very pleasing news to those of the Congregation who thought it more expedient to their Affairs that the Queen should not Marry at all or at least not Marry any other Husband but such as should be recommended to her by the Queen of England on whom their safety did depend In which regard they are resolved to oppose this Match though otherwise they were assured that it would make the Queen grow less in reputation both at home and abroad to Marry with one of her own subjects of what blood soever 51. And now comes Knox to play his prize who more desired that the Earl of Leicester as one of his own Faction should espouse the Queen then the Earl desired it for himself If she will Marry at all let her make choice of one of the true Religion for other Husband she should never have if he could help it And to this end he lays about him in a Sermon preached before the Parliament at which the Nobility and Estates were then assembled And having roved sufficiently as his custom was at last he tells them in plain terms desiring them to note the day and take witness of it That whensover the Nobility of Scotland who profess the Lord Iesus should consent that an Infidel and all Papists are Infidels saith he should be head to their Soveraign they did so far as in them lyes banish Christ Iesus from this Realm yea and bring Gods judgements upon the Country a plague upon themselves and do small comfort to her self For which being questioned by the Queen in a private conference he did not onely stand unto it without the least qualifying or retracting of those harsh expressions but must intitle them to God as if they had been the immediate Inspirations of the holy Ghost for in his Dialogue with the Queen he affirmed expresly that out of the preaching place few had occasion to be any way oâ—fended with him but there that is to say in the Church or Pulpit he was not Master of himself but must obey him that commands him to speak plain and flatter no flesh upon the face of the Earth This insolent carriage of the man put the Queen into passion insomuch that one of her Pages as Knox himself reports the story could hardly finde Handkerchiefs enough to dry her eyes with which the proud fellow shewed himself no further touched then if he had seen the like fears from any one of his own Boys on a just correction 52. Most men of moderate spirits seemed much offended at the former passage when they heard it from him in the Pulpit more when they heard of the affliction it had given the Queen But it prevailed so far on the generality of the Congregation that presently it became a matter of Dispute amongst them Whether the Queen might chuse to her self an Husband or whether it were more fitting that the Estates of the Land should appoint one for her Some sober men affirmed in earnest that the Queen was not to be barred that liberty which was granted to the meanest Subject But the Chief leading-men of the Congregation had their own ends in it for which they must pretend the safety of the Common-wealth By whom it was affirmed as plainly that in the Heir unto a Crown the case was different because said they such Heirs in assuming an Husband to themselves did withal appoint a King to be over the Nation And therefore that it was more fit that the whole people should chuse a Husband to one Woman then one Woman to elect a King to Rule over the whole people Others that had the same designe and were possibly of the same opinion concerning the imposing of a Husband on her by the States of the Realm disguised their purpose by pretending another Reason to break off this Marriage The Queen and the young Noble-man were too near of Kindred to be conjoyned in Marriage by the Laws of the Church her Father and his Mother being born of the same Venter as our Lawyers phrase it But for this blow the Queen did easily provide a Buckler and dispatched one of her Ministers to the Court of Rome for a Dispensation The other was not so well warded but that it fell heavy at the last and plunged her into all those miseries which ensued upon it 53. But notwithstanding these obstructions the Match went forwards in the Court chiefly sollicited by one David Risio born in Piedmont who coming into Scotland in the company of an Ambassador from the Duke of Savoy was there detained by the Queen first in the place of a Musician afterwards imployed in writing Letters to her Friends in France By which he came to be acquainted with most of her secrets and as her Secretary for the French Tongue to have a great hand in the managing of all Forreign transactions This brought him into great envy with the Scots proud in themselves and not easie to be kept in fair terms when they had no cause unto the contrary But the preferring of this stranger was considered by them as a wrong to their Nation as if not able to afford a sufficient man to perform that Office to which the Educating of so many of them in the Court of France had made them no less fit and able then this Mungrel Italian To all this Risio was no stranger and therefore was to cast about how to save himself and to preserve that Power and Reputation which he had acquired Which to effect he laboured by all means to promote the Match that the young Lord being obliged unto him for so great a benefit might stand the faster to him against all Court-factions whensoever they should rise against him And that it