together in the Temple-Church there to have Preaching and to joyn together in Prayer with Humiliation and Fasting for the assistance of Gods Spirit in all their consultations during this Parliament and for the preservation of the Queens Majesty and her Realms And though they were so cautious in the choice of their Preachers to refer the naming of them to the Lords of the Council which were then Members of the House in hope to gain them also to avow the action yet neither could this satisfie the Queen or affect their Lordships For some of them having made the Queen acquainted with their purpose in it she sends a Message to them by Sir Christopher Hatton who was then Vice-Chamberlain by which he lets them know That her Majesty did much admire at so great a rashness in that House as to put in execution such an Innovation without her privity and pleasure first made known unto them Which Message being so delivered he moved the House to make humble submission to her Majesty acknowledging the said offence and contempt craving the remission of the same with a full purpose to forbear the committing of the like hereafter Which motion being hearkned to as there was good reason Mr. Vice-Chamberlain is desired to present their submission to the Queen and obtain her pardon which he accordingly performed 20. This practice gave the Queen so fair a Prospect into the counsels of the Faction that she perceived it was high time to look about her and to provide for the preserving of her power and Prerogative-Royal but more for the security of her Realm and Person To which end she procured a Statute to be made in that very Parliament by which it was Enacted That if any person or persons forty days after the end of that Session should advisâ—dly devise or write or print or set forth any manner of Book Rhyme Ballad Letter or Writing containing any false seditious or slanderous matter to the Defamation of the Queens Majestie or to the encouraging stirring or moving of any Insurrection or Rebellion within this Realm or any of the Dominions to the same belonging Or if any person after the time aforesaid as well within the Queens Dominions as in any other place without the same should procure such Book Rhyme Ballad c. to be written printed published or set forth c. the said offence not being within the compass of Treason by vertue of any former Statute that then the said Offenders upon sufficient proof thereof by two lawful witnesses should suffer death and loss of goods as in case of Felony And that the Queen may be as safe from the Machinations of the Papists as she was secured by this Act from the plots of the Puritans a Law was past To make it Treason for any Priest or Iesuit to seduce any of the Queens Subjects to the Romish Religion and for the Subjects to be reconciled to the Church of Rome This Act intituled An Act for retaining the Queens Subjects in their due obedience the other For the punishing seditious words against the Queen 23 Eliz. cap. 1 2. Which Statutes were contrived of purpose to restrain the Insolency of both Factions and by which many of them were adjudged to death in times ensuing Some of them as in case of Treason and others as the Authors or the Publishers of Seditious Pamphlets But the last Statute being made with Limitation to the life of the Queen it expired with her And had it been revived as it never was by either of the two last Kings it might possibly have prevented those dreadful mischiefs which their posterity for so long a time have been involved in 21. Together with this Parliament was held a Convocation as the Custom is In the beginning whereof an Instrument was produced under the Seal of Archbishop Grindal for substituting Dr. Iohn Elmore then Bishop of London a Prelate of great parts and spirit but of a contrary humour to the said Archbishop to preside therein which in the incapacity of the other he might have challenged as of right belonging to him Nothing else memorable in this Convocation but the admitting of Dr. William Day then Dean of Windsor to be Prolocutor of the Clergie the passing of a Bill for the grant of Subsidies and a motion made unto the Prelates in the name of the Clergie for putting the late Book of Articles in execution Nothing else done within those walls though much was agitated and resolved on by those of Grindals party in their private Meetings Some of the hotter heads amongst them had proposed in publick That the Clergie should decline all business even the grant of Subsidies till the Archbishop were restored to his place and suffrage But this could find no entertainment amongst wiser men Others advised That a Petition should be drawn in the name of both Houses by which Her Majestie might be moved to that restitution And though I find nothing to this purpose in the Publick Registers which may sufficiently evince that it never passed as an Act of the Convocation yet I find that such a Petition was agreed upon and drawn into form by Dr. Tobie Matthews then Dean of Christ-Church and by some Friends presented to Her Majesties sight Matthews was master of an elegant and fluent stile and most pathetically had bemoaned those sad misfortunes which had befallen that Prelate and the Church in â—im by suffering under the displeasure of a gratious Sovereign The mitigation whereof was the rather hoped for in regard he had offended more out of the tenderness of his Conscience then from the obstinacy of his will But no such answer being given unto this Petition as by his Friends might be expected Grindal continued under his Suspension till the time of his death Once it was moved to have a Co-adjutor imposed upon him who should not onely exercise the Iurisdiction but receive all the Rents and profits which belonged to his Bishoprick And so far they proceeded in it that Dr. Iohn Whitgift who had been preferred to the See of Worcester 1576. was nominated for the man as one sufficiently furnished with abilities to discharge the trust But he most worthily declined it and would not suffer the poor man to be stript of his clothes though for the apparelling of his own body with the greater honour till death had laid him in the bed of Eternal rest 22. But the troubles of this year were not ended thus For neither those good Laws before remembred nor the Executions done upon them could prevail so far as to preserve the Church from falling into those distractions which both the Papists and the Presbyterians had projected in it The Jesuits had hitherto been content to be lookers on aâ—d suffered the Seminary Priests to try their Fortunes in the reduction of this Kingdom to the See of Rome But finding how little had been done by them in twenty years so little that it came almost to less then nothing they are resolved to take
