Parliament The Puritans and PART VII

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1 PART VII The Puritans and Parliament The 'Supplt"cation' which I print first in this section, with its hope that the Parliament of 1571 will make provision for reformation, is at its most attractive in the passages reflecting a sense of pastoral responsibility. 'The people... remain in great peril... daily to fall into the ditch'; 'the lamentable estate of so many thousands of your Majesty's subjects, daily in danger to be lost for want of the food of the word and true disci'pline '. The same concern is reflected in the third document, a projected preface (not in fact printed) to one of the two 'Admonitions to Parliament' of There is also an attempt in this preface to give a summing up of the trend of events in England since 'It hath been thought gqod to bear with the weakness of certain for a time', the 'certain' being those 'too much addicted to ceremonies'. We have seen Cranmer writing in 1549 about those who 'think it a great matter of conscience to depart from a piece of the least of their ceremonies (they be so addicted to their old customs)'. In 1558/9, the preface author implies, it was necessary to make some concessions to such persons, after the Marian interlude. But now we see (he argues) that since 1558 things have in fact got worse: the ceremony-men, 'from thez"r weakness... are grown to malz"cious wilfulness'. What is needed in England now is reformation according to the 'primitive church', following 'Geneva, France, Scotland, and all other churches rightly reformed' (A point expanded by Cartwright in the 'Second Admonition to Parliament'). ~ thorough reformation both of doctrine, ceremonies and regiment'. John Jewel had written in 1562 to Peter Martyr of Zurich (sometime Professor at Oxford) making a similar 139

2 historical point. Compromise was -understandable at the very beginning of the reign, 'by reason of the times'; but now, over three years later, 'the full light of the gospel has shone forth', and we must remove rubbish (the surplice, for instance) (1). The Rites and Ceremonies Bill of 1572 (my central extract here) repeats the argument. By the 1559 Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer 'divers orders of rites, ceremonies and observations' were 'permitted', because 'the people' then were 'blinded with superstition'. Hope was thwarted, and things did not get better in the 1560s. Not in general, that is. But in the 1560s 'many congregations' grew to 'desire of attaining to some further form' (of liturgy); 'a great number of learned pastors and zealous ministers' have 'omitted the precise rule and strait observation' of the law, have established 'godly exercises for the better instruction and edifying of their congregations' (on the lines presumably of the Zurich 'Prophetzei 'of the 1520s); and in general 'have conformed themselves more nearly to the imitation of the ancient apostolz"cal church and the best reformed churches in Europe'. But the 'godly exercises' have been restrained; and reformation hindered by the laws of ecclesiastical polity in the 1560s - acts, injunctions, advertisements and decrees. In January 1559, at the coronation of Elizabeth, mass was said in Latin, the gospel and the epistle, however, being read in English. The Prayer Book in use from June- the result of parliamentary pressure - was however the Cranmer Liturgy of 1552, slightly modified. The 1559 Act of Uniformity (2) said that a cleric refusing to use the book would be put in prison (after conviction by jury): six months for a first offence, life for a third. And the 'ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof' were to be as in that is, a surplice for ordinary services, and for the communion a white alb with a chasuble or cope. Were to be so 'until other order shall be therein taken' by Elizabeth and the ecclesiastical commissioners, the Queen having the right in future to 'publish such further ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advancement of God's glory, the edifying of hi's church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacraments'. The possible nature of that 'further order' has been a subject for dispute: it has recently been persuasively argued 140

3 that Elizabeth was thinking of something more 'ceremonial' even than the first Cranmer Liturgy: the 1548 Communion Order (3 ). It is certain that the. Royal Injunctions of June 1559 were more in the spirit of 1549 than of And in 1560 a Latin version of the Prayer Book was printed for use in college chapels, and for private devotion. The controversy about 'massing ornaments' bedevils the 1560s. Does Elizabeth favour 'our cause'? wrote John jewel, back from Zurich in Can we hope for 'better things'? (4) The answer increasingly appeared to be no. In 1565 Elizabeth wrote to Archbishop Parker denouncing 'diversity, variety, contention and vain love of singulan ty ', and insisting, as absolutely necessary to 'unity, quietness and concord', that there must remain in England 'one rule, form and manner of order' (5). The result of this prod was Parker's regulations ('The Book of Advertisements') of 1566, and the consequent suspension of some clergy - those 'expressly refusing conformity' (6). The 'Advertisements' insisted on the surplice: but we know that by 1561 the use of the surplice had been abandoned in some areas of England. Parker discussed 'these precise folk' with the Queen in March 1566; she 'willed me to imprison them' (7). (Elizabeth was a curious combination of the impetuous and the inscrutable.) The theme of to quit or not to quit obsessed many clerics in the 1560s. The working of their consciences is best seen in the letters they wrote to Switzerland (8). By 1567 Beza wrote from Geneva to Bullinger in Zurich that England had become another Babylon. (Beza had succeeded Calvin, who died in 1564.) When Parliament met in May 1572 the Queen had been on the throne for over thirteen years. In those years Parliament had met for about ten months: six weeks in 1559, thirteen weeks in 1563, sixteen weeks in 1566/7, and eight weeks in The membership of the House of Commons had increased from 404 to 438. In a waspish speech delivered in person, Elizabeth condemned the 1566/7 session as mischievous, especially because of certain 'broachers and workers' (10). The Speaker said that the Queen 'ought to make laws whereby God may be truly worshipped', to 'extinguish and put away all hurtful and unprofitable ceremonies in any case contrary to God's word' (and then 141

