queen's death, "The butchery, with a few exceptions, was performed on
the victim while he was in full possession of his senses." Vol. viii. p. 356. I
should be glad to think that the few exceptions were the other way. Much
would depend on the humanity of the sheriff, which one might hope to be
stronger in an English gentleman than his zeal against popery. But I
cannot help acknowledging that there is reason to believe the disgusting
cruelties of the legal sentence to have been frequently inflicted. In an
anonymous memorial among Lord Burleigh's papers, written about 1586, it
is recommended that priests persisting in their treasonable opinion should
be hanged, "and the manner of drawing and quartering forborne." Strype,
iii. 620. This seems to imply that it had been usually practised on the living.
And Lord Bacon, in his observations on a libel written against Lord
Burleigh in 1592, does not deny the "bowellings" of catholics; but makes a
sort of apology for it, as "less cruel than the wheel or forcipation, or even
simple burning." Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 534.
Burnet, ii. 418.
"Though no papists were in this reign put to death purely on account of
their religion, as numberless protestants had been in the woeful days of
Queen Mary, yet many were executed for treason." Churton's Life of
Nowell, p. 147. Mr. Southey, whose abandonment of the oppressed side I
sincerely regret, holds the same language; and a later writer, Mr.
Townsend, in his Accusations of History against the Church of Rome, has
laboured to defend the capital, as well as other, punishments of catholics
under Elizabeth, on the same pretence of their treason.
Treason, by the law of England, and according to the common use of
language, is the crime of rebellion or conspiracy against the government. If
a statute is made, by which the celebration of certain religious rites is
subjected to the same penalties as rebellion or conspiracy, would any
man, free from prejudice, and not designing to impose upon the
uninformed, speak of persons convicted on such a statute as guilty of
treason, without expressing in what sense he uses the words, or deny that
they were as truly punished for their religion, as if they had been convicted
of heresy? A man is punished for religion, when he incurs a penalty for its
profession or exercise, to which he was not liable on any other account.
This is applicable to the great majority of capital convictions on this score
under Elizabeth. The persons convicted could not be traitors in any fair
sense of the word, because they were not charged with anything properly
denominated treason. It certainly appears that Campian and some other
priests about the same time were indicted on the statute of Edward III. for
compassing the queen's death, or intending to depose her. But the only
evidence, so far as we know or have reason to suspect, that could be
brought against them, was their own admission, at least by refusing to
abjure it, of the pope's power to depose heretical princes. I suppose it is
unnecessary to prove that, without some overt act to show a design of
acting upon this principle, it could not fall within the statute.
Watson's Quodlibets. True relation of the faction begun at Wisbech, 1601.
These tracts contain rather an uninteresting account of the squabbles in
Wisbech castle among the prisoners, but cast heavy reproaches on the
jesuits, as the "firebrands of all sedition, seeking by right or wrong simply
or absolutely the monarchy of all England, enemies to all secular priests,
and the causes of all the discord in the English nation."—P. 74. I have
seen several other pamphlets of the time relating to this difference. Some
account of it may be found in Camden, 648, and Strype, iv. 194, as well as
in the catholic historians, Dodd and Lingard.
Rymer, xv. 473, 488.
Butler's Engl. Catholics, p. 261.
Ribadeneira says, that Hatton, "animo Catholicus, nihil perinde quam
innocentem illorum sanguinem adeo crudeliter perfundi dolebat." He
prevented Cecil from promulgating a more atrocious edict than any other,
which was published after his death in 1591. De Schismate Anglic. c. 9.
This must have been the proclamation of 29th Nov. 1591, forbidding all
persons to harbour any one, of whose conformity they should not be well
assured.
Birch, i. 84.
Sleidan, Hist. de la Réformation (par Courayer), ii. 74.
Strype's Cranmer, 354.
These transactions have been perpetuated by a tract, entitled "Discourse
of the Troubles at Frankfort," first published in 1575, and reprinted in the
well-known collection entitled The Phœnix. It is fairly and temperately
written, though with an avowed bias towards the puritan party. Whatever
we read in any historian on the subject, is derived from this authority; but
the refraction is of course very different through the pages of Collier and of
Neal.
