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EDWARD VI
AND THE
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
J -^ C^^-< 0_^07,
THE EASY CHAIR
NOTES AND ASIDES.
There was a prayer in the Prayer-book oi
Edward VI., long since removed, that might
well be re- inserted in these days of rapa
cious landlords. It was to be found among
" Sundry Godly Prayers for Divers Pur
poses," under the title "A Prayer for
Landlords." It was a* follows:
We heartily ptray Thee to send Thy Holy
Spirit into the hearts of them that possess
the grounds aiiid (pastures of the earth, that
they, remembering themselves to be Thy
tenants, may not rack or stretch out the
rents of their houses or lands, nor yet take
niirea&ona'blo fines or moneys after the
manner of >covetous worldlings, but so let
them out, that the inhabitants thereof may
be able to pay the rents and to live and
nourish their families and remember the
M-. Give them grace also to consider that
they >are but strangers and pilgrims in this
world, having here no dwelling-place, but
king one to come; that they, remember
ing the short continuance of this life, may
be content with that which is sufficient, and
not join -house to house and land to land,
to the impoverishment of others, but so
behave themselves in letting their tenements,
lands, and pastures that after this life they
may be received into everlasting habitations.
A marvellously apt prevision.
Facsimile 1. (frontispiece}.
First page nf the Breviary scheme, showing corrections by Cnmmer. (MS. Reg. 7 P.. IV f. 133:1).
EDWARD VI
AND THE
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
AN EXAMINATION INTO ITS ORIGIN AND EARLY
HISTORY WITH AN APPENDIX OF
UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
BY
FRANCIS AID AN GASQUET D.D. O.S.B.,
AUTHOR OF "HENRY viu. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES'
AND EDMUND BISHOP.
Second Edition.
JOHN HODGES,
AGAR STREET, CHARING CROSS, LONDON.
1891.
PRINTED AT NIMEGL'EN (HOLLAND) B7 11. C. A. T11IEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)
AND
14 B1LLITER SQUARE BUILDINGS. LONDON E. C.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
TO THE READER. VII
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IX
Chapter I. CHURCH SERVICES AT THE DEATH or
HENRY vni 1 16
II. CRANMER'S PROJECTED BREVIARY . . . . 17 29
III. CRAMMER'S SECOND PROJECT 30 39
a IV. PREPARATION FOR CHANGE 40 62
V. THE PARLIAMENT AND CONVOCATION 1547. 63 81
VI. THE COMMUNION BOOK 82 96
VII. PROCLAMATIONS AND PREACHINGS .... 97 117
a VIII. THE PRESS ON THE MASS 118 133
a IX. THE NEW LITURGY: TIME, PLACE, PERSONSETC. 134147
X. CONVOCATION AND THE PRAYER BOOK . . 148 156
XL THE DEBATE ON THE SACRAMENT IN PARLIA
MENT 1548 157 181
a XII. THE FIRST ENGLISH BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 182 215
a XIII. THE PRAYER BOOK OF 1549 AND CONTEM
PORARY LITURGIES 216 235
XIV. THE RECEPTION OF THE NEW SERVICE . . 236 258
a XV. FURTHER PROJECTS 259276
XVI. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER BOOK 1552 277 307
APFJENDIX.
PAGE.
"I. ACCOUNT OF MS. REG. 7 B. IV 311 314
II. CRANMER'S BREVIARY SCHEME 315352
III. CRANMER'S SCHEME FOR MORNING ANDEVENING PRAYER 353 382
IV. THE LECTIONARIES AND CALENDARS 383 394
V. THE DEBATE ON THE SACRAMENT IN PARLIAMENT 1548. 395 443
VI. THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION 444 448
VII. NOTE ON THE ACTS OF CONVOCATION 1547 . . 449 451
TO THE READER.
The present work had its origin in the desire to
edit Cranmer's hitherto unnoticed projects of litur
gical reform printed in the appendix. In the researches
necessary for this purpose, it was found that the
history of the religious changes under Edward VI
had in some points become involved in much and
seemingly unnecessary obscurity. It therefore appeared
desirable to present the story of the origin of the
Book of Common Prayer as a whole. Other docu
ments were found which had escaped the attention
of previous writers and amongst these the notes of the
discussion in Parliament preceding the introduction
of the first Act of Uniformity. This document affords
new details in the history of the Prayer Book, and
gives the only reliable information about the views
entertained by the english bishops on the subject.
Apart from this, the "Notes" are of considerable
interest as being the earliest report of a debate in
Parliament.
Though treating of liturgy the object of the work
is strictly historical. Unless a clear and intelligible
idea can be gained of the liturgical changes in the
reign of Edward VI. it is impossible to understand
a period which is the turning point in the religious
history of England.
The authors desire to record their thanks to the
authorities of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for
permission to use the manuscripts in their library.
To the Rev. S. S. Lewis M. A. the librarian, in par
ticular, they are indebted for his special kindness
to them.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of this book was issued with only
a few words of introduction. In putting forth a second
some further prefatory remarks seem to be called for.
Regret has been expressed in more than one
quarter that the entire manuscript containing Cran-
mer's projects for liturgical reform had not been
printed. The reason is simple; the appendix contains
everything of real historical interest. What remains
still unprinted may afford some scope for minute
antiquarian investigation or some subject for specula
tion. The lessons of the second scheme in particular
might invite remark: for instance the already advanced
character of the proposed english liturgical reform
may be further illustrated by the disuse of the
Vulgate. Cranmer's erasure of St. Babilas from
the calendar is doubtless explained by the story of
this martyr, the proposed lesson, derived from
St. Chrysostom's longer homily on the subject, scarcely
according with the Tudor idea of the due relation
between regality and the priesthood. The lesson for
St. Gordias, although referred in the manuscript to
St. Basil, shows that Cranmer did not disdain the
help of a then recent hagiologist. But the result of
such detailed enquiries, whatever it be, will have no
effect whatever in varying, though it might here or
there deepen, the historical lines already sufficiently
clear.
As regards the hymns, to the omission of which
in the appendix special attention has been called,
it seemed unnecessary to print them in full. For
the most part they are well known, and are to be
found in the breviaries in daily use. The only point
of real interest, namely, that Cranmer, as appears
from minute variants, took his text from the
volume of Clichtoveus and not from the old breviaries,
has been already indicated.
In these circumstances it still seems best to leave
the appendix as it stood in the first edition. Liturgi-
cally, Cranmer's still-born projects are of no value ;
and it is believed that their historical interest has
been practically exhausted.
The notices which this book has received have
suggested a few observations on one or two points
of detail.
I. Convocation.
Special interest has been manifested in the question
as to the approval of the Book of Common Prayer
of 1549 by Convocation. The object of the examin
ation of this question in these pages was to elucidate
an obscure and doubtful point of history and to
enable the reader, so far as was possible, to come
to a probable conclusion. In estimating the proba
bilities due weight hardly seems to have been given
to the evidence against such approval drawn from
the discussion on the Sacrament in Parliament l . It
is true that the argumentum e silentio is continually
abused, but it does not follow that it has not its
1 See p. 181 (5).
XP
due and proper use. In the present case it seems
almost impossible to believe that had Convocation
actually and formally approved the Prayer Book,
Somerset, placed in the position into which Thirlby
had forced him, could have maintained silence as to
such approval. The authors must own that to them
this argument seemed finally conclusive and it conse
quently appeared unnecessary to burden their pages
with further discussions.
To those, however, who are particularly interested
in the subject, it is proper to point out that the
treament of Convocation by the governing powers
in the reign of Edward VI. forms a consistent
whole and has a history of its own. In dealing
with any special part of that history the whole
must be borne in mind.
The matter is well illustrated by what took place
in 1552. The relation of Convocation to the catechism
and articles set forth under its name in 1553 is obscure,
but a comparison of the scanty records which remain
make the following results almost certain:
(1) The articles and catechism were submitted to
the bishops l .
(2) They were never submitted to the lower house
of Convocation.
(3) But "sundry others of our clergy", a small select
body, all or many of them members of Convocation,
had a hand in the matter.
(4) As a result they were printed by the king's autho
rity as the work of Convocation " agreed upon by the
bishops and other learned and godly men, in the
last Convocation at London in the year of our Lord
1552".
1 Burnet's "brought into the upper house" is more precise
than the evidence warrants.
XII
(5) When the matter was objected to Cranmer in
his disputation at Oxford in 1554, he replied u I was
ignorant of the setting to of that title and as soon
as I had knowledge thereof I did not like it. Therefore
when I complained thereof to the Council it was
answered me by them that the book was so entitled
because it was set forth in the time of the Convo
cation " l .
The various steps taken in regard to the articles
and catechism thus bear a close resemblance to the
course followed in regard to the Prayer Book in 1548.
The answer of the Council to the archbishop's
objection to the catechism and articles being issued
as if with the approval of Convocation is perhaps
sufficient evidence of the justice and moderation of
the remark, that to examine closely into the terms
of official documents is "a process not unnecessary
in a period marked by so many doubtful dealings
on the part of the rulers ".
In fact it is clear that the abolition of Convocation
was one of the items of general policy determined upon
in the early days of this reign, and that in practice the
aim of the rulers was to discredit its authority,
impair its influence and supersede it generally by in
formal committees wholly dependent on themselves.
All this was only a preparation for its final destruc
tion provided for in the archbishop's Reformatio
legum ecclesiasticarum 2 .
1 See Burnet III. 1. 210213. The original passages relating
to the subject are: Foxe VI. 468; Ridley's Works, Parker Soc.
2167; Philpot's Works, Parker Soc. p. 179181 (cf. p. XIII)
See also Burnet, III. 2. 205 - 6. Brooke's sermon contains nothing
more on the subject than the few lines extracted by Burnet.
- This explains the profound resentment which animated
members of Convocation against Cranmer on the accession of Mary.
XIII
II. The Mozarabic Missal.
It seems unnecessary either to enlarge or to
modify what has been already said on the subject
(pp. 1856, 2067 and 444-8). It would be easy
but hardly profitable to discuss more minutely the
subsidiary questions that have been raised.
The bearing of the possible intercourse between
Spain and England consequent on the marriage of
Katherine was obvious and had not escaped atten
tion, but the difficulty was to discover satisfactory
evidence of literary intercourse in Henry's reign l .
Even on the supposition that Cranmer possessed,
or had access to, a copy of this liturgy, the only
conclusion that can be drawn is, that in a volume
of nearly 1900 folio columns of print, a missal, he
found as proper for his purpose in the compilation
of his new Prayer Book only one column it may
be a line or two more or less and that not relating
to the mass, but to the blessing of the font.
