ENGLAND, CHURCH OF

outbreak of the Wars of the Roses; but meantime the reaction against Rome was holding its course both in church and state, and was much increased by the high-handed action of Pope Martin V., who endeavoured to revive the abuses which successive kings and parliaments had abated or removed.

Some recovery of Roman influence, however, took place in the weak reign of Henry VI., and Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of Canterbury, was not only nominated by the pope to the primacy, but avowedly governed the church as papal legate; a policy wherein he was followed by his successors Cardinals Bouchier and Morton, under the last of whom (1487-1501) the long struggle of the nation against papal encroachments seemed to end in final defeat, and in the reduction of England to a mere appanage of Rome.

With the accession of William Warham, a patron of learning, to the primacy in 1502, some abatement of this subjection becomes visible; but the time for a far wider and deeper revolt was near at hand, seeing that the Lutheran movement, destined to influence the whole Western Church, took place during Warham's primacy, and rapidly affected even those who were most opposed to its principles. In particular, the widespread anger it aroused against practical abuses strengthened the hands of Cardinal Wolsey in undertaking the reform of the monastic houses in England, by purging the greater monasteries of their scandals, and suppressing small and useless foundations, drafting their inmates into the larger societies, and applying their revenues to educational purposes. But rougher hands were to carry on the work in a very different fashion from his The failure of Henry VIII. temperate measures. in obtaining a divorce at the pope's hands from his queen, Catharine of Aragon, since her nephew, the Emperor Charles V., was too powerful to be thus braved, led to his determination to break with Rome; and though Wolsey declined to assist his plans, and was disgraced in consequence, yet in Thomas Cranmer, whom, on Warham's death in 1532, he raised to the primacy, he found a ready instrument for his purpose. Cranmer declared the marriage with Catharine void, and the king's private marriage to Anne Boleyn valid; while Henry retorted upon the pope's verdict of 1534 against this union by hastening on the proceedings of the famous Reformation Parliament,' which continued from 1529 to 1536. Herein papal licenses and bulls were prohibited, the king's ecclesiastical supremacy declared the law of the land, and its impugnment punishable with death; the submission of the clergy, compelling them to accept a revision of the canons by a royal commission and to assemble in their convocations only when summoned by the king's writ, was extorted; the payment of annates to Rome was forbidden; and the statute in Restraint of Appeals,' terminating all ecclesiastical suits within the kingdom by prohibiting the carriage of any suit before the pope, was enacted.

These changes seem to have been received, not only without resistance, but with real approval, even by the clergy as a whole; and, except for the breach with Rome, little alteration was made in the ordinary routine of church teaching and discipline, though some slight advance was made in the reforming direction by the issue of the Ten Articles in 1536 and the Institution of a Christian Man, or The Bishops' Book, in 1537, recast and re-issued in 1542 as the Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man, or The King's Book. A greater practical change was carried out by the wholesale spoliation and suppression of the monasteries, mainly by the agency of Thomas Cromwell between 1536 and 1539, and the devolution of their great revenues, including the impropriated tithes of

Some

parish churches, into the hands of the king and
the secular landlords. The Act of the Six Articles
in 1539 was aimed at the more advanced Reformers,
and made several of their favourite tenets heresy
at statute law, so that it was no longer possible
for the accused to save his life by abjuration, as
it had been under the previous system.
modification of its severity was made in 1543 and
in 1544, and the beginnings of vernacular services
appear in the publication of the Litany in English,
in addition to an earlier permission for the private
use of the Psalter, Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Hail
Such was the posture of affairs at the
Mary.
death of Henry VIII. in 1547.

