereof ... so help you God."

2 24 T^^^ Church of England
as a counter doctrme to that of the papal supremacy. It was
because Henry wished to eliminate the papal power that he
adopted the title of Supreme Head. Under this title he claimed ^
first, aU those powers over the Church which the Kings of
England had exercised or claimed since the Conquest, e.g. the
supreme appeUate jurisdiction, and the right to refuse admission
of papal buUs; secondly, any rights which had been usurped
by the papacy from the Church of England; thirdly, the
vague and undefined administrative powers which the Pope, as
head of the Church on earth and Vicar of Christ, had graduaUy
made good over the Church of England as over other Churches.
Or, adopting another method of classification, it might be said
that Henry in the royal supremacy claimed some definite and
other indefinite rights. Of the definite rights, Henry claimed
that the Crown in Chancery should be the supreme court of
ecclesiastical appeal. He was to be " over all causes, ecclesi
astical as well as civU, supreme " ; that Convocation, according
to the rules laid down in the submission of the clergy, should
be dependent on the King; and that bishops should be nomi
nated by the Crown. Over and above these definite rights
he claimed a vague administrative power (" to order, redress,
correct," &c.) over the Church analogous to that which the
mediseval Popes had exercised. This power was presently to be
used in a tjrannous way, when the King made CromweU Vicar-
General and authorised hun to ¦visit the monasteries. Its limits
were not defined, but, in spite of Cranmer's recommendation,
and some casual words in official documents, it would seem that
Henry never claimed to be the source of purely spiritual powers,
i.e. " the powers given by God to the clergy according to Holy
Scripture." Henry never claimed for hunself the power to
ordain or administer the sacraments. His was not a jus ordinis,
but a jus potestatis. He claimed not that he was the source of
spiritual power — the spiritual authority came to the clergy through
the Apostles from Christ Himself — ^but that he was the source of
jurisdiction. In claiming this, perhaps he simply meant that
the jurisdiction which ecclesiastics exercised in cases not purely
spiritual, e.g. in matrimonial and testamentary causes, came
from the Crown as source. But probably his claim was wider.
Spiritual powers are given to a bishop or priest by consecration
1 See Report of Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, p. xxxi.

Reformation under Henry VIII 225
and ordination, and are exercisable anywhere. A bishop can
ordain, and a priest can administer the sacraments anywhere.
But jurisdiction is given to a bishop when he is given the special
authority of the Church within a particular diocese.^ Henry
claimed that by thus appointing bishops to English dioceses, he
was the source of the jurisdiction exercised in those dioceses.
Whatever else he meant, he certainly meant that the Pope was
not the source of the jurisdiction.
4. The fourth Act passed in the sixth session of the Refor- (4) Trea-
mation Parliament was the Treasons Act, November 1534, by '°°^ °"
which it was enacted, among other provisions, that ' ' to maliciously
wUl by words or writing to deprive the sovereign of any of his
royal titles, or caU him a schismatic," was high treason. To
make mere words or writing treasonable was an iniquitous
extension of the treason laws. Yet it was under this Act that
More and Fisher were condemned. MeanwhUe, to show how
good a Christian he was, and how interested he was in the
Church's welfare, Henry had an Act passed through Parliament
authorising him to appoint, when necessary, twenty-six new
suffragan bishops.
ParUament was prorogued on 4th February 1535. Henry
had secured aU the weapons he required for the crusade against
his enemies, and had associated the nation with himself in the
cruelties which were to follow. The heads of the Carthusian
order in England and others were accused of denying the royal
supremacy, convicted of high treason, and suffered the extreme
penalty under circumstances of revolting cruelty. The turn of
Fisher and More had now come. Pope Paul III. had the want
of tact to give Fisher just at this juncture the rank of cardinal.
The gift acted on Henry as the proverbial red rag does to a
buU. He swore that Fisher would have to wear the cardinal's
hat, when it arrived, upon his shoulders; for head he should
have none. Fisher refused to acknowledge Henry as " Supreme
Head," though he recognised the right of Parliament to fix the
succession. And therefore Fisher, the pation of the New
Learning, himself perhaps the most learned bishop in England, Fisher
and cardinal of the Roman Church, was executed on Tower ^"^''"'^ •
HUl (22nd June i533)-
Sir Thomas More refused to answer any of the interrogatories
put to him by the commissioners. It was an old maxim of
' See Aubrey Moore's History ofthe Reformation. P

226 The Church of England
English law that " the thought of men shaU not be tried" ; and
as More refused to answer whether he denied the King's right
to the title of Supreme Head, it was difficult to condemn him.
He denied that any letters written by him to Fisher had
questioned the supremacy ; and when Rich, the Solicitor-
General, referred to a conversation held with himself in the
Tower, More denied in toto the accuracy of Rich's statement,
and appealed to the court as to whether he or Rich was the
more credible witness. His defence was of no avaU. The jury
found him guUty, under the Treasons Act, of high treason, for
denying the King's supremacy. AU was over, and More was
free to speak his mind to the company assembled in Westminster
HaU. He said that he had carefully studied the question, and
on his conscience he was convinced that no layman could be
head of the spirituality, that the papal claims were based
on Divine authority, and that Parliament had taken a step
fraught with e^vdl in breaking the unity of Christendom. He
was remanded to the Tower. On the Tower wharf a pathetic
scene was witnessed. Margaret Roper, his daughter, was there
to meet him. Pressing through the guard of soldiers, she em
braced her father, "divers times kissed him lovingly," and
received his blessing. On 6th July 1535 More was beheaded.
More His head was impaled on London Bridge, but his daughter
executed, finally secured and embalmed it. Tennyson, in his Dream of
Fair Women, has immortalised
" Her who clasped in her last trance
Her murdered father's head."
The execution of More and Fisher was a great crime, and
sent a thriU of horror throughout Europe. Fortunately for the
King, the Pope's temporal weapons were non-existent; whUe
the continued rivalry between Francis and Charles, and the
intemal tioubles in Charles's own dominions, put any action by
foreign powers out of the question. Henry revived his intrigues
with the Protestant States of Germany, but aU schemes for an
actual alliance broke down, since Henry would not accept as
a definition of the faith of the English Church the Augsburg
Confession, which Luther and Melanchthon had drawn up
in 1530. Thomas CromweU was now the chief man in the King's

Reformation under Henry VIII 227
councU. He had been made Secretary in 1334, and early in
1535 was appointed by the King Vicar-General, with a juris
diction superior — though he was a mere layman — to that of the
archbishop himself. CromweU proceeded to show the King
the method by which he could become the richest King in
Christendom. The revenues of the monasteries were marked
out as prey. CromweU was duected to hold a visitation of aU
monastic and collegiate bodies ; the way was prepared for their
dissolution by the issue to them of a series of injunctions so
stringent as to make obedience impossible, and calculated to
produce revolt or voluntary surrender. It is estimated that
the total number of monasteries and friaries ever founded in
England was something like 1200. But only half this number
remained to glut Henry VIII.'s appetite for spoU. Not only
had the foundation of fresh monasteries ceased — only eight were
created in the fifteenth century — but great numbers of these
houses had been already dissolved, and their revenues diverted
to the more useful purpose of education. Henry VIII. and
CromweU were not pioneers in this movement ; they merely
followed precedents set by such pious and orthodox churchmen
as Wykeham, Waynflete, Henry V., Henry VI. , Chichele, and
Wolsey. The reasons of monastic decay have been sketched in
a preceding chapter (see chap, xi, p. 183). They had, beyond
doubt, outlived their early usefulness. The visitation by Crom- visitation
weU and his deputies was chiefly conducted in the dosing °^j^°^"
months of 1335 and the January of 1536. The evidence against
the monasteries is to be found in the letters of CromweU's
underlings. Dr. Layton, Dr. Legh, and John ap Rice, to their
master, and various comperta, or abstracts of the result of their
investigations. There is good reason to believe that no such
work as a " Black Book," other than these comperta, was ever
laid before Parliament, if indeed Henry ever made anything
more than a statement. Thfe " Black Book " was a mere
invention of a later age. Now, if we were bound to believe the
evidence of these comperta, we should be forced to acknow
ledge that the monasteries and nunneries were hotbeds of
terrible vice and immorality. HappUy for the sake of human
nature, we are under no such compulsion. In every large
assemblage of men and women there are cases of immorality.
Among the many thousands of men and women living under
monastic vows, many instances of scandal were probably to be

22 8 The Church of England
found. But exceptions must not be taken as typical. Gasquet
quotes the apposite remark of Edmund Burke : " I rather suspect
that vices are feigned or exaggerated when profit is looked for in
the punishment. An enemy is a bad witness, and a robber is
a worse." If we approve this dictum, the evidence of CromweU
and his crew cannot be accepted ; they wanted the plunder,
and therefore faked the e'ddence. If they had been subjected
to a severe cross-examination, its worthlessness would have
soon been demonstrated ; the characters of Legh, Layton, and
Ap Rice would have discredited the best of causes. Charges of
unscrupulous violence, and avarice, and receiving of bribes can
be proved up to the hUt against them. Ap Rice even feared
garrotting from his feUow-commissioner, Legh. It is clear that
they revelled in unclean stories, and accepted as proven the
scandals for which they advertised. The e^vddence of such men
would not hang the proverbial cat. The speed with which they
conducted their visitation — e.g. they only spent six weeks in
visiting the diocese of Coventiy and Lichfield and the whole
province of York — makes it impossible that the work could
have been done with adequate care. But granted that all this
Was the is true, the existence of the monasteries is not justffied. They
fustUied ?" stand or faU on quite different grounds. Their work was done ;
their ideal was out of date ; they were no longer pioneers in
learning or agriculture ; there was nothing in their past history
to warrant the belief that they would ever have used their
wealth to provide a proper parochial system ; men were ceasing
to believe in masses which could rescue souls from purgatory,
and yet it was in consequence of this belief that most of their
lands had been given them by the kings and gentry of England.
To some people the confiscation of ecclesiastical property wiU
always seem sacrilege and robbery ; but such a view is reaUy
untenable and unstatesmanlike. The State has obviously a
legal right to confiscate property ; for " law " is simply the wiU
of the State. It may or may not have a moral right — that
depends on circumstances, and on the answer to the question
whether, in the highest sense of the term, it is to the common
weal that such confiscation should be carried out. In consider
ing whether the dissolution of the monasteries was justifiable,
the cardinal fact to be remembered is that the monasteries were
the centies of papalism. The friars had always been papal
j anissaries. The " exempt " monasteries — i.e. monasteries exempt

Reformation under Henry VIII 229
from episcopal visitation — had always leaned as against the
diocesan bishops to Rome. And the non-exempt monasteries
were almost equaUy papal in sympathy. The monastic orders
were essentiaUy international societies. The dissolution of the
monasteries stands or falls with the Reformation as a whole. If
a man believes in the Reformation, he must approve the dis
solution of the monasteries ; for the Reformation would not
have been able to maintain itself if the monasteries had
remained as so many centies for papal intiigue. The dissolution
was a great political necessity. It was so for a stUl further
reason. The grant of the monastic lands to the gentry created
a party interested on material grounds in the maintenance of
the Reformation settiement ; in Scotland, Germany, Sweden,
and elsewhere, the Reformation found simUar support in the
material interest created by the secularisation of church lands
in favour of lay rulers and lay owners ; in France also, 250 years
later, the stiongest guarantee against retm"n to the ancien
regime was found in the fact that the peasants had been put
in possession of the confiscated church lands. Von Ranke sums
up the situation in England when he says that " in the new
order of thuigs there was absolutely no more place for the
monastic system ; it was necessarily sacrfficed to the unity of
the countiy, and at the same time to the greed of the great men."
The reformers have been taunted with " robbing God's 'Was the
poor " in the dissolution of the monasteries ; and the work of thl^^use of
charity done by the monasteries has been contiasted with that pauperism?
done by the " awkward and imperfect agencies " of modern
times, such as the workhouses, burial-clubs, and hospitals. Few
enlightened Englishmen wiU agree with such a -view. It is
quite unfair to assign the dissolution of the monasteries as the
cause of the pauperism and vagabondage of Elizabeth's reign.
The pauperism and distress were due, for the most part, to
economic causes ; labour had been displaced by the conversion
of arable to pasture ; fewer men are required to manage a
sheep-run than to tUl the ground, and there were no manu
factures to absorb the displaced labour. That this was the
true cause of the distress is conclusively proved by Latimer's
sermons, by Wolsey's legislation, and by Sir Thomas More's
Utopia, which preceded in time the dissolution of the monasteries
and bore witness to the rifeness of these evUs. Besides, it is
recognised as a truism that the giving of pennies or indis-

230 The Church of England
crimmate charity is a fruitful mother of " tramps." A system
of promiscuous doles, such as was practised by the monasteries,
must have been a positive cause of pauperism. So the monas
teries were dissolved.
Seventh The Reformation Parliament met for its final session on 4th
sesswn, February 1536, and was only dissolved on 14th AprU 1536, after
passing two important Acts. Of these the first was the Statute
of Uses. Its aim was to prevent the severance of the actual
enjoyment of landed property from its nominal ownership. The
King did not like the separation of the two, as it rendered
the collection of feudal dues difficult. This statute is interest
ing, as it was only passed in this last session, after rejection
on several former occasions. As the King was very keen
for the statute to be passed, this proves that the Reforma
tion Parliament was not the altogether servUe body that
it has been sometimes represented as being. The second
Act for dis- was an Act dissolving the smaUer monasteries. The King
smaller" °^ made a statement to the Parliament, assuring it that the
monas- " accouuts of his late visitations " and other " sundry credible
informations " made it clear that in the smaUer monasteries
(«'.«. those with less than twelve inmates, and income less than
£200 per annum), " manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable
U'ving is daUy used." In obedience to the royal word. Parliament
enacted that aU such monasteries should be vested in the King, if
they had not alreadybeen suppressed, and that their inmates should
be distributed among the greater monasteries, " wherein (thanks
be to God) religion is right weU kept and observed." That the
Larger King's motive was not disinterested regard for religion is proved
teries sup- ^^ ^^® ^^^^ *^^^ within the following four years aU monasteries, ^
pressed, even those in which according to his own account religion was
right weU kept, were suppressed. Rules impossible to observe
were imposed on the reluctant monks ; if they did not volun
tarUy surrender, threats and intimidation, attainder and treason,
torture and death, were pressed into the royal service, tiU finaUy
in the year 1539 aU monastic property was vested in the King ;
with the surrender of Waltham Abbey in 1540 the work was
completed. The dissolution of the monasteries was a necessary
step, but it was carried out by the execrable methods which
with Henry had now become usual, and was accompanied by
the wanton destiuction of buUdings and artistic tieasures. If
the monasteries had to be suppressed, common justice required

Reformation under Henry VIII 231
that some jf the wealth so acquired should have been devoted
to the provision of a proper parochial system. Much of the
monastic wealth came from the tithe, which in the preceding
centuries had been filched away from the parishes and appro
priated by the religious houses. Education, too, had its claims ;
Henry might have foUowed pious predecessors who had diverted Use made
monastic wealth to the foundation of schools and colleges. But ^^eSI'uh.''"'"
though six new bishoprics, Westminster,^ Oxford, Chester,
Gloucester, Bristol, Peterborough, were endowed from part of
the spoU, nothing else was done for religion. Some of the
monks, if they showed themselves compUant, were rewarded with
pensions ; a considerable portion of the wealth was spent on the
navy and coast defences ; the remainder was devoted to the greed
of the King and CromweU and his sateUites, and to the endowment
of new famiUes such as the Cavendishes and the RusseUs.*
But we have anticipatedevents. Before the Reformation Parlia- Death of
ment had met for its final session the sorely Ul-used lady, Catherine of^Aragon,
of Aragon, had died (7th January 1536). Henry and Anne ^536-
Boleyn celebrated the auspicious event by appearing the next
night at a dance clad in yellow from head to foot. But a stUl
more sombre tiagedy was imminent. Henry was already tired
of Anne Bolejm. She had faUed to bear him a male chUd, and
people were horrffied to learn on 2nd May 1536 that the Queen
had been arrested on horrible charges of adultery and incest.
She was tried by a court of peers, over which her own uncle Anne
the Duke of Norfolk presided as Lord High Steward, found tehSded.
guUty, and beheaded to the joy of the people on the 19th May.
It is painful to write that Cranmer two days previously, after
holding an inquiry, discovered that Henry had never been reaUy
married to Anne Boleyn at aU. The ground of his decision was
never published. It may have been Anne's pre-contract of
marriage with the Earl of Northumberland, or it may have been
Henry's "liaison " with Anne's sister in former years. Ten days
later Henry took his third wife, Jane Seymour. But in religious
matters he had set a pace too quick for some of his subjects
in the north of England. Towards the end of 1536 his
throne for a time positively reeled. A serious rising, known
as the PUgrimage of Grace, took place in the north of England. Pilgrimage
The movement started in Lincolnshire, and spread to_ York- °^^l^''^'
' There was only one Bishop of Westminster : the see then lapsed.
' It is a mistake to suppose that most of the monastic lands were granted as
free presents. They were in most cases given for a consideration.

232 The Church of England
shire, where it found an able leader in Robert Aske. The whole
county rose in arms ; with the five wounds of Christ as their
badge, they assembled in a tumultuous host. Their grievances
were partly social and political ; the Statute of Uses had made
it impossible to provide as of old for younger sons ; evictions
in the course of enclosure helped to sweU the ranks of dis
content" the demands of the tax-gatherers were oppressive.
But the grievances were mostly religious ; the northerners lived
in a more piimitive social state than the southerners, and they
clamoured for a restoration of the dismantled monasteries ;
they demanded the rehabUitation of the old faith and the papal
authority ; anti-Roman bishops, they cried, ought to be punished
with fire or such like, and the councU purged of vUlein blood.
This was intended as a hit at CromweU. The rioters professed
loyalty to the Crown, and only aimed at relieving the King of
evil councillors. But the movement was exceedingly dangerous,
and might easUy have spread over the whole north of Eng
land, and if backed, as seemed probable, by foreign aid might
have overthrown the Tudor dynasty. Henry in the most lordly
way might talk of " the rude commons of one shire, and
that one of the most brute and beastly in the whole realm,"
but his envoys, such as Norfolk, felt it necessary to temporise
tUl they could assemble the levies of the more loyal counties.
Norfolk promised pardon and the redress of grievances, and
Aske was induced to go south to see Henry. But a fresh out
break gave the Government an excuse for not fulfiUing its
promises ; numberless executions followed, and the moors of
Yorkshire were drenched with the blood of the victims. Among
those who perished were Aske himself, and many of the abbots
of the great northern houses, such as JervaiUx and Furness
and Hexham, which had helped the movement. The abbey
lands escheated under the treason laws, and the abbeys were
dissolved. Henry had still ten years to live ; and those ten years were
a veritable reign of terror ; all kinds of people, Protestant and
Papalist, were put to death. But the chief fury of the storm
feU on the great people who, one way and another, crossed
Henry's path — " feriuntque summos fulgma montes," said
Horace long ago. It is beyond the purpose of this book to trace
in detaU the course of events. The personal history of the King
and his entourage during these ten years wUl be briefly sketched

Reformation under Henry VIII 233
— they are only of importance for their influence on the larger
issues — and then the changes in doctrine and religious formularies
wiU be indicated.
In 1536 a third Succession Act was passed by Parliament, Third Sue
settimg the crown on the issue of Jane Seymour. Her influence ^^^\^'°°
was cast on the reforming side. The Princess Mary, when under
compulsion she had confessed herself a bastard and the union
of her mother with Henry incestuous, was given by the King
more favourable tieatment. On 12th October 1537, Jane
Seymour, to the King's delight, gave birth to a son, the future
Edward VI. Unfortunately the mother only survived the birth
of her chUd for twelve days. For more than two years Henry
now remained a bachelor ! The year 1538 was marked by the
execution of Henry Courtenay Marquis of Exeter, a grandson
of Edward IV., and Henry Pole Lord Montague, a grandson
of George Duke of Clarence, Edward IV.'s brother. Both these
noblemen might have been claimants to the throne, and were
possible alternatives to the members of the Tudor dynasty.
The aged Countess of Salisbury, mother of the Poles, was im
prisoned and executed in 1341. Against the Poles Henry had
a special grievance in the person of Cardinal Pole, the other son
of the Countess. Reginald Pole was a cultivated and refined
person, who had steeped himself in Italian humanism. He was
hinjself an advocate of ecclesiastical reform and had approxi-
'mated in his doctrinal beliefs to Luther ; but he was a con
vinced believer in the Divine right of the papacy and the
ecclesiastical unity of the Church. He had found in Henry VIII.
a generous patron, and was bound by many ties of gratitude
and friendship to the King. But Pole was a man of profound
convictions, straight and honourable in his Ufe. Henry had
wished him to write in support of the divorce from Catherine,
and of the religious settlement effected in England But Pole
was too sincere and upright to do a thing of which his conscience
disapproved. On the contrary, he wrote a work, De unitate
ecclesia, in which he denounced the action of the King in no
measured terms ; and he accepted a cardinal's hat from Paul III.
Henry was furious, and as he could not lay hands on Reginald
Pole himself — for Pole wisely refused to retum to England —
he wreaked his vengeance on his innocent relations.
In 1540 Henry married his fourth wife Anne of Cleves.
This marriage was the work of Thomas CromweU, and was the

2 34 '^^^ Church of England
last expiring effort of Cromwell to retam his power. PoliticaUy,
the marriage meant a rapprochement with the Smalcaldic
League, or league of Protestant German princes. But Henry
never found Protestants pleasant " bed-feUows " ; he remained
to his death a Romanist in doctrme ; and, in any event, he
was determined to maintain the ecclesiastical independence of
England against German Protestants no less than against the
Pope. Henry had never seen Anne of Cleves when he was
betiothed to her. Unfortunately he found that the lady had
neither the beauty nor the wit with which she had been
credited ; she was a mere " Flanders mare," and though the
King went through a form of marriage with her, he quickly
discovered that it was no real marriage at all. On the grounds
of a pre-contract and the want of real consent of the parties,
the marriage was declared nuU on Gardiner's initiative by the
two Convocations, and the nuUity was confirmed by an Act
of Parliament. The lucky lady was pensioned off. Mean
while the party of reaction had triumphed, and Cromwell was
arrested on the charge of treason. An Act of attainder was
CromweU passed against him, and he was beheaded (29th July 1540). He
executed, ^^^g condemned unheard, but he had done the same to others ;
in his humUiation and execution he deserved and gained no
pity- Before the year 1540 closed Henry married his fifth wife,
another niece of the Duke of Norfolk — Catherine Howard.
It was a further sign that the reactionary party was in the
ascendant. But in r54i this miserable lady was discovered to
be an adulteress, and on that ground was attamted of high
treason by Parliament, and executed (13th February 1542). In
1543 the King married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr.
The King was now an invalid ; the lady nursed him, and had
Fourth the luck to survive her husband. In 1544 a fourth Succession
Act,°^iS44" "^^^ ^^ passed. By this Act the cro-wn was settled first on
Edward and his issue, secondly on Mary and her issue, thirdly
on Elizabeth emd her issue, whUe the King was authorised to
make further provision by wiU in case of the faUure of these
lives. Henry made use of this authorisation to disinherit the
issue of his elder sister Margaret, and prefer before them the
issue of his younger sister Mary.
In 1546 the Duke of Norfolk and his poet son, Surrey, were
imprisoned on a charge of tieason and condemned. Surrey

Reformation under Henry VIII 235
was executed, but, fortunately for Norfolk, Henry died the Death of
night before his intended execution, and the sentence was not 15^"'''
carried out. Henry VIII. had been gathered to his fathers,
and his son Edward reigned in his stead.
The changes in religious faith and formularies remain to be Religious
noticed. ^^Z:
I. Of these, the most memorable by far was the issuing
of an English Bible. The " open Bible " is the greatest of all
the services rendered to our race by the reformers ; its simple
idiom, its strong clear English have passed into our household
talk, and fixed the standard of our language. But it did more
than this. Breaking down the middle waU of partition that
had been raised by the mediseval Church, it once more brought
God down from heaven to earth, and enabled aU men of good
wUl to approach God himself. On the imperishable canvas of
the gospel narrative men could see once more Jesus Christ as
He actuaUy Uved and spoke to men. They could gauge the
extent to which the Catholic Church had departed from primitive
Christianity. Our English Bible, unlike any other vernacular
version of the Scripture, has also, in the words of Bishop
Westcott, the seal of martyrdom upon it. Of those to whom
we owe it, Tyndale, Rogers, and Cranmer died triumphant deaths,
martyrs to the faith. Coverdale barely escaped the same doom.
The history of the Bible in Henry's reign must be briefly traced.
In the Middle Ages various parts of the Scripture — e.g. the Psalter
— had been translated into English, but it is almost certain that
the only English issue of the whole Bible was the Wycliffite
version, which, in spite of proscription, survived in some 170
copies. Tyndale's New Testament (1526) was the first printed (i) "Tyn-
edition of the English New Testament. It was an epoch- Testament
making work, based on knowledge of the original Greek. Before
his death Tyndale had also translated the Pentateuch, the
books of the Old Testament which foUow the Pentateuch to
the end of 2nd Chronicles, and the book of Jonah. AU these
tianslations were based on knowledge of the original Hebrew.
They were printed abroad, but were smuggled into England;
they were proscribed, and, where possible, bought up by the
EngUsh Government, and burnt in public bonfires. But the
money thus received enabled Tyndale to bring out successive
and improved editions. His work was substantiaUy incor
porated in our Authorised Version. " Not only," says Bishop

(2) Cover-
dale's Bible.

(3)
Matthews'
Bible.

236 The Church of England
Westcott, " did Tyndale contribute to it directiy the substantial
basis of half of the Old Testament, and of the whole of the
New, but he established a standard of biblical tianslation
which others followed." He shocked ecclesiastical prejudices
in England by translating rrpca-^vTepoi, " elder," instead of
" priest " ; eKKXrjo-la, " congregation," instead of " church " ;
[jKTavoetv, to " repent," instead of to " do penance." But it is
lamentable to find a learned modern Anglican writer ^ regarding
such translations as " a mischievous perversion of those (i.e.
the sacred) writings, intended to advance heretical opinions."
He might as weU maintain that to caU " white " white, or
" black " black, is a mischievous perversion of the tiuth.
T3mdale's translations are absolutely correct, and are those
adopted by modern scholarship. If " orthodoxy " could only
be bolstered up by the support of incorrect translations, so
much the worse was it for " orthodoxy." The sooner it should
faU, the better woiUd it be for aU concemed. T}mdale was a
Gloucestershire man. From early youth he had set before
himself the translation of the Scriptures as his~life's single aim.
" I defy the Pope and aU his laws," he cried to a learned man.
" If God spare my life, ere many years I wUl cause a boy that
driveth the plough shaU know more of the Scripture than thou
dost." But to print the Scriptures in England was impossible.
Tyndale was compelled to take refuge on the Continent ; from
Cologne he had to take a hurried fiight, with the printed sheets
he could secure, to Worms; and there his New Testament was
published. FinaUy he crowned a life of hunger, thirst, cold,
and other forms of privation with a martyr's death at the
stake in Belgium (1536).
2. Coverdale's Bible (1535) was the first English Bible of
which the sale was permitted by the English Government.
Its second edition in r537 was actuaUy authorised by the King.
But Coverdale's Bible was not based on knowledge of the
original Greek and Hebrew. It was simply a translation from
the Bibles of the German reformers Luther and Zwingli, the
Vulgate, and other current Latin versions. It was only intended
to fUl the gap tUl a more authentic translation from the Greek
and Hebrew could secure royal authorisation.
3. Matthews' Bible was published in 1537. This Bible was
the work of the Marian martyr, John Rogers, who took the
1 Gairdner's History ofthe English Church in the Sixtetnth Century, p. 190.

Reformation under Henry VIII 237
pseudonym of Thomas Matthews. It was not, however, a new
translation at all. The New Testament and the whole of the
Old Testament tiU the end of 2nd Chronicles were little more
than a reprint from Tyndale, whUe the remainder was taken,
with some changes, from Coverdale's version.
4. The re^vision of Matthews' Bible, known as the Great or (4) Great oi
Cranmer's Bible (1538), received royal authorisation. Crom- bJ^i"™^"^^
weU's injunctions of 1538 ordered this Bible to be set up in
every parish church, that Bible-reading might be encouraged.
Thus, by a curious turn of fortune's wheel, the proscribed
version of Tyndale, which had supplied fuel for so many
licensed bonfires, was sent forth by royal authorisation to do
its work among countless English homes. Tyndale's prophecy
had been fulfiUed. A contemporary narrative lets us see the
eagerness with which men clustered round the parish Bible,
and heard it read by one of their number.
5. Next in importance to the publication of the English Bible (s) The
was the publication (1545) of our English Litany, in a primer 1545?'^'
or manual of private prayers. This Litany was substantiaUy
the same as our present Litany, though it included invocations
of the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, patriarchs, apostles,
martyrs, &c., and one of its suffrages ran, " From all sedition
and pri^vy conspiracy, from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome
and aU his detestable enormities, from aU false doctrine and
heresy, from hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy word
and commandment, good Lord, deliver us." This Litany was
Cranmer's composition, and is perhaps the most beautifiU
work in the whole range of devotional literature, giving utter
ance in the simplest yet sublimest language to the spiritual
cravings of the human soul. The one unfortunate suffrage
about the Pope, out of place in a prayer which moves on such
a lofty plane, was omitted in the revision of the Prayer-Book
in 1559- The other reUgious formularies issued in Henry VIII.'s
reign are in themselves of no permanent importance, but
reveal the religious attitude of the King in the successive stages
of his career.
6. The Ten Articles of 1536 were the work of the King, (6) The
approved by Convocation. They marked an important advance Arfdes.
by drawing a distinction between articles of belief and practices
necessary to salvation on the one hand, and, on the other hand.

238 The Church of England
those which are not necessary, however laudable. This reduc
tion of the faith by reference to first principles was a vital part
of the Reformation. The Roman Church was constantly increasing
the number of beliefs which it declared necessary to salvation.
The reformers rejected this practice, and insisted that many of
the Roman additions to the faith were false. The Ten Articles
declared the Bible, the three creeds, and the decisions of the first
four councUs the foundation of our faith. The three sacraments
of Baptism, Penance, and the Altar were declared necessary.
But whUe the doctrine of the Real Presence was insisted on,
the Roman theory of Transubstantiation^ was not asserted.
The doctrine of Justffication was enunciated in the words
of Melanchthon the Lutheran reformer, but the necessity of
good works was proclaimed The superstitious worshipping of
images was condemned ; saints were to be honoured, and their
prayers were to be asked for, but men were not to think " that
any saint is more merciful or wUl hear us sooner than Christ,
or that any saint doth serve for one thing more than another,
or is patron of the same." Rites and ceremonies were declared
to have no power to remit sin ; though prayer for the departed
was to be continued, the limits of our knowledge about the
future state were pointed out, and masses were declared to
have no power of delivering souls from purgatory.
(7)injunc- 7. The injunctions of CromweU, as Vicar-General, in 1536
1536.°^ foUowed on the same lines. The clergy were, in then sermons,
to denounce the Bishop of Rome's usurped power, which was
now abolished, and to explain the Ten Articles, " which be neces
sary for salvation, which do only concern the decent and politic
order of the . . . Church " ; they were to announce the aboli
tion of certain holy days by Convocation ; they were forbidden
to encourage pUgrimages, and to extol any images, relics, or
miracles for superstition or lucre, for " all goodness, health,
and grace ought to be asked and looked for only of God, and
of none other " ; they were to teach that charity is better than
gifts to images and relics, and that the exercise of a man's
occupation and providing for his famUy please God more than
pUgrimages. The clergy were to see that aU people were taught
in English the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Command
ments, and to provide, according to their incomes, for the educa
tion of scholars. FinaUy, it was ordered that a Bible in Latin
^ See Appendix II.

Reformation under Henry VIII 239
and English for all to read should be placed in every parish
church. 8. The Institution of a Christian Man, or " Bishops' Book," (g) The
was drawn up by a committee of bishops, and published in gooj^'''
1537. The King professed that he had no time to study it,
but had such trust in his bishops that he authorised its use
for three years. The book incorporated the doctrine, and in
many places the language, of the Ten Articles. It contained
an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, the sacraments (retaining
the pre-eminence of Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist), the
Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, Justi
fication, and Purgatory. It represented neither doctrinal
advance nor doctiinal reaction.
Meanwhile the various editions of the Bible described above Destruction
had been circulated. In 1538 orders were issued for the destruc- °nd''""^*
tion of shrines and superstitious images. The famous rood of images.
Boxley, with the wires, &c., by which the priests had made
the figure on the cross close and open its eyes, and so deluded
the superstitious, was exposed to the eyes of scoffing mobs in
Maidstone and London ; the Holy Blood of HaUes (supposed
to be our Lord's blood), was turned to ridicule ; DarveU
Gadarn, a monster image from North Wales, and a great object
of pUgrimage (for it was supposed to be endowed with power
to deliver souls from heU), was taken to London and used as
fuel for the burning of a papist. Most notable of all, Becket's
magnfficent shrine at Canterbury was dismantled. Cartloads of
gold and sUver and precious stones were taken thence for the
King's use. The saint's bones were burnt ; orders were issued
for the erasion of his name from the service books and the
destiuction of his figure in paintings and stone. Becket had
been the protagonist of papal claims and clerical immunities
against the State, and therefore Henry pursued his memory
with vindictive hate, and reveUed in the desecration of his bones
and shrine. The scourging of Henry II. before Becket's tomb
was avenged by Henry VIII.
9. CromweU's injunctions of 1538 marked no doctrinal advance (9) injunc-
on those of 1536. The Great Bible was to be set up in every j™8°_°
parish church, and Bible-reading was to be encouraged ;
gospel sermons were to be preached ; trust in pUgrimages,
candles, images, relics, beads, &c., was to be deprecated as
superstitious ; such images as were the cause of superstition

240 The Church of England
were to be removed; for images were merely remembrances
of saints, and at best served for no other purpose than to be
" books of unlearned men."
Cross- Through the last eight years of Henry's reign it is not possible
currents. ^0 trace any unity of principle. On the whole, they were years
of reaction. But cross-currents were constantly meetmg and
struggling for mastery. On the one hand, the marriage with
Anne of Cleves, the rapprochement both in 1538 and 1544 with
the Lutheran princes, the faUure to enforce rigidly the Act of
the Six Articles, mark a reforming current ; while, on the other
hand, the overthrow of CromweU, the marriage with Catherine
Howard, the Six Articles, and the plots against Cranmer show
the power of reactionary influences. Speaking generaUy, we
may say that the official religion was popery without the Pope :
if papists were sent to the block for denying the royal supre
macy, so were Anne Askew, the wife of a Lincolnshire squire,
and others for holding Protestant doctrine.
(to) Act 10. The Act of Six Articles (1539), known by Protestants as
5^fides " *^® bloody whip with six strings," was intioduced into Parlia-
IS39- ' ment by Norfolk. But the King's presence was necessary to
secure its enactment. The preamble to the Act declares that
the King " vouchsafed in his own princely person to descend
and come into his said High Court of Parliament, and there,
like a prince of most high prudence and no less learning, opened
and declared many things of high learning and great know
ledge." It would seem that pearls always dropped from the
King's mouth when he spoke ! The Act of the Six Articles
represented the complete triumph of the imreformed views.
Transubstantiation was affirmed ; communion in both kinds was
declared unnecessary ; the celibacy of the clergy, the perpetual
nature of vows of chastity, private masses, auricular confession,
were aU declared to be necessary ; tiansgressions against the
Act, or maintenance of any contrary views, were to be punished,
in the last resort, with the penalties of tieason or felony : com
missioners were to be appointed to hunt out heretics and here
tical books. This ghastly Act, the work not of Convocation,
but of Parliament, was luckUy not put into fuU operation for
more than one year. After 1540 its provisions were generaUy
allowed to lie dormant.
(11) "The JJ -pjjg Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian
Book. 1543. Af aw (1343), niore generaUy known as "The King's Book,"

Reformation under Henry VIII 241
was a revision of "The Bishops' Book" of 1537 in a reactionary
direction, and was approved by Convocation. It contamed a
new article on Faith, an exposition of the Creed, the seven sacra
ments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave
Maria, and four articles on Free WUl, Justffication, Good Works,
and Prayers for the Departed. Its doctrinal standpoint was the
same as the Act of the Six Articles.
These closing years of Henry VIII.'s reign must have been
an uncomfortable time for Cranmer. Cranmer's sympathies
were with Protestant views ; but after the passing of the Act
of the Six Articles, to comply with its provisions, he had found
it necessary to put away his wife ; Latimer and Shaxton, the
Protestant Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury, had been com
peUed to resign their sees, and Cranmer was left almost alone
to stem the advancing tide of reaction. Many plots were Plots
hatched under the encouragement of Gardiner, the reactionary cranmer.
Bishop of Winchester, to secure his downfall. But Henry was
loyal to the friend who had served him so faithfully. When
the gentiy of Kent and the prebendaries of Canterbury made
formal complaint of Cranmer's preaching and the " enormities
of religion " current in Kent, Henry appointed Cranmer him
self as head of the commission to inquire into its truth !
But the most formidable of all the plots against Cranmer
was framed in 1545. His enemies actuaUy thought that they
had secured his downfaU when the councU was empowered by
the King to send him to the Tower. But either Henry repented,
or else he had intended aU along to humUiate Cranmer's enemies ;
for the same night he sent for Cranmer, and gave him the ring
which symbolised that the King had revoked the matter in
question to his own personal audience. The foUowing day
Cranmer was summoned before the councU, and subjected to
the Uidignity of waiting, before admission, for half-an-hour
among the servants. But when admitted and charged ¦with
heresy, Cranmer, to the disgust of his enemies, produced the
royal ring. Henry summoned the councU before him, and
rated them soundly for their rudeness to the archbishop, and
declared him " as faithful a man towards me as ever was prelate
in this realm." Cranmer's enemies had to retire crestfallen.
As the King lay on his deathbed in 1547, he sent for Cranmer,
and when he was no longer able to speak, pressed his hand as a
sign of his trust in the mercy of Christ. O

242 The Church of England

APPENDIX II
SACRAMENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY
COMMUNION
I. The Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation was given its
final definition by the CouncU of Trent ui 1563. The theory
had established itself in the thirteenth century. It was not
held in the early ages of the Church, and therefore to declare
it " catholic " is bad history. It is also part of a relatively
obsolete phUosophy (that of the schoolmen). The schoolmen,
pressing into the service of the Church the Aristotelian phUo
sophy, drew a distinction between the substantia, or
" essence," of a thing and its " accidents." According to the
Roman theory, the " accidents " of the .bread and wine (i.e.
their feeling to the touch and their appearance to the eye, &c.),
remain the same after the prayer of consecration, while the
substantia, or " essence," is changed to the Body and Blood
of Christ. The whole doctrine as formulated in the Catechism
of the CouncU of Trent is grossly materialistic.
2. The Lutherans maintained the view of Consubstantiation,
i.e. whUe maintaining that the bread and wine remained in
their natural substance after the consecration, they asserted
that the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ co-existed
with them.
3. Zwingli, the Swiss reformer of Zurich, reduced the Holy
Communion to a rite simply commemorative of Christ's death.
4. Calvin held that the central idea of " substance " was
not " extension in space," but " power," and that the substance
of a thing was present in whatever place that thing acted or
made its power felt. Cal^vin therefore declared himself a be
liever in a real presence in the sense that our Lord's body and
blood made their power felt in the sacrament. His ¦view was
substantiaUy adopted by the Church of Scotland. He would
have approved of the description given in the English Article (§ 25)
of sacraments as " effectual " signs.
5. The view taken by the Church of England concerning

Reformation under Henry VIII 243
the Sacrament of Holy Communion is this. She has explicitly
rejected the doctrine of Transubstantiation (Article 28) as
"repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," and giving rise
to many superstitions. She has implicitly (but not explicitly)
rejected the so-caUed Zwinglian view which reduces the sacra
ment to a merely commemorative rite. Within these external
hmits she allows a considerable latitude of belief. Many
Anglicans maintain the belief in a " real presence." In its medi
seval origin this term meant the presence of the " res," and no
doubt involved a materialistic view of the sacrament. But any
materialistic view of the sacrament is clearly incompatible with
the formularies of the Church of England. The expression " real
presence " is, however, used by some loyal Anglicans to connote
a spiritual presence, and in this sense the phrase may well be
used. Thus Jeremy Taylor wrote, " that after the minister of
the holy mysteries hath . . . consecrated the bread and wine,
the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ,
after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual real manner "
(Works, ix. 424) ; and again, " We say that Christ's body is in
the sacrament reaUy but spirituaUy ... by ' spirituaUy ' we
mean ' present to our spirits only ' " (Works, ix. 428) ; and Hooker
wrote (Eccles. Pol., v. 67), " The real presence of Christ's most
blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the
sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament."
The authoritative teaching of the Church of England must,
however, be taken from her own formularies. In these she
affirmatively lays down —
(a) That there is a presence of Christ in the ordinance to
the worthy receiver. " To such as rightly, worthily, and with
faith receive . . . the Bread which we break is a partaking of
the Body of Christ" (Article 28). "The Body and Blood of
Christ are verUy and indeed taken and received by the faithfiU
in the Lord's Supper " (Catechism).
(b) That the wicked partakers of the sacrament in no wise
are the partakers of Christ (Article 29).
(c) That the presence of Christ to the worthy receiver is
spiritual. " The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten m
the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." " The
mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the
Supper is Faith" (Article 28).
The Church of England may be said to retain the doctrine

244 '^^^ Church of England
of a real presence. But the real presence taught by her is of
a spiritual nature, and something quite distinct from a corporal
presence or Transubstantiation. The most real things in hfe
are spiritual, not material.
To maintain a real presence is only incompatible with the
formularies of the Church if a presence other than spiritual is
intended.

APPENDIX III
SYNOPSIS OF THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION
PARLIAMENT

[The critical sessions of Parliament are asterisked]
Parliament

First Session
3rd Nov. — 17th Dec. 1529
I. Probate Act.
2. Mortuaries Act.
3. Pluralities Act.
4. Act to limit trading by spiritual
persons and corporations.

Second Session
16th Jan. — 31st March 1531

Extra-Parliamentary — chiefly
Convocation
1530. Universities consulted re
divorce.
Oxford and Cambridge give
guarded reply in favour.
Paris and Bologna give guarded
reply in favour.
Convocation Index expttrgatorius
of the works of Wycliffe,
Luther, Zwingli, Fish, and
Tyndale, drawn up.
29th Nov. Death of Wolsey.

Convocation, 1531.
Clergy threatened under Pras-
munire, pardoned —
a. On payment of ^100,044,
8s. 8d. (Canterbury), and
;^i8,84o, OS. lod. (York) ;
b. On recognition of Henry as
Supreme Head "quantum
per legem Christi licet,"
Feb. II.

Reformation under
Parliament
?Third Session
15th Jan. — 14th May 1532
I. i8th March. Supplication against
the ordinaries, the legislative
power of Convocation, and
clerical abuses.
2. Act to limit Benefit of Clergy.
3. Annates Act : King empowered
to withhold them ^he thought
fit.

Henry VIII 245
-chiefly

Extra-Parliamentary- Convocation

iSth May 1532. Submission of
clergy in Convocation.
i6th May. More resigns chancel
lorship.
22nd Aug. Death of Warham.
Oct. Henry takes Anne Boleyn
in state to meet Francis at
Boulogne.
Jan. 1533. Henry marries Anne
Boleyn secretly.

Fourth Session
4th Feb. — 7th April 1533
Act in restraint of appeals.

?Fifth Session
15th Jan. — 30th March 1534
. Act of Submission of Clergy and
restraint of appeals.
a. Convocation made dependent
on Crown.
b. Revision of canon law.
c. Supreme appeal to King in
Chancery.

30th March 1533. Cranmer by
papal bull consecrated Arch
bishop.
23rd May 1533. Cranmer pro
nounces the King's marriage
with Catherine void.
1st June 1533. Anne Boleyn
crowned Queen.
nth July 1533. Clement VII.
declares Henry's marriage
with Anne Boleyn null.
7th Sept. 1533. Birth of Elizabeth.
7th Nov. 1533. Henry appeals to
a general council against the
Pope.
Scheme for alliance with a North
German Protestant League
fails.

23rd March 1534.
Clement declares Henry's mar
riage with Catherine valid.
Nun of Kent executed.
Sept. 1534. Deathof Clement VIL

246 The Church
Parliament
Fifth Session (continued)
2. Annates Act. No bulls from
Rome. CongJ d'^lire system.
3. Abolition of Peter's pence and
all payments to Rome.
4. First Act of Succession.

of England

Extra-Parliamentary — chiefly
Convocation
Fisher and More sent to Tower
for refusal to take oath required
by commissioners appointed
under First Act of Succession.
[Terms of oath not prescribed
by statute.]
Convocjition repudiates papal
power.

22nd June 1535. Fisher executed.

Sixth Session
3rd Nov. 1534— 4th Feb. 1535
I. Act of Supreme Head.
2. Act of Succession, with form of 6th July 1535. More executed.
oath annexed. j r\ ^ - . tt- -^ .• r
2nd Oct. 1535. Visitation of monas-
3. Verbal Treasons Act. teries begun.
4. Act annexing annates to Crown. 7th Jan. 1 536. Death of Catherine.

Seventh Session
4th Feb. 1536— 14th April 1536
Act dissolving lesser monasteries
(376 in all) with income less
than ;£20o per annum.

17th May 1536. Marriage of Anne
Boleyn with Henry declared
invalid.
19th May 1536. Anne Boleyn exe
cuted.

CHAPTER XIV
THE REIGN OF EDWARD VI. AND THE GROWTH OF
PROTESTANT INFLUENCES
The new King was a boy of nine years and precocious, but
not attiactive. Minorities are bad for any kingdom ; and
the minority of Edward VI. was no exception to the rule. The
reign was fiUl of intiigues. The close interconnexion of morality
with religion, coupled with the loosening of old religious beliefs,
may have been in part responsible for the actual result ; but,
whatever the cause, it is certainly true that with the exception
of the latter part of the seventeenth century, the morality of
public men has never faUen so low in England as it did in the
reign of Edward VI. Avarice and rapacity stalked abroad ;
even the tolerant and humane Somerset was conspicuous for
his avarice, whUe the very nadir of character was reached
by Northumberland. He was likened by a contemporary
writer to Alcibiades. The moral stature of the leading bishops,
whether of the Old or of the New Learning, was immeasurably
higher than that of the secular statesmen. Cranmer, for example,
was free from any taint of avarice ; in all he did he was dis
interested, and had no private axe of his own to grind.
The reign of Edward VI. was in no sense a unity ; it was Rule of
divided into two distinct halves by the faU of Somerset in ^omrasted
October 1349. Somerset's government was very different from with rule of
that of Northumberland. Somerset was mUd and tolerant ; berian™'
Northumberland was intolerant, unconstitutional, and tyrannical.
In the economic disturbances incident to the era of enclosures,
Somerset sympathised with the poor peasants; Northumber
land favoured the landlords. Somerset's rule was marked by
the moderate Protestantism of the first Book of Common Prayer,
Northumberland's by the more decided Protestantism of the
second Prayer-Book. But the difference between the religious
settlements of the two portions of the reign can be exaggerated.
The two Prayer-Books represent the different phases through
which the minds of Cranmer and many other Englishmen passed.
247

Features in
religious
history of
reign —
(i) pre
dominance of secular
power.

(2) Use of
Englishtongue.

248 The Church of England
To them the second must have presented itself as the logical
outcome from the first Prayer-Book. The first Prayer-Book
marked a more pronounced separation from the past than the
second Prayer-Book did from the first.
In the religious history of the reign three features have
speciaUy to be noticed. In the first place, the predominant
part taken by the secular power — that is to say, by the King,
CouncU, and Parliament — must be emphasised. The claims
advanced under the cover of the royal supremacy reached high-
water mark. The bishops, by command of the CouncU, had to
take out new licences for the exercise of their ecclesiastical
jurisdiction (1547) ; the writs of the ecclesiastical court were
henceforth to run m the King's name, and the form of episcopal
election by the chapters (congi d'elire) was abolished by Act of
ParUament (1347) . Appointment by letters patent was substituted.
Royal injunctions and Acts of Parliament fixed rites and cere
monies. The general policy of the Government was to discredit and
supersede the recognised convocations of the Church, and to
employ merely the services of " godly and learned men." The
Government then proceeded to enact on its own authority.
This method of reforming the Church had long ago been urged
by Wycliffe, and however indefensible it may seem in theory,
we must remember (a) that even in Roman Catholic countries
the pressure and influence of the secular power on the Church
was at this time immense, (6) that the Reformation in England
could not have been effected in any other way, (c) that the con
vocations simply represented the clergy, and not the laity.
Secondly, the increasing use of the vernacular English in
the public services of the Church must be noticed. There are
those who would almost have us believe that the services when
rendered in Latin were understood by the people, and ceased
to be understood when translated into English. To maintain
or indirectly suggest such a view is the veriest paradox. The
Cornishmen who rose in revolt against the new Prayer-Book
(1549) because they regarded it as " but a Christmas game,"
and understood no English,^ were exceptional. To the average
Englishman the gain of bemg able to approach God in his own
tongue, and not through the tomb of a dead language, was
priceless. The Book of Common Prayer is written in English
at its best and highest; its simple and majestic diction has
* They were 'Welsh, as the name " Corn-wall " itself shows.

The Reign of Edward VI 249
won the affections and become the devotional language of
coimtless Englishmen, both within and without the estab
lished Church. Thirdly, the growth of Protestant influences (3) Growth
and the removal from our faith of mediaeval accretions must be °anUnflu-
traced. ences.
Edward VI. succeeded to the throne on 28th January 1547 ;
but as he was a minor, power fell into the hands of his uncle, the
Duke of Somerset, and the CouncU. Parliament did not meet for
its first session before 4th November 1547. But the inter
vening months had already shown the religious policy of the
new Govemment. Gardiner, the reactionary Bishop of Win
chester, had been excluded by Henry VIII. from the body of
executors appointed to administer the kingdom during the
young King's minority. These executors were formed into the
new Privy CouncU, which was soon purged of all reactionary
elements. The bishops were compeUed to take out new licences
for the exercise of their jurisdictions. A royal proclamation
authorised a book of homUies — mainly the work of Cranmer
— ^which were to be read publicly as sermons. By the same
authority it was ordered that a tianslation of Erasmus' Para
phrase should be set up in every parish church. A royal visita
tion was announced, and injunctions modelled on those of
Cromwell were sent out. These injunctions denounced all Royal in-
images which were the cause of superstition ; but even before J™<^"°"^-
their issue unauthorised attacks on images had commenced.
The chief innovation in the injunctions was an order that the
Gospel and Epistie in the Mass should be read in English. The
leaders of the reactionary party, Bishop Gardiner and Bonner,
Bishop of London, opposed the issue of injunctions on the
ground that no religious changes ought to be carried out during
the King's minority, and that, as a matter of fact, they were
illegal, since they contravened the religious laws enacted by
Parliament during the latter years of Henry VIII. But what
ever we may think of the wisdom of the policy, it cannot be
constitutionaUy maintained that the royal power is in abeyance
during a minority ; and the issue of the injunctions by the
Go^vernment was clearly covered by the Act of Proclamations
(1339) and by the Act of Supremacy.
Gardiner and Bonner, for their opposition, were committed
temporarily to prison.
In November 1347 both Convocation and Parliament met.

250 The Church of England
Convoca- The clergy in the Lower House of Convocation presented to the
1547.° bishops some interesting petitions. They urged that a re^vision
of the canon law should be once more authorised by Parlia
ment ; they petitioned that representatives of the minor clergy
should, in accordance with the ancient writ, be admitted to the
Lower House of Parliament, and that the work of the committee
on church services should be presented to them. In this last
petition they probably referred to Cranmer's two schemes, which
are stUl extant, for a reformed Breviary. These petitions had
no immediate result. But on the 2nd December 1547 Con
vocation came unanimously to the important decision that
Com- communion should be administered to the laity in both kinds ;
both khids ^^^ resolution rendered necessary the issue of a new communion
authorised, office, to which Convocation in anticipation gave its approval.
Marriage of Convocation also resolved that the marriage of the clergy ought
c efgy- to be legaUsed. Parliament in its first session (4th November to
24th December 1547) passed a number of important measures.
Not only did it repeal the various treason laws of Henry VIIL,
the Statute of Proclamations, the Six Articles Act, and all the
heresy laws, but it enacted various religious laws of its own.
A statute was passed against revUers of the sacrament and
for receiving in both kinds; provision was made for abolish-
Dissoiution ing the congi d'Hire system. A Chantries Act dissolved aU
trie?^"' existing chantries, and vested their property in the Crown.
Since masses for the dead were no longer regarded as useful,
the abolition of " perpetual foundations " for this purpose
logicaUy followed. The avowed purpose of the Act was the
founding of grammar schools and the advancement of leaming.
This was indeed a worthy object, since many of the chantry
priests were incidentaUy schoolmasters, but the temptation
was too great for the rapacity of Edward's courtiers. The
wealth of the chantries found its way into their expansive
pockets, and though some few grammar schools (called by
" Edward VI. 's " name) and hospitals (e.g. those of St. Thomas
and St. Bartholomew) were endowed from the proceeds, Edward
ought rather to be known as a destroyer than as a founder of
schools. During 1548 the work of destraction and reformation
proceeded apace. January witnessed the issue of various pro
clamations by the CouncU. The observance of Lent was ordered
because it was good for the fisheries ! The use of holy water,
of ashes on Ash Wednesday, of candles on Candlemas Day,

The Reign of Edward VI 251
of palms on Palm Sunday, and the Good Friday service known
as " creeping to the Cross," were prohibited. Since it had been
found impossible to distinguish between those images which
were and those which were not superstitiously used, and since
church brawls had in consequence been the result, the destruc- Destmo'
tion of all images without distinction was ordered (February). Jj^ages.
A contiivance simUar to that of the rood of Boxley had already
in November 1547 been exposed to the derision of the London
mob and broken in pieces. It was an image of our Lord in
His sepulchre which by means of mechanism was made to lift
its legs out of the sepulchre and give a blessing with its hand.
Other images were now broken in pieces. It is a matter for
profound regret that treasures of art in stone and painted
windows were thus destioyed. But who can say that the
price paid for the Reformation was too great ? Part of the
blame must lie with the obscurantists, who had made these
precious works of art the fortresses of superstition. When
passions and con^victions are at white heat, ugly things too
often happen.
In accordance with the resolution of Convocation, and to New order
satisfy the Act of Parliament, a new order of communion was dunton
published by proclamation on 8th March 1348. Cranmer had 1548.
felt his way by a series of interrogatories addressed to the
bishops ; he was anxious to carry with him as far as possible the
bishops of the Old Learning. The new communion office, which
was to be used till further order should be taken, was therefore
a compromise ; the priest's mass taken from the old service
books was neither altered nor translated, but there was appended
to it a communion service for the laity in English. This new
order of service contained — (i) an exhortation or notice of com
munion which recognised that special auricular confession to
the priest before communion was not necessary ; for it required
" such as shaU be satisfied with a general confession not to be
offended with those who confess privately to the priest " ; (2)
the Invitation, the General Confession, the Absolution, the
Comfortable Words, the Prayer of Humble Access, the Words
of Administration, and the Blessing. The chief source from
which the new elements of this communion office were taken
was the Consultatio of Hermann, Archbishop of Cologne.
MeanwhUe preparations for further change were bemg made.
At St. Paul's and Westminster, and the King's chapel, and

252 The Church of England
elsewhere experimental services, wholly in English, were tried.
The state of affairs on the Continent reacted on the course of
the Reformation in England. Charles V., having defeated the
Protestant princes in the Schmalkald War, published a docu
ment known as the Interim (July 1548) for the regulation of
religious matters in Germany. As this document was purely
Romanist in doctrine, many of the Protestant leaders in the
following year fled from Germany to England, and began to
exercise a predominant influence on the course of religious
Gardiner change in England. Already (June 1548) Gardiner, Bishop of
ne^ h^pri- Winchester, for refusing to acknowledge the validity of religious
soned. changes effected during the King's minority, and for maintaining
the view of transubstantiation in a sermon preached before
the King, had been committed to the Tower ; a year later, and
for the same reasons, Bonner was likewise committed to prison.
Thus the party of the old faith was depressed by the imprison
ment of its two leaders.
Parliament met for its second session on 27th November 1548.
An Act was passed for legalising the marriage of priests in accord
ance with the resolution previously voted by Convocation ; but
this session wUl be ever memorable for placing on the statute book
First the first Act of Uniformity and making the first Prayer-Book
Prayer- of Edward VL the only legal form of public worship (14th March
Book, IS49- , > . 1 -^ ". ,,^ , 1' v *t
1549). Any clergyman using another form of prayer, or any
person depraving the book, was to be punished by fine or im
prisonment ; offences against the Act were punishable either by
the temporal or by the ecclesiastical courts, but not by both.
This statute is a landmark in the history of English Christianity.
Its sources. The sources from which the new Prayer-Book were drawn
were (i) the old service books of the Breviary and Missal, &c.,
(2) the revised Breviary of Cardinal Quignon, (3) Lutheran form_s
of prayer ; whUe many of the collects and prayers seem to have
been original compositions, probably of Cranmer. The services
of Matins and Evensong were formed by a condensation of the
old canonical hours of the mediaeval Church, as found in the
Bre-^iary. The " office " of the pre-Reformation Church com
prised the canonical hours of Matins, Laud, Prime, Terce, Sext,
None, Vespers, Compline. The origmal idea of this divine
office was to secure the continuous and thorough reading and
singmg of the Psalter and Holy Scripture. But in course of
time the order of the ofiice had become increasingly complicated.

The Reign of Edward VI 253
Antiphons had been intioduced to give the clerks the tone of the
psalm : responsories had been introduced so as to rest the
voice of the reader ; a number of prayers had been added ;
misguided devotion had led to the addition of various additional
offices, such as that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The services
on different saints' da}^ had become so complicated that the
framers of the Prayer-Book speak of " the hardness of the rules
called the Pie," and tell us " that many times there was more
business to find out what should be read, than to read it when
it was found out."
Down tUl the Reformation this divine of&ce had been recited
daUy in every monastic chapel, in every cathedral and collegiate
church, and all the larger parish churches. But the need of a
reformed and simplified Bre-viary had long been felt. In 1533
Cardinal Quignon at the command of Pope Clement VII. revised
the Breviary. In order to secure the continuous reading of
Scripture, he had simplified the service by omitting antiphons,
responsories, and prayers, and by deleting the ofiices of the
Blessed Virgin Mary and the variations introduced on two-thirds
of the saints' days. Though this re-vised Breviary did not main
tain its position, a reformed Roman Breviary was drawn up
and authorised by the CouncU of Trent in 1368.
From Quignon's Breviary the framers of the English Prayer-
Book derived their general scheme and the preface which still is
prefixed to the book, " Concerning the Service of the Church."
During the years 1543-1547 Cranmer had drawn up two
schemes for a revised ofiice, using material drawn from the
Bre-viary of the Sarum use, and revising it on Quignon's lines.
This work now proved of value.
The service of Matins in the new Prayer-Book was formed Matins and
by the condensation of the old hours of Matms, Laud, and Ev«"s°°g-
Prime ; Evensong by the condensation of Vespers and Compline.
Provision was made in the two lessons for the continuous and
thorough reading of Scripture. Variations in the ofiice between
Sundays, week-days, and saints' days were reduced to a
minimum. The Litany was placed after the communion ofiice. While The
the petition against the Bishop of Rome's detestable enor- ^"^^y-
mities was retained, the invocations to all created beings,
such as the Virgin Mary, angels, patriarchs, and aposties, were
omitted.

2 54 T'^^ Church of England
Com- The Communion Service in the new book was described as
Sem're. " The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly
caUed the Mass." The sources used by its framers were the.
Missal of the old Sarum use and various Lutheran liturgies,
especiaUy the so-called Latin Mass of 1323. The basis of the
whole service was the old Sarum Missal, but there were signi
ficant alterations.
I. The old idea that the service was essentially one of com
munion was restored. There were to be no masses at which
the priest alone communicated.
2. The sacrificial vestment of the priest was made optional ;
he was given the alternative of wearing a cope in lieu of it (the
cope not being regarded as a sacrificial vestment).
3. The exhortation taken from the communion book of
1548, making private confession optional, was incorporated.
4. The old canon ^ of the Mass was materiaUy altered. It is
true that the long central prayer (which is represented in our
present book by the Prayer for the Church MUitant, the Conse
cration Prayer, and the first thanksgiving after the communion)
was stUl retained in accordance with the Sarum use as a
single prayer. But it was altered out of aU recognition, though
much of its phraseology, often in different connections, was
retained. The ceremonial oblation of the elements, as being closely
connected with the idea of sacrifice, was deleted. Whereas the
Sarum Missal ran : " We humbly pray and beseech Thee to
receive these gifts, these offerings, these holy undefUed sacri
fices," the new book was sUent.
The list of apostles and mart37rs commemorated in the
memorial of the saints was in the new order omitted.
In the Consecration the new book made it clear that the
sacrifice on Calvary was once for all complete : " Who made
there (by His one oblation once offered) a fuU, perfect, and
sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of
the whole world." There was nothing of this in the old Sarum
Missal. Where the Sarum Missal said, " that it (sc. the oblation
of the elements) may be made unto us the Bo + dy and
Bl + ood," the new book ran, " that they may be unto us the
Body and Blood." (The old form was interpreted to favour
* The canon was the central and most sacred part of the Mass, including the
long prayer of consecration and the communion, &c.

The Reign of Edward VI 255
the view of transubstantiation, whereas the new form agreed
better with the "receptionist"^ doctrine of the sacrament).
Speaking generaUy, we may say that aU the phrases which
favoured the ¦view that the Holy Communion was a sacrifice*
in the old mediaeval sense of the term were swept away.
Further, the rubric ordered that the " priest shaU say or sing
plainly and distinctiy " the whole prayer, i.e. he was not to say
it secretly as hitherto ; and the elevation or showing the sacra
ment to the people (sc. for adoration) was prohibited.
The ceremonial fraction of the host, and the ceremonial
commixture of the two kinds by the insertion of a portion of
the consecrated bread in the chaUce, were omitted.
The order for the communion itself was not derived from
the Sarum Missal, but was taken from the order of communion
published in the preceding year.
The communion office was of course a manual of devotion,
and was not intended to be an exposition of doctiine ; but it
wUl be seen that aU the most characteristic expressions in the
old missal which were supposed to favour the view of transub
stantiation were deleted from the new Prayer-Book. On the
other hand, the vagueness of the rubrical directions made it
possible for adherents of the old faith to assimilate the new
service in form to the old mass. The bishops of the Old Learning,
as we wUl presently see, were prepared to use the new communion
office ; they were dissatisfied with its omissions, but hoped to
repair them in com"se of time by additions which would make
good the claims of the old faith.
The chief differences between the first Prayer-Book of Differences
Edward VI. and the book now in use were these : — senTprayer. Boole.
r. In Matins and Evensong the service began in each case
with the Lord's Prayer (omitting the Sentences, the Exhortation,
the General Confession, and the Absolution), and ended with the
third collect.
2. The Litany contained the petition against the Bishop of
Rome's detestable enormities.
3. The Communion Service began with a psalm as introit ;
and the word " altar " was retained in the rubrics. Neither of
* i.e. the view that the body and blood of Christ were only taken in the
sacrament by those who received it worthily.
' See Appendix IV. at end of the chapter.

256 The Church of England
these is found in the present book. Instead of the Ten Com
mandments, the Kyrie was repeated nine times —
" Lord have mercy upon us " (thrice).
" Christ have mercy upon us " (thrice).
" Lord have mercy upon us " (thrice).
The arrangement of the prayers was different. The Prayer-
Book of 1349 followed for the most part the order of the old
Missal ; but in 1332 and subsequent revisions, the long prayer
of the old canon was broken up and the prayers were re-arranged
so as to widen the breach between it and the old form of the
mass. In 1349 explicit prayers for the dead were retained as weU
in the first part of the long prayer of the canon as in the
Burial Service ; in 1552 and subsequently the first part of
this long prayer became the Prayer for the Church MUitant
here in earth, and was separated from the Prayer of Consecration ;
in 1549 there was no ceremonial breaking of the consecrated
bread ; in 1549 the Prayer of Consecration contained an in
vocation of the Holy Spirit and word " to bl-i-ess and sanc-l-tify
these Thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may
be unto us the body and blood, &c.," and the elements were to
be twice " signed with the cross." This was omitted in 1552
and in subsequent revisions.
In 1349 the ceremonial mixing of water with wine was
retained ; this was discontinued in 1352, and has never been
legally restored. In 1549 the Words of Administration were
simply the first sentences of the present form. " The body, &c.,"
" The Blood, &c."
4. In the Baptismal Service the form of exorcism of the
evU spirit was retained in 1349 ; this disappeared for ever in
1552. 3. In 1549 the Ordinal was not as yet annexed to the Prayer-
Book.
Principles The principles which the framers of our first English Prayer-
[heTrst^ '" ^°°^ followed are plain.
Prayer- fi')°s'impii- ^- They aimed, like Cardinal Quignon, at the simplification of
fication. the services ; there was henceforth to be no further need of
" the Pie " ; elaborate calculations were no longer required to

The Reign of Edward VI 257
discover the service of each separate day. Doubtless the services
lost something in richness and variety, but at any rate they
were made inteUigible. SimUarly the ceremonies were simplified.
Those retained " be neither dark nor dumb, but are so set forth
that every man may understand what they do mean."
2. The ser^vdces were aU to be in the English tongue. The (a) Use of
great desire of the reformers was to make religion mteUigible, ^"|uJ
not a matter of mystery. It is a " reasonable service," not
unreasoning superstition, that God demands from us.
3. The framers of the book appealed to the teaching of (3) Scrip-
Scripture and the primitive Church ; the reading in church "'^^ '
was to be from Holy Scripture, and from no other writings, such
as the Lives of saints ; the whole of the New Testament was
to be read thrice, the Old Testament once, in the year ; no trace
of the doctrine of tiansubstantiation, because unscriptural, was
foimd in the Prayer-Book. On the other hand, a belief in a real
spiritual Presence is presupposed as scriptural and in accord
with the beliefs of the primitive Church.
4. Hitherto there had been no single use prescribed for (4) Uni-
the whole of England ; there had been the Sarum use, the °'^"" ^'
Hereford use, the Bangor use, the Lincoln use ; in this variety
England resembled other countries. Henceforth, though the
Prayer-Book countenanced some variety in ceremonial, there
was to be a single service book used aU over England. The
employment of other service books was made penal. Even
within the Roman commimion the tendency was towards the
abolition of local variations, and the creation of a single use.
But in England reasons for uniformity were specially urgent ;
whereas a difference in service books might foster disunion and
discord, identity of use would, it was hoped, help the growth
of a corporate spirit. The distinctive features of English as
contiasted with Roman churchmanship could only be secured
by the enforcement of an English service book instinct with
the purer form of faith.
5. The ser^vdces were made more congregational ; this was (s) Congre-
speciaUy done in the service of Holy Communion. The sacri- ^ '°°^ '
ficial aspect of the Mass had during the course of the Middle
Ages come to obscure all other aspects of the service : the more
primitive idea of communion was now restored to its proper
placOj and the mediaeval idea of the sacrament as a sacrifice^
* See Appendijf fV. at end of chapter.

