NAG'S HEAD CONSECRATION. This story, which was first circulated by the Roman Catholics forty years after the event, with respect to archbishop Parker's consecration, was to the following effect. On the passing of the first Act of Uniformity in the first year of queen Elizabeth. fourteen bishops vacated their sees, and all the other sees excepting thst.'nfLlatidnif 119.ng vacant:. there wag i!dheulty In nutinteinme• the hitherto unbroken succession of tisk Ts from apostolical times. Kitehin of Llandaff refused to officiate at Parker's consecration, and consequently the Protestant divines procured the help of Story, a deprived bishop of the reign of Edward VI., and all having met at the Nag's Head tavern in Cheapside, they knelt before Scory, who laid a Bible on their heads or shoulders, saying: "Take thou authority to preach the word of God sincerely;" and they rose up bishops of the new church of England ! The story is discredited by the Roman Catholic historian Lingard, and is carefully refuted by Strype in his life of Parker. The facts of the case are, that the election took place in the chapter-house at
Canterbury, the confirmation at St. Mary-le-Bow's church in Cheapside, and the conse cration in the chapel of Lambeth palace. Semy, then elected to the see of Hereford; Barlow, formerly bishop of Wells, then elected to Chichester; Coverdale, formerly of Exeter, and never reappointed to any see; and Hodgkin, suffragan of Hereford, officiated at the consecration. The Nag's Head story probably arose from the company having possibly gone from Bow church, after the confirmation, to take a dinner together at the tavern hard by, according to the prevailing custom. The due succession of bishops in the English church has never been broken.