and assigned unto them with this Proviso super-added That if any of the said persons so abjuring should either not depart the Realm at the time appointed or should come back again unto it without leave first granted that then every such person should suffer death as in case of Felony without the benefit of his Clergy And to say the truth there was no reason why any man should have the benefit of his Clergy who should so obstinately refuse to conform himself to the Rules and Dictates of the Church There also was a penalty of ten pounds by the Month imposed upon all those who harboured any of the said Puritan Recusants if the said Puritan Recusants not being of their near Relations or any of them should forbear coming to some Church or Chappel or other place of Common-prayer to hear the Divine Service of the Church for the space of a Month. Which Statute being made to continue no longer than till the end of the next Session of Parliament was afterwards kept in force from Session to Session till the death of the Queen to the great preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom the safety of Her Majesty's Person aad the tranquillity of the Church free from thenceforth from any such disturbances of the Puritan Faction as had before endangered the Foundations of it 28. And yet it cannot be denied but that the seasonable execution of the former Statute on Barrow Penry and some others of these common Barreters conduced as much to the promoting of this general Calm as the making of this It was in the Month of November 1587 that Henry Barrow Gentleman and Iohn Greenwood Clerk of whose commitment with some others we have spoke before were publickly convented by the High Commissioners for holding and dispersing many Schismatical Opinions and Seditious Doctrines of which the principal were these viz. That our Church is no true Church That the Worship of the English Church is flat Idolatry That we admit into our Church unsanctified persons That our Preachers have no lawful Calling That our Government is ungodly That no Bishop or Preacher preacheth Christ sincerely or truly That the people of every Parish ought to chuse their Bishop And That every Elder though he be no Doctor or Pastor is a Bishop That all of the Preciser sort who refuse the Ceremonies of the Church strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel and are close Hypocrites and walk in a left-handed Policy as Cartwright Wiggington c. That all which make teach or expound Printed or Written Catechisms are idle Shepherds as Calvin Vrsin Nowell c. That the Children of ungodly Parents ought not to be baptized as of Usurers Drunkards c. and finally that set-prayer is blasphemous On their Convention and some short restraint for so many dotages they promised to recant and were enlarged upon their Bonds But being set at liberty they brake out again into further Extremities and drew some others to the side almost as mischievous as themselves and no less Pragmatical the principal whereof not to take notice of the Rabble of besotted people who became their followers were Saxio Billet Gentleman Daniel Studley Girdler Robert Bouler Fish-monger committed Prisoners to the Fleet with their principal Leaders in the Iuly following 29. The times were dangerous in regard of the great Preparations of the King of Spain for the invading of this Kingdom which rendred the imprisonment of these furious Sectaries as necessary to the preservation of the publick safety as the shutting up of so many of the Leading Papists into Wisbich Castle But so it was that the State being totally taken up with the prosecution of that Warr on the Coasts of Spain and the quenching of the fire at home which had been raised by Cartwright Vdal and the rest of the Disciplinarians there was nothing done against them but that they were kept out of harm's way as the saying is by a close Imprisonment During which time Cartwright who was their fellow-Prisoner had a Conference with them the rather in regard it had been reported from Barrow's mouth That he had neither acted nor written any thing but what he was warranted to do by Cartwright's Principles The Conference was private and the result thereof not known to many but left to be conjectured at by this following story The Reverend Whitgift had a great desire to save the men from that destruction in which they had involved themselves by their own perversâ—ess and to that end sends Dr. Thomas Ravis then one of his Chaplains but afterwards Lord Bishop of London to confer with Barrow At whose request and some directions from the Arch-bishop in pursuance of it Cartwright is dealt with to proceed to another Conference but no perswasions would prevail with him for a second Meeting Which being signified to Barrow by the said Dr. Ravys in the presence of divers persons of good account the poor man fetched a great sigh saying Shall I be thus forsaken by him Was it not he that brought me first into these briars and will he now leave me in the same Was it not from him alone that I took my grounds Or did I not out of such Premises as he pleased to give me infer those Propositions and deduce those Conclusions for which I am now kept in Bonds Which said the company departed and left the Prisoners to prepare for their following Tryal By the Imprisonment of Cartwright the Condemnation of Vdal and the Execution of Hacket the times had been reduced to so good a temper that there could be no danger in proceeding to a publick Arraignment The Parliament was then also sitting and possible it is that the Queen might pitch upon that time for their condemnation to let them see that neither the sitting of a Parliament nor any Friends they had in both or either of the Houses could either stay the course of Justice or suspend the Laws Certain it is that on the 21 of March 1592 they were all indicted at the Sessions-Hall without Newgate before the Lord Mayor the two Chief Justices some of the Judges and divers other Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for writing and publishing sundry Seditious Books tending to the slander of the Queen and State For which they were found guilty and had the Sentence of death pronounced upon them March 23. Till the Execution of which Sentence they were sent to Newgate 30. The fatal Sentence being thus passed Dr. Lancelot Andrews afterwards Lord Bishop of Ely Dr. Henry Parrey afterwards Lord Bishop of Worcester Dr. Philip Bisse Arch-Deacon of Taunton and Dr. Thomas White one of the Residentiaries of St. Pauls were sent to Barrow to advise him to recant those Errors which otherwise might be as dangerous to his soul as they had proved unto his body Who having spent some time to this purpose with him were accosted thus You are not saith he the men whom I most dislike in the present differences For though you be out
but not unlawful That therefore they endeavoured to perswade the Ministers rather to conform themselves than to leave their Flocks the people rather to receive the Communion kneeling than not to receive the same at all but that the Authors of that Book and some other Pamphlets pronounced them to be simply unlawful neither to be imposed nor used some of them thinking it a great part of godliness to cast off the Surplice and commanded their Children so to do This made the Bishops far more earnest to reduce them to a present Conformity than otherwise they might have been though by so doing they encreased those discontentments the seeds whereof were sown at the end of the Conference All this the Papists well observed and rejoyced at it intending in the carrying on of the Gun-powder Treason to lay the guilt thereof on the Puritans only But the King and his Council mined with them and undermined them and by so doing blew them up in their own Invention the Traytors being discovered condemned and executed as they most justly had deserved But this Design which was intended for a ruin of the Puritan Faction proved in conclusion very advantagious to their Ends and Purposes For the King being throughly terrified with the apprehension of so great a danger turned all his thoughts upon the Papists and was content to let the Puritans take breath and regain some strength that they might serve him for a counterpoise against the other as afterwards he gave some countenance to the Popish Party when he perceived the opposite Faction to be grown too head-strong Nor were the Puritans wanting to themselves upon this occasion but entertained the Court and Countrey with continual fears of some new dangers from the Papists and by appearance of much zeal for the true Religion and no less care for the preserving of their common Liberty against the encroachments of the Court came by degrees to make a Party in the House of Commons And hereunto K. IAMES