Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 16

[308] Several ministers were deprived, in 1572, for refusing to subscribe the articles. Strype, ii. 186. Unless these were papists, which indeed is possible, their objection must have been to the articles touching discipline; for the puritans liked the rest very well.

[309] Neal, 187; Strype's _Parker_, 325. Parker wrote to Lord Burleigh (June 1573), exciting the council to proceed against some of those men who had been called before the star-chamber. "He knew them," he said, "to be cowards"--a very great mistake--"and if they of the privy council gave over, they would hinder her majesty's government more than they were aware, and much abate the estimation of their own authorities,"

etc. _Id._ p. 421; Cartwright's _Admonition_ was now prohibited to be sold. _Ibid._

[310] Neal, 210.

[311] Strype's _Annals_, i. 433.

[312] Strype's _Annals_, ii. 219, 232; _Life of Parker_, 461.

[313] Strype's _Life of Grindal_, 219, 230, 272. The archbishop's letter to the queen, declaring his unwillingness to obey her requisition, is in a far bolder strain than the prelates were wont to use in this reign, and perhaps contributed to the severity she showed towards him. Grindal was a very honest, conscientious man, but too little of a courtier or statesman for the place he filled. He was on the point of resigning the archbishopric when he died; there had at one time been some thoughts of depriving him.

[314] Strype's _Whitgift_, 27 _et alibi_. He did not disdain to reflect on Cartwright for his poverty, the consequence of a scrupulous adherence to his principles. But the controversial writers of every side in the sixteenth century display a want of decency and humanity which even our anonymous libellers have hardly matched. Whitgift was not of much learning, if it be true, as the editors of the _Biographia Britannica_ intimate, that he had no acquaintance with the Greek language. This must seem strange to those who have an exaggerated notion of the scholarship of that age.

[315] Strype's _Whitgift_, 115.

[316] Neal, 266; Birch's _Memoirs of Elizabeth_, vol. i. p. 42, 47, etc.

[317] According to a paper in the appendix to Strype's _Life of Whitgift_, p. 60, the number of conformable ministers in eleven dioceses, not including those of London and Norwich, the strongholds of puritanism, was 786, that of non-compliers 49. But Neal says that 233 ministers were suspended in only six counties, 64 of whom in Norfolk, 60 in Suffolk, 38 in Ess.e.x. P. 268. The puritans formed so much the more learned and diligent part of the clergy, that a great scarcity of preachers was experienced throughout this reign, in consequence of silencing so many of the former. Thus in Cornwall, about the year 1578, out of 140 clergymen, not one was capable of preaching. Neal, p. 245.

And, in general, the number of those who could not preach, but only read the service, was to the others nearly as four to one; the preachers being a majority only in London. _Id_. p. 320.

This may be deemed by some an instance of Neal's prejudice. But that historian is not so ill-informed as they suppose; and the fact is highly probable. Let it be remembered that there existed few books of divinity in English; that all books were, comparatively to the value of money, far dearer than at present; that the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices; above all, that they had no means of supplying their deficiences by preaching the discourses of others; and we shall see little cause for doubting Neal's statement, though founded on a puritan doc.u.ment.

[318] _Life of Whitgift_, 137 _et alibi pluries_; _Annals_, iii. 183.

[319] Neal, 274; Strype's _Annals_, iii. 180.

The germ of the high commission court seems to have been a commission granted by Mary (Feb. 1557) to certain bishops and others to inquire after all heresies, punish persons misbehaving at church, and such as refused to come thither, either by means of presentments by witness, or any other politic way they could devise; with full power to proceed as their discretions and consciences should direct them; and to use all such means as they could invent, for the searching of the premises, to call witnesses, and force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after. Burnet, ii. 347. But the primary model was the inquisition itself.

It was questioned whether the power of deprivation for not reading the common prayer, granted to the high commissioners, were legal; the Act of Uniformity having annexed a much smaller penalty. But it was held by the judges in the case of Cawdrey (5 c.o.ke Reports), that the act did not take away the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy which had ever appertained to the crown, and by virtue of which it might erect courts with as full spiritual jurisdiction as the archbishops and bishops exercised.

[320] Strype's _Whitgift_, 135; and Appendix, 49.

[321] _Id._ 157, 160.

[322] _Id._ 163, 166 _et alibi_; Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 62. There was said to be a scheme on foot, about 1590, to make all persons in office subscribe a declaration that episcopacy was lawful by the word of G.o.d, which Burleigh prevented.

[323] Neal, 325, 385.

[324] _Id._ 290; Strype's _Life of Aylmer_, p. 59, etc. His biographer is here, as in all his writings, too partial to condemn, but too honest to conceal.

[325] Neal, 294.

[326] Strype's _Aylmer_, 71. When he grew old, and reflected that a large sum of money would be due from his family, for dilapidations of the palace at Fulham, etc., he literally proposed to sell his bishopric to Bancroft. _Id._ 169. The other, however, waited for his death, and had above 4000 awarded to him; but the crafty old man having laid out his money in land, this sum was never paid. Bancroft tried to get an act of parliament in order to render the real estate liable, but without success. P. 194.

[327] _Somers' Tracts_, i. 166.

[328] Bacon's Works, i. 532.

[329] Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 146,

[330] _Id. ibid._ Burleigh does not shine much in these memoirs; but most of the letters they contain are from the two Bacons, then engaged in the Ess.e.x faction, though nephews of the treasurer.

