it; for only some 200 were deprived for religion during the first
six years of the reign. Bishops for the vacant sees were nominated
by the crown and elected by their chapters as in Henry’s reign;
Matthew Parker was canonically consecrated archbishop of Canterbury.
The orthodoxy of the church was vindicated by Bishop
Jewel’s Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae. Adherents to Rome
vainly tried to obtain papal sanction for attending the church
services, and were forced either to disobey the pope or become
“recusants”; many were fined, and those who attended mass
were imprisoned. Meanwhile a party, soon known as Puritans,
rebelled against church order; the exiles who had come under
Genevan influence objecting on their return to vestments and
ceremonies enjoined by the prayer-book. There was much nonconformity
in the church which the queen ordered the bishops
to correct. Parker, though averse to violent measures, insisted
on obedience to his “Advertisements” of 1566, which,
though not formally authorized by the queen, expressed her
will, and became held as authoritative, and some of the refractory
were punished. A company engaged in irregular worship was
discovered in London in 1567 and a few persons were imprisoned
by the magistrate. Active opposition to the government was
stirred up by Pius V., and in 1569 a rebellion in the north, where
the old religion was strong, was aided by papal money and
encouraged by hopes of Spanish intervention. In 1570 Pius
published a bull excommunicating and deposing the queen.
Thenceforward recusants had to choose between loyalty to the
queen and loyalty to the pope. They lay under suspicion, and
severe penal laws were enacted against Romish practices. About
1579 many seminary priests and Jesuits came over to England
as missionaries; some actively engaged in treason, all were
legally traitors. The country was threatened with foreign
invasion, plots against the government were detected, and the
queen’s life was held to be endangered. The council hunted
down these priests and their abettors, and many were executed,
martyrs to the doctrine of the pope’s power of deposition.
The number put to death in this reign under the penal laws was
187. The papal policy defeated itself; a large number of the old
religion while retaining their faith chose to be loyal to the queen
rather than lend themselves to the designs of her enemies. From
1571 recusants can no longer be reckoned as nonconforming
members of the English Church: the law recognized them as
separate from it. The church’s doctrine was defined in the
catechism of 1570, and in the revised articles of religion which
appeared as the XXXIX. Articles in 1571, and its law by a body
of canons published with authority in 1576, the attempt at
codification made in the Reformatio legum having been laid
aside.
From 1574 the Protestant Nonconformists strove to introduce Presbyterianism. Cause for grievance existed in the state of the church which had suffered from the late violent changes. Elizabeth plundered it, and laymen who owned the rectories formerly held by monasteries The Noncon-formists. followed her example; bishoprics were impoverished by the queen and parish cures by her subjects, and the reform of abuses was checked by self-interest. As bishops, along with some able men, Elizabeth chose others of an inferior stamp who consented to the plunder of their sees and whom she could use to report on recusants and harry nonconformists. Separation, or Independency, began about 1578 with the followers of Robert Browne, who repudiated the queen’s ecclesiastical authority; two Brownists were executed in 1583. The nonconformists remained in the church and continued their efforts to subvert its episcopal system. Elizabeth, though personally little influenced by religion, understood the political value of the church, and would allow no slackness in enforcing conformity. Archbishop Grindal was sequestrated for defending “prophesyings,” or meetings of the Puritan clergy for religious exercises. The House of Commons, in which there was a Puritan element, repeatedly attempted to discuss church questions and was sharply silenced by the queen, who would not allow any interference in ecclesiastical matters. Whitgift, who succeeded Grindal in 1583, though kind-hearted, was strict in his administration of the law. Violent attacks were made upon the bishops in the Martin Marprelate tracts printed by a secret press; their author is unknown, but some who were probably connected with them were executed for publishing seditious libels. Whitgift’s firmness met with success. During the last years of the reign the movement towards Presbyterianism was checked and nonconformity was less prominent. The church regained a measure of orderliness and vigour; its claims on allegiance were advocated by eminent divines and expounded in the stately pages of Hooker. The queen, who had so vigorously ordered ecclesiastical affairs, died in 1603.
On the accession of James I. the Puritans expressed their
desire for ecclesiastical change in the Millenary Petition which
purported to come from 1000 clergy; their requests
were moderate, a sign of the success of Whitgift’s
policy, but some could not have been granted without
The
Puritan rebellion.
causing widespread dissatisfaction. At a conference
between divines of the two parties at Hampton Court in 1604,
James roughly decided against the Puritans. Some small
alterations were made in the prayer-book, and a new version
of the Bible was undertaken, which appeared in 1611 as the
“authorized version.” In 1604 convocation framed a code of
canons which received royal authorization. Refusal to obey
them was punished with deprivation, and, according to S. R.
Gardiner, about 300 clergy were deprived, though a 17th century
writer (Peter Heylyn) puts the number at 49 only, which W. H.
Frere (History of the English Church, 1558–1625, p. 321) thinks
more credible. Conformity could still be enforced, but before
long the Puritan party grew in strength partly from religious and
partly from political causes. They would not admit any authority
in religion that was not based on the scriptures; their opponents
maintained that the church had authority to ordain ceremonies
not contrary to the scriptures. In doctrine the Puritans remained
faithful to the Calvinism in which most Englishmen of
the day had been brought up; they called the high churchmen
Arminians, and asserted that they were inclined to Rome.
The Commons became increasingly Puritan; they were strongly
Protestant and demanded the enforcement of the laws against
recusants, who suffered much, specially after the Gunpowder
Plot of 1605, though they were sometimes shielded by the king.
The Commons regarded ecclesiastical jurisdiction with dislike,
specially the Court of High Commission, which had developed
from the ecclesiastical commissions of Elizabeth and was hated
as a means of coercion based on prerogative. The bishops
derived their support from the king, and the church in return
supported the king’s claim to absolutism and divine right. It
suffered heavily from this alliance. As men saw the church on
the side of absolutism, Puritanism grew strong both among the
country gentry, who were largely represented in the Commons,
and among the nation at large, and the church lost ground
through the king’s political errors. A restoration of order and
decency in worship and the introduction of more ceremonial
begun in James’s reign were carried on by Laud (q.v.) under
Charles I. Laud aimed at silencing disputes about doctrine and
enforcing outward uniformity; the Puritans hated ceremonial
and wished to make every one accept their doctrines. Many
of the reforms introduced by Laud after he became archbishop
in 1633 were needful, but they offended the Puritans and were
enforced in a harsh and tyrannical manner, for he lacked wisdom
and sympathy. Under his rule nonconforming clergy were
deprived and sometimes imprisoned. The cruel punishments
inflicted by the Court of Star Chamber of which he was a member,
the unpopularity of the High Commission Court, his own harsh
dealing, and the part which he took in politics as a confidential
adviser of the king, combined to bring odium upon him and upon
the ecclesiastical system which he represented. The church was
weak, for the Laudian system was disliked by the nation. A
storm of discontent with the course of affairs both in church
and state gathered. In 1640 Charles, after dissolving parliament,
prolonged the session of convocation, which issued canons
magnifying the royal authority and imposing the so-called
“et cetera oath” against innovations on all clergy, graduates
