Walker & Cockerell.
QUEEN ELIZABETH (1533–1603)
From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery. Painter unknown, but probably Marc Gheeraedts.
The great popularity of the Queen, and the affection with which she was regarded by all classes, is shown by the following Proclamation issued in the year 1563, relating to persons making portraits of Queen Elizabeth:—
“Forasmuch as thrugh the natural desire that all sorts of subjects and peple, both noble and mean, have to procure the portrait and picture of the Queen’s Majestie, great nomber of Paynters, and some Printers and gravers, have alredy and doe dayly attempt to make in divers manners portraietures of hir Majestie in paynting, graving, and prynting, wherein is evidently shewn that hytherto none hath sufficiently expressed the naturall representation of hir Majesties person, favor, or grace, but for the most part have also erred therein, as thereof dayly complaints are made amongst hir Majesties loving subjectes, in so much that for redres hereof hir Majestie hath lately bene so instantly and so importunately sued unto by the Lords of hir Consell and others of hir nobility, in respect of the great disorder herein used, not only to be content that some speciall conning payntor might be permitted by access to hir Majestie to take the natural representation of hir Majestie, whereof she hath bene allwise of her own right disposition very unwillyng, but also to prohibit all manner of other persons to draw, paynt, grave, or pourtrayet hir Majesties personage or visage for a time, untill by some perfect patron and example the same may be by others followed. Therfor hir Majestie, being herein as it were overcome with the contynuall requests of so many of hir Nobility and Lords, whom she cannot well deny, is pleased that for their contentations, some coning person mete therefor shall shortly make a pourtrait of hir person or visage to be participated to others for satisfaction of hir loving subjects, and furthermore commandeth all manner of persons in the mean tyme to forbear from payntyng, graving, printing, or making of any pourtraits of hir Majestie, until some speciali person that shall be by hir allowed shall have first finished a pourtraiture thereof, after which fynished, hir Majestie will be content that all other painters, printers, or gravers, that shall be known men of understanding, and so thereto licensed by the hed officers of the plaices where they shall dwell (as reason it is that every person should not without consideration attempt the same) shall and maye at their pleasures follow the sayd patron or first portraiture. And for that hir Majestie perceiveth that a grete nomber of hir loving subjects are much greved and take great offence with the errors and deformities allredy committed by sondry persons in this behalf, she straitly chargeth all hir officers and ministers to see to the due observation hereof, and as soon as may be to reform the errors already committed, and in the meantime to forbid and prohibit the shewing or publication of such as are apparently deformed, until they may be reformed which are reformable.”
RELIGION
CHAPTER I
THE DISSOLUTION AND THE MARTYRS
In speaking of the Dissolution of the Religious Houses it must be understood that I am considering this momentous step with reference to London only. The influences of the Continental movement; the lessons of history; the turn taken by theological controversy; the unedifying spectacle of Rome in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the talk of scholars; the strength of the conservatism which rallied about the Church at first; the apparent power of the Church, which seemed, indeed, able to crush every opponent, whatever his rank and station;—these things moved not, consciously at least, the man of London. He became acquiescent in the changes imposed upon him by other considerations. And I believe that had not his acquiescence been understood as certain to follow, these changes would not have been attempted. Henry VIII. was the most masterful sovereign of his time; but a king cannot outrage and trample upon the settled religious faith of his subjects. The Old Faith had gone to pieces when Constantine proclaimed the New. The New, in its turn, now grown old and incrustated, and hidden by a thousand additions, superstitions, and superfluities, was in its turn ready for departure, in Northern Europe at least, when Henry effected the separation from Rome which began the Reformation in England.
Among an ignorant and an uncritical people the ancient Faith passed unquestioned—was it not the Faith of all those in authority? Its doctrines were supported less by teaching than by outward forms, ceremonies, pageants, splendours and traditional conventions. In every church the story of the Gospels was partly represented, but overlaid with stories of the Saints; the Christian virtues were never, even at the lowest point of Church History, forgotten, yet their practice had become crystallised; almsgiving was part of the Rule of every Religious Order, but it was indiscriminate; mercy towards the criminal had become a refuge for those who continued in their evil practices under cover of Sanctuary; the tradition of austerity no longer brought respect to the Benedictine; the tradition of self-sacrifice no longer brought love to the Franciscan: to the former, as to the College of All Souls, Oxford, the members were bene nati, and, I believe, for the most part bene morati and moderate docti; in the more secluded religious communities discipline was relaxed and scandals had crept in; for a hundred years and more the people had been gradually ceasing to endow the Religious Houses with bequests. At the commencement of the sixteenth century they had wholly ceased the practice, formerly universal. Monk and Nun; Friar and Sister; Hermit, Anchorite, Anchress, now received no more bequests; of all the Religious Orders none had fallen into disrepute so hopelessly as the Franciscans: they were selling the lead off the roofs of their stately churches; they were selling their sacred vessels of silver gilt; their boxes, hung up in the shops—if the shopkeepers admitted them—received no more offerings; they were insulted in the streets; their numbers were dwindling daily. Now all these things were like an open book in which those who passed along the way might read daily, and did read unconsciously, so that their minds were moulded and directed, they could not tell why or how.