Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T20:13:46.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

If Constantine, then also Theodosius: St Ambrose and the Integrity of the Elizabethan Ecclesia Anglicana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Patrick Collinson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The proud boast of Bishop John Jewel in Apologia Ecdesiae Anglicanae that ‘we lean unto knowledge, they unto ignorance’ a swift retort from his catholic opponent: ‘Ye lean to the favour of secular princes.’ To which Jewel replied: ‘We flatter our princes, M. Harding, as Nathan flattered King David; as John Baptist flattered Herod; as St Ambrose flattered Theodosius; and as salt flattereth the green sore.’ How much credibility was there in this resounding riposte when it was made in 1567, and how much would survive three more decades of Tudor royal supremacy? Not many Nathans in bishops' clothing were prepared to confront monarchy itself with a bold ‘Thou art the man’, and it was scarcely in the Tudor character to confess with King David: ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nor were the sins of Henry VIII's children of the kind to provide many occasions to play Nathan or John the Baptist. But the integrity of the Church and its faith are always in need of defence, even against misguided Christian princes. Or, to put the case less prejudicially, the possibility of a difference of opinion between Christian princes and Christian bishops can never be excluded. For all such occasions the appropriate model was the third of Jewel's exempla, that notable father of the Church, St Ambrose. In the words of Jewel: ‘We say to the prince as St Ambrose sometime said to the emperor Valentinian: “Noli te gravare, imperator, ut putes te in ea quae divina sunt imperiale aliquodjus habere: Trouble not yourself, my lord, to think that you have any princely power over those things that pertain to God.”’

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 205 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The Works ofjohnjewd, ed. Ayre, J., iv (Parker Society, Cambridge 1850), 898.Google Scholar

2 Ibid.

3 Early Latin Theology, ed. Greenslade, S. L. (Library of Christian Classics, v. London 1956), 178.Google Scholar

4 Campenhausen, Hans von, The Fathers of the Latin Church, tr. Hoffmann, Manfred, London 1964, 90.Google Scholar

5 Oratio Contra Auxentium de Basilicis Tradendis, P.L., xvi. 1018.

6 Ibid., cols. 1007-18.

7 Epistola XX, Ibid., col. 999.

8 Ibid., cols. 1005-6.

9 Ibid., cols. 1101-6.

10 ‘Postremo scribo manu mea, quod solus legas.“Ibid., col. 1163.

11 A sermon preached before the Queenes Maiestie the 25 day of Februarie … 1569(70) was published at least a dozen times between 1570 and 1603. It has been reprinted in Elizabethan Puritanism, ed. Trinterud, Leonard J. (A Library of Protestant Thought, New York 1971)Google Scholar, where the quotation appears at p. 159. See Patrick Collinson, A Mirror of Elizabethan Puritanism: The Life and Letters of ‘Godly Master Dering’ (Friends of Dr. Williams's Library Seventeenth Lecture (1963), 1964).

12 The Works offohn Whitgift, ed. Ayre, J., iii (Parker Society, Cambridge 1853), 578.Google Scholar

13 Harington, John, A Briefs view of the state of the Church of England (1608), 1653, 30.Google Scholar

14 ‘The Constitutional Significance of Constantine the Great's Settlement’, xxvii (1976), 1-16.

15 Works offewel (above n. 1), iii. Cambridge 1848, 98.Google Scholar

16 The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Cattley, S. R., i. London 1848, 292303, viii. London 1839, 6001.Google Scholar

17 Shirley, F.J., Richard Hooker and Contemporary Political Ideas, London 1949, 108.Google Scholar

18 Acts and Monuments, i. 293.

19 Bilson, Thomas, The true difference betweene Christian subiection and unchristian rebellion, 1585, 372.Google Scholar

20 Alexander Nowell, A reproufe of a booke entituled A proufe ofcertayne articles by T. Dorman, 1566, fol. 51.

21 The Works of … Mr. Richard Hooker, ed. Keble, John, Oxford 1874, iii. 444–55.Google Scholar

22 The rest of the second replie of Thomas Cartvuright (sic), (Heidelberg) 1577, 156Google Scholar. See Pearson, A. F. Scott, Church and State: political aspects of sixteenth century Puritanism, Cambridge 1928Google Scholar.

