History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II.

FROM
THE FALL OF WOLSEY
THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH.
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD. VOLUME II.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY. 1872.
Charles Scribner and Co of No 654 Broadway New York have authority from me to publish all works which I have chiefly written and may hereafter write.J A Froude. London. Jan. 29. 1871.
THE PROTESTANTS.
Where changes are about to take place of great and enduring moment, a kind of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes anticipates the true opening of the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the coming storm, or as if the shadows of the reality were projected forwards into the future, and imitated in dumb show the movements of the real actors in the story.
Prelude to the Reformation in the fourteenth century.
Such a rehearsal of the English Reformation was witnessed at the close of the fourteenth century, confused, imperfect, disproportioned, to outward appearance barren of results; yet containing a representative of each one of the mixed forces by which that great change was ultimately effected, and foreshadowing even something of the course which it was to run.
The Lollard story opens with the disputes between the crown and the see of Rome on the presentation to English benefices. For the hundred and fifty years which succeeded the Conquest, the right of nominating the archbishops, the bishops, and the mitred abbots, had been claimed and exercised by the crown.Changes in the mode of presentation to bishopricks. On the passing of the great charter, the church had recovered its liberties, and the privilege of free election had been conceded by a special clause to the clergy. The practice which then became established was in accordance with the general spirit of the English constitution. On the vacancy of a see, the cathedral chapter applied to the crown for a congé d'élire. The application was a form; the consent was invariable. A bishop was then elected by a majority of suffrages; his name was submitted to the metropolitan, and by him to the pope. If the pope Right of free election conceded in the great charter to the chapters and the religious houses. signified his approval, the election was complete; consecration followed; and the bishop having been furnished with his bulls of investiture, was presented to the king, and from him received the temporalities of his see. The mode in which the great abbots were chosen was precisely similar; the superiors of the orders to which the abbeys belonged were the channels of communication with the pope, in the place of the archbishops; but the elections in themselves were free, and were conducted in the same manner. The smaller church benefices, the small monasteries or parish churches, were in the hands of private patrons, lay or ecclesiastical; but in the case of each institution a reference was admitted, or was supposed to be admitted, to the court of Rome.