VOLUME IX SLICE IV England to English Finance (continued 5)

Henry, while changing many things in the church, would not allow any deviation in essentials from the religion of Catholic Europe, which was not then so dogmatically defined as it was later by the council of Trent. Edward VI. was a child, and the Protector Somerset and the council favoured further changes, which were carried out with Cranmer’s help. They issued a book of Homilies and a set of injunctions which were enforced by a royal visitation. Pictures and much painted glass were destroyed in churches, frescoed walls were whitewashed, and in 1548, the removal of all images was decreed. Parliament ordered that bishops should be appointed by letters patent and hold their courts in the king’s name. An act of the last reign granting the king all chantries and gilds was enlarged and enforced with cruel injustice to the poor. On the petition of convocation parliament allowed the marriage of priests; and it further ordered that the laity should receive the cup in communion. A communion book was issued by the council in English, the Latin mass being retained for a time. Many German reformers came to England, were favoured by the council, and gained influence over Cranmer. The first Book of Common Prayer was authorized by an Act of Uniformity in 1549; it retained much from old service books, but the communion office is Lutheran in character. It excited discontent, and a serious insurrection broke out in the West, the insurgents demanding the revival of the Act of the Six Articles and the withdrawal of the new service as “like a Christmas game.” After Somerset’s fall the government rapidly pushed forward reformation. A new Ordinal issued with parliamentary approval in 1550 was significant of the change in sacramental doctrine, and the four minor orders disappeared. Altars were destroyed and tables substituted. Five bishops, Bonner of London, Gardiner of Winchester, and Heath of Worcester, then already in prison, and two others, were deprived; and the Lady Mary, who would not give up the mass, was harshly treated. The reformers were not tolerant; for a woman was burnt for Arianism in 1550 and a male Anabaptist in 1551. Under the influence of foreign reformers, who took a lower view of the Eucharist than the Lutheran divines, Cranmer soon advanced beyond the prayer-book of 1549. A second prayer-book, departing further from the old order, appeared in 1552, and without being accepted by convocation was enforced by another Act of Uniformity, and in 1553 a catechism and forty-two articles of religion were authorized by Edward for subscription by the clergy, though not laid before convocation. A revision of the canon law in accordance with the act for “submission of the clergy” was at last undertaken in 1551, but the only result was a document entitled Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, which never received authority. Edward died in 1553. Apart from matters of faith, the church had fared ill under a royal supremacy exercised by self-seeking nobles in the name of the boy-king. Convocation lost all authority and bishops were treated as state officials liable to deprivation for disobedience to the council. Means of worship were diminished, and the poor were shamefully wronged by the suppression of chantries, gilds and holy days; even the few sheep of the poor brethren of a gild were seized to swell a sum which from 1550 was largely diverted from public purposes to private gain. Churches were despoiled of their plate; the old bishops were forced, the new more easily persuaded, to give up lands belonging to their sees, and rich men grew richer by robbing God.

When Mary succeeded her brother, the deprived bishops were restored, some reforming bishops were imprisoned, and Cranmer, who was implicated in the plot on behalf of Lady Jane Grey, was attainted of treason. As regards doctrine, religious practices and papal supremacy, Mary was set on bringing back her realm to the position existing before her father’s quarrel with Rome. Her first parliament repealed the ecclesiastical legislation of Edward’s reign, and convocation formally accepted transubstantiation. Seven bishops were deprived in 1554, four of them as married, and about a fifth of the beneficed clergy, though some received other benefices after putting away their wives. Apparently Mary at first believed that her authority would be accepted in religious matters; but she met with opposition, partly provocative, for Wyat’s rebellion consequent on her intended marriage to Philip of Spain was closely connected with religion, and more largely passive in the noble resolution of those who chose martyrdom rather than denial of their faith. To the nation at large, though not averse from the old doctrines and practices of the church, a return to the Roman obedience was distasteful. Nevertheless, Cardinal Pole was received as legate, and the title of Supreme Head of the Church having been dropped, a parliament carefully packed, and the fears of the rich appeased by the assurance that they would not have to surrender the monastic lands, he absolved the nation in parliament and reunited it to the Church of Rome on November 30, 1554, the clergy being absolved in convocation. Parliament repealed all acts against the Roman see since the twentieth year of Henry VIII. The heresy laws were revived, and a horrible persecution of those who refused to disown the doctrines of the prayer-book began in 1555, and lasted during the remainder of the reign. Nearly 300 persons were burned to death as heretics in these four years, among them being five bishops: Hooper of Gloucester, Ferrar of St David’s, Ridley of London, and Latimer (until 1539) of Worcester in 1555, and Archbishop Cranmer in 1556. The chief responsibility for these horrors rests with the queen; the bishops who examined the accused were less zealous than she desired. The most prominent among them in persecution was Bonner of London. The exiles for religion were received at Frankfort, Strassburg and Zürich. At Frankfort a party among them objected to the ceremonies retained in the prayer-book, and, encouraged by Calvin and by Knox, who came to them from Geneva, quarrelled with those who desired to keep the book unchanged. Mary died in 1558. Her reign arrested the rapid spoliation of the church and possibly prevented the adoption of doctrines which would have destroyed its apostolic character; the persecution by which it was disgraced strengthened the hold of the reformed religion on the people and made another acceptance of Roman supremacy for ever impossible.

Elizabeth’s accession was hailed with pleasure; she was known to dislike her sister’s ecclesiastical policy, and a change was expected. An Act of Supremacy restored to the crown the authority over the church held by Henry Elizabethan settlement. VIII., and provided for its exercise by commissioners, whence came the court of High Commission nominated by the crown, as a high ecclesiastical court; but Elizabeth rejected the title of Supreme Head, and used that of Supreme Governor, as “over all persons and in all cases within her dominions supreme.” An Act of Uniformity prescribed the use of the prayer-book of 1552 in a revised form which raised the level of its doctrine, and injunctions enforced by a royal visitation re-established the reformed order. All the Marian bishops save two refused the oath of supremacy and were deprived, and eight were imprisoned. Of the clergy generally few refused it; for only some 200 were deprived for religion during the first six years of the reign. Bishops for the vacant sees were nominated by the crown and elected by their chapters as in Henry’s reign; Matthew Parker was canonically consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. The orthodoxy of the church was vindicated by Bishop Jewel’s Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae. Adherents to Rome vainly tried to obtain papal sanction for attending the church services, and were forced either to disobey the pope or become “recusants”; many were fined, and those who attended mass were imprisoned. Meanwhile a party, soon known as Puritans, rebelled against church order; the exiles who had come under Genevan influence objecting on their return to vestments and ceremonies enjoined by the prayer-book. There was much nonconformity in the church which the queen ordered the bishops to correct. Parker, though averse to violent measures, insisted on obedience to his “Advertisements” of 1566, which, though not formally authorized by the queen, expressed her will, and became held as authoritative, and some of the refractory were punished. A company engaged in irregular worship was discovered in London in 1567 and a few persons were imprisoned by the magistrate. Active opposition to the government was stirred up by Pius V., and in 1569 a rebellion in the north, where the old religion was strong, was aided by papal money and encouraged by hopes of Spanish intervention. In 1570 Pius published a bull excommunicating and deposing the queen. Thenceforward recusants had to choose between loyalty to the queen and loyalty to the pope. They lay under suspicion, and severe penal laws were enacted against Romish practices. About 1579 many seminary priests and Jesuits came over to England as missionaries; some actively engaged in treason, all were legally traitors. The country was threatened with foreign invasion, plots against the government were detected, and the queen’s life was held to be endangered. The council hunted down these priests and their abettors, and many were executed, martyrs to the doctrine of the pope’s power of deposition. The number put to death in this reign under the penal laws was 187. The papal policy defeated itself; a large number of the old religion while retaining their faith chose to be loyal to the queen rather than lend themselves to the designs of her enemies. From 1571 recusants can no longer be reckoned as nonconforming members of the English Church: the law recognized them as separate from it. The church’s doctrine was defined in the catechism of 1570, and in the revised articles of religion which appeared as the XXXIX. Articles in 1571, and its law by a body of canons published with authority in 1576, the attempt at codification made in the Reformatio legum having been laid aside.

From 1574 the Protestant Nonconformists strove to introduce Presbyterianism. Cause for grievance existed in the state of the church which had suffered from the late violent changes. Elizabeth plundered it, and laymen who The Nonconformists. owned the rectories formerly held by monasteries followed her example; bishoprics were impoverished by the queen and parish cures by her subjects, and the reform of abuses was checked by self-interest. As bishops, along with some able men, Elizabeth chose others of an inferior stamp who consented to the plunder of their sees and whom she could use to report on recusants and harry nonconformists. Separation, or Independency, began about 1578 with the followers of Robert Browne, who repudiated the queen’s ecclesiastical authority; two Brownists were executed in 1583. The nonconformists remained in the church and continued their efforts to subvert its episcopal system. Elizabeth, though personally little influenced by religion, understood the political value of the church, and would allow no slackness in enforcing conformity. Archbishop Grindal was sequestrated for defending “prophesyings,” or meetings of the Puritan clergy for religious exercises. The House of Commons, in which there was a Puritan element, repeatedly attempted to discuss church questions and was sharply silenced by the queen, who would not allow any interference in ecclesiastical matters. Whitgift, who succeeded Grindal in 1583, though kind-hearted, was strict in his administration of the law. Violent attacks were made upon the bishops in the Martin Marprelate tracts printed by a secret press; their author is unknown, but some who were probably connected with them were executed for publishing seditious libels. Whitgift’s firmness met with success. During the last years of the reign the movement towards Presbyterianism was checked and nonconformity was less prominent. The church regained a measure of orderliness and vigour; its claims on allegiance were advocated by eminent divines and expounded in the stately pages of Hooker. The queen, who had so vigorously ordered ecclesiastical affairs, died in 1603.

