on account of the annual tenth and a limit of income below which no tax was exacted. The payments were usually spread over a term of years. The archbishops and bishops, or, if the see were vacant, the dean and chapter acted as collectors in their own dioceses. The grant so made was embodied in a separate statute (e. g. 5 Eliz. 29, p. 54) which recognized parliamentary control over taxation and enabled the crown to exercise legal compulsion in the collection of the tax. Occasionally (e.g. in 1587, p. 137) Convocation voted a benevolence in addition to the subsidy, which the queen (p. 138) authorized the bishops and others to collect in whatever way should be determined by themselves. On some occasions, when a benevolence was demanded (e. g. 1622, pp. 359, 360), the bishops fixed the proportion to be given, and wrote letters for its collection. For military purposes the clerical contributions were fixed at the same proportions as those usual in the case of the laity (see below, § VI, Army and Navy).

The control which the Pope had long exercised, in spite of the Statutes of Provisors, over ecclesiastical appointments, was swept away by the Reformation. An Act of 1534 (25 Hen. VIII. 20) made the crown virtually supreme, by establishing, or rather restoring, the system known as that of the congé d'élire. Edward VI substituted (1 Ed. VI. 2) for this process the direct appointment by letters patent, but the Act of Supremacy (§ 2) revived the earlier method. Its action is exemplified by the documents printed on pp. 242244. It resulted in the complete subordination of the higher clergy to the crown, and strengthened the influence which the monarchy naturally exercised over the House of Lords. It should be remembered that in the reign of Elizabeth the spiritual peers numbered nearly a third of the upper house.

The judicial subordination of the clergy depends, on the one hand, on the degree of their subjection to the temporal courts, and, on the other, on the control exercised by the crown over the spiritual courts. The judicial immunities of

the clergy, limited by a statute of 1489 (4 Hen. VII. 13), were further curtailed by several Acts of Henry VIII's reign. During the period under review, benefit of clergy was taken away from various classes of offenders, e.g. by the statutes 8 Eliz. 4, 18 Eliz. 7, and 1 Jac. I. 8, while many other acts contained clauses prohibiting its use. But it remained for two centuries longer a legal plea in cases not specially excepted, and was not finally abolished till 1827. It may be mentioned in this connexion that the privilege of sanctuary, limited or regulated by several statutes passed under Henry VIII, was done away with in 1624 (21 & 22 Jac. I. 28).

The jurisdiction of the episcopal and other ordinary ecclesiastical courts was reserved not only by the Act of Uniformity (§§ 4, 11), but also by other statutes (e.g. 13 Eliz. 12. § 2). These courts took cognizance of temporal as well as spiritual causes and offences, of matrimonial and testamentary cases, of perjury and sacrilege, as well as heresy and immorality. Their sanctions consisted of censure and excommunication, the latter being followed by imprisonment at the hands of the temporal authorities and by civil disabilities of a serious nature. In cases of heresy, the condemnation of the church courts might entail the penalty of death, a penalty occasionally inflicted during this period; but this and other corporal punishments could only be executed by the aid of the temporal power. The writs issued by the ecclesiastical courts did not run in the king's name, for the statute of 1547 (1 Ed. VI. 2), which enacted that they should do so, was repealed by Mary and not revived by Elizabeth'. But from these courts there lay an appeal to a tribunal over which the Church had no control, while their ordinary jurisdiction was, until 1641, to a certain extent superseded, or at least concurrently exercised, by the High Commission.

The supreme appellate jurisdiction of the crown in eccle

1 An opinion given by the Judges in 1637 may be considered to have settled this point.

siastical matters was exercised through a court commonly called the High Court of Delegates. This tribunal was

originally established in 1534, under the statute 25 Hen. VIII. 19, to take over the jurisdiction of which that Act deprived the Court of Rome. It was abolished by Mary, but revived by Elizabeth (1 Eliz. 1. § 2), and thenceforward continued to act until, in 1833, its powers were transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It heard appeals from the higher ecclesiastical courts, exclusive of the High Commission, on application to the king in Chancery1. Its composition and its sittings were irregular, for its members were only nominated for each occasion as it arose, and although it discharged useful functions during a period of nearly three centuries, it did not possess much political or constitutional significance.