unwittingly contributed his assistance also who being intent upon uniting the two Kingdoms by Act of Parliament suffered the Commons to expatiate in Rhetorical Speeches to call in question the extent of his Royal Prerogative to embrue many Church-concernments and to dispute the Power of the High-Commission By means whereof they came at last to such an height that the King was able in the end to do nothing in Parliament but as he courted and applyed himself to this popular Faction 13. Worse fared it with the Brethren of the Separation who had retired themselves unto Amsterdam in the former Reign than with their first Founders and Fore-fathers in the Church of England For having broken in sunder the bond of peace they found no possibility of preserving the spirit of unity one Separation growing continually on the neck of another till they were crumbled into nothing The Brethren of the first Separation had found fault with the Church of England for reading Prayers and Homilies as they lay in the Book and not admitting the Presbytery to take place amongst them But the Brethren of the second Separation take as much distaste against retaining all set-forms of Hymns and Psalms committing their Conceptions both in Praying and Prophesying to the help of Memory and did as much abominate Presbytery as the other liked it For first They pre-suppose for granted as they safely might that there be three kinds of Spiritual Worship Praying Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and then subjoyn this Maxim in which all agreed that is to say That there is the same reason of Helps in all the parts of Spiritual Worship as is to be admitted in any one during the performing of that Worship Upon which ground they charge it home on their fellow-Separatists That as in Prayer the Book is to be laid aside by the confession of the ancient Brethren of the Separation so must it also be in Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and therefore whether we pray or sing or prophesie it is not to be from the Book but out of the heart For Prophesying next they tell us that the Spirit is quenched two manner of ways by Memory as well as Reading And to make known how little use there is of Memory in the Act of Prophesying or Preaching they tell us That the citing of Chapter and Verse as not being used by Christ and his Apostles in their Sermons or Writings is a mark of Antichrist And as for Psalms which make the Third part of Spiritual Worship they propose these Queries 1. Whether in a Psalm a man must be tyed to Meeter Rythme and Tune and Whether Voluntary be not as necessary in Tune and Words as well as Matter And 2. Whether Meeter Rythme and Tune be not quenching the Spirit 14. According to which Resolution of the New Separation every man when the Congregation shall be met together may first conceive his own Matter in the Act of Praising deliver it in Prose or Meeter as he lists himself and in the same instant chant out in what Tune soever that which comes first into his own head Which would be such a horrible confusion of Tongues and Voices that hardly any howling or gnashing of teeth can be like unto it And yet it follows so directly on the former Principles that if we banish all set-forms of Common-Prayer which is but only one part of God's Publick Worship from the use of the Church we cannot but in Justice and in Reason both banish all studied and premeditated Sermons from the House of God and utterly cast out all King David's Psalms whether in Prose or Meeter that comes all to one and all Divine Hymns also into the bargain Finally as to Forms of Government they declared thus or to this purpose at the least if my memory fail not That as they which live under the Tyranny of the Pope and Cardinals worship the very Beast it self and they which live under the Government of Arch-bishops and Bishops do worship the Image of the Beast so they which willingly obey the Reformed Presbytery of Pastors Elders and Deacons worship the shadow of that Image To such ridiculous Follies are men commonly brought when once presuming on some New Light to direct their Actions they suffer themselves to be mis-guided by the Ignis fatuus of their own Inventions And in this posture stood the Brethren of the Separation Anno 1606 when Smith first published his Book of the present differences between the Churches of the Separation as he honestly calls them But afterwards there grew another great dispute between Ainsworth and Broughton Whether the colour of Aaron's Linnen Ephod were of Blew or a Sea-water Green Which did not only trouble all the Dyers in Amsterdam but drew their several Followers into Sides and Factions and made good sport to all the World but themselves alone By reason of which Divisions and Sub-divisions they fell at last into so many Fractions that one of them in the end became a Church of himself and
was the ruine of their Party and that they could not otherwise preserve their power then by open War The Prince of Conde seizeth on La Fere in Picardy and the King of Navar makes himself Master by strong hand on the City of Cahors which draws the King again from his Meditations under which must be covered his retirement from all publick business But La Fere being regained from the Prince of Conde the sacking of Cahors was connived at and the breach made up that so the Hugonots might be tempted to consume their Forces in the Wars of Flanders to which they were invited by their Brethren of the Belgick Provinces who had called in the Duke of Anjou against their King And so long France remained in quiet as that War continued But when the Duke returned after two or three years and that there was no hopes of his reverting to so great a charge the Hugonots wanting work abroad were furnished with this occasion to break out at home The Catholick League had now layn dormant for some years none seeming more Zealous then the King in the Cause of Rome But when it was considered by the Duke of Guise and the rest of the League that the Duke of Anjou being dead and the King without any hope of Issue the Crown must fall at last to the King of Navar it was resolved to try all means by which he might be totally excluded from the right of Succession For what hope could they give themselves to preserve Religion when the Crown should fall upon the head of an Heretick an Heretick relapsed and therefore made uncapable of the Royal Dignity by the Canon-Laws Of these Discourses and Designes of the Guisian Faction the King of Navar takes speedy notice and prepares accordingly thinking it best to be before-hand and not to be taken unprovided when they should come And to that end having first cleared himself by a Declaration from the crime of Heresie and now particularly from being a relapsed Heretick with many foul recriminations on the House of Guise he sends his Agents to sollicite the German Princes to come in to aid him against the oppressions of the League which seemed to aim at nothing but the ruine of the Realm of France which so exasperated those of the Guisian Faction that they prevailed by their Emissaries with Pope Sixtus the Fifth to Excommunicate the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde and to declare them both uncapable of the Royal Succession as relapsed Hereticks Which he performed in open Consistory on the ninth of September 1585 and published the sentence by a special Bull within three dayes after 41. The French King in the mean time findes himself so intangled in the Snares of the League and such a general defection from him in most parts of the Kingdom that he was forced by his Edict of the ninth of Iuly to revoke all former grants and capitulations which had been made in favour of the Hugonot party After which followed a new War in which the