4 Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Epistle to the Princess Elizabeth: Models of Redemptive Kingship
CHAPTER 4
Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Epistle to the Princess Elizabeth: Models of Redemptive Kingship
Late in the year 1553, at the peak of his very distinguished academic career, Peter Martyr Vermigli departed
hastily from England en route to Strasbourg and Zurich. The great Italian reformer had served for six
years as Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford at the personal invitation of Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury. While at Oxford, Vermigli had participated in a critical disputation on the
eucharist,1 assisted Cranmer in the revision of the Book of
Common Prayer (1552)2 and served on a royal commission for
the reform of the canon law.3 Following the death of Edward VI,
however, the course of the Reformation in England suddenly reversed. During the ensuing
persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary, numerous English scholars soon followed Vermigli to Strasbourg and
thence to Zurich where they continued to hear his lectures and to promote with him the cause of religious reform
throughout Europe. At the death of Edward, Vermigli was in an awkward position. Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh
Latimer were all soon to be executed, and there were certainly many old adversaries at Oxford who would doubtless
have been happy to see the Florentine reformer consigned to the flames as well.4 Before receiving permission to depart the realm, Vermigli courageously consented to join
Cranmer and other Protestant divines in a public disputation with representatives of the new Marian Catholic
establishment in defence of the ‘doctrine and order of religion appointed’ by Edward VI.5 Cranmer, however, was imprisoned and nothing came of the proposed
disputation. Vermigli was allowed a passport, and departed for Strasbourg where he was reinstated in his former
chair.6
Concerning Vermigli’s safe conduct from England Josias Simler observes: ‘His friendes scarcelie beleeued, that
although he had had received the Queens Letters, that he could depart away safe. For his aduersaries said, that
so great an enemie of the Popes Religion should not be suffered to scape out of their hands, but should be
plucked euen out of the ship to prison and punishment’.7 After a
short period at Strasbourg, Vermigli became embroiled in eucharistic controversy between the Lutheran
establishment there and the minority of those who adhered to his own reformed position. Owing, however, to the
recent death of Konrad Pellikan, biblical scholar and exegete of the Schola Tigurina, Vermigli was
finally appointed to succeed in Pellikan’s place as Professor of Hebrew at Zurich in 1556.
Vermigli was soon followed to the continent by his disciple and amanuensis, John
Jewel. At the accession of Queen Mary, Jewel was charged not only with having preached heretical doctrine, but
also with having been a diligent hearer of Vermigli’s lectures and of refusing to attend mass. He was expelled
from Corpus Christi College, and after serving as notary to Cranmer and Ridley during their public disputation in
1554, fled to Frankfurt where he joined Richard Cox, the exiled former Dean of Christ Church, Vermigli’s former
College, and thence to Strasbourg at Vermigli’s invitation. Jewel assisted Vermigli as his secretary, and both he
and Cox eventually accompanied Vermigli to Zurich. Several of Marian exiles in Zurich were to become prominent
players in the Elizabethan Settlement; among them were no less than six future bishops, a clutch of Privy
Councillors and some of the leading lights of humanist, classical scholarship in the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. Of 23 episcopal appointments made in the period 1559–62, 14 were returned exiles.8 Among Elizabeth’s newly appointed bishops, six had followed Vermigli to
Zurich: John Jewel of Salisbury, Richard Cox of Ely, John Parkhurst of Norwich, Edwin Sandys of Worcester, James
Pilkington of Durham and Robert Horne of Winchester.
