The Acts of Uniformity Part 2

John B. of Winton.

Richard B. of Wigorne.

Ralph B. of Covent and Lichfeilde.

Thomas B. of Lincolne.

James B. of Exon.

The Booke of Comon Prayer, published primo Eliz.

was first resolved upon and established in the Church in the tyme of K. Ed. 6. It was re-examined with some small alterations by the Convocation consistinge of the said Bishops and the rest of the clergy in primo Eliz. which beinge done by the Convocation and published under the great scale of Englande ther was an Acte of Parlament for the same booke which is ordinarily printed in the beginninge of the booke; not that the booke was ever subjected to the censure of the Parlament but being aggreed upon and published as afforesaid, a law was made by the Parlament for the inflictinge of penalty upon all such as should refuse to use and observe the same; further autoryty then so is not in the Parlament, neyther hath bin in former tymes yealded to the Parlament in thinges of that nature but the judgment and determination therof hath ever bin in the Church, therto autorised by the Kinge which is that which is yealded to H. 8. in the statute of 25 his raygne.

[Endorsed] Bishops.

Another copy follows, No. 47, written with modernised spelling. It is endorsed as follows:

(1) _Bishops_.

(2) _Power of the Convocn in framing the Book of Common Prayer &c. and of the Act of Parlt Sr. Th. Wilson's hand_.

The second endors.e.m.e.nt of No. 47 (wrongly given in the Calendar as "Progress of the Convocation, etc.") is in the handwriting of Sir Joseph Williamson, Keeper of the State Paper Office, and from 1674 to 1679 Secretary of State. Sir Thomas Wilson was a confidential servant of Robert, Earl of Salisbury, who often employed him in matters of secret police. He was made Keeper of the S.P. Office in 1605 and died in 1629. A comparison with his letters and notes preserved in the Record Office shows that the copy in his handwriting is the earlier one, No. 46. It is written, however, more formally and with more archaic spelling than his original papers. It would therefore seem to be a copy of an older original. I venture to suggest that it may have been written for Salisbury's use in 1604, when revision of the Prayer-book was being discussed. There is nothing to show the provenance of the original, but the errors in point of fact make against an early date. Cheney is said to have been a bishop in the time of Edward VI.; he was in fact raised to the episcopate in the year 1562. Oglethorpe is said, like Kitchen, to have retained his bishopric under Elizabeth. He was in fact deposed on June 21, 1559, and died in the following December. The statement that the Prayer-book was submitted to the Convocation, "consisting of the said Bishops," is all but demonstrably false.

[1] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iv. 6; Strype, _Cranmer_, vol. i. p. 156; Cardwell, _Synod_., p. 421.

[2] Proclamation prefixed to _The Order of the Communion_, printed by Grafton, March 8, 1547/8.

[3] Cardwell, _Doc. Ann_., vol. i. p. 72. As the bishops were required "to cause these books to be delivered to every parson, vicar, and curate,"

within their several dioceses, the more scrupulous among these might fairly argue that they accepted the order on the authority of the diocesan.

But it may be doubted whether such a refinement occurred to many at that time.

[4] Overall, _Accounts of the Churchwardens_, etc., p. 67.

[5] _Ibid_., p. 68. There exist among the MSS. of the British Museum many English renderings of parts of the Ma.s.s and the Divine Service, anterior to the Book of Common Prayer, with musical notation. These will shortly be discussed by Mr. W. H. Frere in the _Journal of Theological Studies_.

[6] C.C.C.C. MSS. 106, fo. 495, cited in Gasquet and Bishop, _Edward VI. and the Book of Common Prayer_, p. 147, from Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. p. 18.

[7] Cardwell, _Synod_., p. 420; Strype, _Cranmer_, vol. i. p. 155. The pet.i.tion of the clergy expressly says that this had been done _ex mandato convocationis_. Cranmer's notes on the proceedings, given in Cardwell, make them say that "by the commandment of King Henry VIII. certain prelates and other learned men were appointed to alter the service in the Church." It is probably an instance of two ways of regarding the same thing, and is not uninstructive.

[8] I venture on this suggestion as to the character of the much discussed "Windsor Commission," but it is beside my subject to debate the point. It seems to reconcile the many a.s.sertions that the Prayer-book was prepared by authority of Convocation with other a.s.sertions that all was done by a committee appointed by the Crown. See the preceding note. The statements are collected in Gasquet and Bishop, pp. 148-156.

