ELIZABETH'S ACCESSION. TRIUMPH OF THE REFORMATION.

During Mary's government, which had been endurable only because men foresaw its speedy end, all eyes were directed to her younger sister Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who bore her under her heart when she was crowned as Queen. After many changes, Henry VIII, in agreement with Parliament, had recognised her right of inheritance; the people had risen against the enterprise of the Duke of Northumberland for her as well as for Mary. And it had also been maintained against Mary herself. Once, in Wyatt's conspiracy, letters were found, which pointed at Elizabeth's having a share in it: she was designated in them as the future Queen. The predominant Spanish-Catholic party had her examined and would have much wished to find her guilty, in order to rid themselves of her for ever. But Elizabeth was not so imprudent as to lend her hand to a movement, which if unsuccessful—a result not hard to foresee—must destroy her own good title. And moreover she, with her innate pride, could not possibly have carried out the wishes of the French by marrying Courtenay, whom her sister had rejected. The letter, which she wrote to Mary at this crisis, is full of unfeignedly loyal submission to her Queen, before whom she only wishes to bend her knee, to pray her not to let herself be prejudiced by false charges against her sister; and yet at the same time it is highminded and great in the consciousness of innocence. Mary, who was now no longer her friend, did not vouchsafe her a hearing, but sent her to the Tower and subjected her to a criminal examination. But however zealously they sought for proofs against her, yet they found none: and they dared not touch her life unless she were first publicly found guilty. She was clearly the heiress to the throne appointed under the authorisation of Parliament: the people would not give up the prospects of the future which were linked with her. When she appeared in London at this moment of peril, surrounded by numerous attendants, in an open litter, with an expression in which hopeful buoyant youth mingled with the feeling of innocence and distress, pale and proud, she swayed the masses that crowded round her with no doubtful sympathy.[180] When she passed through the streets after her liberation, she was received with an enthusiasm which made the Queen jealous on her throne.

Yet Elizabeth was not merely the head of the popular opposition to her sister's policy: from the first moment onwards she was in collision with another female foe, whose pretensions would determine the relations of her life. If Henry VIII formerly in settling the succession passed over in silence the rights of his married sister in Scotland, which had now come to her granddaughter Mary Stuart, the memory of them was now all the more vividly revived by the Catholic party in the country. For with the religious reverence which men devoted to the Papacy it was not at all possible to reconcile the recognition of Elizabeth, whose very existence was as it were at variance with it. Nor was a political motive for preferring Mary Stuart wanting. That for which Henry VIII and Somerset had striven so zealously, the union of England and Scotland, would be thus attained at once. They were not afraid that Scotland might thus become predominant; Henry VII at the conclusion of the marriage, having his attention drawn to this possible risk, replied with the maxim, that the larger and more powerful part always draws the smaller after it. The indispensable condition for the development of the English power lay in the union of the whole island: this would have ensued in a Catholic, not in a Protestant, sense. Was not this union of political advantage and religious concord likely to influence the Privy Council of England, which under Mary was again zealously Catholic, and also to influence Queen Mary Tudor herself?

