processerint did in the ministration of the Sacraments bestir themselves in a white Vesture so he advers Pelag Lib. 2. with which compare St. Chrysostom in his 83 Homily on St. Matthews Gospel for the Eastern Churches And hereunto the Cope was added in some principal Churches especially in the Celebration of the Blessed Eucharist Both which appear most evidently by the first Liturgy of K. Edw. 6. compared with one of the last clauses of the Act of Parliament 1 Eliz. c. 2. in which it is provided that such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers shall be retained and be in use as were in the Church of England by Authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edw. vi But this Vesturâ having been discontinued I know not by what fatal negligence many years together it pleased the Bishops and Clergy in the Convocation Anno 1603. to pass a Canon to this purpose viz. That in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches the Holy Communion shall be administred upon principal Feast dayes sometimes by the Bishops c. and that the principal Minister using a decent Cope c. Canon 24. 9. In that part of Divine Service which concerns the offering of the peoples Prayers to Almighty God it was required of the Priest or Presbyter first that in all the dayes and times appointed he used the Prayers prescribed in the publick Liturgy according to the Act of Parliament 1 Eliz. c. 2. and many subsequent Canons and Constitutions made in that behalf Secondly That he conformed himself to those Rites and Ceremonies which were prescribed in that Book and unto such as should be afterwards ordained by the Queens Majesty with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorized under the great Seal of England for causes Ecclesiastical or of the Metropolitan of this Realm as may be most for the advancement of Gods Glory the edifying of his Church and the due reverence of Christs Holy Mysteries and Sacraments And thirdly and more particularly That in his reading of the Prayers and Psalms he turn his face toward the East and toward the People in the reading of the Lessons or Chapters as appears plainly by the Rubrick which directs him thus That after the reading of the Psalms the Priest shall read two Lessons distinctly that the people may hear the Priest that reads the two Lessons standing and turning himself so as he may best be heard of all such as be present The Psalms or Hymns to be indifferently said or sung at the will of the Minister but the Hymns for the most part sung with Organs and sometimes with other Musical Instruments both in the Royal Chappels and Cathedral Churches Fourthly That he makes use of no other Prayers in the Congregation and therefore neither before nor after Sermon then those which are prescribed in the said Book of Common Prayer it being specially provided in the Act aforesaid that no Priest nor Minister shall use any other Rite Ceremony Order Form or manner of Celebrating the Lords Supper openly or privately or Mattens Evening Song Administration of the Sacraments or other open Prayers that is to say such Prayers as are meant for others to come unto or hear either in common Churches or private Chappels c. then is mentioned or set forth in the same Book Fifthly That all Priests and Deacons shall be bound to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly except they be lett by Preaching studying of Divinity or some other urgent cause And sixthly That the Curate that ministreth in every Parish Church or Chappel being at home and not being otherwise reasonably letted shall say the same in the Parish Church or Chappel where he ministreth and shall toll a Bell thereto at convenient time before he begin that such as arâ disposed may come to hear Gods Word and pray with him so as in some cases it may be said of the Priest as the Father doth of Christ that he is Os ipsum per quod loquimur The very mouth by which we speak unto our Father which is in Heaven And though it be intended in the Act of Parliament and exprest in the Articles of Religion that the Prayers are to be made in such a tongue as may be understood of the common people yet it is not meant as is declared in the Preface to the Book it self but that when men say Morning and Evening Prayers privately they may say the same in any language that they themselves understand Nor was it meant but that the Morning and Evening Service might be used in the Colledges and Halls of either University in the Latine tongue where all may be supposed to understand it as appears clearly by the constant and continual practise of Christ-Church in Oxon in which the first Morning Prayers commonly read about six of the Clock were in Latine the Morning and Evening Service with the Psalms of David being printed in Latine by themselves for that end and purpose 10. As for the Preaching of the Word that belongs properly and originally as the performance of all other Divine Offices did of old to the Bishops themselves as being the ordinary Pastors of the several and respective Diocesses and to the Priests no otherwise then by deputation as Curates and substitutes to the Bishops as may be proved out of the Instrument of their Institution For when a Clerk is to be admitted into any Benefice he puts himself upon his knees and the Bishop laying one Hand upon his Head and having the Instrument in the other repeats these words viz. Te N. N. ad Rectoriam de N. Ritè Canonicè instituimus curam regimen animarum Parochianorum ibidem tibi in Domino committentes committimus per presentes that is to say that he doth institute him into the said Benefice according to the Laws and Canons committing to him by these presents the care and Government of the Souls of all the Parishioners therein And therefore it concerns the Bishop not to Licence any man to Preach to the Congregation of whose good affections to the Publick abilities in Learning sobriety of Life and Conversation and conformity to the Government Discipline and form of Worship here by Law established he hath not very good assurance For though the Priest or Presbyter by his Ordination hath Authority to preach the word of God in the Congregation yet it is with this clause of Limitation If he shall be so appointed that is to say sufficiently Licenced thereunto and not otherwise And none were Licenced heretofore as was expresly ordered in the injunctons of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth but either by the Bishop of the Diocess who is to answer by the Law for every Minister he admits into the same for that Diocess only or by the Metropolitan of the Province for that Province alone or finally by either of the Universities upon the well performing of some publick exercise over all the Kingdom Considering therefore
pass'd two Acts in the Assembly held at Aberdeen Anno 1616. the one for making one Uniform Order or Form of Worship to be prepared by some Bishops and other Learned men amongst them by them to be presented to the King and being by the King approved to be by him commended to the use of that Kirk The other for consulting the Registry of their formeâ Assemblys and extracting out of them such Canons as being ratified by the stamp of Royal Authority might pass for currant in the same To speed this business and strike the Iron whilst it was hot his Majesty made that chargeable Journey into Scotland which before we spake of with an intent to press them personally to the receiving of some few of the English Ceremonies which had been offered to the consideration of the late Assembly the better to advance his hopes of introducing by degrees the Liturgy of the Church of England Which Ceremonies being reduced to five Articles and propounded to them at his being there found such success and put the King upon such Councels as have been formerly declared But what he could not compass in the year foregoing he obtained in this those Articles being passed in an Assembly held at Perth in the Month of August and are these that follow 1. That for the more reverend Receiving of the Holy Communion the same should be celebrated to the People thereafter kneeling and not sitting as had been the Custom since the Reformation of Religion 2. If any good Christian visited with sickness which was taken to be deadly should desire to receive the Communion at home in his house the same should not be denied to him lawful warning being given to the Minister the night before and three or four of good Religion and Conversation being present to Communicate with him 3. That in case of necessity tried and known to the Minister it should be lawful to Administer Baptism in private Houses the same being always Ministred after the form in which it should have been in the Congregation A publick Declaration of it to be made the next Sunday after 4. That the days of the Birth Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ and of the coming down of the Holy Ghost in regard of those inestimable Benefits which the Church of God had received on them should be publickly Solemnized in the Congregation the Ministers making choice of fit Texts of Scripture agreeable to the Occasions for their several Sermons 5. That the Minister in every Parish having Catechized all Children above eight years of age according to the short Catechism used in the Church and taught them to repeat by heart the Lords Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandments should present them to their Bishops in their Visitations by them to be blessed with Prayers for the increase of Grace and continuance of Gods heavenly Gifts upon them And this indeed was a great step to the work of Uniformity so much desired which had it been pursued as vigorously by the Bishops of Scotland as by the King it had been piously begun the Service which was sent into that Kirk almost twenty years afteâ had been better welcom'd by the Scots and drawn less danger upon Laud who was then Archbishop for his pious Actings in the same But on the other side the condemning of the five Arminian Articles as they commonly called them at the Synod of Dort was altogether as much unpleasing as the others had been grateful to him for well he saw the great dangers which might thence ensue to the Church of England whose Doctrines were openly confronted and her Discipline secretly undermined by the Decisions and Determinations of that Synodical Assembly In which regard it will not be unnecessary to make a brief Relation of those stirs and differences which hapned in the Belgick Churches from the time that Doctor Iacob van Harmine was made one of the Divinity Professors in the University of Leyden Concerning which we are first to know That at the Alteration of Religion in those Provinces the French who were most active in it brought with them Calvin's Platform both for Doctrine and Discipline as commonly the one makes way to bring in the other according unto which the Belgick Confession was drawn up in the year 1567. Which notwithstanding such of their Ministers as better liked the Melancthonian Doctrines in the points of Predestination Grace Free-will c. than they did the other spared not to publish their Opinions as they saw occasion as well before as after the establishing of the said Confession and did it without check or censure Amongst which we may first reckon Anastasius Veluanus in a Book of his entituled Odegus Laicorum or the Lay-mans Guide published in the year 1554. and much commended by Henricus Antonides the Divinity Reader in the University of Franeker after whom followed in the same Opinions Iohannes Isbrandi who openly profess'd himself an Anti-Calvinian Clemens Martini who took his Principles from Hardinbergius one of the first Reformers of the Church of Embden Gellius Sueranus in West-Friesland who looked upon those of the other Perswasion as Innovators in that Church Holmanus the Divinity Reader in Leyden Cornelius Menardi a man of good esteem amongst them and generally all the Ministers successively in the Province of Vtrecht some of which had maintained these Doctrines before the birth of Iacob van Harmine better known in these later times by the name of Arminius and all of them before such time as any publick notice had been taken of him by which it seems that these Doctrines were of a long standing and had took deep rooting in these Churches though they had not gained such a large and general spreading over them as they after did For in the year 1603. the Learned Iunius one of the Professors for Divinity in the University of Leyden being then deceased the Curators or Overseers of that University made choice of this Van Harmine the Pastor as they phrase it of the Church of Amsterdam to succeed in his place But the Inhabitants of that Town amongst whom he had served in the Ministry for the space of 15. years and moââ were so affected to the man that they would by no means yield unto his departure till over-ruled by the intreaties of some and the power of others A matter very unpleasing to the Rigid Calvinians informing against him to the State for several Heterodoxies repugnant to the received Doctrine of those Churches Arminius for six years before had by exchange of Letters betwixt him and Iunius maintained the Melancthonian Doctrines in those points of Controversie before remembred which Papers being dispersed abroad in several Copies but not published till after his death and then published by the name of Amica Collatio c. gave the Calvinians some fair Colour for their information But the business being heard at the Hague he was acquitted by his Judges dispatch'd for Leyden and there confirmed in his place
about it Maxwell applying himself to Laud then Bishop of London from whom he received this positive Answer That if his Majesty would have a Liturgie setled there different from what they had already it was best to take the English Liturgie without any variation from it that so the same Service-Book might pass through all his Majesties Dominions Maxwell replying That the Scottish Bishops would be better pleased to have a Liturgie of their own but such as should come near the English both in Form and Matter the Cause was brought before the King who on a serious consideration of all Particulars concurred in Judgment for the English And on these terms it stood till this present year Laud standing hard for admitting the English Liturgie without alteration the Scottish Bishops pleading on the other side That a Liturgie made by themselves and in some things different from the English Service would best please their Countrymen whom they found very jealous of the least dependence on the Church of England But because Letters writtten in the time of Action are commonly conceived to carry more truth in them than Relations made upon the post-fact for particular ends take here this short Remembrance in one of his Letters to the Earl of Traquaire dated September 11. 1637. where we find this Passage And since saith he I hear from others That some exception is taken because there is more in that Liturgie in some few particulars than is in the Liturgie of England Why did they not admit the Liturgie of England without more ado But by their refusal of that and the dislike of this 't is more than manifest they would have neither and perhaps none at all were they left to themselves But besides this there was another Invitation which wrought much upon him in order to the present Journey At his first coming to the Crown the great Engagements then upon him want of Supply from England and small help from Scotland forced him to have recourse to such other ways of assistances as were offered to him of which this was one In the Minority of King Iames the Lands of all Cathedral Churches and Religious Houses which had been setled on the Crown by Act of Parliament were shared amongst the Lords and great men of that Kingdom by the connivence of the Earl of Murrey and some other of the Regents to make them sure unto that side And they being thus possessed of the same Lands with the Regalities and Tythes belonging to those Ecclesiastical Corporations Lorded it with Pride and Insolence enough in their several Territories holding the Clergy to small Stipends and the poor Peasant under a miserable Vassalage and subjection to them not suffering them to carry away their nine parts till the Lord had carried off his Tenth which many times was neglected out of pride and malice those Tyrants not caring to lose their Tythe so that the poor mans Crop might be left unto spoil and hazard King Iames had once a purpose to revoke those Grants but growing into years and troubles he left the following of that Project to his Son and Successor Having but little help from thence to maintain his Wars by the Advice of some of the Council of that Kingdom he was put upon a course of resuming those Lands Tythes and Regalities into his own hand to which the present Occupants could pretend no other Title than the unjust Usurpation of their Predecessors This to effect he resolves upon an Act of Revocation Commissionating for that purpose the Earl of Annandale and the Lord Maxwell afterwards Earl of Niddisdale to hold a Parliament in Scotland for Contribution of Money and Ships against the Duynkirkers and arming Maxwell also with some secret Instructions for passing the said Act of Revocation if he found it feasible Being on the way as far as Barwick Maxwell was there informed That his chief errand being made known had put all at Edenborough into Tumult That a rich Coach which he had sent before to Dalkeith was cut in pieces the poor Horses killed the People seeming only sorry that they could not do so much to the Lord himself Things being brought unto this stand the King was put to a necessity of some second Counsels amongst which none seemed more plausible and expedient to him than that of Mr. Archibald Achison who from a puisne Judge in Ireland was made his Majesties Procurator or Solicitor-General in the Kingdom of Scotland who having told his Majesty That such as were Estated in the Lands in question had served themselves so well by the bare naming of an Act of Revocation as to possess the People whom they found apt to be inflamed on such Suggestions That the true intendment of that Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and settling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland And therefore That it would be unsafe for his Majesty to proceed that way Next he advised That instead of such a General Revocation as the Act imported a Commission should be issued out under the Great Seal of that Kingdom for taking the Surrendries of all such Superiorities and Tythes within the Kingdom at his Majesties Pleasure And that such as should refuse to submit unto it should be Impleaded one by one to begin first with those whom he thought least able to stand out or else most willing to conform to his Majesties Pleasure Assuring him That having the Laws upon his side the Courts of Iustice must and would pass Iudgment for him The King resolved upon this course sends home the Gentleman not only with Thanks and Knighthood which he had most worthily deserved but with Instructions and Power to proceed therein and he proceeded in it so effectually to the Kings Advantage that some of the impleaded Parties being cast in the Suit and the rest seeing that though they could raise the People against the King they could not raise them against the LaWs it was thought the best and safest way to compound the business Hereupon in the year 1630. Commissioners are sent to the Court of England and amongst others the Learned and right Noble Lord of Marcheston from whose mouth I had this whole Relation who after a long Treaty with the King did at last agree That the said Commission should proceed as formerly and That all such Superiorities and Tythes as had been or should be surrendred should be re-granted by the King on these Conditions First That all such as held Hereditary Sheriffdoms or had the Power of Life and Death over such as lived within their Iurisdiction should quit those Royalties to the King Secondly That they should make unto their Tenants in their several Lands some permanent Estates either for their Lives or one and twenty years or some such like Term that so the Tenants might be encouraged to Build and Plant and improve the Patrimony of that Kingdom Thirdly That some Provisions should be made for augmenting the Stipends of the
mature deliberation and with the Advice of so many of Our Bishops as might conveniently be called together thought fit to make this Declaration following That the Articles of the Church of England which had been allowed and authorized heretofore and which Our Clergy generally have subscribed unto do contain the true Doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to Gods Word which We do therefore ratifie and confirm requiring all Our loving Subjects to continue in the Vniform Profession thereof and prohibiting the least difference from the said Articles which to that end We command to be reprinted and this Our Declaration to be published therewith That We are Supreme Governour of the Church of England and that if any difference arise about the External Policie concerning Injunctions Canons or other Constitutions whatsoever thereunto belonging the Clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them having first obtained leave under Our Broad Seal so to do And We approving their said Ordinances and Constitutions providing that none be made contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Land That out of Our Princely care that the Church-men may do the work which is proper unto them the Bishops and Clergie from time to time in Convocation upon their humble desire shall have licence under Our Broad Seal to deliberate of and to do all such things as being made plain by them and assented by Vs shall concern the settled continuance of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England established from which We shall not endure any variation or departing in the least degree That for the present though some differences have been ill raised We take comfort in this that all Clergie-men within Our Realm have alwaies most willingly subscribed to the Articles established which is an Argument to Vs that they all agree in the true usual literal meaning of the said Articles and that even in those curious Points in which the present differences lye men of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England to be for them which is an argument again that none of them intend any desertion of the Articles established That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences which have for many hundred years in different times and places exercised the Church of Christ We will that all further curious search be laid aside and these disputes be shut up in Gods Promises as they be generally set forth unto Vs in holy Scriptures and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them And that no man hereafter shall either Print or Preach to draw the Article aside any way but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof And shall not put his own sense or Coment to be the meaning of the Article but shall take it in the literal and Grammatical sense That if any Publick Reader in either Our Vniversities or any Head or Master of a Colledge or any other person respectively in either of them shall affix any new sense to any Article or shall publickly read determine or hold any publick Disputation or suffer any such to be held either way in either the Vniversities or Colledges respectively or if any Divine in the Vniversities shall Preach or Print any thing either way other than is established in Convocation with Our Royal Assent He or they the Offenders shall be liable to Our displeasure and the Churches Censure in Our Commission Ecclesiastical as well as any other and We will see there shall be due execution upon them No sooner were the Articles published with this Declaration but infinite were the clamours which were raised against it by those of the Calvinian Party Many exclaimed against it for the depths of Satan some for a Iesuitical Plot to subvert the Gospel For what else could it aim at as they gave it out but under colour of silencing the disputes on either side to give incouragement and opportunity to Arminians here to sow their tears and propagate their erroneous Doctrines And what effects could it produce but the suppressing of all Orthodox Books the discouraging of all godly and painful Ministers thereby deteâred from preaching the most comfortable Doctrines of mans election unto life The Arminians in the mean time gathering strength and going on securely to the end they aimed at And to give the better colour to these suspitions a Letter is dispersed abroad pretended to be written to the Rector of the Jesuites in Bruxells the chief City of Brabant In which the Writers lets him know with what care and cunning they had planted âere that Soveraign drug Arminianism which they hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresies and that it begin to flourish and bear fruit already That for the better preventing of the Puritans the Arminians had lockt up the Dukes ears c. with much of the like impudent stuff which no sober man did otherwise look on than a piece of Gullery Upon which grounds a Petition was designed for his Sacred Majesty by some of the Calvinian Party in and about the City of London For the revoking of the said Declaration by which they were deterred as the matter was handled from preaching the saving Doctrines of Gods Free Grace in Election and Predestination And this say they had brought them into a very great straight either or incurring Gods heavy displeasure if they did not faithfully discharge their Embassage in declaring the whole Counsel of God or the danger of being censured as violaters of his Majesties said Act if they preacht those constant Doctrines of our Church and confuted the opposite Pelagian and Arminian Heresies both preached and Printed boldly without fear of censure And thereupon they pray on their bended knees that his gracious Majesty would take into his Princely consideration the forenamed Evils and Grievances under which they groaned and as a wise Physician prescribe and apply such speedy Remedies as may both cure the present Maladies and secure the peace of Church and Common-wealth from all those Plagues which their Neighbours had not a little felt and more may fear if the Council of his Majesties Father to the States of the United Provinces were not better followed But this Petition being stopt before it came to the King they found more countenance from the Commons in the next Parliamentary meeting than they were like to have found at the hands of his Majesty For the Commons conceiving they had power to declare Religion as well as Law and they had much alike in both they voted this Anti-Declaration to be published in the name of that House viz. We the Commons now assembled in Parliament do claim profess and avow for truth the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established in Parliament the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth which by the publick Acts of the Church of England and the general and currant exposition of the Writers of our Church have been delivered to us and we
Preoccupate the most Reverend Archbishop Whitgift with most sad complaints touching the Rupture made by Baroe in that Vniversity For remedy whereof the Archbishop calls unto him Fletcher the Lord Elect of London Vaughan the Lord Elect of Bangor Tyndal Dean of Ely and such Divines as came from Cambridge who meeting at his house in Lambeth on the twenty sixth day of November Anno 1595. did then and there conclude upon certain Articles for regulating disputations in those points of Controversie Which Articles being nine in number are these that follow I. God from all eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life certain men he hath reprobated II. The moving or efficient cause of Predestination unto life is not the foresight of Faith or of perseverance or of God-works or of any thing that is in the person predestinated but only the good will and pleasure of God III. There is predetermined a certain number of the Predestinate which can either be augmented or diminished IV. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins V. A true living and justifying faith and the Spirit of God justifying is not extinguished falleth not away it vanisheth not away in the Act either finally or totally VI. A man truly faithful that is such a one who is enduced with a justifying Faith is certain with the full assurance of faith of the remission of his sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ. VII Saving grace is not given is not granted is not communicated to all men by which they may be saved if they will VIII No man can come unto Christ unless it shall be given unto him and unless the Father shall draw him and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son IX It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved These Articles being brought to Cambridge so discouraged Baroe that when the ordinary time of his publick readings was expired he forsook that place and not many years after died in London His Funerall being attended by order from Bishop Bancroft by most of the Eminent Divines about that City which shews that both the Bishop and the most eminent Divines of London were either inclinable to his opinions or not so averse from them as not to give a solemn attendance at the time of his Funeral The news of which proceedings being brought to the Queen she was excâedingly offended conceiving it a deep intrenchment upon her Prerogative that any such Declaration should be made in matter of Religion without her Authority Once was she at a point to have them all indited of a Praemunire but the high esteem she had of Whitgift whom she commonly called her black husband reprieved all the rest from the danger of it Howsoever such a strict course was taken for suppressing the said Articles that a Copy of them was not to be found in Cambridge for a long time aâter though after the Queens death they began to peep abroad again and became more publick Nor was King Iames better conceited of them than Queen Elizabeth was for when it was moved by Dr Reynolds at Hampton Court that the nine Orthodoxal Assertions as he pleased to call them which were concluded on at Lambeth might be admitted into the confession of the Church of England the King so much disliked the motion that it was presently rejected without more ado But that which the Calvinians could not get in England they effected at the last in Ireland where the true and genuine Doctrines of the Church of England had been less looked after than at home For in the year 1615. a Parliament and Convocation being holden in Dublin it was resolved on by the Archbishop Bishops and the rest of the Clergy then assembled that a Book of Articles should be framed to be the Publick Confession of that Church for succeeding times the drawing up whereof was committed to Doctor Iames Vsher afterwards Archbishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland a Rigid Calvinist but otherwise the ablest Scholar of that Nation And he accordingly fashioning the Doctrine for that Church by his own Conceptions inserted into the said Book of Articles the nine Conclusions made at Lambeth to be the standing Rule as he thought and hoped of that Church for ever And yet they did not stay there neither The Sabbatarian Doctrines had been broached by Bownd in the same year wherein the nine Articles had been made at Lambeth Which being opposed by Archbishop Whitgift and never admitted in this Church were by the cunning of that Faction and the zeal or diligence of this man incorporated into the Body of the Articles for the Church of Ireland in which it is declared for a Doctrinal Point That the first day of the Week which is the Lords-day is wholly to be dedicated to the Service of God and therefore we are Bound therein to rest from our common and daily Business and to bestow that leisure upon holy Exercises both Publick and Private And because he concluded in himself that the Pope was Antichrist that also must be made an Article of this Confession in which we find it in these words viz. The Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church that his Works and Doctrines do plainly discover him to be the Man of Sin foretold in the Holy Scripture whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth and abolish with the brightness of his coming And hereunto That the Plantation of the Scots in Vlster unhappily projected in the time of King Iames brought in so much Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the Publick Liturgie and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England The Papists in the mean time encreasing more and more grew at the last to so great a confidence by the clashings here in England betwixt the King and his Parliaments that they gave themselves great hope of a Toleration And possibly enough they might have obtained somewhat like it if the Irish Bishops had not joined together in a Protestation to the contrary and caused it to be published in the Pulpit by the Bishop of Derry with infinite Acclamations of the Protestant Hearers Howsoever the lost hopes had so far emboldened them that they set up some Religious Houses even in Dublin it self shewed themselves openly in their Friars Habits and publickly affronted not only the Mayor but the Archbishop of that City This coming to his Majesties knowledge he caused his pleasure to be signified to the Lords of his Council That Order should be taken there That the House where the said Seminary Friars appeared in their Habits and wherein the Reverend Archbishop and the Mayor of Dublin received their first Affront be speedily demolished and be the Mark of Terrour to
paid for that purpose all which amounted to three thousand two hundred forty seven pound sixteen shillings two pence half-peny The Clergy of England within the Province of Canterbury freely contributed the fortieth part of all such Church Livings as were charged with First-fruits and the thirtieth part of all their Benefices not so charged those of London only excepted who besides the thirtieth part of such as paid First-fruits gave the twentieth part of all the rest Which Contribution of the Clergy amounted to one thousand four hundred sixty one pound thirteen shillings and eleven pence whereunto was added by the benevolence of the Bishop of London at several times coming in all to nine hundred five pound one shilling and eleven pence By the Dean and Chapter one hundred thirty six pound thirteen shillings and four pence and made of the surplusage of Timber one hundred nineteen pound three shillings and nine pence Given by the Justices and Officers of the Common Pleas thirty four pound five shillings and by those of the Kings Bench seventeen pound sixteen shillings eight pence All which together made no more than six thousand seven hundred and two pound thirteen shillings and four pence And yet with this small Sum such was the cheapness of those Times the Work was carried on so prosperously that before the Month of April 1566. all the Roofs of Timber whereof those large ones of the East and West framed in Yorkshire and brought by Sea were perfectly finished and covered with Lead the adding of a new Steeple being thought unnecessary because too chargeable though divers Models have been made and presented of it The whole Roof being thus Repaired the Stone-work of it stood as before it did sensibly decaying day by day by reason of the corroding quality of the Sea-coal smoke which on every side annoyed it Which being observed by one Henry Farley about the middle of the Reign of King Iames he never left solliciting the King by several Petitions and Addresses to take the Ruinous Estate thereof into his Princely Consideration till at last it was resolved on by the King And to create the greater Veneration to so good a Work he bestowed that magnificent Visit on it described at large in the first Book of this History Anno 1620. The product and result whereof was the issuing out a Commission under the Great Seal of England bearing date the sixteenth day of November then next following directed to Sir Francis Iones Knight then Lord Mayor of London George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Francis Lord Verulam then Lord Chancellor of England and divers others to the number of sixty Persons and upwards Which Commission importing That this Church being the greatest and most eminent as also one of the principal Ornaments of the Realm and in much decay any six or more of these Commissioners whereof three to be of the said Kings Privy-Council should meet to make Particulars of the decay and likewise what Houses Cellars c. had been built near it either to the annoyance of it or the Church-yard And moreover to Inquire what Lands Rents c. had been given towards its Repair or Sums of Money collected to that purpose and not accordingly employed And further to consider of the most fit and proper means to raise money to carry on the said Repair And lastly to appoint Surveyors and other Officers of their Work and to make Certificate of their Proceedings therein into the Chancery Upon the Meeting of which Commissioners and diligent search made into the Particulars afore-mentioned it was acknowledged that the Bishop of London had the whole care of the Body of that Church and the Dean and Chapter of the Choires But that which each of them enjoyed to this purpose was so little that they yearly expended double as much upon the Roof and other parts decayed to preserve them from present ruine Which being made evident to the Commissioners as also that in former times even from the very first foundation thereof it had been supported partly out of the large Oblations of those that visited the Shrines and Oratories therein and partly from Publick Contributions in all parts of the Kingdom It was concluded to proceed in the same way now as had been done formerly And that it might proceed the better the King himself and many of the principal Nobility and Gentry declared by their Superscriptions for the encouragement of others to so good a Work what Sums they resolved to give in pursuance of it Doctor Iohn King then Bishop of London subscribing for 100 l. per Annum as long as he should continue in that See Mountain who succeeded not long after in that Bishoprick procured with great charge and trouble some huge massie Stones to be brought from Portland for the beginning of the Work But money coming slowly in and he being a man of small activity though of good affecâions the heat of this great business cooled by little and little and so came to nothing But Laud succeeding him in the See of London and having deservedly attained unto great Authority with his Majesty no sooner saw his Office settled both at home and abroad but he possessed him with a Loyal and Religious Zeal to persue that Work which King Iames had so piously designed though it went not much further than the bare design Few words might serve to animate the King to a Work so pious who aimed at nothing more than the Glory of God in the Advancement of the Peace and Happiness of the Church of England And therefore following the example oâ his Royal Father he bestowed the like Visit on St. Pauls whither he was attended with the like Magnificence and entertained at the first entrance into the Church with the like Solemnity The Divine Service being done and the Sermon ended which tended principally unto the promoting of a Work so honourable both to his Majesties Person and the English Nation his Majesty took a view of the Decays of that Church and there Religiously promised not to be wanting in the Piety of his best Endeavours to the Repair of those Ruines which Age the Casualties of Weather or any other Accidents had brought upon it In order whereunto in the beginning oâ this year he issued out his Royal Commission under the Great Seal of England bearing date the tenth of April in the seventh year of his Reign directed to Sir Robert Ducy Lord Mayor of the City of Londan George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Coventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seal c. William Lord Bishop of London Richard Lord Bishop of Winton Iohn Lord Bishop of Ely c. Nicholas Rainton Ralph Freeman Rowland Heylyn c. Aldermen of the City of London Edward Waymack and Robert Bateman Chamberlain of the said City of London In which Commission the said King taking notice of this Cathedral as the goodliest Monument and most ancient Church of his whole Dominions as also that it was the principal
another by means whereof it must needs follow that as they are now a Church within a Church so in short time they might grow to be a Common-wealth in the middest of a Kingdom Fourthly That these bodies standing thus divided from the Church and State are planted for the most part in such Haven Towns as lay fittest for France and the Low-Countries which may be a shrewd temptation to them to take such advantages to themselves or to make use thereof for others as occasion offereth Fifthly That the example is of ill consequence in Church-affairs to the Subjects of England many being confirmed by it in their stubborn waies and inconformities but in London chiefly Sixthly That neither French nor Dutch Church be longer tolerated in this Kingdom than the Subjects of this Kingdom be suffered to enjoy the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England in those several parts beyond the Seas where they have their abode The dangers and inconveniencies being thus laid down he proceeds to the Remedies And first he doth advise That the number of them in all places of the Kingdom be fully known to the end a better Judgment might be made of the way by which they are to be reduced to the rest of the Kingdom Secondly That a Command be issued to this purpose from the State it self and that it be avowedly and not perfunctorily taken in all places where they do reside and a Certificate returned of the men of most credit and wealth amongst them Thirdly That if they will continue as a distinct body both from State and Church they should pay all duties double as strangers used to do in this Realm and not be capable of such immunities as the Natives have as long as they continue so divided from them Fourthly That when it shall be thought convenient to reduce them to the same condition with the rest of the Subjects they should then be warned in an Ecclesiastical way excepting such as be new Commers to repair diligently to their Parish Churches and to conform themselves to their Prayers and Sacraments which if they should refuse to do then to proceed against them by Excommunication and so unto the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo for a terror to others Fifthly and lastly That if this course prevaile not with them a Declaration to be made by the State to this effect That if they will be as natives and take the benefit of Subjects they must conform themselves to the Laws of the Kingdom as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal That being the likeliest way to make them capable of the inconveniencies they should run unto by their refusal and perverseness Such were the considerations offered by him to the Lords of the Council for advancing the peace and honour of this Church both at home and abroad But long it will not be before we shall behold him sitting in the Chair of Canterbury acting his own counsels bringing these Conceptions to the birth and putting the design into execution of which more hereafter These matters standing in this state we must at last look toward Scotland for the receiving of which Crown his Majesty and the Court prepare the beginning of this year But besides the Pomp and Splendor of a Coronation which the people with great importunity had long prest upon him there were some other Loadstones which made the Needle of his Compass point so much to the North. Concerning which the Reader may be pleased to know that at the first Alteration of Religion in the Kirk of Scotland the Scots petitioning for aide from Queen Elizabeth to expell the French obliged themselves by the subscription of their hands to embrace the Liturgie Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England According whereunto an Ordinance was made by their Reformers that in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-Prayer should be read weekly on Sundaies and other Festival daies with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament conform to the order of the Book of Common-Prayer of the Church of England it being well known that for divers years after they had no other order for Common-Prayer but that which they received from hence But as Presbytery prevailed so the Liturgie sell the fancy of Extemporary Prayers growing up so fast in the minority of King Iames that it soon thrust all Publick Forms out of use and credit In which confused estate it stood till the coming of that King to the Crown of England where he much pleased himself with the Sobriety and Piety of the publick Liturgie This made him cast his eyes more sadly on the Kirk of Scotland where for want of some such publick Forms of Prayers the Ministers prayed so ignorantly that it was a shame to all Religion to have God spoke to in that barbarous manner and sometimes so seditiously that their Prayers were plain Libells against Authority or stuft with lies made up of all the false reports in the Kingdom For remedy whereof after he had restored and settled the Episcopal Government he procured the General Assembly of that Kirk held at Aberdeen Anno 1616. to pass an Act for Authorising some of the Bishops and divers others to compile a Publick Liturgie for the use of that Kirk which being presented unto the King and by him approved should be universally received over all the Kingdom To prepare the way unto them his Majesty gave order the next Spring after That the English Liturgie should be Officiated day by day in his Chappel-Royal in the City of Edenborough and in the year following 1618. obtained the five Articles before-mentioned as so many chief Ingredients for the Common-Prayer-Book to be passed at Perth by which Encouragements the Commissioners which were appointed to compile the Book went so luckily forwards that it was not long before they brought it to an end and sent it to King Iames by Archbishop Spotswood who not only carefully perused every Passage in it but caused it to be revised by some of the Bishops of that Kingdom which were then in England in whose Judgments he reposed especial confidence Fitted according to his mind he sent it back again to those from whose hands he received it to be by them commended to the use of the Church which undoubtedly had took effect if the Breach with Spain and the Death of that King which followed not long after had not unfortunately interrupted the Success of the business In this condition of Affairs King Charles succeeded in the Crown ingaged in a War with the King of Spain and standing upon no good terms with his People at home so that the business of the Liturgie seemed to be laid asleep if not quite extinct But in the year 1629. having agreed his differences with the Crown of France and being in a good way towards an Accommodation with the King of Spain the Scottish Bishops were again remembred of their Duty in it who dispatch'd Maxwell then one of the Preachers of Edenborough to the Court
Clergy Fourthly That they should double the yearly Rents which were reserved unto the Crown by their former Grants And finally That these Conditions being performed on their parts the King should settle their Estates by Act of Parliament Home went the Commissioners with joy for their good success expecting to be entertained with Bells and Bonfires but they found the contrary the proud Scots being generally resolved rather to put all to hazard than to quit that Power and Tyranny which they had over their poor Vassals by which name after the manner of the French they called their Tenants And hereunto they were encouraged under-hand by a Party in England who feared that by this Agreement the King would be so absolute in those Northern Regions that no Aid could be hoped from thence when the necessity of their designs might most require it Just as the Castilians were displeased with the Conquest of Portugal by King Philip the Second because thereby they had no place left to retire unto when either the Kings displeasure or their disobedience should make their own Country to hot for them Such was the face of Church and State when his Majesty began his Journey for Scotland to receive the Crown a Journey of great expence on both sides but of small profit unto either On the thirteenth day of May he advanced toward the North but by such leisurely Removes that he recovered not the City of York till the twenty fourth into which he made a Solemn and Magnificent Entrance attended by the Flower of the English Nobility the principal Officers of his Court and some of the Lords of his Privy Council He was received at his first entrance into Scotland with a gallant body of that Nation consisting for the most part of the like Ingredients and so conducted into Edenborough on the tenth of Iune Edenborough the chief City of the Realm of Scotland and indeed the Summa totalis of that Kingdom extended a whole mile in length from the Palace-Royal of Holy-Rood-House lying at the foot of the Hill to a fair and ancient Castle mounted on the top thereof From this Castle the King was to descend the Street in a Royal Pomp till he came to his Palace as the Kings of England commonly on the like occasion ride from the Tower thorow London to the Court of Whitehall where the Solemnities of the Coronation were to be perform'd The day designed for it was the eighteenth of Iune the concourse of People beyond expression and the expressions of their Joy in gallantry of Apparel sumptuous Feastings and Acclamations of all sorts nothing inferiour to that concourse But this was only the Hosanna of his first Reception they had a Crucifige for him when he came to his Parliament It was conceived at his Majesties first going toward the North that he would have settled the English Liturgie in that Church at his being there but he either carried no such thoughts with him or if he did he kept them to himself as no more than thoughts never discovering any such thing in his words or actions The Scots were of another temper than to be easily won to any thing which they had no mind to and a less mind they could have to nothing than the English Liturgie King Iames had taken order at his being in Scotland Anno 1617. That it should constantly be read twice every day in his Chappel-Royal for that City and gave command that the Lords of his Privy-Council and the Lords of Session should be present at it on the Sundays and there receive the Holy Communion according to the form prescribed in the Common-Prayer-Book And this he did unto this end That as well the Citizens of Edenborough as such as came thither upon Business might by degrees be made acquainted with the English Forms and consequently be prepared for the receiving of such a Liturgie as the King with the Advice of his Bishops and other Learned Men according to the Act of the Assembly at Aberdeen should commend unto them But these Directions being either discontinued or carelesly followed after his decease and the five Articles of Perth not press'd so diligently on the People as they might have been the Scots were generally as great Strangers to the Liturgie of the Church of England as when King Iames first came amongst us His Majesty could not be so ill served as not to be well enough informed how things went in Scotland and therefore was not to venture rashly upon such a business wherein he might receive a foil He thereupon resolves to proceed no further in Matters which concerned the Church than to pass an Act of Ratification an Act Confirmatory of such Laws and Statutes relating unto Church-concernments as by King Iames had been obtained with great charge and cunning And though he carried this Act at last yet was it not without a far greater opposition than he had reason to expect from that Convention But the Commission of Surrendry did so stick in their stomacks that they could not chuse but vent their disaffections on the first occasion Nor would they suffer him to enjoy the benefit of that Act so hardly gotten with Peace and Honour but followed him into England with a pestilent Libel in which they charged him to have carried that Act by corrupting some and a plain down-right buying of the Voices of others This was the first taste which they gave the King of their malevolency towards his Person and Government but it shall not prove to be the last His Majesty had another business to effect at his being there for which he needed not their Assistance and for that reason did not ask it This was the raising of the City of Edenborough to a See Episcopal which before was only a Borough Town belonging anciently to the Diocess and Jurisdiction of St. Andrews The Metropolitan of St. Andrews was willing for the common good to yield unto this diminution of his Power and Profit and that the whole County of Lothian extending from Edenborough-Fryth to the Town of Barwick should be dismembred from his own Diocess to serve as a Diocess to this Bishop of new Election And on the other side the Duke of Lenox whose Ancestors had long enjoyed the Priory of St. Andrews with a great part of the Lands belonging to it was willing to let his Majesty have a good penyworth of some part of those Lands to serve as a Patrimony to this new Episcopal See and the Bishop of it Which Provision being thus made and settled Forbesse a right grave and solid Divine is made the first Bishop of this City his Cathedral fixed in the Church of St. Giles being the fairest in the Town a Dean appointed for that Church some Ministers of Edenborough and the Parts adjoining being nominated for the Canons or Prebends of it A design pious in it self and purposely intended to inure the Edenburghers to the Fatherly Government of a Bishop who by tempering the exorbitancies of
Noble Houses which made them the more insolent and uncontrollable That the Pope had erected an University in Dublin to confront his Majesties Colledge there and breed up the Youth of the Kingdom to his Devotion one Harris being Dean thereof who had dispersed a Scandalous Pamphlet against the Lord Primates Sermon preach'd at Wansteed one of the best Pieces that ever came from him Anno 1629. That since the Dissolving of their new Frieries in the City of Dublin they had Erected them in the Country and had brought the People to such a sottish negligence that they cared not to learn the Commandments as God spake and left them but flocked in Multitudes to the hearing of such Superstitious Doctrines as some of their own Priests were ashamed of That a Synodical Meeting of their Clergy had been held lately at Drogheda in the Province of Vlster in which it was decreed That it was not lawful to take the Oath of Allegiance And therefore That in such a conjuncture of Affairs to think that the bridle of the Army might be taken away must be the thought not of a Brain-sick but of a Brainless man which whosoever did endeavour not only would oppose his Majesties Service but expose his own neck to the Skeanes of those Irish cut-throats All which he humbly refers to his Lordships seasonable Care and Consideration Upon this Information the Deputy obtains his Majesties leave to hold a Parliament in that Kingdom which he managed with such notable dexterity that he made himself Master of a Power sufficient to suppress the Insolencies of the Papists and yet exceedingly prevailed upon their Affections From which time forwards the Popish Recusants in that Kingdom were kept in stricter duty and held closer to loyal Obedience for fear of irritating so severe a Magistrate than ever they had been by any of his Predecessors This Parliament brought with it a Convocation as a thing of course and in that somewhat must be done to check the spreading of Calvinism in all parts of that Church The Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1615. were so contrived by Vsher the now Lord Primate That all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church Most grievous Torments immediately in his Soul affirmed to be endured by Christ which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The abstenencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded only upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be Lawfully called who are called unto the Work of the Ministry by those that have Publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so that he be Authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed unto the Church in Ordaining Canons or censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same the Pope made Antichrist according to the like Determination of the French Hugonots made at Gappe in Dolphine And finally such a silence concerning the Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if there were not a different Order from the Common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own Opinions were dispersed in several places of these Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in that Convocation and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King Iames. By means whereof these two great mischiefs did ensue First A great matter of division which it caused to the Priests and Papists of the Realm that in three Kingdoms under the Obedience of one Sovereign Prince there should be three distinct and contrary Professions and yet pretending every one to the same Religion And secondly Whensoever the Points were agitated here in England against the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigours the Disputants were forthwith choaked by the Authority of these Articles and the infallible Judgment of King Iames who confirmed the same If therefore the Archbishop meant to have Peace in England the Church of Ireland must be won to desert those Articles and receive ours in England in the place thereof This to effect it was not thought expedient by such as had the managing of that design to propose any abrogation or repealing of the former Articles which had so many Friends and Patrons in that Convocation that it was moved severally both in the House of the Bishops and in that of the Clergy to have them ratified and confirmed in the present Meeting And questionless it had been carried in that way if it had not seasonably been diverted by telling the Promoters of it That those Articles had already received as much Authority as that Church could give them and that by seeking to procure any such Confirmation they would weaken the Original Power by which they stood This blow being thus handsomly broken their next work was to move the Primate That for the avoiding of such scandal which was given the Papists and to declare the Unity in Judgment and Affections between the Churches a Canon might be passed in approbation of the Articles of the Church of England To this the Prelate being gained the Canon was drawn up and presented to him and being by him propounded was accordingly passed one only man dissenting when it came to the Vote who had pierced deeper into the bottom of the Project than the others did It was desired also by Bramhall not long before the Lord Deputies Chaplain but then Bishop of Derrie That the whole Body of Canons made in the year 1603. might be admitted in that Church But the Primate was ever so afraid of bowing at the Name of IESVS and some other Reverences required in them which he neither practised nor approved that he would by no means hearken to it which bred some heats between him and Bramhall ending at last in this Temperament That some select Canons should be taken out of that Book and intermingled with some others of their own composing But for the Canon which approved and received the Articles of the Church of England it was this that followeth viz. Of the Agreement of the Church of England and Ireland in the Profession of the same Christian Faith FOr the manifestation of our Agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Christian Faith and Doctrine of the Sacraments We do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops and the whole Clergie in whole Convocation holden at London Anno Dom. 1562. for the avoiding of diversities of Opinions and for the establishing of Consent touching true Religion And therefore if any hereafter shall affirm That any of those Articles are in any part Superstitious and Erroneous or such as he may not with a good Conscience Subscribe unto Let him be Excommunicated
