§ 22. At Cambridge there were, throughout the reign of Elizabeth, many more distinguished men than at Oxford, but the Puritanism and Calvinism of Cambridge had been even more decided and aggressive. From Trinity College came Cartwright and Travers, the "head and neck" of English Puritanism; while Drs. Humphrey and Reynolds of Oxford were eclipsed in stern Calvinism by Drs. Whitaker and Goad at Cambridge. But as Oxford had already produced Hooker and Field, so had Cambridge now her Andrewes and Overal. Better days were in store for both the universities. The Church in her divine character, with her lifegiving sacraments, began to be admired and loved, and the narrowness of the Puritan and the dogmatism of the Calvinist gradually receded into the background. § 23. "An undoubted reaction against Puritanism,” writes Mr. Gardiner, “marked the end of the sixteenth century. As one by one the generation which had sustained the queen at her accession dropped into the grave, a generation arose which, excepting in books of controversy, knew nothing of any religion which differed from that of the Church of England. The ceremonies and vestments which in the time of their fathers had been exposed to such bitter attacks were to them hallowed, as having been entwined with their earliest associations. It required a strong effort of the imagination to connect them with the forms of a departed system which they had never witnessed with their eyes; but they remembered that those ceremonies had been used, and those vestments had been worn by the clergy, who had led their prayers during those anxious days, when the Armada, yet unconquered, was hovering round the coast, and who had in their name and in the name of all true Englishmen, offered the thanksgiving which had ascended to heaven after the great victory had been won.”1 1 Gardiner's Hist. of England, i. 156. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. ENGLAND AND ROME DURING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. Only about 200 clergy quitted their benefices or positions in the Church of England on the accession of Elizabeth. A very large number therefore of those who did not accept reforming views must have at first conformed. This conformity would probably have become by degrees hearty and genuine, had it not been for the violent proceedings of the popes. Pope Paul IV., to whom the Queen announced her accession by her ambassador, Sir Edward Carne, pronounced her a bastard, and to have no right to the throne, but promised if she would return to obedience to the Apostolic See he would consider her case. Of course the recall of the ambassador was immediately ordered. The succeeding Pope, Pius IV., made some conciliatory overtures. He desired to send a nuncio to England, and is said (though on insufficient authority) to have offered to confirm and approve the English liturgy, and to annul the sentence against her mother's marriage, if the queen would "return into the bosom of the Church. These overtures were refused, and the nuncio was not suffered to land. The same pope (May 1561) invited Elizabeth to send representatives to the Council of Trent, but the invitation was declined on the ground of the faulty nature of the Council. There was nothing, therefore, as yet to hinder Romanists communicating with, and ministering in, the English Church, and that they did so during the first eleven years of the queen's reign we have the clearest testimony. Bristow, a fanatical Romanist, attacks his brethren with great bitterness "for that they did for the penny give themselves to the ministry of the new service." and also censures the laymen for being hearers of it.1 All this was changed by the action of a succeeding pope (Pius V.) after the abortive rebellion in the north. (Feb. 25, 1570) this pope published against the queen a Bull of Excommunication and Deposition (known as the Bull regnans in excelsis), and henceforth all English Romanists loyal to the pope were constrained to regard the queen as an enemy, and to separate themselves from the Church which she upheld. The 1 Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog., iii. 318, note. action of the pope is deplored and condemned by all moderate Romanist writers, (e.g. Messrs. Butler and Tierney), and it was repudiated by a great number, especially among the laity, of the English Romanists at that day. In order to uphold this violent ultramontane policy, so distasteful to many of their fellowreligionists, the leaders of the faction, who themselves remained in safety abroad, adopted various means. The most effectual was the establishment of seminaries, where young men were trained for missionary work in England, and led to believe that the "conversion" of their