258 The Church of England
m which the priest continually offered the body and blood of
Christ in theu corporal and carnal presence found no place in
the language of the Prayer-Book.
The issue of this first English Prayer-Book is one of the
most important events m the whole history of the English
Church. That the book probably received no authorisation
from Convocation, but was simply enforced by an Act of Parlia
ment, is at first sight a surprising fact. But it wUl not astonish
those who follow the general lines on which Edward VI.'s CouncU
acted in church affairs towards the accredited organs of the
Originof English Church. The history of the origin of the first Book
^aov' °^ Common Prayer is wrapped in some obscurity. A careful
survey of the evidence leads to the foUo'wing conclusion. No
formal commission of any kind was appointed to draw it up,
but the work was entrusted to " the Archbishop of Canterbury
and certain of the most learned and discreet bishops and other
learned men " (September 1348). These discreet and learned
men could no doubt be varied at wUl, and their suggestions,
if need be, disregarded. It is probable that the actual com
position of the book was the work of very few people. It was
fortunate that Cranmer had the chief hand in its composition,
since he had a genius for the language of religious devotion. We
know that from 1343 onwards he had been engaged in the pro
duction of a reformed Breviary. The committees employed in
the task of drawing up the Prayer-Book are known to have met
at Chertsey and Windsor. It is probable that they only gave
the book its finishing touches. It was then submitted by the
Protector Somerset to the assembled bishops (? October 1348).
The doctrine implied by the language of the book was discussed
by them. But it was soon evident that on questions of doctrine
no agreement was possible between the bishops of the Old and
the bishops of the New Leaming. The former were not at aU
satisfied, and took special objection to the fact that the adoration
of the sacrament was forbidden. But they admitted that so
far as it went, the book was satisfactory, and it was agreed among
them that omissions might subsequentiy be repaired. This
consideration, and the dangers, both internal and external, with
which the country was threatened, induced aU the reactionary
bishops, except Day of Chichester, to join the bishops of the
New learning in subscrjhing their signatures to the ^ook.

The Reign of Edward VI 259
On the 14th December it was read to the House of Lords, Debate in
and a three days' debate on its sacramental doctrine ensued. lotX. °'^
It would seem that the book had been in some respects altered
in the interval, and maturer reflection seems to have convinced
the reactionary bishops that by subscription they had aUowed
themselves to be placed in a false position ; many of them now
explained that though they had signed the book, they dis
approved of it. Bonner was outspoken, and declared that its
doctrine had been " condemned as heresy, not only abroad,
but in this realm also." The debate was interesting because it
revealed the doctiine held by the reforming bishops concerning
the sacrament. " They be two things," said Cranmer, " to eat
the sacrament and to eat the Body of Christ : the eating of the
Body is to dweU in Christ, and this may well be though a man
never taste the sacrament. AU men eat not the Body in the
sacrament." " Our faith is not to believe Him to be in bread
and wine, but that He is iri heaven. This is proved by Scripture
and doctors tiU the Bishop of Rome's usurped power came in."
Ridley, the Bishop of Rochester, said, " The bread of the
communion is not simple bread, but bread united to the
di^vinity." "It is more than a figure, for besides the natural
bread, there is an operation of di^vinity." " It is transformed ;
for of the common bread before, it is made a divine influence."
In the final di-vision on the Act of Uniformity a bare majority
of the bishops voted in its favour.
Was the book ever submitted to Convocation ? The records ¦Was the
of Convocation were destioyed in the great fire of London (1666) ; mittedw
but Heylyn, who saw them, seems to have admitted that there Convoca-
was no trace in the records of any such approval. If the records
had been carefuUy kept, this would be conclusive. But the
records do not seem to have been carefuUy kept. On the other
hand, we have a definite statement from Edward in a letter to
his sister Mary that the book received the assent of the clergy
in their several synods and convocations. Unfortunately we
know from the case of the Forty-two Articles (1553) that
Edward VI.'s Government did not scrapie definitely to assert
falsehoods. Perhaps it is safest to conclude that the consent
of the Upper House of Convocation was assumed, as the bishops
aU but unanimously had subscribed to the book, and that the
book was unofficially, but not otherwise, brought before the
notice of the Lower House.

26o The Church of England
If the aim of the first Prayer-Book was to promote intemal
unity and peace, in the first instance it altogether faUed of its
effect. The months which foUowed its enactment were marked
by unrest and rebelUon among the common people. If the
rising in eastern England under Ket was mainly dictated by the
hatred of grasping landlords and enclosures, the western rising
in Devon and Cornwall can be traced primarUy to religious
causes. The common people in those districts spoke a dialect
of Welsh, and found the English services as uninteUigible as
those in Latin. They preferred the Latin, not because they
understood it, but because its sound was more famUiar. The
new service seemed to them " but like a Christmas game."
These western insurgents desired the restoration in their entirety
of the old faith and ancient order. Their ferocity can be
gauged by their deiUand for the restoration of the Six Articles
Act, the intelligence of their faith by the demand that the laity
should communicate only once a year, and in one kind. The in
surrection was easUy put down. But among the more inteUigent
votaries of the old faith dissatisfaction was profound. By the
introduction of the ancient ceremonial they tried to assimUate
the new liturgy as far as possible to the old service of the Mass.
The Government was, however, determined to maintain its
ground. Gardiner was kept in the Tower, and Bonner the
Bishop of London after preaching a test sermon, was deprived
of his bishopric and committed to the Marshalsea. A few
days later Warwick had completed his schemes for the destruc
tion of the Protector, and Somerset was sent to the Tower.
Warwick was thoroughly unscrupulous and irreligious; but he
saw that his power could be more surely established by his
adherence to the party of the extieme Protestants.
Coming of It wUl be remembered that as a result of Charles V.'s Interim,
ProtS many Protestant leaders had fled from Germany to England.
tants. They were now preferred to important posts.
Martin Bucer of Strasburg, a moderate Lutheran, but an
anti-ritualist, was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge. This position he held tiU his death in 1331. His
Censura on the first Book of Common Prayer greatly infiuenced
its re^vision. Peter Martyr, an Italian, came from Basel, and was made
Regius Professor at Oxford. He was a more extieme Protestant
than Bucer, and held lower sacramental doctrine,

The Reign of Edward VI 261
Fagius, a Hebraist from Germany, was made Regius Pro
fessor of Hebrew at Cambridge, and on his death in November
1349 Tremellio succeeded to his post.
A Lasco, the Pole, had been superintendent of the Reformed
Churches at Emden; he finaUy fixed his residence at London,
where he became Superintendent of the Foreign Protestants.
He was very anxious to secure exemption from control by
Ridley, the new Bishop of London, and from the use of the
Prayer-Book. He is said to have exercised great influence over
Cranmer, and to have moved his views on the sacrament in a
Zwinglian direction.
Valerandus Pollanus, with his company of weavers, left
Strasburg, and was given by Somerset the use of the buUdings
of Glastonbury Abbey.
These foreign Protestants and the leaders of English Pro
testantism kept up a continuous correspondence with the leaders
of foreign Protestantism, such as Calvin at Geneva, and
BuUinger, the successor of Zwingli, at Zurich. Now the Pro
testants, no less than the party of the old faith, though for
different reasons, were dissatisfied with the established Prayer-
Book. " The rags of popery," in their view, still clung to it.
Its sacramental teaching was wrong. " Aaronic vestments "
and superstitious ceremonies were retained. Too great con
cessions, in their eyes, had been made to antiquity and the
infirmity of the age. The ink of the book was hardly dry
before Cranmer and the Protestant party set about its revision
in a Protestant direction.
MeanwhUe Parliament held its third session from 4th Destruction
November 1549 to ist February 1550. Three Acts of importance °f ™ages.
were passed ; the first ordering the destruction in churches of all
images except monumental images of those who had never been
reputed saints ! the second authorised the appointment of a
commission of thirty-two to peruse and make ecclesiastical
laws. SimUar Acts had been passed in 1334, 1336, 1344 ; this
commission, however, was actuaUy appointed in 153 1, and set
to work ; but the product of its labour, the so-caUed Reformatio
Legum, was allowed to remain in MS. tiU 1371, and never received
Parliamentary authorisation. The third Act appointed a com
mission of twelve to draw up a new Ordinal, and ratffied by A new
anticipation theu work. In March 1550 the new Ordinal was °'^'*'"^''
published. Since the new Ordinal provided no form for admission

262 The Church of England
to minor orders, these disappeared uno ictu from the Church of
England ; the framers of the Ordinal clearly defined in its preface
their purpose to continue the three orders of bishops, priests,
and deacons as they had existed from apostolic times. The
groundwork of the new Ordinal was taken from the old Sarum
Pontffical ; the ceremony was m many ways simplffied, but
the essential part of ordination, i.e. prayer with imposition of
hands by the bishop, was retained. Accordmg to the current
scholastic view, endorsed by Pope Eugenius IV., the tradition
of the instruments (i.e. the chalice and paten) was required
for valid ordination to the priesthood. But this view cannot
be maintained, as the porrectio instrumentorum was an in
novation introduced not earlier than the tenth century. The
framers of the Ordinal, however, retained the ceremony in 1530,
though in 1532 in the revised Ordinal it was omitted. They
also emphasised in the Ordinal the wider function of the priest
hood than that of merely offering sacrffice for the quick and
the dead ; stress was laid on the pastoral and preaching duties.
The priest in his ordination was given the powers of absolution,
administering the sacraments, and of preaching the word of
God
Growth of Protestantism under the influence of foreigners now made
mfhienoes* "^^V^^ advances. Nicholas Ridley, one of the more moderate
reformers, was in AprU 1350 translated to the see of London,
which had been vacant since the deprivation of Bonner. He
Removal of immediately began a visitation of his diocese. One of his
altars. important injunctions was the order to remove the stone altars,
which were closely identified with the old doctrine of tian
substantiation, and to set up " the Lord's board after the form
of an honest table decently covered." Tables were more suited
to the idea of communion. The Ulegality of this order can
hardly be doubted, as the altars were retained by the Act of
Uniformity. But this fact did not prevent the CouncU in
November from adopting and tiansmitting a simUar order to
the other bishops, and so the altars, the symbols of the old
faith, were ruthlessly puUed down aU over England. If Ridley
was one of the more moderate of the reformers, the leader of
Hooper, the extreme Protestants was Hooper, the so-caUed "Father of
Nonconformity " ; for Hooper was unwilling to conform to the
amount of ritual which was stUl retained by the Church of
England. Hooper had lived for two years (1347-1549) at

The Reign of Edward VI 263
Zurich with BuUinger, and had imbibed extreme Protestant
doctiine. He was not content with the first Book of Common
Prayer, though he thought that it might be borne with awhUe
for the sake of the weaker brethren. His sacramental doctrine
was of the " lowest " kind, for he regarded the Holy Com
munion as a merely memorial service, and therefore denounced
kneeling at communion as savouring of idolatry and superstition.
His wish was to reduce the ritual of the Church to the severest
and simplest form, and to get rid of the " Aaronic vestments "
which were stUl retained. If Ridley symbolised with Bucer,
Hooper symbolised with BuUinger and k Lasco.
In 1550 Hooper was offered the bishopric of Gloucester,
but such was his hatied of the " Aaronic habits " and the form
of the oath of supremacy,^ that he refused to be consecrated
under such conditions. But Cranmer declined to dispense with
them, and though the form of oath was modffied by the King's
order, it was not tiU Hooper had been committed to the Fleet
that he was brought to a more reasonable frame of mmd, and
finaUy consecrated (March 1551). Hooper was the first of the
English Puritans, of whom we wiU hear so much from the
beginnmg of Elizabeth's reign.
It must not be supposed that the leaders of the party of the Romanist
old faith acquiesced m the changes which were taking place. ^gOTived
Heath, Bishop of Worcester, for refusing his consent to the new
Ordinal, had been sent to the Fleet m 1530, and deprived in
1531. Day of Chichester had been sent to the Fleet for refusing
to order the destruction of altars, and was deprived m 1331.
Gardiner was brought before a special commission and deprived
(133 1) after nearly three years' imprisonment. TunstaU, on a
charge of concealing treason, was deprived m 1332. The Prmcess
Mary was no longer aUowed the privUege of hearmg Mass m
her own house. The vacant sees were fiUed with Protestants.
Hooper was appomted to Gloucester and also Worcester, Ponet
to Winchester, Scory to Rochester, Coverdale to Exeter. The
time was now ripe for a further re-vision of the Prayer-Book.
In 1530 Cranmer published a book entitled A Defence of
the True and Catholic Doctrine of the sacrament. This book,
revealmg as it did the fact that Cranmer had altogether given
up belief m any corporal presence of Christ m the Eucharist,
' Hooper objected to the invocation of created beings in the oath — "So help
me God, all saints, and the holy Evangelist."

264 The Church of England
Gardiner's elicited a reply from the imprisoned Gardmer. The reply was
Cranmer. entitled, An Explication and Assertion of the True Catholic
Faith touching the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and
endeavoured to prove that the doctrme of Cranmer's recentiy
published work was inconsistent with the sacramental doctrme
of the first Book of Common Prayer. This controversy had
Its effect, important influence on the revision of the Prayer-Book ; for
those parts of the book on which Gardiner fastened as proving
that the old faith was to be found m it, were in the revision
ruthlessly excised. Thus Gardiner had pointed to the prayer for
the livmg and the dead m the canon of the first Prayer-Book, as
agreeable to the old idea that the sacrament was offered for the
quick and dead. Hence m the new Prayer-Book aU prayer for
the dead was excised. Gardmer appealed to the words m the
Prayer of Consecration, " Sanctify these Thy gifts and creatures
of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body and
Blood, &c.," as agreeable to the ancient faith. In the second
Prayer-Book these words were omitted. Gardmer mterpreted
the Prayer of Humble Access, at which the priest was bidden
to kneel, as an act of adoration to the already consecrated
sacrament. In the new book the Prayer of Humble Access,
was therefore put before the Prayer of Consecration. Gardiner
appealed to the Words of Administiation m the first book ; they
were therefore changed to the merely memorial words m the
second book (i.e. the last sentences in the present form of
admmistiation, " Take and eat this in remembrance that," &c.
" Drmk this in remembrance that," &c.). Gardmer further
pomted to the use of the word " altar," and the rubric of the
first book, which stated that the " whole body of Christ was
present in every portion of the consecrated bread." The word
" altar " and the " rubric " were therefore expeUed from the
new book. In fact, the purpose of the revision was to render
it impossible for Gardmer and others to find the old mediaeval
faith m the new book. There can be littie doubt that the
Revision of leadmg hand m the work of re^vdsion was that of Cranmer. It
BoX'^' ^^ conducted under the mspUation of foreign Protestants,
Bucer and Martyr in England, Cal^vin, BuUmger, and others
abroad. Bucer, just before his death (February 1331), had
finished an elaborate Censura of the first Prayer-Book.
. Most of the changes suggested by him were incorporated m the
new ,book, but mdications are not wanting that people who held

The Reign of Edward VI 265
lower sacramental doctrine than Bucer had a predominant Second
infiuence. The second Act of Uniformity (with the second BookTissa.
Prayer-Book attached) was passed in the fourth and last session
of Edward VI.'s first Parliament (1332). The Act seems to
have been a conflation of two BUls which were before Parliament,
the one compelling the attendance of the people at the parish
services, the other enactmg the new service book. After
declarmg the first Prayer-Book agreeable to the Word of God
and the primitive Church, the Act proceeds to declare that all
persons, under pams and penalties, must attend the services.
And then, oddly enough, it enacts that the services to be
attended are not to be those of the first book, since " doubts
for the fashion and manner of the ministration of the same "
have arisen, " rather by the curiosity of the mmister than of
any other worthy cause." The second book was therefore
appended to the Act as though it were a mere series of emenda
tions of the first book. In reality there were many drastic
changes. Some of these have been already mentioned, but
others must be mdicated.
I. Vestments other than the surplice for priests and deacons, changes ir.
and the rochet for bishops, were prohibited. Prayer-°"
2. To the order for Morning and Evening Prayer the Sentences, Book.
Exhortation, General Confession, and Absolution were prefixed.
3. The Communion Service was transformed with the idea
of making it as unlike the Roman Mass as possible ; for many
priests, by using the old ceremonial and speakmg the canon
m a low voice, had assimUated the two services as far as possible
to each other. Besides the changes already mdicated, the
foUowmg have to be noted. The name " mass " as an alter
native description of the service was omitted ; the table was
to be placed in the body of the Church or the Chancel table-
wise ; 1 the intioit was omitted ; the Ten Commandments were
inserted, and the Kyrie altered to the form it now holds as a
response to the Commandments. The Gloria in Excelsis was
tiansferred to the post-communion. No direction of any kind
was inserted about the presentation (oblation) of the elements,
and therefore the ceremonial mixing of water and wme was
omitted. The long prayer of the old canon was broken up ;
its first part was separated from it, and was described as the
1 i.e. east and west ; not altar-wise, i.e. north and south.

266 The Church of England
prayer for the Church MUitant here in earth. AU reference in
it to saints departed this life was omitted. Then foUowed the
Invitation, the Confession, the Absolution, the Comfortable
Words, which m the first book had been mserted between the
long prayer of the canon and the actual admmistration of the
elements. Thus the order of the old Roman Mass was altered
out of recognition, and m subsequent revisions this new arrange
ment has been maintamed. From the Ter Sanctus was omitted
(probably for doctrinal reasons, as referrmg to the host), the
clause, " Blessed is He that cometh m the name of the Lord."
The Consecration Prayer was altered m the way already indicated
(see p. 264). The last portion of the " canon " was changed to
the position which it now holds immediately after the com
munion. The Agnus Dei was omitted.
4. Prayers for the dead were omitted from the Burial Service.
3. Anointing was omitted from the Visitation of the Sick.
6. From the Baptismal Service the form of exorcism was
¦ deleted. 7. A re^vised Ordinal which omitted the tradition of the
instruments was appended.

SecondPrayer- Book not
submittedto Convo
cation.

BlackRubric

This second Prayer-Book had no other authority than an
Act of Parliament. It was not in any way the work of Con
vocation. As the book was passmg through the press, an
attempt was made to alter it m one important particular ; a
rubric, foUowmg the ancient custom, had directed that the people
should receive the sacramental elements kneeUng. But the
Scotch fanatic, John Knox, now had the ear of Northumber
land, and led a crusade against this laudable custom. The
CouncU bade Cranmer consider the question. Cranmer made
a spirited reply, stating that the matter had been duly con
sidered, and that it was impossible to go behmd the Act of
Parliament which had given statutory authorisation to the
custom. The CouncU on its own authority then added to the
Prayer-Book what is known as the Black Rubric, explaining
the custom of kneeling : "It is not meant thereby that any
adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the sacra
mental bread or wine, or to any real and essential presence
there bemg of Christ's natural fiesh and blood." This rubric
had no authority either from Parliament or from Convocation.
England mercifully escaped from having John Knox for one of

The Reign of Edward VI 267
her bishops. But it was a narrow escape, for he was offered
the bishopric of Rochester.
In 1533 the Forty-two Articles (reduced at a later date to The
thkty-nme) an exposition of the faith of the Church of England Art'c'ies!'"
on controverted matters, were published on the authority of the
CouncU. By an impudent lie they were said on their title-page
to have been agreed on in Convocation. When Cranmer remon-
stiated, the CouncU explamed that its meanmg was that they
had been published in the time of the Convocation !
The young King's life was rapidly dra^wing to a close. It does
not faU within the scope of this history to tell the story of North
umberland's intiigues to secure the throne for Lady Jane Grey
and his son, GuUdford Dudley. Moved by a passionate longmg
to secure England for the Protestant faith, Edward on his
deathbed was persuaded to disinherit his sisters and bequeath Death of
the crown to Lady Jane Grey. But England was heartUy 155™"^ '
sick of Northumberland and aU his ways. In a wave of popular
enthusiasm Mary, the rightful heir, was established on the
throne of her ancestors.
Edward VI.'s reign had been far from happy. Protestant
influence on the Church of England had reached its high-water
mark in the second Prayer-Book. But the reign had been
marked by plunder and lawlessness ; the Church had been
robbed of her property, as sees and benefices had been trans
ferred to successive holders. Men had reached a purer doctrme,
but the purer doctiine had not as yet been accompanied by
greater innocence of life.
Learning languished, and the universities were in a state
of decUne. Would Mary restore peace to a distracted Church
and countiy ? The future was to show.

APPENDIX IV
THE SACRIFICIAL ASPECT OF THE HOLY COMMUNION
There is no real ambiguity about the use of the word sacrifice.
I. It may be trae — as Professor Robertson-Smith maintained
— that the idea at the root of the primitive conception of sacrifice
was one of commumon of fellow-worshippers with their God.

2 68 The Church of England
2. It is no doubt true that in the Holy Communion " we
offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy,
and Uvely sacrifice " to God.
But it is merely to play with words, and to use them in an
unnatural sense, if on these grounds we describe the Holy
Communion as a sacrffice. Those who love to describe the
Holy Communion as a Sacrifice, describe it as such on very
different grounds, and with a very different purpose.
3. The sacrifice of Christ on Calvary was, in the words of
our Consecration Prayer, " a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice,
oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. Any attempt to repre
sent that sacrffice as incomplete, and requiring to be supple
mented by fresh sacrifices or masses, is in the view of the author
unscriptural (see the Epistle to the Hebrews, passim) and an
encroachment on the prerogative of our Lord. Our Lord, we
may imagine (though, indeed, aU ideas of time with reference
to God ought, as far as possible, to be eliminated), is constantly
pleading that sacrffice with His Father in heaven. We on earth
in the Sacrament of Holy Communion do in our own way that
which we may picture our Lord as doing in heaven — i.e. we
plead the infinite worth of that one sacrffice on Calvary : if He
pleads the sacrifice in heaven, we in the Holy Communion
identify ourselves with His action, and caU the sacrifice to
remembrance before God. On some such ground as this the
Holy Communion has been described by some authors as a
sacrifice. But to plead a sacrffice is not the same thing as to
offer a sacrffice, and nothing but muddle can resiUt from such
a confusion of terms.
It follows that in the Hteral, ordinarUy accepted meaning
of terms, the Christian system admits neither of priests nor
sacrifices. This is the view of such great authorities as Hooker
and Lightfoot. Dr. Moberly argued in Ministerial Priesthood
that the ideal of priesthood and sacrffice should be sought, not
in the Judaic, but in the Christian system ; that the Holy
Commimion answers to the sacrffices of Judaism, and in a higher
sense than they, deserves the name of sacrffice. The present
author does not see that any good, but does see that much
evil can result from such a confusion of nomenclature.

CHAPTER XV
THE MARIAN REACTION AND THE ELIZABETHAN
SETTLEMENT
Hatred of Northumberland, the conservative mstmct of the Accession
people, dislike of foreign Protestants, the economic distress, for f.}^^^^'
which the late Government was held responsible, carried Mary
to the throne amid tumults of popular applause (1533). After
five years this unfortunate lady died, more utterly execrated
than any English sovereign, with the possible exception of John.
Apart from religion, the Queen was kmd and humane ; but she Her
was a bigoted Roman Catholic, determined that the Roman "^ ^'^""•
faith must be restored at whatever cost, and con^vinced m truly
Spanish fashion that the Almighty must be propitiated by the
sacrffice of heretics. No defence can free her memory from the
dark shade which rests upon it ; for the impulse to persecution
came not so much from Gardiner or PhUip as from the Queen
herself. Her youth had been spoUed by undeserved misfortunes ;
her temper was soured by the faUure to wm her husband's and
her people's love ; she was cheated by a false hope of offspring.
AU this may be pleaded m her behalf. But when this has been
said, she stiU must stand condemned at the bar of history.
The overthrow of the Roman power m England was identffied
by her with the history of her own misfortunes. The restora
tion of the Roman power was the great object of her life. Tem
porarUy she succeeded m her aim; but for this very reason
her reign represents a back-water in English history, and had no
other permanent result than the purifying of the Protestant
movement. Her reign can therefore be briefly summarised.
At its openmg there were three religious parties. There Religious
were the convmced Roman Catholics, to whom the Queen ^f^^^^ '°
herself belonged ; there were the extreme Protestants, anxious
to reduce English churchmanship to the. level of foreign Pro
testantism ; there was, lastly, the middle party, anxious to
preserve the Church's Catholicism, but not to restore the papal
»69

270 The Church of England
power. Its standpoint was represented by the Prayer-Book of
1349 ; but the members of this party were more wUling to recog
nise the Pope if they could retam their Catholicism, than they
were to accept reform if it involved the dommation of foreign
Protestantism. It was the existence of this party which rendered
Mary's restoration of papal power possible. It is needless to say
that one of the first results of her accession was the release
of the imprisoned prelates, Gardiner, Bonner, Day, Heath,
and TunstaU. They were restored to their sees, and Gardiner
became Lord ChanceUor. Most of the foreigners, including
Martyr and k Lasco, and many of the English Protestants, left
the country. But Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Coverdale, and
Hooper manfuUy stood their ground. A rumour was spread
that Cranmer had offered to restore the Mass, but Cranmer
scornfuUy denied it, and offered publicly to prove that " the
reUgion set forth by Edward VI. was more pure and according
to God's Word than any other that hath been used in England
these thousand years," and that the Mass was opposed to
apostolic and primitive Christianity. Those who taunt Cranmer
with cowardice should meditate on this offer, which was, all
thmgs considered, an extremely brave deed.
Stages in The religious reaction under Mary went through two stages.
rSction ^^ ^^ ^'^'^ °^ ¦'•533 ^^ whole of the Edwardian legislation had
been repealed and religion restored to the position it had held
at the time of Henry VIII.'s death. In 1354 the Queen was
mairried to her cousm, the Spaniard PhUip. The second stage
in the reaction was carried through by the Queen's third Parlia
ment (12th November 1354 to i6th January 1333). This Parlia
ment revived aU the mediaeval laws against heresy, and repealed
all the statutes which had been enacted against the Roman See
since 1529. Thus the papacy was restored to the whole extent
of the power it had exercised before Henry VIII. laid on it his
iconoclastic hands. Cardinal Pole was sent as special legate
from the Pope ; and the Parliament, as representing the English
people, knelt down and received absolution from his hands
(1334)- The only limit to the tide of reaction was set by the
vested interests which had been created by the distribution of
the monastic lands. Parliament msisted that the possessors of
monastic property should be confirmed m their tities, and that
this confirmation should be embodied m the identical Act which
restored the papal power. This was accordingly done. Gardiner

The Marian Reaction 271
must have felt himself in an uncomfortable position ; the Pro
testants, by translating his De Vera Obedientia written m
1534, took care that he should not forget the important part
he had taken under Henry VIII. in overthrowmg the papal
supremacy, and the way in which he had maintained the
illegitimacy of the now reignmg Queen. Gardiner died m Death of
November 1333. If he had had his way, the Government might •^^¦''i"'*''-
have shown greater toleration. But it is a certam fact that he
took a leading part in the re-enactment of the cruel heresy
laws and m the trial of some of the Protestant martyrs. His
death alone saved him from more active participation in the
martyrdoms. The fioodgates of persecution were now opened. Cranmer
had been found guilty of high tieason for the part he had taken
in consenting to the dying Edward's request to transfer the
crown to Lady Jane Grey. The Queen might have put him to
death as a tiaitor. She desired his death as a heretic, and he
was committed to the Tower. The burnings by Mary were The
horrid and ghastly ; but it must not be supposed that, when ^rsecu-
judged by continental standards, the persecution was a very tion.
big affair. The total number of martyrs burned was somethmg
like 280. By far the larger number of these were drawn from
the dioceses of London and Canterbury ; m some dioceses no
burning took place at aU. This must mean that m the country
districts convmced Protestantism was non-existent. It was in
the large towns, especiaUy London, that Protestantism had taken
root. The diary of Machyn, a London resident, is fUled with
monotonous records of the burnmgs m London.
Further, it must be remembered that the idea of religious
toleration was as yet unknown. Henry VIII. had burnt some
forty heretics ; a few Anabaptists had been burnt under
Edward VI. ; Cal^vm burnt Servetus at Geneva ; the only
difference between Mary and the Protestant rulers of England
was that Mary was much more logical and thorough in her
persecution. AU her contemporaries agreed that heresy, as
subversive of estabUshed order, ought to be stamped out. Mary
alone was thoroughgoing in the application of the belief. These
280 martyrdoms were crowded mto the last forty-five months of
Mary's reign. The average works out at six burnings a month.
The great proportion of the martyrs were drawn from the
humbler ranks of life, but tbe distmguishmg feature of tbe

272 The Church of England
persecution was the number of eniment men who suffered.
Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Ferrar, Hooper, Ridley, and
Latimer, Dr. Rowland Taylor, and Rogers, the author of the
English Bible, crowned then lives with martyrdom. They were
men of blameless life, done to death for purely religious reasons.
Mary could not plead, like Henry VIII. or Elizabeth, that they
were m any way a political danger ; they had nothing
to do with political mtrigue ; they based their refusal to'
conform on the bed-rock of conscience, which they declined
to violate, and therefore they suffered. We cannot pass over
in complete sUence the closing scenes of the lives of Ridley,
Latimer, and Cranmer. In 1354 they had been forced to take
part at Oxford m a sham disputation of which the result was
a foregone conclusion. They were relegated back to Bocardo
prison.
Burnings In September 1553 Latimer and Ridley were tried before a
andRidie"^ Special court appomted by Cai^dinal Pole, and condemned on
1st October. On the i6th October the two bishops were burned
outside the waU of the city of Oxford on a spot that is now
marked by a cross m Broad Stieet. Ridley's brother had
wished to spend the vigU of his martyrdom with him. But
Ridley said, " No, no ; I mind (God willmg) to go to bed and
to sleep as quietly to-night as ever I did in my life." The
actual mart3n:dom was mismanaged, for the faggots round
Ridley were wet and would not burn, and he suffered untold
agonies. Ridley's faggots were lighted first, and it was then
that Latimer uttered the memorable and prophetic words,
"Be of good comfort. Master Ridley, and play the man ; we
shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England as
I trust shaU never be put out." The explosion of the gunpowder
which had been tied around their necks before long closed their
sufferings. Cranmer had witnessed their martyrdom from the
top of Bocardo prison. It was a sight to make the stoutest
heart quail. Cranmer as an archbishop was amenable to the
Trial of jurisdiction of the Pope alone. His tiial before Bishop Brooks
Cranmer. ^^ Gloucester, sittmg as papal commissioner, had been opened
in St. Mary's Church on the 12th September 1553. The charges
preferred against him were those of adultery (he had married
not only one but two wives), perjury (for breakmg the oath he
had taken to the Pope before his consecration), and heresy.
Cranmer refused to acknowledge the Jurisdiction of the Pope;

The Marian Reaction 273
he bowed to the royal proctors, but not to the papal delegate.
When the tiial was concluded, its result was reported to Rome.
On the 4th December 1333 the Pope in person solemnly
pronounced Cranmer excommunicate, and a week later ap
pointed Cardinal Pole Archbishop of Canterbury.
In February 1556 Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirlby,
Bishop of Ely, went to Oxford as special papal delegates to
degrade Cranmer. Clad in mock archiepiscopal robes, he was
brought before his judges m Christ Church Cathedral ; the
humUiating ceremony prescribed by the Church was gone
through ; the insignia of his seven orders, from the highest to
the lowest, were one by one taken from him ; first the paU,
then the mitre and crozier, and the rest m order. Bonner, to
the grief of Thirlby, acted with great brutality, and then revUed
the degraded Primate with words of bitter mockery. Cranmer,
now a mere layman, was sent back to prison, though he was
shortiy afterwards allowed the greater freedom of the deanery.
The Government had not, however, done with him ; prospects
were held out, that if he recanted, his life might even yet be
spared. And then Cranmer feU. His first four recantations Recanta-
were mere declarations of his submission to the authority of the c°"n'^er
Cro^wn. As the Kmg and Queen had restored the papal power,
true to his principle, that submission to the temporal power
was right, he would submit. But m his fifth recantation he
anathematised the heresies of Luther and Zwingli, and declared
his belief in the One Church, outside of which there was no
salvation. He recognised the Pope as its supreme head, and
declared his belief m transubstantiation, the seven sacraments,
and purgatory. A sixth recantation m terms stiU more humili-
atmg was wrung from him. The Government thought that it
had at last got the object of its desire. Would the Reformation
stand, when its chief prophet had cursed it ? Mary had no
thought of sparing his life ; she bitterly hated him both as the
man who had annuUed her mother's marriage, and as the chief
author of the heresy which had overspread her countiy. The
2ist March 1536 was fixed for the day of his burning. St.
Mary's Church at Oxford has witnessed no more memorable Cranmerat
scene than it witnessed on that day. Cranmer was set on ^o-kval^^
platform opposite the pulpit. It was understood that he was morning of
to make a declaration of his beUef m the doctrine of the Roman dom?^ ^
Church. The sermon ended, Cranmer was caUed upon to state
s

274 '^^^ Church of England
his faith. According to the programme arranged by his enemies,
Cranmer began by asking the congregation to pray for hun.
He then knelt down and poured forth his heart m prayer.
" O Father of Heaven, O Son of God, Redeemer of the world,
O Holy Ghost proceeding from them both, three persons and
one God, have mercy upon me, most ¦wretched caitiff and miser
able sinner. I have offended both heaven and earth more
grievously than any tongue can express. Whither then may I
go, or whither should I flee for succour ? To heaven I may be
ashamed to lift up mine eyes, and in earth I find no refuge or
succour. What shaU I do, then ? ShaU I despair ? God
forbid. O good God, Thou art merciful and refusest none that
cometh unto Thee for succour. To Thee therefore do I run ;
to Thee do I humble myself, saymg, O Lord God, my sins
be great, but yet have mercy upon me for Thy great mercy.
O God the Son, this great mystery was not wrought (that God
became man) for few or smaU offences ; nor didst Thou give
Thy Son unto death, O God the Father, for our littie and smaU
sins only, but for aU the greatest sms of the world, so that the
sinner return unto Thee with a penitent heart, as I do here
at this present. Wherefore have mercy upon me, O Lord,
whose property is always to have mercy ; for although my
sins be great, yet Thy mercy is greater. And I crave nothing,
O Lord, for mine own merits, but for Thy name's sake, that
it may be glorffied thereby and for Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ's
sake." He recited the Lord's Prayer ; and then exhorted the
people not to set their mmds on the thmgs of this world.
He bade them obey the King and Queen, and show brotherly
love to each other, and charity to the poor. He then pro
ceeded : —
" And now forasmuch as I am come to the last end of my
life, whereupon hangeth aU my life past and aU my life to come,
either to live •with my Master Christ for ever m joy, or else to be
m pain for ever •with wicked devUs m heU, and I see before
mine eyes presently either heaven ready to receive me, or else
hell ready to swaUow me up, I shaU therefore declare unto
you my very faith how I believe, without any colour of dis
simulation ; for now is no time to dissemble, whatsoever I
have said or written m times past."
He recited the Creed, and continued : " I believe every article
of the Catholic faith, every word and sentence taught by our

The Marian Reaction 275
Sa^viour Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and prophets in the New
and Old Testaments."
" But now I come to the great thing that so much troubleth Cranmer
my conscience more than anything that ever I did or said in his'^e^an-^
my whole life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary tation.
to the truth" (thus far Cranmer had followed the plan of
procedure prescribed by his enemies, but he then continued
after a fashion very different from that which they had intended),
" which now here I renounce and refuse as things written with
my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart,
and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might
be ; and that is, aU such biUs and papers which I have written
or signed with my hand since my degradation, wherem I have
viritten many thmgs untiue. And forasmuch as my hand
offended, writmg contrary to my heart, my hand shaU first
be punished therefore ; for, may I come to the fire, it shaU be
first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's
enemy and Antichrist, with aU his false doctrine. And as for
the sacrament, I believe as I have taught in my book against
the Bishop of Winchester ; the which my book teacheth so true
a doctrine of the sacrament, that it shall stand at the last day
before the judgment of God, where the papistical doctrine
contrary thereto shaU be ashamed to show her face."
This speech fell like a bomb among the assembled con
gregation. " Stop the heretic's mouth," cried the preacher.
Dr. Cole, " and take him away." In a tumult the archbishop His mar-
was hurried off to the place of execution ; the fire was kindled, ^^ °™'
and as the fiames shot up, Cranmer, with tiiumphant stead
fastness, thrust his hand into the flames and held it there. He
seemed, we are told, to move no more than the stake to which
he was bound ; his eyes were lifted up to heaven, and with the
words, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," he breathed his last.
The martyrdom of the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury
burnt into the life of the English people the hatred of popery
which has since marked its history. The torch which Ridley
and Latimer -had lighted was not quenched, as Papists hoped,
but burnt with increasmg vehemence.
The present writer has not scrupled to lay bare the weakness
that marked several mcidents m Cranmer's career. They were
more than expiated by the triumphant agony of his death.
It was a Papist eye-witness who wrote that Cranmer's patience

character.

276 The Church of England
in the torment, his courage in dying could have been matched
with the fame of any Father of ancient time.
The Protestant movement was purified in the fire of suffering ;
the bonfires of Smithfield and Oxford wiped out aU memory of
the rapacity of Edward's Protestant councUlors. Execrated by
Death of her people, Mary died (17th November 1338), and within twelve
CaXal'* hours of her death Cardmal Pole foUowed her to the grave.
Pole. AU England turned to meet the rising star, Elizabeth.
Accession The new Queen furnished a strikmg contiast to her pre-
blthl'^^sss decessor. She had none of Mary's fanaticism. From her
father she had inherited strength of wUl and the power of
Her governmg men. Like him, she kept her finger on the pulse
of her people ; and with wonderful mtuition she divmed their
secret longings and ideals ; mstinctive sympathy kept them
one. The " spacious times " of Queen Elizabeth appealed both
to their hearts and to their purses. From her grandfather the
new Queen had inherited powers of craft and diplomacy; a
double portion of Henry VII.'s guUe had descended to his
granddaughter. In the sphere of mternational politics, Eliza
beth made lying a really fine art. A great big royal lie, if it
served her purpose, never made her pause. This instinctive
guile had been fostered by the experiences of her early life.
As the daughter of Anne Boleyn, she had durmg the later years
of Henry VIII. been the representative of a discredited policy.
Neither Papist nor Protestant could regard her as born m lawful
wedlock. In Edward's reign her first essays in love were unfor
tunate ; for her unhappy lover had been sent to the block.
Throughout the reign of Mary her position had been one of
extreme perU ; imprisonment had been her lot, and the block
had seemed to loom ahead m no distant future. Hence her
character had been formed by her experiences. In such an
environment only the fittest coiUd survive ; and the fittest
were not those who led forlorn hopes, or tiled to scale impossible
heights, but those who knew self-mastery, caution, dissimulation ;
the avoidance of enthusiasms, the shunnmg of extremes, the
leaving open possible lines of retreat — these were the qualities
which enabled Elizabeth to survive. These were the qualities
which made her reign such a triumphant political success. For
her perUs did not cease with her accession to the English throne.
Personal perils of a new kind supervened ; but they were as
nothmg when compared with the national dangers through

The Elizabethan Settlement 277
which she had to guide her people. When her subjects saw
her surmount these perUs one by one, they came to regard her
as a living Pro^vidence. Her success was largely due to her
dissimulation. She wished to remain a " virgin queen," wedded
to her people ; but if the political barometer required it, she
would dangle the prospect of her hand before a Hapsburg
archduke or a French prmce. She would kiss the English
Bible as the book she loved best in all the world, but she would
retain the crucffix and the altar lights in her own chapel. She
would teU a cardmal that her beliefs were simply those of the
old faith, yet Calvin would know that they were hardly different
from his own.
We cannot realise the architectonic skUl of Elizabeth's church Perils of
buUding unless we understand the perUs which surrounded her. *''® *™^
These must be briefly indicated.
I. There was the danger of ci^vU war. The internecine strife (i) Civil
of Catholic and Protestant had already ravaged Germany. An '^^^'
uneasy tiuce had supervened, but withm two generations Ger
many was once more to be desolated by the flames of religious
war. The history of France throughout Elizabeth's reign was
a record of almost contmuous religious stiife between the
Huguenots and Catholics. There was every possibUity that
England, no less than Germany and France, might become the
scene of desolating religious war. But this was not aU.
2. The era which foUows is kno-wn as that of the Counter- (2) The
reformation. The spirit of the Counter-reformation was aggres- fo?I^tion^
sive. The Roman Church was up and domg. For one thing,
the Popes, m the graphic phrase of Sir J. Seely, had been " re
converted to Christianity." They were no longer dUettante
artists playmg ¦with infidelity and worse, but men of strong
religious faith and purpose. The CouncU of Trent, which held
its final sittings m 1363, gave the Roman Church a clearly
defined creed and some practical reforms. The " Index " of
prohibited books, which to-day awakens the laughter even of
Roman Catholics, did not in those days simply advertise and
increase a book's sale, but was effectively used to check the
free progress of thought and learning. A stUl more drastic
mstrument was found m the Inquisition, which was set up
for the Universal Church m 1342. A more honourable cause
for the ¦sdctories which awaited the Counter-reformation was

278 The Church of England
the re-vival of leEtrning withm the Roman fold. But the most
potent engme of all was the rise of the new religious orders,
especiaUy the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), founded by Ignatius
Loyola. The Jesuits took the most active share m the conquests
effected by Roman Catholicism. The Jesuits were fired hy a
living faith, and if the history of their order hardly entitles them
to claim the innocency of the dove, it certamly entitles them
to claim the wisdom of the serpent. Ignatius is said to have
recommended them " more prudence and less piety " rather
than " more piety and less prudence." He has been more
fortunate than some founders in the obedience of his followers.
But as missionaries, and as educators, and as preachers the
Jesuits have done devoted, and often heroic, work. Their
greatest work for the Counter-reformation was educational.
They re-won the chUdren for the Roman Church.
(3) Hos- 3. But the Counter -reformation did not depend simply on
foreTsn Spiritual or mteUectual weapons. It had big battaUons behmd
states. it. Was not the King of France the eldest son of the Church ?
PhUip was the lord of Spain, the Netherlands, and the Indies,
the master of armies and na^vies, and was he not a fanatical
Romanist ? It seemed mconceivable that these foreign powers
would quietly aUow a Protestant settiement to establish itself
in the British Isles, and yet this actually happened, for reasons
which wUl presently be indicated. But right down to the defeat
of the Armada in 1588 England never breathed freely. She
was in constant danger of invasion, especiaUy after 1370, when
Pius V. issued his buU deposmg Elizabeth, and releasing her
subjects from their aUegiance to her.
{4) Queen's 4. Moreover Elizabeth's title to the throne was not uncon-
throne tested. In the eyes of CathoUcs, at any rate, as the daughter
doubtful, of Anne Boleyn, she was Ulegitimate. In Mary Queen of Scots
(who was also for a year, 1359-1560, Queen of France), an
exceUent alternative was to be found. It had been the dream
of EngUshmen smce the thirteenth century to create a United
Great Britam. Mary as Queen of both countiies would have
united the two countries. But the union would inevitably have
been on the basis of Roman Catholicism, not Protestantism.
These considerations wUl show the perUous position m which
Elizabeth found herself at her accession. She defeated the
Counter-reformation in spite of its accumulated advantages,

The Elizabethan Settlement 279
But she held many trump cards in her hand, and without them Elizabeth's
she could never have won, as she did, the diplomatic game, maniage.'
It is not part of our task to trace the history of this game at
any length ; it wUl be sufficient to indicate the troubles which
confronted both the King of France and PhUip in their o^wn
dominions ; they were fomented, if not instigated, by Elizabeth.
French strength was dissipated by the Huguenot wars ; PhUip
had to withstand the ravages of the Turks, the revolt of the
Moors, and the rebelUon of the Dutch. More important stUl was
the intense antagonism that existed between the Hapsburg and the
Valois dynasties. In the critical years that followed Elizabeth's
accession, PhUip's own interests ruthlessly demanded that Eliza
beth should be helped against any attempt of the French to bring
England within their orbit by setting Mary on Elizabeth's throne.
Another fact of crucial importance was the rise of the great Rise of re-
reformation party m Scotiand. Hitherto the national party m pa'rTy in"
Scotiand had always been phUo-French, for the simple reason Scotland.
that Scotland constantly feared the designs of England on her
mdependence, and therefore clung to the aUiance of France,
England's hereditary foe. But religion showed itself — as often
in this century — a stronger force than nationalism. It proved
the solvent of the old Franco-Scottish aUiance. The " Con
gregation of Jesus Christ " had been formed m 1557, and the
Scots were busUy engaged, under the leadership of John Knox,
in overthrowing the papal " Antichrist," and demolishing root
and branch the old faith. Monastic spoU was glutting the
appetite of robber lords. Mary and her French kinsfolk found
themselves the heads of a dwindlmg party. The anti-French
and Protestant "Congregation " became the national party, and
the nationalists m their danger threw themselves into the arms
of England. Elizabeth and her wise minister CecU had the
sagacity to see the critical nature of the change and the possi-
bUities of the situation. Scotland had always been the fulcrum
by which France put dangerous pressure upon England. If the
nationalist party m Scotland had remamed phUo-French, France Nationalist
and the Counter-reformation might have imposed Mary Queen sStia^d
of Scots on England as her Queen, and Roman Catholicism '^^\^,^
upon the English people. The Protestant settlement in England
owed its safety to the victory of Calvmism in Scotland. The
two Protestant Churches established in England and Scotland
depended for security on each other. And therefore, though

28o The Church of England
Elizabeth Elizabeth hated rebels, though for good reason she detested
Sclftch''^ John Knox and aU his ways, she took the decisive step of
Protestant helpmg rebels agamst their lawfiU sovereign, fanatic Protestants
rebels. against the old faith ; m other words, she sent an army and
fleet to help the Scotch rebels (January 1560). The result was
that the French garrison was expeUed and Protestantism left
triumphant (July 1560). The " Lords of the Congregation "
were free to enjoy the plunder of Church wealth, the national
party was attached to England, and Mary on her return from
France to Scotland found herself checkmated.
We have anticipated events m England. The most im
portant question that Elizabeth had to face at her accession
was the religious settlement. But it bristled with difficulties.
If many Catholics had been alienated by the atiocities of the
preceding reign, there was no doubt that a large mmority,
if not the majority, of the people was attached to the forms
Return of of the old faith. On the other hand, the Protestant refugees
refu^s. were fiocking back from the Continent. At Zurich, at Frankfort,
at Geneva, they had drunk in Protestantism in undUuted form.
It was a matter of current knowledge that the English refugees
at Frankfort had quarreUed among themselves, the more mode
rate party, under Dr. Cox, wishmg to maintam Edward VI.'s
second Prayer-Book, whUe the extiemer section, under John
Knox, desired to substitute a" purer " form of worship. Calvin
himself thought that " the fooleries " of the Prayer-Book might
be tolerated awhUe, but the quarrels waxed so fierce that Knox
was finaUy expeUed from Frankfort and went to Geneva. These
Puritan refugees, representmg many different grades of moderate
and immoderate -sdews, were now returning to England. The
greater number of them regarded Edward VI.'s second Prayer-
Book as a mere half-way house towards reform. They wished
to get rid of the " Aaronic vestments " and the other " rags of
popery " which m their view stUl clung to the Church of England.
Elizabeth was in a difficult position, being pushed by both
extremes. The Puritans wished for a settlement that would
have broken the historic continuity of the ancient English
Church, and reduced her formulaiies of faith and her govern
ment to that of continental Protestantism. The Romanists
wished to retam the Marian settiement ; the Pope let it be
known that such a little impediment as the Queen's iUegitimacy
could easUy be got over, if only she would conform to his wishes ;

The Elizabethan Settlement 281
the cunning of the Papal Chancery would be equal to the situa
tion. Nay, it would seem that even after the new Prayer-Book
had been authorised, the Pope was wUling to ratify it as correct
m doctrine and disciplme, if the Queen would receive it at his
hands and recognise him as the ¦vicar of Christ.
What, meanwhUe, was the Queen's own ¦view ? Elizabeth was Elizabeth
not a spirituaUy-minded person. But the circumstances of^protes?"
her birth, her early life, her learning, her lofty ideas of kmgship, tant settle
led her irresistibly towards Protestantism. She was resolved to ™^" '
be " over aU causes, and over all persons, ecclesiastical as well
as civU, throughout her dominions supreme." Her reUgious
position might be defined as that of a Protestant with a taste
for ornaments and incense. She was not long m making it
clear that whatever else the settlement might be, it would be
Protestant, i.e. antipapal. She did not re-accredit Mary's
ambassador to the Vatican. She added to the royal style an
" et cetera " which seemed to portend a re^vival of the title
of Supreme Head. Within six weeks of her accession she directed
the bishop who was to celebrate Mass before her on Christmas
Day that he was not to elevate the Host. When the bishop
persisted, the Queen got up and pointedly left the chapel. On
Easter Day, before the Act of Uniformity had been passed, the
Queen received the communion in both kinds. It was fortunate
that the hand of death had been busy among the Marian bishops.
Five sees were vacant at her accession ; Cardinal Pole died
within a few hours ; and before the end of the year no fewer
than eleven out of a total of twenty-seven sees had been vacated
by death. Of those bishops who survived, none was a man of
first-rate calibre. But the Queen did not mtend to countenance
unauthorised changes. On the 27th December 1558 she issued a
proclamation in which she forbade preaching — as it bred con
tention — tUl changes should be authorised by herself and Parlia
ment. But m the same proclamation she directed that the
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Litany, the Ten Commandments,
the Gospel, and the Epistie should be recited m English. With
these exceptions the old services should be continued tUl further
order. The Roman Mass was therefore to remain the legal
service for some six months longer.
The coronation was celebrated on 13th January 1559. The Her coro"
actual ceremony was performed by Oglethorpe, Bishop of°'^"°°'
Carlisle, smce Heath, the Archbishop of York, and others had

282 The Church of England
refused to officiate. The Queen's first Parliament met on the
25th January, and was not dissolved before 8th May 1359.
Religious The religious settlement embodied m the Acts of Supremacy
effecTt^^^n ^"'^ Uniformity was effected by it. One feature stands clearly
defiance of out. It was a laymen's settiement, carried through by the
tion,^i5S9. State in defiance of the bishops and Convocation, and forced
upon the reluctant clergy. The new arrangements and the
new Prayer-Book received no- authorisation whatever from
Convocation. This is no matter of surprise, for the bishops
who formed the Upper House of Convocation were aU creatures
of the Marian reaction. The two Houses of Convocation passed
resolutions approvmg the doctrine of the Mass and affirming
the papal supremacy. The bishops presented the protest to the
Government, 28th February. During the Easter recess a solemn
disputation was held m the abbey between champions of the
old and of the reformed faiths. The Romanist champions raised
difficulties over procedure, and finaUy refused to contmue the
discussion. Their withdrawal contributed to the discredit of
their cause among moderate men. MeanwhUe the Government
had not clearly made up its own mind over the form the
Supremacy BUl should take ; m its earlier drafts it seems to
have retained the title of Supreme Head, and to have prescribed
the fuU penalties of high treason for denymg the Queen this
title. In the form in which it was finaUy passed (29th AprU) the
Queen was only given the title of Supreme Governor. About
Act of Uni- the same time the Act of Uniformity also passed throUgh Parlia-
formity, ment. If the Queen had been free to make her o^wn choice,
she would probably have preferred to restore the first Prayer-
Book of Edward VI. But the rapid ebb of " Catholic " senti
ment had left the first Prayer-Book stranded high and dry.
Elizabeth could not have found Protestant bishops wffiing to
enforce its use. Hence it was that the Elizabethan Act of
Eliza- Uniformity revived the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI.
Prayer- ^ith Only three considerable alterations. A new table of lessons
Book. was affixed, the clause m the Litany praymg for deliverance
" from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and aU his detestable
enormities " was very properly omitted as out of harmony with
the spiritual level on which the Litany moves ; the words in
the admmistration of the Holy Communion were altered to the
present form, which combmes the sentences used respectively in
the Prayer-Books of 1349 and 1352. In conformity with a

The Elizabethan Settlement 283
clause of the Act, the famous ornaments rubric was prefixed Ornaments
to the Order of Mornmg and Evening Prayer, commanding ™*'"'^-
" that the mmister at the time of the communion and at aU
other times m his mmistiation shaU use such ornaments in the
church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second
year of the reign of King Edward VI. , accordmg to the Act of
Parliament set m the beginning of this book." ^ Thus aU the
vestments prescribed by the Prayer-Book of 1349 were restored
as the legal apparel of the minister, tiU further order should be
taken.2 It is, however, a signfficant fact that no attempt was
made to make this rubric or the corresponding clause of the Act
operative. There is no evidence that the chasuble was ever
worn after 1339. Copes were worn m some places, but it soon
became very difficult to enforce even the wearmg of the surplice.
The Act of Uniformity proceeded to lay down that any
person using any other form of public prayer, or abettmg one
who did so, or depra^ving the new book, should be liable to
penalties culminatmg in deprivation and imprisonment for life.
Those who faUed to attend church on Sundays and holy days
were to be fined one shiUing for each offence. The due ad
mmistration of the Act was entrusted to Justices of Assize and
Justices of the Peace as weU as to the bishops.
The Elizabethan Act of Supremacy took the form of reviving Act of
Acts of Henry VIII. which had been repealed by Mary. The ^o^"^!"!.'
only important Act of Henry VIII. which was not revived was
the Act concernmg the style of Supreme Head.^
The Queen preferred the titie of Supreme Governor as more Title of
scriptural. The Act of Supremacy prescribed an oath which Qo^g'J.nJJ!^
had to be taken by aU holders of office, lay and spuitual, that
according to their conscience the Queen was " Supreme Governor
1 See Appendix V. at end of chapter.
' The author rejects as inconceivable the view which would maintain that the
ornaments rubric is a "fraud" rubric based on a wilful misinterpretation of the
clause in the Act of Uniformity. It is impossible really to maintain that the
words of the Act "shall be retained and be in use" = "shall be detained for
Her Majesty's pleasure and not be used." The sanity of a man who meant the
one and wrote the other might reasonably be questioned.
^ It is to be noted, however, that in one of the Acts of Henry VIII. which
was revived — 37 Henry VIII. c. 17, that concerning the doctors ofthe civil law —
the Sovereign was declared " Supreme Head on earth ofthe Church ofEngland."
It is an arguable position that the Sovereign was still legally ' ' Supreme Head "
ofthe Church till the Statute Law Revision Act, 1863. See Maitland in English
Historical Review, July 1903.

284 The Church of England
in aU causes, spiritual as weU as temporal, and that no foreign
prmce or prelate had or ought to have any jurisdiction, power
superiority, pre-emmence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spuitual,
within the realm."
By proclamation the Queen explamed that by this title she
did not claim power of mmistry of divine offices in the Church,
but only the authority that was claimed and used by Henry VIII.
and Edward VI. She certamly intended to claim as much as
they. In 1563 it was enacted that the oath should also be
taken by members of the House of Commons and others. By
section 7 the Act of Supremacy abolished the papal juris
diction or any manner of such pre-emmence withm the realm.
By section 8 the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction was
forever " united and annexed to the imperial crown of this
realm." The Crown was also given an mdefinite power of
visitmg and correctmg heresies, abuses, and offences, &c.,
" which by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical power . . .
can or may be lawfuUy reformed." To exercise this ¦visitatorial
and corrective power, the Queen was empowered to assign " such
person or persons ... as your Majesty shaU think fit." Clearly
the text of the Act would have aUowed the Queen no less than
Henry VIII. to appoint a vicar-general. As a matter of fact,
she always issued such commissions to a number of people, and
the group of commissions issued under the authority of this
Court of section of the Act came to be kno-wn as the Court of High
High Com- Commission. By section 14 penalties culminating m those of
mission. "^ *• "
high treason for the third offence were imposed on those who
avowedly maintamed the papal claims. That the credentials of
the Church are derived from a source far other than an Act
of Parliament was mcidentally testffied by section 20, which
declared that commissions appointed under the Act should be
guided in any further definition of heresy by Holy Scripture,
or by the first four general councUs or by other general councUs
on the plain authority of Scripture, or by an Act of ParUament
with the assent of Convocation.
The thirty- As an appendage to the ecclesiastical settiement, it may be
"'"? conveniently mentioned at this place that in 1563 the Articles
1571. ' of 1553 (see p. 267) were reduced to thirty-nine and approved
by Convocation. In a slightly modffied form they received the
royal assent in 1571, whUe Parliament in the same year ordered
their subscription by the clergy. Thus from the year 1571 the

The Elizabethan Settlement 285
Articles have been imposed as a test upon the clergy. They
have never been binding on the laity. In this same year an
abortive attempt was made to give parliamentary authority
to the Reformatio Legum (see p. 261). It will be remembered
that this was the work of an Edwardian commission, and an
attempt to create a new body of ecclesiastical law for the EngUsh
Church. But it was conceived in a narrow Puritan spirit.
We may be thankful that it did not pass into law.
In defiance of the episcopal vote in the House of Lords and Royal in
the vote of Convocation, a Protestant settiement had been J,™^"°°' °'
effected by the lay power in the Acts of Supremacy and Uni
formity. To see that it was carried out, a royal visitation was
begun m June 1339. Commissioners (many of them laymen)
were sent mto the different dioceses with Her Majesty's injunc
tions. Their chief duty was to administer the oath of supremacy
and enforce the use of the new Prayer-Book. The mj unctions
were for the most part an adaptation of the Edwardian injunc
tions. The superstitious use of images and relics was denounced ; Destruc-
sermons and Bible-reading were encouraged ; shrmes, pictures, i'J^°g°3 ^nd
paintings were to be destroyed, " so that there remain no memory altars.
of the same in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere." . . . The
stone altars (which were closely identified with the old doctrme
of tiansubstantiation) were to be destroyed, and wooden tables
to be substituted for them under the supermtendence of the
parish clergy and churchwardens. Clearly Elizabeth, unlike
some English churchmen of a later age, had no doubt about the
Protestant nature of the new regime. The Marian bishops Marian
remamed stubborn supporters of obscurantist medisevalism. pr^ved.° ""
Before the end of November 1559 they had aU been deprived
for refusmg to take the oath, with the exception of Kitchen,
Bishop of Llandaff, and John Salisbury, the Bishop of Sodor
and Man ; even TunstaU, the great Bishop of Durham, finaUy
refused the oath. He might perhaps have submitted to the
Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, but the result as embodied
in the visitation made it impossible for him conscientiously to
accept the new order of things. The deprived bishops were
either sent to prison or bUleted on their successors.
The minor clergy were, however, easUy reconcUed to the AU clergy
Elizabethan settiement. It is calculated that during the years hundred'"
1539-1364 not more than two hundred clergy were deprived accept^the
altogether under the Act. From the governmental point oi^

MatthewParker
appointedArchbishop.

Consecration of
Parker.

286 The Church of England
view, the key of the situation lay m the mtroduction of the
Prayer-Book. That the thought of men shaU not be tiled was
an old maxim of English law. The Queen had no intention of
makmg thoughts crimmal. Would it be possible to get the
Prayer-Book into actual use aU over England ? Could the
people be mduced to attend the authorised ser^vdces and no
other ? This was the problem for the Govemment. Perhaps
the people had the taste to appreciate the literary beauty of the
service; perhaps the moderation of the book and the English
man's love of compromise carried the day. Whatever the
reason, the Government very soon got the book, except m the
one matter of the ornaments, mto actual use aU over England.
MeanwhUe pro^vision had been made for fiUmg the vacant
sees. It wiU be remembered that Cardmal Pole had withm a
few hours foUowed Queen Mary to the grave. The metropolitan
see of Canterbury was to remam vacant for over a year. But
already m May 1359 the Queen's choice for the vacant arch
bishopric had f aUen on Matthew Parker. Matthew Parker was a
very learned and busmess-like man. He had been a chaplam
to Henry VIIL, and had risen to be Master of Corpus Christi
CoUege, Cambridge. During Mary's reign he had lived m
obscurity, but he was now caUed by Elizabeth to fiU the most
exalted position in the Church. It was only •with extreme
reluctance that Parker accepted the difficult post. His health
was weak ; the anxieties and responsibUities of the Metropolitan
dming these critical years could not but be heavy. To Parker's
statesmanship, learnmg, and moderation the English Church
owes an enormous debt. On i8th July 1359 the Queen issued a
congk d'Hire to the chapter of Canterbury. On ist August Parker
was elected by the chapter ; on gth September the Queen issued
a commission for the confirmation and consecration of the Arch
bishop-elect to Bishops TunstaU of Durham, Bourne of Bath
and WeUs, Poole of Peterborough, Kitchen of Llandaff, Barlow,
and Scory. On the refusal of the first three to comply, a fresh
commission for the purpose was issued to Kitchen Bishop of
Llandaff, Barlow the ex-Bishop of Bath and WeUs, Scory the ex-
Bishop of Chichester, Coverdale the ex-Bishop of Exeter, Hodgkins
the suffragan of Bedford, Salisbury the. suffragan of Thetford,
and Bale of Ossory. On the 17th December Parker was conse
crated in the chapel of Lambeth Palace by Barlow, Scory,
Hodgkms, and Coverdale. Of these men Barlow and Hodgkins

The Elizabethan Settlement 287
had been consecrated by the rites of the old Roman Pontifical,
Coverdale and Scory by the rites of the Ordinal of 1350. Parker
was fuUy aware of the importance of observing aU the proper
rites, so as to maintain the apostolic succession in the English
Chmch. He therefore caused an elaborate account of the
forms observed in his consecration to be drawn up ; from it
we know that he was consecrated according to the forms of the
Ordinal of 1552, and that he received the imposition of hands
and commission from aU four of the consecratmg bishops.
Within the next few months Parker consecrated eleven new
bishops, including Grindal to London, and Jewel to Salisbury.
Thus, though a number of sees were stUl vacant, the English
Church had once more a fair complement of bishops.
But the countiy as a whole was m a state of spiritual destitu- spiritual
tion. Many churches were m ruin ; parishes were often alto- ^f jo'untrv
gether without priests ; where there were priests, they were
often " dumb dogs," who seldom preached. Learning m these
days of religious distraction had sunk to a low ebb ; the univer
sities were depleted ; the plunder of Church property made it
impossible for many parishes to support their clergy ; patrons
abused their tiust to appoint lay retainers to Church freeholds.
The Queen herself set the bad example of plundering still further
the Church lands.
Many bishops were not themselves spirituaUy minded ;
absenteeism and pluraUties were everjrwhere rife. To meet
the spiritual destitution, the bishops ordained enormous numbers
of priests. But these newly ordained ministers were often
iUiterate and useless for the work. As a temporary expedient
laymen were appointed m many parishes to read the public
prayers. Sometimes these readers gave much trouble and were
with difficulty prevented from administering the sacraments
and preaching. In other cases ministers who had no episcopal
ordination, but had been " called " to the ministry m the
reformed churches of Germany and S^witzerland, were admitted
to English cures. This was only rendered impossible after 1662.
The condition of the English Church duruig the greater part of
Elizabeth's reign does not present a pleasing picture. But no
short cut to reform was open. Improvement was only possible
through the maintenance of peace and the gradual raising of
standards both m mtellectual and spiritual life. If the English
Church could only be mamtained against the reactionary forces

2 88 The Church of England
of Rome and the narrowing infiuence of Puritanism, leaming
and spiritual life were bound to revive. They did so under the
infiuence of the open Bible, the Prayer-Book, the writmgs of
Hooker, and the theology of the Caroline divmes.
We have reached a point at which we may weU review the
work that had been accomplished in the momentous years which
separated the Elizabethan settlement from the meeting of the
Reformation Parliament m 1529.
^^^ I. The Church of England is not, and never has been, a State
Church of Church. She cannot be reduced to a department of the Civil
nofa^state Service. She existed m these islands long before there was a
Church, united State of England. She drew her credentials from our
Lord Himself, her frame of government from the apostolic
Church. The State did not establish the Church ; it would be
more true to say that the Church established the State. When
the united State of England first emerged under the descendants
of Alfred, she found the Church already occupying the field. In
the centuries which followed, as both Church and State were
trying in different ways and with different purposes to regulate
the life of Englishmen, coUisions me-vitably occurred ; the State,
having physical, and sometimes moral, force behind its claims,
encroached on and often rightly limited the Church's power. It
did so m pre-Reformation times, and it did so again at the era
of the Reformation. But it never claimed that the credentials
of the Church or the spiritual powers of its ministry were in
any sense derived from itself. Time and agam, implicitly and
explicitly, the State has recognised the Church of England in the
successive stages of its history as the local presence of the Church
of Christ. It did so at the Reformation. It does so to-day ;
it can, if so it wUl, withdraw that recognition — there is One
who judgeth — but it cannot do more. The Church of England,
undaunted and without thought of compromise, wUl maintain
her ancient claim.
„^, o ^„o 2. The Church of England as settied at the Reformation was
nor £1 ciCa^
tion of not a new Church created by Henry and Elizabeth. We hear this
vnZ^and abundantly from Romanists and degenerate Nonconformists.
Elizabeth. It was not the view of Henry VIII. nor Elizabeth, who did not
intend " to declme or vary from the congregation of Christ's
Church m any things concerning the very articles of the Catholic
faith of Christendom." It was not the ¦view of the Puritan

The Elizabethan Settlement 289
di^vines who served in the ministry of the Elizabethan Church.
It might be sufficient to point to the roU of the archbishops,
Warham, Cranmer, Pole, Parker (of whom the first and third
are reckoned as Romanists, the second and fourth as Protestants)
as one of many proofs of historic continuity. But really the
matter admits of easy solution ; aU questions of identity or
continuity are determined by the relative importance of the
constant and the var5nng elements. For identity is always
compatible with a certain amount of difference. If the acceptance
of the jurisdiction and supremacy of the Roman Bishop and of
the theory of tiansubstantiation is the aU-important criterion
of a " church," then cadit qucestio. But no Protestant would
dream of such an admission. The claims of the Pope were
rejected absolutely as an unwarrantable usurpation ; tran
substantiation was rejected as repugnant to Scripture. On the
other hand, the Church of England retained her apostolic frame
work of govemment, and remained a missionary church to the
English people, duly admmistermg the sacraments and preaching
the word of God. She rejected the mediseval accretions which
had disfigured the beauty of her form, but she no more lost
her identity by so doing than (to use a famous comparison)
a man loses his identity by washmg smudges from his face.
3. The Elizabethan settiement was both Catholic and Pro- settlement
testant. It was Catholic because it was based on the Bible ^°* ,.
Catholic
and the usages of the primitive Church. The reformers rightly and
maintamed that mediseval accretions could not be Catholic p™'^*^"'-
because they were unknown to the primitive Church. The
settiement was Protestant, not only because it rejected the papal
claims, but also because it rejected those doctiines and points
of church order which were characteristicaUy mediseval. Thus
tiansubstantiation, private masses for the dead, the whole theory
and practice of mdulgences, the withholding of the cup from
the laity, compulsory confession, compulsory celibacy of the
clergy, the doctrine of purgatory, were rejected. A purer faith
and practice were laid down.
4. The Elizabethan settlement was intended to be com- settlement
prehensive and embrace the whole EngUsh people. It was^°™P™-
therefore drawn in such a way as to satisfy the religious needs
of aU but extreme Romanists and extreme Puritans. Lord
Chatham once declared that the Church of England had " an
^minian clergy, a Calvinistic creed, and a CathoUc Uturgy."
¦¦ '  T

290 The Church of England
This description is not exactiy true, but it bears witness to the
fact that the Prayer-Book is drawn in such a way that people,
of divergent views can conform to it. The methods of patron
age keep the clergy in touch with lay feeling, the services are
largely drawn from ancient Catholic sources, and Calvmism
has had considerable mfiuence on the form of the ThUty-nme
Articles. Another instance of the comprehensive nature of the Eliza
bethan Prayer-Book may be found in the attempt to concUiate
different shades of thought by combming the sentences used ui
the Prayer-Books of 1549 and 1332 in the admmistration of the
sacramental elements. SimUarly many of the articles, e.g. that
on predestination, are studiously vague, while others, such as
that on the Church, are drawn m a way susceptible of different
interpretations by varymg schools of thought.
The Church of England glories m her comprehensiveness.
Changes in 3- The constitutional position of the Church of England as
the consti- fixed at the Reformation can briefly be defined.
position of («) Her relation to Parliament was this : Parliament smce
* t^th'^R^* its formation at the close of the thirteenth century had repeatedly
formation, by legislation restricted and limited the ecclesiastical power.
(ffl) Church This was done agam, but in more drastic fashion, at the Refor-
ment. ^ ^ mation. The King in Parliament, accordmg to the theory of
' the constitution, has the right to legislate m every sphere of the
nation's life. Their right to legislate for the Church is morally
limited by the actual history of the Church and the essential
nature of the Church's claims. Elizabeth had no mtention of
aUowing the Houses of Parliament to legislate for the Church
at their own mere wUl. In the Act of Supremacy a relative
independence m the definition of doctiine was aUowed to Con
vocation ; the history of the reign shows that Elizabeth would
not permit the House of Commons to override Convocation by
ecclesiastical Bills. The Queen's theory was that she and Con
vocation should legislate for the Church, just as she and Parlia
ment legislated for the nation. A problem fuU of difficulty for
our own generation has been created by the fact that while
the King's headship over ParUament has become constitutional,
no satisfactory arrangement has been made for the exercise of a
constitutional supremacy over the Church. It should be added
that since the Reformation the spiritual peers have beconje an
ever smaUer niinority in the Ilouse of Lords,

The Elizabethan Settlement 291
(6) Convocation, i.e. the Church's legislature, was made (*) Convo-
dependent on the Crown (see pp. 216, 219). cation.
(c) The law admmistered in the ecclesiastical courts was (c) Law.
henceforth such parts of the old canon law as were not repugnant
to the law of the land, the King's ecclesiastical injunctions as
Supreme Governor, and any new canons which received the
royal assent. But these latter, by a decision of the lay judges
in James I.'s reign, are not bmding on the laity unless confirmed
by Parliament. The " law of the Church " is to-day in a state
of confusion, because the two agencies by which any body of
law is kept m touch with contemporary needs are non-existent.
There is no legislature, and there is no bar. Impediments
placed m the way have made Convocation's power to legis
late nugatory ; whUe the impossibility of gainmg a lucrative
career as a barrister in ecclesiastical courts has led to the neglect
of ecclesiastical law. Much of the law of the Church is obsolete.
No one knows how much.
(d) The supreme court of ecclesiastical appeal was henceforth (rf) Courts.
tiU 1832 the Court of Delegates (see p. 219), and after 1832 the
Judicial Committee of the Pri^vy CouncU. The Court of High
Commission exercised concurrentiy the functions of a supreme
ecclesiastical court tUl its abolition by the Long Parliament in
1641. (e) Bishops were nommated by the conge d'Hire system (e) Election
(see p. 220). of bishops.
Thus the constitutional position of the Church was con
siderably modffied.
6. The chief boons which we owe to the Reformation are Blessings of
the open Bible, the ser^vices m the vernacular English, and the ^on?"^™*'
reduction of the faith in the light of first prmciples to a purer
and more primitive form.