On the accession of James I. the Puritans expressed their desire for ecclesiastical change in the Millenary Petition which purported to come from 1000 clergy; their requests were moderate, a sign of the success of Whitgift’s The Puritan rebellion. policy, but some could not have been granted without causing widespread dissatisfaction. At a conference between divines of the two parties at Hampton Court in 1604, James roughly decided against the Puritans. Some small alterations were made in the prayer-book, and a new version of the Bible was undertaken, which appeared in 1611 as the “authorized version.” In 1604 convocation framed a code of canons which received royal authorization. Refusal to obey them was punished with deprivation, and, according to S. R. Gardiner, about 300 clergy were deprived, though a 17th century writer (Peter Heylyn) puts the number at 49 only, which W. H. Frere (History of the English Church, 1558-1625, p. 321) thinks more credible. Conformity could still be enforced, but before long the Puritan party grew in strength partly from religious and partly from political causes. They would not admit any authority in religion that was not based on the scriptures; their opponents maintained that the church had authority to ordain ceremonies not contrary to the scriptures. In doctrine the Puritans remained faithful to the Calvinism in which most Englishmen of the day had been brought up; they called the high churchmen Arminians, and asserted that they were inclined to Rome. The Commons became increasingly Puritan; they were strongly Protestant and demanded the enforcement of the laws against recusants, who suffered much, specially after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, though they were sometimes shielded by the king. The Commons regarded ecclesiastical jurisdiction with dislike, specially the Court of High Commission, which had developed from the ecclesiastical commissions of Elizabeth and was hated as a means of coercion based on prerogative. The bishops derived their support from the king, and the church in return supported the king’s claim to absolutism and divine right. It suffered heavily from this alliance. As men saw the church on the side of absolutism, Puritanism grew strong both among the country gentry, who were largely represented in the Commons, and among the nation at large, and the church lost ground through the king’s political errors. A restoration of order and decency in worship and the introduction of more ceremonial begun in James’s reign were carried on by Laud (q.v.) under Charles I. Laud aimed at silencing disputes about doctrine and enforcing outward uniformity; the Puritans hated ceremonial and wished to make every one accept their doctrines. Many of the reforms introduced by Laud after he became archbishop in 1633 were needful, but they offended the Puritans and were enforced in a harsh and tyrannical manner, for he lacked wisdom and sympathy. Under his rule nonconforming clergy were deprived and sometimes imprisoned. The cruel punishments inflicted by the Court of Star Chamber of which he was a member, the unpopularity of the High Commission Court, his own harsh dealing, and the part which he took in politics as a confidential adviser of the king, combined to bring odium upon him and upon the ecclesiastical system which he represented. The church was weak, for the Laudian system was disliked by the nation. A storm of discontent with the course of affairs both in church and state gathered. In 1640 Charles, after dissolving parliament, prolonged the session of convocation, which issued canons magnifying the royal authority and imposing the so-called “et cetera oath” against innovations on all clergy, graduates and others. The Long Parliament voted the canons illegal; Laud was imprisoned, and in 1642 the bishops were excluded from parliament. The civil war began in 1642; in 1643 a bill was passed for the taking away of episcopacy, in 1645 Laud was beheaded, and parliament abolished the prayer-book and accepted the Presbyterian directory, and from 1646 Presbyterianism was the legal form of church government. Many, perhaps 2000, clergy were deprived; some were imprisoned and otherwise maltreated, though a fifth of their former revenues was assigned to the dispossessed. The king, who was beheaded in 1649, might have extricated himself from his difficulties if he had consented to the overthrow of episcopacy, and may therefore be held a martyr to the church’s cause. The victory of the army over the parliament secured England against the tyranny of Presbyterianism, but did not better the condition of the episcopal clergy; the toleration insisted on by the Independents did not extend to “prelacy.” Churchmen, however, occasionally enjoyed the ministrations of their own clergy in private houses, and though their worship was sometimes disturbed they were not seriously persecuted for engaging in it. Non-delinquent or non-sequestrated private patronage and the obligation of tithes were retained. Community of suffering and the execution of Charles I. brought the royalist country gentry into sympathy with the clergy, and at the Restoration the church had the hold upon the affection of the laity which it lacked under the Laudian rule.

On the king’s restoration the survivors of the ejected clergy quietly regained their benefices. The Presbyterians helped to bring back the king and looked for a reward. Charles II. promised them a limited episcopacy and other The Restoration period. concessions, but his plan was rejected by the Commons. A conference at the Savoy between leading Presbyterians and churchmen in 1661 was ineffectual, and a revision of the prayer-book by convocation further discontented nonconformists. The parliament of 1661 was violently anti-Puritan, and in 1662 passed an Act of Uniformity providing that all ministers not episcopally ordained or refusing to conform should be deprived on St Bartholomew’s day, the 14th of August following. About 2000 ministers are said to have been ejected, and in 1665 ejected ministers were forbidden to come within five miles of their former cures. Though some bishops and clergy showed kindness to the ejected, churchmen generally approved of this oppressive legislation; they could not forget the wrongs inflicted on their church by the once triumphant Puritans. Nonconformist worship was made punishable by fine and imprisonment, and on the third offence by transportation. In 1672 Charles, who had secretly promised the French king openly to profess Roman Catholicism, issued a Declaration of Indulgence which applied both to Romanists and Protestant Nonconformists, but parliament compelled him to withdraw it, and, in 1673, passed a Test Act making reception of the holy communion and a denial of transubstantiation necessary qualifications for public office. Later, when the dissenters found friends among the party in parliament opposed to the crown, the church supported the king, and the doctrine of passive obedience was generally accepted by the clergy. The church was popular, and among the great preachers and theologians who adorned it in the Caroline period were Jeremy Taylor, Pearson, Bull, Barrow, South and Stillingfleet. The lower clergy were mostly poor, and their social position was consequently often humble, but the pictures of clerical humiliation after 1660 are generally overcoloured; the assertion that they commonly married servants or cast-off mistresses of their patrons has been disproved, and it is certain that men of good family entered holy orders. In accordance with an agreement between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Clarendon, the clergy ceased to tax themselves in convocation, and from 1665 have been taxed by parliament. James II., though a Romanist, promised to protect the church, and the clergy were on his side in the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth, who was supported by dissenters. The church and the nation, however, were strongly Protestant and were soon alarmed by his efforts to Romanize the country. James dispensed with the law by prerogative and appointed Romanists to offices in defiance of the Test Act. In 1688 he ordered that his declaration for liberty of conscience, issued in the interest of Romanism, should be read in all churches. His order was almost universally disobeyed. Archbishop Sancroft and six bishops who remonstrated against it were brought to trial, and were acquitted to the extreme delight of the nation. James’s attack on the church cost him his crown.

Sancroft and eight bishops would not belie their belief in the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience by swearing allegiance to William and Mary, and the archbishop, five bishops and over 400 clergy were deprived. Revolution period. Certain of these nonjuring bishops consecrated others and a schism ensued. The loss to the church was heavy; for among the nonjurors were many men of holy lives and eminent learning, and the fact that some suffered for conscience’ sake seemed a reproach on the rest of the clergy. After 1715 the secession became unimportant. Protestantism was secured from further royal attack by the Bill of Rights; and in 1701 the Act of Succession provided that all future sovereigns should be members of the Church of England. That the king’s title rested on a parliamentary decision was destructive of the clerical theory of divine right, and encouraged Erastianism, then specially dangerous to the church; for William, a Dutch Presbyterian, gave bishoprics to men personally worthy, but more desirous of union with other Protestant bodies than jealous for the principles of their own church. A bill for union was rejected in the Commons, where the church party had a majority, though one for toleration of Protestant dissenters became law. William, anxious for concessions to dissenters, appointed a committee of convocation for altering the liturgy, canons and ecclesiastical courts, but the Tory party in the lower house of convocation was strong and the scheme was abortive. A long controversy began between the two houses: the bishops were mostly Whigs with latitudinarian tendencies, the lower clergy Tories and high churchmen. During most of the reign convocation was suspended and the church was governed by royal injunctions, a system injurious to its welfare. It had been the bulwark of the nation against Romanism under James II., and the affection of the nation enabled it to preserve its distinctive character amid dangers of an opposite kind under William III. Its religious life was active; associations for worship and the reformation of manners led to more frequent services, the establishment of schools for poor children, and the foundation of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.) and for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S.P.G.). This activity and the discord between the two houses of convocation continued during Anne’s reign. Anne was a strong church-woman, and under her the church reached its highest point of popularity and influence. Its supposed interests were used by the Tories for political ends. Hence the Occasional Conformity Act, to prevent evasion of the Test Act, and a tyrannical Schism Act, both repealed in 1718, belong rather to the history of parties than to that of the church. So, too, does the case of Dr Sacheverell, who was prosecuted for a violently Tory sermon. His trial, in 1710, caused much excitement; mobs shouted for “High Church and Dr Sacheverell,” and the lightness of his sentence was hailed as a Tory victory. Queen Anne is gratefully remembered by the church for her “Bounty,” which gave it the first-fruits and tenths (see Annates and Queen Anne’s Bounty).

