composed, like it, of mingled clerics and laymen; and deriving its authority direct from the Crown under the Great Seal, and, in fact, held responsible not to the Church in any sense, nor even to Parliament, but to the Privy Council. Thus, as far as law and practice could make it, the Church was completely subject to the State, and was, as I have said, incorporated with it; and how complete this subjection was, and how it was accepted in all good faith by the divines and functionaries of Elizabeth, may easily be seen by reference to contemporary records whether official or private.
Thus, in the instance given above, in which Calvin opened negotiations with Archbishop Parker for a union of all Protestant Churches, the latter, as we have seen, took instructions as to his reply, not from Convocation nor any assembly of bishops, but from the Privy Council.[1] It was by the Crown, again, that the congregations of foreign Protestants were permitted to organise themselves in London, Norwich, Canterbury, and elsewhere, and that the Bishop of London was set up as their official and acknowledged superintendent.[2] Later in the reign we find Wliitoift writing to the heads of colleges in Cambridge,[3] and telling them, 'It is a most vain conceit to think that you have authority, in matters of controversy, to judge what is agreeable to the doctrines of the Church of England, what not—the law expressly laying that upon her Majesty and upon such as she shall by Commission appoint to that purpose'; and Bancroft,[4] in his famous sermon already quoted, claiming for the Crown ' all the authority and jurisdiction which by usurpation at any time did appertain to the Pope.'
