indeed, a somewhat curious fact that, while every one has heard of, and is ready to Laugh at, or to rebuke, that unfortunate person, few people, comparatively, seem to be aware of the existence of the far more conspicuous example of tergiversation presented by Anthony Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff, who contrived to continue in possession of that dignity from 1545 to 1567, accommodating himself to all the various changes introduced, and taking, we may add, all the incongruous oaths required by Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. Bishop Kitchin, indeed, may probably be taken as a fair type of the clergy who elected the Lower House of this Convocation, for he has left us in no doubt of his real sentiments, since his name appears, with the other bishops, in the list of the minority which voted against the Acts of Supremacy and of Uniformity, and other ecclesiastical measures of Elizabeth's first Parliament; yet, unlike the other bishops, when the Oath of Supremacy was tendered to him, he chose to accept it rather than to lose his see.
But while Convocation thus answered all the burning questions of the time by one general 'Non possumus,' and effectually effaced itself by so doing, the real work of reformation was being performed by Parliament. The work, as we shall presently see, was fairly thorough—more so, indeed, than some of our modern historians are disposed to admit—and when we read the literature of the period, and fully realise the exasperation and bitterness[1] which existed on both sides, we can only wonder that any moderation at all was observed. It seems, in the main, to Elizabeth herself and Cecil that the avoidance of far greater extremes was due. The Acts actually passed and which brought
- ↑ See the letters even of Jewell of about this time—e.g., two quoted by Burnet, vol. iii. pp. 475, 476.
