1558.

posture of ability to make good her actions. Many who were AN. REG. 1, imprisoned for the cause of religion she restored to liberty at her first coming to the Crown. Which occasioned Rainsford, a buffonly gentleman of the Court, to make a suit to her in the behalf of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who had been long imprisoned in a Latin translation, that they might also be restored to liberty, and walk abroad as formerly in the English tongue. To whom she presently made answer, "That he should first endeavour to know the minds of the prisoners, who perhaps desired no such liberty as was demanded1." Which notwithstanding, upon a serious debate of all particulars, she was resolved to proceed to a Reformation, as the times should serve. In order whereunto she constitutes her Privy Council, which she compounds of such ingredients as might neither give encouragement to any of those who wished well to the Church of Rome, or alienate their affections from her whose hearts were more inclined to the Reformation. Of such as had been of the Council to the Queen her sister, she retained the Lord Archbishop of York, the Lord Marquess of Winchester, the Earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury, Darby, and Pembroke, the Lords Clynton and Effingham, Sir Thomas Cheiney 2, Sir William Petre3, Sir John Mason, Sir Richard Sackvile, and Doctor Wotton; to whom she added of her own, the Marquess of Northampton, the Earl of Bedford, Sir Thomas Parry 4, Sir Edward Rogers, Sir Ambrose Cave, Sir William Cecil, and Sir Nicholas Bacon. To which last, being then Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, and one that had been much employed by her in some former services which had relation to the Law, she committed the custody of the Great Seal on the 22nd of December7; the title of Lord Chancellor remaining to Archbishop Heath, as before it did, and that of the Lord Keeper being given to Bacon; which being a new title, and

This story is the first in Bacon's Collection of Apophthegms; but he does not name Rainsford.

Sir T. Cheyney died Dec. 8. See an account of him in Holinsh. iv. 158.

Camden, Annals, 18-19, ed. 1615. He adds Francis Knollis. Dr Lingard, vii. 252, substitutes "the civilian Dr Boxall," for Wotton.

1558.

AN. REG. 1, consequently subject unto some disputes, an Act was passed in the second Parliament of her reign for investing the new Lord Keeper, and all that should from thenceforth enjoy that office, with all the powers, privileges, and preeminences which anciently had been exercised and enjoyed by the Lord Chancellor of England, and for confirming of all sentences and decrees in Chancery which had or should be made by the said Lord Keepers in all times to come1. The like mixture she also caused to be made amongst other her subordinate ministers, in adding such new Commissioners for the Peace in every county as either were known to be of the reformed religion or to wish well to it.

5. The preferring of so many of the Protestant party, as 104 well to places of employment in their several countries as to 276 the rank and dignity of Privy Councillors, and the refusal of her hand to Bishop Bonner at her very first coming to the Crown, were taken to be strong presumptions (as indeed they were), that she intended to restore the reformed religion. And as the Papists, in the first beginning of the reign of Queen Mary, hoping thereby the better to obtain her favour, began to build new altars and set up the Mass, before they were required so to do by any public authority; so fared it now with many unadvised zealots amongst the Protestants, who, measuring the Queen's affections by their own, or else presuming that their errors would be taken for an honest zeal, employed themselves as busily in the demolishing of altars and defacing of images, as if they had been licensed and commanded to it by some legal warrant2. It happened also, that some of the Ministers which remained at home, and others which returned in great numbers from beyond the seas, had put themselves into the pulpits, and bitterly inveighed against the superstitions and corruptions of the Church of Rome. The Popish preachers did the like, and were not sparing of invectives against the others, whom they accused of heresies, schisms, and innovation in the worship of God. For the suppressing of which disorders on the one side, and those common disturbances on the other, the Queen set out two Proclamations much about one time; by one of which it was commanded 5 Eliz. c. 18. See Burnet, 11. 160; Campbell, Lives of Chancellors, 2 Camden, 371; Hayw. 28.

1

ii. 94.

1558.

that no man, of what persuasion soever he was in the points AN. REG.1, of religion, should be suffered from thenceforth to preach in public, but only such as should be licensed by her authority; and that all such as were so licensed or appointed should forbear preaching upon any point which was matter of controversy, and might conduce rather to exasperate than to calm men's passions1. Which Proclamation was observed with such care and strictness, that no sermon was preached at St Paul's Cross or any public place in London till the Easter following. At what time the sermons which were to be preached in the Spittle (according to the ancient custom2) were performed by Doctor Bill, the Almoner to the Queen, and afterwards the first Dean of Westminster of the Queen's foundation, Doctor Richard Cox, formerly Dean of Westminster, preferred in short time after to the see of Ely, and Mr Robert Horn (of whom mention hath been made before at the troubles of Franckfort3), advanced not long after to the see of Winchester. The rehearsal sermon, accustomably preached at St Paul's Cross on the Sunday following, was undertook by Doctor Thomas Sampson, then newly returned from beyond the seas, and after most unhappily made Dean of Christ-Church. But so it chanced that when he was to go into the pulpit the door was locked, and the key thereof not to be found, so that a smith was sent for to break open the door; and that being done, the like necessity was found of cleansing and making sweet the place, which by a long disuse had contracted so much filth and nastiness as rendered it unfit for another preacher1.

