ourselves to be overwhelmed and drowned in the waters of schism, sects, and divisions." The Bishop of Chester, speaking upon the same subject, asked of whom those men, who in this and other points dissented from the Catholic Church, learned their doctrine? 66 They must needs answer," said he," that they learned it of the Germans. Of whom did the Germans learn it? Of Luther. Well, then, of whom did Luther learn it? He shall answer himself: he saith, that such things as he teacheth against the Mass and the blessed Sacrament of the Altar, he learned of Satan the Devil, at whose hands it is like he did also receive the rest of his doctrines. . . . So that we may be bold to stand in our doctrine against our adversaries, seeing that theirs is not yet fifty years old, and ours above fifteen hundred. They have, for authority and commendation of their religion, Luther and his schoolmaster before mentioned; we have for ours St. Peter and his master Christ." 2 The same prelate made an unlucky speech against the Bill for restoring the reformed Liturgy. "Christian charity," he said, taken away by it, in that the unity of the Church was broken; and, proceeding more unhappily, he said, "It is no money matter, but a matter of inheritance, . . . yea, a matter touching life and death; and damnation dependeth upon it. Here is it set before us, as the Scripture saith, Life and death, fire and water. If we put our hand into the one, we shall live; if it take hold of the other, we shall die. Now to discern which is life and which is death, which is fire that will burn, and which is water that will refresh and comfort us, is a great matter, and not easily perceived of every man."3 It required a front of brass to have ventured upon such a metaphor, while the autos-da-fe of the Marian persecution were fresh in remembrance.

4

was

The infamous persecutor, Story, went beyond this in the House of Commons. He boasted of the part he had taken, related with exultation how he had thrown a faggot in the face of an earwig, as he called him, who was singing psalms at the stake, and how he had thrust a thornbush under his feet to prick him: wished that he had done more; and said he only regretted that they should have laboured at the young and little twigs, when they ought to have struck at the root, . . . words by which J Strype's Annals, i. App. vi. 2 Ib. App. vii. 3 Ib. App. x. 4 Ib. i. p. 115.

Even this treason

it was understood that he meant the Queen. able insolence did not provoke the Government to depart from the temperate course which it had laid down. A public disputation was appointed, not, as in Mary's reign, to be concluded by burning those who differed in opinion from the ruling party, but with full liberty of speech, and perfect safety, for the Romish disputants. Upon Heath's motion, the Queen ordered that it should be managed in writing, as the best means for avoiding vain altercation: but when it came to the point, the Romanists, upon some difference concerning the manner of disputing, refused to dispute at all. For this contempt of the Privy Council, in whose presence they had met, they were fined. The truth was, that if they had been more confident in their own cause, they deemed it not allowable to bring such points in question before such judges. They seem also to have presumed upon the insecurity of the Queen's government, and upon her tolerant disposition. In the latter they were not deceived. Odious as the persecutors were, and in many respects amenable to the laws, she suffered no vindictive measures to be taken against them and the strongest mark which she manifested of her own displeasure, was in refusing to let Bonner kiss her hand. The Archbishop of York had refused to perform the ceremony of crowning her, because she forbade the host to be elevated in her presence; it was his office, Cardinal Pole having died a few hours after Queen Mary. Except Oglethorpe, of Carlisle, all the other Bishops, in like manner, refused, thereby giving the most audacious proof of determined disobedience.

;

But Elizabeth did not suffer herself to be moved, even by a just resentment, from the course of conduct which she thought best. When she was advised to punish these dangerous subjects, she replied, "Let us not follow our sister's example, but rather show that our reformation tendeth to peace and not to cruelty." She summoned them, with the other heads of the Clergy, and required them, in pursuance of the laws recently made for religion, and for restoring to the Crown its ancient right of supremacy, to take into serious consideration the affairs of the Church, and expel from it all schisms and superstitions. Heath answered, in the name of his brethren, by entreating her Strype's Annals, i. 147.

to call to mind the covenants between her sister and the holy See, wherein she had promised to depress heresy, binding herself and her successors, and her kingdom to accomplish it, under pain of perpetual ignominy and a curse. The Queen made answer, that it lay not in her sister's power to bind her and her realms to an usurped authority; that as Joshua declared, I and my house will serve the Lord, so she and her realm were resolved to serve Him; and that she would esteem, as enemies to God and to her, all her subjects who should own the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome. Without delay she then deprived the refractory Bishops, Kitchen of Landaff being the only one who conformed. There were but fourteen living, many having died in the great mortality at the close of the preceding reign. The survivors deceived themselves. They thought they had done the work of persecution so effectually, by taking off the heads of the reformed Clergy, that the Queen could not displace them, because she could not possibly supply their places. They knew not how many most able and excellent men had escaped their vengeance, and employed their years of exile or concealment in the severe study of divinity: "men," says a writer of that age, "who, coming forth of affliction and evils, were looked upon with contempt by the Romanists: simple men, without pontifical ornaments to set them out, but eminent for the integrity of their lives, the gravity of their behaviour, the greatness of their spirits, and finally, for their diligent search and accurate knowledge of Scripture, councils, orthodox fathers, and all ecclesiastical antiquity."

