these were, the practice of praying in an unknown tongue; the withholding the Bible from general use; the enforced celibacy of the clergy; the doctrine called transubstantiation, which we have already explained; the denial of the cup to the laity; the undue honour paid to saints and images; the worship paid to the Virgin Mary; and the doctrine of purgatory, with the notion connected with it, that remission can be purchased from the pope in favour of ourselves or others. In the course of this reign, and chiefly under the influence of Cranmer, and Ridley, bishop of London, the Liturgy was cleansed from these errors, and brought into nearly its present form. 3 In the first year of King Edward's reign, Dec. 1547, it was ordered that the Lord's Supper should be distributed to the people, and that the cup in particular should be no longer withheld from them. A commission was issued about the same time to draw up an Office for the Holy Eucharist. This was completed on the 8th of March, 1548, and enjoined to be used forthwith. A considerable portion of it, however, was still in Latin. A new commission, therefore, was soon issued (chiefly to the same divines) directing them to prepare a complete collection of Divine Offices for public worship. The members of it met at Windsor in May, 1548, and drew up a Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, &c., which was approved by the Church in Convocation, and enjoined by act of parliament in the ensuing January, "to be used from the feast of Whit-Sunday, 1549." The principles on which it was compiled were, a desire to retain whatever was sanctioned by ancient usage, (provided it did not give occasion to superstition,) and an avoidance of novelty as such. This Prayer Book is substantially the same as that now in use. Modifications of it were made in 1552, some of which seem scarcely to have been required; but several The word Liturgy, in the language of the ancient Church, was used to denote the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. By a natural transition of meaning, it next signified the Office, or Form of Words, in which it was celebrated. Hence it became gradually used to denote the Church's Offices in general, viz. the whole Prayer Book. 4 The two editions of the Prayer Book set forth in 1549 and 1552, are called respectively the First and Second Books of King Edward the Sixth. It is worth noticing that the Second Book was never authorized by Convocation. of these were rejected on reconsideration of the subject in later reigns. A Book for Consecrating and Ordaining Bishops, Priests, and Deacons was drawn up in 1550. It would be foreign to our purpose to enter more minutely upon the contents of the Prayer Book, its relation to the forms of prayer used in other Churches, and in the Church of England itself before the Reformation, or the exact nature of the changes introduced into it at the successive revisions, which will be noticed in their proper place". To secure soberness of speculation on the part of the clergy, forty-two Articles of Religion were agreed upon, in A.D. 1552, which were almost the same with the present Thirty-nine Articles of our Church. To ensure soundness in the practical teaching given to the people, and to remedy, as far as might be, the existing want of persons able to preach, homilies or sermons were drawn up, A.D. 1547,. to be read in churches on Sundays and Holy-days. All this was done by the Church itself, under the direction of Cranmer, by the assistance of the most eminent divines of the day, with the sanction and approval of Convocation. The Church proved its vitality by existing through such troublous times, and by its activity in reforming its abuses.` The civil power stepped in to aid it, and all the measures which it carried through received external confirmation from the king and the three estates of the realm in parliament. These changes were not made without occasioning some discontent and risings of the peasantry, who suffered severely from the suppression of monasteries; but the Protector, with all his ambition, was humane and gentle, and succeeded in quieting the excitement of the people. 6 Somerset was very desirous of obtaining for his nephew the hand of the young Queen of Scots, and led an army into Scotland to enforce his demand. This rough method of wooing was not very likely to succeed; and though he The student is referred to Palmer's "Origines Liturgicæ," and Wheatly "On the Common Prayer;" but a plain and popular account of this interesting subject may be found in Archdeacon Berens' "History of the Prayer Book," published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 6 The three estates are, the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. overthrew the Scots with great loss at Pinkie, near Edinburgh, the young queen was sent to France to be educated, and was there married to the dauphin. The Protector's brother had been made high admiral, with the title of Lord Seymour. He had also married Queen Katharine Parr, but was jealous of Somerset, and tried to undermine his power. When his aim became too plain, he was tried and executed by his brother's order on a charge of treason. The influence, however, of the Protector began to decline. His concessions to the people had displeased the nobles; and his ambition led him to grasp at more power than any subject had enjoyed. He had also begun to build the palace in the Strand, which is still called Somerset House, by means which cannot be justified. His chief enemy was Dudley, who became Duke of Northumberland, and by his influence he was forced to give up his office, and was severely