Some of the events in the final years of his career at Zurich before his death in 1562 indicate Vermigli’s
considerable stature as a reformer. While Professor of Hebrew at Zurich he was invited by Calvin to take up an
appointment at the Geneva Academy, and after the death of Queen Mary in November 1558 Vermigli was invited most
cordially by Elizabeth to return to his Regius Chair at Oxford. In April of 1559 John Jewel, lately appointed
Bishop of Salisbury, wrote to Vermigli in Zurich to convey that ‘the Queen both speaks and thinks most honourably
of you: she lately told Lord [Francis] Russell that she was desirous of inviting you to England, a measure which
is urged both by himself and others, as far as they are able’.9
Vermigli was not formally invited to return to his post as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford until 1561,
when he excused himself for reasons of health and his obligations to the Senate of Zurich. In a letter to the
Earl of Bedford responding to this royal invitation, he replied: ‘Truelie if I might haue mine owne will I woulde
no lesse serue the church of Englande than before time I haue doone: howbeit neither mine age nor the
strength of my body wil any longer indure the same, being not able to indure a viage solong,
so diuers and not altogether easie … it seemeth better for me that I remaine where I am [i.e. in
Zurich]’.10
In his Epistle to the Princess Elizabeth written at Zurich shortly after her accession to the throne of
England on 17 November 1558, Vermigli addresses a panegyric to the young queen containing both fulsome praise and
some fairly pointed advice.11 In an invocation of the Song of
Zechariah from the Gospel of Luke, Vermigli evokes a striking comparison of Elizabeth’s accession to the
scriptural trope of redemptive kingship. By means of an appeal to a host of Old Testament and early church
examples of kingship he goes on to advise Elizabeth on her duty of religious reform in England. Vermigli extends
the metaphor of anointed kingship to the point of identifying England as an ‘elect nation’. It is Elizabeth’s
divinely appointed task to ‘redeem’ England through the restoration and establishment of her ‘godly rule’. As in
the case of King David, successor of Saul and chief Old Testament exemplar of the anointed godly ruler, Vermigli
counsels Elizabeth that the restoration of true religion in the realm of England will rest upon her royal
shoulders. In the formulation of his advice, Vermigli maintains that Elizabeth’s life will involve a ‘double
service’ to God as both servant and ruler. The godly prince owes a twofold service of God, both as a human and as
a wearer of the divine mask of rulership. This distinction reveals a duality of nature that has significant
theological implications. In effect Elizabeth has ‘two bodies’ – a natural and therefore mortal body as a human,
and an immortal ‘politique’ body as sovereign.12 In this way
Vermigli’s panegyric conveys a Messianic analogy. The prince as the anointed of God – as christus –
unites two distinct natures in the identity of his person, that is to say ‘hypostatically’.
This account of princely authority might be described not unreasonably as a kind of ‘political Chalcedonianism’.
In his peroration he begs the queen ‘never to agree with those who pretend that having a care for reforming
religion does not pertain to princes’.13 One possible
constitutional paradigm for Vermigli’s recommendations concerning the authority of the civil magistrate to
exercise the so-called cura religionis is Heinrich Bullinger’s Zurich whence Vermigli’s letter to
Elizabeth is sent. The letter provides evidence of the importance of the ‘Zurich connection’ in shaping the
institutions of the Elizabethan religion Settlement.
Theodicy of the Marian Exile
Vermigli opens his letter with an Augustinian theodicy of the Marian persecution of English evangelicals during
the period 1553 to 1558: ‘The whole world is something of a school and training ground for our good God where he
teaches and trains his people through their performing various labours, occasionally through afflictions, and
sometimes through experiencing different sorts of perils’.14
While the sun shines and the rain pours on both the elect and non-elect, God does not permit those whom he loves
to ‘struggle with perpetual afflictions’, but rather his providence contrives their deliverance from these
dangers ‘so that he may declare that it is he who leads them up to and brings them back from the gates of
death’.15 Moreover, Vermigli continues, God ensures that the
image of Christ shines in his ‘adopted children’. According to Vermigli’s interpretation of the doctrine of
predestination, election is understood to be in Christum, and therefore his elect, consistent with the
divine prototype, ‘are destined to be conformed to his example, to die before rising’.16 The typological pattern of Christ’s suffering followed by rising again is
exemplified by some eminent examples from the biblical narrative of salvation history: the exodus of the
