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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http : //books . google . com/| t I N- ^ «r 1 ^ ■ • *v ENGLI URCH RY, ADAPTED FOR O^S-^ DAY AND SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND FOR GENERAL FAMTL Y READING. BY \ A CHARLOTTE M.I^ONGE, LONDON: Society's De National Society's Uepository. saivcruary, westminster. 1883. PREFACE. The brief history here given is an attempt to make the growth of our Church, and of the Prayer Book, comprehensible to young minds. It is hoped that it may be found useful in the senior classes of Sunday and Saturday Schools, as well as to pupil teachers, and that it may help to establish in their minds the essential fact that our own is a branch of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, built on the One Foundation. The continuity of the Church and the origin of the Praj^'er Book have therefore been made special subjects ; and there has also been an endea- , vour to show the causes of whatever still comes under the eye of our young people. Some of the greatest difficulties of our time have been caused on the one hand by the loyal assumption that whatever is is right, and on the other by the belief that whatever is old must be better than the new, both parties being alike ignorant of the principle and cause of the customs which they attack or defend, ^ivd >Jkvo& T^^^- knowing whether they are, or are tvot^ vrev^oT\.^^>^. k ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. CHAPTER I. THE BRITISH CHURCH. I^SSHuRS is a branch of the Holy Catholic ■ll^Mulll Church, which, as we know, began from B^B SBmI our Blessed Lord Himself. He com- ^^^s^^PJ manded His Apostlds to go and teach all nations, and to preach the Gospel to every creature, and on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down to abide with them for ever, and to give them power to fulfil our Lord's command. 2. In the vision of St. Peter at Joppa he was taught that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews ; and very soon after St Paul was converted, and became " a chosen vessel" to bear the name of Christ to the Gentiles. 3. The latter part of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles describes the journeyings of St. Paul, and the last chapter ends with his arrival at Rome, that he might be tried by the Emperor Nero. He had to wait till his accusers should come from Jerusalem, and in the meantime dwelt in liis own hired house with a soldier who kept him. ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, 4. There was another prisoner at Rome at the same time, namely, the British chief, Caractacus, who had fought so bravely against the Romans, and who wondered that the owners of the palaces of Rome should care to conquer the huts of the Britons. 5. There is reason to believe that the family of MASONRY AT COLCHESTER. (SPECIMEN OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.) Caractacus learnt the Christian faith while they were at Rome, and some people think that when St. Paul was released, he travelled to Britain, but this is not likely. 6. However, when he was again in prison at Rome, and was writing to Si. Timothy, he says, ' Pudens, and Linus, and C\av\d\^ §;c^^\. >i!cva^r \\. TeE BRITISH CHURCH. _ 3 thus seems that these three were visitors to the Apostle in his cell, and had been friends of Timothy in his former visit to Rome. 7. Linus is reckoned as Bishop of Rome, and we know that a Roman gentleman named Pudens was married to a British lady called Claudia, no doubt ^^^ J). (SPECIMKN OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.) because her father had been adopted into the tribe of the Emperor Claudius. Claudia's praises were sung by a heathen poet of the time, who mentions that she came from Britain. 8. Pudens turned the hall of hia house aX'?Lo^t\sft» a Cbn'stian Church. His daughter or giatvd-^wi'^'^^ ENGLISH CHUkCH HISTOR K Pudentiana, was martyred there, and the place is still preserved by the name of the Church of St. Pudentiana, and in it may be traced the plan of the oldest Christian places of worship. 9. Thus our first Christian countrymen and women have a connection with St. Paul, but it is likely that most of their clergy came from Gaul, where Trophimus, St. Paul's Ephesian companion, had founded a Church. The old Gallic and British liturgies and the customs of the clergy were more like those of Ephesus than any other of the ancient Churches. 10. There is no guessing how many places in Britain accepted the faith in these early times. There does not appear to have been any open persecution there until the last and most terrible one under Diocletian, about the year 3(X). Three martyrs are said then to have died : Aaron and Julius, of whom nothing is known, and Alban, of whom the following story is told : — 11. Alban was a soldier in the Roman army, stationed at Verulam, the oldest Roman station. He was still a heathen, when a priest, fleeing from persecution, begged a shelter from him, and while hidden in his house, taught him the faith. When the officers of justice came to search there, Alban put on the garments of his guest, and gave himself up to them. He was brought before the tribunal, and THE BRITISH CHURCH recognised, upon which he confessed himself to be a Christian, and was led out of the town and beheaded. This was reckoned as a Baptism of blood, and a Church was built on the spot, which took the name of St. Albans, and now gives title to a Bishopric. 12. The persecution soon ceased, and in the time of Constantine the Great, almost all Southern Britain, like the rest of the Roman Empire, owned the Christian faith ; but there were wild tribes, both in the north and west, who still kept to the wild heathen ways of the old Druids. 13. A great Bishop, named Germanus, was invited from Gaul about the year 490, to correct some errors taught by a man named Pelagius about original sin. After looking into this matter, St. Germanus preached to the Welsh tribes, in what is now called Flintshire, and converted large numbers of people. 14. A large number of these had just come to keep their Easter, and to receive Holy Baptism in the river Mold, when tidings came that a great host of the fierce plundering Picts from the North were coming down upon them. St. Germanus bade them not be dis(iouraged, but to stand together, singing their Hallelujah hymns, round their watch fires, in the white robes of their Baptism* 15. Perhaps he expected that they would thus die in triumph, like martyrs, but it was otherwise with. them. The strange sight of t\v\s mtv^x^xvr^ Vq^h. \^ ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. white, singing hymns without fear of the darts, swords, and savage faces of their enemies, so alarmed the Picts that they turned and fled in terror, and all the multitude were saved. This was called the Hallelujah victory, and a place called Maes Garmon, or the stone of Germanus, is believed to have been the spot where this mercy was granted. CHAPTER n, CONVERSION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 1. When the Roman soldiers were called back to defend their own country, the Britons were left in a helpless state, and their enemies on all sides used to attack them, slay and plunder them, and carry their children off" as slaves. The Saxons came from Friesland and Jutland, the Picts came from the North, and the Scots from Ireland. 2. These Scots were a tall, fierce race, of Celtic blood, like the Britons themselves, but much more uncivilised, and they were fast conquering the Picts, in the country we now know by thdr name, Scotland. They sometimes fell upon the British and carried off children to use as slaves. .?. From the most nortYvetVy oC the British CONVERSION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND, 7 provinces there was thus carried off a lad of fifteen, named Patrick, the son of rich parents. He was taken to Ireland and there made to work as a shepherd. In cold, hunger, and loneliness, as he kept his sheep on the Irish hills, the holy lessons, that had been unheeded by the wealthy happy boy, returned on the lonely shepherd youth. He thought upon his God, and became deeply devout. 4. After four years he escaped, but he had formed the strong purpose of bringing to the truth the land where he had been a slave. Somewhere about the year 455, became back to Ireland as a Missionary Bishop, and by ringing little musical bells, used to gather the people round him and instruct them. 5. Once when they said that they could not understand what he told them to believe of the mystery of the Holy Trinity in Unity, he gathered a leaf of the trefoil, or shamrock, as the Irish call it, and asked them if they could explain how that could be both one leaf and three leaves. Yet they saw that- so it was, and they therefore might believe in the- Most Holy Three in One, and One in Three. 6. His preaching and that of his followers con- verted the whole country, but he did not divide it into dioceses, as was usually done in the Church, but there were places called cells in which large numbers of clergy lived together, working and praying con- stantly, with one head over them. ?>om^ ofl >5cvr.^^ 8 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K were consecrated as Bishops, that they might be able to ordain and confirm, but the chief rule belonged to the head of the community, who was called the Abbot, or Father. The places whose names begin with ** Kil " once were such cells. 7. There are so many fables about St. Patrick that it is not possible to make out more of his history , than that he led the Irish Scots to open theit heaits to the faith. About the same time many of the still heathen Scots began to cross to the north of Great Britain, and to fight with the Picts, driving them away and making slaves of them, and so mastering the land at last that it took the name of Scotland. 8. Some of the Picts were converted by St. Ninian, but the Church did not make much progress in the North till 568. Among the Irish Christians there was then a King's son, whose name was Columba. He was bred up in one of the cells, and his chief delight was in study, and in copying out books. A hermit named Finian had a complete copy of the Psalms, and Columba begged to be permitted to copy it, but was refused. On this, he shut himself up in the church where it was kept, and copied all out in a single night. 9. Finian was looking through the keyhole, and in the niorning took away the copy. Columba then appealed to the King of Leinster, but could get no CONVERSION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 9 redress, for the judgment was, " To every cow, her own calf." In his anger, Columba called his friends together to do him justice. They defeated the King of Leinster and forced the book from the hermit, but Columba was too good a man not to be grieved and shocked at the cruelty and misery his anger had caused. 10. So he banished himself from Ireland and sailed away to the North, with only one youth, who would not leave him. They came to the little island of Hy, one of the Hebrides, and there they built a little house of osier withs, which the ivy covered, and began to dig the ground and raise scanty crops, while seven times a day they sang prayer and praise. Others came and joined them, and constant prayer, labour, and copying of holy books, went on. Columba is said to have written out the Bible 300 times in the course of his life. 11. The isle came to be called I. Columbkill the island of Columba's cell, otherwise lona. It was the centre of light to all the North. The brethren went out in boats from thence to preach and teach among the rude people around, and other cells were founded on the main land, where, as in Ireland, the Abbot was the head, and the Bishops and priests were under his charge. 12. Aldan, King of the Scots, came to lona that he migh^be SLnointtd and crowned by Co\\ycc\>^, ">?^^ lo ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. 'M% ^I^m ^^i-> . ^flwgBvi2a«r .« H MikMmi iJi|H ' M|| ^S flMPl ■ .;'^^ CONVERSION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. ii brought with him a stone which the Scots had carried from Ireland, and on which their kings always sat when they were crowned. It is the one that is placed [coronation CHAIE.] under the seat of the coronation chair in West- minster Abbey. For a long course of years the Scottish Kings came to be crowned at lona, and after they died, their corpses were borne to rest beneath the ru^ed stone crosses around the cell in the little island. 13. For thirty-four years, Columba lived there as Abbot, training up men who went forth to teach the feith ifl Horihem Britain aud ScoWaxvA, wA -«Vq 1 2 ESGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, were ver\' learned in the Scriptures. Some even went as far as France and Switzerland as missionaries, but this was not till after the holy and peaceful death of St. Columba, which took place in 597, before the altar of his Church, where he had desired to be laid. 14. These Scottish, Irish, and ancient British clergy used to keep Easter Day on the first full moon after the 21st of March, without waiting for Sunday. Their ser\'ices were, as said before, somewhat like those of the Ephesian Church, and they had also a peculiar way of making the tonsure. This was a circle shaven on the top of the head in remembrance of our Blessed Lord's cro^^'n of thorns. It was the mark of all clergy. CHAPTER III. OUR FIRST ARCHBISHOP. I. Evil times had come on Britain. The Roman power had fallen, and the Saxons, or English, coming over from the Continent, overran the countr}% and killed all the Britons except those whom they kept as slaves. Their gods, Woden, Thor, and Frey, were worshipped all over the southern and eastern parts of the island, and Christianity seemed to be swept away except in Scotland, Cumberland, Wales, and ComwalL I I OUR FIRST ARCHBISHOP. 13 2. In these places the old race still were free, and their Churches continued, but the Welsh, as the western Britons began to be called, hated the conquerors far too much to wish to do anything for their conversion. It was from a more distant land that the first missionaries came to the English. 3. Every one knows how the good priest, Gregor}'*, was struck with the fair faces of the English children in the slave market at Rome, and hearing that they were Angles, said they would be angels if they were Christians. He was asked what their land was and was told it was Deira, deer land. " From the ire of God may they be saved ! " he said ; and when he heard that their King was named Ella, he said, '* May Alleluia be sung in those realms ! '' 4. He wished to go himself to their country, but the Romans could not spare him, and rose up to hold him back. He was forced to wait for an opening till he had been made Bishop of Rome — Papa, Pope, or father, as the people called him ; and then he heard that Bertha, the daughter of the Christian King of Paris, had been given in marriage to Ethel bert. King of Kent, on condition that she should be allowed to continue in the faith, and have clergy to minister to her. 5- Then Gregory thought the time was come, and he gathered a band of clergy, with a priest named Augrustiiie at their head, gwvtvg \>ci^w\ X^^^^^'s* 14 ENGLISH Church hjsHor k T J and presents for Bertha and her husband. They were very much afraid of the wild Saxons, and tried to turn back half-way, but Gregory wrote letters stirring up and encouraging them, and at last they safely arrived at Canterbury in the year 596. 6. The king said he would see the new comers, but only in the open ah*, for fear he should be bewitched. They came forward in procession, sing- ing litanies, and carrying a banner bearing the figure of our Lord on the cross. The words of Augustine so touched Ethelbert that, after he had been in- structed, he was baptized in the little old church of St Martin, which had been preserved from British times. 7. The people of Kent mostly followed their King's example, and Augustine was consecrated in Gaul to be their Bishop. He wrote to Pope Gregory for advice on many points. The Prayer Book he had brought had been freshly arranged by Gregory, who had gathered together most of the Collects and arranged them with the Epistles and Gospels. It was not quite like the Service used either by Queen Bertha's priests, or those of the Welsh : what was he to do } And then there were these strange customs of the British : how should he meet them i Might he not take authority over the Welsh Bishops and make everything like what he was accustomed to at home ? S. Gregory was a much greater and wiser man OVr t^iksT AkCHBistioP, 15 than Augustine. As a mark of favour, he sent a pall, that is, a sort of scarf woven out of wool from Iambs which were blessed by the Pope on St. Agnes's day, and which was the sign of being an Archbishop ; and he said that if there were questions or disputes among the Welsh Bishops, Augustine would be the person to decide them, but he did not approve of hasty changes in old customs, and he thought it would be wiser to choose what was best from all the three liturgies — Roman, Gallic, and British — and not try to force uniformity on every land as long as they agreed on the really important points. 9. King Ethelbert was the Bretwalda, or lord of Britain, and had power over the other princes, both in England and Wales ; and he caused the British chiefs to send their Bishops to hold a conference with his Archbishop, under a tree since called Augustine's Oak, on the banks of the Severn. ID. The Welsh Bishops asked an old hermit whether it were their duty to submit to the stranger. " Contrive to come last to the meeting," he said ; ** if the stranger rise to meet you he will be humble and friendly ; . if not, he must be proud and overbearing, so resist him.*' II. Unfortunately Augustine thought it showed his dignity as Archbishop to keep his seat when the Welshmen came up, and this set them against him from the first, nor was he as ptud^tv^. ^iv^ ^o^^-axvcw^ i6 ENGLISH CHURCH HlSTOR Y. as Gregory advised. So they came to no agreement about the shape of the tonsure, or the time of Easter ; the Welsh would not own his authority, and what was worse, they refused to work with him for the conversion of the heathen English. 12. Augustine spoke out angrily, and warned them that if they would not make their enemies Christians, they would be sure to suffer from their savage violence as heathens ; and so the assembly broke up, having done no good. 13. Not long after, the fierce heathen English made an attack on the Welsh, in which many were slain ; and while the Christians attached to Augustine thought this a fulfiment of his prediction, the Welsh accused him of having set their enemies on. This was most false, as he was a good and merciful man, and had only spoken in warning. 14. When St. Augustine, the first Archbishop, died, in 604, the only kingdoms that had been con- verted were Kent and Essex ; Bishops for Rochester and for London had been consecrated, and were the first to belong to the province of Canterbury. The division of the Church over which an Archbishop bears rule is called his province, and the Bishops therein are termed his suffragans. Each of them has a see or diocese of his own, and so has the Arch- bishop, and the Archbishop cannot interfere with the management of the other Bishops' sees, unless CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBRIA, 17 there is some dispute or some question referred to him. CHAPTER IV. THE CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBRIA. 1. One of King Ethelbert's daughters married Edwin, King of Northumbria, who was still a heathen, but like her mother before her, she was permitted to bring her own clergy with her, and the priest she brought was Paulinus, a tall dark Italian, one of the companions of Augustine. 2. This Edwin had gone through many troubles in his youth,^ and at one time had been in exile from his home, expecting every day to be given up to his enemies. On the evening of his greatest distress, a stranger came to him in the twilight, as he sat alone, and asked what he would give to one who could promise him not only safety now, but greater power than all who had gone before him ; — would he not follow his advice and let him direct his way of life ? Edwin answered that truly he would. " Then remember this sign," said the stranger, putting his * hand on the young man's head, and therewith he was lost to sight in the darkness. . 3. From that moment Edwin had begun to pros- per : he had been called home to \v\s Vvcv^<^c>\xv ^'oA i8 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K had destroyed his enemies. He was not only King there, but Lord of Britain, and was much honoured for his valour and uprightness ; but though he listened to Paulinus he was slow to change, and his heart clave to his old gods. 4. One day, however, as he sat thoughtful, Paulinus came in, and, putting a hand upon his brow, asked if he remembered that token. Edwin owned it, and his promise that he would commit his course of life to the guidance of him who made that sign. He doubted no longer, but called his great men together that they might hear the new teaching set forth. 5. They came readily, and the first to speak, Coifi, an old priest, said he had served Woden and Thor zealously all his life, but they had never done him any good. Another, an old warrior, then said, "O king, our life in this world is like a little bird flitting through your hall at night when you and your men are feasting there. For a moment it is in the warmth and light, but from winter it comes and to winter it goes. So is it with us ; we are a moment in light, but we know not whence we came nor whither we go ; wherefore, if this stranger can tell us of a better way, let us hear him." 6. Paulinus spoke of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and so moved these men that Coifi was the "Srst to profane the idol temple by flinging a spear CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBRIAN 19 into it. The King and all his people were baptized, 1,200 all in one day, in the river Swale, and Paulinus became the Bishop. This was in 627. . . 7. Edwin was a good man and much loved, but in 634 he was killed in battle by the terrible pagan King, Penda of Mercia, who overran Northumbria, so that Paulinus had to flee into Kent ; and the faith seemed to be swept away. 8. There was, however, a young cousin of Edwin, named Oswald, who had been brought up as a Christian in the cell of lona. When Penda retreated, Oswald came back to take the kingdom, and sent for help (rom lona to complete the conversion of the country. A most good and holy man came whose name was Aidan. He chose an island to set up his cell upon after the example of lona, namely, little rocky Lindisfarne, and from ' thence he and his priests went out to teach. As they were Scots, and spoke the old Keltic tongue, the King himself stood beside the Bishop to interpret for him, and thus great numbers were gathered into the Church. 9. Oswald was a good and faithful man, and so charitable that he was called " the open hand." The Welsh came to make war on him, and he collected his people to fight against them, setting up a great cross — a Rood, as it was then called — ^before their camp, and bidding them kneel, not to the wood, but to Him who hung on the wood. 20 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, 10. He gained a great victory, and reigned in peace till 642, when the savage old Penda came against him and he was killed in battle, crying with his last breath, " My God, save their souls ! " How- ever, his brother Oswy, who had married Edwin's daughter, was able to win back part of the kingdom, and at last slew old Penda in battle, after which the Mercians accepted the Christian faith. 11. The great kingdom of Wessex had been converted by St. Birinus, who came from Gaul ; Norfolk, Suffolk, and most of the eastern coast by a Burgundian named Felix ; while the kingdom of Essex owed most of its knowledge of the faith, not to the Roman mission in Kent, but to the missionaries sent forth from lona. 12. Thus in all these places the customs of the Churches were slightly different, and there were a good many difficulties in consequence. King Oswy, the pupil of the missionaries of lona and Lindisfame, kept his Easter at their time, and would be feasting when his wife, who had been brought up by Paulinus, was still mourning in Holy Week. 13. Besides this, the cells of the Scottish clergy, or Culdees, as they were sometimes called, were unlike the monasteries of the Romans, except in the three great vows that all took who dedicated them- selves to a religious life, by which was then meant a life by rule. These three vows were of Chastity, C0}^VMkST0N OP NOkTHUMPiktA. 21 I III Obedience, and Poverty. According to the first, there were to be no marriages among those thus vowed ; the second made them obey their head without question ; by the third, they gave up all their private property for the benefit of the whole body, and never had anything of their own. 14. There had been a great Italian, named Benedict, who had drawn up a rule by which most religious houses in the Roman Churches lived, keeping seven times of prayer in the twenty-four hours, with a short service for each, and with the times of work and of meals strictly marked. They had monasteries for men, who were termed monks, and for women, who were called nuns, but always separate : the one under their Abbots, the other under their Abbesses. 15. The British and Scottish cells were not under this rule. Sometimes the Bishops had no other home, and were under the Abbot. Sometimes there was a double house, under the same head — one for monks, the other for nuns, and in some cases both under an Abbess. At Whitby there was a most admirable Abbess, St. Hilda, whom all looked up tc, and who even sat in a synod of the Church. 22 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K CHAPTER V. THEODORE AND WILFRED. 1. The differences between the British and the Roman Church led to disputes which grew hotter after Wilfred, a young Northumbrian priest, had gone Xo Rome, where he had been so much struck by the splendour, learning, wisdom, and superior cultivation of the Roman clergy, that he came back holding cheap everything at home, and believing that the English Church should be guided by Rome in everything. 2. King Oswy founded a new Archbishopric at the old Roman City of York, and gave it to Wilfred, meaning that all the other Bishops in the kingdom should be his suffragans ; but as they much objected CO him and his ways, and as the Archbishop of Canterbury was just dead, it was thought better to send Wilfred to Rome, to be consecrated by the Pope, whose name was Vitalian. 3. At the same time the English Kings agreed to beg the Pope to choose their new Archbishop of Canterbury, and a most excellent choice he made. He could hardly as yet have found an Englishman learned enough, or impartial enough, for the post, and the Scottish party would \iave b^^w ijrejudiced THEODORE AND WILFRED, 23 against an Italian. Therefore he chose a priest named Theodore, a native of St. Paul's city, Tarsus, who had been long at Rome, but who would be able to understand those customs of lona and Lindisfarne which came from the East. 4. In 669, Theodore came to Canterbury, and was enthroned, and he began at once to make the arrangements that should form a fixed Church system, not only a missionary one, as had hereto been the case in England. He collected the Bishops together at Clovesho in a synod, and persuaded them to agree to keep Easter at the same time, and to give up such distinctions as really kept them almost in schism. 5. In Wilfred's absence his enemies had persuaded the King to put in another Bishop at York, namely, a very good man called Chad. The synod, however, decided that Chad had not been properly appointed, and he meekly resigned himself into their hands, whereupon a new diocese was formed at Lichfield, and he was the first Bishop there. 6. Wilfred was restored to York, and there surprised the simple, untaught people by the improve- ments he brought from Rome. His minster or cathe- dral was only thatched, but he covered it with lead, and obtained for the windows glass that would admit the light. 7. Minster is the old word fot motv'^^^.^rj Ow^x^* 24 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K Cathedral means the church where is the Bishop's chair, or throne. Theodore arranged the bounds of the dioceses, and as most of the Saxon thanes had priests as their chaplains, h^ persuaded them to build churches for all the people on their properties, and give a house and a little land to the priest, so that he might be fixed there, and have something to depend upon. This was the beginning of our parishes. They followed the shapes of the estates of the first lords of the manor, and this is the reason they are so different in size and so irregular in shape. The first churches were of wood, or wicker work. Whenever you hear of a place called Whitchurch, you may be sure it was the first in. the neighbourhood to have a white stone church. 8. Theodore thought that the see of York was far too large, since it included all England north of the Humber ; but Wilfred refused to give up any part of it. He had also displeased the King, Egfrid, whose wife, Etheldreda, he encouraged to become a nun, neglecting her duty to her husband. By sentence of the synod of Bishops, Wilfred was then deposed, and another Bishop, Boso, placed in his seat. 9. He set forth at once for Rome, where he met with great favour. The Pope held himself superior to the council of the English Church, and commanded his restoration to the see of York. However, when ^Vllfrisd came home with this sentence, Egfrid threw THEODORE AND WILFRED, 25 him into prison, and kept him there nine months. On his release, he went to the south. The people of Sussex had not yet been converted, and he made a good use of his exile among them. 10. There was a famine at the tim^ he came, and yet the people had no notion of fishing to relieve their wants. Wilfred taught them to make nets, and to go out in boats for fish, and thus he was himself a successful fisher of men, and was the first founder of the Church of Sussex. He lived in a monastery which he had built on the long peninsula called Selsey for a period of four years. 11. Then Archbishop Theodore, longing to be reconciled to him, sent to beg that they might meet in London, in the house of Bishop Erkenwald. There these two good and great men did meet, and there was full peace and friendship once more between them. Theodore wrote to the King of Northumbria, Egfrid^s brother Alfred, and Wilfred was permitted to return as Bishop of Hexham. 12. Afterwards, when Boso died, Wilfred was restored to York. He lived much longer than Theodore, who died in 690. The old Saxon chronicle says of Theodore, " Before this the Bishops had been Romans, now they were English.'* He had made ours from a missionary Church into an established Church, and many of his arrangements have lasted even to the present day. 25 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, 1 3. Theodore, though a foreigner, alwkys stood up for the freedom of the English Church, and settled matters in synods of the Bishops ; but Wilfred, in spite of being an Englishman, always went to Rome for help. He did so again when King Aldfrid and Archbishop Brihtwald wished to divide the see of York, and have a Bishop at Ripon. He resisted, was deposed, and though seventy years old, travelled e^ain to Rome, and obtained a decree in his favour. However, he was not allowed by the King to return to York, but Hexham was again given to him, and he died there, in 709. 14. Not till 735, sixteen years after his death, did York become an Archbishopric, with the northern dioceses as suffragan sees. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of all England, the Arch- bishop of York is the Primate of England. CHAPTER VI. OLD ENGLISH SAINTS. I. England had in these early times many very holy people, both men and women ; St. Hilda of Whitby has already been mentioned. In one of the abbeys over which she ruled, there was a monk named Ceadmon, who could not write, and who had OLD ENGLISH SAINTS, Tj never thought of making verses, until, when he was about his work, there came into his mind a long and beautiful poem describing the creation of the world, which was written down from his dictation, and which is still to be read in old English. 