86]

The Catholic bishops set themselves in vain against the progress of
these discussions. They withdrew from the conference: but the
Parliament did not let itself be misled by this: it adopted the
popular opinion, that they did not know what to answer. At the
division in the Upper House they held obstinately fast to their
opinion: they were left however, though only by a few votes, in the
minority.[187] The Act of Uniformity passed, by which the Prayer-book,
in the form which should be given it by a new revision, was to be
universally received from the following Midsummer. The bishops raised
an opposition yet once more, at a sitting of the Privy Council, on the
ground that the change was against the promises made by Mary to the
See of Rome in the name of the crown. Elizabeth answered, her sister
had in this exceeded her powers: she herself was free to revert to the
example of her earlier predecessors by whom the Papal power was looked
on as an usurpation. 'My crown,' she exclaimed, 'is subject only to
the King of Kings, and to no one else:' she made use of the words,
'But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' The Protestant
bishops had perished at the stake, but the victory was theirs even in
their graves.

The committee of revision consisted of men, who had then saved
themselves by flight or by the obscurity of a secluded life. As under
Edward men came back to the original tendencies prevalent under Henry
VIII, so they now reverted to the settlement under Edward; yet they
allowed themselves some alterations, chiefly with the view of making
the book acceptable to the Catholics as well. Prayers in which the
hostility of decided Protestantism came forward with especial
sharpness, for instance that 'against the tyranny of the Bishop of
Rome,' were left out. The chief alteration was in the formula of the
Lord's Supper. Elizabeth and her divines were not inclined to let this
stand as it was read in the second edition of Edward's time, since the
mystical act there appeared almost as a mere commemorative
repast.[188] They reverted to a form composed from the monuments of
Latin antiquity, from Ambrose and Gregory, in which the real presence
was maintained; this which already existed in the first edition they
united with the view of the second. As formerly in the Augsburg
confession in Germany, so in England at the last recension of the
Common Prayer-book an attempt was made to keep as near as possible to
the tra