Note 569 — Chapter IV

Dr. Gee (Elizabethan Ornaments, etc. p. 131) thinks that there can be no reasonable doubt that the rubric was recorded on the authority of the Privy Council. “The Privy Council had certainly inserted the Black Rubric in 1552, as their published Acts attest, but all the records of the Privy Council from 13th May 1559 until 28th May 1562 have disappeared.” The precedent cited is scarcely a parallel case. The Black Rubric was an explanation; the Rubric of 1559 is almost a contradiction in terms of the Act which restores the Prayer-Book of 1552. If I may venture to express an opinion, it seems to me most likely that the rubric was added by the Queen herself, and that she inserted it in order to be able to “hedge.” It is too often forgotten that the danger which overshadowed the earlier years of Elizabeth was the issue of a papal Bull proclaiming her a heretic and a bastard, and inviting Henry II. of France to undertake its execution. The Emperor would never permit such a Bull if Elizabeth could show reasonable pretext that she and her kingdom held by the Lutheran type of Protestantism. An excommunication pronounced in such a case would have invalidated his own position, which he owed to the votes of Lutheran Electors. In the middle of the sixteenth century the difference between the different sections of Christianity was always estimated in the popular mind by differences in public worship, and especially in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. All over Germany the Protestant was distinguished from the Romanist by the fact that he partook of the communion in both “kinds.” Elizabeth had definitely ranged herself on the Protestant side from Easter Day 1559; and a more or less ornate ritual could never explain away the significance of this fact. The great difference between the Lutherans and the Calvinists to the popular mind was that the former retained and the latter discarded most of the old ceremonial. Luther says expressly: “Da lassen wyr die Messgewand, altar, liechter noch bleyben” (Daniel, Codex Liturgicus Ecclesiæ, Lutheranæ, p. 105); and crosses, vestments, lights, and an altar appear in regular Lutheran fashion whenever the Queen wished to place herself and her land under the shield of the Augsburg Peace. This rubric was a remarkably good card to play in the diplomatic game.