Strype, ii. 1. There was a Lutheran party at the beginning of her reign, to
which the queen may be said to have inclined, not altogether from religion,
but from policy. Id. i. 53. Her situation was very hazardous; and in order to
connect herself with sincere allies, she had thoughts of joining the
Smalcaldic league of the German princes, whose bigotry would admit none
but members of the Augsburg confession. Jewel's letters to Peter Martyr,
in the appendix to Burnet's third volume, throw considerable light on the
first two years of Elizabeth's reign; and show that famous prelate to have
been what afterwards would have been called a precisian or puritan. He
even approved a scruple Elizabeth entertained about her title of head of
the church, as appertaining only to Christ. But the unreasonableness of the
discontented party, and the natural tendency of a man who has joined the
side of power to deal severely with those he has left, made him afterwards
their enemy.
Roods and relics accordingly were broken to pieces and burned
throughout the kingdom, of which Collier makes loud complaint. This,
Strype says, gave much offence to the catholics; and it was not the most
obvious method of inducing them to conform.
Burnet, iii. Appendix, 290; Strype's Parker, 46.
Quantum auguror, non scribam ad te posthac episcopus. Eo enim jam res
pervenit, ut aut cruces argenteæ et stanneæ, quas nos ubique
confregimus, restituendæ sint, aut episcopatus relinquendi. Burnet, 294.
Sandys writes, that he had nearly been deprived for expressing himself
warmly against images. Id. 296. Other proofs of the text may be found in
the same collection, as well as in Strype's Annals, and his Life of Parker.
Even Parker seems, on one occasion, to have expected the queen to
make such a retrograde movement in religion as would compel them all to
disobey her. Life of Parker, Appendix, 29; a very remarkable letter.
Strype's Parker, 310. The archbishop seems to disapprove this as
inexpedient, but rather coldly; he was far from sharing the usual opinions
on this subject. A puritan pamphleteer took the liberty to name the queen's
chapel as "the pattern and precedent of all superstition." Strype's Annals, i.
471.
Burnet, ii. 395.
One of the injunctions to the visitors of 1559, reciting the offence and
slander to the church that had arisen by lack of discreet and sober
behaviour in many ministers, both in choosing of their wives, and in living
with them, directs that no priest or deacon shall marry without the
allowance of the bishops, and two justices of the peace, dwelling near the
woman's abode, nor without the consent of her parents or kinsfolk, or, for
want of these, of her master or mistress, on pain of not being permitted to
exercise the ministry, or hold any benefice; and that the marriages of
bishops should be approved by the metropolitan, and also by
commissioners appointed by the queen. Somers Tracts, i. 65; Burnet, ii.
398. It is reasonable to suppose, that when a host of low-bred and illiterate
priests were at once released from the obligation to celibacy, many of them
would abuse their liberty improvidently, or even scandalously; and this
probably had increased Elizabeth's prejudice against clerical matrimony.
But I do not suppose that this injunction was ever much regarded. Some
time afterwards (Aug. 1561) she put forth another extraordinary injunction,
that no member of a college or cathedral should have his wife living within
its precincts, under pain of forfeiting all his preferments. Cecil sent this to
Parker, telling him at the same time that it was with great difficulty he had
prevented the queen from altogether forbidding the marriage of priests.
Life of P. 107. And the archbishop himself says, in the letter above
mentioned, "I was in a horror to hear such words to come from her mild
nature and Christianly learned conscience, as she spake concerning God's
holy ordinance and institution of matrimony.
Sandys writes to Parker, April 1559, "The queen's majesty will wink at it,
but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but to bastard our children."
And decisive proofs are brought by Strype, that the marriages of the clergy
were not held legal, in the first part at least of the queen's reign. Elizabeth
herself, after having been sumptuously entertained by the archbishop at
Lambeth, took leave of Mrs. Parker with the following courtesy: " Madam
(the style of a married lady) I may not call you; mistress (the appellation at
that time of an unmarried woman) I am loth to call you; but, however, I
thank you for your good cheer." The lady is styled, in deeds made while
her husband was archbishop, Parker, alias Harleston; which was her
maiden name. And she dying before her husband, her brother is called her
heir-at-law, though she left children. But the archbishop procured letters of
legitimation, in order to render them capable of inheritance. Life of Parker,
511. Others did the same. Annals, i. 8. Yet such letters were, I conceive,
beyond the queen's power to grant, and could not have obtained any
regard in a court of law.