Under the child-king Edward VI., the reforming
movement was pushed on much more rapidly, and
is sharply divisible into two distinct periods: an
earlier one, whose landmarks are the Order of
Communion of 1548, and the First Book of Common
Prayer in 1549, both of them the work of the native
clergy, and drafted on mainly conservative lines;
and a later one, when the influence of the foreign
Reformers domiciled in England, and notably Bucer
and Peter Martyr, became dominant with the king's
advisers, and resulted in the destruction of the
altars of the churches in 1550, the issue of the
Second Prayer-book in 1552, by royal and parlia-
mentary authority only, and without the assent of
the church, and the compilation of the Forty-two
Articles, the first draft of the present Thirty-nine,
in 1553. So much wanton havoc had been wrought
under colour of reformation in the closing years of
Edward's short reign that Mary's accession was
received without alarm, and even with welcome,
and that by the clergy no less than by the laity,
with the exception of those who felt themselves
imperilled. But though she immediately set herself
to undo all the work of the preceding quarter of a
century, aided by her husband Philip II. and her
kinsman Cardinal Pole, so that she was enabled
with the assent of parliament to bring the church
and nation back into the relations with the see of
Rome which had prevailed up to 1529, yet her im-
politic cruelties and the fierce persecution of which
Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper were the
most conspicuous victims, alienated the national
sympathies from her, and led to a fresh reaction,
which at once took shape under her successor
In 1559 the Act of Uniformity re-
Elizabeth.
establishing the Common Prayer-book, and also a
statute reviving the royal supremacy, were enacted;
the Thirty-nine Articles were published in 1563,
and the Church of England placed in a position
midway between the attitudes in the two periods
of Edward VI.'s reign already referred to.
Marian bishops, who refused to accept the changes,
were deprived, but not otherwise harshly treated,
and only 189 of the whole clerical body, inclusive
of these fourteen prelates and six abbots, out of a
total of 9400, declined to conform; while there was
no separatist Roman Catholic body in England till
after Pius V. issued his Bull of Excommunication
against Elizabeth in 1570, nor were they organised
in anywise till 1598.

See ARCHPRIEST.

The

The Puritan section in the country, however, was far from content with the amount of reform

achieved, and quickly came into collision with the authorities in church and state, mainly upon minor details of ceremonial. The first secession on these grounds took place in 1563, and was generally condemned by the leading foreign Reformers; but nevertheless Puritan principles spread very fast, and became powerful in parliament, though not sufficiently so to prevent the enactment of a severely repressive statute in 1593, when the Puritans' own violence and intractability had provoked a reaction against them, and they remained quiescent during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign. They revived in

practically no competitor in the field, as both Roman Catholics and Nonconformists were few and powerless. But with the silencing of Convocation under George I. in 1717 (made feasible by its impolitic surrender in 1664 of the right of the clergy to vote all taxes payable by them), and the steady encouragement given to the ultra-Broad Church section of the clergy, a blight came upon the church, and it rather vegetated than actively lived thenceforward till nearly the close of the 18th century; for the Methodist movement, begun by John and Charles Wesley in 1727 on the footing of a guild within the church, and given formal shape in 1740, began to assume the status of an external sect in 1760, and soon afterwards became the active the close of the century owed much of its success to the alarm caused by the French Revolution, since the adoption of freethinking opinions in England was thought likely to lead to results similar to those of the Terror; but though it did much for individual piety, the notion of working in and for the church at large, or as a national institution, does not seem to have so much as crossed the minds of its leaders, and it did thus nothing whatever to promote any corporate reforms, though achieving much in raising the standard of clerical devoutness.

