[Sidenote: Elizabeth's policy]
Though we can now see that the forces drawing England to the Reformation were decisive, the policy of Elizabeth was at first cautious. The old services went on until Parliament had spoken. As with Henry VIII, so with this daughter of his, scrupulous legality of form marked the most revolutionary acts. Elizabeth had been proclaimed "Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith &c," this "&c" being chosen to stand in place of the old title "Supreme Head of the Church," thus dodging the question of its assumption or omission. Parliament, however, very soon passed supremacy and uniformity acts to supply the needed sanction. The former repealed Philip and Mary's Heresy Act and Repealing Statute, revived ten acts of Henry VIII and one of Edward VI, but confirmed the repeal of six acts of Henry VIII. Next, Parliament proceeded to seize the episcopal lands. Its spirit was just as secular as that of Henry's Parliaments, only there was less ecclesiastical property left to grab.
The Book of Common Prayer was revised by introducing into the recension of 1552 a few passages from the first edition of 1549, previously rejected as too Catholic. Three of the Forty-two Articles of Religion of Edward were dropped, [Sidenote: The Thirty-nine Articles 1563] thus making the Thirty-nine Articles that have ever since been the authoritative {330} statement of Anglican doctrine. Thus it is true to some extent that the Elizabethan settlement was a compromise. It took special heed of various parties, and tried to avoid offence to Lutherans, Zwinglians, and even to Roman Catholics. But far more than a compromise, it was a case of special development. As it is usually compared with the English Dissenting sects, the church of England is often said to be the most conservative of the reformed bodies. It is often said that it is Protestant in doctrine and Catholic in ritual and hierarchy. But compared with the Lutheran church it is found to be if anything further from Rome. In fact the Anglicans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries abhorred the Lutherans as "semi-papists."
[Sidenote: The Church of England]
And yet the Anglican church was like the Lutheran not only in its conservatism as compared with Calvinism, but in its political aspects. Both became the strong allies of the throne; both had not only a markedly national but a markedly governmental quality. Just as the Reformation succeeded in England by becoming national in opposition to Spain, and remaining national in opposition to French culture, so the Anglican church naturally became a perfect expression of the English character. Moderate, decorous, detesting extremes of speculation and enthusiasm, she cares less for logic than for practical convenience.
Closely interwoven with the religious settlement were the questions of the heir to the throne [Sidenote: Succession] and of foreign policy. Elizabeth's life was the only breakwater that stood between the people and a Catholic, if not a disputed, succession. The nearest heir was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's sister. As a Catholic and a Frenchwoman, half by race and wholly by her first marriage to Francis II, she would have been most {331} distasteful to the ruling party in England. Elizabeth was therefore desired and finally urged by Parliament to marry. Her refusal to do this has been attributed to some hidden cause, as her love for Leicester or the knowledge that she was incapable of bearing a child. But though neither of these hypotheses can be disproved, neither is necessary to account for her policy. It is true that it would have strengthened her position to have had a child to succeed her; but it would have weakened her personal sway to have had a husband. She wanted to rule as well as to reign. Her many suitors were encouraged just sufficiently to flatter her vanity and to attain her diplomatic ends. First, her brother-in-law Philip sought her hand, and was promptly rejected as a Spanish Catholic. Then, there was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, apparently her favorite in spite of his worthless character, but his rank was not high enough. Then, there were princes of Sweden and Denmark, an Archduke of Austria and two sons of Catharine de' Medici's. The suit of one of the latter began when Elizabeth was thirty-nine years old and he was nineteen [Sidenote: 1566] and continued for ten years with apparent zest on both sides. Parliament put all the pressure it could upon the queen to make her flirtations end in matrimony, but it only made Elizabeth angry. Twice she forbade discussion of the matter, and, though she afterwards consented to hear the petition, she was careful not to call another Parliament for five years.
[Sidenote: Financial measures]
Vexatious financial difficulties had been left to Elizabeth. Largely owing to the debasement of the currency royal expenditure had risen from L56,000 per annum at the end of Henry's reign to L345,000 in the last year of Mary's reign. The government's credit was in a bad way, and the commerce of the kingdom deranged. [Sidenote: 1560] By the wise expedient of calling in the {332} debased coins issued since 1543, the hardest problems were solved.
[Sidenote: Underhand war]
Towards France and Spain Elizabeth's policy was one well described by herself as "underhand war." English volunteers, with government connivance, but nominally on their own responsibility, fought in the ranks of Huguenots and Netherlanders. Torrents of money poured from English churches to support their fellow-Protestants in France and Holland. English sailors seized Spanish galleons; if successful the queen secretly shared the spoil; but if they were caught they might be hanged as pirates by Philip or Alva. This condition, unthinkable now, was allowed by the inchoate state of international law; the very idea of neutrality was foreign to the time. States were always trying to harm and overreach each other in secret ways. In Elizabethan England the anti-papal and anti-Spanish ardor of the mariners made possible this buccaneering without government support, had not the rich prizes themselves been enough to attract the adventurous. Doubtless far more energy went into privateering than into legitimate commerce.