“If His Majesty had seen it a bit sooner,” quoth Hal, “there should have been spared some ill work both in Spain and the Low Countries.”
Mynheer saith, “Ah!” more than once, and wagged his head right sadly.
“Why,” quoth Hal, something earnestly, “mind you not, some dozen years gone, of the stir was made all over this realm, when the ministers were appointed to wear their surplices at all times of their ministration, and no longer to minister in gowns ne cloaks, with their hats on, as they had been wont? Yea, what tumult had we then against the order taken by the Queen and Council, and against the Archbishop and Bishops for consenting thereto! And, all said, what was the mighty ado about? Why, whether a man should wear a black gown or a white. Heard one ever such stuff?”
“Ah, Hal, that shall scantly serve,” saith Father. “Mind, I pray thee, that the question to the eyes of these men was somewhat far otherwise. Thou wouldst not say that Adam and Eva were turned forth of Paradise by reason they plucked an apple?”
“But, I pray you, Sir Aubrey, what was the question?” saith Mynheer. “For I do not well know, as I fain should.”
“Look you,” quoth Father, “in the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer, and you shall find a rubric, that ‘such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of King Edward the Sixth.’”
“But they were not retained,” breaks in Hal, that will alway be first to speak of aught.
(Lack-a-day! shall that cost me two pence?)
“They were not retained,” repeateth Father, “but the clergy took to ministering in their gowns and other common apparel, such as they ware every day, with no manner of vestments of no sort. Whereupon, such negligence being thought unseemly, it pleased the Queen’s Majesty, sitting in her Council, and with consent of the Archbishop and Bishops, to issue certain injunctions for the better ordering of the Church: to wit, that at all times of their ministration the clergy should wear a decent white surplice, and no other vestment, nor should minister in their common apparel as aforetime.”
“Then the rubric touching the garments as worn under King Edward was done away?” saith Mynheer.