polluted. So Cecil had to go to the Commons and explain that there must be a new bill and new oath. He met with some opposition, for there were who held that the Queen was Supreme Head lure divino. Ultimately a phrase was fashioned which declared that she was the only Supreme Governor of the realm as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as in temporal, and that no foreign prince or prelate had any ecclesiastical or spiritual authority within her dominions. However, among other statutes of Henry VIII, one was revived which proclaims that the King is Head of the Church, and that by the word of God all ecclesiastical jurisdiction flows from him. Catholics suspected that Elizabeth's husband would be head of the Church, if not head of his wife, and saw the old title concealed behind the new et caetera. Protestant lawyers said that she could take the title whenever she pleased. Sensible men saw that, having the substance, she could afford to waive the irritating name. On the 14th of April the bill was before the Lords There were renewed debates and more changes; and the famous Act of Supremacy was not finally secured until the 29th.
In the last days of an unusually long session a bill for the Uniformity of Religion went rapidly through both Houses (April 18-28). The services prescribed in a certain Book of Common Prayer, and none other, were to be lawful. The embryonic history of this measure is obscure. An informal committee of Protestant divines seems to have been appointed by the Queen to prepare a book. It has been thought that as the basis of their labours they took the Second Book of Edward VI, but desired a further simplification of ceremonies. On the other hand, there are some signs that Cecil and the Queen thought that the Second Book, which had hardly been introduced before it was abrogated, had already gone far enough or too far in the abolition of accustomed rites. All this, however, is very uncertain. Our guess may be that, when men were weary of the prolonged debate over the Supremacy and its continuance was becoming a national danger (for violent speeches had been made), the Queen's advisers took the short course of proposing the Book of 1552 with very few changes. At such a moment relief might be found in what could be called a mere act of restoration, and the Edwardian Book, however unfamiliar, was already ennobled by the blood of martyrs. There are signs of haste, or of divided counsels, for the new Book when it came from the press differed in some little, but not trivial, matters from that which Parliament had expressly sanctioned. The changes sanctioned by Parliament were few. An offensive phrase about the Bishop of Rome's " detestable enormities " was expunged, apparently by the House of Lords. An addition from older sources was made to the words that accompany the delivery of bread and wine to the communicant, whereby a charge of the purest Zwinglianism might be obviated. At the moment it was of importance to Elizabeth that she should assure the German Princes that her religion was