III. The Isidorean Theory.
To the influence of the Spanish rites on the com
pilation of the Book of Common Prayer as much
space has been allotted in this book as the matter
in its historical bearings could warrant. Indeed the
whole subject would seem to have assumed a
fictitious importance. Still, as it has been touched
upon again, it is perhaps useful to deal with a
1 For instance in the king's library in 1542 only three Spanish
books appear. As they are interesting in themselves it may be
as well to mention them : " Dantis works in the castilian tongue "
" Triumphes of Petrarch in castilian"- " Salustius with songis
in Spanyssh" (R. 0. Augt. Off. Misc. Bk. 160 ff. 109a, 114b,
XIV
kindred theory, which the authors had previously
examiued, but which, on a review of the whole
circumstances appeared to them devoid of any
foundation in fact.
This theory is the influence supposed to have been
exercised by St. Isidore of Seville on the revision
of the Anglican Prayer Book in 1552. The impression
on this subject is most conveniently expressed in a
document which from its character has naturally
obtained the widest circulation.
"In A. D. 1534" runs the passage "was printed at
Leipsic and Antwerp, edited by Joannes Cochleus,
the treatise and revision by Isidore of Seville of
that form of Gallican liturgy called the Mozarabic,
as used in the 6th and 7th centuries and long
before (Isid. Hispal. De off. EccL, Lips. 4to., Antv.
Svo., 1534). This work was dedicated to Dr. Robert
Ridley, uncle of Bishop Ridley. In the dedication
Craumer himself is named as 'vir eruditus et
theologus insignis.' It naturally excited much atten
tion ; it is quoted by several of the chief Reform
ers. Scholars are now investigating the large use
of it made in other parts of the books of both
1549 and 1552. It was the more notable because
Cardinal Ximenes had in 1500 refounded the use in
Spain in such amplified form as was then possible,
which is not so sure to have come under Cranmer's
notice. Both forms give evidence which is to the
point. A mixed cup was used, but in the ancient
form there is no order and no prayer for mixing.
In the later, the rubric and prayers are included in
the prceparatio which had in the interval grown up
before the Introit and Ante- Communion (Burbidge
196, 202, etc.)" 1
In the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bead and
In the foregoing passage the two " forms 1 ' mentioned
are :
(1) the Mozarabic missal : and
(2) St. Isidore's tract entitled de officiis ecclesiasticis.
The theory to be examined is based on this latter
and has nothing to do with the Mozarabic missal
which has been dealt with.
The character of this tract must be first clearly
understood. It is not a liturgy in any sense, but
an exposition and often a mystical interpretation
of ecclesiastical life and practice. In order that the
reader may be put in full possession of the reasons
adduced for believing that St. Isidore was a guide
to the reformers in the revision of the english
liturgy of 1552, the entire chapter of the work in
question is here translated and Mr. Burbidge's-
arguments are given in the margin.
ST. ISIDORE. REMARKS.
Book I. chapter 15. Of the
mass and Prayers.
But the order of the
mass and prayers by which
the sacrifices offered to
God are consecrated was
first instituted by St.
Peter; the celebration of
which the whole world
observes (peragit) in one
and the same way.
The first of these is a This " may be compared
prayer of admonition with the english exhor-
toward the people that tation ' dearly beloved
others v. the Lord Bishop of Lincoln. Judgment. Nov. 21, 1890
(London, 1890).
XVI
they may be stirred up
to entreat God.
in the Lord'; and the
words fratres chanssimi
are in it in almost every
service ". (Liturgies and
offices of the Church. By
Edward Burbidge, M.A.
p. 198. Note 1).
The second is of invo
cation to God that he
would graciously receive
the prayers of the faithful
and their oblation.
The third is poured
forth for those who are
offering or for the faith
ful departed that they may
obtain pardon through the
same sacrifice.
"The second and third
prayers take the place of
our prayer for the Church
militant. Special notice
should be paid to the fact
that the prayer for the
Church was thus separ
ated from the consecra
tion prayer" ibid, note 2).
After these the fourth
is introduced that all
reconciled to each other
in charity may be united
together as worthy of the
Sacrament of the body
and blood of Christ. For
the indivisible body of
Christ does not permit in
dividual discord.
The fifth is brought in
as an introduction to the
sanctification of the obla
tion, in which also all
u The fourth prayer may
be compared in respect of
its position and intention
with our invitation, con
fession, absolution, and
comfortable words'' 1 (ibid.
note 3).
" Thefifth prayer corres
ponds with our preface,
XVII
earthly creatures and
heavenly powers are sum
moned to the praising of
God; and Hosanna in
excelftis is sung, because,
by the birth of Our Sa
viour from the race of
David, salvation has come
to the world, even to the
highest.
Moreover the sixth now
follows, the confirmation
of the Sacrament, in order
that the oblation of
the body and blood
which is offered to God,
being sanctified by the
Holy spirit, may be con
firmed.
The last of these prayers
is that which Our Lord
taught his disciples to
pray, saying: Our Father
who art in heaven.
[Here follows in the
tract a short exposition
of the Lord's prayer which
Sanctus and prayer of
consecration" ibid, note 4).
a The sixth prayer may
be compared in respect to
the contents of many exam
ples of it 1 with our prayer
of humble access 11 (.p 199
note I) 2 .
1 These be it remarked can only be known in the Mozarabic
missal itself and not by the tract of St. Isidore.
2 At p. 201 the author calls attention to the difference
between St. Isidore and the Anglican communion service ; namely
that this sixth prayer is omitted.
XVIII
need not be translated
as having no bearing on
the present discussion. It
ends:] Our Saviour there
fore taught this prayer,
in which is contained the
hope of the faithful and
the confession of sins,
whereof the prophet fore
telling says, Et erit etc.
These then are the seven
prayers of the sacrifice
commended by apostolic
and evangelical doctrine.
The reason of instituting
the particular number
seems to be either because
of the sevenfold univer
sality of the holy Church,
or on account of the seven
fold graces of the Spirit,
by whose gift those things
which are offered are sanc
tified."
The foregoing presents to the reader the suggested
guide of archbishop Cranmer in his reform of the
Anglican liturgy of 1552 and the arguments by which
that theory is supported. These invite some com
ment. It will be observed that it is entirely founded
on a question of order, not upon a comparison of
formularies. The similarity even of order breaks
down at the very beginning. St. Isidore places first
a prayer of admonition toward the people and
secondly a prayer of invocation that God may receive
XIX
the prayers of the faithful. The Communion service
of 1552 reverses this order.
In the next place the question is not whether the
prayers mentioned by St. Isidore " may be compared
with," or "correspond with", or "take the place of,"
certain portions of the Anglican communion service;
but whether the revisers of 1552 took the order of
prayers given in this tract of St. Isidore as their
pattern.
It may however be further asked, whether the
general character of the tract is such as to recom
mend it to the particular and favourable consider
ation of Cranmer. Ample materials exist for forming
a correct judgment as to his opinions at this period
year after year. Moreover the whole tenour of his
ecclesiastical acts are well-known. The question
therefore is, how would the doctrine and tone of
St. Isidore's work accord with the temper and bent
of Cranmer's mind at this period. The first chapter
deals with the component parts of the divine office,
with its hymns and antiphons and reponsories,
which Cranmer had just set aside. It treats of the
canonical hours, matins and lauds, tierce, sext, none,
vespers and compline, which Cranmer considered the
church had now outgrown. St. Isidore also deals with
those lesser orders of subdeacon, lector etc., all which
were now abolished in the church of England.
Turning to details the tract is found to be replete
with doctrine condemned by Cranmer in no measured
terms. The offertories, for example which, as St.
Isidore says, under the old law were chaunted
when the victims were immolated, we joyfully sing
"in that true sacrifice by the blood of which the
world has been saved". In his chapter on the sacrifice
he begins : " The sacrifice that is offered by Christians
to God our Lord and Master, Christ instituted when
XX
He gave to His apostles His body and blood before
He was betrayed".
Again. u We believe that it is a tradition from
the very apostles themselves to offer sacrifice for
the repose of the faithful departed and to pray for
them, because this is observed throughout the whole
world". Further, St. Isidore mentions the fires of
purgatory, and he distinguishes clearly between the
sacrifice of the altar and the sacrifice of our prayers,
referring this latter to offices such as vespers.
There can be no doubt therefore that the whole
of St. Isidore's work runs directly counter to the line
of ecclesiastical policy which Cranmer and his friends
were forcing on the nation during Edward's reign ;
and that he could not have looked to it as a guide
in the revision of the Communion Service of 1552.
The key to this the authors believe is to be found
in Cranmer's own works.
The study of liturgy can be pursued usefully and
fruitfully only on those rational methods which
should govern all historical investigation. In the case
of a document like the Book of Common Prayer it is
a dictate of common-sense that any examination
of its origin and sources should be conducted with
a primary regard to the circumstances in which, and
the opinions of the persons by whom, it was produced.
In a word it must be put in its proper historical
setting and illustrated from the writings of those
who composed it, or their friends, and not by the
productions of those centuries the doctrine and prac
tice of which it was the avowed aim and intention
of its authors to destroy.
CHAPTER I.
CHURCH SERVICE AT THE CLOSE OF HENRY'S REIGN.
The first Convocation of clergy in the reign of
Edward VI. met at St. Paul's on November 5, 1547.
The lower house immediately upon their assembling
"agreed that the prolocutor in the name of the
whole house should report to the most Reverend 1 '
the archbishop of Canterbury certain petitions,
among which w r as the following: "that the labours
of the bishops and others, who by command of Con
vocation had been engaged in examining, reforming
and setting forth (et edendo) the divine service should
be produced and should be submitted to the exami
nation of this house".
Archbishop Cranmer's notes of this meeting show
some important variations from the official record
on this matter. According to his version, the clergy
declared that "by command of king Henry VIII."
certain prelates and learned men were "appointed.,.,
to devise a uniform order; who according to the
same appointment did make certain books, as they
be informed". And the object of their request was,
according to Cranmer's statement, that these books
should be submitted to them "for a better expedi
tion of divine service to be set forth accordingly" 1 .
1 This statement may perhaps in part have been drawn
from, or suggested by, the address of the Prolocutor; the con-
B
2 Church Service at the close of Henry's reign.
What the result of this application may have been
does not appear; nor does mention of these books
occur in any other record. It has been tacitly assumed
that if they did indeed exist, they have disappeared.
Convocation however, was in fact accurately inform
ed when it spoke of their existence: and for the
last three hundred years in all probability such a
book has lain among the manuscripts of the Royal
library. The identification of the volume removes
one of the difficulties which has hitherto stood in
the way of any satisfactory investigation into the
origin and character of the first Prayer Book of
Edward VI.
