Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 19)

G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, period 8, chapter 6.

ALSO IN:

J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., volume 2, chapters 27-35.

J. A. Froude, History of England, volume 1, chapter 2.

S. H. Burke, Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty, volume 1, chapters 8-25.

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 6, chapter 3.

T. E. Bridgett, Life and Writings of Sir T. More.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1529-1535. The execution of Sir Thomas More.

On the 25th of October, 1529, the king, by delivering the great seal to Sir Thomas More, constituted him Lord Chancellor. In making this appointment, Henry "hoped to dispose his chancellor to lend his authority to the projects of divorce and second marriage, which now agitated the king's mind, and were the main objects of his policy. … To pursue this subject through the long negotiations and discussions which it occasioned during six years, would be to lead us far from the life of Sir Thomas More. … All these proceedings terminated in the sentence of nullity in the case of Henry's marriage with Catherine, pronounced by Cranmer, the espousal of Anne Boleyn by the king, and the rejection of the papal jurisdiction by the kingdom, which still, however, adhered to the doctrines of the Roman catholic church. The situation of More during a great part of these memorable events was embarrassing. The great offices to which he was raised by the king, the personal favour hitherto constantly shown to him, and the natural tendency of his gentle and quiet disposition, combined to disincline him to resistance against the wishes of his friendly master. On the other hand, his growing dread and horror of heresy, with its train of disorders; his belief that universal anarchy would be the inevitable result of religious dissension, and the operation of seven years' controversy for the Catholic church, in heating his mind on all subjects involving the extent of her authority, made him recoil from designs which were visibly tending towards disunion with the Roman pontiff. … Henry used every means of procuring an opinion favourable to his wishes from his chancellor, who excused himself as unmeet for such matters, having never professed the study of divinity. … But when the progress towards the marriage was so far advanced that he saw how soon the active co-operation of a chancellor must be required, he made suit to 'his singular dear friend,' the duke of Norfolk, to procure his discharge from this office. The duke, often solicited by More, then obtained, by importunate suit, a clear discharge for the chancellor. … The king directed Norfolk, when he installed his successor, to declare publicly, that his majesty had with pain yielded to the prayers of sir Thomas More, by the removal of such a magistrate. …. It must be owned that Henry felt the weight of this great man's opinion, and tried every possible means to obtain at least the appearance of his spontaneous approbation. … The king … sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, the duke of Norfolk, and Cromwell, to attempt the conversion of More. Audley reminded More of the king's special favour and many benefits. More admitted them; but modestly added, that his highness had most graciously declared that on this matter More should be molested no more. {829} When in the end they saw that no persuasion could move him, they then said, 'that the king's highness had given them in commandment, if they could by no gentleness win him, in the king's name with ingratitude to charge him, that never was servant to his master so villainous, nor subject to his prince so traitorous as he.'. . . By a tyrannical edict, mis-called a law, in the same session of 1533-4, it was made high treason, after the 1st of May, 1534, by writing, print, deed, or act, to do or to procure, or cause to be done or procured, anything to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the king's lawful matrimony with queen Anne. If the same offences were committed by words, they were only misprision. The same act enjoined all persons to take an oath to maintain the whole contents of the statute, and an obstinate refusal to make such oath was subjected to the penalties of misprision. … Sir T. More was summoned to appear before these commissioners at Lambeth, on Monday the 13th of April, 1534. … After having read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or on those who had taken, the oath, but declared it to be impossible that he should swear to the whole contents of it, without offending against his own conscience. … He never more returned to his house, being committed to the custody of the abbot of Westminster, in which he continued four days; and at the end of that time he was conveyed to the Tower on Friday the 17th of April, 1534. … On the 6th of May, 1535, almost immediately after the defeat of every attempt to practise on his firmness, More was brought to trial at Westminster, and it will scarcely be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any European bar for a thousand years. … It is lamentable that the records of the proceedings against such a man should be scanty. We do not certainly know the specific offence of which he was convicted. … On Tuesday, the 6th of July (St. Thomas's eve), 1535, sir Thomas Pope, 'his singular good friend,' came to him early with a message from the king and council, to say that he should die before nine o'clock of the same morning. … The lieutenant brought him to the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, on which he said, merrily, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.' When he laid his head on the block he desired the executioner to wait till he had removed his beard, for that had never offended his highness."

Sir J. Mackintosh, Sir Thomas More (Cabinet Cyclopedia: Eminent British Statesmen, volume 1).

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, Historical Biographies, chapter 3.

T. E. Bridgett, Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More, chapters 12-24.

S. H. Burke, Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty, volume 1, chapter 29.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1531-1563, The genesis of the Church of England.

"Henry VIII. attempted to constitute an Anglican Church differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singularly favorable situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of the ah beys placed at his disposal, and the support of that class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But Henry's system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or for the old opinions. The ministers who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Elizabeth venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the Protestants. The government and the Protestants had only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The English reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the Papist, and that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform would have been carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

"The Reformation in England was, singular amongst the great religious movements of the sixteenth century. It was the least heroic of them all—the least swayed by religious passion, or moulded and governed by spiritual and theological necessities. From a general point of view, it looks at first little more than a great political change. The exigencies of royal passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry, the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness and excitement of thought at the universities. {830} These higher influences preside at the first birth of the movement. They are seen in active operation long before the reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops."

J. Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th Century, volume 1, chapter 2.

"The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our compassion, and the greatness to which her daughter attained has been in some degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we should have estimated her character at a very low value indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the Church of England must ever look upon Anne Boleyn with downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke: but that such a result should be produced by such an influence is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which prevented better instruments from being raised up for so righteous an object."

J. H. Blunt, The Reformation of the Church of England, pages 197-198.

"Cranmer's work might never have been carried out, there might have been no English Bible, no Ten Articles or 'Institution,' no reforming Primers, nor Proclamations against Ceremonies, had it not been for the tact, boldness and skill of Thomas Crumwell, who influenced the King more directly and constantly than Cranmer, and who knew how to make his influence acceptable by an unprincipled confiscation and an absurd exaggeration of the royal supremacy. Crumwell knew that in his master's heart there was a dislike and contempt of the clergy. … It is probable that Crumwell's policy was simply irreligious, and only directed towards preserving his influence with the King; but as the support of the reforming part of the nation was a useful factor in it, he was thus led to push forward religious information in conjunction with Cranmer. It has been before said that purity and disinterestedness are not to be looked for in all the actors in the English Reformation. To this it may be added that neither in the movement itself nor in those who took part in it is to be found complete consistency. This, indeed, is not to be wondered at. Men were feeling their way along untrodden paths, without any very clear perception of the end at which they were aiming, or any perfect understanding of the situation. The King had altogether misapprehended the meaning of his supremacy. A host of divines whose views as to the distinction between the secular and the spiritual had been confused by the action of the Popes, helped to mislead him. The clergy, accustomed to be crushed and humiliated by the Popes, submitted to be crushed and humiliated by the King; and as the tide of his autocratic temper ebbed and flowed, yielded to each change. Hence there was action and reaction throughout the reign. But in this there were obvious advantages for the Church. The gradual process accustomed men's thoughts to a reformation which should not be drastic or iconoclastic, but rather conservative and deliberate."

G. G, Perry, History of the Reformation in England, chapter 5.

"With regard to the Church of England, its foundations rest upon the rock of Scripture, not upon the character of the King by whom they were laid. This, however, must be affirmed in justice to Henry, that mixed as the motives were which first induced him to disclaim the Pope's authority, in all the subsequent measures he acted sincerely, knowing the importance of the work in which he had engaged, and prosecuting it sedulously and conscientiously, even when most erroneous. That religion should have had so little influence upon his moral conduct will not appear strange, if we consider what the religion was wherein he was trained up;—nor if we look at the generality of men even now, under circumstances immeasurably more fortunate than those in which he was placed. Undeniable proofs remain of the learning, ability, and diligence, with which he applied himself to the great business of weeding out superstition, and yet preserving what he believed to be the essentials of Christianity untouched. This praise (and it is no light one) is his due: and it is our part to be thankful to that all-ruling Providence, which rendered even his passions and his vices subservient to this important end."