APPENDIX V
HISTORY AND MEANING OF ORNAMENTS RUBRIC
I. The clause in the Act of UnUormity, 1339, enacts "that
such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall
be retained and be in use as was m the Church of England by
authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King

292 The Church of England
Edward VI. untU other order shaU be therein taken by the
authority of the Queen's Majesty with the advice of her com
missioners, appointed and authorised under the Great Seal of
England, for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this
realm." Though the first Act of Uniformity did not receive royal
assent tiU the third year of Edward VL, it is as nearly certain
as anything can be, that the ornaments authorised by the Act
are those of the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. The orna
ments of the minister thus prescribed were therefore the white
alb with a vestment (i.e. chasuble) or cope at the admmistiation of
the Holy Communion, and a surplice at other times of mmistry.
2. This clause of the Act was never enforced ; there is no
e-vddence at aU that the chasuble was ever worn after 1339 tUl
recent times ; we know that both chasubles and copes were often
destroyed. On the other hand, there is clear evidence that copes
were sometimes used. The ordinary clergyman never aspired
to any ecclesiastical dress except the surplice. Many Puritan
clergy objected even to the surplice, and therefore even the
wearmg of a surplice was not strictiy enforced.
3. Parker's Advertisements of 1366 were an attempt to
enforce a mmimum. They were directed primarUy agamst the
Puritans, not the wearers of vestments. They directed — (a) that
m cathedrals and coUegiate churches copes should be used at
the celebration of Holy Communion, and surplices at other
services; (b) that in parish churches the mmister at aU rites
should use the surplice.
But though Parker's action was taken at the mstigation of
the Queen, and though the Advertisements were held to be a
taking of further order within the meaning of the Act of 1539
by the judgment of the Privy CouncU in Ridsdale v. Clifton,
1877, this ¦view has been caUed in question by some High
Churchmen. The Queen was unwilling herself to authorise the
Advertisements. Whether her reason was simply to encourage
independent action by the Archbishop, or whether she wished
to avoid direct responsibility for unpopular action, or whether
she thought that Parker's action against the Puritans was not
decided enough, it was in any case characteristic of Elizabeth
to leave open lines of retreat for herself.
4. The canons of 1604 which embodied the Advertisements'

The Elizabethan Settlement 293
order concerning vestments received the royal assent and became
therefore binding on the clergy.
5. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 deliberately brought the
rubric mto its present form, m which, without any limitations,
ministers are bidden to use the ornaments authorised by Parlia
ment m the second year of Edward VI.
The Privy CouncU in Ridsdale v. Clifton laid down that the
rubric from 1566 to 1662 had the same operation as if it had
been in law expressed in these words, " Provided always that
such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shaU
be retamed and be in use as were m this Church of England by
authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI. ,
except that the surplice shall be used by the ministers of the Church at
all time of their public ministrations, and the alb, vestment, or tunicle
shall not be used, nor shall a cope be used except at the administration
of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches."
The Privy CouncU further mamtained that the rubric of 1662
must be interpreted to have the same meanmg.
It is to be noted that after 1662 no attempt was made to
enforce the use of any other ecclesiastical vesture than the
surplice ; even the use of the cope quickly disappeared from
cathedrals, other than Durham, where it survived tUl 1759. No
cope or chasuble was intioduced mto a parish church before
the second half of the nineteenth century.
6. Ecclesiastical vestments, chasuble, cope, and the rest, had
in their origin no special sanctity. They were simply the dress
of ordmary secular life ; alb and dalmatic corresponding to the
under garments, chasuble and cope to the upper garments of
the ordmary citizen m the Roman Empire (see on the whole
question the report to the Convocation of Canterbury by a
sub-committee, 1907).

APPENDIX VI
ORDERS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Attempts have been made by Roman Catholics to deny the
succession of orders in the Church of England on the foUowmg
grounds : —
I. The Nag's Head story— a legend that Parker and

294 '^^^ Church of England
other bishops-elect were consecrated at the Nag's Head Tavern
by Scory, with madequate forms. This was a fable invented
fifty years later, m fiat contradiction of authentic records, and
now discarded by aU Roman Catholic writers of education.
2. The story that Barlow, who consecrated Parker, was not a
true bishop at aU. It is true that there is no record extant of
Barlow's consecration ; Barlow's own register has perished, and
Cranmer's register was most carelessly kept. But the fact that
positive proof of Barlow's consecration is not extant does not
warrant us at aU m questionmg his episcopal status ; for —
(a) No one doubts that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was
a true bishop ; but he is m exactly the same position as Barlow ;
there is no positive record extant of Gardmer's consecration.
(6) Barlow's consecration was never caUed m question before
i6i6 {j,.e. nearly fifty years after his death). He was recognised
durmg his life by aU the bishops, including Gardiner, as a bishop,
and did a bishop's work of ordmation, confirmation, &c., without
his episcopal status bemg called in question. It is mconceivable
that his opponents should have aUowed him to act thus if he
had not been a duly consecrated bishop. There is no real doubt
that he was consecrated m Jxme 1536 by the forms of the old
Pontffical. If Cranmer had faUed to consecrate Barlow withm
twenty days of the notffication of his election, he would by
the letter of 25 Henry VIII. c. 20, have mcurred the penalties
of prsemunire. It is irrelevant to argue that Cranmer and
Barlow regarded with mdifference such rites as consecration.
They would have to obey, and did obey, the law of the Church
and realm. Was it the habit of Henry VIII. to aUow his laws
to be defied ?
(c) Even if Barlow was not a bishop, this would make no
difference to the validity of Parker's election. We have clear
e^vidence that the three other bishops took a direct part m the
consecration of Parker, laymg on their hands and repeating
with Barlow the words, " Receive the Holy Spirit."
3. The msufficiency of the Ordmal. That the Ordmal was
adequate, see remarks on p. 262.
4. The doctrme of intention. But if aU sacraments and
ordmations are made dependent on the private mtentions and
meaning of those who administer them, every admmistration of a
sacrament, and every ordination, mcludmg those of Rome, might
be caUed m question and made to depend on uncertam factors.

The Elizabethan Settlement 295
If the officiatmg mmister acts seriously as a mmister of the
Church, it is only necessary to regard the mtention of the Church;
and the mtention of the Church of England, as expressed m the
preface of her Ordmal, was to maintain the three-fold ministry
of bishops, priests, and deacons, as they had existed in the
Church from apostolic times.
5. Romans cannot logicaUy deny the validity of Anglican
orders except on the grounds that the Pope is universal ordmary,
and that aU ecclesiastical power flows from him. But the
Church of England has definitely rejected this view as absurd ;
if pressed, this Roman doctrine would invalidate aU the orders
of the Eastern Church as weU. Neither the Anglican nor the
Eastern Church is likely to be disquieted by this extravagant
and absurd claim.

CHAPTER XVI
THE CHURCH UNDER ELIZABETH— PURITANISM
AND ROMANISM

' The task which lay before Queen Elizabeth and her ecclesiastical
advisers was to guide the English Church on an even keel between
the Scylla of Rome and the Charybdis of Geneva. It was a
dangerous task ; for besides the obvious perUs, there were sub
merged rocks on which the ship might strike. The assassm's
dagger and secret societies were to be feared no less than direct
war and open argument. In this chapter the relations of the
Church with the Romanists and Puritans wiU m succession be
described. Though for purposes of analysis these two wUl be
separated, it must be always remembered that the problems
presented by Romanism and Puritanism were contemporaneous,
and demanded contemporaneous treatment by the Government-
A;few words may first be said about the three archbishops who
occupied the see of Canterbury during the Queen's reign.
Parker, Parker remamed archbishop tffi his death m 1373. He
ISS9-IS7S- realised the idea of the Church of England more clearly than
others of his time. Gratitude is due to him for the skffi, the
moderation, and the scholarly acumen with which he guided the
Church through the critical years which foUowed the new settle
ment. He approved of a temperate execution of the laws agamst
the Roman recusants. Durmg the greater part of his episcopate
the Puritan movement had not advanced beyond the vestiarian
stage. Parker was concUiatory to the Puritans, but firm. By
his Advertisments of 1566 he tried to compromise the question
of clerical apparel. But he insisted on mmisters wearing the
surplice, and, after 1371, subscribmg to the Articles. He agreed
with the Queen that Puritan " prophesymgs " were used as
occasions for scheming agamst the established order of the Church,
and commanded their discontinuance m the diocese of Norwich
(1374)-
Grindal, Grindal succeeded Parker as archbishop ; his goodness is ex-
1576-1583- tolled by Spenser m his Shepherd's Calendar. Durmg the Marian
296

The Church under Elizabeth 297
terror he had taken refuge at Stiasburg, and he was stiongly
Puritan in his leanings. He would gladly have assimUated the
English Church to continental Protestantism, and though himself
a Conformist, he greatiy sympathised with Puritan objections to
the surplice. Appomted Bishop of London m 1559, it was only
under pressure from the Queen and Parker that he finaUy enforced
the wearing of the surplice on the Puritan clergy with whom
London swarmed. In 1370 he had been moved to the see of York,
where he found more congenial work m enforcing the Act of
Uniformity agamst the Romanists. It is difficult to see why
Elizabeth nommated him as archbishop on the death of Parker,
for she knew his Puritan tendencies. The experiment was not
a success. In 1377 the Queen ordered him to suppress absolutely
tho Puritan prnpbesyings. In a spirited reply the archbishop
refused, but said that he would bring them under the contiol of
authority. The result was an open quarrel, and for the next five
years Grindal was suspended by the Queen from his archi
episcopal functions. When he died in the foUowmg year, 1583^
he bequeathed a difficult situation to his successor, since during
his disgrace Puritanism had got increasmgly out of hand.
Whitgift, his successor, occupied the see of Canterbury for the whitgift,
remainder of the reign, and only died in 1604. Whitgift was a 1583-1604.
Cal'raiist m doctrine, but had no sympathy with Calvmistic ¦dews
of church government. As Master of Trinity CoUege, Cambridge,
he had already come mto sharp coUision with the Puritan pro
tagonist Cart^wright, and deprived him of his feUowship. After
1572 he had upon a wider arena entered the lists and waged with
him a literary war. Whitgift was essentially the Anglican, and
the convinced believer in the di^vine right of Episcopacy. He
disUked Roman doctrine ; but it was chiefly the political danger
of Romanism which led him warmly to support the execution of
the penal laws agamst them.
The most characteristic feature of his episcopate was the
determined stand he made agamst Puritan efforts to undermine
the Church of England. TT" g^ipprpggp^ prnpbpgyinfyg fip pnfnrrpH
on the Puritans^ under pain of anspensJOT, r^rnplpt^ r"Tif"rmity
t» tTiP Prgypr-pnpk,~lie supported Honker against his— Emataji
nppnuent Tra.vers, anj. he finaUy--S£cuied-the-baaishmantr>f-Jfon-
/-r,nfr»rmigtc| j^ T^Q^ It is uot Surprising that the " Canterbury
Caiaphas "—for this was the genial name bestowed on Whit
gift in the Marprelate tracts— was subjected to savage Puritan

298 The Church of England
denunciations. The severity he showed towards the Puritans was
tmdoubtedly extreme, but it was a far cry to the days when
toleration should become the creed of any party. To WhitgUt
we owe the definite articulation of Anglicanism, as agamst both
Romanism and Puritanism. To the Church of England he gave
a stubborn consistency which enabled it to withstand and finaUy
triumph over the overwhelmmg attack of Puritanism which
foUowed his death.
Problem of The relations of Church and State to the Roman recusants
Romanism. ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^g^_
The ' Assurance of ^^<^ f^nprpmary ' Apt ''$(^z. extended the
classes of people to whom the oath prescribed by the Act of
Supremacy should be administered. Members of the House of
Commnng grbnnlTnagtprg law^rrrr nnri nny wnprrtnrl pnr'-nn';
whatsoever were to tqke the oath. A refusal to take it carried
¦with it forfeiture of goods and Uberty for the first offence, and
for the second offence, the ghastly penalties of high treason.
Clearly the net result of the Acts of 1539 and 1563 was to place
the property and lives of Romanists at the mercy of the Govern
ment. The Government were armed by statute with powers
which they could, if necessary, put into operation. But the
statute book by itself would give an erroneous impression of the
position in which the Romanists found themselves. As a matter
of fact, they enjoyed a large measure of immunity ; no attempt
was made at a severe admmistiation of the Acts before open war
was proclaimed by the Pope in his buU of deposition (1370).
Roman CathoUcs were fjTiP^i fr.i- nr»ti-citfpnr]g^pr;fi at the pT^blic
sprvirpg of the C^nrch ; they were frequentiy imprisoned,
released, and then agam imprisoned and released. The execu
tion of the Act varied m different distiicts. In the north of
England, and especiaUy m Cheshire and Lancashire, the temper
of the Justices of the Peace, the countiy gentlemen, and the great
lords was favourable to the " old faith," and the Act was very
laxly administered ; even notorious offenders were often not " pre
sented " for recusancy ; m other districts the measure meted out to
the Romanists was more severe. The Queen had good reason in
her declaration of 1370 to boast of the clemency of her rule,
that she had not " sought the life, the blood, the estates of any
person ia any state or degree," and to contiast the happiness
of her subjects with the " bloodsheds, burnings, spoUings,
murders, ... in other countiies."

The Church under Elizabeth 299
The toleration of her rule would not satisfy the require
ments of modern life, but it was immeasurably superior to that
shown by a Guise or a PhUip II. The first and primary duty
of a government is to mamtain order ; religious liberty would
probably have ended in national chaos. Freedom and tolera
tion are some of the flowers that grow latest m the garden of
civUisation. The mildness of the Queen's rule was changed by
the open hostUity of Pius V.
Pius V. was a fanatic ; he rightly saw that England was
the key of the Protestant position, and that the Romanists of
England would soon be absorbed by the national Church unless
vigorous steps were taken. So in 1570 he launched his famous Papal buU
buU of excommunication. Writmg in terms which recaUed the "^^a™"
days of a Gregory VII. or Innocent III., but were absurdly t'°°. 157°-
out of date m 1370, m the plenitude of his power as vicegerent
of Christ, he_excQiniiHmiGated the ¦ •^BeeB7-dopoaod-4ier,— and
rp1pa.g«i<3--a11 Tipr gnbjprta..frQirLtbp.ir allpgianrp ThuS Open War
had been declared, ^yrther. the Pope made it clear that under
no circumstances could Romanists rightfully attend the services
of the English Church. Such attendance would involve them
in the sm of schism.
During the early years of the reign the English Romanists
had been divided into two parties. The moderates had recon
cUed with conscience their presence at the parish churches ;
they attended mornmg prayer, and then went secretly to mass
when they got the opportunity. The severer Romanists were
altogether opposed to this practice ; they knew that in the
second if not m the first generation it would lead to the absorp
tion of Romanists by the national Church. The leader m this
severer pomt of view had been WUliam AUen, a FeUow of Oriel.
It was clear that the Ime of Marian bishops and Marian
clergy would soon die out, and that therefore measures were
necessary to secure a continuous inflow mto England of Romanist
priests. It was with this purpose that AUen m 1568 founded
his famous seminary at Douay, where Englishmen could be Douay
tramed in the stiict Tridentme theology and m contemporary i^gg"*'^^'
leaming, and then be drafted mto England to minister to the
adherents of the old faith. One of AUen's earliest students at
Douay was Edmund Campion. As early as 1574, priests from
the semmary, fired with missionary zeal, found their way to
England. No fewer than one hundred are said to have arrived

Coming of
Jesuits, i£8o.

Romanist
plots

Increased
severity of
English
govern ment.

300 The Church of England
m England by 1579. The seminarists were reinforced m their
efforts by the Jesuits; the pioneers of the Jesuit enterprise
were Campion (now a Jesuit) and Parsons ; they came to
England in 1580. But spiritual weapons were not the only
method of papal attack. Elizabeth and the English Government.
were the objects of numberless political intrigues, of which the
cential wires were puUed at the Vatican.
The year 1569 had been marked by the rising of the great
northern famUies of Percies and NeviUes m favour of Romanism.
Norfolk was executed for his share in the same plot at a later
stage of its development (1572). Through Ireland, through
Scotland, through the Catholic powers of the Contment, the
Pope tried to strike at the Queen. In 1579 Sanders, a papal
envoy, assisted by Spanish and Italian troops, tried to raise
Ireland ; from 1379-1581 an insidious plot was hatched in
Scotland, which resulted m the assassination of the Earl of
Morton, the AnglophUe Governor of Scotland ; its aim was to
restore Roman Catholicism in Scotiand, an4 through the northern
kingdom deal a deadly blow at England.
Mary Queen of Scots was Elizabeth's prisoner from 1568 tffi
her execution m 1387. She was the cential figure of countless
conspiracies, whUe the Guises and PhUip could be seen mo^vdng
in the background ready to support her cause. The plans of
the conspirators mcluded the assassmation of the Queen. The
massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day m France, the atiocities
committed by PhUip and his governors, both m Spam and the
Netherlands, showed the future that Protestants might expect
in the event of Romanist success.
There is little cause for surprise that the poUcv of the EngUsh
Government towards Romanists became more severe after 1570.
Hitherto the Government had not pried at aU mto men's con
sciences ; at thp pingt thpy baH nnly rpr^^iijrpH^^ntwarrl con-
formityj. generaUy they had been content with fax less. It was
the action of the Pope, the Jesuits, Mary Queen of Scots, and
other conspirators which made it impossible to tie at religion as
non-political. The Pope had inextricably confounded the two.
The spirituaUy-minded Romanist who wished to keep clear of
politics, and merely worship God after his own light, had only
the Pope to thank for the " impossible " position m which he
found himself. The Pope did English Romanists a great dis
service when he authorised them to take an oath of loyalty to

The Church under Elizabeth 301
the Government, under a secret reservation that they would be
loyal only tiU a reasonable chance of successful resistance pre
sented itself. AU Roman Catholics were made potential traitors.
Thus it came to pass that laws of extreme severity against them
were placed upon the statute book.
Attempts to deprive the Queen of her title to the throne
and the mtioduction of papal buUs were declared high treason
(1571). To be reconcUed to the Roman Church, or to aid in
reconcUmg another, were declared high tieason (1581). The
fines le-vied on Roman recusants for not gomg to church were
raised to twenty pounds a month. In i'<8'^ all Je.snits and
seminary priests were bcmished from the realm on pam of death ;
those who harboured them were to suffer a felon's death ; aU
Englishmen who were bemg educated abroad m seminaries
or Jesuit schools were to return, under pain of being adjudged
traitors. In 1593 an Act was passed forbiddmg popish recusants
to tiavel more than five mUes from home.
This severe code was not, however, carried into thorough Execution
execution, though it is calcffiated that some two hundred ?ts. °™^°
Romanists m aU suffered the extreme penalty of the law before
the end of the Queen's reign. Unfortunately it was not always
the worst who suffered. Of the two Jesuits who came to England
in 1580 Campion was a merely spiritual enthusiast. His gift of
language and the beauty of his character gave him great mflu
ence over men. Parsons, on the other hand, was a political
schemer and a weaver of mtrigues. Yet Parsons lived to old
age (1610), whUe Campion, after a brief but romantic career, was
caught and executed (1382). The Government, imitating the
methods of the Holy Inquisition, subjected him before his
execution to cruel tortures. It is idle to contend that these
two hundred victims simply suffered for their religion ; the
mUdness of Elizabeth's rule before 1370 is a conclusive answer
to the charge. The forces of Romanism had gathered them
selves agamst the Queen ; the assassm's knife, the armies of
Spain, internal conspiracies, the religious teachmg of spirituaUy-
mmded men had aU been pressed by Rome into her ser^dce.
She knew how to assign the labour and divide the anticipated
spoU. There is little cause for wonder that the Government
was driven to regard every Romanist as a traitor. Every
Romanist in its eyes was a sharer in this great movement for
tbe destruction of the Queen and tfie overthrow of the established

302 The Church of England
order in Church and State. The Govemment sometimes tried
to show discrunmation. Mercy was shown to those who denied
the Pope's right to depose the Queen and absolve subjects from
their dlegiance. From the beginnmg of the reign there had
been a division between the more moderate Romanists and
those who were ready to go the length of callmg m the Spanish
enemy, if his help was required for the restoration of the old
faith. By 1390 the relations between these two parties had
become extremely stramed. Many of the Romanist laymen
were at daggers drawn with the Jesuits and those who wished
to restore Romanism by foreign arms. The English Government
fanned the quarrel and discriminated by their action in favour
of the moderates.
Problem of In her efforts to make the Church co-extensive with the
Puritanism, j^^tion and realise the great ideal of a whole people approaching
the throne of God in unity of worship, Elizabeth found in
Puritanism almost as great an obstacle as she found in the old
faith. ^^^'"'tflTIS '"•"'•" ""^1 bf^wP^TPr^ tbp g^TTiP pr.1i"t^^-j1 /lon^Pi- •
they were bitterly opposed to the fanatical Romanism of Spain,
and as the Spanish danger drew nearer, and culminated in the
Armada, they raUied round the throne. Their loathme of Spain
anfl Rnrpanigm-jKas intpngp ; but even so^The purely patriotic
party frowned upon their tenets as a source of division m the
presence of the foemen. It is difficult to pass a judgment on
Character Puritanism in a few words. For Puritanism at its highest and
tanism.' ^^^* conuotcd many qualities of the utmost value to a nation's
life. The Puritan's stern morality, his sense of the seriousness
of life, his realisation of God's presence, his love of Holy Scripture,
were altogether admirable. But Puritanism at its worst was
very different. Lord Bacon noticed that it was already in his
day a characteristic of Puritans to claim a monopoly of goodness
and holiness, and he warned them " to take heed that it be not
tiue, which one of their adversaries said, that they have but
two smaU wants, knowledge and love " ! Phadsaisra^ndwant
fif rbarity wprp thff Tonstant danger of the Puritan cast of mind.
Bacon did well also to denounce the practice adopted by the
baser ahd frequently by the nobler Puritans of mtermixing
Scripture and scurrUity sometimes m one sentence, and of turning
religion mto a comedy or satire. No language could be too
severe on such works as the Marprelate tracts (1388). Taken as
a whole, Puritanism, in the wor4§ of the historian Gardiner,

The Elizabethan Settlement 303
represented a backwater m the national Ufe. ,J,ts.rigid^CalviiHsm,
iTL..i±a hatrpH nf \\\p gtagp)^ iff^ hOStl)J^y-JIL£.U.f22Z?l!'„.'lt.Clf'f^?I!"'^j
-Wer£-.]3as£d_Qn far too narrow a reading of human nature, and
were bound to produce in the long run a startiing_rearvHori.
Tbe Puritan attitude was and is essentiaUy intolerant : lar.k of
h.umnnr and dpfnotiv^--sense~Df"piupLiiLiuii made the^uritans.
rlifficnlt penplp fnr FI^'^'^T^p^^I^ ""'^ '^'^'" minjgtprg tn managp
The Puritans who flocked back to England from the Con
tment m 1339 represented many different shades of reUgious
belief. The cleavage of opmion which had already manifested
itself at Frankfort was repeated on their retum to England.
The more moderate men, led by Grmdal, Sandys, and Jewel,
found it possible to conform, whUe extremists, such as Humphrey,
President of Magdalen CoUege, Oxford, and Sampson, Dean of
Christ Church, although they held preferment, refused to do so.
It must be noticed that the-PiwitaHs -for- a~-long~time to 'cOHie
had ncuiotiQn-olgpparating frnyri the national Chnrrb Thpjr ,sole
desira.ata&lajaaire control over it and reduce its worship to what
they considered " purer " forms. Puritaiiism m its tirst phase (i) Puri-
(13^9-1370) concerned IttSfelt simply" witfinEeeScternals^ public jf")?™,'"
wQrshrpr "The '"six:ties ""were the era of the vestiarian controversy, phase.
These early Puritans disliked a number of ceremonies retained
by the Elizabethan Prayer-Book. ICneeli^[jit Hohj^Comnmnion,
signijig.'with the cross at baptism, the use of the rmg in marriage,
were to them anathema, as r^^rinantg of pnppry ; even more so
^ypTPjbp magq vpstrnpnts authorised by the Prayer-Book. As a
matter of fact, no attempt was made to give real effect to the
ornaments rubric ; the surplice, and in rare cases a cope, at the
communion, were the only vestments worn, whUe the Puritan
clergy often dispensed even with the surplice, for the surplice
too was regarded as a papistical rag. The typical Puritan
contention was that n^ -belief uy-ceremmy-.shaiM_be_retained
in a reformed church unlpgg it CC^^\^ prnHnrp \'hp PYp|-pp=, ¦\yarrarit_
oi Holy Scripture. It was the old LoUard idea once more
revived. The more reasonable view mamtained by the Church
was that ceremonies, &c., approved by reason and by the ancient
custom of the Church shoffid be retamed ; they did not need
the support of Bible texts. It was, however, found impossible to
secure conformity from the extieme Puritans, even though their
oracles abroad, BuUinger at Zurjch and Beza at Geneva, advise^

304 The Church of England
them to submit, and not by mcurring deprivation leave their
places to be filled by disguised Papists. In 1366 Parker, at the
Parker's Queen's instigation, decided on stionger action. His Advertise-
mtnts''^^' ™ents of 1566 were an attempt at compromise ; they were
1566. ' directed against the Puritan Nonconformists, but aimed at
merely enforcing a mmimum. On the surplice, at any rate, the
rulers of the Church were prepared to msist. The Advertise
ments directed that m cathedrals and collegiate churches the
officiatmg clergy shoffid use copes at the communion and
surplices at other services, and that in parish churches surplices
should be worn at aU services. But when the bishops and the
ecclesiastical commission msisted on the Puritan clergy wearmg
the surplice, though the majority conformed, many on refusmg
to comply were imprisoned and deprived. It is noteworthy
that this same year witnessed the first attempt at definitive
separation from the Church of England. A number of the
deprived ministers resolved to worship God apart m separate
meeting houses, but their action faUed to wm general approval
from the Puritan constituency. As a body the Puritans were
stiU determmed to remam withm the Church's pale and remodel
her after the pattern of the best reformed churches.
Puritanism After i'^70 P]]ritanLsm.J3assed-into its second phase. The
Si'^r"^™*^ dispute- about ecclesiastical dress had receded mto the back
ground ; the question now thrust to the front was the j^oper
Attack on form of church govemment. The dominant Puritan conception
pacT° ^^ ^^ "parity of mmisters." Prelacy, they said, was un
scriptural, and, mdeed. a mere remnant of popery. This cry for
the " parity of ministers " origmated neither in Scotland nor
Geneva, but m Cambridge. Its prophet was the Puritan leader
— soon to be famous — Thomas Cartwright. The papacy had
mamtaffied that aU episcopal power was derived from the Pope.
The Puritans for the first and by no means the last time found
their views identical with those of Rome^ The word was passed
round Puritan HrHpg that jrplary w-ae .a- mprn nffr^l^nnt-pf
piiperjj^ Durmg the years which followed 1570 many attempts were
made by the Puritans — a growmg party m Parliament — ^to
presbyterianise by legislation the Church of England. Parlia
ment was as yet far from having a Puritan majority, but even
so the Queen was resolved to retam the direction of ecclesiastical
matters in the hands of herself and Convocation. Time and

The Church under Elizabeth 305
agam she sternly forbade Parliament to interfere with the affairs
of the Church. But in spite of the Queen's wish, Parliament in Enact-
1571 passed an Act ordermg that the Articles of Religion should Jlle'thin -
be subscribed by aU the Marian clergy and by all future holders nine
of benefices on pam of deprivation, and that aU clergy teaching ^^^^f^^'
doctrme contrary to the Articles shoffid suffer the same penalty.
To this Act the Queen gave her assent, but she woffid not hear
of any attempt to modify the Church's polity. After t^^t the
Smng&ncy than ever ; t^py rpgnirpH frnm all tbngp wbf< wiabprl
tn nfFJHatp in tbp Qi^irr-b o /^Pf^lorotirin (t) tbat tVia Pr>.yoi--'Rr.>^V
in all itg rnntprifg wag agrPPQV>1p tn tbp \fJrvrA nf Ci^A [2) that
the surpliceought to be used, (3) that aU the Articles contained
true "TTGristian" doctrine. Under such pressure, the Puritan
programme qmckly developed. The writmgs of the Puritan
leaders give us clear knowledge of their aims and ideals. Of
these works the most important were. The First and Second Writings ot
Admonitions to the Parliament (1372), written by or under and ™"^'''
the pationage of Thomas Cartwright, and The Declaration o/Travers.
Discipline (1374), by Walter Travers. Cartwright was essenti
aUy the prophet of Puritanism. He was a very learned and
profoundly religious man, but his religion was cast m the severest
moffid. His mtolerance was appaUmg. Had he been placed m
a position of power, he woffid have stopped false (which meant
for him non-Puritan) teachmg by reviving the bloodiest enact
ments of the Mosaic code. " If this be bloody and extreme, I
am content to be so counted with the Holy Ghost." The
scurrUity with which he sometimes pleaded his cause shoffid
be contrasted with the moderation of Hooker. Language which
woffid have excited no surprise if uttered by an ffi-bred fanatic
did not sit gracefuUy on the lips of a divmity professor. Cart
wright had led a crusade agamst the surplice at Cambridge,
and m consequence had been deprived of his professorship and
feUowship. His feelmgs were not unnaturaUy embittered, and
many of the scandals disfiguring the order and disciplme of the
Church received at his hands weU-deserved castigation.
Travers was an able man of real piety and a Puritan to the
backbone. His cffief title to fame arose from his prolonged
controversy with Hooker at the Temple Church, when Hooker
was Master, and he Reader. From the ¦writmgs of Cartwright
and Travers a clear view can be gamed (i) of the grounds on
U

3o6 The Church of England
which they attacked the Church, and (2) of their own positive
programme for its reconstruction.
(i)Grounds I. The Church was attacked for retainmg much of the
att'ackon cssence of popery. The old objections to the surplice were
theChurch. once more asserted, but they occupied a subordinate place ;
for the Puritans had now discovered that the^whole Prayer-Book
was ". an unperfectbook cuUpd and-picked out of that popishe
dunghU . . . the Masse Boke fffi of aU abominations." The
Ordinal was " a thing woorde for woorde drawne up of the
Pope's Pontifycal, wherein he showeth himselfe to be Antichrist
most lively." The old objections to the wedding rmg, the sign
of the cross, kneeling at the communion, were repeated ; ¦yiTits'
days, confirmation, private baptism. " tossmg the Psalms like
tennis balls," the canticles, organs, the threefold mmistry of
bishops, priests, and "dea:cSB'g| wpri»--!Tlf-ilHiiiiiiiN.fTrl~a<;-jtqpistie'Sir
Hooker's It may be said at this point that Hooker's reply in his Ecciesi-
''^P^''' astical Polity (1594-1597) to aU these charges was convmcing.
The general Ime of defence adopted by Hooker was that
(a) prfirtirP° W"r" n"t ri°"°f;'-Tiri^y^i'^ ^"^ii'^^r thf;]' W°re obsexyed
byPagists. " Some thmgs they (i.e. the Papists) do in that
they are men, in that they are wise men and Christian men some
things, some things in that they are men misled and blinded with
error. As far as they foUow reason and truth, we fear not to
tread the self-same steps wherem they have gone -and to be
their followers." (b) Scripture must not be rejQiired to do that
which it was never mtended to dn ¦ fnr Scripture p^f^^^TEC!''^''
that ,me.tL.arp giftpri wifh reason.-.and is not mtended to reveal
that whirb mpn by the fyf^rigp nf their "^^.J^f^^IUZ!?-^""^
out for themselves. Therefore if practices and beliefs are reason
able, to urge that specffic texts of Scripture cannot be quoted
in their support is no argument against their value.
Puritan at- The Puritans were on safer ground when they attacked
justiiiaWe.^ practical abuses. Thus it was no doubt a scandal that so many
of the clergy were " dumb dogs," unable or unwiUing to preach
the Word, though Lord Bacon, writing m the next reign, did
weU to remmd the Puritans that God's house is primarUy a
house of prayer, and that " preachmg may be magnffied and
extoUed superstitiously, as if the whole body of God's worship
shoffid be turned into an ear." The lack of a preachmg
mmistry was, however, a scandal, and it is a matter for regret
that Elizabeth and her bishops, for reasons which wiU presentiy

The Church under Elizabeth 307
be mentioned, felt themselves obliged to suppress the prophesy-
ings, of which one aim, at any rate, was t.Q.raise the. standar.4jQl
clgrical^preaching. Other undoubted abuses were pluralism and
non-residence, and m some cases the scandalous lives of the
clergy who were resident. The abuses of the ecclesiastical
courts, notably the mquisitorial methods of the High Com
mission, " savouring," as Burghley said, " of the Roman Inquisi
tion," the use of excommunication as a mere method of procedure,
when it ought to have been held in reserve as the Church's most
severe form of censure, tfee cpmmutation of penance for money,
the -.whole- svstenxjaf- dispensations exercised bv the archbishop
— aU these deserved and received the gravest condemnation.
In many cases, however, the real culprits were not the clergy,
but the ecclesiastical lawyers, by whom they were victimised.
2. The positive programme adopted by the Puritans was (2) Positive
that of remodelUng the Church on Presbyterian lines. " Parity {^e'^p„°f.
of ministers " was their " cry," the overthrow of Episcopacy tans.
their aim. Each__jingle_<x)np.egatioja_3as-4o--J^&--r4J«d-by^a
rninister and elders, forming a consistory ; the minister was to be
admitted to his ministry hy a confer p,ncp., a wjder assembly,
which representatives of the different churches in the district
were lo "attend. ThuiTEe sphere of a " consistory " would
correspond to a " parish," the sphere of a conference to a
diocese ; the__nmister was to be caUed and elected by the con
gregation in which he was to mmister ; tEe elders'were'a'ssociated
wTtTTTnrn in the government of the particffiar congregation ;
and together they were to exercise discipline over its members.
In each congregation deacons, who were not an order _of. ministry,
were to be chosen to look after the poor. 4i,sdlole_seri^:_of
councils was arranged ; representatives from each congregation
were to form the conference of a district ; Sibovett^wnferences
wRrg_t9 be ."iynods provincial, synodt nni.inniil^ and, ultimately
synods international. Each of these was to be attended by
representatives of the councUs immediately subordmate. Tffis
presb)^eral scheme of government was supposed to be enjoined
by Scripture. The di^vine right of Presbyterianism was matched
agamst the Anglican's divme right of Episcopacy. The first
presbytery m England was formed at Wandsworth in 1372, and Puritan
during the years which foUowed concerted efforts were made againstThe
by Puritan secret societies to " coUar " the Church of England Church.
and replace its order by a secret Puritan framework. The

3o8 The Church of England
forms of the existing organisation were to be outwardly retamed
tffi the "psychological" moment arrived— that is to say, tffi
public opmion had been educated, and the time had ripened
for the State to authorise the change. The old forms woffid
then faU off and reveal the Presbyterian organisation ready to
take their place. Thus patrons were to be persuaded to present
to li'dngs only those already chosen by a Presbyterian classis
or conference ; a man's real ordmation was to be from the
Presbyterian classis, though as a matter of form he might
receive episcopal ordmation tffi times were ripe for the estab
lishment of the new system. The churchwardens and coUectors
of alms might secretly be given the functions performed by
elders and deacons in the Presbyterian scheme. These under
ground mtrigues for the replacement of episcopal by Presbyterian
organisation were an undoubted menace to the historic Church,
spreadmg as they did over many parts of England. It was
soon discovered by the Queen and her advisers that the
" prophesyings " inaugurated in 1371 were being used to further
the "Puritan plot. The-piimao'. purpose, of a prophesymg had_
JI'-TILI^J-'^— '^^-^^^ prparbing _Jj;eiyj[ortnight the clergy of
a rljgtrirt mpt nn a wppV.rlqy \j\ thp-pbipf tn»»m »*wjUr..a-j3a.ocUcaAar.-
orjaEsident ; each minister woffid then for a quarter of an hour
or so handle the same passage of Scripture. The whole pro
phesying took some two hours, and at its close the moderator
woffid sum up the discussion and prescribe a text for the next
meeting. But when t^e, Queen IparnpH that tbpgp pT-j^p^pgying-a
were bemg used to undermme the established order of the
-Eippbest "OJurcEr" and replace it by Jr^resbyterianism, she imperioiisly
¦~^^"^" ordered their suppression (1574). Meetmgs, however, of a simUar
iSZ4. ' nature contmued. Archbishop Grindal refused to suppress, and
wished merely to regffiate them. His refusal to carry out the
Queen's order led to Ms sequestiation and disgrace (1377).
In the next decade Puritanism passed into extremer forms
than any it had as yet assumed ; it was exasperated by the
systematic policy of repression, cffimmatmg m the banishment
of NonconfornUsts (1393), which was employed by the Govem
ment and Wffitgift, the new archbishop. The embittered state
iwarpreiate of feelmg was showu m the Martin Marprelate tracts (1388),
15^8^8.°' ^^ attack on the bishops, marked by violence and scurrffity,
but also by considerable wit and power of satire.
A further phase of Puritanism had, however, been already
reached in 1581. Until this date the Puritans as a body had

The Church under Elizabeth 309
not contemplated a separation from the Church. Their aim
had been to remam withm the Church and convert it to their
¦yiews. This new Puritan Church was to exercise a coercive
jurisdiction, and it was m their view the duty of the State to
support it with aU the force that the State coffid command.
But about the year 1581 a sect of the. Puritans,.led by Robert Puritanism
BroH2ieK-dfilerjJjJaed.-to sepaxate...altQge±hei:~ii:Qm„±he...Ch.urch. '"hase*''^'^
Independency had bfien-born. The cry adopted by this wing independ
of the Puritan party was " Reformation without tarrying for ®'"^5''
any." Its members had no belief m the di^vine right of the
Presbyterian system ; they rejected in toto the royal claim to
supremacy m things ecclesiastical ; they woffid not recognise the
historic Church as a church at aU, because it was contaminated
by the presence within its fold of evU livers ; they _thoi^ht
that the true Church ought to consist of Jlg^Pts^'_alone._ Thus
the^Jiew^prt fnimded tQLJBrami£.ife0^3ISSISjhg-£r£s.by-
terians and the Anglicans. Browne himself fied to HoUand,
but after quarreUmg with the colony of English Presbyterians
whom he there found, returned to England ffi 1591, conformed,
and died many years later as an English rector. After Browne's
desertion the leadership of the new sect was taken by two men
caUed Barrow and Greenwood. But they fell under the ban
of the Government for denymg the Queen's supremacy in matters
ecclesiastical, and were finally executed on the charge of sedition
(1593). After the Act of 1593, wffich banished Nonconformists,
the members of the sect took refuge ffi Holland, and finaUy ffi
1620 they saUed for America in the Mayflower, to be the founders
of that which ffi time became a mighty State.
MeanwhUe the leaders of the Church of England had been
driven by the opposition of both Romanists and Puritans to
define their position. Bancroft, a risffig man, soon to be Bishop
of London, delivered a famous sermon ffi 1589 at Paul's Cross.
A greater than Bancroft, Richard Qjaofcer, gave to the world Hooker's
durmg the years 1394-1397 Ws Ecclesiastical Polity, a con- fji^^j^^''
vmcffig refutation of the Puritan charges agamst, andAi^soned
vindication of, the Anglican position .
The great Queen passed away on 24th March 1603. She may Death of
not have been a spirituaUy-minded woman, but she had nursed Elizabeth.
the new ecclesiastical settiement through its mfancy. Few woffid
deny that, considerffig the inlmite perUs, Roman and Puritan,
by which it was surrounded, the Elizabethan settiement of the
Church was an admirable piece of constructive statesmanship,

CHAPTER XVII
THE CHURCH UNDER THE EARLY STEWARTS—
THE LAUDIAN REGIME
The Under James I. a new dynasty succeeded to the English throne.
dynlsty ^^^ foreign origm — for Scotiand was at that time a foreign
country — may ffi part account for the disasters of its career ;
a clearer cause contributing to its faUure was the fatal policy
of ffiter-marriage with the Roman Catholic dynasties of the
Contment. Elizabeth had found ffi the celibate state a source
of strength ; the Stewarts by their marriage schemes aroused
the suspicions and stirred the antagonism of their subjects.
But the prime cause of the disasters which overtook the Stewart
famUy must be found ffi the infatuated temperament of the
monarchs themselves. As we read the story of the Stewart
dynasty, we seem to be movffig ffi the atmosphere of a Greek
tragedy, inherited woe descendmg from father to son, ffifatua-
James I. tiou hurryffig them on to a pre-appointed doom. James I. was
a pedant, with great knowledge of books, but littie knowledge
of men. He was rightly described as the wisest fool ffi Christen
dom. Being quite unable to appreciate the genius of Bacon
and Raleigh, he attached himself to unworthy favourites, such
as Carr and Buckffigham. Yet he had withal a shrewdness
which his son Charles totaUy lacked. For example, after the
anti-Puritan regime of Bancroft, who was archbishop from
1604-1610, he saw that it was necessary to concUiate Puritanism,
and therefore appomted to the vacant see the Puritan Abbot.
Under James I. the two questions which were fated to over
throw the monarchy and " hew the throne down to a block "
for his son Charles, had already emerged. These were the
constitutional and the religious questions. It is beyond the
provffice of this book to tiace ffi detail the constitutional dispute ;
but the politics and religion of the period were ffiextricably
entangled ; it was the support given on the one hand by the
churchmen to the absolutist policy of the King, and on the other
hand by the Kmg to the religious policy of the churchmen, that
310

Church under the Early Stewarts 311
brought down the fabric of Church and State in one common The con
stitutions question,

ruffi. The nature of the constitutional problem must therefore ='''"''°"^i

be made clear. The dispute was concerning the seat of sove
reignty : did the sovereignty lie with the King, and was Parlia
ment a mere ad^yisory councU. with which the Kmg could.Jf he
wished, dispense ? ffi other words, had the King the right to
legislate, to tax his subjects, to appoffit and dismiss mffiisters
and judges, to contiol the armed forces, without reference to
Parliament ? The Parliament held that the real sovereignty
lay with itself, and that the Kffig coffid do none of these things
without reference to the national representatives. The Kffig,
on the other hand, claimed sovereignty for himself. He invented
an ffigenious theory of prerogative. Drawffig a distffiction'
between the ordinary and extraordinary prerogative, he main
tained that the ordinary prerogative of the Crown was subject to
statute and common law. But in_the_exirao?'^(w^ prerogative
he^claimed a.,rig.ht .Qi_ac±i0Jl_Qutside~Mi4 -b%JOHd-4he- ordinary
laWj_ ¦whenever -political- Gireufflstaiiees--ttt---lii&--¥iew--deniaiid.ed
such action^ Thus the extiaordmary prerogative from its very
nature coffid not be limited by any law, e.g. the Petition of Right ;
for it was ffi its essence a claim that the Kmg was entitled to
break the law whenever reasons of State required. The King
claimed aU other rights of sovereignty, and when he found that
Parliament took a different view of the constitution, he tried to
foreclose aU the constitutional questions at issue between himself
and Parliament by means of the judges. This was why the
independence of the judges became such a vital matter. If the
judges, for example, decided against the Kmg's right to exact
taxation, it was one of the " secrets " of Stewart rffie to dismiss
them. In their ¦view, and ffi the view of Bacon, the judges were
to be " lions under the throne, circumspect that they do not
check or oppose any poffits of sovereignty " ; in other words,
the judges were to be the buttress of the Kmg's absolute sove
reignty. Now the weakness ffi the Parliamentary position lay
ffi the fact that Parliament, and not the Kffig, was the ffino-
vator. To support their contention, the Parliament men had
to go back to the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries — and
not to the practice, but to the theory of those centuries. The
Kffig on his side coffid pomt to the unffiferrupted practice of the
sixteenth century ; the Tudor practice coffid only be explamed
on the assumption that some such power existed as that claimed

312 The Church of England
by the Kmg. Speaking broadly, we may say that for all the
so-called unconstitutional actions of the early Stewarts paraUels
Elizabeth might be found ffi the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth
^^ ^j had raised " ffiegal " taxation ; she had issued monopolies ;
kingf com- she had scolded Parliament ; she had declared that ParUament's
P^'^*^- freedom of speech lay ffi saying " yea" or "nay " to proposals
put forward by the Govemment ; she had imprisoned members
of Parliament for the freedom of their speech ; she had repeatedly
forbidden ParUament to mterfere ¦with the Church, and to legis
late ffi favour of the Puritans ; she had repressed Puritans ; as far
as Act of Parliament coffid do it (1393), she had harried Non
conformists out of the land. The one marked difference between
her policy and that of James lay ffi the sphere of foreign politics.
If the peace concluded with Spain in 1604 was a return to the
policy pursued by Elizabeth from 1358 to 1384, the close mtimacy
between England and Spam which marked the later period of
James's reign coffid find no paraUel in that of his predecessor.
But with this exception, the constitutional principles foUowed
by the two sovereigns were simUar. How, then, are we to account
for the difference in attitude assumed by the English nation
towards Elizabeth and the Stewart monarchs respectively ?
The reasons are not far to seek. In the first place, though
Elizabeth had acted ffi many ways as a despotic sovereign, she
never grounded her action on an elaborate theory, nor msisted
in season and out of season that her people and ParUament
shoffid accept the theory. The Stewarts in elaborating the
theory of the Di^vdne Right of Kmgs, and badgering their Parlia
ments to accept their doctrine of prerogative, showed extia
ordmary want of tact. Secondly, the English people tiusted
EUzabeth ; they knew that she was the sworn foe of the papacy
and Spain ; they rightly believed ffi her abUity to pUot the sffip
of State through the storms which broke upon her. But the
nation with too good ground distrusted the whole race of
Stewarts ; the phUo-Spanish and phUo-Catholic tendencies of
James destroyed that trust forever. But the crucial difference
between the Elizabethan and the Stewart times lay ffi the
altered circumstances. Security is prior ffi importance to
liberty. In times of stress and danger, a nation gladly gives
its rffiers extiaordinary powers. Its first desire is safety, not
liberty. The sixteenth century had been pre-emmently an age
of storm and stress ; but by 1603 the dangers, both mternal and

Church under the Early Stewarts 313
external, wffich had threatened England, existed no longer.
Feudal anarchy had disappeared ; Spain had been broken ;
Romanism successfuUy defied. With the passing of the danger,
passed also the need of the " Tudor " monarchy. Hence, even
though the Stewarts had been gifted with the Tudor power of
government, a change ffi the balance of the constitution woffid
have been required by the altered conditions of the age ; the
growing restiveness of Parliament even under the guidance of
Elizabeth bore "witness to the change. But this was not aU.
The Tudors, by encouraging the development of local govern-
ment, hag~Trainea""the7x!QnEggr_s^^^ of the
middle classes. By-_ifiQ3™.±hese„coun.ti^!;-ge.Btie.mea~were no
loiiger,coiitSBl.±Q CQndu£t^melyJo£gijdmiais±ratiQn-as.i!}stices
of the peace ;_thex.,ha.d.-..bec.Qin£-x:""^r''rati^irp1y wpaltby _ and
were^rcady-tojnaka a bid . .for_a_ shc^e, in the _contrpl. of national
_ p.oIitics^,.Ih&.3yay had-also.been_ prepared for political revolu-
tioii_by the religious. Rgformation.
The Reformation had been a revolt against ecclesiastical The Refor-
authority. But revolt agaffist authority in the religious sphere democratic
might very easUy pass ffito revolt against authority in the doctrine.
political sphere as weU. James was shrewd enough to see this ;
he showed that he appreciated the danger ffi his famous declara
tion, " No bishop, no king." The Protestant doctrffie of the
equality of aU men before God, when applied to politics, logicaUy
led to pure democracy. It was the misfortune or faffit of the
Stewart kffigs that they coffid not realise how radicaUy different
the circumstances of England in the seventeenth were from
those of the sixteenth century. Yet their blindness was pardon
able ; MacffiaveUi and others had declared the omni-competence
of the State ; the reUgious reformers ffi Germany and England
had clothed the prince with the Divine Right of which they
had stripped the papacy ; the Stewart kings found the judges
and the clergy, and the greatest mtellect in England, Francis
Bacon, ready to support their ¦views. The spirit of the age in
Europe was tending towards the creation of absolute govern
ments. Little wonder was it that the Stewarts thought they
could do the like ffi England. Let us pause for a moment to The theory
consider what the theory of the Divine Right of Kmgs, as Righ™*
enunciated by the Stewarts, really meant. For a hundred years
to come the clergy of the Church of England identffied them
selves with this doctrine. It is therefore important to realise

314 The Church of England
that the doctrine of Divine Right was not the absurdity which
in many quarters it has been portrayed as beffig. No one ffi
that age believed ffi the sacred right of resistance. AU men
believed ffi Divme Right. The only subject of dispute was
about the power to whom the Divine Right, and therefore
unquestioned authority, belonged. The Papist declared that
Di^vine Right belonged to the Pope alone ; the Presbyterian
claimed it for the Presbyterian Kirk. The theory of Divine
Right was therefore ffi origffi a protest on behalf of the State
agaffist aU those who represented the State as the mere creature
and servant of an ecclesiastical organisation, papal or Presby
terian. It laid down the truth which is now regarded as axio
matic, but was then very far from being so regarded, that in an
organised State the sovereign power cannot aUow its authority
to be challenged. There can be no doubt that the theory did
immense service by proclaimmg the supreme importance to a
people of a law-abiding habit. Only those people who agree
with Rousseau ffi givffig revolution as daUy food, not as drastic
physic, to a people, can question the importance of the service
rendered by the doctiine as a counterpoise to revolutionary
tendencies. Wise people to-day do not believe ffi the indefeasible
right either of a kffig or of a democracy ; they know that
neither the voice of a king nor the voice of a people is neces
sarUy the voice of God. But they hold that only extreme cases
can ever justify resistance to constituted authority. The
holders of the Divine Right theory went wrong because (i) agree-
mg with the Papists and Puritans and others, they denied alto
gether, even in the extieme cases, the sacred right of resistance ;
(2) in practice they maffitaffied that this Di^yffie Right belonged
to the person of the Kffig ; thus they definitely took the side
of the Kffig ffi his attempt to rivet the yoke of absolutism
on the English people. Accordffig to them, the Di^vme Right
belonged to the Kffig, not to the " Kffig ffi ParUament." It
was a grave misfortune for the Church that she identffied herself
with a political party and took the side of absolutism. The
historical cause for this disastrous choice is obvious. She
thought that she could only secure herself from the encroachmg
Puritanism of the House of Commons by throwing herself mto
the arms of the Kffig.
Thus the momentous choice was made.
The revolution of rfi^r ^^f^ dne tn the coincidence of con-

Church under the Early Stewarts 315
stitutional and religious revolt. The comparative importance Compara-
of" these two elementa in producing the rebeUion has been ^;[' JXon-
variously estimated. Some have mamtained that, had it not stitutional
been for the religious question, the constitutional opposition g"ourques-
woffid have had no chance of carrying the countiy ; whUe t'°°s '"
C3.1I5in?
others have mamtaffied the exactiy contrary view. This much revolt of
is certaffi that when the actual revolt began in 1641 parties '^*'-
did ffi fact di^yide on religious Iffies ; the ^Anglicans became
the ^nyalict, tbp Pi^Htang Wy^ anti-rn^^aljgt party Primd fade,
therefore, the religious question favoured the King ; had it not
been for the AngUcans, Charles woffid have been supported by
no party at all. But a more searchffig mspection shows that
the religious movement had much to do ffi making straight
the way towards rebeUion ; for the ffiner spirit of the Re
formation spread revolt against authority from the ecclesiastical
to the political sphere, and the essentiaUy Protestant doctrffie
of the equaUty of aU men before God developed its demo
cratic signfficance. In other ways as well the religious question
prepared the way for the explosion. The^claimofthe clergy
to pass canons bindffig on the Iqity. and ¦varinns feafTrre"s~"of
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, aroused anti-clerical feelffig : the
use made of excommunication (which carried _with„it civil dis-
aEnities}jjiot_asIIh£lCburGh^-severest forni of punishment for
fiagrant crime, but as a mere form of procedure employed by
lay judges ffi the ecclesiastical conrts^the employment ffi the
High Commission of the ex officio oath, by which the accused
was comppllpd to answer questions an.d-incriininate himself.
prn^rnVpd ^jntaprnnigm ; thc excrcisc by the High Commission of
the right to fine and imprison was a source of constant friction,
and led to the issue of prohibitions from the courts of King's
Bench and Common Pleas. The common lawyers became more
and more Erastian ffi their ¦views, i.e. determined to uphold
the supremacy of the State agamst ecclesiastical claims. The
Church, on the other hand, under the guidance first of the
Anglican Whitgift, and then of the Puritan Abbot, was enabled
by the royal ffitervention to maffitaffi these offensive practices.
The extieme unpopffiarity with wffich prelatical Episcopacy was
regarded by the men of 1641 was ffi part due to these grievances
as weU as to the fact that the Laudian bishops were thought
to be the cffief mstiuments of Stewart absolutism. Even the
gentle Falkland was ffi 1641 ready to urge that the prelates

3i6 The Church of England
shoffid be stiipped of their temporal power, and have ffiferior
clergy associated with them m the exercise of their, spiritual
duties. Agaffi it was the difference of -yiew on religious matters wffich
repeatedly, e.g. in 1610, 1614, and throughout the reign of
Charles, made it unpossible for the King to make an arrangement
with ParUament about taxation and other matters of constitu
tional import. ParUament differed from the King both on the
subject of the Puritans and the Roman Catholics. Pn the
James and RQIDaiL.Il'ithoUc question James was far more tolerant than
the Roman ^^ ParUament ; but the Puritans, with ..their eves fixed on the
Catholics.  •  ' ' r 1 ,-. r '¦
continent and the workings of the Counter-reformation, were
probably correct ffi their view that toleration^ couI3" not Tdc
safely granted_^It~was clear "to tiiem that tne ffist' use~wffich
"the Roman Catholics woffid make of toleration woffid be to
employ it as a ffficrum for the destruction of Protestantism.
It cannot be denied that the Parliament and the Puritans
had good cause to suspect the Crown of Romanist tendencies.
James showed extraordffiary lack of tact when ffi ffis first
speech to Parliament he compared Puritanism unfavourably
with Romanism, sayffig that " he acknowledged the Roman
Church to be his mother Church, though deffled with some
ffifirmities and corruptions," and that to promote a union of
the Churches of Rome and England he woffid go halfway to meet
the Romanists ; but that Puritans, owffig to " their confused form
of policy and parity," were " ffisufferable ffi any weU-governed
commonwealth." By this one speech he aroused the suspicions
of aU Puritans, who so far from regarding Rome as their mother,
regarded her as Antichrist. It was known that James' wUe
was secretiy a Roman Catholic. The terms of the Spanish
marriage treaty fanned Protestant feelffig to a white heat.
What coffid be thought of the Protestantism of James and
Charles, when they signed a treaty promisffig the Roman
Catholics exemption from the penal laws, and liberty of worship
ffi private houses, and engaging that the Infanta's church shoffid
be open to the public, and that any chUdren of the marriage
shoffid be brought up by their mother tffi they were t\yelve
years of age ? By tffis treaty the prospect of the succession
of a Roman Catholic dynasty seemed to be assured. Frantic joy
greeted the inteUigence that the idea of a Spanish marriage
had been given up. But Henrietta Maria, whom Charles did

Church under the Early Stewarts 317
actuaUy marrv,^.was a Roman Catholic, and the terms of the
French marriage treaty were not much more reassuring for
Protestantism. It was the Roman Catholicism of her children
which finaUy made their rffie intolerable, and led to the expul
sion of James II. iiv 1688. The Laudian revival, too, seemed
to the Puritans, as mdeed in some respects it was, an approxi
mation to Romanism ; to the features which separated it from
Romanism they shut their eyes.
Let us retrace our steps to the accession of James I. and Position of
briefly sketch ffis relations ¦with Romanists and Puritans. The catholics
Elizabethan code had theoreticallsL..taken„awa-y-.from~R-ema»ists
aU rights., to .Iiie or property. Romanists were excluded from
State office, and Roman priests went about ffi daily peril of
their lives. Romanists who faUed to attend their parish churches
had to pay a ransom ; those recusants who were great land
lords generaUy compounded for non-attendance by a payment
of twenty pounds a month, whUe smaUer landowners agreed
to sacrffice two-thirds of their rental. But practice was very
different from theory, and varied ffidefinitely from place to
place and from time to time. The towns were hot-beds of
Protestant feelffig, and Romanists hardly dared openly to show
their faith ffi them ; but many country districts, especiaUy ffi
the north and west, were under the ffifluence and domffiation
of Roman Catholic squires ; ffi many of these districts the
law of the land, with the connivance of the officials of Govem
ment, was not observed. The squire's manor-house often gave
asylum to a Roman priest, who mffiistered to the spiritual
wants of the squire and his dependants. Many an old manor-
house stffi contaffis secret chambers and secret passages, which
were used as places for concealment of the priest when officials
of Government came ffi times of religious excitement to ransack
the'house ffi search of the Papist foe. James, ffi the earliest
days of his reign, had caused Roman Catholics to believe that
their condition woffid be ameUorated under the new regime.
The disappoffitment caused, when the King found ffimself
driven under pressure to enforce the recusancy laws, led to a
conspiracy of the moderate Catholics, wffich was characteris
tically revealed to the Govemment by the Jesuits ! James
thought that a good opportunity for drawffig a distffiction between
loyal and disloyal Romanists had arrived. He proceeded to
remit the recusancy imes, and allowed the laws agaffist Roman

3 1 8 The Church of England
priests to remaffi a dead letter. The immediate resffit was
that many crypto-Romanists revealed their adherence to the
old faith, and ceased to attend the parish churches. The
alarming increase of avowed Romanists terrffied the Govern
ment, and James was forced to withdraw the toleration he had
Gunpowder granted. This withdrawal was foUowed by the famous ^_Gun-
Piot, 1605. ¦powder Plot (November 160=;^ . ffi which the extreme party of
the Romanjstsattempted to blow up Kin^. Lords, and Commons.
ToTES plot Garnet, the Provfficial of the Jesuits, was an acces
sory. Executions and fresh penal laws followed. James' attitude
to the Romanists need not be traced further. Let it suffice
to state that he was naturaUy fficlined towards toleration. By
legislation and by his mode of administerffig the laws he often
tried to draw a distinction between the loyal and the disloyal,
between those Romanists who denied the right of the Pope to
depose sovereigns, and those who maffitaffied the contrary. The
King's natural inclinations were on occasions reinforced by
reasons of State. Durmg the period ffi which negotiations were
proceedmg for the Spanish marriage (1618-1623), the Romanists
enjoyed practical immunity from the penal laws and the recus
ancy fines. But the policy pursued was one of see-saw ; the
Parliament was fanatically anti-Papist, and under Parliamentary
pressure the Kffig was forced from time to time to sacrffice his
own inclffiations and aUow the machffiery of the law to be set ffi
full force agaffist the Romanists.
Puritanism In his dcalffigs with Puritanism the Kffig was even more
'n 1603. unhappy and unsuccessful. At the begmning of the reign there
were no Nonconformists ; but the Church of England, comprisffig
as it did aU sorts of people, was profoundly divided between
that which we would now call the High Church and the Low
Church parties. The work of a real statesman woffid have
been to draw these two sections together, and help each to
learn something of the other. Lord Bacon urged the King
to grant the Puritan clergy certaffi options ffi ceremonies, and
so preserve the unity of the body unbroken. We wiU see that
JaJB^s-fejected the ad^vice of the wisest man of the age, and
deterimned-to-jnake the Puritang rnnfnrm nr pigp y^^^ry thpm
owt of the land.
Principles Let US try to realise the differences between these two schools
Church?'' °^ churchmen. The " Hie[h " Chnrr.hman, nr AngliVan tnnk hjg
men. standon the BiMe^e^ Creeds, and the Church. Ths_£iWe.was

Church under the Early Stewarts 319
tO'^^«ve--d«6t*ine7-bet-4her-Bibte-iieeded~tnterpretati©%-aHd-theffiterpretatinn was to W givfn by th" ^hnfph fPie-unUmited
idgbt nf privatp judgmp^lt was therefore rejected. In their
conception of the Church the Anglicans approximated to the
Roman view — that is to say, thej regarded ths Chnrch as a
divinely ingpirpd apd organised body ; ^hey maintamed the
Di^vine right of gpigrnpacy, and traced their succession of orders
back through the Roman Catholic hierarchy to the age of the
primitive Church ; they emphasised the supreme importance
of the sacraments and the priestly character of the clergy ; they
talked about the "altar," not the holy table, and encouraged
a development of ritual, bowffig to the altar, &c. But they
rejected aU the characteristicaUy papal claims and doeitiaes
as unscriptural. The Elizabethan Anglicans, no less them the
Puritans, had fficlined to Cal^yinistic theology. Wffitgift, for Calvinistic
example, had been a thorough-goffig Cal^yffiist ffi doctrffie, and''"*"'"^"
by the Lambeth Articles (1393) woffid, if Queen Elizabeth
had not thwarted his attempt, have riveted Calvinistic teaching
on the Church of England. C^vjn'.g rbararterigtir doctrine, .was
the utter depravity of human nature ;^_aUowing nothing to the
action oTmen's free wffi, he had made real-moralitv-im-possible
jT]aFtrrgffEing~Hr results tothe predestinatinn nf .Gnd^jfjrid
from all eternity was supposed to have marked out the great
majority of mankind for eternal damnation, and to have chosen
for salvation the elect few, irrespective in each case of any-
tffing they might do. He made His selection, like Browning's
Caliban, " lovffig not, hatffig not, just choosffig so." Calvin
rightly-maffitaincd-that the sm of man-was so terrible that
apart from the free gift of .God's grace there coffid be for. him
neither pardon nor hope of salvation. But ffi a perfectly awful
way he limited the operation of God's grace. He developed one
side of St. Paffi's teacffing to the almost complete exclusion of
the other, .^e reaUty of man's free ¦will mngt he maintained
no less than the providence xiLGod. ILisjme-fli.Biaiiy-paxadQxes
ffi the faith of a Christian ; but it is fatal to destioy the responsi
bility jof^jn^_^3^^SisiI^^Sl2^3£2^
and to represent the Father of Love as ffideously immoral ; for
such He must be if He has marked out people for damnation
before they are even born.
The ArtjclgS_J}i„^ifi__Cbnrrh nf England 'i]\n\ii..jix.ar(^e. of
CalvinigticjnfljTpjir-g^biTtJbey gtpp shnrt nf ga^/ing the irnpnggjhio

320 The Church of England
t|ti;ig. That none of them is purely Calvinistic is sho-wn by
the efforts made by the Calvffiists to rewrite the Articles con
cerned in a clearly Calvinistic form. The fatalism of the
Calvinistic creed might have been expected to destioy aU
ffiitiative and force of character. The resffit has been quite
the contrary. LuckUy no man has ever reaUy acted on the
assumption that he has no freedom of wffi. The Cal^vffiist has
generally regarded himself as an ffistrument ffi the Di-yffie hands,
and the astonishing thffig is that such nations as Scotiand,
in which Calvffiism triumphed, have been conspicuous for the
surpassing energy and forcefffi character of their citizens.
But if the early leaders of the English Church were Calvinistic
ffi their creed, a welcome change was brought by the early
seventeenth century. The risffig school of Anglican theology,
headed by Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Cffichester (1605), and
Arminian William Laud. was " Armffiian " ^ ffi doctrffie. A more liberal
theology. theology, which '^Wed a,t nnre the freednm nf men and thf
moral character of God, and gave„ a contingent value to. the
good works of human--b.effias,--becanae--popular in, Anglican
circles.
doctrfn" Tha_£uritaas.,.on.Jthe_other hand, were whoUv Cplvinigtir-.
and dis- in doctrine : they regarded Armffiian teachmg as little better
cipime. .(.jjan Romanism, and Land's Arminianism was one nf the cffief
grounds for tbe detegtatinn in wbirb tbey bplH |iim The
intense individualism of Calvmistic theology was another feature
which greatly appealed to them. Cal^yffiism marked the extreme
limit of the Protestant revolt from Rome ; Calvffiists had
rejected the whole apparatus of the mediaeval Church ; for
them there was no such thffig as priestly mediation between
God and man : they regarded religion as merely a concem
between the ffidi^yidual soffi and God. But Calvffi had the
wisdom to know that the unseen authority of God might not
act as a sufficient check on the immorality of professing
Christians, and therefore retaffied for his congregation a coercive
juri,sflirtinn over its members. The Scotch Church, ffi w"EcF
Calvinism triumphed, established a simUar form of coercive
power ; the kirk-session and the General Assembly exercised a
stern ffiquisitorial jurisdiction over the members of the Scotch
Puritan Church. Stffi it is true to say that an ffitense ffidividualism
autraf"" lay at the foundation of the Calvinistic creed. The Puritans,
^ So called from Arminius, a Dutch divine.

