glory in the sight of all the world ... our noble and renowned queen,
whom God hath mercifully appointed to rule over us in place of her
noble progenitors.^191
Jewel’s language about the Lord’s anointed now proceeds along the
twin lines delineated above: the blessings of a Godly prince, the curse of
having one removed. Undoubtedly that ‘[t]he greatest misery ... is to
have a godly prince taken from them’, is an allusion to Edward VI, for
Jewel’s next several pages compare the times of Mary with those of
Elizabeth, but more poignantly, Catholic versus Protestant times. Jewel
makes several comparisons, but the key one is when he applies
traditionalist sacral, sacerdotal imagery and language, language peculiar
to traditionalist views of the Mass, to Elizabeth. Jewel first recounts, in
superlative terms, the abysmal years of Mary’s reign, in which ‘what
hunger was in this land ... What cruel executions ... there were few
streets where was not set up a gallows or a gibbet. In Oxford two and
fifty were executed ... What diseases fell upon us ... Calais was lost. A
stranger [Philip II] and foreign people had the rule over us’.^192
The language of Jewel’s personal correspondence often sounded the
note of the poor estate into which England had fallen, both spiritual and
civil, during the reign of Mary: ‘As touching religion, let us think of that
time of ignorances wherein we were before ... such deadly dumbness in
the Church of God.’^193 Jewel contrasted this with the purported blessings
that accompanied Elizabeth’s reign as examples of God’s blessings; the
evils of Mary’s as God’s curse. This sets up nicely the comparisons made
between ‘our most gracious lady’ and the enormities of papacy and those
who followed it. Jewel’s language now takes its sacerdotal turn, a twist
guided both by his previous comparison of Elizabeth’s peaceful reign
with Mary’s cruel one, and by his other comparison of the piety of
Elizabeth with the irreligion of Pius V: ‘They talk much of an unbloody
sacrifice.^194 It is not theirs to offer it. Queen Elizabeth shall offer it up
unto God; even her unbloody hands, an unbloody sword, an unbloody
people, and an unbloody government. This is an unbloody sacrifice. This
sacrifice is acceptable to God.’^195 That Jewel’s allusions do not explicitly
ascribe priestly powers to Elizabeth is clear; but it does nonetheless grant
her more of a right to priestly powers than those exercised by the
Catholic priesthood: they do not possess an unbloody sacrifice, Elizabeth
does; they have a feigned religion, Elizabeth the true. Jewel’s purpose
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH 107
(^191) Ibid., pp. 1133, 1145, 1154
(^192) Ibid., IV, p. 1155.
(^193) Ibid., IV, p. 1154.
(^194) The Mass was so termed, since the blood of Christ was only there substantially, but
not as to its accidents.
(^195) Jewel,Seditious Bull, in Works, IV, p. 1155.