Switz and Germans raise great Levies for the aid of the Hugonots sollicited thereunto amongst many others by Theodore Beza who by his great Eloquence and extraordinary diligence did prevail so far that the Princes Palatine the Count Wirtemberge the Count of Montbelguard and the Protestant Cantons of the Switz agreed to give them their assistance Amongst whom with the helps which they received from the King of Denmark and the Duke of Saxony a mighty Army was advanced consisting of thirty two thousand Horse and Foot that is to say twelve thousand German Horse four thousand Foot and no fewer then sixteen thousand Switz For whose advance besides a general contribution made on all the Churches of France the sum of sixty thousand Crowns was levyed by the Queen of England and put into the hands of Prince Casimire before remembred who was to have the Chief Command of these Forreign Forces These Forreign Forces made much greater by the accession of eight thousand French which joyned unto them when they first shewed themselves upon the Borders Of which two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot were raised by the Signory of Geneva But before this vast Army could come up to the King of Navar the Duke of Ioyeuse gives him battel near a place called Coutrasse at which time his whole Forces were reduced to four thousand Foot and about two thousand five hundred Horse with which small Army encountred a great power of the Duke of Ioyeuse and obtained a very signal Victory there being slain upon the place no fewer then three thousand men of which the Duke of Ioyeuse himself was one more then three thousand taken prisoners together with all the Baggage Arms and Ammunition which belonged to the Enemy After which followed the defeat of the Germans by the Duke of Guise and the violent proceedings of the Leaguers against the King which brought him to a necessity of joyning with the King of Navar and craving the assistance of his Hugonot Subjects whose Arms are now legitimated and made acts of Duty In which condition I shall leave them to their better Fortunes first taking a survey of the proceedings of the Calvinists in the neighbouring Germany passing from thence to the Low Countries and after crossing over to the Isles of Britain The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration of the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformation begun by Luther and pursued by Zuinglius was entertained in many Provinces of the Higher Germany according as they stood affected to either party or were transported by the ends and passions of their several Princes But generally at the first they inclined to Luther whose way of Reformation seemed less odious to the Church of Rome and had the greatest approbation from the States of the Empire the Duke of Saxony adhered unto him at his first beginning as also did the Marquess of Brandenbourg the Dukes of Holsteine the two Northern Kings and by degrees the rest of the German Princes of most power and value except onely those of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria the three Elector Bishops the Duke of Cleve the Marquess of Baden and generally all the Ecclesiasticks which were not under the Command of the Lutheran States The Prince Electoâ— Palatine came not in to the party till the year 1546. At which time Frederick the Second though scarce warm in his own Estate on which he entred Anno 154â— took the advantage of the time to reform his Churches the Emperour being then brought low by the change of Fortune and forced not long after to abandon Germany Upon the 1â— of Ianuary he caused Divine Offices to be celebrated in the Mother-tongue in
shall hereafter treat of them as they come before us with reference to the Practises and Proceedings of their English Brethren And first beginning with the Scots it is to be remembred that we left them at a very low ebb the Earl of Goury put to death many of the Nobility exiled into Forreign Countreys and the chief Zealots of the Faction amongst the Ministers putting themselves into a voluntary Banishment because they could not have their wills on the King and Council England as nearest hand was the common Sanctuary to which some Lords and almost all the Refractory Ministers had retired themselves Much countenanced by Mr. Secretary Walsingham who had set them on work and therefore was obliged to gratifie them in some fit proportion To such of the Nobility as had fled into England he assigned the Isle of Lindisfarm commonly called the Holy Island not far from Berwick with order to the Lord Hundsdon who was then Governour of that Town to give them the possession of it But Hundsdon though he had less Zeal had so much knowledg of his Duty as to disobey him considering the great consequence of the place and that there was no impossibility in it but that the Scots might make use of it to the common prejudice if they should prove Enemies to this Crown as perhaps they might A matter which the Secretary would not have passed over in so light a manner but that an Ambassador was sent at the same time from the King of Scots by whom it was desired that the Fugitives of that Nation whatsoever they were might either be remitted home or else commanded not to live so near the Borders where they had opportunity more than stood with the good of that Kingdom to pervert the Subjects Which Reasonable Desire being yeelded unto the Lords and Great men of that Nation were ordered to retire to Norwich and many of the Ministers permitted to prepare for London Oxon Cambridg and some other places where some of them procured more mischief to the Church of England than all of them could have done to their own Countrey had they staid at Berwick 2. At London they are suffered by some zealous Brethren to possess their Pulpits in which they rail without comptroll against their King the Council of that Kingdom and their natural Queen as if by the practises of the one and the connivence of the other the Reformed Religion was in danger to be rooted out Some Overtures had been made at that time by the Queen of Scots by which it was desired that she might be restored unto the Liberty of her person associating with the young King in the Government of the Realm of Scotland and be suffered to have the Mass said in her private Closet for her self and her Servants The news whereof being brought to London filled all the Pulpits which the Scots were suffered to invade with terrible Complaints and Exclamations none of them sparing to affirm That her Liberty was inconsistent with Queen Elizabeth's Safety That both Kingdoms were undone if she were admitted to the joynt-Government of the Realm of Scotland and That the Reformed Religion must needs breathe its last if the Popish were permitted within the Walls of the Court. Which points they pressed with so much vehemence and heat that many were thereby inflamed to join themselves in the Association against that Queen which soon after followed Against their King they railed so bitterly and with such reproach one Davinson more than any other that upon complaint made by the Scottish Ambassador the Bishop of London was commanded to silence all the Scots about the City and the like Order given to the rest of the Bishops by whom they were inhibited from preaching in all other places But the less noise they made in the Church the more closely and dangerously they practised on particular persons in whom they endeavoured to beget an ill opinion of the present Government and to engage them for advancing that of the Presbyterian in the place thereof But this they had followed more successfully at the Act in Oxon where they are liberally entertained by Genebrand and the rest of the Brethren amongst which Wilcox Hen and Ackton were of greatest