Part 23

A steady decay of vital power set in, however, and when Henry VIII resolved to recast the English Church there was no effective protest. In 1531 the convocation of the clergy addressed a petition to Henry VIII as the chief protector and only and supreme lord of the English Church. Not very long after, the Parliament abolished appeals to the see of Rome, dispensations, licences, bulls of institution for bishoprics and archbishoprics, the payment of Peter's-pence, and the annates. In 1534 the Papal authority was set aside by Act of Parliament, and by another Act of Parliament, passed in 1535, Henry assumed the title of supreme head of the Church of England. These Acts, although they severed the connection between the English Church and the Holy See, did not alter the religious faith of the Church. But under Edward VI the Duke of Somerset, the protector of the realm during the minority of the king, caused a more thorough reform of the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church to be made. At his instigation Parliament in 1547 repealed the statute of the six articles promulgated by Henry VIII, and in 1551 a new confession of faith was embodied in forty-two articles, denying the infallibility of councils, keeping only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and rejecting the real presence, the invocation of saints, prayer for the dead, purgatory, and the celibacy of the clergy. At the same time a new liturgy was composed, in which English was substituted for Latin.

With the reign of Mary the old religion was re-established; and it was not till that of Elizabeth that the Church of England was finally instituted in its present form. The doctrines of the Church were again modified, and the Forty-two Articles were reduced to thirty-nine by the convocation of the clergy in 1563. As no change was made in the episcopal form of government, and some rites and ceremonies were retained which many of the reformed considered as superstitious, this circumstance gave rise to many future dissensions. In 1559, before the close of the first year of Elizabeth's reign, the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were passed with the object of bringing about the entire subjection of the Church and the people in religious matters to the royal authority.

From James I some relief was anticipated by Puritans and Nonconformists, but they were disappointed. Under Charles I the attempt was made, through the instrumentality of Laud, to place all the Churches of Great Britain under the jurisdiction of bishops. But after the death of Laud the Parliament abolished the episcopal government, and condemned everything contrary to the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church of Geneva. As soon as Charles II was restored, the ancient forms of ecclesiastical government and public worship were re-established, and three severe measures were passed against nonconformity, namely, the Corporation Act of 1661, the Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, and the Test Act, passed in 1673 (see _Act of Uniformity, Corporation and Test Acts_). In the reign of William III, and particularly in 1689, the divisions among the friends of Episcopacy gave rise to the two parties called the _high-churchmen_ or _non-jurors_, and _low-churchmen_. The former maintained the doctrine of passive obedience to the sovereign; that the hereditary succession to the throne is of divine institution; and that the Church is subject to the jurisdiction of God alone. The gradual progress of civil and religious liberty since that time has settled practically all such controversies. The measures of relief granted to those outside the Established Church include the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts (1828), Catholic emancipation (1829), and the opening of the old universities to Dissenters (1871).