The vacant sees were filled by Parker, Grindal, Cox, Sands, Jewel, Parkhurst, Pilkington, and others; men worthy to be held in lasting remembrance and honour, who had either escaped, during the Marian persecution, by retiring to the Continent, or secreting themselves at home. It had been one chief cause of consolation to the martyrs, to think that so many of their brethren were safe, reserved, as they doubted not, for this great work. "Since there be in those parts with you, of students and ministers so good a number," said Ridley,' writing from his prison to Grindal at Frankfort, "now, therefore, care you not for us, otherwise than to wish that God's glory may be set forth by us. For whensoever God shall call us home, (as we look daily for

Fox, vol. iii. p. 373.

none other; but when it shall please God to say, Come!) you, blessed be God, are enow, through his aid, to light and set up again the lantern of his word in England." Gardiner had exerted his utmost vigilance to cut off all their supplies from home, vowing that " he would make them eat their own nails for very hunger, and then feed on their fingers' ends." But this was more than he was able to effect. They still communicated with their friends, and received assistance from them; and they met with exemplary hospitality in the reformed countries, more especially in Switzerland. Ridley's prophetic hope was now fulfilled. Three of the Protestant bishops returned from exile; ... Barlow, who, having been one of the first and ablest writers in this country against the Lutherans, saw reason afterwards to adopt their tenets in all things reasonable, and remained constant to them through evil and through good; Scory, and good old Miles Coverdale. By their hands Parker was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. This excellent Prelate had been Chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn, who, a little before her death, particularly2 commended her daughter Elizabeth to his care, "that she might not want his pious and wise counsel." His religious opinions he had imbibed from Bilney and Barnes; and his exemplary courage had been manifested during the Norfolk rebellion; when, at the imminent risk of his life, he preached to the rebels, from their own Oak of Reformation, upon the guilt and madness of their proceedings. Ridley, in inviting him to preach at St. Paul's Cross, (the post of honour in those days,) thus touched3 upon his qualifications: "I may have, if I would call without any choice, enow: but in some, alas, I desire more learning; in some a better judgement; in some more virtue and godly conversation; and in some more soberness and discretion. And he in whom all these do meet, shall not do well to refuse, in my judgement, to serve God in that place." During Mary's reign he had been deprived of his preferments, and was in great personal danger, living in concealment; strict search was made for him; and, in flying by night, he received a hurt by a fall from his horse, from which he never thoroughly recovered. He was now in the fifty

Fuller, b. viii. p. 35. "But threatened folk live long," says this pithy writer, "and before these banished men were brought to that short bill of fare, the bishop was first of all eaten up of worms himself."

2 Strype's Parker, vii,

3 Ibid. 29.

fourth year of his age, when Cecil and Sir Nicholas Bacon fixed upon him as the fittest man for the Primacy at this important time. Parker, with unaffected humility, sought to decline this great promotion, pleading, among other reasons for excuse, the injury which he had received in his fall. He told Bacon, on whose friendship he relied, that his wish was, to be enabled, by the revenue of some prebend without charge of cure, to occupy himself in dispensing God's word among the poor simple strayed sheep of God's fold in poor destitute parishes and cures; more meet, he said, for his decayed voice and small quality, than in theatrical and great audiences. Or that he might be stationed in the university, the state whereof was miserable, and where, if anywhere, he might perhaps do service, having long acquaintance and some experience in its affairs. And he entreated Bacon either to help that he might be quite forgotten, or so appointed, as not to be entangled with the concourse of the world in any public state of living. He prayed that their choice might neither light on an arrogant man, nor a faint-hearted, nor a covetous one: the first, he said, would sit in his own light, and discourage his fellows; the second would be too weak to commune with the adversaries, who would be the stouter upon his pusillanimity; and the third would not be worth his bread." But Elizabeth's wise ministers knew Parker's worth, and would admit of no excuse.

The Lord keeper Bacon, at the dissolution of the first Parliament, spoke of the enemies to the religion now re-established: "Among these," he said, "he comprehended as well those that were too swift, as those that were too slow; those that went before the law, or behind the law, as those who would not follow: for good government could not be where obedience failed, and both these alike broke the rule of obedience. These were they that, in all likelihood, would be the beginners and maintainers of factions and sects: the very mothers and nurses of all seditions and tumults. Of these, therefore, great heed should be taken; and upon their being found, sharp and severe corrections imposed, according to the order of law; and that without respect of persons, as upon the greatest adversaries to unity and concord, without which no commonwealth could long endure." The immediate danger was from the Romanists. But their policy at