note And at this time a question was propounded to them concerning the proceeding of the Minister in his duty without the assistance or tarrying for the Magistrate How they resolved this question may be easily guessed partly by that which they had done themselves when they were in Scotland and partly by the Actings of their English Brethren in pursuance of it 3. For presently after Gelibrand deals with divers Students in their several Colledges to put their hands unto a paper which seemed to contain somewhat in it of such dangerous nature that some did absolutely refuse and others required further time of deliberation of which Gelibrand thus writes to Field on the 12 th of Ian. then next following I have already saith he entred into the matters whereof you write and dealt with three or four several Colledges concerning those amongst whom they live I find that men are very dangerous in this point generally favouring Reformation but when it comes to the particular point some have not yet considered of the things for which others in the Church are so much troubled others are afraid to testifie any thing with their hands lest it breed danger before the time and many favour the Cause of the Reformation but they are not Ministers but young Students of whom there is good hope if they be not cut off by violent dealing before the time As I hear by you so I mean to go forward where there is any hope and to learn the number and certifie you thereof c. But that these secret practises might not be suspected they openly attend the Parliament of this year as at other times in hope of gaining some advantage against the Bishops and the received Orders of the Church For in the Parliament of this year which began on the Twenty third of November they petitioned amongst other things That a Restraint might be laid upon the Bishops for granting of Faculties conferring of Orders as also in the executing of Ecclesiastical Censure the Oath Ex Officio permitting Non-residence and the like But the Queen would not hearken to it partly because of the dislike she had of all Innovations which commonly tend unto the worse but chiefly in regard that all such Applications as they made to the Parliament were by her looked on as derogatory to her own Supremacy So that instead of gaining any of those points at the hands of the Parliament they gained nothing but displeasure from the Queen who is affirmed by Stow to have made a Speech at the end of their Session and therein to have told the Bishops That if they did not look more carefully to the discharge of their Duties she must take order to deprive them Sharp words and such as might necessitate the Bishops to
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
the Superiority of Bishops and the Supremacy of the Queen together with the dangerous Practises and Designs of the Disciplinarians exemplified by their Proceedings in Scotland and their Positions in England of which more anon All which particulars with many more upon the by he proved with such evidence of demonstration such great variety of Learning and strength of Arguments that none of all that Party could be found to take Arms against them in defence either of their leud Doctrine or more scandalous Vses And this being done he closed up all with a grave and serious Application in reference to the prevalency and malignity of the present Humours which wrought so much upon his Auditors of both Houses of Parliament that in the passing of a general Pardon at the end of the Sessions there was Exception of Seditious Books Disturbances of Divine Service and Offences against the Act of Vniformity in the Worship of God 30. And yet it is not altogether improbable but that this Exception was made rather at the Queen's Command or by some Caveat interposed by the House of Peers than by the sole Advice or any voluntary Motion of the House of Commons in which the Puritans at that time had a very strong Party By whose Endeavour a smart Petition is presented to the Lords in the Name of the Commons for rectifying of many things which they conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church The whole Petition did consist of Sixteen particulars of which the first Six did relate to a Preaching-Ministry the want of which was much complained of in a Supplication which had been lately Printed and presented to them but such a Supplication as had more in it of a Factious and Seditious Libel than of a Dutiful Remonstrance In the other Ten it was desired 1. That no Oath or Subscription might be tendred to any at their entrance into the Ministry but such as was prescribed by the Statutes of the Realm and the Oath against corrupt Entring 2. That they may not be troubled for omission of some Rites or Offices prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer 3. That such as had been suspended or deprived for no other offence but only for not subscribing might be restored 4. That they may not be called and urged to answer before the Officials and Commissaries but before the Bishops themselves 5. That they might not be called into the High Commission or Moot of the Diocess where they lived except for some notable Offence 6. That it might be permitted to them in every Arch-Deaconry to have some common Exercises and Conferences amongst themselves to be limited and prescribed by the Ordinaries 7. That the high Censure of Excommunication may not be denounced or executed for small matters 8. Nor by Chancellors Commissioners or Officials but by the Bishops themselves with the assistance of grave persons 9. That Non-residency may be quite removed out of the Church Or 10. That at least according to the Queen's Injunctions Art 44. no Non-resident having already a License or Faculty may enjoy it unless he depute an able Curate that may weekly Preach and Catechise as was required by Her Majesty in the said Injunctions Against the violence of this Torrent Arch-bishop Whitgift interposed both his Power and Reason affirming with a sober confidence in the H. of Peers not only that England flourished more at that time with able Ministers than ever it had done before but that it had more able men of eminent Abilities in all parts of Learning than the rest of Christendom besides But finding that the Lord Gray and others of that House had been made of the Party he drew the rest of the Bishops to joyn with him in an humble Address to Her Sacred Majesty in which they represented to Her the true estate of the Business together with those many Inconveniences which must needs arise to the State present and to come to the Two Universities to all Cathedral Churches and the Queen Her Self if the Commons might have had their will though in no other Point than in that of Pluralities All which they prest with such a Dutiful and Religious Gravity that the Queen put an end to that Dispute not only for the present but all Parliaments following 31. Somewhat there must be in it which might make them so afraid of that Subscription which was required at their hands to the Queen's Supremacy as well as to the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the Liturgy and to the Articles of Religion by Law established and therefore it will not be amiss as we have done already in all places else to touch upon the Principles and Positions of our English Puritans that we may see what Harmony and Consent there is betwixt them and their dear Brethren of the Discipline in other Nations For if we look into the Pamphlets which came out this Year we shall find these Doctrines taught for more Sacred Truths viz. That if Princes do hinder them that seek for this Discipline they are Tyrants both to the Church and Ministers and being so may be deposed by their Subjects That no Civil Magistrate hath pre-eminence by