Up to the present time there has been an entire
want of material to illustrate the history and course
of the composition of this book, and of the steps
whereby it assumed its present form. There has been
nothing but the book complete as it stands in print.
The spirit which dictated and directed the compila
tion has been a matter of conjecture, coloured not
infrequently, as is natural in such a case, by the
personal prepossessions of the writer. This is the more
unfortunate, since a just estimate of the character of
a document of such supreme importance is a first
and necessary condition for a right understanding
of the history of the religious changes in England
during the sixteenth century. .
The first Prayer Book of Edward VI. was in itself
a revolution; and that on two grounds. Local and
diocesan usage of every sort was swept away and
an absolute uniformity was prescribed for the whole
realm, - - a thing unheard of in the ancient Catholic
church in England no less than in France and Ger-
flict of statement as to the king's commandment and the com
mand of Convocation certainly cannot be thus explained.
Church Service at the dose of Henry s reign. 3
many. This note of uniformity is struck emphatic
ally in the Act itself, which also declares the peace
and quiet to be engendered by the change. Secondly,
a book was introduced, the form and disposition of
which was unlike any hitherto in use for public
worship in England.
Whether a nearer examination would show that
the divergence is rather one of outward seeming
than of reality is a matter involving many conside
rations. Amongst these must necessarily find a place
the following: what position does the first Prayer
Book hold in regard to the ancient service books in
England, or other contemporary documents of the
same kind"? Is it conservative 1 ? Is it innovating?
And how far is it either? What was its inspiration?
What were its sources? Unfortunately all these
questions have become involved in extraneous and
notably polemical considerations. These, as all will
allow, are hardly favourable to the investigation or
exposition of bare historic truth. But, in spite of
these, it should not be impossible to fix, with a
sufficient degree of accuracy and certainty, the position
which the Prayer Books of Edward VI. really hold
in the religious history of the time; especially when
new documents can be produced to make the task
more easy or the result more sure.
No attempt will be made to enquire whether the
change brought about was good or whether it was
bad. The present investigation is concerned with
facts, and where doctrinal questions must be touched
upon to elucidate the mere course of events or
change of individual opinion, the actors will be
allowed to give their own statements of their own
beliefs. Thus the enquiry whether this revolution,
which swept away the old order and established
in its place the liturgy now holding the affection
4 Church Service at the close of Henry s reign.
of the majority of Englishmen, was providential, or
whether it was a revolt against established law, is-
altogether foreign to the present purpose.
As a prelude it is necessary to have a clear under
standing of the condition of public worship at the
end of the reign of Henry VIII. Looking back across
the course which events actually took in the estab
lishment of an exclusively vernacular service in
England, there has been a tendency to attribute an
undue importance to the Primers or other prayer books
in English issued in the later years of that reign.
Vernacular prayers for private use were common in
the middle ages, and the contents of the primers,
which were essentially designed for such private devo
tion, fall almost entirely outside the ground covered
by the first public english service book.
Glancing at the state of affairs at the moment of
Henry's death it may be said that the system of
public worship, which existed throughout the middle
ages in England, remained intact and in full force.
The rites of Sarum, York and Hereford were in prac
tical use as they had been an hundred years before,
the same books, the same ceremonies 1 .
The acts of Convocation in 1542 however show
already a disposition to limit this diversity by pre
scribing the observance of the Sarum rite for the whole
province of Canterbury. There appears however no
evidence to show that the use of Hereford was then
abrogated. It is not impossible that this order was
caused by the sudden secularization of so large a body
of clergy who had, as members of regular orders,
1 The purgation to which the service books had been subjected
was confined to the omission of the word "Pope", to the sup
pression of the office and name of St. Thomas of Canterbury and
to a correction of typographical errors.
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 5
been accustomed to their own special rites and who,
in the change of condition, must have been at a loss
to tell what breviary to adopt in order to satisfy
an obligation binding them in conscience to the daily
recitation of the divine office.
It has been suggested by some recent writers of
repute that the suppression of the monastic houses
necessitated a change in the method of public worship
in order to render the daily homage of the creature
compatible with secular duties. It is moreover
implied that all offices, except a morning and eve
ning prayer, were designed only for regular religious.
These ideas seem due to a misapprehension. The
disappearance of the monasteries in no way affected
the worship in cathedral or parish churches. It
is true that on the refoundation of the monastic
cathedrals a body of clergy was instituted somewhat
less numerous than it had been on the old footing,
if for no other reason at least for this, that a given
revenue would suffice for a larger number of men
living in community than of men each in receipt of
a separate income and keeping up a separate house
hold. But even the cathedrals of the new foundation
had a body of clergy fully able to maintain the divine
office in becoming splendour *.
Except in so far as personal obligations were con
cerned, a cathedral or collegiate church of secular
clergy was bound to a perpetual round of praise
and service hardly less onerous than that of the most
observant monastery. The obligation however lay
upon them as members of their church and not, as
they would strenuously have contended, by vow as
1 The clergy who remained in the old monastic cathedrals
upon the suppression of the monastery were not uncommonly
recommended by the royal agents as "good choir men."
6 Church Service at the close of Henrifs reign.
religious. The public recitation of the canonical hours
great and small, it is true, originated with persons
inclined to what is technically called the religious
life: monazontes, as they are named in the recently
disco vexed Per egrinateo Silvice, which throws consider
able light upon this as well as upon so many other
ecclesiastical usages at the close of the fourth
century l .
Still, as early as the time of St. Gregory the Great,
it was assumed that the office in a cathedral or even
a considerable church was to be publicly sung. By the
eighth century the clergy of such churches were
regarded and regarded themselves as a real com
munity, the provisions made for the conduct and
observance of which differed but slightly from those
of a community of monks. There was however this
essential difference between them; though the canons
around their bishop lived on common funds, they
retained their rights to their own property and,
subject of course to the obedience of all clergy to
their bishop, were free to come and go.
In the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries
the canons, especially of episcopal churches, gradually
emancipated themselves from ancient restrictions.
The funds originally common, became allotted to
individual members of the body. This practice received
recognition and confirmation more or less early from
the bishops, when the episcopal mensa and that of
the canons became distinct and separate.
The change produced in course of time a departure
not less marked in the opposite direction. This latter
1 See Duchesne, Origines du culte Chretien, Paris, 1889.
pp. 433436, for an account of the way in which the public
celebration of the divine office grew to be recognized as a duty
of the ecclesiastical state.
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 1
tendency was to a renunciation of all private property
and the assumption of religious vows, and thus by
the beginning of the twelfth century the distinction
of regular canons and secular canons was an accom
plished fact. To the class of secular canons belonged
all our non-monastic english cathedrals except Car
lisle : and St. Osmund's title to the gratitude of his
church will be probably found to lie, not in the
liturgical reforms which legend has attributed to
him, but in his legislation for the new pattern in his
cathedral church at Sarum. Such canons throwing
off perhaps gradually the old community restrictions
came to differ in no wise, so far as their method of
life was concerned, from the rest of the secular
clergy. The others formed themselves into a religious
order in the strictest sense of the word and became
known as regular or Augustinian canons. The name
" Canon" common to both, recalls the state of life from
which both had sprung, but which both had abandoned.
Henceforward whilst bearing this common name
they are perfectly distinct in life and spirit. By a
contradiction in terms one class came to be called
secular canons, whilst the other by tautology received
the name of regular canons '.
In one point however churches of canons, whether
secular or regular, kept to the old lines. Both were
bound to and observed the solemn and public recit
ation of the entire divine office although now on
1 Trithemius long ago drew attention to this " a secular
canon " it is as much as to say " a white black" he writes. See in
Ducange s.v. canonicus. This article of Ducange is unfortunately
misleading on the origin of secular canons, although a careful
perusal of the passages cited therein is sufficient to detect the
mistake which is corrected later s.v. Regulares. The question is
accurately exposed in Amort Disc : Vet : Canonicorum, pp. 329333 .
8 Church Service at the close of Henry's reign.
different grounds. The regular canons observed this
duty as members of a religious order ; the secular
canons as incorporated into a church, whether cathe
dral or collegiate, by the foundation and tradition
of which its members voluntarily undertook the
obligation so long as they held their prebend l .
To come to detail : taken as the rule the life of
a canon in our english cathedrals up to the close of
Henry's days was one of no slight labour and mor
tification. The church offices were long : they made
up a day's work quite apart from all questions of
time to be given to study, private devotion, or the
ordinary claims of daily life. The choral work began
early. Morwen, chaplain to bishop Bonner of Lon
don, in commenting on a sermon preached by Pil-
kington in June 1561, when lightning had struck
the steeple of St. Paul's, and the roof and bells had
been burnt, called attention to the change which
had been made in the mode of worship. " Now," he
says, " whether the people of this realm be declined
from the steps of St. Augustine and other blessed
fathers and saints which had mass and seven sacra
ments in the church, and God was honoured night
and day in the church with divine service, I think
there is no man so simple but he may easily per
ceive, except malice have blinded his heart. As in
1 The universal tradition as to common life in cathedrals
must be borne in mind in estimating the introduction of monks
into english cathedral churches under king Edgar and later.
Probably a practical compromise was come to, by allowing the
clergy of the other english episcopal churches, where the common
life had been abandoned, to go on as they were. This will explain
William of Malmesbury's " contra morem Anglorum". In fact
traces of the old common life survived more generally in France
long after the cathedrals had been settled on the new model.
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 9
St. Paul's church in London, by the decrees of bless
ed fathers, every night at midnight they had matins ;
all the forenoon masses in the church with other
divine service and continual prayer, and in the
steeple anthems and prayers were had certain
times". '.
Pilkington in his reply writes: -- "further, where
he charges us with declining from the steps of the
blessed fathers which ordained in Paul's matins to
be had at midnight, all forenoon masses, and in the
steeple anthems ; these things we do not only not
deny, for we do not count such superstitious idolaters
to be our fathers in religion, but we rejoice and praise
Grod for our deliverance from such superstitions.
They crack much of blessed fathers and yet name
not who they be, but much it shall not skill but
their deeds shall prove their holiness. What great
holiness was this, to have matins at midnight when
folk were on sleep in their beds ! Is not common
prayer to be had at such hours when the people
might resort to it conveniently ? If midnight be
such a time most convenient let the world judge....
In Paul's and abbeys at their midnight prayers
were none commonly but a few bawling priests,
young quiristers and novices which understood not
what they said. The elder sort kept their beds
A prayer not understanded in the heart but spok
en with the lips is rather to be counted prating
and bawling than praying with good devotion.
The elder sort both in cathedral churches and
abbeys almost never came at their midnight pray
er. It was thought enough to knoll the bells and
make men believe that they rose to prayer, therefore
Printed in Pilkington's Works (ed Parker Soc :), p. 483.
