Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 8

[137] Gardiner had some virtues, and entertained sounder notions of the civil const.i.tution of England than his adversaries. In a letter to Sir John G.o.dsalve, giving his reasons for refusing compliance with the injunctions issued by the council to the ecclesiastical visitors (which, Burnet says, does him more honour than anything else in his life), he dwells on the king's wanting power to command anything contrary to common law, or to a statute, and brings authorities for this. Burnet, ii. Append. 112. See also Lingard, vi. 387, for another instance. Nor was this regard to the const.i.tution displayed only when out of the suns.h.i.+ne. For in the next reign he was against despotic counsels, of which an instance has been given in the last chapter. His conduct, indeed, with respect to the Spanish connection, is equivocal. He was much against the marriage at first, and took credit to himself for the securities exacted in the treaty with Philip, and established by statute. Burnet, ii. 267. But afterwards, if we may trust Noailles, he fell in with the Spanish party in the council, and even suggested to parliament that the queen should have the same power as her father to dispose of the succession by will. _Amba.s.sades de Noailles_, iii. 153, etc., etc. Yet according to Dr. Lingard, on the imperial amba.s.sador's authority, he saved Elizabeth's life against all the council. The article GARDINER, in the _Biographia Britannica_, contains an elaborate and partial apology, at great length; and the historian just quoted has of course said all he could in favour of one who laboured so strenuously for the extirpation of the northern heresy. But he was certainly not an honest man, and had been active in Henry's reign against his real opinions.

Even if the ill treatment of Gardiner and Bonner by Edward's council could be excused (and the latter by his rudeness might deserve some punishment), what can be said for the imprisonment of the bishops Heath and Day, worthy and moderate men, who had gone a great way with the reformation, but objected to the removal of altars, an innovation by no means necessary, and which should have been deferred till the people had grown ripe for further change? Mr. Southey says, "Gardiner and Bonner were deprived of their sees and imprisoned: but _no rigour was used towards them_." _Book of the Church_, ii. 111. Liberty and property being trifles!

[138] The doctrines of the English church were set forth in 42 articles, drawn up, as is generally believed, by Cranmer and Ridley, with the advice of Bucer and Martyr, and perhaps of c.o.x. The three last of these, condemning some novel opinions, were not renewed under Elizabeth, and a few other variations were made; but upon the whole there is little difference, and none perhaps in those tenets which have been most the object of discussion. See the original Articles in Burnet, ii. App. N.

55. They were never confirmed by a convocation or a parliament, but imposed by the king's supremacy on all the clergy, and on the universities. His death however, ensued before they could be actually subscribed.

[139] Strype's _Cranmer_, Appendix, p. 9. I am sorry to find a respectable writer inclining to vindicate Cranmer in this protestation, which Burnet admits to agree better with the maxims of the casuists than with the prelate's sincerity: Todd's Introduction to _Cranmer's Defence of the True Doctrine of the Sacrament_ (1825), p. 40. It is of no importance to enquire, whether the protest were made publicly or privately. Nothing can possibly turn upon this. It was, on either supposition, unknown to the promisee, the pope at Rome. The question is, whether, having obtained the bulls from Rome on an express stipulation that he should take a certain oath, he had a right to offer a limitation, not explanatory, but utterly inconsistent with it? We are sure that Cranmer's views and intentions, which he very soon carried into effect, were irreconcilable with any sort of obedience to the pope; and if, under all the circ.u.mstances, his conduct was justifiable, there would be an end of all promissory obligations whatever.

[140] The character of Cranmer is summed up in no unfair manner by Mr.

C. Butler, _Memoirs of English Catholics_, vol. i. p. 139; except that his obtaining from Anne Boleyn an acknowledgment of her supposed pre-contract of marriage, having proceeded from motives of humanity, ought not to incur much censure, though the sentence of nullity was a mere mockery of law.--Poor Cranmer was compelled to subscribe not less than six recantations. Strype (iii. 232) had the integrity to publish all these, which were not fully known before.

[141] Burnet, ii. 6.

[142] There are two curious entries in the Lords' Jour., 14th and 18th of November 1549, which point out the origin of the new code of ecclesiastical law mentioned in the next note: "Hodie questi sunt episcopi, contemni se a plebe, audere autem nihil pro potestate sua administrare, eo quod per publicas quasdam denuntiationes quas proclamationes vocant, sublata esset penitus sua jurisdictio, adeo ut neminem judicio sistere, nullum scelus punire, neminem ad aedem sacram cogere, neque caetera id genus munia ad eos pertinentia exequi auderent.

