Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

They were at length obliged to issue a new commission for consecrating Parker, directed to Kitchen of Llandaff, to Ball, an Irish bishop, to Barlow, Scory, and Coverdale, deprived in the reign of Mary, and to two suffragans.* Whoever considers it important at present to examine this list, will perceive the perplexities in which the English church was involved by a zeal to preserve unbroken the chain of episcopal succession. On account of this frivolous advantage, that church was led to prefer the common enemy of all reformation to those protestant communions which had boldly snapped asunder that brittle chain: a striking example of the evil that sometimes arises from the inconsistent respect paid by reformers to ancient establishments.

Parker, who had been elected on the 1st of August, was finally consecrated on the 17th of December. † Four new bishops were consecrated three days after the primate; whose preferment, as they had been exiles for religion in the time of Mary, was a strong and irrevocable pledge of the queen's early determination to stand or fall with the reformed faith. This politic, as well as generous, elevation of faithful adherents and patient sufferers did not prevent the wise ministers from a general choice which none of their antagonists ventured to impugn. For some time many of the Roman catholics, unskilled in theological disputes, continued to frequent their parish churches, regardless of the differences which were to steep Europe in blood.

This unenquiring conformity appears not immediately to have yielded to the condemnation of it pronounced by the divines at Trent. The Anglican reformation was completed by the publication of the articles of religion, exhibiting the creed of that establishment, which, upon the whole, deserves commendation, in the only points where the authors could exercise any discretion; for treating the ancient church

A suffragan is one who executes the office of a bishop, but who hath not the title. Ed. Phillips's World of Words. 4th ed. 1678.

+ Strype's Parker, b. ii. c. i. Burnet.

Collier, ii. 436.

VOL. III.

with considerable approaches to decency, and for preferring quiet, piety, and benevolence to precision and consistency not pressing those doctrines to their utmost logical consequences, which, by such a mode of inference, lead only to hatred, to blood, and often to a corruption of moral principle.

A translation of the Scripture was published by authority, which, after passing through several emendations, became, in the succeeding reign, the basis of our present version. This was the work of translators not deeply versed in the opinions, languages, manners, and institutions of the ancient world, who were born before the existence of eastern learning in Europe, and whose education was completed before the mines of criticism had been opened, either as applied to the events of history, or to the reading, interpretation, and genuineness of ancient writings. On these accounts, as well as on account of the complete superannuation of some parts of its vocabulary, it undoubtedly requires revision and emendation. Such a task, however, should only be entrusted to hands skilful and tender in the case of a translation, which, to say nothing of the connection of its phraseology with the religious sensibilities of a people, forms the richest storehouse of the native beauties of our ancient tongue; and by frequent yet reverential perusal has more than any other cause contributed to the permanency of our language, and thereby to the unity of our literature. In waving the higher considerations of various kinds which render caution, in such a case, indispensable, it is hard to overvalue the literary importance of daily infusions from the "well of English undefiled" into our familiar converse. Nor should it be forgotten, if ever the revision be undertaken, that we derive an advantage, not to be hazarded for tasteless novelties, from a perfect model of a translation of works of the most remote antiquity, into that somewhat antique English, venerable without being obscure, which alone can faithfully represent their spirit and genius.

While Elizabeth continued to consolidate her throne

on the basis of the protestant religion, which her enemies as well as her friends taught her to contemplate as the only secure foundation of her title and government, the opposition of innovation to establishment, sometimes traversed by personal interests and temporary incidents, sometimes blended with the more shifting objects of policy, was hastening to become the mainspring of the wars and revolutions of Europe. Some of the steps towards a general war of opinion have been traced in the conclusion of the preceding volume. Some of the political causes which gave an ascendant for a short time to a transient and narrow policy have also been there observed. The most considerable of them was the marriage of Mary Stuart to the dauphin. At the death of Mary Tudor, the queen dauphiness assumed the arms and regal title of England, to which she was indeed the heir in the eyes of all who deemed Elizabeth illegitimate, and considered the parliament as not having the power to invade the sacred order of succession. Mary and her husband even executed a grant of land to lord Fleming, by their style as king and queen of England as well as of Scotland.* These acts could not be regarded as the mere assumption of barren titles, since they never were practised during the reign of Mary, or even of Edward. The claims of a Roman catholic pretender, wedded to the heir apparent of such a monarchy as France, while Scotland was divided between the contending communions, while Ireland was altogether catholic, and while catholics predominated in the northern provinces of England,—were in the highest degree formidable to the protestant succession in England, and seemed to threaten an instant overthrow of Elizabeth's tottering throne. The princes of the house of Lorraine established in France, -a race remarkable for capacity, valour, and daring ambition, became the masters of that monarchy at the death of Henry II., who was mortally wounded in a tournament in July, 1559, shortly after having issued an edict inflicting

