this life: Sampson for he believed it would have been a burden to his
conscience; Parkhurst, for it would have been an imposition upon his
already fine living of Cleeve Episcopi. Sampson, probably happily as far
as Elizabeth was concerned, could never be coerced or seduced to the
office; Parkhurst gave up Cleeve for Norwich. Initially Jewel’s
complaints and recriminations noted that while a number of new
bishops had been designated for their respective dioceses, these episcopal
sees were nonetheless purposefully being left vacant, because the
revenues of their ‘estates were in the interim sweetly augmenting the
crown coffers’.^36 By the time the government had appointed Jewel
Elizabeth had already left all of the vacant sees inherited from Mary
remain so for more than a year in order that she might collect their
revenues. In an earlier letter Jewel was at his quotable best when he
likened the change in the status of bishops to the scholastic contentions
over the nature of universals: ‘No provision has been made for any of us
(bishops) ... We merely carry about the empty titles of bishops, and have
defected from Scotus and Thomas to the Occamists and Nominalists.’^37
These letters refer to both the financial exchange forced upon the English
episcopate by Elizabeth, which transferred the bulk of their diocesan
revenues to the Crown in return for permanent stipends; and to the delay
between the conge d’elireconfirming episcopal appointments and their
eventual enthronement; an interim in which diocesan revenues were
further being absconded by the crown. The span between the conge
d’elirefor Jewel and his enthronement was nine months, though he was
one of the last of Elizabeth’s initial appointments to receive the warrant,
his enthronement in absentia occurring almost a year after his return to
England.
Nonetheless, Jewel put a brave face on the matter of episcopal
finances, not always being as negative as the above assessment may
imply. Jewel gave this impoverishment an evangelical, almost monastic
twist, noting that the English bishops would not be so well endowed as
their Marian predecessors, to the end that they may without distraction
turn their attention to their pastoral duties:
For we wish our bishops to be pastoral, arduous, and vigilant. And
that this might more quickly happen, the wealth of the bishops was
lessened, and was reduced to a moderate level; that, having been214 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^36) ‘Episcopi adhuc designati tantum sunt: interim praedia pulchre augent fiscum.’ Jewel,
Works, IV, p. 1224.
(^37) ‘[N]ihil prospectum esse cuiquam nostrum .... [t]antum circumferimus inanes titulos
episcoporum, et a Scoto et Thoma defecimus ad Occamistas et Nominales.’ Jewel, Works,
IV, p. 1222. The analogy hinges on the distinction that to a Nominalist (Occam per se), a
term or name is an empty convention, and thus it is rightly to be applied to the English
episcopate, as they had the title, but not the substance.
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