CHAPTER XIV

THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE

Queen Anne as

a church

woman.

IN Queen Anne the Church welcomed a sovereign who was in thorough sympathy with her principles. The granddaughter of Charles I. and of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, she seemed to inherit their sober and sincere churchmanship and their warm affection for the national Church. Taught by Bishop Compton, guided in her spiritual life by Archbishop Sharp, she endeavoured to live as a consistent member of the Anglican communion, and to use her great opportunities for the glory of God and the good of the Church. Conscientious, affec

tionate, easily influenced, she was in political matters sometimes moved from acting on the principles which she held in her heart, or, more probably, she had schooled herself by the experiences through which she had passed to observe with strict self-repression the position of the constitutional sovereign of a limited monarchy. In religion, on the other hand, she did not move an inch from the principles of Charles I. and Laud and Sancroft. Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, was a Danish Lutheran, and she was deeply attached to him, but she showed no desire to bring the English Church nearer to the Protestant bodies. There can be no doubt that to the end of her life she felt deeply the deprivation of her father and her brother, but she was content to accept the judgment of her spiritual advisers that her own position was fully justified, and she was fully determined to preserve to the Church the position which the coronation oath, so lightly regarded by James II., guaranteed. If James, her brother,

"the old Chevalier," would have accepted the teaching of the English Church she would have welcomed him to England, and, if she could not abandon the throne, would have done her utmost to secure his succession. But so long as he remained a Romanist she felt her position to be justified, and she strove to rule according to her conscience for the good of her people and the Church.

It was not only in small matters that the queen at once showed her feelings. She treated the ministers of the Church with scrupulous respect, refused to receive the Holy Communion till after the "bishops, priests, and deacons," according to the rubrical direction, and strictly obeyed the rules of the Prayer-book. And she carried her principles out in a very practical manner. At her coronation by Tenison the sermon was preached by Archbishop Sharp. Immediately on her accession she dissolved the Whig commission of bishops to advise on preferments. At the end of the first session of her first Parliament she spoke with remarkable clearness: "I hope that such of my subjects as have the misfortune to dissent from the Church of England will rest secure and satisfied in the Act of Toleration, which I am firmly resolved to maintain, and that all those who have the happiness and advantage to be of our Church will consider that I have had my education in it, and that I have been willing to run great hazards for its preservation; and therefore they may be very sure I shall always make it my particular care to encourage and maintain the Church as by law established, and every the least member of it in all their just rights and privileges; and upon all occasions of promotion to any ecclesiastical dignity I shall have a very just regard for such as are eminent and remarkable for their piety, learning, and constant zeal for the Church."

It was not long before Anne showed how fully she meant her words. On the celebration of her birthday,

Queen Anne's Bounty.

February 7, 1704, she sent a message to the Commons, "that having taken into her serious consideration the mean and insufficient maintenance belonging to the clergy in divers parts of the kingdom, to give them some ease she had been pleased to remit the arrears of the tenths to the poor clergy, and for an augmenta

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QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY

257

tion of their maintenance she would make a grant of her whole revenue arising out of the first-fruits and tenths, as far as it should become free from incumbrances, to be applied to this purpose. And if the House of Commons could find any proper method by which her intentions to the clergy might be made more effectual, it would be of great advantage to the public and acceptable to her Majesty." The first-fruits and tenths of all benefices which had formerly been paid to the popes had been secured to the crown by an Act of Henry VIII. The actual sums paid were still based upon the valuation of Pope Nicholas IV., and did not represent the value of the livings in the sixteenth century; but none the less the relief to the poorer clergy was considerable, and the benefit to the Church of the erection of a corporation to administer the fund now created was very great. The increase in the endowments of benefices rendered possible by Queen Anne's Bounty has been a material help to the Church in meeting the increased demands upon her during the two centuries that have succeeded the generous gift. The queen's known interest in all that concerned the Church was also an encouragement to those who in Parliament laboured to promote her welfare. The Act passed in 1710 for building fifty-two new churches in London had her warm approval. It was not, however, fully carried out, only twelve new churches being built in accordance with its provisions.

Political

Church history.