R. Southey, The Book of the Church, chapter 12.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539. The suppression of the Monasteries.

"The enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every part of Europe. … A writer much inclined to partiality towards the monasteries says that they held [in England] one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony. … As they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation, and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by connivance as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives, and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were combined with a great facility of violating them. The vices that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries, had certainly not left their precincts in that of Henry VIII. Wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of Fox, bishop of Hereford, a favourer of the Reformation, commenced a visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in 1523, in consequence of the general complaint against their manners. … Full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest part of his character, he obtained bulls from Rome suppressing many convents (among which was that of St. Frideswide at Oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more completely established by the name of Christ Church. A few more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and thus the prejudice against interference with this species of property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually prepared for the sweeping confiscations of Cromwell [Thomas Cromwell, who succeeded Wolsey as chief minister of Henry VIII.]. The king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for the subjects' money and by a secret partiality towards the Reformation, devised and carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and difficulty. … {831} It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to excite popular indignation against them. It is not to be doubted that in the visitation of these foundations, under the direction of Cromwell, as lord vice-gerent of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented. Yet the reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their testimony whenever it bears hard on the regulars. … The dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable legality. But in the next session the smaller convents, whose revenues were less than £200 a year, were suppressed by act of parliament, to the number of 376, and their estates vested in the crown. This summary spoliation led to the great northern rebellion soon afterwards," headed by Robert Ask, a gentleman of Yorkshire, and assuming the title of a Pilgrimage of Grace.

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 2.

"Far from benefiting the cause of the monastic houses, the immediate effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was to bring ruin on those monasteries which had as yet been spared. For their complicity or alleged complicity in it, twelve abbots were hanged, drawn and quartered, and their houses were seized by the Crown. Every means was employed by a new set of Commissioners to bring about the surrender of others of the greater abbeys. The houses were visited, and their pretended relics and various tricks to encourage the devotion of the people were exposed. Surrenders went rapidly on during the years 1537 and 1538, and it became necessary to obtain a new Act of Parliament to vest the property of the later surrenders in the Crown. … Nothing, indeed, can be more tragical than the way in which the greater abbeys were destroyed on manufactured charges and for imaginary crimes. These houses had been described in the first Act of Parliament as 'great and honourable,' wherein 'religion was right well kept and observed.' Yet now they were pitilessly destroyed. A revenue of about £131,607 is computed to have thus come to the Crown, while the movables are valued at £400,000. How was this vast sum of money expended?

(1) By the Act for the suppression of the greater monasteries the King was empowered to erect six new sees, with their deans and chapters, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol and Peterborough. …

(2) Some monasteries were turned into collegiate churches, and many of the abbey churches … were assigned as parish churches.

(3) Some grammar schools were erected.

(4) A considerable sum is said to have been spent in making roads and in fortifying the coasts of the Channel.

(5) But by far the greater part of the monastic property passed into the hands of the nobility and gentry, either by purchase at very easy rates, or by direct gift from the Crown. …

The monks and nuns ejected from the monasteries had small pensions assigned to them, which are said to have been regularly paid; but to many of them the sudden return into a world with which they had become utterly unacquainted, and in which they had no part to play, was a terrible hardship, … greatly increased by the Six Article Law, which … made the marriage of the secularized 'religious' illegal under heavy penalties."

G. G. Perry, History of the Reformation in England, chapter 4.

"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 6, chapter 4.

Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power, the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of those foundations at schools and universities intended for their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes into the hands of lay owners."

F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, volume 2, page 523.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543. Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.

Anne Boleyn had been secretly married to the king in January, 1533, and had been crowned on Whitsunday of that year. "The princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was born on the 7th of September following. … The death of Catherine, which happened at Kimbolton on the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to leave queen Anne in undisturbed possession of her splendid seat." But the fickle king had now "cast his affections on Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, a young lady then of the Queen's bed-chamber, as Anne herself had been in that of Catherine." Having lost her charms in the eyes of the lustful despot who had wedded her, her influence was gone— and her safety. Charges were soon brought against the unfortunate woman, a commission (her own father included in it) appointed to inquire into her alleged misdeeds, and "on the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by the grand jury of Westminster against the Lady Anne, Queen of England; Henry Norris, groom of the stole; Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton, gentlemen of the privy chamber; and Mark Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, and a person 'of low degree,' promoted to be a groom of the chamber for his skill in the fine art which he professed. It charges the queen with having, by all sorts of bribes, gifts, caresses, and impure blandishments, which are described with unblushing coarseness in the barbarous Latinity of the indictment, allured these members of the royal household into a course of criminal connection with her, which had been carried on for three years. It included also George Boleyn viscount Rochford, the brother of Anne, as enticed by the same lures and snares with the rest of the accused, so as to have become the accomplice of his sister, by sharing her treachery and infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that Anne could have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without such vices being more early and very generally known in a watchful and adverse court. {832} It is still more improbable that she should in every instance be the seducer. … Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were tried before a commission of oyer and terminer at Westminster, on the 12th of May, two days after the bill against them was found. They all, except Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to the last moment. On Smeaton's confession it must be observed that we know not how it was obtained, how far it extended, or what were the conditions of it. … On the 12th of May, the four commoners were condemned to die. Their sentence was carried into effect amidst the plaints of the bystanders. … On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Rochford were tried." The place of trial was in the Tower, "which concealed from the public eye whatever might be wanting in justice." Condemnation duly followed, and the unhappy queen was executed May 19, 1536. The king lost little time in wedding Jane Seymour. "She died in childbed of Edward VI. on the 13th of October, 1537. The next choice made by or for Henry, who remained a widower for the period of more than two years," was the "princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a considerable prince on the lower Rhine. … The pencil of Holbein was employed to paint this lady for the king, who, pleased by the execution, gave the flattering artist credit for a faithful likeness. He met her at Dover, and almost immediately betrayed his disappointment. Without descending into disgusting particulars, it is necessary to state that, though the marriage was solemnised, the king treated the princess of Cleves as a friend." At length, by common action of an obsequious parliament and a more obsequious convocation of the church, the marriage was declared to be annulled, for reasons not specified. The consent of the repudiated wife was "insured by a liberal income of £3,000 a year, and she lived for 16 years in England with the title of princess Anne of Cleves. … This annulment once more displayed the triumph of an English lady over a foreign princess." The lady who now captivated the brutally amorous monarch was lady Catherine Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, who became queen on the 8th of August, 1540. In the following November, the king received such information of lady Catherine's dissolute life before marriage "as immediately caused a rigid inquiry into her behaviour. … The confessions of Catherine and of lady Rochford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and executed in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to have been at any time questioned. … On the 10th of July, 1543, Henry wedded Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer, a lady of mature age," who survived him.

Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England (L. L. C.), volume 2, chapters 7-8.

ALSO IN: P. Friedmann, Ann Boleyn.

H. W. Herbert, Memoirs of Henry VIII. and his Six Wives.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1539. The Reformation checked. The Six Articles.

"Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, he [Henry VIII.] had allowed the Reformers to go further than he really approved. The separation from the Church of Rome, the absorption by the Crown of the powers of the Papacy, the unity of authority over both Church and State centred in himself, had been his objects. In doctrinal matters he clung to the Church of which he had once been the champion. He had gained his objects because he had the feeling of the nation with him. In his eagerness he had even countenanced some steps of doctrinal reform. But circumstances had changed. … Without detriment to his position he could follow his natural inclinations. He listened, therefore, to the advice of the reactionary party, of which Norfolk was the head. They were full of bitterness against the upstart Cromwell, and longed to overthrow him as they had overthrown Wolsey. The first step in their triumph was the bill of the Six Articles, carried in the Parliament of 1539. These laid down and fenced round with extraordinary severity the chief points of the Catholic religion at that time questioned by the Protestants. The bill enacted, first, 'that the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ were present in the Blessed Sacrament,' and that 'after consecration there remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the substance of Christ'; whoever, by word or writing, denied this article was a heretic, and to be burned. Secondly, the Communion in both kinds was not necessary, both body and blood being present in each element; thirdly, priests might not marry; fourthly, vows of chastity by man or woman ought to be observed; fifthly, private masses ought to be continued; sixthly, auricular confession must be retained. Whoever wrote or spoke against these … Articles, on the first offence his property was forfeited; on the second offence he was a felon, and was put to death. Under this 'whip with six strings' the kingdom continued for the rest of the reign. The Bishops at first made wild work with it. Five hundred persons are said to have been arrested in a fortnight; the king had twice to interfere and grant pardons. It is believed that only twenty-eight persons actually suffered death under it."

J. F. Bright, History of England, volume 2, page 411.

ALSO IN: J. H. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, volume 1, chapter 8-9.

S. H. Burke, Men and Women of the English Reformation, volume 2, pages 17-24.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1542-1547. Alliance with Charles V. against Francis I. Capture and restoration of Boulogne. Treaty of Guines.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1544-1548. The wooing of Mary Queen of Scots.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1547. Accession of King Edward VI.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553. The completing of the Reformation.

Henry VIII., dying on the 28th of January, 1547, was succeeded by his son Edward,—child of Jane Seymour,—then only nine years old. By the will of his father, the young king (Edward VI.) was to attain his majority at eighteen, and the government of his kingdom, in the meantime, was entrusted to a body of sixteen executors, with a second body of twelve councillors to assist with their advice. "But the first act of the executors and counsellors was to depart from the destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner were they met, than it was suggested that the government would lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the royal majesty." The suggestion was opposed by none except the chancellor, Wriothesley,—soon afterwards raised to the peerage as Earl of Southampton. "It being therefore agreed to name a protector, the choice fell of course on the Earl of Hertford [afterwards Duke of Somerset], who, as he was the king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety." {833} The protector soon manifested an ambition to exercise his almost royal authority without any constraint, and, having found means to remove his principal opponent, Southampton, from the chancellorship, and to send him into disgrace, he procured a patent from the infant king which gave him unbounded power. With this power in his hand he speedily undertook to carry the work of church reform far beyond the intentions of Henry VIII. "The extensive authority and imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes of the Protestants, and the fears of the Catholics began to revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint, he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for every kind of literature, especially the theological, far beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England; and they early began to declare themselves in favour of those tenets which were likely to become in the end entirely prevalent. After Southhampton's fall, few members of the council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy, induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the mother church altogether impracticable. Their rapacity, also, the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done the regular clergy; and they knew, that while any share of the old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics, they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise. The numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers, by the spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion; and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and extreme observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hindrances to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their immediate converse with heaven."

D. Hume, History of England, volume 3, chapter 34.

"'This year' [1547] says a contemporary, 'the Archbishop of Canterbury [Cranmer] did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was a Christian country.' This significant act was followed by a rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions of Lollardry were removed; the Six Articles were repealed; a royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the churches; priests were permitted to marry; the new communion which had taken the place of the mass was ordered to be administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue; an English Book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy, which with slight alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced the missal and breviary, from which its contents are mainly drawn; a new catechism embodied the doctrines of Cranmer and his friends; and a Book of Homilies compiled in the same sense was appointed to be read in churches. … The power of preaching was restricted by the issue of licenses only to the friends of the Primate. … The assent of the nobles about the Court was won by the suppression of chantries and religious guilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the East, in the West, and in the Midland counties. … The rule of the upstart nobles who formed the Council of Regency became simply a rule of terror. 'The greater part of the people,' one of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, 'is not in favour of defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries, the greater part of the nobles who absent themselves from court, all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who can move their flocks any way; for the whole of the commonalty is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow any stir towards change.' But with their triumph over the revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly in the career of innovation. … The Forty-two Articles of Religion, which were now [1552] introduced, though since reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, have remained to this day the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church."

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 7, section 1.

ALSO IN: J. Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, book 2.

G. Burnet, History of the Reformation of Church of England, volume 2, book 1.

L. Von Ranke, History of England, book 2, chapter 6.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1548. First Act for encouragement of Newfoundland fisheries.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. The right of succession to the throne, on the death of Edward VI.

"If Henry VII. be considered as the stock of a new dynasty, it is clear that on mere principles of hereditary right, the crown would descend, first, to the issue of Henry VIII.; secondly, to those of [his elder sister] Margaret Tudor, queen of Scots; thirdly, to those of [his younger sister] Mary Tudor, queen of France. The title of Edward was on all principles equally undisputed; but Mary and Elizabeth might be considered as excluded by the sentence of nullity, which had been pronounced in the case of Catharine and in that of Anne Boleyn, both which sentences had been confirmed in parliament. They had been expressly pronounced to be illegitimate children. Their hereditary right of succession seemed thus to be taken away, and their pretensions rested solely on the conditional settlement of the crown on them, made by their father's will, in pursuance of authority granted to him by act of parliament. After Elizabeth Henry had placed the descendants of Mary, queen of France, passing by the progeny of his eldest sister Margaret. Mary of France, by her second marriage with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two daughters,—lady Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, created duke of Suffolk; and lady Elinor, who espoused Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland. {834} Henry afterwards settled the crown by his will on the heirs of these two ladies successively, passing over his nieces themselves in silence. Northumberland obtained the hand of lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of Grey duke of Suffolk, by lady Frances Brandon, for lord Guilford Dudley, the admiral's son. The marriage was solemnised in May, 1553, and the fatal right of succession claimed by the house of Suffolk devolved on the excellent and unfortunate lady Jane."

Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England, volume 2, chapter 9.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. Accession of Queen Mary.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1553. The doubtful conflict of religions.

"Great as was the number of those whom conviction or self interest enlisted under the Protestant banner, it appears plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London, in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the north and west of England, the body of the people were strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to most of them. And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the same persuasion. … An historian, whose bias was certainly not unfavourable to Protestantism [Burnet, iii. 190, 196] confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old superstition. This is somewhat an humiliating admission, that the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a foreign army. … It is certain that the re-establishment of popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, chapter 2.

"Eight weeks and upwards passed between the proclaiming of Mary queen and the Parliament by her assembled; during which time two religions were together set on foot, Protestantism and Popery; the former hoping to be continued, the latter labouring to be restored. … No small justling was there betwixt the zealous promoters of these contrary religions. The Protestants had possession on their side, and the protection of the laws lately made by King Edward, and still standing in free and full force unrepealed. … The Papists put their ceremonies in execution, presuming on the queen's private practice and public countenance. … Many which were neuters before, conceiving to which side the queen inclined, would not expect, but prevent her authority in alteration: so that superstition generally got ground in the kingdom. Thus it is in the evening twilight, wherein light and darkness at first may seem very equally matched, but the latter within little time doth solely prevail."

T. Fuller, Church History of Britain, book 8, section 1, ¶ 5.

ALSO IN: J. II. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, volume 1; chapters 8-9.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1554. Wyat's Insurrection.

Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain was opposed with great bitterness of popular feeling, especially in London and its neighborhood. Risings were undertaken in Kent, Devonshire, and the Midland counties, intended for the frustration of the marriage scheme; but they were ill-planned and soon suppressed. That in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyat, threatened to be formidable at first, and the Queen's troops retreated before it. Wyat, however, lost his opportunity for securing London, by delays, and his followers dispersed. He was taken prisoner and executed. "Four hundred persons are said to have suffered for this rebellion."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 36.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558. The restoration of Romanism. The persecution of Protestants by Queen Mary.

