refutation, that I have been able to discover in Mason or Fuller, and I ought to remark that this latter says that "Mason left no stone unturned to clear the truth,”—is, 1, that some Pope John is said to have ordained a deacon in a stable !-2, that the fable of Pope Joan, although a fable, was yet for a time believed!!-3, that the Nag's head narrative is so absurd as to be incredible!!!-4, that Parker was consecrated at Lambeth; which is the very thing called in question, and the first public announcement of which, in 1613, by Mason, caused universal astonishment in those Catholic writers, who had made the English ordinations the subject of a patient and conscientious examination.

Eighth. Kellison, who is said by some Protestant writers to have been the first inventor of the story, before he mentioned it in his controversy with Sutcliff, dwelt principally on the want of a due form, and not on the want of a consecrating prelate.

Answer. It is not unusual for Catholic writers to omit the discussion of a matter of fact, when they have objections, which establish their point, even in the supposition that the disputed fact actually occurred.

Ninth. The silence of the Puritans in their disputes with the early English bishops.

Answer. The doctrine of the Anglican church for fifty years after its establishment was, according to Bishop Burnet, that the king's commission sufficed to make a bishop, and that no external ceremony was absolutely necessary. (See Chapter III.) Hence, the point in dispute between them, regarded rather the character of the Episcopal order, than the necessity of Episcopal consecration; about which there was not, according to Burnet's

observation, for fifty years after the framing of the articles, any important difference between Anglicans and Presby

terians.

Tenth. It is not reasonable to believe that Neal would have been permitted to be present on the occasion.

Answer. However unable we may be to account for the apparent oversight committed by the company at the Nag's head, we are not surely on that account to reject a fact, vouched for by respectable testimony. Did not Bonner order Neal to remain during the whole proceeding ?-and can any one now undertake to say that Neal could not have done so, without the consent of the new bishops?

Eleventh. It is improbable that the new bishops would have chosen to be consecrated in a tavern, when they had all the churches of London at their disposal.

Answer. The selection of the Nag's head, as the place of consecration, is very naturally accounted for, by the unwillingness of Kitchin to consecrate, in public, persons whose religious principles he condemned. The validity of the act does not depend on the place in which it is done and Kitchin would, undoubtedly, have proceeded to the consecration, but for the timely intervention of Bonner.

Twelfth. There was no need to have recourse to the Catholic bishops, as there were enough of Protestant bishops to perform the function; namely, Barlow, Hodgkins, Coverdale, Scory, Bale of Ossory, or the Suffragan of Thetford.

Answer. These supposed bishops had either never been themselves consecrated, or had been consecrated according to the ritual of Edward, in either of which cases the Queen

would have disregarded their consecration.* This could easily be shewn of all those here mentioned, and, in another chapter, will be established in regard of Barlow, the only one whose consecration materially affects the question.

Thirteenth. The only witness of the Nag's head ceremony is Mr. Neal: and he did not depose to it on oath or before a notary.

Answer. Mr. Neal's testimony has never been disproved. As to the want of an oath, or a notary's attestation of it, the remark is too puerile to deserve notice. That Mr. Neal is a competent witness, will be seen from the sketch of his life, given by the learned historiographer of Oxford, Anthony Wood.† Besides the testimony of Mr. Neal, we have the declaration made by Faircloth, one of the priests to whom the Lambeth register was submitted for examination by Archbishop Abbot, in which he

* Queen Elizabeth seems to have made little or no account of these pretended bishops. Hence, she chose not any one of them to perform the ceremony of her coronation; but received the crown from the hands of a Catholic bishop, Oglethorpe, the only one of the Episcopal body who would assist at the coronation. "It cannot," says Heylin, "be denied that there were three bishops living of king Edward's making, all of them zealously affected to the reformation. And possibly it may seem strange that the Queen received not the crown rather from one of their hands, than to put herself unto the hazard of so many denials as had been given her by the others.” (p. 106.) He then assigns some possible reasons for the Queen's preference but brings nothing to prove, that these motives influenced her choice. The truth is, neither Elizabeth, nor the judges, nor the people, regarded them as bishops.

† See Appendix, Note C.

objected to the register of the consecration at Lambeth; because he had often heard from his father, who was a Calvinist, that the first bishops of the Established Church, had been consecrated at the Nag's head tavern in Cheapside, of which fact he asserted that his father had been witness.*

* Le Quien. T. 1. p, 201. quoted by Collet.

104

CHAPTER VIII.

The Lambeth Consecration of Parker.

In the year 1613, as already mentioned, Mr. Mason, chaplain to Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, published a work, entitled: "Of the consecration of Bishops in the Church of England, with their Succession, Jurisdiction, and other things incident to their calling, etc., wherein I will clear them from the slanders of Bellarmine, Sanders, Bristow, Harding, Allen, Stapleton, Parsons, Kellison, Eudemon, Becanus, and other Romanists." I have already remarked

that the title of this work places beyond all doubt the fact, that the Anglican ordinations were contested, from the very infancy of the established church. In this book, Mathew Parker is said to have been consecrated on the 17th day of December, 1559, at Lambeth, by William Barlow, assisted by Scorey, Coverdale, and Hodgkins. In the margin, reference is made to the Lambeth Register, in these words: Ex regist. Mat. Park. This was the first public reference to the Register of Parker, which has since become so famous-the first authentic mention o his having been consecrated at Lambeth by Barlow, or by any one else. Other documents of an earlier date, have since been produced; but they all labour under violent suspicions of having been antedated or interpolated: and it