Of Gentlemen.

Gentlemen be those whom their blood and race doth make noble and known . . . Ordinarily the king doth only make knights and create barons or higher degrees, for as for gentlemen they be made good cheap in England. For whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the Universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and to be short, who can live idly and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master,... and be taken for a gentleman...

Of Yeomen.

Those whom we call yeomen, next unto the nobility, knights and squires, have the greatest charge and doings in the commonwealth... I call him a yeoman whom our laws do call legalem hominem... which is a freeman born English, and may dispend of his own free land in yearly revenue to the sum of 40s. sterling... This sort of people confess themselves to be no gentlemen... and yet they have a certain preeminence and more estimation than labourers and artificers, and commonly live wealthily . . . These be (for the most part) farmers unto gentlemen, . . . and by these means do come to such wealth, that they are able and daily do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and after setting their sons to the school at the Universities, to the laws of the realm, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereon they may live without labour, do make their said sons by those means gentlemen...

Of the fourth sort of men which do not rule.

The fourth sort or class amongst us, is of those which the old Romans called capite censi... day labourers, poor husbandmen, yea merchants or retailers which have no free land, copyholders and all artificers... These have no voice nor authority in our commonwealth, and no account is made of them, but only to be ruled.

(Manner of Government or Policies of the Realme of England, ed. 1589. Bk. I, c. 17-24.)

Of Bondage and Bondmen.

After that we have spoken of all the sorts of freemen, according to the diversity of their estates and persons, it

resteth to say somewhat of bondmen... The Romans had two kinds of bondmen, the one which were called servi...... all those kind of bondmen be called in our law villains in gross... Another they had... which they called adscriptitii gleba... and in our law are called villains regardant... Of the first I never knew any in the realm in my time; of the second, so few there be, that it is not almost worth the speaking, but our law doth acknowledge them in both those sorts. (The Commonwealth of England, ed. 1589, Bk. III, c. 10.)

RELIGIOUS SECTS IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH

The four great religious parties of the age of Elizabeth were the Anglican, the Catholic, the Presbyterian, and the Puritan. The attitude of the Catholic Church needs no illustration. The positions of the other sects are well illustrated by the excerpts which follow. For exposition of the Anglican stand we have selected extracts from the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, by RICHARD HOOKER (1553-1600). No man stands as prominently as the exponent of the doctrines of the Church of England as does this divine. RICHARD BANCROFT (1544-1610), Archbishop of Canterbury, was the bitter and uncompromising opponent of the Puritans, a staunch and even violent supporter of the royal power and episcopal system; but his sympathies and teachings were those which led to Presbyterianism in its modern form. The Convocation of 1583 tersely and yet comprehensively formulated the Puritan demands; and the articles drawn up in 1583 by JOHN WHITGIFT (1530 or 1533-1604), Archbishop of Canterbury, mark the latest stage of ecclesiastical development in the Elizabethan period.

134. The Anglican Standpoint

Hooker

(a) The plain intent of the Book of Ecclesiastical DisIcipline is to shew that men may not devise laws of church government, but are bound for ever to use and to execute only those which God himself hath already devised and delivered in the scripture. The self-same drift the Admonitioners also had, in urging that nothing ought to be done in the Church according unto any law of man's devising, but all according to that which God in his word hath commanded... Demand of them, wherefore they conform not themselves unto the order of our Church, and in every particular their answer for the most part is, 'We find no such thing commanded in the world.'

(b) Touching points of doctrine, as for example the Unity of God,... they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the world, and till the last they must be believed.

But as for matters of regiment, they are for the most part of another nature. To make new articles of faith and doctrine no man thinketh it lawful; new laws of government what commonwealth or church is there which maketh not either at one time or another?... There is no reason in the world wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do, as always to believe the same things; seeing every man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant, the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, especially the matter of action belonging unto church polity.

(c) Let not any man imagine, that the bare and naked difference of a few ceremonies could either have kindled so much fire, or have caused it to flame so long; but that the parties which herein laboured mightily for change and (as they say) for reformation, had somewhat more than this mark only whereat to aim. Having therefore drawn out a complete form, as they supposed, of public service to be done to God, and set down their plot for the office of the ministry in that behalf, they very well knew how little their labours so far forth bestowed would avail them in the end, without a claim of jurisdiction to uphold the fabric which they had erected; and this neither likely to be obtained but by the strong hand of the people, nor the people unlikely to favour it; the more if overture were made of their own interest, right and title thereunto.