As early as January, 1559.- Cecil's Diary, Murdin, 747.

the punishment of death on all protestants, and enjoining judges not to commute the penalty.* In the minority of Francis II., their sway was established through the ascendant of their niece, Mary Stuart, over the imbecile boy to whom that beautiful and accomplished princess, distinguished even then for vigour and ability, was so unhappily, and, in spite of the outward splendour of the union, so unsuitably tied. These princes, who countenanced the legends which deduced their descent from Charlemagne, certainly regarded the sovereignty of the British islands as being within Mary's lawful pretensions, of which the enforcement was not beyond the grasp of their own almost boundless aspirations.

It has been already seen that Philip II., a bigot of equal sincerity, sternness, and sagacity, preserved Elizabeth from the merciless purposes of her sister, in order to be a restraint on the vaulting ambition of the house of Lorraine. When he saw the pretensions to the English throne, which the French princes now made for their niece, he suspended every purpose of religious hatred, and of his permanent policy, in order to provide against an aggrandisement which menaced his own dominions. The count de Feria †, the Spanish ambassador in London, received his master's orders to make propositions of marriage to Elizabeth as soon as she succeeded to the throne. Though this fact be attested by all writers, the particulars are mentioned by none, and do not seem to be preserved in our public repositories. Philip is said to have pressed his suit with some importunity, and to have assured the queen that he could obtain a papal dispensation for the marriage, which would at least silence her catholic subjects. She, wary from her early youth, answered the advances of so potent a monarch with all due courtesy. She intimated the difficulty, which she doubtless strongly felt, of tacitly owning her illegitimacy, by accepting a papal dispensation to become the wife of her brother-in-law. Her repugnance to the marriage, as she afterwards de

* Henault.

+ Created a duke in 1567. Moreri,

clared to Castelnau, was so strong, as to prevail over her gratitude to Philip, who had saved her from her sister's rage, at a moment when Elizabeth's destruction seemed so certain, that she had determined on asking no other favour than that her head should be struck off by a sword, as her mother's was, instead of an axe.* She, says Camden, with a mind most averse from such nuptials, thought nothing so likely to deliver her from the eager pursuit of her importunate lover, as the immediate adoption of decisive measures for the establishment of the reformed church. †

The various motives which withheld her from the proffered marriage were too obvious to have escaped a prince so discerning as Philip. Perhaps we may be allowed to conjecture, with some probability, that his expectations of retaining England by wedlock were slight, but that he relied on the friendly dispositions with which the young queen would be inspired by his affectation of gallantry towards her. At all events, count de Feria

the suit was soon relinquished; for the declined to appear at the coronation; and the unhappy espousal of Elizabeth of France to Philip was one of the stipulations of the treaty of Château-Cambresis.

The relations of Elizabeth, at her accession, with the court of Rome, formed an object which required to be handled with no small delicacy. Sir Edward Carne, of South Wales, an eminent canonist, had represented the English government at Rome during all the periods of friendly intercourse, from the negotiations about the divorce of Henry VIII. to the death of Mary. Elizabeth instructed him to announce her accession to the sovereign pontiff, and to assure him of her determination to offer no violence to the conscience of any class of her subjects; thus at once con

* Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii. ch. 3.

+ Illa, animo ab hujusmodi nuptiis aversissimo, nihil ad importunum procum amoliendum efficacius censuit quàm ut religio quam primum mu. taretur."- Camd. Ann. Eliz. ed. Hearne. The version in Kennet, which omits all the strong expressions of Camden, is a remarkable instance of the effect of a languid translation in hiding the feelings of the principal persons, which are here the most important facts in the narrative.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »