literary style, the beauty of orderly religious ceremony. It was a religion linked to national sentiment, with the conviction that God was doing a mighty thing, through his Deborah, for England and, through England, for the world.1
So the queen sided with “the small but sensible moderate party.” Very shortly this resulted in the authorization of the 1592 Book relieved of its more extreme features. But in the meantime firm action had to be taken to avoid religious chaos. To end disorders resulting from violent sermons on both sides, a royal proclamation was issued on December 27, 1558, forbidding all preaching. The Epistle, Gospel, and Ten Commandments were to be read in English as was being done in the queen’s chapel “until consultation may be had by Parliament.” But there were ceremonial tensions, even in the queen’s chapel. On Christmas day (Elizabeth had been on the throne five weeks) when Bishop Oglethorpe was saying Mass in the Royal Chapel, she sent a message to him during the singing of the Gloria, ordering him not to elevate the host, because she did not like the ceremony. The bishop refused, and the queen left after the Gospel.
It was going to be a delicate matter to revise and adopt an acceptable Prayer Book, and it seems that the queen followed the cautious warning of Armagil Waad that the matter would require “great cunning and circumspection.”
And no doubt the queen did intend to proceed cautiously. Her plan was to follow the Edwardian pattern by permitting Communion in both kinds, then after leisurely consultation to have a new Act of Uniformity passed, perhaps in the autumn, with a Prayer Book attached. Perhaps that would have been the ideal way to proceed; however, conditions dictated otherwise. On the one hand, the exiles were impatient and pressing. Elizabeth realized that, if she did not accept the 1552 Book, she might be faced with a demand for the Genevan Form of Prayers. On the other, because peace had been signed with France, there was now no need to attach much weight to the wishes of papal Catholics. So the 1552 Book was adopted with a few revisions, changes in the direction of the 1549 Book. The queen and her government showed that they were independent of the more zealous Protestants by rejecting any revisions that would make the Book more Protestant and by adopting revisions that could only be interpreted as conservative. This religious settlement was to Elizabeth what was possible and best for the nation, and she would not countenance any major adjustment of it. If there could be no revival of 1549, there would certainly be no movement in Calvin’s direction.
The Act of Uniformity was passed in April, 1559. Convocation was not even consulted, and it passed by only three votes; in the House of Lords, nine bishops voted against it. Percy Dearmer concludes that “the consent of the Church can thus only be claimed by virtue of its subsequent acquiescence.”2 It became the official Book on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24, 1559, and the penalties for failure to use it were severe: a fine of one year’s stipend and six months imprisonment for the first offense, forfeit of all “spiritual promotions” and one year imprisonment for the second, life imprisonment for the third.
These are the significant changes in the 1559 Book as compared with the 1552 Book:
To the great displeasure of the Genevan party, church music was officially encouraged. The Injunctions of 1559 included this directive for parish churches: “For the comforting of such that delight in music, it may be permitted that in the beginning or in the end of the common prayers, either at morning or at evening, there may be sung an hymn or such-like song to the praise of Almighty God, in the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of him may be understanded and perceived.”3
John Day published a book of services for four voices in 1565; in several of them the whole of the congregations part is set to music. This was also true of Thomas Tallis’ “Dorian.” It soon became the custom to set only the Kyrie and the creed to music. This may have been because the practice of ending the morning service with Ante-Communion on three Sundays out of four was becoming general. However, the normal Sunday service was thought of as Morning Prayer, Litany, and Holy Communion.
In collegiate chapels and some parish churches there were bequests for the maintenance of a choir. Plainsong was generally used for the canticles and the Psalms. Sometimes, on great festivals, harmonized settings were used. The Injunctions of 1559 made it permissible to sing compositions with English texts; often they were parts of the Collect, Epistle, or Gospel of the day. These acquired the name of “anthem”—a variant of “antiphon.” The organist was permitted to play an organ solo during the offertory at Communion, and short voluntaries were sometimes inserted between the lessons and canticles.
In the age of Elizabeth, edification was the primary aim in worship. Two characteristics of that worship makes this evident. First, this emphasis is reflected in the attitude toward the esthetic. While church music was certainly not ignored during the Elizabethan period, the Church sought to subject it and everything else to the principle of edification. The Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were set in large letters on the east wall. So it was the basis of Christian faith in words that took the place of images and pictures. Religion was becoming more and more word-centered and intellectual—a matter of reason and reasonableness. Secondly, the tone of worship itself pointed in the direction of edification. It was solemn, impressive, and penitential. Morning Prayer, the Litany, and Ante-Communion were the didactic and penitential preparation for the occasional Holy Communion and for the living of the Christian life.