In the diocese of Bangor, it was usual for the clergy, some years after
Elizabeth's accession, to pay the bishop for a licence to keep a concubine.
Strype's Parker, 203.
Burnet, iii. 305.
Jewel's letters to Bullinger, in Burnet, are full of proofs of his
dissatisfaction; and those who feel any doubts may easily satisfy
themselves from the same collection, and from Strype as to the others.
The current opinion, that these scruples were imbibed during the
banishment of our reformers, must be received with great allowance. The
dislike to some parts of the Anglican ritual had begun at home; it had
broken out at Frankfort; it is displayed in all the early documents of
Elizabeth's reign by the English divines, far more warmly than by their
Swiss correspondents. Grindal, when first named to the see of London,
had his scruples about wearing the episcopal habits removed by Peter
Martyr. Strype's Grindal, 29.
It was proposed on this occasion to abolish all saints' days, to omit the
cross in baptism, to leave kneeling at the communion to the ordinary's
discretion, to take away organs, and one or two more of the ceremonies
then chiefly in dispute. Burnet, iii. 303 and Append. 319; Strype, i. 297,
299. Nowell voted in the minority. It can hardly be going too far to suppose
that some of the majority were attached to the old religion.
Jewel, one of these visitors, writes afterwards to Martyr: "Invenimus ubique
animos multitudinis satis propensos ad religionem; ibi etiam, ubi omnia
putabantur fore difficillima.... Si quid erat obstinatæ malitiæ, id totum erat in
presbyteris, illis præsertim, qui aliquando stetissent à nostrâ sententiâ."
Burnet, iii. Append. 289. The common people in London and elsewhere,
Strype says, took an active part in demolishing images; the pleasure of
destruction, I suppose, mingling with their abhorrence of idolatry. And
during the conferences held in Westminster Abbey, Jan. 1559, between
the catholic and protestant divines, the populace who had been admitted
as spectators, testified such disapprobation of the former, that they made it
a pretext for breaking off the argument. There was indeed such a tendency
to anticipate the government in reformation, as necessitated a
proclamation, Dec. 28, 1558, silencing preachers on both sides.
Mr. Butler says, from several circumstances it is evident that a great
majority of the nation then inclined to the Roman catholic religion. Mem. of
Eng. Catholics, i. 146. But his proofs of this are extremely weak. The
attachment he supposes to have existed in the laity towards their pastors
may well be doubted; it could not be founded on the natural grounds of
esteem; and if Rishton, the continuator of Sanders de Schismate, whom he
quotes, says that one-third of the nation was protestant, we may surely
double the calculation of so determined a papist. As to the influence which
Mr. B. alleges the court to have employed in elections for Elizabeth's first
parliament, the argument would equally prove that the majority was
protestant under Mary, since she had recourse to the same means. The
whole tenor of historical documents in Elizabeth's reign proves that the
catholics soon became a minority, and still more among the common
people than the gentry. The north of England, where their strength lay, was
in every respect the least important part of the kingdom. Even according to
Dr. Lingard, who thinks fit to claim half the nation as catholic in the middle
of this reign, the number of recusants certified to the council under 23 Eliz.
c. 1, amounted only to fifty thousand; and, if we can trust the authority of
other lists, they were much fewer before the accession of James. This
writer, I may observe in passing, has, through haste and thoughtlessness,
misstated a passage he cites from Murden's State Papers, p. 605, and
confounded the persons suspected for religion in the city of London, about
the time of the Armada, with the whole number of men fit for arms; thus
making the former amount to seventeen thousand and eighty-three.
Mr. Butler has taken up so paradoxical a notion on this subject, that he
literally maintains the catholics to have been at least one half of the people
at the epoch of the gunpowder plot. Vol. i. p. 295. We should be glad to
know at what time he supposes the grand apostasy to have been
consummated. Cardinal Bentivoglio gives a very different account;
reckoning the real catholics, such as did not make profession of heresy, at
only a thirtieth part of the whole; though he supposes that four-fifths might
become such, from secret inclination or general indifference, if it were once
established. Opere di Bentivoglio, p. 83, edit. Paris, 1645. But I presume
neither Mr. Butler nor Dr. Lingard would own these adiaphorists.