Great political questions however do not usually present themselves to men in such perfect clearness, but are seen under the modifying circumstances of the moment. It was at that time all important that Mary Stuart had married the Dauphin: she would have united England not merely with Scotland, but at the same time with France, thus bringing it for ever under the influence of that country. How revolting must such a prospect have been to all English feeling! England would have become a transmarine province of France, it would in time have been absorbed like Brittany. Above all, French policy would have completely gained the upper hand in Europe. This apprehension induced the Spanish statesmen—Elizabeth's eager enemies as long as they expected their King to have issue of Mary Tudor—when this hope failed, to give the princess sympathy and attention. Philip II, when her troubles revived (for both Gardiner and Pole were her enemies), informed her through secret messengers, that he was her good friend and would not abandon her. Now that Mary was failing before all men's eyes, and every one was looking forward to her death, it was his evident interest to further Elizabeth's accession. In this sense spoke his ambassador Feria, whom he sent at this moment to England, before the assembled Privy Council;[181] even Mary was urged to declare herself to the same effect. From an advice written for Elizabeth during the first moments of her reign we see that all still looked very dangerous: she was urged in it to possess herself of the Tower and there to receive the allegiance of the high officers of State, to allow no departure from the English ports, and so on. Men expected turbulent movements at home, and were not without apprehension of an attempt at invasion from France. The decision however followed without any commotion and on the spot. Though most of its members were Catholic, the Privy Council did not hesitate. A few hours after Mary's decease the Commons were summoned to the Upper House, to receive a communication there: it was, that Mary was dead, and that God had given them another Queen, My lady Elizabeth. The Parliament dissolved; the new Queen was proclaimed in Westminster and in London. Some days afterwards she made her entry into the capital amidst the indescribable rejoicings of the people, who greeted her accession as their deliverance and their salvation.

But if this, as we see, involved in its very essence a hostile attitude towards France and Scotland, on the other hand the question was at once laid before the Queen, and in the most personal way imaginable, how far she would unite herself with Spain, the great Power which was now on her side. Philip resolved, inasmuch as propriety in some measure allowed it, to ask for her hand—not indeed from personal inclination, of which there is no trace, but from policy and perhaps from religion: he hoped by this means to keep England firm to the Spanish alliance and to Catholicism.[182] And on the English side also much might be said for it. An ally was needed against France, even to obtain a tolerable peace: there was some danger that Philip, if rejected by the Queen, might perhaps marry a French princess; to be secure against the French claims the Queen seemed to need the support of Spain. Her first answer was not in the negative. She declared she must consult with Parliament as to the King's proposal: but he might be assured that, if she ever married, she would not give any one else the preference over him.

Well considered, these words announce at once her resolution not to marry. Between Mary Tudor who thought to bring the crown to the heir of Spain, and Mary Stuart similarly pledged to the heir of France, nothing was left for her—since she would not wish the husband of her choice to be of inferior rank—but to remain unmarried. From listening to Philip's wooing she was kept back by her sister's example, whose marriage had destroyed her popularity. And for Elizabeth there would have been yet another danger in this alliance. Was not her legitimacy dependent on the invalidity of her father's marriage with his brother's widow? It would be a very similar case if she were to marry her sister's husband. Besides she would have needed the Pope's dispensation for such a union—as Philip had already explained to her—while her birth and crown were the results of a Papal dispensation being declared a nullity. She would thus have fallen into a self-contradiction, to which she must have succumbed in course of time. When told that Philip II had done her some service, she acknowledged it: but when she meditated on it further, she found that neither this sovereign nor any other influence whatever would have protected her from her enemies, had not the people shown her an unlimited devotion.[183] This devotion, on which her whole existence depended, she would not forfeit. After a little delay she let Philip know that she felt some scruples as to the Papal dispensation. She gave weight to the point which had been under discussion, but added that she was altogether disinclined to marry. We may doubt whether this was her immoveably formed resolution, considering how often afterwards she negociated about her marriage. It might seem to her allowable, as an instrument of policy, to excite hopes which she did not mean to fulfil: or her views may in fact have again wavered: but these oscillations in her statements can mean nothing when set over against a great necessity: her actual conduct shows that she had a vivid insight into it and held firm to it with tenacious resolution. She was Henry's daughter, but she knew how to keep herself as independent as he had thought that only a son could possibly do. There is a deep truth in her phrase, that she is wedded to her people: regard to their interests kept her back from any other union. But if she resolved to give up the relation of close union in which England had hitherto stood with Spain, it was indispensable to make peace with France. It was impossible to attain this if she insisted on the restoration of Calais; she resolved to give it up, at first for a term of years. Of almost the same date as her answer of refusal to Philip's ambassador is her instruction empowering her ambassador to let Calais go, as soon as he saw that the Spaniards would conclude their peace with France without stipulating for its restoration. She was able to venture this, for however deeply the nation felt the loss of the place, the blame for it could not be imputed to her. Without repeating what was then asserted, that her distinct aim was to turn the hatred of the nation against the late government and its alliance with Spain, we may still allow that this must have been the actual result, as it really proved to be. It was indeed said that Philip II, who not merely concluded peace with France but actually married a daughter of Henry II, would make common cause with him against England: but Elizabeth no more allowed herself to be misled by this possibility, which also had much against it, than Henry VIII had been under similar circumstances. Like him and like the founder of her family, she took up an independent position between the two powers, equally ready according to circumstances for war or peace with one or the other.

