[4] Gairdner, /Hist. of Eng. Church in Sixteenth Century/, 348.

[5] Gairdner, op. cit., 370-7. Strype's /Life of Cranmer/ (Oxford edition of Strype's Works, 1812-24).

[6] Haile, /Life of Cardinal Pole/, 476-83.

CHAPTER IV

THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH (1558-1603)

See bibliography, chap. ii., iii. /Publications of the English
Catholic Record Society/, 1904-14. Strype, /Annals of the
Reformation/, 1708-9 (a complete edition of Strype's Works
published, Oxford, 1812-24, 25 vols.; Index Vol., 1828). Birt,
O.S.B., /The Elizabethan Religious Settlement/, 1907. Meyer,
/England und Die Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth und Den
Stuarts/. Gee, /The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of
Religion/, 1898. Lee, /The Church under Queen Elizabeth/, 2 vols.,
2nd edition, 1893. Bridgett, /The True Story of the Catholic
Hierarchy/, 1889. Phillips, /The Extinction of the Catholic
Hierarchy/, 1905. Gillow, /Literary and Biographical History of
English Catholics/. Foley, /Records of the English Province of the
Society of Jesus/, 7 vols., 1880. Challoner, /Memoirs of
Missionary Priests/, etc. (1577-1684), 2 vols., 1803. Camm, /Lives
of the English Martyrs/ (1583-88), 1914. Guilday, /The English
Catholic Refugees on the Continent/ (1558-1795), 1914. Husenbeth,
/Notices of the English Colleges and Convents on the Continent
after the Dissolution of the Religious Houses in England/, 1849.
Knox, /Records of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws/.
/The Month/ (1900-2).

A few hours after Mary's death Elizabeth was proclaimed queen according to the terms of her father's will, and messengers were dispatched to Hatfield to announce her accession and to escort her to the capital. During the reign of her brother her relations with Thomas Seymour nearly led to a secret marriage and the loss of her rights to the throne, while during the lifetime of her sister the disclosures of Wyatt and his followers and the correspondence of the French ambassador brought her to the Tower on suspicion of treason. Mary was, however, averse to severe measures, more especially as Elizabeth expressed her devotion to the Catholic religion and her willingness to accept the new religious settlement. But in secret she treasured other views, not because she was hostile to the Catholic religion, but because opposition to Catholicism seemed to be the best means of maintaining her claim to the crown and of resisting Mary Queen of Scots, who from the Catholic point of view was the nearest legitimate heir to the throne. Already, before the death of Mary, Elizabeth was in close correspondence with those who were unfriendly to Catholicism and to the Spanish connexion, and she had selected William Cecil, whose religious views and practices during Mary's reign coincided with her own, to be her secretary. Her accession was hailed with joy throughout England, for Englishmen were glad to have a ruler of their own so as to be rid of the Spanish domination, that had led to taxation at home and disaster abroad. The official announcement of Elizabeth's accession was as welcome to Philip II., who was still England's ally, as it was distasteful to France, which regarded Mary Queen of Scots as the lawful claimant to England's throne. It is noteworthy, as affording a clue to Elizabeth's future policy, that no official notice of her accession was forwarded to the Pope, nor were the credentials of the English ambassador at Rome either confirmed or revoked. Paul IV., notwithstanding the efforts of the French, was unwilling to create any difficulties for England's new ruler by declaring her illegitimate or by treating her otherwise than as a rightful sovereign.[1]

Though many of Mary's old councillors were retained it is remarked by many interested observers that the new members selected by the queen belonged to the party likely to favour religious innovations, and that her real advisers were not the privy council but a select coterie, the principal of which were William Cecil, Secretary of State, and his brother-in-law, Nicholas Bacon, appointed Lord Keeper of the Seal, both of whom, while outwardly professing their devotion to the old religion under Queen Mary, were well known to sympathise with the Edwardian régime. The men who had fled to Frankfurt or Geneva began to return and to preach their doctrines to the crowd, and the Italian church in London was attacked by a mob. Outwardly no change took place in the religious ceremonial. A royal proclamation was issued (27th Dec., 1558) forbidding preaching or the use of other public prayers, rites, or ceremonies save those approved by law until Parliament should have determined otherwise, except in regard to the recitation in English, of the Litany, the Commandments, the Creed, together with the Epistles and Gospels.[2] Still the anti-Catholic party boasted that the new ruler was on their side. The queen's own inclinations were soon made clear by her prohibition addressed to Bishop Oglethorp of Carlisle against the elevation of the Host in the Mass celebrated in her presence on Christmas Day (1558), and by her withdrawal from the church when he refused to obey her instructions. Bishop Christopherson of Chichester was arrested for his sermon preached on the occasion of the late queen's funeral, and Archbishop Heath of York resigned the Chancellorship.

The coronation of the queen was fixed for the 25th January (1559), and as her title to the throne might be questioned on so many points, it was obviously of the greatest importance that the ceremony should be carried out in the orthodox fashion so as to elude all the objections of her rivals. The Archbishop of York and the bishops generally, well aware of the religious changes that were in contemplation, refused to take part in the coronation, though in the end Bishop Oglethorp of Carlisle was induced to undertake the task, probably in the hope of averting still greater evil. The bishops attended at Westminster to welcome the queen on her arrival and to take the oath of allegiance, but declined to be present at the Mass, as did also the Spanish ambassador. The rite was carried out with punctilious attention to the old rubrics, and the sermon was preached by Dr. Cox, a Frankfurt exile, who regaled his hearers with a wild tirade against the monks, clergy, and the existing idolatry.[3]

Parliament was summoned to meet in January 1559. In the House of Lords the government was confronted with the fact that the bishops to a man would oppose the religious changes that were to be introduced, but it was hoped that by careful directions to the sheriffs a House of Commons might be returned that could be trusted.[4] There was no difficulty in procuring acts confirming Elizabeth's title to the throne, more especially as the legitimacy of her mother's marriage though implied was not directly affirmed, but the bill for the restoration of First Fruits to the crown met with considerable opposition and delay, especially at the hands of the spiritual peers, and another for the restoration of those clergymen who had been deprived in the previous reign on account of their non-observance of celibacy was abandoned. The two great measures however on which Elizabeth's ministers had set their hearts were royal supremacy and the re-introduction of the Book of Common Prayer in place of the Latin Mass, but from the first the bishops offered to these measures the most determined opposition, and though the bishops were not supported by a very large number of the lay peers, the idea of forcing such momentous changes on the country against the wishes of the united episcopate was so repugnant to the religious instincts of the nation that the ministers found themselves again and again compelled to withdraw or modify their proposals.