The Established Church of England has always adhered to Episcopacy. Under the sovereign as supreme head, the Church is governed by three archbishops and forty bishops, of Canterbury, York, and Wales. The Archbishop of Canterbury is styled the _Primate of all England_, and to him belongs the privilege of crowning the kings and queens of England. The province of Canterbury comprehends 30 bishoprics; in the province of the Archbishop of York, who is styled _Primate of England_, there are 12 bishoprics, the province comprising Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the other northern counties. Wales has now been formed into a separate archbishopric. An Act was passed in 1914 disestablishing and disendowing the Church in Wales and Monmouthshire. The Act, suspended during the European War, came into force on 31st March, 1920. Archbishops and bishops are appointed by the sovereign by what is called a_cong['e] d'['e]lire_ or leave to elect, naming the person to be chosen and sent to the Dean and Chapter. The National Assembly of the Church of England (Powers) Act of 1919 instituted a National Assembly in England consisting of the House of Bishops, a House of Clergy, and a House of Laymen, which has power to legislate in Church matters. The archbishops and bishops, to the number of 24, have seats in the House of Lords, and are styled Lords Spiritual. The following are the bishops' sees: London, Winchester, Bangor, Bath and Wells, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Chelmsford, Chichester, Coventry, Ely, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, Ipswich, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Rochester, St. Albans, St. Asaph, St. David's, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell, Truro, Worcester, Durham, Carlisle, Chester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Ripon, Sheffield, Wakefield, Sodor and Man. To every cathedral belong several prebendaries and a dean; these together, spoken of as 'the Dean and Chapter', form the council of the bishop. The bishops are aided in their work by 36 suffragan and assistant bishops in England and Wales. The ordinary clergy are the _priests_, whether curates, vicars, or rectors. A _parson_ is a priest in full possession of all the rights of a parish church; if the great tithes are _impropriated_, the priest is called a vicar; if not, a rector; a _curate_ (in popular speech) is one who exercises the spiritual office under a rector or vicar. The _deacons_ form the third order of ordained clergy. The doctrines of the Church are contained in the Thirty-nine Articles; the form of worship is directed by the _Book of Common Prayer_. The revenue of the Church from endowments is over L6,000,000 annually. The clergy number about 27,000.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wakeman, _Introduction to the History of the Church of England_; Newbolt and Stone, _Church of England_.

_English Art._--As regards _architecture_ little can be said with regard to the style prevalent between the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest, from the fact that the remains of buildings erected in England before the Conquest are few and insignificant. The Norman style was introduced in the reign of Edward the Confessor, though the workmen, both then and after the Conquest, being English, the earlier work preserved many native characteristics. The Norman period proper extends from about 1090 to 1150, some of the best examples being parts of the cathedrals of Rochester, Winchester, Durham, and Canterbury. In the brief period 1160 to 1195 a marked change took place in the adoption of the pointed arch and what is known as the _Early English style_. Improved methods of construction led to the use of lighter walls and pillars instead of the heavy masses employed in the Norman style. Narrow lancet-shaped windows took the place of the round arch; bold projecting buttresses were introduced; and the roofs and spires became more lofty and more pointed, while in the interiors pointed arches rested on lofty clustered pillars. The best Early English type is Salisbury Cathedral. The Early English style has been regarded as lasting from 1190 to 1270, when the _Decorated style_ of Gothic began to prevail. The transition to the Decorated style was gradual, but it may be considered as lasting to 1377. Exeter Cathedral is an excellent example of the earliest Decorated style. Between 1360 and 1399 the Decorated style gave place to the _Perpendicular_, which prevailed from 1377 to 1547, and was an exclusively English style. Gothic architecture, though it lingered on in many districts, practically came to an end in England in the reign of Henry VIII. The _Elizabethan_ and _Jacobean styles_, which followed, were transitions from the Gothic to the Italian, with which these styles were more or less freely mixed. Many palatial mansions were built in these styles. In the reign of Charles I Inigo Jones designed, among other buildings, Whitehall Palace and Greenwich Hospital in a purely classic style. After the great fire in London (1666) Sir Christopher Wren designed an immense number of churches and other buildings in Classic style, particularly St. Paul's Cathedral, the Sheldonian Theatre of Oxford, and Chelsea Hospital. Various phases of Classic or Renaissance continued to prevail during the eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth century. About 1836 the Gothic revival commenced, and that style has been employed with considerable success in the churches erected in recent times. The Houses of Parliament, erected between 1840 and 1860 in the Tudor style, the Law Courts of Salford, St. Pancras railway station, and the Law Courts of London (opened 1882) in the Gothic served to sustain an impetus that had been given to the use of that style. At the present day Gothic is much employed for ecclesiastical and collegiate buildings, and a modified type of Renaissance for civil buildings. Of late years a style that has received the name of 'Queen Anne' is much in vogue for private residences. It is very mixed, but withal highly picturesque. The most striking novelties in the nineteenth century have been induced by the extensive use of iron and glass, as exemplified in the Exhibition building of 1851, the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, and the great railway stations.

