proclivities of the hotter sorts of English Protestantism. This does not
mean that Jewel saw the Zurichers as an ambiguous court of appeal, but
that they, like so many other Protestants, had rightly indexed the relative
importance of vestments in relation to the primacy of the magistrate over
the Church, and in relation to the question of who would preach the
Gospel.
Throughout the course of his career, Jewel affirmed certain merits of
the Elizabethan Settlement, actually telling Martyr that in the Church of
England ‘omnia docentur ubique purissime’;^89 but what he aimed for was
the faith as professed in Zurich, even telling Martyr that the England he
was working for would ‘not depart the slightest degree from the
confession of Zurich’.^90 But were the respective situations of England and
Zurich analogous? The Zurich Reformers clearly embraced and
endorsed what would later be called Erastianism, Bullinger and Gualter
explicitly siding with Erastus in his Heidelberg debate with George
Withers, a man heavily indebted intellectually to Beza and Geneva. Jewel
agreed with Zurich’s attitude on the relation of magistrate and Church.
For Jewel, however, things in England were quite different than those in
Zurich. Bullinger and his cohorts enjoyed a well-defined confession of
faith, had the backing of the people of Zurich and thus their elected
magistrates. This republican arrangement was not England’s, where the
religious situation was driven by the whims of the prince, whims that
had pushed England in several directions throughout the course of
Jewel’s life. Yet however imprecise Elizabeth may be in the Faith, she
seemingly had no qualms with her servants appealing to Zurich for
advice and comfort, at least when it bolstered her propensities. Geneva,
of course, was another matter.
Geneva’s history in Elizabeth’s England was hardly a happy one,
though Calvin’s writings enjoyed a wide popularity in England, and
were, by one estimate second only to Erasmus in the number of printed
editions by foreign divines.^91 During Edward’s reign, Calvin had been
well regarded both among the bishops and at court, though he hardly
had attained the stature he would later enjoy both among English
Puritans and in France. But this changed during Mary’s regime, owing
A PRELATE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE 179
(^89) Jewel,Works, IV, p. 1224. While Jewel extolled the purity of doctrine ‘in ceremoniis
et larvis passim plusculum ineptitur.’
(^90) nos articulos omnes religionis et doctrinae nostrae exhibuimus reginae, et ne minimo
quidem apice discessimus a confessione Tigurina. Jewel, Works,IV, p. 1208. This passage
may imply that a group of clerics, and with approval by the court, were formulating a
doctrinal standard for the Church of England. It also clearly says Jewel’s own hopes, and
the standard of doctrinal purity he had assumed.
(^91) Andrew Pettegree, ‘The Reception of Calvinism in Britain’, in Wilhelm H. Neuser and
Brian G. Armstrong, eds, Calvinus sincerioris Religionis Vindex: Calvin as Protector of the
Purer Religion(Kirksville, MO, 1997), Vol XXXVI, pp. 267–90.