and not Absolved before he make a publick Revocation of his Error Such was the Canon passed in this Convocation for the approbation and reception of the Articles of the Church of England Which Canon was no sooner passed confirmed and published but the Primate and his Party saw the danger which they had cast themselves into by their inadvertency and found too late That by receiving and approving the English Articles they had abrogated and repealed the Irish. To salve this sore it concerned them to bestir themselves with their utmost diligence and so accordingly they did For first the Primate and some Bishops of his opinions required subscription to the Articles of both Churches of all such as came to be ordained at the next Ordination But it went no further than the next for if the Papists made it a matter of Derision to have three Confessions in the three Churches of his Majesties Kingdoms How much more matter must it give them of scorn and laughter that there should be two different Confessions in the same Church and both subscribed unto but as one and the same The Primate next applies himself to the Lord Deputy beseeching him that the former Articles might receive a new Ratification by Act of Parliament for preventing all innovations in the Religion there established But he found but little comfort there the Lord Deputy threatning to cause the said Confession to be burnt by the hand of the hangman if at the least the Scots Commissioners may be believed amongst whose Articles against him I find this for one Finding no better hopes on that side of the Sea he dispatcheth his Letters of Advice to his Friends in England one to an Honourable Person amongst the rest assuring them that though by a Canon passed in that Convocation they had received and approved the Articles of England yet that the Articlers of Ireland were ever called in might well be reckoned for a fancy The like affirmed in a Certificate made by Bernard and Pullen two Members of the Lower House in this Convocation where it is said That whosoever do aver that the said Articles were abolished are grosly mistaken and have abused the said Convocation in delivering so manifest an untruth And to back this another Certificate must be gained from one who comes commended to us under the Title of a most eminent judicious and learned person who having considered of the matter Conceives that both Confessions were consistent and that the Act of the Synod was not a Revocation of the Irish Articles but an approbation of the English as agreeing with them But all this would not serve the turn or save those Articles from being brought under a Repeal by the present Canon For first it appeareth by the Canon That they did not only approve but receive the Articles of the Church of England Their approbation of them had they gone no further had been a sufficient manifestation of their agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Protestant Religion But their receiving of the same doth intimate a superinducing of them upon the other and is equivalent both in Fact and Law to the Repealing of the old For otherwise St. Paul must needs be out in the Rules of Logick when he proved the Abrogating of the old Covenant by the superinduction of a new For having affirmed that God by speaking of a New Covenant had antiquated and made void the first or made the first old as our English read it he adds immediatly That that which is old decayeth and is ready to vanish away that is to say as Diodati descants on it The old being disanulled by the new there must necessarily follow the abolishment of its use and practice Nor find they any other abrogation of the Iewish Sabbath then by the superinducing of the Lords day for the day of worship By means whereof the Sabbath was lessened in authority and reputation by little and little and in short time was absolutely laid aside in the Church of Christ the fourth Commandement by which it was at first ordained being still in force So then according to these grounds the Articles of Ireland were virtually though not formally abrogated or else it must be granted that there were two Confessions in the same one Church different both in form and matter and contrary in some points unto one another which would have been so far from creating an uniformity between the Churches in the concernments of Religion that it would have raised a greater disagreement within Ireland it self than was before between the Churches of both Kingdoms And certainly the gaining of this point did much advantage the Archbishop conducing visibly to the promotion of his ends and Counsels in making the Irish Clergy subject to the two Declarations and accountable for their breaking and neglect thereof that is to say his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports and that prefixt before the book of Articles for appeasing Controversies Take for a farewell this acknowledgment of a late Historian speaking as well the sense of others as his own A Convocation concurrent with a Parliament was called saith he and kept at Dublin in Ireland wherein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England were received in Ireland for all to subscribe unto It was adjudged fit seeing that Kingdom complies with England in the Civil Government it should also conform thereunto in matters of Religion And thereupon he thus concludes That in the mean time the Irish Articles concluded formerly in a Synod 1616. mistaken for 1615. wherein Arminianism was condemned in terminis terminantibus and the observation of the Lords day resolved Iure divino were utterly excluded But leaving Ireland to the care of the Lord Deputy and the Bishop of Derry who under him had the chief managing of the affairs of that Church let us see how the new Archbishop proceeds in England where he had so many plows going at once too many as it after proved to work well together For not thinking he had done enough in order to the peace and uniformity of the Church of England by taking care for it here at home his thoughts transported him with the like affection to preserve it from neglect abroad To which end he had offered some considerations to the Lords of the Council as before was said Anno 1622. relating to the regulation of Gods publick Worship amongst the English Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas and the reducing of the French and Dutch Churches settled in divers parts of this Realm unto some conformity In reference to the first he had not sate long in the Chaire of Canterbury when he procured an Order from the Lords of the Council bearing date Octob. 1. 1633. By which their English Churches and Regiments in Holland and afterwards by degrees in all other Foreign parts and plantations were required strictly to observe the English Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in it
Minister of the Parish should be prest to the publishing of it But then withall they should consider that the Bishops were commanded to take order for the publishing of it in their several Parishes and whom could they require to publish it in the Parish Churches but the Ministers only Bound to them by an Oath of Canonical obedience at their admission to their Cures So that the Bishops did no more than they were commanded in laying the publication of this Declaration on the back of the Ministers and the Ministers by doing less than they were commanded infringed the Oath which they had taken rendring themselves thereby obnoxious to all such Ecclesiastical Censures as the Bishops should inflict upon them It was alledged secondly That the publishing of this Declaration was a work more proper for the Constable or Tything-man or the Church-wardens at the least than it was for the Ministers But then it was to be considered that the Constable or Tything-man were Lay-officers meerly bound by the Law to execute the Warrants of the Judges and Justices but not the Mandates of the Bishops so far from being Proper Instruments in such a business that none of the Judges thought it fit to command their Service in publishing their Orders against Ales and Revels And though the Church-wardens had some relation to Church-matters and consequently to the Bishop in the way of Presentments yet was he not bound to execute any such Commands because not tyed by an Oath of Canonical obedience as the Ministers were Or were it otherwise yet doth it happen many times in Country Villages that the Church-wardens cannot read and therefore not to be imployed in publishing such Declarations which require a more knowing man than a silly Villager And last of all it was alledged that the Ministers of all others were most unfit to hold the Candle for lighting and letting in such a course of licenciousness as was indulged on the Lords day by the said Declaration But then it was to have been proved that any of the Sports allowed of in it might have been brought within the compass of such Licentiousness which neither the Word of God nor the Canons of the Christian Church nor any Statutes of the Realm had before forbidden Or had it been as they pretended that the Command was contrary to the Law of God and could not be obeyed with a saâe conscience yet this was only a pretenââ their reading of the Book being no more an argument of their approbation of any thing therein contained than when a common Crier reads a Proclamation the Contents whereof perhaps he likes not The Business being at this stand it was thought fit that the Bishops should first deal with the Refusers in a Fatherly and gentle way but adding menaces sometimes to their perswasions if they saw cause for it and that in the mean season some discourses should be writ and published to bring them to a right understanding of the truth and their several duties which burden being held of too great weight for any one to undergo and the necessity of the work requiring a quick dispatch it was held fit to divide the imployment betwixt two The Argumentative and Scholasticall part referred to the right learned Dr. White then Bishop of Ely who had given good proof of his ability in Polemical matters in several Books and Disputations against the Papists The Practical and Historical by Heylyn of Westminster who had gained some reputation for his Studies in the ancient Writers by Asserting the History of S. George maliciously impugned by those of the Calvinian Party upon all occasions Both of them being enjoyned their tasks were required to be ready for the Press against Michaelmas Term at the end whereof both books came out The Bishops under the Title of A Treatise of the Sabbath day containing a defence of the Orthodoxal Doctrine of the Church of England against Sabbatarian Novelty The other called The History of the Sabbath was divided into two Books or Parts The first whereof began with the Creation of the World and carried on the Story till the destruction of the Temple The second beginning with our Saviour Christ and his Apostles was drawn down to the year 1633. when the publishing of this Declaration was required But going different waies to work they did not both encounter the like success The Bishops Book had not been extant very long when an Answer was returned unto it by Byfield of Surrey which Answer occasioned a Reply and that Reply begat a Rejoynder To Heylyns Book there was no Answer made at all whether because unanswerable or not worth the Answering is to me unknown And though it is not to be doubted but that the Arguments of the one and the Authorities of the other prevailed with some to lay aside their former obstinacy and averseness yet did there still remain too many who stopp'd their ears like the deaf Adder in the Psalmist and would not hear the voice of the Charmers charmed they never so sweetly By which it did appear too plainly That there was some Association had and made amongst them to stand it out to the last and put some baffle or affront upon their Superiors by whose Command the reading of the Book was imposed upon them And thereupon it was resolved That the Bishops in their several Diocesses should go to work more roundly with them and either bring them to Conformity if it might be done or otherwise to proceed against them by Ecclesiastical Censures But whilst these things were acting on the Stage of England the Bishops of Scotland were as active in drawing of a Book of Canons and framing a Publick Liturgie for the use of that Church Both Undertakings warranted by the Act of a General Assembly held at Aberdeen Anno 1616. and the one brought to a good forwardness before the death of King Iames But being discontinued by the Accidents and Debates before-remembred it pleased his Majesty at the last to yield unto the importunity of the Scottish Bishops in having a Liturgie of their own differing in some things from that of the Church of England to shew the independency and self-subsistence of their Kirk but agreeing with it in the main to testifie the Conformity between the Churches Which being thus condescended to they were ordered to proceed with all speed and diligence which they did accordingly But the Canons being the shorter work were first brought to an end for the compiling whereof his Majesty gives these Reasons in his large Declaration First That he held it but exceeding necessary that there should be some Book extant to contain the Rules of the Ecclesiastical Government so that as well the Clergy as the Laity might have one certain standing Rule to regulate the Power of the one the Obedience and Practise of the other Secondly That the Acts of General Assemblies were Written only and not Printed and therefore could not come to the knowledge of many So large and voluminous that
Right of that Dukedom to the Crown of England Iersey the bigger of the two more populous and of richer soil but of no great Trading Guernsey the lesser the more barren but nourishing a wealthier People Masters of many stout Barques and managing a rich Trade with the neighbouring Nations Attempted often by the French since they seised on Normandy but always with repulse and loss the People being very affectionate to the English Government under which they enjoy very ample Priviledges which from the French they could not hope for As parts of Normandy they were subject in Ecclesiastical Matters to the Bishops of Constance in that Dukedom and so continued till the Reformation of Religion here in England and were then added to the Diocess and Jurisdiction of the Bishops of Winchester But the Genevian Discipline being more agreeable to such Preachers as came to them from France they obtained the Exercise thereof in the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1565. The whole Government distinguished into two Classes or Colonies that of Iersey of it self being one and that of Guernsey with the Islands of Sark and Alderney making up the other both Classes meeting in a Synod every second or third year according to the Order of their Book of Discipline digested by Snape and Cartwright the two great Ring-leaders of that Faction here in England in a Synod held at Guernsey Iune 28. 1576. And this manner they continued till the time of King Iames when the Churches in the Isle of Iersey falling into some disorder and being under an immediate Governour who was no great Friend to Calvin's Plat-form they were necessitated for avoiding of a greater mischief to cast themselves into the Arms of the Church of England The principal Ecclesiastical Officer whilst they were under the Bishops of Constance had the Title of Dean for each Island one the several Powers both of the Chancellor and Archdeacon being united in his Person This Office is restored again his Jurisdiction marked out his Fees appointed his Revenue settled but made accountable for his Administration to the Bishops of Winchester The English Liturgie is Translated also into French to be read in their Churches Instructions first and afterwards a Body of Canons framed for Regulating both the Ministers and People in their several Duties those Canons bearing date the last of Iune in the one and twentieth year of that King For the confirming of this Island in their Conformity to the Government and Forms of Worship there established and the reducing of the others to the like condition it was resolved That the Metropolitical Visitation should be held in each of them at the next opening of the Spring And that it might be carried on with the greater assurance the Archbishop had designed a Person for his Principal Visitor who had spent some time in either Island and was well acquainted with the Bayliffs Ministers and men of special note amongst them But the Affairs of Scotland growing from bad to worse this Counsel was discontinued for the present and at last laid by for all together But these Islands were not out of his mind though they were out of sight his care extending further than his Visitation The Islanders did use to breed such of their Sons as they designed for the Ministry either at Saumur or Geneva from whence they returned well seasoned with the Leaven of Calvinism No better way to purge that old Leaven out of the Islands than to allure the people to send their Children to Oxon or Cambridge nor any better expedient to effect the same than to provide some preferments for them in our Universities It hapned that while he was intent on these Considerations that one Hubbard the Heir of Sir Miles Hubbard Citizen and Alderman of London departed this Life to whom upon an inquisition taken after his death in due form of Law no Heir was found which could lay claim to his Estate Which falling to the Crown in such an unexpected manner and being a fair Estate withal it was no hard matter for the Archbishop to perswade his Majesty to bestow some small part thereof upon pious uses To which his Majesty consenting there was so much allotted out of it as for the present served sufficiently to endow three Fellowships for the perpetual Education of so many of the Natives of Guernsey and Iersey not without some probable âope of doubling the number as the old Leases of it ââould expire These Fellowships to be founded in Exeter Iesus and Pembroke Colledges that being disperst in several Houses there might be an increase both of Fellows and Revenues of the said foundations By means whereof he did both piously and prudently provide for those Islands and the advancement of Conformity amongst them in the times to come For what could else ensue upon it but that the breeding of some Scholars out of those Islands in that University where they might throughly acquaint themselves with the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship establisht in the Church of England they might afterwards at their return to their native Countries reduce the Natives by degrees to conform unto it which doubtless in a short time would have done the work with as much honour to the King and content to himself as satisfaction to those People It is not to be thought that the Papists were all this while asleep and that neither the disquiets in England nor the tumults in Scotland were husbanded to the best advantage of the Catholick Cause Panzani as before is said had laid the foundation of an Agency or constant correspondence between the Queens Court and the Popes and having so done left the pursuit of the design to Con a Scot by birth but of a very busie and pragmatical head Arriving in England about the middle of Summer Anno 1636. he brought with him many pretended reliques of Saints Medals and Pieces of Gold with the Popes Picture stamped on them to be distributed amongst those of that Party but principally amongst the Ladies of the Court and Country to whom he made the greatest part of his applications He found the King and Queen at Holdenby House and by the Queen was very graciously entertained and took up his chief Lodgings in a house near the new Exchange As soon as the Court was returned to Whitehall he applied himself diligently to his work practising upon some of the principal Lords and making himself very plausible with the King himself who hoped he might make some use of him in the Court of Rome for facilitating the restitution of the Prince Elector And finding that the Kings Councils were much directed by the Archbishop of Canterbury he used his best endeavours to be brought into his acquaintance But Canterbury neither liked the man nor the Message which he came about and therefore kept himself at a distance neither admitting him to Complement nor Communication Howsoever by the Kings Connivence and the Queens Indulgence the Popish Faction gathered not only strength
same Month he gives Order for a General Assembly to be held at Glasco on November 21. next following in which he could not but be sure that after so many previous Condescensions on his part they would be able to do whatsoever they listed in defiance of him For before the Assembly was Indicted the Covenanters had so laid the Plot that none but those of their own Party should have Suffrage in it as afterwards by several Orders from their Tables they directed that no Chaplain nor Chapter-man nor any who have not subscribed the Covenant should be chosen to it not suffering the Archbishops or Bishops to sit as Moderators in their Presbyteries where the Elections were to pass and citing them to appear as Criminal Persons at the said Assembly by means of which Exclusions and Prelimitations the greatest part of the Assembly did consist of such as either were irregularly chosen by the over-ruling Voices of Lay-Elders which were thrust upon them or else not capable of being Elected some of them being under the Censures of the Kirk of Scotland others under the Censures of the Church of Ireland and some not having taken the Oath of Supremacy required by the Laws of the Land Upon which just and weighty Reasons as also the Admission of the Schismatical Clergy to sit as Judges over their Bishops the intrusion of so many Lay-Elders contrary to the Constitution of former General Assemblies the countenancing of a scandalous Libel against their Function and Persons and the prejudging of their Cause in their several Presbyteries by excluding them from having any Vote in the said Assembly when they were not present to interpose or speak any thing in their own behalf the Archbishops and Bishops in the name of themselves and all which did adhere unto them prepared their Declinator or Protestation against the said General Assembly and all the Acts and Conclusions of it as being void and null in Law to all intents and purposes whatsoever The day being come Hamilton marcheth to the place appointed for the Session in the equipage of a High-Commissioner the Sword and Seal being carried before him the Lords of the Council and all the Officers of State attending on him like a King indeed The reading of his Commission the putting in and rejecting of the Declinator the chusing of Henderson to be Moderator of the Assembly the constituting of the Members of it and some Debates touching the Votes and Suffrages challenged by Hamilton for such as were Assessors to him took up all the time between their first Meeting and their Dissolution which was by Proclamation solemnly declared on the twenty ninth of the same Month having âate only eight days by the Kings Authority For notwithstanding the said Dissolution the Members of the said Assembly continued and kept their Session and therein passed many Acts for the utter overthrow of the Polity and Government of the Church the infringing of his Majesties Prerogative Royal and violating the Authority of Parliaments For they not only Excommunicated the Bishops and their Adherents but condemned the very Function it self to be Antichristian and utterly to be abolished out of the Church notwithstanding that several Parliaments had confirmed the same The like Censure they also past on the Service Book and Canons with the five Articles of Perth though the two first received the Stamp of Royal Authority and the five last were confirmed in Parliament also They condemned in one breath all the Arminian Tenents in case of Predestination without examining the Arguments on which they were built and declared all men subject to Excommunication and other Censures of the Church who should refuse to yield obedience to all their unlawful Actings and Determinations And though his Majesty by the same Proclamation had commanded all his faithful Subjects not to yield any obedience to their Acts and Ordinances and bound himself in the Word of a King to defend them in it yet those of the Assembly were resolved to maintain their Authority For notwithstanding his Majesties late Declaration and Commands not only the Bishops and Clergy but also as many of the Layty as had refused to subscribe to the Acts thereof were deprived of their Offices and Preferments banished their Country and forced to fly into England oâ other places the King not being able to protect them from the power and malice of their Adversaries For having lost the opportunity of suppressing them in their first Insurrection in the year precedent aâd afterwards of reducing them by force of Arms in the year next following he was forced to shuffle up such a Pacification in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms Anno 1641. as left his Party dââââtute of all protection but what they found in England by his Majesties Favour in providing the Clergy of some small Benefices for their present subsistance which possibly might amount to more than formerly they enjoyed in their own Country And yet the Covenanters did not play all parts in this Assembly the King and his Commissioner had one part to act which was the presenting of a Declaration containing the sum and substance of all his Majesties gracious Condescensions exprest in the several Proclamations before remembred and a Command to have it registred in the Acts and Records thereof But upon what considerations and reasons of State his Majesty might be moved to commit that Paper to be registred amongst the Acts of Assembly is beyond my reach ãâã ââough many times the wisest Princes have sent out Proclamations of Grace for redress of Grievances and pardoning of fore-past o ãâ¦ã yet were those Proclamations and Acts of Grace beheld no otherwise than as temporary and occasional Remedies for the present mischiefs not to be drawn into Example and much less put upon Record for the times cusuing his Majesties Condescensions had been large enough and too much to the prejudice of his Crown and Dignity without this Enrolment Nor wants it somewhat of a âiddle that at such time as Hamilton tendred the Paper of his Majâstiâs âracious Concessions for discharging of the Service Book c. to be enrolled amongst the Acts of the Assembly he both declared and protested that his so doing should be no acknowledgment of the lawfulness and validity of that Convention which was instantly to be dissolved or that his Majestie should give order to have those Acts of Grace and Favour enrolled in the Records of the Assembly to stand full and sure to all his good Subjects for their assurance of and in the true Religion which Assembly at the same time âe declared to be illegal and all the Acts thereof to be null and void I must confess I am not Oedipus enough for so dark a Sphinx and must therefore leave this depth of State-craft to more able heads Only I cannot chuse but note how little his Majesty got by those Condescensions the stubborn and rebellious Scots being so far unsatisfied with these Acts of Grace that they not only forced all
supply but in the grant thereof blasted his Majesties Expedition against the Scots whose Cause they resolved to make their own and received thanks from them for that favour in their next Remonstrance Which coming to his Majesties ears on Munday the fourth of May he called his Council together on the next Morning betimes by whose unanimous consent he dissolved the Parliament On Tuesday April 14 the Convocation assembled in the Chapter-house of the Church of St. Paul from whence they waited on his Grace and the rest of the Bishops to hear the Sermon in the Quire The Sermon preacht by Turner Residentiary of the Church His Text was taken out of Mat. 10.16 Behold I send you forth as Sheep in the midst of Wolves which he followed home unto the Purpose In the close of the Sermon he had a passage in these words or to this effect that all the Bishops held not the Reins of Church Discipline with an even hand but that some of them were too easie and remiss in the ordering thereof Whereby though they sought to gain to themselves the popular plause of meekness and mildness they occasionally cast on other Bishops more severe than themselves the unjust imputation of Rigour and Tyranny and therefore he advised them withall with equal strictness to urge an universal Conformity The Sermon ended the Clergy fell to the electing of their Prolocutor as before commanded pitching unanimously on Dr. Richard Steward Clerk of his Majesties Closet and Dean of Chichester to be presented the next day to the Archbishop and the rest of the Prelates in the Chappel of King Henry vii at Westminster to which the Synod was adjourned The next day being come after a Protestation made in writing by the Sub-Dean and Prebendaries of that Church for not acknowledging the Archbishop of Canterbury or the rest of the Bishops to have any Jurisdiction in that place and the admitting of the same for good and valid they were permitted to proceed in their Convocation The business of that day was the presenting of the Prolocutor by Sheldon Warden of All-souls his Admission by the Archbishop and Stewards unwilling readiness to discharge the Office each of them delivering their conceptions in Elegant Latine Speeches as the custome is but the Archbishops longer than both the rest Which Ceremonies being performed his Grace produced a Commission under the Great Seal by which they were enabled according to the said Statute of King Henry viii to propose treat consult and agree upon the Exposition or Alteration of any Canon then in force and upon such new Canons Orders and Constitutions as the said Bishops and Clergy of which the Lord Archbishop to be alwaies one should think âit necessary and convenient for the honour and service of Almighty God the good and quiet of the Church and the better Government thereof to be performed and kept by the said Archbishops Bishops and the rest of the Clergy in their several places as also by the Dean of the Arches and by all others having Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Province of Canterbury and by all other persons within this Realm so far as being Members of this Church they may be concerned Provided alwaies that no such Canons Orders or Constitutions so to be considered on as aforesaid be contrary or repugnant to the Liturgy established or the Rubricks in it or the 39 Articles or any Doctrinal Orders and Ceremonies of the Church of England already established as also that nothing should be done in execution of the same till being exhibited to his Majesty in writing to be allowed approved confirmed and ratified or otherwise disallowed annihilated and made void as he should think fit requisite and convenient and then to be allowed approved and confirmed by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England Also the said Commission to continue and remain in force during the present Session of Parliament and to expire together with it For the procuring of this Commission as the Archbishop had good reason as well for countenancing and confirming his former Actings as for rectifying many other things which required reformation so had his Majesty as good reasons for the granting of it the grounds whereof contained in his Commission of Iune 13. for confirming all the Acts of this Convocation are to this effect He had been given to understand that many of his Subjects being misled against the Rites and Ceremonies then used in the Church of England had taken offence at the same upon an unjust supposal That they were not only contrary to Law but also introductive unto Popish Superstitions whereas it well appeared unto him upon mature deliberation that the said Rites and Ceremonies which were then so much quarrelled at were not only approved of and used by those godly and learned Divines to whom at the time of the Reformation under King Edward vi the compiling of the Book of Common-Prayer was committed divers of which suffered Martyrdom in Queen Maries daies but also again taken up by this whole Church under Queen Elizabeth Which Rites so taken up had been so duly and ordinarily practiced for a great part of her Reign within the memory of divers living as that it could not then be imagined that there would need any Rule or Law for the observation of the same nor that they could be thought to savour of Popery He found too plainly that since those times for want of an express Rule therein and by the subtle practices of some men the said Rites and Ceremonies began to fall into disuse and in place thereof other Foreign and unfitting usages by little and little to creep in But being he found withal that in the Royal Chappels and in many other Churches most of them had been ever constantly used and observed his Majesty could not but be very sensible of the inconvenience And he had cause also to conceive that the Authors and Fomenters of those Jealousies though they coloured the same with a pretence of zeal and did seem to strike only at some supposed iniquity in the said Ceremonies yet aimed at his Royal Person and would have his good Subjects think that he himself was perverted and did worship God in a superstitious way and that he did intend to bring in some alteration in the Religion here established From which how far he was and how utterly he detested the very thought thereof he had by his many Declarations and upon sundry other occasions given such assurance to the World that no man of wisdom and discretion could ever be so beguiled as to give any serious entertainment to such brainsick Jealousies And as for the weaker sort who were prone to be misled by crafty seducers he alwaies assured himself that as many of them as had loyal or but charitable hearts would from thenceforth utterly banish all such causeless fears and surmises upon those his Sacred Professions so often made as a Defender of the Christian Faith their King and Sovereign He
himself was fain to call both Houses before him within two daies after there to Explain or rather to Retract so harsh a Title calling them afterwards by the name of his Subjects of Scotland as he used to do which gave the Commons such a sense of their Power and of his Compliance that they resolved to husband both to their best advantage and not so easily to part with their Friends of Scotland as his Majesty first hoped they would The differences might have been agreed at York or Rippon if the Commissioners of the Scots had been as forward as the English but the Scots so delayed them as his Majesty noted in that Speech that it was not possible to end it there The Scots had other work to do besides their own and must be kept in pay at the charge of the English till they had brought his Majesty into such a condition that it was not safe for him to deny them any thing which they had the confidence to require Such a beginning had this long and unhappy Parliament unhappy to the King and to all that loved his Power or Person most men who looked on his Affairs with the eye of Judgment presaging that this thrifây omission of the Publick Pomp in the present Conjunctures would prove as inauspicious to him as the like neglect had done at his Coronation and that this Parliament which began without solemnity would prove a Parliament of sorrows unto him and his With little better Fortune did the Convocation take beginning at S. Pauls Church on the morrow after handselled at their first meeting by the sad news of the Decease of Dr. Neile Archbishop of York which had been brought unto the Town the day before A man he was who had past through all Degrees and Orders in the Church of England and thereby made acquainted with the conveniencies or distresses incident to all conditions He had served the Church as Schoolmaster Curate Vicar Parson Master of the Savoy Dean of Westminster Clerk of the Closet to both Kings successively Bishop of Rochester Lichfield Lincoln Durham and Winchester and finally Archbishop of York in which place he died Many good Offices he had done to the Church and Church-men in his attendance at the Court crossing the Scots in most of their suits their Ecclesiastical Preferments which greedily and ambitiously they hunted after and thereby drawing on himself the general hatred not only of the Scots but Scotizing English But of this Prelate we have spoke so much upon other occasions that we may save the labour of any further addition than that he died as full of years as he was of honours an affectionate Subject to his Prince an indulgent Father to his Clergy a bountiful Patron to his Chaplains and a true friend to all which relied upon him more fortunate in the time of his death than the course of his life in being prevented by that blessed opportunity from seeing those calamities which afterwards fell upon the King the Church and all that wish well to either of them which must have been more grievous to him than a thousand deaths But this bad news retarded not the Convocation from proceeding forwards the Prelates and Clergy attending the Archbishop from the Chapter-house into the Choire where they heard the Sermon Preached at that time by Bargrave then Dean of Canterbury which done the Clergy settled to the choice of a Prolocutor electing the same man who had before discharged the Place with so much dexterity Adjourned to Westminster and Protestation made by the Sub-Dean and Prebends according to the usual custome the Prolocutor was presented to the Archbishop and Bishops in the Chappel of King Henry vii at what time the Archbishop in an eloquent but sad Oration bemoaned the infelicities which he saw hanging over the Church advising every one there present to perform their Duties and not to be wanting to themselves or the cause of Religion as far forth as they were concerned in their several places Nothing more done of any moment in this Convocation but that a motion was made by Warmistre one of the Clerks for the Diocess of Worcester to this effect viz. That they should endeavour according to the Levitical Laws to cover the Pit which they had opened and to prevent their Adversaries intention by condemning such offensive Canons as were made in the last Convocation He had before offered at many things in that Convocation but such was his ill-luck that the Vote was for the most part passed before he spake nor had he better fortune in his motion now than his offers then the Members of that House not being willing to condemn themselves till they were accused So that not having any other way to obtain his purpose he caused a long Speech which he had made upon this occasion to be put in Print bitter enough against some Canons and Proceedings in the former Session but such as could not save him from a Sequestration when the rest of the Clergy were brought under the same condition Whilst these things were acting on the Stage of Westminster the Earl of Strafford was not Idle in acting his part at York amongst the Souldiers whose affections he had gained so far that he was generally beheld with esteem and veneration He had before sufficient proof how strongly the Scots aimed at his destruction expressed in their Remonstrance and the Intentions of their Army as they called the Pamphlet but more especially by the refusal of the Scots Commissioners to hold the Treaty at York and the reasons given for their refusal for in a Paper of theirs presented on October 8. They had insisted on the danger apprehended by them in going to York and casting themselves and others who might be joyned with them into the hands of an Army commanded by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland against whom as a chief Incendiary according to their demands which was the subject of the Treaty it self they resolved to proceed They complained also in that Paper That in the Parliament of Ireland he had proceeded against them as Traitors and Rebels That he honoured them in his common talk with no better Titles That his Commission was to destroy them And that by all means and by all occasions he had hindred all Propositions tending to a Pacification for fear himself might be excluded from the benefit of it He was not without a strong presumption that the Scots were animated unto these Demands and incouraged to invade the Kingdom by some of those which were of greatest Prevalency in both Houses of Parliament And lying so near the Scots in the head of his Army he had not only gained assurance as he conceived in many particulars to confirm it but that there was a Confederacy made between the Heads of the Covenanters and some of the leading Members of both Houses his most Capital Enemies to subject the Government of the Church and innovate in that of the Civil State which Intelligence being digested
be delivered in Parliament before the thirtieth of October next ensuing Anno 1641. It may be justly wondred at that all this while we have heard nothing of the Scots the chief promoters of these mischiefs but we may rest ourselves assured that they were not idle soliciting their affairs both openly and underhand instant in season and cut of season till they had brought about all ends which invited them hither They had made sure work with the Lord Lieutenant and feared ãâã the Resurââction of the Lord Archbishop though Doâmed at that time only to a Civil death They had gratified the Commons in procuring all the Acts of Parliament before remembred and paring the Bishops nails to the very quick by the only terrour of their Arms and were reciprocally gratified by them with a gift of three hundred thousand pounds of good English money in the name of a brotherly assistance for their pretended former losses which could not rationally be computed to the tenth part of that Sum. And in relation to that Treaty they gained in a manner all those points which had been first insisted on in the meeting at Rippon and many additionals also which were brought in afterwards by London In their Demand concerning Unity in Religion and Uniformity in Church-Government the Answer savoured rather of delay than satisfaction amounting to no more than this That his Majesty with the Advice oâ both Houses of Parliament did well approve of the affections of his Subjects of Scotland in their desires of having a Conformity of Church-Government between the two Nations And that as the Parliament had already taken into consideration the Reformation of Church-Government so they would proceed therein in due time as should best conduce to the glory of God and peace of the Church and of both Kingdoms Which Condescensions and Conclusions being ratified on August 7. by Act of Parliament in England a Provision was also made for the security of all his Majesties Party in reference to the former troubles excluding only the Scottish Prelates and four more of that Nation from the benefit of it And that being done his Majesty sât forwards toward Scotland on Tuesday the tenth of the same month giving order as he went for the Disbanding of both Armies that they might be no further charge or trouble to him Welcomed he was with great joy to the City of Edenborough in regard he came with full desires and resolutions of giving all satisfaction to that People which they could expect though to the Diminution of his Royal Rights and just Prerogative He was resolved to sweeten and Caress them with all Acts of Grace that so they might reciprocate with him in their Love and Loyalty though therein he found himself deceived For he not only ratified all the Transactions of the Treaty confirmed in England by Act of Parliament in that Kingdom but by like Act abolished the Episcopal Government and yielded to an alienation of all Church-Lands restored by his Father or himself for the maintenance of it A matter of most woful consequence to the Church of England For the House of Commons being advertised of these Transactions prest him with their continual importunities after his Return to subvert the Government oâ Bishops here in England in the destruction whereof he had been pleased to gratifie his Scottish Subjects which could not be râputed so considerable in his estimation nor were so in the eye of the World as the English were What followed hereupon we may hear too soon ââis good sucââss of the Scots encouraged the Irish Papists to attempt the like and to attempt it in the same way the Scots had gone that is to say by seâsing his Majesties Towns Forts and Castles putting themselves into the body of an Army banishing and imprisoning all such as opposed their Practices and then Petitioning the King for a publick exercise of their Religion And they had this great furtherance to promote their hopes For when the King was prest by the Commons for the disbanding of the Irish Army a suite was made unto him by the Embassadour of Spain that he might have leave to list three or four thousand of them for his Masters Service in the Wars to which motion his Majesty readily condescending gave order in it accordingly But the Commons never thinking themselves ãâã as long as any of that Army had a Sword in his hand never ãâã inâpââtuning the King whom they had now brought to the condition ãâã dââying nothing which they asked till they had made him âat his word and revoke those Orders to his great dishonour which so âxââpârated that Army consisting of 8000 Foot and 1000 Horse that it was no hard matter for those who had the managing of tâat Plot to make sure of them And then considering that the Scââs by raising of an Army had gained from the King an abolition of tâe Episcopal Order the Rescinding of his own and his Fathers Acts aâout the reducing of that Church to some Uniformity with this aâd settled their Kirk in such a way as best pleased their own humours Why might not the Irish Papists hope that by the help of such an Army ready raised to their hands or easily drawn together tâough dispersed at present they might obtain the like indulgences and grants for their Religion The 23 of October was the day designed for tâe seizing of the City and Castle of Dublin and many places of great Importance in that Kingdom But failing in the main dââign which had been discovered the night before by one O Conally they brake out into open Arms dealing no better with the Protestants there than the Covenanters had done with the Royal Party in Scotland Oâ this Rebellion for it must be called a Rebellion in the Irish though not in the Scots his Majesty gives present notice to the Houses of Parliament requiring their Counsel and assistance for the extinguishing of that Flame before it had wasted and consumed that Kingdom But neither the necessity of the Protestants there âot the Kings importunity here could perswade them to Levy one man toward the suppression of those Rebels till the King had disclaimed his power of pressing Souldiers in an Act of Parliament and thereby laid himself open to such Acts of violence as were then hammering against him But to proceed his Majesty having settled his Affairs in Scotland to the full contentment of the People by granting them the Acts of Grace before remembred and giving some addition of Honour to his greatest enemies amongst whom Lesly who commanded their two lâte Armies most undeservedly was advanced to the Title of Earl of Leven prepared in the beginning of Novemb. for his journey to London where he was welcomed by the Lord Mayor and Citizens with all imaginable expressions of Love and Duty But the Commons at the other end of the Town entertain'd him with a sharp Declaration Entituled The Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom which they presented to
Of the Form of Consecration observed but not prescribed since the Reformation What kinde of Images they are which were prohibited by the Queens Injunctions The Articles of the Regal Visitation and What is to be said in answer to such passages as are found against them in the Book of Homilies The Lords Day built upon the same foundation with the other Holy dayes according to the Book of Homilies and The Act of Parliament 5.6 of EDW. vi What works of labour were permitted on the Lords Day and the other Holy dayes by the Book of Homilies The Statute 5. and 6. of EDW. vi The Injunctions of King EDW. vi and Of Queen ELIZ. Practised accordingly in the Court from that time to this Reverence required of the people at their first entrance in to the Church According to the practice of the Primitive times and The example of the Knights of the Garter c. and That example well enforced by Archbishop LAUD p. 47. Kneeling and standing when required The reverence to be used at the name of Iesus continued by Injunct 52. and Afterwards renewed by the Canon of the year 1603. with The Reasons for it The moderate proceedings of the first Reformers In reference to the Pope and The Church of ROME Observed and applauded by K. JAMES The Power of the Church asserted in the twentieth Article In the 34th reduced to practice and Of the power ascribed in Sacred Matters to the Kings of ENGLAND The Sacrament of the Lords Supper called frequently The Sacrament of the Altar as viz. by the Act of Parliament by Bishop RIDLEY Bishop LA TIMER and Some other Martyrs The Lords Table ordered to be placed where the Altar stood by the Injunctions of Q. ELIZ 1559. The Book of Orders 1561 and Advertis of the year 1565. and At the same the second Service to be said on the Sundayes and Holy Dayes The Lords Supper frequently called a Sacrifice by The Ancient Fathers By many Learned men amongst our selves Some of our godly Martyrs also and In what respect A Real Presence proved by The publick Liturgy By Bishop RIDLEY By Mr. Alex. Nowel and By Bishop BILSON The same confirmed ây the words of the Catechism As also by the testimony of Bishop ANDREWS Bishop Morton The Article of Christs descent made figurative by Calvin and The Lord Primate but Justified to be Local By the Articles of the Church of ENGLAND The words of Mâ Alexander Nowel and The works of Learned Bishop Bilson The necessity of Baptisme maintained by the first âeformârâ Justified in the Conference at Hampton-Court and Not gain said by any alteration in the publick Rubrick and Of the efficacy ascribed unto it by the Church Justification how divided betwixt Faith and Works In what respects ascribed to Faith by the Church of ENGL. and In what to Works Of the efficacy of good Works and The Reward belonging to them and Of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND in that particular The great Divisions in the Church touching Predestination The stating of the point by the Church of ENGLAND Illustrated by the story of Agilmond and Lamistus Kings of Lombardy Predestinatination how defined The definition explicated The explication justified by the ancient Fathers By Bishop LATIMER and The last clause of the 17th Article The Church why silent in the point of Reprobation The absolute Decree unknown to Bishop HOOPER By Bishop LATIMER and By King Iames. Universal Redemption maintained by the Book of Articles Many plain passages in the Publick Liturgy And the testimony of our ancient Martyrs The freedom of the Will too much advanced by the ãâã Decryed as much by Luther and The Contra Remonstrants The temper of St. Augustiâ in it Approved and imitated in the Articles of the Church of ENGL. and Her Publick Liturgie The Churches Doctrine vindicated and explained by Bishop Hoopââ and by Bishop Latimer as also by the Lutheran Churches and St. Augustine himself The Churches Doctrine in the point of Falling away Made clear by some expressions of Bishop Hâoper Of Bishop Latimer and The Conference at Hampton Court The harmony and consent in Judgment between Bishop Hooper and Bishop Ridley and Between Bishop Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer The judgment of Archbishop Craââââ in the point disputed The authority ascriâed to the Works of Erasmus by our first Reformers The Points which still remain in difference betwixt the Churches How far with in the possibility of Reconcilement And in what points they joyn together against the Anabaptists and Sectaries Liberty of Opinion left in other Points by the first Reformers ãâã Their discretion in so doing Approved and commended by King Iames. Anno Dom. 1573. (a) Brev. 1. Lord Brook p. 3. (b) Brev. 1. Lord Brook p. 3. Camld Rens p. 273. last Edit 1589. (d) ãâã scribendo quam concionaâdo veââââtem Evângââicam haud sigâââer saâagiâ pâopugâare Godwin Catal. âpisc 584. (e) Hist. of Scot. lib. 7. p. 497. 1590. 1593. 1599. (f) Full. Hist. lib. 9. p. 234. (g) Cant. Dâme p. 469. (h) Hâoker Prefâce (i) ãâ¦ã quia ãâ¦ã in communes errores Ludo. Vives in Aug. de Civit Dei Nisi quod ex illa ipsa doctrina catholici Patres vetâres Episcopi câllâgârânt (k) Lib. Can. cap. De conâââat p. 19. 1602. 1603. 1604. 1606. L. Decad. 3. ãâã Cant. Dome p. 409. (m) Injuria contumelici R. E. Clericorum exâgitatus in Montani partes transit B Rhen. in Tertull. (n) Câllâct of Speeches p. 5 (o) ãâã n. Mat. 19.9 9 Bre. p. 4. p. 6. 1608. 1610. 1611. (p) Conf. at Hamp p. 85. Hist. of K. Charles by H. L. p 31. 1611. (z) Iohn 21. v. 3 6. 1614. (s) Church Hist. l. 10 p 59. t ãâ¦ã Gâdw in Continuat 1617. Hist. Scotl. l. 7. p. 531. Nâm p. 534. 1618. Hist. ãâã Scot. ââl 5â0 (b) 1620. Anno Dom. 1621. 1622. (g) Vide quà m praetiolâs vaâis administrant Mariae Fâlââ Socrat. Hist. Eccl. lib. 3. (h) Cant. Dâââ p. 504 Et tani ad Sacramenta quam Sacramentalia tum Coenae Dominicae tum etiam Baptismatis Sacri in âandem ministrantur c. Hidden wârks of dârk p. 47 Iâ p. 25. (m) Hidden works p. 34. Cant. Dââm p. 276. Hiâd Works c. 34. Brev. p. 3. (p) Breviate p. 14. (q) ãâã p. 47. Sâalâ 530. (r) Digby ââ Calvert Iul. 25. (s) to Colverâ Dec. 28. to K. James Octob. 24. Hâdd Works p. 6â Act of Parl. A. 11 Jac. 21. c. 34. (s) D. Whites Preface to his Reply c. (t) Epist. dediâat to tâe King 16â7 (e) Epist. dedicatâ to Appello Caesâ (a) Hidden ãâã p. 73. (b) Ib. p. 69. 1625. Breviate p. 6. Breviâte p. 6. ãâã p. 156. (a) Eââ Regia p. 12. Iâid p 15. Cant Doom 69. Hist. K. Ch. 20. ãâ¦ã Collect ãâ¦ã Eâact Collâât of Edw. Huââ 290. Sâr. 3. p. 102 Pag. 104. P. 107. P. 109. 1626. Cabal Breviâte p. 7. Pa. 8. Hist. King Charles p. 50. Ch. Hist. lib. 2.
CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES the First Second MONARCH of Great Britain CONTAINING ALSO The Ecclesiastical History of the Three Kingdoms of ENGLAND SCOTLAND and IRELAND from His first rising till His Death By P. Heylyn D. D. and Chaplain to Charles the first and Charles the second Monarchs of Great Britain ECCLUS 44. VERS 1 3. 1. Let us now praise Famous Men and our Fathers that begat Vs. 3. Such as did bear Rule in their Kingdoms Men Renowned for their Power giving Counsel by their Vnderstanding and Declaring Prophesies LONDON Printed for A. Seile MDCLXVIII To the Honourable Sir IOHN ROBINSON Kt. and Baronet HIS MAJESTIES Lieutenant of the Tower of London SIR YOV have here before you the History of an Eminent Prelate and Patriot a Person who lived the honour and died a Martyr of the English Church and State for it was his sad Fate to be crusht betwixt Popery and Schism and having against both defended the Protestant Cause with his Pen he after chearfully proceeded to Seal that Faith with his Bloud Together with the Story of this Great Man you have likewise that of the Age he lived in especially so far as concerned the Church wherein you will find recorded many notable Agitations and Contrivances which it were pity should be lost in silence and pass away unregarded These Considerations towards a Gentleman of your worth Curiosity and loyalty are warrant enough to justifie me in this Dedication And yet I must not conceal that it belongs to you by another right that is to say the Care of recommending this VVork to the Publick was committed to a Gentleman who himself had presented it to your hand if God had not taken him away just upon the point of putting his purpose in execution So that it seems in me as well matter of Conscience as of Respect to deliver it wholly up to your Patronage and Protection since in exposing it to the world I do but perform the will of my dead Father and in addressing it to your self together with my own I also gratifie that of my deceased Friend The value of the VVork it self I do not pretend to judge of my duty and interest for the Author forbids it but for the Industry Integrity and good meaning of the Historian I dare become answerable And in truth I hope well of the rest without which I should not have made bold with Sir John Robinson's Name in the Front of it who being so nearly related both in bloud and affection to that Incomparable and Zealous Minister of God and his Prince cannot besides a Natural but upon an Honourable Impression concern himself in the glories or blemishes of this Character defective in nothing but that it could not be as ample as his worth And now having discharged my trust and duty as I could do no less so I have little more to add for my self but that I am SIR Your most humble and obedient Servant HENRY HEYLYN A Necessary INTRODUCTION To the following HISTORY BEFORE we come unto the History of this Famous Prelate it will not be amiss to see upon what Principles and Positions the Reformation of this Church did first proceed that so we may the better Judge of those Innovations which afterwards were thrust upon her and those Endeavours which were used in the latter times to bring her back again to her first Condition 1. Know therefore that King Henry viii having obtained of the Bishops and Clergie in their Convocation Anno 1530. to be acknowledged the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England did about three years after in the 26 of his Reign confirm the said Supremacy to Himself his Heirs and Successors with all the Priviledges and Preheminencies thereunto belonging by Act of Parliament And having procured the said Bishops and Clergie in another of their Convocations held in the year 1532. to promise in verbo Sacerdotii not to assemble from thenceforth in any Convocation or Synodical Meeting but as they should be called by his Majesties Writ nor to make any Canons or Constitutions Synodal or Provincial without his Leave and Licence thereunto obtained nor finally to put the same in Execution till they were Ratified and Confirmed under the Great Seal of England Procured also an Act of Parliament to bind the Clergie to their promise Which Act called commonly The Act of the Submission of the Clergie doth bear this name in Poulton's Abridgment viz. That the Clergie in their Convocation should Enact no Constitutions without the Kings assent Anno 25. Henry viii c. 19. Which Grounds so laid he caused this Question to be debated in both Universities and all the Famous Monasteries of the Kingdom viz. An aliquid auâhoritatis in hoc Regno Angliae Pontifici Romano de jure competat plusquam alii cuicumque Episcopo extero Which Question being concluded in the Negative and that Conclusion ratified and confirmed in the Convocation Anno 1534. there past an Act of Parliament about two years after Intituled An Act Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishops of Rome In which there was an Oath prescribed for abjuring the Popes Authority within this Realm The refusing whereof was made High-Treason Anno 28. H. viii c. 10. 2. But this Exclusion of the Pope as it did no way prejudice the Clergy in their power of making Canons Constitutions and other Synodical Acts but only brought them to a dependance upon the King for the better ordering of the same so neither did it create any diminution of the Power and Priviledges of the Arch-Bishops and Bishops in the free exercise of that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which anciently belonged to them For in the Act of Submission before-mentioned there passed a Clause that all former Constitutions Synodal or Provincial which were not contrary to the Word of God the Kings Prerogative Royal or the Laws and Statutes of this Realm should remain in force until they were reviewed and fitted for the use of the Church by 32 Commissioners to be nominated by the King for that end and purpose Which re-view being never made in the time of that King nor any thing done in it by K. Edw. vi though he had an Act of Parliament to the same effect the said Old Canons and Constitutions remained in force as before they were By means whereof all causes Testamentary Matrimonial and Suits for Tythes all matters of Incontinency and other notorious Crimes which gave publick Scandal all wilful absence from Divine Service Irreverence and other Misdemeanours in the Church not punishable by the Laws of the Land were still reserved unto the Ecclesiastical Courts Those Ancient Canons and Constitutions remaining also for the perpetual standing Rule
leave to Worship God as your selves do For if it be Gods Worship I ought to do it as well as you and if it be Idolatry you ought not to do it more then I. 19. This duty being performed at their first entrance into the Church it was next required by the Rubrick that they should reverently kneel at the reading of the publick Prayers and in the receiving of the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper that they should stand up at the reading of the Apostles Creed and consequently at the Athanasian and Nicene also which are as Commentaries on that Text as also at the frequent Repetitions of the Gloria Patri which is an Abridgement of the same And in the next place it was required by the Queens Injunctions That whensoever the Name of Iesus shall be in any Lesson Sermon or otherwise in the Church pronounced that due reverence be made of all persons young and old with lowness of courtesie and uncovering the heads of the mankinde as thereunto doth necessarily belong and heretofore hath been accustomed In which it is to be observed that though this Injunction was published in the first year of the Queen yet then this bowing at the Name of Iesus was lookt on as an ancient custom not only used in Queen Maries Reign but also in King Edwards time and in those before And in this case and in that before and in all others of that nature it is a good and certain rule that all such Rites as had been practised in the Church of Rome and not abolisht nor disclaimed by any Doctrine Law or Canon of the first Reformers were to continue in the same state in which they found them But this commendable custom together with all other outward reverence in Gods publick Service being every day more and more discontinued as the Puritan Faction got ground amongst us it seemed good to the Prelates and Clergy assembled in Convocation Anno 1603. to revive the same with some enlargement as to the uncovering of the Head in all the acts and parts of publick worship For thus we have it in the 18. Canon of that year viz. No man shall cover his head in the Church or Chappel in time of Divine Service except he have some Infirmity in which case let him wear a night Cap or Coife And likewise when the Name of Iesus shall be mentioned due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present as it hath been accustomed testifying by this outward Ceremony and Gesture their inward Humility Christian Resolution and due acknowledgement that the Lord Iesus Christ the true and eternal Son of God is the only Saviour of the world in whom alone all Graces Mercies and Promises of Gods love to mankinde for this life and the life to come are wholly comprised In which Canon we have not only the Doctrine that bowing is to be used to the Name of Iesus but the uses also and not alone the custom but the reasons of it both grounded on that Text of Scripture Phil. 2.10 that at the Name of IESVS every knee should bow according to such expositions as were made thereof by St. Ambrose and others of the ancient Writers 20. In matters which were meerly doctrinal and not practical also so the first Reformers carried on the work with the same equal temper as they did those which were either mixt or meerly practical And first beginning with the Pope having discharged themselves from the Supremacy which in the times foregoing he had exercised over them in this Kingdom I finde no Declaration in any publick Monument or Records of the Church of England that the Pope was Antichrist whatsoever some of them might say in their private Writings some hard expressions there are of him in the Book of Homilies but none more hard then those in the publick Litany first published by King Hen. viii at his going to Bolongue and afterwards retained in both Liturgies of King Edward vi In which the people were to pray for their deliverance from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities c. This was conceived to be as indeed it was a very great scandal and offence to all those in the Realm of England who were well affected to the Church of Rome and therefore in the Liturgy of Queen Elizabeth it was quite left out the better to allure them to the Divine Service of the Church as at first it did And for the Church of Rome it self they beheld it with no other eyes then as a Member of the visible Church which had for many hundred years maintained the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith though both unsound in Doctrine and corrupt in Manners Just as a man distempered in his Brain Diseased in all the parts of his Body and languishing under many putrified Sores doth still retain the being of a natural man as long as he hath sense and motion and in his lucid intervals some use of Reason They tell us in the 19. Article that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but in matters of Faith But then they lookt upon her as a Member of the Visible Church as well as those of Ierusalem Antioch and Alexandria which are there affirmed to have erred also Erre then she might and erre she did indeed too grosly and yet might notwithstanding serve as a conduit-pipe to convey to us many of those Primitive Truths and many of those godly Rites and Ceremonies which she had superstitiously defiled In which last place it was a very pious rule that in the Reformation of a Church abuses being taken away the primitive Institution should be left remaining Tollatur abusus maneat usus as the saying is and in the first as piously observed by King Iames in the Conference at Hampton-Court that in all Reformations he would not have any such departure from the Papists in all things that because we in some points agree with them therefore we should be accounted to be in an error Let us then see how near the first Reformers did and might come unto the Papists and yet not joyn with them in their Errors to the betraying of the Truth 21. The Pope they deprived of that unlimitted Supremacy and the Church of Rome of that exorbitant power which they formerly challenged over them yet did they neither think it fit to leave the Church without her lawful and just Authority nor saâe to put her out of the protection of the Supream Governour Touching the first it was resolved in the 20. Article That the Church hath power not only to decree Rites and Ceremonies but also in Controversies of Faith as the English Ecclesia habet Ritus Ceremonias Statuendi jus in fidei controversiis Authoritatem as it is in the Latine And so it stands in the Original Acts of the Convocation Anno 1562. and publisht in the self same words both in Latine and English Afterwards in the year
1571. by the power and prevalency of some of the Genevian Faction the Articles were reprinted and this Clause left out But the times bettering and the Governors of the Church taking just notice of the danger which lay lurking under that omission there was care taken that the said clause should be restored unto its place in all following impressions of that Book as it hath ever since continued Nor was this part of the Article a matter of speculation only and not reducible to practice or if reducible to practice not fit to be enforced upon such as gain-said the same For in the 34. Article it is thus declared That whosoever through his private judgement willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant unto the word of God and be ordained and approved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church and hurteth the the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren More power then this as the See of Rome did never challenge so less then this was not reserved unto it self by the Church of England And as for the Authority of the Church in controversies of Faith the very Articles by which they declared that power seconded by the rest of the points which are there determined is a sufficient Argument that they used and exercised that power which was there declared And because some objection had been made both by the Papists and those of the Genevian party that a Papal power was granted as at first to King Henry viii under the name of Supream Head so afterwards to Queen Elizabeth and her Successors it was thought expedient by the Church to stop that clamour at the first and thereupon it was declared in the Convocation of the Prelates and Clergy who make the representative Body of the Church of England in the 37. Article of the year 1562. That whereas they had attributed to the Queens Majesty the chief Government of all the Estates of this Realm whether Ecclesiastical or Civil in all cases they did not give unto their Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments but that only Prerogative which was known to have been given alwayes to all godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself that is to say that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers Less Power then this as good Subjects could not give unto their King so more then this hath there not been exercised or desired by the Kings of England Such power as was by God vouchsafed to the godly Kings and Princes in Holy Scripture may serve abundantly to satisfie even the unlimited desires of the mightiest Monarch were they as boundless as the Popes 22. Next to the point of the Supremacy esteemed the Principal Article of Religion in the Church of Rome primus praecipuus Romanensis fidei Articulus as is affirmed in the History of the Council of Trent the most material differences betwixt them and us relate to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the natural efficacy of good works in which the differences betwixt them and the first Reformers seem to be at the greatest though even in those they came as near to them as might stand with Piety The Sacrament of the Lords Supper they called the Sacrament of the Altar as appears plainly by the Statute 1 Edward vi entituled An Act against such as speak unreverently against the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ commonly called the Sacrament of the ALTAR For which consult the Body of the Act it self Or secondly by Bishop Ridley one of the chief Compilers of the Common-Prayer-Book who doth not only call it the Sacrament of the Altar affirming thus that in the Sacrament of the Altar is the natural Body and Blood of Christ c. But in his Reply to an Argument of the Bishop of Lincoln's taken out of St. Cyril he doth resolve it thus viz. The word Altar in the Scripture signifieth as well the Altar whereon the Jews were wont to oder their Burnt Sacrifice as the Table of the Lords Supper and that St. Cyril meaneth by this word Altar not the Iewish Altar but the Table of the Lord c. Acts and Mon. part 3. p. 492. and 497. Thirdly By Bishop Latimer his fellow Martyr who plainly grants That the Lords Table may be called an Altar and that the Doctors called it so in many places though there be no propitiatory Sacrifice but only Christ part 2. p. 85. Fourthly By the several affirmations of Iohn Lambert and Iohn Philpot two Learned and Religious men whereof the one suffered death for Religion under Henry viii the other in the fiery time of Queen Mary This Sacrament being called by both the Sacrament of the Altar in their several times for which consult the Acts and Monuments commonly called the Book of Martyrs And that this Sacrament might the longer preserve that name and the Lords Supper be administred with the more solemnity it was ordained in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth no Altar should be taken down but by the over-sight of the Curate of the Church and the Church-Wardens or one of them at least and that the Holy Table in every Church be decently made and set up in the place where the Altar stood and there commonly covered as thereto belongeth It is besides declared in the Book of Orders Anno 1561. published about two years after the said Injunction That in the place where the Steps were the Communion Table should stand and that there shall be fixed on the Wall over the Communion Board the Tables of Gods Precepts imprinted for the same purpose The like occurs in the Advertisements published by the Metropolitan and others the High Commissioners 1565. In which it is ordered That the Parish shall provide a decent Table standing on a frame for the Communion Table which they shall decently cover with a Carpet of Silk or other decent covering and with a white Linâen Cloath in the time of the administration and shall set the Ten Commandments upon the East-Wall over the said Table All which being laid together amounts to this that the Communion-Table was to stand above the steps and under the Commandments therefore all along the Wall on which the Ten Commandments were appointed to be placed which was directly where the Altar had stood before Now that the Holy Table in what posture soever it be plac't should not be thought unuseful at all other times but only at the time of the Ministration it was appointed by the Church in its first Reformation that the Communion-Service commonly called the Second Service upon all Sundayes and Holy-dayes should be read only at the Holy Table For first in the last
Doctrine or to the establisht Government and Forms of Worship of the Church of England they are not for so doing to be branded by the name of Papists or their writings to be censured and condemned for Popish because perhaps they differ in those matters from the Churches of Calvins Platform Veritas a quocunque est est a spiritu sancto as divinely Ambrose Truth is no more restrained to the Schools of Calvin then to those of Rome some truths being to be found in each but not all in either And certainly in this the first Reformers did exceeding wisely in not tying up the judgements of learned men where they might be freed but leaving them a sufficient scope to exercise their wits and Pens as they saw occasion Had they done otherwise and condemned every thing for Popish which was either taught or used in the times of Popery they must then have condemned the Doctrine of the Trinity it self as was well observed by King Iames in the Conference at Hampton-Court And then said he You Dr. Reynolds must go barefoot because they wore hose and shooes in times of Popery p. 75. Besides which inconvenience it must needs have followed that by a general renouncing of all such things as have been taught and used by the Church of Rome the Confession of the Church of England must have been like that both in condition and effect which Mr. Craig composed for the Kirk of Scotland of which King Iames tells us p. 39. that with his I renounce and I abhor his Detestations and Protestations he did so amaze the simple people that they not able to conceive all those things utterly gave over all falling back to Popery or still remaining in their former ignorance 41. Such was the Moderation which was used by our first Reformers and on such Principles and Positions did they ground this Church Which I have laid down here at large that so we may the better Judge of those Deviations which afterwards were made by Factious and unquiet men as also of the Piety of their endeavours who aimed at the Reduction of her to her first condition If the great Prelate whom I write of did either labour to subvert the Doctrine or innovate any thing either in the Publick Government or Formes of Worship here by Law Established contrary to the Principles and Positions before expressed his Adversaries had the better Reason to clamor against him whilst he lived and to persue their clamors till the very last But on the other side if neither in his own person or by the diligence and activity of his subservient Ministers he acted or suffered any thing to be justified in point of Practice or allowed any thing to be Preached or Prayed or hindred any thing from being Published or Preached but what may be made good by the Rules of the Church and the complexion of the times in which he lived those foul Reproaches which so unjustly and uncharitably have been laid upon him must return back upon the Authors from whom they came as stones thrown up against the Heavens do many times fall upon the heads of those that threw them But whither side deserved the blame for innovating in the Doctrine Rites and Ceremonies of the Anglican Church according to the first Principles and Positions of it will best appear by the course of the ensuing History Relation being had to this Introduction which I have here placed in the front as a Lamp or Candle such as we find commonly in the Porches of Great Mens houses to light the way to such as are desirous to go into them that they may enter with delight converse therein with pleasure and return with safety CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES Second MONARCH of Great-Brittain PART I. Containing the History of his Life and Actions from the day of his Birth Octob. 7. 1573. to the day of his Nomination to the See of Canterbury August 6. 1633. LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for A. Seile 1668. THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB I. Extending from the time of his Birth till his being made Bishop of St. Davids TO Recommend unto Posterity the Lives and Actions of eminent and famous Persons hath alwayes been esteemed a work becoming the most able Pens Nothing so much enobleth Plutarch as his committing unto memory the Actions and Achievements of the most renowned Greeks and Romans or added more unto the fame of Diogenes Laertius than that which he hath left us of the Lives and Apophthegms of the old Philosophers Some pains have fortunately been taken in this kind by Paulus Iavius Bishop of Como and by Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury in the dayes of our Fathers Nor can we be so little studdied in the World as not to know that even particular persons I speak not here of Kings and Princes have had their own particular and distinct Historians by whom their Parts and Piety their Military Exploits or Civil Prudence have been transmitted to the knowledge of succeeding ages So that adventuring on the Life of this famous Prelate I cannot be without Examples though without Encouragements For what Encouragements can there be to such a work in which there is an impossibility of pleasing all more than an ordinary probability of offending many no expectation of Reward nor certainty of any thing but misconstructions and Detractings if not dangers also Howsoever I shall give my self the satisfaction of doing my last duty to the memory of a man so Famous of such a Publick Spirit in all his actions so eminently deserving of the Church of England With which profession of my Piety and Ingenuity I shall not be altogether out of hope but that my Labours in this Piece may obtain a pardon if they shall not reach to an Applause William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury was born on the 7th day of October An. 1573. A year remarkable for the buslings of the Puritan Faction who before they had served an Apprentiship in the Trade of Sedition began to set up for themselves and seeing they could not have the countenance of Authority to justifie the advancing of their Holy Discipline resolved to introduce it by little and little as opportunity should be given them which they did accordingly His Birth place Reading the principal Town of Berks for Wealth and Beauty remarkable heretofore for a stately and magnificent Abby founded and liberally Endowed by King Henry I. and no less eminent in these last Ages for the Trade of Clothing the Seminary of some Families of Gentry within that County And of this Trade his Father was who kept not only many Lomes in his
he was chosen to be one of the four Dr. Andrews Bishop of Chichester Dr. Barlow Bishop of Rochester and Dr. King then Dean of Christchurch and not long after Bishop of London were the other three who were appointed to Preach before his Majesty at Hampton-court in the Month of September 1606. for the Reductions of the two Melvins and other Presbyterian Scots to a right understanding of the Church of England In the performance oâ which Service he took for his Text those words of the Apostle Let every soul c. Rom. 13.1 In canvasing whereof he fell upon the Point of the Kings Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical which he handled as the most Reverend Archbishop Spotwood who was present at the Sermon hath informed us of him both learnedly and soundly to the satisfaction of all the hearers but that the Scottish Ministers seemed very much grieved to hear the Pope and the Presbytery so often equalled in their opposition to Sovereign Princes Hist. of the Church of Scotland Lib. VII pag. 497. And though the other three with the like abilities and elocution had discharged their parts yet gained they nothing on the Scots who were resolved like the deaf Adder in the Psalmist not to give ear unto the Charmers charmed they never so wisely But whatsoever they lost in the opinion of that proud and refractory Generation they gained exceedingly on the King and great Preferments for themselves Bishop Andrews being not long after removed to the See of Ely Bishop Barlow unto that of Lincoln Dr. King preferred to the See of London and Dr. Buckridge to that of Rochester where he continued till the year 1627. when by the power and favour of this his present Pupill then Bishop of Bath and Wells he was translated to the rich Bishoprick of Ely in which See he died Of this man I have spoken the more at large that finding the temper of the Tutor we may the better judge of those ingredients which went to the making up of the Scholar Having spent about a year in his Colledge there was raised such a good report of him in the Town of Reading that partly by his own proficiencies and partly by the good esteem which was had of his Father he was nominated by the Mayor and others of that Corporation unto a Scholars place in that House according to the Constitutions of Sir Tho. White the Honourable and sole Founder of it who though he had designed the Merchant-Taylors School in London for the Chief Seminary of his Colledge yet being a man of a more publick Spirit than to confine himself to any one place he allowed two Fellowships to the City of Coventry and as many to Bristol two also to the Town of Reading and one to Tunbridg Admitted a Scholar of the House on this nomination at the end of three years according to the Custom of that Colledge he was made one of the Fellows taking his Academical Degrees according to that custom also by which custom those of that Society are kept longer from taking their degrees in the Arts but are permitted to take their Degrees in Divinity much sooner than in other Houses so that although he proceeded not Master of Arts till the Month of Iuly 1599. yet at the end of five years only he took the Degree of Batchelour in Divinity without longer stay during which interval he was first made Deacon and afterwards was put into the Order of Priesthood by Dr. Young then Bishop of Rochester the See of Oxon. being vacant in which vacancy it had continued for the space of 11. years that is to say from the death of Bishop Vnderhill An. 1592. till the Consecration of Dr. Bridges on the twelfth of February An. 1603. The Patrimony of that Church being in the mean time much dilapidated and made a prey for the most part to the Earl of Essex to whom it proved as miserably fatal as the Gold of Tholouse did of old to the Soldiers of Caepio And now being fallen upon his Studies in Divinity in the exercise whereof he met with some affronts and oppositions it will be necessary to take a short view of the then present Estate of that University that so we may the better discern the Reasons of those affronts and oppositions under which he suffered Know then that Mr. Lawrence Humphrey one of the Fellows of Magdalen Colledge being deprived of his Fellowship there in Queen Maries time betook himself to the City of Zurich a City of chiefest note amongst the Switzers remarkable for the Preachings and Death of Zuinglius from whence and from the Correspondence which he had at Geneva he brought back with him at his returning into England on Queen Maries death so much of the Calvinian both in Doctrine and in Discipline that the best that could be said of him by one who commonly speaks favourably of all that Party is that he was a moderate and conscientious Non-conformist Immediately on his return he was by Queen Elizabeth made President of Magdalen Colledge and found to be the fittest man as certainly he was a man of very good parts and the Master of a pure Latin Style for governing the Divinity Chair as her Majesties Professor in that Faculty in which he continued till the year 1596. and for a great part of that time was Vice-chancellor also By which advantages he did not only stock his Colledge with such a generation of Non-conformists as could not be wormed out in many years after his decease but sowed in the Divinity Schools such seeds of Calvinism and laboured to create in the younger Students such a strong hate against the Papists as if nothing but Divine Truths were to be found in the one and nothing but Abominations to be seen in the other And though Doctor Iohn Holland Rector of Exceter Colledge who succeeded Humphries in the Chair came to it better principled than his Predecessor yet did he suffer himself to be borne away by the violent current of the times contrary in some cases to his own opinion And yet as zealous as Doctor Humphries shewed himself against the Papists insomuch as he got the title of a Papisto Mastyx he was not thought though seconded by the Lady Margarets Professor for that University to make the distance wide enough betwixt the Churches A new Lecture therefore must be founded by Sir Francis Walsingham Principal Secretary of Estate a man of Great Abilities in the Schools of Policy an extreme hater of the Popes and Church of Rome and no less favourable unto those of the Puritan Faction The designe was to make the Religion of the Church of Rome more odious and the differences betwixt them and the Protestants to appear more irreconcileable than before they did And that he might not fail of his purpose in it the Reading of this Lecture was committed to Doctor Iohn Reynolds President of Corpus Christi Colledge a man of infinite Reading and as vast a Memory who
Protestant Religion here by Law established than to be so perswaded of him he had not else preferred him to the service of Bishop Neile or recommended him to the Colledge as the fittest man to succeed him in the Presidents place when he himself was at the point of his preferment to the See of Rochester So also had the whole Body of the University when they conferred upon him his Degrees in Divinity which certainly they had never done if either they had believed him to have been a Papist or at the least so Popishly affected as the Faction made him Neither could he have taken those Degrees had it been so with him without a most perfidious dissimulation before God and Man because in taking those Degrees he must both take the Oath of Supremacy and subscribe to the three Articles contained in the 36 Canon of the year 1603. In the first of which he was to have abjured the Popes Authority and in the next to have declared his approbation of the Doctrine Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England Which may sufficiently serve to over-balance the Depositions of Sir Nath. Brent and Doctor Featly the first of which deposed at his Tryal That whilst the Archbishop remained in Oxon he was generally reputed to be Popishly affected the other Not only that the Archbishop was generally reported to be Popish when he lived in Oxon but that both he and others conceived so of him But both these men were Abbot's Creatures and had received their Offices and Preferments from him I need say no more For had he either been a Papist or so strongly biassed on that side what should have hindred him from making an open Declaration of it or stop him from a reconciliation with the Church of Rome His Fellowship was not so considerable but that he might presume of a larger Maintenance beyond the Seas Nor was he of such common parts but that he might have looked for a better welcom and far more civil usage there than he found at home Preferments in the Church he had none at the present nor any strong presumptions of it for the time to come which might be a temptation to him to continue here against the clear light of his Understanding And this may be a further Argument not only of his unfeigned sincerity but of his constancy and stedfastness in the Religion here established that he kept his station that notwithstanding all those clamours under which he suffered he was resolved to ride out the storm and neither to desert the Barque in which he sailed nor run her upon any of the Roman Shores In this of a far better Temper than Tertullian was though as much provok'd of whom it is reported by Beatus Rhenamus That at first he only seemed to favour Montanus or at the least not to be displeased with his proceedings But afterwards being continually tormented by the tongues and pens of the Roman Clergy he fell off from the obedience of the Church and became at last a downright Montanist All which together make it plain that it was not his design to desert the Church but to preserve her rather from being deserted to vindicate her by degrees from those Innovations which by long tract of time and the cunning practises of some men had been thrust upon her And being once resolved on this the blustring winds which so raged against him did rather fix him at the root than either shake his resolution or force him to desist from his purpose in it And therefore it was well resolved by Sir Edw. Dering though his greatest enemy That he was always one and the same man that beginning with him at Oxon. and so going on to Canterbury he was unmoved and unchanged that he never complied with the times but kept his own stand until the times came up to him as they after did Such was the man and such the purpose of the man whom his good friends in Oxon. out of pure zeal no doubt we must take it so had declared a Papist During these Agitations and Concussions in the Vniversity there hapned an accident at Wansteed in the County of Essex which made as great a noise as his being a Papist but such a noise as might have freed him from that Accusation if considered rightly In the year 1605. he had been made Chaplain to Charles Lord Mountjoy Earl of Devonshire a man in great favour with King Iames for his fortunate Victory at Kinsale in Ireland by which he reduced that Realm to the obedience of this Crown broke the whole Forces of the Rebells and brought the Earl of Tir-owen a Prisoner into England with him For which great Services he was by King Iames made Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom and one of the Lords of his Privy Council created Earl of Devonshire and one of the Knights of the most Noble Order of the Garter This Gentleman being a younger Brother of William Lord Mountjoy and known only by the name of Sir Charles Blunt while his Brother lived had bore a strong and dear affection to the Lady Penelope Daughter of Walter Earl of Essex a Lady in whom lodged all attractive Graces of Beauty Wit and sweetness of Behaviour which might render her the absolute Mistress of all Eyes and Hearts And she so far reciprocated with him in the like affection being a compleat and gallant man that some assurances past between them of a future Marriage But her friends looking on him as a younger Brother considerable only in his depending at the Court chose rather to dispose her in Marriage to Robert Lord Rich a man of an independent Fortune and a known Estate but otherwise of an uncourtly disposition unsociable austere and of no very agreeable conversation to her Against this Blunt had nothing to plead in Bar the promises which passed between them being made in private no Witnesses to attest unto it and therefore not amounting to a pre-Contract in due form of Law But long she had not lived in the Bed of Rich when the old flames of her affection unto Blunt began again to kindle in her and if the Sonet in the Arcadia A Neighbour mine not long ago there was c. be not too generally misconstrued she made her Husband the sole instrument to acquaint him with it But whether it were so or not certain it is that having first had their private meetings they afterwards converst more openly and familiarly with one another than might stand with honour unto either especially when by the death of his elder Brother the Title of Lord Mountjoy and the Estate remaining to it had accrued unto him As if the alteration of his Fortune could either lessen the offence or suppress the fame Finding her at his coming back from the Wars of Ireland to be free from Rich legally freed by a Divorce and not a voluntary separation only a toro mensa as they call it he thought himself obliged
alledged yet it was generally conceived that as the Book fared the worse for the Authors sake so the Author did not speed the better for his Patron the Archbishops sake betwixt whom and Doctor Iames Montague then Bishop of Winchester there had been some differences which the rest of the Court Bishops were apt enough to make some use of to his disadvantage But having thus fallen upon the burning of this Book I shall speak something of it here because of some particulars in it which may conduce unto our Story in the times succeeding This Doctor Mocket being Chaplain to Archbishop Abbot and Warden of All Souls Colledged in Oxon. had publish'd in the Latin tongue the Liturgie of the Church of England the Publick Catechisms the 39. Articles the Book of Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons and many Doctrinal Points extracted out of the Book of Homilies together with Bishop Iewel 's Apology Mr. Noel's Chatechism and his own Book De Politia c. A Collection which the good man published in a pious zeal for gaining Honour to this Church amongst Forrein Nations But then this Zeal of his was accompanied with so little Knowledge in the Constitution of this Church or so much biassed toward those of Calvin's Plat-form that it was thought fit not only to call it in but to expiate the Errors of it in a publick Flame For first his Extracts out of the Book of Homilies were conceived to be rather framed according to his own Judgment which enclin'd him toward the Calvinian Doctrines as his Patron did than squared according to the Rules and Dictates of the Church of England And possible enough it is that some just offence might be taken at him for making the Fasting-days appointed in the Liturgie of the Church of England to be commanded and observed ob Politicas solum Rationes for politick Considerations only as insinuated p. 308. whereas those Fasting-days were appointed in the first Liturgy of King Edward vj. Anno 1549. with reference only to the Primitive Institution of those several Fasts when no such Politick Considerations were so much as thought on But that which I conceive to have been the true cause why the Book was burned was that in publishing the 20th Article concerning the Authority of the Church he totally left out the first Clause of it viz. Habet Ecclesia Ritus sive Ceremonias statuendi jus in Controverfiis Fidei Authoritatem By means whereof the Article was apparently falsified the Churches Authority disavowed and consequently a wide gap opened to dispute her Power in all her Canons and Determinations of what sort soever I note this here because of the Relation which it hath to some following passages in the year 1637. when we shall finde Laud charged by those of the Puritan Faction for adding this omitted Clause to the rest of that Article In the next year 1618. we finde not a little done at home but much more abroad the Puritan Faction being discountenanced here and the Calvinists encouraged there The Sabbatarian Doctrines by the diligence of Archbishop Whitgift and the severity of Justice Popham had been crush'd at their first starting out and afterwards not daring to implore the Countenance of Authority they got footing again in divers places by the cunning of the Puritan Faction the ignorant confidence of some of their Lecturers and the misguided zeal of some publick Ministers of Justice And they prevailed so far at last that the Annual Festivals being turned into days of Labour and the Lords day wholly taken up in Religious Duties there was no time left for lawful Recreations amongst the People Which being made known unto King Iames as he passed thorow Lancashire the last Summer he gave some present Order in it for the ease and comfort of his good Subjects in that County and that it might not serve only for the present but the times to come he published his Royal Declaration to the same effect bearing date at Greenwich May 24. of this present year In which Declaration there are three things to be observed viz. the Motives the Liberties and the Restrictions First for the Motives which induced that King to this Declaration they were chiefly four 1. The general Complaints of all sorts of People as he passed thorow Lancashire of the Restraint of those innocent and lawful Pastimes on that day which by the Rigors of some Preachers and Ministers of Justice had been laid upon them 2. The hindrance of the Conversion of many Papists who by this means were made to think that the Protestant Religion was inconsistent with all harmless and modest Recreations 3. That by debarring them from all man-like Exercises on those days on which only they were freed from their daily Labours they were made unactive unable and unfit for Warriors if either himself or any of his Successors should have such occasion to employ them 4. That men being hindred from these open Pastimes betook themselves to Tipling-houses and there abused themselves with Drunkenness and censured in their Cups his Majesties Proceedings both in Church and State Next for the Liberties which were indulged upon that day his Majesty declares his Pleasure That after Divine Service being ended his good People should not be discouraged or letted from any lawful Recreations such as Dancing either Men or Women Archery for Men Leaping Vaulting or any other such harmless Recreations not from having of May-games Whitsun-Ales and Morris-dances and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used and that Women shall have leave to carry Rushes to the Church for the decoring of it according to their old Custom with this Proviso notwithstanding That under the general term of Lawful Recreations he intended neither Bear-baiting nor Bull-baiting Interludes nor at all times in the meaner sort of People prohibited Bowling And last of all for the Restrictions they were these that follow 1. That these Pastimes should be no impediment or let to the publick Duties of that day 2. That no Recusant should be capable of the benefit of them 3. Not such as were not diligently present at the time of all Divine Offices which the day required And 4. That the benefit thereof should redound to none but such as kept themselves in their own Parishes Such was the substance of his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports which raised great clamour at the present but greater when revived in the Reign of King Charles at what time we shall finde Laud charged for the Re-publishing of it so much the greater by how much the more the Sabbatarian Doctrines had prevailed amongst us This being done for the discountenancing of the Calvinian Faction here at home we must next see what was done abroad on the same account that which was done abroad in relation to it being of great concernment to this Church and therefore necessary to be known in reference to the person of whom I write The Bishops and conformable Clergy of Scotland had
towards which the Testimonial Letters sent from the Church of Amsterdam did not help a little in which Letters he stands commended for a man of unblamable life sound Doctrine and fair behaviour as may be seen at large in the Oration which was made at his Funeral in the Divinity Schools of Leyden on the 22. of October Anno 1609. During his sitting in that Chair he drew unto him a great part of that University who by the Piety of the man his powerful Arguments his extreme diligence in the place and the clear light of Reason which appeared in all his Discourses were so wedded unto his Opinions that no time nor trouble could divorce them For Arminius dying in the year 1609. as before was said the heats betwixt his Scholars and those of the contrary perswasion were rather increased than abated the more increased for want of such a prudent Moderator as had before saved and preserved these Churches from a publick Rupture The Breach between them growing wider each side thought fit to seek the Countenance of the State and they did accordingly For in the year 1610. the Followers of Arminius address their Remonstrance containing the Antiquity of their Doctrines and the substance of them to the States of Holland which was encountred presently by a Contra-Remonstrance exhibited by those of Calvins Party From hence the names of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants so frequent in their Books and Writings till the Remonstrants were condemned in the Synod of Dort and either forced to yield the cause or quit their Country each Party in the mean time had the opportunity to disperse their Doctrines in which the Remonstrants gained exceedingly upon their Adversaries For the whole Controversie being reduced to these five Points viz. the Method of Predestination the Efficacie of Christs Death the operations of Grace both before and after mans Conversion and perseverance in the same the Parties were admitted to a publick Conference at the Hague in the year 1611. in which the Remonstrants were conceived to have had much the better of the day But these Tongue-Combates did produce a further mischief than was suspected at the first For the Calvinians hoping to regain by Power what they lost by Argument put themselves under the Protection of Maurice van Nassaw Prince of Orange Commander General of the Forces of the United Provinces both by Sea and Land The Remonstrants on the other side applied themselves unto Iohn Olden Barnevelt a principal Counsellor of State and of great Authority in his Country Who fearing the Greatness of the Prince and having or thinking that he had some cause to doubt that he aimed at an absolute Soverainty over those Estates did chearfully entertain the offer in hope to form such a Party by them as with the help of some other good Patriots might make a sufficient Counter-ballance against that design But Barnevelts projects being discovered he was first seized on by the Prince together with Grotius Liedenburgius and others of his chief Adherents and that being done he shewed himself with his Forces before such Towns and Cities as had declared in favour of them Reducing them under his Command changing their Magistrates and putting new Garrisons into them Next followed the Arraignment and death of Barnevelt contrary to the Fundamentall Laws both of his native Country and the common Union whose death occasioned a general dejection as well it might amongst those of the Remonstrant Party and their dejection animated the Calvinians to refer their differences to a National Council which thereupon was intimated to be held at Dort one of the principle Towns of Holland This Council being thus resolved on their next care was to invite to their assistance some Divines out of all the Churches of Calvins Platform and none else which did sufficiently declare that they intended to be both Parties and Judges as in fine it proved For unto this Convention assembled the most Rigid Calvinists not only of the United Provinces but also of all the Churches of High Germany and amongst the Switz and from the City of Geneva whom it most concerned From France came none because the King upon good Reason of State had commanded the contrary and the Scots much complained that they were not suffered by King Iames to send their Commissioners thither with the rest of the Churches For though King Iames had nominated Balcanquel to that imployment in the name of the Kirk yet that could give them no contentment From England the King sent Dr. George Carleton Bishop of Landaff Dr. Ios. Hall Dean of Worcester Dr. Iohn Davenant Master of Queens Colledge and Lady Margarets Professor in Cambridge and Dr. Sam. Ward Master of Sydney Colledge in the same University And this he did that by the Countenance of his power and by the Presence of his Divines he might support the Party of the Prince of Orange and suppress his Adversaries On the third of November they began the Synod But things were carried there with such inequality that such of the Remonstrants as were like to be elected by their several Classes were cited and commanded to appear as Criminals only and being come could not be suffered to proceed to a Disputation unless they would subscribe to such conditions as they conceived to be destructive to their Cause and their Conscience too Which being refused they were expelled the House by Bogerman who sate President there in a most fierce and bitter Oration condemned without answering for themselves and finally for not subscribing to their own condemnation compelled to forsake their native Country with their Wives and Children and to beg their bread even in desolate places What influence those quarrells had amongst our selves and what effects that Synod did produce in the Church of England we shall see hereafter when the same Points come to be agitated and debated on this side of the Seas His Majesty having thus made himself the Master of his Designs both at home and abroad and being recovered from a dangerous sickness which had fallen upon him at New-Market in the year 1619. resolved on such a work of Magnificent Piety as might preserve his name and memory of succeeding Ages To which end upon Midlent Sunday Anno 1620. accompanied by the Prince attended by the Marquiss of Buckingham the Bishops Lords and most of the principal Gentlemen about the Court he intended to visit St. Pauls From Temple-bar he was conducted in most solomn manner by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London and at his entrance into the Church received under a Canopy by the Dean and Canons attired in rich Copes and other Ecclesiastical Habits Being by them brought into the Quire he heard with very great Reverence and Devotion the Divine Service of the day most solemnly performed with Organs Cornets and Sagbuts accompanied and intermingled with such excellent voices that seemed rather to enchant than chant The Divine Service being done he went unto a place prepared where he heard the Sermon