"An attempt was made, by authority of King Edward's will, to set aside both his sisters from the succession, and raise Lady Jane Grey to the throne, who had lately been married to one of Northumberland's sons. This was Northumberland's doing; he was actuated by ambition, and the other members of the government assented to it, believing, like the late young King, that it was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant faith. Cranmer opposed the measure, but yielded. … But the principles of succession were in fact well ascertained at that time, and, what was of more consequence, they were established in public opinion. Nor could the intended change be supported on the ground of religion, for popular feeling was decidedly against the Reformation. Queen Mary obtained possession of her rightful throne without the loss of a single life, so completely did the nation acknowledge her claim; and an after insurrection, rashly planned and worse conducted, served only to hasten the destruction of the Lady Jane and her husband. … If any person may be excused for hating the Reformation, it was Mary. She regarded it as having arisen in this country from her mother's wrongs, and enabled the King to complete an iniquitous and cruel divorce. It had exposed her to inconvenience, and even danger, under her father's reign, to vexation and restraint under her brother; and, after having been bastardized in consequence of it, … an attempt had been made to deprive her of the inheritance, because she continued to profess the Roman Catholic faith. … Had the religion of the country been settled, she might have proved a good and beneficent, as well as conscientious, queen. But she delivered her conscience to the direction of cruel men; and, believing it her duty to act up to the worst principles of a persecuting Church, boasted that she was a virgin sent by God to ride and tame the people of England. … The people did not wait till the laws of King Edward were repealed; the Romish doctrines were preached, and in some places the Romish clergy took possession of the churches, turned out the incumbents, and performed mass in jubilant anticipation of their approaching triumph. What course the new Queen would pursue had never been doubtful; and as one of her first acts had been to make Gardiner Chancellor, it was evident that a fiery persecution was at hand. Many who were obnoxious withdrew in time, some into Scotland, and more into Switzerland and the Protestant parts of Germany. Cranmer advised others to fly; but when his friends entreated him to preserve himself by the like precaution, he replied, that it was not fitting for him to desert his post. … The Protestant Bishops were soon dispossessed of their sees; the marriages which the Clergy and Religioners had contracted were declared unlawful, and their children bastardized. {835} The heads of the reformed Clergy, having been brought forth to hold disputations, for the purpose rather of intimidating than of convincing them, had been committed to different prisons, and after these preparatories the fiery process began."

R. Southey, Book of the Church, chapter 14.

"The total number of those who suffered in this persecution, from the martyrdom of Rogers, in February, 1555, to September, 1558, when its last ravages were felt, is variously related, in a manner sufficiently different to assure us that the relaters were independent witnesses, who did not borrow from each other, and yet sufficiently near to attest the general accuracy of their distinct statements. By Cooper they are estimated at about 290. According to Burnet they were 284. Speed calculates them at 274. The most accurate account is probably that of Lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called 'The Execution of Justice in England,' reckons the number of those who died in that reign by imprisonment, torments, famine and fire, to be near 400, of which those who were burnt alive amounted to 290. From Burnet's Tables of the separate years, it is apparent that the persecution reached its full force in its earliest year."

Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England, volume 2, chapter 11.

"Though Pole and Mary could have laid their hands on earl and baron, knight and gentleman, whose heresy was notorious, although, in the queen's own guard, there were many who never listened to a mass, they durst not strike where there was danger that they would be struck in return. … They took the weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the husbandman from his plough; they laid hands on maidens and boys 'who had never heard of any other religion than that which they were called on to abjure'; old men tottering into the grave, and children whose lips could but just lisp the articles of their creed; and of these they made their burnt-offerings; with these they crowded their prisons, and when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to rot."

J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 24.

Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain and his arbitrary disposition, "while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from Mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the Spanish court so steadily favoured. … Many are said to have become Protestants under Mary who, at her coming to the throne, had retained the contrary persuasion."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: J. Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, part 2, book 5.

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 7, chapter 2-3.

J. Fox, Book of Martyrs.

P. Heylyn, Ecclesia Restaurata, volume 2.

J. Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, book 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1557-1559. Involved by the Spanish husband of Queen Mary in war with France. Loss of Calais.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1558. Accession of Queen Elizabeth.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1588. The Age of Elizabeth: Recovery of Protestantism.

"The education of Elizabeth, as well as her interest, led her to favour the reformation; and she remained not long in suspense with regard to the party which she should embrace. But though determined in her own mind, she resolved to proceed by gradual and secure steps, and not to imitate the example of Mary, in encouraging the bigots of her party to make immediately a violent invasion on the established religion. She thought it requisite, however, to discover such symptoms of her intentions as might give encouragement to the Protestants, so much depressed by the late violent persecutions. She immediately recalled all the exiles, and gave liberty to the prisoners who were confined on account of religion. … Elizabeth also proceeded to exert, in favour of the reformers, some acts of power, which were authorized by the extent of royal prerogative during that age. Finding that the Protestant teachers, irritated by persecution, broke out in a furious attack on the ancient superstition, and that the Romanists replied with no less zeal and acrimony, she published a proclamation, by which she inhibited all preaching without a special licence; and though she dispensed with these orders in favour of some preachers of her own sect, she took care that they should be the most calm and moderate of the party. She also suspended the laws, so far as to order a great part of the service, the litany, the Lord's prayer, the creed, and the gospels, to be read in English. And, having first published injunctions that all churches should conform themselves to the practice of her own chapel, she forbad the host to be any more elevated in her presence: an innovation which, however frivolous it may appear, implied the most material consequences. These declarations of her intentions, concurring with preceding suspicions, made the bishops foresee, with certainty, a revolution in religion. They therefore refused to officiate at her coronation; and it was with some difficulty that the Bishop of Carlisle was at last prevailed on to perform the ceremony. … Elizabeth, though she threw out such hints as encouraged the Protestants, delayed the entire change of religion till the meeting of the Parliament, which was summoned to assemble. The elections had gone entirely against the Catholics, who seem not indeed to have made any great struggle for the superiority; and the Houses met, in a disposition of gratifying the queen in every particular which she could desire of them. … The first bill brought into Parliament, with a view of trying their disposition on the head of religion, was that for suppressing the monasteries lately erected, and for restoring the tenths and first-fruits to the queen. This point being gained without much difficulty, a bill was next introduced, annexing the supremacy to the crown; and though the queen was there denominated governess, not head, of the church, it conveyed the same extensive power, which, under the latter title, had been exercised by her father and brother. … By this act, the crown, without the concurrence either of the Parliament or even of the convocation, was vested with the whole spiritual power; might repress all heresies, might establish or repeal all canons, might alter every point of discipline, and might ordain or abolish any religious rite or ceremony. … A law was passed, confirming all the statutes enacted in King Edward's time with regard to religion; the nomination of bishops was given to the crown without any election of the chapters. … A solemn and public disputation was held during this session, in presence of Lord Keeper Bacon, between the divines of the Protestant and those of the Catholic communion. The champions appointed to defend the religion of the sovereign were, as in all former instances, entirely triumphant; and the popish disputants, being pronounced refractory and obstinate, were even punished by imprisonment. {836} Emboldened by this victory, the Protestants ventured on the last and most important step, and brought into Parliament a bill for abolishing the mass, and re-establishing the liturgy of King Edward. Penalties were enacted as well against those who departed from this mode of worship, as against those who absented themselves from the church and the sacraments. And thus, in one session, without any violence, tumult, or clamour, was the whole system of religion altered, on the very commencement of a reign, and by the will of a young woman, whose title to the crown was by many thought liable to great objections."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 38, pages 375-380 (volume 3).