10 Church Service at the close of Henrys reign.
they have not so much to crack of this their doing...
But as all their religion is of their own devising
so is their reward. God has made them no such
promise and therefore they can claim nothing at
his hands." *
Whether Pilkington was carried away by his
fervour in confutation or not may be left an open
question. But the popular appreciation of these ser
vices may be gauged by a letter which gives a glimpse
of Catholic cathedral life in Mary's days. The writer
was apparently one of the canons of Hereford. Its
date is about 1583 or 1584 ; it is addressed to Scory
the aged bishop of the see, and its object is to secure
a stricter confinement for the catholic recusants who
" are more increased this day in Hereford than ever
were this twenty five years before."
"Right Honorable and Reverend Father" it begins,
" my bounden duty always remembered ; may it
please your lordship to be advertised or to put in
memory that in the dark days of queen Mary the
dean then and the clergy of your cathedral church
of Hereford did orderly observe their superstitious
orders (i. e. services), and were present thereat con
tinually, except certain days of licence which are
called days of jubilee. 2 And did preach their su
perstitious dregs not only, but also did in their
outward living keep great hospitality. For every
night at midnight they with the whole vicars choral
1 Pilkington's Works, pp. 5278.
2 This was evidently a term current in Hereford for leaves
of absence, but does not appear to have been in use in other
english cathedrals, as far as a cursory examination of the available
Statutes has shown.
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 11
would rise to matins and especially the 'domydary', J
for the week being, would be the first.
"Then at five o'clock in the morning at St. Nicholas
mass ; then at other masses at certain altars ; then
at eight of the clock our Lady mass was solemnly
said. Then at nine the prime and hours; then the
high mass was in saying until it was eleven of the
clock, besides every man must have said his own
private mass at some one or other altar daily."
"Then after dinner to even song till five o'clock,
in which time of service a number of tapers were
burning every day, and there was great censing at
the high altar daily to their idols, and there was
a lamp burning day and night continually before
their gods. And every sabbath day and festival day
St. Thomas' bell should ring to procession and the
dean would send his somner 2 to warn the mayor
to the procession. And then upon the somner's
warning the mayor would send the sergeants to the
parish churches, every man in his ward to the alder
man. Then the alderman would cause the parish priest
to command all the freemen to attend on the mayor to
the procession 3 or lecture. For want of a sermon there
should be a lecture in the chapter house every sabbath
and holy day, notwithstanding they were at high
mass in the choir. And then by the mayor and commons
it was agreed at a general law-day that if the mayor
did not come to procession and sermon he should
pay 12d. for every default and every alderman 8d.
and every man of the election 6d. and every freeman
or gild merchant 4d., if it were known they were
1 i. e. Hebdomadarian, or weekly officiant, whether in secular
or regular churches.
2 i. e. his verger.
3 That is before the High Mass.
12 Church Service at the close of Henry's reign.
absent and within the hearing of the said bell and
did not come, which ordinance was and is recorded
in the custom book of the city: so zealous and
diligent were the temporality then in observing those
dregs of the clergy. Then the dean and clergy would
come so orderly to church with such a godly show
of humbleness and in keeping such hospitality that
it did allure the people to what order they would
request them."
"This is true for I did see and know it; but then
did I as a child and knew not the truth, and then
such heavy burdens were but light ; but now in these
joyful days of light how heavy is it among a number
of us to come two hours of the day to serve the
true God, the everlasting King of all glory. It is
lamentable to think on it and much more grievous
to him that did see the blind zeal in darkness so
observed, and now the true light and pathway to
salvation neglected. Then were there tapers, torch
es and lamps great plenty, with censing to idols
most costly in the clearest day of summer ; and now
not scarce one little candle is allowed or maintained
to read a chapter in the dark evenings in the choir.
And as for resorting to hear the truth of the gospel,
it is little regarded . . . notwithstanding the visitation" *.
1 This letter is contained in Egerton Ms. 1693 p. 81 (B. Mus.)
a volume of the papers of Walsinghara, Elizabeth's minister
relating chiefly to ecclesiastical affairs. It is a copy, without name
or date, evidently forwarded to Walsingham by Bp. Scory. The
same volume contains many papers relating to the visitation
named in the letter, which was attended with peculiar difficulties,
as the cathedral chapter claimed to be exempt by their charters
and privileges " as well from the Archbishop of Canterbury as...
from their own bishop." (p. 95. cf. Parker's Corresp. Parker
Soc. p. 165). The visit was eventually managed by Aubery, Vicar
General of the archbishop, in virtue of a royal command, and was
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 1
That the writer's reminiscences were not incorrect
will appear from the account bishop Scory himselt
gives of" the state of feeling in Hereford in 1561,
nearly three years after Mary's death. "The popish
justices of the city" so runs Scory's plaint "command
ed the observance of St. Laurence's day as a holi
day. On the eve no butcher in the town ventured
to sell meat; on the day itself no 'gospeller' durst
work in his occupation or open his shop. A party
of recusant priests from Devonshire were received
in state by the magistrates, carried through the
streets in procession and ' so feasted and magnified '
as Christ himself could not have been more rever
ently entertained.'' 1
If it is desired to realize what were the english
cathedrals in days gone by, it is only necessary to
inquire what the french churches were in the be
ginning of the last century: a subject for which ma
terials abound. These stately corporations were un
doubtedly a prominent feature in the religious life
of France up to the era of the great Revolution.
Not merely in such small towns as Beauvais or Cha
lons, where a cathedral establishment might natur
ally be supposed to overpower all other interests,
but in busy centres like Rouen, Amiens or Lyons,
they were a real religious power in the life of the
city. More than that : as may have been already
gathered from the Hereford letter, they were the
living manifestations in the country of the public
recognition that the people formed a Christian and
Catholic nation. On high-days and great days the re-
held sometime between 5 Sept. 1582 and 19 April 1583. The
whole story is shortly told in the Downside Review Vol. VI
pp. 58-61.
1 Froude. History, (ed. 1870) VII p. 19.
14: Church Service at the close of Henry's reign.
presentatives of every class and profession, np to the
lieutenant of the sovereign, took part in the solemn
offices along with the clergy as making up together
one corporate whole, and thus publicly proclaimed
religion an integral part of the national life.
There were days moreover when the offices of
the parish churches were discontinued and the clergy
and their flocks assembled within the mother church
for one united celebration. Thus the cathedral became
essentially a popular institution, even apart from
the exceptional splendour with which its services were
invested.
The parish churches of England according to their
size and wealth followed the model set them by their
cathedral 1 . The body of clergy attached to them by
one title or another, along with choristers and the nu
merous clerics in minor orders who lived the life of lay
people in secular callings, was much larger than is now
generally realized. This made the maintenance of the
public office in the larger churches, at least on sun-
days and feast-days practicable and even easy. 2 It
1 This is the simple origin of a diocesan "use" and explains
naturally and certainly the predominance of the rite of Sarum in
southern England. Five of the episcopal sees of the Canterbury pro
vince, not including Bath and Coventry, had a monastic cathedral,
and as the monastic office and the solemnities entirely differed
from those of the secular clergy, the rites of these cathedrals could
not furnish the model for the parish and collegiate churches of these
dioceses. They were thus perforce obliged to adopt the use of some
other and secular cathedral. It is unnecessary to discuss here the
reasons which may have led to the adoption of the Sarum rather
than any other use.
2 The chanting of the office (i. e. cum nota) was in the middle
ages required even in cases where such practice might at the
present day seem useless and impossible. Many such examples
occur in the Eegistrum Visitationum of Eudes Rigaud, arch
bishop of Rouen.
Church Service at the close of Henry's reign. 15
must be remembered also that what are now known
as "devotions" were then essentially regarded as
private and personal and, besides the mass, the
office was the only church service.
The measures of Henry VIII. had at most but slightly
touched the parish churches and, so far as the ser
vices are concerned they, as little as the cathedrals,
had been affected by the suppression of the monas
teries. Still, though no practical ctiange had taken
place on the accession of Edward, there is evidence
that Cranmer had already designed considerable
alterations in public worship, the character of which
will be considered in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
CRANMER'S PROJECTED BREVIARY.
More than fifty years ago the late Sir William
Palmer pointed out that the breviary of Cardinal
Quignon had evidently exercised an influence in the
compilation of the Book of Common Prayer. Whole
passages in the preface were shown to be either
translations or more or less close adaptations of
parts of Quignon's own preface to the first edition
of his office-book. Here, however, in fact the inves
tigation rested, since it was not possible to attribute
the origin of any part or form of the printed
english book directly to Quignon's volume. The
manuscript to which attention is now invited supplies
what has hitherto been wanting to make clear the
connection.
It has been mentioned in the last chapter that
this manuscript l is at least one of the books, if
not all, which Convocation in 1547 asked to see. It
comprises two schemes of Office 2 and three tables
of lessons. An account of the manuscript and a print
1 B. Mus. Royal MS. 7 B. IV.
2 What is meant by Office must be clearly understood. It
is not the Mass, which corresponds to the anglican Communion
Service, but the canonical hours, which correspond to the matins
and evensong of the Common Prayer Book.
WiH* ivUi(HM UU.vrwi "SJC^
Facsimile 11. (to Face p. [6).
Latin di-ul'i of the preface to the l'.<.u of Common Prayer. (MS. Reg. r l; - ' V ''
Cranmer' s Projected Breviary. 17
of its contents are given in the appendix: here it
will suffice to state results.
It is however well first to point out the grounds
upon which this manuscript is attributed to arch
bishop Cranmer. The schemes of office are, as is
evident on the face of them and as will appear
more and more clearly the more closely they are
examined, of a date earlier than that of the Book
of Common Prayer. The first of them, roughly
speaking, follows the old order of breviary services,
and may be described as Sarum material worked
up under Quignon's influence. The second, although
also in latin, comes nearer to the form of morning
and evening prayer in the first printed Prayer Book
of Edward VI. (1549). The preface of this latter
scheme, also in latin, is manifestly an earlier draft
of the euglish preface of the book of 154-9.
Further, on confronting the Royal MS. with the
Harleian MS. 426, (Cranmer's draft of the abortive
Reformatio leyum ecdesiasticarum, which is recog
nized as being partly in the archbishop's hand
writing,) the identity of workmanship and style is
unmistakable. The same secretary (Ralph Morrice)
writes the body of the book in both cases; in both,
after head lines had been written in, blanks are left,
as the Reformatio leg-urn says "for Mr. Morres" to
fill up '; in both corrections and annotations are
made in the same characteristic manner and by the
same hand, which is that of archbishop Cranmer -.