at the Cross preached by the eloquent and religious Prelate Dr. Iohn King Lord Bishop of London The Sermon being ended the Collation began His Majesty attended with all the Lords and the rest of his Train being entertained by the said Lord Bishop at a sumptuous Banquet with no less honour to himself than content to his Majesty But there was more intended by this Visit than Pomp and Ostentation only For his Majesty having taken a view of the Ruinous Estate in which he beheld that goodly Fabrick issued not long after a Commission for repair thereof and somewhat was done in it both by Bishop King and Bishop Mountain But the carrying one of this work was reserved to another man For a breach following not long after between Spain and England and wars soon following on that breach a stop was made to all proceedings in that work till the year 1631. At what time Laud being Bishop of London obtained a like Commission from the hands oâ King CHARLES and set his heart so much upon it that in few years he had made a mighty Progress in it of which more hereafter And here it was once feared that this present History might have ended without going further for on the second of April as he past from London towards Oxon he took up his Inn at Wickam upon the Rode where he fell suddenly dead and was not without much diffâculty and Gods special favour restored unto his former being But God reserved him to a life more eminent and a death more glorious not suffering him to dye obscurely like a traveller in a Private Inn but more conspicuously like a Martyr on the Publick Theatre for on the 22. of Ianuary he was installed Prebend in the Church of Westminster after no less than ten years expectation of it And on the last of the same Month he sate as Dean of Glocester in the Convâcation The Prince Elector Palatine who married the Kings only Daughter in the year 1612. had the last year most inconsiderately took upon him the Crown of Bohemiah not taking with him the Kings Counsel in it as he might have done but giving him an account oâ it on the Post-Fact only The Emperour exasperated with this Usurpation as by him reputed gave up his Country for a prey assigning the Electoral Dignity with the Upper Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria and the Lower to the King of Spain who had possest themselves of divers good Towns and pieces in it For the recovery whereof and the Preservation of the rest in which his Daughter and her Children were so much concerned it pleased his Majesty to call a Parliament to begin on the thirtieth day of Ianuary accompanied with a Convocation as the custom is on the morrow after The business of their Conveening being signified unto them by the King the Parliament at their first sitting which ended March 27. bestowed upon his Majesty two Subsidies but they gave no more which rather served to stay his stomach than allay his hunger They had some turns to serve upon him before they would part with any more money if they did it then But the Clergy dealt more freely with him in their Convocation because they had no other ends in it than the expressing of their duty and good affections In testimony whereof they gave him three entire Subsidies of four shillings in the pound at their first sitting and would not have been wanting to his Majesty in a further addition in the second or third if his Majesty had required it of them Incouraged with which supplies and the hopes of greater he sent some Regiments of old English Souldiers for the defence and preservation of the Lower Palatinate under the Command of that Noble Souldier Sir Horatio Vere When the Commons bestowed upon him the said two Subsidies he took them only as a bit to stay his stomach as before was said giving himself some hopes that at the next Session they would entertain him with a better and more costly dinner but then they meant that he should pay the reckoning for it For at their reassembling on the seventeenth of April instead of granting him the supplies he looked for they fell to pick quarrels with his Servants and one of his chief Ministers of State not only questioning Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michael but even the Lord Chancellor Bacon also These men supposing them to have been as criminal as their enemies made them were notwithstanding such as acted under his Commissions and therefore not to have been punished by his own Authority only The giving of them over to the Power of the Parliament not only weakened his own Prerogative but put the House of Commons upon such a Pin that they would let no Parliament pass for the times to come without some such Sacrifice And so foll Bacon Lord Chancellor of England Lord Verulan and Viscount of St. Albans a man of good and bad qualities equally compounded one of a most strong brain and a Chimical head designing his endeavors to the perfecting of the Works of Nature or rather improving Nature to the best advantages of life and the common benefit of mankind Pity it was he was not entertained with some liberal Salary abstracted from all affairs both of Court and Judicature and furnished with sufficiency both of means and helps for the going on in his design which had it been he might have given us such a body of Natural Philosophy and made it so subservient to the publick good that neither Aristotle nor Theophrastus amongst the Ancients nor Paracelsus or the rest of our later Chimists would have been considerable In these Agitations held the Parliament till the fourth of Iune without doing any thing in order to his Majesties Service who thereupon adjourned them till the fourteenth of November following before which time we find Laud mounted one step higher and ready to take place amongst the Bisâops in the House of Peers And therefore here we will conclude the first Part of our present History THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB II. Extending from his being made Bishop of St. Davids till his coming to the See of Bath and Wells IT is an observation no less old than true that Patience and Perseverance overcome all difficulties And so it hapned unto Laud. He had with most incredible patience endured the baffles and affronts which were put upon him by the power and practises of his enemies Nor did he shew less patience in his so long and chargeable attendance at the Court for which he had so small regard that he was rather looked upon as the Bishop of Durhams Servant than the Kings But notwithstanding these cross winds he was resolved to ride it out neither to shift his sails nor to tack about but still to keep his way and to stem the current till he had gained the Port he aimed at His Majesty had been made acquainted by
long experience with his great abilities his constancy courage and dexterity for managing affairs of moment And thereupon entring into speech with him in the beginning of Iune he was pleased to take notice of the long and unrewarded service which he had done him telling him that he looked on the Deanry of Glocester but as a Shell without a Kernel This gave him the first hopes of his growing Fortunes On Sunday the nineteenth of that Month he preached before the King at Wansteed that being the first of those Sermons which are now in Print And on St. Peters day next following there was a general expectation about the Court that he should have been made Dean of Westminster in the place of Williams who having been sworn Privy-Counsellor on the tenth of that Month and nominated to the See of Lincoln was on the tenth of Iuly honoured with the Custody of the great Seal of England upon the Deprivation of the Lord Chancellor St. Albans which before we spake of but Williams so prevailed at Court that when he was made Bishop of Lincoln he retained this Deanry in Commendam together with such other Preferments as he held at that time That is to say A Prebend and Residentiary place in the Cathedral Church at Lincoln and the Rectory of Walgrave in Northampton-shire so that he was a perfect Diocess within himself as being Bishop Dean Prebend Residentiary and Parson and all these at once But though Laud could not get the Deanry yet he lost nothing by the example which he made use of in retaining not only his Prebends place in the same Church of Westminster and his Benefices in the Country that being an ordinary indulgence to such as were preferred to the smaller Bishopsricks but also the Presidentship of his Colledge in Oxon which he valued more than all the Rest. For that his own expectation might not be made as frustrate as was that of the Court his Majesty nominated him the same day to the See of St. Davids in former times the Metropolitan City of the Welsh or Brittish But though he was nominated then he could not receive the Episcopal Character till five Months after the stay was long but the necessity unavoydable by reason of a deplorable misfortune which had befallen Archbishop Abbot and was briefly this The Archbishop had long held a dear and entire Friendship with Edward Lord Zouch a person of an eminent and known Nobility On whom he pleased to bestow a visit in his house at Bramshall invited to see a Deer hunted that he might take the fresh air and revive his Spirits a Cross-bow was put into his hand to shoot one of the Deer but his hand most unhappily swerving or the Keeper as unfortunately coming in his way it so pleased God the Disposer of Humane Affairs that he missed the Beast and shot the Man On which sad accident being utterly uncapable of consolation he retired himself to Guilford the place of his birth there to expect the Issue of his wofull Fortunes in an Hospital of his own Foundation The news of this wretched misadventure as ill news flies far came the same day to the Lord Keeper Williams and he as hastily dispatches this Advertisement of it to the Marquess of Buckingham My most Noble Lord AN unfortunate occasion of my Lords Grace his killing of a man casually as it is here constantly reported is the cause of my seconding of my yesterdays Letter unto your Lordship His Grace upon this Accident is by the Common Law of England to forfeit all his Estate unto his Majesty and by the Canon Law which is in force with us irregular ipso facto and so suspended from all Ecclesiastical Function until he be again restored by his Superiour which I take it is the Kings Majesty in this Rank and Order of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction If you send for Doctor Lamb he will acquaint your Lordship with the distinct Penalties in this kind I wish withal my heart his Majesty would be as merciful as ever he was in all his life but yet I held it my duty to let his Majesty know by your Lordship that his Majesty is fallen upon a matter of great Advice and Deliberation To add affliction unto the afflicted as no doubt he is in mind is against the Kings Nature To leave virum sanguinum or a man of blood Primate and Patriarch of all his Churches is a thing that sounds very harsh in the old Councils and Canons of the Church The Papists will not spare to descant upon one and the other I leave the knot to his Majesties deep Wisdom to advise and resolve upon A rheum fallen into mine eye c. Which Letter bearing date Iuly 27. 1621. points us directly to the time of this woful Accident Being thus pre-judged and pre-condemned the miserable man must needs have had a hard bout of it if his cause had been referred to an hearing in Chancery But King Iames was as compassionate as just and as regardful of the Church as he was compassionate to the man Advising therefore with his Council and some chief Clergy-men about him though more with his own gracious disposition he after issued a Commission to the Lord Keeper Williams the Bishops of London Winchester St. Davids and Exon as also unto Hubbert and Dodderidge two of the Justices of the Courts at Westminster-hall Martin and Steward Doctors of the Civil Laws men of great Eminence and Abilities in their several Studies to make Inquiry into the Fact And having made Inquiry into the Fact they were to give their Resolution unto His Majesty whether the Archbishop had been made irregular by that sad accident as it was commonly reported In the managing of which great Cause there was much variety of Opinions amongst the Delegates some making him obnoxious to Irregularity and others as much labouring to acquit him of it Amongst these last were Doctor Andrews then Bishop of Winchester and Sir Henry Martin then Dean of the Arches and not long after Judge of the Prerogative Court to whose Authority and Judgment the rest of the Commissioners did in time conform Martin for his part had received his Offices and Preferments from him and therefore in an honest Gratitude thought himself obliged to bend the Law as much as possibly he could to his best Advantage But Andrews had no such impulsives there being between them some disgust which might have rather prevailed with him to have been his Enemy First therefore he was willing not to stand too rigidly upon the strictness of the Canons for fear lest others of the Bishops and himself amongst them either through ignorance or incogitancy might commit some acts which without a fair and mild construction might render them as uncanonical as that poor man was And then he saw that if the Archbishop at that time had been pronounced irregular and the See made void Williams being then Lord Keeper and in great favour with his Majesty and the Marquis too would
Wolsey's exorbitant Power or Cromwel's contempt of the Nobility under Henry viii or Leicesters Tyranny and Oppressions under Queen Elizabeth were ever suffered to be canvased or condemned in Parliament That the King got nothing by that unhappy condescension but the laying himself open to all disadvantages which a Prince abandoning his Ministers or abandoned by them might have just reason to expect That when Princes begin to fall so much beneath themselves as to manage Pen-Combate with their Subjects they put themselves as it were upon equal ground and stand on the same Level with their Vassals and by the loss of their Authority get nothing but the Reputation of an able Writer And then the Reason of these his yieldings being brought in Question they were by some imputed to a natural timidity or want of Courage which rendred him unable to hold out long when he encountred those who would put him to it Others ascribed it to his wants and his wants unto his prodigality which made his Exchequer always empty and Money must be had whatever it cost him But those who thought they came most neer unto the mark discoursed of him as a man that loved not business and loved no business less than that of Parliaments That it was usual with him when he called a Parliament and had given them their Errand as he thought to retire to Theobalds Hampton-Court or Windsor and sometimes further off to Royston or New-Market as his pleasure carried him That by this means the Commons not having opportunity of Access to his Person were forced upon a plausible necessity of making their Addresses to him by Messages Remonstrances and Petitions That those Remonstrances and Petitions did beget their Answers and their Answers did beget Replies which ended commonly in Exasperations on either side But nothing was so much admired at as the encreasing of the Priviledges of the House of Commons as well in nature as in number And thereupon it was observed that the Commons had mistook themselves in the very ground on which they built their Protestation That the known Priviledges of the Commons were only liberty of speech in Debate and Conference Freedom from all Arrests for themselves and their Servants and opportunity of access to his Majesties Person as their occasions did require That even those Priviledges could not be called the undoubted Birth-Right and Inheritance of the Subjects of England because they were no otherwise exercised and enjoyed than from one Parliament to another by the grace and goodness of their Kings That were it otherwise it must needs be a great impertinency in their Speaker at the first opening of every Parliament to put himself upon his knees and humbly to beseech his Majesty in behalf of the House of Commons to indulge them the continuance of those Priviledges which were of right their own before That they had been as much mistaken in making the House of Commons by involving both Houses in the name of Parliament to be of equall Power and Priviledge with the House of Peers the contrary whereof being so well known That the Peers and People being summoned to Parliament by several Writs the Peers were called only ad consulendum to counsell and advise the King in matters of most concernment to the Church and State And that the People were called only ad consentiendum faciendum to give consent and yield obedience to such things as were ordained in the Great Council of the Peers That even the Peers themselves had no general warrant to meddle in all Affairs of State but in such only as his Majesty commend and propound to them And therefore that these words in the Writ Super arduis regni negotiis are not left at large but limited and restrained by the word quibusdam to such particulars and such only in which the King required their Counsels But nothing seemed so new or strange as that no Member of the said House should be impeached imprisoned and molested other than by Censure of the House it self for or concerning any speaking reasoning or declaring of any matter or matters touching the Parliament or Parliament business A Priviledge not heard of in Queen Elizabeths time when in the 35. of her Reign She imprisoned no less than five of the Members at a clap not only without their leave but against their liking And held them in so strict a durance that the Commons did not think it safe to move her Majesty to restore them to their former liberty And therefore that they were to shew under what rust and rubbish of Antiquity this Priviledge had so long been hidden and how it came to be found out at last when no body heard of it or looked after it The like discoursed also of the following Priviledge which had been long buried in the same grave and never came till now to a resurrection viz. That the King is to take no private information of any complaint concerning matters said or done in that House till it be shewn unto him by the House it self of which it was affirmed that it was as contrary to the Presidents and Practise of former times as the other was That when the Queen had laid an Imposition upon Currans and that this Imposition had been complained of by some Merchants to the House of Commons she had present notice given her of it by some of her Servants in that House that shewing her dislike thereof to Sir Robert Cicill principal Secretary of State he signified the same unto the House telling them it was a Noli me tangere a point not fit for them to touch at and that if they desisted not from entertaining that complaint he must acquaint her Majesty with it as in duty bound Nor was there any better ground for that other branch touching their Liberty and Freedom in breaking of all matters which came under their Cognizance in such method and order as to them seemed fittest but that they did intend to lay it as a foundation for preferring their own business before the Kings in all times to come I had not dwelt so long upon these Discourses nor on the former passages between his Majesty and the House of Commons as being Exotical to my business but that they were the chief occurrences of this first Parliament of which our new Bishop was a Member And though the sitting was but short not above a Month yet it afforded him a liberal prospect into the Humours and Affections the Counsels and Designs of the House of Commons of which he was not to be taught how to make such use as should prove most to the advantage of the Church and State But that which chiefly did concern him to take notice of was the interposing and embracements of that House in the cause of Religion which if it were so much in danger by the extraordinary encrease of Popery as they gave it out it must be much to the Reproach both of himself and the rest of the Bishops
lay so heavy on the stomach of H. Burton at that time a Waiter in the Court and afterwards beneficed in Friday-street that it would not down with him for many years Insoâmuch that in his seditious Sermon Entituled For God and King Anno 1636. he chargeth it for an Innovation in Religion that the Bishops then about King Iames of which Laud was one procured an order from him to inhibit yong Ministers from preaching those Doctrines those saving Doctrines as he calls them of Election and Predestination and that none but Bishops and Deans should handle those Points which he is confident to have been done by them for no other reason But thereby the more easily to make way for the accomplishing of their plot for the introducing of Popery so long in hammering So impossible was it for that King and as impossible for his Son and Successor assisted by the gravest and most moderate Counsellors to fix on any thing conducible to the peace and happiness of the Church but what must be traduced and made odious in the sight of the People by the reports and artifices of those troublesome Spirits Now as his Majesty and the Church were exercised on the one side by the Puritan Faction so were they no less troubled and disquieted by the Popish Party on the other The Priests and Jesuites upon the breaking up of the Parliament and the proceedings of the Treaty grew to such an height of confidence that they openly began to practice on some persons of Honour for seducing them and their dependants to the See of Rome Amongst whom there was none more aimed at than the Countess of Buckingham whom if they could gain unto their Party they doubted not but by her means to win the Marquiss and by his power to obtain a tolleration at the least of their Superstition The Lady beginning to stagger in her resolutions and Fisher the Jesuite who had undertaken the task continually pressing her by fresh arguments to declare her self it came at last to the Kings knowledge who was not wanting to discourse with her for her satisfaction At that time Dr. Francis White Rector of St. Peter in Cornhill was reader of the Divinity Lecture in the Church of St. Paul by which he had gained an high esteem amongst his Auditors not only for his honest Zeal against the Papists in those as they were then thought Pendulous times but for a notable dexterity in the managing of all points of Controversie No man thought fitter than this Doctor to encounter Fisher. And to that end in the beginning of this year he was desired by the Marquiss to hold a Conference with the Jesuite at which his Mother being present might hear what answers would be given to such Objections as had been made against this Church and the Religion here by Law established One Conference not being enough to conclude the business another followed not long after to which the King himself did vouchsafe his presence so great was his desire to free this Honourable Lady from the Fishers net But in that second Conference consisting altogether of particular points there had been nothing said touching an infallible visible Church which was the chief and only point in which the Party doubting required satisfaction And that she might have satisfaction in that matter also it pleased his Majesty to add a third Conference to the former on the twenty fourth of May next following not to be managed by the same parties but by our Bishop on the one side and the said Fisher on the other the Lord Keeper Williams who put in a word or two sometimes and divers other persons of Honour being also present How well he sped in that encounter the Printed Conference which came out about two years after and the justification of it published in the year 1637. do most clearly evidence or shall be shewn hereafter in due time and place Certain I am that he gained so much by that days work on the Marquiss of Buckingham that from that time forwards he was taken into his especiall favour For he himself telleth us in his Breviate on Whitsunday Iune the eighth That the Marquiss was pleased to enter into a nearer respect to him the particulars whereof were not for paper That on the fifteenth of that Month he had the honour to be made the Marquiss's Confessor which was to give him in effect the Key of his heart that on the Morrow after being Trinity Sunday the Marquiss having thus prepared himself received the Sacrament at Greenwich Which if he had not forborn for a long time before this Memorandum in the Breviate must have been impertinent and finally that on the eleventh of Ianuary the Marquiss and he were at some private Consultation in the inner Chamber at York-House on which he prays God to bestow his blessing Nor was the King less pleased with his performance at that time than the Marquiss was On the Report whereof he gave him order to digest the substance of it into Form and Method to make it ready for his hearing in convenient time and was content to give him access no less than thrice in the Christmas holydays that he might hearken to it with the more attention That King had never the command of so strong a patience as to hold out against a second or third reading if he had not found some high contentment in the first In which Conjuncture it was no hard matter for him to obtain the renewing and enlarging of his Commendam by the addition of the Parsonage of Creek in Northamptonshire into which he was instituted and inducted in the end of Ianuary We are now drawing unto a new and strange adventure greater than which was never undertaken and performed by a Prince of England The Treaty for the Match with Spain beginning in the year 1617. was afterwards more vigorously prosecuted by King Iames upon a hope of bringing back the Palatinate with it But while he fed himself with hopes the Spaniards and Bavarians had devoured the Country leaving but three Towns Heidelberge Frankendale and Manheime to keep possession for the Prince Elector in the name of the rest Which the King finding at the last and seeing that one delay begat another without promising any end to his Expectations it was by him resolved without the privity and consent of his Council that the Prince himself should go in Person into Spain that he might either speed the business or break of the Treaty Nor wanted the Prince strong impulsives to induce him to it He was now past the two and twentieth year of his Age and was so bent upon the Match that he began to grow impatient with his Fathers Ministers for not ripening it unto an issue For it is evident by Digbys Letter unto Calvert dated Octob. 28. 1623. this last then Secretary of State not only that King Iames did infinitely desire the Match but that the Prince desired it as much as he and by
Calverts Letter unto Digby on the fifth of this present Ianuary That he could have no rest for his young Master for being called on early and late to hasten the dispatch of all Some Messages and dispatches had been brought by Porter out of Spain about three daies before which winged his feet and added Spurs to the design The Journey being thus agreed on was in the very nature of it to be made a secret and therefore not communicable to the Lords of the Council for fear of staying him at home or rendring him obnoxious to the danger of an interception as he past through France which mischief if it had befaln him he must either have submitted unto such conditions or suffered under such restraints as might seem intollerable in themselves but absolutely destructive of his present purpose which may the rather be believed by reason of the like proceedings of that King with the present Prince Elector Palatine who posting disguised through France in hope to get the Command of Duke Bernards Army was stayed in the middle of his Journey by that Kings command and kept so long under Restraint that he lost the opportunity of eâfecting that which he desired It is not to be thought but that much danger did appear in the undertaking but Love which facilitates impossibilities overcomes all dangers On the eighteenth day of February accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham Mr. Endimion Porter and Mr. Francis Cottington he took Ship at Dover and landed safe at Boloigne a Port of Picardy Advanced on his way as far as Paris his Curiosity carried him to the Court to see a Masque at which he had a view of that incomparable Princess whom he after married But he was like to have paid dear for this curiosity For no sooner had he left the City but the French King upon Advertisement of his being there dispatcht away many of his Servants in pursuance of him commanding them not only to stay his Journey but to bring him back unto the Court But he rides fast who rides upon the wings of Love and Fear so that the Prince had past Bayonne the last Town of France without being overtaken by them and posting speedily to Madrid he entred the Lord Ambassadors Lodging without being known to any but his Confidents only That Danger being thus escaped he cast himself upon another For having put himself into the Power of the King of Spain it was at the curtesie of that King whither he should ever return or not it being a Maxime among Princes that if any one of them without leave sets foot on the ground of another he makes himself ipso facto to become his Prisoner Richard the First of England passing in disguise through some part of the dominions of the Arch-Duke of Austria was by him took prisoner and put unto so high a Ransome that the Arch-Duke is said to have bought the Earldom of Styria or Styrmark with some part of the money and to have walled Vienna with the rest Nor wanted the Spaniards some Examples of a latter date which might have justified his detention there had they been so minded and those too borrowed from our selves Philip the first of Spain one of the Predecessors of the King then Reigning being cast by tempest on the Coast of England was here detained by King Henry the Seventh till he had delivered up the Earl of Suffolk who had put himself under his protection In like manner Mary Queen of Scots being forced by her Rebellious Subjects to flee into this Realm was presently seized on as a Prisoner and so continued till her lamentable and calamitous death And what could more agree with the rules of Justice and the old known practise of Retaliation then that the English should be punished by the rigour of their own severities Such were the Dangers which the Princes person was exposed to by this unparalell'd adventure not otherwise to be commended in most mens opinions but by the happy success of his Return And yet there were some fears of a greater danger than any could befall his Person by Sea or Land that is to say the danger of his being wrought on to alter his Religion and to make shipwrack of his Faith and this by some uncharitable persons is made the ground of the design to the indelible reproach of those who were supposed to have had a hand in the contrivement of the Plot. Amongst those the Marquiss stands accused by the Earl of Bristol as appears by the first Article of the Charge which was exhibited against him in the Parliament of the year 1626. And our new Bishop stands reproached for another of them by the Author of the book entituled Hidden works of darkness c. But then it cannot be denied but that his Majesty and the Prince must be the Principals in this Fact this Hidden work of darkness as that Author calls it Buckingham and St. Davids being only accessaries and subservient instruments But who can think they durst have undertaken so soul a business which could not be washt off but by their bloud had not the King commanded and the Prince consented Now for the King there is not any thing more certain than the great care he took that no danger should accrue to the Religion here by Law established by the Match with Spain And this appears so clearly by the Instructions which he gave to Digby at the first opening of this Treaty as if it had been written with a beam of the Sun The matter of Religion saith he is to us of most principal consideration for nothing can be to us dearer than the honour and safety of the Religion we profess And therefore seeing that this Marriage and Alliance if it shall take place is to be with a Lady of a different Religion from us it becometh us to be tender as on the one part to give them all satisfaction convenient so on the other to admit nothing that may blemish our Conscience or detract from the Religion here established And to this point he stood to the very last not giving way to any alteration in this or tolleration of that Religion though he was pleased to grant some personal graces to the Recusants of this Kingdom and to abate somewhat of the Rigour of those Capitall Laws which had been formerly enacted against Priests and Jesuites Next for the Prince he had been brought up for some years then last past at the feet of this most learned and wise Gamaliel by whom he was so fortified in the true Protestant Religion established by the Laws of this Realm that he feared not the encounter of the strongest Adversary and of this the King was grown so confident that when Maw and Wren the Princes Chaplains were to receive his Majesties Commands at their going to Spain there to attend upon their Master he advised them not to put themselves upon any unnecessary Disputations but to be only on the defensive part if they should
be challenged And when it was answered That there could be no reason to engage in such Disputations where no Moderator could be had The King replied That Charles should moderate between them and the opposite party At which when one of them seemed to smile upon the other the King proceeded and assured them that Charles should manage a point in Controversie with the best studied Divine of them all and that he had trained up George so far as to hold the Conclusion though he had not yet made him able to prove the Premises By which it seems that his Majesty conceived no such fear on the Princes part as that he could be practised or disputed out of his Religion and that he had no such fear of Buckingham neither but that he would be able to stand his ground notwithstanding any Arguments which were brought to move him And he that is so far confirmed as to stand his ground will never yield himself though he may be vanquished It was not then to be believed that me so principled and instructed as not to be forced out of their Religion should take such pains to be perverted or seduced upon worldly policies as well against their Science as against their Conscience Had they gone thither on that Errand what could have hindred them from putting the design in execution having in Spain sit opportunity to effect it at home the Kings Authority to confirm and Countenance it and the whole power of his Catholick Majesty which was offered more than once or twice to justifie and defend the misrule against all the world That they brought back the same Religion which they carried with them is a strong Argument to any man of Sense and Reason that they went not into Spain of purpose to betray it there Let us next look upon the proofs which are offered to us for Laud being privy to this journey whereof his being of Council to âervert the Prince and draw him to the Church of Rome there is no proof offered For first I find it charged that he wrote a Letter unto Buckingham on the fifth day after his departure and maintained a constant Correspondence with him when he was in Spain And secondly That he was privy to some Speeches which his Majesty had used to the Prince at his going hence His Majesty in some of his printed Books had maintained that the Pope was Antichrist and now he feared that this might be alledged against him in the Court of Rome to hinder the Popes Dispensation and obstruct the Marriage For the removal of which bar he commands the Prince to signifie if occasion were to all whom it might concern That his Majesty had writ nothing in that Point concludingly but by way of Argument That Laud was present at this Conference betwixt his Majesty and the Prince hath no proof at all He might be made acquainted with it on the post-fact when the Prince returned and yet because he was made acquainted with this passage though upon the post-fact it must be hence concluded as a matter certain That he was one of the Cabinet Council and privy to the Princes going into Spain and secondly as a matter probable That he suggested this distinction unto King James to please the Pope and promote the Match As little strength there is in the second proof touching his Writing to the Marquis on the fifth day after his departure But then it was not till the fifth before which time the Princes Journey into Spain was made the general Discourse of all Companies the ordinary Subject of all Tongues and Pens communicated by word of mouth by Letters and by what means not Nor can those following Letters which he received from Buckingham when he was in Spain convince him of being privy to that Journey when it was in project and design there being many others also who both received and dispatched Letters frequently from that very same person so far from being of the Council as to that particular that they were not of the Court at all So ordinary is the fate of such sorry Arguments to conclude nothing at all or that which is nothing to the purpose But what need more be said to confute this Calumny on which I have so long insisted than the great Care which was immediately taken by the King and his Bishops to maintain the Reputation of the Church of England in the Court of Spain No sooner had his Majesty notice that the Prince was come in safety to the Court of that King but order presently was taken for Officers of all Qualities and Servants of all sorts to be sent unto him that so he might appear in Publick with the greater lustre Nor was it the least part of his Royal Care to accommodate him with two such Chaplains as should be able to defend the Doctrine of this Church against all Opponents And that there might appear a face of the Church of England in the outward Forms of Worship also his Majesty was pleased by the Advice of the Bishops then about him of which Laud was one to give the said Chaplains Maw and Wren these Instructions following dated at Newmarket March 10. I. That there be one convenient Room appointed for Prayer the said Room to be employed during their abode to no other use II. That it be decently adorned Chappel-wise with an Altar Fonts Palls Linnen Coverings Demy-Carpet four Surplices Candlesticks Tapers Chalices Pattens a fine Towel for the Prince other Towels for the Houshold a Traverse of Waters for the Communion a Bason and Flaggons two Copes III. That Prayers be duly kept twice a day That all reverence be used by every one present being uncovered kneeling at due times standing up at the Creeds and Gospel bowing at the Name of JESUS IV. That the Communion be celebrated in due form with an Oblation of every Communicant and admixing Water with the Wine the Communion to be as often used as it shall please the Prince to set down smooth Wafers to be used for the Bread V. That in the Sermons there be no Polemical Preachings to inveigh against them or to confute them but only to confirm the Doctrine and Tenets of the Church of England by all positive Arguments either in Fundamental or Moral Points and especially to apply themselves in Moral Lessons to Preach Christ Jesus Crucified VI. That they give no occasions or rashly entertain any of Conference or Dispute for fear of dishonour to the Prince if upon any offence taken he should be required to send away any one of them but if the Lord Embassador or Mr. Secretary wish them to hear any that desire some information then they may safely do it VII That they carry the Articles of our Religion in many Copies the Books of Common Prayer in several Languages store of English Service-Books the Kings own Works in English and Latin Such were his Majesties Instructions to the said two Chaplains and being such they do concludingly demonstrate
Church of England had a great stock at that time to be driven in Spain and many of the Romish Factors were desirous to be trading in it No sooner was the Princes Train of Lords and Gentlemen come to the City of Madrid but the King of Spain assigned a day for his Reception A Reception so Magnificent so full of State and Royal Pomp that it redounded infinitely to the honour of the Spanish Court and the satisfaction of the Prince Never was King of Spain on the day of his inauguration received into that City with a more general concourse of all sorts of people and greater signs of Joy and Gallantry then the Prince was conducted through it to the Palace Royal. In which his Quarters being assigned him there wanted no allurements on their parts to win him to a fair esteem of their Religion and to put some high value also on their Court and Nation Nor was the Prince wanting for his part in all fit compliances by which he might both gain on them and preserve himself for by his Courtly Garb he won so much on the affections of the Lady Infanta and by his Grace and circumspect behaviour got so much ground upon that King and his Council that the Match went forward in good earnest A dispensation for the Marriage was procured from Gregory the fifteenth then sitting in the See of Rome The Articles of the Marriage with all the circumstances thereof were agreed upon and solemnly sworn to by both Kings Nothing remained to bring the whole business to a joyfull issue but the Consummation But before that could be obtained the Prince must try his fortunes in an harder Conflict than any he had learnt in the Schools of Love The change of his Religion was much hoped for by the Court of Spain at his first coming thither To perfect which he was plied from time to time with many perswasive Arguments by many persons of great Honour about that King And many of the most learned Priests and Jesuites made their Addresses to him with such Rhetorical Orations with such insinuating Artifices and subtle Practises as if they had a purpose rather to conquer him by kindness than by disputation Nor stop they there but dedicated many Books unto him to gain him fairly to their Party invited him to behold their solemn Processions to captivate his outward senses and carried him to the most Religious places famous for their magnificent Fabricks and pretended Miracles In which conjuncture of designs it is not to be thought but that the Pope bestirred himself in gaining to his Church a Prince of such parts and greatness For first he writes unto the Bishop of Conchen Inquisitor general of Spain not to be wanting to the opportunity which God had put into his hands The next day being the twentieth of April he addressed his lines unto the Prince extolling the piety of his Predecessors their Zeal unto the Catholick Church and to the head thereof the Pope inviting him by all the blandishments of Art to put himself upon the following of their brave examples Never had Prince a harder game to play than Prince Charles had now He found himself under the Power of the King of Spain and knew that the whole business did depend on the Popes dispensation with whom if he complied not in some handsome way his expectation might be frustrate and all the fruits of that long Treaty would be suddenly blasted He therefore writes unto the Pope in such general terms as seemed to give his Holiness some assurances of him but being reduced unto particulars signified nothing else but some civill complements mixt with some promises of his endeavours to make up the breaches in the Church and restore Christendom to an happy and desirable peace Which notwithstanding was after reckoned amongst his crimes by such as rather would not then did not know the necessity which lay upon him of keeping at that time a plausible correspondence with the Catholick party But these Temptations and Allurements these Artifices and Insinuations prevailed so little with the Prince that he still kept his stand and was found impregnable carrying himself with such a prudent Moderation in these Encounters that he came off alwaies without Envy but not without Glory And that it might appear on what grounds he stood it was thought fit to let them see that he professed no other Religion than what was agreeable to the Rules of Antiquity and not much abhorrent from the Forms then used in the Church Rome And to this end by the prudent care of the Lord Keeper Williams the English Liturgie was translated into Spanish so many Copies of the book then Printed being sent into Spain as gave great satisfaction both to the Court and Clergy The work performed by a converted Dominican who was gratified for his pains therein by a good Prebend and a Benefice as he well deserved And this I must needs say was very seasonably done For till that time the Spaniards had been made believe by their Priests and Jesuites that when the English had cast off the Pope they had cast off all Religion also That from thenceforth they became meer Atheists and that the name of God was never used amongst them but with a purpose to expose it to profanation An Argument whereof may be the extreme squeamishness of the Constable of Castile sent into England in the beginning of the Reign of King Iames to swear the peace between both Kings Who understanding that the business was to be performed in the Chappel where some Anthems were to be sung desired that whatsoever was sung Gods name might not be used in it and that being forborn he was content they should sing what they listed And when the Earl of Nottingham attended by many Gentlemen of worth and quality went into Spain to take the like Oath of the Catholick King it was reported by his followers at their coming back how much it was commiserated by the Vulgar Spaniards that so many goodly persons should be trained up in no other Religion than to worship the Devil But let us leave the Prince and return for England where the King had as hard a game to play For having left such a Pawn in Spain he was in a manner bound to his good behaviour and of necessity to gratifie the Popish Party in this Kingdom with more than ordinary Favours He knew no Marriage could be made without the Popes Dispensation and that the Popes Dispensation could not be obtained without indulging many graces to his Catholick Subjects To smooth his way therefore to the point desired he addresseth several Letters to the Pope and Cardinals in which he gives him the title of most holy Father and imploys Gage as his Agent in the Court of Rome to attend the business At home he dischargeth all such Priests and Iesuites as had been formerly imprisoned inhibiting all Processes and Superseding all proceedings against Recusants and in a word suspends
the execution of such penal Laws as were made against them The People hereupon began to cry out generally of a Toleration and murmur in all places against the King as if he were resolved to grant it And that they might not seem to cry out for nothing a Letter is dispersed abroad under the name oâ Archbishop Abbot In this Letter his Majesty is told That by granting any such Toleration he should set up the most damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the whore of Babylon That it would be both hateful to God grievous to his good Subjects and contradictory to his former Writings in which he had declared their Doctrines to be Superstitious Idolatrous and detestable That no such toleration could be granted but by Parliament only unless it were his purpose to shew his people that he would throw down the Laws at his pleasure That by granting such a Toleration there must needs follow a discontinuance of the true Profession of the Gospel and what could follow thereupon but Gods heavy wrath and indignation both on himself and all the Kingdom That the Prince was not only the Son of his Flesh but the Son of his People also and therefore leaves him to consider what an errour he had run into by sending him into Spain without the privity of his Council and consent of his Subjects And finally That though the Princes return might be safe and prosperous yet they that drew him into that dangerous and desperate Action would not scape unpunished This was the substance of the Letter whosoever was the Writer of it For Abbot could not be so ill a Statesman having been long a Privy Councellour as not to know that he who sitteth at the Helm must stear his course according unto wind and weather And that there was a very great difference betwixt such personal indulgencies as the King had granted in that case to his Popish Subjects and any such Publick Exercise of their Superstitions as the word Toleration doth import and howsoever that it was a known Maxime in the Arts of Government that necessity over-rules the Law and that Princes many times must act for the publick good in the infringing of some personal and particular rights which the Subjects claim unto themselves Nor could he be so ignorant of the Kings affections as to believe that the King did really intend any such toleration though possibly he might be content on good reason of State that the people should be generally perswaded of it For well he knew that the King loved his Soveraignty too well to quit any part thereof to the Pope of Rome and consequently to part with that Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters as needs he must have done by a Toleration which he esteemed the fairest Flower in the Royal Garland In which respect King Iames might seem to be made up of Caesar and Pompey as impatient of enduring an equal as of admitting a Superiour in his own Dominions Or had he been a greater stranger at the Court than can be imagined yet could he not be ignorant that it was the Kings chief interest to preserve Religion in the same state in which he found it and could not fear but that he would sufficiently provide for the safety of it Upon which Premises it may be rationally inferred that Abbot was only the reputed Author of this Bastard Letter and not the natural Parent of it Nor was the Toleration more feared by the English Protestants than hoped for by the Papists here and presumed by the Pope himself In confidence whereof he nominated certain Bishops to all the Episcopal Sees of England to exercise all manner of Jurisdiction in their several and respective Diocesses as his false and titular Bishops did in the Church of Ireland The intelligence whereof being given to the Jesuites here in England who feared nothing more than such a thing one of them who formerly had free access to the Lord Keeper Williams acquaints him with this mighty secret assuring him that he did it for no other reason but because he knew what a great exasperation it would give the King and consequently how much it would incense him against the Catholicks Away with this Intelligence goes the Lord Keeper to the King who took fire thereat as well as he and though it was somewhat late at night commanded to go to the Spanish Embassadour and to require him to send unto the King his Master to take some course that those proceedings might be stopt in the Court of Rome or otherwise that the Treaty of the Match should advance no further The Lord Keeper finds the Embassadour ready to send away his Pacquet who upon hearing of the news commanded his Currier to stay till he had represented the whole business in a Letter to the King his Master On the receiving of which Letter the King imparts the same to the Popes Nuncio in his Court Who presently sends his dispatches to the Pope acquainting him with the great inconveniences and unavoidable dangers of this new design which being stopt by this device and the Treaty of the Match ending in a rupture not long after the same Jesuite came again to the Lord Keepers Lodging and in a fair and facetious manner thanked him most humbly for the good office he had done for that Society for breaking and bearing off which blow all the friends they had in Rome could find no buckler Which Story as I heard from his Lordships own mouth with no small contentment so seemed he to be very well pleased with the handsomness of the trick which was put upon him Laud was not sleeping all this while It was not possible that a man of such an Active Spirit should be out of work and he had work enough to do in being the Dukes Agent at the Court The Marquiss was made Duke of Buckingham at his being in Spain to make him more considerable in the eye of that Court and this addition to his honours was an addition also to that envy which was borne against him Great Favourites have for the most part many enemies such as are carefully intent upon all occasions which may be made use of to supplant them Which point the Duke had so well studied that though he knew himself to be a very great Master of the Kings affections yet was he apprehensive of the disadvantages to which this long absence would expose him It therefoâe concerned him nearly to make choice of some intelligent and trusty friend whom he might confide in and he was grown more confident of Laud than of any other from whom he might receive advertisement of all occurrences and such advice as might be most agreeable to the complexion of affairs Nor did it happen otherwise than he expected for long he had not been in Spain when there were many fearings of him in the Court of England many strange whisperings into the ears of the King concerning the abuse of his Royal Favours the general