Haec querela ab omnibus proceribus non sine moerore audita est; et ut quam citissime huic malo subveniretur, injunctum est episcopis ut formulam aliquam statuti hac de re scriptam traderent: quae si consilio postea praelecta omnibus ordinibus probaretur, pro lege omnibus sententiis sanciri posset.

"18 November. Hodie lecta est billa pro jurisdictione episcoporum et aliorum ecclesiasticorum, quae c.u.m proceribus, _eo quod episcopi nimis sibi arrogare viderentur_, non placeret, visum est deligere prudentes aliquot viros utriusque ordinis, qui habita matura tantae rei inter se deliberatione, referrent toti consilio quid pro ratione temporis et rei necessitate in hac causa agi expediret." Accordingly, the Lords appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Ely, Durham, and Lichfield, Lords Dorset, Wharton, and Stafford, with Chief Justice Montague.

[143] It had been enacted, 3 Edw. 6, c. 11, that thirty-two commissioners, half clergy, half lay, should be appointed to draw up a collection of new canons. But these, according to Strype, ii. 303 (though I do not find it in the act), might be reduced to eight, without preserving the equality of orders; and of those nominated in November 1551, five were ecclesiastics, three laymen. The influence of the former shows itself in the collection, published with the t.i.tle of _Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticm_, and intended as a complete code of protestant canon law. This was referred for revisal to a new commission; but the king's death ensued, and the business was never again taken up. Burnet, ii. 197; Collier, 326. The Latin style is highly praised; Cheke and Haddon, the most elegant scholars of that age, having been concerned in it. This however is of small importance. The canons are founded on a principle current among the clergy, that a rigorous discipline, enforced by church censures and the aid of the civil power, is the best safeguard of a christian commonwealth against vice. But it is easy to perceive that its severity would never have been endured in this country, and that this was the true reason why it was laid aside; not, according to the improbable refinement with which Warburton has furnished Hurd, because the old canon law was thought more favourable to the prerogative of the Crown. Compare Warburton's _Letters to Hurd_, p. 192, with the latter's _Moral and Political Dialogues_, p. 308, 4th edit.

The canons trench in several places on the known province of the common law, by a.s.signing specific penalties and forfeitures to offences, as in the case of adultery; and though it is true that this was all subject to the confirmation of parliament, yet the lawyers would look with their usual jealousy on such provisions in ecclesiastical canons. But the great sin of this protestant legislation is its extension of the name and penalties of heresy to the wilful denial of any part of the authorised articles of faith. This is clear from the first and second t.i.tles. But it has been doubted whether capital punishments for this offence were intended to be preserved. Burnet, always favourable to the reformers, a.s.serts that they were laid aside. Collier and Lingard, whose bias is the other way, maintain the contrary. There is, it appears to me, some difficulty in determining this. That all persons denying any one of the articles might be turned over to the secular power is evident. Yet it rather seems by one pa.s.sage in the t.i.tle, de judiciis contra haereses, c. 10, that infamy and civil disability were the only punishments intended to be kept up, except in case of the denial of the christian religion. For if a heretic were, as a matter of course, to be burned, it seems needless to provide, as in this chapter, that he should be incapable of being a witness, or of making a will. Dr. Lingard, on the other hand, says, "It regulates the delivery of the obstinate heretic to the civil magistrate, that he may _suffer death_ according to law." The words to which he refers are these: c.u.m sic penitus insederit error, et tam alte radices egerit, ut nec sententia quidem excommunicationis ad veritatem reus inflecti possit, tum consumptis omnibus aliis remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magistratus ablegetur _puniendus_. _Id._ t.i.t. c. 4.

It is generally best, where the words are at all ambiguous, to give the reader the power of judging for himself. But I by no means pretend that Dr. Lingard is mistaken. On the contrary, the language of this pa.s.sage leads to a strong suspicion that the rigour of popish persecution was intended to remain, especially as the writ de haeretico comburendo was in force by law, and there is no hint of taking it away. Yet it seems monstrous to conceive that the denial of predestination (which by the way is a.s.serted in this collection, t.i.t. de haeresibus, c. 22, with a shade more of Calvinism than in the articles) was to subject any one to be burned alive. And on the other hand, there is this difficulty, that Arianism, Pelagianism, popery, anabaptism, are all put on the same footing; so that, if we deny that the papist or free-willer was to be burned, we must deny the same of the anti-trinitarian, which contradicts the principle and practice of that age. Upon the whole, I cannot form a decided opinion as to this matter. Dr. Lingard does not hesitate to say, "Cranmer and his a.s.sociates perished in the flames which they had prepared to kindle for the destruction of their opponents."