2. A very noted person, who lived at the same time as Wilfred, was St. Cuthbert, a hermit whose dwelling place was the tiny island of Fame, close to Lindisfarne. So calm was he when absorbed in prayer and meditation, that the eider ducks came and nestled round him, and were called St. Cuthbert's ducks. He was persuaded to allow himself to be made Bishop of Lindisfarne ; but when old age came upon him, he resigned the see into the hands of 'Wilfred, and retired to his beloved little islet to die. 3. There was much war and fierceness in the outer world, and those who longed to serve God in peace often either became hermits and dwelt apart, or entC'^d monasteries. Indeed where a hermit had lived, an abbey often grew up. There would be a little church over his grave, with a cluster of huts round it, filled with monks, who cleared the forests, sowed corn, and drained swamps with their own hands. Each convent was in itself a model farm, a school and a hospital. 4. Constant praise and prayer were kept up in the convent cinirches. Some oi iVv^ rcvotJ^^ c^^\^ 30 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K work ; and then calling on the name of God the Holy Ghost, this holy and humble man died in a good old age, in the year 734. 10. Another learned English monk, named Alcuin, was invited to Aachen, to become tutor to the sons of the famous Emperor, Charles the Great, and even the Emperor himself often came and studied under him. 11. The English Church was at peace at home, and sent forth missions to the heathens abroad. There was a mission in Friesland, which had been first set on foot by Wilfred, when he was shipwrecked there on one of his journeys to Rome. A young monk, named Winfred, at Nurssling, in Hampshire, longed to join in it, and was solemnly blessed and sent forth by the Bishop of Winchester. First, however, h^ made a pilgrimage to Rome, where Pope Gregory IL gave him a commission to preach in the heatheiji parts of Europe, and as his name seemed uncouth in Latin it was changed to Bonifacius, Good doer. 12. He found plenty of missionaries among the Frisians, and went on into Germany, when, in Hesse, he gained so many converts that the Pope sent for him to be consecrated as their Bishop. While he was gone, many fell back into heathen ways, and even the Christians still went on paying honours to a great oak tree, consecrated to Thor. He told them that if Thor were a god he would protect his own ; then at ^ *^e head of aJJ his clergy, with crowds of people THE DANISH RAVAGES, 31 looking on, this brave Bishop went up and struck the trunk with an axe. Stroke followed stroke, the tree fell, and with it heathenism. 13. Boniface brought over many monks to help him, and also nuns to teach the German women the ways of Christian maidens and matrons. In his old age he went forth among the still unconverted Frisians, and at Dockingen found a small mission station where there were some converts, whom he promised to confirm on Whitsun Eve. 14, But the heathen round were angered at his coming. They gathered round the little Christian party on the Confirmation day, and slaughtered them all kneeUxig in prayer. Boniface saw his time was come. He took the book of the Gospels, laid his head upon it, and thus died, 75 years old, in the year 755. CHAPTER Vn. THE DANISH RAVAGES. I. The peaceful days of the old English Church did not last long after the whole of the seven king- doms had become united under one head. Already the fleets of the Northmen and Danes had begun to appear on the coasts, and the fierce v^vVd mti^ m xJc^^'cx 32 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. looked upon Christians with especial hatred as being deserters of the worship of Thor and Woden, and thus clergy, monks, and nuns always suffered most from them. There was even a clause in the Litany, " From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us." 2. These Northmen overcame the Irish Kings, drove the Scottish Kings into the mountains, and desolated lona ; but they had not done so much ^ harm in England as elsewhere till one of their Kings, Ragnar, was put to death in Northumbria, and his sons, in great wrath, brought a huge fleet to revenge him in 867. 3. Their first attack was on East Anglia, which was governed by an under-King named Edmund, a very good and pious man, much loved by his people, but they were not strong enough to resist the terrible flood of Danes. Edmund was taken, fastened to a tree, and used as a target for Danish arrows. The spot where his people laid his corpse is still called by his name, St. Edmund's Bury. 4. The fen country had an Abbey on almost every island large enough to hold one. At Bardney Abbey all the monks were slain, but those at Croy- land saw the flames in time for the Abbot Theodore to send all the younger and stronger monks away with their most precious treasures to hide in the marshes, ivhiJe he stayed himself with the old men, THE DANISH RA VAGES. 33 and the children they were bringing up, and con- tinued their prayers and praises in their church till the Danes arrived and killed them all. 5. There is a beautiful story that a fair little boy named Turgar was saved and carried away by the Danish chief Sidroc. After four days he escaped and made his way back to Croyland, where he found the surviving monks digging graves for their slain brethren. Afterwards they went over to the neigh- bouring Abbey of Medehampstead, which they had seen to be burning. There they buried eighty-four monks, with the Abbot in the midst; and then returning, lived a life full of hardship in the ruins of their Abbey. 6. At Lindisfarne, there was warning in time for the monks to flee, carrying with them as their chief treasures the bones of SS. Cuthbert, Oswald, and Aidan. They wandered in the valleys of Northum- bria, and at last found a new home on the banks of the Tyne and Wear, where in time arose the great Cathedral of Durham. 7. All this time there were brave and good Kings, Ethelwulf and his sons. It was Ethelwulf who, in 857, had given a tithe or tenth part of the land for religious purposes, after the example of the Divine law for Israel. 8. His sons were carefully bred up under St. Swithun, the Bishop of Winchesltt, \i\3X lot \sNaxc^ 34 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, „ 1^^^^— ■■■■ ■ ^^m^ir^mm ii ■ ■ ■■.■^i ■■■■■■ ■ ■■■ i.^.i ■ ■■■■■■ .i^— — ^ ■■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ^^|^— ^"^* years little could be done except to struggle with the Danes, and all the learning and piety for whicl England had once been famous seemed to have beer swept away. 9. It was not till the great Alfred, Ethelwulf fourth son, had beaten the Danes in the battle Ashdown, that there was any breathing time fo England. The northern counties lay entirely desc late, and Alfred consented to the Danes settlin: there, on their receiving Baptism, and being instructe in living a Christian life. 10. Alfred did his best for the restoration of th Church in England, but it never was equal to what had been in its first zeal. The Danes had brought i much that was rude and savage, and had introduce their vice of drunkenness, and all the efforts < Alfred, and his son and grandsons, failed to raise tl people out of their heavy selfish indulgence. 11. However, the ruined abbeys and cathedra were restored in greater strength and beauty, wii massive walls, and heavy low round arches. It said that Turgar and two more old monks were st found living at Croyland, and at eighty years were carried in chairs to watch the rebuilding of th< abbey by a grandson of King Alfred. Medeham stead was also restored, and took the name Feterborough. 12. A great man had risen up at tVv\s» Wm^ xv.^'k THE DANISH RA VAGES. 35 Dunstan. When quite young he had become a hermit, shutting himself up in a cell close to the walls of Glastonbury Abbey Church, where he spent his time in prayer, fasting, and working in metals, with ^reat skill. 13. Indeed he was so able a man, and so much^ respected for his self-denying life, that he rose to be Abbot of Glastonbury, and became one of the chief advisers of King Edred, by whose nephew, Edgar the Peaceable, he was made Archbishop of Canterbury. 14. Dunstan was a zealous man of somewhat stern character, severe both with other people and with himself. He saw that the English clergy and people were forgetting all that King Alfred had tried to enforce on them, and becoming given up to ghittony and drunkenness ; and he thought the worst of all were the parish priests and the Canons — that is to say, the Cathedral clergy, who were meant to be the Bishop's Council. 15. He believed that this evil would best be cured by causing all clergy to take the three vows of monks ■--poverty, chastity, and obedience — and, in fact, to come under the rule of St. Benedict. Many of these priests were married men, and it was proposed that all the canons who would not give up their wives should be deprived of their canohries. 16. Two great synods were held to decvdc >j£\^ o^^^- t/oa At one, held at Winchester, wYvetv \X\e c^.Ttcycv"s. ITT ril :ne r~i:i:: Alzrfrf, Ethelwiilf : r;iir:fi r:i± Zzlz^^ ri ihe battle ( - rrsiizfz^ time f( n rjirrries ls,y entirely des( -^ r.nis=:":^i. r: ire Dznes settlin .'»: >r-*irr^ du iis irtfs fnri^ rssr?ration of th rurcir 3 Hinp-sni. "lur i:: ikv^t ttss equal to what - r^jif:: :i ::? fr^ rsx* Tbi Z.ines had brought i -^ ::nc v:st mis nsi slt^;^!:- z=fi had introduce ir Tcs if irsmcsnuess ird all the efforts < -.*-~'^^ nr^ is sni m£ ^reri'isccsL &iZed to raise tl ^i!^:-r.s r-ir j zier icxiT 5ei£s: hxirigence. :^ 3t:rflr:;«r«: rre rzined ihbej-s and cathedra ^cTTi ^T*5c:T-5ir -ir ^[^^ixrir srsqgth and beauty, wit r->^^- V \::-:ir. i.n- htri~ Ir-ar round archea It -w- "rr-sr Tirci:: zzsi rvr rrrre cA monks were sti \-^.r^ . ::r^ li: Jrr^^-uirj^ ind at e;ght\^ years o x::.rx:: csr^^-i :r c^lts r:r -a^rch the rebuilding of the ^^:r=.* r* i c*^Lio=cir cc" Kir:^ Alired. Medeham -^- -V. \:;^ i^av: r::j£ve c"axiape^^ \> 2. 38 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, to the Abbey of Ely, or Eels' isle in the fens, and the verses he made, as he heard the songs in the church from his boat, are still preserved. " Merry sung the monks in Ely, ' As Knut the King rowed there by ; Row near, Knights, said the King, And hear we these monks sing.'' 3. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, and while on board ship wrote a letter to his people, expressing his own full purpose of amendment of life, and likewise enjoining them to pay their tithes and dues regularly to their parish churches. 4. The times were, however, unsettled and evil. The Danes who had settled in England had brought evil customs. They were rude and violent, the English were heavy and sluggish, and both nations were sad drunkards whom good men, such as King Edward the Confessor, and Bishop Wulstan of Worcester strove in vain to improve. 5. Indeed Edward was not strong enough to keep such turbulent people in order. He had been brought up in an Abbey in Normandy, and would rather have been a monk than a king, and he called in Norman clergy and Norman nobles in the hope that they would help him to improve his people, but this only made the English jealous of the foreigners, and more turbulent. . The King chose a Norman monk, named Robert, 'as Archbishop, but the people. THE CHANGES MADE BY THE NORMAMS. 39 der Earl Godwin, made an insurrection ; Robert fled his life, and Stigand, Bishop of Winchester, was set in his stead, but was never confirmed by the Pope. n HEDKAL.] 6. Edward the Confessor founded Westminster bbey in consequence of a dream in which he ought St, Peter appeared to him. W.'w^?. oii'^ S"^*^*^ 40 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K, consecrated when he died, and was there buried, leaving the kingdom in great confusion. 7. When Harold made himself King, he was crowned by Stigand, but that Bishop was looked on as a usurper by the Pope ; and besides, Harold had broken solemn oaths, sworn on the relics of the Saints, that he would not hinder William, Duke of Normandy, from reigning in England. Therefore, when William set forth for the Conquest, the Pope gave him his blessing, and sent him a consecrated banner. 8. After the battle of Hastings, Stigand would not accept the new Norman King, nor did several other Bishops. William then sent to Rome, and two legates, or Pope messengers, came thence to examine into the state of the Church of England. 9. They found or made causes for deposing all who had not consented to own William as lawful King. One was the good Wulstan of Worcester. He laid his pastoral staff down on the tomb of King Edward, saying, "From thee I took it, to thee I resign it." However, he was so holy a man, so much loved, and so true a peace- maker, that the King ended by restoring him ; and a saying went abroad among the people that when any hand, save Wulstan's own, tried to take up the staff, the stone closed on it, and it could not be moved. 10. Stig-and was shut up in prison at Winchester THE CHANGES MADE BY THE NORMANS. ill his death, but Canterbury was not restored to Robert William chose in his stead a much more ible man named Lanfranc, an Italian by birth, who dad been bred a lawyer, but had given up the world, ind had come to lead a devout life at tVit ^wtoi'mpl 42 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K Abbey of Bee, which was then of all places esteemed the most remarkable for zeal and devotion. 11. Lanfranc had become Abbot of Bee and was one of the Duke's chief friends and advisers. No one seemed fitter to waken the English Church out of the sloth and dullness into which it had fallen. Whatever Lanfranc did was from a sense of right, though he was often stern and sometimes hasty ; but many changes were made after the Conquest only for the sake of putting down the English and favouring the Normans. Whenever an excuse could be found English Abbots were turned out and Norman Abbots were put in, sometimes bringing fierce lawless men-at-arms to keep the monks in check. 12. The great Abbeys in the fen country which were very wealthy, Ely, Peterborough, Croyland, suffered much in this way, and their monks for the most part fled and took shelter with Hereward the Wake, in the Camp of Refuge. 13. At Glastonbury a Norman Abbot named Thurstan was put in, who was so covetous that he starved the monks and sold their books. They bore everything, till he wanted to change their Church music from their old Gregorian chants. Then they met in their chapter house and refused obedience. He sent in his soldiers, and the poor monks flew into the church, but the men-at-arms followed and shot one down with arrows, while the Abbot himself THE CHAl^GES MADE BY THE NORMANS. 43 eared another. The monks defended themselves th benches and candlesticks, and beat their enemies ". The King caused the matter to be looked into, d had the wicked Abbot shut up in an Abbey in PETEBBOROUlll ormandy, though he deserved a heavier punish- ent. 14. It was a sad time for the ■E.ngJ\sV,Wt,^w -CsNa. 44 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K whole, the Norman Conquest did good to the English Church by wakening it up from its dull and sluggish state, and bringing fresh life in from other branches of the Church, which had become more active while things were going to decay in England. 15. There was an excellent Bishop of Salisbury, named Osmund, who was said to be a kinsman of the Conqueror. He found that the Church Services varied much in different places in England, and that his Norman priests were accustomed to a service different from the English. He was a great scholar as well as a devout man, and he put together a beautiful service book, which was called " the Use of Sarum," and came to be adopted in many places, though St. Paul's Cathedral, also the dioceses of York, Hereford, Bangor and Lincoln,, all kept their own " Uses." 16. However, the Use of Sarum was the most esteemed, and it concerns us the most as it is the groundwork of our own Prayer Book. The Sacra- mentary of Gregory the Great, about 600, was the earliest beginning; the service books of Osmund of Salisbury made the second step. All was, however, still Latin. It would have been thought irreverent to translate it into Norman-French or Anglo-Saxon. 17. We must remember that the chief service in all these Churches was the Holy Communion, or, as ft was called, the Mass. Each priest was bound to THE CHANGES MADE BY THE NORMANS, 45 celebrate it once every day before noon, the earlier the better, and people attended there every day if possible, and always on Sunday ; though it was not often that the less devout communicated — generally only at the greater festivals. The services which were most like our Matins and Evensong were only used in convents and churches where the seven hours of prayer were always observed. They were also used in cathe- drals and many other churches, and in most castles where there were chaplains. The book of them was called the Breviary. 18. A great spirit of church building came with the Normans. There are hardly any remnants of English buildings before their time, but the churches they built still show their work. They have sturdy round columns, circular arches, low solid towers, and small windows; but the arches of the doors, and sometimes of the windows, are bordered with a suc- cession of mouldings in the most wonderful variety of patterns. Zigzags are always there, but we also find wings, birds' beaks, animals' heads — every device that can be conceived, making tHem exceedingly rich and beautiful. 19. The old cathedrals of Durham and Win- Chester were among those rebuilt in this Norman fashion. Bishop Walkelin, of Winchester, begged the King for timber from one of his forests for his cathedral. William answered that Ke mv^Vvt \va.M^ ^& 46 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V, much as he could cut in a day. Walkelin called out all the people of the city, and cleared the wood away so entirely that the next time the King Ayent that way he cried out, " I thought I had a forest here ! " 20. Many abbeys were also built. The Norman barons were fierce lawless men, who did many cruel deeds, but they generally tried to repent and then they often built or improved some convent where prayer might be made for them, and where some- times they spent their old age in penitence. William the Conqueror himself- built Battle Abbey, and made its grounds enclose all the battle-field of Hastings, so that all who had been then slain, whether English or Norman, had their graves hal- lowed. CHAPTER IX. ARCHBISHOP ANSELM, 1. Good Archbishop Lanfranc died in 1089, only two years after his friend William I. As long as he had lived, William Rufus was kept within some bounds, but on his death that fierce and lawless prince felt no restraint on his violence and greed. 2. He kept the see of Canterbury vacant for ARCHBISHOP ANSELM, 47 ^ * four years, taking all its revenues to himself, while his officers cruelly used the poor farmers who lived on the lands belonging to the Archbishop ; and when the Bishop of Lincoln died, he began to use its revenues in the same way. 3. There was much distress throughout the country, and prayers were put up that the King might be brought to a better mind. " Let them pray," said the King in mockery ; '* I shall not change." But ere long the King fell sick of a violent fever, and a horror came over Jiim of dying in the midst of the iniquity he was committing. 4. There was in England at the time the actual Abbot of Bee, named Anselm. Like Lanfranc, he was a foreigner, coming from Aosta, in Italy. He was very learned, and was of a remarkably mild and gentle disposition, though resolute when needful. He had been urgently invited to come and visit Hugh the Wolf, Earl of Chester, who wished for his spiritual counsel and comfort in his last sickness, and on his way, he had visited the Red King, and had rebuked him for his wicked life, and his treatment of the Church. 5. William had been in great wrath, and hated Anselm exceedingly, but when the terror of death and judgment was upon him, all he thought of was to make Anselm Archbishop as quickly as possible, so that he might not die with this s\tv\.o ^ws*«^x^cix so ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K ■ . ■ . ■■----■ ■ r r English Church more subject to Rome than it had been before. Anselm was an Italian, and thus natu- rally looked to Rome for help, and besides, there had recently been a very great man in the Papal throne, Gregory VII., who had believed the Popes were set to rule over the Church and to keep in order the wicked lawless princes who would otherwise have trodden down all that stood in the way of their evil will. 12. Most good men thought the same at thattime^ and did not foresee the evils that came from giving up the freedom of their Churches. Anselm was very kindly received, but Pope Urban died without having been able to do anything for him, and soon afterwards tidings came of the strange and sudden end of the Red King, who, without one moment for repentance, had been found in the New Forest with an arrow in his heart. 13. Anselm went back to England, and was oti j friendly terms with H enry I. ; but there was a fresh matter of difficulty. The Bishops held large lands and the Kings claimed, therefore, to receive their homage, and give them investiture, as well as giving them the ring of espousal to the see. Anselm thought that this was seeking to take from the Church the power Christ had given to her ; and Henry con- sented that he should go to consult the new Pope. 14- After much difficulty, it v^aa att^tv^^^ \JwaX tk na: ro:: ARCHBISHOP ANSELM. 5 1 Is: the Bishops should do homage and receive investiture for their lands from the King, as these were temporal possessions, but that the ring should always be laid on the altar and taken thence, to show that their spiritual ^^•( power comes from God. 15. In those evil times, it was a blessed thing to niany that there should be some one who did not depend on the King for authority. The poor were terribly trodden down under the fierce nobles, and had no shelter but the Church, which made no difference between man and man. The Abbeys had i schools, and if a choir boy showed ability, and piety, I he was bred up for a monk or priest, and sometimes ■ rose to be a Bishop and to sit with Kings and lords, \ Joiowing how the people felt, and often doing some- thing to soften their hard fate. Every one else was : left in great ignorance, and it was no wonder that this • was a time of very foolish beliefs grafted upon the truth. Anselm himself, however, was a learned man, and a great student and thinker. He wrote a treatise upon the Atonement, showing how the eternal laws of Justice could only be satisfied by the great Sacrifice to take away guilt. He did all he could to protect the poor and the weak, and to stop foolish and vain customs — until he died very much beloved in the year 1 109. 16. There was a great and powerful Bishop in the north thcn^ 'Ralph FJambard, "w\\o \\aA \iCQ:VL ^ lx\^\A 52 E.VGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. of William Rufus. He was Bishop of Durham, which was in some respects the mightiest of all the Bishoprics. As it lay near the Scottish border, William the Conqueror had decreed that the Bishop should likewise be an Earl and should rule the North, having a castle and keeping men-at-arms about him so as to be ready to fight with the Scots if they should invade England. 17. And when, in the wars between Stephen and Matilda, David of Scotland did invade England, it was the Bishop of Durham who led the army against him, with the consecrated banner v/hence we know the victory at Northallerton as the Battle of the Standard. 18. A formal letter from the Pope was called a Bull, because dt^//a was the Latin name for the golden or leaden seal that was hung to it. CHAPTER X, ARCHBISHOP BECKET. L There was another great struggle to come between the Crown and the Church. Ever since Kings had become Christians, it had been understood tAat everything specially marked for God was sacred Men, even criminals, were seated ^wV^tv >Ocve^ ARCHBISHOP BECKET. 53 took sanctuary by rushing into a church or church- yard ; churches and abbeys and their lands were spared in time of war; there was a Truce of God forbidding people to fight between Friday morning and Sunday night, and no clergy could be brought before the ordinary courts of law. Only the very worst and most violent men disregarded these rules, and, in those times of ferocity, this did much to make life more bearable. 2. Among the clergy, however, were reckoned not only the orders of the ministry, but all monks, though they were often only laymen who had taken vows, and every one besides who had any employment connected with the Church. Indeed being able to read was counted as a sign of being a priest or clerk, and there were many people who in this manner escaped the punishment they deserved. The worst that could happen to them was being given up to the Bishop, who could make them do penance, imprison and scourge them, or send them on pilgrimage. The persons who injured a clerk could also only be tried in spiritual courts. 3. Henry II. was a man who loved law and order, and he was determined to bring the clergy under his courts. But he had to do with a man as resolute as himself Thomas Becket, the son of a merchant in London, while still a deacotv,\v'a.^\i^^'^ ms^de the Chancellor, and had be^u H^wr/^ sgj^-^X 54 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR \ '. ~ friend, and most able and excellent servant, living in great splendour outwardly, though all the time his whole conduct was most pure and self-denying. When Henry made him Archbishop of Canterbury, he unwillingly accepted the dignity, saying that be well knew their friendship would end. 4. Becket felt that his duty was to stand up for the rights of the Church, and not yield one inch to the demands of the world. So when at Clarendon, in Wiltshire, in 11 64, a council of Bishops and nobles was held, he resisted the King's demand that clerks should be judged in the law courts like laymen. He said he would only consent to the King's demands " saving the privileges of his order," which of course meant that clerks were to remain as before. Aln^ost all the Bishops were against him, and for a moment he wavered, and yielded ; but he believed that he had thus done wrong, and would only submit " saving the privileges of his order." 5. Then Henry began to call him to account for the money spent while he was Chancellor, though all this had been settled when he was made Archbishop. He knew that this was meant to ruin him, and that his life was not safe, so he fled into France, where the King received him kindly, and he lived in different convents for six years. 6. There were attempts to reconcile them, but Becket never ceased to reserve the privileges of his ARCHBISHOP BECKET, 55 order. The Pope would have excommunicated King Henry : that is, cut him off from the Holy Com- munion and separated him from the Church, till he should come to a better mind. Subjects did not hold themselves bound to obey an excommunicated King, and Becket entreated that Henry might be spared this blow. 7. Expecting, however, that it would come, Henry caused his eldest son and namesake to be crowned by the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury, though this was rightly only the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The King of France brought about a meeting at Fretville between the King and Archbishop, in which Becket promised to love, honour, and serve the King faithfully **in the Lord," and Henry declared in return, that he would restore all the lands of the see of Canterbury, and give the Archbishop leave to return home ; but he would not give or receive the kiss of peace, the seal of pardon. 8. Neither did Henry keep his promises, and Becket was warned by his friends that he would be in great danger if he returned ; but he said that his flock had been too long without a shepherd, and he resolved to run the risk. So he came back to Canterbury, and would have gone thence to see the young King Henry, but this was not allowed. 9. The "poor people were de\\gVv\.^d \.q> ^^^ \vvcss \ 56 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K but the knights, who had preyed on his property, hated him and maimed some of his horses. He excommunicated these men, and he likewise pub- lished the letters of excommunication, which the Pope had sent him, against the Bishop, who had crowned the young King. The knights came and complained to the King, and in a great rage, he cried out, ** Will none of the cowards about me rid me of this turbulent priest ?*' 10. Four knights who hated Becket set forth and found him in his palace on the 29th of December, 1 1 70. They threatened him, and insisted that he should absolve all those whom he had laid under sentence. He refused, and with words almost as hot and angry as their own, reproached them with their evil deeds. They withdrew, and he knew it was only to put on their armour and take their weapons; but he called his clerks to come with him to the cathedral, as it was the hour of evening prayer. He "yvould not flee, neither would he have the doors shut, but took his place by the altar, and there the four knights found him. 11. As they first came up, he spoke fierce abusive words, but then recollecting himself, he bowed his head, commended his cause to God, and put his hands over his eyes. One of the knights gave him a Wow which cut off the crown of his head. 'Lord Jesus," ho said, "into TVvy Vvatvdsl com\x\^w^ ARCHBISHOP BECKET. 57 my spirit!" and as they cut him down, his last words were, " I am ready to die for the cause of God and the Church!" 12. The knights then ransacked the palace, and rode off on the Archbishop's own horses. When the weeping attendants took up the body, they found that under all his robes, Becket had worn sackcloth. There was a great cry of horror everywhere. The King himself was shocked at the effect of his own hasty words ; the murderers were viewed with abhor- rence by every one, and at last three of them set off to Rome to ask pardon from the Pope, who sent them on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when one died on the way. 13. All Europe held Thomas Becket as a saint. No doubt he was pure in life, very bountiful and self- denying, and he died bravely for upholding the rights of which he found the Church possessed. In those days, such rights were the only shelter the weak possessed from such savage men as William Rufus, and many more like him. There was, however, a heat of temper and rudeness of speech about Becket that were not very saint-like, though he was a brave and noble-hearted man. 14. Henry II. was really grieved at the murder. He never attempted to revive the constitutions of Clarendon. He gave lands to the famWves oI'Sj^O^^*^^ s/sters, whom be had once banished •, atvd X\vx^^ >j^^\^ 58 ' ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K and a half later, he did public penance at Canterbury Cathedral. He walked barefoot to the tomb, and knelt beside it while every one of the numerous clergy attached to the Cathedral gave him a blow on the bare shoulders with a rod. 15. After this St Thomas of Canterbury, as he was called, became infinitely revered. His old friend, Louis VII. of France, came on pilgrimage to his shrine ; gold and jewels were heaped on it. A beautiful addition to the cathedral was built over his tomb and called Becket's crown ; and almost all the parish churches in England called St. Thomas were dedicated in his name. 16. It had come to be believed over great part of the Church both that miracles could be worked by the touch of the remains of the saints, and that if their prayers were asked, they would intercede with God, and thus people were learning to trust more to these saints and not to think enough of the One Mediator between God and man. CHAPTER XI. THE INTERDICT. I. Another of those great Popes had arisen at Rome who thought it their chief work to extend and THE INTERDICT, 59 enforce their power, as much as possible, for the sake* of curbing the pride and wickedness of princes. He was called Innocent III., and he was perhaps the mightiest of all the Popes who ever lived. He saw very wicked men around him, and he believed himself to be commissioned to represent the One Great Head of the Church, and to bring them to submit ; but he did not always pause to consider whether the means he used were such as our Blessed Lord would have taken. 