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and deprivation rather than lead their people into error by
submission. Bishop Kitchin of Llandaff had opposed royal supremacy for
a time. The Spanish ambassador reported to his master that he was
about to follow the example of his brethren, but in the end he
submitted and consented to administer the oath to his clergy.[8] The
religious communities, the Observants, the Carthusians, the
Dominicans, the Benedictines, and the few communities of nuns that had
re-established houses in England during the reign of Queen Mary, were
suppressed; their property was seized according to an Act passed in
the late Parliament, and many of the monks and nuns were obliged to
depart from the kingdom. The commissioners proceeded through England
administering the oath to the clergy, a large percentage of whom seems
to have submitted. From the returns preserved it is difficult to
estimate accurately what number of the clergy consented to acknowledge
the supremacy of the queen or to abandon the Mass, but it is certainly
not true to say that out of 9,000 beneficed clergymen in England at
the time only about 200 refused the oath. On the one hand, the
disturbances during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. had
reduced considerably the number of priests in England, while on the
other, the fact that several clergymen did not put in an appearance
before the commission, that others were allowed time to reconsider
their views, and that not even all those who obstinately refused the
oath were deprived, shows clearly that the lists of deprivations
afford no sure clue to the number of those who were unwilling to
accept the change. It is noteworthy that the greatest number of
refusals were met with amongst the higher officials or dignitaries of
the Church, the deans, archdeacons, and canons, who might be expected
to represent the best educated and most exemplary of the clergy of
their time in England. In the universities, too, the commissioners met
with the strongest resistance. Several of the heads of the colleges,
both in Cambridge and Oxford, the fellows and the office-bearers,
either were deprived or fled, and men of the new school were appointed
to take their places. But notwithstanding all the government could do,
the universities, and particularly Oxford, continued during the
greater part of the reign of Elizabeth to be centres of
disaffection.[9]

The complete extinction of the old hierarchy by death, deprivation and
imprisonment, left the way open for the appointment of bishops
favourable to the religion. Matthew Parker, who had been chaplain to
Anne Boleyn and who had lived privately since he was removed from the
deanship of Lincoln on account of his marriage, was selected to fill
the Archbishopric of Canterbury, left vacant since the death of
Cardinal Pole. The royal letters of approval were issued in September,
and the mandate for his consecration was addressed to Tunstall of
Durham, Bourne of Bath and Wells, Poole of Peterborough, Kitchin of
Llandaff, together with Barlow and Scory. The three former, however,
refused to act, and apparently even Kitchin was unwilling to take any
part in the ceremony. New men were then sought, and found in the
persons of Barlow, Coverdale, Scory, and Hodgkin. But even still grave
legal difficulties barred the way. The conditions for the consecration
of an archbishop laid down by the 25th of Henry VIII., which had not
been repealed, could not be complied with owing to the refusal of the
old bishops, and besides the use of the new Ordinal of Edward VI.
without a special Act of Parliament for its revival was distinctly
illegal; but the situation was so serious that Elizabeth's advisers
urged her to make good the illegalities by an exercise of her royal
authority. In the end the consecration of Parker was carried out in
the chapel of Lambeth Palace on the morning of the 17th December,
1559. The story of the Nag's Head is a pure legend used by
controversialists for impugning the validity of Anglican Orders. As a
matter of fact the main argument against these Orders is drawn neither
from the fable of the Nag's Head nor from the want of episcopal orders
in the case of Barlow, the consecrator of Parker, though his
consecration has not been proved, but from the use of a corrupt form,
which was then as it is now rejected as insufficient by the Catholic
Church, and from the want of the proper intention implied both by the
corruption of the form and by the teaching of those who corrupted
it.[10] Once the difficulty about Parker's consecration had been
settled other bishops were appointed by the queen, and consecrated by
the new archbishop, so that before March 1560 good progress had been
made in the establishment of the new hierarchy in England.