ordinary Authority either to determine of Church-Causes or to make Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies That no Civil Magistrate hath such Authority as that without his consent it should not be lawful for Ecclesiastical persons to make and publish Church-Orders That they which are no Elders of the Church have nothing to do with the Government of it That if their Reformation be not hastned forward by the Magistrate the Subjects ought not any longer to tarry for it but must do it themselves That there were many thousands which desired the Discipline And That great Troubles would ensue if it were denied them That their Presbyteries must prevail And That if it be brought about by such ways and means as would make the Bishops hearts to ake let them blame themselves For explication of which last passage Martin Mar-Prelate in his first Book threatens only fists but in the second he adviseth the Parliament then assembled to put down Lord Bishops and bring in the Reformation which they looked for whether Her Majesty would or not 32. But these perhaps were only the Evaporations of some idle Heads the Freaks of Discontent and Passion when they were crossed in their Desires Let us see therefore what is taught by Thomas Cartwright the very Calvin of the English as highly magnified by Martin and the rest of that Faction as the other was amongst the French Dr. Harding in his Answer to Bishop Iewel assures us That the Office of a King is the same in all places not only amongst Christians but amongst the Heathen Upon which Premises he concludes That a Christian Prince hath no more to do in deciding of Church-matters or in making Ceremonies and Orders for the same than hath a Heathen Cartwright affirms himself to be of the same opinion professing seriously his dislike of all such Writers
the other two In whose behalf when it was moved by one Mr. Wroth That the House should be humble Suitors to Her Majesty for the releasing of such of their Members as were under restraint it was answered by such of the Privy-Councellors as were then Members of the House That Her Majesty had committed them for causes best known to Her self and that to press Her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an account for what she did of Her Royal Authority That the Causes for which they are restrained may be high and dangerous That Her Majesty liketh no such Questions neither did it become the House to deal in such matters Upon which words the House desisted from interposing any further in their behalf but left them wholly to the Queen by whom Wentworth was continued Prisoner for some years after 24. In the same Parliament one Morrise Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster proposed unto the House That some course might be taken by them against the hard courses of Bishops Ordinaries and other Ecclesiastical Judges in their several Courts towards sundry godly Ministers and painful Preachers who deserved more encouragement from them They also spake against Subscription and the Oath Ex Officio and offered a Bill unto the House against the imprisonment of such as refused the same Of this the Queen had present notice and thereupon sends for Coke then Speaker of the House of Commons but afterwards successively Chief Justice of either Bench to whom she gave command to deliver this Message to the House that is to say That it was wholly in Her Power to call to determine to assent or dissent to any thing done in Parliament That the calling of this was only that the Majesty of God might be more Religiously observed by compelling with some sharp Laws such as neglect that Service and that the safety of Her Majesty's Person and the Realm might be provided for That it was not meant they should meddle with matters of State or Causes Ecclesiastical That She wondered that any should attempt a thing so contrary to Her Commandment and that She was highly offended at it and finally that it was Her pleasure That no Bill touching any matters of State or for the Reformation of Causes Ecclesiastical should be there exhibited On the delivery of which Message Morrise is said to have been seized on in the House by a Serjeant at Arms but howsoever seized on and committed Prisoner kept for some years in Tutbury Castle discharged from his Office in the Dutchy and disabled from any Practise in his Profession as a common Lawyer Some others had prepared a Bill to this effect That in lieu of Excommunication there should be given some ordinary Process with such sute and coertion as thereunto might appertain that so the dignity of so high a Sentence being retained and the necessity of mean Process supplied the Church might be restored to its ancient splendor Which Bill though recommended somewhat incogitantly by one of the Gravest Councellors of State which was then in the House was also dashed by Her Majesty's express Command upon a Resolution of not altering any thing the quality of the times considered which had been setled in the Church both by Law and Practise Which constancy of Hers in the preserving of Her own Prerogative and the Church's Power kept down that swelling humour of the Puritan Faction which was even then upon the point of overflowing the banks and bearing down all opposition which was made against them 25. And that they might be kept the better in their natural Channel she caused an Act to be prepared and passed in this present Parliament for retaining them and others of Her Subjects in their due obedience By which it was Enacted for the preventing and avoiding of such Inconveniencies and Perils as might happen and grow by the wicked and dangerous Practices of Seditious Sectaries and Disloyal persons That if any person or persons above the age of sixteen years should obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chappel or usual place of Common-Prayer to hear Divine Service established or shall forbear to do the same by the space of a Month without lawful cause or should move or perswade any other person whatsoever to forbear and abstain from coming to the Church to hear Divine Service or to receive the Communion according to the Laws and Statutes aforesaid or to come or be present at any unlawful Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under pretence of Religious Exercise contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf or should at any time after forty days from the end of that Session by Printing Writing or express Words or Speeches advisedly and purposely go about to move or perswade any of Her Majesty's Subjects or any other within Her Highness Realms and Dominions to deny withstand or impugn Her Majesty's Power and Authority in causes Ecclesiastical united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm That then every person so offending and convicted of it should be committed unto Prison without Bail or Main-prise till he or they should testifie their Conformity by coming to some Church Chappel or other place of Common-prayer to hear Divine Service and to make open submission and declaration of the same in such form and manner as by the said Statute was provided Now that we may the better see what great care was taken as well by the two Houses of Parliament as by the Queen Her self for preserving the Honour of the Church the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the Royal Prerogative in both it will not be amiss to represent that Form to the eye of the Reader in which the said Submission was to be delivered The tenour whereof was as followeth viz. 26. I A. B. do humbly confess and acknowledg That I have grievously offended God in contemning Her Majesty's godly and lawful Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing Divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting disordered and unlawful Conventicles and Assemblies under pretence and colour of exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same and do acknowledg and testifie in my Conscience That no person or persons hath or ought to have any Power or Authority over Her Majesty And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation or any colour of means of any Dispensation That from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform Her Majesty's Laws and Statutes in repairing to the Church and hearing Divine Service and do mine utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same 27. This Declaration to be made in some Church or Chappel before the beginning of Divine Service within three Months after the conviction of the said Offenders who otherwise were to abjure the Realm and to depart the same at such time and place as should be limited