countrymen, and the deposition of the heretical queen, were objects worth any risk to accomplish. The principal intriguer, who was also the founder of the first English seminary at Douai in Flanders, in 1568, was William Allen, once a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and afterwards a cardinal. This man procured the establishment of English colleges, both at Rome and in Spain, besides that at Douai. In 1580 he sent into England the first Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Persons and Campion. Campion was captured, and executed with circumstances of great cruelty, but Persons escaped, and was long a very dangerous enemy to England. Notwithstanding the most rigorous laws, and the greatest severity shown by Government, a continuous stream of seminarist priests was poured into England. These men, pledged to do the mandates of a Church, which had excommunicated and deposed the queen, came, in fact, as traitors to the Government, and could expect nothing, when apprehended, but the treatment of traitors. At the time of the Armada, Persons and Allen put forth a book openly advocating the cause of the King of Spain against Elizabeth. Plots against the life of the queen were continually being organised by some of these intriguers. The laws, therefore, against them grew continually more and more ferocious. Yet, in spite of these terrible enactments, it is probable that at no time during the reign of Elizabeth would a Romanist priest, who was ready to disclaim the deposing power of the pope, and to profess his loyal allegiance to the queen, have incurred sentence of death. -(Hallam, Const. Hist. Tierney's Notes to Dodd. Butler's English Catholics.) CHAPTER XXII. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA-CONFERENCE WITH THE § 1. Attempts to get the first word with King James. § 2. He gives indica tions that he will support the Church. § 3. The Millennary Petition, § 4. Replies to it. § 5. The King shows an inclination to listen to it. § 6. Proclamation for a Conference. § 7. The Conference at Hampton Court. § 8. The first day's work. § 9. The second day. § 10. The third day. § 11. Arrangements for carrying out the alterations. § 12. Death of Whitgift; his Character. § 13. A Proclamation ordering conformity. § 14. Character of King James. § 15. Character of the new era. § 16. Church Legislation in Parliament. § 17. Meeting of Canterbury Convocation. § 18. The Canons of 1604. § 19. York Convocation accepts them. § 20. Proclamation for conformity by St. Andrew's Day. § 21. Bancroft made Archbishop. § 22. Character of the new Subscription. § 23. The Bishops ordered to enforce it. § 24. The Judges consulted. § 25. Deprivations of Ministers. § 26. The Abridgment of the Lincolnshire Ministers. § 27. Morton's reply. § 28. Apparent success of Bancroft's measures. § 29. Testimony of Lord Clarendon. § 30. Of Dr. Heylin. § 1. THERE was sufficient doubt as to the religious opinions of the Scotch king who succeeded Elizabeth on the throne of England, to make all parties eager to have the first word with him on his accession. Mr. Lewis Pickering," a Northamptonshire gentleman, zealous for the Presbyterian party," was the messenger chosen by the Puritans to hasten into Scotland with congratulations, and Dr. Neville, Dean of Canterbury, was deputed by the archbishop and the prelates. The dean was outstripped considerably by the zeal and activity of his rival, but, says Fuller," he may be said to come first who comes really to effect what he was sent for." 1 § 2. Dr. Neville brought back “a welcome answer of his Highness' purpose, which was to uphold and maintain the government of the late queen as she had left it settled." 2 This message was a great relief to the archbishop, for both he and the Bishop of London had been doubtful whether James would not favour the Puritanical discipline. Further indications were soon given of the conservative intentions of the new monarch. He warned off by a proclamation those who were flocking to him with their Fuller, u. s. 1 Fuller, Ch. Hist. x. i. 13 2 1 grievances in his progress southwards, and by another proclamation he forbade all innovations in the Church either in doctrine or discipline.2 § 3. The Puritans had been long preparing for a vigorous manifesto to the new ruler. They had drawn up a petition recounting all their grievances, to which the signatures or approvals of about 750 ministers had been obtained. This was forwarded to the king soon after his accession, and the calm tone in which it was composed, and the reasonableness of some of its demands, caused, on its becoming known, a considerable trepidation among the Church divines.3 § 4. The universities were somewhat aimed at in it, and they at once replied. Cambridge