the low floor, not one spot was free from wicked

In 1572, we find it recorded of Scotland that, "maintenance of Kirk and poor has gone to profane flatterers at court, ruffians and hirelings; the poor are oppressed with hunger, the Churches decayed for lack of Clergy, the schools utterly neglected, the sacred buildings are like sheep cotes.

" 2

So alarming became the state of the country that on all hands the better classes grew disquieted, "gentlemen of all sorts took heart; they pitied their [ejected] ministers, their wives and children, " and they delivered frequent petitions to Bishop Whitgift, "craving that in regard to the souls of the people and their own, he would accept such a subscription as the Law expressly appointed, and restore the poor men, both to their preaching and livings.

"3

But with Whitgift "this second means prevailed with him no more than the first," and unless my deductions are erroneous, the Ecclesiastical Authorities preferred to let the country go to rack and ruin rather than suffer it to be educated by a non-conforming Clergy.

In addition to lack of teachers Avarice and Corruption were rampant. Bishoprics were kept empty in order that the Court might absorb their revenues; courtiers added to the prevailing chaos by obtaining grants of five and sometimes six livings, screwing profit out of them by farming them at a miserable pittance to scandalous persons.

Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (Aiken), p. 186.
Social England. Traill. Vol. 111, p. 557.

Quoted in The History of Conformity, 1681; p. 13.

The Edict of the Royal Commissioners ordering the destruction of all copes, vestments, albes, missals, books, crosses, and such like idolatrous, and superstitious monuments whatsoever, " had the effect of letting loose a torrent of ribaldry, and blasphemy. Many churches were stripped of everything stealable. Organ pipes were melted into household utensils ; vestments were cut up into stomachers for parsons' wives, or served

as

a

theatrical properties for wandering mountebanks. The expression "Hocus pocus" is relic of blasphemous parodies of the Mass, being a ribald survival of the priest's words, Hoc est corpus, used on the Elevation of the Host. Altar stones were employed as pig-styes, or put to even baser uses. Roofs were widely destroyed by being stripped for their lead, and dead bodies were thrown out of their coffins for the sake of their leaden wrappings. These acts were not merely the excesses of an ignorant mob, or of a few frenzied fanatics. They were the duly sanctioned policy of the people's spiritual leaders. Archbishop Grindal is, for instance, particular in enjoining that "The churchwardens shall see that the altar stones be broken, defaced, and bestowed

The Dean of Durham used the stone coffins of the Priors of Durham, whom he termed "Servants of the Synagogue of Satan," as swine troughs, and the brass holy water stoups of the Cathedral as kitchen utensils. The character of too many of the Elizabethan prelates appears to have been coarse, insolent and brutal. They

seem to have moulded their manners too much upon the unfavourable side of the character of Martin Luther. Luther, it will be remembered termed schoolmen "locusts, caterpillars, frogs, and lice." Reason he denounced as the "Arch whore" and the "Devil's bride." Aristotle was

a

"Prince of Darkness, horrid impostor, public and professed liar, beast, and twice execrable." 1 We find Thomas à Becket referred to by the Bishop of Durham as a "stinking martyr." Bishop Bale terms the old clergy "puffed up porklings of the Pope." His love of alliteration led this prelate into remarkable phraseology, as, for instance :

"Let beastly blind babblers and bawds with their charming chaplains then prate at large out of their malicious spirit and idle brains." 3 Roman Catholic Bishops, in the estimation of Bishop Bale, were :

"Two-horned whoremongers, conjurors of Egypt, and lecherous locusts leaping out of the smoke of the pit bottomless." *

" 5

The Bishop of Hereford indulged in "cholerick oaths and manifold rare upbraidings. The Bishop of Carlisle deemed Roman Catholic priests "Impes of Antichrist. Among the Elizabethan clergy were men such as the judicious Hooker, but the demeanour of many of these Ecclesiastics arouses a suspicion that Shakespeare had them in his eye when he wrote,

"Man, proud man,

Drest in a little briefe authoritie;
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
(His glassie essence) like an angry ape,
Plaies such phantastique tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weepe.

" 1

The editor of the Works of Bishop Bale has registered his conviction that certain of them "could not with propriety be presented to the public," but the style and sentiments of this particular Bishop do not seem to have been singular or peculiar. The shouting of the captains was, almost everywhere, very shrill and very strident. Among the dialectics to be found in the religious literature of this time there abound such flowers of fancy as, "The whore of Babylon's chemise [the surplice]; Antichrist's shyrte" [Ibid]; "Little Jack in the Box" [The Host]; "Abbey lubbers; " Massmongers; "Apes of Antichrist" [Priests], and so forth.

"

The actions of the authorities towards recusants and those who failed to attend the reformed services were merciless in their severity.

"At any moment one was liable to be arrested and hurried off before the appointed Courts, to be interrogated on oath as to whether or not they had been to Church; where, when, and how often, they had received the Lord's Supper, and whether they held the parson's certificate that this had been publicly done. If not, they were condemned as recusants to fines and imprisonment. To know that a priest was at a certain place, and not to seize or betray

....

him was a crime. To give him food, shelter or money, was also a crime. To remain away from the services of the desolate and ruined Churches was a crime; torture, imprisonment, and death, were the punishments.

"1

Under the laws against recusancy acts of a pestilent character were systematically practised. The wealthier recusants were fined until they recanted, or their estates were absorbed. They were then imprisoned or banished. Of the poorer recusants, the prisons and dungeons were " full of all sorts, old and young men, wives, widows, and maids. Batches of these unfortunates were tried at a time. On one occasion as many as 203 were condemned in the course of three days. Men and women were stripped to the waist, flogged till their blood flowed, bored through the ears with a red-hot iron, and turned adrift to swell the appalling roll of wandering and starving outcasts. It will be remembered that the name of Shakespeare's father was returned as that of a recusant. It appears, however, that in his case it was not a question of conscience, but of a coyness to appear in public "for fear of process for debt." In 1635 the Ecclesiastical commissioners suspended the Vicar of Stratford for "grossly particularising in his sermons for suffering his poultry to roost and his hogs to lodge in the chancel.

"2

Punishment was sternly and swiftly dealt out to all stragglers from the narrow and perpetually

I The Church under Queen Elizabeth (Lee), vol. 11, p. 4. London 1880. William Shakespeare His family and Friends. (Elton),

2

P. 233