23 Works of Whitgift (above n. 1 2), iii. 242-6.

24 The Early Works of Thomas Becon, ed. Ayre, J. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1843), 221Google Scholar; Works of Jewel (above n. 1), iv. 835.

25 The Examinations and Writings of John Philpot, ed. Eden, R. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1842), 11.Google Scholar

26 Bilson (above n. 19), 173.

27 Sykes, Norman, Old Priest and New Presbyter, Cambridge 1956Google Scholar; Lamont, William M., Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1603-60, London 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thompson, W. D. J. Cargill, ‘Anthony Marten and the Elizabethan Debate on Episcopacy’, in Essays in Modern English Church History in Memory of Norman Sykes, ed. Bennett, G. V. & Walsh, J. D., London 1966, 44–75Google Scholar; W. D. J. Cargill Thompson, ‘Sir Francis Knollys’ Campaign Against thejure Divino Theory of Episcopacy', in The Dissenting Tradition: Essays for Leland H. Carlson, ed. Cole, C. Robert &, Athens Ohio 1975, 39–77Google Scholar.

28 Correspondence of Matthew Parker, ed. Bruce, J. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1853), 454.Google Scholar

29 The Remains of Edmund Grindal, ed. Nicholson, W. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1843), 387.Google Scholar

30 An evidently secondhand and abbreviated version of this famous sermon, preserved in a seventeenth-century hand in Gonville an d Caius MS. 64 was printed as an Appendix to A Catechism … by Alexander Nowell, ed. Corrie, G. E. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1853), 221–9Google Scholar. See Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1559-1581, London 1953, 92–5Google Scholar.

31 Harington (above n. 13), 216-22.

32 Works of Jewel (above n. 1), iv. 1027-9.

33 Works of Whitgift (above n. 12), iii. 308-9; Cartwright (above n. 22), 161.

34 Works of Hooker (above n. 21), iii. 442-3.

35 The Works of James Pilkington, ed. Scholefield, J. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1842), 381, 491.Google Scholar

36 Works of Hooker, iii. 453.

37 Bilson (above n. 19), 172-6, 372-3.

38 Quoted, Lamont (above n. 2 7), 40.

39 The Sermons of Edwin Sandys, ed. Ayre, J. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1841), 72.Google Scholar

40 Wentworth's speech in the House of Commons, 8 Feb. 1576, printed in Trinterud (above n. 11), 166-90. See Neale, J. E., ‘Peter Wentworth’, English Historical Review, xxxix (1924)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1559-1581, esp. 318-32.

41 ‘Sir Francis Knollys' Campaign’ (above n. 27).

42 Fulke's Answers to Stapleton, Martiall, and Sanders, ed. Gibbings, R. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1848), 267.Google Scholar

43 Bilson (above n. 19), 124, 173, 174, 176.

44 Lamont (above n. 27), 36-8.

45 My italics.

46 Works of Jewel (above n. 1), iii. 167, iv. 974.

47 Works of Hooker (above n. 21), iii. 358, 410. See Thompson, W. D. J. Cargill, ‘The Philosopher of the “Politic Society”: Richard Hooker as a Political Thinker’, in Studies in Richard Hooker: Essays Preliminary to an Edition of his Works, ed. Hill, W. Speed, Cleveland & London 1972, 3–76.Google Scholar

48 The case of Bishop Marmaduke Middleton of St Davids is obscure, but it is not clear that he suffered deprivation. (Head, R. E., The Royal Supremacy and the Trials of Bishops 1558-1725, London 1962, 23–7.)Google Scholar

