And they AN. Reg. 3,

Damascus', might not have been erected in it.
drove on so fast upon it, that in some places they had taken
down the steps where the altar stood, and brought the holy
table into the midst of the church; in others they had laid
aside the ancient use of godfathers and godmothers in the
administration of Baptism, and left the answering for the child
to the charge of the father. The weekly fasts, the time of
Lent, and all other days of abstinence by the Church com-
manded, were looked upon as superstitious observations. No
fast by them allowed of but occasional only, and then too of
their own appointing. And the like course they took with the
festivals also, neglecting those which had been instituted by
the Church, as human inventions, not fit to be retained in a
Church reformed. And finally, that they might wind in their
outlandish doctrines with such foreign usages, they had pro-
cured some of the inferior Ordinaries to impose upon their
several parishes certain new books of sermons and expositions
of the Holy Scripture, which neither were required by the
Queen's Injunctions, nor by Act of Parliament. Some abuses
also were discovered in the regular Clergy who served in
churches of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction; amongst whom
it began to grow too ordinary to marry all such as came unto
them, without banns or licence, and many times not only with-
out the privity, but against the express pleasure and command,
of their parents. For which those churches past by the name
of lawless churches' in the voice of the people2.

14. For remedy whereof it was found necessary by the Archbishop of Canterbury to have recourse unto the power which was given unto him by the Queen's Commission, and by a clause or passage of the Act of Parliament for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, &c. As one of the Commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, he was authorized, with the rest of his associates, according to the statute made in that behalf, to "reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities whatsoever," as might from time to time arise in the

1 2 Kings xvi. 10, seqq. The presbyterian Calderwood had applied the name of Altare Damascenum to the English Church. See i. 194.

2 The statements of this paragraph appear to be derived from the paper of orders given below.

1561.

1561.

AN. REG.3, Church of England, and did require "to be redressed and reformed, to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue, and conservation of the peace and unity of the kingdom1." And in the passage of the Act before remembered it was especially provided, "That all such ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, should be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, until further order should be therein taken by authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and ordered under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm. And also if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church, by the misusing of the orders of the said Book of Common Prayer, the Queen's Majesty might, by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan, ordain or publish such further ceremonies or rites, as should be most for the advance of God's glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacraments."

Orders of the
Ecclesiastical

ers.

15. Fortified and assured by which double power, the Commission- Archbishop, by the Queen's consent, and the advice of some of the Bishops, commissionated and instructed to the same intent, sets forth a certain book of Orders, to be diligently observed and 145 executed by all and singular persons whom it might concern. 317 In which it was provided: "That no Parson, Vicar, or Curate

These Orders-about which there had been much discussion between our author and Archbishop Williams, (Coal from the Altar, 22; Holy Table, 41)-do not appear in any of the histories or collections, and have been reprinted for the first time while the present edition was passing through the press. It seems, therefore, worth while to give them at full length, from the British Magazine for October, 1848 (vol. xxxiv. pp. 419-421), to which they were communicated by the Rev. W. Goode. (Comp. Grindal, ed. Park. Soc. 154.)

"Orders taken the x day of October, in the third year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. By virtue of Her Majesty's letters addressed to her Highness' Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical, as followeth :-

"INPRIMIS, for the avoiding of much strife and contention, that hath heretofore risen among the Queen's subjects in divers parts of the realm,

1561.

of any exempt church, (commonly called lawless churches'), AN. REG.3, should from thenceforth attempt to conjoin by solemnization of matrimony any not being of his or their parish-church, without

for the using or transposing of the rood-lofts, fonts, and steps, within the queres and chancels in every parish-church-It is thus decreed and ordained, that the rood-lofts, as yet being at this day aforesaid untransposed, shall be so altered that the upper part of the same with the soller be quite taken down, unto the upper parts of the vautes, and beam running in length over the said vautes, by putting some convenient crest upon the said beam towards the church, with leaving the situation of the seats (as well in the quere as in the church), as heretofore hath been used.

"Provided yet, that where any parish of their own costs and charges by common consent will pull down the whole frame, and reedifying again the same in joiner's work (as in divers churches within the city of London doth appear), that they may do as they think agreeable, so it be to the height of the upper beam aforesaid.

"Provided also, that where in any parish-church the said rood-lofts be already transposed, so that there remain a comely partition betwixt the chancel and the church, that no alteration be otherwise attempted in them, but be suffered in quiet. And where no partition is standing, there to be one appointed.

"Also that the steps which be as yet at this day remaining in any cathedral, collegiate, or parish-church, be not stirred nor altered; but be suffered to continue, with the tombs of any noble or worshipful personage, where it so chanceth to be, as well in chancel, church, or chapel. And if in any chancel the steps be transposed, that they be not erected again, but that the place be decently paved, where the Communion-table shall stand out of the times of receiving the communion, having thereon a fair linen cloth, with some covering of silk, buckram, or other such like, for the clean keeping of the said cloth on the communion-board, at the cost of the parish.

