6 in S. Paul's the triumph of the Queen over her deadly foes, the Pope and the King of Spain, in the discomfiture of the Invincible Armada.' Already, on September 8, the preacher at Paul's Cross had moved the people to give thanks to God for the overthrow of the Spaniards. Eleven ensigns taken in the ships were set on the lower battlements of the church, except one streamer, representing our Lady with the Saviour in her arms, which was waved over the Preacher. On the Sunday, November 24, the Queen came in state to the Cathedral, with the Privy Council, the nobility, the French Ambassador, the Judges, the Heralds. The Queen rode, amid a blare of trumpets, in a chariot like a throne' drawn by four stately white horses. The sermon was preached by the Bishop of Salisbury, the Queen's Almoner. The procession returned, through the church, to the Bishop's palace (Aylmer was Bishop), who had the honour of entertaining her Majesty at dinner. The captured banners, which for some days waved over London, were finally suspended in the Cathedral. Bancroft, Bishop of London, and Nowell, Dean of S. Paul's, beheld the close of Elizabeth's reign; and Nowell who had seen as Dean, within a year or two, its whole course, what must he have felt when he compared the state of England, the state of the Church of England, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth and at her death? Perhaps the world has rarely witnessed, history hardly records such a change, so important not alone to England, but to Europe, to the civilised world. Notwithstanding her feminine weaknesses, her outbursts of pride and passion, Nowell may well have excused to his conscience his having cowered before her presence, and accepted her supremacy with submission somewhat too humble. I must descend to matters comparatively trivial, and 'Stowe's Annals, p. 751. CHAP. XI. XI. CHAP. almost ludicrous; but the annalist of S. Paul's must not disdain that which concerns the humblest who have been attached to the Cathedral, especially if the proceedings are characteristic of the times. It appears that the singing bys (the choristers) during the reign of Elizabeth and of James I. were a regular dramatic company. It might at first be supposed that it was the boys of S. Pauls (Colet's) School who are meant by the children of Powle's.' There Latin Moral, acted before can be no doubt that the A.D. 1528. Henry VIII., Wolsey, and the French Ambassador, in which Luther and his wife were brought on the stage, was acted by the children of that school, under the regulation of their master John Rightwise, most likely the author of the piece. It is most probable, too, that the children of 'Powle's' who acted at Court, with those of the Grammar School at Westminster, were from Colet's School. But there is clear and abundant evidence, that the S. Paul's company was that of the choristers. This was in truth an inheritance from older times. Perhaps the earliest spectacle was that of the Boy Bishop,' so commonly, like other 'Miracle Plays,' performed in churches and cathedrals. In the old statutes of S. Paul's are many orders about this mock solemnity. One is that the Canon called Stagiarius (the Residentiary) shall find the 'Boy Bishop' his robes and horse." In 1378, the choristers of S. Paul's Cathedral presented a petition to Richard II., praying him to prohibit ignorant ' and inexperienced persons from acting the history of the Old Testament to the great prejudice of the clergy of the 'church,' who had gone to great cost for the representation of such plays. Bishop Bonner, centuries later, issued a proclamation to the clergy of his diocese, prohibiting all manner of plays, games, or interludes to be played in their churches or chapels. But the 'Boy Bishop' survived, heard even by Queen Mary in her saddest hours. Dean Colet in his statutes had ordered the boys in his school, after sermon in the Cathedral, to rejoice themselves with this somewhat irreverent pastime.3 Nevertheless that the standing company were the singing boys, there can be no doubt. Queen Elizabeth issued her license to one Gyles, master of the choristers, to take up children in any part of the kingdom to be trained for such entertainments.^ Where was the choristers' theatre? They sometimes were summoned to some distance to perform before the Queen. In her first year, Machyn records that the children of Powles played before Her Majesty at Nonsuch. In S. Paul's it almost appears that the Cathedral itself, if not, some adjacent building within the precincts, was the theatre; their singing school is named. Plays usually began at three o'clock, but at S. Paul's they began at four, after prayers, and concluded before six, when the gates were shut. What were the plays which they performed ? They certainly acted, but rather later, some of Lily's plays, and one of Middleton's. But there were some of a more questionable character. One of the earliest satires, 'The Songes of the Players,' denounces in strong but untranscribable phrases the indecencies of these heathenish and idolatrous play-fables; but this was of the Queen's Chapel. Another, by Stephen Gosson, in 1579, bitterly and justly complained that Cupid and Psyche' was played by the choristers of S. Paul's Cathedral. There seems then to have been some interference. The City of London-which Warton, Hist. of Poetry, vol. ii. p. 74. 3 Warton, vol. iii. p. 216. Collier, vol. i. p. 265. 5 Machyn, p. 206. Collier, vol. iii. p. 280. CHAP. 314 LOTTERIES BEFORE S. PAUL'S. XI. CHAP. always hated players, and was hated by the players-interposed. The Lord Mayor issued an inhibition, especially against plays on Sundays, which seems to have been the common day for their performance. The Privy Council also proscribed this abuse. Bishop Grindal, too, had followed the example of Bonner in protesting against these performances. But in a short time this inhibition was withdrawn or disregarded; and it is certainly a curious fact, that the next play which we hear of was the exhibition of Martin Marprelate." We trust that the Bishops -Aylmer of London especially-did not encourage this. But one writer seems to say that 'Martin Marprelate' could be seen at S. Paul's for fourpence, the price of admission at other theatres being twopence. In Jack Drum's 'Entertainment,' first published in 1601, are these lines— SIR EDWARD FORTUNE:- I saw the children of Powle's last night, And troth they pleased me pretty, pretty well. To this may be added, what to us may seem almost as 2 BISHOP BANCROFT AND JAMES I. 315 CHAPTER XII. S. PAUL'S UNDER JAMES I. XII. THE Bishops of London during the reign of King James I., CHAP. with the exception of the hard anti-Puritan Bancroft and the milder half-Puritan Abbot, were not men of great distinction even in their own day; and Bancroft and Abbot (he was Bishop of London only one short year) belong rather to Canterbury than to London. Bancroft, who ruled from 1597 to 1604, officiated no doubt at the accession of James, as Bishop of London. Bancroft, at the Hampton Court Conference, bore the brunt in the collision between the right divine of episcopacy' and 'the ' right divine of the "Book of Discipline." Both parties were firmly and profoundly convinced that God and the Gospel were clearly, decisively, on their side. Neither had the slightest inclination to respect the right of conscience in the other. Sacerdotal tyranny, whether of Bishop or Presbyter, was alike irreclaimably despotic (so honest Neal, the historian of the Puritans, acknowledges), alike determined to compel their adversaries to come into their peculiar notions. It was Bancroft who, in an agony of wrath against the obstinate objections urged by the Puritans, fell on his knees before the King, citing an ancient canon that schismatics are not to be heard before their Bishops. King James had never seen a churchman at his feet before. How different had been the attitude of the Clergy in his native land; their feet had been constantly on his neck. He gently rebuked the passion of |