49 Bilson (above n. 19), 124, 127.

50 Harington (above n. 13), 187-8. The context is a description of a sermon by Bishop Anthony Rudd of St Davids: ‘The bishop discovering all was not well, for the pulpit stands there vis a vis to the closet…’

51 Churton, Ralph, The life of Alexander Nowell, Oxford 1809, 92.Google Scholar

52 ‘The Downfall of Archbishop Grindal and its Place in Elizabethan Political and Ecclesiastical History’, in The English Commonwealth 1547-1640, ed. Clark, Peter, Smith, Alan G. R. & Tyacke, Nicholas, Leicester 1979, 39–57Google Scholar; and my forthcoming study of Grindal, Archbishop Grindal and the Struggle for a Reformed Church.

53 Among the many MS. copies of this document two are of especial interest, since they seem to be copies prepared for two privy councillors, Lord Burghley and Sir Walter Mildmay: BL, MS. Lansdowne 23, no. 12, fols. 24-9r and Northamptonshire Record Office, F.(M).P.54. The Lansdowne copy is printed in Grindal's Remains (above n. 29), 376-90.

54 Frere, W. H., The English Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth andjames I, London 1904, 192.Google Scholar

55 P.L., xvi. 1007.

56 A History of the Church … by Theodoret and Evandrius Bohn's Ecclesiastical Library, London 1854), 219–23.Google Scholar

57 The brackets have been restored from the MS. They appear to strengthen the force of Grindal's aside.

58 See my article ‘The Reformer and the Archbishop: Martin Bucer and an English Bucerian’, Journal of Religious History, vi (1971), 305–30.Google Scholar

59 Omnia quotquot extant divi Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolanensis opera cum per des. Erasmum Roterodamum turn per alios eruditos viros, 5 torn, in 2 vols., Basle 1538. I am greatly indebted to Miss Helen Powell, Assistant Librarian of the Queen's College, Oxford, for assistance in locating Grindal's copy of this work, bequeathed to the college among a large collection of books by his will of 1583.

60 Yet no copy in Grindal's hand or bearing his signature survives, whereas, as noted above, copies seem to have been prepared almost at once for the benefit of members of the Privy Council.

61 Ambrosii opera, torn. 1, Sig. AA 5r.

62 Ibid., torn. 3, 129.

63 Ibid., torn. 3, 130, 134.

64 Ibid., tom. 3, 145, 147, 154.

65 Ibid., tom. 3, 156.

66 The fullest account is in Haugaard, William P., Elizabeth and the English Reformation: the Struggle for a Stable Settlement of Religion, Cambridge 1968, 185–200.Google Scholar

67 So much is implied by the Spanish ambassador (Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, i. 105) and Bishop Sandys (letter to Peter Martyr, 1 April 1560, The Zurich Letters, ed. Robinson, H. (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1842), 72–5).Google Scholar

68 Heal, Felicity, ‘The Bishops and the Act of Exchange of 1559’, Historical Journal, xvii (1974), 227–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Haugaard, op. cit., 194.

70 Ibid., 189-96.

71 Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS. 105, art. 11, pp. 201-15r. I am grateful to the Master and Fellows for permission to consult and cite this document. It bears no endorsement or other identifying marks. There is no significant palaeographical evidence, the document being written in a standard mid-sixteenth century secretary hand. It was printed in Correspondence of Matthew Parker (above n. 28), 79-95.

72 Burner, Gilbert attributes the document to ‘the reformed bishops and divines’: The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, Oxford 1829, II. i. 794–6Google Scholar, ii. 487-go. Strype, John attributed this ‘humble free letter’ to ‘the Archbishop and Bishops’; Life of Parker, Oxford 1821, i. 191–3Google Scholar, Annals of the Reformation, Oxford 1824, I. i. 330–2Google Scholar. See the modern views of Brook, V. J. K., A Life of Archbishop Parker, Oxford 1962, 78 and Haugaard, op. cit., 190Google Scholar.