With the accession of the Hanoverian line the church entered on a period of feeble life and inaction: many church fabrics were neglected; daily services were discontinued; holy days were disregarded; Holy Communion was The 18th century. infrequent; the poor were little cared for; and though the church remained popular, the clergy were lazy and held in contempt. In accepting the settlement of the crown the clergy generally sacrificed conviction to expediency, and their character suffered. Promotion largely depended on a profession of Whig principles: the church was regarded as subservient to the state; its historic position and claims were ignored, and it was treated by politicians as though its principal function was to support the government. This change was accelerated by the silencing of convocation. A sermon by Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, impugned the existence of a visible church, and the “Bangorian controversy” which ensued threatened to end in the condemnation of his opinions by convocation, or at least by the lower house. As this would have weakened the government, convocation was prorogued, letters of business were withheld, and from 1717 until 1852 convocation, the church’s constitutional organ of reform, existed only in name. Walpole during his long ministry, from 1721 to 1742, discouraged activity in the church lest it should become troublesome to his government. Preferment was shamelessly sought after even by pious men, and was begged and bestowed on the ground of political services. In this the clergy, apart from the sacredness of clerical office, were neither better nor worse than the laity; in morality and decency they were better even at the lowest point of their decline, about the middle of the century. While the church was inactive in practical work, it showed vigour in the intellectual defence of Christianity. Controversies of earlier origin with assailants of the faith were ably maintained by, among others, Daniel Waterland, William Law, a nonjuror, Bishop Butler, whose Analogy appeared in 1736, and Bishop Berkeley. A revival of spirituality and energy at last set in. Its origin has been traced to Law’s Serious Call, published in 1728. Law’s teaching was actively carried out by John Wesley (q.v.), a clergyman who from 1739 devoted himself to evangelization. Though his preaching awoke much religious feeling, specially among the lower classes, the excitement which attended it led to a horror of religious enthusiasm, and his methods irritated the parochial clergy. Some of them seconded his efforts, but far more regarded them with violent and often unworthily expressed dislike. While he urged his followers to adhere to the church, he could not himself work in subordination to discipline; the Methodist organization which he founded was independent of the church’s system and soon drifted into separation. Nevertheless, he did much to bring about a revival of life in the church. Several clergy became his allies, and some preached in Lady Huntingdon’s chapels before her secession. These were among the fathers of the Evangelical party: they differed from the Methodists in not forming an organization, remaining in the church, working on the parochial system, and generally holding Calvinistic doctrine, being so far nearer to Whitfield than to Wesley, though Calvinism gradually ceased to be a mark of the party. The Evangelicals soon grew in number, and their influence for good was extensive. They laid stress on the depravity of human nature, and on the importance of conscious conversion, giving prominence to the necessity of personal salvation rather than of incorporation with, and abiding in, the church of the redeemed. Prominent among their early leaders after they became distinct from the Methodists were William Romaine, Henry Venn and John Newton. Bishop Porteus of London sympathized with them, Lord Dartmouth was a liberal patron, and Cowper’s poetry spread their doctrines in quarters where sermons might have failed to attract. Religion was also forwarded in the church by the example of George III. During his reign the progress of toleration, though slow and fitful, greatly advanced both as regards Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters. The spirit of rationalism, which had been manifested earlier in attacks on revelation, appeared in a movement against subscription to the Articles demanded of the clergy and others which was defeated in parliament in 1772. The alarm consequent on the French Revolution checked the progress of toleration and was temporarily fatal to free-thinking; it strengthened the position of the church, which was regarded as a bulwark of society against the spread of revolutionary doctrines; and this caused the Evangelicals to draw off more completely from the Methodists. The church was active: the Sunday-school movement, begun in 1780, flourished; the crusade against the slave-trade was vigorously supported by Evangelicals; and the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), a distinctly Evangelical organization, was founded. Excellent as were the results of the revival generally, the Evangelicals had defects which tended to weaken the church. Some characteristics of their teaching were repellent to the young; they were deficient in theological learning, and often in learning of any kind; they took a low view of the church, regarding it as the offspring of the Protestant reformation; they expounded the Bible without reference to the church’s teaching, and paid little heed to the church’s directions. Dissent consequently grew stronger. By the Act of Union with Ireland the Churches of England and Ireland were united from the 1st of January 1801, and the continuance of the united church was declared an essential part of the union. No provision, however, was made giving the Irish clergy a place in convocation, which was evidently held unlikely to revive. The union of the churches was dissolved in 1871 by an act of 1869 for disestablishing the Irish Church.

Apart from the Evangelical revival, religion was advanced in the church. In 1811 the education of the poor was provided for on church principles by the National Society; the Church Building Society was founded in 1818; and the The Oxford Movement. colonial episcopate was started by the establishment of bishoprics in Calcutta in 1814, and in Jamaica and Barbados in 1824. Yet reforms were urgently needed. In 1813, out of about 10,800 benefices, 6311 are said to have been without resident incumbents (The Black Book, p. 34); the value of some great offices was enormous, while many of the parochial clergy were wretchedly poor. The repeal of the Test Act, long practically inoperative, in 1828, and Catholic emancipation in 1829, mark a change in the relations of church and state; and the Reform Bill of 1832 transferred political power from a class which generally supported the church to classes in which dissent was strong. The national zeal for reform was directed towards the church, not always in a friendly spirit. Yet wholesome changes were effected by legislation: dioceses were rearranged and two new bishoprics founded at Manchester and Ripon, the bishopric of Bristol, however, being suppressed; plurality and non-residence were abolished; tithes were commuted, and the Ecclesiastical Commission, which has effected reforms in respect of endowments, was permanently established in 1836. Some changes and proposals alarmed churchmen, specially as legislation for the church proceeded from parliament, while convocation remained silenced. Latitudinarian opinions revived, and the church was regarded merely as a human institution. Among the clergy generally ritual observance was neglected and rubrical directions disobeyed. A few churchmen, including Keble and Newman, set themselves to revive church feeling, and Oxford became the centre of a new movement. The publication of Keble’s Christian Year prepared its way, and its aims were declared in his assize sermon at Oxford on “National Apostasy” in 1833. Its promoters urged their views in Tracts for the Times, and were strengthened by the adhesion of Pusey. Hence they were nicknamed Tractarians or Puseyites. Their cardinal doctrine was that the Church of England was a part of the visible Holy Catholic Church and had unbroken connexion with the primitive church; they inculcated high views of the sacraments, and emphasized points of agreement with those branches of the Catholic Church which claim apostolic succession. Their party grew in spite of the opposition of low and broad churchmen, who, specially on the publication of Tract XC. by Newman in 1841, declared that its teaching was Romanizing. In 1845 Newman and several others seceded to Rome. Newman’s apostasy was a severe blow to the church, though permanent injury was averted by the steadfastness of Pusey. The Oxford movement was wrecked, but its effect survived both in the new high church party and in the church at large. As a body the clergy rated more highly the responsibilities and dignity of their profession, and became more zealous in the performance of its duties and more ecclesiastically minded. High churchmen carried out rubrical directions, and after a while began to introduce changes into the performance of divine service which had not been adopted by the early leaders of the party, were deprecated by many bishops, and excited opposition.

In 1833 the supreme jurisdiction of the Court of Delegates was transferred to the judicial committee of the privy council. Before this court came an appeal by a clerk named Gorham, whom the bishop of Exeter refused to institute to a benefice The church and the law courts. because he denied unconditional regeneration in baptism, and in 1850 the court decided in the appellant’s favour. The decision was followed by some secessions to Rome, and high churchmen were dissatisfied that spiritual questions should be decided by a secular court. The “papal aggression” of that year, by which Pius IX. appeared to claim authority in England, roused violent popular indignation which was used against the high church party. However, it afforded an argument for the revival of convocation, and, chiefly owing to the exertions of Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, convocation again met in 1852 (see Convocation). Meanwhile broad church opinions were gaining ground to some extent owing to a reaction from the Oxford movement. Among the clergy the broad church party was comparatively small, but it included some men of mark. In 1860 appeared Essays and Reviews, a volume of essays by seven authors, of whom six were in orders. The book as a whole had a rationalistic tendency and was condemned by convocation: two of the essayists were suspended by the Court of Arches, but its judgment was reversed by the judicial committee. Crude attacks on the authority of the Scriptures and the position of the English Church with respect to it having been published by Colenso, bishop of Natal, he was deposed by his metropolitan, Bishop Gray of Cape Town, in 1863, but the judicial committee decided that the bishop of Cape Town had no coercive jurisdiction over Natal. Convocation declared Colenso’s books erroneous, abstaining in face of this judgment from acknowledging as valid the excommunication which Bishop Gray pronounced against him. It followed from the decision of the council that the English Church in a self-governing colony is a voluntary association. Opposition to the dogmatic principle in the church was maintained. Some practices introduced by clergy desirous of bringing the services of the church to a higher level came before the judicial committee in the case of Westerton v. Liddell in 1857, with a result encouraging to the ritualists, as they then began to be called. An increase in ritual usages, such as eucharistic vestments, altar lights and incense, followed. In 1859-1860 disgraceful riots took place at St George’s-in-the-East, London, where an advanced ritual was used. In 1860 the English Church Union was formed mainly to uphold high church doctrine and ritual, and assist clergy prosecuted for either cause, and in 1865 the Church Association, mainly to put down such doctrine and ritual by prosecution. A royal commission appointed in 1867 recommended that facilities should be granted for enabling parishioners aggrieved by ritual to gain redress, and in 1870 that a revised lectionary and a shortened form of service should be provided. A new lectionary was approved by the two convocations and enacted, and convocation having received letters of business in 1872 and 1874 drew up a shortened form of prayer which was also enacted, but the commission had no further direct results. Between 1867 and 1871 two decisions of the judicial committee were adverse to the ritualists, and by exciting dislike to the court among high churchmen indirectly led to an increase in ritual usages. Among those who adopted them were many self-devoted men; their practices, which they believed to be incumbent on them, were condemned as illegal, yet they saw the rubrics daily disregarded with impunity by others who trod the easy path of neglect. In 1873 a declaration against sacramental confession received the assent of the bishops, and in 1874 Archbishop Tait of Canterbury introduced a bill for enforcing the law on the ritualist clergy; it was transformed in committee, and was enacted as the Public Worship Regulation Act. It provided for the appointment of a new judge in place of the old ecclesiastical judges, the officials principal, of the two provinces. Litigation increased, the only check on prosecutions being the right of the bishop to veto proceedings, and in 1878-1881 four clergymen were imprisoned for disobedience to the orders of courts against whose jurisdiction they protested. In consequence of the scandal raised by this mode of dealing with spiritual causes, a royal commission on ecclesiastical courts was appointed in 1881, but its report in 1883 led to no results, and the bishops strove to mend matters by exercising their veto. Advanced and illegal usages became more frequent. Proceedings in respect of illegal ritual having been instituted against Bishop King of Lincoln, the archbishop of Canterbury (Benson) personally heard and decided the case in 1890, and his judgment was upheld by the judicial committee (see Lincoln Judgment). The spiritual character of the tribunal and the authority of the judgment which sanctioned certain usages and condemned others, had a quieting effect. Increase in ritualism, however, caused agitation in 1898, and in 1899 and 1900 the two archbishops, Temple of Canterbury and Maclagan of York, delivered “opinions” condemning the use of incense and processional lights, and the reservation of the consecrated elements. Finding himself unable to put down illegal practices, Bishop Creighton of London adopted a policy of compromise which was followed by other bishops, and encouraged illegality. Disregard of law both in excess and defect of ritual being common, a royal commission on ecclesiastical discipline was appointed in 1904. The commissioners presented a unanimous report in 1906, its chief recommendations being, briefly, that practices significant of doctrines repugnant to those of the English Church should be extirpated; that the convocations should prepare a new ornaments rubric, and frame modifications in the conduct of divine service; that the diocesan and provincial courts and the court of final appeal should be reformed in accordance with the recommendations of 1883, the last to consist of a permanent body of lay judges who on all doubtful questions touching the doctrine or use of the church should be bound by the decision of an episcopal assembly; that the Public Worship Regulation Act should be repealed, and the bishops’ power of veto abolished.

