Page:Church and State under the Tudors.djvu/213

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
REIGN OF ELIZABETH
180

was to fill, may have been supposed to have a sort of personal claim upon the consideration of the Queen, as having once been one of her mother's chaplains. A certain difficulty appears to have arisen in his obtaining regular consecration. His election took place, upon the usual congé d'elire, at the beginning of August, by the Dean (Dr. Wotton) and a portion of the Chapter—the absent members being, probably, recusants. Early in September a warrant was issued to the Bishops of Durham, Bath and Wells, Peterborough, and Llandaff, and also to Bishops Barlow and Scory, requiring them to consecrate him. At this point the proceedings came for a time to a standstill, probably because the first three of these refused, and the fourth either may also have been indisposed to act, or others may have been unwilling to let him, except in the last resort. On December 6 another warrant was issued, in which the first three names were omitted, and to the other three were added those of Coverdale, late Bishop of Exeter; and Hodgkins, Bishop-Suffragan of Bedford; John, Suffragan of Thetford; Bale, Bishop of Ossory, or any four of them. At last, on the 17th of that month, Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins met, and carried out the consecration at Lambeth Chapel, according to the form contained in King Edward's book. It must have been a curious and suggestive ceremony, with most of the ancient pomp omitted, and with grim old Bishop Coverdale, even on such an occasion, stiffly rejecting the ordinary episcopal vestments, and habited only in a long, woollen gown, reaching down to his ankles; and the Suffragan of Bedford apparently endeavouring to face both ways, by apparelling himself like Scory in the earlier part of the ceremony, and like Coverdale in the later.