fined. Having afterwards unguardedly used some violent words, he was tried for high treason, and beheaded in the Tower, to the great grief of the people. The health of the young king now rapidly declined, and Northumberland induced him to alter the succession to the throne, with a view to the aggrandizement of his own family. The Ladies Mary and Elizabeth had both been named in their father's will to succeed after their brother, but had previously been declared illegitimate by act of parliament; and as Mary was firmly attached to the Church of Rome, the young king was easily worked upon to take advantage of that act, and appoint a successor from the family of his aunt the Queen of France by the Duke of Suffolk. The person thus appointed was the Lady Jane Grey, whom Northumberland had contrived to marry to his son, Lord Guildford Dudley. The king required his councillors to sign the devise in Lady Jane's favour; and Cranmer, among the rest, reluctantly put his hand to it. Edward breathed his last July 6, 1553. Shortly before his death, he had been so moved by a sermon of Bishop Ridley on the duty of providing for the poor, that he sent for him, and with tears desired his advice in the fulfilment of that duty. The result of that advice was the foundation of Christ's Hospital, for the education of poor children; St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's, for the relief of the sick; and Bridewell, for the correction of the vicious. Various other schools were founded at the suggestion of Edward VI., or by the influence of those about him. His example influenced Queen Elizabeth; and corporate bodies and private individuals, during his reign and the two or three reigns succeeding it, became founders of various places of education. Of the public schools, Eton, a royal foundation, had risen in Henry VI.'s time. Winchester has been already noticed. Each of these had a college at one of the universities intimately connected with it. Two institutions similar to these in having a peculiar college allotted to them at a university, were established after the Reformation began; these were Westminster School, founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1560, and endowed with studentships at Christ Church, Oxford; and Merchant Taylors' school, by a London "Guild or Company" in 1561, to which Sir Thomas White attached nearly all the fellowships of St. John's, Oxford, which he founded about the same time. Sir Thomas Pope' founded Trinity college, Oxford, in 1554. Harrow school was founded by John Lyon in 1560. Rugby school by Laurence Sheriffe in 1567. The schools at Birmingham, Bury St. Edmunds, Norwich, Sherborne, and Shrewsbury, are attributable to Edward VI. The Charterhouse was established on the site of a suppressed Carthusian monastery by Thomas Sutton in 1611. Wadham and Pembroke colleges, Oxford, were founded early in the 17th century. Now, if the fact of these foundations evidenced nothing else, it would at least show that the Church, which was now being purified, considered learning her best human auxiliary. The Greek language was no longer looked upon with mistrust, or the Hebrew almost considered an heretical study, as was the case when Dean Colet founded St. Paul's school, and committed it to the care of the Mer 7 Sir Thomas Pope was one of King Henry the Eighth's visitors of abbeys. In the division of the spoil he had obtained, on easy terms, a grant from the Crown of a small college at Oxford, which had been founded by the Bishop and Prior of Durham, for a nursery to their monastery. It is probable that he felt some compunction at having Church property in his possession; accordingly, he founded a new college on the same site, and endowed it with the same lands, with the addition of various manors of his own. His acts were an embodiment of the feeling which, not many years after, made Sir Henry Spelman write his work, called, "Churches not to be violated." cers' Company, in 1510. "Persons to teach in good and cleane Latin literature, and also in Greeke, yf such might be gotten," were sought for, and in matters of religion they were to teach, "yf neede be, the Catechisme and instruccons of the Articles of the Faith and the Ten Commandements in Latine." We scarcely know how much we are indebted to the youthful prince, who was the first to turn men's minds from spoliation of churches and colleges to the endowment of educational institutions. His dying prayer seems thus to have had, in some sort, an accomplishment: "O Lord God, deliver this realm from papistry, and maintain thy true religion, that I and my people may praise thy name, for Jesus Christ's sake." CHAPTER XXVII. Born at Greenwich. MARY. Buried at Westminster. Reigned 5 years. From A.D. 1553 to A.D. 1558. Archbishops of Canterbury. Thomas Cranmer, A.D. 1533—1555. But the THE attempt of Northumberland to secure the crown for his daughter-in-law was utterly unsuccessful. The Lady Jane was indeed proclaimed, and conducted to the Tower (as was usual) with a view to her coronation. sovereignty of "Queen Jane," as she is styled in public documents of the period, only lasted thirteen days, from July the 6th to July the 19th, 1553. The true principle of succession was now too well established in public opinion to be easily set aside, and the right of Mary was so universally acknowledged, that she entered London without opposition. Northumberland was beheaded, after showing himself as abject in adversity as he had been insolent in prosperity. Jane and her husband (of whom neither was more than seventeen) were imprisoned, but their lives were spared for about a year. Upon an insurrection, which |