"Elizabeth ascended the throne much more in the character of a Protestant champion than her own convictions and inclinations would have dictated. She was, indeed, the daughter of Ann Boleyn, whom by this time the Protestants were beginning to regard as a martyr of the faith; but she was also the child of Henry VIII., and the heiress of his imperious will. Soon, however, she found herself Protestant almost in her own despite. The Papacy, in the first pride of successful reaction, offered her only the alternative of submission or excommunication, and she did not for a moment hesitate to choose the latter. Then commenced that long and close alliance between Catholicism and domestic treason which is so differently judged as it is approached from the religious or the political side. These seminary priests, who in every various disguise come to England, moving secretly about from manor-house to manor-house, celebrating the rites of the Church, confirming the wavering, consoling the dying, winning back the lapsed to the fold, too well acquainted with Elizabeth's prisons, and often finding their way to her scaffolds,—what are they but the intrepid missionaries, the self-devoted heroes, of a proscribed faith? On the other hand, the Queen is excommunicate, an evil woman, with whom it is not necessary to keep faith, to depose whom would be the triumph of the Church, whose death, however compassed, its occasion: how easy to weave plots under the cloak of religious intercourse, and to make the unity of the faith a conspiracy of rebellion! The next heir to the throne, Mary of Scotland, was a Catholic, and, as long as she lived, a perpetual centre of domestic and European intrigue: plot succeeded plot, in which the traitorous subtlety was all Catholic—the keenness of discovery, the watchfulness of defence, all Protestant. Then, too, the shadow of Spanish supremacy began to cast itself broadly over Europe: the unequal struggle with Holland was still prolonged: it was known that Philip's dearest wish was to recover to his empire and the Church the island kingdom which had once unwillingly accepted his rule. It was thus the instinct of self-defence which placed Elizabeth at the head of the Protestant interest in Europe: she sent Philip Sidney to die at Zutphen: her sailor buccaneers, whether there were peace at home or not, bit and tore at everything Spanish upon the southern main: till at last, 1588, Philip gathered up all his naval strength and hurled the Armada at our shores. 'Afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt.' The valour of England did much; the storms of heaven the rest. Mary of Scotland had gone to her death the year before, and her son had been trained to hate his mother's faith. There could be no question any more of the fixed Protestantism of the English people."

C. Beard, Hibbert Lectures, 1883: The Reformation, lecture 9.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1598. The Age of Elizabeth: The Queen's chief councillors.

"Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, already officially experienced during three reigns, though still young, was the queen's chief adviser from first to last—that is to say, till he died in 1598. Philip II., who also died in that year, was thus his exact contemporary; for he mounted the Spanish throne just when Elizabeth and her minister began their work together. He was not long in discovering that there was one man, possessed of the most balanced judgment ever brought to the head of English affairs, who was capable of unwinding all his most secret intrigues; and, in fact, the two arch-enemies, the one in London and the other in Madrid, were pitted against each other for forty years. Elizabeth had also the good sense to select the wisest and most learned ecclesiastic of his day, Matthew Parker, for her Primate and chief adviser in Church affairs. It should be noted that both of these sages, as well as the queen herself, had been Conformists to the Papal obedience under Mary—a position far from heroic, but not for a moment to be confused with that of men whose philosophical indifference to the questions which exercised all the highest minds enabled them to join in the persecution of Romanists and Anglicans at different times with a sublime impartiality. … It was under the advice of Cecil and Parker that Elizabeth, on coming to the throne, made her famous settlement or Establishment of religion."

M. Burrows, Commentaries on the History of England, book 2, chapter 17.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603. The Age of Elizabeth: Parliament.

"The house of Commons, upon a review of Elizabeth's reign, was very far, on the one hand, from exercising those constitutional rights which have long since belonged to it, or even those which by ancient precedent they might have claimed as their own; yet, on the other hand, was not quite so servile and submissive an assembly as an artful historian has represented it. If many of its members were but creatures of power, … there was still a considerable party, sometimes carrying the house along with them, who with patient resolution and inflexible aim recurred in every session to the assertion of that one great privilege which their sovereign contested, the right of parliament to inquire into and suggest a remedy for every public mischief or danger. It may be remarked that the ministers, such as Knollys, Hatton, and Robert Cecil, not only sat among the commons, but took a very leading part in their discussions; a proof that the influence of argument could no more be dispensed with than that of power. This, as I conceive, will never be the case in any kingdom where the assembly of the estates is quite subservient to the crown. Nor should we put out of consideration the manner in which the commons were composed. Sixty-two members were added at different times by Elizabeth to the representation; as well from places which had in earlier times discontinued their franchise, as from those to which it was first granted; a very large proportion of them petty boroughs, evidently under the influence of the crown or peerage. The ministry took much pains with ejections, of which many proofs, remain. {837} The house accordingly was filled with placemen, civilians, and common lawyers grasping at preferment. The slavish tone of these persons, as we collect from the minutes of D'Ewes, is strikingly contrasted by the manliness of independent gentlemen. And as the house was by no means very fully attended, the divisions, a few of which are recorded, running from 200 to 250 in the aggregate, it may be perceived that the court, whose followers were at hand, would maintain a formidable influence. But this influence, however pernicious to the integrity of parliament, is distinguishable from that exertion of almost absolute prerogative which Hume has assumed as the sole spring of Elizabeth's government, and would never be employed till some deficiency of strength was experienced in the other."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603. The Age of Elizabeth: Literature.

"The age of Elizabeth was distinguished beyond, perhaps, any other in our history by a number of great men, famous in different ways, and whose names have come down to us with unblemished honours: statesmen, warriors, divines, scholars, poets, and philosophers; Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker, and—high and more sounding still, and still more frequent in our mouths—Shakespear, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, men whom fame has eternised in her long and lasting scroll, and who, by their words and acts, were benefactors of their country, and ornaments of human nature. Their attainments of different kinds bore the same general stamp, and it was sterling; what they did had the mark of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great Britain (if I may so speak without offence or flattery) never shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like itself, than at this period. Our writers and great men had something in them that savoured of the soil from which they grew: they were not French; they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or Latin; they were truly English. They did not look out of themselves to see what they should be; they sought for truth and nature, and found it in themselves. There was no tinsel, and but little art; they were not the spoilt children of affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace, and heartfelt, unobtrusive delicacy. … For such an extraordinary combination and development of fancy and genius many causes may be assigned; and we may seek for the chief of them in religion, in politics, in the circumstances of the time, the recent diffusion of letters, in local situation, and in the character of the men who adorned that period, and availed themselves so nobly of the advantages placed within their reach. … The first cause I shall mention, as contributing to this general effect, was the Reformation, which had just then taken place. This event gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. … The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers (such they were thought) to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in the common cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. … The immediate use or application that was made of religion to subjects of imagination and fiction was not (from an obvious ground of separation) so direct or frequent as that which was made of the classical and romantic literature. For much about the same time, the rich and fascinating stores of the Greek and Roman mythology, and those of the romantic poetry of Spain and Italy, were eagerly explored by the curious, and thrown open in translations to the admiring gaze of the vulgar. … What also gave an unusual impetus to the mind of man at this period, was the discovery of the New World, and the reading of voyages and travels. Green islands and golden sands seemed to arise, as by enchantment, out of the bosom of the watery waste, and invite the cupidity, or wing the imagination of the dreaming speculator. Fairyland was realised in new and unknown worlds. … Again, the heroic and martial spirit which breathes in our elder writers, was yet in considerable activity in the reign of Elizabeth. The age of chivalry was not then quite gone, nor the glory of Europe extinguished forever. … Lastly, to conclude this account: What gave a unity and common direction to all these causes, was the natural genius of the country, which was strong in these writers in proportion to their strength. We are a nation of islanders, and we cannot help it, nor mend ourselves if we would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to ape others. Music and painting are not our forte: for what we have done in that way has been little, and that borrowed from others with great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets and philosophers. That's something. We have had strong heads and sound hearts among us. Thrown on one side of the world, and left to bustle for ourselves, we have fought out many a battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style; and it were to be wished we had in no instance departed from it. Our situation has given us a certain cast of thought and character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion, with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think, and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in masses. … We may be accused of grossness, but not of flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want of art and refinement, but not of a want of truth and nature. Our literature, in a word, is Gothic and grotesque; unequal and irregular; not cast in a previous mould, nor of one uniform texture, but of great weight in the whole, and of incomparable value in the best parts. It aims at an excess of beauty or power, hits or misses, and is either very good indeed, or absolutely good for nothing. This character applies in particular to our literature in the age of Elizabeth, which is its best period, before the introduction of a rage for French rules and French models."