Church under the Early Stewarts 321
like jntber Calvinistn. wrrn inrhvirlnnliiti ; they were deficient
in a sense of corporate churchmansffip, and did aoL value-the
idea nf bigtnrir rnntinnity They retaffied their old objections
to the Book of Common Prayer, but ffi the most important
matters they were wffiffig to conform. There can be no doubt
that some of the best reUgious life flowed in Puritan channels
at the openffig of the seventeenth century. The Puritans, like
the LoUards of a former era, came in for a great amount of
ridicffie because they made a firm stand against the swearing,
the drunkenness, and the immorality of the age, and did aU
they coffid to promote the laudable customs of Bible-reading
and famUy prayers. Not a few of the beneficed clergy deserved
aU the denunciations launched against them by the Puritans.
Richard Baxter (b. 1615) gives us a deplorable picture of Baxter's
the spiritual destitution which prevaUed ffi the parish where o"the'age?
he lived as a boy. The parson was too old for his work. He
was unable to preach, and such assistants as he hired were
disreputable tipplers. The spiritual needs of the neighbourffig
parishes were attended to as little as those of Baxter's own
vUlage. " Only tffiee or four constant competent preachers
lived near us, and those (though conformable aU save one) were
the common marks of the people's obloquy and reproach, and
any one that had gone to hear them, when he had no preaching
at home, was made the derision of the ¦yffigar rabble under the
odious name of a Puritan." If Baxter's description is approxi
mately true, raoral eamestng^ must have beeii_ largely on
the_sida-xil_tha..l',uritans. He teUs us that after the rea3ing
of the common prayer, the mass of the vffiagers spent the rest
of the day in dancing and sport. Sometimes, in spite of his
conscience, the young Baxter joffied them. " But when I heard
them caU my father Puritan, it did much to cure me and alienate
me from them ; for I considered that my father's exercise of
readffig the Scripture was better than theirs . . . and I con
sidered what it was for that he and others were thus derided.
When I heard them speak scornfuUy of others as Puritans
whom I never knew, I was at first apt to believe aU the Ues
and slanders wherewith they loaded them. But when I heard
my own father so reproached, and perceived the drunkards were
the forwardest ffi the reproach, I perceived that it was mere
malice. For my father never scrupled common prayer or
ceremonies, nor spake agaffist bishop, nor ever so much as
X

322 The Church of England
prayed but by a book or form. . . . But only for readmg
Scripture when the rest were dancing on the Lord's Day, and
for praying (by a form out of the end of the Common Prayer-
Book) in his house, and for reprovffig drunkards and swearers,
and for talking sometunes a few words of Scripture and the life
to come, he was revUed commonly by the name of Puritan,
Precisian, and hypocrite ; and so were the godly conformable
ministers that lived anywhere ffi the country near us, not only
by our neighbours, but by the common talk of the vffigar rabble
of all around us. By this experience I was fuUy convfficed
that godly people were the best, and those that despised them
and lived in sin and pleasure were a malignant, unhappy sort
of people ; and this kept me out of their company, except now
and then when the love of sports and play enticed me."
Puritan A fcw words must be said about the Puritan attitude towards
Sunday Sunday. The early reformers had no fficlination towards
makmg Sunday a day of gloom. Neither Cal^wn nor Knox
had scrupled to play bowls on Sunday. Elizabeth ffi her ffijunc-
tions had bidden farmers gather ffi their harvest, if need be,
on the Sunday. It was the day on which the Kffig's Council
normally met. Busffiess of aU sorts was frequently transacted
on it, and from time immemorial vffiage games, such as dancffig
round a maypole, were held on the Sunday after Divine service. If
the Puritans had had an mkling of the fact that the observance
of Sunday was derived from the authority of the Church, they
woffid have made as short work with the observance of it as
they did with the observance of other holy days. But for good
and for ill they identified Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath,
and transferred to the Christinn f^fiti^^i^nl -^f ^'iinlny nil Ihf nil°'i
laid down ffi the Mosaic law for the observance of the Sabbath.
They not only forbade ail work, but "1''" ^^^ rerrpation. on -H^p
Sunday. Their Sabbatarianism went ffi some cases to perfectly
extravagant lengths, and became a regffiar superstition. Not
only was aU work and aU play forbidden, but the slightest
breach of their Sabbatarian rffies was thought to be as heffious
as murder or adffitery. A pitifffi casuistry arose ffi Puritan
circles about such absurdities as to whether " unnecessary
walking," or " idly sitting," or " whistling," or " kissffig your
wife," were wrong on the Sunday. In Scotiand, which was not
its original home, and even more so in New England, the Sabba
tarian code assumed a severer form than ffi England. It is

Church under the Early Stewarts 323
perhaps needless to say that Laud and the other members of
his party took a laxer but more reasonable view as to the nature
of Sunday obligation. We wUl see that James and Charles
unwisely provoked the antagonism of Puritan feeling by
authorising ffi the Book of Sports the traditional Sunday games.
But we must not take too harsh a view of our Puritan ancestors.
The Puritan Sabbath was the product of an earnest and self-
denyffig spirit. If Sunday is ffi modern England a day of rest,
it is to the Puritans that we owe it. The restoration era no
doubt witnessed a reaction, but before the close of the seven
teenth century a modified form of the Puritan Sunday com
mended itself to the Anglican clergy and aU other classes of
society. Having explaffied the prmciples animatffig the two parties of james i.
wffich the Church of England was composed, let us briefly sketch puritans
James' relations with the Puritans. In the course of his journey
from Scotiand ffito England ffi 1603 he was presented by the
Puritans with the Mffienary Petition. It was caUed by that Millenary
name because it was supposed to represent the views of a thou- ^1" "°"'
sand clergy of the English Church. The petitinners enumerated
W\t^r «^tpf-V nbjprtinng tn W^f gpnrirP and ritinl .txf-tb»-Ctwff<^h
e.g. the cross ffi baptism, the ring ffi marriage, confirmation,
thftjKe-Qiiis.smrii£ejd3fi.ieadiiig.QiJfiSSQns-frQm.tiie^p^ ;
they protested agaffist the abuses of excommunication ; they
required"that none should be admitted to the ministry who could
not preach, and that mffiisters shoffid simply be required to
SubscrlEe tff t^'e~fl'"^^"''"'= '"' ^"^"^ "^y P-'rlJ-i.mant (t^^tt^^ and
to"the royal giT^-pmary The petition was moderate ffi tone.
To see what coffid be done, James ffi 1604 summoned the
Hampton Court Conference. The Puritans were represented Hampton
by four divines, ot whom Reynolds, Dean of Lfficoffi, was the £°e^ce?°""
chief ; the authorities of the Church by nffie bishops and others. 1604.
Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was near his end, so
the lead of the Anglican party was taken by Bancroft, Bishop
of London. The change of leadership was not an improvement ;
for Bancroft behaved with great rudeness. When Reynolds
suggested certam doctrinal changes ffi the Articles, Bancroft
rudely ffiterrupted to the effect that, by the ancient canon,
" scffismatics " shoffid not be heard agaffist their bishops, and
with sUly msolence suggested that by appearing ffi Turkey
gowns, the Puritans obviously wanted conformity to the orders

3 24 The Church of England
and ceremonies of the Turks! He objected to the Puritan
request for a retranslation of the Scriptures. James rebuked
him for his rudeness ; he loved to show ffis own leamffig, and
agreed with the Puritans that a new translation of the Bible
was required. It is to this request of the Puritans that we
owe the priceless gift of our " authorised " Bible. But the
Hampton Court Conference revealed two important facts. First,
it showed that the Puritans woffid not be content with the
Puritan moderate programme sketched ffi the Mffienary Petition. They
wished to recast some of the doctrffial Articles ffi a Calvffiistic
moffid ; by trying to secure the authorisation of the Lambeth
Articles, they attempted to bffid Calvinism ffi its most rigid
and loveless form on the Church of England. The bishops
and James steadUy, though with some ffidecent mirth, refused
their request. Good reason was also furnished for belie^yffig
that Puritan opposition to the historic Episcopacy was as lively
James as ever. The second fact disclosed by the conference was that
PurUans° the King had been whoUy captured by the Anglican party.
He refused to argue with the Puritans about " the power of
the Church in things indifferent," such as the cross and the
surplice. " I wiU have one doctrffie, one disciplffie, one religion
in substance and ceremony ; never speak more to that poffit,
how far you are bound to obey." The Puritans (and ffi this
poffit Francis Bacon was ffi agreement with them) suggested
the revival of prophesymgs as a means to tiaffi a preachffig
ministry. But when they proceeded to suggest that any dis
putes about the prophesyffig shoffid be referred to the bishop
' with his presbyters, the King flared up and told them that
they were aiming at a Scots presbytery, " wffich agreed with
monarchy as weU as God and the de^vU. Then Jack and
Tom, Wffi and Dick, shaU meet and at their pleasure censure
both me and my CouncU. . . . Tffi you find I grow lazy, pray
let that alone. I remember how they used the poor lady, my
mother, ffi Scotland, and me ffi my mmority." And tumffig
to the bishops, he proceeded, " My lords, I may thank you
that these Puritans plead for my supremacy, for if once you
are out and they ffi place, I know what would become of my
supremacy, for—No bishop, no kffig." " WeU, doctor, have you
anything else to offer ? " "If tffis be aU your party have to
say, I wiU make them conform, or I wffi harry them out of
this land, or else worse." The Prayer-Book was presentiy

Church under the Early Stewarts 325
reissued with some mffior alterations, and with a considerable
addition to the catechism concerning the sacrament.
The critical moment had come, and James had made his
choice. " In two minutes," says Gardiner, " he had sealed his
own fate and the fate of England forever." Courtier bishops
might extol the wisdom and learnffig of their newly found
Solomon, and might declare that he spoke with the special
assistance of God's Spirit ; but Bacon and others knew better.
The aged Archbishop Whitgift looked forward with misgivings
to the openffig of Parliament. His prayer that he might first
be removed from the scene of his eartWy labours was granted.
His last words, as he lay barely conscious, were, " Pro ecclesia
Dei." He passed to his rest ffi February 1604. Parliament Death of
met ffi the foUowffig month. If the Kffig had had eyes to see, ^''^'^''
or ears to hear, with, he might have been struck by the omffious
fact that Parliament sided with the Puritans. If the gentry of
England and the people of England had Puritan leanffigs, what
woffid be the fate of the Church of England, as mterpreted by
Bancroft and Andrewes and Laud ?
Convocation met at the same time as Parliament (1604),
under the presidency of Bancroft, Bishop of London, sffice the
archiepiscopal see was vacant. Undeterred by the hostility of
the Puritan House of Commons, and having received letters of
busffiess from the Crown, it drew up an elaborate code of 141 Canons of
canons. This code incorporated canons and injunctions from ''*°'*"
the precedffig reign. They received the royal assent, and are
therefore stUl formaUy bindffig on the Church of England, though
many of them have by lapse of time become obsolete, and some
few altered by legislation. The aim of these canons was to
enforce conformity ffi aU poffits on the Puritans. AU impugners
of the faith and rites and poUty of the Church of England were
declared ipso facto excommunicate. Parker's Advertisement of
1366 about the wearffig of copes and surplices was to be main-
taffied ; the reasons for usmg the sign of the cross in baptism
were set forth at length ; all clerics, ffi accordance with the
Elizabethan usage since 1371, were to subscribe to the King's
supremacy, to declare that the Prayer-Book contaffied nothing
contrary to the Word of God, and to affirm the like about the
Articles of Religion. Bancroft
At the close of the year Bancroft was appointed to the ^^^^^J^''
vacant see of Canterbury. He had no sympathy whatever with bishop.

326 The Church of England
Puritan views, and had no need of urgffig from the CouncU to
put the canons ffi operation. He issued immediate orders.
Beneficed clergy who refused to make ex animo the three-fold
subscription to the supremacy, the Prayer-Book, and the Articles
in the form prescribed, but yet were wffiffig to conform, were
not to suffer. If they did not conform, they were to be deprived.
AU unbeneficed clergy who refused to make the prescribed
subscription were immediately to be dismissed. The net resffit
Three hun- was that Some 300 Puritan clergy in all were ejected from their
mn'cien?'' POSts. Puritanism had been driven into dissent and schism.
ejected. In 1606 a BiU was passed by the Commons, but rejected by the
Lords, declaring that no canon, unless confirmed by Parliament,
should be of force to injure any man ffi his person and property.
The temporal judges have, however, always maintaffied from that
date that canons are not binding on the laity unless confirmed
by Parliament. This fact may partly account for the antagonism
Bancroft showed in the rest of ffis episcopate to the efforts of
the civil courts to curtaU by prohibitions the jurisdiction of the
spiritual courts. Bancroft died in 1610. He had an irritable
temper and soinetffing of the spirit of a persecutor. But his
temper mellowed with age and became more concUiatory. He
was an honest man, and a lover of learning ; he tried hard to
raise the spiritual tone and temporal condition of the clergy.
The most memorable event of ffis arcffiepiscopate was the new
"Author- translation of the Bible. Bancroft had origffiaUy opposed the
sfionofthe Suggestion at the Hampton Court Conference, but when the
Bible. matter was taken in hand by royal authority he did much
to ensure its success. In the early years of the seventeenth
century there were two versions of Holy Scripture current ffi
England. The Bishops' Bible of 1368 was a revision of the Great
Bible, carried through by the ffidustry of Parker. The Genevan
Bible (1557-1560) was the work of Protestant refugees at
Frankfort; the convenience of its size and its annotations of
the text made it essentially the Bible for English homes.
Besides these two, a third version, known as the Rheuns or
Douay version, had been drawn up by the seminarists for the
use of English Roman Catholics. The New Testament ffi this
edition appeared ffi 1382, but their Old Testament, though com
pleted, was not published, owmg to lack of funds, before 1610.
The revision of the Scriptures under James I. did not seriously
begffi before 1607. Six companies, two at Westminster, two at

Church under the Early Stewarts 327
Oxford, and two at Cambridge, were set to revise different portions
of the Bible ; the finishing touches were given by a central com
mittee formed from representatives of the six companies. The
text of the Bishops' Bible was taken as the basis of the new
edition, but full use was made both of the Genevan and Douay
versions. The work was finaUy issued from the press in 1611, and
has become a classic wherever the English tongue is spoken. By
the pro^vidence of God, it was written when the English language
was ffi its simplest and most majestic form. Though this edition
in time became known as " The Authorised Version," it had ffi
reality no direct authorisation either from Kffig or Parliament
or Convocation. It made its way tffiough its intrffisic superiority,
though the Genevan Bible more or less mamtained its position
for another fifty years.
On the death of Bancroft it was generally thought that
Lancelot Andrewes, then Bishop of Ely, woffid be appoffited Lancelot
Archbishop of Canterbury. Andrewes was one of the leaders Andrewes.
of the " High " Church party. He was a man of deep piety,
and tried to lead men by the example of his saintly life. He
had none of the rough, hectoring ways with which Englishmen
were soon to become famUiar ffi Laud ; but he resembled
Laud in his theology and views of churchmanship. As a con-
tioversialist he had, by the Kffig's command, entered the lists
against the Roman Catholic writer BeUarmine, and had littie
difficffity ffi vindicatffig the tiue catholicity of the English Church.
He explained the meaning of the royal supremacy, and denounced
the Roman practice of raising to the rank of catholic dogma
mere accretions to the faith once for aU delivered to the saints.
Andrewes was also the greatest preacher of the age, and one of
the most learned men ffi England. He woffid have worthUy
Iffied the see of Canterbury, but James sffiewdly saw that it
was advisable to give pledges to Puritanism by appoffitmg the
Puritan Abbot to the vacant see. Abbot was a thorough-going Abbot
Calvffiist ; as vice-chanceUor and leader of the Calvinist party yj^op"*''^'
at Oxford, he had done his best to suppress the more liberal
theology of which Laud, then a FeUow of St. John's CoUege,
was the chief exponent. But though a Calvinist and a Puritan, His
he was firmly resolved to maffitaffi the established order of the jg ".^1633.
Church. He was a really religious man, ffi the highest degree
conscientious ; ffis ffitegrity was of the most unswerving type.
It was fortunate for the Church of England that her chief

328 The Church of England
mmister shoffid boldly refuse to condone vice ffi the highest
circles, and show his disapprobation of the sycophant clergy
who supported the Crown in its unconstitutional measures.
Abbot's refusal as judge to vote for the divorce of the Countess
of Essex redounds most highly to his credit. His action was
amply vffidicated by the scandals which immediately foUowed
the grantffig of the divorce. His outspoken opposition to the
anti-Protestant policy of the Spanish match showed his ffide-
pendent spirit. But Abbot belonged to a class of men who are
never popular. He was morose by nature and ungracious ffi
his manner ; he had none of the geniality or sympathy which
enables a man to get on with his feUows. He had had no
parochial experience, and was deficient ffi knowledge of men.
Like Laud, he was utterly unable to understand an opponent's
point of view, and even with the Puritans themselves he was
never popular. In his opposition to the claims of the civil
against the ecclesiastical courts he was as decided as Bancroft
had ever been, and found himself quite unable to remaffi on
good terms ¦with Chief Justice Coke. To Roman Catholics and
heretics he was intolerant. He was responsible for the burnffig
of two miserable men who denied the divffiity of Christ ffi 1612.
They were the last heretics ever burned ffi England. The
religious history of the greater part of his long prunacy (1610-1633)
is almost a blank. It woffid have been weU for England if this
could have continued. But two or three events threw light on
the religious feeling of the time. In 1618 James was retummg
from Scotland tffiough Lancashire, when a petition was pre
sented to him by Lancashire folk against the action of Puritan
magistiates and mffiisters who were endeavourffig to suppress
their Sunday games. James expressed his sympathy, and after
consffitffig with the bishop of the diocese, the admirable Morton,
Declara- Bishop of Chester, issued a proclamation known as the Declara-
Sport's, ^^'^'^ '^^ Sports. In tffis proclamation he ordered that his good
1618. people, after attending church on Sunday, shoffid not be dis
couraged from takffig part ffi any lawful games, such as dancffig,
archery, and maypoles ; unla'wfffi games, such as buU-baitmg
were prohibited. It is to be noticed that James was not ordermg
ffis good people to take part ffi these games, that had gone
on from unmemorial times, but was simply protectffig those of
his subjects who wished to take part in them, from the new
intolerance of the Puritans, who wished to put them down

Church under the Early Stewarts 329
James was leavffig it to the conscience of each person to take
part ffi, or abstaffi from, the games, as he thought right. The
Kmg gave two grounds for his action ; first, that Roman Catholics
were kept from conformffig to the established Church by the
idea " that no honest mirth or recreation is lawfffi or tolerable
ffi our religion " ; secondly, that healthy exercise was needed
by the common people, if they were to be efficient soldiers.
" For when shall the common people have leave to exercise,
if not upon the Sundays and holy days, seeing they must apply
their labour and wffi their livffig ffi all workffig-days ? " James
was no doubt right ffi regardffig Sabbatarianism per se as a
superstition. For Christianity is somethmg much harder than
the observance of days and seasons. The observance of the
Christian Sunday must be based on expediency ; it is a day
of rest ; it is a day set apart for the corporate worship of God,
and men might very soon have found that there were better
ways for spending Sunday than dancffig round a maypole.
James was right ffi tryffig to save his people from Puritan
ffitolerance, but he was characteristicaUy unfortunate ffi the
method he adopted to make his wffi known. He directed aU
the clergy to read his declaration ffi the parish churches. Need
less to say, many Puritan clergy, fficluding the Archbishop,
refused to comply with that which they regarded as profanity,
and James had the good sense to withdraw his command. His
son Charles ffi 1633 had the folly to reissue the order.
The proper relations which ought to exist between Church Seiden's
and State were at this time occupyffig men's mffids, and the ^!i^^^ °'
trend wffich thought was taking among many lawyers and
other lajanen was shown ffi a book concernmg the history of
tithes written by the lawyer and antiquary, John Selden. The
colour of the book was stiongly Erastian. Selden practicaUy His Eras-
claimed that the Church had no right to any power or property "^"'s™'
or jurisdiction other than that aUowed to it by the State. Before
many years had passed he showed that he was prepared to
mamtain the supremacy of the State over any ecclesiastical
power whatever, PresbjTterian no less than Episcopalian.
A shadow feU over Abbot's primacy in the year 1621 ; by
an unfortunate accident, when out shootffig, he killed a game
keeper. Laud and others were awaitffig consecration as bishops-
elect, and they refused to be consecrated by the archbishop,
declaring that by the canon law his whole position was made

His char
acter,

330 The Church of England
irregffiar by the homicide. The matter was finally referred to a
royal commission, and on its advice Abbot's position was declared
free from all irregffiarity. But it was never fuUy restored.
Moreover a reaction against the Cal^vdnist theology was ffi
many quarters gaffiing ground, and clergy with Armffiian
tendencies were given preferment. Laud, the old antagonist
of Abbot, became Bishop of St. David's ffi 1621. He had
Charles I., the ear of Charles, who succeeded to the throne ffi 1623.
1625-1649. -pj^g j^g.^ King was a refined gentleman, with cffitivated tastes.
He had many of the qualities which woffid have adorned a
country gentleman, but few of the qualities that are needed
by a Kffig. He was reserved and proud, obstffiate and self-
centred. He was quite unable to imagine the possibUity of
himself being wrong ffi any conceivable circumstances. He had
an unbounded belief ffi the powers of ffis own diplomacy, and
was always convinced that the rest of the world woffid soon
come round to his, the only reasonable ¦view. At the very
crisis of his fate in 1647, when the army held him in the hoUow
of its hand and offered him what ffi the circumstances were
reasonable terms, he said to its representatives, " You cannot
be without me ; you wUl faU to ruffi if I do not sustaffi you."
His manner of carriage fiUed with amazement his own friends,
and one of them whispered ffi ffis ear, " Sir, you speak as if
you had some secret strength and power which I do not know
of." As a matter of fact, the Kffig's behaviour simply arose
from the surpassffig belief in his own wisdom and importance.
This trait in Charles' character was nothffig less than deplor
able, inasmuch as he was one of the worst judges, both of
men and of political situations, that ever lived. But the
most evU feature in the King was his lack of straightforward
honesty. He had been educated ffi the unfortunate belief that
kings were not bound to keep troth with their subjects. He
had a liking for tortuous and de^vious paths ; at one and the
same moment he woffid be negotiatmg with different sets of
people, aU agaffist each other — with Roman Catholics and Pro
testants ; with constitutionalists and believers in physical force ;
with foreign powers and opponents of foreign ffiterference ; with
Scotch and English ; with Presbyterians and Independents and
Anglicans ; with the ci^vU and the military powers. At one and
the same moment he would pursue different and fficonsistent
policies. Thffikffig to deceive every one, he deceived no one but

Church under the Early Stewarts 331
himself. Hinc illce lacrymcs ; hence the rooted distrust with
which the King was soon regarded ; hence his failure, his ruin,
and ffis death.
The first four years of Charles' reign form a period by them
selves ; by 1629 the breach between him and his Parliament
was complete. Faffits were to be found on both sides. Parlia- Charles
ment at the close of the late King's reign had committed the ^Th'^Par-
nation to a contffiental war with the Hapsburg power, but the liament on
Puritan gentiemen of England — unlike Elizabeth, who had tutionai '
always wisely refused to embark on such a course — had little questions.
knowledge of the nature of a continental war. The Parliament
voted the Kffig wholly inadequate sums of money ; with failure,
their enthusiasm for the war cooled ; they woffid have nothing
more to do with it, at any rate when conducted by Charles and
Buckffigham. In this they were certaffily right. The first
Parliament had needlessly insffited the King by refusffig to vote
him for life the custom duties — tunnage and poundage — ^which
had been voted aU his predecessors sffice the days of Henry VI.
The Kffig, to finance his wars was forced to resort to uncon
stitutional taxation ; he levied the customs without parlia
mentary authorisation ; he raised forced loans ; when gentlemen
refused to pay, he imprisoned them, and made the judges
reluctantly endorse his action. Buckingham was impeached by
the House of Commons, and then assassinated. The Petition of
Right was granted by the King, and then its terms were evaded.
Thus by 1629 the Kffig and Parliament were at loggerheads ; they
had quarreUed about taxation, imprisonments, and foreign
policy ; the Commons had impeached the Kffig's cffief minister.
Not the least of the causes of estrangement was the question of (i) Rcii-
religion, inextricably entangled as it was with the constitutional ^'°"'
issue. Disputes about religion had emerged already in the first Charles
Parliament ; Armffiian clergy were the cause of the trouble. ArmMan
Richard Montague, an Essex rector, found a Roman Catholic clergy.
pampffiet. The Gag for the New Gospel, circffiating in his Montague.
parish (1622). To this pampffiet he wrote an answer, A New
Gag for an Old Goose, in which he did not defend the Church
of England on Calvinistic Iffies. On the contrary, his answer
approximated ffi its tone to Roman Catholic views. In the
face of a Puritan people, which regarded the Pope as Antichrist,
he had the audacity to declare that the Roman Church, though
corrupt, was part of the tiue Church. He maffitaffied the doctrffie

332 The Church of England
of the real presence and the practice of auricffiar confession.
When rebuked by the Puritan Primate, Abbot, he wrote another
pampffiet, Appello Ccesarem, maffitaffiing the same doctrme
and appealmg to the Kffig. The House of Commons ffi 1623
attacked and committed him to prison. Charles replied by
niakffig him his chaplaffi, and a few years later (1628) Bishop
of Chichester ! The ParUament was right ffi its mstfficts. This
same Montague ffi 1633 carried on an intrigue with the papal
envoy Panzani for reunion between the Churches of Rome and
England, confessed the Pope to be vicar of Cffiist, and acknow
ledged his fffil agreement with Roman dogma except ffi the one
matter of transubstantiation. And this though he was a
bishop of the English Church ! Parasitic clergy endorsed the
Sibthorpe. King's unconstitutional levy of taxes. Robert Sibthorpe ffi 1627
supported ffi a sermon the le^vy of the forced loan. When the
archbishop refused to license its publication, his jurisdiction
was sequestered, and put ffito the hands of a commission, of
which Laud was the guidffig spirit. The sermon was licensed
by Montaigne Bishop of London, and Sibthorpe was rewarded
with a royal chaplaincy. Roger Manwaring went even further.
Prostituting his spiritual position, he declared in two sermons
preached before the Kffig that subjects who refused to pay
forced loans fficurred the penalty of eternal damnation ! Even
Laud protested, but in vaffi, agaffist the publication of this
blatant nonsense. In 1628 Manwaring was impeached by the
House of Commons and imprisoned. But Charles gave him
his formal pardon, a rich livffig, and at a later date (1636) pro
moted him to the bishopric of St. David's.
The Puritan sentiment of the House of Commons was out
raged no less by the religious than by the political views of
these men. They saw promotions showered on the High Church
clergy, whose doctrine approximated to and seemed to prepare
a way for reunion with Rome. ^ niTJ n^'""n'1y ^" '^^^j hirl
drawn up a list of prominent clergy, whom he docketed 0. or P.,
OrthoHox or Puritan, to guide Charles in his patronage. Need-
less to say, no Puritan was given preferment. John Cosffi, one
of the High Church coterie, had written a devotional manual
after the Roman form for the ladies at Court, telling them the
prayers they were to use on particular days, and at particffiar
times, and instiucting them about the proper genuflexions and
prostiations before the altar. The leadmg spirit ffi this High

Manwar
ing.

Laud's in
fluence.

The Laudian Regime 333
Church revival and the chief ecclesiastical adviser of the King
was WUUam Laud, who became Bishop of London in 1628. Of
him we wffi speak at length later. In tffis year (1628) he induced Preface
the King to issue the preface wffich is stiU prefixed ffi the Prayer- ^^^^^
Book to the Articles of Religion ; the object of this preface Articles.
was to stop contioversial sermons about the Articles, and to
wrench them from the tightenffig grasp of Calvinistic inter
pretation. The Commons were thorougffiy alarmed at what
they considered the Romanisffig tendencies of the leading clergy.
Charles, imable to come to terms with ffis Parliament about
reUgion and taxation, resolved on its immediate dissolution
(1629). But before he coffid carry out his ffitention the door
ofthe House was barred, and even while Black Rod was
knocking at it, the Commons tumffituously passed three re- Resolutions
solutions, of wffich one was, "Wiiosoever shall bring ffi innoya- ofCo°m-*
tion ffi religion, or by favour seek to extend or mtroduce popery mons, 1629.
or Armflltaitsm, or other opmionFcEsagreeffig from the true and
orthodox Church, shaUbe reputed a capital enemy to this kffi^dom
and the Commonwealth." By "orthodox opinions" the Parlia
ment, Of 60UrSe. mPpn^^ ^^^^ tenptg nf-ferhrinjgm A
Thus the third Parliament of Charlpg T ramt- tn ^n ahcHpt Archbishop
end. Eleven years of absolute rule foUowed ; but at their t^^2x6^s.
close, when despotic government had ended ffi military dis
aster, and had drawn upon itself accumffiated religious hate,
ParUament was to meet once more, master of the situation.
The day of reckonffig for Laudian tjnranny woffid have come.
During these years of unparliamentary rffie Laud was the chief
ad^yiser of the Kffig ffi Church and State. Of no man have
more widely different estimates been formed than of Arch
bishop Laud. To the Puritan and Nonconformist he is simply
the supporter of despotism, and ffi religion " the obstffiate old
zealot about trffies," whUe he is the idol of the High Church
men as the man who saved the catholicity of the English Church.
Two preliminary questions may be settled at once. First, was Was Laud
Xnilfl n TJ^-t^-^TM-QOT- p This ^»^''° ^'^^ tnnnt ImTnllmrl nt Liim Ky f^g^ ?""*"'
(..uiiLemporory Puritans, and has been repeated ffi our own
days. Wp ran imhesitat.ingly affirm that he was nothing of the
.sort. In the early days of ffis primacy He was offered a cardinal's
hat, and definitely refused it. " Sometffing dweUs within me
wffich wffi not suffer me to accept that till Rome be other than
it is." When papal envoys came to England, e.g. Panzani in

334 '^^^ Church of England
1634, Laud refused even to discuss terms of reunion, and warned
the Kffig that Rome woffid not stir a step to meet him. When
Charles, under the pressure of his ¦wife, showed undue indffigence
to the Roman Catholics, Laud warmly protested. In ffis con
troversial dispute with the Jesuit Fisher ffi 1622 he showed a
clear grasp of the differences which separated the Roman and
English Churches. Wljile recognisffig that Rome was stffi part
ofj the true Chnrrb. and not altogether apostate, he stigmatised
her errors both ffi doctrine and practice ; he repudiated the
i3fp11'!?i1ity nf. JJaa_BQ.pp and the dnrtrjpf nf t'ra'nsnbgtar^tiatinn ;
he denied her right to withhold the cup from the laity, and pro
tested agaffist the invocation of saints and the adoiatioft of
irhages. Her great error in his eyes lay in treatffig aU kinds
oj_unproved~ dogma as articles 01 taitn. He mamtained the
absolute right of the Church of England to purify herself, as
she had done, at the Reformation by reference to first prin
ciples. Her catholicity was proved by her appeal to Scripture,
and the creeds of the primitive Church, and by her retention of
the historic Episcopacy. In those respects ffi wffich he parted
from the Puritans, Laud no doubt approximated to Roman
vie^ws — for exaniple. in the emphasis laid by ffim on _sacra-
merital grace and on ritnal ; hnt Honker's remark^ that a belief
is not necessarUy false because it is Roman, must be borne ffi
mind. The High Church party wffich looks back to Laud has
certainly its due place in the Church of England. Laud was
certainly not a Romanist. A colourable ground was given to
the slander, wffich for simUar reasons was repeated against the
Tractarians in the nmeteenth century, by the fact that some
of his party went further than he, and finaUy joined the Roman
Church. Montague the Bishop of Cffichester, and Goodman
the Bishop of Gloucester, were certaffily Romanist at heart, and
had no right to remaffi in the English Church. But Laud
cannot be held responsible for the action of others ; ffi his favour
it ought to be remembered that he converted twenty-two people
from the Roman Church, and that ffis deUverance of the English
Church from the exclusive control of Calvinists made it possible
for many to remain in the Anglican communion who woffid
otherwise have drifted to Rome.
Was Laud Secondly, was Laud an Erastian ? Did he subordffiate the
fian^?™^" ecclesiastical to the temporal power ? There is much at first
sight to make such a charge specious. Laud unquestionably did

The Laudian Rigime 335
exalt the power of the Crown, and make use of the Crown's
authority in the Court of High Commission to carry out his policy.
He heldtjint nil jnrinrli"ti"n uf Ifi'lrfjfi Viiiii" fiwiti Ih— K4nc; the
nstorian Gardmer declares that he cared littie for the spiritual
mdependence of the bishops. The exaltation of the temporal
power over the Church, whether thgt tpmpnral pmvpr hp -King
or ParUament, is certainly a dangerous Ime of procedure. But
there is nothing necessarUy Erastian in it. Bishops in the
fourth century exalted the power of the Emperor Constantine,
and Laud exalted the power of the Kffig, and the reason ffi each
case was the same. The temporal power was forwarding, not
depressing, the supposed interec^t nf tbp rbni->-h -^^^ tv,prpfr.i-p
*^^bg_bisbnpg gnppnrted it. Laud was not therefore essentially
Erastian ; ffis magnifying of the kffigly office was due to the
accident that the Crown'f avoured the Church against the Puritans.
There is one side of Laud's activity on which all are agreed. Laud's
He was a scholar, greatiy ffiterested ffi learnmg. He proved 'leamlng!"
an energetic ChanceUor of Oxford University, and did much
to encourage the study of Oriental leaming.
Bom ffi 1373, he became a scholar, then a Fellow, and finally Laud's
ffi 1611 President of St. John's CoUege, Oxford. He had already character.
made ffimself conspicuous for ffis opposition to the Cal^vffiistic
theology which ffi ffis youth domffiated Oxford. Promoted by
the Kffig to the deanery of Gloucester in 1616, he roused con
siderable hostffity by the removal of the communion table
from the centre of the choir to the east end. In the course
of this proceedffig he showed the lack of tact wffich fataUy bars
ffis claim to real statesmansffip. He always gave his commands
like the colonel of a regiment, and never tried to commend
ffis orders to the reason or consciences of men. Itk theJu.niition
of the statesman to aim, not at ideal truth or ideal right, but,
af the Highest practicable end The statesman, unlike a Rousseau,
or a Laud, must be in the best sense an opportunist. Laud
simply ignored the Puritan atmosphere with wffich English
life was saturated. Preferment came ffi rapid succession —
the bishopric of St. David's in 1621, Bath and WeUs ffi 1626,
London in 1628 ; ffi 1633 the King, having just heard of Abbot's
death, greeted ffim as " My Lord's Grace of Canterbury." Laud
had now reached the pinnacle of ffis ambition. By 1640 he
had become the most unpopular man in England. As a man
he was obstinate and rude. His obstmacy was due in large

336 The Church of England
measure to his lack of imagffiation. He had not by nature the
gift of sympathy, and he certainly made no effort to understand
the Puritan position. His bustling industry made itself felt in
every corner of the land. Was there a Puritan congregation to
be harried ? Laud smelt his prey from afar. Was there a
church or churchyard not properly cared for ? Laud was on
the spot. Had a clergyman or a churchwarden not done ffis
duty ? He was haled before the High Commission. Were Puritan
pamphlets ffi circffiation ? Their authors were ferreted out and
brought before the Star Chamber. Offenders agamst moraUty,
whether ffigh or low, were made to do penance. Laud made ffis
influence felt everywhere. The impartiality with wffich he
administered ffis discipline over " the greatest and most splendid
transgressors," as weU as over men of lowly rank, deserves re
spect. Sinners in exalted positions do not often meet with
punishment ffi this life.
The rudeness and want of tact with which Laud treated his
QPBCfl£il£s_;^_attested_eyen_by his admirers. But his bravery
and fearlessness were conspicuous. " He was a man," says ffis
contemporary Lord Clarendon, " of great courage and resolu
tion, and beffig most assured witWn himself that he proposed
no end ffi aU ffis actions or designs than what was pious and just,
he never studied the best ways to those ends ; he thought, it
may be, that any art or industry that way woffid discredit, at
least make the ffitegrity of the end suspected, let the cause be
what it wUl. He did court persons too littie, nor cared to make
llis designs and purposes appear as candid (i.e. pure) as they
were, by showffig them ffi any other dress than their own natural
beauty and roughness ; and did not consider enough what men
said or were like to say of him." A large part of ffis unpopffiarity
was caused by the active support he gave to the unconstitutional
government of the Kffig during the years 1629 to 1640. He was
the Prime Minister of the policy wffich involved the levy of
ship money and the imprisonment of Hampden. In the sphere
Laud's of religion, his whole Ufe was a protest and crusade against
religion. Calvinistic Puritanism. It cannot, however, be denied that the
Puritans also were fanaticaUy intolerant — as ffitolerant as Laud
himself. They showed their intolerance when they in their turn
became supreme. It is one of the ironies of history that the
cause of toleration should have been advanced — for tffis we
cannot doubt was the resffit — by such intolerant people.

The Laudian Rigime 337
Laud's theology showed much greater breadth of mind and Laud's
liberality than that of the Puritans. It was not a niere accident "'^'^ °^''*
that he was the friend of the broad-minded and ever memorable
John Hales, and of ChUUngworth, whom he reconverted from
Romanism, a Latitudinarian in doctrine and the author of The
Religion of Protestants a Safe Way of Salvation. The dogmatic
assurance of Calvffi was no less repffisive to Laud than that
of Rome. He wisely held that the human mind lost itself in
wandering mazes when it tried to probe the deep things of God,
the great problems of predestmation and free wffi. We owe
him a debt of gratitude for the royal declaration of 1628, which
saved the Articles from a definitely Calvffiistic interpretation.
The Puritans found their great opportunity for controversial Puritan
sermons in the lectureships which had been founded and endowed shJi^'sup-
by indi^viduals and corporations of Puritan sympathies. The pressed.
ser^vice was hurried tffiough and regarded as of no importance.
The lecturer then entered the church and delivered his long and often
controversial sermon. Laud made tffis impossible by insisting
that sermons shoffid not be delivered apart from the ser^vdce of
the Church. The lecturer must first read the whole service, and
then he coffid preach as much as he liked, so long as he avoided
forbidden topics. Another stronghold of Puritanism was to be
found ffi the chaplaffis kept by private gentlemen. Laud
modffied the rffies of ordination, and forbade any but great
noblemen to employ chaplains ; aU other clergy were henceforth
ordained to cures of soffis. Laud was a great believer ffi the Laud's
influence of forms and ceremonies ; his idea was that habits of ^rms and
outward reverence woffid lead insensibly to inward reverence of cere-
soffi. Hi<t-mind was too narrow to grasp the grandeur of the
PliritilTI rnn''"rti""i ^"^"^ ^^'^ treerlnm nf the spiritual life ig
¦"ramped hy formsf /^.r-d-i-glglligrLJg^ He believed strongly in
the power of the church services to impress the senses and
distU mward spiritual grace. His method was to proceed
from the external to the internal. External uniformity woffid,
he thought, lead to inward unity of spirit. Variety of
ritual was therefore distastefffi to ffim. Thgohurch services
were to be marked by beauty, reverence, and order ; church
"^brirs were to V>ti. rtjjjtoi'ed '. the churcn. as the temple of
q^d. ¦'"•'° ^" ^"^ ^T^ "'' C'^"'^ "'"^P'" ^^^ adorned ; .stained
g1agg and wnnd-carving were to beautify the house of God.
Men werr tn hnw nn fntfrinQ thr rhnrrh, tn r°mind thfm wh°re
Y

338 The Church of England
they were ; they were to bow whenever the name of Tesus was
mentioned ; they were to bow towards " the altar " as the central
point of the Divme presence ffi the church ; they were to kneel
reverentlv at the commii"^"'^ table nnd 11"^- ^''^'=' ^'1^'^ cnmmnnion
sitting, as many of the Puritans did. Tbere was no sffigle
innovation wffich gave so much offence to Puritans as Laud's
Removal of Order that the communion table nr altar should be moved CO
the"e"/t" '° f,he ea-st end, and placed altar-wise, i.e. north and south. The
end. ° question about the position of the holy table arose ffi this
way. The Elizabethan ffijunction of 1359 had ordered " that
the holy table in every church be set ffi the place where the
altar stood . . . saving when the communion of the sacrament
is to be distributed ; at which time the same shall be so placed
in good sort within the chancel. . . . And after the communion
done, from time to time the same holy table to be pla;ced where
it stood before." Thus the Elizabethan injunction contem
plated a movable table, which was to stand ordffiarUy at the
east end, but to be moved ffito the chancel for the communion.
The eighty-second canon of 1604 retaffied this arrangement of
a movable table, but went further ffi aUowffig the table to be
removed for the purpose of the actual communion either to
the body of the church or the chancel. But the arrangement
of a movable table had ffi practice been found too cumbrous ;
it was impossible to be always mo^ving backwards and forwards
a heavy piece of furnitm-e. The resffit was that by the year 1625
the holy table was permanently fixed at the east end of the
royal chapel and most cathedrals, and raUed off, whUe in most
parishes it stood permanently table-wise (i.e. east and west), ffi
the middle of the chancel or church. Laud objected to this
arrangement because of its irreverence. People were said 'to
place their hats and scribble on the table ; churchwardens
added up their accounts on it, and on one occasion a dog was
said to have run off with a loaf placed on the table for the
communion. By his influence over the bishops, and by his
metropolitical visitation of his pro^yffice. Laud caused the holy
table to be removed in all cases to the east end, and to be raUed
off. The legality of the alteration was brought before the
Privy Council ffi the test case of St. Gregory's Church. Five
parishioners had complained; but the King, under Laud's in
fluence, decided in favour of the change, assertffig that the
liberty of placing the communion table ffi the church or chancel

The Laudian Rigime 339
was left by the canon, not to the discretion of individuals, but
to the discretion of the ordinary ; that the ordinary (in this case
the Dean and Chapter of St. Paffi's) had directed the removal
of the table to the east end, and that there was therefore nothing
more to be said. Thus a coach and four was driven through
the canon, which had clearly prescribed a movable table. The
mnovation was no doubt prompted in part by motives of re
verence, but it is equaUy clear that the change had doctrinal
signfficance. As such it was interpreted by the Puritans, and
entered in their books for the day of reckoning with Laud. The
placffig of the table in the middle of the church harmonised
with views which regarded the sacrament as one of simple
communion, "^^e removal to the east end, while nnt evrlnding
>.bp if^ppi of communion, could he intprprPtfd ^'' 1 ¦""tnot-f tn tba
.sacrfficial aspect of the Eucharist.
Not less offensive to the Puritans was the action of the King
ffi reissuffig, on Laud's advice, ffi 1633 the Declaration of Sports, oeciara-
A judge of assize had tried to put down Sunday wakes in t'O" of
Somerset. For his paffis he was reprimanded by the CouncU, re'issued,
and, ffi his own words, " almost choked with a pair of lawn '^33-
sleeves " by Laud. Like his father, Charles adopted the fatuous
plan of orderffig the clergy to read the Declaration of Sports.
It was an act of madness, for any reasonable ¦view of Sunday
obligation had been swept away by the rising tide of Puritanism.
Many of the Puritan clergy refused to obey the order, whUe one
parson distffiguished himself by reading the royal declaration,
and then the Ten Commandments, and finally addffig, " Dearly
beloved, ye have heard the commandments of God and man.
Obey which you please ! "
Tffioughout ffis period of power Laud was the target of L^y^.^ ^^j^
many venomous Puritan pampffiets. It cannot be said that of tyranny.
he bore the tiial ffi a spirit of Cffiistian meekness. Four or
five acts of cruel t5n:anny sho^wn to these venomous libeUers can
be brought home to him. Leighton ¦wrote a book called Sion's
Plea against Prelacy, of wffich the burden was that bishops
were the root of all evU, the weather included. At Laud's in
stigation Leighton was sentenced by the Star Chamber to be
wffipped, have his ears cut off, and be branded with S.S., " Sower
of Sedition." A lawyer named Prynne wrote a book against the stage,
ridiculous for its violence. He specially signalled out for attack

340 The Church of England
the appearance of women as actresses, and he was supposed to
have covertly made the Queen the object of ffis venom. Laud
was on the side of severity ; the Star Chamber fined Prynne
£3000 (N.B. — These enormous fines were never intended to be
paid), and ordered his ears to be cut off. Three years later he was
again in trouble (1637) to'^ attacking the bishops. It was ordered
again that his ears shoffid be cut off ! ' and that he shoffid be
branded on his cheeks with S.L. (seditious libeller). With him
two other men suffered for the same reason, a parson caUed
Burton, and a doctor caUed Bastwick. Bastwick had parodied
the Litany, and included ffi it the petition, " From plague,
pestilence, and famine, from bishops, priests, and deacons, good
Lord, deliver us." Their punishment was simUar. The writers
were sentenced to imprisonment for life in distant strong
holds. One of the first acts of the Long ParUament was to
release the prisoners, who re-entered London ffi triumphant
progress. In judging Laud for his harshness, it must, however,
be remembered, first, that these men were writers of coarse and
most offensive Ubels, and did deserve punishment; secondly,
that all punishments of that age were cruel in their nature.
Men would stffi be hanged for theft for many a long year to
come, and well into the eighteenth century accused felons who
refused trial by jury were tortured and starved to death.
Laud's policy had not, however, even the merit of beffig
successful. Secret presses scattered offensive Puritan tracts all
over the land.
Laud's visi- In many ways the Laudian Church ideal was a throwback
the°pro°-'^ to mediaeval conceptions. No Archbishop of Canterbury sffice
vinceof the Reformation had carried out a ¦visitation of the provffice.
T^'^^^' Laud held such a metropolitical visitation during the years
1634-1637. 1634-1637, and used it as a means for screwmg up discipline
and carrying out the changes already enumerated. The great
mediseval churchmen had been the leadffig statesmen of their
day. Laud loved the old mediaeval practice by which the
State had shown its veneration for the Church by choosffig its
bishops as her statesmen. He was quite obU^vious to the
neglect of spiritual duty which the custom involved upon her
bishops. He ignored the antagonism that was roused ffi the
lay mind by the episcopal holdffig of State office. Laud
himself was the last of that long line of statesmen-bishops,
which mcluded Roger of SaUsbury, Becket, Wykeham, and

The Laudian Rigime 341
Wolsey. When he had secured the appointment of Juxon,
Bishop of London, to the office of Lord Treasurer, he confided
a sort of Nunc dimittis to his diary " — No churchman had it
since Henry the Seventh's time . . . and now, if the Church will
not hold up themselves under God, I can do no more " (1636).
But the edffice which Laud had so industriously raised was
not built upon secure foundations. The Laudian revival was
not ffi any sense rooted ffi or sprung from the affections of the
people. If Laud had taken a glimpse into the obvious, he
must have seen that ffis work was essentially a work imposed
from above upon an unwUlffig people. The tide of Puritanism
and disaffection was rising aU around him. If Laud buUt, he
buUt not for the present, but for the future. His ideal for the
Church of England prevaUed at the Restoration, but it had to
be accompanied in practice, and from 1689 confessedly, by a
grant of toleration to those who felt their spiritual freedom
choked by the rffies of the Anglican communion.
There is little reason to differ from the distinguished High
Churchman who wrote : " That we have our Prayer-Book, our
altar, even our episcopacy itself, we may, humanly speaking,
thank Laud. The holy table in all our churches, altar-wise
at the east end, is a visible memorial of Laud which none
can escape. It was not so before his time, it is not necessarUy
so by the actual rubric of our Church at this moment. That
our Articles have not a Genevan sense tied to them and are not
an intolerable burden to the Church is owing to Laud."
By 1639 Puritanism and Laudianism were at daggers drawn,
and yet, before passing on to the bitter days of the civU war,
it is well to recollect that both parties — at any rate the finest
natures ffi both parties — were seeking in their own ways
to find God. Standffig as we do, on the vantage ground of the
twentieth century, we can see how smaU the difference was
that separated the earnest seekers after God in both parties, a
George Herbert and a Richard Baxter. This truth was not
ob^vdous at the time. The mass of the Puritan gentlemen of
England were seethffig with discontent. Salvation was to
come to them from the despised quarter of Scotland —
" Via prima salutis,
Quod minime reris, Graeca pandetur ab urbe.''
Charles and Laud had on many occasions shown a plentifffi

342 The Church of England
lack of statesmanship, but they never did such an unwise thmg
Attempt to as when they attempted to impose canons and an Anglican
Prayer-"'^ Praycr-Book on the stiff Calvinism of Scotiand (1637). When
Book on the new service was read in St. Giles', Edinburgh, a tumult broke
^ cot and, ^^^ j^ ^j^^ church, and a stool was flung by a woman at the
Bishop, amid cries of " The Mass," " Baal is in the church."
A paroxysm of rage swept over the Scottish people. With
wonderful enthusiasm, men, women, and chUdren, they swore
in a covenant before God, his angels, and the world, to maffitain
the true reformed religion. Crowds flocked to the Greyfriars
Churchyard in Edinburgh, and signed the document that was
laid upon a tombstone (1638). SimUar scenes took place else
where.
Rebellion The Scotch rose in rebellion. Charles could only raise a
Scotdi " scratch " army, and was forced at Berwick to grant aU the
1639. Scotch demands (1639). But he had no intention of keeping
his word with rebels. He was only seeking to gain time, and
rouse the national feeling of England agaffist the hated Scotch.
By the advice of Strafford, he summoned what is known as the
Short Parliament, the first that had met for eleven years
(13th AprU to 5th May 1640). But the Parliament quickly
showed that it would give the Kffig no help against Scotland,
tiU a long list of grievances had been remedied. Charles dis
solved the Parliament in anger. Convocation met at the same
time as Parliament, and contffiued its sittings against the advice
of Laud, and in spite of some doubt as to the legality of its
Canons of action, after Parliament was dissolved. It passed the canons
'^¦*°' of 1640, which received the royal assent.
Our admiration for the fearlessness of Laud is only balanced
by our contempt for his statesmanship. He was indeed —
" A daring pilot in extremity,
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high."
One canon embodied the Laudian rule about the position of
the communion table, another asserted the Divme right of
kings, and declared that the hearmg of arms agaffist the King
under any circumstances was resistance to the powers ordamed
of God, and that people who thus resisted woffid " receive to
themselves damnation." AU clerics, doctors, lawyers, school
masters, and others, were to take an oath that they approved
the doctrffie and discipline of the Church of England as con-

The Laudian Rigime 343
taming aU things necessary to salvation, that they would never
seek to bring in popish doctrine, or ever " consent to alter the The
government of this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, and oath?"^"^*
archdeacons, etc., as it stands now established . . . nor yet
ever to subject it to the usurpations and superstitions of the
see of Rome."
Unfortunately for Convocation, these canons only repre
sented the feeling of the clergy, and were not, like the Scotch
covenant, an expression of national feeling. The oath, which
came to be known as the etcetera oath, provoked a torrent of
ridicffie. Men were asked to swear to somethmg that was not
even accurately defmed. The canons of 1640 acted in the same
way as a red rag does to the proverbial bull.
The Scots, finding themselves tricked by Charles, rose in
arms once more, and crossed the border — this time ffi league
with Pym and the other Parliamentary leaders of England.
The rout of Newburn made the King's position hopeless, and
to satisfy the terms demanded by the Scotch, he was forced once
more to summon a Parliament. The Long Parliament met on Long Par-
the 3rd November 1640. Thus by a curious coincidence the me"ts?'
two most famous Parliaments in English history, the Reformation 1640.
Parliament of 1329 and the Long Parliament of 1640, met on
the same day and month (3rd November).
For Charles and Laud and Strafford the day of reckonffig
and vengeance had come. The presence of the Scotch army
made it impossible for Charles to dissolve the Long as he had
dissolved his former Parliaments.

CHAPTER XVIII

Laud im
peached, 1640, and
executed, 1645.

Long Par
liament divided on
religiousquestion.

THE LONG PARLIAMENT, THE PURITAN REVOLT,
AND THE RULE OF CROMWELL
The Long ParUament ffi its first session (3rd November 1640 to
9th September 1641) rooted up from its foundations the whole
structure of arbitrary government. Strafford was impeached,
then condemned by Act of Attainder, and sent to the block.
The Star Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished,
the levy of ship-money was declared Ulegal, and Parliament be
came master of the situation, when Charles consented to a
statute ffi May 1641 declaring that the present Parliament
should not be dissolved without its own consent.
Laud had been already impeached ffi December 1640, and
sent to the Tower. It was an act of needless cruelty when,
some tffiee years later, the Parliamentary leaders dragged him
from his prison, and by an Act of Attaffider condemned him to
death. On loth January 1643 he was executed, protestffig on
the scaffold, as he had often done before, ffis complete loyalty to
the Church of England. " In that profession I have lived, and
in that I come now to die. This is no time to dissemble with
God, least of all ffi matters of religion, and therefore I desire
it may be remembered, I have always lived in the Protestant
religion estabUshed ffi England, and ffi that I come now to die."
The first session of the Long Parliament showed that on the
constitutional issues Charles was entirely without support. But
even ffi its early days differences between its members on the
religious question coffid easUy be discemed. Up to a poffit
there was agreement even about religion ; aU men were deter-
mffied that the ffinovations of Laud shoffid be abolished.
The unanimity with which aU members, Digby and Falkland
no less than the Puritans, joffied ffi a bitter attack on the existing
bishops, though mdeed surprisffig, affords convfficffig proof of
the unpopffiarity ffito which the Laudian Church had fallen.
But when questions of prfficiple emerged in the debates, a
parting of the ways became apparent. Digby and Falkland,

The Puritan Revolt 345
though they fiercely denounced the existing bishops, were
anxious to maintaffi within the English Church a reformed
episcopate. At the openffig of the Long Parliament neither
religious nor political feeUng was so embittered as it afterwards,
became. Reason stffi made her voice heard above the storm
of passion. A petition which 13,000 Londoners presented in London
December 1640 for the overthrow of Episcopacy was a source agains"
of unwelcome embarrassment. Its consideration was therefore Episco-
postponed and, ffi the meantime referred (Februaiy 1641) ^^'^^'
by the House of Commons to a committee. When the Scotch
commissioners ffi London drew up " a little quick paper " in
support of the Londoners' petition, their unwarranted ffiter
ference was resented, and had to be explamed away. The
ffitra Puritans saw that public opmion was not yet ripe for
extieme measures. Above all, it was imperative to preserve
an unbroken front on the constitutional question. So the
Parliament proceeded on more cautious Iffies. In March a Bill
was ffitioduced ffito the House of Commons for deprivffig bishops
of their seats ffi the Upper House. This BUl secured support
from many churchmen, who thought that the withdrawal of
the bishops from purely secffiar busffiess coffid resffit ffi nothffig
but good. But the Bffi was rejected ffi the Upper House
(June i64r). Religious feelffig became more exasperated, and
under Puritan ffifluence the House of Commons retaliated,
passffig by a small majority a Root-and-Branch BUl for the
extirpation of Episcopacy. Under this Bffi the episcopal
jurisdiction was to be tiansferred to a body of lay commissioners
dependent on Parliament. The Lords havffig rejected the
moderate BiU, it was not likely that they woffid pass the more
extieme measure. The difference ffi poffit of religious view
between the Lords and Commons was further manifested when,
just before the close of the session, the Lords and Commons
passed contiary resolutions, the Lords ordering that divffie
service shoffid be performed in accordance with the existffig
law, whUe the Commons resolved that ecclesiastical innovations
shoffid be suppressed.
Charles was away ffi Scotland from August to November
in 1641. The purpose of ffis visit was to gam Scotch help agaffist
his English subjects, and secure documentary proof of the
Puritan leaders' treasonable correspondence with the Scots ffi
1640. To acffieve this end he made every conceivable con-

346 The Church of England
cession to the Scotch ; in Clarendon's words, he made " a
perfect deed of gift of that kmgdom." The knowledge of his
schemes exasperated stffi further English feelmg, and when,
towards the close of October 1641, the Roman Catholics of
Ulster Ulster rose in revolt, and massacred a large number of Pro-
massacre. testants, not a few Englishmen believed, though their belief was
groundless, that the risffig had been encouraged by the Kffig.
This Irish revolt had the further importance, that it rendered
necessary the formation of a new army. Who was to have the
command of the forces ? It was on this poffit that the final
rupture between Kffig and Parliament took place.
Had it not been for the religious question, there woffid have
Second been no royalist party at aU. When Parliament met for its second
Lon°p°' session ffi October 1641, its atmosphere was choked with ie-
liament. ligious passion. Parties were equaUy divided, and the Grand
Grand Remonstrance was only carried on 22nd November by eleven
Strang' votcs. Thus the King — to the surprise of every one except
1641. ' himself — found the Crown supported by nearly half the Commons.
The change is to be explaffied by the clauses ffi the Grand
Remonstrance which threatened the very existence of the
Church of England. The Puritans avowed their determmation
that " a synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious
divffies" shoffid be summoned to reform the Church. The
impendffig danger raUied aU churchmen to the Royalist side.
Men might have no regard for the existffig bishops, but they
were not indifferent to the principle of an episcopate, and they
had learnt to love the Book of Common Prayer wffich the
Puritans were resolved to destroy. The violence of the London
mob made it impossible for the bishops to attend Parliament ffi
safety. They therefore absented themselves from the Upper
House, and protested agaffist the validity of any votes taken
Impeach- in their absence. They were immediately impeached by the
bisho °'^ Commons for high treason and imprisoned.
On 4th January 1642 Charles made his Ul-judged attempt
to arrest the five members, and shortly afterwards withdrew tb
the north of England and collected his forces. In February the
Lords, irritated by the action of the bishops in assertffig that
ParUament, because terrorised by a mob, was no longer able
to act freely, consented to the BUl for the exclusion of the
bishops from the Upper House. When the war broke out the
churchmen sided with the King, the Puritans ¦with the Parha-

The Puritan Revolt 347
ment. If the Long Parliament ffi the first stages of its existence
merely intended to modify, wffile retaining, the episcopal
system, that section of it which remained behind at Westmffister
and foUowed the Puritan leaders soon found itself driven further
by the logic of events. No enthusiasm could be inspired by
such a moderate policy. Unless their paily coffid be fired with
a whole-hearted enthusiasm, failure was inevitable ; and that
enthusiasm coffid only be produced by the adoption of the
extreme Puritan programme. A Bffi for the abolition of Bill for
Episcopacy therefore passed both Houses ffi January 1643. of EpisOT-
But it must not be imagmed that the Parliamentarians who pacy, 1643
remained at Westmffister were in complete agreement about
religion. They were all Puritans, and unanimous in their deter- Divisions
mination to abolish episcopacy ; but many different shades of pu°i"fns^^
Puritanism were represented among them. First, there were the
thorough-goffig Presb5rterians, who believed ffi the Divffie right [a) Presby-
of Presbyterian government, with its difierent assembUes arrayed 'Brians.
" ffi aU their beauty and symmetry." Presbyterians no less than
Romanists beUeved ffi the supremacy of the spiritual over the
temporal power. Secondly, there were the Erastians, who be- (t) Eras-
lieved ffi the supremacy of the State even ffi spiritual matters. "^''^•
The Erastians fficluded in their number the civU and common
lawyers, between whom and the ecclesiastics there existed a
long-standffig feud. The la^wyers were reffiforced by aU those
who feared clerical rffie of any description, Puritan no less than
Anglican. As MUton said, " New Presbyter is but old Priest
writ large." Of these Erastians the lawyer and antiquary
Selden was one of the most distffiguished.
There is no doubt that the general tone of the Parliament was
Erastian. " The Pope and Kffig," said BaUlie, the Scotch com
missioner, a year or two later, " were never more earnest for the
headship of the Church than the pluraUtie of this Parliament."
Its members were Puritans in then moral earnestness and desire
for a " purer " form of doctrffie and worship, but they profoundly
distrusted clericalism. Thirdly, there were the Independents, (c) inde-
who though few in number were able men, and gauged more p™<i<="'S'
correctiy than the Presbyterians the tiend of events. Their
day was to come with the rise of Cromwell and the new model
army. The Independents did not believe at aU in the Divffie
right and coercive jurisdiction of the Presbyterian regime. They
realised that England had for ever passed beyond the stage at

348 The Church of England
which it would tolerate an inquisitorial system such as the
Presbyterians desired.
Tenets of Independency ffi its turn contained within its ranks many
Independ- different shades of opmion. But the typical ffidependent did
not believe in any form of ordffiation, and zealously maffitained
the independence of each single congregation. Accordffig to
him, no congregation or group of congregations could lawfuUy
exercise any authority over another congregation ; they might
refuse " communion " with it, but that was aU. At its ex
treme left Independency passed into various forms of fanaticism.
While the Presbyterian was thorougffiy ffitolerant, and minded
to press all sorts of people into the mould of the Presbyterian
framework, the Independent was within certaffi limits the
advocate of toleration.
If Parliament had been left to its own devices, it woffid have
framed a religious settlement at once Puritan and Erastian.
But the course taken by the war had by the middle of 1643
rendered the eventual success of the Parliamentary arms ex-
Pariiament tremely doubtful. The probabUity that the Royalists might
ask help" triumph drove the Parliament to request help from the Scotch.
from the By SO doing it forfeited its complete freedom of action in the
1643? ' future. The Parliamentarians wished, if possible, to form a
purely civU league with the Scotch. But Scotch support was
not to be secured on such easy terms. " The English were for
a civU league," says BaUlie, " we for a religious covenant."
Since it was imperative to secure Scotch help, the Scots carried
their poffit, and a " Solemn League and Covenant " was made
the condition ol Scotch assistance. The Solemn League and
Covenant was therefore agreed upon and accepted by the
English Parliament in September 1643.
Solemn The Original draft of this Covenant would have irretiievably
and1:ove- committed Parliament to impose the fffil rigour of Scotch
nant. Presbyterianism on the English nation, but ffi the words of
Clarendon, Sir H. Vane (who was one of the commissioners sent
by Parliament to Scotiand), " was chosen to cozen and deceive
a whole nation which excelled in craft and dissemblmg, wffich he
did with notable frequency and dexterity, and prevailed with a
people which coffid not be otherwise prevaUed upon than by
advancing their idol Presbytery to sacrifice their peace, their
interest, and their faith, to the erecting a power or authority
that resolved to persecute presbytery to an extirpation, and

The Puritan Revolt 349
very near brought theu- purpose to pass." What Sir H. Vane
did was this : he induced the Scotch to accept a modified draft
of the covenant. In its modified form, the Covenant left a door
open to Independency. The Covenanters were not compeUed to
swear that they would reform the Church of England to the
model of the Church of Scotiand. They were only pledged to
preserve the Church of Scotiand in its doctiffie, worship, dis
ciplffie, and government, and to reform the Church of England
" according to the Word of God, and the example of the best re
formed churches." The effect of this saving clause is obvious.
The English Covenanters were only committed to the Scotch
Presbyterian system in so far as it was in harmony with the
Word of God. It is not even clear that they were committed to
extirpate every form of Episcopacy. The retention of a limited
Episcopacy was perhaps consistent with the letter of the
Covenant. But the general resffit of the Solemn League and
Covenant coffid not be questioned. The Parliament had for
feited its complete freedom of action as regards the religious
settiement of England, but with Scotch aid it won the battle of
Marston Moor, the tumffig point in the war (July 1644).
In January 1643, as already mentioned, an Act for the aboli
tion of Episcopacy had received the assent of both Houses, and
in June 1643 a BiU had been passed for summonffig a synod of
Protestant divines. This synod, known as the Westmffister The West-
Assembly, met on ist Jffiy 1643. It was composed of some ^ssenibiy
30 lay assessors, 121 English divffies, and 8 Scotch commis- meets,
sioners. The average attendance seems to have been 70, and
almost whoUy clerical.
The work of the Assembly covered a wide field. It revised a its work.
number of the Articles, it drew up a system of Presbyterian
govemment, it framed a scheme of Presbyterian discipline,
it devised a new directory which was ffitended to supersede
" the great idol of England," the Prayer-Book. It formffiated
a new Confession of Faith and a new Catechism.
Into the detaUs of its work we cannot enter; suffice it to
say that the complexion of the Assembly was stiictly Presby
terian, but the course of its proceedffigs revealed two facts
of first-rate importance. First, that there existed withm the
Assembly a smaU but energetic and able body of Independents,
and secondly, that the Parliament was ready to hear the sugges
tions of the Assembly, but was determffied not to allow the

350 The Church of England
establishment of a fffil Presbyterian disciplffie. Each of these
points must be taken in order. First, the war ffi its early stages
had been engineered by help from Presbyterian London; the
ParUamentary armies had been led by Presbyterians, such as
Essex and Manchester. These armies had not been successfffi.
Rising It was with the rise of Oliver CromweU, and the formation of
inde"e°nd- the new model army, that the King's defeat became assured.
Oliver"'^ But CromweU was an Independent, " the darling of the sectaries,"
Cromwell, as BaiUie, the Scotch commissioner, described him. Parliament
became increasffigly the creature of the army. Thus the smaU
minority of the Assembly found itself supported by the chief
power ffi the State, i.e. the army.
Erastian Secondly, the Parliament was distffictly Erastian. When
Parik^-^ °^ the Assembly had presented its scheme of disciplffie, the Parlia
ment ment set it a series of very awkward and unanswerable questions,
askmg for texts from the Word of God which woffid prove that
the disciplffiajry powers vested by its scheme ffi their different
ecclesiastical assemblies were conferred jure divino. Parliament
refused to assign unlimited powers to ecclesiastical courts, and
insisted on a right of appeal to lay commissioners nommated
by itself. Thus, in BaiUie's words, it was but a " lame
Erastian presbytery " that was finally accepted. The ffitimate
authority of the civU power was vffidicated. The fact of the
matter was, that England had reached a state of social organisa
tion which would not tolerate the creation of an ffiquisitorial
system such as that desired by the Presbyterians. With this
Modified important reservation the scheme of the Assembly was ap-
terianfsm proved by Parliament (June 1646). It was one tffing, however,
^6^6*''*^''' ^° ^°^^ ^^ creation of a Presbyterian system, and another thffig
to get it into actual operation. This was very soon discovered.
It was only in London and some parts of Lancashire that Pres
byterianism was reaUy established as a working system; else
where the suUen indifference or the active hostUity of the people
proved a fatal bar to its acceptance. The mffiisters, sffice they
were not allowed to exercise disciplffie, and so fence the sacra
ments from profanation, ffi some cases refused to admffiister
them at aU ; in other cases voluntary associations were formed,
in which the fffil rigour of the Presbyterian system was relaxed,
and yet sufficient discipline maintaffied to overcome the scruples
of the ministers, and aUow them to administer the sacraments.
Many of the old Episcopalian clergy had already been

The Puritan Revolt 351
ejected from their livffigs for refusing to take the Covenant ;
the Prayer-Book had been proscribed, though some of the Prayer-
clergy in the public ser^vices continued to repeat the old prayers fcrited."^""
from memory, or fficorporate large portions of them in their own
extempore compositions. MeanwhUe the Independents with
Cromwell triumphed ffi the field of battle. The Kffig became
ffi succession the prisoner of the Scotch, the Parliament, and
the Army. Tortuous to the end, he intrigued with them all
against each other. Fffially he was brought to the block by Execution
CromweU on 30th January 1649. I^i ^ sense Charles died as %^^^^ ^^'
a martyr for the Church of England ; that is to say, he could
probably have secured his restoration to power if he had been
wUlffig to sacrffice the episcopal government of the Church.
The execution of the King was not merely a crime, but a
political blunder of the ffist magnitude. The simple majesty
with which he had borne himself on the scaffold caused a
re^vffision in his favour. " He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene."
The Eikon Basilike, published a day after his funeral, and
showffig as ffi a mirror the deepest thoughts of the King on
things temporal and eternal, was ffitended to lift the veU and
reveal the moral purpose and spiritual faith that had animated
his life. True, it was only one side of the picture. But the
book " caught on" ; it was eagerly bought up, and ran through
some fifty editions. The Anglican faith seemed to be justffied
by the manner of Charles' death.
The affection ffispired by Charles was simply tiansferred
after his death to his wortffiess son. Cromwell had kUled
Charles ; he had not kUled " the Kffig." If a " free " Parlia
ment had been elected at any date between 1649 and 1660, the
return of a large Royalist majority would have been assured.
But the Republic or Commonwealth was at once proclaimed,
and a period more or less chaotic intervened before Cromwell character
ffi April 1633 dissolved the Long Parliament by force. From ^eii's°ru"ie.
1633 to 1638 CromweU was supreme. The circumstances under
which he had risen to power committed him to a Iffie of action
far more arbitrary than any which had ever been foUowed by
Charles I. Martial law, arbitrary taxation, reUgious repression,
were the chief features of ffis rffie.