discontentments which appeared in the people for the Princes Journey into Spain the sad consequents which were feared to ensue upon it in reference to his Person and the true Religion that the blame of all was by the People laid on the Duke and that it was safest for his Majecty to let it rest where they had laid it But nothing could be thought more strange unto him than that the Lord Keeper Williams and the Lord Treasurer Cranfield should be of Counsel in the Plot both of them being of his raising and both in the stile of Court his Creatures Of all which practises and proceedings Laud gives intelligence to the Duke and receives back again Directions in his actings for him Pity it is that none of these reciprocal Letters have been found to make up the Cabala and to enrich the treasures in the Scrinea Sacra From hence proceeded the constancy of affection which the Duke carried to him for ever after the Animosity between Laud and Williams the fall of Cranfield first and of Williams afterwards Laud by his diligence and fidelity overtopping all The news of these practices in the Court made the Duke think of leaving Spain where he began to sink in his Estimation and hasting his return to England for fear of sinking lower here than he did in Spain Some clashings there had been betwixt him and the Conde d' Olivarez the Principal Favorite of that King and some Caresses were made to him by the Queen of Bohemia inviting him to be a God-father to one of her Children In these disquiets and distractions he puts the Prince in mind of the other Game he had to play namely the Restitution of the Palatinate which the Spaniard would not suffer to be brought under the Treaty of the Match reserving it as they pretended and perhaps really intended to be bestowed by the Infanta after the Marriage the better to ingratiate her self with the English Nation Which being a point of too great moment to depend upon no other assurance than a Court-Complement only it was concluded by the Prince That since he could not prevail in the one he would not proceed to the Consummation of the other But then it did concern him so to provide for his own saâety that no intimation might be made of the intended Rupture till he had unwinded himself out of that Labyrinth into which he was cast For which cause having desired of his Father that some Ships might be sent to bring him some he shewed himself a more passionate Lover than ever formerly bestowed upon the Lady Infanta many rich Jewels of most inestimable value and made a Proxie to the Catholick King and Don Charles his Brother in his name to Espouse tâe Lady Which Proxie being made and executed in due form of Law on the Fourth of August 1623. was put into the Hands of Digby on the Fifteenth of September after made Earl of Bristol by him to be delivered to the King of Spain within ten days after the coming of the Dispensation from the new Pope Vrban which was then every day expected But no sooner had he took his leave and was out of danger but he dispatch'd a Post unto him commanding him not to deliver up the Proxie until further Order And having so done he hoised Sails for England Arriving at Portsmouth on Sunday the fifth of October he rides Post the next day to London and after Dinner on the same day to the Court at Royston his welcom home being celebrated in all Places with Bells and Bonfires and other accustomed Expressions of a Publick Joy Being come unto the Court they acquaint his Majesty with all that hapned informing him that no assurance of regaining the Palatinate could be had in Spain though the Match went forwards His Majesty thereupon dispatches Letters to the Earl of Bristol on the eighth of October requiring him not to deliver up the Proxie and so not to proceed to the Espousals till the Christmas Holy-days and in the mean time to press that King to a positive Answer touching the Palatinate The expectation whereof not being answered by success a Parliament is summoned to begin on the 17th of February then next following to the end that all things might be governed in this Great Affair by the publick Counsel of the Kingdom Not long after the beginning whereof the Duke declaâed before both Houses more to the disadvantage of the Spaniard than there was just ground for how unhandsomly they had dealt with the Prince when he was in Spain how they had fed him with delays what indignities they had put upon him and finally had sent him back not only without the Palatinate but without a Wife leaving it to their prudent consideration what course to follow It was thereupon Voted by both Houses That his Majesty should be desired to break off all Treaties with the King of Spain and to engage himself in a War against him for the recovery of the Palatinate not otherwise to be obtained And that they might come the better to the end they aimed at they addressed themselves unto the Prince whom they assured That they would stand to him in that War to the very last expence of their Lives and Fortunes and he accordingly being further set on by the Duke became their instrument to perswade his Father to hearken to the Common Votes and Desires of his Subjects which the King press'd by their continual Importunities did at the last but with great unwillingness assent to Such was the conduct of this business on the part of the English Look we next what was done in Spain and we shall find in Letters from the Earl of Bristol That as soon as news was come to Spain that King Iames had sworn the Articles of the Treaty which was done on the 26th of Iuly the Lady Infanta by all the Court with the Approbation of that King and her own good-liking was called La Princessa d' Inglaterra That as such she gave her self the liberty of going publickly to such Comedies as were presented in the Court which before was not allowable in her That as such also not only he himself as the Kings Embassadour was commanded to serve her but the Duke and all the English were admitted to kiss her hands as her Servants and Vassals That after the Princes departure there was no thought of any thing but of providing Presents for the King and him the setling of the Princesses Family and making Preparations for the Journey on the first of March That the Princess also had begun to draw the Letters which she intended to have written the day of her disposories to the Prince her Husband and the King her Father in Law That besides such assurances as were given by the Count of Olivarez and other Ministers of that King the Princess had made the business of the Palatinate to be her own and had therein most expresly moved the King her Brother and written to the Conde
of Olivarez to that effect and had set her heart upon the making of her self grateful and welcome to the King and Kingdom by overcoming the difficulties that appeared in it In which respect it was very truly said by Digby in one of his Letters to King Iames That it would be held a point of great dishonour to the Infanta if the Powers called for by her Friends should be detained on the Princes part and that whosoever had deserved ill she certainly had deserved neither disrespect nor discomforts Add hereunto That the Popes Dispensation coming to the Court of Spain in the beginning of December that King caused Bonfires to be made in all the parts of his Realms intending on that day in satisfaction of the Oath which he had made to the Prince to proceed to the Espousals with all due solemnity Which being the true state of this affair as far as I am able to look into it I shall refer it to the judgment of the equal Readers whether this poor Lady were more dishonoured and discomforted by her own Brother and his Ministers if they meant not really and effectually to satisfie all expectations touching either Treaty or by the English if they did But it is now time to leave these Foreign Negotiations and keep close at home where we shall finde the Priests and Iesuits as busie in seducing the people and the Lay-Papists as audacious in hearing and frequenting Masses as if they had been fortified by a Toleration But it pleased God to put some Water into their Wine and abate the fervour of those heats by letting them feel the strokes of his heavy hand when they look'd not for it Being assembled in a fair and capacious Room at Hunsdon House in the Black-Friers to hear the Sermon of one Drury a Jesuit their numbers were so great and their weight so heavy that the Floor sunk under them Most lamentable were the cries of those which fell under that Ruine 94 of them of which the Preacher himself was one being killed outright most of the rest so miserably bruised and maimed that the condition of the dead was esteemed far happier than that of the living A matter of great astonishment to their Party here and that it might not be so abroad they thought it good to shift the Scene and change the Actors publishing to that end a Pamphlet which they dispersed in divers parts of France and Italy containing a Relation of Gods Judgments shown on a sort of Protestant Hereticks by the fall of an House in St. Andrews Parish in Holborn in which they were assembled to hear a Geneva Lecture October 26. A. D. 1623. So wickedly wise are those of that Generation to cheat their own Souls and abuse their Followers And yet the Pamphleteer says well That this disaster hapned on the 26th of October for so it did according to the Old Style and Account of England But it was on the fifth day of November according to the New Style and Account of Rome And this indeed may seem to have somewhat of Gods Judgment in it That the intended blowing up of the Parliament to the unavoidable destruction of the King Prince Prelates Peers and the chiefest Gentry of the Nation on the fifth day of our November should on the fifth day of their own be recompenced or retaliated by the sinking of a Room in which they met to the present slaughter of so many and the maiming of more But leaving them to their ill Fortunes it was not long before Buckingham found the truth of such Informations as he had received touching those ill Offices which had been done to him in his absence from some whom he esteemed his Friends Hereupon followed an estranging of the Dukes Countenance from the Lord Keeper Williams and of his from the Bishop of St. Davids whom he looked upon as one that stood in the way betwixt him and the Duke with which the Duke was not long after made acquainted But these displeasures were not only shewn in offended Countenances but brake out within little time into sharp Expostulations on either side The Duke complained to Laud December 15. That the Lord Keeper had so strangely forgotten himself to him as he seemed to be dead in his affections and began to entertain some thoughts of bringing him by a way which he would not like to a remembrance of his duty and on the eleventh of Ianuary the Lord Keeper meets with Laud in the Withdrawing Chamber and fell into very hot words with him of which the Duke hath an account also within three days after But Williams seeing how unable he was to contend at once with Wit and Power applied himself with so much diligence to regain the Favour of the Duke that in the beginning of February a Reconciliation was made between them the Duke accepting his submission and learning from him That his great Favours unto Laud were the chief reasons which had moved him unto that forgetfulness And that the benefit of this Reconciliation might extend to all who were concerned in the displeasures Williams engageth to the Duke to be friends with Laud and did accordingly bestow some Complements upon him but such as had more ceremony than substance in them From henceforth nothing but an appearance of fair weather between these Great Persons though at last it brake out again more violently into open Storms The Wound was only skinned not healed and festred the more dangerously because the secret Rancour of it could not be discerned In the mean time Laud was not wanting to himself in taking the benefit of this Truce Abâot had still a spite against him and was resolved to keep him down as long as he could to which end he had caused him to be left out of the High-Commission and Williams was not forward to put him in though never a Bishop that lived about London was left out but himself and many who lived not there put in Of which Indignity he complained to the Duke by his Letter bearing date November 1. 1624. and was remedied in it During the heat of these Court-combats the Parliament before-mentioned was assembled at Westminster on the seventeenth of February upon whose humble Petition and Advice his Majesty dissolved the Treaties and engaged himself in a War with Spain But this he had no sooner done when they found into what perplexities they had plunged themselves by this Engagement there being nothing more derogatory to the Honour and Prosperity of a King of England than to be cast on the necessity of calling Parliaments which rendreth them obnoxious to the power and pride of each popular spirit and makes them less in Reputation both at home and abroad For first they Petitioned him for a Fast which he also granted They had desired the like in some former Parliaments and Sessions of Parliaments as they had done also in Queen Elizabeths time but could never obtain the same from either It was then told them That there
were weekly Fasts appointed to be kept by the Laws of the Land which if they did observe as they ought to do there would be no need of Solemn Fasts to begin their Parliaments The blame of which Answer in the Parliament immediately foregoing this was by the Puritan Faction cast upon the Bishops who at the same time had opposed some Proposition tending to some Restraints on the Lords day not imposed before as men whose Pride hindred all such Religious Humiliations and whose Profaneness made them Enemies to all Piety But the King having now cast himself into the arms of his People had brought himself to a necessity of yielding to their desire and thereby left a fair President both for them to crave and his Successor to grant the like So that from this time forward till the last of King Charles we shall see no Parliament nor Session of Parliament to begin without them though that King checked some times at the importunity So far his Majesty had gone along with them in yielding unto their desires but he must go a little further And therefore secondly They thought it not enough that his Majesty had made a Publick Declaration for the real and utter Dissolution of the said Treaties but it must be declared also by Act of Parliament That the said two Treaties were by his Majesty Dissolved Which gave them some colour of Pretence in the following Parliament to claim a share in managing the War which the Dissolving of these Treaties had occasioned and of being made acquainted with the Enterprize which was then in hand But for this time they were contented to have engaged the King for the future War toward the carrying on of which and more particularly as the Act expresseth for the Defence of this Realm of England the Securing of the Kingdom of Ireland the Assistance of his Majesties Neighbours the States of the Vnited Provinces and other his Majesties Friends and Allies and for the setting forth of his Royal Navy they granted to him three Subsidies together with three Fifteenths and Tenths to be paid before the tânth of May which should be in the year 1625. Which though it be affirmed in the said Act to be the greatest Aid which ever was granted in Parliament to be levied in so short a time yet neither was the time so short as it was pretended there being almost fifteen Months between the dissolving of the Treaties and the last payment of the Monies Nor did the King get any thing by it how great soever the said Aid was supposed to be For thirdly before the King could obtain this Act he was fain to gratifie them with some others amongst which that entituled An Act for the general quiet of the Subject against all pretext of Concealments whatsoever was the most considerable An Act of such a grand Concernment to the Peace and Happiness of the Subject and of such Disprofit to the King in his Gifts and Graces to his Servants that it was affirmed by Justice Dodderidge at the Oxon. Assises next ensuing That his Majesty had bought those Fifteenths and Subsidies at ten years purchase Nor fourthly did one penny of this Money so dearly paid for accrew unto his Majesties particular use or was to come into his Coffers it being ordered in the Act aforesaid That the said Monies and every part and parcel of them should be paid to certain Commissioners therein nominated and that the said Commissioners should issue and dispose the same according as they should be warranted by George Lord Carew Foulk Lord Brooke and certain other Commissioners to the number of ten nominated and appointed for a Council of War by them to be expended in the Publick Service And albeit the Grant of the said Fifteenths Tenths and Subsidies might possibly be the greatest Aid which had been given in Parliament for so short a time yet did this greatness consist rather in tale than weight the Subsidy-Books being grown so low for those of the Fifteenths and Tenths do never vary that two entire Subsidies in the time of Queen Elizabeth came to more than all More nobly dealt the Clergy with him in their Convocation because it came into his own Coâlers and without Conditions For taking into consideration amongst other motives the great Expences at which his Majesty was then and was like to be hereafter as well for the support of his Royal Estate as for the necessary Defence of this Realm of England and other his Dominions whereby was like to grow the safety of Religion both at whom and abroad they granted to him four entire Subsidies after the rate of 4 s. in every Pound which was indeed the greatest Aid that was ever given by Convocation in so short a time the Subsidies of the Clergy being fixed and certain those of the Laity diminishing and decreasing daily A Burden which must needs fall exceeding heavy on many poor Vicars in the Country whose Benefices are for the most part of small yearly value and yet rated very high in the Kings Books according unto which they are to be Taxed Insomuch as I knew several Vicaridges not worth above 80 l. per Annum which were charged higher than the best Gentlemen in the Parish whose yearly Revenues have amounted unto many Hundreds Laud who had sometimes been Vicar of Stamford in Northamptonshire as before is said was very compassionate of the case of these poor men for whose case he devised a course in this present Session which being digested into form he communicated to the Duke of Buckingham who very readily promised to prepare both the King and Prince for the passing of it This done he imparted it also to the Lord Keeper Williams and the Bishop of Durham who look'd upon it as the best service which had been done for the Church many years before and advised him to acquaint the Archbishop with it But Abbot either disliking the Design for the Authors sake or being an enemy to all Counsels which had any Author but himself instead of favours returned him frowns asking him What he had to do to make any suit for the Church And telling him withall That never any Bishop attempted the like at any time and that no body would have done it but himself That he had given the Church such a wound in speaking to any Lord of the Layty about it as he could never make whole again And finally That if the Lord Duke did fully understand what he had done he would never endure him to come near him again St Davids replies very mildly That he thought he had done a very good office for the Church and so did his betters too That if his Grace thought otherwise he was sorry that he had offended But hoped that he had done it out of a good mind and for the support of many poor Vicars abroad in the Country who must needs sink under the payment of so many Subsidies and therefore that his error might be pardonable if
The Books which had been written on both sides being purposely dispersed abroad to encourage and encrease their several Parties cross'd over the Seas into England also where being diligently studied either out of curiosity or desire of Knowledge they awaked many out of that dead sleep in which they were to look with better eyes into the true and native Doctrines of this Church than before they did Amongst the first which publikly appeared that way at Oxon. after the coming out of the said Books were Laud and Houson whom Abbot then Doctor of the Chair and Vice-chancellor also exposed to as much disgrace as by his Place and Power he could lay upon them Amongst the first at Cambridge were Tompson a Dutchman by original if I be not mistaken in tâe man and Richardson the Master of Trinity Colledge The first of these had writ a Book touching Falling away from Grace entituled De Intercisione Gratiae Iustificationis to which Abbot of Oxon. above-mentioned returned an Answer The other being a corpulent man was publickly reproach'd in S. Maries Pulpit in his own University by the name of a Fat-bellied Arminian By that name they were called in Holland which adhered not unto Calvin's Doctrine though many had formerly maintained these Opinions in those Churches before van Harmine came to the Chair of Leyden And by that name they must be called in England also though the same Doctrines had been here publickly Authorised and Taught before he was born So that the entitling of these Doctrines to the name of Arminius seems to be like the nominating of the great Western Continent by the name of America of which first Christopher Columbus and afterwards the two Cabots Father and Son had made many great and notable Discoveries before Americus Vestputius ever saw those Shores Howsoever these Doctrines must be called by the name of Arminianism and by that name Mountague stands accused by the two Informers though he protests in his Appeal That he had never seen any of the Writings of Arminius and that he did no otherwise maintain those Doctrines than as they were commended to him by the Church of England and justified by the unanimous Consent of the Ancient Fathers But of this man and the pursuance of these Quarrels we shall hear more shortly These matters being thus laid together let us look back on some former Passages which preceded Mountagues Disputes The Commons had obtained their ends in dissolving all Treaties with the King of Spain but lost their hopes of Marrying the Prince to a Lady of their own Religion His Majesty would not look beneath a Crown to finde a Marriage for his Son and no Crown could afford him a better Wife for his Son than a Daughter of France The Prince had seen the Lady at the Court in Paris and the King as much desired to see her in the Court of England Upon this ground the Earl of Holland is dispatch'd privately into France to see how the Queen-Mother and her Ministers who then Governed the Affairs of that King would approve the Match to which at first they seemed so chearâully inclined that they did not seem to stand upon any Conditions But no sooner had they found that the Breach between his Majesty and the King of Spain was grown irreparable and that both sides prepared for War but they knew how to make their best advantage of it They thought themselves to be every way as considerable as the Spaniards were and would abate nothing of those Terms which had been obtained by the Spaniards in reference either to the Princess her self or in favour of the English Catholicks And to these Terms when they saw no better could be gotten his Majesty and the Prince consented But such a Spirit of Infatuation was at that time upon the People that they who on the 23d of February before had celebrated the Dissolving of the Treaties with Spain with Bâlls and Bonfires on the 21st of November following did celebrate with like Solemnities and Expressions the like Match with France And in this Match Laud is accused to have a hand or at the least to have shew'd his good affections to promote it An heavy Crime and proved by as infallible proofs that is to say his writing to and receiving Letters from the Duke at such time as the Duke was sent to the Court of France to attend the new Queen into England And what else could this Match and those Letters aim at but to carry on the same design to bring in Popery and by that means to stand their ground and retain all those Priviledges and Immunities which the Popish Party had procured by the former Treaties To such absurdities are men sway'd when Prejudice and Prepossessions over-rule the Balance We must begin the next year with the Death of King Iames and therefore think it not amiss to take a brief view of the Condition of the Church and State at the time of his departing from us He had spent all his life in Peace but died in the beginning of a War A War which had been drawn upon him by dissolving the Treaties to which he was as it were constrained by the continual importunity of the Prince and the Duke of Buckingham The Duke knew well that he could not do a more popular act than to gratifie the Commons in that business and had easily possess'd the Prince with this opinion That as his future Greatness must be built on the Love of his People so nothing could oblige them more than to be instrumental in dissolving the present Treaties But herein they consulted rather their own private Passions than the publick Interest of the Crown and they shall both pay dear enough for it in a very short space For there is nothing more unsafe for a King of England than to cast himself upon the necessity of calling Parliaments and depending on the Purse of the Subject by means whereof he makes himself obnoxious to the humour of any prevailing Member in the House of Commons and becomes less in Reputation both at home and abroad The Church he left beleaguer'd by two great Enemies assaulted openly by the Papist on the one side undermined by the Puritans on the other Of the audaciousness of the Papists we have spoke already abated somewhat by the Fall at Black-friers more by the dissolving the two Treaties about four Months after For though they made some use of the French by this new Alliance yet they resolved to fasten no dependance upon that Crown insomuch that many of those who greedily embraced such Favours as were obtained for them by the Treaties with the King of Spain would not accept the same when they were procured by the Match with France for which being asked the Reason they returned this Answer That they would not change an old Friend for a new of the continuance of whose Favours they could have no certainty and who by suffering Hereticks in his own Dominions declared
in sundry parts of this Kingdom And therefore he did not only require that none of them might have any manner of Covert Protection Countenance or connivence from them or any of the rest as they tendred his Royal Commandment in that behalf but that all possible diligence be used as well to unmask the false shadows and pretences of those who may possibly be won to Conformity letting all men know That he could not think well of any that having Place and Authority in the Church do permit such persons to pass with impunity much less if they give them any countenance to the emboldening them or their adherents On the receiving of these Letters Abbot transmits the Copies of them to his several Suffragans and to our Bishop of St. Davids amongst the rest requiring him to conform therein to his Majesties Pleasure and to see the same executed in all parts of his Diocess On the receipt whereof the Bishop commands his Chancellor Arch-Deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers within his Diocess of St. Davids That all possible care be taken of such as are any way backward in Points of Religion and more especially of known and professed Recusants that they may be carefully presented and Proceedings had against them to Excommunication according to form and order of Law and that there be a true List and Catalogue of all such as have been presented and proceeded against sent to him yearly after Easter by him to be presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury as had been required No Command given unto his Chancellor and other Officers to look into the Practises and Proceedings of the Puritan Faction for which I am able to give no reason but that he had received no such Direction and Command from Archbishop Abbot whose Letter pointed him no further it is no hard matter to say why than to the searching out presenting and Excommunicating the Popish Recusants And in what he commanded he was obeyed by his Chancellor returning to him in Iune following the names of such Recusants as lived within the Counties of Caermarthen and Pembroke the chief parts of his Diocess The Kings Coronation now draws on for which Solemnity he had appointed the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin better known by the name of Candlemas day The Coronations of King Edward vi and Queen Elizabeth had been performed according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Roman Pontificals That at the Coronation of King Iames had been drawn in haste and wanted many things which might have been considered of in a time of leasure His Majesty therefore issueth a Commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury and certain other Bishops whereof Laud was one to consider of the Form and Order of the Coronation and to accomodate the same more punctually to the present Rules and Orders of the Church of England On the fourth of Ianuary the Commissioners first met to consult about it and having compared tâe Form observed in the Coronation of King Iames with the publick Rituals it was agreed upon amongst them to make some Alterations in it and Additions to it The Alteration in it was that the Unction was to be performed in forma Crucis after the manner of a Cross which was accordingly done by Abbot when he officiated as Archbishop of Canterbury in the Coronation The Additions in the Form consisted chiefly in one Prayer or Request to him in the behalf of the Clergy and the clause of another Prayer for him to Almighty God the last of which was thought to have ascribed too much Power to the King the first to themselves especially by the advancing of the Bishops and Clergy above the Laity The Prayer or Request which was made to him followed after the Vnction and was this viz. Stand and hold fast from henceforth the Place to which you have been Heir by the Succession of your Forefathers being now delivered to you by the Authority of Almighty God and by the hands of us and all the Bishops and Servants of God And as you see the Clergy to come neerer to the Altar than others so remember that in place convenient you give them greater honour that the Mediator of God and Man may establish you in the Kingly Throne to be the Mediator between the Clergy and the Laity that you may Reign for ever with Iesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth for ever Amen The Clause of that Prayer which was made for him had been intermitted since the time of King Henry vi and was this that followeth viz. Let him obtain favour for the People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the Waters Zacharias in the Temple Give him Peters Key of Discipline and Pauls Doctrine Which Clause had been omitted in times of Popery as intimating more Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to be given to our Kings than the Popes allowed of and for the same reason was now quarrell'd at by the Puritan Faction It was objected commonly in the time of his fall That in digesting the form of the Coronation he altered the Coronation Oath making it more advantageous to the King and less beneficial to the People than it had been formerly from which calumny his Majesty cleared both himself and the Bishop when they were both involved by common Speech in the guilt thereof For the clearer manifestation of which truth I will first set down the Oath it self as it was taken by the King and then the Kings Defence for his taking of it Now the Oath is this The Form of the CORONATION-OATH SIR says the Archbishop Will you grant keep and by your Oath confirm to your People of ENGLAND the Laws and Customs to them granted by the Kings of ENGLAND your Lawful and Religious Predecessors and namely the Laws Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the Glorious King St. Edward your Predecessor according to the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom and agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the Ancient Customs of this Land The King Answers I grant and promise to keep them Archbishop Sir Will you keep Peace and Godly Agreement entirely according to your Power bâth to God the Holy Church the Clergie and the People Rex I will keep it Archbishop Sir Will you to your Power cause Iustice Law and Discretion in Mercy and Truth to be executed in all your âudgments Rex I will Archbishop Sir Will you grant to hold and grant to keep the Laws and rightful Customs which the Commânalây of this your Kingdom have and will you deâend and uphold them to the honour of God so much as in you lieth Rex I grant and promise so to do Then one of the Bishops reads this Admonition to the King before the People with a loud voice Our Lord and King we beseech you to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and
with the sins of the State But then he will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel Gen. 49. Nay scatter Iacob and Israel it self for them Which said in general he descended to a more particular application putting his Auditory in mind of those words of Tacitus That nothing gave the Romans powerful enemies though they were more advantage against the ancient Britains than this Quod Factionibus studiis trahebantur That they were broken into Factions and would not so much as take counsel and advice together And they smarted for it But I pray what is the difference for men not to meet in counsel and to fall to pieces when they meet If the first were our Fore-fathers errour God of his mercy grant this second be not ours And for the Church that is as the City too just so Doctrine and Discipline are the Walls and the Towers of it But be the one never so true and the other never so perfect they come both short of Preservation if that body be not at unity in it self The Church take it Catholick cannot stand well if it be not compacted together into an holy unity with Faith and Charity And as the whole Church is in regard of the affairs of Christendom so is each particular Church in the Nation and Kingdom in which it sojourns If it be not at unity in it self it doth but invite Malice which is ready to do hurt without any invitation and it ever lies with an open side to the devil and all his batteries So both Church and State then happy and never till then when they are at unity within themselves and one with another Well both State and Church owe much to Vnity and therefore very little to them that break the peace of either Father forgive them they know not what they do But if unity be so necessary how may it be preserved in both How I will tell you Would you keep the State in Vnity In any case take heed of breaking the peace of the Church The peace of the State depends much upon it For divide Christ in the minds of men or divide the minds of men about their hopes of Salvation in Christ and tell me what unity there will be Let this suffice so far as the Church is an ingredient into the unity of the State But what other things are concurring to the unity of it the State it self knows better than I can teach This was good Doctrine out of doubt The Preacher had done his part in it but the hearers did not the Parliament not making such use of it as they should have done At such time as the former Parliament was adjourned to Oxon the Divinity School was prepared for the House of Commons and a Chair made for the Speaker in or near the place in which his Majesties Professor for Divinity did usually read his publick Lectures and moderate in all publick Disputations And this first put them into conceit that the determining of all Points and Controversies in Religion did belong to them As Vibius Rufus in the Story having married Tullies Widow and bought Caesars Chair conceived that he was then in a way to gain the Eloquence of the one and the power of the other For after that we find no Parliament without a Committee for Religion and no Committee for Religion but what did think it self sufficiently instructed to manage the greatest Controversies of Divinity which were brought before them And so it was particularly with the present Parliament The Commons had scarce setled themselves in their own House but Mountague must be called to a new account for the Popery and Arminianism affirmed to have been maintained by him in his books In which Books if he had defended any thing contrary to the established Doctrine of the Church of England the Convocation of the two was the fitter Judge And certainly it might have hapned ill unto him the King not being willing to engage too far in those Emergences as the case then stood if the Commons had not been diverted in pursuit of the Duke of Buckingham which being a more noble game they laid this aside having done nothing in it but raised a great desire in several Members of both Houses to give themselves some satisfaction in those doubtful Points To which end a Conference was procured by the Earl of Warwick to be held at York House between Buckeridge Bishop of Rochester and White Dean of Carlile on the one side Morton then of Lichfield and Preston then of Lincolns-Inn of whom more hereafter on the other The Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Pembroke many other Lords and many other persons of inferiour quality being present at it To this Conference which was holden on the eleventh of this February another was added the next week on the seventeenth In which Mountague acted his own part in the place of Buckeridge the Concourse being as great both for the quality and number of the persons as had been at the former And the success was equal also The Friends and Fautors of each side giving the victory to those as commonly it happens in such cases whose cause they favoured After this we hear no more of Mountague but the passing of some Votes against him in the April following which âeats being over he was kept cold till the following Parliament And then he shall be called for In the mean time the King perceiving that the Commons had took no notice of his own occasions gave order to Sir Richard Weston then Chancellour of his Exchequer to mind them of it by whom he represented to them the return of the last years Fleet and the want of Money to satisfie the Mariners and Souldiers for their Arrâars That he had prepared a new Fleet of forty Sail ready to set forth which could not stir without a present supply of money And that without the like supply not only his Armies which were quartered upon the Coasts would disband or mutiny but that the Forces sent for Ireland would be apt to rebell and therefore he desired to know without more adoe what present supply he must depend upon from them that accordingly he might shape his course These Propositions being made Clem. Coke a younger Son of Sir Edward Coke who had successively been Chief Justice of either Bench obstructs the Answer by this rash and unhandsome expression That it was better to dye by a Forreign Enemy than to be destroyed at home Which general words were by one Turner a Doctor of Physick and then a Member of that House restrained and applied more particularly to the Duke of Buckingham The Commons well remembred at what Point they were cut off in the former Parliament and carefully watcht all advantages to resume it in this They had begun a great clamour against him on the first of March for staying a French Ship called the St. Peter of Newhaven and Turner now incites them to a higher distemper by six
Circle of Order which without apparent danger both to Church and State may not be broken his Majesty will proceed against them with that severity as upon due consideration had of their Offences and Contempts they and every one of them should deserve c. Such was the tenor of his Majesties Proclamation of Iune 14. And the effect thereof was this The House of Commons in pursuance of their Quarrel against Mountague's Books had referred the consideration of it to their Committee for Religion from whom Pym brought a Report on the eighteenth of April concerning some Arminian and Popish Tenents comprized in them It was thereupon Voted in that House 1. That he had disturbed the Peace of the Church by publishing Doctrines contrary to the Articles of the Church of England and the Book of Homilies 2. That there are divers Passages in his Book especially against those he calleth Puritans apt to move Sedition betwixt the King and his Subjects and between Subject and Subject 3. That the whole frame and scope of his Books is to discourage the well affected in Religion from the true Religion established in the Church and to incline them and as much as in him lay to reconcile them to POPERY This gave great animation to the opposite Party who thought it a high point of Wisdom to assault the man whom they perceived to have been smitten with this terrible Thunder-bolt and not to lose the opportunity of a Parliament-time when the Press is open to all comers for publishing their Books against him Some of them we have named already besides which there appeared so many in the List against him viz. Goad âeatly Ward Wotton Prynne and Burton that the Encounter seemed to be betwixt a whole Army and a single Person Laud and some of those Bishops on the other side incouraged by his Majesties Proclamation endeavoured to suppress those Books which seemed to have been published in defiance of it some of them being called in some stopped at the Press some Printers questioned for Printing as the Authors were for writing such prohibited Pamphlets Burton and Prynne amongst the rest were called into the High-Commission and at the point to have been censured when a Prohibition comes from Westmânster-Hall to stay the Proceedings in that Court contrary to his Majesties Will and Pleasure expressed so clearly and distinctly in the said Proclamation Which Prohibition they tendred to the Court in so rude a manner that Laud was like to have laid them by the heels for their labour From henceforth we must look for nothing from both these hot-spurs but desire of revenge a violent opposition against all Persons whatsoever who did not look the same way with them and whatsoever else an ill-governed Zeal could excite them too And now being fallen upon these men it may not be amiss to say something of them in this place considering how much they exercised the patience of the Church and State in the Times succeeding Burton had been a Servant in the Closet to his Sacred Majesty when he was Prince of Wales and being once in the Ascendent presumed that he should culminate before his time He took it very ill that he was not sent as one of the Chaplains into Spain when the Prince was there but worse that Laud then Bishop of St. Davids should execute the Office of Clerk of the Closet at such time as Bishop Neil was sick and he be looked on no otherwise than as an underling still Vexed with that Indignity as he then conceived it he puts a scandalous Paper into the hands of the King for which and for some other Insolencies and factious carriage he was commanded by him to depart the Court into which being never able to set foot again he breathed nothing but rage and malice against his Majesty the Bishops and all that were in place above him and so continued till the last it being the custom of all those whom the Court casts out to labour by all means they can to out-cast the Court Prynne lived sometimes a Commoner of Oriall Colledge and afterwards entred himself a Student in Lincolns-Inn where he became a great follower of Preston then the Lecturer there Some parts of Learning he brought with him which afterwards he improved by continual Study and being found to be of an enterprising nature hot-spirited and eager in pursuit of any thing which was put into him he was looked upon by Preston as the fittest person to venture upon such Exploits which a more sober and considerate man durst not have appeared in Being once put into the road it was not possible to get him out of it again by threats or punishments till growing weary of himself when he had no Enemy in a manner to encounter with he began to look up at the last and setled on more moderate and quiet courses becoming in the end a happy Instrument of Peace both to Church and State And now I am fallen on Preston also I shall add something of him too as being a man which made much noise in the World about this time A man he was beyond all question of a shrewd Wit and deep Comprehensions an excellent Master in the Art of Insinuation and one who for a long time sate at the Helm and steared the Course of his Party as one well observeth Toward the latter end of the Reign of King Iames he was brought into the Court by the Duke of Buckingham in hope to gain a Party by him There he was gazed on for a time like a new Court-Meteâr and having flashed and blazed a little went out again and was forgotten in case he did not leave as most Meteors do an ill smell behind him Much was he cried up by his Followers in the University City and all places else as if he might have chosen his own Mitre and had been as likely a man as any to have been trusted with the Great Seal in the place of Williams but he was not principled for the Court nor the Court for him For long he had not been in that School of Policy but he found other men as wise and cunning as himself and that he could not govern there with such an absolute Omni-regency as he had done in the Families of private Gentlemen in most parts of the Kingdom Nor was it long before the Duke began to have some suspicion of him as one not to be trusted in his Majesties Service when it seemed any way to cross with the Puritan Interest which he drove on with so much openness in the Court as was not proper for a man of so famed a cunning But that which lost him at the last was a Letter by him written to a great Peer of the Realm in which he spake disadvantageously enough if not reproachfully of the Court and signified withal how little hope there was of doing any good in that place for the advancement of the Cause Which Letter or a Copy of it being unluckily
on the Kings wants flattered themselves with the hope of a Toleration for it But old Sir Iohn Savill of Yorkshire who had been lately taken into his Majesties Council had found out a plot worth two of that conceiving that a Commission to proceed against Recusants for their thirds due to his Majesty by Law would bring in double the Sum which they had offered To this the King readily condescended granting him and some others a Commission for that purpose for the Parts beyond Trent as unto certain Lords and Gentlemen for all other Counties in the Kingdom By which means and some moneys raised upon the Loane there was such a present stock advanced that with some other helps which his Majesty had he was enabled to set forth a powerfull Fleet and a considerable Land Army for the relief of the Rochellers whose quarrel he had undertaken upon this occasion The Queen at her first coming into England had brought with her a complâat Family of French to attend her here according to the Capitulations between the Commissioners of both Kings before the Marriage But the French Priests and some of the rest of her Domesticks were grown so insolent and had put so many affronts upon his Majesty that he was forced to send them home within few daies after he had dissolved the foregoing Parliament In which he had done no more than what the French King had done before him in sending back all the Spanish Courtiers which his Queen brought with her But the French King not looking on his own Example and knowing on what ill terms the King stood both at home and abroad first seized on all the Merchants Ships which lay on the River of Burdeaux and then brake out into open war So that the King was necessitated to make use of those Forces against the French which were designed to have been used against the Spaniard and to comply with the desires of the Rochellers who humbly sued for his protection and defence But the Fleet not going out till after Michaelmas found greater opposition at Sea than they feared from the Land being encountred with strong Tempests and thereby necessitated to return without doing any thing but only shewing the Kings good will and readiness toward their assistance But the next Fleet and the Land-Army before mentioned being in a readiness the Duke of Buckingham appeared Commander general for that Service who hoped thereby to make himself of some consideration in the eyes of the People On the twenty seventh of Iune he hoised Sailes for the Isle of Rhe which lay before the Port of Rochel and embarred their trade the taking whereof was the matter aimed at And he had strength enough both for Sea and Land to have done the work if he had not followed it more like a Courtier than a Souldier For having neglected those advantages which the victory at his Landing gave him he first suffered himself to be complemented out of the taking of their chief Fort when it was almost at his mercy and after stood unseasonably upon point of Honour in facing those Forces which were sent from the French King to raise the Siege when he might have made a safe retreat unto his Ships without loss or danger So that well beaten by the French and with great loss of Reputation among the English he came back with the remainder of his broken Forces in November following as dearly welcom to the King as if he had returned with success and triumphs During the preparations for this unfortunate attempt on Sunday the twenty ninth of April it pleased his Majesty to admât the Bishop of Bath and Wells for one of the Lords of his most honourable Privy Council An honour which he would not have accepted with so great chearfulness if his dear Friend the Lord Bishop of Durham had not been sworn at or about the same time also So mutually did these two Prelates contribute their assistances to one another that as Neile gave Laud his helping hand to bring him first into the Court and plant him in King Iames his favour So Laud made use of all advantages in behalf of Neile to keep him in favour with King Charles and advance him higher The Fleet and Forces before mentioned being in a readiness and the Duke provided for the Voyaye it was not thought either safe or fit that the Duke himself should be so long absent without leaving some assured Friend about his Majesty by whom all practises against him might be either prevented or suppressed and by whose means the Kings affections might be alwaies inflamed towards him To which end Laud is first desired to attend his Majesty to Portsmouth before which the Navy lay at Anchor and afterwards to wait the whole Progress also the Inconveniencies of which journeys he was as willing to undergo as the Duke was willing to desire it The Church besides was at that time in an heavy condition and opportunities must be watcht for keeping her from falling from bad to worse No better her condition now in the Realm of England than anciently in the Eastern Churches when Nectarius sate as Supââme Pastor in the Chair of Constantinople of which thus Nazianze writes unto him The Arians saith he were grown so insolent that they make open profession of their Heresie as if they had been authorized and licenced to it The Macedonians so presumptuous that they were formed into a Sect and had a Titular Bishop of their own The Apollinarians held their Conventicles with as much safety and esteem as the Orthodox Christians And for Eunomius the bosome-mischief of those times he thought so poorly of a general connivence that at last nothing would content him but a toleration The cause of which disorders he ascribeth to Nectarius only A man as the Historian saith of him of an exceeding fair and plausible demeanour and very gracious with the people one that chose rather as it seems to give free way to all mens fancies and suffer every mans proceedings than draw upon himself the envy of a stubborn Clergy and a factious Multitude Never was Church more like to Church Bishop to Bishop time to time the names of the Sects and Heresies being only changed than those of Constantinople then and of England now A pregnant evidence that possibly there could not be a greater mischief in a Church of God than a Popular Prelate This though his Majesty might not know yet the Bishops which were about him did who therefore had but ill discharged their duty both to God and man if they had not made his Majesty acquainted with it he could not chuse but see by the practises and proceedings of the former Parliaments to what a prevalency the Puritans were grown in all parts of the Kingdom and how incompatible that humour was with the Regal interest There was no need to tell him from what fountain the mischief came how much the Popularity and remiss Government of Abbot did contribute