2. He saw a very wicked man on the English throne, King John, and he took the first opportunity of trying to get power over him. The proper way of managing the appointment of Bishops to their sees was thus : the King sent the name of some person to the Chapter of the Cathedral with leave to elect him, called in French a cong^ (Tdire; they almost always elected him, and he was then confirmed in his seat by the Pope, and received investiture of his lands from the King. Archbishops, however, were elected not only by their Chapter, but by the suffragan Bishops of the province. 3. Things were not, however, so settled but that there were jealousies, and no sooner did Arch- bishop Hubert Walter die, in 1205, than the younger monks of the Chapter of Canterbury, who were then called monks, or canons, of Christchurch, came to- gether at midnight, chose one of Ihevt ov^w. w\rK\b^x, 6o ENGLISH CIJURCH HISTOR Y. Reginald, to be Archbishop, took him to the Cathedral, enthroned him, and then sent him off to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope, having first made him swear to tell no one on the road what had happened. 4. No -sooner, how^ever, had Reginald landed in Flanders than he broke his promise and boasted of being Primate elect of all England. News quickly came back to Canterbury, and so angered his friends that they made no difficulty, when the congi d'^lire came from King John, in joining the elder and wiser canons in electing the person of his choice, John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich ; and messengers were sent off to Rome to ask for the pall, and to explain what had happened about Reginald. 5. But in this second election, the suffragan Bishops had been forgotten, and they in their turn sent off envoys to complain to the Pope that neither election was a regular one. Innocent ought, of course, to have counselled King, Bishops, and Canons to proceed together to a new and regular election, but instead of this, he assembled together all the members of the Chapter who had come to Rome on the various appeals, and commanded them to elect a person on his nomination — a more irregular proceed- ing, in some respects, than either of the former ones had been. 6 Stephen Langton, the person whom he thus THE INTERDICT, 6 1 chose, was English by birth, and a very ^ood and learned man, who had gone abroad for the sake of studying at the foreign universities, and had been everywhere so much esteemed that the Pope had made him Cardinal Priest of one of the Roman parishes. The parish clergy and the suffragan Bishops of the see of Rome itself were called Car- dinals, from a word meaning a hinge, because so much hinged on them: for they formed the council of the Pope, and in their hands was the right of electing a new Pope on the death of the former one. 7. Langton was a great scholar, and is sometimes said to have been the first person who divided the Bible into verses, for the sake of making reference easier ; but King John was very angry at being thus treated, and refused to accept him, threatening to break away altogether from the Church of Rome if the Pope persisted in nominating him. 8. Innocent did not choose to be threatened, and replied to the King's letter by consecrating Langton, in the year 1207. On this John sent to seize all the property of the canons of Christ Church, and as he would not submit, the Pope laid England under an Interdict. 9. This meant that the rites of religion were refused. There was no ringing of bells in the parish churches, no masses, the doors were closed, and 62 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, baptisms, marriages, and burials were performed out- side. The convents were allowed to have Sunda}' services, but only with doors shut against all from without, and the whole country was laid under punish' ment. 10. King John, however, declared that the Pope had no right to pronounce such a doom, and pun- ished, sometimes in horrible ways, the clergy who observed the Interdict ; but when the Pope threatened to excommunicate him in person, and was about to send his great enemy, the King of France, to invade his dominions, he became alarmed, and at last he was obliged to submit to the Pope. 11. A messenger named Pandulf came to arrange the matter, and met the King at Ewell, near Dover. Here John not only promised to receive Stephen Langton as Archbishop, but he also took an oath of fealty to the Pope, making himself a vassal of Rome, and doing homage to Pandulf for England, just as he did for his French possessions to the King of France, and he allowed a heavy tribute to Rome to be laid . on the country. 12. After this, Stephen Langton met John at Winchester, and there absolved him from excom- munication. Then, for the first time for six years, the doors of the cathedral were opened, and the Arch- bishop there said masis. 13, But Innocent III. did r\ot fvtvd tVve Atchbishop^ THE INTERDICT. 63 lie had thrust upon England so submissive as he had wcpected, Stephen was a stout-hearted Englishman, and could not bear to see the Pope and the King oppress the Church and the people. [klH JOHN SIGNING MAGNA CHARTA ] 14. He helped the English Barons to draw together, and seek out the old English laws, which were put under form as Magna Charta, and he was with them at Runnymede, when John was forced to 64 ENGLISH CHURCH HISIOR K J I I , — . m. ^ sign those laws and swear to keep them. The Pope, who viewed John as under his protection, was very much displeased. He suspended the Archbishop, that is, forbade him to perform the offices of his position; and when Stephen wrote to explain matters, actually excommunicated him, with all the Bishops and Barons of England. 15. The Archbishop went to Rome to make known to the Pope what a wretch, and what iniquity, « these commands were upholding ; but very little attention was paid to him, and he was kept as a prisoner till after the death of King John, when he was allowed to return to England in 12 18, and was welcomed with the utmost joy. 16. He crowned young Henry HI. immediately after his return, when the Magna Charta was again confirmed. He was a good and able man, who did much for the freedom and strength of England as a State, but the manner of his being brought in had done great harm to the English Church. 17. For the Popes now claimed the right to appoint to Bishoprics and Abbeys in England without consulting King or people. Sometimes they named foreigners who never came near their benefices, or if they did, could not speak the language, and only thought of the gain they could obtain. Moreover, the Popes themselves called for money continually irom both people and clergy, and seemed to THE SECULAR AND REGULAR CLERGY. think only of England as a mine whence to draw gold. CHAPTER XII. THE SECULAR AND REGULAR CLERGY. I. Church building in the time of Henry III. had been much changed from the early Norman times. The arches were no longer round, but sharply pointed ; the columns were no longer solid and round, but ARCHITECTURE.) clusters of slender shafts ; there was only one orna- mental border, instead of many, round the arches, though there were many deep mouldings, and the capitals of the columns consisted of beautifully carved foliage deeply overhanging. 68 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K rose garden of prayer. The lesser beads stood for the Ave Maria, or Hail Mary, the Angel's . salutation ; the larger ones, the Pater Noster or Lord's Prayer ; and there were ten of the Aves to one Pater, There was a sentence added to the Ave to beg the blessed Virgin to pray for us. For there was a belief, increasing more and more, in the power of the blessed Virgin and the saints, especially at certain places consecrated in their names, or where parts of their bodies or remnants of their clothes were kept, and called relics. People used to go on pilgrimage to these shrines from all parts, often hoping to be cured of diseases by bathing in holy wells, or being touched by relics. Some spent their whole time thus travelling from one shrine to ■another. If they had been to the Holy Land they brought home a cockle shell and a palm branch, and were called palmers. 6. Unfortunately there was a habit of trusting such observances as these rather than trying to live a holy life, and looking up to God Himself. People would give themselves up to their evil inclinations, fancying that if they daily said some invocation to the blessed Virgin, she would obtain entrance into purgatory for them, and then that plenty of money left for masses and prayers would get them out. 7. The King, Henry HL, himself seems to have held this most false belief. He thought himself a THE SECULAR AND REGULAR CLERGY. 69 pious man, but he allowed much evil, and he seldom kept a promise, because he believed that the Pope could set him free from all obligations. 8. The Popes looked on England as a rich country from which they could draw as much money as they wanted, and cared not at all for the good of the people, who were brought to great distress between the calls of the King and the Pope for money, and who were not taught or helped to anything good by the strangers who were set over them. 9. Still there were some excellent men at that time : Edmund Rich, who was Archbishop of Canter- bury from 1234 to 1240 ; Richard of Wych, Bishop of Chichester ; and Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln, — all were men of holy lives, who did their best to struggle with the evil customs they saw around them, in their different ways ; but they had very little success, for the King and Pope helped one another in robbing the people, and in promoting all the supersti- tions that brought in gain to the clergy. 10. It was not only in England that the Church was in a very corrupt state ; and while Innocent III. had been reigning at Rome, two men had risen up — one a Spaniard and the other an Italian, who hoped to do something to improve it. 11. The Spaniard was named Dominic. He had plans for an order of brethren, who were to be watch dogs, as he said^ against false doctrine^ and always be 70 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K ready to argue with heretical teachers and to preach the truth, going about from place to place to preach sermons to the ignorant. 12. The Italian was called Francis. He was a young merchant who had been shocked at the worldly ways, which were so unlike what he read of in our Lord and His Apostles. His heart was full of love to the poor, and he gave away all he had, and induced many more to do the same. They lived entirely upon alms from day to day, and spent all their lives in teaching the love of God and purity of life. 1 3. Both Dominic and Francis were permitted each to found an order. Their brethren were not called monks, but friars, meaning brothers, and each order had a head called a General, who owned no authority but the Pope himself. The Franciscans went about barefoot, living on charity, and trying to teach the love of God and to turn men from their worldly ^ lives ; the Dominicans preached doctrine, and would come and give a course of sermons at the fasts and festivals. From their garments the Dominicans were called Black Friars, the Franciscans Grey Friars. 14. There were very learned men among them both, who studied and taught at the Universities. Roger Bacon, one of the most scientific Englishmen who ever lived, was a Franciscan, and some of the chief studies of scholars for many years to come were begun under some great Dommicatvs. THE ^kCVLAk A^D RECULAR CLERGY. 7! 1 5. The greater number of these friars of both orders, however, went about from place to place preaching, often in the open air. They were not all priests, but those who were in Holy Orders used to hear the confessions of those whose hearts were touched, give them absolution, and appoint acts of penance in token of repentance. 16. These friars often did much good by stirring up religious feelings and bringing sinners to repent- ance, but the parish priests did not ^ like them, as they interfered between them and their flocks ; the Bishops disliked them also because they were sub- ject to no rule but the Pope's ; and wise men saw that there was much danger of their falling from their first strictness, and doing more harm than good. 17. The clergy were then divided into what were called Secular and Regular. The Secular were those who had taken no vows but those of their Ordina- tion, and who still lived in the world. Of these most were parish priests, or parsons, as they were called : it is said, because persona is the Latin for a mask, or one representing another, and they, as priests, represented the Church. Many men in Holy Orders were, however, little concerned with anything but law, and were busied only in the King's Courts, almost all lawyers being clergymen. Pope Gregory VH. had forbidden the clergy to marry, but a great many in England still did so^ 72 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K although Archbishop Edmund did all he could t< prevent it, for fear they might be led to care les for their duties than for their families. 1 8. The Regular clergy were those who lived b; rule, namely, the monks and friars. The countr was full of monasteries. There were great old abbeys and these had lesser houses belonging to them o: their estates, which were called priories, and wer ruled by a Prior, who represented the Abbot, Som priories were daughter-houses to various abbeys in Nor mandy. The friars had no Abbots, but the heads c their houses were also called Priors. The abbeys ha( large estates, and the monks farmed them ; and the; also had schools for the young, and the more learne men kept chronicles of all that took place in th country. Some Abbots had a seat in the House c Peers, being ranked with the Barons in right of th estates of their houses. These were called Mitre Abbots. 19. Parliaments were beginning to be summonec chiefly in order to grant money to the King. Th Bishops and Mitred Abbots were among the lords peers of the realm ; the other clergy had a right t- name the amount they would pay ; and thus eacl diocese named its own representatives, who, togethe with the Archdeacons and Deans, formed an assembh called Convocation. Each province, Canterbury, an< York^ has its own Convocation, which meets at th< COLLEGES, 73 same time as Parliament. At first, however, it was only summoned to grant money. CHAPTER XIII. COLLEGES. 1. In the prosperous times of King Edward I., church architecture grew still more beautiful. The arches of the windows were enlarged, and their heads filled with lovely tracery, in geometrical patterns, trefoils, or cinquefoils. Some windows w^ere circular, like wheels or roses, and these, when filled with painted glass, were glorious \to look on. This style is called Decorated or Middle Pointed, and York Minster is one of the most beautiful instances of it. 2. The quantity of money that the Popes called for distressed the country greatly, and at last Edward III. and his Parliament put a stop to all these exactions of Rome. They refused to accept any person presented by the Pope to any Bishopric or living in England, and declared that the person presented should be imprisoned and fined. 3. Another Parliament, of 1367, declared Kinjf John's surrender of his kingdom null and void, and put an end to the annual rent, only leaving the Peter pence, which went to the English College at Rome, 74 ENGLISH CHURCH HtSTOR K and also the first-fruits of each benefice, namely, the first year's income, to be paid to the Pope. Thus some of the harm of King John's time was undone, but this was chiefly in what concerned wealth and power, instead of the inner matters of spiritual know- ledge and holy life. 4. These matters were going on worse and worse. The friars had soon fallen from their first earnestness. There were still many good and holy men among them, but there were also many who were little better than noisy ignorant beggars, knowing very little more than the people among whom they travelled, and caring most about getting good food and money. 5. In the time of the Crusades, the Popes had said that any one killed in the Holy War would go straight to Paradise, without passing through Purgatory. But when the Crusades were over, they said that it would do as well to go on pilgrimage, or that if so much money were given for some good work, that the person offering it could, by the power of the Church, be set free from part of his penance-time in Purgatory, if he died in faith and penitence. 6. Agents were appointed among the friars to collect the money for these good works, and to give, in return, papers called Indulgences, or as the English people called them, Pardons. Little was said, it may be feared, about repentance, and the practice did terrible mischief, for \t i^^Wy "^^ls often COLLEGES. 75 lo better than the purchase — as the poor foolish Deople fancied— of the power of sinning without being Dunished. 7. Chaucer, the first great English poet, wrote a long poem which shows us much of the state of the Church in his time, the latter end of the 14th century. It is called the "Canterbury Pilgrimage," and de- scribes a whole company of people met together on their way to perform their devotions at the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. They are of many degrees and classes, such as a knight, a squire, a miller, a " wife of Bath," and the like ; and there are several officers of the Church among them, including a Lady Prioress, who had a nun and a chaplain to attend on her, and who was fond of ** small dogges." 8. The parson, or parish priest, is a most beautiful character, a perfect pattern of a clergyman in all times, ; reading the Word of God and meditating upon it, praying constantly, and giving away almost all he has to the poor. 9. But the pardoner, or friar entrusted with the sale of indulgences, is evidently very unworthy, though ^^ he can sing and preach well ; but he carries " pigge*s bones " in a glgss, by way of relics, and greatly de- v ceives the people. There is also a monk who is > fond of hunting, and wears a curious gold pin to ' fasten his hood ; and the friar is painted as a selfish, s - Wceniious man. The clerk of OxCotd \^ \erj X^-wxns:^ 76 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. and studious, though not equal to the parson in real goodness. 10. In fact there was much thought and learning in the Universities at this time. There were Uni- versities all over Western Europe, where young men studied under the chief scholars of the time, the two great English ones being Oxford and Cambridge. There were few books, so all was done by Latin lec- tures from the Doctors and Masters of Arts, to which the young men listened and took notes if they had any paper. By-and-by they were examined and took their degree, became Bachelors of Arts, and put on a peculiar hood ; and if they studied further they became Masters or Doctors. The same hoods and gowns still mark the degrees of scholars at this day, and are worn at the Universities and in Church by clergymen. 1 1. At first the scholars lived as they could. Some, who had been clever lads, had been taught at the abbeys, and were recommended by them to houses of the same order at Oxford and Cambridge ; others begged their way to some famous University, and there lived by begging, getting alms for singing, and fees for teaching the better endowed, sometimes actually stealing. They were a wild unruly set, and in the time of Henry III. there had been great disturbances and fights between the scholars and townsmen of Oxford. COLLEGES, 77 12. It then occurred to people that it would be a good work to found houses at the Universities, where these youths might be provided for, and kept safe, living an orderly life, such as would prepare any who desired it for the priesthood. Such houses were called colleges, and generally were arranged like monasteries, with a head and priests, who were termed Fellows, to live there permanently, conduct the services of the chapel, and receive the young men, who lived under their discipline during their student life. 13. Walter de Merton founded one of the first of these colleges at Oxford. Another was founded by John Balliol, the grandson of him who was for a time King of Scotland. Both these still bear the names of their founders ; and another, founded by one Simon Islip, was called Canterbury House. The wise men of the time began to see that thus to provide good teaching for the clergy was the best thing that could be done for the Church. 14. William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, did more than found a college for men : he also founded a school for boys. He had been a poor boy, born at Wykeham, in Hampshire, who learnt at first at Waltham Abbey, then came to Winchester to get what learning he could there. Each morning he attended a mass which was said at an altar near one of the pillars in the nave. He afterwards became a great man, and was Chancellor to Edward 111. H^^^s. 78 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. also a great architect, and planned the Round Tower at Windsor for the King. 15. He altered his own cathedral from Walkelin's Norman architecture to the clustering columns and windows with straight-lined tracery then in fashion, and called Perpendicular, or Third Pointed. And he obtained leave from Richard II. to found, for the education of clergy, two colleges : one at Win- chester for 70 boys, and one to which they were to pass on at Oxford. These colleges he named after St. Mary, but that at Oxford is always known as New College. 16. Much of the endowments needed for these colleges was taken from such priories as had been daughter-houses to French abbeys, and which Edward III. therefore broke up at the time of the great war with France. CHAPTER XIV. WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. I. There were some persons who tried to check the mischievous superstitions among the people. One was the Archbishop himself, Simon of Sudbury, who, in 1 37 1, meeting a large body of disorderly pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, WYCUFFE AND THE LOLLARDS, 79 spoke to them of the miserable folly of thinking that the indulgence offered to such pilgrims could save them, instead of true repentance and faith. 2. He was answered by abuse, and even by showers of stolies ; and a knight, riding up to him, told him he would die an ill death. The men of Kent remembered it against him, and ten years later, in Wat Tylers rebellion in 1 381, they dragged him out of the Tower of London, and killed him on Tower Hill with an axe. He behaved with great calmness and dignity, and when the first blow struck him, cried out, ** It is the hand of the Lord !" 3. Already another voice had begun to protest against the evils of the time. A Yorkshire man, named John Wycliffe, who had been for a time Warden of Canterbury Hall, and afterwards was made Parson of Lutterworth, had been translating the Latin Scriptures into English, book by book, and these were read by people of all ranks. He also sent about "poor priests," as they were called, who put forward the truths most neglected by the friars and parsons. And he also wrote books which attacked some of the beliefs of the time which he thought hurtful. 4. Archbishop Court en ay, who had succeeded Simon of Sudbury, tried to put Wycliffe down, and many parts of his writings were declared to be erroneous. They were not wholly sound and orthodox, 8o ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K but it may be feared that they were condemned more for the sake of the good that was in them than for that of the evil. However, no one meddled with Wycliffe at his parish in Lutterworth, where he lived in peace till 1384, when, as he was saying mass in his church, an attack of paralysis came on, of which he died a few years later. 5. The Papacy was at this time much weakened by what was called the Great Schism. Two men both claimed to be Popes, one at Rome, the other at Avignon, in France, and the kingdoms of the West held to one or other of them. Richard II. acknow- ledged the Roman Pope, but he and his Parliament, in 1392, passed what was called the Statute of Pr(Bmunirey or PrcemonerCy from the first word meaning to premonish, or to warn beforehand. This made it unlawful to receive any benefice from the Pope, or to bring in any bull or sentence whatever from him without the King's consent, thus putting an end to much of the papal power in England. 6. There were many persons who read Wycliffe's Bible, and went much further than he had ever done in denying some of the doctrines of the Church. They were called Lollards, some say from lolly^ a tare ; some from lull, to sing softly. The name was given to all sorts of people who showed any distrust of the received teaching. Some of these were in full communion with the Church, and only got the name IVYCUFFE AND THE LOLLARDS, 8i » ■■■■■■■ ^t ^m . ■■ ■ — ■ ■■ ■_■ ■ ■ ■ — ■■■.■ ■ i^— ^w— ^ ■■■ I » because their religion was less matter of form than that of their neighbours; others were really wild fanatics, who wanted to have no priests or outward ceremonies at all, and said that working in gold and jewels was a sin. 7. Richard II. had taken little notice of the Lollards, and nobody had ever been put to death for his religion till, in 1401, the clergy and Commons of England petitioned Henry IV. against the Lollards, and an Act was passed, called De heretico comburendo (of the heretic to be burnt), sentencing all heretics to die by fire. 8. Archbishop Arundel, a proud, harsh man, was determined to have the terrible punishment carried out, and the earliest victim was a priest 'named William Sawtree, who was first degraded from his office, and then handed over to be burnt. 9. The belief of the clergy of the time was, that in the Holy Communion there was a material, though invisible, change in the Bread and Wine themselves, into flesh and blood, rather than that the partakers receive, really and spiritually, the Body and Blood of Christ. 10. When Lollards were brought up to be tried they were generally pushed very hard as to their opinion on this head, and as many had flown to the opposite extreme, and denied the Real Presence altogether, they v/qyc sentenced otv \\\\?» ^cc.qmvX.» 82 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, «— — M^— ^■■^■■^t— *'*«*^*i-**^' _■■—■ ■ ■■■ ■■ Mill M^.^— ^a ■ M ■ I I dl One poor man, named John Bradby, cried out for mercy on his way to execution ; and Henry, Prince of Wales, hearing him, caused the fire to be quenched, and stood still, trying to persuade him to save his own life by confessing the Bread to be the Sacred Body ; but Bradby stood firm to his belief that it was only hallowed bread, and the Prince was forced to leave him to his fate. 11. Prince Henry also tried hard to convince his old friend. Sir John Oldcastle, who had taught him the art of warfare in Wales. Oldcastle had married an heiress, and in her right was called Lord Cobham. At his castle of Cowling, near Rochester, he had a chantry, served by devout priests, and thence he sent preachers out among the people. 12. When he was accused of heresy, in 141 3, Henry, ^ho was now King, had him at Windsor, as a guest, from Easter to August, to argue out the mattter with him, but without success. Sir John went back to Cowling, and the Archbishop commenced proceedings again-sthim. * 13. He appealed to Rome, which was against the law, and thus angered Henry ; and he drew up a confession of faith, in which it is hard to find any- thing amiss ; but the Archbishop, and the Bishops of London and Winchester, tried and convicted him, so that he came under the terrible new law. How* ever, he was only shut up in the Tower, whence WVCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. ^s he made his escape. In the winter, a great rabble assembled in the thickets which then surrounded St. Giles's, intending to attack the King. They were dispersed by Henry, who pardoned them all, but excepted from the pardon Sir John Oldcastle, who -was thought to have led them, in the belief that King Richard II. was still alive. 14. Sir John had escaped, and lurked in Wales till, four years later, he was captured there. The King was in France, and, without waiting till his pleasure could be known, Oldcastle's enemies cruelly put the old soldier to death, by burning him over a slow fire, when he behaved like a true martyr. 15. The teaching of Wyclifife had spread into Bohemia, and there was a great desire among good men to put an end to the bad customs that had arisen in the Church, as well as to decide which was the rightful Pope, and heal the great schism. So, in 1 4 14, a council of the Western Church was held at Constance, in Switzerland, and many English clergy attended it, of whom Bishop Robert Hallam of Salisbury, was the chief speaker. 16. The English, French, and German Bishops longed to have the Church reformed, but the Italians and Spaniards were against them. The works of Wycliffe were brought forward, and forty-five Articles in them condemned. His works, including his Bible, were destroyed Vr'herever they could be ^ 2. 84 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, secured. As the writer was dead, sentence was passed that his bones should be taken from his grave, burnt, and thrown into the river ; and what was worse, the two Bohemian clergy, who had taught the like doctrine, and had been invited to Constance with a safe conduct from the Emperor, were burnt as heretics. 17. Soon after. Bishop Hallamdied; and Cardinal Beaufort, who then came to Constance, was one who wished to hinder all change. Thus, except that the schism was ended by the election of an undoubted Pope, the council of Constance failed to do any good, and the corruptions of the Church were not checked. 18. King Henry VI., one of the best and most pious of men, founded Eton College, close to Windsor Castle, with King's College at Cambridge, in imitation of Wykeham's Colleges. His buildings were in the same Perpendicular style. Square battle- mented church towers, and waggon-shaped roofs, with windows in many narrow divisions, good to show off stained glass, mark these times. PREPARATIONS FOR CHANGE, 85 CHAPTER XV. PREPARATIONS FOR CHANGE. 1. While the fierce strife of the houses of York and Lancaster was raging, there was little time to think of questions of Church doctrine. The Abbeys were not damaged by either party ; but they often had to feed and lodge soldiers, or to shelter sick ones, and many of the monks fell into very irregular ways. 2. There could be little church building in those evil times ; but in Henry VII.'s time, his beautiful chapel was added to Westminster Abbey. It was now the fashion to ornament buildings as much as possible, with long pendants, almost like icicles, from the ceilings, and richly carved decorations, which often look as if they had been made afterwards and stuck on, instead of growing naturally out of the stonework as do those of earlier times. Roofs, too, were much flatter, and arches were drawn from four centres instead of two, either very low, or else with shoulders and a sharp point above. 3. There were, however, great changes preparing. Printing was invented, and thus books began to be more within reach of every one ; moreover, it began to be the habit of learned men to study Greek, whereas they had hitherto been generally contented 86 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. with Latin, and thus they went back to the real original language of the New Testament. 4. There was a collection of Greek books in Florence, and a party of English scholars from Oxford went thither to study them. They not only saw the books, but they heard the preaching of a great Italian Dominican friar, named Savonarola, who was afterwards burnt by Alexander VI., one of the wickedest men who was ever chosen Pope. 5. Those sermons had made a great impression ; and in the reign of Henry VII., and while two of the friends began teaching Greek at Oxford, John Colet, another of the party, began to give lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, which brought out meanings which had of late been little thought of 6. A very learned and acute Dutch scholar, called Erasmus, came to England to study Greek, and became a great friend of Colet, as did also an Oxford student named Thomas More, the son of a Judge. Erasmus's great work was to put together from dif- ferent manuscripts the best edition he could of the New Testament. 