Upon further consideration, I incline to suspect that the temporal punishment of heresy was intended to be fixed by act of parliament; and probably with various degrees, which will account for the indefinite word "puniendus."

Before I quit these canons, one mistake of Dr. Lingard's may be corrected. He says that divorces were allowed by them not only for adultery, but cruelty, desertion, and _incompatibility of temper_. But the contrary may be clearly shown, from t.i.t. de matrimonio, c. 11, and t.i.t. de divortiis, c. 12. Divorce was allowed for something more than incompatibility of temper; namely, _capitales inimicitiae_, meaning, as I conceive, attempts by one party on the other's life. In this respect, their scheme of a very important branch of social law seems far better than our own. Nothing can be more absurd than our modern _privilegia_, our acts of parliament to break the bond between an adulteress and her husband. Nor do I see how we can justify the denial of redress to women in every case of adultery and desertion. It does not follow that the marriage tie ought to be dissolved as easily as it is, at least by the rich, in the Lutheran states of Germany.

[144] Strype, _pa.s.sim_. Burnet, ii. 154; iii. Append. 200; Collier, 294, 303.

[145] Strype, Burnet. The former is more accurate.

[146] Burnet, 237, 246; 3 Strype, 10, 341. No part of England suffered so much in the persecution.

[147] _Amba.s.sades de Noailles_, v. ii. _pa.s.sim_. 3 Strype, 100.

[148] Strype, iii. 107. He reckons the emigrants at 800. _Life of Cranmer_, 314. Of these the most ill.u.s.trious was the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, first cousin of the queen. In the parliament of 1555, a bill sequestering the property of "the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk and others, contemptuously gone over the seas," was rejected by the Commons on the third reading. Journals, 6th December.

It must not be understood that all the aristocracy were supple hypocrites, though they did not expose themselves voluntarily to prosecution. Noailles tells us that the Earls of Oxford and Westmoreland, and Lord Willoughby, were censured by the council _for religion_; and it was thought that the former would lose his t.i.tle (more probably his hereditary office of chamberlain), which would be conferred on the Earl of Pembroke, v. 319. Michele, the Venetian amba.s.sador, in his Relazione del Stato d'Inghilterra, Lansdowne MSS. 840, does not speak favourably of the general affection towards popery. "The English in general," he says, "would turn Jews or Turks if their sovereign pleased; but the restoration of the abbey lands by the crown keeps alive a constant fear among those who possess them."--Fol. 176. This rest.i.tution of church lands in the hands of the Crown cost the queen 60,000 a year of revenue.

[149] Parker had extravagantly reckoned the number of these at 12,000, which Burnet reduces to 3000, vol. iii. 226. But upon this computation they formed a very considerable body on the protestant side. Burnet's calculation, however, is made by a.s.suming the ejected ministers of the diocese of Norwich to have been in the ratio of the whole; which, from the eminent protestantism of that district, is not probable; and Dr.

Lingard, on Wharton's authority, who has taken his ratio from the diocese of Canterbury, thinks they did not amount to more than about 1500.

[150] Burnet, ii. 298; iii. 245. But see Philips's _Life of Pole_, sect.

ix. _contra_; and Ridley's answer to this, p. 272. In fact, no scheme of religion would on the whole have been so acceptable to the nation, as that which Henry left established, consisting chiefly of what was called catholic in doctrine, but free from the grosser abuses and from all connection with the see of Rome. Arbitrary and capricious as that king was, he carried the people along with him, as I believe, in all great points, both as to what he renounced, and what he retained. Michele (Relazione, etc.) is of this opinion.

[151] No one of our historians has been so severe on Mary's reign, except on a religious account, as Carte, on the authority of the letters of Noailles. Dr. Lingard, though with these before him, has softened and suppressed, till this queen appears honest and even amiable. A man of sense should be ashamed of such partiality to his sect. Admitting that the French amba.s.sador had a temptation to exaggerate the faults of a government wholly devoted to Spain, it is manifest that Mary's reign was inglorious, her capacity narrow, and her temper sanguinary; that, although conscientious in some respects, she was as capable of dissimulation as her sister, and of breach of faith as her husband; that she obstinately and wilfully sacrificed her subjects' affections and interests to a misplaced and discreditable attachment; and that the words with which Carte has concluded the character of this unlamented sovereign, though little pleasing to men of Dr. Lingard's profession, are perfectly just: "Having reduced the nation to the brink of ruin, she left it, by her seasonable decease, to be restored by her admirable successor to its ancient prosperity and glory." I fully admit, at the same time, that Dr. Lingard has proved Elizabeth to have been as dangerous a prisoner, as she afterwards found the Queen of Scots.