Since the Oxford movement the church has developed wonderful energy. Yet it is beset with difficulties and dangers both from within and without. Within, besides difficulties as regards ritual, it has to contend against Present life. rationalism, which has been stimulated by scientific discoveries and speculations, and far more by Biblical criticism. While this criticism has been used by many as a means to a fuller comprehension of divine revelation, much of it is simply destructive, and has led to ill-considered expressions of opinion adverse to the doctrine of the church. From without, the church has been threatened with disestablishment both wholly and as regards the dioceses within the Welsh counties; and the education of the poor, which from early days depended on its care, has largely been taken out of its hands (see Education). The amount contributed by the church to elementary education, including the maintenance of Sunday schools, in 1907-8 was £576,012. During the last sixty years the church has strengthened its hold on the loyalty of the nation by its increased efficiency. Its bishops are laborious and active. Since 1876 the home episcopate has been increased by the creation of the dioceses of Truro, St Albans, Liverpool, Newcastle, Southwell, Wakefield, Bristol, Southwark and Birmingham, so that there are now (1910) thirty-seven diocesan bishops, aided by twenty-eight suffragan and eight assistant bishops, and a further subdivision of dioceses is contemplated. At no other time probably have the clergy been so industrious. As a rule they are far better instructed in theology than forty years ago, but they have not advanced in secular learning. Changes in the university system have contributed to draw off able young men to other professions which offer greater worldly advantages. The poverty of many of the clergy stands in strong contrast to the wealth around them. Of 14,242 benefices 4704 are said to be below £200 a year net value. The value of £100 tithe rent charge has sunk (1909) to £69: 18 : 5¼, the average value since the Commutation Act of 1836 being £94 : 3 : 2¾. The number of assistant clergy is (1910) about 7500, in spite of the hardships often attending clerical life, the supply of men being kept up. The Queen Victoria Clergy Fund and other voluntary associations and various educational institutions have been founded to relieve clerical distress. In the church at home there is much energy in numberless directions: cathedral churches have become centres of religious activity, and in parish churches the administration of the Holy Communion and weekday services are frequent. Many of the laity co-operate in church work and liberally support it. During the years 1898-1907 598 churches were built or rebuilt, and during twenty-four years, 1884-1907, the voluntary offerings for church building were £27,612,709, and for endowments and parsonages £6,116,592, yet church extension fails to keep pace with the increase of the population. Evangelistic efforts, the relief of the sick and poor, and the inculcation of temperance are zealously carried on. Good work is done by twenty-six sisterhoods and several institutions of deaconesses, and one or two communities of celibate clergy. In the British colonies and India the episcopate consists (1909) of seven archbishops with two coadjutors; there are also seventy diocesan bishops, and in other parts of the world thirty missionary bishops. The S.P.G. has 847 ordained ministers, including thirty chaplains in Europe, besides many female missionaries; the C.M.S. has 793 ordained ministers, and many other missionaries of both sexes; the Zenana Missionary Society has a staff of 1288; other church societies for foreign missions are vigorous, and the S.P.C.K. in addition to its work at home spends large sums in furthering the church abroad. The benefits arising from conference have increasingly been valued since the revival of convocation. Appreciation of the importance of lay support and counsel has led to the institution of two voluntary elective assemblies called Houses of Laymen, one for each province, and in 1905 an association of the four houses of convocation and the two lay assemblies was formed with the name of the Representative Church Council. During the last forty years diocesan conferences, in which the laity are represented, have become universal, while ruridecanal and other meetings of a like kind are general. An annual church congress, established in 1861, held its forty-ninth meeting in 1909. Of wider importance are the Lambeth conferences, held since 1878 at intervals of ten years, to which the bishops of the English Church and the churches in communion with it are invited, and meet under the presidency of the archbishop of Canterbury. The first of these conferences, which illustrate the dignity of the see founded by St Augustine and now the head of a vast quasi-patriarchate, was held under the presidency of Archbishop Longley in 1867 (see Lambeth Conferences and Anglican Communion).

Authorities.—General Histories, Narrative: J. Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain (to 1685), ed. T. Lathbury (9 vols., London, 1852); T. Fuller, Church History (to 1648), ed. J. S. Brewer (Oxford, 1845), valuable near the author’s own time; C. Dodd, Church History of England (to 1625, by a Roman Catholic), ed. M. A. Tierney (5 vols., London, 1839-1843); Dean W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (to 1663) (12 vols., London, 1860-1879); G. G. Perry, Students’ English Church History (to 1884) (London, 1887), a carefully written book; A History of the English Church, ed. Stephens and Hunt, in 8 vols., noticed below under various periods; H. O. Wakeman, An Introduction to the History of the Church of England (London, 1896), a brightly written manual by a pronounced high churchman. Documents: D. Wilkins, Concilia (446-1717) (4 vols. fol., London, 1737), a splendid work; A. W. Haddan and Bishop W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (3 vols., Oxford, 1869-1873), supersedes Wilkins so far as it goes, but deals with English Church only to 870, with Welsh, Scottish and Cumbrian churches to later dates; H. Gee and W. J. Hardy, Documents of English Church History (to 1700) (London, 1896), useful for students. Constitutional: Bishop W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England (parts of) (3 vols., revised ed., Oxford, 1895-1897), a work of great learning; F. Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England, from the German (London, 1895); F. W. Maitland, Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (London, 1898), authoritative. (See under Convocation.)

From 597: Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. C. Plummer (2 vols., Oxford, 1896), the primary authority to 731, trans. by J. A. Giles (Bohn’s Library) and others; see also Eddi’s contemporary “Vita Wilfridi,” in Historians of York, ed. James Raine, Rolls series (3 vols., 1879-1894); W. Bright, Early English Church History (to 709) (3rd ed., Oxford, 1897), a learned and beautiful book; articles in Dictionary of Christian Biography (to 9th century), ed. W. Smith and H. Wace (4 vols., London, 1877-1887). Later Anglo-Saxon: In Chronicles and biographies, as Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Two of the Saxon Chronicles, ed. C. Plummer (2 vols., 1892), trans. by B. Thorpe, Rolls series (1861), and others; Asser, Life of Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), trans. by Giles; Memorials of Dunstan, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls series (1874). Modern: J. Lingard, History of the Anglo-Saxon Church (2 vols., London, 2nd ed., printed 1858); W. Hunt, History of the English Church, 597-1066, ed. Stephens and Hunt (London, revised ed., 1901).

For later medieval times: (1) Chroniclers, &c., after 1066, as Florence of Worcester, ed. B. Thorpe, Eng. Hist. Soc. (2 vols., 1878), trans. by J. Stevenson in Church Historians (London, 1853); Symeon of Durham, ed. T. Arnold, Rolls series (2 vols., 1882); Eadmer (for Archbishop Anselm), ed. M. Rule, Rolls series (1884); William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, &c. (to 1152), ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls series (2 vols., 1887), and Gesta pontificum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls series (1870); (John of Salisbury?) Historia pontificalis (for Archbishop Theobald, 1139-1161), ed. Pertz, Rerum Germ. scriptt. xx.; Materials for the Life of Archbishop Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson, Rolls series (7 vols., 1875-1885); Giraldus Cambrensis (12th century), Gemma ecclesiastica and Speculum ecclesiae, Works ii. and iv., ed. J. S. Brewer, Rolls series (1862, 1873); Matthew Paris, Chronica majora (to 1259), ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls series (7 vols., 1880-1883), and many more. (2) Letters, as Archbishop Lanfranc, Epistolae, ed. Giles (Oxford, 1844); Archbishop Anselm, Epistolae, ed. Migne (Paris, 1863); Robert Grosseteste, Epistolae, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls series (1861), and others. (3) Bishops’ Registers, as Registrum J. Peckham (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1279-1292), ed. C. T. Martin, Rolls series (3 vols., 1882-1886); Exeter Registers, ed. Hingeston-Randolph (5 vols., 1889); Registers of Bishops Drokensford and Ralph of Shrewsbury, ed. W. H. Dickinson and T. S. Holmes, Somerset Record Soc. (3 vols., 1887, 1895-1896), and others. For Wycliffe and early Lollards see Wycliffe. R. Pecock, Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy, ed. C. Babington, Rolls series (2 vols., 1860); and T. Gascoigne, Loci e libro veritatum, ed. J. T. Rogers (Oxford, 1881), which gives ample notices of abuses, should be consulted for 15th century. Modern books: W. R. W. Stephens, The English Church, 1066-1272 (revised edition, 1904), and W. W. Capes, The English Church in the 14th and 15th Centuries (1900), both ed. Stephens and Hunt (London); J. Raine, Archbishops of York (ends at 1373) (London, 1863); F. A. Gasquet, Henry III. and the Church (London, 1905). Biographical: Dean R. W. Church, Anselm (London, 1870); M. Rule, Life and Times of St Anselm (written from a Roman Catholic standpoint) (2 vols., London, 1883); C. de Rémusat, Vie de S. Anselme (Paris, 1868); G. G. Perry, St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln (London, 1879); F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (London, 1899), and others.

