Page:Church and State under the Tudors.djvu/206

 about the entire ecclesiastical counter-revolution, were but five in number, viz:—

1 Eliz. c. 1. An Act to restore to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over the estates ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers repugnant to the same.

1 Eliz. c. 2. An Act for the uniformity of Common Prayer and service in the Church, and administration of the Sacraments.

1 Eliz. c. 4. An Act for the restitution of the firstfruits to the Crown.

1 Eliz. c. 19. An Act giving authority to the Queen's Majesty, upon the avoidance of any archbishopric or bishopric, to take into her hands certain of the temporal possessions thereof, recompensing the same with parsonages impropriate and tenths.

1 Eliz. c. 22. An Act giving authority to the Queen during her life to make ordinances in collegiate churches and schools.

It is necessary to examine a little what was the actual effect of the first two of these Acts, in order that we may see how far the state of things established by them differed from that which existed at the death of Edward VI. Mary had, as we have seen, by two sweeping Acts abolished, first, all Edward's Protestant laws; and secondly, all Henry's anti-Papal ones: taking advantage, in the first case, of the reactionary feeling which followed on the death of Edward and the Northumberland fiasco; and in the second, of the temporary improvement in her position and strength which followed upon her marriage with Philip. Elizabeth and her Parliament had neither the will nor the power to carry out a similarly high-handed policy. What