It was essentially a revision of the former manual, and may have been of composite authorship. Cranmer was believed to have written the chapter on faith, and it was revised by Convocation. The King, who issued it himself with a preface commending it, declared it to be “a true and perfect doctrine for all people.” It contains an exposition of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and of some selected passages of Scripture. Its chief difference from the former manual is that it teaches unmistakably the doctrines of Transubstantiation, the Invocation of Saints, and the Celibacy of the Clergy. It may be said that it very accurately represented the theology of the majority of Englishmen in the year 1543. For King and people were not very far apart. They both clung to mediæval theology; and they both detested the Papacy, and wished the clergy to be kept in due subordination. There was a widespread and silent movement towards an Evangelical Reformation always making itself apparent when least expected; but probably three-fourths of the people had not felt it during the reign of Henry. It needed Mary’s burnings in Smithfield and the fears of a Spanish overlord, before the leaven could leaven the whole lump.
CHAPTER II.
THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.[475]
When Henry VIII. died, in 1547 (Jan. 28th), the situation in England was difficult for those who came after him. A religious revolution had been half accomplished; a social revolution was in progress, creating popular ferment; evicted tenants and uncloistered monks formed raw material for revolt; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, and the coinage debased. The kingly authority had undermined every other, and the King was a child. The new nobility, enriched by the spoils of the Church, did not command hereditary respect; and the Council which gathered round the King was torn by rival factions.[476]
Henry VIII. had died on a Friday, but his death was kept concealed till the Monday (Jan. 31st), when Edward VI. was brought by his uncle, the Earl of Hertford, and presented to the Council. There a will of the late King was produced, the terms of which make it almost impossible to believe that Henry did not contemplate a further advance towards a Reformation. It appointed a Council of Regency, consisting of sixteen persons who were named. Eleven belonged to the old Council, and among them were five who were well known to desire an advance, while the two most determined reactionaries were omitted—Bishop Gardiner and Thirlby. The will also mentioned by name twelve men who might be added to the Council if their services were thought to be necessary. These were added. Then the Earl of Hertford was chosen to be Lord Protector of the Realm, and was promoted to be Duke of Somerset. The coronation followed (Feb. 20th), and all the Bishops were required to take out new commissions in the name of the young King—the King’s ecclesiastical supremacy being thus rigidly enforced. Wriothesley, Henry’s Lord Chancellor, who had been created the Earl of Southampton, was compelled to resign the Great Seal, and with his retirement the Government was entirely in the hands of men who wished the nation to go forward in the path of Reformation.
Signs of their intention were not lacking, nor evidence that such an advance would be welcomed by the population of the capital at least. On Feb. 10th a clergyman and churchwardens had removed the images from the walls of their church, and painted instead texts of Scripture; an eloquent preacher, Dr. Barlow, denounced the presence of images in churches; images were pulled down from the churches in Portsmouth; and so on. In May it was announced that a royal visitation of the country would be made, and Bishops were inhibited from making their ordinary visitations.
In July (31st) the Council began the changes. They issued a series of Injunctions[477] to the clergy, in which they were commanded to preach against “the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction”; to see that all images which had been “abused” as objects of pilgrimages should be destroyed; to read the Gospels and Epistles in English during the service; and to see that the Litany was no longer recited or sung in processions, but said devoutly kneeling. They next issued Twelve Homilies, meant to guard the people against “rash preaching.” Such a series had been suggested as early as 1542, and a proposed draft had been presented to Convocation by Cranmer in that year, but had not been authorised. They were now issued on the authority of the Council. Three of them were composed by Cranmer. These sermons contain little that is doctrinal, and confine themselves to inciting to godly living.[478] Along with the Homilies, the Council authorised the issue of Udall’s translation of the Paraphrases of Erasmus, which they meant to be read in the churches.
The royal visitation seems to have extended over a series of years, beginning in 1547. Dr. James Gairdner discovered, and has printed with comments, an account or report of a visitation held by Bishop Hooper in the diocese of Gloucester in 1551. One of the intentions of the visitation was to discover how far it was possible to expect preaching from the English clergy. Dr. Gairdner sums up the illiteracy exhibited in the report as follows:—Three hundred and eleven clergymen were examined, and of these one hundred and seventy-one were unable to repeat the Ten Commandments, though, strangely enough, all but thirty-four could tell the chapter (Ex. xx.) in which they were to be found; ten were unable to repeat the Lord’s Prayer; twenty-seven could not tell who was its author: and thirty could not tell where it was to be found. The Report deserves study as a description of the condition of the clergy of the Church of England before the Reformation. These clergymen of the diocese of Gloucester were asked nine questions—three under three separate heads: (1) How many commandments are there? Where are they to be found? Repeat them. (2) What are the Articles of the Christian Faith (the Apostles’ Creed)? Repeat them.—Prove them from Scripture. (3) Repeat the Lord’s Prayer. How do you know that it is the Lord’s? Where is it to be found? Only fifty out of the three hundred and eleven answered all these simple questions, and of the fifty, nineteen are noted as having answered mediocriter. Eight clergymen could not answer any single one of the questions; and while one knew that the number of the Commandments was ten, he knew nothing else. Two clergymen, when asked why the Lord’s Prayer was so called, answered that it was because Christ had given it to His disciples when he told them to watch and pray; another said that he did not know why it was called the Lord’s Prayer, but that he was quite willing to believe that it was the Lord’s because the King had said so; and another answered that all he knew about it was that such was the common report. Two clergymen said that while they could not prove the articles of the Creed from Scripture, they accepted them on the authority of the King; and one said that he could not tell what was the Scripture authority for the Creed, unless it was the first chapter of Genesis, but that it did not matter, since the King had guaranteed it to be correct.[479]