352 The Church of England
Religious It is with the religious condition of England that we
chaos. gj^.g jjgj.g concerned. The religious problem was one to tax
aU CromweU's patience and power. The churchmen were a
majority ffi the nation, and yet for reasons of State coffid not
be tolerated. The Presbyterian faith, though held by a small
fraction of the people, was the religion established by law,
and remaffied such tUl the Restoration, except ffi so far as its
establishment was implicitly modffied by the Instrument of
Government (1653), and Humble Petition and Advice (1637).
Thus the Presbyterians though few ffi number had a poffit of
vantage. Beati possidentes. Yet they were discontented, tffink-
ing they had not secured enough. Fffially there were the
Independents, who detested Presbyterianism. " New foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains,''
wrote MUton ffi 1652. The Independents fficluded ffi their
number the great names of MUton and Vane, both of whom
disbelieved in the idea of a State Church ; at the extieme left
were the violent fanatics and Antinomians who desired an imme
diate " rffie of the saints."
Cromwell certaffily had a difficffit team to drive. Before we
examine his individual views, let us glance at the religious
settlement actuaUy effected. The assembly of Puritan
notables, known as the Little Parliament (1633) fficluded a large
party of fanatics, who wished to abolish pationage and tithe,
and replace the law of England by the Mosaic law. Such
fantastic schemes were rejected by CromweU. "The Agreement
of the People " presented to Parliament by the army ffi 1649,
had urged that " the Christian religion . . . reformed to the
greatest purity," should be " the public profession ffi tffis nation,
pro-dded that popery and prelacy be not the public profession " ;
that there shoffid be no coercion on any individual to jom
ffi the public profession, and that aU Christians should have
to!f by" ^^ liberty of worship outside the established Church, provided that
(i) The In- such Uberty did not necessarily extend to popery or prelacy.
rfGovCTn- The Instrument of Government (1633) adopted these pro-
ment, and yisious of the Agreement of the People, with one signfficant
Humble alteration. It was definitely laid down that no liberty of worship
Tnd'Ad- shoffid be granted to popery or prelacy or Antinomianism.
vice. The Humble Petition and Advice (1637) rnade the simUar

The Rule of Cromwell 353
arrangement, that outside the public profession of the Christian
faith, liberty of worsffip shoffid be granted to aU believers in
the Trffiity and Scriptures, except papists, prelatists, and Anti-
nomian blasphemers. Thus from 1633 to 1660 there was estab
lished in England a Christian Church undenomffiational ffi
character, preferment being given indiscriminately to Presby
terians, Independents, and Baptists, i.e. to aU those who in
the Puritan estimate had the root of the matter ffi them.
In 1654 3- board of thirty-eight tilers was established Sufferings
to examffie the qualffications of candidates for livffigs. It is cietg"yf "^^"
needless to say that no clergymen who adhered to the Episco
palian prfficiple satisfied their tests. In 1655 committees were
established in each county to eject unfit ministers from their
livffigs. Again it is needless to say that their hand feU heavUy
on aU Anglican mffiisters. These ejected clergy were reduced
to great poverty and subjected to many sufferings. It is true
that pro-yision was made by wffich smaU pensions might be
granted to them, but the conditions were so severe — the actual
returns prove it — that few were able to avaU themselves of the
grant. Some of the ejected clergy found work as schoolmasters
or chaplaffis ffi private famUies. But ffi consequence of Royalist
rismgs, even this openffig was closed to them in 1653 by law.
Many of the clergy were thus placed ffi the severest straits,
and the religion of churchmen was outiaged. The services of
the Prayer-Book, and the observance of Christmas Day, " the
superstitious time of the Nati^vity," were proscribed. A whole
congregation wffich had met secretiy on Christmas Day (1637)
was imprisoned. Roman Catholics suffered even more than
churchmen. The last Roman Catholic ever executed ffi England
for his faith suffered under the CromweUian Government (1654).
CromweU was equaUy determmed to put down irreligion and
immorality. He was anxious to carry out a " reformation of Moral
manners," and to this end enacted severe laws agaffist drunken- legislation.
ness, swearffig, blasphemy, cock-fightffig, and dueUffigs. Adffitery
was declared a capital offence, and Sabbatarianism of the most
rigorous type was prescribed. So far as the Cromwellian
Government could do it, crime was made identical "with sffi.
It is unnecessary to say that such legislation ffi many cases
defeated its own end.
What were CromweU's own ¦views on toleration ? His own Cromweii
private opffiions were doubtless in advance of those embodied jQjgj.3jjQ^

354 T^k^ Church of England
m the law. If we were to judge ffim by some of ffis utterances,
ffis own ¦views woffid seem to have been of a most enlightened
kffid. In 1643 he found faffit with a Major-General Crawford
for puttffig an Anabaptist officer under arrest. " Sir, the State
in choosing men to serve it takes no notice of their opinions ;
if they be wffiffig faithfuUy to serve it, that satisfies." He
ridicffied the ffitolerance of the sects. " Every sect saith, ' 0
give me liberty.' But give it ffim, and to Ms power he wffi not
yield it to any one else." He blamed the Scotch clergy for con
troUing freedom of preacffing, lest error shoffid creep ffi. It was,
he said, as though you shoffid " keep aU wffie out the country
lest men shoffid be drunk."
Narrow But ffi practice the toleration of CromweU had narrow re-
hu'toiera. stiictions. He was wffiffig to grant aU men perfect Uberty of
tion. conscience. But if the ffidi^yidual was entitied to Uberty of
conscience, the supreme magistrate was entitied to the like,
and tffis ffi CromweU's ¦vdew involved his right to set up the form
of church government of which his conscience approved. " The
magistrate hath his supremacy ; he may settle religion — that is,
church government — accordffig to ffis conscience." Liberty of
conscience is something, but little, if not accompanied by liberty
of worsffip. Yet ffi Ireland CromweU absolutely refused liberty
of worsffip to Roman Catholics, " I meddle not with any man's
conscience. But if by liberty of conscience you mean a liberty
to exercise the Mass, I judge it best to let you know, where the
ParUament of England have power, that wffi not be aUowed of."
At Drogheda and elsewhere many ffinocent Roman Catholic
priests were " knocked on the head." In England the toleration
which excluded from the worsffip of their choice more than
half the popffiation, and made that worsffip penal, was of a
very limited kind. No toleration was to be found for Anglicans,
Roman Catholics, Quakers, Antffiomians, or Unitarians. It is
true, however, that CromweU was more tolerant than the letter
of Ms laws. Anglicans ffi some cases were allowed to enjoy
their old form of worsffip ffi private, though the toleration was
always of a precarious nature. CromweU ffistructed the Justices
of the Peace to deal tenderly with Quakers as men deluded,
and on several occasions ffitervened to save Unitarians and
fanatics from the fffil legal penalties. His rffie was marked
by one ffiterestffig piece of practical toleration. The Jews,
wbo had been expelled by Edvvard I., were aUowed to sett}?

The Rule of Cromwell 355
once more ffi England, though their retum was not actually
authorised by law.
Thus during the CromweUian regime the principle of toleration Beginnings
made some slight progress. The Anglican Church had been ^qJ,"'®""
intolerant; the Presbyterians who supplanted it were no less
ffitolerant. But ffi the bosom of Puritanism the spirit of tolera
tion was born. The Independents had' risen ffi revolt agaffist
the ffitolerance of the Presbyterian system of disciplffie, and
claimed liberty for the individual congregation. Their revolt
had been seconded by the Erastian ¦vdews of the Parliament,
and then by the practical genius of Cromwell. MUton had
advocated the cause of freedom on the highest grounds, and
the Quakers had claimed for the individual freedom of con
science, and the right to direct ffis own life by the " inner light."
Under CromweU toleration had been secured, at any rate witffin
the limits of Puritanism. He had made Independents and
Baptists and Presbyterians lie withm one fold. A wider tolera
tion was only to be gaffied when the growth of secffiar ffiterests
had withdrawn men's attention from exclusively religious ob
jects, and made them ffidifferent to the shibboleths of con-
tendffig religious parties.
In the present, however, the CromweUian rffie had made
itself hatefffi to aU parties. Anglicans and Roman Catholics and
Royalists felt their most cherished con^vdctions outraged. Pres
byterians hated the domffiation of sectaries, the worldly-minded
hated the rffie of the saffits.
When CromweU's master mffid was withdrawn from the Death of
scene by death (1638), the restoration of Charles II. became a <^''°"^*"-
certaffity. That Restoration was effected by a junction of the The Re-
Royalists, the Presbyterians, and that part of the army which ^'^"°''-
believed in the supremacy of the civU over the mUitary
power (1660).

acter.

CHAPTER XIX
THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION
Charles CHARLES II. set foot OU Ms native land once more on the
II. s char- ^^tb May 1660. The Mayor of Dover put ffito ffis hand the
English Bible, and Charles declared that he loved it above aU
tffings ffi the world. The comedy of the situation must have
immensely tickled the immoral King. Few redeemmg features
can be discerned in his character. The proffigacy of the re
stored monarch was notorious, and was soon to be reflected ffi
the profligacy of the. Restoration drama. A thffi surface of
affabUity concealed an intense selfishness of character. In
reUgion Charles was half an ffifidel and half a Papist. With
Ms mother's mUk he had drunk in Romanism. So far as
Ms ffifidelity permitted, he was already a convert to Romanist
belief ; but since the first principle underlyffig his actions
was ffis resolve never to go on his tiavels agaffi, an open
profession of Romanism was for the time delayed. If the
Kffig's good nature has been overrated, his cleverness has been
undffiy depreciated. For Charles was an extremely clever man.
His sensuous lips poured forth a stieam of ready wit, but his
cleverness did not stop there. He had great political sagacity ;
ffi his struggle with Ms ParUaments he won almost every poffit,
and by the end of his reign had almost established a despotism.
His success was, however, tffiown away by the folly of ffis
brother James. Into European politics he had a much keener
ffisight than any other li^vdng Englishman. The cardmal prfficiple
of ffis foreign policy was the destruction of the Protestant
Dutch Republic. The Dutch were the great rivals of England
in the spheres of naval supremacy, tiade, and colonial enter
prise. He realised that with the destiuction of the Dutch naval
power, maritime supremacy and colonial empire woffid pass to
England. His reign falls ffito four clearly marked divisions, (i) The
regime of Clarendon (1660-1667). Lord ChanceUor Clarendon
was Sir Edward Hyde, the old adviser of Charles I., now
3j6

Restoration and Revolution 357
raised to the peerage. (2) The era of the Cabal (1667-1673).
(3) The regime of Danby (1673-1678) ; and (4) the period
(1678-1683) which was filled with ffitiigues agaffist the suc
cession of a Romanist King and with the counter-ffitrigues of
Charles. The events of 1660 meant much more than the restoration Meaning of
of the monarchy. They meant, on the one hand, the rejection of ""estoration.
the democratic ideals of the Commonwealth, and the restoration
of the rffie of the aristocracy ; they meant, on the other hand,
the restoration of the Church of England to its own. The Church
regaffied the position it had held at the close of 1641 ; that is to
say, the High Commission was not revived, but the lands of the
Church were as a matter of course restored. Juxon, the friend
of Laud, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Other
bishops were restored to their sees, and vacant sees filled by new
appoffitments. Squire and parson were to be the dommant
factors ffi English life for the next 150 years.
In the Declaration of Breda, wffich Charles had issued in
AprU 1660, before his retum to England, he had promised " a
Uberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be dis-
qffieted or caUed ffi question for differences of opmion ffi matters
of religion wMch do not disturb the peace of the kffigdom ; and
that we shaU be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as
shaU be offered to us for the fffil grantffig that indffigence."
But Charles had reckoned without his Parliament. The tide of
Royalist and Anglican reaction was risffig high aU over the
country. When the Kffig's first ParUament met ffi 1661, the
enthusiasm of the Anglican majority soon showed what sort of
measure woffid be meted out to Protestant no less than Romanist
Nonconformists. Yet both these classes had some reason to
hope for recogmtion. The Romanists had shown their loyalty
to the King's father on many a stiicken field durmg the war ;
the Presbyterians had suffered from the domffiation of the sects,
and had helped to restore the Kffig. But the most wffich the
Romanists coffid hope for was toleration. The Presbyterians
hoped for somethffig better.
The Church settlement might conceivably have taken any The
one of tffiee forms. If the old Anglican Church were estab- settlement.
lished as the State Church, either toleration might be conceded
to the Nonconformists, or an attempt might be made once more
to enforce uniformity on the whole people.

358 The Church of England
A third alternative was the widening of the Anglican com
munion by making concessions so as to comprehend Presbyterians
withm the Church's fold. Charles coquetted with the policy of
comprehension ; he ffivited twelve bishops and twelve Presby
terian leaders and some others to discuss their differences at the
Savoy Con- Savoy Conference (AprU 1661), and see whether the policy of
1661"^^' comprehension was feasible. But the discussion soon showed
that ffi the temper of the time no agreement was possible be
tween the contendffig parties. The Presbyterians put forward
proposals almost identical with those which they had preferred
fifty-seven years before at the Hampton Court Conference.
Baxter produced an alternative Prayer-Book of Ms own com
position. The bishops, fffily conscious that they had the nation
at their back, refused to listen. The conference reported to
the Kffig that it had faUed to reach agreement.
Thus the policy of comprehension had finaUy broken down,
and it was clear that Puritan Nonconformists woffid henceforth
have to seek the realisation of their ideals outside the national
Church. The only question that remaffied was whether Parlia
ment woffid recognise the logic of facts and grant toleration to
them. But the fanatical Anglicanism of the House of Commons
showed that this was a forlorn hope. A retum was made to
the old ideal of a national Church, from which no dissent woffid
be recognised. It was not tffi 1689 that Parliament confessed
its defeat and acknowledged that the ideal, however grand, was
incapable of fffifilment. The actual religious settiement was
embodied ffi the Act of Uniformity, which received parliamentary
consent ffi May 1662.
Act of In obedience to royal letters. Convocation had already
iVy"'i66™.' i^ ^66^ re^yised the Prayer-Book. This re^yised Prayer-Book was
accepted without amendment by Parliament, and by the Act of
Uniforrffity made the only legal service book. By tffis Act every
mffiister was to use the revised book, and none other, ffi the
services of the Church ; aU parishioners, under penalties, were to
attend the parish church ; attendance at any other form of
worship was to be punished for the third offence with life-long
imprisonment. Episcopal ordffiation was for the first time made
a sine qua non for holdffig a cure of soffis. Every beneficed
clergyman, feUow of a coUege, or schoolmaster was before the
ensuffig feast of St. Bartholomew to declare Ms unfeigned consent
to aU and everythffig contained ffi the Prayer-Book; further,

Restoration and Revolution 359
he was required to declare the Solenm League and Covenant
Ulegal, and expressly renounce the doctiffie that arms coffid m
any circumstances be rightiy borne agaffist the Kffig.
Though there were ffi all some 600 alterations, and most of ^'¦*>"^'
these unpalatable to Puritans, the Prayer-Book of 1662 was 1662.
substantiaUy the same as that of 1339. The preface — stiU
found ffi our present Prayer-Book — explaffied that the altera
tions suggested by Puritans had been rejected either as frivolous
or as " strikmg at some established doctrine or laudable practice
of the Church of England, or, ffideed, of the whole Catholic Church
of Cffiist." The most important changes were these : the
Episties and Gospels and some other portions of Scripture ffi-
corporated in the Liturgy (but not the Psalms), were now taken
from the Authorised Version; the five prayers found to-day
at the close of Momffig and Evenffig Prayer were placed where
they now stand ; certaffi other prayers, and notably that for the
High Court of Parliament (an ffiterestffig fact, for it typffied
the permanent place that Parliament was henceforth to hold ffi
the govemment of the country), and various forms of thanks-
givffig were also fficluded. In the Communion Service the
presentation of the elements was enjoffied by rubric, and the
commemoration of the dead was inserted ffi the Prayer for the
Church Mffitant; in the actual consecration of the sacrament
rubrics were added prescribffig the manual acts. The Black
Rubric of 1352 was remtroduced at the end of the service, but
signfficantiy altered so as to deny not the real and essential
presence, but only the corporal presence in the sacrament of
Christ's natural Flesh and Blood.
Of the other additions to the Prayer-Book the most im
portant was an " Office for the baptism of such as are of riper
years." The carelessness, which had characterised the troublous
times of the civil war ffi the matter of reUgious ordinances,
had made the need of some such office widely felt.
Forms of prayer to commemorate the Restoration and the
martyrdom of Charles I., though couched ffi extravagant
language, received the approval of Convocation, and were
appended to the Prayer-Book by royal authority, but received
no authority from Parliament.
The net resffit of the settiement was that some 2000 Puritan Puritan
clergymen were ejected without compensation from their U'yffigs. ejecfei
The poUtical clauses^of the Act of Uniformity even more than

The Clar
endonCode.
Corpora
tion Act.

ConventicleAct.

Five Mile
Act.

360 The Church of England
the Prayer-Book made it impossible for high-mffided Puritans
to accept the cure of soffis on such conditions. Thus a memor
able decision had been taken ; from 1662 onwards a large part
of English Cffiistianity has found its home without and not
withffi the pale of the national Church. But it is doubtfffi
whether the Presbyterians woffid have been reaUy content with
anything short of sweepffig changes ; and there is no ground for
believffig that surrenders of principle and comprehension of
discordant elements, so as to secure a nomffial unity, ever conduce
to real efficiency or vigorous life. Their exclusion is not, there
fore, altogether a matter for regret. The Act of Uniformity did
not stand alone ; a series of repressive statutes, generaUy known
as the Clarendon Code, made the legal position of Nonconformists
almost ffitolerable. Even before the Act of Uniformity had been
passed. Parliament had begun the policy of repression ffi the
Corporation Act (1661). The purpose of tffis statute was to
stiike at the heart of the Presbyterian party, of wMch the
strength lay ffi the corporations of the smaU towns. Henceforth
aU holders of corporate office were to take oaths renouncffig the
Covenant, and declarffig that under no circumstances was it
lawfffi to bear arms agaffist the Kffig, and, further, were to re
ceive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper accordffig to the rites
of the Church of England. Thus a beginnffig was made of the
system by which the sacrament was turned ffito a political
test, and wickedly profaned. It is a lamentable fact that for
160 years to come every loyal member of the Church of England
was taught to regard tffis profanation as a bffiwark of the
Church !
By the Conventicle Act of 1664, a conventicle was defined
as a place where more than five people assembled for worship
over and above the members of a household. Attendance at
such conventicles, " the seedplots of seditious opffiions," was
punishable by fine, imprisonment, and for the third offence by
transportation. The Five MUe Act of 1663 prescribed that aU ejected
mffiisters, and preachers ffi conventicles, unless they had subse
quently taken the oath of non-resistance, shoffid abstaffi from
comffig ¦withffi five mUes of a corporate town or any parish where
they had preached.
These Acts together formed what has been caUed the
Clarendon Code. In our judgment on its authors, various con-

Restoration and Revolution 361
siderations must be borne ffi mffid. The King had broken the
spirit, if not the letter, of the promise made at Breda. But to do
Charles justice, the primary blame must be laid neither on him House of
nor the bishops, but on the House of Commons. Charles had a 1^°^^°"^
vague leanffig — sprung from ffidifference — to religious tolera
tion, and at the end of 1662 he made a proclamation, " that ffi
the next session of Parliament " he woffid do his utmost to
carry tffiough an Act which would " enable us to exercise to
the satisfaction of aU the dispensffig power which we consider
belongs to us." But ffi this proclamation a question of great
constitutional importance was raised. Had the Kffig any such
dispensing power ? Parliament ffi 1663 denied that there was
any such dispensffig power inherent ffi the Kffig, and tffiew out
a BUl ffitioduced by the Kffig to give effect to his promise.
Charles therefore coffid claim ¦with some show of reason that he
had done Ms best to redeem Ms promise, but had been thwarted
by Parliament. Secondly, though the extreme repression of Repression
the Clarendon Code can never be justffied, it must be remembered ^^^^^^
that the repression was primarUy for political purposes. Under
the specious pretext of religion, the Cavalier party was really
taking revenge on political opponents. The Roundhead was
beffig stiuck tffiough his Puritanism. Thirdly, though the first
effect of the Clarendon Code was undoubtedly to fffi the gaols
with Nonconformists, it must not be supposed that the Acts
were consistently carried out. They were rather quoad terrorem.
For large portions of Charles II.'s reign they were dead letters,
and before its close Nonconformist worship was ffi many places
gomg on without concealment. Bunyan, for example, was
preachffig openly to crowded congregations after 1675 ffi London
and elsewhere.
One other ffiterestffig change must be noticed ffi the openffig ciergy
years of the reign. By a private arrangement made between <=^^'°y°'«
Lord ChanceUor Clarendon and Archbishop Sheldon — ^who had Convoca-
succeeded to the see of Canterbury on Juxon's death ffi 1663 — "°"'
the clergy after 1663 discontinued the practice of votffig their
supplies to the Crown separately ffi Convocation. Another
notable event was the Great Fire of London ffi 1666, in which the
Gothic church of Old St. Paffi's was destioyed. An opportunity st. Paul's
was then given to one of the greatest of English architects, ''«'"""•
Cffiistopher Wren, to buUd the splendid edifice that stffi acts
to-day as the cathedral church of the metropolis. The period

to restore
Romnnism

362 The Church of England
was also marked by the restoration and rebuUdffig of many
other cathedrals and churches which had suffered from the
destruction of the civU war. With the repair of the fabrics
went ffi many places a revival of the old ritual.
Intrigues After the impeachment and flight of Clarendon ffi 1667,
Charles entrusted affairs of State to no sffigle mffiister. The
Cabal was ffi no sense a modern mmistry. Accordffig to the work
he had ffi hand, Charles confided his purpose to one or other
member of the Cabal. Two of its members, Clifford and Arlffigton,
were Roman Catholics. The chief desire of the Kffig was to
re-establish the Roman Catholic faith ffi England as a suitable
buttress to despotic power. At the very begffinffig of ffis reign,
negotiations had been opened with Rome through various
agents, notably James de la Cloche, a bastard son born to the
Kffig when he was only seventeen years old. The general
purpose of these negotiations was to secure for England, ffi
return for the acknowledgment of papal supremacy, certam
privileges, such as the admffiistration of the cup to the laity,
vernacffiar services, a recognition of the royal power in ecclesi
astical affairs, and a guarantee of national customs of the sort
claimed by Louis XIV. some years later ffi the GaUican articles
(1682). The idea of reconcUiation on these terms had not beeii
received with any enthusiasm by the Pope. But the Kffig stiU
persisted ffi his aim. The most obvious method to achieve
it was through the specious guise of toleration. Had not some
thffig of the same sort been done by the Kffig's grandfather,
Henry of Navarre ? Henry of Navarre had ffi 1393 turned a
Papist to wffi the crown of France, and then ffi 1398, by the
Edict of Nantes, had secured toleration for the Huguenots, Ms
former co-religionists. Might not the grandson succeed ffi a
somewhat simUar scheme ? But if Charles could not carry out
the re-establishment of Romanism under the plea of toleration,
he was prepared to go aU lengths, and use for the purpose a
standffig army, a French aUiance, and French tioops. ParUa
ment was bitterly hostUe to aU these sclfemes. The attitude of the
Nonconformists was the doubtfffi element ffi the situation. For
though the Nonconformists were as much opposed to despotism
as the Anglican Parliament, they did desire toleration for
themselves; and whUe the King, for his own purposes, was
wffiffig to grant them this boon, the Parliament was opposed
to any kind of toleration whatsoever. Then came the tieaty of

Restoration and Revolution 363
Dover (1670). In reality there were two tieaties. The avowed Treaty of
tieaty was simply one of alliance between England and France ^670!'^'
agaffist their common enemy the Dutch Republic. But the
secret tieaty, known only to the Catholic members of the
Cabal and a few others, was one fraught with danger to English
Protestantism. By this secret treaty Charles undertook to
declare himself a Roman Catholic, and re-establish Romanism
ffi England by French gold and a French army. The pre
arranged quarrel with the Dutch was picked by the two powers,
and Charles sought to pave the way for his further designs by
the Declaration of Indffigence (1672). Deciara-
In this Declaration the Kffig mtimated that the lack of durgence^
success attendmg the penal laws had convinced him of their 1672.
futUity. He therefore proceeded, by the power which he said
was ffiherent ffi ffim, to suspend the execution of the penal laws
agamst aU Nonconformists whatsoever. Drawffig a distinction
between Protestant and Romanist Nonconformists, he declared
that the former might henceforth worship as they wished, pro-
¦yided that their meeting-places were registered and opened to
all persons, whUe the Romanists were to be allowed the right of
worship ffi their private houses only. It is an ffi wffid that blows
no one any good. The gaols were freed from their Nonconformist
inmates. Bunyan, for example, had to thank the Declaration for
liberation from his twelve years' imprisonment. But Parliament
was now thorougffiy alarmed. It did not know the secret engage
ments of the tieaty of Dover, but it did know that Charles was
ffi league with a Roman Catholic Kffig agamst the Protestant
Dutch. Rumour on tffis occasion did not prove a lyffig jade,
and rumour had already bruited abroad the true nature of the
treaty, and the fact that the Duke of York, the heir to the throne,
had just been admitted ffito the Roman Church. The Duke of
York did not mend matters when ffi 1673 he married a Roman
Catholic lady as Ms second wife. Nonconformists looked
askance at a religious toleration which was to be purchased at
the price of civU Uberty. They knew that if the despotism of a
Roman CathoUc kffig was once established, their religious liberty
woffid not be worth many hours' purchase. Parliament met ffi
a state of considerable excitement, and the House of Commons
immediately drew up an Address ffi which they ffiformed the
Kffig that penal statutes ffi matters ecclesiastical coffid not be
suspended except by Act of ParUament, and they petitioned that

364 The Church of England

Declara
tion with
drawn.

Test Act
1673.

Mary

Sancroft
archbishop, r678.

the laws shoffid be dffiy executed. The Kffig was determffied
not to go on his travels agaffi, and withdrew his Declaration.
The Commons, not content with their ¦victory, went further, and
drew up the Test Act (1673). Gomg beyond the Elizabethan
Act of Supremacy, the Test Act insisted that aU holders of
civU and mUitary office shoffid not only take the oath of
supremacy, but also make a declaration agaffist transubstantia
tion, and receive the Holy Communion in accordance with the
rites of the Church of England.
The regime of Danby (1673-1678) witnessed a retum to the
maffi ideas of Clarendon. Only two events ffi this period need
William of detaffi us— the one the marriage of Mary, James' daughter, to
Orange. Wffiiam of Orange the virtual ruler of HoUand and the leader
of the Protestant ffiterest ffi Europe, the other the death of
Sheldon, and the appoffitment of Sancroft to the archbishopric
of Canterbury (January 1678). The opposition to the Govem
ment was led by Shaftesbury, an ex-mffiister of the Kffig, who
had passed over to and now led the popffiar party. The
political atmosphere became fficreasmgly charged with elec
tricity, and ffi September 1678 the storm burst. In that
month Titus Oates, a perverted pervert whose extraordffiary
physical uglffiess was only surpassed by the moral turpitude
of his soffi, laid an ffiformation before a weU-known London
magistrate. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, about a so-called popish
plot. He declared that there was a Roman Catholic plot on
foot to assassffiate the Kffig and go ffi for a wholesale massacre
of Protestants. The idea of a second " St. Bartholomew " ffi
England was of course absurd. The tale of the plot as put
forward by Oates was a tissue of monstrous lies. Oates himself
and his friends were not even able to lie consistently. But a
regffiar panic ensued, and aU kffids of ffifamous ffiformers found
for a tune a happy huntffig ground ffi the credffiity of the English
people. Panic fficreased a few weeks later when Sir Edmund
Berry Godfrey was mmdered. The frenzy of suspicious terror
wffich ensued can only be compared to that caused by the
mutUation of the Hermes at Athens some 2000 years before.
The furor that swept over modern France about the Dreyfus
affair woffid be but a pale reflection of the panic that fiUed
English mffids ffi 1678. The mystery that hangs over the
popish plot and the murder of Godfrey wffi never be completely
lifted. It is probable that there was some kind of popish plot.

Popish
plot, 1678,

Restoration and Revolution 365
The events of 1673 had made it clear to the Roman Catholics
that no further help for their designs was to be expected from
Charles. Charles had no ffitention of compromisffig the security
of his throne ffi order to aid Romanism, and he saw that the
re-establishment of Romanism was in the state of English feeling
impossible. From that date, therefore, the hopes of the Roman
Catholics were centred on the Duke of York. The secretary of
the Duke or Duchess of York, Coleman by name, carried on an
elaborate ffitrigue with the confessor of the French Kffig and
with Rome. The aim of the plotters was the overtffiow ffi
England of the established order ffi Church and State, and their
left wffig may have contemplated the assassmation of Charles II.
Oates, when a pervert li^vffig ffi Jesuit semffiaries abroad, may
have got wffid of tffis plot. A recent author* has propounded
the view that Godfrey, who, though a Protestant, was a personal
friend of Coleman, accidentaUy acquired ffi conversation with
him the knowledge that the Jesuit conference about which
Oates talked so much had been actuaUy held in the Duke of
York's palace. If this ffiformation were once made public, the
Duke of York's chance of succession to the tffione woffid be
fataUy imperffied ; and therefore this author suggests that
Godfrey was probably murdered at the Duke of York's ffistiga-
tion. However that may be, the Protestant frenzy that swept judicial
Englishmen off their legs led to the judicial murder of many ^"^^ °^
ffinocent Roman Catholics for their supposed share ffi the plot. Catholics.
The most notable victim was Lord Stafford (1680). Shaftesbury
and the Whigs for their own party purposes aggravated the
mania of suspicion and fanned the flame of persecution.
Dryden summed up the situation correctly when he wrote
about Shaftesbury —
" The wished occasion of the plot he takes ;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes."
In 1678 a Bffi wffich excluded Papists for the first time
from the House of Lords was passed. The Long Parliament of
the Restoration (1661-1679) had finished its work and was at
last dissolved. The rest of the reign was whoUy occupied with
the stiuggle to prevent the accession of a Roman Catholic kffig.
It is to tffis period that the formation of the two great historical
> Pollock, The Polish Plot,

366 The Church of England
Rise of parties of Whigs and Tories can be traced. The Whigs were
wwgand ^jj^gg ^^^ asserted the reality of the popish plot, and wished
parties. to exclude a Roman Catholic kffig from the succession to the
tffione. They advocated the clauns to toleration of Protestant
Nonconformists; they held that sovereignty was based on a
contract between sovereign and people, and therefore stoutly
mamtaffied the rights of Parliament and the principles of a
Iffiiited monarchy. The Tories, on the other hand, were the
upholders of Anglican supremacy and religious uniformity, yet
they looked with disfavour on the persecution of Roman
Catholics for participating ffi pseudo-plots ; they insisted on the
indefeasible Di-vine right of the heir to the succession, and
maffitained the principles of passive obedience — that is to say,
under no conceivable circumstances was it right actively to resist
the lawfffi King ; a man was justffied in refusing to co-operate
actively in the execution of unlawfffi commands issued by the
King, but he ought gladly for conscience' sake to acqffiesce in
punishment inflicted by the sovereign for such refusal.
Such was the sort of doctrine that the Anglican clergy were
preaching on aU sides. In his conflict with the WMg party
Charles II. played his cards with consummate skiU ; he consented
to the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), ^^^d to secure Protestantism,
in the event of a Roman Catholic succession, he offered con
cessions that woffid have reduced to a shadow the powers of a
Papist sovereign. But the Whigs adopted a whoUy irreconcU-
able attitude ; they ffitroduced Bffis to exclude the Duke of
York from the succession ; they asserted — and they were pro
bably right — that no such parliamentary compact coffid secure
Protestantism against a Papist king. Their point of -yiew was
summarised ffi a contemporary rhyme —
" I hear a lion in the lobby roar,
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door,
And keep him out ? or shall we let him in,
To try if we can turn him out again ?"
But the Kffig had gauged the tiend of national feeling with
greater insight than the Whigs. He gave them enough rope to
hang themselves, and tffis they promptly proceeded to do ;
their refusal to consider the concessions wMch the Kffig was
wiUffig to make alienated many supporters; their ffiabflity to
agree on an alternative to James as successor to the throne

ExclusionBilL

Restoration and Revolution 367
helped the cause of the Kffig. Lord Halifax wanted WUliam of
Orange, but Shaftesbury was already engaged in the discreditable
scheme of raisffig Monmouth, the Kffig's bastard, to the throne.
The nemesis of reaction foUowed on the fraud and blood with
which innocent Roman CathoUcs had been done to death. The
King bided his time ; he then turned and struck hard. Shaftes
bury the WMg leader was goaded mto a wUd attempt at a rising ,
he was forced to flee the countiy (1682), and died the foUowing
year. Other Whig leaders were arrested on charges of planning
ffisurrection, and judiciaUy, but ffi many cases unjustly, con
demned for treason. The Rye House Plot, a wUd plot of the
WMg extiemists, gave the Government an excuse. The charters
of the town corporations were remodeUed so as to secure a
Royalist majority ffi Parliament. Charles at the time of his
death ffi 1683 had won aU along the Iffie. On his deathbed he
was received ffito the Roman Church.
James IL, by his obstffiate bigotiy, sacrfficed aU the Accession
success acffieved by his brother. He was consumed by the j[ ^^ g|^
one desire of re-establishffig popery ffi England. No con
siderations of opportunism were permitted to stay his resolve.
It is difficffit to believe in the sanity of a man who had
lived through the Protestant frenzy of the era of the popish
plot, and yet thought it possible to re-establish Romanism in
England. It was to the devoted loyalty of the Church of
England that James owed Ms accession to the throne at aU.
Anglican support had been the buttiess of the Stewart monarchy
ffi aU the stages of its career. The ffiterest of the reign lies in
the wUfffi way in which the Kffig cut away from beneath his
feet the basis of his own power. His one aim beffig to restore His aim to
Romanism, he tried to achieve it first by the aid or connivance restore
_,,,„,,_,. . . , , , , Romanism.
of the Church of England. This period was marked by cruel
persecution of Baxter -and other Nonconformists. The Kffig at
the first meeting of Ms CouncU and ParUament expressed his
ffitention of maffitamffig the existing system established by law
in Church and State. But he soon showed that his real ffi-
tentions were very different. He attended publicly as King a
Roman Catholic service at St. James', and ffiformed Archbishop
Sancroft that he woffid allow no preachffig of any sort agaffist
the Roman faith.
The ffisurrection ffi favour of Monmouth necessitated the
formation of an army, and many Roman Catholics were appoffited

368 The Church of England
Commis- to Commands, ffi utter disregard of the test oaths prescribed by
to°Ro^rn° law. Protestants began to feel uneasy ; it was, moreover, the
Catholics, tune when Protestant feelffig was akeady stirred by the sight of
Huguenot refugees who had been driven from France, amid
circumstances of fearful cruelty, owffig to Louis XIV.'s revoca- '
tion of the Edict of Nantes. The Church of England was
roused to a consciousness of her Protestant character and her
affinities with other Protestant bodies. The refugees were given
an enthusiastic welcome by Compton, Bishop of London, and
the mass of Englishmen. But James became fficreasingly reckless.
He struck Lord Halifax off the Privy Council because he protested
, against the appointment of Roman Catholics to office as contrary
to Jaw, and he relieved other Protestants of their commands.
When Parliament met for its second session on gth November
1685, strong speeches were delivered against the employment of
Roman Catholic officers. The House of Commons drew up a
petition in which the ffiegality of the dispensffig power was
asserted, and ffivited the Kffig to take action accordmgly. In
the House of Lords, Compton, Bishop of London, drawffig a
simUe from the dykes which protected HoUand from the sea,
declared that the laws were the dykes protectffig English
Protestantism from the flood of universal Romanism.
Breach Compton's speech was memorable because it defmitely
Church of marked the breach which was openffig between the Church of
England. England and the Crown. James was determffied not to give
way. He dismissed various judges, and then, havmg packed the
bench, tried to make good ffis claims tffiough a coUusive suit. Sir
Edward Hales, Lieutenant of the Tower, was a Roman Catholic
who had faUed to take the oaths prescribed by the Test Act.
Case of His servant Godden, acting as an ffiformer, claimed from Hales
Haks^" "' ^^ ^^™ °^ £5°0' to which he was entitled under the Test Act for
decided in his information (1686) . Hales pleaded in defence the dispensa-
dlspensbg ^iou of the King. The case was argued before the twelve judges
power. of the King's Bench, and eleven out of the twelve judges de
cided in favour of Hales. It is not clear that the decision of
the judges was itself contrary to law, but the judgment pro
ceeded on the most extravagant ¦views of prerogative, declarffig
that the laws were the Kffig's laws, that he coffid therefore
dispense with them as he thought fit, and was the sole judge of
the times and reasons for suspendffig them. Fortffied by this
decision, the King proceeded on his ffifatuated course. He diS'

Restoration and Revolution 369
missed Protestants from office, and replaced them by Romanists.
He attacked the Church of England at the centre of its ffifluence
ffi the universities. Walker, the Master of University College,
Oxford, was dispensed from takffig the tests ; Massey, a Roman
Catholic layman, was made Dean of Christ Church. Cambridge
was ordered to give a degree to a Benedictffie monk, and the
Vice-ChanceUor on refusing to comply was deprived. In
Jffiy 1686 the Kffig set up a new Ecclesiastical Commission, NewEcde-
of which the legality was doubted even by its President, the c^mls-
Lord ChanceUor Jeffreys. Thus the Kffig advertised the fact sion. 1686.
that powers wffich had been assigned the sovereign by the Act
of Supremacy for the express purpose of destroyffig papal
power, were now to be used for the promotion of papal interests.
By tffis new Commission, Compton, Bishop of London, was
suspended, and the FeUows of Magdalen CoUege, Oxford, on
refusffig to accept the Kffig's nomffiee as their President, were
ejected from their college.
Ha^yffig quarreUed with the Church, James then feU back on James tries
Charles' old idea of restorffig Romanism under the disguise of 'j^JJfcon'^*
complete toleration to all parties. He tried to create a coalition formists.
party of Romanists and Protestant Nonconformists, and work
it agaffist the Church of England. The Protestant Noncon
formists, who sffice the begffinffig of the reign had been buUied
and pitUessly treated, were now caressed. Baxter and others
were set at liberty. The Kffig found ffi Wffiiam Penn, the
Quaker, a warm supporter of his policy. Penn believed ffi the
ffidefeasible right of conscience, and thought that government
ought to be based on ci^vil and not on ecclesiastical obedience.
These views are of the most enlightened kffid, and are accepted
to-day as axiomatic. But every statesman knows that the
application of such prfficiples must be determffied, and, if need
be, modffied by the political and social circumstances of the
time. The Nonconformists as a body showed truer wisdom,
and refused to wffi a cheap victory over the Church of England
at a cost which might before long be fotmd fficalcffiable. With
Romanism and despotism established ffi the State, was it pro
bable that any Protestants woffid contffiue to enjoy religious
freedom ? Was it not more probable that dragonnades and
death woffid await them ? To their eternal glory, Baxter and
other Protestant Nonconformists stood ffi with the leaders of
the national Church. 2 A

370 The Church of England
Declara- On the 4th AprU 1687 James issued a Declaration of In-
^onofin- dffigence more sweepffig ffi character than that issued by ffis
u gence. ^^^^j^^^ Charles ffi 1672 ; for whUe suspendffig the penal laws
and the Test Act, he gave fffil right of public worship to Roman
Catholics, no less than Protestant Nonconformists.
He next took measures calcffiated to pack ParUament with
supporters of his policy, removing all local officers, such as
Lords Lieutenant, Sheriffs, and Justices of the Peace, who did
not undertake to forward Ms schemes, and issuffig a Commission
which was to remodel borough corporations ffi his ffiterest.
In May 1688 he reissued his Declaration of Indffigence, and
ordered the Anglican clergy to read it publicly ffi church on
two successive Sundays. The exquisite foUy of this order de
serves aU the scathffig satire poured upon it by Macaffiay.
There was nothmg more Ukely to make the AngUcan clergy
reconsider their "yiews about Divffie right and non-resistance
than this avowed conspiracy agaffist their faith and their
property. The weapon forged for use agaffist the papacy
snapped like a brittle reed ffi the hands of the papal champion.
A hurried meetffig of those bishops who were close at hand was
summoned by Archbishop Sancroft. Actffig ffi unison with the
Hydes, the brothers-ffi-law of the Kffig, the bishops resolved,
first, that the Declaration shoffid not be read, and, secondly, that
Petition of a petition shoffid be presented to the Kffig. TMs petition was
bishops, most respectfffi ffi tone, but said quite definitely that the De
claration was founded on such a dispensffig power as had been
declared ffiegal ffi Parliament ffi 1672, and that the signatories
coffid not see their way to read, or order the readffig of, the
Declaration ffi church. The signatories of tffis memorable
document were Sancroft of Canterbury, Lloyd of St. Asaph,
Turner of Ely, Lake of Cffichester, Ken of Bath and WeUs, White
of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. The resffit of the
bishops' action was that the Declaration was read in very
few churches ; where it was read, the congregation got up and
walked out. The Kffig was extremely ffidignant. He coffid not
Trial of arrest aU the clergy ffi England. What he did do, was to arrest
bishop!" ^'^^ ?&v^r\. bishops and prosecute them before the King's Bench
for havffig maliciously published a false and seditious libel.
But the lawyers engaged by the bishops ffi their defence had
little difficffity ffi provffig that the petition was neither false nor
seditious nor libellous. Every one had a right to petition the

Restoration and Revolution 371
Crown. The resffit of the trial was the triumphant acquittal of Acquittal
the bishops. Even the army which James had gathered at °f '''^''"P^-
Hounslow Heath cheered wUdly on hearing the verdict. The
eyes of aU England had been fi.xed on the case, and the scenes
of tumffituous enthusiasm that all over England followed the
acquittal of the bishops ought to have shown James that he
was just over a mffie. His position was made worse by the
birth to him of a son, which tffieatened the advent of a Roman
Catholic dynasty.
The loyalty of the EngUsh nation had been straffied to yi^iiiiam of
breakffig-poffit. The most emment leaders ffi English public invtwd^
life, both Whig and Tory, combffied to ffivite Wffiiam of Orange, over.
the Kffig's son-ffi-law, to brffig over an army that woffid secure
English freedom and English Protestantism. It is a remarkable
fact that James did not even carry with him the English Roman
Catholics, nor was he supported by the Pope himself. Innocent
XI. favoured a policy of gradually convertffig England by pacific
means, and was altogether opposed tothe violence of Jesuit zealots,
especiaUy that of Father Petre, whom James made his confidant.
The English Romanists were divided, as ever sffice the days
of Elizabeth, between the moderates and the ffitras. But the
mass of them disliked Father Petre's violence.
It is one of the ironies of history that Wffiiam's expedition,
wMch finaUy assured the triumph of English Protestantism,
saUed, owffig to the political circumstances of Europe, with the
approval of the Pope himself. The concessions offered by
James, when he saw that Wffiiam was ffi earnest, came too late,
at a poffit when concffiatory steps had no longer the least effect.
Wffiiam came, and saw, and conquered. James was intimidated
into running away, and committed political suicide by takffig
refuge with France — the hereditary foe. The Tories had joffied
with the WMgs ffi overthrowffig the tyranny of James; but
many of them found themselves unable to acquiesce ffi a trans
ference of the crown from James to Wffiiam and Mary. True to
their hereditary tradition, they maffitained that no power on
earth coffid rightfuUy depose the Kffig against ffis wffi. But
the logic of facts was too stiong for them. The WMg theory of ¦wiiiiam
a contract, which James had broken with Ms people, suppUed a ac^e'^ae
justffication for the offer of the crown conjoffitly to WUliam throne,
and Mary (February 1689). This offer was the work of the **^9.
Whigs and more moderate section of the Tories.

jurors.

372 The Church of England
The new sovereigns were crowned on nth AprU 1689 by
Compton, Bishop of London. In accordance with an Act of
Parliament, the coronation oath was amplffied so as to make the
Kffig swear that he would maintaffi " the Protestant reformed
religion established by law." This oath has been taken by
every succeedmg monarch. Unfortunately, eight bishops, ffi
cluding Archbishop Sancroft and four of the famous seven who
had opposed James II. , did not see their way to transfer their
aUegiance from him and take the prescribed oaths of aUegiance
to the new sovereigns. Tffiee of the eight died before the time
arrived for taking the oath, but the other five were deprived.
Secession These five, together with some four hundred clergy and a con-
ofNon- siderable body of laymen, seceded from the national Church
and formed the body of Nonjurors. Obedience to conscience,
when it ffivolves great sacrffice, deserves supreme respect, and
the Church of England coffid ffi afford to lose men of such
spiritual lives and such sffigle-mffided ffitegrity. But the theory
of Di^vme right on which they acted is now completely dis
credited, and therefore their action cannot be approved. Many
Nonjurors thought that the Church of England compromised
her catholicity by recognisffig the bishops put ffito possession
of sees not canonicaUy vacant. After the death of Sancroft
(1693), and ffi spite of the ad^vice of Ken, the succession of the
nonjurffig bishops was contmued. Many of their clergy served
as chaplaffis ffi Jacobite famUies, and the schism was only fffially
closed at the begffinffig of the nineteenth century.
The cUcumstances under which Wffiiam III. ascended the
throne made a reconsideration of the position of Protestant
Nonconformists necessary. There had been a tacit under
standing to this effect. Wffiiam himself was a Dutch Calvffiist,
entirely out of sympathy with the claims of the historic Church
as understood by most English Churchmen.
One more futUe effort was made to comprehend the moderate
Nonconformists in the Church of England by rewritffig the
Prayer-Book so as to meet their objections, but the opposi
tion shown to the whole scheme by the Lower House of
Convocation sealed the fate of the experiment. Whatever else
might be uncertaffi, this at any rate was clear, that the Book of
Common Prayer after 150 years of use had found its way to the
affections and hearts of English Churchmen. Churchmen woffid
not allow it to be altered. The policy of comprehension h.aving

Restoration and Revolution 373
broken down, other means had to be devised for the satisfaction Toleration
of the religious aspirations of Nonconformists. These were *'^'' '^^^'^'
found ffi the Toleration Act of 1689. By tffis Act complete
freedom of religious worship was granted to orthodox Protestant
Nonconformists, provided that their meeting-places were re
gistered and open to the public, and provided that their ministers
took the oaths of aUegiance and supremacy and subscribed
to all the Articles other than those which dealt with the external
govemment and the ceremonies of the Church. Quakers were
allowed to make an affirmation ffistead of takffig an oath.
The Toleration Act of 1689 was not a comprehensive grant
of religious liberty. Roman Catholics and Unitarians were
whoUy excluded from the benefit of its operation. The penal
laws agaffist Protestant Nonconformists were relaxed, but the
tests for office were retaffied. Churchmen were stffi to form the
sole governing class. But the Act was the thffi end of a big
wedge, and was certaffily the most that public feelffig ffi the
country woffid have sanctioned, sffice the mass of Englishmen
were stffi Anglican and Tory. They did not believe either in the
political or the religious creed of the Dissenters. The principle
of liberty of worship was not ffi any quarter regarded as one
of self-e^yident truth. On the persecution of Roman Catholics,
both Whigs and Tories were agreed ; a ferocious statute of 1700
made Roman Catholics mcapable of purchasing or ffiheriting
land, and shut them out from education, the liberal professions,
and aU positions of trust. It is fair to add that the statute
was aUowed to remaffi ffi almost complete abeyance.
The form that English Cffiistianity woffid henceforth assume
was now fixed. First, it was clear that Nonconformity had
come to stay. Schism withffi English Protestantism woffid
always need to be reckoned with. The division between Church
men and Nonconformists from 1689 down to the present day has
affected the solution of countless problems ffi every range of
life. Secondly, the position of the national Church of England
was defined. Durffig the seventeenth century she had gone
tffiough a wealth of experience ; she had suffered and she had
triumphed. She had been given a splendid theology by the
Carolffie di^yffies — ^Jeremy Taylor, Pearson, BuU, Cosffi, and
others — and a phUosophy by the Cambridge Platonists ; she had
reared withffi her fold many saffitly lives ; she had fed the
flock ffi the different parishes of England. The Prayer-Book

374 ^'^^ Church of England
and Episcopacy have henceforth withffi her fold been un-
chaUenged. But the Church stffi comprehended many grades of opffiion.
There was the High Churchman, who carried on the tradition of
Laud ; there was the Low Churchman, who differed little ffi
his theology from the orthodox Protestant Dissenter, but saw
no adequate reason for desertffig the Church of his forefathers.
Latitudina- There was lastly the Latitudinarian or Broad Churchman.
nanism. Latitudinarianism was the product of two tendencies. A century
of religious strife and religious confusion had produced ffi many
men a sense of sheer weariness ; they were wffiing to drop the
shibboleths of contendffig factions and ground themselves on
what they considered to be " fundamental Cffiistianity." This
sense of wearffiess was reffiforced by the appeal to reason ;
strife about " non-fundamental " matters was not only weari
some, but also seemed to many men irrational. The appeal to
reason and the advocacy of toleration for Protestant Dissenters
were the chief features of Latitudinarianism. The Broad
Churchman hated enthusiasm and emotion of aU sorts. He laid
his emphasis on the importance of a moral life, and represented
Cffiistianity as hardly more than a code of etMcs. He was not
a great believer ffi the efficacy of sacraments. It was due ffi part
to the ffidifference to forms and ceremonies that lasted on from
Puritan times, and ffi part to more definite Latitudinarianism,
that in the later half of the seventeenth century the sacrament
of Holy Communion was so seldom admffiistered — ffi many
places not more than tffiee or four times a year.
Under the uffiuence of the High Church reaction that accom
panied the close of the century, a change took place, and weekly
celebrations were to be found at any rate ffi the cathedrals
and in many town churches.
The reigns of WUliam and Anne were marked by a great
growth ffi the party system. Big strides forward were made
in the direction of government by party. The Whigs and
Tories became organised bodies, ffispired too often on either side
by the spirit of faction. It was at once the faffit and the mis
fortune of the Church that she had to descend into the arena
of politics, and soU herself with the grime of party stiife ; for m
idea the Church is and must always be above and beyond party.
The descent was great from the saffitiy Ken to the politician
Atterbury. The mass of the clergy were by tradition from the

Restoration and Revolution 375
days of the civU war Tory and High Churchmen ; they held the The clergy
same principles as the Nonjurors, but had not carried them out H^gh^"
logicaUy to the bitter end. They were, however, disaffected to Church.
the new government of Wffiiam. To keep ffi check these Tory
High Church clergy, Wffiiam appoffited Whig and Latitudinarian Bishops
bishops. He made the historian Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury Latitudin-
(1689), he appointed Tffiotson on Sancroft's suspension to the "'an-
see of Canterbury (1691-4), and on Tffiotson's death, Tenison
(1693-1713). He formed a regffiar committee of Whig bishops
to advise him on ecclesiastical appoffitments. AU these bishops
held very simUar ¦views ; they favoured toleration, if not com
prehension withffi the Church, of Nonconformists. They
sympatMsed with Nonconformist theology. " Scarce a Presby
terian ffi it — except the bishop," said a Tory fox-hunter of his
neighbourffig shire. Many Dissenters were ffi the habit of Occasiona ';
qualUyffig for office by takffig the Holy Communion accordffig f^""*^"™"
to the Anglican rite, and then returnffig to theu conventicles.
The High Church Tories were anxious to stop this practice,
but were discountenanced by the Whig bishops.
Another feature ffi Wffiiam's ecclesiastical rffie was its yvniiam's
essentiaUy Erastian nature. In a way that recaUed old Tudor Jian.^"^^'
days, Wffiiam issued injunctions to the bishops and clergy even
on doctrffial and purely spiritual matters. It was no wonder
that the High Church clergy were restive under his rffie. A
disastious cleavage between bishops and clergy was the natural
resffit. The clergy thought that the Church was betrayed by
time-servffig bishops, who did not believe ffi the Divffie right
of their own office, and hence arose the paradoxical situation •
in wffich the High Church clergy, the believers ffi the Divine
right of Episcopacy, did aU they knew to brffig ffito contempt
the existmg bishops. This feelffig of distrust manifested itself
ffi Convocation. There were contffiual disputes throughout
Wffiiam's reign, both as to the relations of Crown and Convoca
tion, and as to the relations of the two Houses of Convocation to
each other. The Lower House of Convocation, on the analogy of
the House of Commons, tried to make good various claims
agamst the Upper House. The friction was so great that for
many years Wffiiam did not aUow Convocation to meet at aU.
The dispute contffiued well ffito the reign of Anne. Queen Queen
Anne was a vaffi and frivolous woman, but, so far as her ffiteUigence °"^
permitted her, she was a devoted Churchwoman. Throughout

376 The Church of England
the greater part of her reign, the war with France domffiated
public interest. That war was the work of Marlborough and
the Whigs. But the Queen graduaUy emancipated herself from
the Whig ascendency ; she was by nature a Tory. She had already
sho'wn her devotion to the Church ffi 1704 by restorffig to it the
tenths and first-fruits annexed to the Crown ffi 1534 by Henry
VIII. TMs sum, amountffig to £16,000 or £17,000 per annum.
Queen was formed ffito a fund caUed Queen Anne's Bounty, and used
Bounty ^""^ ^^^ augmentation ffi value of smaU livings. A pronounced
reaction agaffist the WMgs made itself felt ffi the country after
1708. A large majority of Englishmen was Anglican and Tory.
England as yet remaffied an almost whoUy agricffitural country,
and the agricffitural districts, except ffi the neighbourhood of a
Whig territorial magnate, were controUed by the Tory squire or
parson. A feelffig was abroad that the war was beffig prolonged
ffi a whoUy unnecessary way to secure advantages for the Whig
commercial classes. The Church, too, remaffied restive under its
Whig bishops. Her political ffifluence was seen ffi the fact that on
several occasions an Occasional Conformity Bffi, wffich imposed
crushffig fines on aU holders of office who shoffid attend con
venticles, was passed by the House of Commons and only pre
vented from becomffig law by defeat ffi the House of Lords, the
Whig bishops votffig ffi the majority agaffist it.
MeanwhUe the Queen had grown tired of the domffiatffig
personality of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and became de
votedly attached to a Tory Anglican, Mrs. Masham.
Sacheverell A Spark Wcis Only needed to create an explosion. That
spark was supplied by the ffi-advised action of the Whigs in
impeachffig Dr. SachevereU, a preacher of blatant and ffisolent
nonsense. SachevereU was with justice described by Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, as " an ignorant and impudent m-
cendiary, the scorn of those who made him their tool." He
delivered two sermons of a ¦violent and extravagant nature,
attacking the revolution of 1688 and the ¦view that under any
circumstances the sovereign coffid rightly be resisted. The first
was an assize sermon at Derby on ISth August 1709. Takffig
as Ms text i Timothy v. 22, " Be not partakers of other men's
sffis," he attempted to show that the authors of the revolution
were rusffing to destruction. The second was a sermon before
the Lord Mayor of London (3th November) on the perUs of
false brethren ffi Church and State (2 Cor. xi. 26), fffil of hits

Restoration and Revolution 377
agaffist the Queen's mmister, Godolphffi. The Whig House of
Commons was fooUsh enough to impeach and make a martyr
of Mm. A sffigffiar wave of fanaticism spread over the
countiy. London and the pro^vffices were ffi an uproar. Men
reaUy believed the cry that " the Church was ffi danger." As
the Queen went to hear the tiial, her sedan chair was sur
rounded by crowds crymg, "God bless your Majesty. We
hope your Majesty is for High Church and SachevereU." The
House of Lords con^yicted SachevereU, but did not dare to
ffiflict more than the nomffial punishment of forbidding him to
preach for tffiee years. What sort of man SachevereU was can
be seen from the fact that when three years were over, he took
as text for Ms first sermon the words, " Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do," and proceeded to draw a
comparison between Ms own sufferffigs and those of our Lord !
Queen Anne took advantage of the Tory and Anglican re
action wffich had swept over the country and dissolved Parlia
ment, with the resffit that a large Tory majority was returned.
The Tories were ffi power for the last four years of the Queen's Tory rule,
reign (r7io-i7i4). The extraordffiary political ffifiuence of the '710-1714-
Anglican clergy is apparent, for the doctrffie of non-resistance
does not seem calculated primd facie to raise popffiar enthusiasm,
least of aU ffi an age like that of Queen Anne, which was remark
able for the number of brUUant men by which it was adorned ffi
every range of mteUectual life. Few ages can point to a con-
steUation of such briUiant authors as Addison, Swift, Steele,
Defoe, Newton, Locke, Bentley.
The Anglican and Tory majority used its power to proscribe
its political opponents. Undeterred by the scathing satire, A
Short Way with Dissenters, wffich Defoe had published ffi 1701,
Parliament passed the Occasional Conformity Act, deprivffig Occasional
of their office and fmffig aU officials who shoffid attend Non- ,&"n™"
conformist places of worsffip (171 1). Not content with this, it Schism
passed ffi 1713 the Schism Act, which attempted to take all '^^^'
education out of the hands of Nonconformists, by enacting
that every schoolmaster and tutor must be licensed by a bishop
and receive the Holy Communion accordmg to the Anglican
rite. These two statutes were repealed by the Whigs ffi 1718.
There is little doubt that if Bolingbroke, the Tory mffiister,
had had some few weeks more to mature Ms plans, there woffid
have been a Jacobite restoration, but ffis plans were not far

378 The Church of England
enough advanced when they were surprised by the Queen's
death (1714). As it was, the High Church protagonist Atterbury,
Bishop of Rochester, urged his party to proclaim the Pretender.
" I wUl send for my lawn sleeves this ffistant, and do it on horse
back at Charffig Cross, if you wffi support me."
The Tory party, though naturaUy the strongest ffi the
country, was paralysed at the critical moment by the unpossible
attitude of the Pretender, who refused to hold out any hopes
whatever of his conformffig to the Anglican Church. Thus
the master passions of the Tory party — their devotion to the
prfficiple of hereditary right and their love for the Church
of England — ^puUed them ffi exactly opposite directions. They
Accession coffid do nothing, and therefore, ffi accordance with the terms
L,°7i4f °f the Ac* of Settlement (1701), the Hanoverian George I.
succeeded to the throne (1714).
Social posi- The social condition of the clergy durffig the era 1660-1714
tion of jg jjaj.(j to determffie. There was clearly much poverty ffi the
clergy. •' ^ ^
lower ranks of the countiy parsons. Thirty pounds a year seems
to have been the typical fficome, but often the stipends were
much lower. Some of the clergy were drawn from a low social
stiatum, and it is probably to them that Steele refers ffi the
Tatler when he tells how the clergy were excluded from the
later courses of dffiner and associated with the servants. The
clergy of the towns and the bishops occupied a very different
position. On the whole it woffid seem that the social status
of the clergy was rising durffig the rule of the later Stewarts.
Moral and The brightest feature ffi church Iffe at the begffinffig of the
sociefe. eighteenth century was the number of moral and religious
societies established about that time. The Society for the
Reformation of Manners, founded ffi 1692, had for its aim the
mere improvement of morals, but many other societies were
formed for purely devotional purposes, and held special reUgious
services for their members. Of the religious societies founded
at this time, two deserve special notice for the memorable work
they have accomplished. The leadffig spirit ffi their foundation
S.P.C.K.. was Dr. Thomas Bray. The first of these was the Society for
'^'^' Promotffig Christian Knowledge (1698), established for the spread
of mission work, for the diffusion of Cffiistian education, and for
S.P.G., the supply of good literature. The second was the Society for
'^°'" the Propagation of the Gospel ffi Foreign Parts, founded ffi 1701.
From its origffi this society set before itself the double purpose of

Restoration and Revolution 379
mmisterffig to the religious needs of Englishmen livffig ffi " the
plantations " beyond the sea, and of spreadmg the Cffiistian faith
among the " natives." This purpose has been maintained tffi
the present day.
Thus a start was made ffi missionary enterprise, and a
stigma removed from the Church of England. Churchmen had
tUl this time been exclusively occupied with the ffiternal troubles
of the Church at home ; some of them now began to realise
that Christianity is ffi essence a missionary faith, and that its
genius lies ffi self-sacrffice.
Another form wffich benevolence assumed at tffis time was charity
the erection of charity schools, such as the Bluecoat School, for sc^ioois.
the education of poor chUdren. At the close of Queen Anne's
reign there were ffi London alone some 120 schools, educatffig
3000 chUdren. The example of London was foUowed ffi many
other towns. In aU tMs work the Church of England led the
way. At a time when the State was whoUy ffidifferent to the
education of the poor, schools were started by Churchmen to
give them an education, religious as weU as secffiar; for no
education is worth the name which does not ground the chUd
m religious truth.

CHAPTER XX
THE CHURCH FROM 1714-1833— RATIONALISM AND
THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
Import- The eighteenth century cannot for many reasons be tieated
eWueenth ^ith contempt. It witnessed the great struggle between France
century. and England for North America and India. The struggle
which determffied that English and not French ci^dlisation
shoffid domffiate the contffient that lies between the Atlantic
and the Pacffic woffid alone make any age memorable. Nor
was this aU. The generation which foUowed the accession of
George I. was for England one of fficreasffig material prosperity.
Yet even this prosperity was dwarfed by the great wealth poured
ffito her lap by the ffidustrial revolution wffich towards the
close of the century transformed her from an agricffitural to an
ffidustrial country. The French Revolution which broke out ffi
1789 disengaged democratic and leveUffig prfficiples which have
not yet spent their strength, whUe the great war (i793-i8r3)
bequeathed to England a commandffig position ffi Europe.
Even ffi the religious sphere, the importance of the century
which was marked by the growth of toleration, by the output
of a great apologetic literature, and by the Wesleyan and
Evangelical movements, cannot be treated as a negligible
quantity. Regarded, however, as a whole, the eighteenth century cannot
but fiU with shame the Church historian. This is especially
tiue of its first half ; for ffi the later period signs of a better state
of thffigs make their appearance. If the era of Walpole
(1714-1740) was one of great material progress, it was also one
of spiritual and moral decay. It has been weU described as
" an age destitute of depth or earnestness, an age whose poetry
was without romance, whose phUosophy was without ffisight,
and whose public men were without character, an age of light
without love, whose very merits were of the earth, earthy."
^krtuli°^ ^^^ Church of England feU ffito a state of lethargic stupor, and
decline, 1 it Seemed as though the gates of heU would prevaU agaffist her,
380

Rationalism 381
The chUl of death crept over her, destroyffig all the activities
of life. The causes of this lethargy are difficult to determffie. causes
Plato by the mystic number wMch is represented in the Republic °/ttogy
as determffiffig the law of birth, meant to poffit out the ffi
calcffiable nature of birth. An equally mystic number might be
represented as controUffig the succession of the ages. Not that
we are unable to see the connection between son and father, the
present and the past, but, owffig to our ignorance, we cannot
determine a priori what the son of a father or the chUd of the
present age, i.e. the future, wffi be like. Some part of the actual
resffit may ffi the case of the eighteenth century be assigned
to reaction or the swffig of the pendffium, if mdeed this is
not merely to give another name to our own ignorance. The
seventeenth century had been the age of enthusiasm. The suc
cessive waves of religious and political fanaticism had broken and
spent their force. The storm was foUowed by a great calm. Men
were weary and desired rest. In part, the spiritual torpor which
overtook the Church was a nemesis on its prostitution of re
ligion for purely political ends. Atterbury and SachevereU were
not fit leaders of a spiritual cause. The clergy of the Church
of England had committed themselves to a thorougffiy false
political position. In season and out of season they had
preached the doctrffies of passive obedience and the inde
feasible hereditary right of the heir to the tffione. The clergy
were at heart Jacobite, but sffice the rffie of the Pretender was
impossible, the religion of the Jacobite clergy, Ulogically enough,
came to be questioned. Matters were not mended when the
mass of the clergy de facto accepted the Hanoverian regime.
What coffid be thought of the sfficerity of the clerical preachers
of morality when with few exceptions they had shown them
selves ffi practice untrue to the convictions which they had pro
claimed ffi countless pffipits? The consciousness of the fact
must also have undermffied their own moral self-respect. Is it
a matter for surprise that they became a fit and constant target
for satire ffi contemporary literature ?
A further cause for the spiritual paralysis of the age can be
found ffi the coUision and distrust that embittered the relations
of the bishops and the lower clergy to each other. The lower
clergy were for the most part High Church and Jacobite ffi S5mi-
pathy ; the bishops were Latitudffiarian ffi doctrine and partisans
of the Hanoverian Govemment. The bishops were on the whole

Bangorian
controversy.

Convoca
tion not
aUowed to
meet for
businessfrom 1717
to 1852.

Enthu
siasm re
pressed.

Rule of
Walpole.