73 Collinson, Patrick, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, London 1967, 45–55, 71-83.Google Scholar

74 Haugaard, op. cit., 192.

75 Pp. 2126-31; in the Cattley edition (above n. 16), viii. 701-7.

76 The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Christmas, H. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1843), 81–96.Google Scholar

77 Among modern authors only Ridley's descendant and biographer Jasper Ridley has noticed that the two documents are identical, although even he appears to have known the Elizabethan version only from the account in Collier, Jeremy, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, London 1852, vi. 300–2Google Scholar. (Nicholas Ridley: A Biography, London 1957, 119n.)Google Scholar

78 Acts and Monuments (above n. 16), vi. 58-63.

79 The only recorded incident of 1547 which would fit the circumstances implied in the Treatise was the Privy Council order of 10 February requiring the churchwardens of the London parish of St Martin's, Ironmonger Lane, to restore the crucifix and images which they had removed on their own authority. (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. J. R. Dasent, n.s. ii. 25-7.) A year later Archbishop Cranmer's mandate on the subject spoke of images having been restored in some places ‘and almoste in every place ys contentyon for images’, but this was not a reference to officially inspired action. (Cardwell, Edward, Documentary Annals, Oxford 1844, i. 47–9.)Google Scholar

80 Acts and Monuments, vi. 640-2.

81 Ibid., vi. 642-3.

82 Ibid., vii. 543-4.

83 Ibid., vii. 434-6. Miles Coverdale omitted the same passage in his edition of the letter in Certain most godly fruitful and comfortable letters, 1564, 51-6. The missing passage was printed in part in William Covell, A briefe answer unto certain reasons by way of an apologie … by M. Iohn Burges, 1606, p. 69 and in full in the Supplement to The Works of Ridley (above n. 76), 533-4 (but without disclosing its relationship to the remainder of the letter printed elsewhere in the same volume, 388-95.) The letter is found in its original integrity in Emmanuel College Cambridge, MS. 260, fol. 114.

84 Works of Ridley, 493.

85 Lambeth Palace Library, MS. 2002, no. 5, fol. 29.

86 Ibid., no. 18, fols. 107-10.

87 Strype, Annals, I. i. 237-41, from Inner Temple Library, MS. Petyt 538. 38, no. 9, fols. 29-31.

88 Gee, Henry, The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion 1558-1564, Oxford 1898, 63–4.Google Scholar

89 Correspondence of Parker (above n. 28), 458.

90 Ibid., 156-60, and also 146, 148, 151-2.

91 Zurich Letters (above n. 67), 72-5. For the subsequent clarification of arrangements in parish churches, see Orders taken the x. day of October in the thirde yere of the raigne of…

92 See above, pp. 209-10.

93 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, i. 405: Nowell to Cecil, 8 March 1564(75); Strype, Parker (above n. 72), iii. 94.

94 Calfhill, James, An Answer to John Martiall's Treatise of the Cross, ed. Gibbings, R. (Parker Society, Cambridge 1846).Google Scholar

95 A treatyse of the crosse, Antwerp 1564, Sig. A 2V; quoted by J. E. Booty in the Introduction to his edition of An Apology of the Church of England by John Jewel (Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization, Ithaca 1963), x.

96 Calendar of State Papers, Rome, i. 171.

97 Quoted by Booty, loc. cit., x.

98 In 1562 Nowell preached before the queen in St Paul's on 1 January and no less than four times at Court in the ensuing Lent. (Churton (above n. 51), 70-4.)

99 Strype, Annals, I. i. 408-10.

100 Correspondence of Parker (above n. 28), 235.

101 Parker to Cecil, 29 Jan. 1565(/6), Ibid., 254-5.

102 Lamont (above n. 27), 36-41.

103 Barlow, William, An answer to a catholike Englishman, 1609, 105.Google Scholar

104 Carleton, George, Jurisdiction, regall, episcopall, papall, 1610, 44–5.Google Scholar

105 Jayne, Sears, Library Catalogues of the English Renaissance, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1956, 20, 125.Google Scholar