was ill and could not come up, and Shrewsbury could CHAP XXI not leave his charge. Eight others were absent for 1571 various reasons, and seven of the twenty-two Bishops. April 2 The Upper House was therefore composed of sixty-two members in all. The Bishops were to a man under Cecil's direction, and their united vote, including the proxies, could always be depended upon. Seven of the absent Peers gave their proxies to Leicester, and Leicester would not go over to the Catholics till he saw that they were certain to succeed. So far, therefore, the prospects of the Government were favourable. Lord Arundel, with the Ridolfi revolution in front of him, was unlikely to try the experiment, under such circumstances, of a Parliamentary conflict. The proceedings commenced, as usual, with a speech from the Lord Keeper. It was long, but contained little beyond an encomium on the Queen's Government, and an intimation that, through the raging Romanist rebels,' the Queen had incurred extraordinary expenses in defence of the kingdom, and required money. She had reduced her personal outlay, cutting off all needless luxuries and extravagancies, to avoid being a burden to her people; but the peace of the realm had been disturbed both at home and in Ireland. The malice of the time obliged her to keep a fleet upon the seas for the protection of commerce. The state of parties in Scotland required the presence of a large force upon the Border, and with the utmost economy she was unable to meet the demands upon her. This, with two short paragraphs on a revision of the laws, was all, in substance, which Bacon said. The succession, the excommunication, the Queen's marriagethe subjects which really occupied all men's minds— were passed over in silence. A reform in the discipline CHAP XXIO the Church was admitted to be necessary, but a wish was pointedly expressed that it should be left to April 2 the Bishops. 1571 Had the Parliament confined themselves to the programme thus marked out for them, the Session would have passed over quietly. So long as no attempt was made to cut the Queen of Scots off from the succession, the Peers would have been content to wait to assert her claims after the arrival of Alva; and the Commons were intended to restrict themselves to voting the supplies. The Commons, however, were in no humour to be thus easily managed. The ultra Protestants proved to be in an enormous majority. The rebellion of the North, and the general necessity of things, had developed largely and freely the Puritan spirit of the towns; and the Catholic reaction in the country districts, the loose administration of the laws, and the notoriously Romanizing tendencies of the Peers and country families, acted as a challenge to the fiercer of the Reformers to try their strength with them. For ten years past there had been an earnest desire in the Reforming leaders to inflict the Thirty-nine Articles both on clergy and laity as a test of doctrine, to reform the Prayer-book, and impose on England generally the Genevan discipline. As a step in this direction, on the first day on which the Houses met for business, a Bill was introduced to compel all persons, of whatever degree, not only to attend service on Sundays at church, but to be present twice a-year at the Communion. The tongues of men, finding themselves unloosed at last, ran over at once with a violence unprecedented in House of Commons history. Complaints burst out of the laxity with which the laws against Papists had 1571 April been enforced. The Catholic services were prohibited, CHAP XXI yet all over England masses were said in private houses with scarcely an attempt at disguise. The ecclesiastical lawyers were running in the old grooves, with pluralities and dispensations and licenses, those gray iniquities of which Henry had for a few years washed the Church Courts clean. Mr. Strickland, ‘a grave and antient man,' declared that 'known Papists were admitted to have ecclesiastical government and great livings, while godly Protestants had nothing,' and 'boys were dispensed with to have spiritual promotion.' God, he said, had given England the light of the Word, but England had been slack in making use of its advantages, and had not thought convenient to profess and publish the truth openly. He moved for a reproduction of Cranmer's book on the Reformation of the Laws, that the country might take its place at last among the Reformed nations, with a clear confession of its faith. Free speech in Parliament had been one of the privileges which Henry VIII. had not attempted to interfere with. Elizabeth could never bring herself to regard it as anything but an intolerable impertinence. Sir Thomas Smith, who had succeeded Cecil as her Secretary, proposed that the Communion Bill should be referred to the Bishops; the Queen sent a message to the House not to waste their time over matters which did not concern them, and to avoid long speeches.' Fleetwood, however (afterwards the Recorder of London), said that the House 'knew that there was a God to be served as well as the Bishops;' 'when Bills were referred to the Bench, they commonly came to nothing; the Bishops would perhaps be slow,' and they could do better without them. CHAP XXI 1571 April The Queen's monition was unheeded, and the discussion went on more fiercely than ever. Mr. Snagg insisted on the insufficiency of the Act of Uniformity. In some churches the Common Prayer was not used at all. There was only a sermon, and such prayers, extempore, as the minister might choose to offer. Mr. Norton broke into invectives on the abuse of benefit of clergy,' the straining of the law by ecclesiastical judges in favour of offenders in Holy Orders,' 'the wrapping clerks in a cloak of naughtiness, and giving them liberty to sin.' The dispensations in the Court of Arches were attacked specially and bitterly. Bishops, it was presumed, 'could do nothing contrary to the Word of God,' yet, like Popes, they kept open offices for the sale of licenses to disobey the law. So the storm broke on all sides, and for three weeks it raged incessantly. Some language was heard not wholly immoderate. Aglionby, the Member for Warwick, raised his solitary voice for liberty of conscience. 'He did not approve,' he said, 'of the private oratories in the Great Houses; he would give the rich no privi'leges which the poor could not share, and both alike. 'should be obliged to appear in their parish church. But ' receiving the Communion was something more than an 'ordinary outward observance, and he thought that the 'law ought not to meddle with it. Men were excom'municated because they were wicked, but to force men 'to communicate because they were suspected of being 'wicked was an anomaly beyond reason or precedent.' But Aglionby was briefly told that the peace of the realm was of more importance than conscience. The Israelites were not allowed to refuse to eat the Passover, and the makers of laws were not called upon to respect the obstinacy of fools and knaves. It was enough if what Parliament prescribed was right in itself, and if CHAP XXI the people were unfit to obey, they must make themselves fit. Two of the officers of the Household attempted to bring back the debate to the subjects mentioned in the Speech. The Parliament, Sir James Crofts said, had met on business of immediate and serious moment; the Queen, being Head of the Church, might be trusted to do what was right, and the hasty proceedings of the House of Commons, before and contrary to the law, might rather hinder than help.' But Crofts was suspected to be a concealed Catholic; a Mr. Pistor, a Puritan, brief and stern, and 'much approved by the House,' complained rather of the waste of time over mere secular business, when the cause of God was in danger; subsidies, crowns, realms, what were these, he said, but dust and ashes. It was written, 'Seek first the kingdom of God.' Whatever may have been Elizabeth's private feelings when she found herself thus defied, she showed outwardly remarkable self-command. She knew and valued the men who were thus provoking her, and she forced herself to bear with them. Strickland fell under her displeasure. He introduced a measure without permission for the alteration of the Prayer-book, and he was sent for, reprimanded, and forbidden to return to the House. But a universal cry of Privilege warned her to be cautious, and she withdrew her prohibition. Thus the Commons persisted, passing measure after measure, the Bill for attendance at Communion, of which no draft remains to indicate the provisions of it; a Bill which has also perished, restricting or abolishing the dispensing power of the Court of Arches; and a Bill which unfortunately did not share the fate of its ELIZ. IV. 1571 April |