CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING QUEEN MARY. 217

would believe me; and therefore I reserve them to be delivered to your hands at my coming to London. God bless you and prosper all your actions to His glory.

"From Fotheringay, the 8th of February

1586.

"Your most assuredly to my small power, "A. POULET.""

"The Letter-Books of Sir Amias Poulet, Keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots." Edited by Rev. John Morris. London : 1874.-A volume which, I may be permitted to add, is full of historical interest and importance.

CHAPTER IV.

THROUGHOUT all these stirring times,-times of excitement, confusion and change, the peculiar disorder which everywhere existed in the National Church can scarcely now be realized. Unless records actually remained in black and white, of the exact state of the then existing degradation, which plainly set it forth in detail, few would be found to credit its existence. Writers interested in making out a case, by suppressing facts, passing over damaging records, and by artful special pleading, have for a long time succeeded in obscuring the truth. The bishops of that day are constantly complaining to the Council of their miseries, and are found metaphorically wringing their hands in despair of ever being able to bring order out of such disorder. Obedience, they assert, does not

INSOLENCE OF THE PREACHERS.

219

exist. Every one persists in doing exactly what he likes, and moral suasion is of little or no avail.

Dr. Bickley, Bishop of Chichester, believes that the times are sad because "so many preaching ministers will abide no correction." * He himself had been openly set at defiance, to his great humiliation, by some " proper insolent" preachers who, going from place to place, would not minister any sacrament "but only stir up the ignorant and mean with vain and vicious words," despising his lordship, his office and authority, and "the powers that be." They were "verie sore skornfull" when the Queen was referred to as owning any spiritual authority.

Dr. Chaderton of Litchfield was very downhearted at the state of affairs, as he piteously wrote to the Lord Treasurer in the following terms:

"Certes, my honorable Lord, I am here in a very perilous country; and, if I may speak it without offence, the very sink of the whole realm, both for corrupt religion and life.” †

* In 1583 it is on record that Thomas Underdowne preached in St. Michael's, Lewes, that anyone who had an inward persuasion and allowance that he was called by God might lawfully preach. "State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth," vol. clix., Nos. 15, 16.

Strype's "Annals," vol. iii., Part I., p. 35. Oxford:

Many of the persons ministering thereabouts were not even in deacon's orders, and others had declined to undergo any matrimonial inquisition of any sort or kind.* On one occasion at Litchfield, a "proper stout and comely wench " assaulted an "ancient justice," who had proposed to examine her according to law, by tearing his beard, and she threatened him with further punishment if he made any like attempt.

Complaints had been made, but without effect, for no remedy was forthcoming, that in one parish of this diocese, "the minister refused to wear the surplice, and that he would not keep the accustomed place of prayer, where service was wont to be said, but stood lower to the people, and turned not his face upward toward the east, but downward to the west, and used not the Order of Common Prayer." +

* William Chaderton, Bishop of Litchfield, to the Lord Treasurer, A.D. 1582. Strype's "Annals," vol. iii., Part I., p. 141. Oxford: 1824. "Whether was your parson made

deacon before his admission to the said benefice?

Whether hath your parson married in such sort, as he ought to do, having two justices of peace's hands for the allowing of such?"-" Articles of Enquiry, Diocese of Litchfield," A.D. 1582. Strype's "Annals," vol. iii., Part I., pp. 164, 165. Oxford: 1824. "A Replicacion to an Auncient Enemy," &c., p. 39. London: Serres.

The Archdeacon of Canterbury bears similar testimony, -"What shall I now speak of the notable decay of

thus:

:

EXTERNAL RELIGIOUS RITES DISUSED.

221

By the year 1583 a wave of change had com. pletely passed over the diocese of St. David's. Externally the Ancient Faith had been on all sides efficiently put down. As regards externals, the sign of the cross, chrism, holy water, lights at the altar and at the reading of the Gospel, special vestments for the clergy, had all been swept away.* Here and there a tattered cope, which no one cared to possess, was sometimes hung over the edge of the pulpit; otherwise all sacerdotal vestments were totally abolished. The nature of Dr. Middleton's Visitation Articles was thoroughly innovating. Though those favouring the Old

prayer, fasting, and alms, and universally of all virtuous living, of the disobedience of children to their parents, of servants to their masters, of fraud, deceit, circumvention, more practised than ever before in all contracts and bargains, of rarity of trusty true friends, and of decay of obedience to public laws and magistrates, and finally of all good order and public discipline."-"The Pretended Divorce between Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine," by Nicholas Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury, edited by N. Pocock, p. 298. London: 1878.

* As Dr. Harding, in his "Confutation," had so triumphantly asked of Jewell, "If ye show us not the use of chrism in your churches; if the sign of the cross be not borne before you in processions, and otherwheres used; if holy water be abolished; if lights at the Gospel and Communion be not had; if peculiar vestments for deacons, priests, bishops, be taken away, and many such other the like, judge ye whether ye have duly kept the old ceremonies of the Church? "