Israelites from Egypt, their deliverance from the wilderness into the land of Canaan and
their eventual return to Jerusalem out of the Babylonian captivity.17 In the person of Elizabeth herself, ‘most mighty Queen’, God’s ‘ancient custom’ is
reconfirmed and made even more manifest. According to this conceit Elizabeth is to be likened to Moses, Aaron,
Joshua and even to Christ himself for, as we shall see, the whole realm is understood by Vermigli as in some
mystical sense embodied by or rather hypostasized in the person of the godly prince. Thus the nation’s election
is to be interpreted as both a mystical insitio in Christum and an analogous political insitio in
regem; for the prince, like the ancient kings of Israel, is also an ‘anointed one’. Thus in the salvation
history of Vermigli’s panegyric, the typology of Christ works in both historical directions, that is to say, both
as prefigured in Old Testament kings and as recapitulated in Elizabeth herself. Through her experience of the
vicissitudes of the reign of her sister Mary, the princess Elizabeth was ‘preserved by divine power and not by
human help … for the salvation of Christ’s Church and for the restoration of the English
Commonwealth’.18
According to a hermeneutic such as this, Vermigli is able to pull out all the stops in the development of his
encomium. He quotes Psalm 118, a verse reputedly uttered by Elizabeth herself when she received the news of
Mary’s death and her own accession to the throne: ‘This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes; the
stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner’.19 Vermigli follows the usual interpretation of this Messianic psalm by applying the verses
to Christ and then adds: ‘But since godly persons are counted among his members I think these statements can be
applied to them as well, for … other members of his body are honoured and enjoy the distinctions and dignity of
their Head. This clearly should be taken as applying especially to those members in the Lord’s body whom he has
at last wished to appear conspicuously among his people such as Your Majesty’.20 The mystical analogy of sacred kingship between Christ and the anointed queen is echoed by
Shakespeare in the words of King Richard II:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.21
Can wash the balm from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.21
Mystical Headship
For Vermigli, just as the gift of the divine grace is communicated through the mediation of Christ for the
benefit of his invisible, mystical body, so also the gift of God in the elevation of Elizabeth to her throne for
the salvation of the visible, external church ‘is so great that it cannot be shut up in you [i.e. Elizabeth]
alone but flows out through you to a great number of the faithful’.22 By analogy with the operation of the mystical headship of Christ in the life of his
mystical body the church, Elizabeth herself is interpreted by Vermigli as a mediator of political benefits to her
own body politic, both civil and ecclesiastical:
And kings maie be called the heads of the Commonweale … For even as from the head is derived all the sense and
motion into the bodie, so the senses by good lawes, and motions, by edictes and commandements are derived from
the prince unto the people. And this strength exceedeth not the naturall power … For vertue springeth of
frequented Actions. So when as princes by lawes and edictes drive their subiects unto actions, they also drive
them unto vertues. But the spirit of God and regeneration are not attained by manie actions, but onelie by the
blessings of God.23
Elizabeth is ‘God’s substitute … anointed in his sight’.24 The
benefits of Elizabeth’s accession flow from her to her subjects. And consequently ‘for all those in that
kingdom [i.e. England] who are either born as citizens or wish it well [e.g. Vermigli himself and the Church of
Zurich] and those who are seeking nothing except the glory of Christ seem to themselves to be raised from the
dead along with you’.25 By her accession/resurrection Elizabeth
has become by this interpretation ‘the first fruits of them that slept’, that is of those who had endured
persecution, punishment and exile under the rule of Elizabeth’s sister Mary.26 This resurrection analogy is central to Vermigli’s conception of a
Messianic kingship. Vermigli proposes that the accession of Elizabeth is nothing less than a resurrection of the
entire corpus politicum. As the ‘body’ of the faithful are raised up by virtue of their participation in
Christ their common mystical ‘head’, so also by analogy the ‘politique bodie’ that is the realm of England is
raised through participation in Elizabeth who is their royal or political head. Thus Vermigli draws a parallel
between the invisible, mystical and inward community of the heavenly kingdom and the visible, political and
external body of the earthly realm. According to this analogy the queen is a political ‘type’ of Christ.
