In the intervening reigns, it seems only natural to suppose that many who still adhered to their Catholic principles, while bowing to the inevitable for the time being, and, knowing the precarious state of the health of the young Prince, foresaw the probable accession of Queen Mary and the consequent restoration of the ancient Church. Of these, Tallis may have been one.
On the actual accession their hopes seemed justified to the fullest extent, and only the fact of the Queen proving childless rendered them futile.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to say with any approach to exactitude what were, precisely, the immediate changes in the forms of the Church services insisted on at the moment of King Henry's rebellion against Papal supremacy. It is, however, only natural to assume that all reference to that supremacy would be eliminated, and that the use of the English language would be insisted upon, so as to mark, once and for all time, the absolutely irrevocable nature of the act.
The state of affairs in the Church must have been absolutely chaotic, what with those who, while remaining Catholic in principle, were willing to accept such changes as were not inconsistent with their faith, and others who
were anti-Catholic by conviction and desirous of banishing all traces of the past, so far as it might be possible.
It was to these that the young King extended his sympathy and help, on his accession to the throne.
His death after a short reign and the consequent accession of Queen Mary, simply made "confusion worse confounded." Although strenuous in her methods, she had not time to achieve what she had at heart, and her death put an end for ever to the hopes of the extreme Catholic party. However much had been carried out that Queen Elizabeth at once settled herself to undo, and thus prolonged, perhaps inevitably, the crisis through which the Church was passing.
It is not difficult to imagine the delicate position in which musicians found themselves at various times during this crucial period. Let me quote Mr. Myles B. Foster in his interesting book, "Anthems and Anthem Composers"[14]: "Can we not picture the puzzled state of these poor composers, never knowing whether, by setting their music to the new English words, they would be burned alive, or, by using the old Latin ones, they would be hanged!"
With the accession of Queen Elizabeth these critical times may be said to have become a thing of the past—at least for the musician. The policy of the wonderful Queen was based on compromise, by which she endeavoured to so broaden the lines of the Church as to make it
possible for the two factions to remain within its boundaries. So far as the extremists on either side are concerned, the idea was doomed to failure, but while she lived she pursued the policy with characteristic pertinacity, and unenviable was the fate of the too-reforming Bishop who encountered her displeasure. The state of the Church of England to-day seems, at once, a tribute to her genius and foresight, for while the trend of feeling and opinion certainly continued to move in the direction of Protestantism, the opposing principles never became quite extinct.[15]