and revenues, but their roofs were dismantled, and the lead, bells, and whatever other property or articles of value they possessed, were seized upon or destroyed. The Certificate of the Commissioners for the Suppression of the Monastery of Tewkesbury will give the reader a clear insight into the usual mode of proceeding on such occasions. The Abbot's Lodging, and other buildings of a domestic character were assigned to remain undefaced," doubtless, as a residence for the Grantee or his dependants. The Church, Chapels, Cloisters, Chapter-House, &c., were deemed to be superfluous." The lead and bells were estimated by weight for sale. jewels, plate, and ornaments, were "reserved to the use of the King's Majestyf." Instances also occur, where individuals, like the Protector Somerset, actually destroyed a Church for selfish purposes; and vast Conventual Churches, even when preserved and granted to the use of the parish, were diminished in size.

e

The

" England had been largely replenished with bell-metal since the Dissolution, and vast quantities of it were shipped off for gain." In 1547 this was prohibited, lest the enemy might be supplied with it "for great guns against ourselves, and our own country and army want." Strype's Mem. ii. part i. p. 71.

f Burnet's Reformation, i. part ii. p. 234. The purchasers of Religious Houses delayed not often in pulling down the edifices, "particularly the Churches and Chapels, that they, no longer subsisting in the eyes of the people, might be the sooner forgotten by them." Bentham's Ely, p. 190.

The most important alterations, made at the Reformation, were within the Churches. The interior of them, accordingly, it may be remarked, is often more mutilated than the outside, which has been exposed to less rude treatment. The Altars in Mortuary Chapels were destroyed. "Images, shrines, and candlesticks, were to be removed everywhere, wheresoever they had been abused by pilgrimages, censings, and offerings." As the first Injunctions had been but partially obeyed, enquiries were to be made in 1547, "whether there do remain, not taken down in Churches, Chapels, or elsewhere, any misused images, with pilgrimages, cloths, stones, shoes, offerings; Kissings, candlesticks, trendals of wax, and such other like. And whether there do remain, not defaced and destroyed, any shrines, coverings of shrines, or any other monuments of idolatry, superstition, and hypocrisy 8." Again: in 1549, an Act was passed enjoining, that all images graven, carved, or painted, should be removed h.

Thus we see, that image-worship was the besetting sin, so far as respected externals, against which our Reformers chiefly, and wisely, directed their attacks. This was the foul abuse to be extirpated, and the destruction of whatever fostered it was with them the

Strype's Memorials, ii. pt. i. p. 77.

Strype's Life of Parker, i. p. 147.

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primary object. Our ancestors could not be blinded, any more than we at the present day, to the truth, that the Virgin, the Saints, and Angels, constitute, as it were, a polytheism most popular in the Romish Church; and that acts of worship and adoration were paid to them, justifying the charge of superstition and creature-worship. But although it must be admitted, that, in too many instances, the Royal order for destruction was executed with a rigour, which lovers of art and antiquity have long deplored k," still the fabrics themselves were generally respected; and so far was Elizabeth from encouraging any needless destruction in the interior of the Churches, that, in the second year of her reign, (1560,) Archbishop Parker procured Letters under the Great Seal to certain Commissioners, "to take remedies about decays of Churches and the unseemly keeping of Chancels, and for the comely ordering the east parts of the Churches."

¡ See Southey, Vind. Eccles. Angl. p. 450. "The Council of Trent (says Bossuet) endeavoured to guard against this danger by their doctrine, but our Church acted more piously and charitably, in removing a practice, which we knew by experience could not be generally purified from idolatry, though the better informed might use it without committing that dreadful sin." Palmer on the Church, i. p. 518.

Hallam's Constit. Hist. Engl. i. p. 116. True it is, that oftentimes the Injunctions, given to the Commissioners in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, for removing shrines and superstitious relics, were carried to excess more for sacrilegious avarice, than of zeal for the glory of God, and the advancement of true religion. Bentham's Ely, p. 42.

C

The Archbishop animadverts on the neglect "in many Churches, and especially Chancels, in keeping them decent, which betrayed so much want of reverence for the places, where God is served. And amongst the Articles to be enquired of in the Metropolitan Visitation in all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches in 1560, the following queries occur. Whether you have necessary Ornaments and Books of the Church? Whether your Church be sufficiently repaired in all parts? What stock or annual rent is appointed toward the reparation of the Cathedral Church1?

Elizabeth ascended the throne under trying circumstances. The great object with herself and her most confidential advisers was, as Burnet states, "to unite the whole nation into one way of religion;" and the Queen and her Ministers must not be hastily accused of temporizing policy, either because she retained a large number of Romanists in the Privy Council, or opposed sudden and violent innovations in the work of reformation. In protesting against the gross errors of the Church of Rome, Elizabeth's sincerity cannot be doubted from the general correspondence of her measures with those, adopted by her deceased Brother. The proclamation issued by the Queen on

1 Strype's Life of Parker, i. p. 148.

her Accession was most judicious. Preaching, by which unfruitful disputes in matters of religion among the common sort" arose, was forbidden. The resistance of the Romanists to the proposed changes, and the discontent of those who held extreme opinions on the other side, were clearly foreseen. The latter, "when they shall see, peradventure, that some old Ceremonies shall be left still, or that their doctrine, is not allowed and commanded only, and all other abolished and disproved, shall be discontented, and call the alteration a cloaked papistry or a mingle manglem." The wisdom of those, who chiefly guided the mighty movement of the Reformation, and achieved this great blessing, was in many respects most conspicuous. "The Reformers purified religion of all the gross corruptions, with which Rome had polluted it, and retaining only that, which, as they thought, could allowably be retained, offered so little violence to old feelings, that more outcry was raised against them by the zealots of the Reformation than by the Roman Catholics themselves."—"In reality the effect of the outward and visible forms, which were retained, was such, that, during the first years of Elizabeth, the Roman Catholics very generally frequented the English Service; and of what advantage this must have been to the

m Strype's Annals, i. pt. ii. pp. 391, 394.