Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/272

 252 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 43. wives melted the cathedral organ-pipes into dish-covers and cut the frames into bedsteads, there was something to be said even in favour of clerical celibacy. The bad relations between the Crown and the spiritual estate prevented the clergy from settling down into healthy activity. The Queen insulted her bishops on one side ; the Puritans denounced them on the other as imps of Antichrist ; and thus without effective authority with its rulers brought deliberately into contempt the Church of England sunk deeper day by day into anarchy. Something no doubt it had become necessary to do ; but Elizabeth took a line which however it might be defended in theory was approved of only by the Catho- lics and by them in the hope that it would prove the ruin of the institution which they hated. At the close of 1564, after the return of the Court from Cambridge, an intimation went abroad that the Queen intended to enforce uniformity in the adminis- tration of the services and to insist especially on the use of the surplice and cap the badges which distinguished the priest from the Genevan minister. The Puritan clergy would sooner have walked to the stake in the yellow robes of Sanbenitos. But it was in vain that the Dean of Durham insisted that it was cruel to use force against Protestants while ' so many Papists, who had never sworn obedience to the Queen nor yet did any part of their duty to their flocks, enjoyed their liberty and livings. 5 It was in vain that Pilkington and others of the bishops exclaimed against disturbing the peace