[152] Strype, ii. 17; Burnet, iii. 263, and Append. 285, where there is a letter from the king and queen to Bonner, as if even he wanted excitement to prosecute heretics. The number who suffered death by fire in this reign is reckoned by Fox at 284, by Speed at 277, and by Lord Burghley at 290. Strype, iii. 473. These numbers come so near to each other, that they may be presumed also to approach the truth. But Carte, on the authority of one of Noailles's letters, thinks many more were put to death than our martyrologists have discovered. And the prefacer to Ridley's _Treatise de Coena Domini_, supposed to be Bishop Grindal, says that 800 suffered in this manner for religion. Burnet, ii. 364. I incline, however, to the lower statements.

[153] Burnet makes a very just observation on the cruelties of this period, that "they raised that horror in the whole nation, that there seems ever since that time such an abhorrence to that religion to be derived down from father to son, that it is no wonder an aversion so deeply rooted and raised upon such grounds, does upon every new provocation or jealousy or returning to it break out in most violent and convulsive symptoms."--P. 338. "Delicta majorum immeritus luis, _Romane_." But those who would diminish this aversion, and prevent these convulsive symptoms, will do better by avoiding for the future either such panegyrics on Mary and her advisers, or such insidious extenuations of her persecution as we have lately read, and which do not raise a favourable impression of their sincerity in the principles of toleration to which they profess to have been converted.

Noailles, who, though an enemy to Mary's government, must, as a catholic, be reckoned an unsuspicious witness, remarkably confirms the account given by Fox, and since by all our writers, of the death of Rogers, the proto-martyr, and its effect on the people. "Ce jour d'huy a este faite la confirmation de 'alliance entre le pape et ce royaume par un sacrifice publique et solemnel d'un docteur predicant nomme Rogerus, le quel a ete brule tout vif pour estre Lutherien; mais il est mort persistant en son opinion. A quoy le plus grand partie de ce peuple a pris tel plaisir, qu'ils n'ont eu crainte de luy faire plusieurs acclamations pour comforter son courage; et meme ses enfans y on a.s.siste, le consolant de telle facon qu'il semblait qu'on le menait aux noces."--V. 173.

[154] Strype, iii. 285.

CHAPTER III

ON THE LAWS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN RESPECTING THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

_Change of religion on the queen's accession._--The accession of Elizabeth, gratifying to the whole nation on account of the late queen's extreme unpopularity, infused peculiar joy into the hearts of all well-wishers to the Reformation. Child of that famous marriage which had severed the connection of England with the Roman see, and trained betimes in the learned and reasoning discipline of protestant theology, suspected and oppressed for that very reason by a sister's jealousy, and scarcely preserved from the death which at one time threatened her, there was every ground to be confident, that, notwithstanding her forced compliance with the catholic rites during the late reign, her inclinations had continued steadfast to the opposite side.[155] Nor was she long in manifesting this disposition sufficiently to alarm one party, though not entirely to satisfy the other. Her great prudence, and that of her advisers, which taught her to move slowly, while the temper of the nation was still uncertain, and her government still embarra.s.sed with a French war and a Spanish alliance, joined with a certain tendency in her religious sentiments not so thoroughly protestant as had been expected, produced some complaints of delay from the ardent reformers just returned from exile. She directed Sir Edward Karn, her sister's amba.s.sador at Rome, to notify her accession to Paul IV. Several catholic writers have laid stress on this circ.u.mstance as indicative of a desire to remain in his communion; and have attributed her separation from it to his arrogant reply, commanding her to lay down the t.i.tle of royalty, and to submit her pretentions to his decision. But she had begun to make alterations, though not very essential, in the church service, before the pope's behaviour could have become known to her; and the bishops must have been well aware of the course she designed to pursue, when they adopted the violent and impolitic resolution of refusing to officiate at her coronation.[156] Her council was formed of a very few catholics, of several pliant conformists with all changes, and of some known friends to the protestant interest. But two of these, Cecil and Bacon, were so much higher in her confidence, and so incomparably superior in talents to the other counsellors, that it was evident which way she must incline.[157] The parliament met about two months after her accession. The creed of parliament from the time of Henry VIII. had been always that of the court; whether it were that elections had constantly been influenced, as we know was sometimes the case, or that men of adverse principles, yielding to the torrent, had left the way clear to the partisans of power. This first, like all subsequent parliaments, was to the full as favourable to protestantism as the queen could desire: the first fruits of benefices, and, what was far more important, the supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, were restored to the Crown; the laws made concerning religion in Edward's time were re-enacted. These acts did not pa.s.s without considerable opposition among the lords; nine temporal peers, besides all the bishops, having protested against the bill of uniformity establis.h.i.+ng the Anglican liturgy, though some pains had been taken to soften the pa.s.sages most obnoxious to catholics.[158]