[331] The first of Martin Mar-prelate's libels were published in 1588.

In the month of November of that year the archbishop is directed by a letter from the council to search for and commit to prison the authors and printers. Strype's _Whitgift_, 288. These pamphlets are scarce; but a few extracts from them may be found in Strype, and other authors. The abusive language of the puritan pamphleteers had begun several years before. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 193. See the trial of Sir Richard Knightley of Northamptonshire for dispersing puritanical libels. _State Trials_, i. 1263.

[332] 23 Eliz. c. 2.

[333] Penry's protestation at his death is in a style of the most affecting and simple eloquence. _Life of Whitgift_, 409, and Appendix 176. It is a striking contrast to the coa.r.s.e abuse for which he suffered. The authors of Martin Mar-prelate were never fully discovered; but Penry seems not to deny his concern in it.

[334] _State Trials_, 1271. It may be remarked on this as on other occasions, that Udal's trial is evidently published by himself; and a defendant, especially in a political proceeding, is apt to give a partial colour to his own case. _Life of Whitgift_, 314; _Annals of Reformation_, iv. 21; Fuller's _Church History_, 122; Neal, 340. This writer says: "Among the divines who _suffered death_ for the libels above mentioned, was the Rev. Mr. Udal." This is no doubt a splenetic mode of speaking. But Warburton, in his short notes on Neal's history, treats it as a wilful and audacious attempt to impose on the reader; as if the ensuing pages did not let him into all the circ.u.mstances. I will here observe that Warburton, in his self-conceit, has paid a much higher compliment to Neal than he intended, speaking of his own comments as "a full confutation (I quote from memory) of that historian's false facts and misrepresentations." But when we look at these, we find a good deal of wit and some pointed remarks, but hardly anything that can be deemed a material correction of facts.

Neal's _History of the Puritans_ is almost wholly compiled, as far as this reign is concerned, from Strype, and from a ma.n.u.script written by some puritan about the time. It was answered by Madox, afterwards bishop of Worcester, in a _Vindication of the Church of England_, published anonymously in 1733. Neal replied with tolerable success; but Madox's book is still an useful corrective. Both, however, were, like most controversialists, prejudiced men, loving the interests of their respective factions better than truth, and not very scrupulous about misrepresenting an adversary. But Neal had got rid of the intolerant spirit of the puritans, while Madox labours to justify every act of Whitgift and Parker.

[335] _Life of Whitgift_, 328.

[336] _Id._ 336, 360, 366, Append. 142, 159.

[337] _Id._ Append. 135; _Annals_, iv. 52.

[338] This predilection for the Mosaic polity was not uncommon among the reformers; Collier quotes pa.s.sages from Martin Bucer as strong as could well be found in the puritan writings. P. 303.

[339] _Life of Whitgift_, p. 61, 333, and Append. 138; _Annals_, iv.

140. As I have not seen the original works in which these tenets are said to be promulgated, I cannot vouch for the fairness of the representation made by hostile pens, though I conceive it to be not very far from the truth.

[340] _Ibid_. Madox's _Vindication of the Ch. of Eng. against Neal_, p.

212; Strype's _Annals_, iv. 142.

[341] The large views of civil government entertained by the puritans were sometimes imputed to them as a crime by their more courtly adversaries, who reproached them with the writings of Buchanan and Languet. _Life of Whitgift_, 258; _Annals_, iv. 142.

[342] See a declaration to this effect, at which no one could cavil, in Strype's _Annals_, iv. 85. The puritans, or at least some of their friends, retaliated this charge of denying the queen's supremacy on their adversaries. Sir Francis Knollys strongly opposed the claims of episcopacy, as a divine inst.i.tution, which had been covertly insinuated by Bancroft, on the ground of its incompatibility with the prerogative, and urged Lord Burleigh to make the bishops acknowledge they had no superiority over the clergy, except by statute, as the only means to save her majesty from the extreme danger into which she was brought by the machinations of the pope and King of Spain. _Life of Whitgift_, p.

350, 361, 389. He wrote afterwards to Lord Burleigh in 1591, that if he might not speak his mind freely against the power of the bishops, and prove it unlawful, by the laws of this realm, and not by the canon law, he hoped to be allowed to become a private man. This bold letter he desires to have shown to the queen. _Lansdowne Catalogue_, vol. lxviii.

84.

[343] D'Ewes, 302; Strype's _Whitgift_, 92, Append. 32.

[344] D'Ewes, 339 _et post_; Strype's _Whitgift_, 176, etc., Append. 70.

[345] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 228.

[346] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 186, 192. Compare Append. 35.

[347] Strype's _Whitgift_, 279; _Annals_, iii. 543.

[348] _Parl. Hist._ 921.

[349] Strype's _Whitgift_, 521, 537, App. 136. The archbishop could not disguise his dislike to the lawyers. "The temporal lawyer," he says in a letter to Cecil, "_whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at home_, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travel in that barbarous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are at this day many examples."--P. 215.

[350] Strype's _Whitgift_, and D'Ewes, _pa.s.sim_. In a convocation held during Grindal's sequestration (1580), proposals for reforming certain abuses in the spiritual courts were considered; but nothing was done in it. Strype's _Grindal_, p. 259, and Appendix, p. 97. And in 1594, a commission to enquire into abuses in the spiritual courts was issued; but whether this were intended _bona fide_ or not, it produced no reformation. Strype's _Whitgift_, 419.