For the Reformation Period: Documentary: Notices in Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., ed. J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, R. H. Brodie, Record Publ. (19 vols., 1862-1905), and Calendars of State Papers for Henry VIII., Edward VI., ed. R. Lemon (1856) and M. A. Green (1870), for Mary, ed. Lemon (1856), Record Publ., and for Elizabeth, Hatfield MSS., Hist. MSS. Comm.; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. J. R. Dasent (1890), in progress; Records of the Reformation, ed. N. Pocock (2 vols., Oxford, 1870); E. Cardwell, Documentary Annals (Oxford, 1839); Original Letters, ed. H. Ellis (11 vols., 1824-1846); Zurich Letters (2 vols.), Original Letters (2 vols.), ed. Robinson (1842-1847); Latimer’s Sermons (1844), and Archbishop Parker’s Correspondence, ed. J. Bruce and T. T. Perowne, all Parker Soc. Publ., Cambridge; see also General Index to Parker Soc.’s Publ. (1855); R. Pole (Cardinal), Epistolae, ed. Quirini (5 vols., Brescia, 1744-1757); G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes, &c.; Elizabeth and James I. (3rd ed., Oxford, 1906). Supplementary: Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (6 vols., 1513-1556); Annals (Elizabeth) (7 vols.); Memorials of Cranmer (2 vols.); Lives of Parker (3 vols.), Grindal, Whitgift (3 vols.), all with a large repertory of documents, also of Cheke, T. Smith and Aylmer (all Oxford, 1820-1824); Burnet, History of the Reformation, ed. N. Pocock (7 vols., Oxford, 1865), with many documents. Chronicles and early Histories: W. Camden, Annales (Elizabeth), ed. T. Hearne (3 vols., 1717); Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, ed. J. G. Nichols (Camden Soc., 1850); E. Hall, Chronicle (Henry VIII.), ed. C. Whibley (2 vols., London, 1904); N. Harpsfield, Treatise on the Pretended Divorce of Henry VIII., ed. N. Pocock (Camden Soc., 1878); J. Foxe, Acts and Monuments (often called “The Book of Martyrs”), ed. S. R. Cattley and G. Townsend (a book with many facts industriously gathered, many documents and some errors) (8 vols., London, 1843-1849); H. Machyn, Diary (1550-1563), and Narratives of the Reformation, both ed. J. G. Nichols (Camden Soc., 1854, 1859); W. Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, ed. S. Singer (1817), and other editions, a beautiful book by More’s son-in-law; N. Sander, De origins ac progressu schismatis Anglicani, continued by E. Rishton (Rome, 1586), translated by D. Lewis (London, 1877) (Sander was a Roman Catholic priest who wrote in 1576; his language is violent but the narrative generally trustworthy); The Presbyterian Movement in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. R. G. Usher (R. Hist. Soc., 1905). Modern histories: J. H. Blunt, History of the English Reformation (London, 1878), a careful work, though of no great historical importance; T. E. Bridgett, Life of Blessed John Fisher (London, 1888); R. W. Dixon, History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (5 vols., London, 1878-1892), a book showing great knowledge and insight; V. M. Doreau, Henry VIII et les martyres de la Chartreuse (Paris, 1890); H. Fisher, History of England 1485-1547, presents a brilliant and trustworthy narrative of ecclesiastical affairs during the reign of Henry VIII., and forms vol. v. of the Political History of England, ed. W. Hunt and R. L. Poole (London, 1906); P. Friedmann, Anne Boleyn (London, 1884), an important work; W. H. Frere, History of the English Church, 1558-1625, ed. W. R. W. Stephens and W. Hunt (1904), scholarly; J. A. Froude, History of England (1527-1588), a work of literary beauty, research and historical grasp, from an anti-ecclesiastical standpoint, with some blemishes, but of increasing value after the reign of Henry VIII. (12 vols., London, 1856-1870, cheap editions, 1881-1882, 1893); J. Gairdner, History of the English Church, Henry VIII. to Mary, ed. Stephens and Hunt (London, 1902), by the highest authority on the period; H. E. Jacobs, The Lutheran Movement in England (Philadelphia, 1890), chiefly on progressive doctrinal change; A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII. (London, with illustrations 1902, with references 1905), an excellent general history of the reign, England under Protector Somerset (London, 1900), and Life of Cranmer (London, 1904). For Rebellion Period: Contemporary and early: State Papers, Domestic, 1625-1649, ed. J. Bruce, W. D. Hamilton, Mrs S. C. Lomas (23 vols.), from 1649, ed. E. Green (13 vols.), and Calendars of Committees for Plundered Ministers, &c., all Record Publ.; Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, ed. S. R. Gardiner (Oxford, 1899); J. Evelyn, Diary, ed. A. Dobson (3 vols., London, 1906); also ed. W. Bray and ed. H. B. Wheatley; J. Hacket, Scrinia reserata, Life of Archbishop Williams (London, 1715); P. Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicanus, Life of Archbishop Laud (Dublin, 1668); W. Laud, Works, ed. W. Scott and W. Bliss, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (7 vols., Oxford, 1847-1860); J. Milton, various Prose Works, ed. C. Symmons (7 vols., London, 1806); Puritan Visitations of Oxford, ed. M. Burrows (Camden Soc., 1881). Later: W. H. Hutton, History of the English Church, 1625-1714, ed. Stephen and Hunt (London, 1903), and William Laud (London, 1895); S. R. Gardiner, History of England, under various titles, 1603-1657 (London, 1863-1903), and cr. 8vo edition begun 1883, a work of vast research and learning, contains fair and careful accounts of religious matters; D. Masson, Life of Milton (7 vols., London, 1859-1894); D. Neal, History of the Puritans, ed. J. Toulmin (3 vols., 1837); W. A. Shaw, The English Church, 1640-1660 (2 vols., London, 1900), and on the Westminster Assembly, Cambridge Modern History, iv. c. 12 (Cambridge, 1906); J. Stoughton, Ecclesiastical History of England, Civil Wars, &c. (4 vols., London, 1867-1870), by a dissenting divine, a careful and unprejudiced history; J. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy (London, 1714). For Restoration and Revolution Period: R. Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. M. Sylvester (London, 1696); and E. Calamy, Abridgment of Life of Baxter (2 vols., 1713); R. Bentley, Life of Bishop Stillingfleet, with Works in 6 vols. (London, 1710); Bishop G. Burnet, History of his Own Time (6 vols., Oxford, 1783); G. Doyly, Life of Archbishop Sancroft (2 vols., London, 1821); W. Kennett (Bishop), Compleat History, vol. iii. (London, 1710); T. Lathbury, History of the Nonjurors (London, 1843); T. B. Macaulay, History of England (5 vols., London, 1858-1861); Magdalen College and James II., ed. J. R. Bloxam, Oxford Historical Society (Oxford, 1886); R. Nelson, Life of Bishop Bull, ed. Burton (Oxford, 1827); J. H. Overton, The Nonjurors (London, 1902), and Life in the English Church, 1660-1714 (2 vols., London, 1885); E. H. Plumptre, Life of Bishop Ken (2 vols., London, 1888); I. Walton, Lives (Bishop G. Morley and others) (London, 1898, and frequently). For 18th century: C. J. Abbey, The English Church and its Bishops, 1700-1800 (2 vols., London, 1887); C. J. Abbey and J. H. Overton, The English Church in the 18th Century (London, revised ed., 1887), a pleasant and useful book; R. Cecil, Life of John Newton (London, 1827); A. C. Fraser, Life of Bishop Berkeley, vol. iv. of Works (Oxford, 1871); Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II., ed. J. W. Croker (3 vols., London, 1884); A. H. Hore, The Church of England from William III. to Victoria (2 vols., Oxford, 1886); J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England (3 vols., London, 1873); Huntingdon, Selina, Countess of, Life and Times (2 vols., London, 1839-1840); J. Keble, Life of Bishop Wilson (Oxford, 1863): W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, vols. i.-iii. and v. (8 vols., London, 1879-1890); Bishop T. Newton, Autobiography, with Works (6 vols., London, 1787); J. H. Overton and F. Relton, History of the English Church, 1714-1800, ed. Stephens and Hunt (London, 1906); W. Roberts, Memoir of Hannah More (4 vols., London, 1834); W. A. Spooner, Bishop Butler (London, 1891); Sir J. Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (2 vols., London, 1853), for an account of the Evangelicals early in the 19th century; Sir L. Stephen, English Thought in the 18th Century (2 vols., London, 1881), for theological controversies; H. Thompson, Life of Hannah More (London, 1838); R. Watson, Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop R. Watson (2 vols., London, 1818), presents a curious picture of a bishop’s life 1782-1816; R. and S. Wilberforce, Memoir of W. Wilberforce (5 vols., London, 1838). See under Methodism; Wesley (family); and Whitefield, George.

For the Oxford Movement and onwards: A. W. Benn, English Rationalism in the 19th Century (2 vols., London, 1906); A. C. Benson, Life of Archbishop E. W. Benson (2 vols., London, 1899); J. W. Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (2 vols., London, 1888); R. W. Church, History of the Oxford Movement (London, 1891); J. T. Coleridge, Life of Keble (Oxford, 1869); R. T. Davidson and W. Benham, Life of Archbishop A. C. Tait (2 vols., London, 1892); H. P. Liddon and J. O. Johnston, Life of Pusey (4 vols., London, 1893-1895); T. Mozley, Reminiscences of Oriel and the Oxford Movement (2 vols., London, 1882); J. H. Newman, Apologia pro Vita sua (London, 1864); R. Prothero, Correspondence of Dean A. P. Stanley (2 vols., London, 1893); R. G. Wilberforce and A. Ashwell, Life of Bishop S. Wilberforce (3 vols., London, 1879) Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts (1883), and Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline (1906), both H.M. Stationery Office; Official Year Book of the Church of England, S.P.C.K. (1906).

(W. Hu.)

