Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/107

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1534.]

THE LAST EFFORTS AT DIPLOMACY.

87

under the forms of courtesy; the share of the chapters was wholly and absolutely ignored. The crisis of a revolution was not the moment at which their legal privileges could be safely restored to them. The problem of re-arrangement was a difficult one, and it was met in a manner peculiarly English. The practice of granting the congé d'élire to the chapters on the occurrence of a vacancy, which had fallen into desuetude, was again adopted, and the Church resumed the forms of liberty: but the license to elect a bishop was to be accompanied with the name of the person whom the chapter was required to elect; and if within twelve days the person so named had not been chosen, the nomination of the Crown was to become absolute, and the chapter would incur a premunire.^[1]

↑ 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20. The pre-existing unrealities with respect to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared primâ facie to press upon the chapters. The history of this statute is curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed. It was repealed by the 2nd of the 1st of Edward VI. on the ground that the liberty of election was merely nominal, and that the chapters ought to be relieved of responsibility when they had no power of choice. Direct nomination by the Crown was substituted for the congé d'élire, and remained the practice till the reaction under Mary, when the indefinite system was resumed which had existed before the Reformation. On the accession of Elizabeth, the statute of 25 Henry VIII. was again enacted. The more complicated process of Henry was preferred to the more simple one of Edward, and we are naturally led to ask the reason of so singular a preference. I cannot but think that it was this. The Council of Regency under Edward VI. treated the Church as an institution of the State, while Henry and Elizabeth endeavoured (under difficulties) to regard it under its more Catholic aspect of an organic body. So long as the Reformation was in progress, it was necessary to prevent the intrusion upon the bench of bishops of Romanizing tendencies,

[p107-1] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20. The pre-existing unrealities with respect to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared primâ facie to press upon the chapters. The history of this statute is curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed. It was repealed by the 2nd of the 1st of Edward VI. on the ground that the liberty of election was merely nominal, and that the chapters ought to be relieved of responsibility when they had no power of choice. Direct nomination by the Crown was substituted for the congé d'élire, and remained the practice till the reaction under Mary, when the indefinite system was resumed which had existed before the Reformation. On the accession of Elizabeth, the statute of 25 Henry VIII. was again enacted. The more complicated process of Henry was preferred to the more simple one of Edward, and we are naturally led to ask the reason of so singular a preference. I cannot but think that it was this. The Council of Regency under Edward VI. treated the Church as an institution of the State, while Henry and Elizabeth endeavoured (under difficulties) to regard it under its more Catholic aspect of an organic body. So long as the Reformation was in progress, it was necessary to prevent the intrusion upon the bench of bishops of Romanizing tendencies,

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