With the death of Edward there came a period of reaction
lasting for five years. Queen Mary, unshaken in her attachment
to the ancient faith and the papal monarchy,
was able with the sanction of a subservient parliament
to turn back the wheels of ecclesiastical legislation,Catholic reaction under Mary, 1553–1558.
to restore the old religion, and to reunite the
1558- English Church with the papal monarchy; the pope’s
legate, Cardinal Pole, was primate of all England. Then, the
ancient heresy laws having been revived, came the burnings of
Rogers, Hooker, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer and many a less
noteworthy champion of the new religion. It would seem as
if this sharp, uncompromising reaction was what was needed
to produce a popular realization of the contrast between the
Ecclesia anglicana of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and the
alternative of “perfect obedience to the See Apostolic.”
Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary in 1558, was suspected to be Protestant in her leanings, and her adviser, Cecil, had received his training as secretary of the Protector Somerset; but the general European situation as well as the young queen’s own temperament precludedSettlement under Elizabeth. any abrupt or ostentatious change in religious matters. The new sovereign’s first proclamation was directed against all such preaching as might lead to contention and the breaking of the common quiet. In 1559 ten of Henry VIII.’s acts were revived. On Easter Sunday the queen ventured to display her personal preference for the Protestant conception of the Eucharist by forbidding the celebrant in her chapel to elevate the host. The royal supremacy was reasserted, the title being modified into “supreme governor”; and a new edition of Edward VI.’s second Prayer Book, with a few changes, was issued. The Marian bishops who refused to recognize these changes were deposed and imprisoned, but care was taken to preserve the “succession” by consecrating others in due form to take their places.[1] Four years later the Thirty-nine Articles imposed an official creed upon the English nation. This was Protestant in its general character: in its appeal to the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith (Art. VI.), its repudiation of the authority of Rome (Art. XXXVIL), its definition of the Church (Art. XIX.), its insistence on justification by faith only (Art. XI.) and repudiation of the sacrifice of the Mass (Arts. XXVIII, and XXXI.). As supreme governor of the Church of England the sovereign strictly controlled all ecclesiastical legislation and appointed royal delegates to hear appeals from the ecclesiastical courts, to be a “papist” or to “hear Mass” (which was construed as the same thing) was to risk incurring the terrible penalties of high treason. By the Act of Uniformity (1559) a uniform ritual, the Book of Common Prayer, was imposed upon clergy and laity alike, and no liberty of public worship was permitted. Every subject was bound under penalty of a fine to attend church on Sunday. While there was in a certain sense freedom of opinion, all printers had to seek a licence from the government for every manner of book or paper, and heresy was so closely affiliated with treason that the free expression of thought, whether reactionary or revolutionary, was beset with grave danger.
Attempts to estimate the width of the gulf separating the Church of England in Elizabeth's time from the corresponding institution as it existed in the early years of her father's reign are likely to be gravely affected by personal bias. There is a theory that no sweeping revolution in dogma took place, but that only a few medieval beliefs were modified or rejected owing to the practical abuses to which they had given rise. To Professor A. F. Pollard, for example, “ The Reformation in England was mainly a domestic affair, a national protest against national grievances rather than part of a cosmopolitan movement toward doctrinal change ” (Camb. Mod. Hist. ii. 478-9). This estimate appeals to persons of widely different views and temperaments. It is as grateful to those who, like many “Anglo-Catholics,” desire on religious grounds to establish the doctrinal continuity of the Anglican Church with that of the middle ages, as it is obvious to those who, like W. K. Clifford, perceive in the ecclesiastical organization and its influence nothing more than a perpetuation of demoralizing medieval superstition. The nonconformists have, moreover, never wearied of denouncing the “papistical” conservatism of the Anglican establishment. On the other hand, the impartial historical student cannot compare the Thirty-nine Articles with the contemporaneous canons and decrees of the council of Trent without being impressed by striking contrasts between the two sets of dogmas. Their spirit is very different. The unmistakable rejection on the part of the English Church of the conception of the Eucharist as a sacrifice had alone many wide reaching implications. Even although the episcopal organization was retained, the conception of “ tradition, ” of the conciliar powers, of the “ characters” of the priest, of the celibate life, of purgatory, of “ good works, ” &c.-all these serve clearly to differentiate the teaching of the English Church before and after the Reformation. From this standpoint it is obviously unhistorical to deny that England had a very important part in the cosmopolitan movement toward doctrinal change. The little backward kingdom of Scotland definitely accepted the new faith two years after Elizabeth's accession, and after having for centuries sided with France against England, The Rem, she was inevitably forced by the Reformation into an mation in alliance with her ancient enemy to the south when they Scotland. 1560.
both faced a confederation of Catholic powers. The first martyr of Luther's gospel had been Patrick Hamilton, who had suffered in 1528; but in spite of a number of executions the new ideas spread, even among the nobility. John Knox, who, after a chequered career, had come under the influence of Calvin at Geneva, returned to Scotland for a few months in 1555, and shortly after (1557) that part of the Scottish nobility which had been won over to the new faith formed their first “ covenant ” for mutual protection. These “ Lords of the Congregation” were able to force some concessions from the queen regent. Knox appeared in Scotland again in 1559, and became a sort of second Calvin. He opened negotiations with Cecil, who induced the reluctant Elizabeth to form an alliance with the Lords of the Congregation, and the English sent a fleet to drive away the French, who were endeavouring to keep their hold on Scotland. In 156O a confession of faith was prepared by John Knox and five companions. This was adopted by the Scottish parliament, with the resolution “ the bishops of Rome have no jurisdiction nor authorities in this Realme in tymes cuming.” The alliance of England and the Scottish Protestants against the French, and the common secession from the papal monarchy, was in a sense the foundation and beginning of Great Britain. Scottish Calvinism was destined to exercise no little influence, not only on the history of England, but on the form that the Protestant faith was to take in lands beyond the seas, at the time scarcely known to the Europeans.
While France was deeply affected during the 16th century by the Protestant revolt, its government never undertook any thoroughgoing reform of the Church. During the part of the century its monarchs were engaged in a bloody struggle with a powerful religious-political party, the Huguenots, who finally won a toleration which they continued to enjoy until the of the edict of Nantes in 168 5. It was not until 1789 that the French Church of the middle ages lost its vast possessions and was subjected to a fundamental reconstruction by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1791).[2] Yet no summary of
- ↑ Only one of the Marian bishops, Kitchin of Llandaff, was found willing to conform.
- ↑ In 1795 the National Convention gruffly declared that the Republic would no longer subsidize any form of worship or furnish buildings for religious services. “ The law recognizes no minister of religion, and no one is to appear in public with costumes or ornaments used in religious ceremonies.” Bonaparte, in the Concordat which he forced upon the po e in 1801, did not provide for the return of any of the lands of the Shurch which had been sold, but agreed that the government should pay the salaries of bishops and priests, whose appointment it controlled. While the Roman Catholic religion was declared to be that accepted b the majority of Frenchmen, the state subsidized the Reformedy Church., those adhering to the Augsburg Confession and the Jewish community. Over a
