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been repealed, could not be complied with owing to the refusal of the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