[210] During Mary's reign, fully 800 of the English clergy and laity sought refuge on the Continent, and they were hospitably received in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and along the Rhine. Some of the best known were Coverdale, Sandys, Jewel, Knox, Whittingham, and Foxe. They lived in Basle, Zurich, Geneva, Strasburg, Worms, and Frankfort; and it was in the latter town that the dissensions prevailed, referred to in the sonnet. These were unfolded in a Tract entitled The Troubles of Frankfort. The chief point in dispute was the use of the English Book of Common Prayer. Knox and Whittingham, under the guidance of Calvin, wished a modification of this book. The dispute ended in the Frankfort magistrates requesting Knox to leave the city. He retired to Geneva. On the accession of Elizabeth, the Frankfort exiles returned to England.—Ed.
[211] 1827.
[212] Alluding doubtless to the foreign conspiracies against Elizabeth, the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots, the Pope's excommunication, and conspiracies in the North of England, etc. See The White Doe of Rylstone.—Ed.
[213] 1827.
[214] An allusion probably to the Court of High Commission, and perhaps also to the execution of the Scottish Queen.—Ed.
[215] 1845.
[216] "On foot they[218] went, and took Salisbury in their way, purposely to see the good Bishop, who made Mr. Hooker sit at his own table; which Mr. Hooker boasted of with much joy and gratitude when he saw his mother and friends; and at the Bishop's parting with him, the Bishop gave him good counsel and his benediction, but forgot to give him money; which when the Bishop had considered, he sent a servant in all haste to call Richard back to him, and at Richard's return, the Bishop said to him, 'Richard, I sent for you back to lend you a horse which hath carried me many a mile, and I thank God with much ease,' and presently delivered into his hand a walking-staff, with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany; and he said, 'Richard, I do not give, but lend you my horse; be sure you be honest, and bring my horse back to me, at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give you ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter; and here is ten groats more, which I charge you to deliver to your mother, and tell her I send her a Bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college; and so God bless you, good Richard.'" (See Walton's Life of Richard Hooker.)—W. W. 1822.
[217] 1827.
[218] i.e. Richard Hooker and a College companion.—Ed.
[219] The reading, "Their new-born Church," printed in all editions of the poems from 1822 till 1842, had been objected to by several correspondents; and out of deference to their suggestions it was altered to "Their Church reformed": but Wordsworth wrote to his nephew and biographer, November 12, 1846, "I don't like the term reformed; if taken in its literal sense as a transformation, it is very objectionable" (see Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 113), and in the "postscript" to Yarrow Revisited, etc., he says, "The great Religious Reformation of the sixteenth century did not profess to be a new construction, but a restoration of something fallen into decay, or put out of sight."—Ed.
[220] 1845.
[221] 1827.
[222] 1827.
[223] The first nonconforming sect in England originated in 1556. It broke off from the Church, on a question of vestments. The chief divisions of English Nonconformity in the latter half of the sixteenth century were (1) the Brunists, or Barronists. The disciples of Brun quarrelled and divided amongst themselves. (2) The Familists, an offshoot of the Dutch Anabaptists, a mystic sect which quarrelled with the Puritans. (3) The Anabaptists, who were not only religious sectaries, but who differed with the Church on sundry social and civil matters. "They denied the sanctity of an oath, the binding power of laws, the right of the magistrate to punish, and the rights of property." (Perry's History of the English Church, p. 315.) See also Hooker's Preface to his Ecclesiastical Polity, c. viii. 6-12; and the "Life of Sir Matthew Hale," Eccl. Biog. iv. 533, on the "indigested enthusiastical scheme called The Kingdom of Christ, or of his Saints."—Ed.
[224] A common device in religious and political conflicts. See Strype, in support of this instance.—W. W. 1822.
Probably the reference is to the case of Cussin, a Dominican Friar. He pretended to be a Puritan minister; and, in his devotions, assumed the airs of madness. See in Strype's The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. i. chaps, xiii. and xvi.—Ed.
