Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/337

 tried the smaller cases of discipline which were not important enough for the High Commission Court. Doctors' Commons, which had dwelt before in Paternoster Row or at the Queen's Head, under the auspices of Dr. Henry Harvey, built itself a new home, with hall and library and plate and privileges for importing wine. Knowledge of canon and civil law was in parliament, as in 1585, regarded as a special qualification for service in the House of Commons on committees. In the parliaments of 1559 and 1563 were introduced bills to make a University degree necessary for ecclesiastical judges. And the canon law, as drawn up by Lyndwood, and the civilian procedure, subsisted, for the revision which had been completed by Edward's commissioners did not approve itself to Elizabeth or her advisers, and after an abortive attempt to carry it through the parliament of 1559, took its place on the shelf of broken projects. Even the Court of High Commission, novel as its functions were and unfettered as it was in the exercise of them, condescended to borrow from the canonical jurisprudence some of its most offensive details, its ex officio oath and the censures by which it would enforce its sentences.

It was a strange composite system, perhaps the only one possible consistently with the retention of historic continuity, but obviously and most certainly tolerable only for a time. What was the attitude of theologians, of common lawyers, and of canonists towards this critically-balanced structure? To the true theologians, whether Catholic or Puritan, the whole was repulsive: we see this in the half-hearted, almost despairing adhesion of Archbishop Parker, and in the strong and justifiable protests of the Puritans; and I mention them with respect here, because this opposition to unconstitutional tyranny is the only point in which I have any sympathy with them; their tenets I hold to be untenable, and their methods of promoting them by calumny, detraction, and coarse ribaldry I think entirely detestable; but I do think they were right in denouncing the Court of High Commission and all its works. Even conservative churchmen like Hooker, in their defence of the ecclesiastical system, are