[9] See Gasquet and Bishop, p. 178, and the notes of the debate on the Sacrament printed by them from MS. Reg. 17 B. x.x.xix., in their Appendix v. pp. 403, 404.

[10] The _Interim_ of 1548 was an attempt of Charles V. and the Diet of Augsburg to grapple with this state of things, and was so far a.n.a.logous to the English Act of Uniformity, and a precedent for it.

[11] See the letters of Micronius and Utenhovius to Bullinger, _Orig.

Lett_, pp. 568, 570, 587. The patent for the incorporation and protection of the congregation is given in French by Collier, _Records_, vol. ii.

no. lxv. The date is July 24, 1550, and a _non obstante_ clause bars any interference "par aucun statute, acte, ordonance, provision, ou restriction, faits publietz, ordonnez, ou pourveus au contraire."

[12] I Mariae, sess. 2, cap. 2. Gibson, p. 304.

[13] And even this with some freedom. See Machyn's Diary, April 6 and 7, 1559. Jewel wrote to Peter Martyr on April 14: "Itaque factum est ut multis iam in locis missae etiam invitis edictis sua sponte ceciderint."

_Zurich Letters_, ep. vi.

[14] Venetian State Papers, vol. vii. p. 57. Easter Day fell on March 26 that year. The particulars reported by _il Schifanoya_ are interesting. On the morrow of St. George's Day, he reports again, ma.s.s for the dead was said for the chapter of the Garter in the usual manner, but the Epistle and Gospel were said in English. _Ibid_., p. 74.

[15] _Zurich Letters_., ep. xii.

[16] See Caldwell, _Conferences_, pp. 19-21, and 47-54, 2nd ed.

[17] S.P. Dom. Eliz., vol. vii. no. 46. See below, p. 26, and Appendix.

[18] So all authors; I can find no evidence of the date.

[19] Nor was it so annexed in fact. Cardwell is here in error (_Conferences_, p. 30), and his mistake has been generally followed. If there were any doubt on the subject, it would be dispelled by the fact that in 1661 the House of Commons sought the Book annexed to the Act, not of 1559, but of 1552. See below, p. 21.

[20] See the Bishop of Chester's speech against the Bill, in Cardwell, _Conferences_, p. 116: "Marke, my lordes, this short discourse, I beseech your lords.h.i.+ppes, and yee shall perceave, that all catholike princes, heryticke princes, yea, and infidells, have from tyme to tyme refused to take that upon them, that your lords.h.i.+ppes go about and chalenge to do." Collier, vol. ii. p. 430, conjectures that the rubric about kneeling at Communion was omitted by the committee of revisers, and restored while the Bill was pa.s.sing through Parliament; but there is no evidence on either point.

The letter of Guest, to which he refers, probably belongs to an early stage of the revision, and contemplates other and more striking variations from the Book as finally revised. See especially the paragraphs in Cardwell, _Conferences_, p. 51.

[21] See Clay, _Liturgies, etc., of Queen Elizabeth_, pp. xii. seqq.

[22] Clarendon, _History_, vol. iii. p. 747, 8vo, ed. 1707.

[23] Ibid., p. 771.

[24] Cardwell, _Conferences_, p. 295. The Address of the Ministers, the King's Declaration of October 25, and the Letters Patent of March 25, are given by Cardwell in full, pp. 277-302.

[25] Cardwell, _Synod_., pp. 640-642.

[26] _Ibid_., pp. 651-660.

[27] _Commons' Journals_, viii. 247. This and the following citations from the Journals of the two Houses will be found collected in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, Appendix v.

[28] _Commons' Journals_, viii. p. 296. The "original Book" should mean the copy actually tied to the Statute of 1552. It was probably intended to mark in it the alterations mentioned in the Act of 1559. The actual Book was missing, and apparently no copy of the Prayer-book of that year could readily be procured. A copy of the year 1604 was probably selected as being anterior to the changes made by James I. after the Hampton Court Conference, and so presumably printed in accordance with the Act of 1559. It did not, however, as I have said above, strictly follow the Act.

Two prayers printed "before the reading Psalms" were cancelled before the book was annexed to the Bill, but the other variations would probably be unknown to the examiners.

[29] _Lords' Journals_, xi. 364, 366.

[30] _Ibid_., xi. 383.

[31] _Lords' Journals_, xi. 406-408.

[32] _Ibid_., xi. 425.

[33] Cardwell, _Synod_., p. 666.