To understand the nature of the earlier scheme
it is necessary to give some idea of the mediaeval
office and that compiled by cardinal Quiguon. The
seven canonical hours of the church may first be
1 B. Mus. Havl. MS. 426 f. 17.
2 See facsimiles here reduced in size.
18 Cranmer's Projected Breviary.
divided into night and day office, of which the
former making one service or "hour", included matins
and lauds and was as long as the other six hours
put together.
The body of all the office, whether day or night,
was the psalms, including certain scriptural canticles
like those of Zachary, the Three Children, and the
Blessed Virgin. And what specially characterized
matins was the reading of numerous lessons taken
from Holy Scripture, the works of the Fathers and
the lives of the Saints. In the other "hours" the
lessons of scripture were reduced to a few lines,
commonly called the "little chapter". These then,
the psalms and lessons, were the substance of the
office and to them, at dates which naturally it is
now impossible to fix exactly, other portions were
added which served at once for piety and for con
venience in public recitation.
Thus in a body of clergy, as might be presumed,
only the few would have either musical aptitude or
knowledge. Moreover all could not be supplied with
the music. This would naturally bring about the
adoption of antiphons, which were taken generally
from some verse of the psalm about to be sung. The
practical use of these antiphons, which were sung
by trained cantors in the middle of the choir, was
to give the general body of the clergy the tone of
the coming psalm. J This reason, which applied in
the early ages, was not less cogent at the moment
when the ancient offices were superseded in England.
1 This is somewhat obscured by the present practice, which
however counts a respectable antiquity, of saying the antiphon
after the psalm as well as before, but the ancient roman practice
gives it only before the psalm (cf. Grancolas, Brev. Eomain
livre I. ch. 30).
Crammer's Projected Breviary. 19
The antiphon was not less necessary in our long english
gothic choirs than in the spacious romau basilicas. l
In the same .way the use of the responsonj which
was sung at the end of each lesson at matins was
dictated by a like practical need. To chant these
lessons implies a great strain upon the voice. The
response, therefore, drawn from some part of Holy
Scripture appropriate to the occasion, and sung partly
by the cantors and partly by the choir at large,
afforded a welcome and necessary breathing space for
the lector.
These antiphous and respousories are so ancient
an addition to the psalmody that they may almost
be considered a part of the primitive office. The
"hymns", although some seem to have been cer
tainly composed by Saint Ambrose for the choral
service, were a later element and admitted with the
greatest reluctance by the more conservative churches,
such as Rome and Lyons. 2
The special feature of late mediaeval breviaries,
that is to say, of what are called the uses, whether
english, french, german, italian or monastic, is the
lengthening out of the office by the addition of what
1 Thus whilst the editions of the Sarum breviary were issued
by the dozen, one only of the antiphonar appeared. One copy on
the cantor's desk would be enough for even a church of the first
class. It is probable moreover that the ancient Mss. antiphonars,
enormous volumes, executed at great cost, were still used in spite
of the printed edition, as they are to the present day at Monte
CJassino and Einsiedeln.
2 At Rome hymus do not appear to have been admitted into
the office till after the twelfth century. Even in the eighteenth
Lyons had adopted only the compline hymn. Their general adoption
was probably due to the influence of the monastic order. St. Bene
dict in the sixth century made them part of the office of his monks.
20 Cranmers Projected Breviary.
are known as preces J and by the accumulation of
offices. That is; not content with the "hours" of the
day, which were the hours of the church, out of
excess of devotion, after each obligatory "hour" the
corresponding portion of the merely devotional office
of the Blessed Virgin was recited. These also were
even at times followed by the office of the dead.
And thus three offices were sometimes said in place
of one 2 . Even as early as the twelfth century com
plaints of this growing practice had made themselves
heard, and by the sixteenth century recitation of the
office had become a heavy burden upon the clergy.
The sense of weariness which must have resulted
could not but have a prejudicial effect upon the
chanting of the obligatory part of the divine office.
There was urgent need of reform, and that carried
out by Pius V. in 1568, which swept away the bulk of
these late accretions, restored the breviary to a
rational and practicable form.
More than thirty years previously however a much
more radical change had been almost effected by
cardinal Quignon, with the approval and recom
mendation of the Pope. Quiguon was a Spaniard, a
member of the Franciscan order, and a trusted friend
and confidant of Pope Clement VII. and his successor
Paul III. He was one of the leading spirits of the
curia and on intimate terms with the small and able
1 In the anglican Prayer Book the short versicles said after
the creed in the Morning Prayer may be taken as a specimen
of the ancient preces.
- The practice of churches varied considerably in different
localities : thus at Sarum only the Matins and Vespers of the
Blessed Virgin were recited in choir, the other "hours" being
said privately.
Cronmers Projected Breviary. 21
body of ecclesiastics who ardently at that time desired
reform.
He had been commissioned by Clement VII. to draw
up a breviary but the work only appeared after that
Pope's death. The volume was dedicated to Paul III.
and was published in February 1535 under the title
Breviarium Eomanum nuper information. Prefixed to
it was a commendatory brief from the Pope.
The changes proposed were so radical that notwith
standing the Pope's favour the new breviary raised
a storm of opposition. The Sorbouue distinguished
itself especially by the vigour of its condemnation.
Quignon felt it prudent to make concessions and
issued a revised text intended in some measure to
meet the objections taken to his first edition. During
the short space, however, of the eighteen months
in which the first text was current, no less than
six editions appeared at Rome, Venice, Paris and
Antwerp '.
That this reformed roman breviary met a real
need is evident from the number of editions published :
those of the second text being " probably not far
short of a hundred". This latter text need not be
here considered, for it is certain from the preface of
the Book of Common Prayer that Craumer made use
of the earlier edition '. And, although the archbishop's
1 K These are all the editions of the first text that I have met
with" writes its recent editor; "no doubt there are others still
undiscovered, although I have searched carefully in many libraries
in Italy and also in France." Brev. Eomanum a Francisco Card.
Quignonio ed: curante Jolianne Wickham Lcgg. Cambridge. 1888.
' J The prefaces to the two texts of Cardinal Quignon's breviary
differ very materially, and in the preface of the Prayer Book
Cranmer uses passages of Quignon's first preface which do not
appear in the second.
22 Cranmers Projected Breviary.
scheme includes antiphons, there is DO sufficient evi
dence that he derived this feature from Quignon's
revised text. The following remarks therefore apply
only to the earlier edition.
The first thing that strikes any one accustomed to
the ancient breviaries, on glancing through Quignon's
volume, is the absence of all antiphons, responses
and little chapters, the reduction of the preces to
very narrow limits, and the entire omission of every
office but that of the day i . His main concern was
to secure in practice the regular reading of the
Scriptures. This of course was the original intention
and practice of the church, which, however, traditions
and the rubrics of the later breviaries had partially
neutralized.
The parts omitted obviously shortened the office,
which was further curtailed by reducing the number
of psalms at matins, lauds, vespers and compline
to three. The frame- work however of the breviary,
and the number and disposition of the hours, remained
the same.
Quignon's arrangement of the Holy Scripture was-
dictated by his wish that the chief books of the Old
Testament and all the New should be read through
during the year. " Every day throughout the year 1 ',
he writes in his preface, "the first (lesson at matins)
is from the Old Testament, the second from the New,
and the third from the life of a Saint if a feast be
celebrated; but if there be no such feast, the Acts
and Epistles are read in this third lesson in the
order noted in the Calendar 1 '" 2 .
1 i. e. he put aside such votive offices as those of the B. V.
Mary and the ' Dead '. Quignon calls special attention to this in
his preface: his object being to get rid of whatever "interfered
with the reading of Holy Scripture".
3 ed: J. W. Legg. p. XXI.
Cranmer's Projected Breviary. 28
One other important feature of this new breviary
must be noticed. In the old office books there were
numerous variations in the service according as
the day was a suuday, feastday, or weekday. By
Quignon's plan such variations were reduced to a
minimum. "In my (book)" he writes "there is no
difference, or very little, in the days of the entire
year and so far as length is concerned Sunday and
weekday are the same. The first and second lessons,
moreover, are disposed in an unchangeable order
throughout the year".
The reader will now be in a position to estimate
the general character of Cranmer's new scheme of
office. In the appendix will be found an indication
of the sources from which this was drawn, and it
will be shown as far as possible in detail how far
Cranmer was indebted to Quignon, how far to Sarum,
and how far the work appears to be original. In this
place again only general results can be given.
In the disposition of the ecclesiastical year the
archbishop appears not to have come to a definite
conclusion when drafting his scheme. The body of
the book shows the ancient Sarum arrangement,
whilst the table of lessons drawn up by his own
hand adopts the changes initiated by cardinal Quignon.
Cranmer's proposed office consisted of the ancient
hours of matins and lauds, prime, tierce, sext, none,
vespers and compline.
The latin language is retained even for the reading
of Scripture throughout the year.
The distribution of the psalter is unfortunately
indicated only by the general direction in each hour
"psalmi ex or dine designate. As, however, the num
ber of lessons at matins was reduced ordinarily to
three, and three psalms are expressly prescribed for
each of the last three days of Holy Week, it may
24: Cranmer s Projected Breviary.
fairly be conjectured that Quignon was also to be
followed in the reduction of the psalms at matins,
lauds, vespers and compline to three.
Differing from Quignon's first breviary, Cranmer
allowed one antiphon at each hour ; but like his
model he omitted the responses and little chapters.
Another significant change from the old order
is found both in Quignon and Cranmer. In the brev
iaries formerly in use the portion called the tern-
porale begins with vespers : the feast being then, as
now, regarded as commencing with the vesper ser
vice of the eve. Both the cardinal and the arch
bishop begin their temporale with the office of matins.
The table of lessons in Cranmer's scheme of office,
following the old ecclesiastical tradition, begins with
the first Sunday of Advent. Besides the three lessons
directed to be said at matins, one is appointed to be
read at lauds and another at vespers, which, al
though longer, may be taken to represent the ancient
little chapters, omitted by Quigaon altogether.
In another most important matter Cranmer's first
scheme adopts Quignon's plan of reducing the va
riable parts of the service, and he even goes beyond
his model in this direction. The office of one day
was made exactly similar to every other through
out the year, except in the Holy Week and on
one or two feasts for which special directions were
given.