Just when one might have thought that the panegyric had reached its zenith, Vermigli extends the metaphor of the
prince as christus and outdoes himself with an invocation of the prophetical Song of Zechariah
from the Gospel of Luke. Zechariah is described by Luke as being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ when he uttered a
song of thanksgiving on the occasion of the birth of his son John, later called ‘the Baptist’, whose own
prophetical task was to ‘go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways’, viz. to announce the imminent
coming of Christ. Known to the church as the Benedictus, so called from the first word of the Vulgate
translation, this canticle is traditionally construed as being in ‘form’ an Old Testament prophecy and in
‘content’ a Christian thanksgiving for the realization of the Messianic hopes of the Jewish nation, a celebration
of the advent of the Redeemer, and thus the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham.27 In this sense the prophecy constitutes a bridge of
sorts between the Old and New Testaments. Within the logic of the panegyric Vermigli casts himself in the
prophetical role at the critical juncture between the old dispensation of Queen Mary and the new order under
Elizabeth:
Therefore the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ should be praised for having visited his people who were
almost dead and for having opened to the preaching of the Gospel of god’s Son a path which had too long been
blocked [v.68]. See, the horn of salvation is again raised in the kingdom of England [v.69] so that the elect of
God by the invincible power of our Saviour Jesus Christ might be delivered from the hand of their enemies [v.70]
and so that they might worship the holy God in a holy way according to what is prescribed in the divine letters
[v.73]. Now may there be glory in the highest, peace in the Church, and God’s good will toward the English people
so that by the guidance and good government of this godly queen her subjects, adorned with justice and holiness,
may always live innocently before him [v.74]. May he give them so much divine light that those who almost again
fell into the darkness and shadow of death during the preceding night may walk his paths without any offense now
that the day of peace has arisen [v.79].28
The accession of Elizabeth ‘whose people were almost dead’ under the rule of her sister Mary is likened to the
advent of the Redeemer. England under the ‘shadow’ of the papacy is in need of a restoration of the ‘evangelical
Religion’. And consequently, the ‘horn of salvation is again raised in the kingdom of England’.29 In this passage Vermigli draws a correspondence between the realm of
England and the house of David. Christ is the scion of David’s line while Elizabeth inherits the throne of her
Tudor forbears. As through the mediation of Christ the hope of humanity is restored inwardly and mystically, so
also through the mediation of Elizabeth the hope of England is restored politically and historically. That this
horn is raised ‘again’ recalls the reign of Elizabeth’s ‘dear brother’, and Vermigli’s erstwhile patron, King
Edward VI.30 The consequence of this ‘mighty salvation’ of
Elizabeth’s accession is the prospect of the worship of God according to the authority of sacred scripture. The
flow of Vermigli’s adaptation of the Benedictus is then briefly punctuated by an invocation of the hymn
of the angels, Gloria in excelsis, nearly verging upon the ecstatic: ‘Now may there be glory in the
highest, peace in the Church, and God’s good will toward the English people’.31 By her ‘guidance and good government’ her subjects, ‘adorned with justice
and righteousness’, are to be brought to live ‘innocently’ before God. In a final eschatological flourish,
Vermigli then prays for divine illumination ‘now that the day of peace has arisen’. It lies in Elizabeth’s hand,
‘after God’, to ensure that this gift of illumination will be brought to fulfillment.
More Practical Advice
Following this extraordinary rhetorical flight, the tone of the Epistle now takes a more didactic,
practical turn. In a manner comparable to Eusebius in his Oration to the Emperor Constantine, Vermigli
takes pains to remind Elizabeth that she holds her station solely by divine gift.32 Just as to Eusebius the emperor is in some respect a power comparable to the divine Logos,
yet not the divine Logos itself, so to Vermigli Elizabeth is a servant of Christ, though in her anointed office
she functions as the head of her body politic. ‘It is necessary for a king to serve God twice’, Vermigli states,
‘once as a human being by believing and living with faith, once as a king by ruling over people’. In the former
role she is herself a subject and servant; in the latter she is God’s own vice-gerent, one anointed to rule in
God’s place. By way of instruction and illustration of her role, Vermigli counsels Elizabeth to model her rule on the ‘unique and noble example of David … illustrious for his royal power and
famous for outstanding holiness’.33 David’s first and most
important task on becoming king was to return the ark of the covenant to its former honours, and thus to restore
true religion to Israel.34 The priests failed to perform the task
properly until driven to do so by David. Continuing the analogy, Vermigli observes that ‘this same work, most
illustrious Queen Elizabeth, God has handed over to your trust along with the kingdom. For it is your duty to
restore to its own place the holy Gospel of Christ, which has lain neglected … by the injury of the times and
importunity of our adversaries during the past years’.35
Vermigli signals his strong approval of the institution of the Royal Supremacy.36 The priests are to take their direction from the godly prince. By pointing out that the
priests in David’s time failed to fulfill their duty, Vermigli plainly indicates his view that the existing
Marian bench of bishops, not yet reconstituted by Elizabeth, ‘may go astray in the work of restoring the Church’.
