Page:Church and State under the Tudors.djvu/269

 she had re-established the papal power in England to an extent unknown since the time of Henry III., and even then of at least doubtful legality. But Elizabeth was not, properly speaking, at liberty to inaugurate a great change: she was positively compelled to do so, and at liberty only to a limited degree as to the direction in which she made it. There is ample evidence that the disgust and discontent produced by Mary's government was by no means confined to the Protestant party alone, but was shared in to a great extent even by the Catholics, and was universal throughout that large portion of the nation which was neither bigotedly Catholic nor fanatically Protestant.

The first characteristic feature, then, of the whole relation of Church and State in Elizabeth's reign, is what would now be called its pure and undiluted Erastianism. From the beginning to the end of the reign the Church is subject to the State, and never pretends to be anything else. By far the greatest part of the ecclesiastical revolution was accomplished, as we have seen, in the first three years of her reign, not only altogether without the assistance of Convocation, but—so far as that body can be said to have acted at all—in the teeth of its unanimous opposition. Convocation apart, the only organ of the Church was its representatives in Parliament, the Bishops and Abbots in the Upper House; and their names—when they appear in the division list at all—appear constantly in Opposition, and as constantly in the minority. When—after the principal changes were effected, and, by means of them, the personality of the Upper House entirely changed, and both Houses effectually muzzled by the oath of Supremacy—Convocation was permitted to resume its functions, not only did it accept with meek-