[272] Quantum auguror, non scribam ad te posthac episcopus. Eo enim jam res pervenit, ut aut cruces argenteæ et stanneæ, quas nos ubique confregimus, restituendæ sint, aut episcopatus relinquendi. Burnet, 294. Sandys writes, that he had nearly been deprived for expressing himself warmly against images. Id. 296. Other proofs of the text may be found in the same collection, as well as in Strype's Annals, and his Life of Parker. Even Parker seems, on one occasion, to have expected the queen to make such a retrograde movement in religion as would compel them all to disobey her. Life of Parker, Appendix, 29; a very remarkable letter.
[273] Strype's Parker, 310. The archbishop seems to disapprove this as inexpedient, but rather coldly; he was far from sharing the usual opinions on this subject. A puritan pamphleteer took the liberty to name the queen's chapel as "the pattern and precedent of all superstition." Strype's Annals, i. 471.
[274] Burnet, ii. 395.
[275] One of the injunctions to the visitors of 1559, reciting the offence and slander to the church that had arisen by lack of discreet and sober behaviour in many ministers, both in choosing of their wives, and in living with them, directs that no priest or deacon shall marry without the allowance of the bishops, and two justices of the peace, dwelling near the woman's abode, nor without the consent of her parents or kinsfolk, or, for want of these, of her master or mistress, on pain of not being permitted to exercise the ministry, or hold any benefice; and that the marriages of bishops should be approved by the metropolitan, and also by commissioners appointed by the queen. Somers Tracts, i. 65; Burnet, ii. 398. It is reasonable to suppose, that when a host of low-bred and illiterate priests were at once released from the obligation to celibacy, many of them would abuse their liberty improvidently, or even scandalously; and this probably had increased Elizabeth's prejudice against clerical matrimony. But I do not suppose that this injunction was ever much regarded. Some time afterwards (Aug. 1561) she put forth another extraordinary injunction, that no member of a college or cathedral should have his wife living within its precincts, under pain of forfeiting all his preferments. Cecil sent this to Parker, telling him at the same time that it was with great difficulty he had prevented the queen from altogether forbidding the marriage of priests. Life of P. 107. And the archbishop himself says, in the letter above mentioned, "I was in a horror to hear such words to come from her mild nature and Christianly learned conscience, as she spake concerning God's holy ordinance and institution of matrimony.
[276] Sandys writes to Parker, April 1559, "The queen's majesty will wink at it, but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but to bastard our children." And decisive proofs are brought by Strype, that the marriages of the clergy were not held legal, in the first part at least of the queen's reign. Elizabeth herself, after having been sumptuously entertained by the archbishop at Lambeth, took leave of Mrs. Parker with the following courtesy: "Madam (the style of a married lady) I may not call you; mistress (the appellation at that time of an unmarried woman) I am loth to call you; but, however, I thank you for your good cheer." The lady is styled, in deeds made while her husband was archbishop, Parker, alias Harleston; which was her maiden name. And she dying before her husband, her brother is called her heir-at-law, though she left children. But the archbishop procured letters of legitimation, in order to render them capable of inheritance. Life of Parker, 511. Others did the same. Annals, i. 8. Yet such letters were, I conceive, beyond the queen's power to grant, and could not have obtained any regard in a court of law.
In the diocese of Bangor, it was usual for the clergy, some years after Elizabeth's accession, to pay the bishop for a licence to keep a concubine. Strype's Parker, 203.
[277] Burnet, iii. 305.
[278] Jewel's letters to Bullinger, in Burnet, are full of proofs of his dissatisfaction; and those who feel any doubts may easily satisfy themselves from the same collection, and from Strype as to the others. The current opinion, that these scruples were imbibed during the banishment of our reformers, must be received with great allowance. The dislike to some parts of the Anglican ritual had begun at home; it had broken out at Frankfort; it is displayed in all the early documents of Elizabeth's reign by the English divines, far more warmly than by their Swiss correspondents. Grindal, when first named to the see of London, had his scruples about wearing the episcopal habits removed by Peter Martyr. Strype's Grindal, 29.
[279] It was proposed on this occasion to abolish all saints' days, to omit the cross in baptism, to leave kneeling at the communion to the ordinary's discretion, to take away organs, and one or two more of the ceremonies then chiefly in dispute. Burnet, iii. 303 and Append. 319; Strype, i. 297, 299. Nowell voted in the minority. It can hardly be going too far to suppose that some of the majority were attached to the old religion.
[280] Jewel, one of these visitors, writes afterwards to Martyr: "Invenimus ubique animos multitudinis satis propensos ad religionem; ibi etiam, ubi omnia putabantur fore difficillima.... Si quid erat obstinatæ malitiæ, id totum erat in presbyteris, illis præsertim, qui aliquando stetissent à nostrâ sententiâ." Burnet, iii. Append. 289. The common people in London and elsewhere, Strype says, took an active part in demolishing images; the pleasure of destruction, I suppose, mingling with their abhorrence of idolatry. And during the conferences held in Westminster Abbey, Jan. 1559, between the catholic and protestant divines, the populace who had been admitted as spectators, testified such disapprobation of the former, that they made it a pretext for breaking off the argument. There was indeed such a tendency to anticipate the government in reformation, as necessitated a proclamation, Dec. 28, 1558, silencing preachers on both sides.