passed a decree that whoever opposed the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England, either in word or writing, should be suspended from all degrees already taken, and disabled from taking any new degree. Oxford published a reply, in which it averred that the framers of the petition were such as advocated a limited monarchy, and the subjecting the titles of kings to the approbation of the people. This seemed a sure way to prejudice King James against the document. On his part the Primate carefully collected the information needful to meet the Puritanical complaints. The bishops were directed to cause their archdeacons or commissaries to see personally every incumbent and curate within their jurisdictions, and to ascertain from them the number of communicants in each parish, the number of recusants; the names of pluralists, with particulars of their benefices; the number of impropriations, and whether endowed with vicarages or served by curates, and the stipends paid; the names of all parsonages endowed with vicarages; the value of both; the names of all patrons of benefices. § 5. All this information was collected at the desire of the king, and he further wrote both to the Chancellor of Oxford and to the archbishop, desiring that they should take into consideration the restoration of impropriations to the Church.5 The archbishop became “exceeding pensive,” and the hopes of the Puritans were high. Everywhere they were employed in getting signatures of influential laymen to support their petition. Whitgift wrote to the king pointing out that the restoration of impropriations by the universities would be ruin to them; and at length, in September 1603, the king made public a letter to the archbishop and 1 State Papers of James I. (Domestic), i. 21. 2 Collier, Ch. Hist. vii. 273. 3 The petition, known as the Millenary Petition, will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 4 Strype's Whitgift, iv. 31. 5 Harleian MSS. 677, 23, 30. Tanner MSS. 67, 57. bishops, declaring his constancy to the Church, and his determination to uphold the laws for its protection, but without shedding of blood.1 The bishops were reassured, but at the same time they were informed that their adversaries were to have a fair hearing. § 6. October 24, 1603, came out a proclamation dated from Wilton, "touching a meeting for the hearing and determining things pretended to be amiss in the Church." The king declares in this that he was persuaded that the constitution of the Church of England was agreeable to God's Word, and near to the condition of the primitive church. Yet, because he had received information that some things in it were scandalous and gave offence, he had appointed a meeting to be held before himself and Council, of divers bishops and other learned men, at which consultation he hoped to be better informed of the state of the Church, and whether there were any such enormities in it. "This our godly purpose we find hath been misconstrued by some men's spirits, whose heart tendeth rather to combustion than reformation, as appeareth by the courses they have taken, some using public invectives against the state ecclesiastical here established, some contemning their authority and the processes of their courts, some gathering subscriptions of multitudes of vulgar persons to be exhibited to us, to crave that reformation which, if there be cause to make, is more in our heart than in theirs. We are not ignorant that time may have brought in some corruptions which may deserve a review and amendment, which, if by the assembly intended by us, we shall find to be so indeed, we will therein proceed according to the laws and customs of this realm by advice of our Council, or in our high Court of Parliament, or by Convocation of our clergy, as we shall find reason to lead us.' "2 The § 7. In accordance with this proclamation a conference was arranged to be held at Hampton Court in January 1604. king nominated the Puritan deputies. This was an unfortunate arrangement, as it at once gave a handle to objectors.3 It was also complained by the Puritans afterwards that the authorised report of the conference, drawn up by Barlow, was grossly partial to the Church, that "it fraudulently cut off and concealed all the speeches (which were many) that his Majesty uttered against the corruptions of the Church, and the practice of prelates ;" and if, says the writer, "the king's own speeches be grossly abused by the author, it is much more likely that speeches of other men are 1 State Papers of James (I. Domestic), ii. 39; iii. 82. 2 Ib. iv. 28. 3 Calderwood says: "Two or three were appointed of the sincerer side. that were not sound, but only to spy and prevaricate."-Ch. Hist. of Scot land, p. 474. |