Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/358

Rh ENGLAND [HISTORY. Reign of Eliza beth. Relations with France and Spain. Begin ning of religious and poli tical parties. Reign of Edward V. Somer set. Northuni berland. Edward s will. Elizabeth the work both of Henry and of Edward was done again. Her reign, four times the length of the two reigns of her brother and sister, is the time when the religious position of England took its final form. The national Church was organized in its essential features as it still remains, And, before the end of her reign, the two parties, those who thought change had gone too far and those who thought that it had not gone far enough, had ceased to be mere parties within the same body, They had become distinct bodies of separatists on either side of the national Church. The reign of Elizabeth saw the beginnings of the Roman Catholic body on the one side and of the Protestant dissenters on the other. As yet both dissentient bodies existed only as objects of persecution. A main feature of the later religious history of England has been the steps by which, first the Protestant dissenters, and then the Roman Catholics, have been admitted to full equality with the members of the national Church. The political history of these reigns, domestic and foreign, is of high importance, but it depends in a large measure on the religious history. It was mainly owing to religious causes that the enmity towards France, so strong in earlier times, so strong again in later times, was during this period exchanged for a temporary enmity towards Spain. And during the reign of Elizabeth we see the beginnings of that alliance between certain religious parties and certain political parties which forms the leading feature of the history of the seventeenth century. In truth, it was during this time that organized parties, either religious or political, had their beginning. In a certain sense there have been Whigs and Tories from the beginning. We can see the existence of different political opinions, of different theories as to the relation of the crown and people, in days before the Norman Conquest ; and in every civil war, in the wars of the thirteenth century above all, distinct political parties stand forth and meet one another in arms. But it can hardly be said that such parties lasted beyond the immediate occasion, or that the party of one age was connected by direct succession with the party of an earlier age. &quot; But from the days of Elizabeth the political and religious parties of later times can be distinctly traced. From her time they have an unbroken succession; from her time they have the special characteristic of being parliamentary parties. The six years reign of the young son of Henry VIII. might almost be called a revolutionary period throughout. Its beginning marks a stage in the history of kingship in England. Edward VI., succeeding by the express terms of an act of parliament, was the first king at whose accession the last traces of the ancient popular election were dis pensed with.. He was a minor, and his authority was struggled for by a knot of ambitious men, all of whom had risen into importance during the late reign. The king s uncle, Edward earl of Hertford, named by Henry as one member of a council of regency, contrived to make himself duke of Somerset and sole protector. Finding a rival in his younger brother Thomas, he, Cromwell-fashion, procured his attainder without a hearing. In 1549 he himself fell before the arts of John Dudley, earl of Warwick and duke of Northumberland, the son of the notorious agent of Henry VII., the father of the notorious favourite of Elizabeth. Somerset was partly restored to favour in 1550 ; but in 1551 came his trial and execution, strange to say on a charge of felony, though a political felony, and not of treason. The remaining two years of the reign of Edward are the reign of Northumberland. His last act was to per suade the young king to do without parliamentary authority what his father had done by parliamentary authority, and to settle the succession to the crown by will. By this illegal instrument he disinherited both his sisters, and named Jane Grey as his successor. As a granddaughter of the French queen Mary, Jaue was in the line named by Henry in case of the failure of his own children; but her immediate promo tion was due to her being the wife of a son of Northum berland. Jane, proclaimed by the council, was rejected by the nation, and Mary, whose parliamentary title was undoubted, was raised to the throne by a popular movement. Northumberland of course paid his forfeit with his head ; but the execution of Jane herself, not at the time, but after a later revolt in which she had no share, was an act of needless harshness. England under Edward altogether fell from the great European position which she had held under Henry. The chief foreign events of the time are the war with Scotland, the useless and barbarous havoc done by the protector, and the peace both withScotland and withFrance by which Boulogne was restored. But the real character of the reign is marked by its ecclesiastical changes, changes which are largely mixed up with a social revolution which was now going on. The strictly religious changes began with the promulgation of a Book of Homilies in the first year of Edward. It marks the state of things at the time that one of these homilies, which are still to this day set forth by authority to be read in churches, was the work of Edmund Bonner. The homilies were followod in 1548 by a form for the ad ministration of the communion in English, and in 1549 by the publication of the complete English Prayer-Book and an act allowing the marriage of the clergy. This first Prayer-Book of Edward marks the first stage of the religious Reformation. It is a purely English stage ; the influence of Rome has been cast aside ; the influence of continental Protestantism has not yet come in. But some of the foreign Reformers were before long invited to England, and their presence soon made itself felt. In 1552 the Prayer-Book was revised in a more distinctly Protestant direction. Before this, in 1551, a Book of Articles of Religion, forty- two in number, were put forth. The Prayer-Book and the Book of Articles represent two sides of the Reformed English Church. The Prayer-Book, chiefly formed out of ancient service-books, remained, even after the changes of 1552, a link with the older state of things. The Articles, even after some changes in the time of Elizabeth, form a manifesto on behalf of the new state of things and a link with the Reformed Churches in other lands. The Prayer-Book and the Articles have ever since been severally the watchwords of two parties within the Church. It is not too much to say that there has ever since been a party which has loved the Prayer-Book and endured the Articles, and a party which has loved the Articles and endured the Prayer-Book. By the end of Edward s reign, the English Church stood by itself, retaining the old fabric of ecclesiastical government, with a service-book chiefly drawn from ancient sources, but with a system of doctrine breathing the spirit of the more thorough-going Reformers of the continent. Had Edward lived, further changes would probably have followed. As it was, the reaction under Mary opened the way for the final settlement under Elizabeth. The position of the prelates who clave to the old system during Edward s reign should be carefully noticed. They neither resigned their sees nor refused obedience to the new law. It does not appear that any bishop declined the use of the first Prayer-Book. Gardiner and Botmer were imprisoned and deprived of their sees on various pretences, as were several bishops later in the reign for refusal to comply with various orders, some of which certainly had no parliamentary authority. A large body of the prelates and others were dissatisfied with the changes that were made ; but there was not only no separation, there was no disobedience to the law. More than one bishop who appears as a persecutor in Mary s reign had gone considerable lengths under Edward. And, as there was little nou-con- MOIHK tary re of Jar Access of Mai Eelati with Franct and Be laud. Relij; cliangi The Englis Prayei Book. The Artich The bishop under Edwan