the Ambassadors of some Forreign States as if they had been a Common-wealth distinct from the Realm of France More than which they audaciously importuned the King of whose affection to them they presumed too far by their several Agents for liberty of going wheresoever they listed or sending whomsoever they pleased to the Councils and Assemblies of all Neighbouring-Estates and Nations which profest the same Religion with them This though it had not been the first was looked on as their greatest encroachment on the Royal Authority which in conclusion proved the ruin of their Cause and Party For what else could this aim at as was well observed by the King then reigning but to make themselves a State distinct and independent to raise up a new Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom and to make the Schism as great in Civil as in Sacred matters Which wrought so far upoa the Councils of his next Successor who had not been trained up amongst them as his Father was that he resolved to call them to a sober reckoning on the next occasion and to deprive them all at once of those Powers and Priviledges which they so wantonly abused unto his disturbance Of which we shall speak more hereafter in its proper place In the mean time let us cross over into Scotland where all Assairs moved retrograde and seemed to threaten a relapse to their old Confusions A general Assembly had been intimated to be held at Aberdeen in the Month of Iuly Anno 1604 which by reason that the King was wholly taken up with effecting the Union was adjourned to the same Month in the year next following In the mean season some of the more Factious Ministers hoping to raise no small advantage to themselves and their Party by the absence of so many persons of most Power and Credit began to entertain new Counsels for the unravelling of that Web which the King had lately wrought with such care and cunning The King hears of it and gives Order to suspend the Meeting till his further Pleasure were declared Wherein he was so far obeyed by the major part that of the fifty Presbyteries into which the whole Kingdom was divided Anno 1592 nine only sent Commissioners to attend at Aberdeen When the day came the Meeting was so thin and slender that there appeared not above one and twenty when they were at the fullest But they were such as were resolved to stand stoutly to it each man conceiving himself able in the Cause of God to make resistance to an Army The Laird of Lowreston commands them in the King's Name to return to their Houses to discontinue that unlawful Assembly and not to meet on any publick occasion which concerned the Church but by his Majesty's Appointment They answer That they were assembled at that time and place according to the word of God and the Laws of the Land and that they would not betray the Liberties of the Kirk of Scotland by obeying such unlawful Prohibitions Which said and having desired him to withdraw a while they made choice of one Forbes for their Moderator and so adjourned themselves to September following Lowreston thereupon denounced them Rebels and fearing that some new affront might be put upon him and consequently on the King in whose Name he acted he seeks for Remedy and Prevention to the Lords of the Council Forbes and Welch the two chief sticklers in the Cause are by them convented and not abating any thing of their former obstinacy are both sent Prisoners unto Blackness A day is given for the appearance of the rest which was the third day of October at what time thirteen of the number made acknowledgment of their offence and humbly supplicated that their Lordships would endeavour to procure their Pardon the rest remaining in their disobedience are by the Lords disposed of into several Prisons 19. But these proceedings did so little edifie with that stubborn Faction that the Lords of the Council were condemned for their just severity and all their Actings made to aim at no other end but by degrees to introduce the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of England The King endeavours by a Declaration to undeceive his good people and reclaim these obstinate persons from the ways of ruin and intimates withall that a new Assembly should be held at Dundee in the Iuly following But this prevails as little as the former course Which puts the business on so far that either the King must be conformable to their present humour or they submit themselves to the King 's just Power The Lords resolve upon the last command them to appear at the Council-Table to receive their Sentence and nominated the 24 th of October for the Day of Doom Accordingly they came but they came prepared having subscribed a publick Instrument under all their hands by which they absolutely decline the Judgment of the King and Council as altogether incompetent and put themselves upon the tryal of the next Assembly as their lawful Judg. Before they were convented only for their Disobedience but by this Declinator they have made themselves Traytors The King is certified of all this and being resolved upon the maintenance of his own Authority gave order That the Law should pass upon them according to the Statute made in Parliament Anno 1584. Hereupon Forbes Welch Duncam Sharp Davie Straghan are removed from Blackness arraigned at an Assize held in Linlithgoe found guilty by the Jury and condemned to death but all of them returned to their several Prisons till the King's Pleasure should be known for their Execution The Melvins and some other of the principal Zealots caused Prayers and Supplications to be made in behalf of the Traytors though they had generally refused to perform that office when the King's Mother was upon the point of losing her life upon a more unwarrantable Sentence of Condemnation This brought forth first a Proclamation inhibiting all Ministers to recommend the condemned persons unto God in their Prayers or Sermons and afterwards a Letter to some Chiefs amongst them for waiting on His Majesty at the Court in England where they should be admitted to a publick Conference and have the King to be their Judg. 20. Upon this Summons there appear in behalf of the Church the Arch-bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow the Bishops of Orkney and Galloway together with Nicolson the designed Bishop of Dunkeeden And for the Kirk the two Melvins Colt Carmichall Scot Balfour and Watson The place appointed for the Conference was Hampton-Court at which they all attended on Septemb. 20. But the Kirk-Party came resolved neither to satisfie the King nor be satisfied by him though he endeavoured all fit ways for their information To which end he appointed four Eminent and Learned Prelates to preach before them in their turns the first of which was Dr. Barlow then Bishop of Rochester who learnedly asserted the Episcopal Power out of those words to the Elders at Ephesus recorded Acts 20.