Meanwhile she had already proceeded to measures which could never have been reconciled with the Spanish alliance, and to ecclesiastical changes which first gave her position its true character.

Her earliest intimation of again deviating from the Church was given by restoring, like a devoted daughter, her father's monument, which Mary had levelled with the ground. A second soon followed, which at once touched on the chief doctrine in dispute. Before attending a solemn high mass she required the officiating bishop to omit the elevation of the host. As he refused, she left the church at the moment the ceremony was being consummated. To check the religious strife which began to fill the pulpits she forbade preaching, like her predecessors; but she allowed the Sunday Lessons, the Litany, and the Creed to be read in English. Elizabeth had hitherto conformed to the restored Catholic ritual: it could not be quite said that she belonged to either of the existing confessions. She always declared that she had read no controversial writings. But she had occupied herself with the documents of the early Church, with the Greek and Latin Fathers, and was thoroughly convinced that the Romanism of the later centuries had gone far astray from this pattern. She had made up her mind, not as to every point of doctrine, but as to its general direction: she believed too that she was upheld and guarded by God, to carry out this change. 'How wonderful are God's ordinances,' she exclaimed, when she heard that the crown had fallen to her.

What course however was now to be taken was a question which, owing to the antagonism of the factions and the close connexion of all ecclesiastical and political matters, required the most mature consideration.

The Queen was advised simply to revert to Edward VI's regulations, and to declare all things null and void that had been enacted under Mary, mainly on the ground that they had been enacted in violation of legal forms. A speech was laid before her, in which the validity of the last elections was disputed, since qualified members had been excluded from the sittings of both houses, although they were good Englishmen: the later proclamations of summons were held to be null, because in them the formula 'Supreme Head of the English Church' had been arbitrarily omitted, without a previous resolution of Parliament, though on this title so much depended for the commonwealth and people: but no one could give up a right which concerned a third person or the public interest; through these errors, which Mary had committed in her blindness, all that had then been determined lost its force and authority.[184] But the Queen and her counsellors did not wish to go so far. They remarked that to declare a Parliament invalid for some errors of form was a step of such consequence as to make the whole government of the nation insecure. But even without this it was not the Queen's purpose merely to revert to the forms which had been adopted under her brother. She did not share all the opinions and doctrines which had then obtained the upper hand: she held far more to ceremonies and outward forms than Edward VI or his counsellors: she wished to avoid a rude antagonism which would have called forth the resistance of the Catholics.

In the Parliament that met immediately after the coronation (which was still celebrated by a Catholic bishop), they began with the question which had most occupied the late assembly, namely, should the Church revenues that had been attached to the crown be restored to it. The Queen's proposal, that they should be left to the crown, was quite the view of the assembly and obtained their full consent.

The Parliamentary form of government however had also the greatest influence on religious affairs. Having risen originally in opposition to Rome, the Parliament, after the vicissitudes of the civil wars, first recovered its full importance when it took the side of the crown in its struggle with the Papacy. It did not so much concern itself with Dogma for its own sake: it had thought it possible to unite the retention of Catholicism with national independence. Under Mary every man had become conscious that this would be impossible. It was just then that the Parliament passed from its previous compliant mood into opposition, which was not yet successful because it was only that of the minority, but which prepared the way for the coming change of tone. It attached itself joyfully to the new Queen, whose birth necessarily made her adopt a policy which took away all apprehensions of a union with the Romish See injurious to the country.

