“Gardiner.I distrust thee,
There is a half voice, and a lean assent:
What is thy name?
Man.Sanders!
Gardiner.What else?
Man.Zerrubabel.”
The Laureate was right to select for this rebellious Protestant a name that was to be popular throughout Elizabeth’s reign; but poetic license runs rather far in giving this title to a full-grown man in any year of Mary’s rule. Sanders might have had a young child at home so styled, but for himself it was practically impossible. So clearly defined is the epoch that saw, if not one batch of names go out, at least a new batch come in. Equally marked are the names from the Bible which at this date were in use, and those which were not. Of this latter category Zerrubabel was one.
In the single quotation from Hilles’s letter of 1543 we see the origin of the great Hebrew invasion explained. The English Bible had become a fact, and the knowledge of its personages and narratives was becoming directly acquired. In every community up and down the country it was as if a fresh spring of clear water had been found, and every neighbour could come with jug or pail, and fill it when and how they would. One of the first impressions made seems to have been this: children in the olden time received as a name a term that was immediately significant of the circumstances of their birth. Often God personally, through His prophets or angelic messenger, acted as godparent indeed, and gave the name, as in Isaiah viii. 1, 3, 4:
“Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
“And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
“For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.”
Here was a name palpably significant. Even before they knew its exact meaning the name was enrolled in English church registers, and by-and-by zealot Puritans employed it as applicable to English Church politics.
All the patriarchs, down to the twelve sons of Jacob, had names of direct significance given them. Above all, a peculiar emphasis was laid upon all the titles of Jesus Christ, as in Isaiah vii. 14:
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
At the same time that this new revelation came, a crisis was going on of religion. The old Romish Church was being uprooted, or, rather, a new system was being grafted upon its stock, for the links have never been broken. The saints were shortly to be tabooed by the large mass of English folk; the festivals were already at a discount. Simultaneously with the prejudice against the very names of their saints and saintly festivals, arose the discovery of a mine of new names as novel as it was unexhaustible. They not merely met the new religious instinct, but supplied what would have been a very serious vacuum.