7. Colet became Dean of St. Paul's, and there preached sermons on the Creed and Lord's Prayer, which brought to mind the truths that had been overlaid by superstition. He founded a school for 153 boys, close to the cathedral, where they might "*r wdJ t^tjght, arid i\ot ^o (^rx^dly u^ed as poor PREPARATIONS FOR CHANGE, 87 school boys often were in those days, but led on, gently in all good nurture^ and taught Latin and Greek. 8. More, after making trial of convent life for a short time, yielded to his father's wishes, and became a lawyer. His home was a most happy place, he made himself the friend and companion of his children, and caused them to be instructed in all « good and deep learning, and his witty sayings were the delight of every one. 9. Erasmus came more than once to visit him, and wrote books which turned some of the old follies into ridicule. One was called the " Praise of Folly," and showed up the ambition and worldliness of the clergy, not sparing even the Pope ; and in another called "Colloquies," he described his pilgrimage to Canterbury with a companion, who is known to have been Dean Colet. They saw wonderful stores of gold and jewellery, and the real face of Becket set in a splendid gold case, and then, to their great disgust, they were expected to show deep reverence to the sainfs old shoe and old pocket-handkerchief. 10. The old-fashioned clergy were very angry at such exposures ; but Archbishop Warham, who was a very good man, and a great friend of Dean Colet, knew that what these books said was only too true, and that the clergy and monks were not going on in a satisfactory manner ; but h^ 'wa^ ^.Tv q!A ^sx-^hsv^ 88 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. not strong-handed, and he shrank from the terrible struggle that would be needed before matters could be set right. 1 1. Henry VIII. had begun to reign. But for the death of his elder brother, Arthur, he would have been Archbishop of Canterbury ; so he was well read in theology, and he was willing that something should be done. With this end in view, the Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, his able minister, was made a legate in 1525, that he might bring the authority of the Pope to work out the changes that Wareham durst not accomplish. 12. If Wolsey, as he said when dying, had served his God as he served his King, perhaps much of the evil that came afterwards might have been prevented. Or if he had been a more humble and holy man in himself, he would have better carried out the good purposes that he really entertained ; but he cared far too much for state and show, and had such a magnificent household and train of attendants that he made people envy him, and distrust all he did. 13. He held a great many more benefices than he could attend to, being Archbishop of York and Bishop of Winchester, as well as of Tournay, a town in France, and holding many more appointments. He was the King's Chancellor and chief adviser, and he even hoped to be elected Pope, giving large sums of money to bribe the Cardinals to choose him ; and PREPARA TIONS FOR CHANGE. 89 while he was busy upon foreign wars and foreign policy, the opportunity that had been given to him passed away. 14. Men's minds had become much excited in Germany by the teaching of an ardent monk, Martin Luther, whose spirit had been stirred within him by the sight of the terrible evils of the sale of indul- gences, and thence had gone on to question many of the doctrines popularly taught by Rome. All Germany was excited by his teaching, as book after book came out, finding more and more fault with Roman teaching and practice. 15. Henry VIII. himself undertook to make reply, and wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacra- ments. For besides the two absolutely necessary Sacraments, it had been customary hitherto to reckon five more — Confirmation, Penance, Ordina- tion, Marriage, and Extreme Unction, namely, the anointing the dying with oil ; but Luther denied that any ordinances save Baptism and Holy Com- munion, as being "ordained by Christ Himself* and needful to all, deserved the name of Sacra- ments. 16. The Pope, Leo X., was so delighted with Henry's book that he bestowed on the English Kings for ever the title of Fidei DefensoreSy Faith's De- fenders, the initial letters of which are still engraved on our coins. 90 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K 17. The English, however, eagerly read Luther's books : some in Latin, some translated from German into English, and quantities were brought over and hawked about the country, although, whenever they were seized, they were burnt by order of the two Archbishops, who knew that, though there was much that was true in them, there was also much that was unsound and dangerous, and who hoped for a great reformation of the Church beginning in a safer way from above. 18. The German Emperor was very anxious to call together a general Council of the Church, but the French King kept on stirring up wars which hindered him, and the Pope and his Cardinals at Rome were afraid that all their evil practices would be con- demned, and that they should not be able to obtain such large sums of money as before, and so they only tried to put it off, and off. 19. Meanwhile an English scholar, named William Tyndale, was making a fresh translation of the New Testament. , The English language had altered much since Wycliffe's time ; besides that only a few copies of his Bible had been preserved, carefully hidden from the destroyers. Moreover, he had only worked from the Latin version, while Tyndale had the Greek, as put in order and commented on by Erasmus. He did most of his work at Wurms, in Germany, where it was printed in the year I $26, aud large numbers THE SEPARA TJON FROM ROME, 91 sent over to England, where it was bought and read with great ardour, though as it was not put out by authority, the use of it was forbidden. CHAPTER XVI. THE SEPARATION FROM ROME. 1. While the two Archbishops still delayed to endeavour to purify their Church from the evils they perceived, Henry VIII. fell in love with Anne Boleyn, and sought to be separated from his Spanish wife, Katharine of Aragon. 2. One of the worst abuses of the later Popes had been that they granted dispensations for con- tracting marriages which would otherwise have been unlawful ; and that likewise they v/ould gratify sovereigns by finding some excuse on which to dissolve, or declare null, wedlock already contracted. 3. Now when mere children, Henry's elder brother and Katharine had gone through the marriage cere- mony, but the bridegroom died at sixteen, and a dispensation had been procured for Henry's marriage with Katharine. Henry expected the Pope to make little objection to breaking their wedlock ; and Cardinal Wolsey, much wishing that he should marry a foreign princess, and have a son, seems to have encouraged him in his e?^p^ct.aiUovvs, 09 EiVGLISff CHURCH HISTORY. THE SEPAkATlON FROM kOME, 93 4. The Pope was no doubt influenced by being much in the power of Katharine's nephew, the Emperor, but he really did his best to examine the case, and satisfied himself that there was no just cause for separating Katharine from Henry. 5. Cardinal Wolsey Tield that the Pope's decree must end the matter ; but Henry, who was used not only to have his own way, but to believe himself always in the right, was very angry, and Anne Boleyn turned his rage upon Wolsey, who was called to account for all he had done as Minister of State, and Pope's Legate. His heart was broken, and he died at Leicester Abbey, in 1527. 6. Thomas Cranmer, who was chaplain to Anne Boleyn's father, and had been that lady's tutor, recommended consulting all the Universities in Europe whether the marriage was lawful, and then holding a Court in England, where their opinion might be brought forward. Henry cried, "The man has got the right sow by the ear!" He sent to all the Universities, and largely bribed the Doctors of Divinity there to answer as he desired. 7. Then these opinions were laid before Con- vocation, the assembly of clergy which always takes place at the same time as the meeting of Parliament. These clergy seem to have been extremely afraid of the King and his threats, and such a reply as he chose wsls extracted from them. 94 EAGLISH church HISTOR K 8. While this was going on, Archbishop Wareham died, in 1532, and the King immediately made Cranmer Archbishop. Cranmer at once held a Court, at which he summoned Queen Katharine to appear, but as she did not come, he pronounced her to be divorced from the King, giving her only the title of Princess Dowager of Wales. 9. Henry had already privately married Anne Boleyn, and on Whit-Sunday, 1533, she was crowned Queen of England. Katharine never ceased to declare herself, as she certainly was, Henry's only true and lawful wife, until her pious and peaceful death, in 1536. 10. Meantime Henry had made up his mind to be his own Pope. The difficulty was to make the clergy accept him. So in the first place he forced the Judges into convicting the whole of the clergy of trans- gressing the Act of Prcemunire by the letters they had all received from Rome, at different times, giving them authority according to old custom. Thus all their goods, and even their liberty, was declared to be forfeited to the King, by a procedure no one had ever thought to be against the law. 11. Then Henry said he would pardon them, if Convocation would grant him a very large fine, and acknowledge him as Protector and Supreme Head of the Church, as much as was permitted by the law of Christ THE SEPARA 7 ION FROM ROME. 95 12. Some were really glad to shake themselves free of Rome, and did not see that though it might be well to do so, they ought to have submitted to a Council of the English Church, since a layman like the King never could rightly be their head in things spiritual, though he might in things temporal. The greater number of them gave full consent, partly out of fear, ^nd partly because they hoped no longer to pay the Peter pence and first-fruits of the benefices, which had been given to the Pope. 13. However, it proved that they only had to give the first-fruits to the King instead of to the Pope. There were many among the English people who were willing to break with the Popes, because these had been greedy and niischievous tyrants, but who were quite satisfied with the existing doctrine ; while there were others who were glad of the breach with Rome because they hoped this would open the way to a reform of the English Church. 14. Cranmer was one of these, and so, to some degree, was Thomas Cromwell, who had been Wolsey's secretary, and was now the King's chief adviser. By their influence a permission was given for the publication of the whole English Bible, at which Tyndale and his friend, Miles Coverdale, had been working in Germany. It was put forth with royal authority, in the October of 1535, and was read with the greatest eagerness. ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. 15. The King became more vehement in his resolution. to establish his supremacy, and to root out all opposition. Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, of Rochester, were both known to disapprove of his doings, and he was resolved that they should be ruined. So an oath was drawn up for securing the crown to Anne Boleyn's children, which was so framed as to deny the power of the Pope to grant dispensations, and to acknowledge the King's supremacy. 16. This was against the conscience of More, and he would not take the oath. He would have sworn to accept the Settlement of the Succession ; but he could not deny what he honestly believed. No more would Bishop Fisher, and this was declared to be treasoHf ^ and they were both committed to the Tower, with all their goods forfeited. Sir Thomas More's married daughter took care that he should not suffer from want, but poor Bishop Fisher, an old man, nearly perished with cold and hunger. 17. Three friars from the Charterhouse, and three monks, were first put to death on this accusation of treason, and Henry was still further enraged by hearing that Fisher had been appointed a Cardinal by the Pope. **The Pope may give him a hat," he said, *' but he shall have no head to wear it on ; " and the good old man was beheaded, and his head placed on London Bridge. THE SEPARATIOX FROM ROME, c/j i8. Sir Thomas More was afterwards tried. He said seven years of diligent study had only convinced him that no layman could be head of the Church ; and when asked what more he should say, it was only that, as Stephen and Saul are now saints together above, so he hoped it would be with him and his judges, 19. As he went back to his prison, a condemned inan, his- daughter, Mrs. Roper, flew into his arms, breaking through all the guards, and he blessed and comforted her, so that the guards themselves wept. J-He had lived such a stainless life that he died (J^most cheerfully, praying heartily, yet speaking play- ^fuUy to the very last. His head was set on London Bridge, whence, at dead of night, his faithful daughter took it down, and on her death, long after, it was placed in her arms in her coffin. These cruel executions took place in 1535. 20. We may be thankful that we do not think ourselves bound to obey the Pope, nor to accept all the untrue teachings that have come from Rome, but the power Henry took to himself could not properly belong to any earthly King, and went far beyond what is claimed by his successors ; and we cannot but highly honour these men who thus died for conscience sake. 98 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. CHAPTER XVII. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1. It had been intended in Wolsey's time to make a visitation of the monasteries all over the kingdom, and it had been for this purpose that the Cardinal had . been made Legate. Some were known to be much out of order, and some were much in debt ; while others had dwindled away in numbers, and they had, in fact, never recovered the confusion of the times of the Wars of the Roses, 2. Henry, acting as the Lay Pope of England, now instructed Lord Cromwell to send out commissioners to examine into the state of these houses. The smaller houses were generally known to be the worst managed j indeed Wolsey had suppressed twenty-four of them, and given their revenues to Cardinal College, at Oxford, now known as Christ Church. 3. The commissioners were first sent to these lesser houses, going about in pairs, and in some there is no doubt that they detected evil practices : idling, drink* i^gi gadding about, living without attention to rule. These commissioners were not, however, trustworthy men, and as they hoped to make profit out of these houses, they made the worst of them in their accoimts. 4. After their report, a B'lW >Naa btou-gjht into ^ DISSOLUTION OF TIlM MONASTMKIES. 99 Parliament, giving up to the King all religious houses whose income was not above ;£'200 a year, the houses and lands to be disposed of as he chose, and the monks and nuns to be sent to larger abbeys, where the disorderly would be brought under better rule, the younger ones being sent out into the world again. Thus 372 houses were broken up. 5. The King thought that what came into his hands would enable him to endow nineteen new Bishoprics and to govern without raising taxes ; but he was ready to make a present of one of these priories to any one who asked him for it, fancying he should never come to the end of them. 6. At the same time, a Bible in Latin and Eriglish was ordered to be placed in every church, and the Litany, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments were to be said in English. Also there was to be consider- able diminution of those festivals when no one worked, and village wakes were all to be kept on the same day, the ist of October, instead of on the feast-day of the Saint of the Church. This was because these wakes were times of much disorder, and it was thought that by having them all at once, large crowds would be prevented from coming from all the country round. 7. The changes, and especially the cutting off of holy days, much displeased the peasantry ; and in the northern counties there was a great rising, crowds setting- iorth upon a march, whicVv v«i^.?. caJ^sA *<^^^*^- 100 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K grimage of Grace, in hopes of bringing again the old times. The insurgents were cruelly and savagely put down, and as some of the monks and friars who had been turned out had joined in the insurrection, and the other large houses were accused of favouring it, Henry and his greedy courtiers thought it a great opportunity of attacking the gi-eat abbeys of the north, 8. Nowhere were there more splendid monasteries than in Yorkshire. Fountains, Bolton, Rivaulx, and others, had most beautiful buildings, and large estates where the poor were far better cared for than on those of secular nobles. Several of their Abbots wore mitres and sat in the House of Lords ; but no one seemed able to stand against Henry VHI. and Lord Cromwell. The monks were singly examined, and if any sign of sympathy with the Pilgrimage of Grace was detected, the abbey was seized and the inmates turned out as traitors, the only chance of escaping being a heavy bribe to Lord Cromwell. Thus 159 more abbeys were destroyed. 9. Another visitation was set on foot, at the same time, for enquiring into all the false relics of saints that were exhibited at their shrines. Arch- bishop Cranmer was sure that the blood shown at Canterbury as that of Becket was really only some kind of red paint, and there were many other far worse frauds, such as that of sVvomtv^ a crucifix at DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. loi Boxley, where the head was made by wires to nod and roll the eyes, and the people were told it was by a miracle. In another place, a glass of blood was shown which was said to become invisible to people in mortal sin, but this was proved to be managed by having half the glass thickened, so that one side or the other could be turned towards the spectator. 10. Some relics had merely been accepted and ignorantly believed in, such as wood said to be part of the true Gross, of which enough was collected to make many such crosses^ or ostrich eggs supposed to be- long to griffins, which were imaginary sacred birds; but many were connected with fraud and imposture, or at best with superstition. 11. These were all destroyed, and the splendid gold and jewelled shrines, and cases in which they were kept, were sent to enrich the treasury, or given or gambled away by the King. Thomas Becket was declared to be no saint, but a traitor ; his name was taken out of the Calendar, and all the gold afld jewels which had been lavished on his shrine went to the King and Cromwell. A great ruby ring which had been given by Becket*s own personal friend, the King of France, was ever after worn by Henry on his thumb. 12. In 1538 the Pope published a sentence of ex- communication against Henry. His way of showing that he felt it was that he insisted Xiv^X. eM^vj c>^^^^^<2> 102 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, -I - - - — ■ — - ., ■■—..-■—-— ^ did not hold the faith exactly as he did himself, should die by fire as a heretic. Minds were in a state of ferment, all sorts of opinions were put forth, and there were many who came under this terrible doom. 13. Six articles were issued, to which entire assent was required under heavy penalties. They declared the natural Body of our Blessed Lord to be present in the Holy Eucharist under the forms of Bread and Wine, and that there was no need of receiving the Wine as well as the Bread. They forbade priests, or monks and nuns, to marry, permitted private masses, and insisted on private confession to a priest : all these being matters to which the Reformers objected. Indeed Archbishop Cranmer was really married to a German lady himself, though he was not bold enough to confess it. 14. In 1539, the Parliament granted all the mon- asteries without exception to the King, being told that he would thus be rich enough to govern without taxes, and the members also hoping to get plenty of spoil for themselves. Hardly any fault had been found with the discipline of the great old houses, but this did not save them. A greed for their estates had come over every one. As to the nineteen Bishoprics that were to have been endowed out of the smaller houses, only six had actually been created : West- minster, Oxford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Peter- borough, where Queen Kathatitv^ lay buried. The DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES, 103 King had said he would give her a noble monument, and so he did, by sparing the monastery and making it a cathedral. 15. Grants of these grand old foundations were recklessly made. If all the money and plate upon their lists were not at once found, it was assumed that what was missing had been sent to assist the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the Abbots were treated as traitors. Abbot Whiting, of Glastonbury, and nine more heads of the great religious houses, were actually hanged on this account. 16. The churches were pillaged, the very tombs broken open in search of jewels, the beautiful old libraries torn up and dispersed. The bells of St. Paul's Cathedral were played away at a cast of dice, and melted up by the winner. The people rushed in to share the spoil, and carried off the robes, altar- hangings, cushions, carvings, — ^whatever they could get by way of spoil, and all was desolation. 17. It was provided that a small pittance should be paid to the aged monks and nuns, but this was neglected in many cases, and those, who had no re- lations to receive them, begged, or died of want. 18. And the poor soon found a great change. The nobles, who had obtained the lands, threw them into pasture instead of ploughing them, so there was little work. No one gave alms, tended the sick, or taught the children. If a man wand^t^d ^^^.^ \x\ ^^-^xO^ 104 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V, of work, he was seized, scourged, branded with V for vagabond, bound over as a slave to some master, and if he ran away again, was hanged. Sins and errors there had been in the monasteries, but there were cruelty and wickedness in the treatment of them and theirs. CHAPTER XVIII. KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER BOOK. 1. Henry VIIL seems to have become startled at the ruin he ha4 /fraught, and the failure of all the schemes that had been based on the destruction of the monasteries. Bishoprics, schools, rich endowments for the Crown had been promised : where were they? Selfish courtiers had been enriched, but multitudes of seats of learning and charity had been broken up, and there was misery everywhere. 2. Much had been his own fault, but he thought it was Lord Cromwells, with whom he was further angered for having brought the dull and plain-featured Anne of Cleves to him, as his fourth wife. Suddenly, on the loth June, 1540, Cromwell was arrested ; he was found guilty, before the Council, of taking bribes and holding heretical opinions, and he was beheaded on the 20th of July. 3. After this the King began chiefly to rely upon Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who had KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER BOOK. loS litherto been more of a statesman thati an ecclesiastic, and thus had approved of the assumption of the Royal Supremacy, but who greatly disliked all changes in doctrine or practice. Altogether, in Henry's reign, there were 65 persons put to death for denying this headship of the Church, and 61 mai:^ io6 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR \\ condemned, but not executed, most of them having died in prison. 4. On the other hand, the reading of the Bible, which was perfectly new to the great mass of the people, had stirred up many minds to the greatest excitement The Bibles were chained to the lecterns in churches, and crowds would come in and sit at any hour of the day to listen to such persons as could read aloud, and sometimes expound after their own fashion. 5. Many wild and false doctrines were put forth, as well as others which were only too truly Catholic to please the superstitious, and the persons who uttered these were sentenced as heretics, and burnt. The strange sad sight was sometimes seen of a hurdle dragged to Smithfield bearing one man, who was to be hanged for denying the Royal Supremacy, and another, who was to be burnt for his manner of expounding the Scriptures. 6. No one was more pitied than a lady named Anne Askew, who had been married to a Mr. Kyme, but not agreeing with him, had resumed her maiden name, and had gone about so expounding Scripture that she was called " the fair Gospeller." She gave books to the Queen's ladies, and argued with them, especially against their belief in the Real Presence in the Holy Communion. 7. Jn truth her doctrine fell as far short of the KING EDWARD'S FIRST PR A YER BOOK. 107 ancient Catholic belief in our Ble§sed Lord's Presence as the general doctrine went beyond it. Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, a rough mannered man, had her brought before him, and thought he had scolded and threatened her into silence, so that she was released on bail. She was arrested again, and Nicolas Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury, who had held the same opinions, but had renounced them in fear of being burnt, exhorted her to follow his example. 8. The weak woman had, however, the stronger heart. Anne would not deny her faith, and suffered death with great patience. The public reading of Holy Scripture was now forbidden, except the Psalms and Gospel lessons at Church, and no one below the degree of gentleman or gentlewoman was allowed to possess a Bible. No doubt there was good reason for some of these enactments. Bishop Bonner had at first placed six Bibles in the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral, but he found them so misused, with noise and irreverence, that he was forced to remove them. 9. Meantime the King wished the services of the Church to be in English, and Cranmer was translating, or causing to be translated, the Use of Sarum, and with consent of Convocation, the English versions, one by one, were adopted ; but all was not completed when Henry died, in the year 1547. ^ 10. He had left the care of his nine-years-old son, Edward VI., to a Council ; but the boy's uncle, Edward io8 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K. Seymour, Duke of Somerset, soon obtained all t power. Seymour was a proud, vain man, rapacio and violent, and all the religion be had was of t reformed doctrine. 11. All the changes that had been prevented the latter years of Henry VIII. were now allowed take place. Bishop Gardiner held that it was n fitting to make any important alterations while t King was too young to judge for himself; but su cautions were overruled. 12. A set of injunctions for the conduct of t clergy, and homilies for them to preach, were put for by the Council. Bishop Gardiner would not recei either, and he also preached a sermon before t King setting forth the doctrine of the Holy Euchar as he held it. For this he was sent to the Tow and soon after deprived of his Bishopric, 1 3. The new Service Book, compiled from t Use of Sarum, was now ready. The Mass Bo had been translated as the Holy Communion Offi- and the services for the seven hours of prayer h been re-arranged, altered, and curtailed so as form our Matins and Evensong. The Sacraments of St. Gregory, the Breviary of St. Benedict, a even the Use of Sarum, were almost free frc any great taint of superstition. This was chie to be found in Litanies where the blessed Virj and the saints were invoked, and in legends KING EDWARiys FIRST PR A YER BOOK. 109 histories of the saints, which were read (together with the Epistle and Gospel) on their days, and these were all thrown out Thus the difference between old and oew was that the whole was in English instead of Latin, and all that was superstitious was excluded. 14 Convocation accepted the book — King Edward's First Prayer Book, as it is called. Then the House of Commons had it laid before them, and next the House of Lords, where eight Bishops of the old learning made many objections ; but nevertheless an Act of Uniformity was passed com- manding it to be used throughout the Kingdom ever after Whit-Sunday, 1549 — a most suitable day for conferring such a blessing as the praying and praising God in our own tongue wherein we were born. 15. At the same time permission was given to the clergy to marry, and commands came forth to destroy all the old Service Books of every kind. So completely was this done that though St. PauFs Cathedral had a ritual of its own, not a single book of it remains, only a fragment in a Scottish library. The ignorant people, to whom the work was committed, fancied every Latin book to contain an idolatrous service. Thus they destroyed hundreds of Bibles, of commentaries, of writings of the P'athers, of histories, and made havoc indescribable. 16. It was also decreed that all images or pictures to which any idolatrous homage had been paid should 116 ^.vcL/si/ ctiVRcn nisTok r. be destroyed. From very early times, the Second Commandment had been slurred over, under the false notion that it was a lengthening of the First, and those people who thought it had been kept back from them on purpose now fell furiously on the images and figures to which they had bowed down, broke them and destroyed them. 17. The Council found it necessary to forbid this violence and irreverence, which must have been very bad indeed, since they had to prevent the stabling of beasts in the House of God. They also declared that the fast days, such as each Friday, the Ember weeks, and Lent, were still to be observed by abstain- ing from meat, as had been done by the whole Catholic Church. 18. These were hard times to many. All good people had cared much for the unity of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, and now they found their own English Church separated from the Church of Eome which they had been used to regard as the centre of unity — freed from some of her errors, but still broken away. 19. The robbery of Church property went on, as in Henry's time. The Duke of Somerset wanted to take Westminster Abbey for his palace in London, and he did pull down two churches and use the grounds of several religious houses for a grand dwelling on the site of what is sWW c^lV^ Somerset klNC ED WARD'S EIRST PR A VER BOOK. 1 1 ! ^1 afc ■ House. Later in the reign, a house of correction for vagabonds, called Bridewell, the hospital of St. Thomas for the sick, the school of Christ's Hospital, and a few grammar schools, known as King Edward's, were endowed from the spoil of the religious houses. CHAPTER XIX. KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER BOOK. 1. King Edward's Prayer Book did not please everybody. The intelligent townspeople did indeed enjoy hearing the prayers in the English tongue, but learned scholars had loved the Latin, and the very Ignorant, who did not understand good English, only hated change, and missed the images and relics which they had been used to venerate. So there were great risings in Devonshire and Norfolk, which were put down with cruel violence. 2. Bonner, Bishop of London, would not use the English Prayer Book himself, though he did not prevent his clergy from doing so. The Duke of Somerset set him to preach a sermon at St. PauPs Cross, giving him a theme certain to bring him into trouble, so as to have occasion to commit him to the Tower. 3. Somerset \iimst\{ soon aflw c^m^ \.o ^iSsjgt'^^^ 1 12 ENGLISH CHURCn MlSTOR V. [I'RSACIIING AT PAUL'S CROSS.] KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRA YER BOOK, 1 13 Lnd death; and the Duke of Northumberland, who :ame into power, was ready to go farther still in Tiaking changes and in listening to those who declared that the English Prayer Book wanted more ilteration. 4. Gardiner and Bonner were both deprived of their Bishoprics. A man of bad character, named Poynet, was thrust into the see of Winchester ; but Nicholas Ridley, who became Bishop of London, was a pious, learned, and excellent man, who was especially kind and tender to Bonner's old mother. He sent for her to dine with him every day, and always gave her the seat of honour. 