Vestments Controversy - The Controversy During The Reign of Edward VI

The Controversy During The Reign of Edward VI

John Hooper, having been exiled during King Henry's reign, returned to England in 1548 from the churches in Zürich that had been reformed by Zwingli and Bullinger in a highly iconoclastic fashion. Hooper became a leading Protestant reformer in England under the patronage of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and subsequently John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. Hooper's fortunes were unchanged when power shifted from Somerset to Northumberland, since Northumberland also favoured Hooper's reformist agenda.

When Hooper was invited to give a series of Lenten sermons before the king in February 1550, he spoke against the 1549 ordinal whose oath mentioned "all saints" and required newly elected bishops and those attending the ordination ceremony to wear a cope and surplice. In Hooper's view, these requirements were vestiges of Judaism and Roman Catholicism, which had no biblical warrant for authentic Christians since they were not used in the early Christian church.

Summoned to answer to the Privy Council and archbishop—who were primarily concerned with Hooper's willingness to accept the royal supremacy, which was also part of the oath for newly ordained clergy—Hooper evidently made sufficient reassurances, as he was soon appointed to the bishopric of Gloucester. Hooper declined the office, however, because of the required vestments and oath by the saints. This action violated the 1549 Act of Uniformity, which made declining the appointment without good cause, a crime against the king and state, so Hooper was called to answer to the king. The king accepted Hooper's position, but the Privy Council did not. Called before them on May 15, 1550, a compromise was reached. Vestments were to be considered a matter of adiaphora, or Res Indifferentes ("things indifferent", as opposed to an article of faith), and Hooper could be ordained without them at his discretion, but he must allow that others could wear them.

Hooper passed confirmation of the new office again before the king and council on July 20, 1550, when the issue was raised again, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was instructed that Hooper was not to be charged "with an oath burdensome to his conscience". Cranmer, however, assigned Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, to perform the consecration, and Ridley refused to do anything but follow the form of the ordinal as it had been prescribed by the Parliament of England.

A reformist himself, and not always a strict follower of the ordinal, Ridley, it seems likely, had some particular objection to Hooper. It has been suggested that Henrician exiles like Hooper, who had experienced some of the more radically reformed churches on the continent, were at odds with English clergy who had accepted and never left the established church. John Henry Primus also notes that on July 24, 1550, the day after receiving instructions for Hooper's unique consecration, the church of the Augustinian friars in London had been granted for use as a Stranger church with the freedom to employ their own rites and ceremonies. This development—the use of a London church virtually outside Ridley's jurisdiction—was one that Hooper had had a hand in.

The Privy Council reiterated its position, and Ridley responded in person, agreeing that vestments are indifferent but making a compelling argument that the monarch may require indifferent things without exception. The council became divided in opinion, and the issue dragged on for months without resolution. Hooper now insisted that vestments were not indifferent, since they obscured the priesthood of Christ by encouraging hypocrisy and superstition. Warwick disagreed, emphasising that the king must be obeyed in things indifferent, and he pointed to St Paul's concessions to Jewish traditions in the early church. Finally, an acrimonious debate with Ridley went against Hooper. Ridley's position centred on maintaining order and authority; not the vestments themselves, Hooper's primary concern.

Biblical texts cited in this and subsequent debates—and the ways in which they were interpreted—came to be defining features of conservative and puritan Protestant discourse. They were echoed elsewhere, such as the famous glosses of the Geneva Bible.