The complete antagonism between the Papal and the Parliamentary powers, of which one had swayed past centuries and the other was to sway the future, is shown by the conduct of the Pope, when Elizabeth announced her accession to him. In his answer he reproached her with it as presumption, reverted to the decision of his predecessors by which she was declared illegitimate, required that the whole matter should be referred to him, and even mentioned England's feudal relation to the Papacy:[185] but Parliament, which had rejected this claim centuries before, acknowledged Elizabeth as legitimately sprung from the royal blood, and as Queen by the law of God and of the land; they pledged themselves to defend her title and right with their lives and property.

Owing to this the tendencies towards separation from Rome were already sure to gain the superiority: the Catholic members of the Privy Council, to whom Elizabeth owed her first recognition, could not contend effectively against them. But besides this, Elizabeth had joined with them a number of men of her own choice and her own views, who like herself had not openly opposed the existing system, but disapproved it; they were mainly her personal friends, who now took the direction of affairs into their hands; the change which they prepared looked moderate but was decided.

Elizabeth rejected the title of 'Supreme Head of the Church,' because it not merely aroused the aversion of the Catholics, but also gave offence to many zealous Protestants; it made however no essential difference when she replaced it by the formula 'in all causes as well ecclesiastical as civil, supreme.' Parliament declared that the right of visiting and reforming the Church was attached to the crown and could be exercised by it through ecclesiastical commissioners. The clergy, high and low, were to swear to the ecclesiastical supremacy, and abjure all foreign authority and jurisdiction. The punishment for refusing the oath was defined: it was not to be punished with death as under Henry VIII, but with the loss of office and property. All Mary's acts in favour of an independent legislation and jurisdiction of the spiritualty were repealed. The crown appropriated to itself, with consent of Parliament, complete supremacy over the clergy of the land.

The Parliament allowed indeed that it did not belong to it to determine concerning matters really ecclesiastical; but it held itself authorised, much like the Great-Councils of Switzerland, to order a conference of both parties, before which the most pressing questions of the moment, on the power of national Churches, and the nature of the Mass, should be laid.

The Catholic bishops disliked the whole proceeding, as may be imagined, since these points had been so long settled; and they disliked no less the interference of the temporal power, and lastly the presidency of a royal minister, Nicolas Bacon. They had no mind to commit themselves to an interchange of writings: their declarations by word of mouth were more peremptory than convincing. In general they were not well represented since the deaths of Pole and Gardiner. On the other hand the Protestants, of whom many had become masters of the controverted questions during the exile from which they had now returned, put forward explicit statements which were completely to the point. They laid stress chiefly on the distinction between the universal, truly Catholic, Church and the Romish: they sought to reach firm ground in Christian antiquity prior to the hierarchic centuries. While they claimed a more comprehensive communion than that of Romanism, as that in which true Catholicity exists, they sought at the same time to establish a narrower, national, body which should have the right of independent decision as to ritual. Nearly all depended on the question, how far a country, which forms a separate community and thus has a separate Church, has the right to alter established ceremonies and usages; they deduced such an authority from this fact among others, that the Church in the first centuries was ruled by provincial councils. The project of calling a national council was proposed in Germany but never carried out: in England men considered the idea of a national decree, mainly in reference to ritual, as superior to all others. But we know how much the conception of ritual covered. The question whether Edward VI's Prayer-book should be restored or not, was at the same time decisive as to what doctrinal view should be henceforth followed.[186]

The Catholic bishops set themselves in vain against the progress of these discussions. They withdrew from the conference: but the Parliament did not let itself be misled by this: it adopted the popular opinion, that they did not know what to answer. At the division in the Upper House they held obstinately fast to their opinion: they were left however, though only by a few votes, in the minority.[187] The Act of Uniformity passed, by which the Prayer-book, in the form which should be given it by a new revision, was to be universally received from the following Midsummer. The bishops raised an opposition yet once more, at a sitting of the Privy Council, on the ground that the change was against the promises made by Mary to the See of Rome in the name of the crown. Elizabeth answered, her sister had in this exceeded her powers: she herself was free to revert to the example of her earlier predecessors by whom the Papal power was looked on as an usurpation. 'My crown,' she exclaimed, 'is subject only to the King of Kings, and to no one else:' she made use of the words, 'But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' The Protestant bishops had perished at the stake, but the victory was theirs even in their graves.

