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Archbishop of Canterbury
Matthew Parker
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Elizabeth
came to the throne November 17th
1558. Her sister, Mary I, had died that
morning only to be followed later in the day by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Reginald Pole. Mary was buried with full
Catholic Rites at Westminster Abbey on December 14. At Christmas the new Queen instructed the
Bishop of Carlisle—who was celebrating Christmas Mass in the Chapel Royal at
Saint James—to eliminate the elevation of the Host and Chalice at the
consecration. This was the first public sign
that Elizabeth was planning to discontinue the Catholic restoration begun by
Mary. The Bishop, Owen Oglethorpe,
refused her order and elevated the Sacrament, and the Queen stormed out. The following month Elizabeth was crowned
with the traditional Catholic ceremonial except that she once again instructed
Bishop Oglethorpe—the only one of the English Bishops who would agree to
officiate at the Coronation—not to elevate the Host and Chalice. Once again he did. Once again she stormed out. In April Parliament restored the Protestant
Rites—with slight revisions to the 1552 Prayer book—and passed an act of
Uniformity. The Bishops of England and
Wales, with only the exception of Anthony Kitchin of Llandaff, refused to
return to the Protestant liturgy and were deposed of their sees. Eamon Duffy, the most distinguished living
historian of the English Reformation, said of Kitchen that he was a “timeserver
who would doubtless have become a Hindu if required, provided he was allowed to
hold on to the See of Llandaff.” It is
important to read Kitchin correctly, however; he may have been without much
spine; but he was a man of principle. He
opposed the election of Mathew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury and refused
to participate in his consecration precisely because of Parker’s convinced
Protestantism.
Matthew Parker seems to have been a “shirt-tail
relative” of Thomas Cranmer. Like Cranmer he was a Cambridge man. And like Cranmer he was given in his
Cambridge years (the 1520’s) to the new religious ideas coming out of Germany. He
was ordained priest according to Catholic rites in 1527 and appointed a chaplain
to Anne Boleyn. Before her execution,
Anne asked him to take particular care of the infant Elizabeth. Despite his ties to Anne, Parker remained in
the royal favor; in 1537 he was appointed a chaplain to Henry VIII and rewarded
with a series of ecclesiastical benefices that guaranteed him a comfortable
living. In the ecclesiastical politics
of the court, his ties to Cranmer and friendship with Hugh Latimer put him
strongly in the Reformed court and at enmity with Stephen Gardiner and others
of the Orthodox faction. Upon the
accession of Edward VI but even before clerical marriage was legalized by
Parliament and Convocation (the assembly of Bishops), Parker married Margaret
Harlestone from a comfortable Norfolk family.
In many ways Parker typified the new Anglican
clergy. He was educated, sophisticated,
even somewhat worldly. He led a
comfortable domestic life with wife and children—and servants to care for them. He was a scholar and an intellectual; there
was nothing of the pious priest about him.
This new-style divine was a consecrated layman, intellectual and
refined, more at home in the company of gentlemen than of pious souls.
Under Mary, of course, Parker lost it all. Being married—and principled enough not to
have his wife “put away” as did many Marian returnees to the Catholic faith,
Parker lost all his benefices and was severely reduced financially. Nevertheless the situation was never so bad
that unlike many of co-religionists he felt no need to flee England and was
able to live peacefully—if obscurely—through Mary’s reign.
The accession of Elizabeth favored him politically but
it did take away his tranquility.
When the Bishops of England and Wales—excepting, of
course, Andrew Kitchin—refused the Act of Uniformity restoring the Protestant
liturgy and were deposed for so doing, Elizabeth was given the opportunity to
build a new Church to her liking.
Fourteen sees—all but Kitchin’s Llandaff—were declared vacant. Elizabeth could pick the entire bench of
bishops to her liking. But first the See
of Canterbury had to be filled as it was the Primate’s prerogative to
consecrate the new bishops. Elizabeth was determined to have Parker—her
mother’s favorite chaplain—as the new Archbishop. Parker wanted no part of it. And why should he? He foresaw the difficulties—more clearly than
Elizabeth—in restoring Protestantism. As
a moderate himself he could see the two
wings—the Catholic and the Puritan—that would be fighting for control of the
future of the Church in England and he did not want to be in the middle. Moreover, while the Queen was very attached
to him she was not pleased that he was married.
Elizabeth, never herself to marry, was not in favor of married clergy
and she showed it by taking out her displeasure on clergy wives and Margaret
Parker in particular. After a royal
visit to the Parker’s at Lambeth, the London residence of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Queen said to Lady Parker: “How should I address you: for Madam
I may not call you; mistress I should be ashamed to call you.” What a bitch!
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