But the act restoring the royal supremacy met with less resistance; whether it were that the system of Henry retained its hold over some minds, or that it did not encroach, like the former, on the liberty of conscience, or that men not over-scrupulous were satisfied with the interpretation which the queen caused to be put upon the oath.

Several of the bishops had submitted to the Reformation under Edward VI.

But they had acted, in general, so conspicuous a part in the late restoration of popery, that, even amidst so many examples of false profession, shame restrained them from a second apostasy. Their number happened not to exceed sixteen, one of whom was prevailed on to conform; while the rest, refusing the oath of supremacy, were deprived of their bishoprics by the court of ecclesiastical high commission. In the summer of 1559, the queen appointed a general ecclesiastical visitation, to compel the observance of the protestant formularies. It appears from their reports that only about one hundred dignitaries, and eighty parochial priests, resigned their benefices, or were deprived.[159] Men eminent for their zeal in the protestant cause, and most of them exiles during the persecution, occupied the vacant sees. And thus, before the end of 1559, the English church, so long contended for as a prize by the two religions, was lost for ever to that of Rome.

_Acts of supremacy and uniformity._--These two statutes, commonly denominated the acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws, deemed by some one of the fundamental bulwarks, by others the reproach of our const.i.tution, which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents to the Romish church. By the former all beneficed ecclesiastics, and all laymen holding office under the Crown, were obliged to take the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or benefice; and it was rendered highly penal, and for the third offence treasonable, to maintain such supremacy by writing or advised speaking.[160] The latter statute trenched more on the natural rights of conscience; prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting goods and chattels for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third, the use by a minister, whether beneficed or not, of any but the established liturgy; and imposed a fine of one s.h.i.+lling on all who should absent themselves from church on Sundays and holidays.[161]

_Restraint of Roman catholic wors.h.i.+p in the first years of Elizabeth._--This act operated as an absolute interdiction of the catholic rites, however privately celebrated. It has frequently been a.s.serted that the government connived at the domestic exercise of that religion during these first years of Elizabeth's reign. This may possibly have been the case with respect to some persons of very high rank whom it was inexpedient to irritate. But we find instances of severity towards catholics, even in that early period; and it is evident that their solemn rites were only performed by stealth, and at much hazard. Thus Sir Edward Waldgrave and his lady were sent to the Tower in 1561, for hearing ma.s.s and having a priest in their house. Many others about the same time were punished for the like offence.[162] Two bishops, one of whom, I regret to say, was Grindal, write to the council in 1562, concerning a priest apprehended in a lady's house, that neither he nor the servants would be sworn to answer to articles, saying they would not accuse themselves; and, after a wise remark on this, that "papistry is like to end in anabaptistry," proceed to hint, that "some think that if this priest might be put to some kind of torment, and so driven to confess what he knoweth, he might gain the queen's majesty a good ma.s.s of money by the ma.s.ses that he hath said; but this we refer to your lords.h.i.+p's wisdom."[163] This commencement of persecution induced many catholics to fly beyond sea, and gave rise to those reunions of disaffected exiles, which never ceased to endanger the throne of Elizabeth.

It cannot, as far as appears, be truly alleged that any greater provocation had as yet been given by the catholics, than that of pertinaciously continuing to believe and wors.h.i.+p as their fathers had done before them. I request those who may hesitate about this, to pay some attention to the order of time, before they form their opinions.