5. A Frenchman, named John Calvin, had drawn up a system of religion which went much farther from the old Church doctrines than Luther and the first Reformers had done, and which had great power over peoples' minds. He and his friends were asked to look over a Latin version of the English Prayer Book, and three of them— Martin Bucer, from Alsace; Peter Martyr, from Italy ; and John k Lasko, from Poland —came to England to give advice on it. 6. These men had seen the superstitions of Rome in their very worst shape, and thus they hated and distrusted all forms and ceremonies, and disapproved of all keeping of holy days except Sunday. The greatest point of all with them was, however, to prevent the Sacrament of the Lord's Svi^^^t ^\<5ksv 1 14 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K being regarded as repeating the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ. 7. There had been error in those who talked of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and spoke, and sometimes thought, as if the celebration of the Holy Eucharist was really renewing the Sacrifice of the Holy Body and Blood. The true old doctrine, however, was that " what He never can repeat, He shows forth day by day," and that the Sacrifice is truly commemorated and pleaded in every celebration of the Holy Communion. Also that as the Israelites made the offerings their own by feasting on them, so we partake spiritually of the one offering in the Supper of our Lord. 8. The Calvinists wished for nothing so much as to destroy the idea of sacrifice. So they worked on the Council to command that all stone altars should be taken down from the chancels, and wooden tables set up in the body of the church. 9. Two more Bishops refused to carry out this order, and were therefore deprived ; and the change soon led to much profanation, for people put their hats, leant their elbows, and wrote their registers on these tables, no longer regarding them as holy. The church plate was carried off, and the chalices often used as carousing cups, nothing but the very barest furniture being left to the churches. 10. Cranmer and Ridley held a more catholic doctrine, but they did not w\tUstat\(i this spirit of KJNG ED WARD'S SECOND PR A YER BOOK, 1 1 5 change and destruction ; and John Hooper, who had been appointed to the see of Gloucester, was such a Calvinist that he would hardly endure to be con- secrated as a Bishop, nor to wear the robes of one, calling them the livery of Babylon. 11. Bishop Hooper was a very good man, and constantly went round his diocese to see that the clergy did their duty. Also, when at Gloucester, he had classes of poor people daily to his palace to instruct them in the meaning of the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, after which he gave them a dinner in his hall. 12. Many people were thinking for themselves, and some in a very wild and foolish way, since they had thrown off all respect for the teaching of the old times, which had come down from our Lord and His Apostles. So there were some very strange and mischievous heresies afloat, and the Reformers, quite as much as those of the older faith, thought unbelief ought to be punished with death. 13. All alike had forgotten that when the sons of Zebedee wanted to call down fire on the village where the people would not receive our Lord, He had said, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of." So the old Act of Henry IV. for burning heretics was put in force again. A woman named Joan Boucher, who had been one of Anne Askew's agents, was so led astray as to deny l\v^ OodYv^-aA <^l ^^-vyt 1 16 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V, Blessed Lord. She was sentenced to be burnt at the stake, much to the grief of the young King, who shed many tears when he had to sign her death I warrant. ' 14. The great preacher at this time was Hugh : Latimer ; he was son to a farmer, and not a learned scholar, but earnest and vigorous. He had, for a little while, been Bishop of Worcester under Henry VHI., but in the latter times he had been deprived, and * now he would not be restored, and went about preaching homely sermons, full of quaint stories, which greatly stirred people's minds. 15. Edward was a studious lad, of much piety, and was brought up to believe that everything old was bad and everything new was good. The foreign revisers had marked all that they wanted to see altered in the Prayer Book, and a new one was printed, and completed in 1552, just before King Edward's death. 16. The old Matins and Evensong used to begin with the Lord's Prayer, and end with the three Collects. There were now added the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution. The desire was to render these the services most attended, rather than that for the celebration of the Holy Communion. 17. That Sacrament was no longer to be called Mass, and the word altar was taken out of the rubrics. A /so all the short Psalms atvd KiAtbams for the KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER BOOK, 117 Communion Service on special days, except that for Easter Sunday, were taken away, and there was a great desire to prevent kneeling at the time of the reception. Moreover, the words of administration only began with " Take and eat this." 18. Hitherto the children baptized and confirmed had always been anointed, and the foreheads of the baptized, confirmed, and married had been signed with the cross; but this was no longer permitted except at Baptism ; and Extreme Unction was forbidden altogether. A prayer for the deceased person's rest was omitted from the Burial Service, and the commemoration of the departed reduced to the sentence in the end of the Prayer for the Church Militant. The Church Catechism, as far as the explanation of the Lord's Prayer, then first appeared. Also, to explain what was really believed, forty-two Articles of Religion were appended to the Prayer Book. Every clergyman who presented himself for Ordination, and every student admitted to the Universities, had to swear that these contained the true faith. 19. Archbishop Cranmer and the more old- fashioned clergy seem to have disapproved of these changes ; but the young King said that if they were not accepted, he should enforce them as head of the Church. However, he died before there was time for this second Prayer Book to come iuto w?.^. 1 18 ENGLISH CHURCH HlBTOR V. 1 ■ I ■ . II _ _M- — I ■- - . ~ --\— ■ ~ 20. He was much afraid that his sister Mary, who had always set her face against all these changes, would undo all his work. Therefore he left his crown to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey ; but this was a thing he had no real power to do, and the attempt to raise poor Jane to the Crown only led to her captivity and death, and the ruin of all concerned in the scheme. CHAPTER XX. THE MARIAN PERSECUTION. 1. Queen Mary was daughter to Katharine of Aragon, and had been bred up in the old faith, looking with grief on all the changes made by her father; and as to those under her brother, she thought that a boy, between nine and sixteen years old, had not judgment or knowledge enough to make any, and that his advisers had had no right to make them in his name. 2. So her first desire was to bring back the Church to what she deemed the right state. Bishops Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley had been guilty of treason for supporting Queen Jane, and were therefore in prison ; and Bishops Gardiner and Bonner were at once released and restored to their sees, while all the clergy who preferred the old Latin services, resumed them. THE MARIAN PERSECUTION. 1 19 3. The Queen was very anxious to be reconciled to Rome, and her cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole, set out from Rome to come and act as legate. But the nobles would not consent till they had been assured that the property of the monasteries would not be taken away from those to whom it had been granted. 4. The great body of the people were at this time very ignorant. They rather preferred the beauty of the old services to the plainness of the. new ones, and they were much worse off for the want of the kind old monks and nuns ; but the farmers had less to pay to the clergy than in the old times ; and the worldly sort of people, who are always the most numerous, seem, so far, to have been ready to worship just as the Court told them. Only every one was grieved when Mary married Philip of Spain, and feared what he might do. 5. On St. Andrew's Day, 1554, Cardinal Pole solemnly reconciled the kingdom to Rome, giving absolution to the clergy for having been led into what was held as an act of rebellion against the Pope's authority. To Mary it was, no doubt, the happiest day of a sad and clouded life ; but it was the beginning of much trial and trouble to the more earnest spirits who had embraced the new opinions, and to the clergy who had married. 6. Some of these clergy fled beyond seas to 120 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. Holland, Germany, or Switzerland, Those who remained at their posts were called on to give up their wives, adopt the old Latin Service, and do penance by putting on white sheets, and being scourged round the cathedral of their diocese. Those who would not submit, and continued to use the English Service Book, were arrested, also those who would not give up benefices, into which they had been put, while the original holders were alive. 7. Among these were Bishop Hooper of Gloucester, Bishop Farrer of St. Davids, and Bishop Coverdale of Exeter, the translator of the Bible. Knowing how dreadful the punishment for heresy was, the Queen, Cardinal Pole, and Bishop Gardiner put off pro- ceeding against them as long as they could ; but Pole had enemies at Rome, and was afraid of being himself accused of lukewarmness, if not of heresy, if he showed himself slow in persecuting. 8. So a Commission sat at Southwark, with Gardiner at the head of it, for the trial of these Bishops, except Coverdale, whom the King of Denmark had claimed as his subject. Several clergymen were also brought before it, of whom John Rogers, a Canon of St. Paul's, and Rowland Taylor, the Parson of Hadleigh, were the most celebrated. 9. The married ones were asked if they would give up their wives, and they were all examined on their belief respecting the Holy Communion, and THE MARIAN PERSECUTION, 121 on their willingness to submit to Rome. They reminded Gardiner how he had been among the first to renounce the Pope, and he frankly acknowledged that he had done wrong, and that the oaths he had taken to Henry VIII. were like Herod's oath, and ought not to be kept. 10. They made such answers as to the Mass as could not but be viewed as false doctrine* Cranmer and Ridley, when examined at Oxford, had main- tained that there is a real and spiritual presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, and that it represents, thoujgh it does not repeat, His sacrifice ; and these answers had been censured because they did not own a Bodily Presence. Hooper and his friends, however, only viewed the Sacrament as com- memorating the Death, and denied the Presence. 11. Sentence, therefore, was given against these clergy as heretics, and Bonner, as Bishop of the diocese, had to go and degrade them by taking away, one by one, the tokens of their office — the staff*, the chalice, the ring, the robes, and the like. He tried hard to persuade them to change their minds, and almost succeeded with Farrer, but the others were all strong in the martyr spirit, and Farrer returned to the same temper the next day. 12. Each was burnt at his own benefice: Rogers first of all, at Smithfield, on the 4th of February, 155s; Hooper at Gloucester, amid the prayers and 122 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. tears of his flock, who watched his firmness through terrible sufferings which lasted three-quarters of an hour. Old Mr. Rowland Taylor was cheerful to the last, though he had a loving wife and large family to leave. He kissed the stake, and had begun the 51st Psalm, but before the flame touched him, a guard cleft his skull with a halberd, so as to spare him pain. Bishop Farrer also suffered at Carmarthen. 13. After the condemnations, a Spanish friar preached a sermon on the iniquity of using violence and cruelty against those in error, and there was a pause, for Cardinal Pole and Bishop Gardiner were reluctant to persecute, and some Qther Bishops abso- lutely refused to do so. 14. However, the Queen's Council sent forth injunctions, and the persecution was continued in May. The three prelates were tried, and both Cranmer and Ridley expressed the same faith in the Holy Communion as we declare in the Catechism, and there was as yet no authoritative sentence of the Church of Roijie in contradiction, though her teaching had been very different. Thus they could hardly have been condemned, but for the acts they had sanctioned in pulling down altars, and the like. Latimer was not scholar enough to argue, but he appealed to a General Council of the Church. 15. Cranmer, as an Archbishop, could only be condemned by the Pope, so he still was left when THE MARIAN PERSECUTION, 123 ^'- *■- -' - - - , -^^1 , -1^1—11 _l - _ ■ IJM - — — • Ridley and Latimer suffered ^together, chained to one stake. "Be 6f good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man," cried old Latimer ; " We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." The old man stretched out his arms as if embracing the fire, and died quickly, but Ridley suffered long and grievously, though most faithfully. 16. Cranmer saw it all from a window. He was always devoid of courage, and when his own sentence came, some Spanish clergy persuaded him (though they knew to the contrary) that if he gave up his opinions, the^Queen would pardon him. He believed them, and actually copied and signed six papers, giving up all that he had caused the English Church to teach! And when all was done, he found it had not saved his life. He was still to die, and by the cruel flames. Then he repented, and, holding out to be first consumed, his right hand, with which he had signed the papers, he cried aloud, "This unworthy hand!" This was on the 21st of March, 1556. 17. Reginald Pole was made Archbishop in his stead, and consecrated the very next day. Gardiner had died in the course of the autumn, of a sickness then very prevalent. While listening to the history of our Lord's Passion, he exclaimed, " I have sinned with Peter, yet I have not wept with Peter!*' meanings 124 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. probably, his consent to Henry's rupture with Rome which, in his eyes, had led to so much evil. 1 8. After his death the persecution became much worse. The Queen was extremely ill, and hardly knew what was passing, and the terrible laws that had been set in action condemned all who would not deny their faith. The Council, under the Marquess of Winchester, carried on the grievous work, and the Cardinal Archbishop did not interfere. Indeed he himself was in declining health, and the two cousins died within twenty-two hours of each other, in the November of 1558. 19. No less than 227 persons, men and women, clergy and laity, had been burnt for so-called heresy, in this unhappy reign, and the English people, who had looked on with indifference to the changes at first, were by these cruelties filled with horror and hatred of the system that led to them. • CHAPTER XXI. REMODELLING. I. Queen Elizabeth had thought much over the Church questions- of her time, and had read the, deepest books. She had learnt the old doctrine, a^ a girl, but had gone along with the first alterations , in Edward's reign ; and though she had returns j to Mass with her sister, her mind seems to have beem J REMODELLING, 125 really bent to the true Catholic faith. When she was asked her opinion about the Holy Communion she answered, ** Christ was the Word that spake it, He took the ^read and brake it, And what that Word doth make it, That I believe and take it." 2. She continued the Latin service with only the portions in English which had been permitted in her father's time, and she kept things as they were, only stopping the persecution till she had time to hear from the Pope ; for she would gladly have remained in communion with the rest of the Western Church, if this could have been done without accepting all the errors and tyranny of Rome. 3. The Pope; however, would not even own her as Queen, because of the unlawful marriage of her parents, and declared her cousin, Mary of Scotland, the only true Sovereign of England. The main body of the people, however, had been so much shocked by the burnings at Smithfield and elsewhere, that their only desire was to support Elizabeth, and return to the customs of King Edward's time. 4. Those who had fled into foreign lands returned with a redoubled dislike to all forms and ceremonies, and to whatever was not accepted by Calvin. There were three marked parties in religious matters: the Calvinist party, or, as they soon after came to be 126 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K called, the Puritans ; the Romanists, or Papists ; and the English Catholics, or Church of England, to which the Queen belonged. 5. Elizabeth dropped the title of Head of the Church, and only called herself its Defender, and she sought for the best men to fill the vacant dioceses, for the sickness that had raged during the last few months had been so fatal to the clergy that there were nine sees empty. 6. Queen Elizabeth chose an excellent Archbishop, Dr. Matthew Parker, a very learned and pious man. She and he decided to use the Second Prayer Book of King Edward, since the Puritans were sure not to endure the First. A few alterations were made, the most essential of which was the restoration of the words in the Administration of the Holy Communion, "The Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." 7. At the same time Elizabeth put out some orders called Advertisements, directing that in cathedrals, college chapels, and the like, all ornaments and vestments should be the same as they had been in the first year of King Edward VI.; but in many parishes these rich and costly robes and hangings had been destroyed, and there were no means of replacing them. Therefore only the surplice was enjoined, and even to this the Puritans objected. REMODELLING, 127 8. One difficulty was the consecration of Parker, since Queen Mary's Bishops would have nothing to do with it. However, Miles Coverdale, of Exeter, had returned to England, and there were three other Bishops who had been consecrated in the time of Henry VHI. and of Edward VI. These consecrated Matthew Parker according to the servicq in the Prayer Book, and assisted him the next day in consecrating four more Bishops. 9. Bishop Bonner's chaplain made up a ridiculous tale that he had looked through a hole in the wainscot of a tavern called the Nag's Head, and had seen all five consecrated by Bishop Scory by putting a Bible on their heads, and this story is believed by many Roman Catholics to this day, though a full account of Parker's consecration is to be read both in the registers of his diocese and in his own diary. 10. The best men who could be found were thus made Bishops, and the parish priests who would use the Prayer Book remained in their livings, but it was very difficult to find good and learned men, who u^ould be content with things as they were. Though the Act of Uniformity was again passed, some priests who retained their livings made hardly any difference from the Mass in their Celebrations, while others made the same Holy Sacrament as like as possible to the bare meal, taken seated, which the Calvinists jniagined to be Scriptural, 128 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. »■"»■■■ ■ M —Ml ■ »^^^— I H » II ■■■ II iii»i» ■ ■■■■111 11^ ■ mmw I n — — ■^^^i^M^^i^— ^^Wi^pW^^ 11. The Articles were re-enacted, with tl authority of Convocation, but were reduced number to thirty-nine, the other three havii referred to errors which h^d died away. Those Queen Mary's Bishops and clergy who would not ta the Oath of Supremacy nor conform were deprived their sees, but most of them lived as guests in t houses of their successors. Two lived in Archbish Parker's house, and Bonner was in that of Edmu Grindal, Bishop of London, who had been Ridle chaplain. These two, however, could not agree, a Bonner was so hated by the people that he could i stir abroad safely, and for his own security v obliged to live in a house within the bounds of Marshalsea prison. 12. Archbishop Parker never called on any ( to take the Oath of Supremacy unless on adn sion to some place of trust. It was the Quee resolution that no one should be put to death religion's sake in her reign, but as time went it became more and more difficult to keep to ' resolution. 13. At first everybody went to church, and tt who clung to the old forms only obtained them in vate, and Elizabeth was still not excommunicated the Pope. But in 1563, there was held at Trent, in Austrian Tirol, what the Church of Rome calle General Council. It was not general, for the Easi REMODELLING, 129 Church and the English were not represented. And thus there were decrees made which declared the errors that the Reformation denounced to be the real true doctrine of the Church, thus binding Rome to these corruptions of the truth. And when Mary of Scotland's captivity began, Pope Pius V. signed a bull of excommunication of the Queen, on the 25th of February, 157O; and it was fastened in the night to the door of the palace of the Bishop of London. 14. This made it needful for every one to choose ■ his part, for those who held with the Pope could no longer be in communion with the Queen and her Bishops. Therefore they were called henceforth Roman Catholics, Catholics holding to Rome. English Catholics began to be called Protestants, (4 a name that had begun when the Lutherans in Germany protested against the false doctrines of Rome, and which now began to be applied to all persons who diiffered from the Romanists, and dis- fi owned the Pope. i 15. There were fines for persons who did not attend their parish church. Some of the English 3 Roman Catholics would go to the prayers often enough to save themselves from the fine, but not to the Holy Communion. Others would not go at all, and paid fines every month ; and the poorer ones, who had no money, were sent off from their homes to go beyond seas, if they could. i 1 28 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. ^^— I. ^.^■^—^■Mi MM ^^^^^^1 I .1 ■■■■■ ■ ■ ^^^^^ I ^^^P^i ■ ■ ■ t mm ^^^mm^^mmm^tmm^mmtimfmm^^'^mmmm^^^^ 11. The Articles were re-enacted, with the authority of Convocation, but were reduced in number to thirty-nine, the other three having referred to errors which had died away. Those of Queen Mary's Bishops and clergy who would not take the Oath of Supremacy nor conform were deprived of their sees, but most of them lived as guests in the houses of their successors. Two lived in Archbishop Parker's house, and Bonner was in that of Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, who had been Ridley's chaplain. These two, however, could not agree, and Bonner was so hated by the people that he could not stir abroad safely, and for his own security was obliged to live in a house within the bounds of the Marshalsea prison. 12. Archbishop Parker never called on any one to take the Oath of Supremacy unless on admis- sion to some place of trust. It was the Queen's resolution that no one should be put to death for religion's sake in her reign, but as time went on it became more and more difficult to keep to this resolution. 13. At first everybody went to church, and those who clung to the old forms only obtained them in pri- vate, and Elizabeth was still not excommunicated by the Pope. But in 1563, there was held at Trent, in the Austrian Tirol, what the Church of Rome called a Geijera] Council. It was not general, for the Eastern REMODELLING, 129 Church and the English were not represented. And thus there were decrees made which declared the errors that the Reformation denounced to be the real true doctrine of the Church, thus binding Rome to these corruptions of the truth. And when Mary of Scotland's captivity began, Pope Pius V. signed a bull of excommunication of the Queen, on the 25th of February, 1 570, and it was fastened in the night to the door of the palace of the Bishop of London. 14. This made it needful for every one to choose bis part, for those who held with the Pope could no longer be in communion with the Queen and her Bishops. Therefore they were called henceforth Roman Catholics, Catholics holding to Rome. English Catholics began to be called Protestants, a name that had begun when the Lutherans in Germany protested against the false doctrines of Rome, and which now began to be applied to all persons who diififered from the Romanists, and dis- owned the Pope. 15. There were fines for persons who did not attend their parish church. Some of the English Roman Catholics would go to the prayers often enough to save themselves from the fine, but not to the Holy Communion. Others would not go at all, and paid fines every month ; and the poorer ones, who had no money, were sent off from their homes to go beyond seas, if they could. 1 32 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. 5. A clergyman named Thomas Cartwright, and his friend Walter Travers, prepared a Book of Disci- pline which would have done away with Bishops and with the Prayer Book, and the Parliament was asked to sanction it and present it to the Queen. 6. Of course the Queen and Archbishop would not hear of it, and after it was rejected, the second time, Cartwright and some of his friends began to hold meetings for worship according to this fashion of their own ; while others remained in the Church, using as little observance as they could, and hoping to have everything changed in the next reign. . 7. In the meantime they put out pamphlets with absurd titles, professing to be written by one Martin Marprelate, in which they abused the Bishops by all the worst names they could think of Arch- bishop Whitgift was called Caiaphas, Beelzebub of Canterbury, and the like. The Queen insisted that these should be stopped, and at last the printing press was taken, and the writers imprisoned. 8. They were answered by one Thomas Nash, who called himself Cuthbert Curryknave, and put forth books called Pap with a Hatchet^ Crack fne this Nut, An Almanac for a Parrot, full of wit and sound sense. The English people were shocked at the abuse of the Queen and Bishops, and the Parliament grew severe against those who found fault with their Church. THE PURITANS, 133 9. A Bill was passed sending to prison all persons above sixteen years old who would not come to church, but became Nonconformists, as dissenters were then called, and frequented conventicles. In prison, though their lives were spared, they were kept short of food, beaten with cudgels, shut up with the wickedest criminals, and the like. For in those days no one had learnt that tormenting the body is the very worst way of making people change their opinion, since brave spirits rise to bear martyrdom, and tender ones grow pitiful and indignant at their sufferings. 10. It was thought the duty of rulers a;id governors to silence falsehood and drive people to accept the truth, and so in all countries even merciful hearted people forced themselves to consent to hard and cruel treatment of all who did not follow the religion of the State. In England Roman Catholics were thus treated on the one side, and Puritans on the other, but the Roman Catholics fared the worst, as they were at that time more dangerous, since there were some even among their clergy who believed it right to get rid of the enemies of their Church even by »murder. 11. Philip II. of Spain, who had been husband to Mary I., was looked on as the great champion of the Church of Rome, and Queen Elizabeth as the defender of all the Reformed. TVv^ "Etv^v^ \vsi^^ \sv 1 34 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K continual fear of the Spanish armies invading the island, and many plots for murdering the Queen were detected, and traced to men in the pay of Philip. 12. All this tended to make both the Queen and nation more and more inclined to side with the Protestants abroad, and there were many persons who thought it more essential to be Protestants than to belong to the Church, forgetting that we are told by the Holy Scriptures that we must belong to the One Body. 13. There were many, both clergy and laity, who professed to belong to the Church, but, not under- standing the difference between what was Catholic and what was Roman Catholic, tried to throw aside all they thought superstitious. Some of the clergy ministered without surplices, they would not sign the cross in Baptism, they let people sit at the Holy Communion, they would not keep saints' days, nay, they tried to prevent people from taking saints' names. 14. Children were christened by the strangest names, some from the Old Testament, such as Vophshi or even Maher-shalal-hash-baz, or else by English sentences, such as Hope-still, Fight-the-^ood- fight-of-faith, Afflicted, Accepted. A clergyman was cited before Archbishop Whitgift for refusing to baptize a child by the name of Richard. THR PURITANS. 135 rrtn I n'l ■ n 15. For Archbishop Whitgift did his best to keep people out of these follies and errors, and to make them obey the Prayer Book. He was an excellent man, who did all he could for the Church, maintaining poor scholars, who wished to be clergy, and feeding whole tables of the poor. 16. Queen Elizabeth thought very highly of him, and as he was a small dark man, she used to call him her little black husband, or sometimes her " white gift." She attended to him more than to any one else, when he tried to stop her in her bad custom of giving away, like her father and brother. Church lands to her favourites. She gave the Bishop of Ely's London house to Sir Christopher Hatton, and Sherborne Minster and its lands to Sir Walter Raleigh, and the like acts she did in other places though Whitgift boldly rebuked her. 17. When the great Queen at last lay dying propped upon her cushions, it was Whitgift who prayed by her ; and whenever his voice grew weak and weary, and he paused thinking her unconscious, she bade him go on, and so he did, as long as she could hear him. She had many faults, but she was God's great instrument in raising up from its former ruin our loved Catholic and Apostoljc Church. 136 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K. CHAPTER XXIII. THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCES. 1. In Scotland the Reformation had been the work of Calvinists, who had swept away and destroyed the old Scottish Church that had begun in lona. The King, James VI., had been bred up strictly in the doctrine of Calvin, and the Puritans hoped that when he came to the throne, they should succeed in rooting out all they disliked in the Church. 2. On the other hand, it was known to a few that James was constantly chafing at the rude and dis- respectful way in which the ministers treated him: reproving and threatening him in private and preach- ing at him in public. Also he had never forgiven them for their rebellion against his mother, Queen Mary, and he was much inclined to make friends with the Spaniards, who had always upheld her cause. 3. Thus the Puritans hoped on one side, and the Roman Catholics on the other, while the truth was that James had spent much time in reading and thinking, and had made up his mind that in the Church of England was the faith by which he ought to live and die and govern his people. His manners were so foolish, and his appearance so ungainly, that no one suspected the real wisdom that lay beneath. THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCES, 137 4. The Puritans immediately petitioned the new wing that the Prayer Book might be altered, and hemselves relieved from their grievances, and in eply James appointed a meeting, to be held at Hampton Court in the January of 1604, to discuss he matter. He sat there as Judge, and each ?arty laid its arguments before him ; but the Puritans complained that while there were nineteen Bishops and deacons on the Church side, they were illowed only four representatives, and those not chosen by themselves but by the King. 5. The Puritans had four sets of complaints, 1st IS to doctrine, 2nd as to pastors, 3rd of Church government, 4th of ritual and the Prayer Book. iVith regard to the first, their objections to the Thirty- line Articles were not attended to ; but they were Promised that the translation of the Bible should be evised, and that there should be an addition to the )atechism explaining the doctrine of the Sacra- lents. 