Very little is known of the state of the art of _painting_ among the Anglo-Saxons; but in the ninth century Alfred the Great caused numerous MSS. to be adorned with miniatures, and about the end of the tenth century Archbishop Dunstan won reputation as a miniature painter. Under William the Conqueror and his two sons the painting of large pictures began to be studied, and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, adorned the vault of his church with paintings. Numerous miniatures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have come down to us, rude in execution, but not without originality. From this period down to the eighteenth century a succession of foreign painters resided in England, of whom the chief were Mabuse, Hans Holbein, Federigo Zucchero, Cornelius Jansen, Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller. Of native artists few are of importance prior to that original genius William Hogarth (1697-1764). Throughout the eighteenth century English artists attained higher eminence in portrait painting than in other departments, and it culminated in Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88), and Romney (1734-1802). These were followed by Raeburn (1756-1823) and Lawrence (1769-1830). Barry (1741-1806), West (1738-1820), and Copley (1737-1815) gained distinction in historical compositions, especially in pictures of battles. Landscape painting was represented by Richard Wilson (1714-82), who painted classical scenes with figures from heathen mythology, and by Gainsborough, already mentioned, who painted scenes of English nature and humble life. The Royal Academy of Arts, of which Reynolds was the first president, was established in London in 1769. Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841), in what is known abroad as genre painting, gained a European reputation that is unsurpassed. In the same class of art C. R. Leslie (1794-1859), Newton (1795-1835), Collins (1788-1847), and Mulready (1786-1863) gained great distinction. In landscape the reputation of Turner (1775-1857) stands alone. Other distinguished landscape painters are Clarkson Stanfield (1798-1867); David Roberts (1796-1864), who greatly excelled in picturesque architecture; Wm. M[:u]ller (1812-45); and John Constable (1776-1837), whose works exercised great influence in France; and Calcott (1799-1844). In historical painting Hilton (1786-1839), Eastlake (1793-1865), Etty (1787-1849), E. M. Ward (1816-79), C. W. Cope (1811-90), and D. Maclise (1811-70) attained celebrity. John Philip (1817-67) greatly distinguished himself by his scenes from Spanish life and by his mastery in colour. Landseer (1802-73) stands by himself as a painter of animals.

In 1824 the nucleus of the National Gallery was formed by the purchase of the Angerstein collection, and in 1832 the vote was passed for the erection of the National Gallery building. The competitions held in Westminster Hall in 1843, 1844, and 1847, with a view to the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, exercised great influence on art. Up to this time English pictures were rather distinguished for colour and effect of light and shade than for carefulness of modelling and exactness of drawing. In aiding to bring about a more accurate and careful style of work, the Pre-Raphaelites (1840-60), while seeking to restore in their practice an early phase of Italian art, exercised a beneficial influence, while they themselves ultimately abandoned the style to which at the first they had been devoted.

The modern group of British painters may be held to date from about 1850. Prominent among these the following may be named: In historical painting Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Watts, Poynter, Long, Goodall, Holman Hunt, Noel Paton, Burne-Jones, and Madox Brown, as also W. P. Frith, whose _Derby Day_ and _Railway Station_, so descriptive of modern life, may well be classed as historical. In figure painting or genre T. Faed, Erskine Nicol, Fildes, Orchardson, Herkomer, Millais, and Pettie. In portraiture Millais, Frank Holl, Ouless, and Richmond. In landscape Linnell, Hook, W. J. M[:u]ller, Peter Graham, John Brett, Vicat Cole, H. Moore, Keeley Halswelle. In water-colours the most eminent artists have been Girtin (1773-1802), Cotman (1782-1842), Liverseege (1803-32), Stothard (1755-1834), Turner, David Cox (1788-1859), De Wint (1784-1849), Copley Fielding (1787-1855), Samuel Prout (1783-1852), W. H. Hunt (1790-1864), Louis Haghe (1806-85), W. L. Leitch (1804-83), Sam Bough (1822-78), John Gilbert (1817-97).--BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Muther, _History of Modern Painting_; S. Reinach, _Apollo_.

