He would certainly have asked, when Barlow appeared in Convocation and in Parliament as Bishop of St David's, a question like that of Charles Wesley:

'How easily are Bishops made

By man or woman's whim;

Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid;

But who laid hands on him?'

Who laid hands on Barlow, if not Cranmer himself? If no one did, the Archbishop must have not only omitted to consecrate a man elected to a Bishopric, but also, during the rest of his archiepiscopal life, have allowed the unconsecrated one to perform all episcopal acts, just as the Chapter of St David's installed him, giving him, as contemporary evidence shows, the bishop's stall, and the dean's stall, in their cathedral church, a necessary consequence of his consecration to the see. The Chapter of St David's were engaged in a squabble with Barlow, and they threatened him to spend to ther shertes in the quarrell.' It is not at all likely that they could be ignorant that he had not been consecrated, for they would not have installed him without the necessary evidence of consecration. And, if they knew it, is it likely that they would fail to use as a weapon against his claims, the fact that he had not been consecrated, and had therefore no right over them at all? It is true that Mgr Barnes quotes Archbishop Warham as saying that a man is not made Bishop by consecration,' but there is no reason to suppose that this was the opinion either of Archbishop Cranmer or of the Chapter of St David's. It may be that the controversy on the question whether Barlow was really consecrated or not will continue to be discussed between Romanists and Anglicans; but for the pure historian it can hardly be considered undecided. The probability that he was consecrated is too strong: the fact that he was always treated, by lawyers and clergy alike, as a bishop is obvious: the arguments against the consecration are based upon a succession of improbabilities and an extravagant supposition of fraud which no unprejudiced critic of evidence is likely to accept. It may be said, to conclude the matter, that the researches of Mgr Barnes and of his critics have brought us much nearer to ascertaining the truth.

ww

We may take it as certain that those who inserted the account of Parker's consecration in his register, the Archbishop's principal registrar, and the two notaries public whose names are given as witnesses, regarded him as duly consecrated. Four bishops took part in the act, Barlow (now elect of Chichester); Scory, formerly Bishop of Chichester, now elect of Hereford; Coverdale, formerly of Exeter; and Hodgkins, suffragan of Bedford. It was the English custom, though not the Roman,* that all the consecrators should be Bishops and all the Bishops concerned should be actually consecrators. Thus authorised, Parker proceeded to act as Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England; and the rest of his register is concerned with his acts as such. He appointed proctors for his installation according to the rules and customs of the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Canterbury. He then proceeded to perform all the spiritual and legal acts necessary for the consecration or enthronement, as the case may be, of Bishops to London (vacant per destitutionem et deprivationem Edmundi Bonner), Ely, Hereford, Bangor, Worcester, Chichester, Salisbury, Lincoln, St David's, St Asaph, Rochester, Coventry and Lichfield, Bath and Wells, Exeter, Norwich, Winchester, Peterborough, and York, St Asaph (in place of the Bishop in 1561 translated to St David's), St David's, Gloucester, Llandaff (where the Marian Bishop, Kitchin, had remained till his death), Bangor (again), Oxford (on the death of Robert King bone memorie, who was the last abbot of Osney). This last was a translation of Archbishop Hugh Curwen of Dublin (who had been consecrated by Bonner and two others in 1555, when the See of Canterbury was vacant). And then the suffragan Bishop of Dover. This brings us down to May 1569.

The register, as we have seen already, is not strictly chronological though it is continuous. We have for the most part all the documents, of whatever date, relating to a particular vacancy or consecration, placed together. The registrar supplied the detailed documents, but the clerks waited till the matter was complete before inserting them. In this manner we have in 1570 the vacancies of

* See 'Liber Pontificalis,' I. 303 (consecration of Pelagius in 556).