(b) Definition of Doctrine and Ritual.

The national religion and the rules for the conduct of public worship were fixed in the Act of Uniformity, by reference to an authoritative formula. But, to avoid disputes, more exactitude in both respects was necessary, for the Prayer-Book left not a few points uncertain. The further definition of doctrine was accomplished in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, based on those of Edward VI, but promulgated with more attention to legality. They were discussed and accepted by Convocation in 1562, but had to wait nine years before they received parliamentary recognition. An Act of 1571 (13 Eliz. 12) imposed subscription to such of these articles as 6 concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments' on all ministers ordained according to any ritual other than that sanctioned under Edward VI or Elizabeth, and on all clergy before admission to a benefice with cure of souls. All candidates for holy orders were 'to profess the doctrine' embodied in these articles, and any beneficed clergyman

Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission (1883), Part III.

Definition of Doctrine and Ritual.

xxxix

teaching contrary doctrines might be deprived. The articles so sanctioned have ever since been recognized as containing the true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's word.' The so-called Lambeth Articles, issued by Whitgift and others in 1595 (p. 226), however interesting as showing the tendency to Calvinism which at that time prevailed even among the leading divines of the Church, had no authority and produced no modification in the national profession of belief.

With regard to public worship, the queen's proclamation issued in 1558 (p. 183) merely laid down certain general restrictive regulations. Fuller instructions touching rights and ceremonies, preaching, vestments, and the duties of ministers in general, were given in the Injunctions of 1559 (p. 184). This ordinance is of a somewhat heterogeneous character, and contains among other things a grudging recognition of the marriage of the clergy; but clerical marriages were not legalised by statute till 1604 (1 Jac. I. 25). A few years after the appearance of the Injunctions, Archbishop Parker issued his Advertisements (p. 191), a series of supplementary orders intended to produce greater uniformity in doctrine and ceremonial. Being set forth with the sanction of the bishops who were on the High Commission, they might claim to be based, if only indirectly, on the royal authority. Their provisions, so far at least as concerned the ordination of ministers and their licence to discharge ecclesiastical functions, were rendered more stringent by Whitgift, who issued his Articles (p. 211) in 1583. Under this edict, every minister was obliged not only to use the Prayer-Book and to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, but also to declare his belief that the whole of the Prayer-Book and all the Articles, without exception, were in accordance with the word of God. These regulations made demands upon the Puritan conscience which exceeded the limits fixed by the queen or by Parliament. Whitgift, indeed, might have pleaded that they did not, in respect to the Thirty-nine Articles, go beyond the canon of 1571

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(p. 201); but if this canon, which is somewhat vaguely worded, is to be taken as insisting on subscription to all the Articles, it does not appear to have been strictly enforced till Whitgift's day. The opposition provoked by the archbishop's regulations and his uncompromising efforts to enforce their observance brought many troubles upon the Church and upon the country at large.

(c) The High Commission.

The special machinery created for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical supremacy and of the doctrines and regulations described above, consisted in the Court of High Commission, or, as we ought rather to call it, the group of courts held by virtue of royal commissions issued under the Act of Supremacy. It is not too much to say that these courts were among the most efficient causes of the quarrel between the monarchy and the nation, which culminated in the rebellion of 1642. The institution was not immediately connected with that rebellion, for it had been swept away in the previous year, but it was one of the chief sources of that hostility towards the Church which underlay the whole quarrel, and made a reconciliation in 1642 impossible.

Henry VIII was empowered by statute (31 Hen. VIII. 14 and 32 Hen. VIII. 15) to nominate commissioners to enquire into and punish heresy. Such commissions were actually issued by Edward VI and Mary, but the Court of High Commission in its permanent form dates from the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. The queen and her successors were empowered by the Act of Supremacy (§ 8) to nominate commissioners who should exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction under the crown, with power to correct and amend all errors, abuses, and offences which by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical power may lawfully be corrected or amended.' Elizabeth lost no time in availing herself of these powers. In July, 1559, she issued a commission

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