“Take this gentleman to Mr. Scot,” he said, “and ask him to give him some refreshment; for that he must be gone directly.”
When Anthony had taken the gentleman to the steward, he returned to the Archbishop for any further instructions about him.
“No, Mr. Norris, my business is done with him. He comes from my lord of Norwich, and must be returning this evening. If you are not occupied, Mr. Norris, will you give me your arm into the garden?”
They went out by the vestry-door into the little cloisters, and skirting the end of the creek that ran up by Chichele’s water-tower began to pace up and down the part of the garden that looked over the river.
“My lord has sent to know if I know aught of one Robert Browne, with whom he is having trouble. This Mr. Browne has lately come from Cambridge, and so my lord thought I might know something of him; but I do not. This gentleman has been saying some wild and foolish things, I fear; and desires that every church should be free of all others; and should appoint its own minister, and rule its own affairs without interference, and that prophesyings should be without restraint. Now, you know, Mr. Norris, I have always tried to serve that party, and support them in their gospel religion; but this goes too far. Where were any governance at all, if all this were to come about? where were the Rule of Faith? the power of discipline? Nay, where were the unity for which our Saviour prayed? It liketh me not. Good Dr. Freake, as his messenger tells me, feels as I do about this; and desires to restrain Mr. Browne, but he is so hot he will not be restrained; and besides, he is some kin to my Lord Burghley, so I fear his mouth will be hard to stop.”
Anthony could not help thinking of Mr. Buxton’s prediction that the Church of England had so repudiated authority, that in turn her own would one day be repudiated.
“A Papist prisoner, your Grace,” he said, “said to me the other day that this would be sure to come: that the whole principle of Church authority had been destroyed in England; and that the Church of England would more and more be deserted by her children; for that there was no necessary centre of unity left, now that Peter was denied.”
“It is what a Papist is bound to say,” replied the Archbishop; “but it is easy to prophesy, when fulfilment may be far away. Indeed, I think we shall have trouble with some of these zealous men; and the Queen’s Grace was surely right in desiring some restraint to be put upon the Exercises. But it is mere angry raving to say that the Church of England will lose the allegiance of her children.”
Anthony could not feel convinced that events bore out the Archbishop’s assertion. Everywhere the Puritans were becoming more outrageously disloyal. There were everywhere signs of disaffection and revolt against the authorities of the Establishment, even on the part of the most sincere and earnest men, many of whom were looking forward to the day when the last rags of popery should be cast away, and formal Presbyterianism inaugurated in the Church of England. Episcopal Ordination was more and more being regarded as a merely civil requirement, but conveying no ministerial commission; recognition by the congregation with the laying on of the hands of the presbyterate was the only ordination they allowed as apostolic.
Anthony said a word to the Archbishop about this.