v. 28. The second was Dr. Buckeridg then Master of St. Iohn's Colledg in Oxon and afterwards preferred to the See of Rochester who no less learnedly evinced the King's Supremacy in all Concernments of the Church selecting for his Text the words of same Apostle Rom. 13. v. 1. Next followed Dr. Andrews then Bishop of Chichester who taking for his Text those words of Moses viz. Make thee two Trumpets of silver c. Numb 10. v. 2. convincingly demonstrated out of all Antiquity That the calling of all General and National Councils had appertained unto the Supreme Christian Magistrate Dr. King then Dean of Christ-Church brings up the Rear and taking for his Text those words of the Canticles Cap. 8. v. 11. disproved the calling of Lay-Elders as men that had no Power in governing the Church of Christ nor were so much as heard of in the Primitive times But neither the Learned Discourses of these Four Prelates nor the Arguments of the Scottish Bishops nor the Authority and Elocution of the King could gain at all on these deaf Adders who came resolved not to hear the voice of those Charmers charmed they never so wisely Thus have we seen them in their Crimes and now we are to look upon them in their several Punishments And first the Ministers which had been summoned into England were there commanded to remain until further The six which were condemned for Treason were sentenced by the King to perpetual banishment and never to return to their Native Countrey upon pain of death And as for those which had acknowledged their offence and submitted to mercy they were confined unto the Isles and out-parts of the Kingdom where they may possibly work some good but could do no harm After which Andrew Melvin having made a Seditious Libel against the Altar and the Furniture thereof in His Majesty's Chappel was brought into the Starr-Chamber by an Ore tenus where he behaved himself so malepertly toward all the Lords and more particularly towards the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London and there remained till he was begged by the Duke of Bouillon and by him made Professor of Divinity in the School of Sedan 21. During the time that all men's Eyes were fastned on the issue of this great Dispute the King thought fit to call a Parliament in Scotland which he managed by Sir George Hume his right trusty Servant not long before created Earl of Dunbar and made Lord Treasurer of that Kingdom His chief Work was to settle the Authority of the King and the Calling of Bishops that they might mutually support each other in the Government of the Church and Stateâ—punc It was supposed that no small opposition would be made against him by some Puritan Ministers who repaired in great numbers to the Town as on their parts it was resolved on But he applyed himself unto them with such Art and Prudence that having taken off their edg the Acts passed easily enough with the Lords and Commons By the first Act the King's Prerogative was confirmed over all Persons and in all Causes whatsoever Which made Him much more Absolute in all Affairs which had relation to the Church than he had been formerly And by the next entituled An Act for Restitution of the Estate of Bishops the Name of Bishops was conferred upon such of the Ministers as by the King were nominated unto any of the Bishop-Sees and thereby authorized to have place in Parliament A course was also taken by it to repossess the Bishops of the Lands of their several Churches as well as their Titles and Degree not that a Plenary re-possession of their Lands was then given unto them but that by a Repeal of the late Act of Annexation the King was put into a capacity of restoring so much of the Rents as remained in the Crown and otherwise providing for them out of his Revenues And that the like distraction might not be made of their Estates for the time to come an Act was passed for restraining such Dilapidations as had impoverish'd all the Bishopricks since the Reformation After which and the dooming of the greater Zealots to their several Punishments he indicts a general Assembly at Linlithgow in December following at which convened One hundred thirty six Ministers and about Thirty three of the Nobility and principal Gentry In this Assembly it was offered in behalf of his Majesty That all Presbyteries should have their constant Moderators for whose encouragement his Majesty would assign to each of them a yearly stipend amounting to One hundred pounds or Two hundred Marks in the Scots account That the Bishops should be Moderators of all Presbyteries in the Towns and Cities where they made their residence as also in Provincial and Diocesan Synods and that the Bishops should assume upon themselves the charge of prosecuting Papists till they returned to their obedience to the King and the Church In the obtaining of which Acts there was no small difficulty but he obtained them at the last though not without some limitations and restrictions super-added to them under pretence of keeping the Commissioners hereafter to be called Bishops within their bounds 22. The Presbyterians notwithstanding were not willing to forgo their Power but strugling like half-dying men betwixt life and death laid hold on all advantages which were offered to them in opposition to the Acts before agreed on Gladstanes Arch-bishop of St. Andrews taking upon him to preside as Moderator in the Synod of Fife being within his proper Diocese and Jurisdiction was for a while opposed by some of the Ministers who would have gone to an Election as at other times The Presbyteries also in some places refused to admit the Bishops for their Moderators according to the Acts and Constitutions of the said Assembly Which though it put the Church into some disorder yet the Bishops carried it at the last the stoutest of the Ministers suâ—mitting in the end unto that Authority which they were not able to contend with In which conjuncture the King gives order for a Parliament to be held in Iune in which He passed some severe Laws against the Papists prohibiting the sending of their Children to be educated beyond the Seas and giving order for the choice of Pedagogues or Tutors to instruct them there as also against Jesuits and the Sayers and Hearers of Mass. The cognizance of several Causes which anciently belonged to the Bishops Courts had of late times been setled in the Sessions or Colledg of Justice But by an Act of this Parliament they are severed from it and the Episcopal Jurisdiction restored as formerly the Lords of the Session being in lieu thereof rewarded with Ten thousand pounds yearly which must be understood according to the Scottish account out of the Customs of that Kingdom It was enacted also That the King from thenceforth might appoint such Habit as to him seemed best to Judges Magistrates and Church-men Which