Veins of doctrine

Although no doubt some Elizabethans followed Traheron in claiming that the English Church was doctrinally Calvinist, a more common argument was that the first generation of Protestants, whether Lutheran or Reformed, had all agreed on predestination: there was therefore no good reason to argue about it. Edmund Grindal, for example, writing to Conrad Hubert in 1562, found it ‘astonishing that they [certain divines in Bremen] are raising such commotions about predestination. They should at least consult their own Luther on “the bondage of the will”. For what else do Bucer, Calvin and Martyr teach, that Luther has not maintained in that treatise?’ Hubert would no doubt have agreed: he had recently republished Bucer's early works in an attempt to support Zanchi's position at Strasburg. The claim that there was a consensus, whether Protestant or Reformed, was one way of inhibiting discussion.

Recent historiography has mirrored the change of emphasis: not very long ago it was still common to follow Traheron, but recent studies have reflected Grindal's standpoint. There is considerable evidence, however, of a strong element of wishful thinking in both. The Reformed tradition, as has already been demonstrated, was more diverse than Grindal would have cared to admit. It may be argued, furthermore, first that the doctrinal Reformation generally made much slower progress in the Elizabethan church than has until recently been recognized; secondly, that the extent as well as the nature of Swiss as opposed to Lutheran influence has almost certainly been misunderstood; thirdly, that much early Elizabethan ‘Calvinism’ was carefully moderate in its assertion of predestinarian doctrine.