The master mover, that became afterwards so busy, had not yet put his wires into action. Every prudent man at Rome (and we shall not at least deny that there were such) condemned the precipitate and insolent behaviour of Paul IV. towards Elizabeth, as they did most other parts of his administration. Pius IV., the successor of that injudicious old man, aware of the inestimable importance of reconciliation, and suspecting probably that the queen's turn of thinking did not exclude all hope of it, despatched a nuncio to England, with an invitation to send amba.s.sadors to the council at Trent, and with powers, as is said, to confirm the English liturgy, and to permit double communion; one of the few concessions which the more indulgent Romanists of that age were not very reluctant to make.[164] But Elizabeth had taken her line as to the court of Rome; the nuncio received a message at Brussels, that he must not enter the kingdom; and she was too wise to countenance the impartial fathers of Trent, whose labours had nearly drawn to a close, and whose decisions on the controverted points it had never been very difficult to foretell. I have not found that Pius IV., more moderate than most other pontiffs of the sixteenth century, took any measures hostile to the temporal government of this realm; but the deprived ecclesiastics were not unfairly anxious to keep alive the faith of their former hearers, and to prevent them from sliding into conformity, through indifference and disuse of their ancient rites.[165] The means taken were chiefly the same as had been adopted against themselves, the dispersion of small papers either in a serious or lively strain; but, the remarkable position in which the queen was placed rendering her death a most important contingency, the popish party made use of pretended conjurations and prophecies of that event, in order to unsettle the people's minds, and dispose them to antic.i.p.ate another re-action.[166]

Partly through these political circ.u.mstances, but far more from the hard usage they experienced for professing their religion, there seems to have been an increasing restlessness among the catholics about 1562, which was met with new rigour by the parliament of that year.[167]

_Statute of 1562._--The act ent.i.tled, "for the a.s.surance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions," enacts, with an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons, who had ever taken holy orders or any degree in the universities, or had been admitted to the practice of the laws, or held any office in their execution, should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered to them by a bishop, or by commissioners appointed under the great seal.

The penalty for the first refusal of this oath was that of a praemunire; but any person, who after the s.p.a.ce of three months from the first tender should again refuse it when in like manner tendered, incurred the pains of high treason. The oath of supremacy was imposed by this statute on every member of the House of Commons, but could not be tendered to a peer; the queen declaring her full confidence in those hereditary counsellors. Several peers of great weight and dignity were still catholics.[168]

_Speech of Lord Montague against it._--This harsh statute did not pa.s.s without opposition. Two speeches against it have been preserved; one by Lord Montagu in the House of Lords, the other by Mr. Atkinson in the Commons, breathing such generous abhorrence of persecution as some erroneously imagine to have been unknown to that age, because we rarely meet with it in theological writings. "This law," said Lord Montagu, "is not necessary; forasmuch as the catholics of this realm disturb not, nor hinder the public affairs of the realms, neither spiritual nor temporal.

They dispute not, they preach not, they disobey not the queen; they cause no trouble nor tumults among the people; so that no man can say that thereby the realm doth receive any hurt or damage by them. They have brought into the realm no novelties in doctrine and religion. This being true and evident, as it is indeed, there is no necessity why any new law should be made against them. And where there is no sore nor grief, medicines are superfluous, and also hurtful and dangerous. I do entreat," he says afterwards, "whether it be just to make this penal statute to force the subjects of this realm to receive and believe the religion of protestants on pain of death. This I say to be a thing most unjust; for that it is repugnant to the natural liberty of men's understanding. For understanding may be persuaded, but not forced." And further on: "It is an easy thing to understand that a thing so unjust, and so contrary to all reason and liberty of man, cannot be put in execution but with great incommodity and difficulty. For what man is there so without courage and stomach, or void of all honour, that can consent or agree to receive an opinion and new religion by force and compulsion; or will swear that he thinketh the contrary to what he thinketh? To be still, or dissemble, may be borne and suffered for a time--to keep his reckoning with G.o.d alone; but to be compelled to lie and to swear, or else to die therefore, are things that no man ought to suffer and endure. And it is to be feared rather than to die they will seek how to defend themselves; whereby should ensue the contrary of what every good prince and well advised commonwealth ought to seek and pretend, that is, to keep their kingdom and government in peace."[169]