The committee of revision consisted of men, who had then saved themselves by flight or by the obscurity of a secluded life. As under Edward men came back to the original tendencies prevalent under Henry VIII, so they now reverted to the settlement under Edward; yet they allowed themselves some alterations, chiefly with the view of making the book acceptable to the Catholics as well. Prayers in which the hostility of decided Protestantism came forward with especial sharpness, for instance that 'against the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome,' were left out. The chief alteration was in the formula of the Lord's Supper. Elizabeth and her divines were not inclined to let this stand as it was read in the second edition of Edward's time, since the mystical act there appeared almost as a mere commemorative repast.[188] They reverted to a form composed from the monuments of Latin antiquity, from Ambrose and Gregory, in which the real presence was maintained; this which already existed in the first edition they united with the view of the second. As formerly in the Augsburg confession in Germany, so in England at the last recension of the Common Prayer-book an attempt was made to keep as near as possible to the traditional system. For the Queen this had also a political value: when Philip II sent her a warning, she explained that she was only kept back from joining in the mass by a few points: she too believed in God's presence in the Sacrament.[189]

She was of a similar mind in reference to other matters also. If at first, under pressure from zealous Protestants who saw in images an occasion for superstition, she ordered their removal, we perceive that in a short time she regretted it, especially as it made a bad impression in Wales and the Northern counties; in her chapel men again saw the cross and the lighted tapers, as before. The marriages entered into by priests had given much offence, and not unjustly, as they were often inferior unions, little honourable to them, and lowering the dignity of their order. Elizabeth would have gladly forbidden them altogether: she contented herself with setting limits to them by ordering that a previous permission should be requisite, but she always disliked them. She felt a natural pleasure in the splendour and order of the existing church service. For the future also the spiritualty were to be bound to appear—in the customary dress—in a manner worthy of God's service, with bent knees and with ceremonious devotion. When they proceeded to revise the confession drawn up by Cranmer, which two years afterwards was raised to a law in the shape of the 'Thirty-nine Articles,' they struck out the places that leant to Zwingli's special view; on the other hand they added some new propositions, which stated the right of the higher powers, and the authority of each kingdom to determine religious usages for itself.[190] For in this consisted the essence of the alteration, that the Civil Authority, as it was then composed, decided the church-questions that arose, and raised its decision into law.

The Statute was, that no person should hold a public office, whether spiritual or temporal, who did not conform to this law. Thirteen bishops, four-and-twenty deans, eighty rectors of parishes, and most of the heads of colleges resigned. It has been said that this number, about two hundred, is not very considerable, since the English clergy held 9000 benefices and offices; but it comprehended all those who held the government of the church and represented the prevalent opinion in it. The difficulty arose how to replace the bishops in conformity with the principles of the English church constitution as then retained: perhaps the difficulty was intentional. There were however two conforming bishops who had received the laying on of hands according to the Roman ritual, and two others according to the Reformed: these consecrated the new Archbishop of Canterbury. It was objected to this act that none of them was in actual possession of a bishop's see: the Queen declared every defect, whether as to the statutes of the realm or church-usages, since time and circumstances demanded it, to be nullified or supplied. It was enough that, generally speaking, the mystery of the episcopal succession went on without interruption. What was less essential she supplied by the prerogative of the crown, as her grandfather had done once before. The archbishop consecrated was Dr. Parker, formerly chaplain to Anne Boleyn: a thoroughly worthy man, the father of learned studies on English antiquities, especially on the Anglo-Saxon times. By him the laying on of hands and consecration was bestowed on the other bishops who were now elected: they were called on to uphold at the same time the idea of episcopacy in its primitive import, and the doctrines of the Reformation.