(d) This we boldly set down as a most infallible truth, that the Church of Christ is at this day lawfully, and so hath been since the first beginning, governed by bishops, having permanent superiority and ruling power over other ministers of the word and sacraments... Let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that, if anything in the Church's government, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God: the Holy Ghost was the author of it.

(e) The drift of all that hath been alleged to prove perpetual separation and independency between the Church and the Commonwealth is, that this being held necessary, it might consequently be thought, that in a Christian kingdom, he whose power is greatest over the Commonwealth may not lawfully have supremacy of power also over the Church... Whereupon it is grown a question whether power ecclesiastical over the Church, power of dominion in such degree as the laws of this land do grant unto the sovereign governor thereof, may by the said supreme Head and Governor law

fully be enjoyed and held?... Unto which supreme power in kings two kinds of adversaries there are that have opposed themselves; one sort defending 'that supreme power in causes ecclesiastical throughout the world appertaineth of divine right to the bishop of Rome,' another sort 'that the said power belongeth in every national Church unto the clergy thereof assembled.' We defend as well against the one as the other, 'that king's within their own precincts may have it.'

(Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, R. Hooker, ed. Keble, Lond., 1834.)

135. The Presbyterian Position

Bancroft

For the first ten or eleven years of her Majesty's reign, through the... outcries and exclamations of those that came home from Geneva, against the garments prescribed to ministers and other such like matters, no man of any experience is ignorant what great contention and strife was raised...

About the twelfth year of her Highness' government, these malcontents... began to stir up new quarrels, concerning the Geneva discipline... Hereupon (the 14 of her Majesty) two Admonitions were framed, and exhibited to the High Court of Parliament. The first contained their pretended griefs, with a declaration, forsooth, of the only way to reform them, viz. by admitting of that platform which was there described. This Admonition finding small entertainment, (the authors or chief preferrers thereof being imprisoned), out cometh the Second Admonition, towards the end of the same parliament... In this Second Admonition, the first is wholly justified,... and in plain terms it is there affirmed that, if they of that assembly would not then follow the advice of the First Admonition, they would surely themselves be their own carvers... Whereupon, presently after the said parlia→ ment (viz. the 20th of November, 1572), there was a presbytery erected at Wandsworth in Surrey.

... Hitherto it should seem that in all their former proceedings they had relied chiefly upon the First Admonition and Cartwright's book... But now, at the length (about the year 1583), the form of discipline, which is lately come to light, was compiled: and thereupon an assembly or council being held (as I think at London, or at Cambridge), certain decrees were made concerning the establishing and the practice thereof...

About which time also [viz. 1587]... the further practice of the discipline... began to spread itself more freely; ... but especially... it was most friendly entertained among the ministers of Northamptonshire, as it appeareth in record by some of their own depositions, 16th of May, 1590, in these words following. About two years and a half since, the whole shire was divided into three Classes. I. The Classis of Northamptonshire... II. The Classis of Daventry side... III. The Classis of Kettering side...This device (saith Master Johnson) is commonly received in most parts of England,... but especially in Warwickshire, Suffolk, Norfolk. Essex, etc.

The next year after, viz. 1588, the said Warwickshire classes, etc. assembling themselves together in council (as it seemeth, at Coventry),... there was... a great approbation obtained of the aforesaid Book of Discipline... This book, having thus at the last received this great allowance more authentically, was carried far and near, for a general ratification of all the brethren...

... Mutual conference is to be practised in the Church by common assemblies ... Such as are to meet in the assemblies, let them be chosen by the suffrages of those churches or assemblies that have interest or to do in it, and out of these let such only be chosen as have exercised the public office in that church either of a minister or of an elder ...

It shall be lawful for other elders and ministers, yea, and for deacons and students in divinity, by the appointment of the assembly... to be both present, and to be asked their judgments... Yet let none be counted to have a voice, but those only that were chosen by the Church...

It is expedient that in every ecclesiastical assembly there be a president, which may govern the assembly, and that he be from time to time changed... The assemblies according to their several kinds, if they be greater are of more, if they be less, they are of less authority. Therefore it is lawful to appeal from a less assembly to a greater...

Assemblies are either Classes or Synods.

Classes are conferences of the fewest ministers of churches. standing near together, as for example of twelve. The chosen men of all the several churches of that assembly are to meet in conference: that is to say, for every church a minister and an elder: and they shall meet every fortnight. They shall chiefly endeavour the oversight and censure of that Classis ...