_Statute of 1562 not fully enforced._--I am never very willing to admit as an apology for unjust or cruel enactments, that they are not designed to be generally executed; a pretext often insidious, always insecure, and tending to mask the approaches of arbitrary government. But it is certain that Elizabeth did not wish this act to be enforced in its full severity. And Archbishop Parker, by far the most prudent churchman of the time, judging some of the bishops too little moderate in their dealings with the papists, warned them privately to use great caution in tendering the oath of supremacy according to the act, and never to do so the second time, on which the penalty of treason might attach, without his previous approbation.[170] The temper of some of his colleagues was more narrow and vindictive. Several of the deprived prelates had been detained in a sort of honourable custody in the palaces of their successors.[171] Bonner, the most justly obnoxious of them all, was confined in the Marshalsea. Upon the occasion of this new statute, Horn, Bishop of Winchester, indignant at the impunity of such a man, proceeded to tender him the oath of supremacy, with an evident intention of driving him to high treason. Bonner, however, instead of evading this attack, intrepidly denied the other to be a lawful bishop; and, strange as it may seem, not only escaped all farther molestation, but had the pleasure of seeing his adversaries reduced to pa.s.s an act of parliament, declaring the present bishops to have been legally consecrated.[172]

This statute, and especially its preamble, might lead a hasty reader to suspect that the celebrated story of an irregular consecration of the first protestant bishops at the Nag's-head tavern was not wholly undeserving of credit. That tale, however, has been satisfactorily refuted: the only irregularity which gave rise to this statute consisted in the use of an ordinal, which had not been legally re-established.[173]

_Application of the emperor in behalf of the English catholics._--It was not long after the act imposing such heavy penalties on catholic priests for refusing the oath of supremacy, that the Emperor Ferdinand addressed two letters to Elizabeth, interceding for the adherents to that religion, both with respect to those new severities to which they might become liable by conscientiously declining that oath, and to the prohibition of the free exercise of their rites. He suggested that it might be reasonable to allow them the use of one church in every city.

And he concluded with an expression, which might possibly be designed to intimate that his own conduct towards the protestants in his dominions would be influenced by her concurrence in his request.[174] Such considerations were not without great importance. The protestant religion was gaining ground in Austria, where a large proportion of the n.o.bility as well as citizens had for some years earnestly claimed its public toleration. Ferdinand, prudent and averse from bigoted counsels, and for every reason solicitous to heal the wounds which religious differences had made in the empire, while he was endeavouring, not absolutely without hope of success, to obtain some concessions from the pope, had shown a disposition to grant further indulgences to his protestant subjects. His son, Maximilian, not only through his moderate temper, but some real inclination towards the new doctrines, bade fair to carry much farther the liberal policy of the reigning emperor.[175]

It was consulting very little the general interests of protestantism, to disgust persons so capable and so well disposed to befriend it. But our queen, although free from the fanatical spirit of persecution which actuated part of her subjects, was too deeply imbued with arbitrary principles to endure any public deviation from the mode of wors.h.i.+p she should prescribe. And it must perhaps be admitted that experience alone could fully demonstrate the safety of toleration, and show the fallacy of apprehensions that unprejudiced men might have entertained. In her answer to Ferdinand, the queen declares that she cannot grant churches to those who disagree from her religion, being against the laws of her parliament, and highly dangerous to the state of her kingdom; as it would sow various opinions in the nation to distract the minds of honest men, and would cherish parties and factions that might disturb the present tranquillity of the commonwealth. Yet enough had already occurred in France to lead observing men to suspect that severities and restrictions are by no means an infallible specific to prevent or subdue religious factions.

Camden and many others have a.s.serted that by systematic connivance the Roman catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's reign. But this is not reconcilable to many pa.s.sages in Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons hara.s.sed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea.[176] Students of the inns of court, where popery had a strong hold at this time, were examined in the star-chamber as to their religion, and on not giving satisfactory answers were committed to the Fleet.[177] The catholic party were not always scrupulous about the usual artifices of an oppressed people, meeting force by fraud, and concealing their heartfelt wishes under the mask of ready submission, or even of zealous attachment. A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to the times; and of these temporising conformists it cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their accustomed mode of wors.h.i.+p. It is an admitted fact, that the catholics generally attended the church, till it came to be reckoned a distinctive sign of their having renounced their own religion. They persuaded themselves (and the English priests, uninstructed and accustomed to a temporising conduct, did not discourage the notion) that the private observance of their own rites would excuse a formal obedience to the civil power.[178] The Romish scheme of wors.h.i.+p, though it attaches more importance to ceremonial rites, has one remarkable difference from the protestant, that it is far less social; and consequently the prevention of its open exercise has far less tendency to weaken men's religious a.s.sociations, so long as their individual intercourse with a priest, its essential requisite, can be preserved. Priests therefore travelled the country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish. There was not a county throughout England, says a catholic historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains in private families.[179] By stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking-places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their former splendour. The strong predilection indeed of mankind for mystery, which has probably led many to tamper in political conspiracies without much further motive, will suffice to preserve secret a.s.sociations, even where their purposes are far less interesting than those of religion. Many of these itinerant priests a.s.sumed the character of protestant preachers; and it has been said, with some truth, though not probably without exaggeration, that, under the directions of their crafty court, they fomented the division then springing up, and mingled with the anabaptists and other sectaries, in the hope both of exciting dislike to the establishment, and of instilling their own tenets, slightly disguised, into the minds of unwary enthusiasts.[180]

