new Establishment, will be apparent to all, who know how much more we are the creatures of habit than of reason "." The Queen herself, though she avowed her own conscientious preference of the Reformed Church, might think that the Reformation was, in some points, carried too far, and that in the Romish system there were some institutions and practices, which might have been advantageously retained.

Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites

And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;

Giving the memory help, when she would weave
A crown for Hope! I dread the boasted lights,
That all too often are but fiery blights,

Killing the bud, o'er which in vain we grieve".

According to Neal, Elizabeth "affected a middle way between Popery and Puritanism, though more inclined to the former; disliking the secular pretensions of the Court of Rome over foreign States, though she was in love with the pomp and splendour of their worship: on the other hand, she approved of the doctrines of the foreign Reformed Churches, but thought they had stripped religion too much of its

ornaments P.

د,

" Quarterly Review, x. p. 94.

• Wordsworth's Eccles. Sonnets, pt. iii. p. 23.

P History of the Puritans, i. p. 383.

Time and frequent communication with her soundest Divines were required to reconcile her to many of the recent changes; to the abandonment of venerable and long-cherished practices, and to the adoption of what might, without due explanation, appear to her to be novelties. Naturally, therefore, at the outset, some things, which were loudly condemned by grave Divines, and afterwards generally censured as abuses, did not, to the Queen herself, seem equally obnoxious. The impressions, made in early life, could not be at once effaced. For a while she retained in her Chapel the Crucifix and Images of the Virgin and St. John. She was also disinclined to substitute Tables for Altars, and Archbishop Parker was engaged in many struggles with her on the subject of the Priest's apparel. In a letter to Peter Martyr, dated 1560, Sandys, then Bishop of Worcester, well describes the progress, made towards bringing the Queen nearer to the opinions, entertained by the more determined Reformers.

"Eucharistiæ doctrina hactenus Dei beneficio non impugnata, nobis salva et incolumis manet, mansuramque speramus. Pro viribus enim et ipse, et alii fratres Co-episcopi, illam, quoad vixerimus, Deo juvante, tuebimur. De Imaginibus, jampridem nonnihil erat controversiæ. R. Majestas, non alienum esse à Verbo Dei, immò in commodum Ecclesiæ fore

putabat, si Imago Christi crucifixi, unà cum Maria, et Johanne, ut tales, in celebriori Ecclesiæ loco poneretur, ubi ab omni populo facillimè conspiceretur. Quidam ex nobis longè aliter judicabant; præsertim cum omnes omnis generis Imagines, in proxima nostra Visitatione, idque publica authoritate, non solùm sublatæ, verumetiam combustæ erant.-At Deus, in cujus manu corda sunt Regum, pro tempestate tranquillitatem dedit, et Ecclesiam Anglicanam ab hujusmodi offendiculis liberavit: tantum manent in Ecclesia nostra vestimenta illa papistica, Capas intellige, quas diu non duraturas speramus 9."

A Proclamation, issued in 1559 "against breaking or defacing of monuments of antiquitie" is well worthy of notice, and if Archbishop Parker had, as Strype conjectures, a great hand in it, (being so great a lover of antiquity, and so sore an enemy against the spoil of the monuments of our forefathers and of the Churches,") the obligations, which we owe to him

9 Burnet's Reform., iii. pt. ii. p. 382. The Queen, in her defence, might have quoted the authority of Ridley, Redman, and others, who, in a Book, composed by them by the direction of Cranmer, and published by her Father's authority, thus express themselves. "Therefore, although Images of Christ and his Saints be the works of men's hands only; yet they be not so prohibited, but that they may be had and set up, both in Churches and other places to the intent, that we (in beholding and looking upon them as in certain books and signs) may call to remembrance the manifold examples of virtues, which were in the Saints, whom they do represent." A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian

man.

66

are, indeed, manifold. It first set forth, that ancient monuments of metal and stone, and Churches also were spoiled, broken, and ruinated, to the offence of all noble and gentle hearts, to the injury of the public and to private families, and to the slander of such, as had charge to deface monuments of idolatry and false fained Images in Churches and Abbeys." It directed, that no Images, set up for the only remembrance of individuals to posterity, and not for any religious honour, nor any Image in glass windows should be broken or defaced, upon pain of the wrong doer being committed to the next gaol. Presentments were to be made of those, who had made spoils of these, and they, or their Executors, were to repair the same, under pain of Excommunication, or, if unable to do so, open Penance was enjoined.

The removal of bells and lead from Churches and

Chapels which had caused a slanderous desolation of the places of prayer," was also prohibited under pain of Fine and Imprisonment.

The feeling of the reigning Monarch being such as has been described, it is impossible but that some reverence and respect would be entertained by that large portion of her Subjects, who had abjured the Church of Rome, for "Monuments of Antiquity" so long con

Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 52. This Proclamation is given in the Appendix.

sidered sacred, as the Crucifix, Images, and Shrines, and that the work of spoliation would, in many instances, be committed to trembling and reluctant hands, which would execute the painful, and sacrilegious task, with forbearance, if not with aversion at all events, needless violence in operations, which, to them were little less than profane, would rarely be exhibited. Take, for example, the Cathedral of Durham; we are told, that, at the Reformation, "little was destroyed excepting the Shrines." Dean Whittingham, being a rigid Calvinist, "perhaps being sharpened by the hope of plunder," pushed matters further by defacing Monuments, yet 'still in the reign of Charles I., such was the splendour of Divine Worship in this Cathedral, as to excite in the Puritans extreme indignation t."

It is admitted by Milner, that the Church of England was perfectly satisfied, among other things, with the form and disposition of the Cathedrals,

"The rooting out of this Priory [Christ Church, Aldgate, the first that was dissolved,] wrought a middle effect in people, for they were neither dumb nor clamorous thereat, but grumbled out their discontentment for a time, and then returned to their former temper. However at first they were so abstemious, that, whereas the Priory church and steeple were proffered to whomsoever would take them down, no man would undertake the offer. Whereupon Sir Thomas Audley, the Grantee, was fain to be at more charges than he could make of the materials." Fuller's Ch. Hist. book, vi. p. 307.

History of the Cathedral of Durham, published by Soc. Antiq., p. 5.