case; but it was probably quite a common one. The disuse of the surplice and the omission of parts of the service were very frequent. In 1567 the Spanish ambassador said, "In every parish church a different service is held, according to the bent of the minister." A little later J. Howlett remarks that the directions in the Prayer Book are "commonly broken by every minister at his pleasure."

The steadily increasing disquietude at the persistent attempts of Roman Catholic princes and Roman Catholic conspirators to overthrow their Queen, and the ceaseless flow of returning exiles and of controversial pamphlets and letters from Geneva, Zurich, and Frankfort, had given a growing impetus to the spread of Puritanism among the clergy and laity, and especially (as Hooker quaintly remarks) among those "whose judgments are commonly weakest by reason of their sex," and who were "diligent in drawing their husbands, children, servants, friends and allies the same way." "But," says he, "be they women or be they men, if once they have tasted of that cup, let any man of contrary opinion open his mouth to persuade them, they close up their ears, his reasons they weigh not; all is answered with rehearsal of the words of John, We are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us" (Preface, iii. 13).

Yet it was not the dread of Rome, nor the wonderful success of their system at Geneva, nor the enthusiastic proselytizing by women, which gave the Puritans their chief opportunity of success in

England, but the deplorable neglect of duty, and sometimes even of the simplest elements of honesty and morality, on the part of the ministers of the English Church. There is not much in English history that is more depressing reading than the lives of the large majority of Elizabethan Bishops: but perhaps the reports of the parishes, and of the clergy who were supposed to minister to them, is more dismal reading still. Cecil, when he accompanied the Queen in one of her progresses, exclaimed, "Here be many slender ministers and much nakedness of religion." Men who had been Protestants under Edward, Romanists under Mary, and Protestants again under Elizabeth, were not the best leaders for a bewildered laity. Violent and rapid changes had made them either partisans, or hypocrites, or cowards, or cynics. Two things had greatly reduced the number of clergy. Elizabeth and Leicester and some of the Bishops had so plundered the revenues that several parishes had to be lumped together in order to make a pittance for a single minister. Secondly, in such uncertain times thoughtful young men shrank from taking Orders. Those who did so were often men of neither education nor character. The able men who still took Orders were mostly Calvinists, enthusiasts from Oxford or Cambridge, who did not care about poverty, so long as they had a free hand and even those Bishops, who were not Calvinists themselves, were sometimes unwilling to hamper men who were evidently i earnest about religion. There seem to have bee

over 500 clergy who were definitely enrolled as Puritans, and the number of those who were Puritan in their activity was probably much larger.

Elizabeth set herself sternly against the whole movement. She was determined that the grandeur of the Church of England should not be whittled away by narrow-minded fanatics. She had read (she once told Parliament) perhaps more books than any one who was not a professor; and she was specially well read in the Fathers. She would have the English Church show to all the world that it was possible to accept all the light of the New Learning, without throwing away the best elements in primitive Christianity. Sometimes she struck at the "newfangledness," as she called the Puritan innovations, with one of those shrewd sayings, which were the delight of her people. When she visited

Oxford in 1566, Dr. Humphrey, a bigoted Calvinist, was Regius Professor of Divinity. Like most Puritans, he refused to wear the square cap and the surplice. "Master Doctor," she said to him, "that loose gown becomes you mighty well; I wonder your notions should be so narrow." Sometimes she opposed it by absolutely forbidding Parliament, which steadily became more and more Puritan, to legislate respecting the Church. Sometimes she opposed it by insisting that Bishops should see that the Prayer Book was obeyed. And she did this almost alone. It was against the advice of her ministers that she took the unpopular line of opposing the House of Commons at a time when she had no

friends on the Continent, and was in danger of assassination at home. Against ministers, Parliament, and assassins she relied upon one thing,-the goodwill of the nation; and she was willing to risk even that, rather than see the Church of England reduced to an aggregation of discordant conventicles. To quote her own words: "No Prince can be surer tied or faster bound than I am with the link of your goodwill: yet one matter toucheth me so near as I may not overskip,-religion, the ground on which all other matters ought to take root, and being corrupted may mar the whole tree." This was in 1584. In February 1587 a member named Cope proposed a new Prayer Book; but in deference to the Queen's injunctions the proposal came to nothing. To the Parliament of 1593 she sent a warning not to interfere with the Church. Mr.

Speaker, if you perceive any idle heads, which will meddle with reforming the Church and transforming the commonwealth, and do exhibit any Bills to that purpose, Her Majesty's pleasure is that you do not receive them, until they be considered by those who it is fitter should consider of such things (Hansard, P.H., i. p. 862).

When Archbishop Grindal was slack in putting down the "prophesyings," which fomented religious controversy and favoured Calvinism,1 she suspended

1 On the other hand, the Queen's policy of stopping these discussions led on to the decay of preaching which for several generations marked the English Church. Under the thin disguise of the Algrind," Grindal's character is sketched by Spenser in the Shepherd's Calendar as that of a model pastor.

name

him. When Burghley remonstrated with Archbishop Whitgift for requiring the clergy, not only to subscribe to the Royal Supremacy, the lawfulness of the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles, but also to answer articles of inquiry respecting their mode of conducting public worship, Elizabeth stood by the Primate, and would allow none of her Council to molest him. No doubt, the Puritans gave valuable support to her government in the struggle with Rome; but she was not going to allow them to disfigure the Church. As to points of detail, she believed that, like so many difficulties in her reign, if time was allowed, they would settle themselves. It is not easy to believe that Elizabeth herself was a religious woman. But she knew the importance of religion both for individuals and for nations; and she was convinced that a mean ritual, and cramped discipline and creed, would never produce a great and free people.

Thus the Queen's determination, backed by her inexhaustible popularity, saved the Church from disaster. She had a higher view of episcopacy than the Bishops had themselves, and she forced them to maintain uniformity.

On the other hand, she was a most shameless plunderer of Church property, compelling Bishops to alienate their estates to herself and her favourites, and sometimes making them promise to do this as a condition of appointing them. She kept Ely vacant for eighteen years, and gave so much of the revenues to the King of Portugal, that he was