herents should continue to
occupy the churches, on whatever conditions, than that they should be
surrendered entirely into the hands of an opposite party. The bishops,
on the contrary, considered themselves as called upon by the dignity of
their character and office to bear a public testimony against the
defection of England from the holy see; and those of them who had not
previously been deprived on other grounds, now in a body refused the
oaths and submitted themselves to the consequences. All were deprived, a
few imprisoned, several committed to honorable custody. The policy of
Elizabeth, unlike the genuine bigotry of her sister, contented itself
with a kind of negative intolerance; and as long as the degraded bishops
abstained from all manifestations, by words or deeds, of hostility
against her government and ecclesiastical establishment, and all
celebration of the peculiar rites of their religion, they were secure
from molestation; and never to them, as to their unfortunate protestant
predecessors, were articles of religion offered for signature under the
fearful alternative of compliance or martyrdom.

To supply the vacancies of the episcopal bench became one of the
earliest cares of the queen and her ministers; and their choice, which
fell on the most eminent of the confessors and exiles, was generally
approved by the nation.

Dr. Parker, formerly her mother's chaplain and the religious instructor
of her own childhood, was designated by Elizabeth for the primacy. This
eminent divine had likewise been one of the chaplains of Edward VI., and
enjoyed under his reign considerable church preferments. He had been the
friend of Cranmer, Bucer, Latimer, and Ridley; of Cook, Cheke, and
Cecil; and was the ardent coadjutor of these meritorious public
characters in the promotion of reformed religion, and the advancement
of general learning,--two grand objects, which were regarded by them as
inseparable and almost identical.

On the accession of Mary, being stripped of all his benefices as a
married priest, Parker with his family was reduced to poverty and
distress; and it was only by a careful concealment of his person, by
frequent changes of place, and in some instances by the timely
advertisements of watchful friends, that he was enabled to avoid a still
severer trial of his constancy. During this period of distress he found
support and solace from the pious task of translating into English metre
the whole of the Psalms