6. As to pastors, the entreaty was that learned nd good men should be appointed to all parishes, id that they should not be obliged to sign the hirty-nine articles. They were told that truly the Dpointment of scholars was to be wished, but that le old ignorant men could not be turned out of their zings, and the Articles must be signed as a safeguard 3m false doctrine. 138 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. — — 7. As to Church government, it was objected that the Chancellor, being a layman, ought not to pro- nounce sentence in Church matters, and here the answer was that the matter was under consideration. Then the Puritans complained of the silencing of what they called prophesyings, which were gatherings of clergy and laity for discussion. James would not hear a word in their favour, saying, "Jack and Tom and Will and Dick would meet and censure him and his council/' 8. When the question of ritual came on the Puritans complained of the cross in Baptism, but as the Bishops proved that the sign had been used in Baptism, certainly in the time of Constantine the Great, and no doubt long before, it was decided to continue it. 9. Then came the expression in the Marriage Service, " With my body I thee worship." Here the King showed that "worship" in Old English only meant honour, and that it was in accordance with the expression in Scripture "giving honour to the wife." And then he said to the Puritan divine, " If you had a good wife yourself, you would think all worship and honour you could do her were well bestowed on her." The dislike of some to the ring was mentioned, but not pressed. 10. Some persons considered the Churching of Women to be Jewish, but this was not argued out THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCES, 139 Dperly, the King only saying that women were so ih to come to church that it was well to have any- ing to draw them thither. 11. And in like manner, when the Puritans called le surplice a garment worn by the priests of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, he said he usually heard it 2rmed a rag of Popery, and that they did not know lieir own minds. For comeliness' sake, he would have he use of it continued. 12. The King made other jests, and the Puritans bought themselves laughed at, and complained that hey had not been heard fairly ; and indeed it is a 'ity that James did not show more gravity and everence in dealing with such subjects. However fter this, a few changes were made in the Prayer Jock. The prayers for the Sovereign and Royal ""amily, and the occasional prayers and thanksgivings, i^re introduced in Matins and Evensong, and he part of the Catechism respecting the Sacraments »^ added by Dean Overall. 13. Good old Archbishop Whitgift died shortly fter, and Bishop Bancroft, of London, was appointed n his stead, and showed a strong determination to nforce the observance of the Prayer Book. 14. The Roman Catholics at the same time fell nto greater disgrace than ever, through the wicked oily of those among them who contrived the Gun- powder Plot, not perceiving that if it had succeeded, 140 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K the whole body of the people would have been trebl)r |[b full of wrath and horror against them after such a crime, destroying the heads of so many families. 1$. The plot was not by any means designed, approved, or indeed known to the greater number, but Father Garnett, a priest, was executed for his knowledge of it. His plea was that he was bound not to disclose what he had only heard in confessioi^ but this was not admitted by the courts of law, and there was reason to think he had information, other- wise given, which he ought, as a good subject, to have disclosed. This led to fresh severity in banishing Romish priests and levying fines on recusants, tiie name given to persons who refused to go to church. 1 6. The great work of the reign of Janies I. was the production of the Authorized Version of "the Holy Scriptures. Fifty-four of the best Hebrew and Greek scholars were selected, and presided over by Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean of Westminster. They tho- roughly overlooked what was called the Bishops' Bible, namely, that chiefly translated by Coverdale and Tyndale, and revised and re-published by Arch- bishop Parker, altering it only where they detected error, tr>*ing, as they said, "to make a good one better," not to make a new translation. I/. Their work has been loved and honoured wherever the English tongue is spoken, and has be«i the joy and comfort of all pious hearts in our own ARCHBISHOP LA UD. 141 Ihurch, and all the bodies of Christians around them. resh discoveries of MSS., and greater study of the mguages, have shown a few blemishes, but none in le least affecting any truth it establishes, and there J nothing we have more reason to thank God for lan our English Bible. 18. The previous translation of the Psalms and of le Offertory Sentences was still left unaltered in the •rayer Book. » ■» ■ i» CHAPTER XXIV, ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 1. James I. had a real desire to restore the truly ood things that had been overthrown in the zeal and iolence of the Reformation in both his kingdoms, and he excellent clergy who had been trained up in the English Church, such as Richard Hooker, Thomas )verall, Lancelot Andrewes, and many others gave lim full aid. 2. Scotland had thrown off all connection with the "hurch, and had no real Bishops, only some of the presbyters were called by that name. James resolved o have these consecrated, and summoned three to England for the purpose. They came unwillingly, .nd the Scots were much afraid of being made subject o the English. I4a ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. 3. Dr. Andrewes, who was now Bishop of Win- chester, thought they ought to be first ordained as deacons and priests, but this was overruled, and they were consecrated in 16 10, the King hoping in due time to introduce the Prayer Book, and restore the Church. 4. That same year Archbishop Bancroft died, and the Bishops and all good Churchmen hoped for Bishop Andrewes to succeed him. The Bishops actually recommended this holy and devout man to the King. But James was too apt to listen to his favourites, and one of these. Lord Dunbar, had a chaplain, George Abbott, who had flattered the King by dedicating to him a book, in which he called James as zealous as David, as learned as Solomon, as religious as Josias, as careful of spreading truth as Constantine, as just as Moses, as undefiled as Jehoshaphat, as clement as Theodosius. And Abbott was made Archbishop. 5. Abbott was a Puritan in opinions, and that party began to have more hope of prevailing. The Prince of Wales, Henry, was a devout, grave youth, free from his father's vice of swearing, and very thoughtful, and the Puritans thought he must be on their side ; so the saying was — ** Henry the Eighth pulled down Abbots and cells, Henry the Ninth will pull down Bishops and bells." But the Prince's death prevented it from being known UNiether he weuld thus hav(i aelcdv ARCHBISHOP LA UD. 143 ■ I ■■ ■ 11 1 1 1 1 I ■ 6. The holy and devout Andrewes wrote many admirable sermons, and likewise devotions, which have been loved and valued ever since his time. He, and other like-minded men, tried to repair the ruin and disorder of the sacred buildings made in the days of destruction. They had not very good taste in architecture, but at least they made the churches decent and orderly. 7. The Puritans used to observe Sunday as the Pharisees kept the Sabbath, and forbade all that was cheerful on that day, upon which King James thought fit to go to the other extreme, and* put forth " The King's Book of Sports," in which he recommended the afternoon of Sunday to be spent in archery, leaping, dancing, May-games, and the like, after people had been to church. 8. Many people were extremely shocked. The Archbishop would not have the King's letter read in his church at Croydon, but James did not heed him, being now much under the influence of Bishop Williams, of Lincoln, who was Keeper of the Seals, one of the last clergymen who held a law office. 9. Poor Archbishop Abbott met with a disastrous misfortune. It was not thought unsuitable for clergy to enter into field sports, and, while shooting at a deer, Abbott unhappily hit a gamekeeper, so as to cause his death. He kept the anniversary as a fast day for the rest of his lifCj and grieved most ^ot^V^ 144 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K over the disaster, though no one thought of blaming him for it. ID. Williams, however, tried to persuade the Iting that a man who had shed blood could not remain Primate, and he also objected to Abbott's consecrating several new Bishops who had just been appointed A commission, with Bishop Andrewes at their head, inquired into the matter, and the Archbishop was entirely released from all disabilities. 1 1. Abbott's primacy lasted twenty-two years, and in spite of the flattery which had gained him pro- motion, he was valiant in withstanding the King, whenever he thought it right, as in the matter of the Book of Sports, and again when the King, wanting to obtain a Spanish princess as his son's wife, began to favour the Roman Catholics, promised that no more priests should be punished for saying Mass, and even consented to their having a Bishop, who did not, however, take his title from any English place, but from some place among the heathen, in partibus infidelinniy as it was called. 12. Though Prince Charles did not marry a Spanish infanta, he did marry a French princess, and for her sake the Roman Catholics continued to be more mercifully treated after Charles I. came to the throne, though he was himself a devout English I Churchman. 13. The prelate whom he most respected was ARCHBISHOP LA UD. 145 1 ,.■>-. -^^ . ,. ..^..-^^^ ^ — , - _- ■ - _ - - ■ ■ William Laud, son of a clothier at Reading. Laud lad been an excellent scholar, and thus had come into notice. He was the one man who had any yood influence over the King's favourite, the Duke Df Buckingham, by whose influence he had been tnade Bishop of St Davids. 14. He was eager, impetuous, and straightforward. He left a diary by which we see that he was hot- tempered, and was constantly repenting of the hasty words he had spoken at times. King James disliked him, but Charles had great confidence in him, and on Abbott's death made him Archbishop. 15. Laud eagerly began to restore whatever had decayed, or had been destroyed, in the Church, during the troublous times, stirring up the Bishops to look carefully into the state of doctrine and the per- formance of the services in their dioceses. 16. Since the time of Edward VI., the Communion had been administered in the body of the church, the holy Table being there placed endways. When not in use, the more reverent Bishops had insisted on having it kept in its old place against the eastern wall, and Laud, with the King's authority, issued commands that it should never be moved from thence, but that it should be railed in to prevent the desecrations that constantly happened. 17. He restored much of the beauty and solemnity of the services of the Church, axvd vj^'a ^'^ ^^'^^^ \s^ 1 46 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K arrange the beautiful service for the Consecration of Churches. He was Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and did much to bring back good order and discipline there, and he greatly encouraged learning. 1 8. He sent scholars into the East to obtain manuscripts of the Scriptures and to study Eastern languages and customs. CHAPTER XXV. DISCONTENTS. 1. Most of the changes made by Archbishop Laud were most needful and desirable, and we are the better for them still, but, in the temper of the people, they could not be carried out without much opposi- tion. A man of gentleness and dignity might have succeeded better, and Laud was neither gentle nor dignified. 2. He was a small man, and verj' eager, and though he kept himself in check, as a good religious man would do, people saw his fiery nature through all his efforts, and disliked him personally, calling him all sorts of absurd names, such as " his little Grace," and " the little urchin." DISCOJ^TENTS. • 147 3. He was willing to push the royal power to the imost to enforce the rules of the Church, and people ere heavily fined or imprisoned for disobedience to ae rubrics, and, as they refused for conscience sake, his was persecution. Many went to settle in North \merica, in order to be able to set up their own jystem of worship, and there they persecuted those ^ho differed from themselves even worse than they lad been treated in England. 4. Much was said and written against these neasures, and then the authors were prosecuted for ibel. The laws against libellers were very harsh. The person found guilty had to lose his ears and tand in the pillory, and whenever such a sentence vas passed by the Council, or the Court called the 5tar Chamber, the Archbishop was blamed for it, ^cause he had a seat in both, even though often he lad not been present at the trial. 5. Bishop Williams was one of those sentenced 5y the Star Chamber. Letters had been found in lis house speaking of some one as " Little Urchin " ind " Little meddling Hocus Pocus." Both he and lis correspondent swore that this did not mean the Archbishop, but it was believed they really did so, tnd on a charge of perjury he was kept in prison. 6. There were many good and earnest men i^ho felt and rejoiced in the way in which the Qeaning and the glory of the Church s^nvc^^ t\\M& 148 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K shone out. One of these was Bishop Cosin, afiote 1^''^ was George Herbert, Vicar of Bemerton, and writer at |fe ^ many beautiful and devout hymns. 7. There was also a gentleman, named Nicolas 1^^ Br Farrer, who made his house at Little Gidding,!" Huntingdonshire, a wonderful house of devotion. He had been himself ordained a deacon, and with his brother, his mother, nephews, and nieces, kept up a constant round of prayer and praise. At other times they arranged the Gospels so as to form harmonies of the history, and they kept up a school for all the poor children in the neighbourhood. On Sunday, a certain number came to repeat Psalms, and dine there, old Mrs. Farrer herself placing the first dish upon the table. 8. But persons, who thought that what was Catholic must be Roman Catholic, grieved at the prosperity of the Church, and the Romanists, who hated the English Church, were glad to see it suspected. Twice an offer was made to make Archbishop Laud a Cardinal, and though, of course, he rejected it, it was remembered against him by his enemies. 9. Above all, Charles wished to carry on the work his father had begun of restoring the Church in Scotland. It was thought that the Scots would be unwilling to accept a Prayer Book exactly like the English one, so the Archbishop prepared one, like it in many points but with the Communion Service DISCONTENTS. ^ 149 more like King Edward's first Book, and retaining the cross in Confirmation. ID. However, there was a party in Scotland violently set against it, partly because it came from England, and partly because their Calvinist notions could not endure any kind of form or ceremony. Some of these set on the Edinburgh mob, and on the first Sunday when the new Prayer Book was used a woman, named Jenny Geddes, cried out, "Dost mumble the Mass at my lug?"^- and flung her stool at the head of the Dean of Edinburgh. A great tumult arose, and the clergy could hardly reach their houses in safety. 11. A great number of Scots bound themselves together, in what they called *' The Solemn League and Covenant," never to accept the Prayer Book. They took up arms against the King, and he found the English people unwilling to assist him in over- coming their resistance. 12. Charles had angered the nation by his endeavours to govern without a Parliament, and to exercise powers to which no one had objected under the Tudor Kings, and which he therefore thought his right But the Parliament was very different from what it had been when Henry VHI. made it consent to any wickedness he chose, or when Elizabeth could silence it by a good scolding. It » Ear. 1 50 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K contained many grave, well educated, thoughtful men, of much resolution, who were determined to consent to nothing in which the law would not bear them out, or to alter the law if they thought it tyrannical 13. To these were added the Puritans, who were angered at the enforcing of the rules of the Church, and many of whom really believed that whatever went by rule or form must necessarily be superstitious and tending to idolatry. 14. The two persons who were thus most dreaded and hated were Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford, because both thought that people, for their own good, ought to be forced into absolute submission. Their motto was " Thorough," and they both fully and earnestly believed that nothing would be so much for the general good as that every one should be obliged to obey the King in Church and State. 15. As soon then as the Long Parliament met, it impeached them both for treason to the State, and Bishop Williams was released. It was hoped that he would head the attack upon Laud, but this he refused to do. 16. A great many petitions were sent up to Parliament from persons who had been punished for disobeying the rubrics. Two more Bishops, Wren of Ely, and Pierce of Bath and Wells, were also jwpeachcd, and every one vfho wished to complain THE REBELLION, 151 of his Bishop or clergyman, was encouraged to come with a petition, and those who were accused had to find lodgings in London, and wait while a committee inquired into the matter. 17. Alderman Pennington brought a petition against Church government by Bishops, and against all Church ceremonies, and it was signed by an immense number of people. It is strange that so many should at once have joined against the Church ; but it seems that there were some who were real Calvinists, and fancied Bishops and ceremonies unscriptural ; others foolishly thought Laud was a Roman Catholic in disguise, and would bring back the old evil times ; and others stood out against the use of force in religious matters, and for freedom of opinion, while a number merely hated authority. f CHAPTER XX VL THE REBELLION- 1. In the January of 164 1, the Parliament took it upon them to order that a commission should go through all the counties to destroy all images, altars, or tables turned altarwise, in churches, and to root out all remains of idolatry. 2. A man called Will Dowsing was the leader q€ 152 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. A. this commission, and sad mischief and sacrilege were committed under him. All the rude and covetous people rose, and the churches were more defaced than they had been in the time of Henry VIII. Stained glass was shattered, fine carving broken, plate stolen. Prayer Books and surplices torn, and there is hardly an old church or cathedral in Eng- land that does not show traces of the destroyers, 3. At the same time, Laud had the grief of seeing his friend Strafford led forth to execution, and could only hold forth his hands in blessing, as the pro- cession moved under his window; but he himself remained in prison, without being brought to triaL 4. All sorts of stories were believed against the Bishops, and there were petitions from some to do away with the order altogether, from others to turn them out of the House of Lords. Indeed the mob were so furious that the Bishops could hardly attend in Parliament, and by the advice of Williams, whom the King had made Archbishop of York, they signed a protest declaring that all measures passed in their absence were null and void. 5. This made the Parliament still more furious. The Bishops were all sent off to the Tower, and the mob celebrated their imprisonment by lighting bon- fires and ringing bells. A Bill was hastily passed, taking away their seats as peers, and the King gave way, and signified his assent to it. TBE REBELUON. IS3 6. All this time, however, petitions were coming ip from the counties, very numerously signed by [puritan soldiers.] people who declared their strong attachment to the 1 54 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K Prayer Book and the Church, '* their dear Mother,** and expressed their full belief that Bishops were of Divine appointment, and ought not to be done away with, although they thanked the Parliament for re. sisting harshness and novelty. 7. It was, in fact, a few Puritans who had the leadership of the House of Commons ; and the people of London, who were bent on change and on ruining the Church. Their Scottish friends insisted upon their accepting the Solemn League and Covenant, as a condition of assisting them against the King; for the war with King Charles had begun, and con- ferences between the Scotch and English were held at Westminster, in the summer of 1643. 8. Many of the English members of Parliament disliked the Covenant, but, to obtain the support of the Scots, they swore to it and signed it, thus under- taking to abolish the Prayer Book and its services, to put an end to Episcopacy, and to have only a Pres- byterian ministry. Orders went forth from Parliament that every person in England, above the age of eighteen, should sign the Covenant on the 2nd of February, 1644. This was tyranny over consciences far beyond what Laud had ever attempted, and the best of the Nonconformists did all they could to prevent the measure. 9. Of course a very large number of people would not accept it. In the parts of the country that were THE REBELLION. 155 .oyal to the King, and were held by his army, no one could be asked to take it; and elsewhere a great number refused it, or were passed over. But in other counties every clergyman who kept his ordination vows by refusing the signature was at once deprived of his living. The church was often left empty, and any sort of person would take possession, and pray and preach wild doctrines there. 10. Whenever the King had been defeated, these persecutions of the clergy were carried out in fresh places. A directory of worship was published, and many clergy were ejected for refusing to accept it Then there was a committee for examining into the lives of scandalous ministers, which on any accusation of either life or doctrine, made by any kind of person, would turn out and imprison a parish priest ; and in January, 1645, it was forbidden to use the Prayer Book at all, in church or out of church, for marriages, baptisms, or burials, and fines and imprisonments were denounced on those who continued it. 11. In that same sad winter. Archbishop Laud, after three years' imprisonment, was brought before the Parliament, charged with having tried to overthrow the constitution, and bring in Popish superstition. He answered bravely, and of course he could show, that he had no such intention ; and it was two months before any of the peers would give their consent to his condemnation, Meanwhik thQre werQ msLuy tj^t:soxv^ 1 56 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. who would gladly have seen him escape, and he could easily have done so, but he was seventy-two years old, and he said he had no mind to die iii a Roman Catholic country like France, or a Presbyterian one like Holland 12. At last six peers were brought to consent, and he was sentenced to be beheaded on the loth of January, 1645. The place was Tower Hill, and find- ing the place crowded with people, whose heads he could even see through the openings between the boards of the scaffold, he begged that they might be removed, " lest his blood should fall on their heads." He was much insulted by his guards, and reviled by the crowd, but with much patience and meekness he read a beautiful address, which awed the, people into stillness. 13. His prayer as he knelt by the block was— '* Lord, I am coming as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of death, before I can come to Thee. But it is but a mere shadow of death, a little darkness upon nature; but Thou, by Thy merits and Passion, hast broken through the jaws of Death. So, Lord, receive my soul and have mercy on me ; and bless this kingdom with peace and plenty ; and with brotherly love and charity, that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood among them for Jesus Christ's sake, if it be Thy will." 14. Then bowing^ his head on the block, he prayed THE PERSECUTION OP THE CHURCH, 157 silently, and then saying, "Lord, receive my soul," his head was struck off. He was the fifth of our Primates who died a violent death : St. Alphege, for refusing to let his people suffer in order to raise his ransom ; Thomas Becket, for maintaining the rights of the Church ; Simon of Sudbury, partly for protesting against superstition ; Thomas Cranmer, for his opposi- tion to Rome ; and William Laud, for upholding the catholicity of the Church of England. CHAPTER XXVn. THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH. 1. The battle of Naseby soon followed the death of Laud, and Charles I. was quite ruined. Before long he had given himself up to the Scots, and when they found that he would not give up the cause of the Bishops, they sold him to the English Parliament, who kept him in captivity. 2. All the parts of the country that had held out for him were seized by the Parliamentary army, and the remainder of the churches and clergy were given up to them. The Bishops* palaces were turned into jails and filled with clergymen, and those clergy who could be accused of nothing, were turned out with their families to starve, unless they would take the Covenant. 158 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. 3. Sad histories are preserved of the sufferings of the clergy and their families. Mr. Jones, of Welling- borough, seventy years old, lame and sickly, was hunted by the rabble into Northampton. A bear, which had been taken frpm a barber's shop, was also driven along, and these wretched men set the beast to run upon the old clergyman, but instead of hurt- ing him the creature ran between his legs, so as to take him on its back, and thus carried him for a considerable distance. He was put in prison and very ill-treated, but on being released went back to Wellingborough, and finding his church empty, again used the services and preached boldly. Being taken back to prison he there actually died of starvation, and the Mayor of Northampton insisted that nothing should be said at his burial but — " Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust, Here's the pit, And in it you must.'' 4. Mrs. Rawson, wife of the Rector of Headley, was dragged out of her house, with her children, and could find no refuge but the belfry. After a time, the Rector of Rotherby received them, but he too being driven out she had to live in the churchyard, and afterwards in the church, with a blanket hung up to screen her from the congregation. /. Some clergymen obtamed a scanty maintenance THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH 159 as schoolmasters, or as chaplains in gentlemen*s fami- lies. They repeated the prayers of the Church in casef of need from memory ; and a form was drawn up which might be easily learnt by heart, containing all that was most essential. The sacraments were adminis- tered, with their full rites, in secret hiding-places, in vaults or old remote country houses, and with danger to the liberty of those present, though seldom to their lives. For seven or eight years, the only place where the Prayer Book was publicly used was the chapel of Sir Richard Browne, King Charleses ambassador at Paris. The exiled cavalier families resorted thither, and several of the Bishops held ordinations there. 6. But though the Church of England thus seemed overthrown, the Covenant did not prosper. The Covenanters believed in a ministry, with grace bestowed by the token of the laying on of hands by presbyters or elders, instead of by Bishops. But there were many persons who did not accept any ministry at all, but thought that one man had as much right as another to preach. The boldest and firmest soldiers were chiefly of this opinion, as was their great and able leader, Oliver Cromwell. They were the terrible Ironsides, who, with Bibles at their belts, imagined themselves as surely commissioned by God as were the Israelites in Canaan, and were so strong in this persuasion that where Cromwell led them, they made everything give way before them. i6o ENGLISH CHtJRCn tilSTOR V. 7. Sects were arising everywhere. Every one took up different views of what the Holy Scriptures enjoin. Having cast away all guidance from the Creeds, the Church, or any other authority, the strangest notions came to be founded on single pas- sages of the Bible. Some persons forbade all singing save of Psalms. Some forbade even these, as too formal, and insisted that all vocal music must be extemporaneous. Many thought the prophecies -rf Daniel and in the Revelation were being realised These were called Fifth Monarchy men, and som^ held that in the kingdom of the saints, as they called them- selves, nothing that they desired could be wrong though it might be never so much against the Com* mandments. 8. Meantime the Parliament had tried to make terms with King Charles. If he had consented to abolish episcopacy, the Covenanters, who were now the moderate party, would have restored him to his throne, only guarding themselves from dangerous stretches of his power. While he was kept at Hampton Court there were many conferences on this subject, but though he had consented to the Bishops losing their seats in the House of Lords, well knowing that this was merely a temporal matter, he was firm in refusing to abolish the order, since without Bishops there could be no true Church. g. At last the army, chiefly of Independents^ took THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH i6i him out of the power of Parliament They too would have made terms with him if he would have consented to let all sects be favoured alike by Government, but this he thought contrary to his duty, though he had letters from clergymen of great wisdom, telling him it was permissible. He said he would not lose his conscience to save his life, and the men who then held the power in England resolved upon his death. lO. He was brought to trial for appearing in arms against the Parliament, and when, denying the authority of the Court, he refused to answer or plead, he was condemned to death. He was allowed to have the attendance of William Juxon, Bishop of London, and was much comforted by his ministrations. The lesson for the 30th of January, according to the existing Lectionary, being the 27th of St. Matthew, gave him special comfort on that sad morning of his execution. I!. Four faithful nobles saw this true son of the Church laid in his grave in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, where he had once knelt in splendour among the Knights of the Garter, but where even the Burial Service was denied to his remains. 13. Almost immediately after his death a book of beautiful pious meditations and prayers purporting to be hid was published under the title of " Eikon Basilike, or the Royal Image.** They showed his inmost heart of devotion, submission, ^.ud fox^VM^'WS:^'^*^ -^ss.^ THE RESTORATION 163 greatly moved most of those who had little understood him. Afterwards, however, one Dr. Gauden declared himself to have written the book, and the question has been under debate ever since. Parts were certainly seen in the King's writing, and Mrs. Gauden, after her husband's death, declared that he had not written it, and on the whole we may quite accept this beautiful book as the confessions of our martyr King, for so the Church of England termed him, since he had done his best to defend her and her Bishops. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE RESTORATION. 1. During the eleven years that followed the death of the King, the sufferings of the Church were great. Oliver Cromwell, who had driven out the remnant of the Long Parliament and become Protector, was too wise and far-seeing a man to be willingly a persecutor on religious grounds, but as all the clergy and all good Churchmen looked on him as a mere tyrant and usurper, he did all in his power to drive them away and silence them. 2. He forbade the clergy, who had been deprived of their benefices, to be employed as chatjlaitis^ tutors^ 164 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K I I ---■! - - T -I - I MM I !