activity under James I., and had high hopes of success; but the Hampton Court Conference, wherein an attempt was made to arrive at an amicable understanding between them and the church, proved abortive; and while their disciplinary proposals were checkmated by the Canons of 1604, their doctrinal aspirations were even more effectually and permanently defeated by the rise of the AngloCatholic school of theology, which exchanged the destructive and innovating temper which had inevitably prevailed during the crisis of the Reformation, when the removal of abuses was the main object, for a constructive and conservative one, making constant appeal to the standards of the ancient undivided church, and being especially opposed to the tenets of Calvinism and Zwing-rival of the church. The Evangelical revival towards lianism. But the king's feebleness of nature made him ill able to guide the country at such a time, and his political blunders brought about an alliance between the Puritans and the patriot party, who were aggrieved by many acts of misgovernment. The authorities of the Church of England, contrariwise, both under James and his successor Charles I., lent themselves to the support of absolutist views, and thus incurred much odium, which was considerably increased by the dissatisfaction aroused by the action of Archbishop Laud, whose good intentions were not accompanied with practical discretion, but were marked with much It was reserved for the factor variously known as high-handed intolerance. The reaction was swift the Oxford or Tractarian movement, or by its and violent: the Westminster Assembly of Divines advocates as the 'Catholic Revival,' to make this met in 1643, and adopted from Scotland the Solemn omission good, and to stimulate the energies of the League and Covenant, one detail of which is the whole Anglican communion. The movement itself total abolition of prelacy, and which parliament was immediately occasioned by a statute enacted in made binding on all persons in England over 1833 suppressing ten bishoprics in the Church of the age of eighteen; in 1645 the Book of Common Ireland, which at once prompted the question, 'If Prayer was forbidden under severe penalties, and the like policy should at any time prevail in the Directory of Public Worship substituted for England also, and lead to the overthrow of the it; in the same year Archbishop Laud was church as an establishment, what would it have to brought to the block, and the Church of England, fall back upon for its very existence as a corporate as a body holding a recognised national position body?' The answer to this question was given in and free to exercise its functions, disappeared the Tracts for the Times,' issued from Oxford at from view for the fifteen following years. The intervals during 1833-41, and chiefly written by restoration of Charles II. in 1660 was attended by Newman, Keble, Pusey, Isaac Williams, and the return of the exiled clergy and the reinstate- Richard Hurrell Froude. They at once excited ment of the church, while the Savoy Conference in active controversy, seeing that they not only 1661 decided the issue as to the general aspect of traversed the Low and Broad Church positions, but the revived communion in favour of the High also that of the contemporary High Church school Church or Anglo-Catholic view, by revising the itself, which was content to acquiesce in a theology Prayer-book in its present form, which was enforced bearing clear marks of 18th-century influence, and by an Act of Uniformity in 1662, a measure differing materially from that of the great Stuart followed by the resignation of a number of the divines, which the Tract-writers aimed at reviving. ministers admitted to benefices under the Common- Although at first the line adopted by the school as wealth, estimated variously at from 800 to 2000. a whole may be roughly described as a via media This was virtually the last settlement of ecclesi- between Roman Catholicism and Reformation astical affairs in England by the joint action of doctrines, although at first the former system was church and state, and the many events which have freely criticised, yet two great waves of secession to since occurred to condition them have not materi- the Roman Church, in 1845 and 1850, the earlier ally altered its broad features. The illegal exercise occasioned by the condemnation of Tract XC., by James II. of a dispensing power in issuing the written by Dr Newman, and the latter by the 'Declaration of Indulgence,' which, though osten- Gorham Judgment, drew considerable numbers of sibly meant for the relief of all Nonconformists, its more distinguished members with them, and not was designed to cover the legalisation of Roman only weakened it seriously at the time, but seemed Catholicism, and the trial of the seven bishops to justify all the adverse criticism it had met, who refused to give it circulation in their dioceses, and to discredit it altogether. Yet it stood the directly caused James's deposition, and resulted shock firmly, and proceeded on the lines originally hurtfully in some respects for the church. sketched out, and that with such energy and success as entirely to change the face of the Anglican Church in the succeeding half-century and beyond. The great development of church building and restoration, the revivals of convocation snd of sisterhood life, the creation of a copious and learned ecclesiastical literature, the impetus given to the foundation of colonial and missionary dioceses and to the increase of the home sees, at first merely suffragan, but later as separate dioceses, the introduction of a higher standard of clerical life and work, and the embellishment of

For the Nonjuring schism under William III. deprived the church of many pious and some able men whom it could ill spare, and contributed something to the gradual cooling of zeal and the laxity of doctrine which marked the Hanoverian period and were furthered by the influence of such prelates as Hoadly and White Kennett. But socially the Church of England touched its highest point of influence just before the season of decay. At the close of Queen Anne's reign it appeared to be strong and successful everywhere, and there was

Congresses, which have done so much to make
the outer public familiar with the working of the
English Church, began in 1861; the Pan-Anglican
Conferences, equally powerful in welding together
the separated parts of the vast Anglican com-
munion, in 1867. Contrasting with the license
allowed to the Low and Broad Church schools by
the Privy-council decisions, the judgment in the
suit of Liddell v. Westerton (1857), was largely, and
those in the suits of Martin v. Mackonochie (1869),
Hebbert v. Purchas (1871), and Clifton v. Ridsdale
(1877), were entirely, hostile to the High Church liti-
gants, condemning various ceremonial adjuncts of
public worship which they held to be permitted or
enjoined by the formularies. But these findings
have been so riddled with destructive criticism by
eminent jurists and other experts as miscarriages
of justice that they have never commanded respect
or obedience. The restoration of the long dormant
class of suffragan bishops took place in 1870, and
they now form a considerabi factor in the home
episcopate; while the increase in the number of
English dioceses, originating with the foundation of
the sees of Manchester and Ripon in 1836, was fol-
lowed by the re-erection of the sees of Bristol and
Coventry, and the erection of Liverpool, Newcastle,
St Albans, Southwell, Truro, Wakefield, Birming-
ham, Southwark, St Edmundsbury and Ipswich,
Chelmsford, Sheffield, Bradford. In 1920 the first
meeting took place of the National Assembly of the
Church of England. This body, a creation of the
Enabling Act, or properly the Church of England
Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, was the outcome of
a claim by the church for lessened state control
and for greater powers of self-government. The
Assembly, a representative body consisting of a
House of Bishops, a House of Clergy, and a House
of Laity, has power to legislate regarding church
affairs, but no measure passed by it becomes law
till, following the approval of an ecclesiastical com-
mittee established by the act, and consisting of
fifteen members of the House of Lords and fifteen
members of the House of Commons, each House
of Parliament has passed a resolution to that
effect.

