The church under Queen Elizabeth Author:Frederick George Lee Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. In the summer of 1583, as already briefly recorded, Edmund Grindal, who, by the Queen's favour, had been Primate of All England for nine years, h... more »ad gone to his last account in the Palace of Croydon. A Cumberland man, educated at Cambridge and patronized by Ridley, he was always Puritanically inclined, but differed in but few particulars from the ordinary herd of commonplace Elizabethan prelates. The so- called " prophesyings " already referred to, found in him a sincere and bold admirer. These " religious exercises " had largely aided in making confusion worse confounded all over the country; having directly tended to degrade religion, to extend frivolous and profitless controversies, to foster self-delusions, and even to endanger social order, by bringing all authority into contempt and disrepute. The excitement they sometimes produced was in itself inherently mischievous, as the Queen and some of her advisers had good cause for believing. But Grindal, having in a bold and outspoken Letter declined to put down the pestilent discussions in question, though expressly ordered to do so by the Supreme Governess herself, was promptly and duly suspended from his archiepiscopal office without further ado. The royal lady who had conferred that dignity upon him, thus temporarily took it away again, without direct charge or any trial, to his great annoyance and chagrin. He was furthermore peremptorily commanded to remain a prisoner in his own palace in Surrey,—an order at once dutifully obeyed; and, had it not been for his death, there is good reason to believe that he would have been shortly evicted absolutely. The poor perplexed man, who had then grown blind—physically as well as morally—fretted sorely over the disorders of the time and because of his punishment ; some aff...« less