382 The Church of England
learned and able men, but they had little sympathy for the
Laudian conception of the Mstoric Church, and were thorough-
goffig Erastians. The Govemment watched its chance.
Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, was unpopffiar as an advocate of
religious toleration and of the right of private judgment. In
a sermon preached before the Kffig (1717) he had denied the
visible nature of the true Church, and was thought to have
ignored the workffig of the Holy Spirit. The Lower House of
Convocation drew up a report agaffist the doctrffie of the sermon,
and ffivited the Upper House of bishops to take action. Writers
on both sides took up their pens ffi the so-caUed Bangorian
contioversy. The Kffig seized the opportunity for muzzlmg
Convocation. In the ungracious words of HaUam, he thought
it expedient " to scatter a little dust over the angry ffisects."
Convocation was prorogued ffi 1717, and never agaffi aUowed
to meet for the despatch of busffiess tffi the ecclesiastical revival
of the nffieteenth century (1832). This contffiued prorogation
of the Church's constitutional assembly was a cruel step taken
by the Govemment to suit its o^wn purposes, and little calcffiated
to promote the efficiency of church life. Grant that Convocation
at the time was not showffig itself to advantage, the same has
been true of the Houses of Parliament ffi many stages of their
career. But this woffid not justify their suppression.
The Government used its ffifluence to depress aU forms of
spiritual enthusiasm. Of the Hanoverian sovereigns who preceded
Queen Victoria, aU were without exception commonplace men.
With the exception of George IIL, they were also very immoral ;
and the ffifluence of their courts, ffi which open and unabashed
adffitery reigned, was extremely pernicious. Walpole, the
chief mffiister of the first two Georges (1720-1742), hated
enthusiasm of aU sorts, and took as Ms motto " Quieta non
movere." By his sneers at probity and self-sacrffice he did
immense harm to the moral tone of his own and the foUo^wmg
generation. He was the first to organise bribery and corruption
as a regffiar department of government. As Ms enemy Bolffig-
broke said not untrffiy, " The mffiister preaches corruption aloud
and constantly, like an impudent missionary of vice."
Walpole's successors, with the conspicuous exception of the
two Pitts, were men of equal moral ffifamy. The real wonder
is that England not offiy survived her rffiers, but also conquered
an empire under their rule. An atmosphere of levity and cormp-

Rationalism 383
tion, of irreligion and vice, permeated the life of the upper classes,
though they fficluded withffi their ranks such exceUent people
as Lord Dartmouth, the Countess of Huntffigdon, and many
others. Bishop Butier, ffi a famous passage of the Analogy,
has placed on record the scoffing at religion ffi which many
people ffidffiged. " It is come, I know not how, to be taken
for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much
as a subject of ffiquiry, but it is now at length discovered to
be fictitious; and accordingly they treat it as if . . . nothing
remaffied but to set it up as a prfficipal subject of mirth and
ridicffie." The Wesleyan and Evangelical movement, the example set
by George III. and the Pitts, and the sacrffice caUed forth by
the great war, led to an improvement before r8oo. But the
distffiguishffig feature of the century, especiaUy its earlier part,
was its " contracted spirit," its regard for self-ffiterest, its
hatred of enthusiasm of aU sorts. The appeal to reason and Rational-
common sense characterised all sides of its life, fficluding its'^"""^^^^'
phUosophy and its religion. The bishops and clergy were
ffifected by the spirit of the age ; they were better than their
compeers, they were not immoral, but they were as a whole
" earthy " ; their sermons were not fired by con^viction, but were
commonplace moral essays ; they preached a life of enlightened
self-ffiterest, and lived as they preached ; they took a low view
of their episcopal and parochial duties; pluralities abounded,
and carried with them the ffie^vitable consequence of non-
residence; the services were few and far between. Many
country parishes had at the most one service a Sunday; cele
brations of the Holy Communion were reduced to a mffiimum ;
it was an age ffi which enthusiasm died, and the love of many
grew cold. It was an age of hunting for place and preferment piace-
in Church as well as State. Thackeray with justice writes of '^uating.
" Hoadly crffiging from one bishopric to another," and Hoadly
was not pecffiiar ffi ffis kffid. Lady Yarmouth, George II.'s
mistress, was said to have betted one clergyman £3000 that he
woffid not be made a bishop. The clergyman of course lost his
bet. When George II. died, " It was," writes Thackeray, " a
parson who came and wept over this grave. . . . Here was one
who had neither dignity, learnffig, morals, nor wit, who taffited
a great society by a bad example, who ffi youth, manhood, old
age was gross, low, and sensual ; and Mr. Porteus, afterwards my

3 84 The Church of England
Lord Bishop Porteus, says the earth was not good enough for
him, and that his only place was heaven ! Bravo, Mr. Porteus !
The divffie who wept these tears over George the Second's
memory wore George the Third's lawn."
The most shameless case of pluralism was perhaps that
of Bishop Watson. The qualification for a professorship at
Cambridge in those days seems in some cases to have been
entire ignorance of the subject professed. When Watson was
appointed Professor of Chemistry he had never read a syUable
on chemistry. A f^w years later he migrated to the Regius
Professorship of Divffiity, and only then did he apply himself
to divffiity. After eleven years he was made Bishop of Llandaff,
and became at the same time a non-resident professor and a
non-resident bishop, for he retired to an estate wMch he had
purchased ffi Westmorland, and divided the rest of Ms time
between farming and writffig letters to mffiisters, askffig for more
valuable preferment. What else coffid be expected, when
hireling shepherds betrayed their trust, than that wolves shoffid
devour the flock ? Even the great and good Bishop Butler was
not altogether above tMs feature, common to his contemporaries.
When acceptffig the bishopric of Bristol that Walpole had
offered to him, Butler let him know ffi Ms reply that the prefer
ment was hardly so great as that wffich he might reasonably
have expected. On every side the sense of religion and the
sense of duty decayed.
Decline of The Universities, especiaUy the University of Oxford, the old
Oxford home of Anglican ffifluence, slept the sleep of exhaustion and de-
' clffie. Gibbon has portrayed with scathffig satire the condition
of Oxford University, ffito which he entered ffi 1732. We read
in his autobiography of the professors who " had for these many
years given up altogether even the pretence of teachffig " ; of the
" dons " that " theu conversation stagnated ffi a round of
college busffiess, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private
scandal. Their duU and deep potations excused the brisk m-
temperance of youth, and their constitutional toasts were not
expressive of the most Uvely loyalty for the house of Hanover."
Gibbon roundly accuses the University both of bigotiy and ffi
difference ; bigotry agaffist heretics and unbelievers, and ffi
difference to the spiritual education of her o^wn chUdren. In
those days the University admitted members when mere
chUdren. Gibbon himself was only fourteen when he joffied it.

Rationalism 385

and yet he was left without religious ffistiuction or confirmation,
and permitted to approach the communion table and receive
the sacrament without any question as to his qualffications to
receive it.
Wherever we turn, the tale of spiritual declme is the same.
Was it possible for the dry bones of the Anglican Church to
live ? That was the question which many good and earnest
men were puttffig to themselves about the year 1730.
The worst that can be said about the eighteenth century
has now been told. God did not leave Himself without ¦witness
even ffi those e^vU times. English religion was not altogether
rotten. There were many parsonages besides that of Epworth,
where the Wesley brothers were brought up, ffi wffich the torch
of the gospel Ught was stffi kept burnffig. The eighteenth
century, like other ages, contained good as weU as bad elements.
In the space that the author has at his disposal, the good poffits
and the beginnffig of better thffigs must now be traced.
I. Toleration as a religious prfficiple had been accepted (i) Growth
withffi limits at the revolution (1688). Those limits were ffi J^om'^'^'
the course of the eighteenth century extended, and in the Relief of
nmeteenth century removed. In 1718 the Occasional Conformity {ant dis-
Act and the Schism Act were repealed. Walpole, true to ffis centers.
rffie, " Let sleepffig dogs lie," refused to carry tffiough the
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. He feared another
explosion of the SachevereU type ; but Acts of indemnity passed
yearly from 1727, though ffi form their application was re
stricted to those who " tffiough ignorance of the law, absence,
or unavoidable accident," had faUed to qualify for office, virtually
gave Protestant Dissenters exemption from the necessity of
complyffig with their tests. But their right to office remaffied
precarious, and the law was sometimes put ffi force agaffist them.
The effect of Acts passed ffi 1779 and 1812 was to relieve
dissentmg mffiisters from the oaths required by the Toleration
Act of 1689. FffiaUy ffi 1828 the Test and Corporation Acts
were repealed. The sacramental test was replaced by a de
claration required from every holder of office, " upon the true
faith of a Cffiistian," that he woffid not attempt to ffijure or
weaken the established Church. A few mffior grievances of
Protestant Dissenters have been remedied by various Acts of
the nffieteenth century. .
The Mstory of relief given to Roman Catholics went on Catholics.
2 B

386 The Church of England
simUar Iffies, though it met with great opposition. The earlier
years of George I. were marked by further Acts of repression,
no doubt because Romanism as associated with Jacobitism was
stiU a real danger. The first great measure of relief was granted
by the Act passed ffi 1778 on the ffiitiation of Sir G. SavUe.
By this Act the penalties prescribed by a statute of 1700 agamst
Roman Catholic priests and schoolmasters, and agaffist Roman
Catholic heirs or purchasers of land, were abolished, provided that
they took an oath abjurffig the Pretender and the temporal and
deposffig power of the Pope. The passffig of tffis Act was
signalised by a disgracefffi outburst of Protestant fanaticism
known as the Lord George Gordon riots. For several days
London was ffi the hands of a mob (1780).
Mitford's Act of 1791 relieved the Roman Catholics from
some further disabUities. Roman Catholic worship and schools
were recognised by the law. Roman Catholics, on takffig a
simUar oath to that prescribed ffi the Act of 1778, were relieved
from the need of takffig the oath of supremacy on the demand
of two magistrates, and from the necessity of registerffig their
wUls and deeds, whUe the legal professions were tffiown open
to them. But many hardships remaffied. George III. thought
himself bound ffi conscience by ffis coronation oath to refuse
Roman the grant of Roman Catholic emancipation, and it was this con-
Emancirpa- scientious objection that led to the resignation of Pitt ffi 1801.
tion Act, It may be pomted out ffi passffig that the delay thus caused
' ^'^' immensely complicated the difficffity of the Irish question.
FffiaUy, by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828),
and by the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, almost
aU the disabUities of Roman Catholics were removed. By tMs
latter Act, ffi lieu of the oath of supremacy, a new oath was
framed ffi wffich a Roman Catholic swore aUegiance to the Kffig,
promised to maffitaffi the Act of Settlement (1701), and renounced
the deposffig and temporal power of the Pope. Roman CathoUcs
takffig this oath were aUowed, if otherwise dffiy qualffied, to sit
in either House of Parliament and to vote at elections ; aU ofiices
under the Protestant Crown were tffiown open to them, other
than those of Regent, Lord ChanceUor, Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, and such as woffid involve the exercise of judicial power
over the established Churches.
(«) Jews. FffiaUy, a word may be written about the Jews. Their case
was worsened by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.

Rationalism 387

They clearly coffid not make the declaration required by the
Act of 1828, " upon the true faith of a Christian," while the
Indemnity Acts, under which they like other Nonconformists
had benefited, were a thing of the past. Various statutes re
moved their grievances, but it was only ffi 1866 that the oath
for Jews was modified so as to enable them to sit ffi Parliament.
Thus the victory of complete religious toleration was finally
secured. 2. The great contioversy with the deists that ffiled the first (2) Deist
half of the eighteenth century enriched the Church with a store ^^l^'
of apologetic literature, and more especiaUy with the works of Apologetic
Bishop Butier. Rationalism, or appeal to reason, formed the '"^^^'"'¦^•
aU-pervadffig atmosphere of the age. This ground was common
to deists and Cffiistian apologists. Butler ffi his Analogy,
though he carefuUy poffited out the limitations beyond which
reason coffid not properly go ffi judgmg of revelation, set
himself to prove that the Christian faith was eminently reason
able. The spirit of rationalism had been born of the Reforma- Growth of
tion ; the English reformers had appealed against Rome to R?"o"-
the Bible and antiquity, and if this was ffi one sense an appeal
from one set of authorities to another, reason was the only
possible arbiter between them, and had been accepted as such
by the reformers. In the dispute between the Anglicans and
the Puritans, though Laud was too much fficlffied to clffich
matters by authority, and the Puritans by the appeal to the
written text, stUl reason had been ffivoked by the best men on
either side as favourffig their cause. The different senses in
wffich the different parties ffiterpreted the sacred text mvolved
argument and the appeal to reason. The coolffig of the
enthusiasms, by which the seventeenth century had been fired,
left reason enthroned as the supreme judge. The growth of
natural science, and the acquaffitance that was now beffig made
with the empire of Cffina and its teemffig miUions, helped for
ward the rationalist spirit. What was the relation of other
worlds than the earth to God and Christ ? What was to be the
fate hereafter of the countless heathen who had never even
heard the name of Cffiist ? But if they were aU right, what was
the need of Christianity ? Reason was busy on such problems.
Thus the questions propounded for the eighteenth century were
of a very different nature from those which had occupied the
attention of the seventeenth ; the problems now proposed were

388 The Church of England
not the merits of rival presentments of Christianity, but funda
mental questions of theology and phUosophy. It was the aim
of Cffiistian apologists to show that Christianity was emmently
reasonable, the Cffiistian life a reasonable service. The dangerous
and heretical conclusions at wffich thffikers might arrive were
not at first foreseen. The cffief mistake made by the deists and
by some of their opponents was ffi imaginffig that Christianity
was an appeal merely to the ffiteUect. It might have been
thought from the course of the confiict, as one writer has said,
that Christianity was " made for nothffig else but to be proved "
or disproved. The gospel of Christ, as a matter of fact, is an appeal not
merely to the reason, but also to the emotions, the wUl, and the
whole personality of man. It is not essentially a phUosophy,
but an appeal to the deepest needs of the ordmary human
beffig. The startffig-poffit of the deist controversy was a book
Locke. of the great phUosopher Locke, entitled. The Reasonableness of
, Christianity (1693). It was the aim of Locke to show that
the Christian faith was eminently reasonable. But the danger
incident to this method of argument was revealed ffi the very
Toland. next year by Toland's Christianity not Mysterious. For
Toland, whUe acceptffig some parts of the Christian faith as
reasonable, rejected other parts as unreasonable. A further
stage ffi the development of the deist case was reached when
Tindal. Tffidal published his Christianity as Old as the Creation
(1730). Deism had now become frankly antichristian, for
historical Christianity and the revelation of God tffiough His
Son Jesus Christ were clearly superfiuous if they added nothmg
to that which God had made known to man at the Creation.
Tenets of The leadffig tenets of the deists can be stated thus : they
accepted as an axiomatic tiuth the existence of a reasonable,
all-wise, aU-powerfffi, aU-good God; they regarded this God as
the creator of the world, but rather tended towards the view
that, havffig once created the world and set it goffig. He then
left it alone to work out its own destiny. Such was then ¦yiew
of God's nature. Human nature they conceived as static, for
they held that the nature of man was uniform whenever and
wherever he was found. The Christian man, if judged by Ms
fruits, was no better than the pagan man. Thus their view of
human nature did not allow of man's progressive development,
and was entirely different from that conception of man wffich

:)elsm.

Rationalism 389
has been made famUiar to us by the categories of evolutionary
science. Man ffi their view was very much the same now as he
was at the Creation. To man at Ms creation, God was supposed
to have made known the law of nature, and they held that this
law of nature (quod semper, quod ubique, quod db omnibus) was
discoverable by the reason of any man. The Christian revelation
had reaUy added nothffig to the law of nature, and was therefore
superfluous. It was, they said, fficonceivable that God shoffid
have been so unjust as to choose out one ffisignificant tiibe,
the Jews, and whUe makmg a special revelation of Himself to
them, neglect aU the other famUies of mankind.
Bishop Butler met the shaUow and arrogaht phUosophy
of deism on its o'wn ground, and gave it a faU from which it
never recovered. The publication of the Analogy (1736) ended Butler's
deism so far as England was concerned. Frankly aUowffig that ^'^"^"Sy-
Christianity did not from its nature admit of demonstrative of'^deism?"
a priori proof, Butler foUowed the lower but safer road of
the a posteriori ffiductive method. Poffiting out that aU life is
gffided by probabUities, he showed conclusively that Christianity
was at the least most probable. He assumed as ground common
to himself and the deists the existence of an aU-wise, aU-powerfffi,
aU-good God. In the first portion of the Analogy he argued
from the facts of life to the chief tiuths of natural religion, such
as immortality and God's moral government of the world. The
" wffi of God revealed ffi thffigs " seemed to show that God
rewarded ¦yirtue and punished vice. Conscience, he maintained,
was the voice of God. He then proceeded to show that if the
course of things exhibited ffi the facts of life did not hinder the
deists from stffi believffig ffi the existence of an aU-good, aU-wise,
aU-powerfffi God, it ought not to hffider them from believffig ffi
revealed reUgion, i.e. historical Christianity, for the objections
which coffid be urged to revealed religion could with equal
cogency be directed agauist natural religion. To take one
ffistance, the deists had objected to the Jewish and Cffiistian
dispensations, that if they were true, God woffid be convicted
of favouritism, and therefore of ffijustice. Butler had little
difficffity ffi poffitmg out the patent fact that ffi life men do
not as a matter of fact have equal opportunities given them.
AU men are not equaUy strong and equaUy wise, equaUy
endowed with health and wealth. But if facts lUje these are
not fatal to our belief ffi the justice of God, and therefore to

390 The Church of England
natural religion, why should simUar facts be fatal to revealed
religion ?
Butler rejected as untrue the deist contention that the
nature of man was uniform, and pointed to the moral degrada
tion ffi which many pagan races were sunk. Acceptffig, like all
eighteenth century philosophers, the idea of the "law of nature,"
he poffited out that Cffiistianity did not merely republish with
authority the law of nature, but also revealed truths about human
nature and the character of God which created fresh moral
obligations to God and Cffiist, that these fresh tiuths coffid not
have been discovered by merely human reason, and that there
fore Christianity was not, as the deists maffitaffied, superfluous.
In an interesting chapter he explaffied what he conceived to
be the function of human reason. Reason was adequate to
judge the general evidence for, and the moral nature of revela
tion, but was precluded by its ignorance of God's whole plan
from rejecting revelation because certain features ffi God's
government of the world seemed arbitrary.
Butler was consumed by an ffitense moral earnestness ffi aU
his writffigs. He was scrupffiously fair to his opponents, and of
direct purpose understated the conclusions that coffid be drawn
from the evidence he adduced. His view was that cumulative
evidence drawn from aU kffids of sources made the Cffiistian
faith a practical certaffity. He wrote at his best when he
emphasised the majesty of conscience as the voice of God. Deism
received its deathblow at his hands.
For the time, at any rate, a safe ffiteUectual foundation had
been secured for the Christian faith. The great ffiteUects of
the age, Newton, Bentley, Locke, Berkeley, were on its side.
The way was made ready for a spiritual advance. For
Christianity is not a thffig of the mere ffiteUect, and English
religion in the meantime had reached its nadir as a spiritual
force.
(3) The 3. The spirit of God was moving on the face of the dffil,
and Eran- lethargic waters. The Methodist and Evangelical movements
geiicai had begun. These movements were ffi origffi one. Most of
reviva . ^j^^ early Methodists, fficludffig the two leaders, John Wesley and
George Whitefield, were Church of England clergymen. John
Wesley never wished to leave the Church of England. Writmg
in 1787, four years before his death, he declared " that when
the Methodists left the Church of England, God woffid leave

Rationalism 391

them," and ffi 1789 " that none who regarded his judgment or
advice woffid separate from the Church of England." But facts
were too stiong for Wesley's wish; the steps he had already
taken ffi aUowffig laymen to admffiister the sacraments, in
himself ordamffig mmisters, and ffi creating the framework of a
new church, mvolved overt schism.
But ffi their early days the Wesleyan and Evangelical move
ments were one ; the modem Evangelical party derived its origin
from the Methodists who remaffied witffin the pale of the historic
Church. It is only the begffinffig of the Wesleyan movement
proper which faUs withffi the scope of the writer of a history
of the Church of England. Yet of all the great thffigs which
happened in the eighteenth century — and there were many —
by far the most important was the rebirth of spiritual religion
in the work of John Wesley and his foUowers. Religion seemed
dyffig ; that it once more permeated with its ffifiuence the lives of
Englishmen was, humanly speakmg, the resffit of John Wesley's
life. The French Revolution swept away aU constituted authorities
in France, and was accompanied with a terrible outburst of
irreligion and atheism. Altar and throne were overturned.
That its principles and its ffifidelity did not secure an immediate
lodgment ffi England with like resffits was due to the power that
religion exercised over the lives of the English middle classes,
and that power can be traced to Wesley's life.
John Wesley (1703-1791) was the son of the Rector of John
Epworth. When FeUow of Lfficoffi CoUege, Oxford, he became i^os-^'gi.
the leadffig member of a smaU society which certaffi young dons
and undergraduates had formed for the promotion of their
spiritual life. They received from their contemporaries the nick
name of Methodists, because of the strictness with which they
observed the rffies of the Church and the University. John
Wesley, like his brother Charles the h5nnn-writer of the move
ment, was a High Churchman. The chief ffifluences on his early
life came from his saffitiy mother, and from the Nonjuror WiUiam
Law. Law's famous book, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy
Life, did much to deepen Wesley's spiritual aspirations. If ever
a man's whole life has been fired by love of God and desire to
serve ffis feUows, Wesley was the man. Ordaffied ffi 1723, he
first helped his father as curate, and then returned for a time to
Oxford. Like Luther, he tried through rffies, austerities, and

392 The Church of England
self-denial to attain to the peace of feUowship with God. In
1733 he was induced by General Oglethorpe to saU for his
colony Georgia, and take up missionary work among the settlers
and the Indians. But his mission and his preachffig were not
successful. He quarrelled with the colonists and returned to
England ffi 1738 with a sense of faUure. He had, however, on
his voyage to America found among Ms fellow-passengers some
Moravian exUes, by whose simple piety he was profoundly im
pressed. On his return, he naturaUy sought the society of the
Moravian Brethren ffi London and accordffig to himself, it was
one of them, Peter Boffier, who brought him to the true faith of
Christ. At a meetffig of the Mora^yian Brethren ffi Aldersgate
Street, London, Wesley felt his " conversion " take place.
Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans was beffig read
by one of the brethren, when, ffi Wesley's own words, " I felt
my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did tiust ffi Christ, Christ
alone, for salvation ; and an assurance was given me that He
had taken away my sins, even mffie, and saved me from the law
of sin and death." From that moment the power of conviction
came over him, and he was anoffited with the outpourffig of the
Holy Ghost. For fifty years he laboured in the cause of Cffiist.
Takffig the whole of England as his parish, he tiaveUed on horse
back from place to place. Wherever he went, wha.tever the
character of his audience — they might be the mffiers of Kffigswood,
or farmers or factory hands — crowds flocked to hear him and
hang upon his words.
George George Whitefield, the other leader of the Methodist move-
Whitefieid. jj^gj^^-^ ^^s also an Oxford man and an ordamed mffiister of the
Anglican Church. He became an even greater preacher than
Wesley, though he had neither Wesley's command of logic nor
Ms power of organisation. It was Wffitefield who started the
open-air preacffing to the mffiers at Kffigswood, and Wesley, at
first with some reluctance, but afterwards enthusiasticaUy,
foUowed his example.
What these men accomplished was wonderfffi. The
thousands of mUes they tiaveUed, the numbers of sermons they
preached — often twenty ffi a week — ^before crowds wMch some
times amounted to 20,000 or 30,000, are matters of history.
They knew how to touch every chord of the human heart.
Whitefield coffid move men from laughter to tears ffi successive
sentences. Tears coffid be seen streamffig down the faces of

Rationalism 393

hardened and brutalised men, and extiaordmary physical
manifestations accompanied the preaching. Men and women
writhed ffi physical agony, confessffig their sins, tffi they were
comforted by the assurance of the Divffie forgiveness. Abandoned
sinners forsook their career of sm and lived regenerated lives.
There was nothffig novel in the gospel preached by Wesley
and Wffitefield. They dwelt on the old fundamental doctrines
of the Christian faith, but they preached them with conviction
and power, and the Holy Spirit worked with them. They told
forth the deadly nature of sffi, spoke as dyffig men to dying
men, and proclaimed the gospel of free forgiveness through the
blood of Christ. Cffiistianity had been reduced to a system
of lifeless categories by rationalising exponents. Wesley and
Whitefield appealed to the emotional rather than the ffiteUectual
side of their audiences. They recaUed the days of the Franciscan
friars. It is the real tragedy ffi the history of the Church of Methodists
England that she faUed to use tffis movement and keep it f^^^^^" f^""
entirely withffi her fold. The rffiers of the Church of England Church.
faUed lamentably to realise the value of the treasures that were
la^yished upon her. Wesley and Whitefield were her children,
and she cast them forth. There were faffits, it is true, on both
sides; unffiteUigent enthusiasm and unregffiated appeal to the
emotions are certaffily dangerous.
Wesley and Wffitefield, like aU geniuses, were difficffit men
with whom to work ffi harness. The system of parochial organisa
tion, under which the parish priest is responsible for the spiritual
needs of Ms parish, was tiampled under foot by Wesley and
his foUowers. Without ffivitation they ffivaded parishes, even
where the clergyman was an Evangelical of their own type.
But the bishops of the AngUcan Church failed to reaUse the
meanmg of the text, " The kffigdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the ¦violent take it by force." What condemns them ab
solutely is the fact that they never made any attempt to use,
whUe regffiatffig, this enthusiasm. They never even conferred
with each other on the subject.
Christianity ffi England had been reduced to a series of in
teUectual propositions. Enthusiasm and appeal to other than
the merely mteUectual side of men was just what the Church
needed. It was not beyond the reach of statesmanship to fffid
some solution wffich woffid have harmonised the rights of the
parochial clergy with the missionary acti^vity of these eighteenth

Hatred ol
enthusi-

Evangeli-:al party.

John Newton, 1725-1807.

394 The Church of England
century friars. But no effort at such solution was even
attempted. It is plaffi that enthusiasm was just the feature of
the Wesleyan movement which awakened aU the apprehensions
and prejudices of the bishops. Even the great and good Bishop
Butler closed Ms interview with Wesley, saying, " Sir, this pre
tending to extraordinary revelation and gifts of the Holy Ghost
is a horrid thing — a very horrid thing."
The English Church knew not the time of her visitation.
The bishops set their face agaffist the whole Wesleyan move
ment. The church doors were barred agaffist them with a
bang. Wesley's helpers were refused episcopal ordination.
The law was put ffi operation, tffi Wesleyans were forced m
their own despite to register their buUdffigs under the provisions
of the Toleration Act as dissentffig meetffig-houses. Wesley
had set out with the purpose of formffig a society, like many of
those which had been formed at the close of the seventeenth
century, to support and reffiforce the mffiistiations of the
Church, but though he never himself separated from the Church,
he was forced by the attitude of the bishops to definite acts of
schism and aU the evU therein ffivolved. It is impossible, for
want of space, to touch on the quarrel between Wesley and
Whitefield over the old question of predestmation, Wesley
takffig the Armffiian, and Whitefield the Cal^yffiist side, though
the quarrel led to the division of the Methodists ffito two
separate bodies. Our attention must be confined to those
members of the Evangelical party who remaffied true to the
discipUne of the Church.
Fletcher of Madeley, Grimshaw, Berridge, Henry Venn,
Romaffie, Newton, and Scott the commentator, among the
earUer, Charles Simeon, Isaac MUner, Wffiiam WUberforce,
Henry Thornton, Zachary Macaffiay, John Venn, and others
among the later Evangelicals, wUl always remaffi honoured names
ffi the history of the English Church. Fletcher of Madeley
(1729-1783) was beloved by all who knew him for Ms saffitiy
character. He was, ffi Wesley's words, " a man of faith and
love ... a man of clear understanding . . . that had a sffigle
eye to the advancement of the kmgdom of God."
The life of John Newton (i723-r8o7) was fuU of romantic
interest. The son of a sffip captaffi in the merchant service,
he became a midsMpman ffi the Royal Navy, but he deserted,
and on his recapture was degraded to the rank of a common

Rationalism 395

seaman. Shortly afterwards he joffied the ship of a slave trader,
and was engaged for several years ffi the slave trade. Mean
while he had sunk to the lowest depths of depravity and vice.
But on a memorable voyage, as he pUoted his ship through the
dangers of a tiemendous storm, he was called by God, and felt
himself a converted man. Some years later he gave up the
seafaring life. He had privately educated himself. After beffig
refused ordffiation by two bishops, he was finaUy admitted,
through the mfluence of Lord Dartmouth, to holy orders by
the Bishop of Lincoffi. Lord Dartmouth secured for him the
curacy at Offiey. Newton's cure at Olney is chiefly memorable
^ for the ffitimate friendsffip wffich he there formed with the poet
Cowper. Newton with extraordffiary tenderness cherished
Cowper ffi the dark hours of ffis mental anguish, though it may
be doubted whether the ffitrospective nature of Newton's religion
was of the sort best adapted to Cowper's melancholia. Newton
had by this time won Ms way ffito the heart of the Evangelical
circle, and by John Thornton he was presented to the benefice
of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street. He became the spiritual
adviser of Wffiiam WUberforce and other leadffig Evangelicals,
and laboured ffi London for twenty-seven years with wonderfffi
success. The experiences through which he had himself passed
gave him power of sympathy with sffiners of the deepest dye ;
he coffid speak to them with the con^viction that came from
knowledge, of the awfffi nature of sffi and the redeemffig power
of Christ. But it is impossible ffi this place to sketch the
ffistories of aU the leadmg Evangelicals.
A word must be said about the so-caUed " Clapham Sect." The
This was a nickname given to a group of prominent Evangelical sm.''*™
Churchmen who lived at Clapham. Among their number were
WUliam WUberforce their leadffig spirit, Henry Thornton the
banker, Zachary Macaffiay the sire of a more famous son, James
Stephen the father of a distffiguished legal farffily. The
Claphamites " sat under " John Venn, the rector of the parish
church. These men wffi be held ffi everlasting remembrance
for many reasons. They ffiustiate the nature of the Evangelical
movement, and give us a representation of it at its very best.
They were aU men spirituaUy earnest, gifted with a sense of
tffings unseen. They lived constantly " as ffi the great Task
master's eye." But with the innocence of the dove they com
bffied the wisdom of the serpent, and this worldly wisdom they

396 The Church of England
spent on spiritual and moral ends. The acumen of the gifted
lawyer Stephen, the social position and oratory of WUberforce,
the wealth of Thomton and others, their knowledge of the
Phiian- world, were placed at the disposal of evangelical tenth, and this
rei^^ius^"*^ was the reason that so many efforts of the Evangelical party
work of ¦were crowned with success. Their spiritual zeal was seconded
^jange 1- ^^ organisation altogether admirable.
Abolition The greatest glory of the Clapham sect is to be found ffi the
of slavery, abolition of the slave trade (1807), and of slavery itself (1833).
In this movement they took the most promffient part. But
there was no form of religious or moral acti-yity wMch did not
C.M.s. find warm supporters ffi the Claphamites. The foundation of
founded, {^jjg Church Missionary Society was due to them (1799).
Originally ffitended to do missionary work ffi Africa, it has ex
tended its spheres of labour into every quarter of the heathen
world, and is still to-day the most flourishffig of the Church's
missionary societies. Interest in foreign rffissions has always
been an honourable distffiction of the Evangelicals. At home.
Education, too, their piety took many practical forms ; the education of the
Prisons. poor, the cleansffig of prisons, the erection of Sunday schools,
the foundffig of libraries — all these received due attention.
The real living force ffi the Church durffig the first thirty years
of the nineteenth century was to be found ffi the Evangelical
party. Like aU great movements, it had its weak side ; its
theology was Calvffiistic, though its Calvffiism was modified so as
to emphasise the love of God ffi the redemption of mankffid.
The religion of the Evangelicals was theoreticaUy ffidividuaUstic,
and little stress was laid on the corporate Ufe of the Church, but
their practical works of piety and their love shown for " the
brethren " woffid rightly put to shame many of those who m
modem times talk of the Church's corporate life, but ffi practice
do very littie. In the early stages of the movement the
Evangelicals were comparatively ffidifferent to forms of church
govemment. They accepted " Episcopacy " as a poffit of
order, on grounds of expediency, but as the years went on they
Weak side became more attached to the Episcopal prfficiple. On the m-
geik;™ism. tellectual side it must be confessed that the Evangelicals were
weak ; they exceUed ffi practice more than they did in ffiteUectual
grasp. They tended towards the disparagement of secffiar
learnffig, and this ffi its turn reacted on their theology. They
produced no theological work of reaUy first-rate calibre. They

Rationalism 397
drew somewhat arbitrary distinctions between lawfffi and un
lawfffi forms of recreation. FoUowffig the old Puritan idea,
they set theur faces agamst the stage, dancffig, and novel-readffig,
and thus lost their perspective in their judgments on right and
wrong, tieatffig a number of tiivial matters as if they were
thffigs of real importance. But with aU their limitations, the
Evangelicals did a reaUy noble work, and signally vindicated
their right to a share ffi the great heritage of the Church of
England. The early years of the nineteenth century were remarkable Religious
for the number of societies, which were then founded and which '^^^"'^^
were so many signs of the revival ffi church life. Missionary
enterprise, owmg both to the spiritual lethargy of the Church
and the discouragement of Government, had languished ffi the
eighteenth century. Churchmen ffi America had been refused
an American episcopate, and kept under the jmisdiction of a
diocesan 3000 mUes distant — the Bishop of London. Needless
to say, church life decayed. The successfffi revolt of the
American colonies complicated the situation stUl further. But
finaUy bishops were consecrated for America — ^ffi the first in- Bishops
stance by Scottish bishops— ffi 1784 and 1787. With the g'^'^''^'^''
foundation of the Church Missionary Society missionary enter- America,
prise took new life. The efforts of the EvangeUcal party led to Bishopric
the consecration of the first Bishop of Calcutta ffi 1814. Among of Calcutta,
the many societies wffich trace their origffi to the early years of
the nffieteenth century two especiaUy must be noticed — the
National Society founded ffi 1811, and the British and Foreign
Bible Society, founded ffi 1804.
The Bible Society was founded ffi the year 1804 for the dis- Bible
tiibution of the Scriptures. It was thought at first that itsfou"^'^^
foundation might cripple the work of the venerable Society for 1804.
Promotffig Christian Knowledge; and many Churchmen pre
ferred to support the latter society sffice it distributed Prayer-
Books as weU as Bibles. But the work of the S.P.C.K. had
languished, and derived fresh stiength from the competition
of a rival society. The Bible Society has done splendid work
ffi the distiibution among the poor of the Holy Scriptures,
and has proved a powerfffi auxUiary to the mission work of all
Cffiistian bodies by providmg translations of the Bible m
several hundred languages.
The National Society was founded with the object of

398 The Church of England
National givffig the cMldren of the poor both secffiar and religious
founded, education. The reUgious education was to be conducted on
i8"- the prmciples of the Church of England. Much work of the
kffid had already in various ways been done by the clergy. But
this work was now to be extended and organised. The leadffig
spirit ffi the foundation of the society was Dr. Andrew BeU, a
man famous as the author of the pupU-teacher system, an ex
pedient to which he had been driven, when head of a school ffi
National Madras, from lack of framed assistants. The schools afffiiated
schools. to the National Society were caUed " National " Schools.
But already a century ago the controversy, which has created
such discord ever since, had forced itself to the front ffi what
was then known as the BeU-Lancaster dispute. Dr. BeU firnUy
believed in the denomffiational system of education, wffile
Lancaster, the founder of the rival " British and Foreign School
Society," set up " British " Schools ffi which " undenomina
tional " religion was taught, and from which all denominational
catechisms were excluded. The National Society prospered ffi
a manner little short of wonderfffi. By 1824 no fewer than
3054 schools, educatffig 400,000 children, existed under the
aegis of the society. It was not till 1833 that the State for
the first time made a small grant ffi aid of the work. Tffi
1870 almost all the primary education of the country was done
by the National Schools.
Sunday In tMs connection a word should be said about the Sunday
school school movement, of which the origffi (1780) is closely associated
' with the name of Robert Raikes, the owner of a Gloucester
newspaper. The system of Sunday schools, begffinffig from
The Gloucester, rapidly spread aU over the countiy. Thus the end
Church of the eighteenth and the begffinffig of the nffieteenth centuries
were marked by a considerable religious re^yival. But much
remaffied to be done, and ffi many quarters lethargy stffi reigned
supreme. Many church fabrics witffin and without were ffi a
deplorable condition of repair. The services were few ffi number
— a thffig that was ffievitable when pluralism and non-residence
were stiU rampant ; where there were services, they were often
conducted ffi slovenly fashion. The ffiequaUties of clerical
mcomes were enormous; whUe the prffice-bishop lived like a
county magnate, the poor curate too often starved upon a
gjjjyjjjf pittance. The ffidustrial revolution had led to the growth of
Churches, large towns, wMch were left ffi an appalling state of spiritual

Rationalism 399
destitution. Parliament did something by a grant of ;fi,3oo,ooo
(1818-1824) for the bffildffig of new churches. The Church
BuUdffig Society raised a somewhat larger sum by voluntary
effort. But much remaffied to be done. The ideas disengaged by
the French Revolution had fermented ffi the mffids of men and
broken the power of old traditions. If the first effect of the
revolutionary terror had been to raUy Englishmen round the
Church as a tower of stiength agaffist the atheism and crime
with which the Revolution was associated, when the horror had
passed away, and the great war closed (1815), prescription
began to give ground before the ideas of modem Liberalism.
Reform was ffi the air. The old political regime passed away
with the Reform BiU of 1832. Woffid the Church adapt herself
to the altered condition of affairs, or woffid she succumb to the
disffitegratffig power of the new rdgime ? She was attacked on
many sides with great bittemess, and told that she was totterffig
to her fall. We wffi see ffi the next chapter how the Church
rose to the occasion and renewed her youth.

CHAPTER XXI
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND THE VICTORIAN ERA
Era cf the The "Oxford Movement drew its ffispiration and origin from the
Reform critical dangers with which the Church was threatened ffi the
era of the Reform Bffi. That these dangers were real and
great admits of no question. Ideas of reform and revolu
tion were ffi the air. Revolutions had carried the day ffi France
and Belgium (1830). Legalised revolution or reform had
remodeUed the structure wffich the EngUsh Parliament had
inherited intact from the Middle Ages. Economic change had
led to the concentration of ffidustrial classes ffi the towns.
The effect of the Reform Bffi (1832) had been to transfer a large
portion of political power to these ffidustrial classes wMch were
not remarkable for their devotion to the Church of England.
Was it not probable that reformffig Liberals, victorious ffi
the sphere of secffiar politics, woffid stretch forth their hands
to remodel, perhaps out of existence, the Church which was un
doubtedly one of the chief bffiwarks of conservative tradition ?
So men thought, and so men said. Benthamism, or utUitarian
phUosophy, was ffi the ascendant. There was a demand for
useful knowledge. The view was widely prevalent that know
ledge was the key of virtue, that the fficrease of secffiar know
ledge would ffievitably lead to the fficrease of virtue, and that
vice would disappear with the decay of ignorance and the
advance of utUitarian improvements. Dogma was held of no
account. Appeals to spiritual truth and the ffiner life of the
soffi as the only ground of true progress were at a discount.
The old Elizabethan ideal of a national Church co-extensive with
the nation had given way before the logic of facts. Its death-
knell had been sounded by Roman Catholic emancipation (1829).
For Roman CathoUc emancipation was an avowed confession that
the Church was not the nation. It was easy to foresee that m
time the omni-competent House of Commons and the mffiisters
of State would come to be drawn from men of all religions and
men of none. And these men might legislate for the Church !
400

The Oxford Movement 401
It was clear that the relations of Church and State had been The
profoundly modffied. The Prime Mmister himself. Lord Grey, danger. '"
solemnly warned the bishops to set their house in order. Many
men thought the doom of the national Church imminent.
Dr. Amold was not alone ffi thffikffig that, " The Church, as it
now stands, no human power can save." For Churchmen as
a body seemed paralysed, ignorant where to go and what to
do, divided ffi their aims and purposes. What with aggressive
foemen without and divided counsels within, it seemed as
though the citadel woffid fall.
The Church of England, as ever since the Reformation, com- Church
prised withffi its communion divergent parties. parties.
i; The Evangelicals, who had borne a noble part ffi pffilan^ (i) The
thropic schemes, s\ich_^_the_ abolition of slavery, the cleansing ^^j"^*'''
of prisons, and the amelioration ofthe criminal law, were now
somewhat of a spent force. Their shibboleths stUl passed as
good com among themselves, but failed to obtain currency outside,
and even within their own circle they no longer possessed the
power which was once theirs. The Evangelicals by their lack of
ffiteUectual grasp had as a party faUed to maintam their position.
2. The "Orthodox" or High Church party had ffi a sense! (a) The
handed on the Laudian tradition from the seventeenth century. Jdox" Tiid
The mass of the clergy belonged to them. But their ideas were 'High.
ffi a state of extraordffiary confusion. They had no clear con- men.
ception of what " the Church " meant, and for the most part
were simply Church and State men, strong believers above
all else in the providentiaUy ordered establishment. Many of
these clergy had taken orders without any defmite sense of
vocation or caU from on high. But like most Englishmen,
when put ffi a position of tiust, they had a strong sense of duty.
If they were not of the stuff from which leaders of forlorn causes
are made, they nevertheless dutifffily performed the work of
parish priests. The worst of them may have sunk to a level
little higher than that of their parishioners, but taken as a whole
they were considerably better. They were kffid and sociable
men, advisers of the poor, counseUors of their flock, maffitaffiers
of the character of Christian gentlemen. But, standmg out of
the ruck, there were High Churchmen of the primitive type,
men like Joshua Watson and the father of John Keble, who
carried on the TeaTlraffition and knew the meaning of " the
Church." 2 c

for Reform.

view.

402 The Church of England
(3) The 3. Lastly, there were the Liberals, who professed consider-
Liberais. ^^^^ indifference to creeds, dogmas, and liturgies of all sorts.
They were generally strong Erastians, and, true to their
Latitudinarian parentage, they were anxious to comprehend
Nonconformists withffi the Church and to elimffiate aU elements
of mystery from the Cffiistian faith. Many of these Liberals
held that the State ought to assume an ffidifferent or impartial
attitude between the different religious bodies. Not so, however.
Dr. Arnold, who, though a Liberal, assigned to the State a
spiritual signfficance of the highest order. " Nothffig," he said,
" was too spiritual to claim exemption from the control of the
government of a Christian State."
Schemes On One poffit, that the Church was ffi danger, aU these parties
were agreed, though they differed ffi their views of the reforms
which were required to save it. This difference of view cut
deep, as it sprang from very different conceptions of the nature
Arnold's of the Church. Dr. Amold was a man whose whole beffig was
actuated by the " pecffiiar feelffig of love and adoration which
he entertained towards our Lord Jesus Christ." The object
which he set before himself and the boys of Rugby was that of
brffiging every thought ffito the obedience of Christ. But Ms
conception of the Church was somewhat hazy. He did not
regard the Church as a respublica, with definite organs of govern
ment ; he regarded it simply as a spiritual societas or feUowsMp
of Cffiistians moved by the same objects and prfficiples. The
views of those who held that Episcopacy belonged to the esse
of the Church, and who emphasised the priesthood, the sacra
ments, the apostolical succession, and the value of tradition,
seemed to him mere " Judaism," " superstition," and " heresy."
He thought that the history of the Christian faith showed a
constant tendency ffi the clergy to identifj' the Church with
themselves, and to exclude the laity from theu due rights.
Adaptffig a phrase of the Abb^ Si^y^s, who had described the Tiers
Etat ffi France as " La nation moms la noblesse et le clerge,"
Arnold described the laity as " the Church mmus the clergy."
He divided aU men ffito Christians and non-Christians. England
he regarded as a Christian countiy, and therefore, tiue to Ms
own prfficiples, he woffid have refused to give non-Christians,
such as Jews, civic rights. AU other Englishmen, as Christians,
he woffid have fficluded ffi the national Church, and m the number
of Christians it seems that he woffid have reckoned aU Unitarians

The Oxford Movement 403
who revered the person of our Lord. Arnold was essentially
non-sectarian, and a believer ffi what such people call " funda
mental Christianity." The burden of a pampffiet written by
him on Church Reform was to the effect that Dissenters
should be comprehended withffi the establishment without
compromise of prfficiple on either side, and he suggested that
the parish churches might be used at different times by different
bodies. It was not a very unfair description of Arnold's proposals
when a High Churchman ¦wrote : " Arnold proposed that aU
denomffiations shoffid be united by Act of Parliament with the
Church of England on the principle of retaffiing aU their dis
tinctive errors and absurdities."
" I do not see," Amold said, " how any man can avoid the
impression that dissent cannot exist much longer in this country
as it does now ; either it must be comprehended within the Church
or it 'wffi cease ffi another way, by there beffig no establishment
left to dissent from." As the Church thus reformed was to be
co-extensive with the nation, Arnold thought it most natural
that Parliament shoffid legislate for the Church.
' He showed himself a poor prophet, and Church reform took
a direction neither foreseen nor approved by him. But his
views have been recorded to show the confusion of religious
thought and the hostUity to dogmatic belief by which many, if
not most, of his contemporaries were actuated. We may dismiss
Arnold's ideas with two remarks. First, they were impractical ;
it was clear that neither Roman Catholics nor High Churchmen
woffid have any part or lot in such an " undenomffiational "
body as Arnold's reformed Church. Secondly, if Arnold's
projects meant anything at aU, they did mean comprehension,
at the cost of compromisffig prfficiple. The undenomma-
tionaUst always assumes that any solution is fair in which
the different reUgious bodies give up their distffictive beliefs.
But this assumption is ludicrously untrue. The undenomffia-
tionalist gives up Ms distinctive beliefs, if he has such, because
he does not value them. The crux of the situation lies in the
fact that the " denomffiationalist " does value his distffictive
beliefs ; and there is nothing ffi history or probabUities to warrant
the belief that efiiciency is ever secured where people form a
coalition based on sacrifice of prfficiple. This is pre-eminently
true of religion, m which living faith is closely ffitermixed with

404 The Church of England
the different mterpretations that men adopt of fundamental
religious truth.
What is the The question, " What is the Church ? " had thus thrust itself
Church? jnto the foreground ffi 1832, and varying answers were given.
Arnold identified the Church with the nation; the Roman
Catholic found it in those who acknowledged the papal supremacy;
the Church and State men in the establishment ; some denied
Danger its visible nature altogether. But it was ffi the Liberals that
Uterlas *^^ Church of England realised that its chief danger lay. They
seemed to imagine it a mere creature of the State, with which
they could deal as they wished. Schemes were mooted for the
abolition of dogmatic formulae and for the cleansing of the
Prayer-Book from its " mediaeval rubbish." The climax was
reached when the Liberal Ministry proceeded ffi 1833 to pass a
Irish BUl tffiough ParUament suppressing ten bishoprics and two
bishoprics archbishoprics ffi Ireland. This measure seemed a sample of
suDDressed ' the cynical way in which the Liberals regarded the Church and
proposed to deal with spiritual matters. The necessity of
defendffig the Church in this crisis led to the Oxford or Tractarian
Movement. Its way had been prepared by various ffifiuences.
The old Church principles had never entirely died out even ffi
the eighteenth century. The horror of the French Revolution
had caused reaction in England agaffist a priori phUosophy and
irreligious tendencies. The writmgs of Sir Walter Scott had
revived interest ffi the Middle Ages and in Mstoric contffiuity
with the past. The first thirty years of the nineteenth century
had already been marked by a considerable revival of Church
activity. Hence the perU, ffi which the Church of England now
found herself, called forth and articffiated, though it did not
Leaders of create, the latent church feelffig. The leaders of the Oxford
Movement. Movement bore the honoured names of Hugh James Rose,
John Keble, John Henry Newman, Richard Hurrell Froude,
WUliam Palmer, Edward Bouverie Pusey. Of these aU were
Oxford men except Rose (of Cambridge) and Palmer (who
originally sprang from Ireland, but had migrated to Worcester
H. J. Rose. CoUege, Oxford). Hugh James Rose has been weU described as
'¦ the restorer of the old paths." He was a considerable scholar,
and was ffi 1833 rector of Hadleigh. It was he, says Newman
in his Apologia, " who, when hearts were faUffig, bade us stir up
the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our true mother."
Rose died prematurely in 1839, but not before a cleavage in the

The Oxford Movement 405
leaders had manifested itself, and not before he had shown
that he woffid for ever have been loyal to the Church of England.
John Keble was the product of the finest flower of Oxford scholar- John
ship. Before he was twenty years of age he had secured the
most coveted prize then to be won at Oxford, a fellowship at
Oriel (1811). For six years (1817-1823) he had been tutor at
his coUege, and thien retired to a quiet country cure. In 1831
he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and ffis duties as
professor involved his presence at intervals in Oxford. He
wffi ever be memorable as the author of The Christian Year
(T827), a volume of sacred poetry " which woke up in the hearts
of thousands a new music." Keble had been born and nurtured
ffi the Church of England, and loved it with a passionate love,
wMch he retained tffi his death in 1866.
Richard HurreU Froude, " the bright and beautifffi Froude," R. H.
as Newman caUs him, was one of the early leaders of the move- ™" ^'
ment, more defiant and reckless than the others, transparently
sincere, and possessed by an absolute hatred of humbug and
half-measures. To the horror of " establishment " men, he de
clared that, " If a national Church means a Church without
disciplffie . . . the best we can do is to unnationalise ours as
soon as possible." He died prematurely in 1836.
Pusey (1800-1882) was the Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, e. b.
a weU^orn and "very learned man. He only joined the move- ^"^^y-
ment definitely ffi 1834, ^^^ l^e was, in Newman's words, " a
host ffi himself," and gave the movement " a position and a
name." When the great blow fell and Newman joffied the
Roman Church, he and Keble remamed tiue to the Anglican
ideal, and acted as leaders to the discomfited Anglican army.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was beyond question the j. H. New-
real leader of the Oxford movement ffi its early stages. He ™*°"
had not the massive learnffig of Pusey, but he had a fascffiatffig
personality which gathered disciples around him, a wonderfffi
dialectical skffi, and a perfect mastery over the English language.
Sprung from an Evangelical home, he entered Trffiity College,
Oxford, ffi 1817, and won the coveted prize of an Oriel fellow
ship ffi 1822.
Thus it will be seen that three leaders of the movement
were FeUows of Oriel. Newman was tutor of his coUege from
1826 to 1832, when he resigned his tutorship owffig to a difference
with the Provost. In 1832 he traveUed abroad with Froude,

4o6 The Church of England
and could not fmd any better words for Italian Romanism
than that it was "polytheistic, degradmg, idolatrous." He
denounced the solemn presentation of " superstitions as an
essential part of Christianity." In SicUy he was stricken down
with a fever which almost proved fatal. It was whUe his ship
lay becalmed ffi the Straits of Bonifacio that he wrote his
splendid hymn, " Lead, kffidly Light." He set foot once more
in England on 9th Jffiy 1833, convfficed ffi his ffimost soul that
God had a work for him to do. The dangers with which the
Church of England found herself confronted at this crisis of
Kebie's her fate have already been described. Newman himself assigned
sermon / ^^ ^^ beginnffig of the movement, Kebie's assize sermon on
1833. national apostacy. This sermon was preached before the
University on 14th July 1833. Its contention was that ffi days
gone by the English State had recognised the English Church
as the presentment ffi England of the Church of Cffiist, and
had acknowledged the law of Cffiist as bindffig on herself, but
that by withdrawing from the Church her support and by
encroaching on the intemal disciplffie and government of the
Church, she had practicaUy withdrawn that recognition, and
had therefore committed an act of national apostacy.
A fortnight later a meeting of a few friends was held at
Mr. Rose's rectory at Hadleigh (25th to 29th July) to consider
the urgent dangers threatenffig the Church. For urgent they
did indeed seem. " If I thought that we coffid stand ten or
fifteen years as we are, I should have little fear," said Mr. Rose.
His idea was that ffi the ffiterval people coffid be enlightened
on true church principles, and the danger would pass away.
Of the Oxford friends only Froude was present. Newman
had never much belief ffi committees-; he thought that their
resffits were always tame and disappoffitffig, as the fruit of
compromise. But he was in general sympathy with the Church
men who met at Hadleigh.
The meetffig led ffi itself to no very permanent results.
An " Association " of Friends of the Church was suggested by
Mr. Palmer, but the idea, though adopted, never took effective
form in the world of realities. A second resffit of the meetmg
was an address by 7000 clergy presented to the Archbishop ffi
February 1834, assuring him of their devotion to the doctrme
and disciplffie of the Church. A simUar address signed by
230,000 heads of famUies was presented the foUowffig May.

The Oxford Movement 407
But it was felt that to elicit church feelffig somethmg more
was necessary. M«ij;equire(Lin§tDic±aQn. as to the true nature
and titie-deeds of the Church. It was tffis need which called Tracts for
forth the " Tracts for the Tunes." Theu mspuation came from ""^ '^'"""'^
Newman, the author of the first tract. Newman regarded joffit
productions as lacking ffi force. Short leaflets, the work of
writers united ffi general agreement as to prfficiples, but instffict
with the Ufe and individuality of each author, were the need of
the hour.
The prfficiples of the early Tractarian Movement can best
be ffiustrated by quotations from the first tract.
" To my brethren m the sacred mffiistry . . . ordained Tract i. by
thereunto by the Holy Ghost and the imposition of hands. — Newman.
FeUow labourers, I am but one of yourselves, a presb5H:er . . .
yet speak I must, for the times are very evU. ... Is it fair . . .
to suffer our bishops to stand the brunt of the battle without
doing our part to support them ? Upon them comes ' the care
of aU the churches.' Not one of us woffid wish to deprive
them of the duties ... of their high office. And black event
as it woffid be for the country, yet (as fax as they are concemed)
we coffid not wish them a more blessed termffiation of their
course than the spoUffig of their goods and martyrdom.
" Now, then, let me come at once to the subject which leads me
to address you. Shoffid the Government and the country so
far forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of
its temporal honours and substance, on what wffi you rest the
claim of respect and attention which you make upon your
flocks ? Hitherto you have been upheld by your birth, your
education, your wealth, your connections ; should these secular
advantages cease, on what must Christ's mffiisters depend ? . . .
I fear we have neglected the real ground on wffich our authority
is buUt — OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT. . . . The Lord Jesus
Christ gave His Spirit to His Apostles ; they ffi turn laid their
hands on those who shoffid succeed them, and these agaffi on
others, and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our
present bishops who have appointed us as their assistants, and
in some sense representatives." The tract then proves from
the language of the ordffiation service that this is the doctrffie
of the Church of England, and proceeds—" Therefore, my dear
brethren, act up to your professions ... for if you have the
spirit of the Aposties on you, surely this is a great gift. . . . Make

40 8 The Church of England
much of it. . . . Keep it before your minds as an honourable
badge, far higher than that secffiar respectabUity, or cffitivation,
or polish, or learnffig, or rank, which gives you a hearmg with
the many. TeU them of your gift. The times wffi soon drive
you to do this, if you mean to be stiU anything. But wait not
for the times. Do not be compeUed by the world's forsaking
you to recur as if unwiUingly to the high source of your authority.
... A notion has gone abroad that they (sc. the people) can
take away your power. They thffik they have given and can
take it away. They thffik that it lies in the church property,
and they know that they have politicaUy the power to confis
cate that property. . . . Enlighten them ffi this matter. Exalt
our holy fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the
Apostles . . . and magnify your office as beffig ordaffied by
them to take part ffi their mffiistry."
Aim ofthe Thus it wffi be seen that the first tract aimed at bringmg
Tracts. Q^^ ^j^g great truth wffich Newman years before had teamed,
oddly enough, from the Liberal theologian Whately, that the
Church was a substantive body or corporation, ffidependent of
the State, with rights, privUeges, and title-deeds of its own.
From September 1833 to the end of 1834 short tiacts poured
forth in rapid succession explaffiffig ffi terms derived from the
ancient fathers and the great Anglican di^vffies the nature of
the Church, its doctrffies, its government, its services, startiffig
the high-and-dry people by their novelty, dismayffig and angerffig
the Liberals by the support they received, and raUyffig other
Churchmen to the old faith of their forefathers. MeanwhUe
Newman as vicar of St. Mary's was preachffig week by week
his memorable sermons, making many men feel as they had
never felt before the reality and power of Uvffig faith ffi Jesus
Christ. At the close of 1834 the Tractarians were definitely
joined by Dr. Pusey, and from the time of ffis accession the
tracts rather changed ffi character and assumed the form of
serious theological treatises. The first of such treatises was
Pusey's teact on Baptism.
The In the history of the movement the year 1836 was most
den""^ important. Lord Melbourne, the Prime Mffiister, appoffited
pointment, Dr. Hampden to the vacant Regius ProfessorsMp of Divffiity
'^^ ¦ at Oxford. Such an appoffitment seemed an outiage to all
upholders of dogmatic belief, for Dr. Hampden had recentiy
delivered a series of Bampton Lectm-es, in which he had drawn

The Oxford Movement 409
a distffiction between the " divine facts " contained in Scripture —
facts which must be conceded even by Unitarians — and creeds
of all sorts, which were mere human interpretations, bindffig on
no one unless he chose. Such creeds seemed to be regcirded
ffi his argument as mere accretions of good or bad phUosophy,
grafted on to the primitive faith. In 1833 he had supported
a proposal for abolisffing the subscription to the Thirty-nffie
Articles that was in those days required by the University
from undergraduates. It was no matter for surprise that all
supporters of dogmatic faith, Tractarian and Evangelical alike,
rose ffi arms agaffist his appointment. Hampden himself was
orthodox enough, but his ffiteUect, though specffiative ffi type,
was not of first-class calibre. He did not see the logical con
clusion to wffich Ms own premises led. WhUe intending merely
to assert the supreme and paramount authority of Scripture as
the source of doctrine, he had made sweepffig statements which
tended to dissolve aU dogmatic faith whatever into sheer
iUusion and fancy. But when pressed to this conclusion,
Hampden always drew back, and ended by reassertffig the
orthodoxy of his own beliefs. The upholders of dogma, unable
to frustrate the appointment, succeeded, however, ffi passffig a
vote through the Oxford Convocation deprivffig the new pro
fessor of all right to vote ffi the appoffitment of select preachers.
The Liberal and Latitudffiarian Churchmen were furious at the
slight passed upon them, and Dr. Arnold, recognising that the
Tractarians were the protagonists of the dogmatic principle,
wrote ffi language of sffigffiar venom, which awakened the
regrets even of his friends, an article ffi the Edinburgh Review, Arnold's
entitied " The Oxford Malignants," attackffig the Oxford Move- fhl" xfwd
ment and aU its ways. But the movement steadUy advanced Maiig-
with an fficreasffig measure of success, and never met with
check tffi wealcened by ffitemal division on a matter of vital
prfficiple, that is to say, on the claims of the Roman Catholic
Church. The Roman question presented itself to the Tractarians as The
their movement spread. They had clauned that the Church questton?
of England was the local presence ffi England of the Catholic
Church. But an exactly simUar claim was preferred by the
Roman Catholic Church. It was therefore necessary to restate
once more the case of the English Church agaffist Rome.
Newman and others were convfficed of the strength of the

41 o The Church of England
English position, but they were unwiUing to employ the extra
vagant language and abuse which the reformers (like the
Romanists) had used ffi a bygone age ; and holdffig as they did
strong views on Churchmanship and high sacramental doctrffie,
they were unable to attack the Romanists on the grounds taken
by Calvffiists and other extreme Protestants. The case agamst
Rome was to be stated not only negatively, but positively, by a
Newman's reasoned justffication of the Anglican position. This was what
fh^cifurdi Newman tried to do ffi Ms Prophetical Offilce of the Church
al England vicwed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism
pfomT (1837)- He attempted to set forth the principles of what soon
came to be known as the Via Media — ffi other words, the
prfficiples of Anglo-Catholicism. In the mtroduction to this
work Newman admitted that " Protestantism and Popery were
real religions . . . whereas the Via Media, viewed as an ffitegral
system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." Newman's
aim durffig the next few years was to see whether Anglo-
Catholicism coffid be made to exist not merely as an idea on
paper, but also ffi the world of realities. He went over to Rome
because his hopes and his patience faUed, and because he came
to the conclusion that Anglo-Catholicism was a mere tiansition-
state between Romanism and Protestantism, without sub
stantive basis of its own. But his despair and his impatience
have been proved mistaken ffi the event, for whatever else may
be said for or against Anglo-Catholicism, this much is certam,
that by the close of the nmeteenth century it has estabUshed
itself, though not ffi its extreme form, as the domffiant force
within the Church of England. This beffig so, the prfficiples
of the Via Media must be explaffied. They were as foUows :
Newman's The Church is divided ffito tffiee maffi portions — the Roman,
*The °^ *^® Greek, and the Anglican communions. The Westem Church
Church." has two branches, Roman and Anglican. Both these Churches
agree ffi retainmg— (i) fundamental dogma, i.e. the Apostles'
and Nicene Creeds; (2) the sacramental system; (3) the apos
tolical succession. They both claim for their own the primitive
Church. But Anglo-Catholics maffitaffi that, whereas they them
selves hold in its purity the primitive faith, Rome both ffi its
authorised dogma and stffi more in its workffig system has un
justifiably added to the faith and practice of the Church extrane
ous elements, e.g. the theory of transubstantiation, the idea of
papal ffifallibUity, the withholdffig of the cup from the laity

The Oxford Movement 411
saint-worship, &c. Hinc illce lacrimce. Hence the rupture of
the Western Church at the Reformation. To the Roman con
tention that Anglicanism, unlike Romanism, has no seat of fffial
authority, the Anglican replies, on the one hand, that the Roman
claim to infallibUity is false not only to the facts of history, but
to the very conditions of human existence ; on the other hand,
that for the Church of England the most fundamental dogmas
are authoritatively fixed by the creeds of the undivided Church,
and that ffi the case of less fundamental dogmas the writings
of the early fathers give a sufficient ground of certainty. The
condition of the Church as a whole is anomalous, but that of
the Anglican less so than the Roman Churdli.
Unfortunately, as the years passed, Newman became shaken Newman's
as to the soundness of his own contentions. In his Apologia — church of*
a work that wiU be read as long as the English language is England
spoken — ^the drama of his soffi's development and the agony ^
of his ever-fficreasffig doubt are presented to the reader. In 1839
he stUl had supreme faith ffi the Anglican position; but after
that date there was never agaffi the same glad confidence. In
August 1839, when studyffig the history of the Monophysite
heresy, he was profoundly alarmed by the paraUelism which he
seemed to fffid between the AngUcan and Monophysite attitudes
to Rome. His alarm was fficreased by an article of Dr. Wiseman
in that same August comparffig the Donatists with the Anglicans.
The words " securus iudicat orbis terrarum," ^ used by St. Augus
tine, and quoted ffi the article, gave him a severe shock. Newman
had for some time considered " antiquity " as the chief note of
Anglicanism, and "Catholicism" the chief note of Rome. The
Roman Church which spread ffito aU lands, as contrasted with
the Anglican Church which was almost exclusively confined to
England, had already impressed him. But if Rome had Catho
licity, at any rate England had " antiquity " on her side. Yet
here, thought Newman, was antiquity itself declarffig agaffist him,
for Augustffie was one of the chief authors of antiquity to whom
Anglicans made appeal. And yet Augustffie himself appealed
to " CathoUcity " — " Securus iudicat orbis terrarum." " I had
seen," says Newman, " the shadow of a hand upon the waU. . . .
He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he had never seen it.
The heavens had opened and closed again. The thought for the
moment had been, ' The Church of Rome wUl be found right
* i.e. " The world's judgment stands free from fear of challenge."

412 The Church of England
after aU,' and then it had vanished. My old convictions re
maffied as before." It is certaffi that from the close of 1839
Newman was never agaffi satisfied with the soundness of the
Anglican position. His convictions were shaken, if they were
not overthrown. His struggle from 1839 f° ^^45 ^^s one long-
drawn death-agony. His attitude became fficreasmgly one of
apology for the Church of England, and endeavour to assimUate
her to Rome. But for some years he did not absolutely despair
of findffig ffi the English formffiaries for himself and others
Tract xc. what he conceived to be the old Catholic faith. It was with
this purpose that he wrote the famous Tract XC. in 1841,
on the Thirty-nffie Articles. His aim was to determffie how
far as a matter of fact the Articles were capable of a " Catholic"
interpretation, and to what extent they were directed agaffist
Roman doctrffie. He drew a distinction between Romanism as a
popffiar workffig system and Roman authoritative dogma. WhUe
he did not go the fffil length of statffig that the Articles were not
directed at aU agaffist Rome's authoritative dogma, he poffited
out that the Tridentme decrees had not been ratffied when the
Articles were first drawn up, and that therefore the Articles were
not directed against them. The general drift of the tiact was
to show that the Articles were directed agaffist the dommant
errors of popffiar Romanism, and not for the most part agaffist
Roman dogma. The general conclusion was that, after the
gloss placed upon the Articles by Calvinists and other Protestants
had been removed, they were capable of a perfectly " Catholic "
interpretation, and did not condemn prayers for the dead,
the doctiffie of the eucharistic sacrffice, the belief ffi some form
of purgatory, &c. But Newman had gone too far. The storm
which had for some time been brewffig now burst. The tract
was denounced by four Oxford tutors, of whom one was Tait,
the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and it was condemned by
the heads of houses at Oxford, as a dishonest attempt to evade
the true meanmg of the Articles. A correspondence foUowed
between Ne^wman and the Bishop of Oxford, of which the upshot
t^cte°^*' was that the issue of all further tracts was to be discontinued.
Tract XC. was not to be suppressed, but Newman was to let
the world know that the Bishop disapproved of its tone.
A tumffig poffit ffi the history of the movement had been
reached. Newman retired from Oxford to Littiemore, and the
ties that bound him to the Anglican Church graduaUy loosened.

The Oxford Movement 413
There were three sets of ffifluences which now carried him Tract xc.
Romewards. First, the prfficiples of Tract XC. were con- demned.
demned by successive bishops ffi their episcopal charges, e.g.
Sumner Bishop of Chester condemned the bad faith of those
" who sit ffi the reformers' seat and traduce the Reformation."
Newman was thereby convfficed that the Church of England,
as speakffig through its bishops, was unable to bear or receive
tffis ffifusion of Catholic truth. The suspension of Dr. Pusey
(1843) for two years by the Vice-chancellor of Oxford, because
of a sermon ffi which he had preached high sacramental doctrine,
had the same kffid of ffifluence on him. Secondly, he was driven Roman-
on by a forward party which had developed ¦withffi the move- of"f g*'"^
ment itself, and was avowedly bent on union with Rome, movement.
Typical of these people was W. G. Ward of BaUiol, who identffied
CathoUcism with Romanism, and ffi his book on the Ideal of
a Christian Church, claimed while remaffiffig within the Church
of England to hold " the fuU cycle of Roman doctrffie." Thirdly,
the affair of the Jerusalem bishopric convmced him of what
he thought a hopeless lack of prfficiple in the English Church.
The mstitution of a bishopric at Jerusalem was a scheme The Jeru-
sanctioned by the English Government and the Archbishop btshJpric.
of Canterbury on the one side and the Kffig of Prussia on
the other (1841). By it a bishop of Jerusalem, consecrated by
Anglican bishops, was to be set over Englishmen and Prussians
and such Orientals as were wffiffig to put themselves under him.
By this action the EngUsh Church seemed to Newman to be
uniting with Protestant and heretic bodies without demandffig
from them a renimciation of their errors. In his study of the
Arian heresy, the doubts which had come upon him when
studyffig the Monophysite heresy ffi 1839 returned and became
convictions. In 1843 he was so far unsettied that he gave up
his cure at St. Mary's, Littiemore, and retired ffito lay com
munion. His only objection to Rome was now the saffit-worship
of popffiar Romanism. This did not prove an ffisuperable
obstacle. At last the blow feU, and Newman, the leader of the Newman
Oxford Movement, defmitely joffied the Church of Rome ffi 1843. Roman'"
He had been preceded by the more advanced members of his Church,
party. Ward, Oakeley, Dalgairns, and Faber.
But catastiophe though it was, Newman's secession did not
mean the end of the Oxford Movement. Pusey and Keble
remained loyal to the Anglican Church, and prevented many

den cies.