Those who are particularly interested in the mat
ter will find on examination unmistakable and re
peated instances of the way in which Cranmer's
scheme of office, both in its general order and in
detail, was inspired by Quignon's roman breviary. '
1 See the print of the scheme in the Appendix. It is remark
able that in the catalogue of the library of Henry VIII., dated
Craiimer's Projected Brevier//. 25
The relation of the projected office to that of
Sarum is raorey simple. The archbishop appears to
have used this breviary as a quarry from which to
take his materials, when not quite satisfied with the
new roman office. It must be allowed that what he
does take from the ancient english sources is used
in a somewhat unscrupulous fashion. Thus, for
example, a little chapter is turned into an autiphon,
the old position of various parts is changed without
apparent reason, and snipping and cutting indulged
in, in what seems to have been an arbitrary way.
Still it must be added that in places he enriches the
modern baldness of Quignon from the ancient Catholic
storehouse of Sarum.
Two questions remain for consideration: when was
this scheme drawn up, and under whose influence 1 ?
It is always unsatisfactory to deal with a dateless
document like this, the contents of which necessarily
afford but the slightest indication of time. Under such
circumstances all that can be done is to see where
it best fits in with the events or the tendencies of
particular minds. What follows therefore must be
taken merely as conjecture, made however after care
ful examination.
The Convocation of 1542, as already noted, directed
that the Sarum office should be generally adopted
for the province of Canterbury. It gave also a second
ritual direction : namely " that the curate of ever}'
church after the Te Deum and Magnificat shall
24 April 1542, which appears to contain all the books of the
royal chapel except one or two missals, three breviaries only
are mentioned, each of which is entered in full as " Breviarium
Eomanum". It is hardly perhaps too much to suppose that these
were copies of Quignon's volume. Another volume is described
as "Ceremonie Ecclesie Romane" (R. 0. Augt. Office Alisc : Bk :
160. f. 128*. 108 b ).
26 Cranmer's Projected Breviary.
openly read unto the people one chapter of the New
Testament in english... and when the New Testa
ment is read over, then to begin the Old".
By this order a chapter of the Bible was to be
read to the people in englisk twice on every day
of public service: in the early morning after matins
and in the afternoon at vespers. This measure was
a distinct break from the traditional order of service
although it certainly had a precedent in the arrange
ment made by Luther and by this time (1542) com
mon in german reformed churches.
"Here then at this point" writes Canon Dixon
" rested the revision of the public service. . . The old
books were ordered to be called in and castigated.
If the order was ever enforced the books after their
expurgation must have been restored to the churches
whence they were taken ; but it is more likely nothing
was done" '.
The document known as the Rationale, or exposition
of the order of divine service in mass and office, is
unfortunately also dateless and anonymous, but there
is great probability in the theory put forward by
Canon Dixon that it is really the outcome of the
ritual commission appointed by Henry VIII. in 1540.
In this document " the succession and connection of
the "various parts of the great Catholic rites were
exhibited with lucidity and even with brevity. All
the dispute dceremonies were maintained. The litur-
gic principles of the remarkable Rationale must have
been highly obnoxious to Cranmer and it is prob
able enough that it was he who prevented it from
seeing the light" ".
In the Convocation of 1543 Craumer made his own
1 History of Church of England II, 316.
2 Ibid. p. 313.
Cranmers Projected Breviary. 27
proposal for liturgical reform. "He declared it to be
the royal will that all mass books, antiphoners,
portasses in the church of England should be newly
examined, reformed and castigated from all manner
of mention of the bishop of Rome's name ; from all
apocryphas, feigned legends, superstitious orations,
collects, versicles and responses : that the names and
memories of all saints which were not contained in
the Scripture or authentic doctors should be abolished
and put out of the same books and calendars, and
that the service should be made out of the Scrip
tures and other authentic doctors". The examination
was committed to the bishops of Salisbury and Ely,
Capon and Goodrich, and to six of the lower House;
but this committee was not formed, the lower House
declining to appoint" '.
Whether Capon and Goodrich did anything does
not appear, but, in the light now thrown on the
question by the hitherto neglected Royal MS. it seems
practically certain that some steps were taken to
prepare for the proposed change. The scheme now
brought under notice corresponds so closely to the
programme proposed by Cranmer to the Convocation
of 1543, that even if the MS. did not evidence his
own hand, there could be little doubt that this pro
jected order of service was his.
As to the exact date then, it is possible that the
archbishop may have had his material for the pro
posed book already prepared to present to the com
mission which convocation failed to appoint. But it
is far more probable that seeing the failure of his
attempt to induce the synod of the english Church
to take up the matter, he turned his own attention
1 Ibid p. 315. The original is somewhat obscure: "But this
the lower House released" (Wilkins. III. 863). The gloss is Strype's.
28 Cranmer s Projected Breviary.
to it, and that consequently the document is to be
assigned to some date between 1543 and Henry's
death in January 1547 *.
That it is certainly of a date prior to Edward's
accession will be clear from a consideration of the
doctrinal points of the book. In the office of the
feast of Corpus Christi for instance the Catholic
doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament as maintained by
Henry is unmistakably expressed 2 .
It may perhaps be considered unnecessary to raise
the question as to the influence under which Cranmer
probably drew up his scheme : but the enquiry leads to
a consideration which might easily escape attention
and which is of considerable importance. The choice
of Quiguon's work for a model has an aspect almost
eirenical. At the time it must have seemed more
than probable that the Quiguon breviary would be
fore very long become the recognized office book of
the roman church. Its ready and general acceptance
on this side of the Alps gave promise that it would
become the common breviary of the West. To take
the Quignon text therefore showed some disposition,
so far from widening the breach caused in England
by the separation from Rome, to keep to points of
contact with the Western church as far as possible.
1 In 1546 Cranmer strove to gain his end through the king.
He went so far as to draw up a draft letter which he proposed
that Henry should adopt as his own. In this bishops Day of Chi-
chester and Heath of Worcester are represented as pressing
with Cranmer for liturgical change. The King appears not to have
entered into Cranmer's projects, for nothing more is heard of the
matter (Burnet II. 2. pp. 2367).
2 The Invitatory for this feast is : Christum salvatorem et
panem vite celestis, Venite adoremtis. This is not the same as
Sarum or Quignon, but original.
Cranmer's Projected Breviary. 29
This was hardly Cranmer's natural disposition. It
was however much the temper of Tunstall of Durham,
for whom during twenty years the archbishop had the
deepest friendship. To these ties Cranmer was faithful
to the last. His voice alone was raised in Parlia
ment in Tunstall's favour, when that prelate's ruin
had been resolved on by King and Council.
Looking round then on all the most prominent eccle
siastics of the day, the tone and temper of Tunstall's
mind, his moderation, his wise conservatism, his open
ness to new ideas and his acquaintance with men
of the new era, seem to point to him as the most
likely counsellor of Cranmer in this matter. 1
1 It is necessary here to notice a suggestion of Canon Dixon
in regard to the Rationale spoken of above. He says: "if it had
come into Convocation it would have passed": again "I am sure
it was never brought before Convocation, for I have no doubt that it
was the document which Convocation in the first year of Edward VI.
requested Cranmer to produce" (p. 313. see p. 16 ante). The words
of Convocation itself and of Cranmer make this suggestion hardly
probable. The Rationale is merely an account of the divine service
and cannot in any sense be called a revision of the service books
It still less suits Cranmer's version of the petition of Convocation,
for he speaks of an appointment " to alter the service in the church
and to devise other convenient and uniform order" and notes that
the "said books'" were to be "for a better exposition of the divine
service to be set forth accordingly". This is a good description
of the purpose of the scheme contained in the Royal MS. Further,
Cranmer stated to Convocation in 1543 that it was " the royal
will" that the new books should be framed, and this accords
with his note in 1547, "by the commandment of King Henry VIII."
rather than with the other version " ex mandato Convocationis".
CHAPTER III.
CRAMER'S SECOND PROJECT.
Archbishop Cranmer's second scheme for the public
office may be briefly dismissed. It is however of
considerable importance and interest, as marking the
step whereby he passed from the ancient arrange
ment of the divine office to the order for morning
and evening prayer which was eventually put forth
in the Prayer Book of 1549.
The daily services were in this scheme reduced
to two, namely matins and vespers. "We have
thought good " it says " to omit compline altogether
and also the accustomed hours, prime, tierce, sext
and none, as well because in all these there is a
continual repetition of the same things, which is
idle and useless, as because it seems a mockery
to retain the same divisions of the hours observed
by the ancient fathers, when the custom of praying
seven times a day has long since ceased and we now
assemble only twice a day for prayers" 1 .
In the second place, the matins and vespers were
to be said as hitherto in latin, except the Lord's
Prayer and the lessons of Holy Scripture, which were
directed to be recited in english. These last were
to be read from the pulpit or some other place out-
* Ms. Reg. 7 B. IV, f. lib.
Cranmers Second Project. 31
side the choir. The psalter was to be gone through
once in the month, and the general rubric regulating
the recital is much the same as it now stands in
the present Book of Common Prayer.
The daily order of Matins was as follows: after
the Our Father said aloud in english, there followed
the Domine labia mea aperies &c. l The Venite was
omitted altogether. "It has seemed sufficient" says
the rubric "that this should be recited among the
rest of the psalms in its ordinary course once a
month" 2 . Next came a hymn varied according to
the day of the week or the season of the year. Then
followed in order three psalms, Our Father in eng
lish, three lessons from the Holy Scriptures 3 , Te
Deum and Benedictus , the salutation Dominus vobis-
cum, and the prayer varying according to the time
of the year. The service closed with the Benedicamus
Domino to which a new response was given.
On Sundays and feastdays a fourth lesson was to be
said after the Te Deum, which was directed to be
taken, either from some homily of the Fathers, or
from the life of a saint. On Sundays also after the
Benedicamus Domino there were added to the service,
the Athanasian Creed, the preces, which still survive
in the Book of Common Prayer, with the Collect, now
called "for grace".
The order of vespers was the same on all days of
the year and followed that of the daily matins,
except that two lessons were read in place of three,
1 This is the arrangement of the present Prayer Book after
the absolution.
2 Ibid. f. lla.
3 These were preceded in the traditional way by the Jube
Domine with the blessing given by the officiant, and closed with
the Tu autem.
32 Cranmer's Second Project.
and the Magnificat replaced the Te Deum. After the
canticle the prayer was said, and the service closed
in the usual way.
It will be seen therefore that this project, though
on the same lines as that which subsequently ap
peared in the printed Book of 1549, is somewhat
more simple. The vespers are drawn entirely from
the old vespers service; the daily morning services
comprise certain features of the ancient matins with
the Benedictus drawn from lauds; and on Sundays
the Athauasian creed, the preces and the collect 'for
grace' taken from prime.
Of the numerous hymns of the old breviaries
twenty-six were retained ; fourteen being assigned to
the days of the week and the other twelve to the
ecclesiastical seasons of Christmas, Passiontide, Holy
Week, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost.