In regard to the election of bishops also Elizabeth went back one step from her brother's system; she gave up the right of appointment, and restored her father's regulations, by which it is true a strong influence was still reserved for the Civil Power. Under her supreme authority she wished to see the spiritual principle recognised as such, and to give it a representation corresponding to its high destiny.

Thus it must needs be. The principle which comes forward for the first time, however strong it may appear, has yet to secure its future: it must struggle with the other elements of the world around it. It will be pressed back, perhaps beaten down: but in the vicissitude of the strife it will develop its inborn strength and establish itself for ever.

An Anglican church,—nationally independent, without giving up its connexion with the reformed churches of the continent, and reformed, without however letting fall the ancient forms of episcopacy,—in accordance with the ideal, as it was originally understood, was at length, after a hard schooling of trials, struggles, and disasters, really set on foot.

But now it is clear how closely such a thoroughgoing alteration affected the political position. Reckoning on the antipathies, which could not but hence arise against Elizabeth in the catholic world, and above all on the consent of the Roman See, the French did not hesitate to openly recognise the claims of the Dauphiness Mary Stuart to the English throne. She was hailed as Queen, when she appeared in public: the Dauphin's heralds bore the united arms of England, Ireland, and Scotland.[191] And this claim became still more important after the unexpected death of Henry II, when the Dauphin ascended the French throne as Francis II. The Guises, uncles of Mary the new Queen, who saw their own greatness in her success and were the very closest adherents of the church, got into their hands all the powers of government. The danger of their hostility lay above all in this, that the French already exercised a predominant influence over Scotch affairs, and hoped in a short time to become complete masters of that country in the Queen's right. She moreover had already by a formal document transferred to the French royal house an eventual right of inheritance to her crown. But if matters came to this, the old war of England and France would be transferred from the fields of Boulogne and Calais to the Scotch border. An invasion of the English territory from that side was the more dangerous, as the French would have brought thither, according to their custom, German and Swiss troops as well. England had neither fortresses, nor disciplined troops, nor even generals of name, who could face such an invasion. It was truly said, there was not a wall in England strong enough to stand a cannon shot.[192] How then if a defeat was sustained in the open field? The sympathies of the Catholics would have been aroused for France, and general ruin would have ensued.

It was a fortunate thing for Elizabeth that the King of Spain, after she had taken up a line of conduct so completely counter to his wishes and ideas, did not make common cause with the French as they requested him. But she could not promise herself any help from him. Granvella told the English as emphatically as possible, that they must provide for themselves. Another Spanish statesman expressed his doubt to them whether they were able to do so: he really thought England would one day become an apple of discord between Spain and France, as Milan then was. It was almost a scoff, to compare the Island that had the power of the sea with an Italian duchy. But from this very moment she was to take a new upward flight. England was again to take her place as a third Power between the two great Powers; the opportunity presented itself to her to begin open war with one of them, without breaking with the other or even being exactly allied with it.

At first it was France that threatened and challenged her.

And to oppose the French, at the point where they might be dangerous, a ready means presented itself; England had but to form an alliance with those who opposed the French interests in Scotland. As these likewise were in opposition to their Queen, it was objected that one sovereign ought not to combine with the subjects of another. Elizabeth's leading statesman, William Cecil, who stood ever by her side with his counsel in the difficulties of her earlier years, and had guided her steps hitherto, made answer that 'the duty of self-preservation required it in this case, since Scotland would else be serviceable to France for war against England.'

Cecil took into his view alike the past and the future. It was France alone, he said, that had prevented the English crown from realising its suzerainty over Scotland: whereas the true interest of Scotland herself lay in her being united with England as one kingdom. This point of view was all the more important, since the religious interest coincided with the political. The Scots, with whom they wished to unite themselves, were Protestants of the most decided kind.