"And further, that there be fixed upon the wall, over the said communion-board, the tables of God's precepts, imprinted for the said purpose.

"Provided yet that in Cathedral Churches the tables of the said precepts be more largely and costly painted out, to the better shew of the

same.

"Item, that all chancels be clean kept and repaired, within as without, in the windows and otherwhere as appertaineth.

"Item, that the font be not removed from the accustomed place; and that in parish-churches the curates take not upon them to confer baptism in basens, but in the font customably used.

"Item, that there be no destruction or alienation of the bells, steeple, or porch belonging to any parish-church, by the private authority of any person or persons, without sufficient matter shewed to the Archbishop of

1561.

AN. REG.3, sufficient testimony of the banns being asked in the several churches where they dwell, or otherwise were sufficiently licensed that there should be no other days observed for holy days or fasting days, as of duty and commandment, but only such holy days as be expressed for holy days in the Kalendar lately set forth by the Queen's authority'; and none other fasting days to be so commanded, but as the laws and proclamation of the Queen's Majesty should appoint: that it should not be lawful to any Ordinary to assign or enjoin the parishes to buy any books of sermons or expositions in any [other] sort than is already, or shall be hereafter, appointed by public authority: that neither the Curates, or parents of the children which are brought to Baptism should answer for them at the font, but that the ancient use of godfathers and god

the province, of his and their doings, and by them allowed; except it be for cause of repairing the same.

"Item, that neither the curates nor the parents of the children alter the common used manner for godfathers and godmothers to answer for the children, nor shall condemn the accustomable usage in the same.

"Item, that it shall not be lawful to any ordinary to assign or enjoin the parishes to buy any books of sermons or expositions, in any other sort than is already, or shall be hereafter, appointed by public authority.

"Item, that there be none other days observed for holy days or fasting days, as of duty and commandment, but only such holy days as be expressed for holy days in the Kalendar late set forth by the Queen's authority. And none other fasting days (to be so commanded), but as the laws and proclamations by the Queen's Majesty provided in the same do appoint.

"Item, that the parson, vicar, or curate, with the churchwardens, shall yearly make and exhibit unto the registers [registrars] of the Ordinary, the names and surnames of all persons married, christened, and buried, within their said parishes, by bill indented, with the subscription of their hands: noting the day and year of the said christenings, marriages, and burials, out of their original register kept in custody, as is appointed by the Queen's Majesty's Injunctions.

"Item, that no parson, vicar, or curate of any exempt churches, or otherwise called lawless Churches, do attempt to conjoin by solemnization of matrimony any persons not being of his parish, without sufficient testitimony of the banns asking in the Churches where they dwell: or otherwise be authorized lawfully to marry.

"Imprinted at London in Powles Church-yard, by Richard Jugge, Printer to the Queen's Majesty. Cum privilegio Regiæ Majestatis."

1

1 The Calendar was revised in 1561. See Liturgical Services of Eliz. ed. Park. Soc. xxxiii. 435-455.

1561.

mothers should be still retained and finally, that in all such AN.REG. 3, churches in which the steps to the altar were not taken down, the said steps should remain as before they did; that the communion table should be set in the said place where the steps then were, or had formerly stood; and that the table of God's precepts should be fixed upon the wall over the said communion board." Which passage compared with that in the Advertisements, published in the year 1565, (of which more hereafter1), make up this construction,-that the communion table was to stand above the steps, and under the commandments; and therefore all along the wall, on which the ten commandments were appointed to be placed: which was directly where the altar had stood before2. Some other innovations and disorders had been obtruded on the Church at the same time also by those of the Genevian faction; for the suppressing whereof, before they should prescribe to any antiquity, the like course was taken. But what those innovations and disorders were, will easily be seen by the perusal of the Orders themselves, which were then published in print by the Queen's command; as a judicious apothecary is able to conjecture by the doctor's recipe at the distemper of the patient, and the true quality of the disease.

of Merlors' and

Schools.

16. Nothing else memorable in this year of a public Foundation nature but the foundation of the Merchant-Tailors' School in chant-TaiLondon; first founded by the master, warden, and assistants of Sandwich the company of Merchant-Tailors, whence it had the name, and by them founded for a seminary to St John's in Oxon, built and endowed at the sole costs and charges of one of their livery. The school kept in a fair large house in the parish of St Laurence Pountney, heretofore called the Manor of Roose", belonging to the Dukes of Buckingham; towards the purchase and accommodating whereof to the present use, five hundred pounds was given by one Richard Hills, who had been once 1 Eliz. vi. 8.

2

Comp. Cypr. Anglic. p. 20. The words of the order, and Heylyn's reasoning on them, are inconsistent with the notion which has of late been very confidently propounded,—that the Elizabethan reformers intended to place the Commandments in the chancel-arch, as a substitute for the images which they removed from the screen.

3 Sup. p. 229.

"The Roose." Stow, Chron. "The Rose." Id. Survey.