ELIZABETH'S INJUSTICE TO BONNER.

349

mass and the Bishops, therefore, two days after her accession, met her at Highgate, to welcome and congratulate her. Elizabeth received them all with courtesy and kindness, excepting Bonner, whom she ought more especially to have favoured, as the most active ecclesiastical Magistrate, whose loyalty, when his Sovereign professed the religion he approved, was equal to his piety and virtue. From him she turned away with silent and reproachful contempt, and thus gave an earnest of the change of policy she was meditating. Bonner, with his brethren, returned to the City, and we may suppose to his house at St. Paul's, while the Queen proceeded to the Duke of Norfolk's, at the Charter House, and from thence the next day to the Tower.

Two months elapsed before the Queen was crowned,* and before the meeting of her first Parliament.† In this short space of time, Elizabeth threw off the mask which had been assumed with so much skill and dexterity, as to deceive her zealous sister, and prevent any judicial process against her as a heretic. Though she buried her sister with all the solemnities of the Catholic ritual, and commanded a solemn dirge and mass of requiem for the soul of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, it is not improbable that the souls of both would have been as much benefited by the reformed, as by the ancient ritual; for she shewed

* 15th January, 1559.

+ 23rd January.

‡ Lingard-Elizabeth-vol. iv., p. 349.

350

CONDUCT OF ELIZABETH.

no zeal for the faith, which valued the

prayers of the living for the souls of the dead. She discharged the heretical prisoners on their own recognizances-received the Ultra-Protestant Divines on their return from Geneva, and other places of exile-forbade Oglethorpe (who refused obedience), to elevate the Host in the Chapel Royal in her presence—and actually imprisoned White, the Bishop of Winchester, for the sermon on the death of Mary, in which the zealous preacher, advocated the "Unity of the Church," condemned heresy, exhorted all to persevere in the religion of Mary, prayed for the souls in purgatory, upheld the power of the Church as judging all men, but to be judged of none. He declared of Mary that the poorest creature in all the city feared not God, more than she did*-that she restored to the Church the ornaments which had been taken away in the time of the schism, and, having purged the realm which was poisoned with heresy, refused to declare herself the head of the Church, a title which no prince had for fifteen hundred years had ever usurped. It was probably this expression which irritated the young Queen, who was conscious to herself that she intended to restore the days of schism, to destroy the unity which had been established with so much difficulty, and cemented with so much blood. Neither was this all. She forbad

*See White's Sermon at the end of Strype's Memorials, vol. iii., Records, 284. The passage at the end of this page is really eloquent.

ELIZABETH'S FIRST PROCLAMATION.

351

preaching unless under especial circumstances-she appointed a secret committee of divines to revise and correct the Liturgy of Edward-and took other measures which proved to Bonner and his brethren the resolution she had taken, on the meeting of her first parliament, to "undo all, as all had never been," to overthrow the work of Mary, and possibly to reject once more the very supremacy of the Bishop of Rome itself, as her rash and ruthless father had done. They were confirmed in their suspicion by the proclamation in which she ordered the established worship to be only so long observed "till consultation "on religion might be had in Parliament, and the "three estates."* This document demonstrated to the Bishops, that Elizabeth had determined to act upon that principle which is the secret of all heresy, and the beginning of all that pride of heart, which presumes to throw off the authority of the ecclesiastics, to whom alone is committed the power of pronouncing what doctrines are to be believed or rejected by the laity. If the proposition on which this proclamation was written, was to be once admitted without resistance-if the Church of England was allowed once more to become a parliamentary Church, instead of remaining a portion of the Papal Church, the Bishops at once perceived that the Bishop of Rome might possibly be no longer regarded as the sole head upon earth of the Church Catholic, and of the Church of England. The unavoidable and neces

Lingard-Burnet-Strype.

352

THE BISHOPS REFUSE TO CROWN ELIZABETH.

sary consequence followed. The Bishops assembled at London in full committee, or in private synod, and unanimously resolved to oppose every obstacle in their power, to the solemn ceremony which confirmed the authority thus dangerous to the united and reconciled Churches of Rome and England. They resolved to refuse to crown the Queen. They resolved, that is, to refuse to acknowledge as their Sovereign, a woman who would have objected to some part of the service as ungodly and superstitious; and who, if she did not refuse to take, certainly meant, to violate, that part of the oath, which bound the Sovereign to maintain what my friend Dr. Lingard calls "the liberties of the Church," that is the liberty of its dependence on Rome, and of its independence of the King or Queen of England.* Their loyalty was less than their piety. They believed they were to honour God, more than Cæsar, as they were commanded to do. They honoured God, when they preferred the Pope to the Queen. They honoured Cæsar rightly, when they placed the Queen below their holy Father the Pope. They refused to crown Elizabeth, and Bonner was the chief of the recusants.

What was to be done? The secret deliberations of the Council of Elizabeth have not been handed down to us. Much confusion and embarrassment certainly resulted on account of the great importance which was attached to the ceremony of consecration. Bonner was the Bishop who, in conjunction *Lingard, p. 350.

BONNER GIVES UP THE CORONATION ROBES. 353

with the Archbishop of York, (for the See of Canterbury was vacant by the death of Pole,) would be chiefly assailed by the partizans of the Court and of the projected changes. They were both resolute, and both persisted in their refusal. Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, at length consented to place the Crown on the head of Elizabeth, on condition that she took the accustomed oath and complied with the Catholic pontifical. If he, or some other of his brethren, had not consented, I have no doubt that the Queen would have commanded the Chancellor, or one of the principal nobility, or one of the deprived Bishops, or Dr. Cox, or some other of the returned exiles, to place the crown upon her head. She certainly possessed the recklessness of her father, though she preferred to govern by balancing party against party, by exciting hopes of favor, and fears of censure, and thus ruling by influence, rather than by force or terror. Oglethorpe at length consented to crown her, and it is a curious fact, that the Lords commanded Bonner to send to the Bishop of Carlisle the robes that were used on this occasion by the Ecclesiastic who was appointed to crown the Sovereign. He was directed to send, and he obeyed the injunction, all the pontifical habits that Bishops were wont to use, in "such glorious inaugurations of most illustrious Kings."* Bonner sent

* Such is Strype's translation of the words of the writ― Universam apparatum Pontificium, quo uti solent Episcopi in hujusmodi magnificis Illustrissimorum Regum inaugurationibus.