Parkhurst. Sampson also never consented to other matters on which
Martyr told him to bend, namely vestments.
For his part, Jewel manifested few qualms about the episcopal office;^58
his hesitancy relates to his belief that the office would curtail his studies.
As to its pollution by past bishops, Jewel professed that so much of what
had corrupted and diverted the old episcopal order had been corrected,
including the matter of their lordly status.^59 Unlike Catholics who
attached a sacramental role to the episcopate, for Jewel and the rest of
the English Church, while there were three orders in the ministry, the
order of bishop was nothing more than an office for order and
administration. There was nothing a bishop possessed through his
consecration that a minister did not have in ordination.^60 Whatever
scruples Jewel may have had, he was now thoroughly a public servant of
Her Majesty, a bishop to the people of England, and with perhaps one
proviso, he always presented himself as the dutiful and faithful bishop.
His first duty, before even being enthroned at Salisbury, was the
execution of the visitations to the diocese in the southwest of England at
the end of summer, 1559. Jewel, along with three other visitors, made
their way across the south of England to enforce the Acts of Uniformity
and to have clerics subscribe to the Supremacy. Armed with the Royal
Injunctions, largely based on those of Edward VI of 1549, Jewel got his
first taste of the life of a bishop. He was to find that London hardly was
emblematic of the rest of the nation when it came to religion. The day
Jewel returned from the Visitation, 2 November 1559, he recounted to
Martyr the inventory of relics, witches and sorceresses, along with the
corruption of all the cathedral chapters they visited, which he said were
worse than a den of thieves, or even worse than that, if something that
foul could be thought. He also told Martyr that Harding, who was then
the treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral chapter, preferred to change his
conditions rather than his opinions. According to Jewel he was not
alone, as the biggest obstacle to true religion had been the priests,
especially those who had at one time professed Protestantism. All in all,
Jewel gave a depressing picture of his visitation, although he notes that
the people were ‘satis propensos ad religionem’.^61
66 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^58) Though distressed about vestments (Letter to Martyr, 5 November 1559, Works, IV,
p. 1222) and the crucifix in Elizabeth’s chapel royal, the office per se never gave Jewel
pause.
(^59) ‘Opes episcoporum imminuntur, et ad mediocritatem quandam rediguntur; ut, semoti
ab illa regia pompa et strepitu aulico, possint tranquillius et attentius vacare gregi Christi.’
Jewel, 2 November 1559, Works, IV, p. 1220.
(^60) Jewel,Works, I, p. 379. He is commenting on a passage from St Jerome.
(^61) Jewel,Works, IV, p. 1216.
http://www.ebook3000.com