The im

The interest of Church history in the reign of Queen Anne is mainly political. With the exception of the controversy which raged for several years in Convocation, and the discussions as to the social position of the clergy, influence on there is nothing to attract special attention in the life of the Church besides the close connection which she now acquired with questions of public policy. portant part played by the Church in the national resistance to the measures of James II. had been followed by an attempt to define the position of dissenters with regard to the Church and the State on a liberal basis of toleration. But the State was far from ceasing to interfere in matters of religion. Extremely severe laws against the Roman Catholics had been passed under William III., and the legislation of Charles II.'s reign still stood in the way of a full recognition of the political

S

rights of dissenters. The Parliaments of Charles II.'s reign were quite determined that the government of the country, central and local, should be entrusted only to members of the national Church. It was plain that popular feeling on the subject had scarcely diminished in the forty years which had elapsed since the Restoration. But it was equally certain that the legislation had not proved entirely effective. The Test and Corporation Acts, for example, could, as regards their original intention, be evaded. The holy sacra

Scandal of the Test

Acts.

ment had, by the horrible profanation of which unconscientious dissenters did not hesitate to be guilty, become a mere "pick-lock to a place." By a single or an annual communion a man who in every respect dissented from the Church could qualify himself for office. The scandal was shocking to all serious minds. There were two ways of avoiding it. One was that suggested by Bishop Samuel Parker in the reign of James II., the repeal of the Test Act, on the ground that to require assent to a metaphysical dogma of disputed interpretation from a layman ignorant of the rudiments of theology was a mischievous absurdity. The other was to find some way by which the intention of Parliament should be effectively carried out, without the possibility of evasion by men less sincere in their religion than in their ambition or desire to serve the State. For the abolition of all tests none save a few wise and generous thinkers, like John Locke, were as yet prepared.

The question of "occasional conformity" had been raised several times, without exciting much public interest. The pamphlet by the brilliant dissenter Daniel Defoe on the subject, published in 1701, passed unheeded. It was called "A Short Way with the Dissenters," and was a bitter satire on the laws against them. It had little if any effect. But in 1702, on the accession of Anne, the question was revived and became a matter of the keenest debate. A Bill was introThe duced into the Commons' House which, after proConformity fession of strong feeling against persecution for conscience' sake, declared the intention of the law of England that the country should be ruled only by churchmen, and the evasion of it which had been found possible; and enacted that any person bearing office who should resort to a

Occasional

Bill.

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"THE CHURCH IN DANGER"

259

conventicle should forfeit £100, and £5 for every day that he should continue in office afterwards. Though passed in the Commons, the bill met with strong opposition in the Lords. Some regarded it as designed solely to further the Tory interest in towns; others feared the creation of an army of spies, the aggravation of local animosities, and eventually the withdrawal of the toleration that had already been granted. The bill was passed, however, but in a much modified form.

It seemed impossible to arrive at a conclusion which should satisfy both Houses. A conference was held, in which the Commons repeated their arguments as to the intention of the legislature, the evasion of the law, and the scandal to religion, and the Lords reiterated their belief that the scandal could be stopped by a small penalty, with an incapacity for office. This certainly would have been ineffective, and a crop of spies would as readily have found work. Eventually the Lords adhered to their amendments, and the Bill was lost. Before the end of the year it was revived, and again it was sent by a large majority up to the Lords. Bishop Burnet spoke strongly against it, avowing that he had himself been an occasional conformist abroad, and approving of the action of dissenters who communicated from time to time in church. Tenison

supported him, and nine other bishops. Archbishop The rejection.

Sharp, on the other hand, with five bishops, were

in favour of the Bill. It was again rejected by the Lords; and the return of a Whig majority to the Commons in 1705 prevented its revival.

When the new Parliament met, the queen reiterated the statement of her affection to the Church and her determination to support it; but an agitation in the country, fostered by Tory politicians for party purposes, was claiming support, and a debate was actually held in the "The Church in danger." House of Lords on the question whether the Church was in danger. It was voted that the Church was not in danger, and the Houses passed a joint resolution which was afterwards embodied in a royal proclamation. follows: "That the Church of England, as by law established, which was rescued from the extremest danger by King William III. of glorious memory, is now, by God's blessing, under the happy reign of her Majesty, in a most safe and

It ran as