of the Holy Ghost". Notwithstanding this encomium, it was superseded, within four years, by a second Cranmerian Prayer Book, not similarly commended in the Act prescribing it, in which the slight outward similarity to the Mass, preserved in the Communion Service of the first Prayer Book, was obliterated. The Ordinal underwent similar treatment; the sacrificing priest, like the Sacrifice, was abolished. Another of Cranmer's exploits was the compilation of Forty-two Articles of Religion which, reduced to Thirty-nine and slightly recast, still form the Confession of Faith of the Anglican Communion. In 1556, under Mary, he met his death at the stake, after vainly endeavoring by copious recantations—Sander avers that "he signed them seventeen times with his own hand"—to save his life. This severity, though doubtless impolitic, can hardly be deemed unjust if his career be carefully considered. But his work lived after him and formed the basis of the ecclesiastical legislation of Elizabeth, when Mary's brief reign came to an end, and with it the ineffectual endeavor to destroy the new religion by the fagot. Mary's fiery zeal for the Catholic Faith failed to undo the work of her two predecessors, and unquestionably did ill service to the Catholic cause. It would be foolish to blame her for not practising a toleration utterly alien from the temper of the times. But there can be no question that Green is well warranted in writing that to her is due "the bitter remembrance of the blood shed in the cause of Rome which, however partial and unjust it must seem to an historic observer, still lies graven deep in the temper of the English people" (Short History, p. 360).
The first act of Elizabeth, when she found herself firmly seated on the throne, was to annul the religious restorations of her sister. "All Laws and Statutes made against the See Apostolic of Rome since the twentieth year of King Henry VIII" had been abolished by the 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8, which "enacted and declared the Pope's Holiness and See Apostolic to be restored, and to have and enjoy such authority, preeminence and jurisdiction as His Holiness used and exercised, or might lawfully have used and exercised, by authority of his supremacy, before that date". Elizabeth, by the first Act of Parliament of her reign, repealed this Statute, and revived the last six of the seven Acts against the Roman pontiff passed between the 21st and 26th year of Henry VIII of which we have given an account, and also certain other anti-papal Statutes passed subsequently to the enactment of Henry's Act of Supremacy. That Act was not revived, doubtless because Elizabeth, as a woman, shrank from assuming the title of Supreme Head of the Church bestowed by it on the sovereign. But, although she did not take to herself that title, she took all the authority implied therein, by this first Act of her reign. It vests the plenitude of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Crown and the Queen's Highness, who is described as "the only Supreme Governor of this realm as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal", and it prescribes an oath recognizing her to be so for all holding office in Church and State. The next Act on the Statute Book is the Act of Uniformity. It orders the use in the churches of the second Prayer Book of Edward VI, in the place of the Catholic rites, and provides penalties for ministers disobeying this injunction. It also enforces the attendance of the laity at the parish church on Sundays and holidays, for the new service. This was the definite establishment of the new religion in England, the consummation of the revolution initiated by Henry VIII. The bishops, with the exception of Kitchen of Llandaff, refused to accept it, as did about half the clergy. The majority of the laity passively acquiesced in it, just as they had acquiesced in the ecclesiastical changes of Henry, and Edward, and Mary. Its effect was, virtually, to reduce the Church of England to a department of the State. The Anglican bishops became, and are still, nominees of the Crown, election by the dean and chapter, where it exists—in some of the newer dioceses there are no chapters, and the bishops are appointed by Letters Patent—being a mere farcical form of which Emerson has given a pungent description: "The King sends the Dean and Canons a congé d'élire, or leave to elect, but also sends them the name of the person whom they are to elect. They go into the Cathedral, chant and pray; and after these invocations invariably find that the dictates of the Holy Ghost agree with the recommendation of the King." If they arrived at any other conclusion, they would be involved in the penalties of a praemunire. The Convocations of York and Canterbury are similarly fettered. They cannot proceed so much as to discuss any project of ecclesiastical legislation without "Letters of Business" from the Crown. The sovereign is the ultimate arbiter in causes, whether of faith or morals within the Anglican Church, and his decisions of them given by the voice of his Privy Council, are irreformable. But of course in these days the sovereign practically means the Legislature. "The National Church", Cardinal Newman writes in his "Anglican Difficulties", "is strictly part of the Nation, just as the Law or the Parliament is part of the Nation." "It is simply an organ or department of the State, all ecclesiastical acts really proceeding from the civil government." "The Nation itself is the sovereign Lord and Master of the Prayer Book, its composer and interpreter."
Queen Elizabeth's Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity form, in the words of Hallam, "the basis of that restrictive code of laws which pressed so heavily, for more than two centuries, upon the adherents of the Roman church". It is not necessary here to describe in detail that "restrictive code". An account of it will be found in the first chapter of "A Manual of the Law specially affecting Catholics", by W. S. Lilly and J. P. Wallis (London, 1893). But we may observe that the queen who originated it was animated by very different motives from those which influenced her father in his revolt against Rome. Sander has correctly said, "he gave up the Catholic faith for no other reason in the world than that which came from his lust and wickedness"; and, indeed, while severing himself from Catholic unity, and pillaging the possessions of the Church, he was as far as possible from sympathizing with the doctrinal innovations of Protestantism and savagely repressed them. Elizabeth, by the very necessity of her position, was driven—we speak ex human die—to espouse the Protestant cause. No doubt, as Lingard writes, "it is pretty evident that she had no settled notions of religion", and she freely exhibited her contempt for her clergy on many occasions—notably on her deathbed, when she drove away from her presence the Archbishop of Canterbury and certain other Protestant prelates of her own making, telling them "she knew full well that they were hedge priests, and took it for an indignity that they should speak to her" (Dodd, "Church History", III, 70). But, like Cranmer, if she had no religious convictions, she had the convictions of her interests. Her lot was plainly cast in with the Protestant party. Rome had declared her mother's marriage null, and her own birth illegitimate. Catholics, in general, looked upon Mary Queen of Scots as the rightful claimant to the throne which she occupied. Throughout her reign
Church policy and State policy are conjoint:
But Janus faces, looking different ways.
The Anglican Church, as established by her, was a mere instrument for political ends; in her own phrase, she tuned her pulpits. The maxim, Cujus rejio ejus religio, was currently accepted in her time. It seemed according to the natural order of things that the people should profess the creed of the prince. Elizabeth is not open to the charges made against her sister of religious fanaticism. But she was given up to that