1

6. By the other Proclamation, which was published on

Hayw. 5. This proclamation does not appear in Burnet, Strype, or Wilkins.

2 Time out of mind, it hath been a laudable custom, that on Good Friday in the afternoon, some especial learned man, by appointment of the prelates, hath preached a sermon at Paul's Cross, treating of Christ's Passion; and upon the three next Easter holydays, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the like learned men, by the like appointment, have used to preach on the forenoons at the said Spital [St Mary's without Bishopgate], to persuade the article of Christ's resurrection; and then on Low Sunday, one other learned man, at Paul's Cross, to make rehearsal of those four former sermons, either commending or reproving them, as to him (by judgment of the learned divines) was thought convenient." Stow's Survey of London, 176.

1558.

AN.REG. 1, the 30th of December', it was enjoined, That no man, of what quality or degree soever, should presume to alter anything in the state of religion, or innovate in any of the rites and ceremonies thereunto belonging, but that all such rites and ceremonies should be observed in all parish-churches of the kingdom as were then used and retained in her Majesty's Chapel, until some further order should be taken in it. Only it was permitted, and withal required, that the Litany, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, should be said in the English tongue, and that the Epistle and the Gospel at the time of the High Mass should be read in English; which was accordingly done in all the churches of London on the next Sunday after, being New-Year's day, and by degrees in all the other churches of the kingdom also2. Further than this she thought it not convenient to proceed at the present, but that she had commanded the Priest or Bishop (for some say it was the one, and some the other), who officiated at the 105 altar in the Chapel-Royal, not to make any elevation of the 277 Sacrament, the better to prevent that adoration which was given unto it, and which she could not suffer to be done in her sight without a most apparent wrong to her judgment and conscience; which being made known in other places, and all other churches being commanded to conform themselves to the example of the Chapel, the elevation was forborne also in most other places, to the great discontent and trouble of the Popish party. And though there was no further progress toward a Reformation by any public act or edict, yet secretly a Reformation in the form of worship, and consequently in point of doctrine, was both intended and projected. For,—making none acquainted with her secret purposes but the Lord Mar1 Dated Dec. 27. Hayw. 5. Strype, Ann. i. Append. No. 3. Wilkins, iv. 180. Holinsh. iv. 158; Hayw. 13.

a Rishton, in Sanders, 273; Camden, 371. "Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, preparing to say mass in the Royal Chapel on Christmas day, received an order not to elevate the host in the royal presence. He replied that his life was the Queen's, but that his conscience was his own; on which Elizabeth, rising immediately after the Gospel, retired with her attendants." Lingard, vii. 255. I am unable to refer to Dr Lingard's authorities for Oglethorpe's reply; that the Queen left the chapel after the Gospel is mentioned by Sir W. Fitzwilliam, in Ellis, Orig. Letters, 2nd Ser. ii. 261.

1558-9.

sion for re

vising

Liturgy.

quess of Northampton, Francis, Earl of Bedford, Sir John AN. REG.1, Gray' of Pergo, (one of the late Duke of Suffolk's brothers,) and Sir William Cecil-she committed the reviewing of the A commisformer Liturgy to the care of Doctor Parker, Doctor Gryndal, th Doctor Cox, Doctor Pilkington, Doctor Bill, Doctor May, and Mr Whitehead, together with Sir Thomas Smith, Doctor of the Laws, a very learned, moderate, and judicious gentleman2. But what they did, and what preferments they attained to on the doing of it, we shall see anon, when we shall find the book reviewed, confirmed by Act of Parliament, and executed in all parts of the kingdom as that Act required.

7. But first, some public acts of State and great solemnities of Court are to be performed. The funeral of the Queen deceased, solemnized on the 13th of December at the Abbey of Westminster, and the sermon preached by Doctor White3, then Bishop of Winchester, seemed only as a preamble to the like solemnity performed at the said place about ten days after, in the obsequies of Charles the Fifth; which mighty Emperor, having first left the world by resigning his kingdoms and retiring himself into a monastery, as before was said, did after leave his life also in September last; and now, upon the 24th of this present December, a solemn obsequy was kept for him in the wonted form,-a rich hearse being set up for him in the Church of Westminster, magnificently covered with a pall of gold, his own Embassador serving as the principal mourner, and all the great lords and officers about the Court attending on the same in their ranks and orders. And yet both these, though stately and majestical in their several kinds, came infinitely short of those pomps and triumphs which were prepared and reserved for the Coronation. As a preparation whereunto, she passed from Westminster to the Tower on the 12th of January5, attended by the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and other citizens, in their barges, with the banners and escutcheons of their several companies, loud music sounding all

1 Lord John Grey, the same who is mentioned above, p. 117.

* Camden, 371. Fuller, iv. 27. See the "Device for alteration of Religion," supposed to have been drawn up by Sir Thomas Smith, in Burnet, ii.; Strype, Annals, i. Append. No. 4; Cardwell, Conferences, 43. Printed in Strype's Eccl. Mem. iii. Append. No. 81.

3

Stow, 635.

T

[HEYLYN, II.]