Foreign Title exercised all manner of Episcopal Jurisdiction in the Church of England And on the other side Archbishop Abbot a great Confident of the Popular Party in the House of Commons is sent for to the Court about Christmas and from out of his Barge received by the Archbishop of York and the Earl of Dorset by them accompanied to the King who giving him his Hand to kiss enjoined him not to fail the Council-Table twice a week And so far all was well beyond all exception but whether it were so in the two next also hath been much disputed Barnaby Potter Provost of Queens Colledge in Oxon. a thorow-pac'd Calvinian but otherwise his ancient Servant is preferr'd to the Bishoprick of Carlisle then vacant by the Translation of White to the See of Mountague's Book named Appello Caesarem must be called in also not in regard of any false Doctrine contained in it but for being the first cause of those Disputes and Differences which have since much troubled the quiet of the Church His Majesty hoping That the occasion being taken away men would no longer trouble themselves with such unnecessary Disputations Whether his Majesty did well in doing no more if the Book contained any false Doctrine in it or in doing so much if it were done only to please the Parliament I take not upon me to determine But certainly it never falleth out well with Christian Princes when they make Religion bend to Policy or think to gain their ends on men by doing such things as they are not plainly guided to by the Light of Conscience And so it hapned to his Majesty at this present time those two last Actions being looked on only as Tricks of King-craft done only out of a design for getting him more love in the hearts of his People than before he had Against the calling in of Mountague's Book it was objected commonly to his disadvantage That it was not done till three years after it came out till it had been questioned in three several Parliaments till all the Copies of it were dispersed and sold and then too That it was called in without any Censure either of the Author or his Doctrines That the Author had been punished with a very good Bishoprick and the Book seemingly discountenanced to no other end but to divert those of contrary perswasion from Writing or Acting any thing against it in the following Parliament And as for Potter what could he have done less in common gratitude than to prefer him to a Bishoprick for so many years Service as Potter in his time had done him both as Prince and King So true is that of the wise Historian When Princes once are in discredit with their Subjects as well their good Actions as their bad are all accounted Grievances For notwithstanding all these preparatory actions the Commons were resolved to begin at the same Point where before they ended The Parliament had been Prorogued as they were hammering a Remonstrance against Tonnage and Poundage which animated Chambers Rouls and some other Mercâants to refuse the payment for which refusal some of their Goods was seised by Order from the Lord Treasurer Weston and some of them committed Prisoners by the Kings Command These matters so possessed their thoughts that a week was passed before they could resume their old care of Religion or think of Petitioning his Majesty for a Publick Fast but at last they fell upon them both To their Petition for a Fast not tendred to his Majesty till the thirtieth of Ianuary he returned this Answer the next day viz. That this Custom of Fasts at every Session was but lately begun That he was not so fully satisfied of the necessity of it at this time That notwithstanding for the avoiding of Questions and Jealousies he was pleased to grant them their Request with this Proviso That it should not hereafter be brought into President but on great occasions And finally That as for the form and times thereof he would advise with his Bishops and then return unto both Houses a particular Answer But so long it was before that Answer came unto them and so perverse were they in crossing with his Majesties Counsels that the Parliament was almost ended before the Fast was kept in London and Westminster and dissolved many days before it was to have been kept in the rest of the Kingdom And for Religion they insisted on it with such importunity that his Majesty could no longer dissemble his taking notice of it as a meer artifice and diversion to stave him off from being gratified in the Grant of Tonnage and Poundage which he so often press'd them to And thereupon he lets them know That he understood the cause of their delay in his business to be Religion of the preservation whereof none of them should have greater care than himself and that either it must be an Argument he wanted Power to preserve it which he thought no body would affirm or at the least That he was very ill counselled if it were in so much danger as they had reported This notwithstanding they proceed in their former way His Majesty had granted several Pardons to Mountague Cosens Manwaâring and Sibthârp before-mentioned These Pardons must be questioned and the men summoned to appear And Information is preferred by Iones against Mountague's Confirmation in the See of Chichester which after many disputes is referred to a Select Committee Complaint is made against Neile Bishop of Winton for for saying to some Divines of his Diocess That they must not Preach against Papists now as they had done formerly Marshall and Moor two Doctors in Divinity but such as had received some displeasures from him are brought in to prove it Upon him also it was charged That the Pardons of Mountague and Cosens were of his procuring Insomuch that Eliot pronounced positively That all the Dangers which they feared were contracted in the person of that Bishop and thereupon desired That a Motion might be made to his Majesty to leave him to the Iustice of that House Many Reports come flowing in to the Committee for Religion of turning Tables into Altars adoring towards or before them and standing up at the Gospels and the Gloria Patri which must be also taken into consideration The Articles of Lambeth are declared to be the Doctrines of this Church and all that did oppose them to be called in question Walker delivered a Petition from the Booksellers and Printers in complaint of the Restraint of Books written against Popery and Arminianism and the contrary allowed of by the only means of the Bishop of London and That divers of them had been Pursevanted for Printing of Orthodox Books and That the Licencing of Books was only to be restrained to the said Bishop and his Chaplains Hereupon followed a Debate amongst them about the Licencing of Books which having taken up some time was referred to the Committee also as the other was By these Embraceries the Committee
against the like Instructions in the time of King Iames and the late Declaration published by the King reigning For what less could be aimed at in them than suppressing the Divine Ordinance of Preaching or at the least a dreadful diminution of the number of Sermons And what could follow thereupon but negligence in the Priests ignorance in the People Popery and Superstition in the mean time gaining ground on both Spending the afternoons in teaching the Catechism was a work fitter for a Pedagogue than a preaching Minister who rather were ordained to provide strong meats for men than milk for babes and yet such was the strictness of the said Instructions in looking to the observance of the late Declaration that they were not suffered to set strong meats before the people though men of ripe years and somewhat more than children in their understandings Preaching must be restrained hereafter to Gods Will revealed to Faith in Christ and Moral duties toward God and men but as for his secret Will and Purpose in the unfathomable depths of Predestination those must be kept sealed up under lock and key and none but the Arminians have the opening of them And yet the grief had been the less if Lecturers had been left to their former liberty and not tied up to Gown and Surplice or fettered with Parochial cures and consequently with Subscriptions and Canonical Oaths badges of Antichrist and professed enemies to the pure Freedom of the Gospel Where might a man repair with comfort to hear Gods Word preached in truth and simplicity the Sacraments administred in their original nakedness to hear Christ speaking in his Prophets and the Prophets speaking to the People if this world went on But notwithstanding these secret Murmurs on the one side and the open Clamours of the other Laud was resolved to do his duty who summoning all the Ministers and Lecturers about the City of London to appear before him made a solemn Speech in which he pressed the necessity of his Majesties said Instructions for the good of the Church and of their chearful obedience to them He directed Letters also to every Archdeacon in his Diocess requiring them to see them published to all the Clergy and to give him an exact account at the end of their Visitations how they were observed especially insisting on the third Instruction For keeping the Kings Declaration that so the differences and disputes in those prohibited points might be laid aside The like care taken also by the rest of the Bishops but slackning by degrees when the heat was over and possibly in short time after they had not been looked into at all if Abbot had continued longer in the See of Canterbury or that his Majesty had not enjoyned the Bishops to give him an exact account of their proceedings in the said particulars not once for all but Annually once in every year on the second of Ianuary Which care being taken for the peace and happiness of the Church of England we will lay hold upon this opportunity for crossing over into Ireland and taking a short view of the state of Religion in that Country which from henceforth shall be lookt into more than hath been formerly Concerning which we are to know that when the Reformation was advanced in the Church of England the first care was to let the people have the Bible the publick Liturgie and certain godly Homilies in the English tongue as appeareth by the Statutes 2 3. Edw. vi 5 6. Edw. vi and 1 Eliz. Secondly The like care was taken of the Welch For whose Instruction it was further ordered partly by the Queen and partly by Act of Parliament in the fifth of her Reign that as well the Bible as the Common-Prayer Book should be Translated Printed and Published in that Language one Book of each sort to be provided for every several Church at the Charge of the Parish Which being Printed at the first in the large Church-Volume was afterwards reduced to a more portable bulk for Domestical uses by the cost and charge of Rowland Heylyn Citizen and Alderman of London about the beginning of the Reign of this King But for Ireland no such care was taken The Acts of the Supremacy and of the Consecrations of Archbishops and Bishops were received there as before in England the English Liturgie imposed on them by order from hence and confirmed by Parliament in that Kingdom Which notwithstanding not only the Kernes or natural wild Irish but many of the better sort of the Nation either remain in their old barbarous ignorance or else adhere unto the Pope or finally to their own superstitious fancies as in former times And to say truth it is no wonder that they should there being no care taken to instruct them in the Protestant Religion either by translating the Bible or the English Liturgy into their own Language as was done in Wales but forcing them to come to the English Service which they understood no more than they did the Mass. By means whereof the Irish are not only kept in continual ignorance as to the Doctrine and Devotions of the Church of England but those of Rome are furnished with an excellent argument for having the Service of the Church in a Language which the Common people understand not And though somewhat may be pleaded in excuse thereof during the unquietness of that Kingdom under Queen Elizabeth who had the least part of it in her possession yet no sufficient plea can be made in defence of it for the time succeeding when the whole Country was reduced and every part thereof lay open to the course of Justice So that I cannot look upon it without great amazâmânt that none of the Bishops of that Church should take care herein or recommend the miserable condition of that people to tâe Court of England Now as Popery continued by this means in the Realm of Ireland so Calvinism was as strongly rooted in that part thereof which professed the Doctrine and Religion of the Church of England And touching this we are to know also that the Calvinian Doctrines being propagated in both Universities by such Divines as lived in exile in Queen Maries time one Peter Baroe a Frenchman obtained to be the Lady Margarets Professor in the Divinity Scâools at Cambridge This man approving better the Melancthonian Doctriââ of Predestination than that of Calvin publickly taught it in tâose Schools and gained in short time very many followers Whitaker was at that time her Majesties Professor for Divinity there and Perkins at the same time was of no small note both Calvinists in these points of Doctrine and both of them supralapsarians also Betwixt these men and Baroe there grew some disputes which afterwards begat some heats and those heats brake out at last into open Factions Hereupon Whitaker Perkins Chaderton and others of the same opinion thought it expedient to effect that by power which they were not able to obtain by Argument And to that end
and suppressing Downham's Book he might be made as sensible of his Error in writing the aforesaid History as if his own had been made subject to the like condemnation His Majesty therefore gives him Order by Letters bearing date at Woodstock August 24. the next day after the said Sentence of Thorn Hodges c. to call in Bishop Downham's Book who thereupon sent out Warrants and caused all the Books that were unsent into England to be seised on But so long it was before the King had notice of it and so long after that before his Letters came to the Lord Primates hands which was not till the fifteenth of October following that almost all the Copies were dispersed in England and Ireland before the coming out of the Prohibition And for preventing of the like for the time to come a Command is laid on Beadle Bishop of Killmore which sheweth that Vsher was not thought fit to be trusted in it to have an eye unto the Press and to take care that nothing hereafter should be published contrary to his Majesties said Directions So Beadle in his Letter to the Bishop of London dated November 8. 1631. Which care being taken for the Peace of that Church and nothing else presented to us on that side of the Sea to detain us any longer there we will hoise Sail again for England where we finde more Work More Work indeed and far the greatest not only of this present year but the greatest of this Bishops Life A Work before in project but in project only None had the Courage or the Power to carry it on so far as he He could not rest under the shade of those vast Ruines of St. Paul's Church his own Cathedral without continual thought and some hopes withal of repairing those deformities in it which by long time had been contracted Of the first Founding of this Church by Ethelbert King of Kent the first Christian King and the sixth Monarch of the Saxons and the Enlargement of the same by Erkenwald the fourth Bishop of it we have spoke already And now we are to know That their old Fabrick being much wasted by Fire in the time of the Conqueror Mauritius then Bishop of London Anne 1083. began the Foundation of that most magnificent Pile now standing viz. all the Body of the Church with the South and North cross Isles Toward which Work he made use of a great part of the Materials of the old Palatine Castle standing in the same place where the Covent of the Black-Friars was after built great part whereof had perished by the same Fire also But the Foundations which this worthy Bishop had laid being sutable to his mind were so vast as the Historian observes That though he prosecuted the Work twenty years he left the performing thereof to the care of Posterity amongst which none more transcendently aâfected to this business than his next Successor Richard Beaumis who bestowed the whole Revenue of his Bishoprick upon it supporting himself and his Family by other means And after him some other Bishops succeeding between them that Richard who was Treasurer to King Henry ii being made Bishop of London in the first year of King Richard bestowed great Sums of Money in the Reparation of this Church and the Episcopal Houses which belonged unto it But all this Charge was principally laid out on the main Body of the Church and the Crossed Isles thereof the Choire not holding Proportion with so vast a Structure So that resolving to make it fairer and more capacious than before they began with the Steeple which was finished in Anno 1221. 5 Hen. 3 In which year the Dedication of it was celebrated with great magnificence the King himself Otho the Popes Legate Edmond Archbishop of Canterbury Roger sirnamed Niger then Bishop of London a chief Advancer of the Work with five other Bishops besides infinite multitudes of the Nobility Gentry Citizens and others of the Common People from all parts of the Land being present at it Nor is it to be thought that the Charges of that stately and magnificent Structure was supported by the Bishops only or issued out of such Revenues as belonged unto the Dean and Chapter but that the Clergy and People generally both of England and Ireland contributed largely to the Work the People of those Times out of their Devotion to Gods Service being easily incited to further all Works of this nature as occasion offered And this appears by the sundry Letters of several Bishops of both Nations to the Clergy under their Jurisdiction for recommendation of that business to their particular Congregations many of which are extant still upon Record Nor were the People stirred on only by the sollicitation of their Priests or the exhortatory Letters of their several Prelates but by the grants of such Indulgences and relaxation from their several and respective Penances which in those Letters were extended unto all sorts of People who with a chearful heart and liberal hand did promote the Service By means whereof some men contributed Materials others sent in Money and many Masons Carpenters and other Artificers who were to labour in the Work bestowed their pains and toil upon it for less consideration and reward than in other Buildings Besides which Henry de Lacy Earl of Lincoln is said to have been a principal Benefactor to that part of it which was then called the New-Work in a Chappel whereof dedicated to St. Dunstan we find his body to be interred And so was Ralph de Baldock also both while he was Dean and when he was Bishop of this Church whose Body was also buried in another part of the New-Work called Our Ladies Chappel But this vast Pile the Work of so long time and so many Ages was on the fourth of Iune Anno 1561. in danger to be suddenly consumed by a violent Fire beginning in the Steeple and occasioned by the negligence of a Plummer who left his pan of coals unquench'd at his going to dinner A Fire so violent that in the space of few hours it consumed not only the Steeple where it first began but did spread it self to the upper Roof of the Church and Isles totally burning all the Rafters and whatsoever else was of combustible nature The Queen knew well as well as any that the Revenues of that Church were so dilapidated that neither the Bishops themselves nor the Dean and Chapters were able to repair the least part of those Ruines which the Fire had made And thereupon out of a deep apprehension of that lamentable Accident forthwith directed her Letters to the Lord Mayor of London requiring him to make some speedy Order for its repair and to further the Work gave out of her Purse 1000 Marks in Gold as also a Warrant for 1000 Load of Timber to be taken out of her Woods and elsewhere Nor were the Citizens slack herein for having given a large Benevolence they added three whole Fifteens to be speedily
my old friend was sworn Secretary of State which Place I obtained for him of my gracious Master King Charles About the same time also Sir Francis Cottington who succeeded the Lord Treasurer Weston in the place of Chancellor was made Successor unto Nanton in the Mastership of the Wards and Liveries No sooner was he in this place but some difference began to grow betwixt him and Coventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England about the disposing of such Benefices as belonged to the King in the Minority of his Wards Coventry pleaded a joynt interest in it according to the Priviledge and usage of his Predecessors it standing formerly for a rule that he of the two which first heard of the vacancy and presented his Clerk unto the Bishop should have his turn served before the other But Cottington was resolved to have no Competitor and would have either all or none During which Competition betwixt the parties Laud ends the difference by taking all unto himself Many Divines had served as Chaplains in his Majesties Ships and ventured their persons in the Action at the Isle of Rhe during his Majesties late engagements with France and Spain some reward must be given them for their Service past the better to encourage others on the like occasions for the time to come It is cold venturing in such hot Services without some hope of Reward And thereupon he takes occasion to inform his Majesty that till this Controversie were decided he might do well to take those Livings into his own disposing for the reward of such Divines as had done him service in his Wars or should go forth hereafter on the like imployments Which Proposition being approved his Majesty committed the said Benefices unto his disposal knowing full well how faithfully he would discharge the trust reposed in him for the advancement of his Majesties Service the satisfaction of the Suitors and the Churches peace Neither did Cottington seem displeased at this designation As being more willing that a third man should carry away the prize from both than to be overtopt by Coventry in his own Jurisdiction By the accession of this power as he encreased the number of his dependents so he gained the opportunity by it to supply the Church with regular and conformable men for whom he was to be responsal both to God and the King Which served him for a Counter-Ballance against the multitude of Lecturers established in so many places especially by the Feoffees for impropriations who came not to their doom till February 13. of this present year as before was said But greater were the Alterations amongst the Bishops in the Church than amongst the Officers of Court and greater his Authority in preferring the one than in disposing of the other Buckeridge his old Tutor dying in the See of Elie makes room for White then Bishop of Norwich and Lord Almoner to succeed in his place A man who having spent the greatest part of his life on his private Cures grew suddenly into esteem by his zealous preachings against the Papists his Conferences with the Jesuite Fisher and his Book wrote against him by command of King Iames. Appointed by that King to have a special eye on the Countess of Denbigh whom the Priests much laboured to pervert he was encouraged thereunto with the Deanry of Carlisle advanced on that very account to the Bishoprick thereof by the Duke her brother The Duke being dead his favour in the Court continued remove to Norwich first and to Ely afterwards Corbet of Oxon. one of Lauds fellow-sufferers in the University succeeds him in the See of Norwich and Bancroft Master of Vniversity Colledge is made Bishop of Oxon. Kinsman he was to ever renowned Archbishop Bancroft by whom preferred unto that Headship and looked upon for his sake chiefly though otherwise of a good secular living in this Succession The Bishoprick of small Revenue and without a House but Laud will find a remedy for both in convenient time The Impropriate Parsonage of Cudesdens five miles from Oxon. belonged to the Bishop in the right of his See and he had the Donation of the Vicaridge in the same right also The Impropriation was in Lease but he is desired to run it out without more renewing that in the end it might be made an improvement to that slender Bishoprick The Vicaridge in the mean time falling he procured himself to be legally instituted and inducted and by the power and favour of our Bishop of London obtains an annexation of it to the See Episcopal the design of bringing in the impropriation going forwards still and builds that beautiful house upon it which before we mentioned The See of Bristow was grown poorer than that of Oxon. both having been dilapidated in Queen Elizabeths time though by divers hands To improve the Patrimony thereof his Majesty had taken order that Wright then Bishop of that Church should suspend the renewing of a Lease of a very good Farm not very far distant from that City well Housed and of a competent Revenue to serve as a Demesn to the following Bishops for which he was to be considered in some other Preferment Houson of Durham being dead Morton removes from Lichfield thither A man who for the greatest part of his time had exercised his Pen against the Papists but gave withall no small contentment to King Iames by his learned Book in defence of the three harmless Ceremonies against the Puritans Wright follows him at Lichfield and Cooke brother to Secretary Cooke follows Wright at Bristoll tyed to the same conditions and with like encouragement The Secretary had formerly done our Bishop some bad Offices But great Courtiers must sometimes pay good turnes for injuries break and be pieced again as occasions vary The like care also taken by him for mending the two Bishopricks of Asaph and Chester as appears by his Breviate Nor were these all the Alterations which were made this year Archbishop Harsnet having left his life the year before care must be taken for a sit man to succeed at York a man of an unsuspected trust and one that must be able to direct himself in all emergencies Neiles known sufficiencies had pointed him unto the place but he was warm at Winton and perhaps might not be perswaded to move toward the North from whence he came not long before with so great contentment Yet such was the good mans desires to serve his Majesty and the Church in what place soever though to his personal trouble and particular loss that he accepted of the offer and was accordingly translated in the beginning of this year or the end of the former Two Offices fell void by this remove one in the Court which was the Clerkship of the Closet and another in the Church of Winton which was that of the Bishop To the Clerkship of the Closet he preferred Dr. William Iuxon whom before he had made President of St. Iohns Colledge and recommended to his Majesty for
the Ministers there might by degrees prepare the People to such impressions of Conformity as his Majesty by the Council and Consent of the rest of the Bishops should graciously be pleased to imprint upon them But such ill luck his Majesty had with that stubborn Nation that this was look'd upon also as a general Grievance and must be thought to aim at no other end than Tyranny and Popery and what else they pleased We have almost done our work in Scotland and yet hear nothing all this while of the Bishop of London not that he did not go the Journey but that there was little to be done at his being there but to see and be seen And yet it was a Journey which brought him some access of Honour and gave him opportunity of making himself known to those of best Quality of that Kingdom He had been in Scotland with King Iames but then he waited only as a private Chaplain He is now looked upon as the third Bishop of England in Place and the greatest in Power a Counsellor of State and the Kings great Favorite He entred Scotland as a Privy-Counsellor of England only but returned thence as a Counsellor for that Kingdom also to which Office he was sworn on the fifteenth of Iune Nor did he shew himself less able in that Church than in the Council-Chamber being appointed by his Majesty to Preach before him on the last of that Month in which some question may be made how he pleased the Scots although it be out of question that he pleased the King The greatest part of the following Iuly was spent in visiting the Country and taking a view of the chief Cities and most remarkable Parts and Places of it Which having seen he made a Posting Journey to the Queen at Greenwich whither he came on Saturday the twentieth of Iuly crossing the Water at Blackwall and looking towards London from no nearer distance But in this Act he laid aside the Majesty of his Predecessors especially of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory of whom it was observed That she did very seldom end any of her Summer Progresses but she would wheel about to some end of London to make her passage to Whitehall thorow some part of the City not only requiring the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their Scarlet Robes and Chains of Gold to come forth to meet her but the several Companies of the City to attend solemnly in their Formalities as she went along By means whereof she did not only preserve that Majesty which did belong to a Queen of England but kept the Citizens and consequently all the Subjects in a reverent Estimation and Opinion of her She used the like Arts also in keeping up the Majesty of the Crown and Service of the City in the Reception and bringing in of Foreign Embassadors who if they came to London by Water were met at Gravesend by the Lord Mayor the Aldermen and Companies in their several Barges and in that Solemn manner conducted unto such Stairs by the Water side as were nearest to the Lodgings provided for them But if they were to come by Land they were met in the like sort at Shooters-Hill by the Mayor and Aldermen and thence conducted to their Lodgings the Companies waiting in the Streets in their several Habits The like she used also in celebrating the Obsequies of all Christian Kings whether Popish or Protestant with whom she was in Correspondence performed in such a Solemn and Magnificent manner that it preserved her in the estimation of all Foreign Princes though differing in Religion from her besides the great contentment which the People took in those Royal Pomps Some other Arts she had of preserving Majesty and keeping distance with her People yet was so popular withal when she saw her time that never Majesty and Popularity were so matched together But these being laid aside by King Iames who brooked neither of them and not resumed by King Charles who loved them not much more than his Father did there followed first a neglect of their Persons which Majesty would have made more Sacred and afterwards a mislike of their Government which a little Popularity would have made more grateful Laud having no such cause of hastning homewards returned not to his House at Fulham till the twenty sixth of the same Month But he came time enough to hear the news of Abbot's Sickness and within few days after of his Death which hapned on Sunday morning the fourth of August and was presently signified to the King being âhen at Greenwich A man he was that had tasted both of good and ill Fortune in extremes affirmed by the Church Historian for I shall only speak him in the words of others to be a grave man in his Conversation and unblameable in his Life but said withal to have been carried with non amavit gentem nostram forsaking the Birds of his own feather to fly with others and generally favouring the Laity above the Clergie in all Cases which were brought before him Conceived by one of our State Historians to be too facil and yielding in the exercising of his Function by whom it also affirmed That his extraordinary remisness in not exacting strict Conformity to the prescribed Orders of the Church in point of Ceremony seemed to resolve those legal Determinations to their first Principle of Indifferency and to lead in such an habit of Inconformity as the future reduction of those tender-conscienc'd men to long discontinued Obedience was interpreted an Innovation By the first Character we find what made him acceptable amongst the Gentry by the last what made him grateful to the Puritan in favour of which men he took so little care of the great Trust committed to him and gave them so many opportunities of increasing both in Power and Numbers that to stop tâem in their full career it was found necessary to suspend him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction as before was noted It is reported That as Prince Henry his Majesty then Duke of Yorke Archbishop Abbot with many of the Nobility were waiting in the Privy Chamber for the coming out of King Iames the Prince to put a jest on the Duke his Brother took the Archbishops Square Cap out of his hands and put it on his Brothers head telling him that if he continued a good Boy and followed his Book he would one day make him Archbishop of Canterbury Which the Child took in such disdain that he threw the Cap upon the ground and trampled it under his feet not being without much difficulty and some force taken off from that eagerness This though first it was not otherwise beheld than as an Act of Childish Passion yet when his Brother Prince Henry died and that he was Heir apparent to the Crown it was taken up by many zealous Church-men for some ill presage unto the Hierarchy of Bishops the overthrow whereof by his Act and Power did seem to be fore-signified by it But as
their fears in that were groundless so their conjectures were no better grounded than their fears there never being a greater Patron of the Episcopal order than he lived and died but whether there might not be some presage in it in reference to the Archbishops person the diminution of his Dignity and fall of his Power may be best judged by this suspension and the consequents which followed on it And though he lived not long under the disgrace yet in the interval of time he saw so much of his Authority devolved on Laud that he grew more and more discontented and was ready in a manner to have made himself the head of the Puritan Faction It is related by a late Writer That towards his death he was not only discontented himself but that his house was the Rendezvouz of all the Malecontents in Church and State that he turned Midnight to Noonday-by constant keeping of Candles lighted in his Chamber and Study as also that such Visitants as repaired unto him called themselves Nicodemites because of their secret coming to him by night I know how much that Author hath been mistaken in other things but I see nothing in this which may not be consistent with the truth of History Certain I am his Chaplains were successively declared Calvinians his Secretary a professed Patron of the Puritan Faction his doors continually open to the Chiefs of that party and such as stickled in that cause and amongst others to him by whose Suggestion if we may take his own report the Historical Narration was called in for the great danger which it threatned to the grounds of Calvinism For his compliance with the Gentry against the Clergie this reason is alledged from his own mouth That he was so severe to the Clergy on purpose to rescue them from the severity of others and to prevent the punishment of them by lay Iudges to their greater shames which leaves the poor Clergy under a greater obloquy than any which their enemies had laid upon them But the truer reason of it was that having never been Parson Vicar nor Curate he was altogether ignorant of those afflictions which the Clergy do too often suffer by the pride of some and the Avarice of others of their Country Neighbours and consequently shewed the least compassion towards them when any of them had the hard fortune to be brought before him And for his compliance with the Puritans against the Church this reason is alledged by others viz. That he shewed the greater favour to them to keep the ballance even betwixt them and the Papists as Laud was thought to be indulgent to the Papists the better to keep down the pride and prevalency of the Puritan Faction But the truer reason of it was That he had been alwaies inclinable to them from his first beginnings insomuch that when he went Chaplain into Scotland with the Earl of Dunbar imployed by King Iames in some negotiation about that Church he was upon the point of betraying the cause if Hodgskins afterwards one of the Residentiaries of York who went Chaplain with him had not preacquainted the Earl with his tergiversation And as he laboured to be Popular upon both accounts so he endeavoured a more particular correspondence with the Gentry of Kent but most especially of his own Diocess It had been formerly the custom of his Predecessors to spend the greaâest part of the long vacations in the Palace of Canterbury met at the first entrance into the Diocess with a body of five hundred horse conducting them to Canterbury with great love and duty feasting the Gentry relieving the poor City entertaining their Tenants and by them liberally furnished on the other side with all sorts of provisions Abbot affected not this way and therefore never bestowed any such visit upon his Diocess but when he was confined to his house at Ford by the Kings appointment and yet resolved upon a course which carried some equivalence with it towards his design For once or twice in every year and sometimes oftner at the end of the term he would cause enquiry to be made in Westminster Hall the common Rendezvouz in St. Pauls Church and the Royal Exchange for all such Gentlemen of his Diocess as lodged in and about the City of London dispersing several Tickets from one to another by which they were invited to a general entertainment at his house in Lambeth the next day after the end of the present term where he feasted them with great bounty and familiarity A course as acceptable to the Kentish Gentry as if he had kept open Hospitality in his Palace at Canterbury because it saved them both the trouble of attending on him and the charge of sending Presents to him both which had been expected if he had spent any part of the year amongst them But this he discontinued also for three or four years or more before his death fearing as his affairs then stood that it might render him obnoxious to some misconstructions which he was willing to avoid To bring his Story to an end I shall say no more but that he had his Birth at Guilford the chief Town of Surrey and the best part of his breeding in Baliol Colledge in Oxon. whereof he was Fellow and from thence preferred to be Master of Vniversity Colledge and Dean of Winton Other preferments he had none till he came to Lichfield of which he was consecrated Bishop on the third of December Anno 1609. from thence translated unto London within few Months after and within twelve Months after that to the See of Canterbury Marks of his Benefaction we find none in places of his Breeding and Preferments but a fair Hospital well built and liberally endowed in the place of his Birth To which the woful man retired in the first extremity of those afflictions which his misfortune at Bramzill had drawn upon him and to this place he designed his body whensoever it should please God to translate him out of the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant which hapned on the fourth of August as before was said The End of the First Part. CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES Second MONARCH of Great-Brittain PART II. Carrying on the History from his Nomination to the Metropolitical See of Canterbury August 6. 1633. to the day of his Death and Burial Jan. 10. 1644. LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for A. Seile 1668. THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB IV. Extending from his being made Archbishop of Canterbury to the end of the Parliament and Convocation Anno 1640. CANTERBVRY was anciently the principal City of the Kingdom and afterwards of the
the Archbishop thought it a more noble Act to remit the crime than to trouble the Court or any of his Majesties Ministers in the prosecution But herein Prynne sped better than some others who had before been snarling at him and laboured to expose him both to scorn and danger No sooner had he mounted the Chair of Canterbury but one Boyer who not long before had broke prison to which he had been committed for felony most grosly abused him to his face accusing him of no less than High Treason For which being brought into the Star-Chamber the next Michaelmas Term he was there censured by their Lordships as the Crime deserved And presently on the neck of this one Greene a poor decayed Printer for whom his Grace then Bishop of London had procured a Pension of five pound per Annum to be paid by the Company of Stationers yearly as long as he lived adventured into the Court of St. Iames's with a great Sword by his side desperately swearing That it the King did not do him Justice against the Archbishop he would take another course with him For this committed unto Newgate but how long he staid there and what other Punishment he suffered or whether he suffered any other or not let them seek that list And that the other Sex might whet their tongues upon him also the Lady Davies the Widow of Sir Iohn Davies Atturney-General for King Iames in the Realm of Ireland scatters a Prophesie against him This Lady had before spoken something unluckily of the Duke of Buckingham importing that he should not live till the end of August which raised her to the Reputation of a Cunning Woman amongst the ignorant people and now she Prophesies of the new Archbishop That he should live but few days after the fifth of November for which and other Prophesies of a more mischievous nature she was after brought into the Court of High-Commission the Woman being grown so mad that she phancied the Spirit of the Prophet Daniel to have been infused into her Body And this she grounded on an Anagram which she made of her Name viz. ELEANOR DAVIES REVEAL O DANIEL And though the Anagram had too much by an L and too little by an S yet she found Daniel and Reveal in it and that served her turn Much pains was taken by the Court to dispossess her of this Spirit but all would not do till Lamb then Dean of the Arches shot her through and through with an Arrow borrowed from her own Quiver For whilst the Bishops and Divines were reasoning the Point with her out of Holy Scripture he took a Pen into his hand and at last hit upon this excellent Anagram viz. DAME ELEANOR DAVIES NEVER SO MAD A LADIE Which having proved to be true by the Rules of Art Madam said he I see you build much on Anagrams and I have found out one which I hope will fit you This said and reading it aloud he put it into her âands in Writing which happy Phansie brought that grave Court into such a laughter and the poor Woman thereupon into such a confusion that afterwards she grew either wiser or was less regarded This ended as succesfully as he could desire but he sped worse with another of his Female Adversaries The Lady Purbeck Wiâe of Iohn Villers Viscount Purbeck the elder Brother by the same Venter to the Duke of Buckingham had been brought into the High-Commission Anno 1627. for living openly in Adultery with Sir Robert Howard one of the younger Sons of Thomas the first Earl of Suffolk of that Family Sentenced among other things to do Penance at St. Paul's Cross she âscaped her Keepers took Sanctuary in the Savoy and was from thence conveyed away by the French Embassador The Duke being dead all further prosecution against her died also with him which notwithstanding the proud woman being more terrified with the fear of the Punishment than the sense of the Sin vented her malice and displeasure against the Archbishop who had been very severe against her at the time of her Trial when he was come unto his Greatness spending her tongue upon him in words so full of deep disgrace and reproach unto him that he could do no less than cause her to be laid in the Gatehouse But being not long after delivered thence by the Practise of Howard afore-mentioned Howard was seised upon and laid up in her place which Punishment though it was the least that could be looked for he so highly stomach'd that as soon as the Archbishop was impeach'd by the House of Commons and committed to Custody by the Lords which hapned on Fryday December 18. 1640. he petitioned for Relief against the Archbishop and some other of the High Commissioners by whom the Warrant had been signed The Lords upon the reading of it imposed a Fine of 500 l. on the Archbishop himself and 250 l. apiece upon Lamb and Duck and pressed it with such cruel rigour that they forced him to sell his Plate to make payment of it the Fine being set on Munday the 21. of December and ordered to be paid on the Wednesday after But these Particulars have carried me beyond my year I return therefore back again and having shewed what Actings had been set on foot both in England and Scotland must now cross over into Ireland where we find Wentworth made Lord Deputy in the place of Faulkland We told you formerly of some dearness which was growing between him and Laud then Bishop of London at his first Admission to the place of a Privy-Counsellor Toward the latter end of Ianuary Anno 1630. Wentworth being then Lord President of the Council established for the Northern Parts bestowed a Visit on him at London-House where they had some private Conference touching the better Settlement of Affairs both in England and Ireland of which Kingdom Wentworth not long after was Created Lord Deputy He staid somewhat longer from his Charge than he would have done to be present at the Censure of Williams Bishop of Lincoln informed against in the Star-Chamber by his Majesties Atturney-General for some dangerous and disgraceful words which he was reported to have spoken of his Majesties Government and revealing some Secrets which his Majesty had formerly committed to his Trust as a Privy-Counsellor But Williams found so many shifts to put off the Trial that the Deputy was fain to leave him in the same estate in which he found him and hoised Sail for Ireland Scarce was he setled in his Power but he began to reform some things which he beheld as blemishes in the face of that Church In the Chappel of the Castle of Dublin the chief Seat of his Residence he found a fair large Pue at the end of the Choire erected for the use of his Predecessors in that place the Communion-Table in the mean time being thrust out of doors This Pue he commands to be taken down and the Holy Table to be restored to its ancient
consent of their several Churches they prepared these several Answers To the first it was answered That they had that Liturgie which all the Churches of the French Tongue both in France and in the United Provinces of the States have had since the blessed Reformation and which their Churches refuged here have had this sixty or seventy years or more That the English Liturgie was Translated into French but that they used it not and that they knew not whether it were Translated in Dutch or not To the second it was answered That the greatest part of the Heads of the Families were not born here but about a third part because that the greatest part of the old ones were Strangers born and many others are newly come since a few years But to the third they desired to be excused from making any Answer at all foreseeing as it was pretended a dissipation of their Churches in reference to the maintainance of their Ministry and relief of their poor if such Conformity should be pressed which they endeavoured to avoid by all means imaginable But before these Answers were returned it was thought fit to consult with the Coetus as they style it of the French and Dutch Churches in London who were concerned as much as they and who by reason of their wealth and number governed all the rest by whom they were advised to suppress those Answers and to present their Declinator fixing themselves upon their Priviledges and challenging the Exemption granted them by King Edward vi confirmed by several Acts of Council in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and his Sacred Majesty This Declinator no way satisfied his Grace of Canterbury He knew none better That Acts of Council were not like the Laws of the Medes and Persians but might be changed and varied as occasion served That the Letters Patents granted by King Edward vi to the first Congregation of Strangers under Iohn A Lasco by which they were Licenced to use their own Forms both of Worship and Government without any disturbance were vacated by the departure of the said Congregation in the time of Queen Mary and that the French and Dutch Churches now in England could pretend no succession unto that in the time of King Edward vi And therefore as soon as Brent returned from his Visitation of which we shall hear more anon and had a while reposed himself after that long Journey he was dispatched to Canterbury with these Injunctions viz. 1. That all the Natives of the Dutch and Walloon Congregations in his Graces Diocess are to repair to their several Parish Churches where they inhabite to hear Divine Service and Sermons and perform all Duties and Payments required in that behalf And 2. That all the Ministers and all other of the same Walloon or French Congregations which are Aliens born shall have and use the Liturgie used in the English Churches as the same is or may be faithfully Translated into French or Dutch These two Injunctions being given on the nineteenth of December with time for conforming thereunto till the first of March were presently communicated by the Kentish to the London Churches and by those of London to the rest in the Province of Canterbury requiring them to send their Deputies to consult together with them in this Common Danger There were at that time ten Churches of Strangers in this Province that is to say two in London two in Norwich and one apiece in Canterbury Sandwich Maidstone Southampton Colchester and Yarmouth who were to send their sufficient Deputies consisting of Ministers and Lay-Elders to make this Synod But because the time might be elapsed before these Deputies from so many Places could meet together and resolve upon any Conclusion it was determined by the Coetus that those of Kent whom it most immediately concerned should address themselves to the Archbishop and desire his favour for the enjoying of their Priviledges as in former times whose Propositions being heard and their Reasons pondered he answered That it was his purpose to make a General Visitation of all his Province and that he would begin at home That he did nothing but what had been communicated to the King and resolved by the Council That neither the Letters Patents of King Edward vi nor any Reasons by them alledged should hinder him from proceeding in the said Injunctions That their Churches were nests and occasions of Schism which he would prevent in Kent as well as he could That it were better there were no Foreign Churches nor Strangers in England than to have them thereby to give occasion of prejudice or danger to the Church-Government of it That they endeavoured to make themselves a State in a State and had vaunted That they feared not his Injunctions but That he hoped the King would maintain him in it as long as he Governed by the Canons That the dissipation of their Churches and maintenance of two or three Ministers was not to be laid in the same Balance with the Peace and Happiness of the Church of England That their ignorance in the English Tongue ought not to be used for a pretence for their not going to their Parish Churches considering that it was an affected Ignorance and they might avoid it when they would And finally That he was resolved to have his Injunctions put in execution and that they should conform to them at their peril by the time appointed Finding no hope of Good this way they expect the Sitting of the Synod on the fifth of February to which the Deputies made a Report of their ill Successes and thereupon it was resolved That a Petition in the name of all the Foreign Churches should be presented unto the King which way they found as unsuccessful as the other was For his Majesty having read the Petition delivered it to the Earl of Pembroke commanding him to give it to one of the Secretaries And though Pembroke either out of love to the Cause or hate to the Archbishops Person chose rather to deliver it to Cooke than Windebank yet neither Cooke himself nor Weckerly his chief Clerk a Walloon by birth who had very much espoused the Quarrel could do any thing in it The next course was to back that Petition with a Remonstrance containing the chief Reasons which they had to urge in their own behalf and that Remonstrance to be put into his Majesties hands by the Duke of Soubize a Prince of great Descent in France and a chief stickler in the Wars of the Hugonots against their King In which Reasons when they came to be examined more particularly there was nothing found material but what had formerly been observed and answered except it were the fear of a Persecution to be raised in France when it should there be known how much the French Churches in this Kingdom had been discountenanced and distressed And this they after aggravated by some fresh Intelligence which they had from thence by which they were advertised of some words of
