an Archbishop of Canterbury to an English monarch,—was conveyed to Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester, who, along with Burleigh and other Privy Councillors, sympathized with Grindal's views. But the Queen's blood was up at his resistance, and after an ominous silence for several months, she ordered at last a meeting of the Court of Star Chamber, in June, 1577, so that the Archbishop might actually be deprived. Her Counsellors averted such a scandal, and prevailed to secure a milder sentence. Grindal was suspended for six months; his see put under sequestration, and himself confined a prisoner to his house until submission. Meanwhile Elizabeth usurped Archiepiscopal functions herself, and in letters to every Bishop in England "given under our signet at our Manor of Greenwich, 7th May, 1577, and in the 19th year of our reign," she thus schools them to obedience,—

Right Reverend Father in God,—

We greet you well. We hear to our great grief that in sundry places of our realm there are no small number of persons presuming to be teachers and preachers in the Church . . . who . . . do daily devise, imagine, propound, and put in execution sundry new rites and forms in the Church, as well by their inordinate preaching, reading and ministering the Sacraments, as by procuring unlawfully of assemblies of great numbers of our people out of their ordinary parishes . . . to be hearers of their disputations and new devised opinions upon points of Divinity far unmeet for vulgar people, which manner of ministrations they in some places term PROPHESYINGS and in other places EXERCISES. WE THEREFORE, according to the Authority which we have, do charge and command you as Bishop of the Diocese, with all manner of diligence to take order, etc. . And furthermore, considering the great abuses that have been in sundry places of our realm by reason of the aforesaid assemblies called EXERCISES we will and straitly charge you that you cause the same forthwith to cease and not be used. . . . And in these things we charge you to be so careful and vigilant as by your negligence we be not forced to make some example in reforming

you according to your deserts."1

What could the unfortunate Bishops do, but succumb to this peremptory mandate ?—some of them willingly, and others,

1 For these letters in full see Strype's Grindal, Appendix ii., ix., x., or Grindal's Remains, Parker Soc., pp. 375 and 467.

like Cox of Ely1or Bentham of Lichfield, reluctantly and with a wry face.

In contrast with the pusillanimous conduct of the Bishops on this memorable occasion, Grindal stood firm; and showing no signs of giving way, he was urged to submit by his friend Lord Burleigh, who even supplied him with a proper form for begging pardon of Her Majesty. But beyond a letter of respect and of regret that his conscience had compelled him to take the course he had done, nothing was effected. The Queen, therefore, was wishful to have him wholly deprived of his Archiepiscopal office, and was with difficulty restrained from so high-handed an act. And in face of a petition both from Convocation and the Bishops of the province, he was kept under suspension and sequestration for years, till in fact within a few months of his death, in 1583; all the while out of favour at Court and an object of resentment with the Queen.

The matter derives special interest from its touching at this point the realm of higher literature. Edmund Spenser has thrown the light of genius upon this part of the great ecclesiastical struggle, the best interpreter as he is of the nobler aspirations of the country. Spenser's sympathy with the Puritanism

1 Bishop Cox thus wrote to Burleigh (Strype's Annals, Appendix), "I trust hereafter, the thing being deeply and considerately weighed, her Majesty, seeking especially the glory of God and the quiet and needful edifying of the people, may be proved to have further consideration of this matter; and when the great ignorance, idleness, and lewdness of the great number of poor and blind priests in the clergy shall be deeply weighed and considered of, it will be thought most necessary to call them and to drive them to some travail and exercise of God's Holy Word, whereby they may be the better able to discharge their bounden duty towards their flock."

2 Aylmer, Bishop of London, exceeded most of his brethren in zeal over this matter, and required his subordinates, "in her Majesty's name," to execute immediately and in every point the items of her letter-" Fail you not to do so," he adds, "as you will answer the contrary at your peril. Your loving brother, John London." This was that Aylmer who,-from having been an ardent favourer of Puritanism, declaiming in his Harboro' for faithful subjects, against the wealth and grandeur of Bishops, their Civil authority and Lordly dignities,-acquired a bad pre-eminence for persecuting the Puritans and for standing much on his own lordly dignity as a Bishop. In spite of his great learning and undoubted ability and courage, he has left a worse name than any of the early Elizabethan Bishops for ill temper and severe exaction of his revenues. His name was variously spelt-Elmer or Elmar among other ways; and as he cut down an avenue of elmtrees at Fulham to raise money, he was jocularly called the Elm-er, or sometimes by transposition, Mar-elm. Among other allegations, he is charged with proposing to sell his Bishopric to Bancroft. See Strype's Aylmer, pp. 71, 168, and 194.

of Grindal comes out strongly in his first book, the "Shepheardes Calender, conteyning Twelve Eglogues proportionable to the Twelve Monethes," published at first anonymously in 1579, but dedicated to "Master Philip Sidney." (It is after the example of Clement Marot's eclogues on behalf of the Huguenots.) In the 7th Eclogue (for July) Spenser writes "in honour and commendation of good shepheardes and to the shame and disprayse of proude and ambitious Pastours," and referring to old Algrind as a sample of the one class and to Morell of the other, he is not at pains to disguise the allusion-Algrind being simply a transference of the two syllables of Grindal; as Morell is of Aylmer's name which among its other forms was spelt occasionally (as by Heylin) both Elmor and Ellmor; whom Spenser assails at the opening of the Eclogue,

"Is not thilke same a goteheard prowde,

That sittes on yonder bancke."

