sermons, their publication coming ten years subsequent to his death. He
was instead the defender of an imprecisely constructed ecclesiastical
communion; one whose foundation would have supported neither an
institution as visualized by Jewel’s more precise acquaintances, nor even
Jewel himself. Morality and discipline were in the hands of the prince,
the doctrine of the Church its ministers were obligated to confess was
minimal. But having said that, Jewel did have an idea of what he wanted
this communion to be, however imperfectly apprehended it was. In this
sense, Jewel’s life and career give some insight into the nature of the
Elizabethan Settlement, if not into her majesty’s own religious tendencies
as well. Was Elizabeth the politique, or is the picture and description
presented by Haugaard more exact, that of a moderate but firmly
convinced Protestant?^46 Did Elizabeth use the Marian exiles as her
pastors merely because they were available and trained, or did these
returning Protestant émigrés more closely align with Elizabeth’s own
religious tendencies? From Jewel’s perception, it would appear to be the
latter of these two alternatives. This is the monarch whom Jewel
defended in his post as her bishop and servant; and it is also the picture
of her he presented to Peter Martyr Vermigli: ‘Certainly this excellent
woman, who is truly earnest of real devotion, although she desires a
change [in religion] at the earliest time, nevertheless cannot be induced
to effect such change without the sanction of law.’^47
Conclusion: The iconoclastic prelate under the skin of John Knox and
Mary Tudor
Whether the religious conflict that existed in the first decade of the
Elizabethan Church was the inexorable predecessor of that which
occurred in the Stuart Church, or whether it merely adumbrated it, shall
depend in part on where the Elizabethan Church in general and its
episcopate in particular, fell within the wider world of Protestantism and
in particular in its relation to the Swiss. As regards the Zurichers,
Elizabeth’s bishops never flaunted prelacy, bishops being administrators.
But what of the day this liberality as regards the bishop’s office no longer
existed? As one of the most prominent of the Elizabethan bishops,
Jewel’s own niche within the Church of England’s episcopate has
warranted investigation. If Elizabethan Protestantism was some
THE IDENTITY OF THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH 241
(^46) W. Haugaard, Elizabeth and the English Reformation: the struggle for a stable
settlement of religion(Cambridge, 1968).
(^47) Verum optima et verae pietatis cupientissima femina, etsi omnia primo quoque
tempore mutata cupiat, tamen induci non potest, ut quicquam velit immutare sine lege.
Letter of 14 April 1559, in Works, p. 1205.