■ — ^ ■ -■ I ■- * or schoolmasters, thus taking from them the only means they had of gaining a livelihood ; and -the laws against using any portion of the Prayer Book, even from memory, were made more strict. If a congrega- tion was found worshipping according to tjjis form it was broken up by soldiers, and the minister and the chief of the listeners were fined. 3. Dr. Jeremy Taylor, the most eloquent writer whom the Church of England ever possessed, wrote, at the desire of Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, a form which could be used by the clergy during this time of distress. In many places the regular worship was secretly carried on, and the Bishops of Salisbury and Oxford ordained fresh priests among men still willing to work for the Church through all these dangers. 4. Except towards the Church, Cromwell was tolerant, that is, he permitted all kinds of worship to take place, and even allowed the return of Jews to England, whence they had been banished in the time of Edward I. Many varieties of schisms now came to light, known by all sorts of strange names, some of which had subsisted since the Reformation began. One, which still exists, was that of the Baptists, who object to the baptism of infants, but defer the Sacrament till there is both knowledge and understanding, and likewise tokens of conversion of heart Then the person is invmersed in water, not THE RESTORATION. 165 merely sprinkled. These errors arose from following each man's own understanding of Scripture, instead of being guided by the customs and explanations handed down by the Church from the time of the Apostles. 5. Another sect now arose, through the preaching of George Fox, of Bristol. He fancied that religion, if true and spiritual, ought to have no forms, so he gave up Sacraments and the ministry, and he bound his followers to the simplest life, and the plainest, most unchanging dress, forbidding all amusements, even sacred music, and making them eminently men of peace. They called themselves Friends, but the nick- name of Quakers was given to them because of the agitation into which some of them at first threw them- selves at their prayer meetings, though afterwards they became distinguished for their quietness and gravity. The Covenanters hated them extremely, and persecuted them while it was possible, but Crom- well had so crushed down these same Covenanters, who had begun the struggle, that they wished for the return of the Royal Family almost as much as did the Churchmen. 6. Good Dr. Henry Hammond was one of the clergy who did the most to keep up the trust of the Church people in these hard times. When Cromwell died in 1658, there was a period of doubt and un- certainty, until Richard CromweW Vv'aA x^^v^^^ "^iwR. i66 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K Protectorate, and General Monk had influenced the nation to invite Charles 11. to return to the throne of his fathers. If Hammond had lived he was to have been Bishop of Worcester, but he died, just a month before the return of Charles II., in 1660. 7. Great was the joy of that return. The people were sick of the changes and irreverences of the sects, and felt that the good old Prayer Book was their only safeguard from all kinds of follies and violences. So there was much rejoicing when all the acts which had overthrown the Church were declared null and void, and the Prayer Book was restored to the churches. ^ 8. Above a thousand clergymen who had been turned out came back at once to their parishes, the intruders having to give up the parsonages to them ; but where the rightful incumbent was dead, the minister who had come in his place was permitted for the present to remain, as in fact the King was trying to bring about a union between the Church and the Presbyterians. 9. Nine Bishops alone were still alive ; Juxon, though old and feeble, was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other sees were filled up with excellent men, who had been tried in the furnace of persecution, and who were well fitted to build up that which had been broken down, and to bring back to he fold the flock which had beetv Am^tv ^o^^x astray. THE RESTORATION, 167 ^M . -, — ■»■■■.. ■■■■ ■■■■■ ■ 1^— ■»^— I ■ I —^—1 11 !»■■■■ IMII.MB^ .!■>■■■■ .^^i^^^i— — ii— >— H^i^ 10. Charles II. was a man of many vices, and as to his religion, he secretly preferred the Roman Catholic Church ; but he deserves gratitude for the excellence of his appointments to all Church offices. 11. Before the Rebellion, the Puritans had been still in communion with the Church, and though, when taking the Covenant, they had become Presbyterians, it was hoped that they might be brought back again. Three of their best divines— Richard Baxter, Reynolds, and Calamy — ^were offered Bishoprics if they would heartily join the Church, but only Reynolds could find it in his conscience so to do. Conferences were held at the Savoy Palace in London to see if a reconciliation could be effected without giving up anything essential to the life and Catholicity of the Church. 12. There were twelve Bishops and nine assistants on one side, and twenty-one Presbyterian ministers on the other, and they met in the spring of 1661, arid were to sit for four months. Baxter brought a new Liturgy, which was to have no responses and no collects or short prayers, no saints' days, and in short to be as like the Calvinists* Directory as possible. In the meantime Parliament met. The members of this Parliament were determined, at any rate, to have no more rebellions or civil wars, and as they thought the Puritans had done most of the mischief, they would not permit the conference to cotvXvkw'?!. ^tv^ V^w^jx I68 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K than the four months, so that nothing was agreed on. 13. The King, however, caused the Prayer Book to be revised by Convocation, and some alterations were made, chiefly under the guidance of Bishop Cosin, who had been for forty years studying ancjent liturgies. Most of the changes were in the rubrics, and it was at this time that the administration of the Holy Communion at the east end of the chancel was universally restored. . The Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings, which had been composed on differ^t occasions, were added^to the services, also the service for Baptism of those of riper years, to meet the case of persons who had grown up unbaptized during the times of trouble. 14. Early in 1662, the Act of Uniformity was passed, binding all clergy to follow the services as directed in this Prayer Book all over England and Wales. It has remained unaltered ever since^ except that the thanksgiving services for the deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot on thfe Sth of November, and for the Restoration on the 29th of May, together with the Humiliation day, on the 30th of January, for the murder of Charles I., have been omitted as only keeping up the memory of political hatred. The Lectionary was also completely revised in 1877. Thus we have held our Prayer Book unchanged for 200 years, scarcely changed for 300, ^.tvd vtv all essential THE SAVOV CONFERENCES. 169 points the same for full 800 — nay, with much unaltered for 1 200, and going back thence to the Apostles, and to Ezra, David, and Moses. CHAPTER XXIX. THE SAVOY CONFERENCES. 1. The great body of the English nation had suffered so much from the blasts and counter-blasts of vain doctrine that they thought that they could not be sufficiently bound to the rules of the Church of England. Therefore the Test Act was passed, making it impossible for one who was not a communicant to sit in either House of Parliament, and also the Act of Uniformity, binding all ministers to obey the Prayer Book in every respect 2. All ministers who had not been ordained by Bishops, and who would not accept such ordination, and all who would not abjure the Covenant and sign their names in consent to all that was contained in the Prayer Book, by the 24th of August, 1662, were to be ejected from their preferments. More mercy was, however, shown to them than had been shown to the clergy by the Covenanters, for a fifth part of the income of the livings was bestowed upon them for their maintenance. 1 70 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K 3. It is quite true that if we go by the letter of Scripture alone, without the assistance of the practice of the Church from the earliest ages^ and the words of her first writers, it is difficult to prove that ordination of ministers was always by Bishops, since the words Elder and Bishop had not quite settled into their present meaning when the Acts and Epistles were written. Thus many of the ministers held themselves to be really ordained, and thought it would be sacrilege to submit again to the rite. Others could not bring their consciences to accept what they thought superstition. There was no help for these men but to be expelled, since, good as they were, they taught error, and they could not rightly administer the Holy Communion. 4, The 24th of August, on which they gave up their charges, was called Black Bartholomew's Day. At least eighteen hundred did so, including Baxter, but in many places, where the patron permitted it, the minister remained in possession of the living, paying a curate to perform the Church service, and holding meetings in private for those who preferred such ministrations. 5. The Parliament was inclined to be much more severe with the Nonconformists, as they were called, than was the King, who, besides being very good-natured, cared less for the Church of England than for that of Rome, and would willingly have * *voured all sects, provided ttvaX. tiaa Bj^twaxv Catholics THE SA VO Y CONFERENCES, 1 7 1 ^^ight prosper. Parliament, however, fined people ^^llo did not go to church, and laid heavy punish- '^ents on those who met in any number above five for ^Hy religious office not to be found in the Prayer ^ook. For a first offence, the punishment was fine ^r imprisonment ; for a second, transportation to the 'American colonies. The preacher was fined jf 40, or imprisoned for six months, and all Nonconforming ministers were prohibited from coming within five miles of their former parishes, unless they would take an oath that they did not esteem it lawful to take up arms against the King. 6. There were many cases of distress among the conscientious ministers, but, on the whole, the chief part of the nation were glad to return to the peaceful and orderly ritual of the Church, and there had sprung up a real love for the Anglican Church, such as had never been before. Cathedrals, churches, colleges, and Bishops* palaces were restored, and there was zeal and activity everywhere. The clergy were far better educated and trained than those of the time of Elizabeth and James, and they worked hard to instruct their flocks in sound doctrine. 7. Many of our noblest Churchmen and our best books of devotion belong to this time. Jeremy Taylor had been made Bishop of Down, in Ireland; Sanderson, a good and wise man, of Lincoln; and Thomas Keu, oi Bath and WeWs. T\C\^ ^qk:^^ \xjca:ew^ I7J ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. when a Canon of Winchester, had absolutely refused to admit one of Charles II.'s evil companions into his house. When the King was told, he declared "the doctor was in the right," and gave him the next Bishopric that was vacant. Bishop Ken's devotions for the boys of Winchester College, and his morning, evening, and midnight hymns are still dear to many. [BiSHOP KEN. 8. Among the laity, we may mention Margaret Godolphin, who went through the Court of Charles like a white dove, unsullied by evil ; John Evelyn, the good upright gentleman ; and Robert Boyle, son to the Earl of Cork, who was the beginner of a great work — the first really missionary undertaking of our Church since the old times of St. Boniface under the Heotarchy. THE SA VO y CONPERl^MCBS. i ?3 9. A man named John Elliot, who had gone out to America in the time of the Pilgrim Fathers, had taken pity on the Red Indians, and had become, as it Avere, their apostle. There had been a subscription for the good work, and estates had been bought as an investment, in America. There was an attempt at the Restoration to seize upon these, but Boyle inter- fered, and rescued them. Soon after was commenced, in 1701, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, as a means of enabling good Christians at home to provide that clergy should be sent to the settlers in our colonies, and likewise do their best for the conversion of the native inhabitants. 10. The English colonies were, at that time, only in a few of the West Indian islands, and part of the eastern coast of North America. In the island of Jamaica, and in the State of Virginia, the Church of England had been well endowed with estates. The colony of New Plymouth had been founded by fugitives from England, and a very strict puritanism prevailed there ; and William Penn, a noted Quaker, persuaded Charles II. to permit him to found a settle- ment of Quakers in the place called from his name, Pennsylvania. The East India Company was just be- ginning to gain a footing in Hindostan, and Robert Boyle, who was its chairman, would fain have made it carry something of Christianity with vt^ Wt^ ^s. 1 74 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K I .1 . ■ . « .■■■ ^ yet, all he could do was to secure the appointment oi chaplains at the factories. 11. Loyalty to the King and to the Bishops was so entirely supposed to be the same thing that a great attempt was made to enforce episcopacy and the Prayer Book in Scotland. James Sharpe, who had been a delegate from the Presbyterians, consented to become Archbishop of St. Andrew's, and commands were sent forth that the liturgy should be used in all the churches. 12. Calvinism was, however, much stronger in Scotland than it had ever been in England. There was much resistance. Soldiers were sent to break up the assemblies of the Covenanters — minds became inflamed. The Archbishop was set upon, dragged out of his carriage, and murdered, and there was a short, though bloody, war, and a savage persecution, which lasted through all the latter days of Charles 11. 13. In 1666, St. Paul's Cathedral and 72 parish churches perished in the Great Fire of London. Sir Christopher Wren was the architect employed to devise the new St. Paul's, and many of the churches, all of which, in the taste of the times, he made Greek, instead of Gothic. His plan was not fully carried out, in consequence of the changes and troubles that ensued before its completion. THE SEVEN BISHOPS. CHAPTER XXX. THE SEVEN BISHOPS, 1. If the English nation had learnt to fear Non- <:onformity much, that which it feared above all was JRomanism. There was great dismay when the heir to the kingdom, James Duke> of York, avowed himself a Roman Catholic, and the country was disquieted with rumours of Popish plots for destroy- ing the King and setting the Duke on the throne. 2. Afterwards there was another plot for setting the Duke of York aside, if not for killing him ; but all the time Charles 11. himself only upheld the English Church because he saw it was the best support to his throne. If he had any faith at all it was in the Roman Catholic Church, but his whole life was a scandal, and one of the saddest descriptions on record is that which John Evelyn gives of the reckless gaiety and vicious indulgence in which he saw the King spending the last Sunday evening of his life. 3. A day or two later, Charles was struck with apoplexy. Dr. Ken, who had only just been conse- crated Bishop of Bath and Wells, attended him day and night, banished his evil companions, and, on his declaring his repentance, gave him absolution, but could not persuade him to receive the Holy Confi*- 1 76 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K munion. Just before his death, the room was cleared, and his wife and brother brought in a Romish priest, who gave him the last rites of his Church. 4. James II., who now began to reign, was at least sincere, but he felt it his duty to do all in his power to bring in the Roman Catholic Church and over- throw the English. He tried to get the Test Act repealed, and when he could not do this, he dispensed the persons whom he promoted from taking it The way to his favour was to join his Church, and into every position where he could put a Roman Catholic he placed one. 5. At Magdalen College, Oxford, he took upon himself to appoint a Roman Catholic priest to be Principal, and when the Fellows utterly refused to receive any such person, they were all expelled from their college, except two who were willing to give way. The King had appointed a Court of High Commission, presided over by the Lord -Chancellor, the infamous Jeffreys, where the most violent mea- sures were adopted. A clergyman had preached against Rome. His Bishop, Dr. Compton of London^ was desired to punish him, and when the Bishop pronounced that he had done nothing unlawful, he in his turn was suspended from the duties of his office. 6. No threats, nor even ill-usage, availed to make the clergy and people show the least sign of accepting THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 178 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K Romanism. In France, James's cousin, Louis XIV., was cruelly persecuting his Calvinist subjects, so that multitudes of them escaped to England, many almost destitute. They were kindly received and subscrip- tions raised for them ; and the sight of them by no means disposed the country in favour of the Roman Catholic Church. 7. James then thought he would get the Non- conformists on his side, by publishing a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience, permitting every one every where to worship and hold assemblies in any way that seemed good to them, and dispensing with the Test Act. In very truth this was only the liberty that there is at present, but it has been granted by slow degrees, by successive Acts of Parliament, and the King had no power to set aside laws made in Parliament without their being repealed there. 8. Besides, the Nonconformists knew very well that the Romanists hated them quite as much as the Church of England, and would, if in power, begin by destroying them. So, though they were glad to hold meetings, they felt no gratitude to the King, and watched him anxiously. 9. At the end of a year, James, as if for the sake of annoying the Church, sent orders that every clergyman should read the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience from his pulpit on the same Simday, the 2/th ofMayy i688. "Nov^ \t c^ttaitvly was not the THE SE VEN BISHOPS. 1 79 " '"' ' ' " '■■ft— ^— ■ 11 I i n I »»^^p».i^— i»»»«»»»i— I J duty of the clergy to tell people they were free to fall away from the Church, and they had, moreover, vowed to banish and drive away all strange doctrines. However, they did not think the Declaration legal at all. So Archbishop Bancroft called together the Bishops within reach : Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. Frampton of Gloucester did not come in time, though the Primate said he knew Brother Frampton was spurring his old black mare to be with them. 10. These seven drew up a petition respectfully praying to be excused from causing the clergy to read the Declaration in church, because it was founded on a power which Parliament had declared not to belong to the King. The Archbishop was unwell, but the six others carried it to the King at Whitehall. He looked at them grimly as he read it, and said " It was a standard of rebellion." " Sir," said Bishop Ken, **we are bound to fear God and honour the King. We desire to do both. We honour you, but we fear God." 11. The King sent them away in anger, and after waiting nine days he called them before the Council, and they found they were to be tried for libel. As members of the House of Peers they would not give bail for their appearance, and James sent them all to the Tower, by water. The people i8o ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K collected on the banks, cheered them with all their might, and were ready to break out in riot, but the good men exhorted them to honour the King faith- fully, as well as to fear God. 12. In a week's time they were allowed to return home, but on the 29th of June, they were tried in Westminster Hall. Thirty gentlemen attended them. Crowds followed them and asked their bless- ^ ing ; the whole country was in the utmost excitement The Nonconformist ministers came to offer their sympathy. 13. The trial lasted all day. It turned on the question whether the petition was or was not a libel on the King, by disputing his dispensing power. The Judges — some of whom James had appointed, were not agreed, and when the Jury had to consider their verdict they were not of one mind. It was well for them that it was June, for they were locked up without food or candle all night long. One declared, " I am the biggest of you all, and I will hold out till you all are worn out." At six in the morning, they sent to say they were agreed. 14. At ten the Court met, and the prisoners were brought in. The foreman of the Jury said, " Not Guilty." On this the Marquess of Halifax cried, *' Huzzah ! " All the lords and gentlemen present followed his example. The shout was taken up by the crowd outside. It rang along the river banks. THE REVOLUTION, i8l All London was one cheer. The soldiers in the camp at Hounslow heard the good news and cheered. The King heard them and his heart failed him. That night all London shone with illumina- tions. Seven candles were in every window in honour of the faithful seven. CHAPTER XXXL THE REVOLUTION. I. During the week of Archbishop Saticroft's imprisonment a son had been born to the King. It was this child's birth that sealed James's ruin, for hitherto the people had waited patiently, knowing both his daughters to be Protestants themselves and married to Protestant princes, whereas the new heir would be bred up in his father's faith. 2. The notion was spread abroad that he was a strange child imposed upon the nation, and at the same time the King seemed ready to drive the country to extremity by threatening proceedings against every clergyman who had not read the Declaration in his church, and this was nearly the whole parish priesthood. 3. William Prince of Orange, husband of Princess Mary, and himself the next heir after the Kin^s t82 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V, children, now came with a small force from Holland, and was hailed by the great body of the people as their deliverer. The army went over to him in a body, and James fled before him, unable to strike a blow. The Parliament offered the crown to William and Mary, and the new reign began. 4. Many of the Bishops and clergy were in a great difficulty. They held that the right of birth was the Divine appointment to the throne, which no wrong doing on the part of the hereditary prince could destroy, but that it was the duty of a good Christian to suffer and resist, after the example of Daniel and the early Christians. These were called the doctrines of Divine right of Kings and of passive obedience. On the other hand, another party held that if a King broke his oaths to the people, the people had the power to depose him and choose another ruler, and that the vows and oaths of allegiance which they might have personally made to him were rendered void by his breach of his own. 5. So thought Bishops Compton and Trelawney, and eight more, but so did not think Archbishop San- cirpft, Bishops Ken, Lake, Turner, Frampton, and five more, with four hundred of the clergy, who could not think it right, at whatever cost to themselves, to swear allegiance to William while James II. was still alive* 6. They steadily refused to take the oaths, and ^^ttr waiting for a year, in Vio^p^s o? co\wvi\cms them, THE RE VOL UTION. 183 -11 - — — 1 "• 1 ■- i-^i— -ri — -iiMiiiT- — r-|i--i 'I-"'!- their benefices were declared vacant on the ist of February, 1690, and fresh appointments were made. They were called the Non-jurors, and among them were some of the very best and most pious and learned of the English clergy. 7. They made no disturbance. Archbishop San- croft had a little property of his own, to which he retired, and there he soon died. Bishop Ken lived first with his nephew, Izaak Walton, and afterwards with Lord Weymouth, at Longleat ; Frampton spent a calm old age at his native home, and often preached in the village church near ; Turner meddled more with politics, and was often abroad. Of the non-juring clergy, many were reduced to great poverty, and owed their maintenance to benevolent persons who honoured their constancy. ,8. None of the Bishops and clergy of Scotland would take the oaths to William, and he withdrew the support of Government from them, so that Presbyterianism became the established religion of Scotland, and those persons who had learnt to value a Church with true Bishops, Sacraments, and liturgy, had to meet for worship under great difficulties, and sometimes dangers. *-. 9. William III. himself had been bred up in the Calvinism that prevailed in Holland, but by this time it had become usual to class all who were adverse to Rome as Protestants, and to regard them as capable iS4 EXGUSH CHVkCB EtSTOJ^ W of being treated as oce body. And thus the Parlia- ment passed an Act excluding ail Roman Catholics from the throne, and pennitting it to pass to the next Protestant in the sucoessirinciples, and all through the reign, the doubt had >een whether the crown would pass to Anne's ioman Catholic half-brother, or to her Lutheran :ousins of the house of Brunswick. 9. However, as the Act of Succession had ruled he matter, and the Jacobites were not ready to make L move, George I. peaceably succeeded, and though L rising followed the next year, it was only in Scotland and the north of England. 10. George I. was neither a virtuous nor a religious nan, and though he had no objection to conform to :he Church he found in England, he understood very ittle about it, and all that he and his ministers Derceived was that the Low Churchmen were, for the Host part, Whigs, and ready to uphold his succession, vhile such of the Jacobites as were not Romanists I90 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y. were High Churchmen ; and it was suspected that many High Churchmen, who were avowed Tories, were Jacobites at heart. 11. A Whig clergyman, Benjamin Hoadley, who had preached a sermon which had been censured for its doctrine by the Bishop of London, was made Bishop of Bangor. Soon after he published a book and preached a sermon denying the necessity of being in communion with any Church, and saying that sincerity only was necessary. 12. Both Houses of Convocation, with Archbishop Wake at their head, and led by Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, were agreed in condemning such a doctrine ; but the King and his ministers were determined to support Dr. Hoadley because he was a Whig, disliked by High Churchmen. So before any measures could be carried out against him, Convocation was prorogued in May, 17 17. For a century and a half, the custom continued of sum- moning Convocation to meet at the yearly session of Parliament, and then dismissing it again before it could enter on any business. The summons seemed a mockery, but it really was a witness to a power that could be again resumed in due time. JOHN WESLEY. 191 CHAPTER XXXIIL JOHN WESLEY. 1. Days of darkness and dulness fell on the Church. Zeal was discouraged by the King and his friends, because they thought vigour was connected with High Church doctrines and Jacobite opinions. Very poor notions of the duty of Bishops and clergy soon prevailed. Hoadley never once went near his see in Wales during the six years that he held it, and then he was made Bishop of Winchester. 2. He had gone on publishing heretical writings, » and so had other persons whose names are now forgotten, while the books of the great and learned men who opposed them are still of the utmost value, above all Bishop Butler s "Analogy" between Creation and Revelation, which is full of such a powerful chain of reasoning that every thinker ought to read it. 3. Bishop Atterbury was too much of a politician. He was accused of correspondence with the Stewarts and was banished. There were indeed still many good and sound men and women throughout the country, and good customs had been kept up, such as daily service in at least one of the churches in towns, which was attended by those who had leisure ; and catechising of the young people and children. 192 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K 4. But the habits of the nation were very rough and coarse. There was a terrible amount of drinking in all ranks, and it scarcely seems to have been noticed as a great sin. The Bishops, even the best of them, seldom visited their dioceses ; and the clergy in the country often lived like farmers, their daughters going out to service, and their sons learning trades. They had seldom any influence with the gentry, who did not treat them as their equals. 5. It seems as if there never was a time when there was so much gross vice in the country, or when there was so little sense of truth, honour, and purity as at this period, when one pious custom after another was dropped, and thus the reigns of the two first Georges are very sad to look back upon. 6. However, in every true Church, the Holy Spirit ever breathes and brings back the life that seemed almost exhausted. Many quiet homes were still bringing up their children in piety, purity, and love of their Bibles and Prayer Books. One of these was Epworth Rectory, in Lincolnshire, where good Samuel Wesley and his wife brought up a large family in faith and fear of God. 7. Two of the sons, John and Charles, went to Oxford to be educated for Holy Orders. There was much riot and vice in the University, and the brothers lived a life apart, attending, the college . chapel JOHN WESLEY, 193 IS no mere form, reading the Scriptures, studying the yreat divines earnestly, and soon leading other young men to join them. Their love of living by rule instead of in the lawless manner of their comrades, seems to have led to their being called by the nickname of Methodists. 8. They were ordained as Fellows of their colleges, and held all Church doctrines heartily, com- municating whenever they had the opportunity, and fasting on Fridays ; and they visited the sick in the town, taught the children, and did all in their power to raise the tone of the students . around them. General Oglethorpe, an excellent man, was founding a colony in America, called Georgia, as a home for the unfortunate debtors he found in prison, and likewise for some persecuted German Protestants. He asked John Wesley to undertake the spiritual care of it, but this arrangement did hot succeed, and Wesley returned home. 9. After his return, he began to preach most zealously, trying to stir the people out of the con- tented state of ease and indifference that everywhere prevailed, together with a terrible amount of vice. George Whitfield, who had been one of his Oxford friends, also preached, but he was much more violent and passionate in manner, and far less sound in doctrine, than were the Wesleys ; and his doings made sober-minded people dread them.. 194 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, 10. A few Bishops and some of the clergy saw that here was a hope of rousing the country from its sinful state, but the most part were either afraid of the earnestness of these men as likely to carry them into the old Puritan temper, or else, it is to be feared, those who were contented with sluggish and easy habits were unwilling to be roused. After the rebel- lion, the very sight of strong feeling and excitement among the people became alarming to the lovers of peace, and created distrust 11. Thus, though some clergy gladly welcomed Wesley to their pulpits, many were opposed to him. Even in Epworth, where he had been bom, he was denied entrance to the Church, and preached by his father's grave to hundreds. The brothers began preaching in the open air, from waggons. Crowds thronged round them, some to hoot and pelt, others to listen and turn from their evil ways. 12. Those who showed a fervent desire for religion were banded together in classes, which met from time to time for prayer, expounding of Scrip- ture, singing of hymns, and declaring of personal experiences, but Wesley never meant that these meet- ings should take the place of going to Church, and he bound his followers to attend the Church services, and communicate there whenever it was possible. 