A LETTER FROM ELIZABETH
The Prince of Wales, who seems to attach little importance to the title “defender of the Faith,” to which he would fall heir should he become king, is urged to consider the powerful letter his illustrious ancestor, Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to dissident Roman Catholic Bishops.
As spiritual leader, it is clear she felt a moral obligation to her subjects – doubtless one not shared by Prince Charles.
On December 4th 1559, five of the Roman Catholic Bishops, who had been deprived of their Sees for refusing to accept the new order in the Church of England, wrote to the Queen entreating her not to ‘be led astray through the inventions of those evil Counsellors, who are persuading your Ladyship to embrace schisms and heresies in lieu of the ancient Catholic faith, which hath been long since planted within this realm by the motherly care of the Church of Rome.’ The letter was read in Council, and the Queen, before she rose, returned this answer.
Greenwich, December 6, 1559
Sirs,
As to your entreaty for us to listen to you, we wave it: ‘Yet do return you this our answer. Our realm and subjects have been long wanderers, walking astray, whilst they were under the tuition of Roman pastors, who advised them to own a wolf for their head (in lieu of a careful shepherd), whose inventions, heresies, and schisms be so numerous, that the flock of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures. And whereas you hit us and our subjects in the teeth, that the Romish Church first planted the Catholic faith within our realms, the records and chronicles of our realms testify the contrary: and your own Romish idolatry maketh you liars: witness the ancient monument of Gildas: unto which both foreign and domestic have gone in pilgrimage there to offer. This author testifieth Joseph of Arimathea to be the first preacher of the word of God within our realms. Long after that, when Austin (Augustine) came from Rome, this our realm had bishops and priests therein, as is well known to the wise and learned of our realm by woeful experience, how your church entered therein by blood: they being martyrs for Christ, and put to death, because they denied Rome’s usurped authority.
As for our father being withdrawn from the supremacy of Rome by schismatical and heretical counsels and advisers: who, we pray, advised him more, or flattered him, than you, good Mr Hethe, when you were bishop of Rochester? And than you, Mr Boner, when you were archdeacon? And you, Mr Tuberville? Nay further, who was more an adviser of our father, than your great Stephen Gardiner, when he lived? Are not ye then those schismatics and heretics? If so, suspend your evil censures. Recollect, was it our sister’s conscience made her so averse to our father’s and brother’s actions, as to undo what they had perfected? Or was it not you, or such like advisers, that dissuaded her and stirred her up against us and others of the subjects?
And whereas you would frighten us, by telling how Emperors, Kings, and Princes have owned the Bishop of Rome’s authority; it was contrary in the beginning. For our Saviour Christ paid His tribute unto Caesar, as the chief superior, which shows your Romish supremacy is usurped.
As touching the excommunication of St Athanasius by Liberius and that Council, and how the Emperor consented thereunto; consider the heresies that at that time had crept into the church of Rome, and how courageously Athanasius withstood them, and how he got the victory. Do ye not acknowledge his creed to this day? Dare any of you say he is schismatic? Surely ye be not so audacious. Therefore as ye acknowledge his creed, it shows he was no schismatic. If Athanasius withstood Rome for her then heresies, then others may safely separate themselves from your church, and not be schismatics.
We give you warning, that for the future we hear no more of this kind. Lest you provoke us to execute those penalties enacted for the punishing of our resisters: which out of our clemency we have forborne.
Elizabeth R.
