also of another French one, Grindal, being Bishop of London, became the official superintendent, and in that capacity undertook and exercised careful supervision of their discipline. There is in the State Papers[1] a recantation of certain false opinions prepared for Hadrian Hamsted, one of the ministers of this church, by Bishop Grindal, in which he is made to speak of himself as 'decreto domini episcopi Londinensis ministerio depositus atque excommunicatus;' of the Bishop as 'utriusque peregrinorum ecclesiæ superintendentem'; and again of himself as 'optimo jure hoc promeruisse et ordine a dicto episcopo meum fuisse actum.' The fact that Hamsted refused to sign this document is of little importance, since it was drawn up by the Bishop, and may be taken to prove his own view of his legalised position in regard to the Dutch Church in London. This is not by any means the only instance of the official interference of the Bishop with the affairs of these churches, as their regular and legitimate superintendent.
Very soon after Parker's consecration[2] as Archbishop of Canterbury, he received a letter from Calvin containing suggestions for the union of the Protestant Churches. On Calvin's part this appears to have been a reopening of an earlier negotiation with Cranmer in Edward VI.'s reign, which had been brought to an abrupt conclusion then by the accession of Mary, as it was again, now, by his own death, which took place in 1564. From the characteristics of Calvin's own mind, it is likely that he would appreciate to the full the disadvantages under which Protestantism laboured even then—as it has done ever since—from its want of organisation and its tendency to split into sects; and the task of attempting to
- ↑ State Papers, Eliz. vol. xxiii. 67, July, 1562.
- ↑ Strype, Life of Parker, vol. i. p. 188.