13. In Yorkshire, where little had been done for le religious teaching of the people since the destruc- JOHN WESLEY, 195 tion of the great abbeys, the We.sleys came like missionaries, and did great good. So also they did in Cornwall, where their influence almost put an end to the horrible practice of plundering wrecked vessels instead of trying to save the lives of the distressed crews. 14. As time went on, and the Methodists multi- plied, a Conference was held in 1744, at which six clergy and four lay-teachers were present They laid down as their great maxim that the only proof of being justified by faith is the inward consciousness (stronger in some than others) of being in the favour of God by the merits of Christ. Wesley, however, ad- mitted that there might be exceptions to this general rule. Now though the Church has not censured such a doctrine, she certainly has never taught it, and there thus began to be a rent between her and John Wesley. Moreover, as the meeting-houses grew larger, a license was procured for them as dissenting chapels, and the lay-preachers were licensed as ministers. This was at first only to secure them from interference, and the meetings were not at the hours of the Church services. 1 5. But in 1 760, some of these Methodist preachers, though unordained, took it on them to administer the Lord's Supper. Charles Wesley was grieved and indignant, and tried to put a stop to this presumption, but John, though he greatly disliked the act, did not or could not use any authority to prevent it % ^rvd '^ Oil 196 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. by-and-by, when a branch of the Methodists was to be established in America, and no clergyman could be found to lead it, John Wesley actually laid his hands on so-called Bishops. 1 6. To the end of their lives John and Charles Wesley never separated from the English Church of which they were priests. Charles died in 1784, leaving many beautiful hymns to the Church. John lived to 1 79 1, constantly travelling about to preach and stir up his classes, and looking, with his fine face and long white hair, like an old apostle. He had done much good in his life-time, and if he had had more patience and submission that good would not have been mixed with evil, and he would not have been the founder of a schism, or rather of several schisms. 17. For the preachers soon refused to regard them- selves as laymen, but took the place of ministers, and, instead of coming with their flocks to Church for the Sacraments, professed to administer them themselves, and made their chapels rivals, instead of aids to the churches. Whitfield's followers had already split away from Wesley's, and more divisions took place as time went on, until at present there are various bodies of Methodists, who all stand aloof from the Church in a manner that Wesley never intended. 18. In the meantime the North American colonies *^ ri hrniren away from the Etv^Usk Government In EVANGELICAL AWAKENINGS IN THE CHURCH, 197 Virginia most of the inhabitants were Churchmen, but they had never had a Bishop, chiefly because it was thought that there could not be an- English Bishop unless he were a peer. When the independ- ence of the States was acknowledged, the clergy begged that some might have Episcopal consecration, but difficulties were made since they could no longer swear allegiance to George III. However, at last consecration was obtained from three of the non- juring Scottish Bishops, and not long after consent was given that anothei* American should be conse- I crated in England. CHAPTER XXXIV. EVANGELICAL AWAKENINGS IN THE CHURCH. 1. The zeal that had first shown itself in Wesley was spreading throughout the Church. One of the foremost clergy of the time was John Fletcher, of Madeley, a most saintly man, who spei life in the endeavour to lead men heavomj^ard^^nd died at last in the act of administerirlgpUhe- Holy Communion, in the year 1785. VJ,. 2. Clergymen used to hear the childrerKJjC Aeir flock say the Catechism in Church every Lent, 198 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. would often bestow a Bible on each who attained to doing so perfectly ; but there was no explanation given, and the great mass of the people were left in great ignorance. In 1780, however, Robert Raikes, a good layman at Gloucester, first bethought him of col- lecting the children in the streets on Sunday, taking them to the Cathedral service, and providing for their instruction on religious subjects ; and the care he took proved such a blessing that Sunday schools soon began to be undertaken in other places. 3. Mrs. Trimmer, a lady at Brentford, whose husband was concerned in the traffic by waggons, not only brought up her own eleven children admirably, but did much for religious education both of rich and poor, showing how to teach the Bible and Prayer Book, and most diligently training the poor children of her own parish alike in sacred things and in the homely tasks of daily life. 4. There was also a family of five sisters, named More, a clergyman's daughters, who kept a boarding school for young ladies at Bath. The youngest, Hannah, wrote some poetry which led to her being invited to London, where she made friends with many distinguished people, especially the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, a most sound and hearty Churchman, and with Bishop Porteous, Bishop of London, a very good man, who restored the observance of Good Friday, «^hich had been so much forgotten that there was a EVANGELICAL AWAKENINGS IN THE CHURCH, 199 general outcry that the Bishop was a Baptist when he tried to obtain its remembrance. 5. Another of her friends was John Newton, who, after a strange evil life as a slave-dealer, had become converted, and was a clergyman, very earnest but of strong Calvinistic views. He caused the poet William Cowper to write many beautiful hymns, but his f teachings were so stern that they may have helped to drive poor Cowper into the hopeless despondency as to the state of his soul in which he lived and died. 6. Chief of all was, however, William Wilberforce, the excellent Yorkshire gentleman who had set him- self to procure the abolition of the cruel slave trade. He wrote a book called " Practical Christianity," which had a great effect in showing people that a man sought after in society, and as a political leader, could also be a most devout Christian leading a thoroughly spiritual life. 7. Hannah More's friendship with Wilberforce resulted in his assisting her to go with her sisters to labour among the sadly neglected population in the Cheddar and Mendip Hills. There it was common for one curate to have charge of three or four churches and to ride from one to the other, giving each one hurried service. The vice and ignorance were dread- ful, and when first the sisters began the schools, they were treated with much distrust and suspicion. 8. They lived near Bristol, and established schools 200 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, in the villages, going from time to time to visit them, examine the children and encourage the teachers, and the work they did had a wonderful effect, while Hannah's writings likewise did much to improve the tone of society. 9. The long steady effort to put an end to the slave trade seemed to raise the tone of those concerned in it. Moreover, the report of the horrors of the great French Revolution made every one feel that the hopes of safety lay in clinging to the rock of Faith, and a better spirit slowly began to prevail. Then King George III. was always good and con- scientious, deeply pious, and a constant attendant at Church, and he was much respected, though, unfortunately, his sons were full of vice and irreligion. 10. When a very old man, good Bishop Porteous went in person to the Prince of Wales to entreat him to give up his Sunday parties. Thus the Church's voice was by no means stilled, although some good customs were dying away, and there was not much attention to the beauty and dignity of the worship of God. 11. Hardly any new churches had been built since the Reformation, and where repairs were needed they had been executed in a rude and ignorant manner, often destroying or defacing what had once been most beautiful. Little pains were taken with the services. They were read straight through by • E V ANGELICAL A WAKENINGS IN THE CHURCH. 201 the priest, and the congregation left the responses, for the most part, to the parish clerk, often sitting at their ease all the time in pews made so large and high that they quite shut up the gentry away from the poor, or else the churches in the towns were fitted with very narrow pews, where it was made almost impossible to kneel down.—— 12. For there was apt to be a feeling that people went more to hear sermons than to pray. The more earnest men cared much for preaching, and as there was much coldness and deadness of heart among the people at large, they dwelt most upbn the greatest doctrine of Christianity, namely, the great Atonement of our Blessed Lord. They were therefore said to preach Evangelical doctrine, but they did not always dwell enough on the Sacraments or on the oneness of the Church. When they talked of Faith, they meant chiefly our trust in our Lord's Merits, rather than belief in all the other articles of the Christian faith. 1 3. One great and good leader of this school of thought was the Reverend Charles Simeon, who, living at Cambridge, used to gather young students together at breakfast parties, read the Scriptures with them, and so influence them that he sent out many good and devout clergy and laymen to labour in the Church. He was so anxious that his views should always be taught that he raised a fund for purchasing the presentations to many livings, and 202 ENGLISH CHURCH HJSTOR V. left these in the hands of trustees, who are bound always to give them to clergy of his way of thinking. 14. The greatest man who came under Mr. Simeon's influence was Henry Martyn, son of a man engaged in mining in Cornwall. His great talents brought him to Cambridge, where he gained the highest honours in scholarship. A burning zeal made him long for missionary work, and he obtained an appointment as Chaplain in the East India Company's service. The duty of trying to convert the heathen of India had hitherto scarcely been thought of, except by a noble-hearted Baptist shoemaker, named William Carey, who had led a party to Serampore, a Danish Settlement, where he and his friends did their utmost. Also a German, named Christian Frederick Schwartz, was employed by the Society for Promoting Chris- tian Knowledge, and the fruits of his labours in the district of Tinnevelly still show abundantly. 15. The Company, however, thought themselves bound to sanction no interference with the native religion, and Henry Martyn met with little favour or help when he tried to preach to the Hindoos. He also began a translation of the Bible into Persian, which was then the language most universally spoken by the better educated in India. When his health broke down he decided on coming home by way of Persia to improve his knowledge of the langu€ige, but E VANGELICAL A WAKENINGS IN THE CHURCH, 203 he sank under the hardships of the journey, and died, still a young man, at Herat, in 18 1 2. 16. The history of his life and death did much to stir up a Missionary spirit, which had been sadly wanting. The Church Missionary Society, which had been founded in 1798, made the conversion of the heathen its first object, while the Society for the Pro- pagation of the Gospel attempted first to deal with the English colonists, who began to multiply and to need much care to keep them within the fold of the Church. 17. This last Society was upheld by good men who were quite as earnest as the Evangelicals, but more anxious about preserving the Catholic doctrines and practice of the Church, and more unwilling to do anything beyond the rules of the Prayer Book. Dr. Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor, who collected notes for the Bible and Prayer Book, Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Joshua Watson, a London merchant, were among the chief of these. 18. Under their care the work of the Societies for Christian Knowledge and the Propagation of the Gospel much increased, and they also fostered another body, the National Society, for aiding in the Chris- tian education of the poor, by making grants in case of need, and by putting forth books to assist in such teaching as might promote the cause of the Church, CHAPTER XXXV. THE CHURCH AWAKENING. I. The good work went on quietly among many difficulties. In Nova Scotia, and in Canada, Bishop- rics had been founded before the end of the i8th century, and in 1814, an active London clergyman, named Thomas Middleton, was made first Bishop of Calcutta, and soon after, Canada also obtained a Bishop, so that these Churches began to be built up. Unfortunately the first Bishops did not under- I 204 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR K 19. The Evangelical party also founded a Bibk Society and a Religious Tract Society. The first provides for the translation of the Holy Scriptures into as many languages as there are known, and scatters them everywhere to make their way. The l| Tract Society provides books and tracts at a cheap rate, all of a religious tone, but not pledged, like those of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to put forward no doctrine not sanctioned by the Church. 20. Yet there was no great observance of Church ordinances, except of the two Sunday services. The Holy Communion was seldom celebrated more than four times a year, and there were few daily services except in cathedrals, and old town churches endowed expressly for the purpose of keeping them up. THE CHURCH A WAKENING, 205 Stand how to manage their health in the climate of India, and died soon after they were sent out. 2. The fourth of these, Reginald Heber, was a man of mark, who had done admirable work in his English parish, and was one of the first to try to improve the hymns of our Church. Some of his hymns are among the best beloved of our collections, such as "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," " The Son of God goes forth to war." He began his Indian Episcopate in a Churchman's spirit, and though he died in 1826, after a very short time, the influence of his life was great The letters and journals published after his death, showing what his mind had been, had a great effect upon the Church both at home and in the colonies. 3. In 1827 was published the "Christian Year," meditations in verse on all the Sundays and holy days, by John Keble, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, then acting as curate in a little village in Gloucestershire. He had been bred up in the old High Church doctrines, and he threw into these meditations deep and earnest devotion, and a practical spirit, together with an insight poetical and spiritual, so that the book was beloved by almost all, and opened to them a fuller perception of what the Church really is and may be. 4. This told in all kinds of work, and especially in the defence of the Church. The spirit of reform and 2o6 ENGLISH CHURCH HTSTOR K change of old customs began to have free play, and the temper of the time was such as to make many desire alterations in the Church, as weU as v\ the State. By the Act for Roman Catholic Emand- pation the tests were taken away which made it needful that all who sat in Parliament, or held any offices, should take an oath against the Pope. And when the reign of William IV. began, a spirit of inquiry into the state of all old institutions set in. Now it Is one thing to make changes in the temporal dignity and riches of the Church, and quite another to try to interfere with her eternal doctrine, and with the ministry whom our Lord charged to protect it To take the wealth away with which the Church has been endowed by good men would be robbery, but to alter the manner in which it is applied to Church purposes is allowable. 5- Therefore, it was especially desirable to stir up the strongest feeling for all that was good and true and catholic in the Church, so as to rally round for her defence, as Keble wrote — " Seize the banner, spread its fold. Seize it with no faltering hold, Spread its foldings high and fair, Let aU see the Cross is there." 6. He and his brother, with several more Oxford friends, of whom the chief were Dr. Pusey, Professor of Hebrew, and John Henry Newman, Fellow of THE CHURCH A WAKENING, 207 )riel, began a series of "Tracts for the Times," eaching such doctrines of the Church, especially especting the Sacraments, the Apostolical ministry, md such notes of her true Catholicity, as had been :oo much neglected in the long struggle with Rome, and in the Evangelical revival. 7. An earnest spirit was thus roused, and showed itself in strict obedience to certain rubrics and rules of the Church which had been allowed to fall into disuse; Communions were more frequent, daily services, fast and feast days were observed, and more attention to reverence and beauty was paid than had been shown for many years. 8. Many people saw this with much distrust, thinking everything new was Popish, and being also afraid that the revival of the sacramental teaching might lead to there being less thought of the great Atonement. Moreover, hatred of Popery had caused it to be forgotten that, in spite of her errors, there is much that is true and Catholic in the Church of Rome ; and thus many persons thought whatever agreed with her practices must be wrong. 9. After ninety of the tracts had been issued, one, explaining that the Thirty-nine Articles do not bind those who sign them to the meaning currently attached to them, was thought so dangerous that the Bishop of Oxford begged that they might be dis- continued. Several of the Bishops likewise t^ut forth 2o8 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Y, X charges strongly censuring the movement, and the whole action of the rulers of the Church seemed to be opposed to it. This led John Henry Newman to despair of her, and to think she had lost the character of a true Church, and thus he decided on leaving her and joining that of Rome, to the exceeding grief of his friends who had more patience, and who, in due time, saw the working of the teachings and habits, that had once been thought so startling, very gene- rally accepted as notes of the Church. ^ ID. In the meantime, the question of the dis- tribution of the wealth of the Church had been dealt with. It had been feared that if it once were touched, it might be treated like the monasteries under Henry VIII., but this was not the case. An Ecclesiastical Commission was appointed, consisting of Bishops and conscientious laymen, to deal with the matter. They found that, owing to the shifting of the value of property and of population, there were some institutions which enjoyed a disproportionate amount of wealth, while many parishes where large numbers had sprung up were very ill off, and though fresh clergy were needed, there was nothing for them to live upon. II. The estates had chiefly accumulated on the Bishops and the Cathedral Chapters. It was there- fore decided that whenever a Bishop or a Canon died, \ the property should be givetv u^ to the Ecclesiastical THE CHURCH AWAKENING. 209 ^ummissioners. The new Bishops and Canons then •eceived smaller incomes, and many canonries were suppressed. Out of the sums thus coming in, endow- ments have been given to new churches, and the poorer livings have been augmented. 1 2. At the same time, a law was made that the being inducted into a new benefice leaves the former one vacant, so that it became impossible that numerous preferments should be heaped upon one clergyman. This abuse had begun in very old times, under the Popes, and it had not been thought wrong for one man to hold many benefices, as Cardinal Wolsey had done. Right-minded men were careful to provide good substitutes in the places where they could not reside themselves, but more careless ones had neglected them greatly. It was also required that every parish priest should live in his parsonage, and not absent himself for more than a few weeks without special leave from his Bishop. 13. These two laws were of the greatest benefit to the Church, and a vigorous spirit began to pervade the country. The difficulties which had stood in the way of church building and division of parishes being now removed, clergy were multiplied, and something began to be done towards dealing with the masses of population which had sprung up in London and the colliery and manufacturing districts. 14. Missionary work also spread more and more. 2IO ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY, The great island of Australia received as its first Bishop, the excellent William Broughton. Not long after, Cape Town, in Africa, became a see under Bishop Robert Grey, and the new colony of New Zealand was bestowed on George Augustus Selwyn, a comparatively young man and full of vigour, who began to act not only as a Colonial but as a missionary Bishop. All these dioceses were of course too large for one man to attend to them, but a beginning being thus made, the Church spread and grew, and in due time these sees were divided according to need. 15. Increased activity on the part of the Roman Catholic Church was going on at the same time. Hitherto the Bishops of English Romanist congrega- tions had never borne titles of English sees, but the Pope now gave them such titles, and this Papal aggression, as it was called, raised a storm of alarm and indignation. It was assumed that the Pope founded his hopes on the inclinations of the High Church party, and the outcry was turned against them. 16. For a time, this greatly increased their difficulties. There were mobs in London, and one or two other towns, who reviled clergymen for preaching in the surplice and concluding the service with the prayer for the Church militant, but these disturbances passed away, and much real earnest RE VIVAL OF COA VOCA TION. 2 1 1 ivork was done, and there was a growing sense of duty to the Church and to the poor. 17. Sisterhoods, enabling good women to devote themselves to special works among the poor, likewise sprang up. The first was begun at Christchurch, St. Pancras, London ; another followed at Plymouth, under Priscilla Lydia Sellon, and these institutions have since multiplied wherever the need of labour is great. CHAPTER XXXVI. REVIVAL OF CONVOCATION. 1. Samuel Wilberforce, son of the great William Wilberforce, was one of the most vigorous sons of the Church in his generation. He had such delightful manners, and such remarkable eloquence, that he was a general favourite, and comparatively early in life was made Bishop of Oxford. 2. In his own diocese, he began a theologi- cal college, intended for the special training of the clergy. He infused the utmost life and vigour into all that he fostered, especially missionary work, and his keen sight, ready wit, and most eloquent and persuasive tongue, helped on every cause that he took up. 2 1 2 ENGLISH CHURCH HIS TOR K 3. One of the greatest works of his life was the revival of Convocation. Since that body had been silenced under George L, the. custom of summoning and dismissing it had gone on so that it had become a dead letter, and was spoken of as a dangerous and useless remnant of an old institution. 4. Bishop Wilberforce, however, saw that since Parliament no longer consisted entirely of membos in name of the Church of England, it was absolutely necessary that the Church's own rightful assembly should have the power of being heard and of acting for her. He therefore set himself with perseverance, like that of his father about the slave trade, to overcome the opposition ; and, very gradually, Con- vocation was at length permitted to sit longer and longer, and in the year 1854 its right to speak and deliberate was recognised. 5. As matters stand, Convocation can make no law without an Act of Parliament, but all ecclesias- tical matters are committed to its consideration. The omission of the State holidays from the Prayer Book, the choice of the new Lectionary, and the revision of the Holy Scriptures have all been done by the recommendation of Convocation, and all questions that concern the Church are there debated. 6. Other voluntary meetings, called Church Con- gresses^ take place every year, in one or other of the REVIVAL OF CONVOCATION, 213 7 great cities of England, where the clergy and laity of the Church are invited to discuss the questions of the day, and the best means of meeting each evil that springs up in turn, and of spreading good works and devotion. 7. Also, in 1867, Archbishop Longley held a Pan-Anglican Synod, to which were invited all the English, Scottish, Colonial, and Missionary Bishops, and likewise all those of the American Church — a noble gathering of the Church. One hundred and fifty were present, and their consent was specially beneficial, as they confirmed the sentence that had been pronounced on Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, for publishing a book questioning the truth of the Holy Scriptures. He was deposed by the Church, but he stood on his claims as appointed by the State, and therefore could not be removed. Another such Pan- Anglican Synod was held, in 1877, by Archbishop Tait, and it is hoped that such may take place every ten years, since the life and fellowship of the Church are thereby greatly quickened. 8. Mission work has likewise gone vigorously forward. Bishop Selwyn, of New Zealand, after having divided that great island into sees, was able to work in the Melanesian Isles, and in 1864, John Coleridge Patteson was appointed as Missionary Bishop. Every year he sailed in his little yacht, the Soiitttern Cross^ to bring home natives to be educated 214 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR Yk in Norfolk Island, and there fitted to become teachers in their islands. 9. The same year, Charles Frederick Mackenzie went forth as a Missionary Bishop in Central Africa, amid the lands desolated by the slave trade, but he only spent a few months there before he sank under the fever of the deadly climate. The work, however, still proceeds in Zanzibar, and the great African Island of Madagascar likewise has its Bishop, while, on the other side of the continent. Sierra Leone has an English Bishop, and on the Pongas there is a negro Bishop of English consecration. . 10. Bishop Patteson was, in the midst of his labours, killed by the natives of Santa Cruz, who thus revenged the outrages committed on them by white traders — a disgrace to their name. His work, however, still flourishes ; a beautiful church has been built on Norfolk Island, the head-quarters of the Melanesian mission, and John Richardson Selwyn, son of the great Bishop of New Zealand, succeeded to his see. 1 1. The Bishop of New Zealand had, in the mean- time, on the urgent request both of the Queen and Archbishop, accepted the English see of Lichfield, where he had to deal with a manufacturing popula- tion, and showed the same energy and thoroughness that had characterised his whole episcopacy, until ^is death in 1878. REVIVAL OF CONVOCATION, 215 12. Bishop Wilberforce was translated to the see F Winchester, a larger field than Oxford ; but he ad hardly time to set his work in order there before e was killed by a fall from his horse, in 1873. These NO Bishops have left behind them the greatest and :rongest marks on the English Church that have een made by any Bishops since the time of the Lestoration. Their contemporary, Alexander Forbes, lishop of Brechin, was no less memorable for the ifluence of his holy life in renewing the vigour f the once depressed and persecuted Church of Scotland, 13. Of more recent years it is difficult to speak, leveral fresh Bishoprics have been formed. Missions broad, and among the dense crowds at home, are oing on with great energy, but it often seems as if odlessness and vice came in like a flood, and were o strong that no effort can do more than save hose under its immediate influence. Yet there is othing to do but to hope and work on with all our flight. 14. The Church of England is, as we have shown, •recious above all, as being a true Catholic and apostolic Church, holding fast the Apostles* doctrine nd fellowship, with a true ministry and regular iacraments, and at the same time free from Romafi orruptions, and with the Bible open to all her people. 1 5. Also, it has been shown that from the very 2 1 6 ENGLISH CHURCH HISTOR V. first there have been within her two schools of thought, one caring much for her Catholicity and oneness with the primitive Church, and therewith for the dignity and beauty of her services ; the other fearing lest in these outward things, the inward spirit should be lost, and setting the reading of the Bible, and the sense of being personally atoned for, above all else. 1 6. It is, perhaps, well that there should be these two parties to keep the Church from falling into either of these perils, and it is well if they unite in good works, and try to treat each other with charity, while never giving up a fragment of truth. For there is no greater mistake than to think peace can be bought by giving up truth. 17. Further dangers there are in our own times, and chiefly that of faith failtng. Science and research have brought to light facts which do not always agree with the notions we have built on the statements of Scripture, and this has led some to speak and think as if the authority of Scripture itself were doubtful. But a little patience ends by sliowing that it is our ignorance and prejudice that are at fault, and that God's Word and His Work cannot be contrary the one to the other. 18. Others in these days have come to disbelieve in all that is spiritual and unseen. These are the ^rils 2^a|nst which our Blessed Lord warned us. REVIVAL OF CONVOCATION. 217 Let us strive to hold fast the faith that He left us, and to continue in true communion and fellowship with Him, through our own branch of His Church militant here in earth, that so we may not fall from the one fold and One Shepherd. ^f'* LONDON : '■'"''™° »" "«»'SON AKU SONS, ST. MARTIN S LANE. National Society's Mlications. A NEW SERIES OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE MANUALS FOR SUNDAY AND DAY SCHOOL TEACHERS, Prepared by well-known* Authors and experienced Teachers. The following are now ready : — L PRACTICAL WORE IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS. By MISS YONGE, Author of " The Heir of Redclyffe." Price Sd. II. HOW TO TEACH THE OLD TESTAMENT. By the Rev. W. BENHAM, B.D. Price Sd, HI. HOW TO TEACH THE NEW TESTAMENT. By MISS YONGE. Price Sd. IV. HOW TO TEACH THE PRAYER BOOK. By the Rev. E. DANIEL, M.A., Principal of the National Society's Training College, Battersea. Price lod, V. HOW TO TEACH THE CHURCH CATECHISM. By the Rev. E. 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A Course of Sunday School Lessons on Cbristian Principles and Clinrcli Seasons. By the Rev. Prebendary Ottey, Diocesan Inspector for London. Price ij. (xl. This book is a re-issue^ in One Volume^ of the Thirteen Monthly Parts of The Sunday School Lessons published by the National Society in t lie year i88i. 2. A Course of Sunday School Lessons for the whole of the Christian Year on Tlie Life and Teacliing of Onr Blessed Lord. By the Rev. Edwin Hobson, M.A., Principal of St. Katharine's Training College, Tottenham. Price u. 6i. This book is a re-issue^ in One Volume^ of the Thirteen Monthly Parts of The Sunday School Lessons published by the National Society in the year 1882. 3. A course of Sunday School Lessons for the whole of the Christian Year on Christian Faitb and Dnty. By the Rev. John Watson, M.A., Vicar of Sculcoates, Hull. This course^ now being published in Twelve Monthly parts for the year 1883, will eventually be re-issued in One Volume, Subscriptions are received for the whole Course for the Year at the following Rates, viz. : — Teacher's Weekly Paper^Six Copies of each Number, 8j. %d, ; or, per post, 9J. 9^/. ,, „ ,, Four Numbers stitched in wrapper. Six Copies each Month, gj. 9^/. ; or, per post, loj. lod. Scholar's Leaflet — Twenty-five Copies of each Weekly Number, 8j. &/. ; or per post, lof. la/. THE APOSTLES' CREED. Being notes of Lectures to Pupil Teachers. By the Rev. H. G. Bird, B.A., Assistant Diocesan Inspector of Schools for London. Price u. ^> National Society's Depo^tory, Saaduarj, ^tatoDaasaJws. I 1 I