Note 275 — Chapter IV

One of the injunctions to the visitors of 1559, reciting the offence and slander to the church that had arisen by lack of discreet and sober behaviour in many ministers, both in choosing of their wives, and in living with them, directs that no priest or deacon shall marry without the allowance of the bishops, and two justices of the peace, dwelling near the woman's abode, nor without the consent of her parents or kinsfolk, or, for want of these, of her master or mistress, on pain of not being permitted to exercise the ministry, or hold any benefice; and that the marriages of bishops should be approved by the metropolitan, and also by commissioners appointed by the queen. Somers Tracts, i. 65; Burnet, ii. 398. It is reasonable to suppose, that when a host of low-bred and illiterate priests were at once released from the obligation to celibacy, many of them would abuse their liberty improvidently, or even scandalously; and this probably had increased Elizabeth's prejudice against clerical matrimony. But I do not suppose that this injunction was ever much regarded. Some time afterwards (Aug. 1561) she put forth another extraordinary injunction, that no member of a college or cathedral should have his wife living within its precincts, under pain of forfeiting all his preferments. Cecil sent this to Parker, telling him at the same time that it was with great difficulty he had prevented the queen from altogether forbidding the marriage of priests. Life of P. 107. And the archbishop himself says, in the letter above mentioned, "I was in a horror to hear such words to come from her mild nature and Christianly learned conscience, as she spake concerning God's holy ordinance and institution of matrimony.