Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter I · QUEEN JANE AND QUEEN MARY.

With the same object, though not with the same object only, the lords of the council supported the Bishop of Winchester. They proposed to alter the form of the coronation oath, and to bind the queen by an especial clause to maintain the independence of the English Church—a precaution, as it proved, not unnecessary—for the existing form was already inconvenient, and Mary was meditating how, when called on to swear to observe the laws and constitutions of the realm, she could introduce an adjective sub silentio; she intended to swear only that she would observe the JUST laws and constitutions.[136] But she looked with the gravest alarm to the introduction of more awkward phrases; if words were added which would be equivalent (as she would understand them) to a denial of Christ and his Church, she had resolved to refuse at all hazards.[137]