414 The Church of England
secessions which might otherwise have taken place. But the
circle of ffitimate friends at Oxford was broken up ; the movement
no longer had its centre in Oxford, but its influence was graduaUy
diffused over the whole country, both among clergy and laity.
High Promment supporters were Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds
revival (who showed the system actuaUy workffig ffi a large parish),
J. B. Mozley, and R. W. Church among the clergy, W. E. Glad
stone, Justice Coleridge, and Roundell Palmer among laymen.
The chief features of tffis High Church revival were the em
phasis laid on the divine nature of the Church and sacramental
means of grace. But the attitude to be assumed both towards
antiquity and towards Rome was always a source of ffitemal
division and perplexity. Thus Pusey approximated ffi his
theology to that of Trent, and consistently refused to speak
Hook agamst Rome. Hook ffi scathffig terms denounced Romanisffig
Romanis-^ tendencies ffi the Church of England wherever he discemed
ir.gten- them, and bade the Romanisers go to their true mother — the
Mother of Abominations ! Pusey thought himself justffied
(because the reformed Church appealed to antiquity against
Rome) ffi adoptmg any belief or practice which ffi ffis view
existed ffi the primitive Church. Thus ffi ffis letter to his new
diocesan, Samuel WUberforce, Bishop of Oxford (r845), he
asserted the Catholicity of the ffivocation of saffits, and claimed
on the strength of an alleged ¦vision of an early martyr to hold
ffi some form the doctrffie of purgatory. The Bishop rebuked
him for judging the Church which he ought to obey, for
rejectffig the ffiterpretation which that Church had ffi her
formffiaries put upon antiquity, and for undervaluffig Holy
Scripture as the means for pro-yffig dogma.
In the foUowffig year, when some of the clergy whom Pusey
had nomffiated to St. Saviour's, Leeds, were on the point of
jomffig the Church of Rome, Hook wrote him to the same effect.
" With aU deference to you, / think that the reformers were
as likely to know what was reaUy Catholic and primitive as
you are ; and what, accepting their teachffig. Convocation was
overrffied by Divffie Pro^yidence to adopt — that I receive as the
voice of the Catholic Church." Yet Hook no less than Pusey
was ffistffict with the spirit of the movement.
The Church of England had hardly weathered the difficffities
attending the secessions of 1843 when she was confronted with a
new problem. The Bishop of Exeter, Dr. PhUlpotts, had refused

The Oxford Movement 415
to institute the Rev. G. C. Gorham to a livffig ffi his diocese, Gorham
on the ground that, having denied baptismal regeneration, he '^^^' ' ^°'
held heretical opffiions on the subject of Holy Baptism. The
Bishop's action was held by the Court of Arches to be justified.
But the Judicial Committee of the Privy CouncU decided on
appeal that Mr. Gorham's language was not fficompatible with
one ffiterpretation of the Chmxh of England's formffiaries (1850).
The Gorham case caused two great difficulties to many
Churchmen. In the first place, it was thought by them to show
that " the Church as by law established " was tolerant of un
doubted heresy ,1 and secondly, it raised the whole question of
what the supreme court of spiritual appeal ought to be, and
appeared ffi the eyes of advanced Churchmen to convict the
English Church of hopeless Erastianism. The resffit was a Secession
number of fresh secessions to Rome, the most notable of whom ning.
was Archdeacon Mannffig, fated, like Newman, to become a
" Cardmal of the Holy Roman Church."
It wffi be remembered that the final appeal ffi spiritual Question
cases had been fixed at the Reformation in the Court of lupreme
Delegates; but ffi 1832 the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction Court of
had been tiansferred by the State (without the concurrence of ^'^
the Church) to the Judicial Committee of the Privy CouncU.
It was disputed ffi 1830, and has been disputed since, whether
this court was ever ffitended to determffie doctrffial cases. Cer
taffily the Elizabethan Act of Supremacy seemed to contem
plate the concurrence of Convocation with the temporal power
ffi the definition of doctrffie.
But the whole matter bristles with difficffities. It can
neither be expected nor desired that the Crown should divest
itself of the right to grant justice to a subject who declares
himself wronged. On the other hand, it is ffitolerable that
a purely temporal court, which might be composed of non-
Christians, shoffid defffie doctrffie and settie matters of faith.
It is trae, of course, that the Privy CouncU does not profess
to define doctrffie. Thus ffi the Gorham judgment it expressly
declared that, "This court has no jurisdiction or authority to
' But on this point see A Review of the Baptismal Controversy, by J. B.
Mozley (mentioned above as a prominent supporter of the O.-cford Movement),
in which he proved that the Gorham judgment must be upheld as right since
(l) the doctrine of the regeneration of all infants in baptism is not an article of
the faith, and (2) the formularies of the English Church do not impose it.

4i6 The Church of England
settle matters of faith, or to determffie what ought ffi any case
to be the doctrine of the Church of England. Its duty extends
only to the consideration of that which is by law established to
be the doctrffie of the Church of England upon the true and
legal construction of the Articles and formularies." But even
so the position is not satisfactory. Much of our common law
is judge-made law, and it is a notorious fact that judges, while
professffig to interpret, do ffi poffit of fact modify and alter
the law. Thus it is conceivable that the Privy CouncU by its
decisions might modify or alter — so far as this lay in their
power — the faith and order of the Church.
Whether their action be right or wrong, it is certaffi that
many Churchmen have never felt themselves moraUy bound in
foro conscientice by decisions of the Privy CouncU. The existffig
court of supreme ecclesiastical appeal has been to the Church
a source of constant perplexity.
The fresh secessions to Rome which followed the Gorham
judgment did not facUitate the progress of the High Church
revival. People were sore and suspicious of Romanisffig
intrigue, and their suspicions were accentuated when Pope
Pius IX. in 1830 re-organised England as a provffice of the
Roman Catholic Church and appoffited territorial bishops.
Another cause of suspicion was the use which some High
Churchmen, and notably Pusey, made of auricffiar confession;
but it was on the High Church teaching about the Sacrament
of Holy Communion that those who were suspicious chiefiy
fastened.
The "Real The doctiffie of the Real Presence was a rock of offence
Presence." ^o many who refused to draw a distffiction between it and
Cases in transubstantiation. That it was the doctiffie of the priiffitive
the Courts. Church, and taught by some of the greatest of Anglican divffies,
Pusey expounded in a work of monumental labour which he
wrote on the occasion when Archdeacon Denison was prosecuted
for having preached this doctrffie ffi a sermon ; whUe a learned
reply, mamtainmg the contrary, was written by Prebendary
Denison Vogan. Archdeacon Denison was condemned ffi the diocesan
case. court of Bath and Wells, but was acquitted on appeal on tech
nical grounds by the Court of Arches and the Privy CouncU
Bennett (1858). The lawfulness of the belief was agaffi raised in the
case. case of Sheppard v. Bennett (1872). The Rev. W. Bennett was
prosecuted for maintaffiing the doctrine of the Real Presence,

The Oxford Movement 417
and the suit was carried on appeal from the Court of Arches to
the Judicial Committee of the Privy CouncU. The Judicial Com
mittee decided that " the assertion of a ' real, actual, objective '
presence ffitroduces, ffideed, terms not found ffi the Articles
or formffiaries; but it does not appear to affirm, expressly
or by necessary implication, a presence other than spiritual,
nor to be necessarUy contiadictory to the 28th Article." The
resffit of tMs case was therefore to lay down that clergymen
coffid lawfuUy hold the doctiffie of the Real Presence, if a
spiritual signfficance was given to the term " Real."
The early leaders of the Tractarian Movement had fought
to estabUsh certam great prmciples, such as the substantive
existence of the Church as a divffiely ordered body, the reality
of sacramental grace, the apostolical succession. They had
magnffied the office of a bishop; Newman himself had laid
down that a bishop's lightest word was weighty. By 1872
the principles for wMch Newman and Keble and Pusey had
fought were either accepted as the doctiffie, or at least as
a possible ffiterpretation of the doctrffie, of the Church of
England. But about tffis time the movement began to pass
ffi some quarters ffito a new phase. The ritualistic question Ritual
had been bom. It was a day of smaller men and meaner Question.
tffings. Advanced clergymen began to adopt the eastward
position, to mix water and wffie ceremonially at the Holy Com
munion, and to claim under the Ornaments Rubric the right
to wear the mediaeval vestments and revive all the ornaments vestments.
authorised ffi 1349. Some clergymen were so foolish as to
rouse Protestant feelffig by talkffig of " the Mass " ffistead of
the Holy Communion. These matters, or most of them, had
never tioubled the mffids of the early leaders of the Oxford
Movement, for they had deprecated aU ritual ffinovations and
the revival of disused vestments. It is ffiterestffig to remark
that Newman, right down to Ms last celebration of the Holy
Communion m the Anglican Church, had always consecrated
the sacramental elements standffig at the north end of the com
munion table. Pusey regarded with sorrow aU attempts to
force ritual on unwffiffig congregations.
In stiUring contiast to the early Tractarian leaders, some of
these " new " High Churchmen showed scant courtesy and
less obedience to their bishops, and professed to be rffied by the
directions of a " Catbolig " truth aD4 " Catholic " practice to
3P

cases.

418 The Church of England
wffich they themselves, and not the bishops of their Church,
held the key. In point of fact, the " tiuth " and the " practice "
had been developed a priori. On the other hand, it must be
admitted that many of these extreme men, such as the
Rev. R. DoUffig at Portsmouth, have done most splendid and
devoted work ffi the vffieyard of our Lord, ffi the slums and
aUeys of our great cities. In such centies the value of an
ornate ritual is most needed. It acts as " books to the un
learned." The " extieme " men of the Low Church party have
been almost as much to blame. They organised themselves
ffito a body known as " The Church Association," and knowffig,
ffi view of judicial decisions, that they had little chance of pro-
secutffig successfffi suits agamst extieme High Churchmen on
the ground of doctiffie, they ffistituted sffits on the grounds of -
ritual, and succeeded ffi imprisonffig some half-dozen clergymen.
Ritual Of these suits the most important were the Purchas case (1871),
ffi wffich many ritualistic acts, and among them the eastward
position, were declared ffiegal by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy CouncU; the Ridsdale case (1877), ffi which the eastward
position was aUowed, but the wearffig of vestments condemned,
by the reorganised Judicial Committee of the Privy CouncU ;
and the case of the Bishop of Lfficoffi (1892), ffi which the
Privy CouncU to aU intents and purposes relaxed former decisions
on certaffi ritual poffits. Archbishop Temple, after a formal
hearing, gave quasi- judgments agaffist the ceremonial use of
lights and fficense.
The practical resffit to-day is that ffi a number of churches
the vestments are worn unchallenged. But ffi the great majority
of churches the old Anglican use is foUowed, and the surpUce
is the only ecclesiastical dress worn by the clergy.
Times have greatiy changed sffice 1832.
Revival of I. There has been an astonishffig revival ffi church life, m
LifeTn'^the ^hich Evangelicals, no less than High Churchmen, have taken
nineteenth their part. Couvocation met once more for the despatch of
century, busiuess (1832), after a break of 133 years.
Episcopate The Conception of episcopal duty has altered. Samuel
wubS-"^' WUberforce, appoffited Bishop of Oxford ffi 1843, did for
force. the nineteenth what Grosseteste had done for the thirteenth
century. He gave men quite a new idea of what the episcopal
office might be. The care he took about his ordffiations and
confirniations-canie almost as a revelatiofi. To his clergy b?

The Victorian Era 419
acted as a true father ffi God, encouragffig, checkffig, directffig,
comfortffig, accordffig to their needs. His example has been
widely foUowed ; what he origffiated has now become the normal
condition of affairs.
Sffice 1832 an fficreasffig number of churches has been bffilt Building of
to meet the ever-expandffig needs of the large to'wns. In many '^'""^cbes.
churches there are daUy services — ^badly attended, it is true,
upon the week-days — and more frequent celebrations of the
Holy Communion.
The Church has also realised that the kffigdom of God is
not merely sometffing concemed with the hereafter, but a thffig
to be reaUsed here and now. The troublous times of the Christian
Chartist agitation (1848) gave buth to Christian Socialism and fnd th^
fhe co-operative movement, with wffich the names of F. W. co-opera-
Robertson, F. D. Maurice, and Charles Kffigsley are closely mTnt""^*
identffied. The aim of Christian Socialism was to expound the
great prfficiple that the law of Christ ought to rffie economic
practice ; its efforts have largely been directed agamst " sweatffig,"
and towards awakenffig the conscience of " the consumer." The
aim of the co-operative movement was to lessen the tyranny of
dead capital and check the ferocity of the competitive prfficiple
— ^which had been the gospel of the Manchester school — by
associatmg the workmen themselves ffi producffig and distribut-
mg societies. The gffif between classes is not so wide to-day as
it was ffi 1848.
Devoted work is done by the clergy and others ffi the slums
of the great cities. Universities and colleges and schools have Settie-
vied ffi establishmg settlements ffi wffich university and public ¦"^"'=-
school men leam somethffig of the conditions of life which obtaffi
among the poor.
In the sphere of primary education the nation owes the Church Education.
a great debt, wffich it does not now seem altogether inclffied to
acknowledge. Do^wn tUl 1870 the Church, 'with the aid of State
grants, did almost the whole, and even at the present day does
half the work of educatffig the poor ffi the national ^ schools.
It is not only at home, but abroad, that the church revival Foreign.
has been felt. Foreign mission societies, such as the Society for ™ ^^' "
the Propagation of the Gospel, the Church Missionary Society,
' Where school buildings are not provided by the State, they are now called
"non-provided" schools. Thus the name of "national" school is now out
of date.

42 o The Church of England
and the various university missions, are ¦vigorously supported
in all parts of the world.
Progress of 2. The High Church revival has not been the only important
the*cruicai church movement ffi the nmeteenth century. The vast progress
method, of the physical sciences and the employment of more critical
methods have combffied to modify profoundly our theological
poffit of ¦yiew. That the change was not effected without con
siderable shock is shown by the ffistory of a volume of " Essays
and Reviews " written by dffierent authors and published ffi
i860. Two of its authors were prosecuted for heresy because
of the views expressed by them on the Inspiration of Scripture,
on Justffication, and on Eternal Punishment. Though they were
acquitted by the Privy CouncU, the volume received synodical
condemnation from both Houses of Convocation ffi 1864. But
Results of our angle of vision has undoubtedly changed. The ffispiration
critidfm, of Holy Scripture is understood ffi a somewhat different sense
than formerly, and the theory of verbal ffispiration is now
almost a thffig of the past. The books both of the Old and
New Testaments have been subjected to searchffig criticism, of
which it is difficffit ffi few words to summarise the general resffit.
The historical character and authenticity of the books of the
New Testament has been signaUy vindicated, though the possible
existence of mistakes ffi mffior detaU is admitted. Great
light has been tffiown on the historical origffi and composition
of dffierent books of the Old Testament, and on the historical
development of the Jewish people and faith. Briefly speakmg,
the modern poffit of ¦yiew is this : God chose out a Semitic tiibe,
the Jews, which He gradually educated ffi the true knowledge of
Hunself. The religion of these primitive Jews, when they were
chosen, was polytheistic, and did not differ ffi essentials from
that of the surroundffig Semitic tribes. The Old Testament is a
history of the way ffi which God tffiough His prophets graduaUy
educated the Jews, and prepared the way for the birth among
and of the them of His Etemal Son, Jesus Cffiist. It is now generaUy
Sephyskai recognised that Holy Scripture was not written to give us know-
sciences, ledge about the physical sciences, and that therefore, to give
but one ffistance, there can be no coUision between geology and
Genesis. Science deals with the phenomenal and temporal,
religion with the ffitimate and etemal — the soffi and God. There
can be no real conflict between them. The Darwffiian theory
of man's origm raay be and very probably is tiue, The story 0/

The Victorian Era 421
the FaU may be, as Origen the great Father maffitained 1600
years ago, an aUegory. AU that the Christian is concerned to
maffitaffi is the reality of sffi and of redemption through the
sacrffice of the Incarnate God.
It may be mentioned ffi tMs place, that the advance of
textual criticism has borne fruit m the publication of a Revised
Version of the Bible. The Revised Version of the New Testa
ment was published ffi 1881, that of the Old Testament ffi 1883.
3. Agam, the nffieteenth century has witnessed an enormous Expansion
expansion of the Anglican communion. The Anglican bishops °om"^''°^"
who are ffi actual possession of sees now number 237,* of whom munion.
no fewer than 220 hold office outside the establishment of
England and Wales. The Anglican Church has become imperial,
and even ffitemational. If Ne^wman had lived sixty years later,
he coffid hardly have missed ffi her the. mark of Catholicity.
Canada has 24 bishoprics, Australia 20, New Zealand 7, India and
Ceylon 11, America at home and abroad 97. Invitations to the Pan-
first Lambeth Conference were issued ffi 1867, and sffice that date, co"nfer^-*"
at mtervals of ten years, the bishops of the Anglican communion '"ces.
have met ffi council. Lambeth and the archbishopric of Canter
bury have become the centie of a world-wide mfluence. The
fifth Lambeth Conference has barely closed its sittffigs as the
author writes (1908). And ffi this year there has met for the The first
first time a Pan-Anglican Congress at which each diocese from Anglican
over the seas has been represented by delegates. The Congress Congress,
and the Conference have been marked by mo^yffig and impressive ''° '
scenes. Bishops and clergy and lajmien workmg m different
portions of the Lord's ¦vffieyard, and under widely different
circumstances, have met together and conferred on the problems
of their common life. From the arctic regions and the tiopical
plams, from the East and the West, from frontiers where men
battie m solitude with the elemental forces of nature, and from
towns where men congregate ffi crowded workshops, they have
come, to leam from each other and from their common Lord.
They cannot but depart gifted with a wider outiook, enriched by
the sense of their common life. The day may come, and perhaps Prospects
is not far distant, when the Church of England wffi be dis- Church of
established and disendowed by the State as the Irish branch of England.
her communion was disestablished and disendowed ffi 1869,
* The total number of bishops in the whole Anglican communion (including
tuffi-agan, assistant, and retired bishops) is 344.

422 The Church of England
and, whUe the effect of disestablishment upon the State cannot
be regarded without grave apprehension, yet substantial con
siderations can be urged ffi its favour. Fears have been
expressed that such a disestablishment would be foUowed by
the disruption of the Church. But ffi the event of disestablish
ment, the colonial churches woffid act as a steadyffig force ffi
bar of disruption. To many Churchmen it seems ffitolerable
that the law of the Church shoffid be altered by a mere Act
of ParUament. Yet this, according to the Court of Arches and
the Supreme Court of Appeal (the House of Lords) is the result
of the recent BiU legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister
(1907), and Churchmen are asking how far this principle may be
carried, and whether the Oxford Movement, which set out to
prove " that the Church was a substantive body, independent of
the State, with rights, pri^vileges, and title-deeds of its own," has
been aU in vain. Churchmen can look forward to the future,
if with misgivings, yet also with many hopes. The Church of
England is not bound, like the Church of Rome, to inteUectual
positions incapable of defence. She is the friend of leaming
and the critical spirit. UnUke Protestant Nonconformity, she
has behind her the force of a great ffistorical tradition. We
believe that the hand of God is upon her, and that in the revo
lution of the wheel of time, she may yet become the centre at
which the whole of Christendom may meet, and own one Lord,
one Faith, one Baptism.

APPENDIX VII
/4.— LIST OF ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND PRO
MINENT ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM 597-1066. Kings.
Ethelbert of Kent (d. 616)
Edwin of Northumbria

DATES.

Archbishops.

597

Augustine

604

Laurentius

616-633

619

MeUitus

624

Justus

626-65;

627

Honorius

634-642

643-670

6S5
Deusdedit
668
Theodore
693
Brihtwald
Penda of Mercia
Oswald of Northumbria
Oswy of Bemicia
Appendix

VU 423

Dates.

Archbishops.

Kings.

731

Tatwin

735

Nothelm

741

Cuthbert

757-796
Offa of Mercia
759
Bregwin
766
Jaenbert
793
Ethelhard
805
Wulfred
832
Feologild
833
Ceolnoth
870
Ethelred
871-901
Alfred
890
Plegmund
914
Athelm
923
Wulfhelm
942
Odo
959-975
Edgar
960
Dunstan
988
Ethelgar
990
Siric
995
Elfric
1005
Elphege
1013
Lifing
1016-1035
.*••••
Cnut
1020
Ethelnoth
1038
Eadsige
1042-1066
Edward the Confessor
105 1
Robert of Jumieges
1052
Stigand
5.— LIST OF POPES, ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY,
AND KINGS OF ENGLAND FROM 1066-1603.
Dates.
Popes.
Archbishops.
Kings.
1061
Alexander IL
1066
Wiiiiam I.
1070
Lanfranc
1073
Gregory VIL
(Hildebrand)
1086
Victor III.
1087
Urban II.
Wiiiiam II,
1093
Anselm
1099
Pascal if.
1 100
Henry L
1114
Ralf d'Escures
1118
Gelasius II.
1 1 19
Calixtus II.
1 123
William of Corbeil
1 124
Honorius II.
1 130
Innocent II.
"35
Stephen
424 The Church of England

Dates.

Popes.

Archbishops.

Kings.

1 139

Innocent II.

Theobald

Stephen

1 143

Celestine II.

1 144

Lucius II.

"45
Eugenius III.
"53
Anastasius IV.
"54
Adrian IV.
Henry II.
"59
Alexander IIL
1 162

Thomas Becket
"74
Richard of Dover
1181
Lucius III.
1185
Urban III.
Baldwin
1187
Gregory VIIL
Clement III.
1189
Richard
1191
Celestine III.
"93
Hubert Walter
1198
Innocent III.
"99
John
1207
Stephen Langton
1216
Honorius III.
Henry III
1227
Gregory IX.
1229
Richard
1234
Edmund Rich
1241
Celestine IV.
1243
Innocent IV.
1245
Boniface of Savoy
1254
Alexander IV.
1261
Urban IV.
1265
Clement IV.
1271
Gregory X.
1272
Edward I.
1273
Robert Kilwardby
1276
Innocent V.
Hadrian V.
1277
John XXI.
Nicholas III.
1279
John Peckham
1281
Martin IV.
1285
Honorius IV.
1289
Nicholas IV.
1294
Celestine V.
Boniface VIII.
Robert Winchelsey
1303
Benedict XI.
1305
Clement V.
1307
Edward II
1313
Walter Reynolds
1316
John xxii.
1327
Edward III.
1328
Simon Meopham
1333
John Stratford
1334
Benedict XII.
1342
Clement VI.
1349

Thomas Bradwardine
Appendix VII

425

Dates.

Popes.

Archbishops.

Kings.

1349

Clement VI.

Simon Islip

Edward III.

1352

Innocent VI.

1362

Urban V.

n66
Simon Langham
 ,
1368

William Wittlesey
1370
Gregory XI.
¦>••••
1375
Simon Sudbury
1377
Richard II.
n78
Urban VL
138 1
William Courtenay
1389
Boniface IX.
1397
Thomas Arundel
1399
Henry IV.
1404
Innocent VII.
1406
Gregory XII.
1409
Alexander V.
1410
John XXIII.
1413
Henry V.
1414
Henry Chichele
 ,
1417
Martin V.
1422
Henry VI.
1431
Eugenius IV.
1443
John Staiford
1447
Nicholas V.
1452
John Kemp
1454
Thomas Bourchier
1455
Calixtus III.
1458
Pius II.
146 1
Edward IV.
1464
Paul II.
147 1
Sixtus IV.
1483
Richard III.
1484
Innocent VIII.
1485
Henry VII.
i486
John Morton
1493
Alexander VI.
1501
Henry Deane
1503
Pius I'ii.
Julius II.
William Warham
1509
Henry VIIL
1 5 13
LeoX.
1522
Adrian VI.
1523
Clement VIL
1533
Thomas Cranmer
1534
Paul III.
1547
Edward VI.
1550
Julius III.
1553
Mary
1555
MarceUus II.
Paul IV.
1556
Reginald Pole
1558
Elizabeth
1559
Pius IV,
Matthew Parker
426 The Church of England
Dates. Popes. Archbishops.
1566 Pius V. 
1572 Gregory XIII. 
1576  Edmund Grindal
1583  John Whitgift
1585 Sixtus V. 
1590 Urban VII. 
Gregory XIV. 
1591 Innocent IX. 
1592 Clement VIII. 

Kings.
Elizabeth

C— LIST OF KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY
SINCE 1603.

Dates.

Archbishops.

Kings.

1603

James I.

1604

Richard Bancroft

161 1

George Abbot

......

1625

Charies I.

1633

William Laud
(executed 1645)

1649
Interregnum
1660
William Juxon
Charles II.
1663
Gilbert Sheldon
1678
William Sancroft
1685
James II.
1689
William 1 1 1, and Mary
1691
John TiUotson
1695
Thomas Tenison
1702
Anne
1714
George I.
1716
William Wake
1727
George II.
1737
John Potter
1747
Thomas Herring
1757
Matthew Hutton
1758
Thomas Seeker
1760
George III.
1768
Frederic Cornwallis
1783
John Moore
1805
Charles Manners Sutton
1820
George IV.
1828
WiUiam Howley
1830
William IV.
1837
Victoria
1848
John Bird Sumner
1862
Charles Thomas Longley
1869
Archibald Campbell Tait
1883
Edward White Benson
1896
Frederic William Temple
1901
Edward vii.
1902
Randall Thomas Davidson
Principal Dates 427

PRINCIPAL DATES

A.D. 314. British bishops at Council of Aries.
359. British bishops at Council of Ariminum.
563-597. S. Columba's mission at lona.
597. St. Augustine's mission : see of Canterbury founded.
Baptism of Ethelbert of Kent.
604. Deaths of Gregory the Great and St. Augustine.
625. Mission of Paulinus to Northumbria.
627. Northumbrian Witan accepts Christianity.
631. East Anglia converted by Felix.
633. Penda's victory at Hatfield. Death of Edwin.
Flight of Paulinus.
634. Oswald victorious at Heavenfield.
635. Wessex converted by Birinus.
635-651. St. Aidan at Lindisfame.
654. Conversion of East Saxons.
656. Conversion of Mercia.
664. Synod of Whitby.
Wilfrid Bishop of Northumbria.
656-680. Hilda Abbess of Whitby.
Csedmon
664-685. Cuthbert at Lindisfame.
'668-690. Theodore of Tarsus Archbishop of Canterbury.
673-735. Bede, the monk of Jarrow.
735. Egbert the first Archbishop of York.
757-796. Offa King of the Mercians.
786. First visit of papal legates.
787. Legatine Synod of Chelsea.
Archbishopric of Lichfield created.
802. Archbishopric of Lichfield disappears.
867. Viking invasions begin.
871-901. Alfred.
925. Birth of Dunstan.
943. Dunstan Abbot of Glastonbury.
Beginnings of monastic revival.
960-988. Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury
988. Renewal of Danish invasions.
1012. Martyrdom of Archbishop Elphege.
1016-1035. Cnut.
1042-1066. Edward the Confessor.
1052. Expulsion of Robert of Jumieges from archbishopric of
Canterbury.
Stigand schismatical Archbishop.
1062. Second visit of papal legates.
1065. Dedication of Westminster Abbey.
1066. Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror.
1070-1089. Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury.

428 The Church of England
A.D.
1093-1 109. Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury.
1095. Urban II. proclaims first prusade at Clermont
1 107. Settlement of investiture contest.
1 1 28. First settlement of Cistercians in England.
1162-1170. Becket Archbishop of Canterbury.
1 1 64. Constitutions of Clarendon.
1 1 87. Jemsalem captured by Saladin.
1207. Stephen Langton consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury.
121 3. Surrender of kingdom to Pope by John.
1215. Magna Charta.
1 21 9. Dominicans arrive in England.
1224. Franciscans arrive in England.
1235-1253. Grosseteste Bishop of Lincoln.
1265. Death of Simon de Montfort at Evesham.
1279. Statute of Mortmain.
1285. V^ntof circumspecte agatis.
1296. Bull " Clericis Laicos."
1297. Clergy outlawed.
1305-1378. "Avignonese captivity.''
1312. Suppression of Templars.
1351. First Statute of Provisors.
1353. First Statute of Praemunire.
1366. Repudiation of papal suzerainty.
1376-1384. Wycliffe's activity.
1378. Beginning of Great Schism.
1387. Foundation of Winchester College.
1 40 1. Statute de heretico comburendo.
Sawtre burned.
141 1. LoUardry expelled from Oxford.
1414. Suppression of aUen priories.
Council of Constance.
1431. CouncU of Basel.
1453. Capture of Constantinople by the Turks.
1457. Bishop Pecock condemned for heresy.
1492. Discovery of America.
1496. Colet's lectures on St. Paul.
1 5 16. Erasmus' New Testament.
More's Utopia.
1512-1529. Wolsey chief minister ; cardinal 1515.
1 5 14. Case of Richard Hunne.
1515. Case of Standish.
1517. Appearance of Luther.
1521. Henry writes against Luther; made Defender ofthe Faith.
1526. Tyndale's New Testament.
1527. Beginnings of divorce question.
1529. Sir T. More Lord Chancellor.
1 529-1 5 36. Reformation Parliament (see Appendix III.).
1532. Cromwell chief minister.
1533. Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury.
Cranmer declares Henry's marriage with Catherine void, and his
marriage with Anne Boleyn valid.
1534. The Pope declares Henry's marriage with Catherine valid.
Definitive breach with Rome.

Principal Dates 429

A.D.
1535. Execution of Fisher and More.
Title of Supreme Head.
CromweU Vicar-General.
Coverdale's Bible.
1 536-1 539. Dissolution ofthe monasteries.
1536. Pilgrimage of Grace.
The Ten Articles.
Injunctions of CromweU.
1537. The Bishop's Book.
1538. The Great Bible.
1539. Act ofthe Six Articles.
1540. Execution of Cromwell.
1543. The King's Book.
1545. The English Litany.
1547. Accession of Edward VI.
1548. New Order of Communion.
The Interim of Charles V.
1549. First Act of Uniformity and First Prayer-Book.
Influx of foreign Protestants.
1550. Destruction of altars.
1552. Second Act of Uniformity and Second Prayer-Book.
1553. The Forty-two Articles of Religion.
Accession of Mary.
Repeal of Edwardian legislation.
1554. Papal power restored in England.
1555-1558. The persecution. Many burnings.
1555. Ridley and Latimer bumt at Oxford.
1556. Archbishop Cranmer bumt at Oxford.
Cardinal Pole made Archbishop.
1558. Deaths of Mary and Pole.
Accession of Elizabeth.
1559. Act of Supremacy.
Act of Uniformity.
Consecration of Archbishop Parker.
Royal visitation. Destruction of altars.
1559-1570. Puritanism in its first stage.
1563. Assurance of Supremacy Act.
1566. Parker's Advertisements.
1568. Mary Queen of Scots comes to England.
Founding of Douay seminary.
1569. Revolt of northern Earls.
1570. Puritanism enters on its second stage. Attack on Episcopacy.
Pius V. issues bull of deposition.
IS7I-I593- Antipapal legislation.
1571. The Thirty-nine Articles.
1572. Admonition to the Parliament.
First presbytery formed.
1574-1577. Suppression of prophesyings.
1580. Coming of Jesuits.
1581. Puritanism enters on its third stage. Birth of Independency.
1587. Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
1588. Marprelate Tracts.
Spanish Armada,

43 o The Church of England
A.D.
1589. Bancroft's sermon on Episcopacy.
1593. Banishment of Nonconformists.
1 594-1 597. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
1603. Accession of James I.
Millenary Petition.
1604. Hampton Court Conference.
Canons of 1604.
1605. Gunpowder Plot.
161 1. Authorised Version of Bible.
1618. Book of Sports.
1620. Sailing of Mayflower.
1625. Accession of Charles I.
1633. Laud Archbishop of Canterbury.
Test case of St. Gregory's re position of the holy table.
Declaration of Sports.
1634-1637. Laud's metropolitical visitation.
1638. The Scottish Covenant.
1640. Canons of 1640.
Meeting of Long Parliament.
Impeachment of Laud.
London petition against Episcopacy.
1641. Grand Remonstrance.
1642. Beginning of civil war.
1643. Bill for Abolition of Episcopacy.
Solemn League and Covenant.
Westminster Assembly meets.
1644. Battle of Marston Moor.
1645. Execution of Laud.
1646. Modified Presbyterianism established.
1649. Execution of Charles I.
1653-1658. Rule of Cromwell.
1660. The Restoration.
1661. The Savoy Conference.
The Corporation Act.
1662. Act of Uniformity.
1663. Ejection of Puritan clergy.
Convocation ceases to vote supplies.
1664. The Conventicle Act.
1665. The Five Mile Act.
1666. Fire of London.
1667. Fall of Clarendon.
1670. Treaty of Dover.
1672. Declaration of Indulgence.
1673. The Test Act.
1678. The Popish Plot.
Act excluding Papists from House of Lords.
1680. Exclusion BiU. Whig and Tory parties.
1685. Accession of James II.
l686. Case of Godden v. Hales.
New Ecclesiastical Commission.
1687. Declaration of Indulgence.
1688. Trial ofthe seven bishops.
1689. Accession of William and Maty.

Principal Dates 431
A.D.
1689. Toleration Act.
1691. Secession of Nonjurors.
TUlotson Archbishop of Canterbury.
1698. Foundation of S.P.C.K.
1701. Foundation of S.P.G.
1702. Accession of Anne.
1704. Queen Anne's Bounty.
1 7 10. SachevereU trial.
1 71 1. Occasional Conformity Act.
1 7 14. Schism Act.
Accession of George I.
1 717. Bangorian Controversy. Convocation silenced ; did not meet
again for business till 1852.
17 18. Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts repealed.
1727. Indemnity Acts passed yearly from this date.
1729. Law's Serious Call.
Beginnings of Methodism in Oxford.
1730. Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation.
1736. Butler's Analogy.
1738. Wesley's conversion.
1739. Whitefield and Wesley begin open-air preaching.
Rise of Evangelical movement.
1778. Savile's Act. Repeal of some penal laws against Roman Catholics.
1780. Beginnings of Sunday school movement.
1784. Consecration of an American bishop (Connecticut) by Scottish
bishops.
1791. Mitford's Act : removal of some Roman Catholic disabilities.
1799. Foundation of C.M.S.
1804. Foundation of British and Foreign Bible Society.
1807. Abolition of slave trade.
1811. Foundation ofNational Society.
National School movement.
1814. Bishopric of Calcutta founded.
1818-1824. Parliament grants ;^i, 500,000 for the building of new
churches.
1818. Church Building Society founded.
1827. Kebie's Christian Year.
1828. Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts.
1829. Catholic Emancipation Act.
1832. The first Reform Bill.
1832. Transference of supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the Court
of Delegates to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
1833. Abolition of slavery.
First State grant in aid of education.
Act for suppression of ten bishoprics and two archbishoprics of
Irish Church.
14th July. Kebie's Assize sermon.
Beginning of Oxford Movement.
"Tracts for the Time." Tract I. by Newman.
1836. Hampden appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.
Arnold's attack on the Oxford Malignants.
1837. Newman's Prophetical Office ofthe Church. The Via M^dia.
J841. Tract XC, It§ condemnation.

432 The Church of England
A.D.
1841. Affair of Jerusalem bishopric.
1845. Secession of Newman to Roman Church.
Samuel Wilberforce's episcopate begins.
1848. Beginnings of Christian Socialism.
1852. Convocation met again for despatch of business (see under 1717).
1858. Case of Archdeacon Denison.
1859. Darwin's Origin of Species.
i860. "Essays and Reviews" ; condemned by Convocation, 1864.
1868. First Lambeth Conference.
1869. Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
1 87 1. Beginnings of ritualistic question. Purchas case.
Darwin's Descent of Man.
1872. Bennett case.
1877. Ridsdale case.
1892. Bishop of Lincoln's case.
1908. Fifth Lambeth Conference.
First Pan-Anglican Congress.

INDEX

Abbot, Archbishop, 310, 315, 327 ; a
Puritan, 327 ; his character, 327,
328 ; kills a gamekeeper, 329 ; re
bukes Montague, 332
Absentee rectors, 133, 180, 205, 287,
307. 383. 398
Adam Marsh, 124, 125, 138
Addison, 377
Address to Archbishop of Canterbury,
406
Adela, 86
Adelfius, 2
Admonitions to the Parliament, by
Cartwright, 305
Adoration of the Elements, 255
Advertisements of Parker, 292, 304,
also 296, 325
Advowsons, 94, 102, 105, 133, 155
iEneas Sylvius. See Pius II.
Agilbert, 23
Agreement ofthe People, 352
Aidan, S,, 14; goes to Northumbria, 19;
character and work, 19, 20, 33, 37
Alb, 292, 293
Alban, S., 2
Albertus, Magnus, 184
Albigensian heresy, 134
Alchfrith, 22
Alcuin, 34, 41
Aldfrith, 31
Aldi, 193
Alexander II., Pope, 56, 57, 64, 69-71
Alexander III. , Pope, 107
Alexander VI., Pope, 85, 170, 199, 212
Alexander of Hales, 136
Alfonso of Castile, 122
Alfred, 43-48 ; success against Danes,
helps to unify the country, 44 ; edu
cational and literary work of, 45 ;
military reforms of, 46 ; legislation
of, 46 ; strengthens kingship, legend
of S. Neot, 46 ; life of, 46, 60, 95
Alien priories, dissolution of, 170, 184
All Souls' College, 184, 189
AUen, W., 299

433

Altars, destroyed by Edward VI. , 262 ;
word omitted in second Prayer Book
and subsequently, 264 ; destroyed by
Elizabeth, 285 ; mentioned, 319, 341 ;
position of, 338, 342 ; moved to East
end by Laud, 33s, 338, 339, 341 ;
bowing towards, 338
Anabaptists, 354
Analogy, The, 383, 387 ; deism refuted
by, 389 ; argument of, 389, 390
Andrewes, Lancelot, bishop, 320, 325,
327
Anglican clergy, deprived, 351, 353;
sufferings of, 353
Anglican communion, expansion bf, 421
Anglican divines, 408, 416
Anglo-Catholics, 269-270, 410
Anglo-Saxon, chronicle, 46 ; conquest,
4 ; paganism, 5
Annates, 128, 154, 177
Annates Act, 217, 218, 220, 223
Anne Boleyn, 211, 214, 217-219, 221,
222, 231, 276, 278
Anne of Bohemia, 166
Anne of Cleves, 233, 234, 240
Anne, Queen, character of, 375 ; reign
of, 376-378 ; a Tory, 376
Anne, S., 196
Anne's, Queen, Bounty, 223, 376
Anselm, Pope. See Alexander II.
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 64 ;
nominated archbishop, 75 ; writings
of, 76, 85 ; quarrels with William II.,
77-80; leaves England, 80; returns
to England, 81 ; attitude of, to lay
investiture, 80-85 ! quarrels with
Henry I., 81-85 ; concordat with
Henry I., 84 ; death, 85 ; cf. 100, 113
Anti-clerical feeling in time of Stewarts,
315
Anti-ecclesiastical movement in Middle
Ages, 157-159. i6l#. 170. 208-9
Antinomians, 352, 354
Anti-papal movement in Middle Ages,
71, 72, 128, 129, 154-158. 163. 209
2 E

434

Index

Antiphons, 253
Antipope, 72, 107
Antiquity, appeal to, at Reformation,
289, 334, 387, 414 ; a note of the
Church ofEngland, 410, 4:1
Apologetic literature, 380, 387-390
Apologia, by J. H. Newman, 404, 41 1
Apostolic Succession, 287, 402, 410 ;
emphasised by Tractarians, 407, 408,
417 ...
Appeal, court of 6nal, in spiritual cases
since Reformation. &< Ecclesiastical
Courts
Appeals, Act in restraint of, 219
Appeals to Rome, 93-94, 102, 105, 176,
177, 224
Appello Casarem, 332
Ap-Rice, Sir J., 227, 228
Arabs, 122, 134, 137
Arches, Court of, 219, 415-417, 422
Architecture, Norman, 73, 183 ; Gothic,
122, 182, 183; Early English, 183;
Decorated, 183; Perpendicular, 183
Arian heresy, 413
Ariminum. See Councils
Aristotle, 134, 137, 141, 193, 242
Aries. See Councils
Arlington, Lord, 362
Armada, 278, 302
Aiminian, theology, 320, 330 ; clergy,
331
Arminianism, 333, 394
Arminius (l), 2
Arminius (2), 320
Arnold, Dr., his views of Church reform,
402-404 ; his idea of the State, 402 ;
article on the Oxford Malignants,
409 ; description of the laity, 402
Arthur, King, 5
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 210, 221
Arthur of Brittany, 112, 113
Articles, The Forty-two, 259, 267
Articles, The Ten, 237-239; the Six,
240, 241, 250, 260
Articles, The Lambeth, 319, 324
Articles, The Thirty-nine, 284, 290,
325, 326, 416; subscription to, en
joined, 296 ; enacted by Parliament,
305, 323 ; Calvinistic influence on,
319, 320, 412 ; Puritan objection to,
323, 324 ; declaration prefixed to,
337. 341 ; revised by Westminster
Assembly, 349 ; subscription to, by
undergraduates, 409 ; Tract XC. on
interpretation of, 412 ; gloss placed
on, by Calvinists, 412
Arundel, Archbishop, 167
Arviragus, I

Ash Wednesday, 250
Aske, Robert, 232
Askew, Anne, 240
Asser, 45-46
Association of Friends of the Church,
406
Athelstan (i), 44
Athelstan (2), 48
Atterbury, Bishop, 374, 378, 381
Augsburg Confession, 226
Augustine, S. (1), 5-11, 33, 220; mission
from Rome, converts Kent, 7 ; founds
Christ Church, Canterbury — the first
Archbishop of Canterbury, 8; re
ceives the pall, 9 ; relations of, with
British Church, 10; compared with
Gregory, 11; death, 1 1
Augustine, S. (2), of Hippo, 41 1
Augustine's oak, 10
Averroes, 134
Avignonese captivity, 150, 154, 209
Avranches, Constitutions of Clarendon
abrogated at, 109
Bacon, Francis, mentioned, 310, 325 ;
on Puritans, 302, 306 ; on preaching,
306 ; on the position of the judges,
311 ; favours absolutism, 313 ; urges
King to give options to Puritans, 318 ;
on prophesyings, 324
Bacon, Roger, 136 ; his learning, 138,
140
Badby, J., 167
BaiUie, R., Scotch Commissioner, 347,
348 ; description of Cromwell, 350 ;
on religious settlement of Long Par
liament, 350
Baldwin, Archbishop, III, 132
Bale, Bishop, 286
Bancroft, Archbishop, 309, 310, 325,
326 ; sermon on Episcopacy, 309 ;
at Hampton Court Conference, 323
Bangorian controversy, 382
Baptism, signing with cross at, 303, 306,
323, 325 ; for those of riper years,
359 ; doctrine of Holy, 415
Baptismal Service of first Prayer Book,
256 ; of second Prayer Book, 266
Baptists, 353, 355
Barlow, Bishop, 286, 294
Barrow, H., 309
Bartholomew, S., massacre of, 300, 364
Barton, Elizabeth, 221
Bastwick, Dr., 340
Baxter, Richard, 321-322, 341, 358,
367. 369
Beaufort, Cardinal, 50, 170
Bee, abbey. See Monasteries

Indt

ex

435

Becket, Gilbert, 88, 97
Becket, Thomas, 36, 50, 80, 88, 95, 96,
138, 340 ; his early career, 97 ; Chan
cellor, 97 ; his r61e, 98 ; Archbishop,
99 ; founds Trinity Sunday, 99 ; re
signs ChanceUorship, 100; quarrels
with Henry II. over Constitutions
of Clarendon, 102, 113; leaves Eng
land, 106 ; returns, io8 ; assassinated,
108 ; canonised, 109 ; his cult, 109,
187 ; shrine of, 187, 200 ; shrine dis
mantled, 239
Bede, 14, 29, 34, 36-39
Bell, Dr. A., 398
BeUarmine, 327
Bell- Lancaster dispute, 398
Benedict Biscop, 22, 33, 34, 37
Benedict, S., 33, 131 «.
Benedict X., Pope, 56
Benefit of clergy, 175, 196, 206. See
also Criminous clerks
Bennett, W., 416
Benthamism, 400
Bentley, R., 377, 390
Berengar, 64
Berkeley, Bishop, 390
Berkshire rectors, protest of, 1 29
Bernard, S., 91
Berridge, J., 394
Bertwald, Archbishop, 31
Beza, 303
Bible, appeal to, as proof of dogma, 414
Bible, appeal to, at Reformation, 221,
222, 257, 334, 387
Bible, appeal to, by L.ollards, 165, 168,
169
Bible, appeal to, by Puritans, 303, 306,
387
Bible, history of English, 235-237 ;
324, 326, 327
Bible, Hooker's view of, 306
Bible, inspiration of, 420
Bible, open, 235, 288, 291
Bible, translations of — ^Wycliffe's, 165 ;
Tyndale's, 235 ; Coverdale's, 236 ;
Matthew's, 236 ; Great, 237, 239 ;
Bishops', 326, 327 ; Authorised, 324,
326, 359 ; Genevan, 326, 327 ; Douay
or Rheims, 326, 327 ; Revised Ver
sion, 421
Bible reading, 321
Bible Society, 397
Bibliolatry, of Lollards, 168 ; of Puri
tans, 303
Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, 147
Birinus, Bishop, 16
Bishoprics, mode of appointment to,
49, 103-105, 114, 126, 145. 154. 15s.

177, 220, 248, 291 ; removed from
villages to towns, 67 ; for India, 397 ;
for America, 397 ; Irish, suppressed,
404 ; Jerusalem bishopric, 413 ;
Anglican, in 1908, 421
Bishoprics on eve of Norman Conquest,
.57
Bishops, as secular statesmen, 48, 50,
158, 340 /. ; conflicts of, with
Chapters, 92, ill, 139, 140, 179;
claim by, of visitation, 139, 140,
142; types of, 48, 98, 139, 150, 177/.,
287, 383, 384 ; in fourteenth century,
150; in Parliament, 148/; work
of mediseval, 178; worldliness of
mediaeval, 200 ; Protestant, ejected
by Mary, 270 ; Marian, deprived by
Elizabeth, 285 ; Laudian, hated,
344 ; Bill for exclusion of, from
House of Lords, 345, 346 ; Bill for
extirpation of, 345 ; absent them
selves fi-om House of Lords and are
impeached, 346; the Seven, 370;
trial of the Seven, 370, 371 ; of
William III. Whig and Latitudi
narian, 375, 381 ; their tenets, 375 ;
disliked by the clergy, 375 ; Hano
verian, 381 ; Erastianism of, 382 ;
hostility to Methodism, 393, 394 ;
consecrated for America and India,
397 ; Victorian, since time of WU
berforce, 418
Bishops' Book, 239, 241
Black Book, 227
Black Death, 152, 153, 179, 180
Black Friars. See Dominicans
Black Prince, 1 59
Black Rubric, 243, 266 ; altered in
1662, 359
Bluecoat School, 379
Boethius, 45
Bbhier, Peter, 392
Bohun, Earl of Hereford, 147
Bolingbroke, Lord, 377, 382
Boniface, S., 39
Boniface of Savoy, 123, 139, 140, 144
Boniface VIIL, Pope, 93, 145, 150, 187
Bonner, Bishop, 249, 252, 259, 260, 270;
brutality of, at Cranmer's degrada
tion, 273
Bourchier, Archbishop, 170, 178
Bourchier, Sir R., 158
Bourne, Bishop, 286
Boxley, rood of, 239, 251
Bray, Dr., 378
Breda, declaration of, 357, 361
Breviary, 252, 253
British and Foreign Bible Society, 397

436

Index

British and Foreign School Society, 398
British Church, origin of, I
British Schools, 398
Broad Church. See Latitudinarian
Brooks, Bishop, 272
Browne, Robert, founder of Independ
ency, 309
Browning, Robert, 319
Brunanburh, battle of, 48
Bucer, Martin, 260, 263-265 ; Cen
sura of, 260, 264
Buckingham, Duke of, 310, 331
Bull, Bishop, 373
BuUinger, 261, 263, 264, 303
Bulls, clericis laicos, 145 ; deposing
Elizabeth, 278, 298, 299 ; papal,
72, 145, 163 ; introduction of papal,
made treason, 301
Bunyan, John, 361, 363
Burke, E., 117, 228
BurneU, R., 144, 145
Burnet, Bishop, 375
Burton, H., 340
Butler, Bishop, 383, 384, 387, 389, 390 ;
The Analogy, 383, 387 ; argument
of, 389-390 ; deism refuted by, 389 ;
on Conscience, 389, 390 ; interview
with Wesley, 394
Cabal, The, 357, 362, 363
CadwaUon, 15, 16
Caedmon, 35
Caerleon, 2
Calvin, J., 261, 264, 277, 280, 319, 320,
322; burns Servetus, 271; dogmatic
assurance of, 337 ; doctrine concem
ing Holy Communion, 242
Calvinism, 333, 334, 410,412 ; influence
of, on Thirty-nine Articles, 319, 320,
337 ; in Scotland, 279, 320, 342 ; in
Church of England, 289, 290, 319;
of Puritans, 303, 319-321, 324; of
Whitefield, 394
Calvinistic theology, 319-320; reaction
against, 330; Laud's opposition to,
335-337
Cambridge Platonists, 373
Campeggio, Cardinal, 212, 213
Campion, Edmund, 299-301
Candlemas Day, 250
Canon Law, 70, 89, 93-95. 103. 166,
291, 329; revision of, 216 «., 250,
261 ; obsolete character of, 291
Canon of the Mass and Communion
Service, 254, 256, 264-266
Canonical Hours, 252
Canons of 1604, 292, 325, 326
Canons of 1640, 342, 343

Canterbury, See of, established, 8
Canterbury and York, relations of, 9,
28, 40, 72
Canterbury Tales, 173-175, 179, 183,
I8S
Capitalism, beginnings of, 194
Cardinal College, 204
Carlyle, T., 59
Carmelites, 91
Caroline divines, 288, 373
Carr, R., 310
Carthusians, 91, 223, 225
Cartwright, Thomas, Puritan prota
gonist, 297 ; attacks Episcopacy,
304 ; First and Second Admonitions
to the Parliament, 305 ; intolerance
and scurrility of, 305
Cases of Bishop of Lincoln, 418 ;
Denison, Archdeacon, 416 ; Godden
V. Hales, 368 ; Gorham, Rev. G. C,
415, 416 ; S. Gregory's Church re
position of altar, 338, 339 ; Purchas,
Rev. J., 418 ; Ridsdale v. Clifton,
292, 293, 418 ; Sheppard v. Bennett,
416
Catherine Howard, 234, 240
Catherine of Aragon, 198, 208, 217,
221, 231, 233 ; divorce of, 210-213,
219, 222
Catherine Parr, 234
Catholic Emancipation Act, 386, 400
Catholic "faith and practice," 417
Catholicity of Church of England, 288,
289, 290, 334, 412, 421
Catholicity of Church of Rome, 411,
413
Cavendish, G., 211 ; family of Caven
dish, 231
Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 279
Cedd, Bishop, 22
Celibacy, compulsory, 52, 63, 69, 80,
143, 181, 240, 250, 252, 289
Celtic Church, 1-3, 5, 16, 18, 25
Censura of Bucer, 260, 264
Cenwulf, 43
Ceremonies of Prayer Book disliked by
Puritans, 303, 323
Chad, S., 22, 26, 27
Chalcondylas, 190
Chancellor of Cathedral, 179
ChanceUor of University, 138
Chandler, T., 190
Chantries, Act for dissolution of, 250
Chantry priests, 180, 181
Chapters, conflict of, with bishops, 92,
III, 139, 140, 142, 179
Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, 34,
41

Index

437

Charles I., 310, 316, 329-351 ; marries
Henrietta Maria, 316; accession of,
330; his character, pride, obstinacy,
lack of judgment, tortuousness, 330 ;
quarrels with Parliament over con
stitutional and religious questions,
331 ; favours Arminian clergy, 331 ;
influenced by Ljiud, 332 ; absolute
rule of, 333 ; indulgence of, to
Roman Catholics, 334 ; makes Laud
archbishop, 33S ; Declaration of
Sports by, 339; attempts to force
Prayer Book on Scotland, 342 ; de
feated by Scotch, 342 ; forced to
summon Long Parliament, 343 ;
relations of, with Long Parliament,
344 ff- : go=s.l t° Scotland, 345 ;
attempts to arrest five members,
346; defeated at Marston Moor,
349 ; a prisoner, 3 5 1 ; executed,
351 ; form of prayer for martyrdom
of, 359
Charies II. restored, 355, 356; his
character, a quasi-Romanist, clever
ness of, immorality of, 356 ; divisions
of reign of, 357 ; the Declaration of
Breda, 357 ; leanings of, to toleration
and comprehension, 357-358, 361 ;
intrigues o£ to restore Romanism,
362-363 ; Declaration of Indulgence
by, 363 ; withdraws the Declaration,
364; attitude of, to Popish plot,
365 ; skill of, in defeating Whig
party, 366 - 367 ; reception into
Roman Church, and death of, 367
Charles V., Emperor, 204, 212, 213,
217, 226, 252, 260
Chasuble, 283, 291-293
Chatham, Lord (William Pitt), 117,
289, 382, 383
Chaucer, G., 151, 157, 172-175. '79.
185, i88
Chester, 2
Chester-le-Street, 37, 58
Chichele, Archbishop, 156, 170, 189, 227
Chillingworth, W., converted from
Romanism, author of The Religion of
Protestants, etc., 337
China, 387
Chivalry, 153
Christian Knowledge, Society for Pro
moting, 378, 397
Christian Socialism, 419
Christian Year, by Keble, 405
Christianity, Irish type of, 19 ; Roman
type of, 24
Christianity as Old as the Creation, by
Tindal, 388

Christianity not Mysterious, by Toland,
388
Christina, 82
Christmas Day proscribed, 353
Church, R. W., Dean, 414
Church, the, unifying influence of, in
Anglo-Saxon days, 24, 28 ; Celtic, 19,
23,24; Roman, 24; in eighth century,
40 ; freedom of, 1 16, 120 ; Edward I.
and, 146-148 ; decline of, in four
teenth century, 152 ; at close of
Middle Ages, ch. xi. ; mother of arts,
182; rise of drama in, 182; meaning
of, 401,404, 408, 417; Arnold's view
of, 402, 404 ; Roman Catholic view
of, 404 ; Church and State men's view
of, 404 ; Newman's theory of, 410 ;
in dsinger, 401, 402, 404
Church and State men, 401, 404
Church and State, relations of, 49, 102-
109, 147, 288, 290, 291, 401, 404,
406, 408, 421, 422
" Church Association," 418
Church fabrics, 337, 398 ; repair of, 362 ;
Parliamentary grant for repair and
building of, 398 ; building of, 419
Church Missionary Society, 396, 420
Church of England, relations of, with
foreign Churches in tenth century, 50,
51 ; not national in Middle Ages, 176
Church of England, post-reformation —
spiritual destitution of, in sixteenth
century, 287 ; not a State Church,
288 ; not a creation of Henry VIII.
or Elizabeth, 288 ; both Catholic and
Protestant, 289; appeal to antiquity
by, 289, 334, 387, 410; appeal to
Bible by (j«* Bible), comprehensive
nature of, 290 ; constitutional position
of, 290, 291 ; catholicity of, 289, 290,
334, 421 ; differences of, from Church
of Rome, 334; attempt to remodel,
on pattern of Scotch Church, 307,
349; missionary work of, 378, 379,
396, 397 ; educational work of, 379,
397, 398 ; lethargic condition of, in
eighteenth century, 380-382, 398 ;
Evangelical revival in, 390-398 ; at
opening of nineteenth century, 398 ;
parties in, circ. 1832, 401 ; vindica
tion of position of, by Newman, 410-
412 ; Oxford Movement in, 400,
404-417; revival in, 418 ; expansion
of, 421 ; Lambeth Conference of,
421 ; Pan-Anglican Congress of, 42 j ;
position of, in 1909, 421, 422; law
of the, 216 »., 250, 261, 292, 325.
336, 422

438

Index

Circumspecte agatis, writ of, 147
Cistercian Order, 91-92, 107 ; decline
of, 131
Civil War, Royalist party in, 346
Clapham sect, 395, 396
Clarence, Duke of, 233
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 102-106 ;
abrogated, 109
Clarendon, Lord (Sir E. Hyde), de
scriptions, of Laud, 336 ; of Sir H.
Vane, 348 ; of Scotch, 348 ; ministry
of, 356# ; Code of, 360, 361 ; im
peachment and flight of, 362 ; ar
ranges with Sheldon that clergy shall
cease to vote taxes in Convocation,
361 ; Danby foUows policy of, 364
Classis (Presbyterian), 308
Clement III., Pope, 72, 78
Clement IV., Pope, 138
Clement V., Pope, 146, 149, 150
Clement VIL, Pope, 212, 219, 222, 253
Clementines, 93
Clergy, in Middle Ages, 63, 142, 179-
188 ; in ParUament, 148, 149 ; ejected
by Elizabeth, 285; ejected under
Cromwell, 351, 353 ; the clergy Tory
and High Church, 375, 381 ; dis
affected to rule of WUliam III., 375 ;
cleavage of, from bishops, 375 ; social
condition of, after 1660, 378 ; Jaco
bite, 381 ; the clergy and Hanoverian
regime, 381 ; character of, circ. 1832,
401
Clericis laicos, bull of, 145, 148
CUfford, Lord, 362
Clovesho, Synods at, 28, 40, 41
Cluniac movement, aims of, 61 ff.;
modified in England, 69, 89, 91
Cnut, 54, 60
Ccenobitic life, 32
Coifi, 13, 14
Coke, SirE., 117, 328
Cole, Dr., 275
Coleman, E., 365
Coleridge, Justice, 414
Coleridge, S. T., 182
Colet, Dean, 190, 204 ; sketch of, 199,
200 ; lectures on St. Paul, 199
Colleges, growth of, 189-190
Colman, Bishop, 23
Columba, S. , 3,5, 18, 23, 112
Columbus, Christopher, 192, 193
Commissions of array, 144
Comraon Law, 96
Commons, House of, Puritan under
early Stewarts, 331, 332; resolution
of, in 1629, 333 ; responsible for
intolerance at Restoration, 361

Commonwealth proclaimed, 351
Communion, Holy, in both kinds, 196,
250, 289, 334; new order of (1548),
251 ; service of, in first Prayer Book,
254-256; service of, in second Prayer
Book, 265 ; change in service of, in
1559, 282 ; changes in service of, in
1662, 359 ; kneeling at, 266, 303, 306,
338 ; doctrine of Sacrament of, 242-
244, 255, 257, 264, 266, 267, 416,
417 ; receptionist doctrine of, 255 ;
sacrificial aspect of, 255, 257, 267-
268, 339, 412 ; mixing of water and
wine in, 256, 417 ; words of adminis
tration in, 256, 264, 282, 290 ; made
a poUtical test, 360, 364, 385 ; in
frequent celebrations of, in eighteenth
century, 383 ; more frequent celebra
tions of, 419
Communion tables moved to East end
by Laud, 335, 338, 339, 341 ; position
of, 338, 342
Compass, 193
Comperta, 227
Comprehension, policy of, 358, 372,
403
Compton, Bishop of London, 368 ; sus
pended by James II., 369 ; crowns
WilUam and Mary, 372
Conciiiar movement, 169
Concordat of Henry I. and Anselm, 84
Conference (Presbyterian), 307, 308
Confessional, 172, 174, 196, 240, 251,
254. 289, 332, 416
Confirmatio cartarum, 149
Confirmation, 306, 323
Cong( dUlire, 220, 248, 250, 286, 291
Congregation of Jesus Christ, 279 ;
Lords of the, 280
Consistory (Presbyterian), 307
Constantine, Emperor, 335 ; donation
of. 19s
Constantinople, capture of, 190, 192
Constitutional question under early
Stewarts, 310-316
Consubstantiation, 164, 242
Consultatio of Hermann, 251
Conventicle Act, 360
Conversion of arable to pasture, 229
Conversion of East Anglia, 15, 17;
Essex, II, 12, 21 ; Kent, 7 ; Mercia,
22 ; Northumbria, 14, 20 ; Sussex,
31 ; Wessex, 16
Convocation, 148, 215, 224, 241, 293,
359, 414; submission of clergy in,
216 ; of 1547, 250 ; and first Prayer
Book, 258-260 ; not consulted about
second Prayer Book, 266; noi

Index

439

about the Forty-two Articles, 267 ;
disregarded in Elizabethan settle
ment of 1559, 282 ; to be con
sulted about heresy, 284, 290, 415 ;
Elizabeth and, 290, 304 ; dependent
on Crown, 216, 219, 291, 375 ; and
Canons of 1604, 325, 326; and
Canons of 1640, 342, 343 ; clergy
cease to vote taxes in, 361 ; disputes
between the two Houses of, 375, 382 ;
prorogued from 1717 to 1852, 382 ;
met again for business, 418 ; Essays
and Reviews condemned by, 420
Convocation of Oxford University, 409
Co-operative movement, 419
Cope, 254, 283, 291-293, 303, 304,
32s
Copernicus, 192, 193
Cornelio ViteUi, 190
Cornishmen, revolt of, 248, 260
Coronation Oath, 372, 386
Corporation Act, 360 ; repealed, 385,
386
Corpus Christi, 182
Cosin, Bishop, 332, 373
Council of Aiiminum, 2, 3 ; Aries, 2 ;
Bari, 80 ; Basle, 169 ; Chelsea, 42 ;
Clarendon, I02 ; Clovesho, 28, 40,
41 ; Constance, 166, 169 ; Hertford,
28 ; Lambeth, 147 ; London, 67 ;
Lyons, 130 ; the Nidd, 31 ; Nor
thampton, 106 ; Reading, 146 ;
Rome, 69; Trent, 242, 253, 277,
412 ; Westminster, loi ; Whitby,
23 ; Winchester, 69 ; Windsor, 72 ;
Woodstock, 100 ; WUrzburg, 107
Councils, revival of Church, 67 ;
William I.'s power over Church, 68
Counter-Reformation, 277, 278, 316
Courtenay, Bishop, 160, 163 ; Arch
bishop, 164, Z67
Courtenay, Henry, 233
Courts, Christian. See Ecclesiastical
Courts
Covenant, The Solemn League and,
348, 349, 351 ; has to be renounced,
359, 360
Coverdale, Bishop, 235-237, 263, 270,
286, 287
Cowper, W. , 395
Cox, Dr., 280
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 224, 231, 235, 289, 294;
suggests consultation of Universities
re Divorce, 214; Archbishop, 217;
character of, 2i8, 247 ; and Prayer
Book, 218 ; declares marriage with
Catherine of Aragon void, and mar

riage with Anne Boleyn good, 219;
and the Oath of Succession, 223 ; his
Bible, 237 ; the Litany, 237 ; plots
gainst, 240, 241 ; homilies and, 249 ;
reformed breviary of, 250, 253, 258 ;
and new order of Communion, 251 ;
share in first Prayer Book, 252, 258 ;
sacramental doctrine of, 259, 261,
263 ; appeal to Scripture by, 259 ;
leader in revision of first Prayer Book,
264 ; on kneeling at Communion,
266 ; defends Protestant doctrine
after accession of Mary, 270 ; found
guUty of high treason, 271 ; trial of,
for adultery, heresy, and perjury, 272;
condemned and excommunicated
by Pope, 273 ; degraded, 273 ; re
cantations, 273 ; triumphant martyr
dom of, 275, 276
Crawford, Major-General, 354
Crecy, battle of, 151
Creeping to the Cross, 251
Criminous clerks, 101-105
Critical method, 420
Cromwell, Oliver, 347 ; rise of, 350 ;
an Independent, description of, by
BaiUie, 350; victory of, 351; puts
Charles I. to death, 351 ; character of
rule of, 35 1^. ; religious chaos under,
352 ; Anglicans suffer under, 353 ;
narrow limits of toleration under,353-
355 ; rule of, hateful, 355 ; death, 355
Cromwell, Thomas, 197, 205, 215, 231-
234, 240 ; suggests dissolution of
monasteries, 213, 227 ; early years of,
213 ; Vicar-general, 224, 227 ; visita
tion of monasteries by, 227, 228 ;
executed, 234 ; injunctions of (1536),
238; injunctions of (1538), 239
Crusades, 90, no
Cup, withholding of, 196, 250, 289,
334, 410
Cur deus homo ? 76
Curia Regis, 60, 96
Customs, the, 331
Cuthbert, S., 32, 36, 37, lia
CynegUs, 16
Dalgairns, J., 413
Danby, Lord, 357 ; rule of, 364
Danegeld, 53, 60
Danelagh, 45
Danes, coming of, 41, 43 ; destruction
by, 43 ; causes of success of, 43-44 ;
effects on religion of, 47; renewed
invasion by, 53
Dante, 151
Dartmouth ,Lord 3S3, 395

440

Inde

DarveU Gadarn, 239
Darwinian theory, 420, 421
Day, Bishop, 258, 263, 270
De dominio civili of Wycliffe, 161,
162, 165
De unitate ecclesia of Pole, 233
Deacons (Presbyterian), 307, 308
Dead, prayers for, 256, 264, 266, 412 ;
commemoration of, 359
Decretals, Isidorian, 62
Decretum Gratiani, 70, 93
Defender of the Faith, title given to
Henry VIIL, 215
Defoe's Short Way with Dissenters,
377
Deist controversy, 387-390
Deists, problem of, 387 ; tenets of, 388,
389 ; refuted by Butler's Analogy,
389. 390
Delegates, Court of, 219, 220, 224, 291,
415
Diarmid, 18
Digby, Lord, attacks the bishops, 344
Dioceses, on eve of Norman Conquest,
57; in Middle Ages, 67, 178 (see
Map) ; subdivision of, 28, 29
Diocletian persecution, 2
Directory drawn up by Westminster
Assembly, 349
Discipline, Declaration of, 305
Disendowment of Church, 159, 161,
163, 421, 422
Disestablishment, 421, 422
Dispensations by Pope, 220 ; by Arch
bishop, 307
Dispensing power, claimed by Charles
II., 361 ; claimed by James II., 368 ;
disputed by Parliament, 368 ; denied
by the seven bishops, 370
Dissenters. See Nonconformists
Divine Right of Episcopacy, 297, 307,
319. 375, 407
Divine Right of Kings, 118, 312, 381 ;
meaning and history of doctrine of,
313-314; Church identifies herself
with doctrine of, 314, 342 ; Church
reconsiders doctrine of, 370 ; theory
of, discredited, 372
Divine Right of Papacy, 314
Divine Right of Presbyterianism, 307,
314, 347, 350
Divorce of Henry VIII., 210-213 5
Henry's motives, 210 ; Wolsey's atti
tude to, 211 ; Pope's attitude to,
212, 213; court of Campeggio and
Wolsey, 213 ; revoked to Rome, 213 ;
Universities consulted r-«, 214
Doctrinal revolt, 164, 209

ex
Dogma disparaged by Liberals, 400,
402, 403, 409 ; fundamental, 410,
DoUing, R., 418
Dominic, 8., 134
Dominicans, 122 ; aim of, 134 ; come
to Oxford, 136; in decUne, 137, 184
Donation of Constantine, 195
Donatists, 411
Douay, seminary of, 299
Dover, treaty of, 363
Drama, origin of, 182
Dreyfus affair, 364
Dryden, J., 365
Dudley, Guildford, 267
Duns Scotus, 137, 184, 189, 199
Dunstan, S., Archbishop, 48-53 ; atti
tude to monasticism, 52 ; nature of
work of, 51
Dutch, revolt of, 279 ; the, 356, 363
Eadbald, 12
Eadmer, 68
East Anglia converted, 15, 17
East Saxons converted, n ; relapse, 12
Easter cycle, 10, 1 1
Eastward position, 417, 418
Eborius, Bishop, 2
Ecclesiastical Commission of James II.,
369 _
Ecclesiastical Courts (cf. Canon Law)
created by William I., 70 ; sphere of,
94, 95, 147 ; Henry II. and the, 96,
102-109; benefit of clergy, 102-109,
17s, 205, 2o5. See also Court of
Delegates, Court of High Com
mission, Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, Court of Arches
Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, 306,
309
Edgar, King, 49, 51-53
Edgar the Etheling, 61
Edinburgh Review, 409
Edith, 82
Edmund, King, 43
Edmund Crouchback, 123
Edred, 50
Edric Streona, 54
Education of the poor, 379, 396, 397,
398, 419
Edward I., 28, 59, 122, 125, 209, 354;
accession of, 143 ; compared with
Henry II. , 143, 144 ; founder of Par
liament, 144, 148 ; account of policy
of, 144; attitude of, to Papacy, 144-
146 ; attitude of, to Church, 146-
148 ; crisis of 1297, 147 ; death of,
149