The latter writer, on the other hand, reckons the Hugonots of France, soon
after 1560, at only one-hundredth part of the nation, quoting for this
Castelnau, a useful memoir writer, but no authority on a matter of
calculation. The stern spirit of Coligni, atrox animus Catonis, rising above
all misfortune, and unconquerable, except by the darkest treachery, is
sufficiently admirable without reducing his party to so miserable a fraction.
The Calvinists at this time are reckoned by some at one-fourth, but more
frequently at one-tenth, of the French nation. Even in the beginning of the
next century, when proscription and massacre, lukewarmness and self-
interest, had thinned their ranks, they are estimated by Bentivoglio ( ubi
supra) at one-fifteenth.
Strype's Parker, 152, 153; Collier, 508. In the Lansdowne Collection, vol.
viii. 47, is a letter from Parker, Apr. 1565, complaining of Turner, dean of
Wells, for having made a man do penance for adultery in a square cap.
Strype's Parker, 157, 173.
This apprehension of Elizabeth's taking a disgust to protestantism is
intimated in a letter of Bishop Cox. Strype's Parker, 229.
Parker sometimes declares himself willing to see some indulgence as to
the habits and other matters; but, the queen's commands being
peremptory, he had thought it his duty to obey them, though forewarning
her that the puritan ministers would not give way (225, 227). This,
however, is not consistent with other passages, where he appears to
importune the queen to proceed. Her wavering conduct, partly owing to
caprice, partly to insincerity, was naturally vexatious to a man of his firm
and ardent temper. Possibly he might dissemble a little in writing to Cecil,
who was against driving the puritans to extremities. But, on the review of
his whole behaviour, he must be reckoned, and always has been
reckoned, the most severe disciplinarian of Elizabeth's first hierarchy;
though more violent men came afterwards.
Strype's Annals, 416; Parker, 159. Some years after, these advertisements
obtained the queen's sanction, and got the name of Articles and
Ordinances. Id. 160.
Strype's Annals, 416, 430; Life of Parker, 184. Sampson had refused a
bishopric on account of these ceremonies. Burnet, iii. 292.
Life of Parker, 214. Strype says (p. 223) that the suspended ministers
preached again after a little time by connivance.
Jewel is said to have become strict in enforcing the use of the surplice.
Annals, 421.
Strype's Annals, i. 423, ii. 316; Life of Parker, 243, 348; Burnet, iii. 310,
325, 337. Bishops Grindal and Horn wrote to Zurich, saying plainly, it was
not their fault that the habits were not laid aside, with the cross in baptism,
the use of organs, baptism by women, etc. P. 314. This last usage was
much inveighed against by the Calvinists, because it involved a theological
tenet differing from their own, as to the necessity of baptism. In Strype's
Annals, 501, we have the form of an oath taken by all mid-wives, to
exercise their calling without sorcery or superstition, and to baptize with the
proper words. It was abolished by James I.
Beza was more dissatisfied than the Helvetic divines with the state of the
English church ( Annals, i. 452; Collier, 503); but dissuaded the puritans
from separation, and advised them rather to comply with the ceremonies.
Id. 511.
Strype's Life of Parker, 242; Life of Grindal, 114.
Burnet, iii. 316; Strype's Parker, 155 et alibi.
Id. 226. The church had but two or three friends, Strype says, in the
council about 1572, of whom Cecil was the chief. Id. 388.
Burnet says, on the authority of the visitors' reports, that out of 9400
beneficed clergymen, not more than about 200 refused to conform. This
caused for some years just apprehensions of the danger into which religion
was brought by their retaining their affections to the old superstition; "so
that," he proceeds, "if Queen Elizabeth had not lived so long as she did, till
all that generation was dead, and a new set of men better educated and
principled were grown up and put in their rooms; and if a prince of another
religion had succeeded before that time, they had probably turned about
again to the old superstition as nimbly as they had done before in Queen
Mary's days." Vol. ii. p. 401. It would be easy to multiply testimonies out of
Strype, to the papist inclinations of a great part of the clergy in the first part
of this reign. They are said to have been sunk in superstition and
looseness of living. Annals, i. 166.
Strype's Annals, 138, 177; Collier, 436, 465. This seems to show that more