A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 1 (of 6)

by Leopold von Ranke

Her earliest intimation of again deviating from the Church was given by restoring, like a devoted daughter, her father's monument, which Mary had levelled with the ground. A second soon followed, which at once touched on the chief doctrine in dispute. Before attending a solemn high mass she required the officiating bishop to omit the elevation of the host. As he refused, she left the church at the moment the ceremony was being consummated. To check the religious strife which began to fill the pulpits she forbade preaching, like her predecessors; but she allowed the Sunday Lessons, the Litany, and the Creed to be read in English. Elizabeth had hitherto conformed to the restored Catholic ritual: it could not be quite said that she belonged to either of the existing confessions. She always declared that she had read no controversial writings. But she had occupied herself with the documents of the early Church, with the Greek and Latin Fathers, and was thoroughly convinced that the Romanism of the later centuries had gone far astray from this pattern. She had made up her mind, not as to every point of doctrine, but as to its general direction: she believed too that she was upheld and guarded by God, to carry out this change. 'How wonderful are God's ordinances,' she exclaimed, when she heard that the crown had fallen to her.

What course however was now to be taken was a question which, owing to the antagonism of the factions and the close connexion of all ecclesiastical and political matters, required the most mature consideration.

The Queen was advised simply to revert to Edward VI's regulations, and to declare all things null and void that had been enacted under Mary, mainly on the ground that they had been enacted in violation of legal forms. A speech was laid before her, in which the validity of the last elections was disputed, since qualified members had been excluded from the sittings of both houses, although they were good Englishmen: the later proclamations of summons were held to be null, because in them the formula 'Supreme Head of the English Church' had been arbitrarily omitted, without a previous resolution of Parliament, though on this title so much depended for the commonwealth and people: but no one could give up a right which concerned a third person or the public interest; through these errors, which Mary had committed in her blindness, all that had then been determined lost its force and authority.[184] But the Queen and her counsellors did not wish to go so far. They remarked that to declare a Parliament invalid for some errors of form was a step of such consequence as to make the whole government of the nation insecure. But even without this it was not the Queen's purpose merely to revert to the forms which had been adopted under her brother. She did not share all the opinions and doctrines which had then obtained the upper hand: she held far more to ceremonies and outward forms than Edward VI or his counsellors: she wished to avoid a rude antagonism which would have called forth the resistance of the Catholics.

In the Parliament that met immediately after the coronation (which was still celebrated by a Catholic bishop), they began with the question which had most occupied the late assembly, namely, should the Church revenues that had been attached to the crown be restored to it. The Queen's proposal, that they should be left to the crown, was quite the view of the assembly and obtained their full consent.

The Parliamentary form of government however had also the greatest influence on religious affairs. Having risen originally in opposition to Rome, the Parliament, after the vicissitudes of the civil wars, first recovered its full importance when it took the side of the crown in its struggle with the Papacy. It did not so much concern itself with Dogma for its own sake: it had thought it possible to unite the retention of Catholicism with national independence. Under Mary every man had become conscious that this would be impossible. It was just then that the Parliament passed from its previous compliant mood into opposition, which was not yet successful because it was only that of the minority, but which prepared the way for the coming change of tone. It attached itself joyfully to the new Queen, whose birth necessarily made her adopt a policy which took away all apprehensions of a union with the Romish See injurious to the country.

The complete antagonism between the Papal and the Parliamentary powers, of which one had swayed past centuries and the other was to sway the future, is shown by the conduct of the Pope, when Elizabeth announced her accession to him. In his answer he reproached her with it as presumption, reverted to the decision of his predecessors by which she was declared illegitimate, required that the whole matter should be referred to him, and even mentioned England's feudal relation to the Papacy:[185] but Parliament, which had rejected this claim centuries before, acknowledged Elizabeth as legitimately sprung from the royal blood, and as Queen by the law of God and of the land; they pledged themselves to defend her title and right with their lives and property.

Owing to this the tendencies towards separation from Rome were already sure to gain the superiority: the Catholic members of the Privy Council, to whom Elizabeth owed her first recognition, could not contend effectively against them. But besides this, Elizabeth had joined with them a number of men of her own choice and her own views, who like herself had not openly opposed the existing system, but disapproved it; they were mainly her personal friends, who now took the direction of affairs into their hands; the change which they prepared looked moderate but was decided.

Elizabeth rejected the title of 'Supreme Head of the Church,' because it not merely aroused the aversion of the Catholics, but also gave offence to many zealous Protestants; it made however no essential difference when she replaced it by the formula 'in all causes as well ecclesiastical as civil, supreme.' Parliament declared that the right of visiting and reforming the Church was attached to the crown and could be exercised by it through ecclesiastical commissioners. The clergy, high and low, were to swear to the ecclesiastical supremacy, and abjure all foreign authority and jurisdiction. The punishment for refusing the oath was defined: it was not to be punished with death as under Henry VIII, but with the loss of office and property. All Mary's acts in favour of an independent legislation and jurisdiction of the spiritualty were repealed. The crown appropriated to itself, with consent of Parliament, complete supremacy over the clergy of the land.

The Parliament allowed indeed that it did not belong to it to determine concerning matters really ecclesiastical; but it held itself authorised, much like the Great-Councils of Switzerland, to order a conference of both parties, before which the most pressing questions of the moment, on the power of national Churches, and the nature of the Mass, should be laid.

The Catholic bishops disliked the whole proceeding, as may be imagined, since these points had been so long settled; and they disliked no less the interference of the temporal power, and lastly the presidency of a royal minister, Nicolas Bacon. They had no mind to commit themselves to an interchange of writings: their declarations by word of mouth were more peremptory than convincing. In general they were not well represented since the deaths of Pole and Gardiner. On the other hand the Protestants, of whom many had become masters of the controverted questions during the exile from which they had now returned, put forward explicit statements which were completely to the point. They laid stress chiefly on the distinction between the universal, truly Catholic, Church and the Romish: they sought to reach firm ground in Christian antiquity prior to the hierarchic centuries. While they claimed a more comprehensive communion than that of Romanism, as that in which true Catholicity exists, they sought at the same time to establish a narrower, national, body which should have the right of independent decision as to ritual. Nearly all depended on the question, how far a country, which forms a separate community and thus has a separate Church, has the right to alter established ceremonies and usages; they deduced such an authority from this fact among others, that the Church in the first centuries was ruled by provincial councils. The project of calling a national council was proposed in Germany but never carried out: in England men considered the idea of a national decree, mainly in reference to ritual, as superior to all others. But we know how much the conception of ritual covered. The question whether Edward VI's Prayer-book should be restored or not, was at the same time decisive as to what doctrinal view should be henceforth followed.[186]