It is highly probable that the Protestant party, in the anxiety caused by Bonner's onslaught, so far tampered with the Register as to gloss over the vulnerable points. It is noteworthy that this same paper of Foxe's contains a summary upon Bonner's case, showing the connection in the author's mind. It would be unreasonable to admit the mere implication of the Register, that there was no distinction of consecrator and assistants, against the explicit statement of the Foxe MS.
The one point in which Parker's [pg 475] consecration, according both to the Lambeth Register and to the Foxe MS., deflected from the Edwardine ordinal was this: that whilst the latter prescribes that the consecrator alone should hold his hands upon the elect's head during the prayer of consecration, all four bishops are said to have held their hands upon Parker's head.
But, as Canon Estcourt observes, we are not to suppose that, in acting as they did, Barlow and the others had devised something new and unknown before, and which therefore requires exceptional treatment. On the contrary, they were following the rubric of the Exeter Pontifical, which in this point agrees with the Roman rite.
Supposing, then, Barlow and his companions to stand in the relation of consecrator and assistants, would the incapacity, from want of consecration, of the consecrator be supplied by the capacity of an assistant? Mr. Haddan appeals triumphantly to Martène's dictum that “the bishops who assist are for certain not merely witnesses but co-operators.”[105] But this goes but a little way. It is admitted on all hands that the assistants are something more than mere witnesses, although they emphatically fulfil that office. They are at least co-operators by the official signification of their approval and support. Those who held up the arms of Moses did something more than witness to the marvels wrought by those up-lifted hands. The comparatively small number of theologians who maintain the necessity of three bishops for a valid consecration are the only ones who maintain that the assistants are, properly speaking, consecrators. Anyhow, the action must be regarded as taking place per modum unius, for the opus is one, not manifold; but once annihilate the principal consecrator, and the ratio by which the assistants coalesce in unum opus is gone. If we may be forgiven a homely phrase in connection with a solemn subject, Tom is doing nothing; therefore those who are merely operative in virtue of their assistance of him are merely helping him to do nothing. We do not know any theologian who has said in so many words, or whose theory requires, that the assistant should be held as compensating for the inefficiency of the consecrator. Canon Estcourt, with characteristic moderation, urges that it is at least probable that no such compensation could take place, and therefore, according to Catholic principles, the safer side would have to be taken, and the ceremony repeated.
It is, then, of vital importance to the Anglican cause that there should be no doubt whatever about Barlow's consecration. Canon Estcourt does not deny that it is probable he may have been consecrated. He does not pretend to do more than show that there are the gravest reasons for doubting the fact of his consecration. We wish to examine fairly the momenta on both sides.
Barlow's Status.
William Barlow had been professed as an Augustinian Canon of S. Osith's Priory, in Essex. He had been early distinguished as the protégé and obsequious servant of Anne Boleyn. “In October, 1534, he was sent as ambassador into Scotland, in conjunction with Thomas Holcroft, in order to persuade King James to renounce the Pope.”[106] In the early part of the next year, he was again in Scotland, “in company with Lord William Howard, who conveyed the garter to King James”; and January [pg 476] 22, 1536, for the third time went to Scotland, “on a joint embassy, again with Lord William Howard.” He had been elected to the bishopric of S. Asaph on the 16th, six days before. He was confirmed by proxy either on the 22d or the 23d of February. He remained in Scotland during February and March, and seems to have left in the beginning of April. On the 10th of April, Barlow was elected Bishop of S. David's, and on the 21st was confirmed in person in Bow Church. “The archbishop's certificate of the confirmation is dated on the same day, but makes no mention of consecration, nor is the fact recited, as usual, in the grant of temporalities which was issued on the 26th.” On the 27th, a summons to Parliament is sent: “Reverendo in Christo Patri W. Menevensi Episcopo.” On the 1st of May, he is installed at S. David's, and before the 13th is writing a joint letter, with Lord William Howard, from Edinborough, addressed to the king and Cromwell, in which he signs himself Willmŭs Menev, the style of Bishop of S. David's. He calls himself and is called Bishop of S. David's on and after April 25, but not before. On this account, several of the defenders of his consecration have plausibly conjectured that he was consecrated on April 25, “which,” Mr. Haddan tells us, “was a Sunday, and when he was certainly in London.” Mr. Haddan himself, however, prefers to follow the order of precedence in the House of Lords and in the Upper House of Convocation, which places Barlow after the Bishops of Chichester and Norwich, who were consecrated, the latter certainly, the former probably, upon June 11, 1536. He assigns June 11 as the date of Barlow's consecration. Lord William Howard left Edinburgh for England on or before May 23, and Barlow writes to Cromwell on that same day that he “has protracted his taryaunce somewhat after my lord's departure,” “for a daye or twayne,” at the request of the Queen of Scots. From this Mr. Haddan concludes that on June 11, when a consecration was known to have taken place, he was in London. Canon Estcourt, however, has brought to light a warrant of Cromwell's to the Garter king-at-arms, who had accompanied the embassy, and did not return until June 12, on which day he presented himself to Cromwell. The warrant is dated June 12. The king-at-arms would doubtless have returned, when the embassy was at an end, with Lord William Howard, and therefore before Barlow. But we are not left to conjecture; the warrant speaks of Barlow as “the bishopp then elect of S. Asaph, now elect of S. David's.” Therefore, on the 12th, he was still unconsecrated.
Barlow's episcopal register is wanting both at S. David's, and at Bath and Wells (to which last he was translated in 1541); and at S. Asaph's no register at all exists for the period when he nominally held the see.[107] The next consecration of which we have any record—after the 12th of June, when we know Barlow was unconsecrated—took place on July 2; but on June 30, Barlow took his seat in the House of Lords, and from that time acts and is treated as though he lacked nothing of the episcopal status.
We are now in a position to collect and estimate the momenta for and against Barlow's consecration. On behalf of his consecration, it is urged, 1st, that it “must be regarded as certain until it can be disproved”;[108] for no adequate motive can be assigned for the omission of a ceremony [pg 477] which could not be omitted without incurring severe penalties, to which the archbishop who neglected to consecrate would be also subject. 2d. That he was acknowledged, both by Parliament and by his brother bishops, to be in all respects a bishop after June 30, 1530, when he took his seat in the House of Lords; and that no syllable was breathed against his consecration, either by friend or foe, from that date until Dr. Champneys first questioned it in 1614, forty-eight years after his death, and eighty from the commencement of his episcopate. 3d. The fact that his consecration is not recorded in the archiepiscopal register is not much to the purpose, since out of thirty-six consecrations, in Cranmer's time eight exclusive of Barlow's, in his predecessor, Warham's, time, six out of twenty-six are not entered.[109] 4th. His episcopal acts respecting the property of his sees would have been legally invalid in default of consecration; but although these acts were legally disputed, no one suggested the flaw of non-consecration.