Just as the priests once neglected to carry the ark upon their shoulders ‘as the divine law prescribed’, Vermigli
advises the queen to ‘be on guard lest such things happen so that, while church leaders fall into error or seek
to avoid work and a just discipline, they try to carry the ark of the Gospel not by the word of God or the
example of a pure life but by the carts of useless ceremonies …’37 He exhorts her to follow David’s example who ‘corrected the error of the priests,
distributed the Levites into certain ranks … these are the things that all godly men are expecting of you, most
holy Queen’. By her exercise of the sovereign power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction as Supreme Governor of the
Church of England, Elizabeth was to realize Vermigli’s hopes for the Settlement in the distribution of
ecclesiastical offices.38 In a scholium titled ‘Whether
there may be two heads of the Church, one visible, the other invisible’, Vermigli argues that while the exercise
of spiritual headship belongs properly to Christ alone, terrestrial headship of the church is the office of the
prince: ‘… this perhaps is it, why the king of England would be called head of his own Church next unto Christ.
For he thought that that power which the Pope usurped to himselfe was his, and in his owne
kingdome pertained to himselfe. The title indeed was unwonted and displeased manie godlie men: howbeit if we
consider the thing it selfe, he meant nothing else but that which we have now said’.39
Following the deprivation of the Marian bishops in 1559, new appointments to the bench of bishops were made by
the queen’s authority.40 Several of Elizabeth’s new prelates had
been close associates of Vermigli during his tenure of the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford during the reign of
Edward VI and had subsequently fled along with him to the continent after the accession of Queen Mary. Vermigli
had been treated rather better than most in that he had been allowed safe conduct.41 A number of them visited Zurich and enjoyed the hospitality of Heinrich Bullinger during
their period of exile.42
Testimony to the role of princes in establishing religion and worship is to be found in the examples of Hezekiah,
Josiah, Jehoash and the king of the people of Nineveh who is mentioned in the Book of Jonah; Darius and
Nebuchadnezzar are cited as well. Constantine, Theodosius, and Charlemagne as well as Elizabeth’s brother Edward
are identified as further evidence of this royal office. By embracing the cura religionis Elizabeth will
‘restore Christ’s Church which has almost completely collapsed; [she] will win the satisfaction of those in your
nation who are godly; and [she] will clearly show to foreign princes by [her] illustrious example a sound and
godly pattern for ruling’.43 Scripture demonstrates, and both
tradition and philosophy confirm, that it is the task of the godly magistrate to defend both tables of the law.
For
if the bishops and ministers of the churches have not performed their duty, if in handing down dogmas and
administering the sacraments they forsake the just regulation of the divine letters, who will recall them to the
right path unless it be the godly prince? Your Majesty should not expect in the current situation that they will
be impelled to these things by themselves; unless royal spurs move them they will not rebuild the ruins of God’s
temple.44
Vermigli then invites Elizabeth to ‘play the role of holy Deborah for our times’ and bring
her own elect nation, having been oppressed by the rule of her sister Mary, ‘into the sincere and pure liberty of
the Gospel’. Jael and Esther both offer encouragement to the young queen. By way of continuing the balance
between scriptural and non-scriptural authorities, Vermigli adds to these the examples of Artemesia who fought at
the Battle of Salamis ‘with a manly heart’ and Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who ruled over the eastern Roman Empire
and defeated the army of the Emperor Gallienus in the latter half of the third century.45 Vermigli’s recollection of Xerxes’ remark that ‘the men in that battle
were women, and the women showed themselves the bravest men’ presages Elizabeth’s famous speech to her troops at
Tilbury on the eve of the fight against the Spanish Armada in 1588.46 He concludes by urging the queen to gird herself ‘for the holy work’ before
her.47 Vermigli ends the epistle by returning to his opening
theme of salvation history: ‘The heavenly Father has the hearts of kings in his own hands, and kings reign
through him. By his own decision he transfers empires to whomever he wishes’.48 He prays that ‘the English church and nation’ will be guided by God’s Spirit and that the
queen herself will be kept ‘safe for a very long time by his saving grace’. Queen Elizabeth was to continue on
the throne for 45 more years until her death in 1603.