[225] 1827.
[226] See the note to the previous sonnet, No. XL.—Ed.
[227] Originated by Robert Catesby, the intention being to destroy King, Lords, and Commons, by an explosion at Westminster, when James I. went in person to open Parliament on the 5th November 1605.—Ed.
[228] The massacre of St. Bartholomew, which occurred on August 24, 1572.—Ed.
The Jung-frau and the Fall of the Rhine near Schaffhausen
[229] The Jung-frau.—W. W. 1822.
[230] This Sonnet was included among the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1822), and the following note was added:—"This Sonnet belongs to another publication, but from its fitness for this place is inserted here also, 'Voilà un énfer d'eau,' cried out a German Friend of Ramond, falling on his knees on the scaffold in front of this Waterfall. See Ramond's Translation of Coxe."—W. W.
The following extracts from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of the Continental Tour in 1820 illustrate it. "Aug. 9.—I am seated before Jung-frau, in the green vale of Interlaken, 'green to the very door,' with rich shade of walnut trees, the river behind the house.... Mountains and that majestic Virgin closing up all.... By looking across into a nook at the entrance of the Vale of Lauterbrunnen, Jung-frau presses forward and seems to preside over and give a character to the whole of the vale that belongs only to this one spot," ... "Aug. 10th.— ... Reached Grindelwald, by the pass close to Jung-frau (at least separated from it by a deep cleft only), which sent forth its avalanches,—one grand beyond all description. It was an awful and a solemn sound." ... "Aug. 1st.— ... Nothing could exceed my delight when, through an opening between buildings at the skirts of the town, we unexpectedly hailed our old and side-by-side companion, the Rhine, now roaring like a lion, along his rocky channel. Never beheld so soft, so lovely a green, as is here given to the waters of this lordly river; and then, how they glittered and heaved to meet the sunshine."—Ed.
[231] 1832.
[232] Compare Hamlet, act I. scene i. l. 112.—Ed.
[233] See the Fenwick note preceding the Series.—Ed.
In this age a word cannot be said in praise of Laud, or even in compassion for his fate, without incurring a charge of bigotry; but fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, "that it is sufficient for his vindication to observe that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period." A key to the right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:—"Ever since I came in place, I have laboured nothing more than that the external publick worship of God, so much slighted in divers parts of this kingdom, might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be. For I evidently saw that the public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God, which while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour."—W. W. 1827.
[234] 1827.
[235] 1827.
[236] 1827.
[237] 1827.
[238] In his address, before his execution, Archbishop Laud said, "I am not in love with this passage through the Red Sea, and I have prayed ut transiret calix iste, but if not, God's will be done."—Ed.
[When I came to this part of the series I had the dream described in this Sonnet.[241] The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The Sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside: it was begun as I left the last house of the vale, and finished, word for word as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written: most of them were frequently retouched in the course of composition, and, not a few, laboriously.
I have only further to observe that the intended Church which prompted these Sonnets was erected on Coleorton Moor towards the centre of a very populous parish between three and four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on the road to Loughborough, and has proved, I believe, a great benefit to the neighbourhood.—I.F.]
[242] 1837.
[243] 1845.
[244] 1827.
[245] 1832.
[246] 1832.
[247] 1832.
[248] 1832.
[249] 1832.
[250] "No event ever marked a deeper or a more lasting change in the temper of the English people, than the entry of Charles the Second into Whitehall. With it modern England begins." (Green's Short History of the English People, chap. ix. sec. 1.)—Ed.
[251] "The Restoration brought Charles to Whitehall; and in an instant the whole face of England was changed. All that was noblest and best in Puritanism was whirled away." (Green, chap. ix. sec. I.) The excesses of every kind that came in with the Restoration were notorious.—Ed.
[252] 1837.
[253] In 1672 the Duke of York was publicly received into the Church of Rome.—Ed.