time if we realise the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Pole, had died just about the time of Queen Mary's death, and that in that same year no fewer than nine sees became vacant through death, whilst many of the other bishops had either resigned or been deprived because they refused to take the oath of the Royal Supremacy. Consequently the bench of bishops had to be entirely remanned. That of course presented a very great difficulty. The material from which the bishops had to be chosen had greatly deteriorated. The quiet scholars of the past had all disappeared; the most serious and learned men on either side had alternately been deprived and taken refuge abroad, and they invariably returned from exile as violent partisans. It was indeed fortunate that there happened to be such a man as Parker. He was one of the few who had not fled from England, and had consequently not absorbed the theology and ideas of continental Protestantism. He saw that the best had to be made of the existing situation. Many people have written about the Elizabethan bishops and gibed at them. I do not hold a brief for them. They were of all kinds as bishops are in these days. To me the interesting thing in studying their history is to observe how they were educated by events. It is perfectly true, I admit, that the great mass of them accepted Anglicanism after they had been made bishops. The truth is that the pressure of circumstances, the ideas and conceptions prevalent among the English people turned them into Anglicans almost in spite of themselves. It was so, for instance,
