SAYINGS OF ELIZABETH

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 22

SAYINGS OF ELIZABETH

•''PROUD PRELATE" FORGERY

RATING THE BISHOPS

(By "Ajax.")

The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth. By Frederick C'hamberlin. London: John Lane the Bodlcy Head Ltd. 1023. Si x s|,' he -f- 324 pp. [Final Notice.] Last week I was induced to linger too long over the most famous of Queen Elizabeth's poems:— Christ was the' Word that spake it; He took the Bread and brake it: And -what the Word did make it, That I believe.and take it. 1 am glad to repeat the stanza, as, I had previously quoted from an inferior version. The result of my lingering so long over these lines was that I was ■unable to associate with, them what has been-widely regarded as the Queen's prose masterpiece, and I am glad.to make amends-now. So far as I.can remember, I owe my first 'acquaintance ■with this passage to its inclusion in Mrs. Ingpen's excellent littlo anthology of letters entitled "Women as LetterTvriters," which was published in 1909. # # ' # With Mrs. Ingpen's setting this letter reads as follows: — Queen Elizabeth to Dr. Cox, Bishop of Ely. v A Royal Command. • Proud Pi-elate,—You know, what you jVrere' before I made you what you are Bow. li you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock you, by G !■- ■• ■ -■' *'• ■■•■ ■ Elizabeth. Mrs.' Ingpcn retrains 'from comment, liut the reviewer of. liei-;bdpk in "The j Timos'' was loss "fortunate. As quoted • by "The Dominion" of April 16, 1910, lio let himself go with a magnificent abandon: — . For , concentrated splendour, surely {nothing ever surpassed—if it ever equalled —that renowned masterpiece addressed by Queen Elizabeth to' the Bishop of Ely— [Here the letter is quoted.] Does a letter j exist more succinct and move, sounding, more impulsive and at the same time more majestic,' than that which is contained in these three lines? It is an oration, a symphony, a processional!—in, indeed, the finest as it is the shortest, thing in the collection. " * » • ■ This magnificent Elizabethan masterpiece, this \."concentrated splendour," this oration, this symphony, this processional, and all. tho rest of it, is indeed almost everything that it should ■be. : The-only thing, wrong -.vith it is that it is a fake.! . ■. . » « # It was probably to Dr. "A. P. Pollard's article in the "Eneyiopaedia Britannica" of 1910 that I owed my knowledge that this admirablo letter is not tho work of Elizabeth, , She respected the bishop's-only''as Supporters of her throne, he writes, and, although the well-known letter beginning "Proud Prelate" is an eighteenth century forgery, it is hardly a travesty, of Elizabeth's attitude. But ,i reference to the "Dictionary of National Biography" shows that Dr. Augustus Jcssopp know all about it as long ago as 1889. The, letter so frequently,. quoted, 'he writes, professing to be from Queen Elizabeth to Bishop Cdx, beginning with the words "Proud Prelate!" is a stupid and impudent forgery, which first saw the light in the "Annual Register" of 1761. Yet, absurd as the fabrication1 is, few forgeries have succeeded so ivell in exercisinjp a malignant influence upon the estimation in which/the Queen's ..Character has been !held by historians. ■;■ '' '' . '"",'■ *. * ■' * »' "'..' ■■■• . The wit who misled historians .for fcovcral generation* tv*s certainly ' fcbt "stupidJ' and if he was merely joking , with no intent to deceive *he cannot fairly hj& called "impudent." What has excited Dr. Jessppp's somewhat uncritical •flrrath, on. ithe first point is apparently his -belief .that Elizabeth "never Willingly interfered in matters ecclesiastical, and she inclined to leave ithe bishops with a free hand.". Bnt "inclining" to give the bishops a free hand t\ocs not mean that they" always had a completely free hand, or that-she