W. Hazlitt, Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, lecture 1.

{838}

"Humanism, before it moulded the mind of the English, had already permeated Italian and French literature. Classical erudition had been adapted to the needs of modern thought. Antique authors had been collected, printed, annotated, and translated. They were fairly mastered in the south, and assimilated to the style of the vernacular. By these means much of the learning popularised by our poets, essayists, and dramatists came to us at second-hand, and bore the stamp of contemporary genius. In like manner, the best works of Italian, French, Spanish, and German literature were introduced into Great Britain together with the classics. The age favoured translation, and English readers before the close of the sixteenth century, were in possession of a cosmopolitan library in their mother tongue, including choice specimens of ancient and modern masterpieces. These circumstances sufficiently account for the richness and variety of Elizabethan literature. They also help to explain two points which must strike every student of that literature—its native freshness, and its marked unity of style. Elizabethan literature was fresh and native, because it was the utterance of a youthful race, aroused to vigorous self-consciousness under conditions which did not depress or exhaust its energies. The English opened frank eyes upon the discovery of the world and man, which had been effected by the Renaissance. They were not wearied with collecting, collating, correcting, transmitting to the press. All the hard work of assimilating the humanities had been done for them. They had only to survey and to enjoy, to feel and to express, to lay themselves open to delightful influences, to con the noble lessons of the past, to thrill beneath the beauty and the awe of an authentic revelation. Criticism had not laid its cold, dry finger on the blossoms of the fancy. The new learning was still young enough to be a thing of wonder and entrancing joy."

J. A. Symonds, A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry (Fortnightly Rev., volume 45, page 56).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1559. The Act of Supremacy, the Act of Uniformity, and the Court of High Commission.

"When Elizabeth's first Parliament met in January 1559, Convocation, of course, met too. It at once claimed that the clergy alone had authority in matters of faith, and proceeded to pass resolutions in favour of Transubstantiation, the Mass, and the Papal Supremacy. The bishops and the Universities signed a formal agreement to this effect. That in the constitution of the English Church, Convocation, as Convocation, has no such power as this, was proved by the steps now taken. The Crown, advised by the Council and Parliament, took the matter in hand. As every element, except the Roman, had been excluded from the clerical bodies, a consultation was ordered between the representatives of both sides, and all preaching was suspended till a settlement had been arrived at between the queen and the Three Estates of the realm. The consultation broke upon the refusal of the Romanist champions to keep to the terms agreed upon; but even before it took place Parliament restored the Royal Supremacy, repealed the laws of Mary affecting religion, and gave the queen by her own desire, not the title of 'Supreme Head,' but 'Supreme Governor,' of the Church of England."

M. Burrows, Commentaries on the History of England, book 2, chapter 17.

This first Parliament of Elizabeth passed two memorable acts of great importance in English history,—the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer. "The former is entitled 'An act for restoring to the crown the ancient jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical and Spiritual; and for abolishing foreign power.' It is the same for substance with the 25th of Henry VIII. … but the commons incorporated several other bills into it; for besides the title of 'Supreme Governor in all causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal,' which is restored to the Queen, the act revives those laws of King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI. which had been repealed in the late reign. It forbids all appeals to Rome, and exonerates the subjects from all exactions and impositions heretofore paid to that court; and as it revives King Edward's laws, it repeals a severe act made in the late reign for punishing heresy. … 'Moreover, all persons in any public employs, whether civil or ecclesiastical, are obliged to take an oath in recognition of the Queen's right to the crown, and of her supremacy in all causes ecclesiastical and civil, on penalty of forfeiting all their promotions in the church, and of being declared incapable of holding any public office.' … Further, 'The act forbids all writing, printing, teaching, or preaching, and all other deeds or acts whereby any foreign jurisdiction over these realms is defended, upon pain that they and their abettors, being thereof convicted, shall for the first offence forfeit their goods and chattels; … spiritual persons shall lose their benefices, and all ecclesiastical preferments; for the second offence they shall incur the penalties of a præmunire; and the third offence shall be deemed high treason.' There is a remarkable clause in this act, which gave rise to a new court, called 'The Court of High Commission.' The words are these, 'The Queen and her successors shall have power, by their letters patent under the great seal, to assign, name, and authorize, as often as they shall think meet, and for as long a time as they shall please, persons being natural-born subjects, to use, occupy, and exercise, under her and them, all manner of jurisdiction, privileges, and preeminences, touching any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realms of England and Ireland, &c., to visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, offences and enormities whatsoever. Provided, that they have no power to determine anything to be heresy, but what has been adjudged to be so by the authority of the canonical scripture, or by the first four general councils, or any of them; or by any other general council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of canonical scripture; or such as shall hereafter be declared to be heresy by the high court of parliament, with the assent of the clergy in convocation.' Upon the authority of this clause the Queen appointed a certain number of 'Commissioners' for ecclesiastical causes, who exercised the same power that had been lodged in the hands of one vicegerent in the reign of King Henry VIII. And how sadly they abused their power in this and the two next reigns will appear in the sequel of this history. They did not trouble themselves much with the express words of scripture, or the four first general councils, but entangled their prisoners with oaths ex-officio, and the inextricable mazes of the popish canon law. … The papists being vanquished, the next point was to unite the reformed among themselves. … Though all the reformers were of one faith, yet they were far from agreeing about discipline and ceremonies, each party being for settling the church according to their own model. … {839} The Queen … therefore appointed a committee of divines to review King Edward's liturgy, and to see if in any particular it was fit to be changed; their names were Dr. Parker, Grindal, Cox, Pilkington, May, Bill, Whitehead, and Sir Thomas Smith, doctor of the civil law. Their instructions were, to strike out all offensive passages against the pope, and to make people easy about the belief of the corporal presence of Christ in the sacraments; but not a word in favour of the stricter protestants. Her Majesty was afraid of reforming too far; she was desirous to retain images in churches, crucifixes and crosses, vocal and instrumental music, with all the old popish garments; it is not therefore to be wondered, that in reviewing the liturgy of King Edward, no alterations were made in favour of those who now began to be called Puritans, from their attempting a purer form of worship and discipline than had yet been established. … The book was presented to the two houses and passed into a law. … The title of the act is 'An act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, and administration of the Sacraments.' It was brought into the House of Commons April 18th, and was read a third time April 20th. It passed the House of Lords April 28th, and took place from the 24th of June 1559."

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 1, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: G. Burnet, History of the Reformation of the Church of England., volume 2, book 3.

P. Heylyn, Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth, Anno 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1559-1566. Puritanism taking form.