Chichester, York, London, Rochester, Worcester, Lincoln, Exeter, stretching on, in the new style, to 1571: then 1571, Salisbury and Rochester. Then a list of the vacancies of sees during Parker's archiepiscopate, with deeds of institution to benefices by the Archbishop during these periods, interspersed with some very delightful wills (among which one notices the best feather bed with a bolster and a pair of blankets bequeathed to the eldest son, but nothing said of the second best). Interesting points are the restitution of incumbents who had been unjustly or illegally deprived under Mary; the investigation of the legality of a marriage (the result being reported to the Queen); institutions; sequestrations (for non-residence and neglect of duty); commission to visit (diocese of Bangor 1566); monition and citation for nonresidence (Morison or Moris of Henley on Thames), followed by deprivation for disobedience thereto; certificates of excommunication, and order for the apprehension of the excommunicate; dispensations to hold benefices notwithstanding defect of age, and licence to delay ordination, for purpose of study; commissions to bishops to ordain on behalf of the Archbishop; licence to the Archbishop of York to confirm and consecrate his suffragans within the province of Canterbury; decision of the right of his chancellor to allow marriage within the prohibited seasons; the very curious case of Mr Southwell and Lady Mary Howard, one of the maidens of honour-were they married, or pledged to marry?— which they utterly denied, and the Queen, we know, was extremely indignant at any approach to marriage of her maidens without her consent; equally curious admission of a midwife, wherein the woman (besides much more serious things) was made to swear not to baptize 'in rose or damask water, or water made of any confection or mixture'; licence to teach grammar; absolution for marriage in a private house without banns; the almost obsolete grant, so common under Henry VIII, of a corrody (in the hospital at Harbaldowne); and licence to the vicar of Boxley to marry an approved widow. We have now got so far as folio 298 of the register. Later years follow the examples of the earlier. We find a dispensation to hold a benefice at the age of sixteen, on condition that clerical dress is

worn and the scholar be ordained deacon at twenty-one and priest at twenty-four.

Thus, summarily, we survey the area of the Archbishop's activities. Most of these matters may seem trivial. More important are the Visitations, and the articles of enquiry. These for the most part are to be sought for elsewhere than in the register; but we may singleout for brief notice, from the register itself, the cases of Canterbury Cathedral and Merton College, Oxford. At Canterbury, in 1560, the Archbishop's Visitation was conducted by commissioners, Yale, Leedes, Nevinson, and Nowell (the last the person from whose case the decision against clergy sitting in the Commons depends). The Injunctions require inter alia the defacing of 'certain verses both wicked and slanderous, painted when Thomas Beckitt, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, was wont to be honoured.' They are signed by Parker, and there is a letter in his register covering the document. In 1570 he began the Visitation in person, and his Injunctions show most careful and minute consideration of the details, defects, and needs of cathedral life: so again even more minutely in 1573-4. In the last case some contentions arose because the Archbishop seemed to insist on observance of points of the Henrician statutes, e.g. the majores canonici celebrating divina... in majoribus diebus festis, quod duplices appellant. The canons demurred because it was not set down in the Prayer Book what the double feasts were. With regard to the Oxford College the same minute care was shown. As in cathedrals there were obnoxious and quarrelsome canons, major and minor, so in colleges there were obstinate and disorderly dons. Deans and Heads were more decent folk, and Parker supported their authority. At Merton in 1562 Parker visited in person, majestically and effectively. He issued Injunctions again in 1567; and finally in 1569 a Royal Commission concluded the troubles. These matters may be studied in detail in the register.

To the end Parker was most active in visiting himself and causing the bishops of his province to visit, that primary duty of the episcopus, the overseer. The details of this work belong to the history of the country: so do the famous Advertisements of 1566. The history of

this latter document may be traced in Parker's voluminous correspondence; and the conclusion, after years of controversy, now seem to be reached, that the Advertisements merely imposed a minimum of observance upon a reluctant or negligent clergy.

·

It might be expected that the register of an Elizabethan primate would contain not a few references to the politics of the day as well as the formalities of Church law and custom. The times indeed were tangled. Parker had enough to do as archbishop without combining with the care of the Church the functions of Chancellor, as did Morton half a century before him. Still the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes,' and the Archbishop's duties were not wholly ecclesiastical. The wonder is, perhaps, that they were such in so overwhelming preponderance as the register shows. Parker certainly kept out of action that was not strictly that of a primate so far as he possibly could. Yet his register shows him ordering a view of armour to be provided by the clergy according to the proportion and rate prescribed and used in the time of the reigns of the late King Philip and Queen Mary, while it also shows the Queen from time to time intruding, as her ancestors had done from time to time, in what the Church would not consider her proper business. It would be difficult to say that she intruded further than did several mediæval monarchs.

As Archbishop, Parker lived indeed a difficult life. He was beset on four sides. There was the Queen, imperious and irritable, sensitive and inquisitive, but with a definite and determined policy of ruling her own realm in her own way and making all, clerk and lay, rich and poor, submit. It is probable that beneath all her vagaries she was in religious matters of one mind with Parker: to stand in the old ways yet to see that the ways were well lighted and free from obstructions. Unquestionably she had, as she said, 'the heart and stomach of a man.' Not always so, her ministers. Perhaps they saw the difficulties more clearly than she did; certainly they were more inclined to fear them than she was. Thus we trace a worrying and vacillating attitude toward Church questions in the ministers which cannot really be attributed to the Queen. Up to