Index

441

Edward II., 150
Edward III., I5I-IS3. 159. 209
Edward IV., 233
Edward VI., 220, 233-235, 247, 267,
276, 284, 292, 293 ; burns Anabap
tists, 271 ; features of religious his
tory in reign of, 248, 249; royal
supremacy under, 248, 249 ; first
and second Prayer Books (see
Prayer Book) ; grammar schools of,
250
Edward the Confessor, SS-S7. 6O1 6'.
65
Edward the Elder, 48
Edwin, Earl, 61
Edwin, King of Northumbria, n ; be
comes a Christian, 14; defeated and
slain by Penda, 15, 34, 35
Edwy, 50, 51
Egbert, Archbishop of York, 9, 34,
40, 41
Egfrith, 29, 30
Eighteenth century, importance of,
380; spiritual decline in, 380, 381 ;
rationaUsm of, 383
Eikon Basilike, 351
Elders (Presbyterian), 307, 308
Eldred, 56
Elfgifii, 50, 51
Elizabeth, 219, 229, 234, 263, 272, 322 ;
accession of, 276 ; character of, 276-
277 ; perils at accession of, 277-278 ;
her right to throne questioned, 278 ;
her points of vantage, 279 ; helps
Reformation party in Scotland, 280 ;
decides on Protestantism — religion
of, 281 ; coronation of, 281 ; defies
Convocation, 282 ; carries Acts of
Supremacy and Uniformity, 282-284 i
supreme governor, 283 ; injunctions
of (J559), 285 ; appoints Parker
Archbishop, 286 ; and Convocation,
290, 304 ; toleration of rule of, 298,
299 ; excommunicated by Pope, 299 ;
consequent severity to Roman Catho
lics, 300, 301 ; encourages Parker to
take action against Puritans, 304;
appoints Grindal Archbishop, 296;
suppresses Puritan prophesyings and
sequestrates Grindal, 308; appoints
Whitgift Archbishop, 297 ; does not
let Parliament interfere with Church,
305 ; death of, 309 ; compared with
Stewart kings, 310, 312, 313 ; foreign
policy of, 312, 331 ; and Lambeth
Articles, 319; ideal of, for Church,
358, 400
Elphege, Archbishop, 423

Emanuel of Portugal, 212
Emma, 54
Enclosures, 229, 232, 260
English, services in, 248, 257, 281,
291
Enthusiasm, hated by Latitudinarians
and men of eighteenth century,
374, 382. 383 ; of Methodists, 393,
394
Eostra, 5, 9
Episcopacy, divine right of, 297, 307 ;
part of esse of Church, 297, 402 ;
attacked by Puritans, 304, 307 ; pre
latical, hated, 315, 344 ; retention of,
by EngUsh Church, 334; London
petition against (1640), 345 ; BiU for
Extirpation of, 345, 349 ; threatened
by Solemn League, 349 ; unchal
lenged after 1689, 374 ; attitude of
Evangelicals to, 396 ; exaltation of,
by Tractarians, 407, 408 ; deference
of Newman to, 417
Episcopal ordination insisted on
(1662), 358
Epworth, parsonage of, 385, 391
Erasmus, 190, 198, 199, 203 ; sketch
of, 200-202 ; New Testament of,
201 ; compared with Luther, 201 ;
Paraphrase of, 249
Erastianism, 289; of the lawyers, 315,
347 ; of the Long Parliament, 347,
35°. 355 ; of Laud, 334, 335 ; of
WUliam III.'s rule, 375 ; of Hano
verian bishops, 382 ; of English
Church, 41 5
Erastians, 347, 402
Essays and Reviews, 420
Essex, Earl of, 350
Establishment, 288, 401, 403, 404,
421, 422
Eternal Punishment, 420
Etcetera added by Elizabeth to her
royal style, 281
Etcetera, the Oath, 343
Ethandun, battle of, 44
Ethelbert, King of Kent, 6-1 1 ; con
version of, 7 ; laws of, 46
Ethelred, King, 53, 54
Ethelwold, 50, 52, 69
Eton CoUege, 184, 188, 189
Eucharistic Sacrifice. See Communion
Eugenius IV., Pope, 262
Eustace, 97
Eustace of Boulogne, 55
Evangelical movement, 380, 383, 390,
391, 394; character of, 395-396;
weak side of, 396, 397 ; modified
Calvinism of, 396

442

Index

Evangelicals, 391, 394, 395, 418 ; phil
anthropic and religious work of, 396,
397, 401 ; interest of, in Foreign
Missions, 396, 397 ; attitude of, to
Episcopacy, 396 ; Puritanism of, 397 ;
circ. 1832, 401 ; oppose Hampden,
409
Evensong, sources of Service of, 252,
253. 255
Evesham, battle of, 124
Ex officio Oath, 315
Excommunication, 307, 315, 323
Exploration of world, 192
Extravagants, 93
Faber, F., 413
Fagius, 261
Falkland, Lord, 315 ; attitude to Epis
copacy, 344, 345
Family prayers, 321
Felix, Bishop, 15, 17
Ferdinand of Aragon, 194
Ferrar, Bishop, 272
Feudal levy, 60, 96
Feudalism, 60, 86, 144 ; bastard, 152,
153
Finnian, S., 18
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 200, 204,
221 ; imprisoned, 222 ; refiises to
take the Oath of the Succession Act,
222 ; executed, 225
Fisher, the Jesuit, 334
Fitzjames, JBishop, 206, 210
FitzOsbert, III
FitzPeter, G., 116
Five members, attempt to arrest the,
346
Five Mile Act, 360
Fletcher of Madeley, 394
Foliot, Bishop, 105-107
Forced loans, 331
Fox, Bishop, 196, 204
Francalmoign, 102
Francis I., 204, 213, 226
Francis of Assisi, S., 112, 131, 134
Franciscans, 122; aim of, 134, 135;
characteristics of, 135-136; come to
Oxford, 136; in decline, 137, 184-
187 ; great teachers among, 136-138
Frederic Barbarossa, 107, no
Frederic IL, 122, 123, 128
Frederic of Lavagna, 130
Freedom of Church, 81, 103, 116, 120
Free-will, 319, 320
French Revolution, 380, 391, 399,
404
Friars, aim of, 133; janissaries of
Pope, 135, 228; decUne of, 137,

184-188; in confessional, 174;
Methodists compared to, 393 ; Song
against the, i85; Minor, see Fran
ciscans ; Preachers, see Dominicans ;
Observant, 223 ; of Sion, 223
Friar's Tale, 174, 175
Froben, 193
Froissart, 160
Froude, J. A., 191
Froude, R. H., 404-406
Fursey, S., 15
Fyrd, 60
Gag for the New Gospel, 33 1
Gairdner, J. G., 236 «.
GaUican Articles, 362
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 217,
234, 241, 249, 252, 260, 263, 269,
270, 294 ; reply to Cranmer's book
on the Sacrament, 264 ; attitude to
first Prayer Book, 264 ; Lord Chan
cellor, 270; De vera obedientia of,
271 ; death, 271
Gardiner, S. R., 302, 335
Garnet, the Jesuit, 318
Garter, the Order ofthe, 153
Gasquet, Abb^ 228
Gaveston, Piers, 150
Geoffrey of York, in
George L, 380, 382, 386
George II., 382, 383, 384
George III., 382-384, 386
Gilbert of Sempringham, 92
Giles', S., Edinburgh, riot in, 342
Gladstone, W. E., 414
Gloucester, Earl of, 123
Godfrey, Sir Edmund Berry, 364-365
Godden v. Hales, 368
Godolphin, Lord, 377
Godwine, 55, 56, 61
Good Friday, 25 1
Good Parliament, 159
Goodman, Bishop, 334
Gordon, Lord George, riots, 386
Gorham, G. C, 415, 416
Gower, J., 1 79
Grand Remonstrance, 346
Gratian, 70, 93, 105
Gray, John, 114
Greek learning, 141, igo
Greenwood, J., 309
Gregory the Great, Pope, 5-9, 1 1 ;
sends Augusrine to England, 6;
sends him the pall, 8 ; scheme of,
for English Church, 9, 41 ; the
scheme overruled, 28, 40 ; com
pared with Augustine, 1 1 ; death of,
1 1 ; writings of, 45

Indi

ex

443

Gregory II., Pope, 39
Gregory VIL, Pope (HUdebrand), 51,
56, 69, 71, 72, 299
Gregory IX., Pope, 93
Gregory's, Church of S., position of
altar at, 338
Grey, Lady Jane, 267, 271
Grey, Lord, 401
Greyfriars. See Franciscans
Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, 342
Grimbald, 45
Grimshaw, W., 394
Grindal, Archbishop, Puritanism of,
297, 303 ; refuses to suppress pro
phesyings, 297 ; sequestrated by
EUzabeth, 297, 308
Grocyn, W., 190
Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln,
123-125, 178, 190,418; attitude to
Papal provisions, 128, 1 30; protest
of, at Council of Lyons, 130; atti
tude of, to monasticism, 132, 133;
desires appointment of perpetual
vicars, 133; welcomes Friars, 134;
encourages Friars to study, 136;
lectures to Friars, 137 ; Master of
the Schools at Oxford, 138 ; learning
of, 140-141 ; appeal of, to Scripture,
141 ; attitude of, to Papacy, 141 ;
political sympathies of, 141 ; a great
bishop, 141; "visits" his diocese,
142 ; death of, 143
Gualo, 120, 123, 125
GuUds, 182
Gundulph, 74
Guthlac, S., 32
Guthrum, 44
Habeas Corpus Act, 366
Hadrian, 29, 34
Hailes, holy blood of, 239
Hales, Sir E., 368
Hales, John, 337
Halifax, Lord, 367-368
HaUam, H., 382
Hampden, Dr., opposition to appoint
ment of, as Regius Professor, 408-
409
Hampden, John, 336
Hampden Court Conference, 323-324,
358
Hanoverian rule, 381, 382
Hapsburg power, 331
Harding, Stephen, 91
Hamack, Professor, 3, 195
Harold, King, 43, 55-57, 61
Hastings, battle of, 57
Hatfield, battle of, 15

Haule, 17s, 176
Heath, Archbishop of York, 263, 270,
281
Heavenfield, battle of, 16
Henry I., 60, 81-86
Henry II., 59, 60, 87, 88, 95-1 10, 1 12,
113, 118, 138, 143, 144, 209, 239;
accession of, 95 ; character of, 95 ;
crushes feudalism, 96 ; tries to reduce
ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Constitu
tions of Clarendon, 102-109 ; friend
ship with Becket, 97-98 ; quarrels
with Becket, 100; deathof, no
Henry IIL, 120-125, 127, 135, 138,
142, 144, 148, 209; character of,
122
Henry IV., 162, 166, 169
Henry V., 167, 227
Henry VI., 189, 227, 331
Henry VI., Emperor, no
Henry VIL, 190, 276
Henry VIIL, 196-246; mentioned, 67,
68, 92, 109, 161, 177, 249, 250,
270, 271, 272, 283, 284, 286, 288,
294 ; accession and character of,
197; basis of power of, 198 ; interest
of, in New Learning, 198, 199,
204; divorce of, 210—213 (and see
under Divorce) ; his own Prime
Minister, 213; Defender ofthe Faith,
215; Reformation under, and over
throw of Papal power in England by,
ch. xiii. ; Supreme Head, 223, 224 ;
death of, 235
Henry of Navarre, 362
Henry of Winchester, 87, 88
Herbert, G., 341
Heresy, De heretico comburendo, 166;
heresy laws repealed, 250; and re
vived by Mary, 270 ; Convocation to
be consulted about, 284
Heretics burned, 166, 167, 168
Herluin, 64, 65
Hermann, Consultatio oi, ^1,1
Hermits, 32
Heylyn, P., 259
High Church party, principles and
theology of, in reigns of James I.
and Charles L, 318-320, 333, 334;
in era of Reform BiU, 401, 403, 417,
418
High Church revival under Charles I.,
333
High Church revival under Anne, 374,
376-378
High Church revival in reign of Vic
toria, 414, 416, 420. See Oxford
Movement

444

Index

High Commission, Court of, instituted,
284; at work, 291, 307; unpopular,
315 ; Laud's use of, 335, 336 ; abol
ished, 345 ; not revived at Restora
tion, 357
Hilda, 23, 34-36
Hildebrand. See Gregory VII.
Hoadly, Bishop, 382, 383
Hodgkins, Bishop, 286
Holbein, 202
Holy GraU, i
Holy Maid of Kent, 221
Holy Roman Empire, 194
Honorius, Archbishop, 15
Honorius I., Pope, 16
Honorius III., Pope, 125
Hook, Dean, 414
Hooker, Richard, 168, 243, 268, 288,
297, 334; conflict with Travers,
305; reply to Puritans, 306; on
Holy Scripture, 306 ; Ecclesiasti
cal Polity, 309
Hooper, Bishop, 262, 263, 270
Horsey, Dr., 206
Hospitallers, 151
Hospitals, 250
Hubert de Burgh, 123, 129
Hubert Walter, ni-113, 116
Hugh Lupus, 76
Hugh of Lincoln, i n-i 12
Huguenots, 277, ' 79, 362, 368
Humble Petition and Advice, 352-353
Humphrey, L., 303
Hunne, R., 205-206
Huntingdon, Lady, 383
Huss, John, 1 66
Hussite movement, 166, 169, 209
Hyde, Sir E. See Clarendon
Hydes, the, 370
Ideal of a Christian Church, 41 3
Ignatius Loyola, 278
Images, destruction of, 238, 239, 251,
261, 285 ; adoration of, 334
Incense, use of, 418
Indemnity, Acts of, 385, 387
Independency, origin of, 309; door
left open to, in Solemn League, 349
Independents, in time of Civil War,
347 ; Cromwell one ofthe, 347, 350 ;
tenets of the, 347, 348 ; within
limits advocates of toleration, 348 ;
in Westminster Assembly, 349 ; vic
tory of, 351 ; hate Presbyterians and
Presbyterian discipline, 352, 353, 355
Inde.x, the, 277
Indulgence, Declaration of, by Charles
II'. 363. 370; withdrawn, 364

Indulgence, Declaration of, by James
IL, 370
Indulgences, Papal, 171, 172, 196,
201, 289
Industrial Revolution, 398, 400
Infallibility of Pope, 334, 410, 411
Ini, 46
Injunctions, Royal, 291 ; of 1536, 238 ;
of 1538, 239; of 1547, 249; of
1559, 285,338
Innocent II. , Pope, 88
Innocent III., Pope, 105, in, 114-
116, 120, 125, 299
Innocent IV., Pope, 130, 139
Innocent VIL, Pope, 169
Innocent VIIL, Pope, 170
Innocent XL, Pope, 371
Inquisition, 277, 301
Institution of a Christian Man, 239
Instrament of Government, 352
Intention, doctrine of, 294, 29 5
Interdict, 1 14
Interim of Charles V., 252, 260
Inventions, 193
Investiture, lay, 63, 69, 80-85
Invocation of Saints, 196, 334
lona, monastery of, 5, 16, 18
Ipswich School, 204
Irish Bishoprics suppressed, 402
Irish Christianity, 19
Irish Church disestablished, 421
Isabella of Augouleme, 123
Isabella of Castile, 194
Isidorian Decretals, 90, 93
Ivo of Chatres, 64
Jacobitism, 372, 377, 381
James I., 291 ; character of, 3 10 ; view
of Constitution held by, 311-314;
attitude of, to Bishops, 313; policy
of, to Roman Catholics; 316-318;
attitude of, to the Puritans, 318,
323-325, 326-328; Protestantism
of, doubtful, 316; desire of, for a
Spanish marriage, 3 1 6, 3 1 8 ; attacks
Puritans at Hampton Court Confer
ence, 324 ; keen on Authorised Bible,
324, 326 ; makes Puritan abbot Arch
bishop, 327 ; Declaration of Sports
by ; attitude of, to Sunday, 328-329
James IL, 317, 356 ; Duke of York, 363,
364 ; centre of Roman Catholic plots,
365 ; Bill to exclude, from throne,
366; accession of, 367 ; aims at re
storing Romanism, 367-370; lack of
sanity in, 367 ; persecutes Noncon
formists, 366; gives commissions to
Roman Catholics, 368; claims dig-

Index

445

pensing power, 368; attacks the
Universities, 369; creates a new
Ecclesiastical Commission, 369 ; tries
to use the Nonconformists, 369 ; issues
Declaration of Indulgence, 370 ; tries
to pack Parliament, 370 ; prosecutes
the seven Bishops, 370 j all parties
unite in deposing, 371
James IV. (of Scotiand), 196
James de la Cloche, 362
James the Deacon, 16, 17, 22
Jeffreys, Lord ChanceUor, 369
Jerusalem Bishopric, scheme for, 413
Jerusalem, Kingdom of, 90, no
Jesuits, founding of Order of, 278 ;
coming of, 300 ; plots of, 300, 302 ;
banished, 301 ; and Gunpowder Plot,
318 ; Fisher, one ofthe, 334 ; semi
naries of, 365 ; Conference of, 365 ;
zealots, 371
Jewel, Bishop, 287. 303
Jews, 354, 389, 402 ; toleration granted
to, 386, 387 ; history ofthe, 420
John, King, accession of, 112; char
acter of, 112, 113; loses French
dominions, 113; quarrels with Church,
113; and Stephen Langton, 114;
excommunicated, 115; surrenders
England to Pope, 115; and Magna
Charta, 116-120; death, 120 ; men
tioned, 125, 144, 156, 209, 269
John of Gaunt, 159, 160, 163, 164,
166, 175
John of Salisbury, 88
John the Marshal, 106
John the old Saxon, 45
Joseph of Arimathea, i
Judges, under Stewarts, 311, 368;
Bacon's view of, 311
Julius II., Pope, 210-212
Justification by faith, 238-420
Justus, Bishop, 8, 11, 12
Juxon, Archbishop, 341, 357, 361
Keblb, John, 401, 404-40 5, 413,417;
author of The Christian Year,
405 ; assize sermon of, the start of
the Oxford Movement, 406
Kemp, Archbishop, 170
Ken, Bishop, 370, 372, 374
Kent converted, 7
Ket, Robert, 260
Kin^s Book, 240, 241
Kingsley, C, 419
Kingston, Master, 197
Kingswood, miners of, 392
Kitchen, Bishop, 285, 286
Knox, John, 266, 279, 280, 322

Lake, Bishop, 370
Lambeth, Articles, 319, 324; Confer
ence, 421; Council at, 147; treaty
of, 121
Lanfranc, early life of, 63, 64, 65 ;
Archbishopof Canterbury, 65 ; policy
of, 65^/ attitude of, to Papacy, 71-
72 ; death of, 75 ; mentioned, 50j
76, 78, 84, 104
Langland, W., 156-158, 183
Langton, Stephen, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 114-116; Magna Charta
and, 1 1 9- 1 20; and Papal Legates,
125 ; deathof, 126 ; mentioned, 127,
134, 148
a Lasco, 261, 263, 270
Latimer, Bishop, 241, 270; sermons
of, 229 ; burnt by Mary, 272
Latin mass, 254
Latitudinarian bishops, 375, 381
Latitudinarianism, characteristics of,
374, 402
Latitudinarians, 374, 375, 409
Laud, WiUiam, Archbishop of Canter
bury, Arminianism of, 320 ; attitude
of, to Sunday observance, 323, 339;
protests against Manwaring's sermon,
332 ; dockets clergy O. or P.,
332 ; gets Preface prefixed to Articles
of Religion, 333 ; chief adviser of
Charles I., 333 ; Puritan view of,
333; Was he a Romanist? 333-334;
refuses a Cardinal's hat, 333 ; refuses
to discuss reunion with Rome, 334;
controversy of, with the Jesuit Fisher,
334; a loyal Anglican, 334, 344!
dislikes Calvinism, 334, 337 ; not an
Erastian, 334-335 ; interest of, in
learning, 335 ; career and character
of. 335-336; obstinacy, rudeness,
lack of imagination, industry, dis
cipline, bravery. Clarendon's estimate
of, 336 ; theology of, 337 ; suppresses
Puritan lectureships, 337 ; believer
in forms and ceremonies, 337 ; re
moval of altars by, to the East end,
338 ; tyranny of, 339, 340 ; visitation
of his Province by, 340 ; medisevalism
of, 340 ; unpopularity of, 341 ; High
Church view of work of, 341 ; tries
to force Prayer Book on Scotland,
342 ; Canons of 1640 and, 342 ; im
peached by Long Parliament, and
executed, 344 ; mentioned, 325, 327-
330, 387 . „. ,
Laudian, Absolutist Bishops, 315;
ideal of a Church, 382 ; innovations
abolished, 344

446

Indt

Laudian,revival,anapproach to Roman
ism, 317, 333-334; and return to
medisevalism, 340 ; unpopular, 341 ;
antagonistic to Puritanism, 341
Laudian tradition, 401
Laurentian library, 193
Laurentius, Bishop, 8, 12
Law, William, Serious Call to a Devout
and Holy Life, 391
Layton, Dr., 227-228
Legate. See Papal
Legatine power, 215
Legatus, a latere, 86
Legatus natus, 86, 89, 177
Legh, Dr., 227, 228
Leighton, Dr., 339
Lent, 250
Leofric, 61
Leonardo da Vinci, 193
Leopold of Austria, no
Liberals, the, 400, 402, 403, 408, 409 ;
Church in danger from, 402-404
Lichfield Archbishopric, 42, 43
Lightfoot, Bishop, 35, 268
Lights, ritual use of, 418
Ligulf, 67
Linacre, Sir T., 190
Lindisfame, monastery of, 19, 20
Litany, English, 237, 253, 255, 281,
282, 340
Livery and Maintenance, 152
Lloyd, Bishop, 370
Locke, John, 377, 390; author of
The Reasonableness of Christianity,
388
Lollards, the, 165, 209, 3o3, 321 ;
history and importance of, 166-
169
London, Presbyterian, 350 ; Great Fire
of, 361 ; petition of, against Episco
pacy, 345 ; mob of, 346
Long ParUament, 291, 340, 343, 344-
3 5 1 ; meeting of, 344 ; impeaches
Strafford and Laud, abolishes Courts
of Star Chamber and High Commis
sion, declares levy of ship-money
illegal, passes Act to prevent its own
dissolution, hostile to Laudian regime
but divided on religious question,
344 ; refers London petition against
Episcopacy to a committee, 345 ;
carries Grand Remonstrance, 346 ;
excludes bishops fromHouseof Lords,
346 ; abolishes Episcopacy, 347 ;
Erastian, 347, 348, 350, 355 ; seeks
Scotch help, and accepts Solemn
League and Covenant, 348; wins
Marston Moor, 349 ; passes BiU for

ex
summons of Westminster Assembly,
349 ; establishes modified Presby
terianism, 350; ejected by OUver
CromweU, 351
Lorenzo de Medici, 190
Louis, Prince, 115, 120, I2I
Louis VIL, 107
Louis IX., 122
Louis XIV., 362, 368
Low Church Party, 318, 320^., 374,
418
Luther, 163, 167, 2or, 215, 226, 233,
236, 273, 391, 392
Lutheran movement, 209
Lutheran form of prayer, 252, 254
Lyndwood, W., 176
Macaulay, Lord, 370
Macaulay, Zachary, 394, 395
MachiaveUi, 197, 209, 213, 214, 313
Machyn's diary, 271
Madoc, 147
Magdalen College, FeUows of, ejected,
369
Magna Charta, 116-120, 146; import
ance of, exaggerated, 117; how far
reactionary, 117; real importance of,
118 ; secures freedom of the Church,
120; annulled, 120; reissued, 118,
120; violation of, 123
Maitland, Professor, 104, 176
Manchester, Earl of, 350
Manchester School, 419
Manichean heresy, 134
Manning, Archdeacon, 415
Manwaring, Bishop, 332
Margaret, Princess, 196, 234
Marlborough, Duke and Duchess of,
376
Marprelate tracts, 297, 302, 308
Marriage, suits, 94, 105, 177 ; use of
ringin, 303, 306, 323 ; with a deceased
wife's sister, 422
Marshall, William, 121, 123
Marston Moor, battle of, 349
Martin, Master, 128, 129
Martin V., Pope, 156, 169, 170
Martyr, Peter; 260, 264, 270
Mary I., Queen, 210, 211, 220, 233, 234,
259, 263, 267, 281, 283 ; character
of, 269 ; religious parties at accession
of, 269 ; marries Philip, 270 ; stages
in reaction of reign of, 270 ; restores
Papal power, 270 ; persecution by,
271-275; hatred of, for Cranmer, 273
Mary II. , Queen, marries William of
Orange, 364 ; given crown with
WUliam, 371. Se««»ak/- WUliam III,

Index

447

Mary, Queen of Scots, claim of, to
English throne, 278, 279 ; Scotch
Reformation and, 280; prisoner of
Elizabeth, 300 ; executed, 300
Masham, Mrs., 376
Mass, 196, 254, 257, 261, 263, 265,
266, 270, 281, 289, 299, 354, 417
Massey, Dean of Christ Church, 369
Matilda ( i ), 64
Matilda (2), 82, 84
Matilda, Countess (3), 84
Matilda (4), 86, 87
Matins, 255 ; sources of, 252, 253
Matthew Paris, 132, 140
Maurice, F. D., 419
Mayflower, 309
Medicis, the, 170, 193, 213
Melanchthon, 226, 238
Melbourne, Lord, 408
MeUitus, Bishop, 8, n, 12
Mercia, conversion of, 22
Methodist movement (see Wesleyan),
390, 392
Methodists, 390, 391 ; driven from
church, 393, 394
Middle Ages, character of, 191 ; re
vived interest in, 404
Millenary petition, 323, 324
Milner, J., 394
Milton, on Presbyterianism, 347, 352 ;
on toleration, 355
Miracle plays, 182
Missal, 252-256
Mission, Roman, 6, 16; Celtic, 18^.
Missionary societies, S.P.G., 378, 379,
420 ; C.M.S., 396, 397, 420
Missionary work, of post-reformation
Church of England, 378, 379, 396,
397 ; interest of EvangeUcals in, 396,
397
Missions, English, 39; Universities', 420
Mitford's Act, 386
Moherly's Ministerial Priesthood, 268
Monasteries, missionary work of, 29, 32,
33 ; services of, 32 ; different types
of, 32 ; life in, 33 ; schools in, 34,
53, 188 ; decay of, in eighth century,
40^ ; state of, in ninth century, 49^ ;
restoration of, under Edgar, 51, 52;
centres of English feeling, 66; ex
emption of, from Episcopal control,
29, 92, 132, 221, 228 ; encouraged
by Lanfranc, 69 ; hotbeds of
papalism, 92, 228; revival of, in
twelfth century, 90, 92 ; ideal of,
131 ; decUne of monasteries, 131,
183, 227 ; Grosseteste's attitude to,
132 ; appropriation of tithe by, 132,

133. 179, 180 ; feeling against, 157,
158 ; causes of decUne of, 183 ; visi
tation of, by Archbishop Morton,
196; visitation of, by Cromwell,
227 ; evidence against, 227, 228 ;
dissolution of, 198, 227-230 ; dis
solution of, justifiable, 228 ; dissolu
tion of, not the cause of pauperism,
229 ; use made of wealth from dis
solution of, 23 1 ; land of, not restored
by Mary, 270 ; destruction of, in
Scotland, 279
Monasteries, Abingdon, 50 ; Athelney,
45, 48 ; Bangor, 10 ; Bee, 64, 65 ;
Blandinium, 5 1 ; Bury St. Edmunds,
43 ; Christ Church, 8, 29, 34, 132 ;
Citeaux, 91 ; Clairvaux, 91 ; Cluny,
61, 62, 91 ; Crowland, 32, 43 ; Ely,
43 ; Fleury, 50; Fountains, 91 ; Fur
ness, 91, 232; Glastonbury, 50, 66,
261 ; Hexham, 232 ; Jarrow, 34, 37,
43 ; Jervaulx, 232 ; KirkstaU, 91 ;
Lindisfame, 20, 37, 43 ; Malmes
bury, 34; Melrose, 37, 91; Pon
tigny, 140 ; Rivaulx, 91 ; St. Alban's,
42, 184; Sens, 107; Tintern,
91 ; Waltham, 230 ; Waverley, 91 ;
Wearmouth, 34, 43 ; Whitby, 34-
35. 43 ; York, 43
Monmouth, Duke of, 367
Monologion, 76
Monophysite heresy, 411, 413
Montague, Bishop, an Arminian, 33 1 ;
New Gag for an Old Goose, written
t>y, 331 ; upholds doctrine of Real
Presence and auricular confession
332; Appello Casaremoi, 332; in
trigues of, with Rome, 332, 334
Montaigne, Bishop, 332
Moravian Brethren, 392
Morcar, 61
More, Sir T., 190, 197, 200-204, 221-
225 ; views oi, on monarchy, 195 ;
Utopia of, 202-203, 229 ; adherent
of New Learning, 210 ; Lord Chan
cellor, 213 ; resigns Chancellorship,
216, 217; refuses to take Oath of
Succession Act, 222 ; imprisoned,
223 ; views of, on Royal Supremacy,
226 ; executed for high treason, 226
Mortimer, Margaret, 212
Mortmain, Statute of, 146, 147
Morton, Archbishop, 170, 184, 198
Morton, Earl of, 300
Mortuaries Act, 214
Mountjoy, Lord, 198
Mozley, J. B., 414. 415
Mystery plays, 182

448

Index

Nag's head story, 293
Nantes, Edict oi, 362, 368
National apostacy, Kebie's sermon on,
,406
National feeUng, growth of, 151, 193,
194
National schools, 398, 419
National society, 397, 398
Natural religion, 389
Nature, the law of, 389, 390
Necessary Doctrine and Erudition, 240
Neot, S., 46, 47
Nevilles, rising of, 300
New Gag for an Old Goose, 331
New Learning, 195, 196, 199 ff., 202-
204, 210, 258
New model army, 347, 3 50
New Testament of Erasmus, 201 ; of
Tyndale, 209 ; revised version of, 421
Newbura, rout of, 343
Newman, John Henry, 404, 405, 421;
Apologia of, 404, 411; view expressed
by, of ItaUan Romanism, 406 ; Lead
Kindly Light by, 406 ; originates
Tracts for the Times,i,o%; Tract I.hy,
407 ; view held by, of Church, 408 ;
defends Church of England against
claims of Rome, 410 ; Prophetical
Office of the Church by, 410 ; theory
of the Church, 410; faith of, in
Church of England shaken, 411 ;
Tract XC, by, 412; retirement of,
412; secession of, to Church of
Rome, 413 ; cardinal, 41 5 ; deference
of, to bishop, 417; celebrates at
North end, 417
Newton, J., 394, 395
Newton, Sir I., 377, 390
Nicholas IV., Pope, 146
Nicholas V., Pope, 193, 195
Nominalists, 201
Nonconformists, 288, 304, 333, 357, 373,
374 ; banishment of, in 1593, 297,
309; non-existent in 1603, 318;
position of, under Charles II. , 361-
363 ; persecuted by James IL, 367 ;
refuse to be used by James IL, 369 ;
efforts to comprehend, 358, 372, 403 ;
given toleration by Toleration Act,
373 ; theology of, 375 ; Occasional
Conformity and Schism Acts directed
against, 377 ; Indemnity Acts for, 385,
387; relief of, 385
Nonconformity, 262, 422
Nonjurors, 372, 375, 391
Non-resistance, doctrine of, 360, 377
Norfolk, Dukes of, 211, 231, 232, 234,
240, 300

Norman Conquest, importance Oi,
59.^' ; ecclesiastical changes at, 61^
Norse theology, 5, 9
Northumberland, Duke of, 247, 260,
266, 267, 269
Northumbria, conversion of, 12, 14, 17 ;
relapse into paganism of, 15 ; work of
Aidan in, 20
Oakeley, F., 413
Oates, Titus, 364, 365
Oblation of Elements, 254, 265
Occasional Conformity, 375
Occasional Conformity Act, 377; re
pealed, 377, 385
Odo of Bayeux, 73, 104
Offa, King of Mercia, supremacy ol,
41-43 ; admits Papal legates, 42 ;
makes Lichfield an archbishopric,
42 ; begins Peter's pence, 43 ; makes
tithe compulsory, 43 ; laws of, 46 ;
dyke of, 41
Oglethorpe, Bishop, 281
Oglethorpe, General, 392
Oldcastie, Sir J., 167
Orders in Church of England, 293-295
Orders, minor, disappear from Church
of England, 262
Ordinal, 256; of 1550, 261, 262, 287 ;
essence of a valid, 262 ; of 1552, 266,
287, 294, 295, 306
Ordinations, 178, 337 ; vaUdity of, 262,
294. 29s
Oriental, heresies, 134; leaming, 335
Origen, 421
Orleton, Bishop, 151
Ornaments, 283, 286, 291-293
Ornaments rubric, history and meaning
of, 283, 291-293, 303, 417
Orosius, 45
" Orthodox," the, 401
Osred, 31
Oswald, Bishop, 50, 52
Oswald, King of Northumbria, 16 ;
sends to lona for a bishop, 19 ;
helps Aidan, 20 ; death of, 21
Oswine, 20, 21
Oswy, King of Northumbria, 16, 21 ;
summons Synod of Whitby, 22 ; de
cides for Roman usages, 23, 26
Otho, legate, 125, 127
Ottobon, legate, 125
Oxford martyrs, 273
Oxford Movement, cause of, 404 ;
preparation for, 404 ; leaders of the,
404-406; Kebie's sermon begin
ning of, 496 ; Tracts of, begin, 407 ;
principles of, 407-408, 422; the

Index

449

Hampden appointment and the,
408-409; Roman claims and the,
409-414 ; Romanising wing of the,
413 ; not ended by Newman's seces
sion, 413 ; dispersed over England,
414; indifference of leaders of, to
vestments and ritual, 417
Oxford, Provisions of, 124, 127
Oxford, University of, 44, 45, 163, 164,
189-190; rise of, 138-139; rise of
colleges in, 138, 189; Wycliffism at,
164; purged of LoUardry, 167; re
vival of Greek at, 190 ; decline of,
167, 190 ; Laud, Chancellor of, 335 ;
lethargic condition of, in eighteenth
century, 384, 385 ; Convocation of,
and Dr. Hampden, 409
Painting, 193
Pall, meaning of, 8-9, 78, 177, 220
Palm Sunday, 251
Palmer, W., 404, 406
Pan- Anglican Congress, 421
Pandulph, 123, 125
Panzani, Papal envoy, 332, 333
Papacy, the, relations of, with Anglo-
Saxon Church, ch. ii., ch. iv., 42,
43, 61 ; relation of, with WiUiam I.
and Lanfranc, 70-72 ; relations of
John with, 114-116, 1 20 ; attitude of
Grosseteste to, 141 ; becomes French,
150; attacks on, in Middle Ages, 71,
72, 128, 129, 154-158, 163; de
gradation of, in fifteen century, 1 70 ;
see also under Henry VIIL, Edward
VI., Mary, Elizabeth, James I. ; re
lations of, with EUzabeth, 281, 284,
298-302
Papal bulls, 145, 163, 196, 217, 220,
224, 278, 298, 299
Papal captivity, 1 50
Papal collector, 129
Papal Courts, 176. See also Ecclesi
astical Courts
Papal dispensations, 220
Papal envoys and legates, 42, 56, 86,
88, 120, 123, 125, 130, 332, 333
Papal infallibiUty, 334, 410, 411
Papal jurisdiction, 93, 94, 102, 105,
176-177, 219, 224
Papal power, growth of, 61/., 88-93,
115, 123; encroachments of, 125-
128, 145, 177,224; over the Church
ofEngland, 177, 224; in England
destroyed by Henry VIIL, ch. xiii. ;
restored by Mary, 270 ; destroyed
by Elizabeth, 281^, 284
Papal schism, 157, 169

j Papal supremacy, 289, 295
Papal suzerainty, 115, 116, T 25 ; de
nial of, 147, 156
Papal taxation, Peter's pence, 43, 71,
126, 156, 177, 220; tribute, n6,
126, 130; subsidies, 127, 177; pro
visions, 127, 154; annates, 128, 154,
177, 217 ; procurations, 128 ; fees for
bulls, 217
Pardoner, 172-174
Paris, University of, 138
Parish church, 181, 182
Parish clergy, 142, 179, 180, 287,
321, 393, 401
Parish life, 142, 180, 2S7, 321
Parity of ministers desired by Puritans,
304
Parker, Matthew, appointed Archbishop
by Elizabeth, 280; consecration of,
286-287, 293-294 ; policy of, as
Archbishop, 296, 297 ; suppresses
prophesyings, 296 ; advertisements
of, 292, 304, 325 ; a Protestant,
289; and Bishops' Bible, 326
Parliament, 61, 144, 148, 149; Good,
159; Little or Barebones, 352;
Long, see under Long; Reforma
tion, 214-230, 343; synopsis of
Reformation, 244-246 ; Short, 342 ;
Prayer for High Court of, 359; re
lations of, with Church, 290, 403
Parochial system, 29, 33, 179, 287,
393
Parsons, the Jesuit, 300, 301
Party system, rise of the, 365 ; growth
ofthe, in reign of WiUiam III., 374
Paschal IL, Pope, 82-84
Passive obedience, 381
Paston Letters, 152
Patrick, S., 3, 5
Paul, Abbot, 66
Paul IIL, Pope, 222, 225, 233
Paulinus, 8, 9 ; goes to Northumbria,
12; converts Edwin, 14; flight of,
16; 35
Paul's, St., old, 361
Pearson, Bishop, 373
Peasant rising, 153,162, 164
Peckham, Archbishop, 146, 147
Pecock's Repressor, etc., 168, 169
Pelagius, 3
Penal Laws, 298, 301, 318
Penda, King of Mercia, 1 5
Penn, WiUiam, 369
Percy, Henry, 163
Percy, Lord, 211, 231
Percy family,risingof, against EUzabeth,
300
2 F

450

Index

Peter des Roches, 116, 121, 140
Peter of Pontefract, 1 1 5
Peter's pence ; origin of, 43 ; 71, 126,
156, 177, 220
Petition of London against Episcopacy,
345
Petition of Right, 311, 33 1
Petre, Father, 371
Philip Augustus, no, 113, US
Philip II. of Spain, 269, 270, 278,
279, 300
PhUlpotts, Bishop, 414
Pie, the, 253, 256
Pilgrimage of Grace, 231, 232
Pilgrimages, 187, 196, 238
Pitt, William, 382, 383. See also
Chatham
Pius IL, Pope (.(Eneas Sylvius), 193,
195
Pius v.. Pope, 278, 299
Pius IX., Pope, 416
Place-hunting, 383, 384
Plato, 193, 381
Plegmund, 45
Pluralism, 205, 287, 307, 383. 384.
398
Pluralities Act, the, 214
Poictiers, battle of, 151
Pole, Henry, 233
Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, 213, 233,
289 ; the De unitate ecclesice of,
233 ; as papal legate absolves English
nation, 270; condemns Latimer and
Ridley, 272 ; appointed Archbishop
of Canterbury, 273 ; death of, 276,
281
Politian, 190
Ponet, Bishop, 263
Pontifical, 262, 287, 294, 306
Poole, Bishop, 286
Pope and King, 126, 155, 177
Pope, deposing power of, 299, 302,
318, 386
Popish plot, 364, 367
Porrectio instrumentorum, 262
Porteus, Bishop, 383, 384
Praecipe, writ, 1 1 7
Prjemunire, statutes of, 156, 176, 209;
clergy liable to penalties of, 2 1 5, 220,
294
Praemunientes clause, 148
Prayer Book, the, English of, 248 ; the
work of Cranmer, 218 ; resisted by
Scotch, 342 ; Puritans wish to de
stroy, 346 ; BaiUie's view of, 349 ;
proscribed, 351, 353; attempt to
rewrite, 372, 373 ; liberal view of,
404

Prayer Book, the first (1549), 247-248,
252-260, 282, 283, 290 ; sources and
nature of, 252-254; differences of,
from present Prayer Book, 255-256 ;
principles of, 256-258 ; origin of,
258 ; debate in House of Lords on,
259 ; submitted, or not, to Convoca
tion, 259-260 ; sacramental doctrine
of, 254, 255, 259, 264 ; dissatisfaction
with, 260, 261 ; Bucer's Censura
of, 260, 264 ; Gardiner's view of,
264 ; revised, 264, 265
Prayer Book, the second (1552), 247-
248, 265, 280,290 ; principlesof, 264 ;
changes adopted in, 265-266 ; not
submitted to Convocation, 266 ; re
vived by Elizabeth with three altera
tions, 282
Prayer Book, Elizabethan (1559), 282,
283, 286, 303 ; Puritan objection to,
306, 321
Prayer Book, Jacobean, 324, 325
Prayer Book of 1662, 358, 359
Preaching, 306, 323
Precentor, 179
Precisian, 322
Predestination, 319
Premonstratensians, 91
Prerogative, extraordinary, Stewart
claim to, 311, 368
Presbyterian discipline, 349, 350,
355 ; character ot Westminster As
sembly, 349
Presbyterianism, coercive jurisdiction
of, 348, 355 ; efforts of Puritans to
presbyterianise Church, 304, 307 ;
scheme of, 307, 308, 349 ; divine
right of, 307, 347, 350; first Pres
bytery, 307 ; Scots Presbytery, 324 ;
Milton on, 347 ; modified, estab
lished by Long Parliament, 350,
352; of London, 350; of Parlia
mentary leaders, 350; set up in
London and Lancashire, 350 ; hated
by Independents, 352
Presbyterians, in time of Civil War,
347 ; leaders of Parliamentary
armies, 350, 353 ; intolerance of,
355 ; help to restore Charles IL,
355. 357 i at Savoy Conference,
358-360
Pretender, the, 378, 386
Printing, 193
Priories, dissolution of the alien, 170
Prison reform, 396, 401
Privy Council, 338 ; Judicial Committee
ofthe, 220, 291, 292, 415-418, 42a
Probate Act, 214

Index

451

Proclamations, statute of, 249, 250
Procurations, 128
Prophesyings, nature of, 307, 308 ;
suppression of, 296, 297, 308 ;
suggested revival of, 324
Prophetical Office of tha Chunk, by
Newman, 410
Proslogion, 76
Protestant divines, BiU for synod of, 349
Protestant doctrine, democratic nature
of, 313, 315
Protestant influences, growth of, 249,
260-261 ; extreme limit of, in
Church of England, 267 ; strong in
the towns, 271, 317
Protestant movement purified by
Marian persecution, 276
Protestant nature of Elizabethan settle
ment, 281, 289
Protestant refugees at Frankfort, 280;
return of refugees, 280
Protestantism, a real reUgion, 410
Provinces of Canterbury and York, 9,
28, 40, 72. See Maps
Provinciate o{l,yndivrood, 176
Provisions, Papal, 127, 154-156
Provisions of Oxford, 124, 127
Provisors, statutes of, 154-156, 176,
177, 190, 209
Prynne, W., 339, 340
Purgatory, 172, 228, 268, 273, 289,
412, 414
Puritan clergy deprived under EUza
beth, 304
Puritan clergy deprived under James
L, 326
Puritan clergy deprived under Charles
II., 359, 360
Puritan ; chaplains, 337 ; lectureships,
337; pamphlets, 336, 339, 340; view
of Laud, 333 ; treason of, leaders,
345 ; narrowness of views, 288
Puritans and Puritanism, 263, 280,
288, 289, 292, 296-298
Puritans and Puritanism under Eliza
beth, character of, 302-303 ; first
phase of, 303 ; second phase of, 304 ;
third phase of, 309 ; dislike of cere
monies and vestments, 303 ; biblio
latry of, 303 ; Parker's advertise
ments directed against, 304 ; attack
on Episcopacy by, 304, 307 ; efforts
by, to presbyterianise the Church,
304; Cartwright, prophet of, 304,
305 ; conspiracy of, against the order
of the Church of England, 304-308 ;
Travers a leader of, 305 ; grounds of
attack by, on the Church of England,

306 ; reply of Hooker to, 306 j
positive tenets of, 307 ; prophesyings
of, suppressed, 308
Puritans and Puritanism under James
I., Puritanism of House of Com
mons, 314; disparaged by James,
316; Calvinism of, and liatred of
Arminianism by, 320; individualism
of, 320 / ; objections of, to Prayer
Book, 321 ; stern morality of, 321 ;
Sabbatarianism of, 322, 323, 328,
329; objections urged by, in Mil
lenary petition and Hampton Court
Conference, 323-324; attack of
King on, 324; objections of, to
Episcopacy, 324 ; Parliament sides
with, 325; clergy deprived, 326;
intolerance of, 329
Puritans and Puritanism under Charles
I., House of Commons Puritan,
331, 332 ; differences of, with Laud,
334-336 ; intolerance of, 336 ; object
to removal of altars to East end, 338-
339 ; object to Book of Sports, 339 ;
attack of, on Episcopacy, 345 ; divi-
sion of, in time of great Rebellion,
347, 348 ; hatred of Laudianism, 341
Puritans and Puritanism under Charles
II. , suggestions of Puritans re
jected, 359
Pusey, E. B., 404, 405, 417 ; joins
Tractarians, 408 ; tract by, on Bap
tism, 408 ; suspension of, at Oxford,
413; remains in English Church,
413 ; rebuked by WUberforce, 414;
use of Confessional by, 416; depre
cates forcing of ritual, 417; sacra
mental doctrine of, 416
Pym, John, 343
Quakers, 354, 355. 369, 373
Quartodecimans, 27
Quignon's breviary, 252, 253, 256
Quo Warranto writs, 144
Raikes, Robert, 398
Raleigh, Sir W., 310
Ralf, Flambard, 48, 74
Ralf of Norfolk, 61
Ralph d'Escures, 86
Ralph NeviUe, 126
Ramsay, Professor, I
von Ranke, 229
Raphael, I93
RashdaU, Dr., 137
Rationalism, of eighteenth century,
383 ; growth of, 387 ; leaders of,
388 ; answered by Butler, 389-390

452

Index

Real Presence, The, 164, 238, 242-
244, 266, 332, 359, 416, 417
Realists, 201
Reasonableness of Christianity, by
John Locke, 388
Rebellion of 1641, religious causes of,
315
Recusancy fines, 298, 301, 317, 318
Recusants, 296, 298^, 317
Redwald, 13
Reform Bill, 399, 400
Reformatio legum, 216 «., 261, 285
Reformation, the, 182, 411 ; inevi
table, 198 ; origins of, 208-210;
Parliament, 214-230, 244-246,
288 ; under Edward VI. , 247-267 ;
appeal to Bible at, 221, 222,
257 ; settlement under Elizabeth,
280-291; in Scotland, 279, 280;
change in constitutional position of
the Church of England at, 290 ;
blessings of, 291 ; connection of, with
democracy, 313 ; Supreme Court of
Appeal as fixed at, 219, 220, 224,
291, 415
Reformers, the, 387
Reginald, 113, 114
Regular foundations, 33, 52, 69
Regulars and Seculars, 33, 52, 69
Relics, 172, 196, 201, 238, 285
Religion, natural, 339 ; revealed, 389
Religion of Protestants a Safe Way of
Salvation, 337
Religion, Elizabeth forbids her Parlia
ment tointerfere in, 305 ; how far cause
of RebeUion in 1641, 315 ; James I.
quarrels with Parliament over, 316-
325 ; Charles I. quarrels with Par
liament over, 331, 333 ; under Com
monwealth, iS2 ff.; under Agree
ment of the People, 352 ; under
Instrument of Government, 352 ;
under Humble Petition and Advice,
352 ; Undenominational, 352 ; King
swears to maintain Protestant, 372
Renaissance, 192, 196 ; in England,
I99#- ^
Repressor of over much blaming of
the Clergy, 168
Responsories, 253
Restoration, the, 341, 352 ; how
effected, 355 ; meaning of, 357 ;
Church settlement at, 3 5 7-3 59 ;
Puritan clergy ejected at, 359, 360;
Prayer to commemorate, 359
Restitutus, Bishop, 2
Reuchlin, 201
Reynolds, Dean, 323

Rich, Edmund, Archbishop, 123, 126,
140
Rich, Solicitor-General, 226
Richard I., 60, 110-112
Richard IL, 152, 166
Richard de Luci, 107
Richard le Grand, 126
Richard of Cornwall, 123, 124
Ridley, Bishop of London, 261, 270;
views of, on Holy Communion, 259,
263 ; visitation of London diocese
by, 262 ; removal of stone altars by,
262 ; burnt by Mary, 272
Ridsdale case, 292, 293, 418
Rights of man, 118
Rights of private judgment, 319
Ritual, Laud's belief in, 334, 337;
question, 417, 418 ; cases, 418
Robert, 61, 81, 82
Robert of Belesme, 83
Robert of Jumieges, 55
Robert of Leicester, 106
Robertson, F. W., 419
Roger of Hereford, 61
Roger of SaUsbury, 50, 83, 88, 340
Roger of York, 88, 107-109
Rogers, John, 235, 236, 272
Romaine, W., 394
Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholi
cism, Toleration till 1570, and then
repression of, under Elizabeth, actual
better than legal status, 298-302 ;
moderate and extreme, under Eliza
beth, 299, 302 ; plots of, against
Elizabeth, 300 ; executed as traitors
under Elizabeth, 301 ; statutes
against, 301 ; position of, under
JamesL, 316-318 ; Gunpowder Plot
of, 318; loyal and disloyal, 317;
indulgence of Charles I. to, 334 ;
opposition of Laud to, 344 ; rising
in Ulster of, 346 ; sufferings of,
under Commonwealth, 353, 354;
intrigues to restore, under Charles
II. , 362, 365 ; judicial murder of,
365 ; Bill excluding, from House of
Lords, 365 ; efforts of James II.
to restore, 369-370 ; moderate and
extreme, in 1688, 371 ; Toleration
Act does not apply to, 373 ; per
secution of, after 1689, 373, 386
associated with Jacobitism, 386
toleration extended to, 385, 386
Emancipation Act, 386, 400; view
of Church, held by, 404 ; authoritative
dogma of, 412 ; attitude of Trac
tarians to, 409-414; Newman oii,
410-41 I

Index

453

Roman mission, work of, to Anglo-
Saxons, 1 6
Romanism, popular, contrasted with
authoritative dogma of Rome, 412,
413
Romano-Celtic civilisation, 4, 5
Rome, Church of, educational influence
of, in early days, 24; powers of
governance of, 24; avarice of, 128,
129
Root and Branch BUl, 345
Roper, Margaret, 226
Rose, Hugh James, 404-406
Rousseau, 335
Russell, house of, 231
Rye-house Plot, 367
Rygge, Dr., 160
Sabatier, Paul, 136 «.
Sabbatarianism, 166, 322, 323, 328,
329, 339, 353
Sacerdos, 2
SachevereU, Dr., 376-377, 3^1, 385
Sacrament of Holy Communion, Ap
pendix II. , 242 ff., and see under
Communion, and Baptism
Sacraments, emphasised by High
Churchmen, 319, 334, 410; dis
paraged by Liberals, 402
Sacraments, seven, 273
Sacrifice. See Communion
Saebert, n
Saint worship, 413
Saints, invocation of, 414
Saladin, no
Salisbury, Bishop, 285
Salisbury, Lady, 233
Sampson, Dean, 303
Sancroft, Archbishop, 364, 367, 370,
372
Sanctuary, privilege of, 175-176, 196
Sanders, N., 300
Sandys, Bishop, 303
Sarum; missal, 254, 255; pontifical,
262 ; use, 254j 257
Savigny, Order of, 91
Savile Act, 386
Savonarola, 199
Savoy Conference, 358
Sawtre, WUliam, 166
Schakel, 175
Schism, Great, 157, 169, 209
Schism Act, 377 ; repealed, 377, 385
Schmalkald; league, 234; war, 252
Scholarship, 193
Schoolmen, 242
Schools, at Canterbury, 29, 34; at
York, 34 ; of Alfred, 45 ; monastic.

34, S3, 188 ; grammar, 188 ; cathe
dral, 188; guild, 188; pubUc, 189;
charity, 379 ; Sunday, 396 ; Sunday
School movement, 398 ; national,
397. 398, 419 ! British, 398 ; non-
provided, 419 «.
Sciences, growth of physical, 420
Scory, Bishop, 263, 286, 287, 294
Scotch, Commissioners of, in London
(1641), 345 ; Parliament asks for
help from, 348 ; help on condition
that Parliament accepts the Cove
nant, 348 ; tricked by Sir H. Vane,
348, 349 ; help to win Marston Moor,
349 ; Commissioners in Westminster
Assembly, 349 ; BaiUie a Commis
sioner, 347, 350; Clarendon on,
348
Scotland, Reformation in, 279, 280 ;
reforming party in, Anglophile, 279 ;
rising against Mary, and French in
fluence in, 279, 280 ; Church of, 320,
349 ; inquisitorial jurisdiction of
Church of, 320; resistance in, to
Prayer Book imposed by Charles I.,
341, 342 ; stiff Calvinism of, 342 ;
rebellion of, 342 ; Covenant in,
342 ; Charles I. defeated by army
of, 343 ; army of, remains in Eng
land, 343 ; Charles I. away in, 345,
346
Scott, Thomas, 394
Scott, Sir W., 404
Scripture. See Bible
Scrope, Archbishop, 169
Seculars, and secular foundations, 33,
52, 69
Seely, Sir J., 277
Selden, John, History of Tithes of,
329 ; Erastianism of, 329, 347
Sellyng, WUliam, 190
Seminarists, 299-301, 326
Serious Call to a I)evout and Holy Life,
by Law, 391
Servetus burnt by Calvin, 271
Settlement, Act of, 378, 386
Settlements, University and CoUege,
419
Seven bishops, 370, 371
Sext, 93
Seymour, Jane, 231, 233
Shaftesbury, Lord, 365, 367
Shakspeare, 182
Shaxton, Bishop, 241
Sheldon, Archbishop, 361, 364
Shepherds Calendar, 296
Sherborne, 28
Sheriffs aid, 100
2 F2

454

Index

Ship money, 336
Short Way with Dissenters, 377
Shrine of Becket demolished, 239
Shrines, 187 ; destruction of, 239, 285
Sibthorpe, R., 332
Sicilian crown, 123, 127
Si6yis, Abbe, 402
Sigbert, King of East Anglia, 15
Sigbert, King of East Saxons, 21
Silchester, 3
Simeon, C., 394
Simon de Montfort, 123-125, 141
Simon Langham, 132
Simony, 63, 80, 171
Sion's Plea against Prelacy, 339
Siward, 65
Sixtus IV., Pope, 170
Slave trade, abolition of, 396 ; Wulf
stan and, 66
Slavery, aboUtion of, 396, 401
Sluys, battle of, 151
Social contract theory, 1 18, 366, 371
Socialism, Christian, 419
Societies ; for Reformation of Manners,
378 ; for Promoting Christian Know
ledge, 378, 379 ; for Propagation of
Gospel, 378, 420 ; Church Mission
ary, 396 ; National, 397, 398 ; Bible,
397 ; British and Foreign School,
398 ; Church Building, 399
Solemn League and Covenant. See
Covenant
Somerset, Protector, 247, 249, 258,
260
Spanish marriage treaty, 316
Spenser, Edmund, 296
Sports, Book of, 323, 328, 339
Stafford, Lord, 365
Standish, Dr., case of, 206
Star Chamber, 196, 336, 339, 340,
344
Steele, R., 377, 378
Stephen, king, 60, 86-88, 104
Stephen, James, 395
Stewart dynasty, 117, 310; constitu
tional question under, 311-314;
religious question under, 314-317
Stewart Kings (see also James I.,
Charles L, Charles IL, James II. ),
Elizabeth compared with, 310, 312-
313 ; view of Parliament held by,
311 ; claims of prerogative by, 311 ;
view of judges held by, 311 ;
view of constitution held by, 311-
312; theory of Divine Right of,
312; attitude of, to Puritanism, 316;
attitude of, to Church, 316; leanings
of, to Rome, 316

Stigand, Archbishop, 48, 55, 56, 65
Strafford, Eari of, 342-344
Stubbs, Dr., 51, 52, 117, 119
Studium generale. See University
Submission of the clergy, the, 224;
in Convocation, 216; Act of, 219
Succession, Acts of, 221-223, 233,
234
Sudbury, Archbishop, 163, 164
Suffolk, Duke of, 212
Summoner, 174-175, 185
Sumner, Bishop, 413
Sunday observance, 166, 322, 323,
328, 329, 339
Sunday School movement, 398; Sun
day Schools, 396
Supplication against the ordinaries,
215
Supremacy, Act of (1534). 223, 249,
263
Supremacy, Act of (1559), 282, 283-
285, 290, 298, 364, 369, 415
Supremacy, Assurance of. Act, 298
Supremacy, Oath under Act of (1559).
283, 364, 386
Supremacy, Royal, under Henry VIIL,
223-225, 227, 228, 238, 239
Supremacy, Royal, under Edward VI. ,
248, 249
Supremacy, Royal, under Elizabeth,
283-285 ; rejected by Independents,
309; 323.325-327
Supreme Governor, title of, 282, 283,
291 ; meaning of, 284, 285
Supreme Head, title of, 215, 223,
281-283 ; meaning of, 224-225
SurpUce, 283, 292, 293, 297, 305,
325; disliked by Puritans, 303,
306, 323 ; ordered by Advertise
ments, 304
Surrey, Earl of, 234
Sussex, conversion of, 31
Swegen, 54
Swift, Dean, 377
Synods (Presbyterian), 307
Table, holy, instead of Altar, 265
Tait, Archbishop, 412
Tarbes, Bishop of, 210
Tatler, the, 378
Taxatio of Nicholas IV., 146
Taylor, Jeremy, 243, 373
Taylor, Rowland, 272
Telescope, 193
Templars suppressed, 1 5 1
Temple, Archbishop, 418
Tenchebrai, battle of, 84
Tenison, Archbishop, 375

Index

455

Tennyson, I, 226
TertuUian, 2
Test Act, 364, 385; disregarded by
James II., 368 ; suspended by James
IL, 370; repealed, 385, 386
Tests retained after Toleration Act,
372. See Communion
Thackeray, W. M., 383
Theobald, 87, 88, 97, 99, 100
Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 27 ; quarrel of, with
WUfrid, 27, 29, 30; importance of
work of, 27-30 ; school of, 29, 34
Theodoric, 45
Thirlby, Bishop, 273
Thomas Aquinas, S., 184, 199, 268
Thomas of Bayeux, 72
Thomas of Canterbury, S. See Becket
Thor, 5
Thornton, H., 394-396
Thomton, J., 395-396
Thurstan, 66
TiUotson, Archbishop, 375
Tindal, M., writer of Christianity as
Old as the Creation, 388
Tithe, made compulsory, 43 ; claimed
by ecclesiastical courts, 94 ; appro
priation of, by monasteries, 132,
133, 163, 175, 180, 231
Titian, 193
Toland, J., writer of Christianity not
Mysterious, 388
Toleration Act, terms of, 373 ; modi
fied, 385. 394
Toleration, religious, unknown in six
teenth century, 271 ; of Elizabeth,
299; want of, in Laud and in Puritans,
336 ; in " Agreement of the People,"
352; in "Instrument of Govern
ment," 352; in "Humble Petition
and Advice," 352-353 ; narrow
Umits of, under Cromwell, 354;
Milton on, 355; Quakers and,
355 ; a possible solution at the
Restoration, 357; schemes of, under
Charles II., 362, 363 ; for Protestant
non-conformists, 366 ; used by James
II. as a means for restoring Roman
ism, 369, 370 ; growth of, in eigh
teenth and nineteenth centuries, 380,
385-387 ; Hoadly in favour of,
382
Tories, principles of, 366 ; help to
bring over William IIL, 371, 373,
374; rule of, from 1710 to 1714, 377;
paralysed in 1714, 378
Toulouse war, 98
Town cWters remodelled, 367, 370

Tractarian Movement (see also Oxford
Movement), 404 ; principles of,
407-408, 410, 417; joined by
Pusey, 408
Tractarians, 334 ; oppose Hampden's
appointment, 409 ; attitude of, to
Roman CathoUc claims, 409-414;
emphasise churchmanship and sacra
ments, 410, 417
Tracts for the Times, aim of the, 408 ;
change in nature of the, 408 ; end
of the, 41 2 ; Tract I., 407-408 j
Tract on Baptism, 408 ; Tract XC,
412; condemned at Oxford, 412;
condemned by Bishops, 413
Transoms, 183
Transubstantiation, denied by Wycliffe,
161, 164 ; an accretion to the faith,
196, 289, 410 ; Henry VIIL's atti
tude to, 238, 240 ; nature of the
doctrine of, 242, 244 ; rejected by
Church of England, 242, 285, 289 j
declaration against, in Test Act,
364; mentioned, 252, 255, 262,
273, 332, 334, 416
Travers, Walter, author of Declara
tion of Discipline, 305 ; controversy
of, with Hooker, 305
Treasons Act, 225, 226, 250
Treasurer of Cathedral, 179
Treasury of Merits, 172
Trelawney, Bishop, 370
Tremellio, 261
Trent, Council of, 242, 253, 277,
412
Tridentine theology, 299, 412, 414
Triers, Committee of, under Cromwell,
353
Trinity Sunday instituted, 99
" Trojans," 204
Tudor despotism, 195, 312-313
Tunnage and Poundage, 331
TunstaU, Bishop, 263, 270, 285,
286
Turks capture Constantinople, 192
Turner, Bishop, 370
Tyndale, WiUiam, 215; New Testa
ment of, 209, 235-237
Tyr, 5
Ulf, Bishop, 55
Ulster, rising of, 346
Undenominational religion, 353, 398,
403
Unification of England, part played by
Church in, 24 ; work of Alfred
towards, 44 ; achieved under Athel
stan, 48

45^

Index

Uniformity, first Act of (I549), 252,
257,259,262 ; second Act of(l5S2),
26s; Elizabethan Act of (iSS9),
281-283, 291, 297; Caroline Act
of (1662), 293, 358, 360; poUtical
clauses of, 359
Unitarians, 354, 373. 402, 409
Universities (see also Oxford, Paris)
consulted re Divorce, 214; decline
of, 287 ; attack on, by James IL,
269 ; missions of, 420
Urban II., Pope, 77-80, 90
Urban VL, Pope, 188
Use, Bangor, 257 ; Hereford, 257 ;
Lincoln, 257; Sarum, 254, 257
Uses, Statute of, 230, 232
Utilitarianism, 400
Utopia ol Sir T. More, 202-203, 229
Valerandus Pollanus, 261
Vane, Sir H., tricks the Scotch re the
Solemn League and Covenant, 348-
349 ; an Independent, 352
Vasco da Gama, 192
Vatican Library, 193
Venn, H., 394
Venn, J., 394, 395
Vergilius, Bishop, 8
Vestiarian Controversy, 303
Vestments, 254, 261, 263, 265, 280,
283, 291-293, 303, 417, 418
Via Media, theory of the, 410
Vicar-general, 224, 227, 284
Vicars, 127, 133
Victoria, Queen, 382
Vikings. See Danes
ViUeins, 153
Vision of Piers the Plowman, 156-
158
Visitation, metropolitical, by Laud,
33^ 340
Visitation of monasteries, 139, 140,
142, 196, 221, 227, 228
Vogan, Prebendary, 416
Voltaire, 200
Walkelin, Bishop, 69
Walker, O., 369
Wallace, WiUiam, 147
WaUingford, peace of, 87, 88
Walpole, Sir R., 380, 382, 384, 385 ;
era of, 380, 382
Walsingham, Our Lady of, 187, 201
War of the Roses, 195, 211
Ward, W. G., 413
Warham, Archbishop, 196, 200, 204,
215, 2t7, 221, 289

Warwick, Earl of. See Northumberland
Watson, Bishop, 384
Watson, Joshua, 401
Waynflete, William, 170, 189, 204,
227
Wedmore, peace of, 44
Wesley, John, 385, 390; on Church
of England, 390, 391 ; sketch of
life of, 391, 392 ; a High Churchman,
391 ; "conversion" of, 392 ; gospel
o£ 393 ; enthusiasm of, 393 ; quarrel
of, with Whitefield, 394
Wesleyans driven from the Church,
393. 394
Wesleyan movement (see also Metho
dists), 380, 383, 390, 391 ; bishops
hostile to, 394
Westcott, Bishop, 235
Westminster Assembly, composition
and work of, 349 ; Catechism of,
349 ; Confession of, 349 ; Indepen
dents in, 349, 350
Whately, Archbishop, 408
Whig, theory of contract, 371
Whig party, 365, 367, 374, 376 J
principles of, 366
Whitby, Synod of, 23 ; importance of,
24
White, Bishop, 370
Whitefield, George, 390 ; powers of,
as a preacher, 392 ; gospel of, 392 ;
quarrel of, with Wesley, 394
Whitgift, Archbishop, a Calvinist, 297 ;
an "Anglican," 297; a believer in
divine right of Episcopacy, 297 ;
suppresses prophesyings, 297, 308 ;
represses Puritanism, 297 ; death of,
32s, 31S. 323
Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop, 414 ; new
idea of Episcopal office, given by,
418, 419
Wilberforce, WiUiam, 394-396
Wilbert, 38
Wilfrid, 22, 23, 33 ; Romanism of, 22,
27, 30, 31 ; at Synod of Whitby, 23 ;
Bishop of Northumbria, 26 ; restored
to bishopric of York, 27 ; quarrels
with Theodore, 27, 29 ; mission
work of, in Frisia and Sussex, 30,
3 1 ; sketch of career of, 30, 3 1
William I., claim of, to throne, 56 ;
mle of, S9 ff. ', ecclesiastical poUcy
of, 65 ff. ; strong hold of, over
Church, 68 ; creates spiritual courts,
70 ; relations of, with Papacy, 70/ ;
death of, 73 ; 54, 104, 113, 209
William IL, quarrel of, with Anselm,
77 ; 67, 73-82

Index

457

WUliam III., invited to England, 371 ;
King, 371 ; growth of party system
in reign of, 374 ; appoints Latitudi
narian bishops, 375 ; Erastian nature
of ecclesiastical rule of, 375
WUUam of CorbeU, Archbishop, 86, 87
WUUam of F&amp, 66
WiUiam of Ockham, 137, 184, 189
WiUiam of Raleigh, 126
William of St. Calais, 74, 75, 79
WiUiam of Valence, 123, 126
William of Warelwast, 84
William of Wykeham. See Wykeham
WUlibrord, S., 39
Wills, 94, 177
Wina, 28
Winchelsey,Archbishop, 145, 146, 148,
149
Winchester College, 160, 180, 188
Winchester, diocese of, 28
Wiseman, Dr., 41 1
Wolsey, Cardinal, 50, 197, 206, 214,
215, 217, 227, 341 ; a supporter of
New Learning, 204 ; founder of
Christ Church and Ipswich School,
204 ; foreign policy of, 204 ; how
far a reformer, 205 ; case of Standish
and, 207 ; failure of, 207 ; attitude
of, to divorce of Henry VlIL, 211,
212 ; court of, and Campeggio, 213 ;
death of, 207
Worms, Concordat of, 85

Wren, Christopher, 361
Wulfstan, Bishop, 56, 65, 66
Wycliffe, John, career of, 1 60 ; De
dominio civili of, 161-162 ; attacks
transubstantiation, 161, 164 ; appeal
of, to Scripture, 161, 165 ; a pioneer
of Reformation, 161 ; a socialist,
162 ; attacks endowments, 159, 163 ;
accused of heresy, 163 ; attacks
Papacy, 156, 157, 163; teaching
of, condemned as heretical, 164;
emphasises importance of "preach
ing," 164; translates Bible, 151,
165, 235 ; attacks secularisation of
the Church, 158; rising of 1381
and, 162; condemns right of Sanc
tuary, 176; Poor Preachers of,
164 ; mentioned, 189, 209, 215,
248
Wykeham, William of, 50, 155, 158,
159, 204, 227, 340; career and
views of, 160 ; foundations of, at
Winchester and Oxford, 160, 180,
188, 189 ; architecture of, 183

Yarmouth, Lady, 383

Zwingli, 215, 236, 242, 261, 273
Zwinglian view of Holy Communion,
242

Notb. — The pre-reformation diocese of Lincoln included the post-reformation
diocese of Oxford,

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