The Henson Journals

[529]

Monday, December 13th, 1915.

497th day

Pearce returned to London by the early train: and I betook myself again to Parker's Correspondence. I was interested to find in a letter of 1572 a reference to the Durham Statutes, which rather suggests that the lost original statutes were then at Lambeth. They may, of course, have been lost or destroyed in the 17th century. The nervousness of the Elizabethan bishops, & their consciousness of the ill–will with which the people regarded them, could hardly be better illustrated than by Bishop Parkhurst's objection to Parker's proposal that he should have Jewell's "Defence of the Apology" set up in the parish churches. He feared that the people would prefer the quotations from Harding to the text of Jewell, & thus would be confirmed in their errors! Parker's expression "The Queen's Religion stabilized by law & Injunction" gives the point of view of the Elizabethan Englishman. The salient fact was the Royal Will. This explains the amazing facility with which the Nation accommodated itself to the quick & violent changes of English Religion. At a later stage, Puritans & Jesuits developed an individual conscience on the subject, & then the Government found itself committed to the necessity of suppressing minorities, which 'moved the previous question' when the Queen's Authority was pressed on them as a final argument for their conformity to the official system. But in the early years of Elizabeth's reign this development was only beginning to show itself.

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