ENGLEFIELD, SIR FRANCIS (c. 1520-1596), English Roman Catholic politician, born probably about 1520, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Englefield of Englefield, Berkshire, justice of the common pleas. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, one of the well-known Catholic family of Coughton, Warwickshire. Francis, who succeeded his father in 1537, was too young to have taken any part in the opposition to the abolition of the Roman jurisdiction and dissolution of the monasteries; and he acquiesced in these measures to the extent of taking the oath of royal supremacy, serving as sheriff of Berkshire and Oxfordshire in 1546-1547, and accepting in 1545 a grant of the manor of Tilehurst, which had belonged to Reading Abbey. He was even knighted at the coronation of Edward VI. in February 1547. But the progress of the Reformation during that reign alienated him, and he attached his fortunes to the cause of the princess Mary, whose service he entered before 1551. In August of that year he was sent to the Tower for permitting Mass to be celebrated in Mary’s household. He was released in the following March, and permitted to resume his duties in Mary’s service. But in February 1553 he was again summoned before the privy council, and may have been in confinement at the crisis of July; perhaps he was only released on Mary’s triumph, for his name does not appear among those who exerted themselves on her behalf before the middle of August. He was then sworn a member of the privy council like many others who owed their promotion to their loyalty rather than to their political abilities. Their numbers swelled the privy council and sadly impaired its efficiency; but Mary resisted the various attempts to get rid of them because she liked staunch friends, and regarded them as a salutary check upon the abler but less scrupulous members who had served Edward VI. as well as herself. Englefield sat as M.P. for Berkshire in all Mary’s parliaments except that of April 1554, but received no higher political office than the lucrative mastership of the court of wards.

He was an ardent believer in persecution, was present at Hooper’s trial, sought Ascham’s ruin, and naturally lost his office and his seat on the privy council at Elizabeth’s succession. He retired to the continent before May 1559, and from that time until his death was an active participant in all schemes for the restoration of Roman Catholicism. At first his ideas took such comparatively mild forms as inducing the pope to send a legate to persuade Elizabeth to return to the fold; but gradually they grew more violent and treasonable, until Englefield became the close confidant of Cardinal Allen, Parsons and the “jesuited” Catholics, who advocated forcible intervention by Spain and the succession of the infanta; in 1585 Englefield thought that Mary’s succession, peaceful or other, would not be satisfactory unless it were owing to Spanish support and she were dependent on Philip. Englefield lived first at Rome, then in the Low Countries, and finally at Valladolid. He was blind for the last twenty years of his life, and received a pension of six hundred crowns from Philip. He had been outlawed in 1564 and his estates sequestered, but they were not forfeited until 1585, when an act of attainder was passed against Englefield. Even then some legal difficulties stood in the way of their appropriation by the crown, for Englefield, obviously with an eye to this contingency, had conditionally settled them on his nephew Francis. The long arguments on the point are given in Coke’s Reports, and a further act was passed in 1592 confirming the forfeiture to the crown. The nephew, however, eventually recovered some of the family estates, and was created a baronet in 1612. His uncle was alive in September 1596, but apparently died at Valladolid about the end of that year. His tomb there used to be shown to visitors as that of an eminent man.

See Dict. of Nat. Biog. xvii. 372-374; but additional light has been thrown on Englefield’s career since the date of that article by the publication of the Spanish and Venetian Calendars, the Hatfield MSS., the Acts of the Privy Council, and the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.

(A. F. P.)

ENGLEHEART, GEORGE (1752-1829), English miniature painter, the great rival of Richard Cosway, was born at Kew in October 1752, and received his artistic training first under George Barret, R.A., and then under Sir Joshua Reynolds. He started on his own account in 1773, and exhibited in that year at the Royal Academy. He continued the active pursuit of his profession down to 1813, when he retired, and his fee-book, still in existence, records the names of his sitters, and the amount paid for each portrait, proving that he painted 4853 miniatures during that period of thirty-nine years, and that his professional income for many years exceeded £1200 a year. During the greater part of his life he resided in Hertford Street, Mayfair, where he lived till he retired. He died at Blackheath in 1829, and was buried at Kew.

He painted George III. twenty-five times, and had a very extensive circle of patrons, comprising nearly all the important persons connected with the court. He made careful copies in miniature of many of the famous paintings executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and in some cases these constitute the only information we possess respecting portraits by Sir Joshua that are now missing. His fee-book, colours, appliances and a large collection of his miniatures still remain in the possession of his descendants.

His nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart (1784-1862), also a miniature painter, entered George Engleheart’s studio when he was but fourteen years of age. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801, and sent in altogether 157 works. He was a man of substantial means, and in his time a very popular painter, but his health broke down when he was forty-four years old, and he had to relinquish the pursuit of his profession. He lived at Tunbridge Wells for some years and died there in 1862.

See George Engleheart, by G. C. Williamson and H. L. D. Engleheart (1902).

(G. C. W.)

ENGLEWOOD, a city of Bergen county, New Jersey, U.S.A., near the Hudson river, 14 m. N. by E. of Jersey City. Pop. (1900) 6253, of whom 1548 were foreign-born and 386 negroes; (1905) 7922; (1910) 9924. It is served by a branch of the Erie railway, and by an electric line connecting with a ferry (at Fort Lee) to New York. Englewood is primarily a residential suburb of New York. The site rises terrace above terrace from the marshes in the valley of the Hackensack to the top of the palisades overlooking the Hudson, from which Englewood is separated by the borough of Englewood Cliffs (pop. in 1905, 266). There are several fine residences, a hospital, a public library and the Dwight school for girls (1859). The site of Englewood was for a long time a part of “English Neighbourhood,” and was known as Liberty Pole; but until 1859, when the place was laid out, there were only a few houses here, one of which was the “Liberty Pole Tavern.” In 1871 Englewood was set off from the township of Hackensack and was incorporated as a separate township, and in 1896 it was chartered as a city; but the act under which it was chartered was declared unconstitutional, and in 1899 Englewood was rechartered as a city by a special act of the state legislature.

ENGLISH CHANNEL (commonly called “The Channel”; Fr. La Manche, “the sleeve”), the narrow sea separating England from France. If its entrance be taken to lie between Ushant and the Scilly Isles, its extreme breadth (between those points) is about 100 m., and its length about 350. At the Strait of Dover, its breadth decreases to 20 m. Along both coasts of the Channel, cliffs and lowland alternate, and the geological affinities between successive opposite stretches are well marked, as between the Devonian and granitic rocks of Cornwall and Brittany, the Jurassic of Portland and Calvados, and the Cretaceous of the Pays de Caux and the Isle of Wight and the Sussex coast, as well as either shore of the Strait of Dover. The English Channel is of comparatively recent geological formation. The land-connexion between England and the continent was not finally severed until the latter part of the Pleistocene period. The Channel covers what was previously a wide valley, and may be described now as a headless gulf. The action of waves and currents, both destructive and constructive, is well seen at many points; thus Shakespeare Cliff at Dover is said to have been cut back more than a mile during the Christian era, and the cliffs of Grisnez have similarly receded. Of the opposite process notable examples are the building of the pebbly beaches of Chesil Bank and near Tréguier in Côtes du Nord, and the promontory of Dungeness. The total drainage area of the English rivers flowing into the Channel is about 8000 sq. m.; of the French rivers, including as they do the Seine, it is about 41,000 sq. m.

From the Strait of Dover the bottom slopes fairly regularly down to the western entrance of the Channel, the average depths ranging from 20 to 30 fathoms in the Strait to 60 fathoms at the entrance. An exception to this condition, however, is found in Hurd’s Deep, a narrow depression about 70 m. long, lying north and north-west of the Channel Islands, and at its nearest point to them only 5 m. distant from their outlying rocks, the Casquets. Towards its eastern end Hurd’s Deep has an extreme depth of 94 fathoms, and in it are found steeper slopes from shoal to deep water than elsewhere within the Channel. Nearing the entrance to the Channel from the Atlantic, the 100 fathoms line may be taken to mark the edge of soundings. Beyond this depth the bottom falls away rapidly. The 100 fathoms line is laid down about 180 m. W. to 120 m. S.W. of the Scilly Isles, and 80 m. W. of Ushant. Within it there are considerable irregularities of the bottom; thus a succession of narrow ridges running N.E. and S.W. occurs west of the Scillies, while only 4 m. N.W. of Ushant there is a small depression in which a depth of 105 fathoms has been found. As a general rule the slope from the English coast to the deepest parts of the Channel is more regular than that from the French coast, and for that reason, and in consideration of the greater dangers to navigation towards the French shore, the fairway is taken to lie between 12 and 24 m. from the principal promontories of the English shore, as far up-channel as Beachy Head. These promontories (the Lizard, Start Point, Portland Bill, St Alban’s Head, St Catherine’s Point of the Isle of Wight, Selsey Bill, Beachy Head, Dungeness, the South Foreland) demarcate a series of bays roughly of sickle-shape, the shores of which run north and south, or nearly so, at their western sides, turn eastward somewhat abruptly at their heads, and then trend more gently towards the south-east. On the French coast the arrangement is similar but reversed; Capes Grisnez, Antifer and La Hague, and the Pointe du Sillon demarcating a series of bays (larger than those on the English coast) whose shores run north and south on the eastern side, and have a gentler trend westward from the head.