English _sculpture_ was long merely an accessory to architecture, and few English sculptors are known by name till comparatively modern times. During the Renaissance period Torregiano came from Italy and executed two masterpieces in England, the tomb of the mother of Henry VII, and that of Henry himself at Westminster. The troubles of the reign of Charles I and the Commonwealth produced a stagnation in the art, and were the cause of the destruction of many valuable works. After the Restoration two sculptors of some note appeared, Grinling Gibbons, a wood-carver, and Caius Gabriel Cibber. During the eighteenth century there was no English sculptor of great eminence till John Flaxman (1755-1826). He had for rival and successor Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841), who acquired renown by the busts and statues which he made of many of the eminent men of his time. John Carew, Sir Richard Westmacott (1775-1856), E. H. Baily (1788-1867), John Gibson (1790-1866), P. MacDowell (1799-1870), H. Weekes (1807-77), J. H. Foley (1818-74), J. Edgar Boehm (1834-90), and Thomas Woolner (1825-92) are a few of the eminent sculptors of the nineteenth century. W. H. Thorneycroft, E. Onslow Ford, C. B. Birch, Alfred Gilbert, G. F. Watts, Henry H. Armstead, G. Simons, Sir Thomas Brock, Harry Bates, and Sir George Frampton are among the foremost sculptors of the present time. The sculptures of the English school in general are characterized by a sort of romantic grace which is their distinguishing mark, and by extraordinary delicacy and finish in detail; but they frequently exhibit weakness in their treatment of the nude.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wilhelm L[:u]bke, _History of Sculpture_; E. H. Short, _History of Sculpture_.

_English Language._--The language spoken in England from the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons to the Norman Conquest (say 500-1066) is popularly known as Anglo-Saxon, though simply the earliest form of English. (See _Anglo-Saxons_.) It was a highly inflected and purely Teutonic tongue presenting several dialects. The Conquest introduced the Norman-French, and from 1066 to about 1250 two languages were spoken, the native English speaking their own language, the intruders speaking French. During this period the grammatical structure of the native language was greatly broken up, inflexions fell away, or were assimilated to each other; and towards the end of the period we find a few words written in a language resembling the English of our own day in grammar, but differing from it by being purely Saxon or Teutonic in vocabulary. Finally, the two languages began to mingle, and form one intelligible to the whole population, Normans as well as English, this change being marked by a great infusion of Norman-French words, and English proper being the result. English is thus, in its vocabulary, a composite language, deriving part of its stock of words from a Teutonic source and part from a Latin source, Norman-French being in the main merely a modified form of Latin. In its grammatical structure and general character, however, English is entirely Teutonic, and is classed with Dutch and Gothic among the Low German tongues. If we divide the history of the English language into periods, we shall find three most distinctly marked: first, the Old English or Anglo-Saxon, extending down to about 1100; second, the Middle English, 1100-1400 (to this period belong Chaucer, Wycliffe, Langland); third, Modern English. A more detailed subdivision would give transition periods connecting the main ones. The chief change which the language has experienced during the modern period consists in its absorbing new words from all quarters in obedience to the requirements of advancing science, more complicated social relations, and increased subtlety of thought. At the present time the rapid growth of the sciences already existing, and the creation of new ones, have caused whole groups of words to be introduced, chiefly from the Greek, though unfortunately not a few are hybrid words, coined by some scientist who had small Latin and less Greek.--Cf. H. Sweet, _New English Grammar, Logical and Historical_.