While at the close he is not afraid to sympathically range himself alongside of Grindal,

"Ah! good Algrind, his hap was ill.”

The whole Eclogue, with its dialogue between Thomalin and Morell, who represent the two parties in the Church, lends itself to some sharp reflections on more than the Roman prelates, among whom the pilgrim Palinode saw such abuses, and such contrast to the true Bishops of early days:

"Whilome all these were lowe and lief?

And loved their flocks to feed:

They never stroven to be chiefe,

113

And simple was their weede." 3

But now

"They bene yclad in purple and pall,*

So hath theyr God them blist;

They reigne and rulen over all

And lord it as they list."

The story of the Queen and Grindal is told at the closefor, in answer to the question,

"But saye me, what is Algrind, he

That is so oft bynempt 5?

1 Once on a time.
Rich covering.

2 Beloved, or endeared.

3 Dress.

Named, or referred to.

Thomalin answers,

"He is a shepheard great in gree
That hath been long ypent.2
One daye he sat upon a hyll

(As now thou wouldest me,
But I am taught by Algrind's ill
To love the lowe degree);
For sitting so with bared scalpe,

An Eagle soared hye

3

1

That weening his whyte head was chalke

A shell-fish down let fly:

She weened the shell-fishe to have broke

But therewith bruzed his brayne;
So now astonied with the stroke

He lyes in lingering payne."

What Spenser, with his strong Puritan views and sympathies, thought of the whole position of the English Church and the Reformation attained under Elizabeth, we shall have occasion afterwards to notice. Meanwhile, though the Queen had her way, the struggle over the Prophecies was not without some salutary results in Convocation and elsewhere.

Nor should we omit to remember that the Queen felt necessitated to allow the Prophesyings to continue in Lancashire, with the view of keeping in check the Popish party, which was nowhere stronger in any part of England. This helped in no small measure to make Lancashire eventually the fittest field for the Presbyterian organization, when that form of Church Establishment came to be set up under the Long Parliament.4

2 Pent up, or restrained.

3 Thinking.

1 Degree. 4 So late as 1585 we find Chadderton, the Puritan Bishop of Chester,-in whose diocese Lancashire then was,-issuing directions to his clergy in that county about the Prophesyings: "Whereas," he says, the right honourable the Lords of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, upon careful zeal for the furtherance of the good proceeding and course of religion, have recommended unto us some further enlargement of the Ecclesiastical Exercises, to the end they might be more frequently used, and in more places in this diocese than had formerly been: Wherefore we have, upon good deliberation and by good advice, appointed that the said Exercises shall be had and kept at more places." He afterwards declared, "Many that could do little good before in the Church, by this means have been brought in a short time to do some profit. Much good hath ensued."-Strype's Annals, Appendix, b. i. c. 39.

The Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry drew up Articles for similar arrangements in his diocese about 1585 also; but Whitgift denounced them as the well-spring of a pernicious platform, so that the attempt had to be abandoned.

II.

THE GREAT STRUGGLE, BEGINNING IN 1583.

QUEEN ELIZABETH was too prudent and self-seeking to be fanatical; but she was none the less violent and capricious in her persecuting policy when there was no danger to herself. Deeply imbued with arbitrary principles, and excessively fond of personal rule, she would allow no public deviation from the modes of worship she had herself prescribed. She was careful, therefore, not to have a second Grindal in the Chair of Canterbury. When a successor had to be appointed to the deceased Primate, in 1583, WHITGIFT, on whom the royal preference had long been fixed, was named ARCHBISHOP; and he speedily vindicated the royal choice, as a man entirely after the Queen's own heart. To stamp out by mere force all religious antagonism was the policy more resolutely adopted than ever, and more rigorously pursued. Two devices specially characterized the beginning of his administration; 1. An extended body of Articles as tests in the Church; and 2. A new form of High Commission, with additional and unheard-of powers.

Both these measures came into play in 1583, within three months of the new Primate's appointment.

WHITGIFT'S MEASURES AND MACHINERY.

We must look at each of these two measures in turn.

I. THE TEST ARTICLES. Whitgift's first step was to issue, after consulting the other Bishops, a paper of fifteen requisitions which all the clergy were at once to subscribe, on pain of deprivation. To a great number of these requisitions no

1 "There was no danger of his Grindalizing," says Strype. Whitgift, however, is not to be too severely judged. He was not alone in the harsh exercise of authority, nor in the thorough conviction that conformity was to be secured by penal exactions. What, however, does stain his name, is the delight which his commonplace nature took in applying this common-place remedy, and his attaching such importance to minor matters of law, while so readily overlooking the greater requirements of the Gospel,