never gave them a clout or an oath to keep them up to tho mark. There is, however, no need to speculate or even to argue. Professor Pollard, who is a later and higher authority than .Tcssopp, calls the "Proud Prelate" letter, as we have, seen, "hardly a travesty of .Elizabeth's attitude." # * # Another high authority, Bishop Cveighton, whose "Queen Elizabeth" (1896) is said by. tho. last "Encyclopaedia Britaunica" (1929) to he' still; tho best biography, quotes the "-Proud Prolate:" letter, "though in a sadly diluted version, in "The Ago of-Eliza-beth" (1901), plainly regarding it as both authentic and characteristic. On another occasion, he adds, when the Bishop o£ London preached" before the Queen a sermon on the vanity of dress, the Queen told her ladies "if'the bishop held more discourse on i such matters she would soon fit him for Heaven; but he.should walk thither without a staff anil leave his mantle behind him." ' - • 0 •■' . •■ ' '• - ' Before illustrating from Mr. Chamberlin the frankness "with-which Elizabeth handled her churchmen, I must note with satisfaction the reference which Professor J. E. Neals in his review ("Weekly "Westminster," October 24, 1925) of Mr. Chamberlin's "Wit and Wisdom of Queen Bess"—an abridgement of the "Sayings"—makes to ■ (he nameless practical jofcer who through the ''Annual Register" o£ 1761 foisted on vs —though in , this instance, curiously enough, not on Mr. Chamberlin —the notorious letter to Bishop Cox beginning, "Proud Prelate." Mr. Chamberlin is so uncertain in his references and his dates and his ideas of evidence that I was confidently expecting to find the Cox forgery among his treasures, and it was comforting to find that -Mr., jNTeale had been disapI pointed in the same way! i • '.t ' #'• * ■ Elizabeth's .attitude to the bishops and tho clergy is indicated by these samples from Mr. Charnberliu's collectipn:— '■■ . . . To de Feria, representative ;of Philip II j in London: ■ 1 "I do not intend to be called Head of tiie Church, but I shall not let my subjects' money be carried out of the realm to (lie Pope any more. The bishops are ■\ set of. ]{izy s/.umris. , ; , ~ . , , ■. To the iS'panish Ambassador (Mendoza, ■ iSSO);:v •""" ■"". :■-■' ".■■ -■"■'■ >Iy v ,bi.':hops are a set or. knaves, and I will riot have the' Catholics ill-u5ed....... (Elizabeth's protection of the Catholics against her own bishops even, after the Church had declared war by the first excommunication is very remarkable.) * • ♦ ■■-'■'' ■■ ■"'♦* To a Committee of both Houses of Parliament who had demanded that she should marry: t , . . And you Doctors: You, I understand, make long prayers about this, business. One of you dared to say in times past that'l and.ffly sister were bastards; and you must needs be interfering in what does not concern you. Go home and amend your own lives and set'an honest example in your families. The Lords in Parliament should have taught you to know your places; but if they haVi», forgotten ;their duty,, I will not forget* mine: To the Bishops in Parliament: '■. •...'■' '' If.you, my Lords of the Clergy,' do not amend I mean1 to depose you. Look ye therefore well to -your charges.. Less , exalted ecclesiastics j also got their knocks now and then. When a B6yal~Qttaplairi began to.'/read a chapter of the Bible to #' congregation araqnjf-whom, seated,.iifithv the- Queen close to the altar, the French Amba«sac(or:,and a largift'staff, shevcalled (tut.:: "Not that! 'lkflo# that"-.alr'eidy, Kead something else.'' But 'what she objected to and what was substituted is not recorded. The Dean of St. Paul's, yho teas opening an attack on- images in the churcheis before ft larg© congre-' gation, was cut short as follows:-^ Leave that alqne! To your text, 'Mr. Dean! To your text! Leave that, we have heard enough 'of > that; To • your subject! It was also.a Dean of St. Panics— n6 name or date is given in either case-— Who was interrupted by.'the, Qiieon's opening the door of her closet and calling out for all the congregation-to hear: "Leave that ungodly digression and ;return to your text!"

, Next to this reproof of the Dean Mr. Chamberlin places- in his chapter entitled " The Absolute Monarch " Eliza* beth's retort to Cecil when he told her (hat there was no law Under which theDuke of Norfolk could be executed for intriguing to marry Mary Queen, of Scots:i^- ' ' \. ■' ;

Get out! What the laws cannot do to his head my authority will do!

* ♦ * The remark :s a good illustration 'of the saying that where there is a will there is a way. It is also of interest to the <stud#nt of words. The "Oxford Dictionary's" earliest quotation of "get out" in the sense of '■ • .•

go .away, be- ofl; .(expressing disbelief, dia' sent, or a desire to hear no mote),

is date'd'l7ll. If Elizabeth 'A, tettfrt W Cecil is authentic, the expression will be carried mere than a century further back to a far moro illustrious parent-