4 maintained that Elizabeth had already done this!) (11). In April 1571 an M.P. attacked the provision for kneeling at communion, saying that in such matters every man should be set 'at liberty in this behalf to do according to his conscience' (12). The 1571 session is associated particularly with the name of William Strickland. The Liturgy, he said, has 'errors', all 'which might we'll be changed'; there are 'some things inserted more superstitious, than in so high matters be tolerable'. We must have 'all things brought to the purity of the primitive church' (13). There were 'divers long arguments' against Strickland's 'bill about the Liturgy. Some Establishment men spoke 'commending the zeal; but that the time and the place were not fit. And since we acknowledge her to be supreme head, we are not in these petty matters to run before the ball' (14). Strickland was imprisoned for a period. And at the end of the session Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the Great Seal, complained that certain M.P.s had been 'audacious, arrogant and presumptious, calling her Majesty's grants and prerogatives in question'. The Queen (too politic now to appear in person) asked Bacon to condemn them 'for their audacious, arrogant and presumptuous folly, thus by superfluous speech spending much time meddling with matters neither pertaining to them, nor within the capacity of their understanding' (15). Furthermore, Bacon said, religious bills 'should first have been debated in the convocation and by the bishops, and not by them' (16). In 1572 Parliament met for four weeks. The Rites and Ceremonies Bill was read a first and second time on 17 and 19 May, and then sent to committee for a modification. It asked that the Act of Uniformity should be enforced only against adherents of 'any manner of papistical service'. The godly, in using the litargy, should be allowed to 'omit and leave' out at their discretion; or, better, use any part of the printed service book used by the French and Dutch Reformed Churches in England based on the Genevan Service Book (17). 'Godly exercises' should, also, be allowed to continue, for the instruction of the congregation. On 22 May the royal edict came: that 'from henceforth no Bills concerning Religion shall be preferred or received into this House, unless the same should be first considered and liked by the clergy' (18). 142

5 This edict was made more official by a Proclamation of 11 june 1573 (19). The Queen~ policy is to provide 'uniform, godly and quiet order within her realm, to avoid all controversies, schisms, and dissensions that may arise'. The 1559 Prayer Book is to be used, 'and none other contrary or repugnant: It is acknowledged that some clerics 'use of their own devising other rites and ceremonies than are by the laws of the realm received and used'. There are those whose dominat ng aim is to 'make division and dissension in the opinions of men, and to breed talks and disputes against the common order': 'some persons of their natures unquietly disposed, desirous to change, and therefore ready to find fault with all well established orders'. Such people have printed certain books 'under the tz"tle of 'An Admonition to the Parliament". 1. 'Zurich Letters', i G. R. Elton, 'The Tudor Constitution' (1960) prints the text (pp ): as does Claire Cross, 'The Royal Supremacy in the Elizabethan Church' (1969). 3. By an American Episcopalian priest, William P. Haugaard: 'Elizabeth and the English Reformation' November 1559, 'Zurich Letters' i Parker, 'Correspondence', pp Also in Cross, 'Royal Supremacy in the Elizabethan Church'. 6. Parker to Grindal, 'Correspondence', p Ibid., p 'Zurich Letters' (2 vols in Parker Society). 9. 'Zurich Letters', ii D'Ewes, 'Journals', p Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid., p Neale, 'Elizabeth I and her Parliaments', i See Horton Davies, 'The Worship of the English Puritans' (1948). And Dr Collinson's chapter on worship in 'The Elizabethan Puritan Movement', pp

6 18. D'Ewes, 'Journals', p Frere and Douglas (eds), 'Puritan Manifestoes', pp