"The Church of England was a latitudinarian experiment, a contrivance to enable men of opposing creeds to live together without shedding each others' blood. It was not intended, and it was not possible, that Catholics or Protestants should find in its formulas all that they required. The services were deliberately made elastic; comprehending in the form of positive statement only what all Christians agreed in believing, while opportunities were left open by the rubric to vary the ceremonial according to the taste of the congregations. The management lay with the local authorities in town or parish: where the people were Catholics the Catholic aspect could be made prominent; where Popery was a bugbear, the people were not disturbed by the obtrusion of doctrines which they had outgrown. In itself it pleased no party or section. To the heated controversialist its chief merit was its chief defect. … Where the tendencies to Rome were strongest, there the extreme Reformers considered themselves bound to exhibit in the most marked contrast the unloveliness of the purer creed. It was they who furnished the noble element in the Church of England. It was they who had been its martyrs; they who, in their scorn of the world, in their passionate desire to consociate themselves in life and death to the Almighty, were able to rival in self-devotion the Catholic Saints. But they had not the wisdom of the serpent, and certainly not the harmlessness of the dove. Had they been let alone—had they been unharassed by perpetual threats of revolution and a return of the persecutions—they, too, were not disinclined to reason and good sense. A remarkable specimen survives, in an account of the Church of Northampton, of what English Protestantism could become under favouring conditions. … The fury of the times unhappily forbade the maintenance of this wise and prudent spirit. As the power of evil gathered to destroy the Church of England, a fiercer temper was required to combat with them, and Protestantism became impatient, like David, of the uniform in which it was sent to the battle. It would have fared ill with England had there been no hotter blood there than filtered in the sluggish veins of the officials of the Establishment. There needed an enthusiasm fiercer far to encounter the revival of Catholic fanaticism; and if the young Puritans, in the heat and glow of their convictions, snapped their traces and flung off their harness, it was they, after all, who saved the Church which attempted to disown them, and with the Church saved also the stolid mediocrity to which the fates then and ever committed and commit the government of it."

J. A. Froude, History of England, volume 10, chapter 20.

"The compromise arranged by Cranmer had from the first been considered by a large body of Protestants as a scheme for serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the Lord with the worship of Baal. In the days of Edward VI. the scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great difficulties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came to the throne, those difficulties were much increased. Violence naturally engenders violence. The spirit of Protestantism was therefore far fiercer and more intolerant after the cruelties of Mary than before them. Many persons who were warmly attached to the new opinions had, during the evil days, taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany. They had been hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, had sate at the feet of the great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich and Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church government, than England had yet seen. These men returned to their country, convinced that the reform which had been effected under King Edward had been far less searching and extensive than the interests of pure religion required. But it was in vain that they attempted to obtain any concession from Elizabeth. Indeed, her system, wherever it differed from her brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. They were little disposed to submit, in matters of faith, to any human authority. … Since these men could not be convinced, it was determined that they should be persecuted. Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect: it made them a faction. … The power of the discontented sectaries was great. They were found in every rank; but they were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of Commons. And doubtless, had our ancestors been then at liberty to fix their attention entirely on domestic questions, the strife between the crown and the Parliament would instantly have commenced. But that was no season for internal dissensions. … Roman Catholic Europe and reformed Europe were struggling for death or life. … Whatever might be the faults of Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm and of all reformed churches was staked on the security of her person and on the success of her administration. … {840} The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, volume 1, chapter 1.

"Two parties quickly evolved themselves out of the mass of Englishmen who held Calvinistic opinions; namely those who were willing to conform to the requirements of the Queen, and those who were not. To both is often given indiscriminately by historians the name of Puritan; but it seems more correct, and certainly is more convenient, to restrict the use of the name to those who are sometimes called conforming Puritans. … To the other party fitly belongs the name of Nonconformist. … It was against the Nonconformist organization that Elizabeth's efforts were chiefly directed. … The war began in the enforcement by Archbishop Parker in 1565 of the Advertisements as containing the minimum of ceremonial that would be tolerated. In 1566 the clergy of London were required to make the declaration of Conformity which was appended to the Advertisements, and thirty-seven were suspended or deprived for refusal. Some of the deprived ministers continued to conduct services and preach in spite of their deprivation, and so were formed the first bodies of Nonconformists, organized in England."

H. O. Wakeman, The Church and the Puritans, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. Tulloch, English Puritanism and its Leaders, introduction.

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 1, chapter 4.

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapters 8-10 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1562-1567. Hawkins' slave-trading voyages to America. First English enterprise in the New World.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1564-1565 (?). The first naming of the Puritans.

"The English bishops, conceiving themselves empowered by their canons, began to show their authority in urging the clergy of their dioceses to subscribe to the Liturgy, ceremonies and discipline of the Church; and such as refused the same were branded with the odious name of Puritans. A name which in this notion first began in this year [A. D. 1564]; and the grief had not been great if it had ended in the same. The philosopher banisheth the term, (which is Polysæmon), that is subject to several senses, out of the predicaments, as affording too much covert for cavil by the latitude thereof. On the same account could I wish that the word Puritan were banished common discourse, because so various in the acceptations thereof. We need not speak of the ancient Cathari or primitive Puritans, sufficiently known by their heretical opinions. Puritan here was taken for the opposers of the hierarchy and church service, as resenting of superstition. But profane mouths quickly improved this nickname, therewith on every occasion to abuse pious people; some of them so far from opposing the Liturgy, that they endeavoured (according to the instructions thereof in the preparative to the Confession) 'to accompany the minister with a pure heart,' and laboured (as it is in the Absolution) 'for a life pure and holy.' We will, therefore, decline the word to prevent exceptions; which, if casually slipping from our pen, the reader knoweth that only nonconformists are thereby intended."

T. Fuller, Church History of Britain, book 9, section 1.

"For in this year [1565] it was that the Zuinglian or Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of Puritans, if Genebrard, Gualter, and Spondanus (being all of them right good chronologers) be not mistaken in the time. Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them, because of their pretending to a greater purity in the service of God than was held forth unto them (as they gave out) in the Common Prayer Book; and to a greater opposition to the rites and usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the constitution of the Church of England."

P. Heylyn, Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth, Anno 7, section 6.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1568. Detention and imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1569. Quarrel with the Spanish governor of the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1580. Drake's piratical warfare with Spain and his famous voyage.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603. Queen Elizabeth's treatment of the Roman Catholics. Persecution of the Seminary Priests and the Jesuits.

"Camden and many others have asserted that by systematic connivance the Roman Catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's reign. But this is not reconcilable to many passages in Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea. … A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to the times; and of these temporizing conformists it cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their accustomed mode of worship. … Priests … travelled the country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish. There was not a county throughout England, says a Catholic historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains in private families. By stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their former splendour. … It is my thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no better name, carried on against the English Catholics, however it might serve to delude the government by producing an apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar circumstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 3.