public worship, are the chief results of its labours; and what might have been less anticipated from its origin, it has shown itself not less ready in adapting agencies of nonconformist birth and usage to the purposes of the church. That it has in fact been the determining factor in these respects, and has rather drawn the remaining schools into the current than been anticipated or aided by them, is vouched by the date, not less than by the character, of the reforms, since they do not begin to be manifest, even in germ, till the Oxford movement became powerful, and was translated from theory into practice. As regards the alleged tendency towards Roman Catholicism, that must be judged not by the degree in which the school is in sympathy with Roman Catholics rather than with Protestants on certain issues, nor yet by counting up individual secessions in that direction, but by the broader inquiry into the growth of the Roman Church in England since the Oxford movement has affected the condition of religion in the country. And the fact is, as attested alike by the marriage returns (especially trustworthy in the case of Roman Catholics, because of their strict discipline in this matter) and by the calculations made by the Roman Catholic authorities themselves, they do not increase at the same rate as the nation at large, and constitute, despite their threefold sources of increase-births, immigrants, and conversions-a slowly but steadily diminishing factor in its ratio to the population, and chiefly dependent, even so, upon the Irish element to maintain its numbers. In marked contrast with the torpor of the 18th century and the earlier years of the 19th, the history of the Church of England has in recent times been as crowded with events profoundly affecting it as any corresponding period of time 'during the Reformation era; with this notable difference, the absence of the Erastian character which the direct intervention of the crown and the civil power in general gave then to the aspect of ecclesiastical affairs. In the modern revival of the Church of England the court has had neither share nor sympathy; there has been rather more opposition than aid from parliament, owing to the temper of the large nonconformist element in the House of Commons; and the legal tribunals have been actively hostile; but no serious check or delay has been interposed to the movement by any or all of these adverse influences. It is possible to name only the most salient events of the period in the briefest fashion to complete this historical outline. The beginning of Queen Victoria's reign was marked by the enactment of the Pluralities and Non-residence Act in 1838, and of the Church Discipline Act in 1840. The development of the colonial episcopate (which, though initiated in 1787, had increased to no more than five sees down to 1836) began in 1841, and was steadily rapid in operation. The Gorham case, decided against the ruling of the Court of Arches by the Judicial Committee of Privy-council, synchronised with the establishment of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England by Pius IX. in 1850, professedly as a restoration of the pre-Reformation episcopate. Convocation was revived in 1853, through the action of Lord Aberdeen, then premier, and has met regularly ever since. In 1860 Essays and Reviews was published, and was soon followed by kindred but bolder writings of Dr Colenso, Bishop of Natal; and though both the Essays and the bishop were condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities, these sentences were reversed, the former in 1864, the latter in 1865, by the Judicial Committee; against which findings strong protests were made (in the case of Essays and Reviews by 11,000 clergymen), The doctrinal standards of the Church of England and the Convocation of Canterbury affirmed synodi- are primarily the Book of Common Prayer, includcally the contrary condemnations. The Churching the three Creeds occurring therein; and

The polity of the Church of England is episcopal, and the area is territorially distributed into two provinces, Canterbury and York, each presided over by an archbishop. The Church of England claims that its bishops are the legitimate and canonical successors of the pre-Reformation hierarchy, and has carefully fenced the episcopal office with safeguards to insure its regular continuance. But Roman Catholic controversialists allege that there was a complete solution of continuity at the accession of Elizabeth, when Matthew Parker was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in the room of the recently deceased Cardinal Pole. Yet not only has the regularity of the English succession been acknowledged by such eminent authorities as Bossuet in earlier and Döllinger in more recent times, but there is decisive proof that the objections now alleged are merely factitious afterthoughts. The question of the necessity of papal confirmation to validate the status of bishops was debated in the Council of Trent, 30th November 1562, and objections were adduced against its obligation. But it was argued on the other side that to rule against it would be dangerous, because the only argument adducible against the orders of the English bishops was that they had not papal confirmation, since they proved that they had due call, election, mission, and consecration; and the whole council accepted this view of the situation (Le Plat, Monum. Conc. Trident. dcclxxi.).