The configuration of the coasts is perhaps the chief cause of the peculiarities of tides in the Channel. From the entrance as far as Portland Bill the time of high water is found to be progressively later in passing from west to east, being influenced by the oceanic tidal stream from the west under conditions which are on the whole normal. But eastward of a line between Portland Bill and the Gulf of St Malo these conditions are changed and great irregularities are observed. On the English coast between Portland Bill and Selsey a double tide is found. At Portland this double tide corresponds approximately with the time of low water in the regular tidal progression, and the result is the occurrence of two periods of low water, separated by a slight rise known locally as “gulder.” But farther east the double tide corresponds more nearly with the time of high water, and in consequence either the effect is produced of a prolonged period of high water, or there are actually two periods of high water, as at Southampton. Various causes apparently contribute to this phenomenon. The configuration of the coast line is such as to present at intervals barriers to the regular movement of the tidal wave (west to east), so that reflex waves (east to west) are set up. In the extreme case at Southampton the tidal effect is carried from the outer Channel first by way of the Solent, the strait west of the Isle of Wight, and later by way of Spithead, the eastern strait. Finally the effect of the tidal stream entering the Channel through the Strait of Dover from the North Sea must be considered. The set of this stream towards the Strait of Dover from the east corresponds in time with that of the Channel stream (i.e. the stream within an area defined by Start Point, the Casquets, Beachy Head and the mouth of the Somme) towards the strait from the west; the set of the two streams away from the strait also corresponds, and consequently they alternately meet and separate. The area in which the meeting and separation take place lies between Beachy Head and the North Foreland, the mouth of the Somme and Dunkirk. Within this area, therefore, a stream is formed, known as the intermediate stream, which, running at first with the Channel stream and then with the North Sea stream, changes its direction throughout its length almost simultaneously, and is never slack. Under these conditions, the time of high water eastward of Selsey Bill as far as Dover is almost the same at all points, though somewhat earlier at the east than at the west of this stretch of coast. The configuration of the French coast causes a very strong tidal flow in the Gulf of St Malo, with an extreme range at spring tides of 42 ft. at St Germain, compared with a range of 12 ft. at Exmouth and 7 ft. at Portland. In the neighbourhood of Beer Head and Portland and Weymouth Roads the streams are found to form vortices with only a slight movement. On the eastern (Selsey-Dover) section of the English coast the maximum range of tide is found at Hastings, with a decrease both eastward and westward of this point.

Westerly winds are most prevalent in the Channel. The total number of gales recorded in the period 1871-1885 was 190, of which 104 were south-westerly. Gales are most frequent from October to January (November during the above period had more than any other month, with an average of 2.1), and most rare from May to July. It appears that gales are generally more violent and prolonged when coincident with spring tides than with neaps. The winds have naturally a powerful effect on the tidal streams and currents, the latter being in these seas simply movements of the water set up by gales, which may themselves be far distant. Thus under the influence of westerly winds prevailing west of the Iberian Peninsula a current may be set up from the Bay of Biscay across the entrance of the Channel; this is called Rennell’s current. Fogs and thick weather are common in the Channel, and occur at all seasons of the year. Observations during the period 1876-1890 at Dover, Hurst Castle and the Scilly Isles showed that at the two first stations fogs most frequently accompany anticyclonic conditions in winter, but at the Scilly Isles they are much more common in summer than in winter, and accompany winds of moderate strength more frequently than in the case of the up-Channel stations.

(O. J. R. H.)

Salinity and Temperature.—The waters of the English Channel are derived partly from the west and partly from the English and French rivers, and all observations tend to show that there is a slow and almost continuous current through it from west to east. The western supply comes from two sources, one of which, the more important, is the relatively salt and warm water of the Bay of Biscay, which enters from the south-west and has a salinity sometimes reaching 35.6 pro mille (parts of salt per thousand by weight); the other consists of a southerly current from the Irish Channel, and is colder and has a salinity of 35.0 to 35.2 pro mille. As the water passes eastwards it mixes with the fresher coastal water, so that the salinities generally rise from the shore to the central line, and from east to west, though south of Scilly Islands there is often a fall due to the influence of the Irish Channel. The mean annual salinity decreases from between 35.4 and 35.5 pro mille in the western entrance to 35.2 pro mille at the Strait of Dover on the central axis, and to about 34.7 pro mille under the Isle of Wight and off the Bay of the Seine. The English Channel may be divided into two areas by a line drawn from Start Point to Guernsey and the Gulf of St Malo. In the eastern area the water is thoroughly mixed owing to the action of the strong tidal currents and its comparatively small depth, and salinities and temperatures are therefore generally the same from surface to bottom; while westward of this line there is often a strongly marked division into layers of different salinity and temperature, especially in summer and autumn, when the fresher water of the Irish Channel is found overlying the salt water of the Bay of Biscay. The salinity of the English Channel undergoes an annual change, being highest in winter and spring and lowest in summer, and this change is better marked in the eastern area, where the mean deviation from the annual mean reaches 0.3 pro mille, than it is farther west with a mean deviation of 0.1 pro mille. There is also reason to believe that there is a regular change with a two-year period, years of high maximum and low minimum alternating with years of low maximum and high minimum. Variations of long period or unperiodic also occur, which are probably, and in one case (1905) almost certainly, due to changes taking place some months earlier far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The mean annual surface temperature increases from between 11° C. and 11.5° C. at the Strait of Dover to over 12° C. at the western entrance.1 The yearly range in the eastern area is considerable, reaching 11° C. off the Isle of Wight and 10° C. in the Strait of Dover; westward it gradually decreases to 5° C. a short distance north-west of Ushant. The mean maximum temperature, over 16° C., is found under the English coast from Start Point to the Strait of Dover about the 1st of September and off the French coast eastward of Cape la Hague about eleven days later. In the western area the maximum temperature is about 15° C. and occurs between September 1 and 11. The mean minimum surface temperature is between 5° C. and 6° C. at the eastern end, and increases to over 9° C. off the coast of Brittany. Owing to the thorough mixing of the water in the eastern area the temperatures are here generally the same at all depths, and the description of the surface conditions applies equally to the bottom. In the western entrance, on the other hand, the bottom temperature is often much lower than on the surface; the range here is also much less, about 3° C., and the maximum is not reached till about the 1st of October, or from three weeks to a month later than on the surface.

A detailed account of the mean conditions in the English Channel will be found in Rap. et procès-verbaux, vol. vi., and Bulletin supplémentaire (1908) of the Conseil Permanent International pour l’Exploration de la Mer (Copenhagen).

(D. J. M.)

Cross-Channel Communication.—An immense amount of time and thought has been expended in the elaboration of schemes to provide unbroken railway communication between Great Britain and the continent of Europe and enable passengers and goods to be conveyed across the Channel without the delay and expense involved by transhipping them into and out of ordinary steamers. These schemes have taken three main forms: (1) tunnels, either made through the ground under the sea, or consisting of built-up structures resting upon the sea bed; (2) bridges, either elevated high above the sea-level so as to admit of the unimpeded passage of ships under them, or submerged below the surface; and (3) train ferries, or vessels capable of conveying a train of railway vehicles with their loads. A tunnel was first proposed at the very beginning of the 19th century by a French mining engineer named Mathieu, whose scheme was for a time favourably regarded by Napoleon, but it was first put on a practical basis more than fifty years later by J. A. Thomé de Gamond (1807-1876), whose plans were submitted to the French emperor in 1856. This engineer had begun to work at the problem of cross-Channel communication twenty years previously, and had considered the possibility of a submerged tunnel or tube resting on the sea-level, of steam ferries plying between huge piers thrown out from both coasts, and of a bridge, for which he prepared five different plans. He again brought forward his scheme for a tunnel, in a modified form, in 1867, and exhibited his plans in the Universal Exhibition of that year. About the same time an English engineer, William Lowe, of Wrexham, was also working at the idea of a tunnel. Geological investigation convinced him that between Fanhole, a point half a mile west of the South Foreland light, and Sangatte on the French coast, 4 m. W. of Calais, the Dover grey chalk was continuous from side to side, and he considered that this stratum, owing to its comparative freedom from water and the general absence of cracks and fissures, offered exceptional advantages for a tunnel. He and Thomé de Gamond joined forces, and their plans were adopted by an international committee whose object was to popularize the idea of a tunnel both in England and France. Its engineers on the English side were Lowe, Sir James Brunlees and Sir John Hawkshaw, the last of whom in 1866 had made trial borings at St Margaret’s and near Sangatte; and on the French side Thomé de Gamond, Paulin Talabot and Michael Chevalier. In 1868 they reported that there was a reasonable prospect of completing the tunnel in ten or twelve years at a cost not exceeding ten millions sterling. They admitted, however, that there was some risk of an influx of the sea, but pointed out that this risk could be determined by driving preliminary driftways, as suggested by Lowe, and for this purpose asked for financial aid from the imperial treasury. A commission of inquiry then appointed by the French ministry of public works reported favourably on the plans, though it declined to, recommend a grant of money; but the further progress of the scheme was interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-German war.

The tunnel was by no means the only plan in evidence at this period for securing continuous railway communication between England and France. An iron tube, resting on the bottom of the sea, had been proposed by Tessier de Mottray in 1803, and had again been considered by Thomé de Gamond in 1833; but after 1850 projects of this kind might almost be counted by the dozen. Some of the structures were to be of iron, others of concrete or masonry, and some were to be floated a moderate distance below the surface. One of the most carefully worked out plans was that of J. F. Bateman and J. Revy, who proposed to construct a continuous tube, 13 ft. in internal diameter, of iron rings each 10 ft. long, each ring being built out from the completed portion of the tube by means of a horizontal chamber or bell, which slid telescopically over the last few rings previously put in place, and was moved forward by hydraulic power. About the same time Zerah Colburn produced plans for a tube constructed of 1000 ft. sections, which were to be built in dry dock and then successively attached by a ball and socket joint to the completed portion, the whole being raised from the bottom and dragged out to sea, by the aid of a large number of ships, as each section was attached and launched. Thomas Page, again, the builder of Westminster Bridge, proposed to place eight conical steel shafts at intervals across the Strait of Dover, and to connect them by long sections of tube lowered from the surface, the whole structure being covered with concrete when finished. No attempt was made to put any of these plans into execution, and the same was true of several bridge schemes propounded about the same time; in one of these, spans one-half or three-quarters of a mile in length were contemplated, while another required 190 towers, 500 ft. apart and rising 500 ft. above the water-level, which obviously would have constituted an intolerable nuisance to navigation. The case, however, was different with a train ferry which was vigorously advocated by Sir John Fowler. His proposal was to employ steamers 450 ft. long, with a beam of 57 ft. and a speed of 20 knots, having railway lines laid down on their decks on and off which railway vehicles could be run directly at each side of the strait. Dover was to be the English port, while on the French coast a new harbour was to be formed at Audresselles, between Calais and Boulogne. This plan in 1872 received the sanction of the House of Commons, but was rejected in the House of Lords by the casting vote of the chairman of the committee. According to another similar ferry scheme, which was worked out by Admiral Dupuy de Lôme in 1870, a new maritime station was to be constructed at Calais, so far off the shore that it would command deep water at every state of the tide, and connected with the French railways by a bridge.