_Persecution of the catholics in the ensuing period._--It is my thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no better name,[181]

carried on against the English catholics, however it might serve to delude the government by producing an apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be safe to a.s.sert that a more conciliating policy would have altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar circ.u.mstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce. This remarkable posture of affairs affected all her civil, and still more her ecclesiastical policy. Her own t.i.tle to the crown depended absolutely on a parliamentary recognition. The act of 35 H. 8, c. 1 had settled the crown upon her, and thus far restrained the previous statute, 28 H. 8, c. 7, which had empowered her father to regulate the succession at his pleasure. Besides this legislative authority, his testament had bequeathed the kingdom to Elizabeth after her sister Mary; and the common consent of the nation had ratified her possession. But the Queen of Scots, niece of Henry by Margaret, his elder sister, had a prior right to the throne during Elizabeth's reign, in the eyes of such catholics as preferred an hereditary to a parliamentary t.i.tle, and was reckoned by the far greater part of the nation its presumptive heir after her decease. There could indeed be no question of this, had the succession been left to its natural course. But Henry had exercised the power with which his parliament, in too servile a spirit, yet in the plenitude of its sovereign authority, had invested him, by settling the succession in remainder upon the house of Suffolk, descendants of his second sister Mary, to whom he postponed the elder line of Scotland. Mary left two daughters, Frances and Eleanor. The former became wife of Grey, Marquis of Dorset, created Duke of Suffolk by Edward; and had three daughters--Jane, whose fate is well known, Catherine, and Mary. Eleanor Brandon, by her union with the Earl of c.u.mberland, had a daughter, who married the Earl of Derby. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, or rather after the death of the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, Lady Catherine Grey was by statute law the presumptive heiress of the crown; but according to the rules of hereditary descent, which the bulk of mankind do not readily permit an arbitrary and capricious enactment to disturb, Mary Queen of Scots, granddaughter of Margaret, was the indisputable representative of her royal progenitors, and the next in succession to Elizabeth.

_Elizabeth's unwillingness to decide the succession, or to marry._--This reversion, indeed, after a youthful princess, might well appear rather an improbable contingency. It was to be expected that a fertile marriage would defeat all speculations about her inheritance; nor had Elizabeth been many weeks on the throne, before this began to occupy her subjects'

minds.[182] Among several who were named, two very soon became the prominent candidates for her favour, the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Ferdinand, and Lord Robert Dudley, sometime after created Earl of Leicester; one recommended by his dignity and alliances, the other by her own evident partiality. She gave at the outset so little encouragement to the former proposal, that Leicester's ambition did not appear extravagant.[183] But her ablest counsellors who knew his vices, and her greatest peers who thought his n.o.bility recent and ill acquired, deprecated so unworthy a connection.[184] Few will pretend to explore the labyrinths of Elizabeth's heart; yet we may almost conclude that her pa.s.sion for this favourite kept up a struggle against her wisdom for the first seven or eight years of her reign. Meantime she still continued unmarried; and those expressions she had so early used, of her resolution to live and die a virgin, began to appear less like coy affectation than at first. Never had a sovereign's marriage been more desirable for a kingdom. Cecil, aware how important it was that the queen should marry, but dreading her union with Leicester, contrived, about the end of 1564, to renew the treaty with the Archduke Charles.[185] During this negotiation, which lasted from two to three years, she showed not a little of that evasive and dissembling coquetry which was to be more fully displayed on subsequent occasions.[186]

Leicester deemed himself so much interested as to quarrel with those who manifested any zeal for the Austrian marriage; but his mistress gradually overcame her misplaced inclinations; and from the time when that connection was broken off, his prospects of becoming her husband seem rapidly to have vanished away. The pretext made for relinquis.h.i.+ng this treaty with the archduke was Elizabeth's constant refusal to tolerate the exercise of his religion; a difficulty which, whether real or ostensible, recurred in all her subsequent negotiations of a similar nature.[187]