The variable collects were reduced in the same
way. Of the five and thirty prayers retained, whilst
one was assigned to each of the Sundays after Pente
cost, only ten had to serve for the ecclesiastical
seasons from Advent to Pentecost inclusively.
Considerable difficulty seems to have been experi
enced in settling the calendar which is the key to
all office books on the traditional lines. The Royal
MS., which contains these projects of archbishop
Cranmer, comprises two schemes of a calendar for
saints and three schemes of a table of lessons from
Scripture, besides an imperfect draft of a festivale
or series of fourth lessons for saints 1 days. Each
of these elements of the entire project must be
considered in turn. To take first the two calendars
of saints' days. These are markedly distinct in char
acter and there is little difficulty in placing them
in their correct order of date. The earlier differs
from the traditional calendar only by the paucity
KucMinile III. (to face p. 33).
The later calendar showing alterations in Cramner's hand. (MS. K<^ 7 P.. 1 \" f. -\\>).
Cranmer's Second Project. 33
of saints' names which are entered in it. Not a single
english name is to be found in the entire list: that
of St. Gregory the Great is in fact the only one
connected with England. Of the festivals of the
Blessed Virgin, the Purification, Annunciation,
Assumption and Nativity are preserved as well as
the feast of St. Anne. A special characteristic of
this scheme appears to be the retention of the
names of the great Fathers of the Church. There
would seem to be one trace of the influence of
Quignon in the insertion of the feast of SS. Phileas
and Philoromus at the third of February, whilst the
calendar gives already, in the insertion of the fes
tival of St. Timothy on 22 January and St. Benjamin
on 21 February, an indication of the spirit which
presided at the compilation of the later calendar.
Of this second proposal for a new calendar for
the english church it is difficult to speak seriously,
or to believe it could be meant in earnest were
it not that the correcting hand of Crammer has
attempted to reduce it to a more reasonable form,
and that the projected festivals is actually drawn
up on the lines which it lays down. It may be de
scribed in one sentence as scripturalism without dis
cretion. It commemorates Abel, Noe, the good Thief,
Benjamin, Lydia and Deborah, Gideon and Samp
son, Booz and the Centurion, king David and
Nathan, Judith and Esther with others. At the same
time it bears traces of having been a further develop
ment of the former calendar. Two english saints
are now admitted, St. Edward, king and martyr,
and St. Edmund the king.
The correcting hand introduced some measure of
sense by adding old familiar feasts like those ot
St. Agnes and St. Vincent, the Invention of the Holy
Cross, St. Cuthbert, St. Augustine of Canterbury and
34: Cranmer's Second Project.
St. Alban. But saints Phileas and Philoromus
maintain their ground, and Cranmer's annotations
in the festivals refer to the Breviarium Romanum
as a source from which lives of saints may be taken.
On comparing these schemes with the calendar of
feasts which actually appeared in the Prayer Book
of 1549 it is not difficult to understand the situation.
There were clearly contrary influences at work, the
one advocating the ancient calendar somewhat purged
of its objectionable elements, the other insisting
upon Scripture being the primary basis. What was
actually done in 1549 was to retain such feasts as
could be distinctly referred to the New Testament.
That is, putting aside those of Our Lord, the feasts
were reduced to those of the Apostles, the Purifi
cation and Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,
St. John the Baptist, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Stephen
and the Holy Innocents, with the addition of
St. Michael as a commemoration of the angels, and
of the one general celebration of All Saints.
The kernel of the new office lay in the novel tables
of lessons of which the manuscript gives three sche
mes. These must be taken in connection with that
which appeared in the print of the first Book of
Common Prayer. It has been already pointed out
that the earliest scheme of lessons is written in
Cranmer's own hand and adopts the arrangement
of the ecclesiastical year made in Quignon's breviary.
In the distribution of the Bible throughout the year,
however, like the later schemes it is original and
cannot be referred to any earlier breviary, although,
as might be expected in one who had long used the
Sarum office, there are traces of the influence of the
Salisbury use ! . This scheme of course belongs to
1 For example: the lessons of Advent are taken from Isaias,
4fs
J-'acsiinilc IV. (to fare p. 34).
Draft of a table of lessons in ( "raniucr's hand. (.MS. Re. ~ P>. IV f. 152:1)
Cranmers Second Project. 35
the projected breviary described in the last chapter.
Passing to the next in order of date a significant
change occurs in the arrangement. The first scheme
was made to depend upon the ecclesiastical year,
the portions of Holy Scripture being assigned to the
various seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, &c. The
second was regulated entirely by the days of the
month, and the commencement of the book of
Genesis was transferred from Septuagesima, as in
the traditional office, to January the third. In other
words the ecclesiastical year was abandoned in
favour of the calendar year, and this was main
tained in the Prayer Book of 1549 and its successors.
The steps by which the present arrangement of the
lessons from Scripture was arrived at are interesting
but the details must be sought in the appendix.
Here it will be sufficient to note that in none of
the schemes was the continuous reading of Scripture
interrupted. Special lessons were first assigned for
the ordinary Sunday office in 1559, and however the
distribution of the lessons varied the actual amount
of Scripture read from any book remained almost
the same throughout; but the variations also show
how closely linked together are these three schemes
and that which was printed in the first Book of
Common Prayer.
The plan of morning and evening service adopted
in this second project can have no pretence to ori
ginality. For five and twenty years such services had
been in use in the Lutheran parts of Germany where
the ancient ritual books had, as in this case, been
used as the quarry out of which the materials for the
new forms of prayer were drawn. It must be re-
t.hose after the Epiphany from Romans and Corinthians, whilst
Genesis was commenced on Septuagesima Sunday.
36 Cranmer^s Second Project.
membered however that so far as these services were
concerned their conception and their similarity were
due less to acquaintance with the new books than,
to intercourse with men who had used them. There
are features however which distinguish the english
services contemplated by Cranmer from those which
owed their origin exclusively to Lutheran inspiration.
The german reformer, however violent may have been
his language always held firmly the principle of litur
gical tolerance. Writing in 1545 to the Prince of
Anhalt, Luther says: "I cannot recommend the plan
of a uniformity of ceremonies in every place". l
In reviewing the manuscript projects in connection
with the Book of 1549, it is impossible not to see-
how Cranmer s mind constantly tended to greater-
rigidity in these matters. The projects not merely
witness to a desire for a uniformity of observance
throughout the country; but all churches alike, from
the cathedral with its numerous clergy, singing men
and boys, to that of the smallest village, were confined
by the Book of Common Prayer to a single type of
service, which was made as nearly as possible the
same for every day throughout the year.
It may be that the ancient office manifested a
superabundant richness of varying devotional forms,
but the new order certainly runs to the opposite
extreme. Without doubt subsequent revisions of the
Book of Common Prayer have introduced elements,
which, although it may not be easy to justify them
by the test of antiquity, have given to the daily
service a breadth or even a certain dignity which is
altogether wanting in the book of 1549.
One further feature in the manuscript of the second
project remains to be noticed. The whole scheme is
1 Quoted in Jacoby's Liturgik der Eeformatoren, I, p. 237.
Cranmers Second Project. 37
introduced by a latin preface of which that of the
present Prayer Book is little more than a translation.
There are however variants which deserve attention.
In the first place in the enumeration of the euglish
Buses' 1 the latin omits the mention of that of Lincoln,
but adds "those of the manifold orders of religious,
each one of which had its own special use ". Further,
passages from Quignon's preface to his breviary are
given in the latin draft, which were subsequently
left out in the english version. Quignon's measured
and telling criticism of the lessons from saints 1 lives,
in this preface to the second project takes another
colour, and its author was doubtless well advised in
omitting from the preface to the Prayer Book his
remarks on "old wives 1 fables and the stupidity of
those who had put them together 11 . The following
passage which could not of course be made to suit
the printed book is interesting. "We have left" the
latin preface says "only a few hymns which appeared
to be more ancient and more beautiful than the rest
and the histories of certain saints as to whom no
doubt can be raised. These we have caused to be
gathered from fitting authorities greek and latin.
Moreover, we have only rejected those saints whose
solemnities we saw to be wrongly and superstitiously
observed by the common people, or whose lives and
conduct appeared to us open to exception, or whose
history was not recorded by approved authors ". *
It may be further remarked in regard to passages
often quoted from the printed preface to the Prayer
Book, that they were perfectly appropriate as used
by Quignon from whom they were derived, but even
in the first scheme were already out of place. Thus
Quignon could say with justice that on a candid con-
1 Royal Ms. 7B.IV. f. 8a.
38 Cranmer s Second Project.
sideration of the original intention of our forefathers
in regard to the divine office, it would be acknow
ledged that his book was not so much a novel inven
tion as the restoration of the ancient breviary. Tn
the latin draft of his preface, adapting this Cranmer
says : " You have here a form of prayer not newly
invented by us but rather the ancient one handed
down by the fathers and restored to its primitive
use and pristine beauty". In the printed english
preface he makes a more modest, but less intellig
ible, claim. " So here you have ", he says, "an order for
prayer (as touching the reading of Holy Scripture)
much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old
fathers ". A recent writer has remarked that Cranmer
was in error in attributing the order of lessons from
Scripture to the Fathers of the church, although his
expressions are perfectly correct when applied to the
mediaeval breviaries. The writer did not know that
the passage to which he took exception was derived
from Quignon, but had been applied by Cranmer
to a book in which the distinctive features of the
breviary had been abandoned. '
Finally the order for morning and evening prayer
ends with the following advertisement: "we do not
wish that any one be bound, as regards the recital
of matins and vespers, to anything more than is
here set down". This of course relates to the obli
gation under which priests lay to recite the entire
1 See the interesting tract by E. Ranke Der Fortbestand
des herJcommlichen Pericopenkreises. Gotha, 1859, pp. 534.
The writer's judgment of the Anglican calendar of lessons
seems more equitable than that of Kliefoth, but |it is to be
noticed that the two features he selects for commendation are
not Cranmer's, whilst that which he specially criticises is of the
archbishop's own devising.
Crammer's Second Project. 39
divine office either privately or in public, and thus
contemplates the private recitation of the usual " Hours".
The Prayer Book of 1549 relaxes the obligation of
private recitation altogether, but this was reimposed
in the second Book of 1552.
The general rubrics of this project are closed by a
"Canon" as to the shortening of ecclesiastical prayers
for the sake of preaching. After noticing the advan
tages which will ensue from this exercise, " therefore "
(says the canon) " lest the length of the public prayers
here established by us should in any way hinder
the work of good pastors in teaching their flock,
we will that as often as any sermon is preached to
the people, the parish priest may omit the Te Deum,
the fourth lesson and the Athanasian creed in the
public prayers before the people ". 1
It only remains to consider the probable date at
which this scheme of morning and evening prayer
was drawn up. The alteration of the calendar and
the omission of all provision for a hymn and collect
for the festival of Corpus Christi make it almost
certain that the scheme does not belong to the reign
of Henry VIII. On the other hand it certainly dates
before the compilation of the printed Book of Common
Prayer and clearly manifests traces of having been
used for that work. It may safely therefore be assigned
to an early period in the reign of Edward VI.