After the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, negotiations concerning the tunnel were resumed between the French and British governments, and in 1872 the latter intimated that it had “no objection in principle.” After some further communications between the two governments in 1874, settling the basis on which the enterprise should be allowed to proceed, a joint commission was appointed to arrange details relating to jurisdiction, the right of blocking the tunnel, &c., and this commission’s report was accepted as a basis of agreement between the governments. In 1875 the Channel Tunnel Company obtained an act authorizing it to undertake certain preliminary works at St Margaret’s Bay. In the same year the French Submarine Railway Company obtained a concession, with the obligation to spend a minimum of 2,000,000 francs in making investigations; in fact it took over 3000 samples from the bottom of the sea in the strait, and made over 7000 soundings, and also sunk a shaft at Sangatte and started a heading. The English company did not do so much, for it failed to raise the money it required and its powers expired in 1880. Moreover, it was not the only company in the field, and its programme was not universally accepted as the best possible. Some authorities, such as Sir Joseph Prestwich, doubted whether the tunnel should be attempted in the chalk because of the likelihood of fissures being encountered while others who thought the chalk suitable were dissatisfied With the actual plans and formed a rival “Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company.” In 1882 another tunnel company made its appearance. In 1874 the South Eastern Railway Company had obtained powers to sink experimental shafts on its property between Dover and Folkestone, and in 1881 to acquire lands, including the beach and foreshore, in that area in connexion with a Channel tunnel. These powers resulted, in 1882, in the formation of the Submarine Continental Railway Company which in that year sought parliamentary sanction for a tunnel, starting from a point west of Dover, at Shakespeare’s Cliff; and at the same time the resuscitated Channel Tunnel Company applied for powers to make one from Fanhole, instead of St Margaret’s Bay as in its former scheme. The whole question of the tunnel was then widely discussed and considered by various committees, the last of which—a joint select committee of the Lords and Commons—in 1883 expressed the opinion by a majority that it was “inexpedient that parliamentary sanction should be given to a submarine communication between England and France.” This decision for the time being disposed of the question of making a tunnel, and though Sir Edward Watkin, one of its most prominent advocates, brought bill after bill before parliament to authorize experimental works in connexion with it, all were rejected. In 1882 the government interfered with the operations then in progress, and they were ultimately discontinued. They included a driftway 7 ft. in diameter which was driven for a distance of about 2300 yds. eastwards under the sea at an inclination of 1 in 72 from the bottom of a shaft sunk to a depth of 164 ft. in the chalk marl at Shakespeare’s Cliff.

About this time the Channel Bridge and Railway Company took in hand the design of a bridge, the preliminary plans for which were exhibited in the Paris Exhibition of 1889. The terminal points were Folkestone and Cap Grisnez, and for the sake of facilitating the laying of the pier foundations it was proposed to take the bridge over the Varne and Colbart shoals. The main girders were to be nearly 59 yds. above the sea-level, the railway itself being more than 20 ft. higher still, and the spans were to vary in length between 540 and 108 yds. As the result of a survey of the sea bottom made in 1890, a modification in the line of the bridge was adopted, and it was taken direct from Cap Blancnez to the South Foreland. It was found that in this way an excellent bottom would be obtained for the foundations, and the length of the bridge would be 3 m. less, the number of piers, by employing spans of 434 and 542 yds. alternately, being reduced to 72. The cost of this structure was estimated at £28,320,000, exclusive of interest on capital during the period of construction, which was put at seven years. The same company also worked out plans for a moving chariot or platform, capable of holding a railway train and supported by long legs on a submerged causeway or track constructed of steel or armoured concrete 45 or 50 ft. below low-water level. No attempt has been made actually to carry out either this project or that of a bridge.

In 1905 the question of establishing a train ferry from Dover across the Channel was brought forward by the Intercontinental Railway Company, and in the following year the Channel Ferry (Dover) Act was passed authorizing the work. About the same period the Channel Tunnel Company, which had amalgamated with the Submarine Railway Company, awoke to activity and started a campaign in favour of its scheme; but the bill which it promoted was opposed by the government and accordingly was withdrawn in March 1907.

See Blue-book, Correspondence respecting the proposed Channel Tunnel, Commercial No. 6 (1875); Blue-book, Correspondence with reference to the proposed Construction of a Channel Tunnel, C. 3358 (1882); Blue-book, Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons on the Channel Tunnel (1883); F. J. Bramwell, “The Making and Working of a Channel Tunnel,” Proc. Roy. Inst., May 1882; Tylden Wright, “The Channel Tunnel,” North of England Inst. Min. and Mech. Eng. vol. 33 (1882); W. Boyd Dawkins, “The Channel Tunnel,” Manchester Geol. Soc., May 1882, and Brit. Assoc. Rep. (1882, 1899); E. de Rodakowski, The Channel Ferry (London, 1905).

(H. M. R.)

1 50° F. = 10° C.; 60.8° F. = 16° C.

ENGLISH FINANCE. The history of the English fiscal system affords the best example known of continuous financial development, in respect both of institutions and methods. Though certain great periods of change can be readily noticed, yet from the time of the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the 20th century the line of connexion is substantially unbroken. Perhaps the most revolutionary changes occurred in the 17th century, as the outcome of the Civil War, and, later on, the revolution of 1688. But even in this case there was no real breach of continuity. It is, therefore, possible to trace the normal growth and expansion of British finance as one of the aspects of the nation’s history.

The primitive financial institutions of England centre round the king’s household, or, in other words, the royal economy precedes the national one. Revenue dues collected by the king’s agents, rents, or rather returns of produce, from land, and special levies for emergencies form the elements of the royal income, which gradually acquired greater regularity and consistency. There is, however, little or no evidence of any effective financial organization until we approach the 11th century. The influence exercised from Normandy, which so powerfully affected the English rulers at this time, tended towards the creation of records of revenue claims and also of a central treasury.

With the union of England and Normandy under the same head the idea of settled administrative methods was definitely fixed and became of special importance in the field of finance. The systematizing spirit, so characteristic of both the Norman and Angevin kings, produced the great institution of the exchequer (q.v.) with its judicial and administrative sides, and its elaborate forms of account and control. Even before this organization was developed the Domesday Survey (see Domesday Book)—now recognized as having a purely fiscal object (in Maitland’s words “a tax book, a geld book”)—shows the movement towards careful observation of the sources of revenue. It is clear that William I. initiated a policy which was followed by his successors, in spite of the serious difficulties of the period of anarchy during Stephen’s nominal reign. The obscure question as to the real origin of the special contrivances employed by the exchequer is, strictly speaking, irrelevant to the financial inquirer, who may be content to hold that, granting the existence of some Old English analogies, the system, as it appears in the 12th century, was a peculiar product of the conceptions as to fiscal organization formed by Norman subtlety. It is the manner in which this institution held together and focused the revenues and expenditure of the kingdom that has to be considered. The picture presented by the “Dialogue of the Exchequer” (c. 1176) is that of a comprehensive system which secured the receipt of the royal income, and provided a thorough audit of the accounts by employing processes adapted to the circumstances of the time. It is, in fact, through the description of financial institutions that it is possible to ascertain the forms of revenue possessed by the crown. The ingenuity expended on the administrative machinery of the exchequer had as its aim the increase of the king’s resources, an object in which the official class of churchmen and lawyers was deeply interested.

In order to understand the character Of English finance in the middle ages it is absolutely essential to bear constantly in mind the identification of the king with the state. Though feudalism (q.v.) was, in one of its aspects, a powerful instrument for division of political authority, it, nevertheless, in the particular form in which the Conqueror introduced it into England, enabled the fiscal rights of the crown to be established in a more definite shape than was possible under the older condition. For, in the first place, the actual property of the crown was more carefully administered as each royal manor came under the system of accounting. Again, the various claims or dues of the king took more decidedly the feudal type and received stricter legal definition. Further, the higher judicial organization assisted the expansion of court fees; while, above all, the increased authority of the state made the casual receipts (for such they were) from trade more profitable.

In a broad view the sources of revenue fall under the following heads:—(1) The royal estates which were distributed over England, derived in part from the possessions of the old English kings, but increased by the confiscations that followed the events of the Conqueror’s reign, as well as by the doctrine that unowned land was the king’s (terra regis). Over fourteen hundred manors appear in Domesday as royal property. The forests, placed under special laws, yielded little revenue, except in the form of penalties on offenders. The rural tenants, who at first paid their rents in produce, gradually commuted them into money payments. As the royal demesne was favourable for the growth of towns the rents derived from urban tenants became a valuable part of the yield from the demesne; this, later, took the shape of a payment from the town as a unit (the firma burgi), a method which secured to the burghers freedom from the exactions of the sheriff and which was purchased by special payments. (2) The feudal rights. These included the claim to military service; the three regular aids and the payments of relief at succession to a fief, as also the profits on wardships and marriages. Escheats and forfeitures completed the list. The yield from this source varied with the power of the king and was kept within bounds by the resistance of the tenants as shown in the provisions of Magna Carta. (3) The administration of justice was a lucrative prerogative of the crown. Suitors had to pay for securing the hearing of their cases in addition to the fees for writs, and both amercements and compositions increased the receipts under this head. (4) Two special classes contributed to the royal exchequer. As a great deal of the wealth of the country was in the hands of the church the opportunities afforded by the vacancies of sees, abbacies and priories were utilized for the purpose of securing the profits of these offices during the time in which there was no occupant; and this term was frequently prolonged by the king’s action or inaction. The Jews, until their expulsion, were an even more profitable class to the revenue. Being under the absolute control of the crown, they could be taxed at pleasure, either by taking a percentage of their property (e.g. in one case, one-fourth), or by levies for alleged offences. The existence of a separate exchequer for the Jews is an indication of their fiscal value. (5) Direct taxation formed an extraordinary or occasional head of revenue. The Danegeld was succeeded by the carucage, and the commutation of military service introduced the scutage, but these forms were of little immediate importance, though very significant for the future course of development. (6) Lastly come the dues claimed at the ports, which contain in germ the customs system of later times, though they rather resemble the harbour charges of modern ports and were very trivial in amount.