_English Literature._--Before any English literature, in the strict sense of the term, existed, four literatures had arisen in England--the Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Norman. The first includes such names as those of Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, Aneurin, and Merlin or Merddhin. The Latin literature prior to the Conquest presents those of Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, Asser, Ethelwerd, and Nennius. For Anglo-Saxon literature, see the article _Anglo-Saxons_. With the coming of the Normans, although the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ was continued until 1154, the native language practically ceased for a time to be employed in literature, Latin being used in law, history, and philosophy, French in the lighter forms of literature. The Norman _trouv[`e]re_ displaced the Saxon _scop_, or gleeman, introducing the _Fabliau_ and the Romance. By the _Fabliau_ the literature was not greatly influenced until the time of Chaucer; but the Romance attained an early and striking development in the Arthurian cycle, founded upon the legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin _History of the Britons_ (1147), by Geoffrey Gaimar, Wace, Walter Map, and other writers of the twelfth century. The Latin literature included important contributions to the Scholastic philosophy by Alexander Hales (died 1245), Duns Scotus (died 1308) and William of Occam (died 1347); the philosophic works of Roger Bacon (1214-92); the Golias poems of Walter Map; and a long list of chronicles or histories, either in prose or verse, by Eadmer (died 1124); Ordericus Vitalis (died 1142), William of Malmesbury (died 1143), Geoffrey of Monmouth (died 1154), Henry of Huntingdon (died after 1154), Joseph of Exeter (died 1195), Gervase of Tilbury (twelfth century), Roger of Wendover (died 1237), Roger de Hoveden (twelfth and thirteenth centuries), Giraldus Cambrensis (died 1222), Joscelin de Brakelonde (twelfth and thirteenth centuries), and Matthew Paris (died 1259).

Apart from a few brief fragments, the first English writings after the Conquest are the _Brut_ of Layamon (about 1200), based on the _Brut_ of Wace; and the _Ormulum_, a collection of metrical homilies attributed to Orm or Ormin, an Augustine monk. Next in importance come the rhyming chroniclers Robert of Gloucester (time of Henry III, Edward I) and Robert of Brunne or Mannyng (died 1340), other writers being Dan Michel of Northgate (_Ayenbite of Inwyt_, 1340); Richard Rolle of Hampole (_Pricke of Conscience_, 1340); Laurence Minot (author of eleven military ballads; died 1352); and several works of uncertain authorship, including the _Ancren Riwle_ (? Richard Poor, died 1237), _The Owl and the Nightingale_ (? Nicholas of Guildford), _The Land of Cockayne_ (? Michael of Kildare), the song against the King of Almaigne, and a dialogue between the Body and the Soul. To this pre-Chaucerian period belong also several English translations of French romances--_Horn_, _Tristrem_, _Alisaunder_, _Havelok_, and others. Between the beginning and middle of the fourteenth century the English speech had entered upon a new phase of development in the absorption of Norman-French words. A rapid expansion of the literature followed, having as the foremost figure that of Chaucer (1340-1400), who, writing at first under French influences, and then under Italian, became in the end the most representative English writer of the time. Contemporary with him was the satirist William Langland or Langley (1332-1400), the indefatigable John Gower (1325-1408), and the Scot John Barbour (1316-95). In prose the name of John Wycliffe (1324-84) is pre-eminent, the English version of Mandeville's _Travels_ being apparently of later date.

The period from the time of Chaucer to the appearance of Spenser, that is, from the end of the fourteenth to near the end of the sixteenth century, is a very barren one in English literature, in part probably owing to foreign and domestic wars, the struggle of the people towards political power, and the religious controversies preceding and attending the Reformation. The immediate successors of Chaucer, Occleve (1370-1454) and Lydgate (died 1460), were neither men of genius, and the centre of poetic creation was for the time transferred to Scotland, where James I (1394-1437) headed the list which comprises Andrew de Wyntoun (fifteenth century), Henry the Minstrel or Blind Harry (died after 1492), Robert Henryson (died before 1508), William Dunbar (1460-1520), Gavin Douglas (1474-1522), and Sir David Lyndsay (1490-1557). In England the literature was chiefly polemical, the only noteworthy prose prior to that of More being that of Reginald Pecock (1390-1460); Sir John Fortescue (1395-1485); the _Paston Letters_ (1422-1505), which are, however, much more interesting for their subject matter than their style; and Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ (completed 1469-70); the only noteworthy verse, that of John Skelton (1460-1529).