clergy of the kingdom. According to Camden, these numbered 9,400, and out of that number less than 180 refused it altogether! and of these, more than half were dignitaries. It may fairly be asked, why so many dignitaries should have declined to swear, or, if they did so decline, how it was that more than 98 per cent, of all the parochial clergy should have accepted the Oath. Of the former, certainly many, as remarked in the Queen's reply[1] to a letter of the Emperor in their behalf, had made no difficulty about doing the same thing in Henry's and in Edward's days. In some cases, even their writings remained to prove the fact; and it is not, perhaps, at first sight easy to see why those who had (upon no slight pressure, no doubt) been induced to swallow the revolutionary changes of Henry, and the pronounced Protestantism of Edward, should suddenly resolve to give up place and power and wealth rather than accept the same treatment at the hands of Elizabeth in slightly more moderate doses. They were, assuredly, under no compulsion, and the one instance of Kitchin of Llandaff is enough to show that, had they conformed, they might have retained their sees, as he did, to the end of their lives. Their opponents have shown no want of ingenuity in inventing discreditable motives, both for those who did and for those who did not take the Oaths. Both, probably, had better excuses than have been generally allowed to them. The circumstances of the times were not only cruel and difficult—they were also quite unprecedented. The changes made must have appeared to many minds to involve the very foundations of religion and morality, yet they were made—in England at least—by an authority which, in that king-worshipping age, must have seemed little less
- ↑ Strype, Annals, vol. i. pt. i. p. 221.