the great Cardinal Richelieu to this effect viz. That if a King of England who was a Protestant would not permit two Disciplines in his Kingdom why should a King of France a Papist permit two Religions Great workings had been in the Court upon this occasion though all which was effected by it was but the present qualification of the second Injunction His Majesty on good Reason of State insisting so strongly on the first that it could not be altered But as for the second Injunction it was qualified thus viz. That the Ministers and all others of the French and Dutch Congregations which are not Natives and born Subjects to the Kings Majesty or any other Stranger that shall come over to them while they remain Strangers may have and use their own Discipline as formerly they have done yet it is thought fit that the English Liturgie should be Translated into the French and Dutch for the better fitting of their Children to the English Government But before the Injunction thus qualified could be sent to Canterbury the Mayor and Brethren of that City were put upon a Petition in their behalf insisting amongst other things on the great Charge which would fall upon them if the relief of the poor French which formerly had been maintained on the common Purse of that Church should be cast upon the several Parishes and the great want of Work which would happen to their own Poor in that City if the Manufactures of the French should be discontinued To which Petition they received a favourable Answer in respect of themselves but without any alteration of his Graces purpose in such other points of it as concerned those Churches A Temperament was also used in regard of the Ministers which did Officiate in those Churches it being condescended to on the suit of their Deputies That such of their Ministers as were English born should continue in their Place and Ministry as in former times but that hereafter none should be admitted to be Ministers in their Congregations but such as were Strangers Which Condescensions notwithstanding It was directed by the Coetus of the London Churches That by no means the Kentish Foreigners should publish the said Injunctions in their Congregations and that if the prosecution of them should be strictly urged they would then think upon some other course to bear of that blow And by this Tergiversation they gained so much time that the final Decree was not passed upon them till the 26th of September 1635. when to the former Injunction they found this Clause or Proviso added viz. That the Natives should continue to contribute to the maintenance of their Ministry and the Poor of their Church for the subsisting thereof and that an Order should be obtained from his Majesty if it were desired to maintain them in their Manufactures against all such as should endeavour to molest them by Informations Some time was spent about the publishing of this Decree the Ministers and Elders of those Churches refusing to act any thing in it But at the last it was published in the French Church at Canterbury by one of their Notaries and in Sandwich by the Chanter or Clerk of the Congregation with Order to the Ministers and Churchwardens of the several Parishes to take notice of such of the Natives as resorted not diligently to their Parish Churches This proved a leading Case to all the other French and Dutch Churches on this side of the Seas though they opposed it what they could For no sooner was the News of these Injunctions first brought to Norwich when a Remonstrance was presented to Corbet who was then Bishop of that Diocess and by him transmitted to the Archbishop in which they had expressed such Reasons against the tenour of the same as we have met with formerly in this Narration But the Archbishops Visitation of that Diocess in the year next following Anno 1635. put an end to that business the Injunction being published in the Churches of Strangers in that City before any publication of them had been made in Canterbury Nor was the like done only in all the Churches of Strangers in the Province of Canterbury but in those of York where the Archbishop kept them to a harder Diet for having seen what had been done by Brent in his Visitation and having no such powerful Sollicitors as the Coetus of the London Churches to take off his edge he denied them the Exercise of any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of their own injoins them the use of the English Liturgie in the French Tongue with Obedience to all the Laws and Ordinances of the Church of England to receive the Sacrament once a year in the Church of the Parish where they dwell and to perform all their Christenings Marriages and Burials there or else none of their Congregations to be permitted But notwithstanding all this care of the Metropolitans the business went forward more or less as the Ministers and Church-wardens stood affected in their several Parishes And in most Parishes the Ministers and Church-wardens were so well pleased with that indecency which they had amongst them in respect of any Superiors in Church-concernments to whom they might be made accountable for Life or Doctrine that generally they wish'd themselves in the same condition And being freed from their greatest fear of having the Poor of those Churches cast upon them in their several Parishes they seemed not much sollicitous whether they came to the Church or not to hear the Sermons receive the Sacraments or perform any other part of Publick Worship especially if they were not scrupulous in paying to the Minister his accustomed Dues and yielding to such Rates and Taxes as the Church-wardens laid upon them for Parochial uses If any Minister began to look too strictly to them they would find some means to take him off by Gifts and Presents or by some powerful Letter from some of the Grandees residing in London and sometimes from a neighbouring Justice whose displeasure must not be incurred And that they might not want encouragement to stand it out as long as they could the leading men of the Genevian Faction in most parts of the Realm did secretly sollicite them not to be too forwards in conforming to the said Injunctions assuring them of such Assistances as might save them harmless and flattering them with this Opinion of themselves That the Liberty of the Gospel and the most desirable Freedom of the Church from Episcopal Tyranny depended chiefly on their Courage and Resolution What was done afterwards in pursuance of the said Injunctions shall be told elsewhere all which Particulars I have laid together that the Proceedings of his Grace in this weighty business so much calumniated and defamed might be presented to the Reader without interruption It was once said by Telesinus to Caj Marius That he did well to scoure the Country but Italy would never want Wolves so long as Rome continued so fit a Forest to afford them shelter In like manner the
Archbishop knew full well how small a Progress he should make in his Reformation for reducing the French and Dutch to a Communion with the Church of England and the Church of England to it self if London were not brought to some Conformity Which City having a strong influence on all parts of the Kingdom was generally looked on as the Compass by which the lesser Towns and Corporations were to steer their Course the practice of it being pleaded upon all occasions for Vestries Lectures and some other Innovations in the State of the Church And to this nothing more concurred than that the Beneficed Clergy being but meanly provided for were forced to undertake some Lectures or otherwise to connive at many things contrary to their own Judgment and the Rules of the Church in hope that gaining the good will thereby of the Chief of their Parishes they might be gratified by them with Entertainments Presents and some other helps to mend their Maintenance The Lecturers in the mean time as being Creatures of the People and depending wholly on the Purse of the wealthier Citizens not only overtopped them in point of Power and Reputation but generally of Profit and Revenue also Not that these Lecturers were maintained so much by the Zeal and Bounty of their Patrons as by a general Fraud which for many years last past had been put upon the Regular Clergy by the diminishing of whose just Dues in Tythes and Offerings such Lecturers and Trencher-Chaplains had been fed and cherished For the better understanding whereof we are to know That in the year 1228. Roger Niger Bishop of London ordained by a Synodical Constitution That the Citizens should pay of every pounds Rent by the year of all Houses Shops c. the Sum of 3 s. 5 d. as time out of mind had formerly been paid Which 3 s. 5 d. did arise from the Offerings upon every Sunday and thirty of the principal Holydays in the same year after the Rate of one halspeny for every twenty shillings Rent of their Houses Shops c. This Order of Roger Niger remaining in force till the year 1397. and the Câââgy being kept to such Rates for the Rents of Houses as at the first making of the same it was decreed by Thomas Arundell then Bishop of Canterbury That as the Rent increased so the Offerings or Tythes should increase also That the said Order should be read in every Parish-Church four times in the year and a Curse laid upon all those who should not obey it Confirmed by Pope Innocent vii and Nicholas v. with a Proviso That the said Oblations should be paid according to the true yearly value of the Shops and Houses It so remained until the twenty fifth year of Henry viii at what time many of the former Holydays being abrogated by the Kings Authority the yearly Profit of the Clergy found a great abatement the greater in regard of the variances which arose betwixt them and their Parishioners about the payment of their Dues the People taking the advantage of some Disorders which the Clergy at that present had been brought unto by acknowledging the King for the Supream Head of the Church of England Upon this variance a Complaint is made unto the King who refers the whole matter to Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Audley Lord Chancellor Gardiner Bishop of Winton Cromwell Chief Secretary of Estate Fitz-Iames and Norwich Chief Justices of the several Benches by whom it was concluded That from thenceforth 2 s. 9 d. only should be paid out of every pound for the Rents of Houses Shops c. And to this Order the Citizens did not only consent as they had good reason but bound themselves by an Act of Common Council to perform the same the said Decree confirmed by Act of Parliament in the twenty seventh and afterwards in the thirty seventh of that King with a power given to the Lord Mayor to commit to Prison every person whatsoever who should not pay his Tythes and Dues according to that Proportion But contrary to the true intent and meaning of the said Decrees and the several Acts of Parliament which confirmed the same the covetous and unconscionable Landlords who had the Fee-simple or some long Leases at the least of such shops and houses devised many base and fraudulent waies to put a cheat upon the Law and abuse the Clergie reserving some small sum in the name of a Rent and covenanting for other greater Sums to be paid quarterly or half yearly in the name of Fines Annuities Pensions Incomes Interest money c. Finding these Payments so conditioned and agreed upon to be too visible a cheat some were so wise as to take their Fines in gross when they sealed their Leases some inconsiderable Rent being charged upon them others so cunning as to have two Leases on foot at the same time one at a low contemptible Rent to gull the Incumbent of his dues the other with a Rent four or five times as great to keep down the Tenant and some by a more cleanly kind of conveyance reserving a small Rent as others did caused their Tenants to enter into several bonds for the payment of so much money yearly with reference to the term which they had in their Leases By which Devises and deceits the house-Rents were reduced to so low a value that some Aldermen who do not use to dwell in Sheds and Cottages could be charged with no more than twenty shillings for a whole years Tythe the Rent reserved amounts after that proportion but to seven pounds yearly The Clergie by the Alteration of Religion had lost those great advantages which had before accrued unto them by Obits Mortuaries Obventions to the Shrines and Images of some special Saints Church Lands and personal Tythes according to mens honest gain which last was thought to have amounted to more than the Tythe of houses Being deprived of the one and abused in the other they were forced in the sixteenth of King Iames Anno 1618. to have recourse to the Court of Exchequer by the Barons whereof it was declared that according to the true intent of the said Acts the Inhabitants of London and the Liberties thereof ought to pay the Tythe of their houses shops c. after the rate of two shillings nine pence in the pound proportionable to the true yearly value of the Rent thereof In order whereunto it was then ordered by the Court that a Shed which had been built and made a convenient dwelling house should pay twenty four shillings nine pence yearly in the name of a Tythe as was afterwards awarded by Sir Henry Yelverton upon a reference made unto him that one Rawlins who paid forty shillings yearly to his Landlord in the name of a Rent and twelve pound by the name of a fine should from thenceforth pay his Tythe to the Incumbent of the Parish in which he dwelt after the rate of fourteen pound yearly This and the like Arbitrements about that time
in that expectation carrying himself with such an even and steady hand that every one applauded but none envied his preferment to it insomuch as the then Lord Faulkland in a bitter Speech against the Bishops about the beginning of the Long Parliament could not chuse but give him this faire Testimony viz. That in an unexpected place and power he expressed an equal moderation and humility being neither ambitious before nor proud after either of the Crozier or White Staff The Queen about these times began to grow into a greater prevalânây over his Majesties Affections than formerly she had made shew of But being too wise to make any open alteration of the conduct of aââairs she thought it best to take the Archbishop into such of her Counsels as might by him be carried on to her contentment and with no dishonour to himself of which he gives this intimation in the Breviate on the thirtieth of August 1634. viz. That the Queen sent for him to Oatlands and gave him thanks for a business which she had trusted him withall promising him to be his Friend and that he should have immediate access to her when he had occasion This seconded with the like intimation given us May 18. 1635. of which he writes that having brought his account to the Queen on May 18. Whitsunday the Court then at Greenwich it was put of till the Sunday after at which time he presented it to her and received from her an assurance of all that was desired by him Panzani's coming unto London in the Christmas holydaies makes it not improbable that the facilitating of his safe and favourable reception was the great business which the Queen had committed to the Archbishops trust and for his effecting of it with the King had given him those gracious promises of access unto her which the Breviate spake of For though Panzani was sent over from the Pope on no other pretence than to prevent a Schism which was then like to be made between the Regulars and the Secular Priests to the great scandall of that Church yet under that pretence were muffled many other designs which were not fit to be discovered unto Vulgar eyes By many secret Artifices he works himself into the fauour of Cottington Windebank and other great men about the Court and at last grew to such a confidence as to move this question to some Court-Bishops viz. Whether his Majesty would permit the residing of a Catholick Bishop of the English Nation to be nominated by his Majesty and not to exercise his Function but as his Majesty should limit Upon which Proposition when those Bishops had made this Quaere to him Whether the Pope would allow of such a Bishop of his Majesties nominating as held the Oath of Allegiance lawful and should permit the taking of it by the Catholick Subjects he puts it off by pleading that he had no Commission to declare therein one way or other And thereupon he found some way to move the King for the permission of an Agent from the Pope to be addressed to the Queen for the concernments of her Religion which the King with the Advice and Consent of his Council condescended to upon condition that the Party sent should be no Priest This possibly might be the sum of that account which the Archbishop tendred to the Queen at Greenwich on the Whitsontide after Panzani's coming which as it seems was only to make way for Con of whom more hereafter though for the better colour of doing somewhat else that might bring him hither he composed the Rupture between the Seculars and the Regulars above-mentioned I cannot tell whether I have hit right or not upon these particulars But sure I am that he resolved to serve the Queen no further in her desires than might consist both with the honour and safety of the Church of England which as it was his greatest charge so did he lay out the chief parts of his cares and thoughts upon it And yet he was not so unmindful of the Foreign Churches as not to do them all good offices when it came in his way especially when the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of England was not concerned in the same For in the year 1634. having received Letters from the Queen of Bohemia with whom he held a constant course of Correspondence about the furtherance of a Collection for the exiled Ministers of the Palatinate he moved the King so effectually in it that his Majesty granted his Letters Patents for the said Collection to be made in all parts of the Kingdom which Letters Patents being sealed and brought unto him for his further Direction in prosecution of the same he found a passage in it which gave him no small cause of offence and was this that followeth viz. Whose cases are the more to be deplored for that this extremity is fallen upon them for their sincerity and constancy in the true Religion which we together with them professed and which we are all bound in conscience to maintain to the utmost of our powers whereas these Religious and Godly persons being involved amongst other their Country-men might have enjoyed their Estates and Fortunes if with other backsliders in the times of Trial they would have submitted themselves to the Antichristian Yoke and have renounced or dissembled the Profession of the true Religion Upon the reading of which passage he observed two things First That the Religion of the Palatine Churches was declared to be the same with ours And secondly That the Doctrine and Government of the Church of Rome is called an Antichristian Yoke neither of which could be approved of in the same terms in which they were presented to him For first he was not to be told that by the Religion of those Churches all the Calvinian Rigors in the point of Predestination and the rest depending thereupon were received as Orthodox that they maintain a Parity of Ministers directly contrary both to the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England and that Pareus Profesâor of Divinity in the University of Heydelberg who was not to be thought to have delivered his own sense only in that point ascribes a power to inferiour Magistrates to curb the power controule the persons and resist the Authority of Soveraign Princes for which his Comment on the Romans had been publickly burnt by the appointment of King Iames as before is said Which as it plainly proves that the Religion of those Churches is not altogether the same with that of ours so he conceived it very unsafe that his Majesty should declare under the Great Seal of England that both himself and all his Subjects were bound in conscience to maintain the Religion of those Churches with their utmost power And as unto the other point he lookt upon it as a great Controversie not only between some Protestant Divines and the Church of Rome but between the Protestant Divines themselves hitherto not determined in any Council nor
positively defined by the Church of England and therefore he conceived it as unsafe as the other that such a doubtful controversie as that of the Popes being Antichrist should be determined Positively by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England of which there was great difference even amongst the Learned and not resolved on in the Schools With these objections against that passage he acquaints his Majesty who thereupon gave order that the said Letters Patents should be cancelled and new ones to be drawn in which that clause should be corrected or expunged and that being done the said Letters Patents to be new sealed and the said Collection to proceed according to the Archbishops first desires and proposition made in that behalf But before this Collection was finished and the money returned Charles Lodowick Prince Elector Palatine eldest surviving Son of the Queen of Bohemia comes into England to bestow a visit on his Uncle and to desire his aid and counsel for the recovery of the Electoral Dignity and Estate which did of right belong unto him On the twenty second of November this present year 1635. he comes to Whitehall graciously welcomed by the King who assigned him for his quarters in the Court the Lodgings properly belonging to the Prince his Son where he continued whilst he made his abode in England except such times as he attended his Majesty in his Summers Progress Knowing how forward the Archbishop had expressed himself in doing all ready Services for the Queen his Mother and the good offices which he had done for her sake to the distressed Ministers of his Dominions on the 30 day of the same Month he crost over to Lambeth and was present with the Archbishop at the Evening Prayer then very solemnly performed and upon that day fortnight came unexpectedly upon him and did him the honour to dine with him And that he might the better endear himself to the English Nation by shewing his conformity and approbation of the Rites and Ceremonies here by Law established he did not only diligently frequent the Morning and Evening Service in his Majesties Closet but upon Christmass day received the Communion also in the Chappel Royal of Whitehall For whose accommodation at the receiving of it there was a Stool placed within the Traverse on the left hand of his Majesty on which he sate while the Remainder of the Anthem was sung and at the Reading of the Epistle with a lower Stool and a Velvet Cushion to kneel upon both in the preparatory Prayers and the Act of Receiving which he most reverently performed to the great content of all beholders During his being in the Court he published two Books in Print by the advice of the King and Council not only to declare his Wrongs but assert his Rights The first he called by the name of a PROTESTATION against all the unlawful and violent proceedings and actions against him and his Electoral Family The second called the MANIFEST concerning the right of his Succession in the Lands Dignities and Honours of which his Father had been unjustly dispossessed by the Emperour Ferdinand the Second After which Preparatory writings which served to no other effect than to justifie his own and the Kings proceedings in the eye of the world he was put upon a course for being furnished both with men and money to try his fortune in the Wars in which he wanted not the best assistance which the Archbishop could afford him by his Power and Counsels But as he laboured to advance his interess in the recovery of his Patrimony and Estates in Germany so he no less laboured to preserve the Interess of the Church of England against all dangers and disturbances which might come from thence And therefore when some busie heads at the time of the Princes being here had published the Book entituled A Declaration of the Faith and Ceremonies of the Palsgraves Churches A course was took to call it in for the same cause and on the same prudential grounds on which the Letters Patents before mentioned had been stopt and altered The Prince was welcome but the Book might better have stayed at home brought hither in Dutch and here translated into English Printed and exposed to the publick view to let the vulgar Reader see how much we wanted of the Purity and simplicity of the Palatine Churches But we must now look back on some former Counsels in bringing such refractory Ministers to a just conformity in publishing his Majesties Declaration about lawful Sports as neither arguments and perswasions could pâevaâl upon And that the Suffragan Bishops might receive the more countenance in it the Archbishop means not to look on but to act somewhat in his own Diocess which might be exemplaây to the rest some troublesome persons there were in it who publickly opposed all establisht orders neither conforming to his Majesties Instructions nor the Canons of the Church nor the Rubricks in the publick Liturgy Culmer and Player two men of the same aâââctions and such as had declared their inconformity in âormer times were prest unto the publishing of this Declaration Brent acting in it as Commissary to the Bishop of the Diocess not Vicar General to the Archbishop of the Province of Canterbury On their refusal so to do they were called into the Consistory and by him suspended Petitioning the Archbishop for a release from that suspension they were answered by him That if they knew not how to obey he knew as little how to grant He understood them to be men of Factious spirits and was resolved to bring them to a better temper or else to keep them from disturbing the publick peace And they resolving on the other side not to yield obedience continued under this suspension till the coming in of the Scottish Army not long before the beginning of the Long Parliament Anno 1640. which wanted little of four years before they could get to be released Wilson another of the same Crew was suspended about the same time also and afterwards severely sentenced in the High Commission the profits of his Living sequestred as the others were and liberal assignments made out of it for supplying the Cure In which condition he remained for the space of four years and was then released on a motion made by Dering in the House of Commons at the very opening in manner of the Long Parliament that being the occasion which was taken by them to bring the Archbishop on the Stage as they after did And though he suspended or gave order rather for suspending of no more than these yet being they were leading-men and the chief sticklers of the Faction in all his Diocess it made as much noise as the great Persecution did in Norfolk and Suffolk By one of which first County we are told in general That being promoted to this dignity he thought he was now Plenipotentiary enough and in full capacity to domineer as he listed and to let his profest enemies
after his being named to a Bishoprick or a better Deanry to renew any Lease either into lives or years His Majesty having well observed that at such times of remove many men care not what or how they let their Estates to the prejudice of the Church and their Successors Which Letters bear date at Greenwich in the twelfth year of his Reign Iune 27. Nor was he less careful to preserve the Parochial Clergy from being oppressed by their neighbours in rates and taxes than he had been in maintaining the Estates of Capitular bodies for the greater honour of those bodies at the present time and the benefit of Succession for the time to come During the Remiss Government of King Iames his Majesties late embroylments with France and Spain and his entanglements at home the Hollanders had invaded the Regality of the Narrow Seas and questioned the property of his Dominion in the same not only growing to such an height of insolency as to dispute their striking Sail in passing by any of his Majesties Ships but publishing a Discourse in Latine called Mare Liberum in defence thereof These affronts occasioned Noy the Atturney Generall to put his Majesty in mind of setting out a strong power of Ships for the recovery of his Rights against all pretenders And the better to enable him for it adviseth him to set on foot the old Naval Aide required of the Subject by his Predecessors He was a man extremely well versed in old Records with which consulting frequently in the course of his studies he had excerpted and laid by many notes and precedents for the Kings levying of such Navil Aide upon the Subjects by his own Authority whensoever the preservation and safety of the Kingdom did require it of them which Notes and Precedents he had taken as they came in his way in small pieces of Paper most of them no bigger than ones hand he kept in the Coffin of a Pye which had been sent him by his Mother and kept there till the mouldiness and corruptibleness of it had perished many of his Papers And by these Notes it did appear that many times in the same years wherein the Kings had received Subsidies by way of Parliament they levied this Naval Aide by their own sole power For if as he discoursed it to me at his house near Brentford the King wanted money either to support his own expences or for the enlarging of his Dominions in Foreign Conquests or otherwise to advance his honour in the eye of the World good reason he should be beholden for it to the love of his People But if the Kingdom was in danger and that the safety of the Subject was concerned in the business he might and did raise such sums of money as he thought expedient for the preventing of the danger and providing for the publick safety of him and his Subjects According to which precedents he prepares a Writ by which his Majesty commandeth the Maritime Counties to provide a certain number of Ships for defence of the Kingdom prescribing to each Ship its several burden the number of Mariners and great Pieces of Ordnance with Victuals Arms and Ammunition thereunto proportioned The Subject not daring at the first to dispute the Command collected money for the Service according to the several rates imposed on them in their several Counties but dealt so unmercifully with the Clergy in the levying of it that they laid upon them generally the fifth or sixth part of the sum imposed The Ice thus broken and his Majesty finding that provision not sufficient to effect his purpose issued out his Writs in the next year after anno 1635. into all the Counties of the Kingdom for preparing of a Royal Fleet to be in readiness against the beginning of this year in which the Clergy were as like to suffer as before they did By the best was that they had not only a gracious Patron but a very powerful Mediatour Upon whose humble desire his Majesty was pleased to direct his Letters to all the Sheriffs in England respectively requiring them that no Tax should be laid upon any Clergy-man possest of a Parsonage above the tenth part of the Land-rate of their several Parishes and that consideration should be had of the poor Vicars in their several Parishes according to their small revenue compared with the Abilities of the Parishioners amongst whom they lived The whole Sum levied by this Tax amounted to 236000 li. or there abouts which comes not to 20000 li. a month and being instead of all other payments seemed to be no such heavy burthen as it was generally made by the Popular Party many of which quarrelled and and refused it But his Majesty was two just a Prince to exact any thing by power when he had neither Law nor Reason to make it good And therefore as he had the opinion of all his Judges subscribed by their hands for justifying the Legality of this Naval Tax amongst the Subjects so he thought fit to publish some defence of his Dominion Right and Soveraignty in the Narrow Seas for the satisfaction of his Neighbours Iohn Selden of the Inner Temple a name that stands in need of no titles of honour had written a Discourse in the time of King Iames which in answer to that of Grotius called Mare Liberum ãâã intituled by the name of Mare Clausum But stomacking the submission and acknowledgment which he was forced to make in the High Commission for publishing his book of Tythes and sensible of the smart which he had found from the Pens of Tillesly Montague and Nettles in their Answers to him he did not only suppress the âook which he had written in the Kings defence but carried an evil eye to the Court and Church for a long time after But being a man of great parts and eminent in the retired walks of Learning he was worth the gaining which Canterbury takes upon him and at last efâecteth By his perswasion he not only perfected but published that laborious piece which he dedicated to his Majesty whose cause he pleaded By whom it was so well approved that he sent it by Sir William Beecher one of the Clerks of his Council to the Barons of the Exchequer in open Court by them to be laid up as a most inestimable Jewel amongst the choice Records which concerned the Crowns In this book which came out this year he first asserts the Soveraignty or Dominion of the Brittish Seas to the Crown of England And that being cleared he proved by constant and continual practice that the Kings of England used to levy money from the Subjects without help of Parliament for the providing of Ships and other necessaries to maintain the Soveraignty which did of right belong unto them This he brought down unto the times of King Henry the Second and might have brought it nearer to his own times had he been so pleased and thereby paved a plain way to the payment of Ship-money as
but slight of substance counterfeit stuff most of it and wrought with so much fraud and falshood that there is hardly one true stitch in all that work from the very beginning to the end Hardly one testimony or authority in the whole Discourse which is any way material to the point in hand but is as true and truly cited as that the book it self was writ long ago in answer unto D. Coale of Queen Maries daies The King he tacitely upbraides with the unfortunacies of his Reign by Deaths and Plagues the Governours of the Church with carrying all things by strong hand rather by Canon-shot than by Canon Law The Bishop of Norwich he compares as before was noted to a Wren mounted on the feathers of an Eagle and fall upon his Adversary with as foule a mouth as Burton doth upon the Prelates the Parable betwixt him and Burton being very well fitted as appears by the Preface to the Ministers of Lincoln Diocess in the Answer to him Obliquely and upon the by he hath some glancings against bowing at the name of Iesus Adoring toward the East and Praying according to the Canon and makes the transposing of the Table to the place where the Altar stood to be an Introduction for ushering in the whole body or Popery Which Eleusinian Doctrine for so he calleth it though these new Reformers for fear of so many Laws and Canons dare not apparently profess yet saith he they prepare and lay grounds for it that the out-works of Religion being taken in they may in time have a bout with the Fort it self To these two Books his Majesty thought fit that some present Answer should be made appointing the same hand for both which had writ the History of the Sabbath The one being absolutely destructive of the uniformity in placing the Communion Table which was then in hand The other labouring to create a general hatred unto all the Bishops branding their persons blasting their Counsels and decrying the Function And hard it was to say whether of the two would have proved more mischievous if they were not seasonably prevented The Answer unto Burton was first commanded and prepared That to the Lincoln Minister though afterwards enjoyned was the first that was published This of the two the subtler and more curious piece exceedingly cried up when it first came out the disaffection of the times and subject matter of the Book and the Religious estimation which was had of the Author concurring altogether to advance the Reputation of it to the very highest sold for four shillings at the first when conceived unanswerable but within one month after the coming out of the Answer which was upon the twentieth of May brought to less than one The Answer published by the name of Antidotum Lincolniense with reference to the Licencer and Author of the Holy Table The publishing of the other was delayed upon this occasion A Resolution had been taken by command of his Majesty to proceed against the Triumvirate of Libellers as one fitly calls them to a publick Censure which was like to make much noise amongst the ignorant People It was thought fit by the Prudent Council of Queen Elizabeth upon the execution of some Priests and Jesuits that an Apology should be published by the name of Iustitia Britannica to vindicate the publick Justice of the State from such aspersions as by the Tongues and Pens of malicious persons should be laid upon it And on the like prudential grounds it was thought expedient that an answer should be made to the book which seemed most material and being so made should be kept in readiness till the execution of the Sentence to the end that the people might be satisfied as well in the greatness of the Crimes as the necessity and justice of the Punishment inflicted upon one of the Principals by whom a judgment might be made of all the rest But the Censure being deferred from Easter until Midsummer Term the Answer lay dormant all the while at Lambeth in the hands of the Licencer and was then published by the name of A briefe and moderate Answer to the seditious and scandalous challenges of H. B. c. Two other Books were also published about that time the one about the name and situation of the Communion Table which was called Altare Christianum writ by one Pâcklington then beneficed in Bedfordshire and seconded by a Chappel Determination of the well studied Ioseph Mede The other against Burton by name published by Dow of Basell in Sussex under the Title of Innovations unjustly charged c. And so much for the Pen Combates managed on both sides in the present Controversies But whilst these things were in agitation there hapned toward the end of this year such an Alteration in the Court as began to make no less noise than the rest before It had been an ancient custome in the Court of England to have three Sermons every week in the time of Lent Two of them preached on Wednesdaies and Fridaies the third in the open preaching place near the Council Chamber on Sundaies in the Afternoon And so it continued till King Iames came to this Crown Who having upon Tuesday the fifth of August escapt the hands and treasons of the Earl of Gowrie took up a pious resolution not only of keeping the Anniversary of that day for a publick Festival in all his Dominions but of having a Sermon and other divine Offices every Tuesday throughout the year This custome he began in Scotland and brought it with him into the Court of England and thereupon translated one of the Lent Sermons from Wednesday to Tuesday This Innovation in the Court where before there were no Sermons out of Lent but on Sundaies only came in short time to have a very strong Influence upon the Country giving example and defence to such Lectures and Sermons on the working daies as frequently were appointed and continued in most Corporations and many other Market Towns in all parts of the Kingdom In which respect it was upon the point of being laid aside at the Court on the death of that King in reference to whose particular concernments it was taken up and therefore his Successor not obliged to the observation But then withall it was considered that the new King had married with a Lady of the Roman Religion that he was ingaged in a War with Spain which could not be carried on without help from the Parliament wherein the Puritan Party had appeared to be very powerful The discontinuing of that Sermon in this conjuncture might have been looked on in the King as the want of zeal toward the preaching of the Gospel and a strong tendency in him to the Religion of the Church of Rome and a betraying of the Court to Ignorance and Superstition by depriving them of such necessary means of their Instruction Upon these grounds it stood as before it did as well in the holy time of Lent as in other Weeks
But now Laud being Archbishop of Canterbury and Wren Dean of the Chappel it was resolved to move his Majesty that the Lent Sermons might be preached on Wednesdaies as they had been Anciently To which his Majesty condescending and the Bill of Lent-Preachers being drawn accordingly it was first muttered secretly and afterwards made a publick clamour that this was one of the Archbishops Artifices a trick devised for putting down the Tuesday Sermons of which you should never hear more when this Lent was over Which Cry growing lowder and lowder as the Lent continued was suddenly hush'd and stilled again on the Easter Tuesday when they saw the Preacher in the Pulpit as at other times So usual is it with some men to be afraid of their own shadows and terrified with fears of their own devising This Interruption thus past over I shall unwillingly resume my former Argument concerning Bastwick and the rest of his fellow-Criminals who being called unto their Answer used so many delays that the Case could not come to Sentence before Midsomer Term. Some Answers they had drawn but they were so Libellous and full of scandal that no Counsellor could be found to put his hand to them according to the course of that Court Instead whereof they exhibited a cross Bill against Canterbury and his Confederates as they called them charging them with the greatest part of those Reproaches which had been made the subject-matter of their former Libels which being signed by no hands but their own and tendred so to the Lord Keeper was by him rejected and themselves taken pro confessis their obstinacy in not answering in due form of Law being generally looked on by the Court as a self-conviction On the fourteenth of Iune they received their Sentence which briefly was to this effect Prynne to be fined 5000 l. to the King to lose the remainder of his ears in the Pillory to be branded on both cheeks with the Letters S. L. for a Schismatical Libeller and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvan Castle Bastwick and Burton condemned in the like Fine of 5000 l. to be Pilloried and lose their Ears the first to be imprisoned in the Castle of Lanceston in Cornwal and the second in the Castle of Lancaster On the thirtieth of the same Month Burton being first degraded of his Ministry in the High-Commission they were brought into the Palace-yard of Westminster to receive their punishment not executed on them with such great severity as was injuriously given out But being executed howsoever it was a great trouble to the spirits of many very moderate and well-meaning men to see the three most Eminent Professions in all the World Divinity Law and Physick to be so wretchedly dishonoured in the Persons of the Malefactors as was observed by the Archbishop himself in his Epistle to the King Which part of the Punishment being inflicted they were conveyed with care and safety to their several Prisons the People either foolishly or factiously resorting to them as they passed and seeming to bemoan their Sufferings as unjustly Rigorous And such a haunt there was to the several Castles to which they were condemned of purpose for preventing all Intelligence and Correspondence to be held between them that the State found it necessary to remove them further Prynne to the Castle of Mont Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey Burton to Castle-Cornet in the Road of Guernsey and Bastwick to St. Maries Castle in the Isle of Silly which last remembreth me of the like Confinement to which Instantius a professed Priscilianist a very near Kinsman of the English Puritan had been condemned by the Justice of the Primitive Times At the pronouncing of this Sentence the Archbishop made a long and elaborate Speech in vindication of himself and the rest of the Bishops from any Design to bring in Popery or innovating in the Government and Forms of Worship here by Law established He made his Introduction to it in a brief Discourse touching the nature of the Crime shewing how odious a thing it was to think of defending Religion in the way of Libels a thing not used by any of the Primitive Christians in the greatest heats of Persecution and then professing for his own part That he had done nothing as a Bishop but with a sincere intention for the good Government and Honour of the Church of England and the maintenance of the Orthodox Truth and Religion professed and established in it adding withal That nothing but his Care of reducing the Church into Order in the External Worship of God and the settling of it on the Rules of its first Reformation had raised this Storm against himself and the rest of the Bishops for which alone they stood accused of Innovations by those which were the greatest Innovators in the Christian World He spake next touching the Calling of Bishops which he maintained to be Iure Divino though not all the Adjuncts of that Calling averring further That from the time of the Apostles to the days of Calvin the Government of the Church was by Bishops only Lay-Elders being never heard of which Claim by Divine Right derogateth not from the King either in Right or Power as the Libellers made it no more than the Calling of the Presbyters by the same Right could be thought to do in regard they exercised not any Iurisdiction in the Kings Dominions but with his Licence for so doing Or were it otherwise yet that the Bishops stood in England in as good a case as the present Laws could make them and therefore they that Libelled against them Libelled against the King and State by the Laws whereoâ they were established and consequently could aim at no other end than the stirring of Sedition amongst the People As touching the design of bringing in Popery by which Artifice they chiefly hoped to inflame the People he first acquitted the King of it by shewing his sincerity and constancy in his Religion exemplified by his Carriage in Spain where he wanted no temptations to draw him from it and his Deportment since in England in which âe had so often declared a settled Resolution to maintain the same Or were it otherwise and that the King had any mind to change Religion he must seek for other Instruments than himself to effect that purpose most humbly thanking God That as yet he knew not how to serve any Man against the Truth of Christ so âe hoped he should never learn professing further for the satisfaction of all which heard him That he knew of no plot nor purpose of altering the Religion here established and that for his own part he had ever been far from attempting any thing which might be truly said to tend that way in the least degree to both which he was ready to take his Oath Which said in general he briefly touch'd on those Innovations which in those Libels had been charged on him and the rest of the Bishops in order unto that Design To the
a base and Libellous Answer without the name of any Author Place or Printer or any Bookseller according to the unusual Custom where and of whom it might be bought I shall not trouble my self any more about it than by a Transcript of the Title which was this that followeth viz. DIVINE and POLITICK OBSERVATIONS newly translated out of the Dutch Language wherein they were lately divulged upon some lines in the Speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced in the STAR-CHAMBER the fourteenth of June 1637. VERY expedient for preventing all prejudice which as well through ignorance as through malice and flattery may be incident to the judgment which men make thereby either of his Graces power over the Church and with the King or of the Equity Iustice and Wisdom of his ENDS in his said Speech and of the reasons used by him for attaining to his said ENDS And though he took great care and pains concerning that supposed additional clause to the 20th Article so much as might satisfie any man not extremely partial yet find I a late Writer so unsatisfied in it that he leaves it to the State-Arithmeticians to decide the Controversie whether the Bishops were more faulty in the addition than the opposites in their substraction of it One other Charge there was and a great one too which I find not touched at in this Speech and that is that the Prelates neither had nor sought to have the Kings Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England for their keeping Courts and Visitations c. but did all in their own Names and under their own Seals contrary to the Law in that behalf Concerning which we are to know that by a Statute made in the first year of King Edward the Sixth it was Enacted That all Summons Citations and other Process Ecclesiastical in all Suites and causes of Instance and all causes of Correction and all causes of Bastardy or Bigamy or De jure Patronatus Probates of Testaments and Commissions of Administrations of persons deceased be made in the name and with the Style of the King as it is in Writs Original or Iudicial at the Common Law c. As also that no matter of person or persons who hath the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction use any other Seal of Jurisdiction but wherein his Majesties Arms be engraven c. on pain of incurring his Majesties indignation and suffering imprisonment at his will and pleasure Which Statute and every branch thereof being repealed by Queen Mary and not revived by Queen Elizabeth in all her Reign the Bishops of her time were safe enough from any danger on that side But in the first Parliament of King Iames there passed an Act for continuing and reviving of divers Statutes and for repealing of some others 1 Iac. c. 25. Into the Body whereof a Clause was cunningly conveyed his Majesties Council learned not considering or fraudulently conniving at it for the repealing of that Statute of the Reign of Queen Mary by which King Edwards stood repealed of which no notice being taken for some while by those whom it chiefly did concern it was now discovered and made use of as a Rod to affright the Prelates from exercising their Jurisdiction over obstinate and incorrigible Non-conformists as formerly they had been accustomed For remedy whereof and for encouraging the Bishops to perform their duties iâ was declared by the Judges with an unanimous consent and so delivered by the Lords Chief Justices in the Star-Chamber the fourteenth of May in this present year That the said Act of Repeal 1 of Queen Mary did still stand in force as unto that particular Statute by them so much pressed This was sufficient for the present but the Archbishop would not trust to it for the time to come and thereupon in in his Epistle to the King before remembred He humbly desired his Majesty in the Churches name That it might be resolved by all the Reverend Judges of England and then published by his Majesty that the Bishops keeping of their Courts and issuing Processes in their own names and the like exceptions formerly taken and now renued were not against the Laws of this Realm that so the Church Governours might go on chearfully in their duty and the peoples minds be quieted by this assurance that neither their Law nor their Liberty as Subjects was thereby infringed A motion favourably heard and graciously granted his Majesty issuing out his Royal Proclamation on the eighteenth day oâ August then next following For declaring that the proceedings of his Ecclesiastical Câurts and Ministers were according to Law The Tenour of which Proclamation or Declaration was as followeth By the King WHereas in some of the Libellous Books and Pamphlets lately published the most Reverend Fathers in God the Lord Archbishops and Bishops of the Realm are said to have usurped upon his Majesties Prerogative Royal and to have proceeded in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts contrary to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm It was Ordered by his Majesties High Court of Star-Chamber the twelfth of June last that the Opinion of the two Lords Chief Justices the Lord Chief Baron and the rest of the Judges and Barons should be had and certified in these particulars viz. whether Processes may not issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the names of the Bishops Whether a Patent under the Great Seal be necessary for the keeping of the Ecclesiastical Courts and enabling Citations Suspensions Excommunications and other Censures of the Church And whether the Citations ought to be in the Kings Name and under his Seal of Arms and the like for Institutions and Inductions to Benefices and correction of Ecclesiastical offences And whether Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical persons may or ought to keep any Visitation at any time unless they have express Commission or Patent under the great Seal of England to do it and that as his Majesty Visitors only and in his name and right alone Whereupon his Majesties said Judges having taken the same into their sârious consideration did unanimously agree and concur in opinion and the first day of Iuly last certified under their hands as followeth That Processes may issue out of Ecclesiastical Courts in the name of the Bihops and that a Patent under the Great Seal is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiastical Courts or for the enabling of Citations Suspensions Excommunications and other Censures of the Church And that it is not necessary that Summons Citations or other Processes Ecclesiastical in the said Courts or Institutions and Inductions to benefices or correction of Ecclesiastical offences by Censure in those Courts be in the Kings name or with the Style of the King or with the Kings Seal or the Seals of the Office have in them the Kings Arms And that the Statute 1 Edw. 6. c. 2. which enacted the contrary is not now in force And that the Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical
Honour from them both And therefore briefly in this place to speak of Hamilton and his Proceedings in the weighty Charge committed to him in which he hath been generally suspected to betray his Master we will fetch the Story somewhat higher that we may see what ends he aimed at for himself and what enclined him rather to foment than quench the Flames which had been kindled in that Kingdom Know therefore That the Hamiltonian Family derives it self from one Hamilton an Englishman who went to try what Fortunes he could find in Scotland Neither himself nor his Posterity of any great note till Iames iii. bearing a great affection to Sir Iames Hamilton married him to one of his Sisters whom he had forcibly taken from the Lord Boyd her former Husband From this unlawful Marriage descended another Iames the Grandchild of this as impious and âdulterous in his second Marriage as his Grandmother had been before For having married a Wife of one of the Noble Houses of Scotland he put her shamefully away and took into his Bed a Niece of Cardinal Beton's who then swayed all things in that Kingdom Of this last Marriage came Iohn Earl of Arran Created by King Iames vi the first Marquis of Hamilton the Father of Iohn and Grandfather of Iames Marquis of Hamilton of whom we now speak This man considering with himself that he was descended from a Daughter of King Iames ii but without taking notice of any intervenient Flaws which occurred in the Pedigree conceived by ãâã and little That a Crown would look as lovely upon his Head as on the Heads of any which descended from a Daughter of Iames v. To give some life unto his Fancies he found the Great Men amongst the Scots in high discontentments about the Revocation of Church-Lands which the King then busily intended The Popular Party in England no less discontented by the Dissolving of three Parliaments one after another and the Puritans in both by the great Power and Credit which some Bishops had attained unto in either Kingdom In which conjuncture it was not hard for him to conceive That he might make unto himself a strong Party in That without fear of any opposition to be made from This. And so âar had his hopes gone with him when he obtained the Conduct of an Army intended by his Majesty for assisting of the King of Sweden in the Wars of Germany An Army for the most part raised in Scotland and most of the Commanders of that Nation also whom he had so obliged unto him by his Arts and Flatteries that a Health was openly begun by David Ramsey a boisterous Ruffian of that Court to King Iames the Seventh And so much of the Design was discovered by him unto Donald Maukie Baron of Ree than being in the Marquisses Camp that the Loyal Gentleman thought himself bound in duty to make it known unto the King Ramsey denying the whole matter and the Lords having no proof thereof as in such secret Practices it could hardly be more than a confident asseveration and the Engagement of his Honour the King thought good to refer the Controversie to the Earl of Lindsey whom he made Lord High-Constable to that end and purpose Many days were spent accordingly in pursuance of it But when most men expected that the matter would be tried by Battel as had been accustomed in such cases the Business was hushed up at Court the Lord Ree dismissed to his Employment in the Wars and contrary to the mind of all good men the Marquis did not only continue in the Kings great Favour but Ramsey was permitted to hold the Place of Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber which had been formerly procured for him As for the Army of Scots consisting of 7000. if my memory fail not transported into Germany in the Summer before Anno 1631. they mouldred away by little and little without acting any thing the King of Sweden being then in a prosperous condition and not desiring the Scots should carry away any part of the Spoil and Honour which he doubted not of acquiring to his own Nation in the course of the War This put the Marquis upon new Counsels and in the course of these new Counsels he was not only to âoment those Animosities which had been raised in that Nation against the King but to remove all those Impediments which might lye in the way betwixt him and his affected Greatness Two men there were whom he more feared than all the rest both of the House of Graham and both descended from a Son of King Robert the Second and that too by a clearer Descent than the Hamiltons could pretend from the Daughter of King Iames ii The first was William Earl of Menteith descended from an Heir-general of David Earl of Stratherne one of the younger Sons of King Robert ii as before was said A man oâ sound Abilities and approved Affections and therefore by the King made President of the Council in Scotland In which Office he behaved himself and stood so stoutly in behalf of the King his Master upon all occasions that nothing could be done for Advance of Hamiltons Designs till he was removed from that Place In order whereunto it was put into his head by some of that Faction that he should sue unto the King to be Created Earl of Stratherne as the first and most honourable Title which belonged to his House That his Merits were so great as to assure him not to meet with a denial and that the King could do no less than to give him some nominal Reward for his real Services On these Suggestions he repaired to the Court of England 1632. where without any great difficulty he obtained his Suit and waited on the King the most part of the Summer-Progress no man being so openly honoured and courted by the Scottish Nation as he seemed to be But no sooner was he gone for Scotland but the Hamiltonians terrified the King with the Dangers which he had run into by that Creation whereby he had revived in that proud and ambitious Person the Rights which his Ancestors pretended to the Crown of Scotland That the King could not chuse but see how generally the Scots flock'd about him after his Creation when he was at the Court and would do so much more when he was in Scotland And finally That the proud man already had so far declared himself as to give it out That the King held the Crown of him Hereupon a Commission was speedily posted into Scotland in which those of Hamiltons Faction made the greatest number to inquire into his Life and Actions and to consider of the Inconveniencies which might redound unto the King by his affecting this new Title On the Return whereof the poor Gentleman is removed from his Office from being one of the Privy Council and not only deprived of the Title of the Earl of Stratherne but of that also of Menteith which for a long time had remained in his Ancestors And
those who adhered unto him to fly the Country but intercepted his Revenues seazed on all his Forts and Castles and put themselves into a Posture of open War And that they might be able to manage it with the greater credit they called home some of their Commanders out of Germany and some which served under the Pay of the States General so far prevailing with those States as to continue such Commanders in their Pay and Places as long as they remained in the Service of the Scottish Covenanters A favour which his Majesty could not get at their hands nor had he so much reason to expect it as the others had iâ considered rightly It had been once their own case and they conceived they had good reason to maintain it in others It may deservedly be a matter of no small amazement that this poor and unprovided Nation should dare to put such baffles and affronts upon their Lawful King the King being backt by the united Forces of England and Ireland obeyed at home and rendred formidable unto all his Neighbours by a puissant Navy they must have some assurances more than ordinary which might enflame them to this height and what they were it may not be amiss to enquire into First then they had the King for their natural Country-man born in that Air preserving a good affection for them to the very laât and who by giving them the Title of his Ancient and Native Kingdom as he did most commonly gave them some reason to believe that he valued them above the English They had in the next place such a strong Party of Scots about him that he could neither stir or speak scarce so much as think but they were made acquainted with it In the Bed-Chamber they had an equal number of Gentlemen and seven Grooms for one in the Presence-Chamber more than an equal number amongst the Gentlemen Ushers Quarter-Waiters c. In the Privy-Chamber besides the Carvers and Cup-bearers such disproportion of the Gentlemen belonging to it that once at a full Table of Waiters each of them having a Servant or two to attend upon him I and my man were the only English in all the Company By which the King was so obsârved and betrayed withal that as far as they could find his meaning by Words by Signs and Circumstances or the silent language of a shrug it was posted presently into Scotland some of his Bed-Chamber being grown so bold and saucy that they used to Ransack his Pockets when he was in bed to transcribe such Letters as they found and send the Copies to their Countrymen in the way of intelligence A thing so well known about the Court that the Archbishop of Canterbury in one of his Letters gave him this memento that he should not trust his Pockets with it For Offices of trust and credit they wâre as well accomodated as with those of service Hamilton Master of the Horse who stocked the Stables with that People The Earl of Morton Captain of his Majesties Guard The Earl of Ancram Keeper of the Privy Purse The Duke of Lenox Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle Balfore Lieutenant of the Tower the Fortress of most power and command in England And Wemmys the Master Gunner of his Majesties Navy who had the issuing of the Stores and Ammunition designed unto it Look on them in the Church and we shall find so many of that Nation beneficed and preferred in all parts of this Country that their Ecclesiastical Revenues could not but amount to more then all the yearly Rents of the Kirk of Scotland and of all these scarce one in ten who did not cordially espouse and promote their Cause amongst the People They had beside no less assurance of the English Puritans than they had of their own those in Court of which there was no very small number being headed by the Earl of Holland those in the Country by his Brother the Earl of Warwick The fârst being aptly called in a Letter of the Lord Conways to the Lord Archbishop The spiritual and invisible head the other The visible and temporal head of the Puritan Faction And which was more than all the rest they had the Marquiss of Hamilton for their Lord and Patron of so great power about the King such Authority in the Court of England such a powerful influence on the Council of Scotland and such a general Command over all that Nation that his pleasure amongst them past for Law and his words for Oracles all matters of Grace and Favour ascribed to him matters of harshness or distate to the King or Canterbury To speak the matter in a word he was grown King of Scots in Fact though not in Title His Majesty being looked on by them as a Cypher only in the Arithmetick of State But notwithstanding their confidence in all these Items taking in the Imprimis too they might have reckoned without their Host in the Summa Tetalis the English Nation being generally disaffected to them and passionately affecting the Kings quarrel against them The sense and apprehension of so many indignities prevailed upon the King at last to unsheath the Sword more justly in it self and more justifiably in the sight of others the Rebels having rejected all ãâã oââers of Grace and Favour and growing the more insolent by his Condescensions So that resolved or rather forced upon the War he must bethink himself of means to go thorow with it To which end Burrows the Principal King of Arms is commanded to search into the Records of the Tower and to return an Extract of what he found relating to the War of Scotland which he presented to the Archbishop in the end of December to this effect viz. 1. That such Lords and others as had Lands and Livings upon the Borders were commanded to reside there with their Retinue and those that had Castles there were enjoined to Fortifie them 2. That the Lords of the Kingdom were Summoned by Writ to attend the Kings Army with Horse and Armour at a certain time and place according to their Service due to the King or repair to the Exchequer before that day and make Fine for their Service As also were all Widows Dowagers of such Lords as were deceased and so were all Bishops and Ecclesiastical Persons 3. That Proclamations were likewise made by Sheriffs in every County That all men holding of the King by Knights-Service or Sergeancy should come to the Kings Army or make Fines as aforesaid with a strict command That none should conceal their Service under a great Penalty 4. As also That all men having 40 l. Land per Annum should come to the Kings Army with Horse and Armour of which if any failed to come or to make Fine their Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels were distrained by the Sheriâf upon Summons out of the Exchequer 5. That Commissions should be issued out for Levying of Men in every County and bringing them to the Kings
Army That the like be done for Mustering and Arraying the Clergy throughout England or otherwise to furnish the King with a proportion of Armed Men for the present Service 6. That Writs be issued out into all Counties for certifying the King what number of Horse and Foot every County could afford him in his Wars with Scotland 7. The like also to the Borders requiring them to come unto the Kings Army well armed Commissions to be made for punishing such as refused 8. That the Sheriffs of the Counties were commanded by Writ to make Provisions of Corn and Victuals for the Kings Army and to cause them to be carried to the place appointed The like Command sent to the Merchants in the Port-Towns of England and Ireland and the Ships of the Subject taken to Transport such Provisions to the place assigned 9. Several Sums of Money raised by Subsidies and Fifteens from the English Subject and Aid of Money given and lent by the Merchant-Strangers toward the Maintenance of the War 10. That the King used to suspend the payment of his Debts for a certain time in regard of the great occasions he had to use Money in the Wars of Scotland Other Memorials were returned to the same effect but these the principal According to these Instructions his Majesty directs his Letters to the Temporal Lords his Writs to the High-Sheriffs his Orders to the Lord-Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants in their several Counties his Proclamations generally to all his Subjects Requiring of them all such Aids and Services in his present Wars as either by Laws oâ Ancient Customs of the Land they were bound to give him He caused an Order also to be made by the Lords of the Council directed to the two Archbishops Ianuary 29. by which they were Required and Commanded To write their several and âespâctive Letters to all the Lords Bishops in their several Provinces respectively forthwith to convene before them all the Clergy oâ Ability in their Diocesses and to incite them by such ways and means as shall be thought best by their Lordships to aid and assist his Majesty with their speedy and liberal Contributions and otherwise for defence of his Royal Person and of this Kingdom And that the same be sent to the Lord Treasurer of England with all diliâence Subscribed by the Lord Keeper Coventry the Bishop of London Lord Treasurer the Earl of Manchester Lord Privy Seal tââ Duke of Lenox the Earl of Lindsey Lord Great Chamberlain tââ Earl of Arundel Earl-Marshal the Earl of Dorset Lord Chamberlain to the Queen the Earl oâ Pembroke Lord Chamberlain to the King the Earl of Holland Chancellor of Cambridge Cottington Maâter of the Wards Vane Treasurer of the Houshold Cooke and Winââbank the two Principal Secretaries Which Warrant whether it proceeded from the Kings own motion or was procured by the Archbishop himself to promote the Service is not much material Certain I am that he conformed himself unto it with a chearful diligence and did accordingly direct his Letters to his Suffragan Bishops in this âollowing âorm My very good Lord I Have received an Order from the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council giving me notice of the great Preparations made by sâme of Scotland both of Arms and all other Necessaries for War And that this can have no other end than to invade or annoy this his Majesties Kingdom of England For his Majesty having a good while since most graciously âielded to their Demands for securing the Religion by Law established amongst them hath made it appear to the World That it is not Religion but Sedition that stirs in them and fills them with this most irreligious Disobedience which at last breaks forth into a high degree of Treason against their Lawful Sovereign In this Case of so great danger both to the State and Church of England your Lordships I doubt not and your Clergie under you will not only be vigilant against the close Workings of any Pretenders in that kind but very free also to your Power and Proportion of Means leât to the Church to contribute toward the raising of such an Army as by Gods Blâssing and his Majesties Care may secure this Church and Kingdom from all intended Violence And according to the Order sent unto me by the Lords a Copy whereof you shall herewith receive these are to pray your Lordship to give a good Example in your own Person and with all convenient speed to call your Clergie and the abler Schoolmasters as well those which are in Peculiars as others and excite them by your self and such Commissioners as you will answer for to contribute to this Great and Necessary Service in which if they give not a good Example they will be much to blame But you are to call no poor Curates nor Stipendaries but such as in other Legal ways of Payment have been and are by Order of Law bound to pay The Proportion I know not well how to prescribe you but I hope they of your Clergie whom God hath blessed with better Estates than Ordinary will give freely and thereby help the want of Means in others And I hope also your Lordship will so order it as that every man will at the least give after the Proportion of 3 s. 10 d. in the Pound of the valuation of his Living or other Preferment in the Kings Books And this I thought fit to lââ you further know That if any man have double Benefices or a Benefice and a Prebend or the like in divers Diocesses yet your Lordship must call upon them only for such Preferments as they have within your Diocess and leave them to pay for any other which they hold to the Bishop in whose Diocess their Preferments are As for the time your Lordship must use all the diligence you can and send up the Moneys if it be possible by the first of May next And for your Indempnity the Lord Treasurer is to give you such discharge by striking a Tally or Tallies upon your several Payments into the Exchequer as shall be fit to sâcure you without your Charge Your Lordship must further be pleased to send up a List of the Names of such as refuse this Service within their Diocess but I hope none will put you to that trouble It is further expected That your Lordship and every other Bishop express by it self and not in the general Sum of his Clergie that which himself gives And of this Service you must not fail So to Gods blessed Protection I leave you and rest Your Lordships very Loving Friend and Brother WILL. CANT Lambeth Ian. ult 1638. On the receiving of these Letters the Clergy were Convented in their several Diocesses encouraged by their several Ordinaries not to be wanting to his Majesty in the Present Service and divers Preparations used beforehand to dispose them to it which wrougât so powerfully and effectually on the greatest part of them those which wish'd well unto the Scots seeming
on the Earl of Argile who had declared himself for the Covenanters at the Assembly at Glasco resolved to stand to the Conclusion which he brought along with him though he found himself unable to make good the Premises so that some days being unprofitably spent in these debates the Archbishop and the rest of the Committee made a report of the whole business to the rest of the Council who upon full consideration of all particulars came to this Result That since the Scots could not be reclaimed to their obedience by other means they were to be reduced by Force This was no more then what the Scots could give themselves Reason to expect and therefore they bestirred themselves as much on the other side Part of the Walls of the Castle of Edenborough with all the Ordnance upon it had fallen down on the nineteenth of November last being the Anniversary day of his Majesties Birth not without some presage of that ill fortune which befel him in the course of this War for the Repair whereof they would neither suffer Timber nor any other Materials to be carried to it but on the contrary they began to raise Works and Fortifications against it with an intent to block it up and render it unuseful to his Majesties Service And to keep the Souldiers therein Garrisoned most of them English to hard meats they would not suffer them to come into the Market to recruit their Victuals They made Provisions of great quantity of Artillery Munition and Arms from Foreign Parts laid Taxes of ten Marks in the hundred upon all the Subjects according to their several Revenues which they Levied with all cursed Rigour though bruiting them abroad to be Free-will Offerings scattered abroad many Seditious and Scandalous Pamphlets for justifying themselves and seducing others some of which were burnt in England by the hand of the Hangman Fortified Inchgarvie and other places which they planted with Ordnance Imprisoned the Earl of Southesk and other Persons of Quality for their fidelity to the King took to themselves the Government of the City of Edenborough contrary to their Charters and Immunities by which the Citizens were disabled from serving his Majesty in any of his just Commands and finally employed their Emissaries in all Parts of England to disswade those who were too backward of themselves from contributing to the War against them and to sollicit from them such several Aids as might the better enable them to maintain the War against their Sovereign But their chief Correspondence was with France and Ireland In France they had made sure of Cardinal of Richelieu who Governed all Affairs in that Kingdom Following the Maxim of Queen Elizabeth in securing the Peace of his own Country by the Wars of his Neighbours he practised the Revolt of Portugal and put the Catalonians into Arms against their King to the end that he might waste the fiery Spirit of the French in a War on Flanders with the better fortune and success But knowing that it was the Interest of the Crown of England to hold the Balance even between France and Spain and that his Majesty by removing the Ships of Holland which lay before Duynkirk Anno 1635. had hindred the French from making such a Progress by Land as might have made them Masters of the Spanish Netherlands he held it a chief piece of State-Craft as indeed it was to excite the Scots against their King and to encourage them to stand it out unto the last being so excited Upon which ground he sent Chamberlain a Scot by Birth his Chaplain and Almoner to assist the Confederates in advancing the business and to attempt all ways for exasperating the first heat with Order not to depart from them till things succeeding as he wished he might return with good News And on the same appointed one of his Secretaries to reside in Scotland to march along with them into England to be present at all Councils of War and direct their business And on the other side Hamiltons Chaplains had free accesses unto Con the same Countryman also at such time as Chamberlain was Negotiating for the Cardinal to âoment the Flames which had begun to rage already And by a Letter subscribed by the Earl of Rothes and others of chief note amongst the Covenanters they craved the Assistance of that King cast themselves upon his Protection beseeching him to give credit to Colvill the Bearer thereof whom they had instructed in all Particulars which concerned their Condition and Desires In Ireland they had a strong Party of Natural Scots planted in Vlster by King Iames upon the forfeited Estates of Tir-Owen Tir-Connel Odighirtie c. not Scots in Birth and Parentage only but Design and Faction But Wentworth was not to be told of their secret Practices he saw it in their general disposition to Schism and Faction and was not unacquainted with their old Rebellions It must be his care that they brake not into any new which he performed with such a diligent and watchful eye that he crushed them in the very beginning oâ the Combination seising upon such Ships and Men as came thither from Scotland Imprisoning some Fining others and putting an Oath upon the rest By which Oath they were bound to abjure the Covenant not to be aiding to the Covenanters against the King nor to Protest against any of his Royal Edicts as their Brethren in Scotland used to do For the refusing of which Oath he Fined one Sir Henry Steward and his Wife Persons of no less Power than Disaffection at no less than 5000 l. apiece two of their Daughters and one Iames Gray of the same Confederacy at the Sum of 3000 l. apiece committing them to Prison for not paying the Fines imposed upon them All which he justified when he was brought unto his Trial on good Reasons of State There being at that time one hundred thousand Souls in Ireland of the Scottish Nation most of them passionately affected to the Cause of the Covenanters and some of them conspiring to betray the Town and Castle of Carickfergus to a Nobleman of that Country for which the Principal Conspirator had been justly Executed Nor staid he here but he gave finally a Power to the Bishop of Down and Connor and other Bishops of that Kingdom and their several Chancellors to attach the Bodies of all such of the meaner sort who either should refuse to appear before them upon Citation or to perform all Lawful Decrees and Orders made by the said Bishops and their Chancellors and to commit them to the next Gaol till they should conform or answer the Contempt at the Council-Table By means whereof he made the poorer sort so pliant and obedient to their several Bishops that there was good hopes of their Conformity to the Rules of the Church Having thus carried on the affairs of Scotland till the end of this year we must return to our Archbishop whom we shall find intent on the preservation of the
of the Kingdom honoured him with the Order of the Garter and made him one of the Lords of his Privy Council so that no greater characters of Power and Favour could be imprinted on a Subject The Office of Lieutenant General he had committed unto the Earl of Strafford Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of whose Fidelity and Courage he could make no question And the Command of the Horse to Edward Lord Conway whose Father had been raised by King Iames from a private condition to be one of his principal Secretaries and a Peer of the Realm Of which three great Commanders it was observed that one had sufficient health but had no will to the business That another had a good will to it but wanted health and that a third had neither the one nor the other And yet as crasie and infirm as the Earl of Strafford found himself he chearfully undertook the charge of the Army in the Generals absânce and signified by Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that he durst venture upon the peril of his head to drive the Scots out of England but that he did not hold it Counsellable as the case then stood If any other of the Lords had advised the King to try his Fortune in a Battel he doubted not of sending them home in more haste than they came but the Scots had rendred him unfit to make the motion for fear it might be thought that he studied more his own Concernments than he did the Kings For these Invadors finding by whose Counsels his Majesty governed his Affairs resolved to draw them into discredit both with Prince and People And to that end it was declared in a Remonstrance publisht before their taking Arms That their Propositions and Desires so necessary and vital unto that Kingdom could find no access unto the ears of the gracious King by reason of the powerful Diversion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Deputy of Ireland who strengthned with the high and mighty Faction of Papists near his Majesty did only side in all matters of Temporal and Spiritual affairs making the necessity of their Service to his Majesty to appear in being the only fit Instruments under the pretext of vindicating his Majesties Honour to oppress both the just Liberties of his Free Subjects and the true Reformed Religion in all his Kingdoms Seconding this Remonstrance with another Pamphlet called The Intention of the Army they signified therein to the good People of England that they had no design either to waste their Goods or spoyl their Country but only to become Petitioners to his Sacred Majesty to call a Parliament and to bring the said Archbishop and Lord Lieutenant to their condign Punishments In which those modest men express That as they desired the unworthy Authors of their trouble who had come out from themselves to be tried at home according to their own Laws so they would press no further Process against Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland and the rest of those pernicious Counsellors in England whom they called the Authors of all the miseries of both Kingdoms than what their own Parliament should discern to be their just deserving And that the English might see the better whom they chiefly aimed at a book was published by the name of Laudensium Autocatacrisis or the Canterburians Self-conviction in which the Author of it did endeavour to prove out of the Books Speeches and Writings of the Archbishop himself as also of some Bishops and other learned men who had exercised their Pens in the late disputes That there was a strange design in hand for bringing in Superstition Popery and Arminianism to the subversion of the Gospel and of suppressing the Religion here by Law established But as these Reproaches moved not him so neither did their Remonstrance or any other of their Scribbles distract his Majesties Resolutions untill he found himself assaulted by a Petition from some Lords in the South which threatned more danger at his back than he had cause to fear from the Northern Tempest which blew directly in his teeth Complaint was made in this Petition of the many inconvenicences which had been drawn upon this Kingdom by his Majesties engagings against the Scots as also of the great encrease of Popery the pressing of the present payment of Ship-money the dissolving of former Parliaments Monopolies Innovations and some other grâevances amongst which the Canons which were made in the late Convocation could not be omitted For Remedy whereof his Majesty is desired to call a Parliament to bring the Authors of the said pretended grievances to a Legal Trial and to compose the present War without Bloudshed Subscribed by the Earls of Essex Hartford Rutland Bedford Exeter Warwick Moulgrave and Bullingbrooke the Lords Say Mandevil Brooke and Howard presented to the King at York on the third of September And seconded by another from the City of London to the same effect His Majesty being thus between two Milstones could find no better way to extricate himself out of these perplexities than to call the great Council of his Peers to whom at their first meeting on the 24 of the same month he signified his purpose to hold a Parliament in London on the third of November and by their Counsel entertained a Treaty with those of Scotland who building on the confidence which they had in some Lords of England had petitioned for it According unto which Advice a Commission is directed to eight Earls and as many Barons of the English Nation seven of which had subscribed the former Petition enabling them to treat with the Scots Commissioners to hear their Grievances and Demands and to report the same to his Majesty and the Lords of his Council These points being gained which the Puritan Faction in both Kingdoms had chiefly aimed at the Scots were insolent enough in their Proposals Requiring freedom of Commerce Reparation of their former Losses and most especially the maintenance of their Army at the charge of the English without which no Cessation would be harkned to Satisfaction being given them in their last Demand and good Assurances for the two first they decline York as being unsafe for their Commissioners and procure Rippon to be named for the place of the Treaty where the Lord Lieutenant was of less influence than he was at York and where being further from the King they might shuffle the Cards and play the Game to their best contentment The rest of October from the end of the first week of it when they excepted against York was drilled on in requiring that some persons of quality intrusted by the Scottish Nation might have more Offices than they had about his Majesty and the Queen and in the Court of the Prince That a Declaration might be made for naturalizing and settling the Capacities and mutual Priviledges of the Subjects in both Kingdoms but chiefly that there might be an Unity and Uniformity in Church-Government as a special means for conserving
signed with the same Penful of Ink for the continuance of the present Parliament during the pleasure of the Houses The Act thus past on Munday Morning the Earl was brought unto the Scaffold on the Wednesday following desiring earnestly but in vain to Exchange some words with the Archbishop before his Death Which gave occasion to a report that a little before his Death he had charged his misfortunes oversights and misdemeanours upon the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Prime Author of the same and had bitterly Curst the day of their first acquaintance Which being so scandalous and dishonourable to this great Prelate I shall lay down the whole truth in this particular as it came from the Archbishops own mouth in the presence of Balfore a Scot and then Lieutenant of the Tower who was required to attest to each period of it The Lord Strafford the night before the Execution sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and asked him whether it were possible he might speak with the Archbishop The Lieutenant told him he might not do it without Order from the Parliament Whereupon the Earl replied You shall hear what passeth between us for it is not a time now either for him to plot Heresie or me to plot Treason The Lieutenant answered That he was limited and therefore desired his Lordship would Petition the Parliament for that Favour No said he I have gotten my dispatch from them and will trouble them no more I am now Petitioning an Higher Court wâere neither partiality can be expected nor Error âeared But my Lord said he turning to the Primate of Ireland whose company he had procured of the Houses in that fatal Exigent I will tell you what I should have spoken to my Lords Grace of Canterbury You shall desire the Archbishop to lend me his Prayers this night and to give me his Blessing when I do go abroad to morrow and to be in his Window that by my last Farewell I may give him thanks for this and all other his former Favours The Primate having delivered the Message without delay the Archbishop replied That in conscience he was bound to the first and in duty and obligation to the second but he feared his weakness and passion would not lend him eyes to behold his last Departure The next morning at his coming forth he drew near to the Archbishops Lodging and said to the Lieutenant Though I do not see the Archbishop yet give me leave I pray you to do my last observance towards his Rooms In the mean time the Archbishop advertised of his approach came out to the Window Then the Earl bowing himself to the ground My Lord said he your Prayers and your Blessing The Archbishop lift up his hands and bestowed both but overcome with grief fell to the ground in Animi deliquio The Earl bowing the second time said Farewell my Lord God protect your Innocency And because he feared that it might perhaps be thought an effeminacy or vnbecoming weakness in him to sink down in that manner he addâd That he hoped by Gods Assistance and his own Innocency that when he came to his own Execution which he daily longed for the World should perceive he had been more sensible of the Lord Strafford's Loss than of his own And good reason it should be so said he for the Gentleman was more serviceable to the Church he would not mention the State than either himself or any of all the Church-men had ever been A gallant Farewell to so eminent and beloved a Friend Thus march'd this Great Man to the Scaffold more like a General in the Head of an Army to breath out Victory than like a Condemned Man to undergo the Sentence of death The Lieutenant of the Tower desired him to take Coach for fear the People should rush in upon him and tear him in pieces No said he to the Lieutenant I dare look Death in the face and I hope the People too Have you a care that I do not escape and I care not how I die whether by the hand of the Executioner or the madness and fury of the People If that may give them better content it is all one to me In his last Speech upon the Scaâfold he declared That in all his Imployments since he had the honour to serve his Majesty he never had any thing in the purpose of his heart but what tended to the joynt and individual prosperity both of King and People That he was so far from being an Enemy to Parliaments which had been charged amongst his Crimes that he did always think the Parliaments of England to be the most happy Constitution that aây Kingdom or Nation lived under and the best means under God to make the King and People happy That he acquitted all the World for his death heartily beseeching the God of Heaven to forgive all them that contrived it though in the intentions and purposes of his heart he was not guilty of the Oâfences which he was to die for That it was a great comfort to him that his Majesty conceived him not meriting so severe and heavy a Punishment as the utmost execution of this Sentence And finally after many other Expressions That he died a true Son of the Church of England in which he had been born and bred for the Peace and Prosperity whereof he most heartily prayed Turning his eyes unto his Brother Sir George Wentworth he desired him to charge his Son to fear God to continue an obedient Son to the Church of England and not to meddle with Church-Livings as that which would prove a Moth or Canker to him in his Estate And having several times recommended his prepared Soul to the Mercies of God he submiâted his Neck with most Christian Magnanimity to the stroke of the ãâã which took his Head from him at one blow before he had filled up the number of fifty years A man on whom his Majesty looked as one whose great Abilities might rather make a Prince afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest Affairs of State âor those were proâe to create in him great confidence of Undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great Errors and many Enemies whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a Sphere and with so vigorous a Lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious Exhalations which condensed by a Popular Odium were capable to cast a Cloud upon the highest Merit and Integrity So far he stood commended by the Pen of his sorrowful Sovereign who never could sufficiently ââwaâl his own Infelicity in giving way unto an Act of such ãâ¦ã justice as he calls it there of which he gives this Testimony in his Meditation on the Death of this unfortunate Earl That he waâ ãâã far from excusing or denying that Compliance on his part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in his own judgment he thought not by any clear
and Dangers in the Premises Lastly Whereas these fears are not built upon Conceits but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well terrifie Men of Resolution and much Constancy they do in all Humility and Duty Protest before Your Majesty and the Peers of the Most Honourable House of Parliament against all Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and Determinations as of themselves Null and of None Effect which in their Absence since the 27th of this Instant Moneth of December 1641. have already passed As likewise that all such as shall hereafter Pass in the Most Honourable House during the time of this their Forced and Violent Absence from the said Most Honourable House not denying but if their absenting of themselves were Wilful and Voluntary that Most Honourable House might Proceed in all their Premises their Absence or this Protestation Notwithstanding And humbly beseeching Your Most Excellent Majesty to Command the Clerk of the House of Peers to Enter this their Petition and Protestation among his Records They will ever Pray God to bless c. This Petition being presented to his Majesty was by him deliâvered to the Lord Keeper Littleton to be Communicated the next day being the 30th of Decemb. to the House of Peers But the Lord Keeper contrary to his Majesties directions did first impârt iâ to some of the Preaching party in both Houses of Parliament and after as the plot was laid to the Peers in general Upon the âeading whereof a conference was desired with the House oâ Câmmons to whom the Lord Keeper whom they had under the Laââ was pleased to signifie that this Petition and Protestation of the twelâe Bishops contained matters of high and dangerous consequence extending to the deep intrenching upon the Fundamental Priviledges and Being of Parliament Whereupon the said twelve Bishops were Impeached by the Commons of high Treason The Usher called Black-Rod Commanded to find them out and to bring them to the Bar in the House of Peers which by reason of their scattered and divided Lodgings could not be effected till eight of the Clock at night at what time being brought together their offence was signified unto them and an Order presently made for their commitment to the Tower whither they were all carried the next day Except the Bishops of Durham and Lichfield who found the favour the one by reason of his Eminent Learning and both of them in regard of their age and Infirmities to stand committed to the custody of the Gentleman Usher Our Archbishop had now more Neighbours then âe desired but not more company then before it being prudently Ordered amongst themselves that none of them should bestow any visits on him for fear of giving some advantage to their common enemy as if they had been hatching some conspiracy against the Publick But they refrained not on either side from sending meââages of Love and consolation unto one another those mutual civilities being almost every day performed betwixt the two Archbishops also though very much differing both in their Counsels and Affections in the times foregoing The Archbishop of York was now so much declined in favour tâat he stood in as bad terms with the Common People as the other did His picture cut in Brass attired in his Episcopal Robes with his square Cap upon his head and Bandileers about his Neck shouldering a Musket upon one of his shoulders in one hand and a Rest in the other either presaging that which followed or else relating unto that which had passed in defence of the Abbey Together with which a book was Printed in which he was Resembled to the Decoy-Duck alluding to the Decâyes in Lincolnshire where he had been Bishop restored to Liberty on design that he might bring more company with him at his coming back and a device Ingraven for the Front of the Book which represented the conceit and that not unhappily Certain I am that our Archbishop in the midst of those sorrows seemed much pleased with the Fancy whither out of his great Love to wit oâ some other self-satisfaction which he found therein is beyond my knowledge These Bishops bâing thus secured and no body left in a manner to solicite the Common Cause but the Bishop of Rochester the Bill against their Votes passed currantly in the House of Peers on February 6. the Citizens who before had feasted the King with such signs oâ Affection now celebrating the Concurrence of the House against his Interest with Bâlls and Bonfires Nor was it long before the âing gave over the Cause for which he had so long contended For either terrified with the Apprehension of his own Dangers or wrought on by the importunity of some about him he signed the Bill at Canterbury on February 14. to which place he had accompanied the Queen in her way toward Holland And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That no Archbishop Bishop or any other Person in Holy Orders from February 15. then next following should have any Seat or Place Suffrage or Voice use or execute any Power or Authority in the Parliaments of this Realm nor should be of the Privy-Council of his Majesty his Heirs or Successors or Justices of the Peace of Oyer and Terminer or Gaol-delivery or execute any Temporal Authority by vertue of any Commission but should be wholly disabled or be uncapable to have receive use or execute any of the said Offices Places Powers Authorities and Things aforesaid The passing of which Act what specious Pretences soever were given out for it redounded little to his Majesties Benefit and far less to his Comfort For by cutting off so many of his Friends at a blow he lost his Power in the House of Peers and not long after was deprived of his Negative Voice when the great Business of the Militia came to be disputed And though he pleased himself sometimes with this perswasion of their contentedness in suffering a present diminution of their Rights and Honours for his sake and the Commonwealths yet was it no small trouble to his Conscience at other times that he had added this to the former injury in consenting to the taking away of the Coercive Power of their Jurisdiction for this we find to be one of those three things which lay heaviest on him in the time of his Solitude and Sufferings as appears by this passage in one of his Prayers viz. Was it through ignorance that I suffered innocent Blood to be spilt by a false pretended Iustice Or that I permitted a wrong way of Worship to be set up in Scotlan Or injured the Bishops in England By which we see that the Injury done unto the Bishops of England is put into the same scale with his permitting a wrong way of Worship to be set up in Scotland and the shedding of the innocent Blood of the Earl of Strafford And if this Act proved so unpleasing to the King it must needs be grievous to the Bishops themselves to none more than the
depriving the Bishops of their Vote and the Churches Birth-right And this was it which helped them in that time of need And yet not thinking this Device sufficient to fright their Lordships to a present compliance Stroud was sent up with a Message from the House of Commons to let them know That the Londoners would shortly bring a Petition with 20000 Hands to obtain that Ordinance By which stale and common Stratagem they wrought so far on some weak Spirits the rest withdrawing themselves as formerly in the case of the Earl of Strafford that in a thin and slender House not above six or seven in number it was pass'd at last The day before they pass'd the Ordinance for establishing their new Directory which in effect was nothing but a total abolition of the Common-Prayer-Book and thereby shewed unto the World how little hopes they had of settling their new Form of Worship if the foundation of it were not laid in the blood of this famous Prelate who had so stoutly stood up for it against all Novellism and Faction in the whole course of his Life âe was certified by some Letters to Oxon. and so reported in the Mercurius Aulicus of the following week That the Lord Bruce ãâã better known by the name of the Earl of Elgin was one of the number of those few Lords which had Voted to the Sentence of his Condâmnation The others which concurred in that fatal Sentence being the Earls of Kent Pembroke Salisbury and Bullingbrook together with the Lord North and the Lord Gray of Wark But whatsoever may be said of the other six I have been advertised lately from a very good hand That the said Lord Bruce hath frequently disclaimed that Action and solemnly professed his detestation of the whole Proceedings as most abhorrent from his nature and contrary to his known aâfections as well unto his Majesties Service as the Peace and Preservation of the Church of England This Ordinance was no sooner passed but it revived many of those Discourses which had before been made on the like occasion in the Business of the Earl of Strafford For hereupon it was observed That as the predominant Party in the Vnited Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt subverted all those Fundamental Laws of the Belgick Liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip ii So the Contrivers of this Mischief had violated all the Fundamental Laws of the English Government for maintenance whereof they had pretended to take up Arms against the King It was said they a Fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta That the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable Yet to make way unto the Condemnation of this Innocent Man the Bishops must be Voted out of their Place in Parliament which most of them have held far longer in their Predecessors than any of our Noble Families in their Progenitors and if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the People must come down to the House in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishâps at the Parliament doors till by the terrour of their Tumults ãâã extort it from them It is a Fundamental Law of the English ãâã That no Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause ãâã or be detained without being brought unto his Answer in due form of Law Yet here we see a Freeman imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any Charge was brought against him and kept in Prison three whole years more before his General Accusation was by them reduced unto Particulars and for a year almost detained close Prisoner without being brought unto his Answer as the Law requires It is a Fundamental Law of the English Government ãâ¦ã be disserzââ of his Freehold or Liberties but by the known Laws of the Land Yet here we see a man disseized of his Rents and Lands spoiled of his Goods deprived of his Iurisdiction devested of his Right of Patronage and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land that no particular Charge was so much as thought of It is a Fundamental Law of the English Liberty That no man shall be condemned or put to death bââ by the Lawful Iudgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land that is in the ordinary way of Legal Tryal And sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of Tryal for the English Subject or ever reckoned to be such in former times And finally It is a Fundamental Law in the English Government That if any other cause than those recited in the Statute of King Edward iii. which is supposed to be Treason do happen before any of his Majesties Juâtices the Justices shall tarry without giving Iudgment till the Cause be shâwn and declared before the King and his Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not Yet here we have a new found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of his Majesties Iustices nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and his Parliament but only Voted to be such by some of those Members which âare at Westminster who were resolved to have it so for their private Ends. The first Example of this kind the first thaâ ever suffered death by the shot of an Ordinance as himself very well observed in his dying Speech upon the Scaffold though purposely omitted in Hind's Printed Copy to which now he hasteneth For the passing of the Ordinance being signified to him by the then Lieutenant of the Tower he neither entertained the news with a Stâical Apathy nor waâled his fate with weak and womanish Lamentations to which Extremes most men are carried in this case but ãâã it with so even and so smooth a Temper as shewed he neither was ashamed to live nor afraid to die The time between the Sentence and Execution he spent in Prayers and Applications to the Lord his God having obtained though not without some diâlâânâty a Chaplain of his own to attend upon him and to assist him in the Work of his Preparation though little Preparation âââded to receive that blow which could not but be welcome because long expected For so well was he studied in the Art of Dying especially in the last and strictest part of his Imprisonment that by continual Fastings Watchings Prayers and such like Acts of Christiaâ Humiliation his Flesh was rarified into Spirit and the whole maâ so fitted for Eternal Glories that he was more than half in Heaven before Death brought his bloody but Triumphant ãâã to convey him thither He that had so long been a Confessâââould âould not but think it a Release of Miseries to be made a ãâã It is Recorded of Alexander the Great That the night before his last and