1 Cf. in the Prayer Book of 1549 the last note on ceremonies.
CHAPTER IV.
PREPARATIONS FOR CHANGE.
So long as Henry lived the English church, although
deprived of some dignity and strength, in her outward
appearance remained unchanged. Her system of
worship was the same as it had been for many genera
tions, but her chief prelate Cranmer was prepared to
suggest innovations and had ready in hand a scheme
that was revolutionary. To maintain the old order in the
great churches of the realm one thing was absolutely
necessary: ample revenues to support a large body
of clergy with their attendant ministers. The old
elaborate ritual must necessarily be curtailed or alto
gether swept away if the ecclesiastical revenues were
diminished or entirely alienated from their original
purposes. A small establishment would quite suffice
for the public service on the simple model now pro
jected by Cranmer. Whether he had in mind the
spoliation of the church or a redistribution of its
wealth is very doubtful, but it is certain that the
simplicity of his proposed ritual rendered confis
cation possible, and would therefore highly commend
it to the men who were now to come into supreme
power.
Henry VIII. died at Westminster on Friday,
28 January 1547, at two o'clock in the morning.
Preparations for change. -il
Parliament was then sitting; but the king's death
was kept secret for nearly three days. On Monday,
31 January, the Commons were sent for to the
House of Lords and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley
acquainted them with the event.
Edward, at the moment of his father's death, was
at Hertford. His uncle, the Earl of Hertford, after
wards the Duke of Somerset, was in London but
hastened at once to join his nephew. Before leaving
the city, however, it is clear that he had made all
the arrangements needful for seizing the supreme
power. Scarcely twenty four hours after Henry's
death he wrote to Paget from Hertford a letter dated
29 January, between three and four o'clock in the
morning, sent by a messenger, bidden to " haste, post
haste, haste with all diligence for thy life, for thy
life". The object of the letter was to intimate, "that
for divers respects, I think it not convenient to
satisfy the world " as to the contents of Henry's will,
and saying that between this and Wednesday
(February 2) * we to meet and agree therein as there
may be no controversy hereafter". 1
Even Edward himself, although in his uncle's
keeping, was not informed of his father's death until
they had made the journey from Hertford to En field.
"We intend," writes Hertford in a second letter,
"from Enfield, this Sunday night at eleven of the
clock, " that the " King's Majesty shall be a-horse-
back tomorrow by eleven so that by three we
trust his Grace shall be at the Tower".
The announcement in Parliament of the names of
the executors of Henry's w r ill, who were to constitute
the Privy Council and exercise all the authority of
Tytler, Reigns of Edw. VI and Mary. I. pp. 15 1C.
42 Preparations for change.
the crown during Edward's minority, raised murmurs
of surprise and distrust. How much of the contents
of the will was made public is nob known; but it
would seem that the Earl of Hertford's plan, sketched
in his letter of 29 January, was followed. His direc
tion to Paget was " to have the will presently with
you and to show this is the will, naming unto them
severally who the executors are that the king did
specially trust, and who be counsellors ".
The first proceedings of the Council within a week
of the king's arrival in London, and before Henry
was buried, indicated the spirit with which they
were prepared to manage even the most weighty
matters of ecclesiastical administration. Under Henry,
however strong his will and masterful his mind even
as supreme head, the old forms of ecclesiastical
government retained an ecclesiastical aspect. Under
Edward, year by year not merely was all ecclesias
tical power wholly absorbed by the King, the Council
and their lay agents; but all care to preserve even
the outward forms was disregarded and the admi
nistration of the Church appeared as a mere depart
ment of the State.
On Sunday, 6 February, in pursuance of this policy,
the Council assembled at the Tower resolved ; "Item
whereas all the bishops of the realm had authority
of spiritual jurisdiction by force of instruments under
the seal appointed ad res ecclesiastic as which was
determined by the decease of our late Sovereign lord
King Henry VIII . . . and for as much as for the better
order of the affairs of the realm it is thought con
venient the same authority be renewed unto them;
it was therefore ordained . . . that they should cause
new instruments to be drawn in form of the others
they had before . . . and thereupon every of the said
bishops to exercise their jurisdiction in such manner
Preparations for change. 43
as they did before by virtue of their former grants". 1
At this Council both Cranmer and Tunstall were
present, and in compliance with the order the arch
bishop took out his new commission on the following
day. 2 The whole tone of this document, professing
as it does that u all ecclesiastical jurisdiction " pro
ceeded from the king " as well as secular ", is sufficient
to show that the taking out of these commissions
was regarded as a necessary part of the programme,
even if the Council Book had not recorded its positive
order. In fact it was an immediate announcement
of the cardinal point of the whole ecclesiastical
policy of Edward's reign. The bishops were to be
mere delegates of the King.
Whether Cranmer found any imitators among
the bishops in thus immediately complying with the
order of the Council, of which he was one of the
most important members, does not appear; but it is
worthy of note that Tunstall's name disappears early
from the documents issuing from the Council board 3 .
1 Council Book Had MS. 2308 f. 25 d.
-i This order of the Council appears to have been commonly
overlooked and the proceeding has been attributed to the initia
tive of Cranmer. The impression that has generally prevailed may
be conveniently given in the words used by Canon Dixon. "Even
before the prince was crowned " he writes " it came into the mind
of Cranmer, so great was his loyalty, that it was desirable for
himself and the other bishops to renew their commissions as
functionaries of the new King. He therefore issued or caused to-
be issued again without delay those curious instruments" &c.
(Hist. II, p. 413). "Desirable" seems hardly the word to use in
view of the proem of the commission itself printed in Burnet
(II. 2. p. 90), who seems to have seen the Council order, since
he says (H p, 6) " and the bishops were required to take out
new commissions".
3 After the first three weeks ot this reign his signature does not
44: Preparations for change.
One bishop certainly objected, and from his own words
it may be taken that he spoke in the name of the
rest. The full meaning of this novel order did not
escape the keen sight of that " ignorant" or " ignorant
and subtle lawyer" as Cranmer designates Gardiner,
the great opponent of his innovating tendencies. For
nearly a month the jurisdiction of the bishop of
Winchester over his diocese must have been suspend
ed pending the result of the correspondence he had
on the matter with the Council. His objections are
best stated in his own words. In a letter of 1 March
to "Master Secretary Paget 11 he writes: "Being the
matter of the expedition of our commissions com
mitted to you, these (letters) shall be to require you
to expedite them favourably as ye promised me you
would. This day 1 have seen your addition which I
like not; for we be called ordinaries of the realm,
and there should be a request on our parts to make
ourselves delegates. And I have been exercised on
making of treaties, where words (as ye know) have
been thrust in to signify somewhat at length and
then have such an interpretation as may serve. And
we poor bishops be not such a match as the parties
be in treaties .. .It would be a marvellous matter if
after my long service and the love of my master
(Henry VIII), I should offend in going about to do
well, to see things well by visitations and receiving
of convicts to my charge as ordinary, and am but a
delegate. Ye must grant archdeacons authority to
visit or they cannot pay their tenths, for thereupon
their profit doth arise, and then how shall it stand,
the archdeacons to have more authority than the
bishop, having in his name to be overseer and yet
appear on the Privy Seals with those of the other councillors,
except once in May and twice in June of this year.
Preparations for change. 45
may not go see. And now is the time when such as
have office to order the people should rather have
more committed to them than less. And there is no
man I think so made as will adventure further than
the evident speech of the commission will bear . . .
I write generally unto you for all and specially for
my lord of London. For like as the brethren have
made a ballad and solace themselves in it, where
Bonner lamenteth the fall of Winchester, so for
recompense of his lamentation I speak in his cause,
with whom I perceive ye be offended, justly or no I
will not reason for I know not, nor have been, on
my fidelity, ever spoken to by him of it" '.
Gardiner had been, as he himself declares, in
Paget's youth " his tutor and teacher ; afterwards
his master, then his beneficial master" obtaining
from Henry "one of the rooms of the clerkship of
the signet for him" 2 . The tone of Paget's reply to
his old master is extraordinary. It is dated March
2, the day after Gardiner had written his request,
and it must have shown the bishop that there was
no room for appeal against a policy already decided
upon. "1 malign not bishops 1 ' he writes u but would
that both they and all other were in such order as
might be most to the glory of God and the benefit
of this realm. And if the estate of bishops is or shall
be thought meet to be reformed, I wish either that
you were no bishop, or that you could have such a
pliable will as could well bear the reformation that
should be thought meet for the quiet of the realm".
"Your lordship shall have your commission in as
ample manner as I have authority to make out the
same, and in an ampler manner than you had it
1 State Papers. Dora. Ed. VI. Vol I. No. 24.
2 Foxe's Ads ed. Townsend, VI. p 259.
46 Preparations for change,
before. No man wisheth you better than I do, which
is as well as to myself; if you wish me not like,
you are in the wrong; and thus I take my leave of
your lordship" l .
Another matter affecting the interests of the church
was as easily settled and the course entered on was
as persistently pursued. The ecclesiastical revenues
and the sacred buildings themselves were early
marked out for spoliation. In a paper, dated 15 February
1547 are seen " the names of those to be raised to
dignity, and lands to be given to them". Amongst these
are the following: "My lord of Hertford "with his
dukedom " 800 lands a year, and I 200 of the
next bishop's lands 1 ' 2 .
Sir Thomas Darcy was to be made steward of
the bishop of Norwich in Suffolk and Sir Richard
Southwell in Norfol k. My lord Went worth was "to have
the stewardship of all my lord of Ely, his lands and
master of his game in Norfolk, in Suffolk and in
Cambridgeshire": Sir William Petre was granted
"the 100 a year of my lord, of Winchester" (bishop
Gardiner) whilst " the stewardship of all my lord of
Lincoln's lands " with other small perquisites was
divided between Sir William Goring and Sir Ralph
Vane. It is a mere common place of history how
faithfully and generously the policy thus modestly
initiated was pursued to the end.
But the rulers were not content to lay down only
the main lines of conduct in greater matters. The
attack began at once and in detail upon almost every
point of the ancient system. In 1547, Ash Wednesday
1 Tytler. I p. 25.
2 State Papers. Domestic. Vol. I No. 11. This appears to be
a draft corrected by Hertford himself: the words "and & 200
