the Abbot of Westminster Feckenham, also a member of the House of
Lords, is listed by Jewel, but was not one of the formal debaters. Besides
these was the Dean of St Paul’s cathedral, Henry Cole; and two other
clerics, William Chedsey D.D., the archdeacon of Middlesex and John
Harpsfield (brother of Nicholas), the archdeacon of London.^41 Chedsey,
Harpsfield, Cole, Feckenham, Watson, Oglethorpe and Scott had all
taken part in the 1554 Oxford disputations against Cranmer and Ridley
and Chedsey had also been part of the 1549 disputation at Oxford with
Peter Martyr. The disputation was to be held the Friday following Easter,
of 1559, and the subsequent Monday. It was Jewel’s activity in this
controversy that may have commended him to Elizabeth’s government as
suitable material for a diocesan appointment. Doubtless his connection
with Richard Cox did not hurt either.
The Disputation, Jewel’s first public defense of Protestantism, was
conducted primarily for the members of Parliament (though Jewel notes
that a crowd larger than the peoples’ expectations was present), the
disputation taking place in the choir of Westminster Abbey. The three
propositions on which the debate focused are contained in both Foxe’s
Actes and Monumentsand in Holinshed’s Chronicle. Though seemingly
of little moment when compared with the other questions debated
between Catholic and Protestant in the sixteenth century, the Protestants
composed the questions for both their political and religious
consequences: First, it is against the Word of God, and the custom of the
primitive church, to use a tongue unknown to the people in common
prayers and the administration of the sacraments.^42 Secondly, every
particular church has authority to institute, change and abrogate
ceremonies and rites in the church, so that to edify.^43 And lastly, ‘that the
propitiatory sacrifice, which the papists pretend to be in the mass,
cannot be proved by the holy scriptures’.^44 The basic ground rules of the
62 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^41) Jewel,Works, IV, p. 1200. Jewel lists the eight other Protestants as Scory, Cox,
Whitehead, Sandys, Grindal, Horn, Aylmer and ‘a Cambridge man of the name of Guest.’
Apparently Sandys, later archbishop of York, did not participate in the disputation, as his
name is not among the signatories of the sole article that was debated, whether the service
of worship is to be in any but the vulgar tongue. See Cardwell, History of Conferences, p.
62.
(^42) Cardwell,History of Conferences, p. 56.
(^43) Cardwell,History of Conferences, p. 72. Cardwell reproduces the complete texts of
the disputation, Horne’s preface, the Protestant divines’ written defense of the first
proposition, Dean Cole’s response and the Protestant defense of the second proposition.
This is followed by letters of both Richard Cox and Jewel treating the matter, pp. 55–98.
He does not list the third proposition.
(^44) Jewel listed all three to Martyr. Jewel’s take on the second one reveals the Protestant
strategy for the debate of the second point some days before the Catholics even knew of
the debate. Works, Letter to Martyr, 20 March 1559, IV, p. 1200.
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