{841}

"The more vehement Catholics had withdrawn from the country, on account of the dangers which there beset them. They had taken refuge in the Low Countries, and there Allen, one of the chief among them, had established a seminary at Douay, for the purpose of keeping up a supply of priests in England. To Douay numbers of young Englishmen from Oxford continually flocked. The establishment had been broken up by Requescens, and removed to Rheims, and a second college of the same description was established at Rome. From these two centres of intrigue numerous enthusiastic young men constantly repaired to England, and in the disguise of laymen carried on their priestly work and attempted to revive the Romanist religion. But abler and better disciplined workmen were now wanted. Allen and his friends therefore opened negotiations with Mercuriano, the head of the Jesuit order, in which many Englishmen had enrolled themselves. In 1580, as part of a great combined Catholic effort, a regular Jesuit mission, under two priests, Campion and Parsons, was despatched to England. … The new missionaries were allowed to say that that part of the Bull [of excommunication issued against Elizabeth] which pronounced censures upon those who clung to their allegiance applied to heretics only, that Catholics might profess themselves loyal until the time arrived for carrying the Bull into execution; in other words, they were permitted to be traitors at heart while declaring themselves loyal subjects. This explanation of the Bull was of itself sufficient to justify severity on the part of the government. It was impossible henceforward to separate Roman Catholicism from disloyalty. Proclamations were issued requiring English parents to summon their children from abroad, and declaring that to harbour Jesuit priests was to support rebels. … Early in December several priests were apprehended and closely examined, torture being occasionally used for the purpose. In view of the danger which these examinations disclosed, stringent measures were taken. Attendance at church was rendered peremptorily necessary. Parliament was summoned in the beginning of 1581 and laws passed against the action of the Jesuits. … Had Elizabeth been conscious of the full extent of the plot against her, had she known the intention of the Guises [then dominant in France] to make a descent upon England in co-operation with Spain, and the many ramifications of the plot in her own country, it is reasonable to suppose that she would have been forced at length to take decided measures. But in ignorance of the abyss opening before her feet, she continued for some time longer her old temporizing policy." At last, in November, 1583, the discovery of a plot for the assassination of the queen, and the arrest of one Throgmorton, whose papers and whose confession were of startling import, brought to light the whole plan and extent of the conspiracy. "Some of her Council urged her at once to take a straightforward step, to make common cause with the Protestants of Scotland and the Netherlands, and to bid defiance to Spain. To this honest step, she as usual could not bring herself, but strong measures were taken in England. Great numbers of Jesuits and seminary priests were apprehended and executed, suspected magistrates removed, and those Catholic Lords whose treachery might have been fatal to her ejected from their places of authority and deprived of influence."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, pages 546-549.

"That the conspiracy with which these men were charged was a fiction cannot be doubted. They had come to England under a prohibition to take any part in secular concerns, and with the sole view of exercising the spiritual functions of the priesthood. … At the same time it must be owned that the answers which six of them gave to the queries were far from satisfactory. Their hesitation to deny the opposing power (a power then indeed maintained by the greater number of divines in Catholic kingdoms) rendered their loyalty very problematical, in case of an attempt to enforce the bull by any foreign prince. It furnished sufficient reason to watch their conduct with an eye of jealousy … but could not justify their execution for an imaginary offence."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 8, chapter 3.

"It is probable that not many more than 200 Catholics were executed, as such, in Elizabeth's reign, and this was ten score too many. … 'Dod reckons them at 191; Milner has raised the list to 204. Fifteen of these, according to him, suffered for denying the Queen's supremacy, 126 for exercising their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the Romish church. Many others died of hardships in prison, and many were deprived of their property. There seems, nevertheless [says Hallam], to be good reason for doubting whether anyone who was executed might not have saved his life by explicitly denying the Pope's power to depose the Queen.'"

J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, chapter 17, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: J. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1574. Emancipation of villeins on the royal domains. Practical end of serfdom.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: ENGLAND.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1575. Sovereignty of Holland and Zealand offered to Queen Elizabeth, and declined.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1581. Marriage proposals of the Duke of Anjou declined by Queen Elizabeth.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1583. The expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Formal possession taken of Newfoundland.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1584-1590. Raleigh's colonizing attempts in America.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586; and 1587-1590.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1586. Leicester in the Low Countries. Queen Elizabeth's treacherous dealing with the struggling Netherlanders.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587. Mary Queen of Scots and the Catholic conspiracies. Her trial and execution.

"Maddened by persecution, by the hopelessness of rebellion within or deliverance from without, the fiercer Catholics listened to schemes of assassination, to which the murder of William of Orange lent at the moment a terrible significance. The detection of Somerville, a fanatic who had received the host before setting out for London 'to shoot the Queen with his dagg,' was followed by measures of natural severity, by the flight and arrest of Catholic gentry, by a vigourous purification of the Inns of Court, where a few Catholics lingered, and by the dispatch of fresh batches of priests to the block. The trial and death of Parry, a member of the House of Commons who had served in the Queen's household, on a similar charge, brought the Parliament together in a transport of horror and loyalty. {842} All Jesuits and seminary priests were banished from the realm on pain of death. A bill for the security of the Queen disqualified any claimant of the succession who had instigated subjects to rebellion or hurt to the Queen's person from ever succeeding to the crown. The threat was aimed at Mary Stuart. Weary of her long restraint, of her failure to rouse Philip or Scotland to aid her, of the baffled revolt of the English Catholics and the baffled intrigues of the Jesuits, she bent for a moment to submission. 'Let me go,' she wrote to Elizabeth; 'let me retire from this island to some solitude where I may prepare my soul to die. Grant this and I will sign away every right which either I or mine can claim.' But the cry was useless, and her despair found a new and more terrible hope in the plots against Elizabeth's life. She knew and approved the vow of Anthony Babington and a band of young Catholics, for the most part connected with the royal household, to kill the Queen; but plot and approval alike passed through Walsingham's hands, and the seizure of Mary's correspondence revealed her guilt. In spite of her protests, a commission of peers sat as her judges at Fotheringay Castle; and their verdict of 'guilty' annihilated, under the provisions of the recent statute, her claim to the crown. The streets of London blazed with bonfires, and peals rang out from steeple to steeple, at the news of her condemnation; but, in spite of the prayer of Parliament for her execution, and the pressure of the Council, Elizabeth shrank from her death. The force of public opinion, however, was now carrying all before it, and the unanimous demand of her people wrested at last a sullen consent from the Queen. She flung the warrant signed upon the floor, and the Council took on themselves the responsibility of executing it. Mary died [February 8, 1587] on a scaffold which was erected in the castle hall at Fotheringay, as dauntlessly as she had lived. 'Do not weep,' she said to her ladies, 'I have given my word for you.' 'Tell my friends,' she charged Melville, 'that I die a good Catholic.'"

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 7, section 6.

"'Who now doubts,' writes an eloquent modern writer, 'that it would have been wiser in Elizabeth to spare her life?' Rather, the political wisdom of a critical and difficult act has never in the world's history been more signally justified. It cut away the only interest on which the Scotch and English Catholics could possibly have combined. It determined Philip upon the undisguised pursuit of the English throne, and it enlisted against him and his projects the passionate patriotism of the English nobility."

J. A. Froude, History of England, volume 12, chapter 34.

ALSO IN: A. De Lamartine, Mary Stuart, chapter 31-34.

L. S. F. Buckingham, Memoirs of Mary Stuart, volume 2, chapter 5-6.

L. von Ranke, History of England, book 3, chapter 5.

J. D. Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity.

C. Nau, History of Mary Stuart.

F. A. Mignet, History of Mary Queen of Scots, chapters 9-10.

England: A. D. 1587-1588. The wrath of Catholic Europe. Spanish vengeance and ambition astir.

"The death of Mary [Queen of Scots] may have preserved England from the religious struggle which would have ensued upon her accession to the throne, but it delivered Elizabeth from only one, and that the weakest of her enemies; and it exposed her to a charge of injustice and cruelty, which, being itself well founded, obtained belief for any other accusation, however extravagantly false. It was not Philip [of Spain] alone who prepared for making war upon her with a feeling of personal hatred: throughout Romish Christendom she was represented as a monster of iniquity; that representation was assiduously set forth, not in ephemeral libels, but in histories, in dramas, in poems, and in hawker's pamphlets; and when the king of Spain equipped an armament for the invasion of England, volunteers entered it with a passionate persuasion that they were about to bear a part in a holy war against the wickedest and most inhuman of tyrants. The Pope exhorted Philip to engage in this great enterprize for the sake of the Roman Catholic and apostolic church, which could not be more effectually nor more meritoriously extended than by the conquest of England; so should he avenge his own private and public wrongs; so should he indeed prove himself most worthy of the glorious title of Most Catholic King. And he promised, as soon as his troops should have set foot in that island, to supply him with a million of crowns of gold towards the expenses of the expedition. … Such exhortations accorded with the ambition, the passions, and the rooted principles of the king of Spain. The undertaking was resolved."