might appear to be his work onely Ledington the chief Secretary is dispatched for England partly to gain the Queens consent unto the Marriage and partly to excuse the Earl of Lenox and his Son for not returning to the Court as she had commanded In the mean time he carries on the business with all care and diligence to the end that the Match might be made up before his return Which haste he made for these two Reason first lest the dissenting of that Queen whose influence he knew to be very great on the Kingdom of Scotland might either beat it off or at least retard it the second that the young Lord Darnley for so they called him might have the greater obligation to him for effecting the business then if it had been done by that Queens consent 54. To make all sure as sure at least as humane Wisdom could project it a Convention of the Estates is called in May and the business of the Marriage is propounded to them To which some yeilded absolutely without any condition others upon condition that Religion might be kept indempnified onely the Lord Vehiltry one who adher'd to Knox in his greatest difficulties maintained the Negative affirming openly that he would never admit a King of the Popish Religion Encouraged
English Martyrologist addrest his Letters to the Queen in which he supplicated for the lives of those wretched men and offered many pious and prudential reasons for the reversing of that sentence or at the least for staying it from execution By which he so prevailed upon her that she consented to a gratious sparing of their lives iâ— on a months Reprieve and Conference in the mean time with Learned men they could be gained unto a retractation of their damnable Heresies But that expedient being tryed and found ineffectual the forfeiture of their lives was taken and the sentence executed Nor had the Dutch Church of Norwich any better Fortune or could pretend to be more free from harbouring some Fanatical spirits then the Dutch Congregation in the Augustine Fryars From some of which it may be probably supposed that Matthew Hamant a poor Plow-wright of Featherset within three Miles of Norwich took his first impressions which afterwards appeared in more horrid blasphemies then any English ever had been acquainted with in the times preceding For being suspected to hold many dangerous and unsound Opinions he was convented before the Bishop of that City at what time it was charged upon him that he had publickly maintained these Heresies following that is to say That the new Testament or Gospel was but meer foolishness and a story of men or rather a meer Fable That he was restored to Grace of the free Mercy of God without the means of Christ his Blood and Passion That Christ is not God or the Saviour of the World but a sinful man a meer man and an abominable Idol and that all they that worship him are abominable Idolaters That Christ did not rise again from death to life by the power of his Godhead neither that he ascended into Heaven That the Holy Ghost is not God and that there is no such thing as an Holy Ghost That Baptism is not necessary in the Church of God nor the use of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. For which he was coâ—demned for an Heretick in the Bishops Consistory on the Fourteenth of April and being thereupon delivered to the Sheriff of the City he was burnt in the Castle-Ditch on the Twentieth of May 1579. As a preparative to which punishment his ears had been cut off on the Thirteenth of that Moneth for base and slanderous words against the Queen and Council 12. About the same time that the Anabaptists were first brought to Censure there spawned another Fry of Hereticks who had its first Original amongst the Dutch and from thence came for England with the rest of their brethren These called themselves the Family of Love as before is said and were so well conceited of their own great holiness that they thought none to be Elected to Eternal life but such as were admitted into their Society The particulars of their Opinions and the strange manner of Expressions have been insisted on before Let it suffice that by their seeming Sanctity and other the like deceitful arts of Dissimulation they had drawn some of the English to them who having broke the bond of peace could not long keep themselves to the Spirit of Unity Some of them being detected and convented for it were condemned to do Penance at S. Pauls Cross and there to make a Retractation of their former Errors According to which Sentence five of them are brought thither on the 12 of Iune who there confest themselves utterly to detest as well the Author of that Sect H. N. as all his damnable Heresies Which gentle punishment did rather serve to multiply then decrease the Sect which by the diligence of the Hereticks and the remisness of the new Archbishop came to such an height that course was taken at the last for thâ—ir apprehension and for the severe punishing of those which were so apprehended For the Queen seriously considering how much she was concerned both in honor and safety to preserve Religion from the danger threatned by such desperate Hereticks published her Proclamation on the ninth of October An. 1580 for bringing their persons unto Justice and causing their pestilent Pamphlets to be openly burnt And to that end she gave a strict Command to all Temporal Judges and other Ministers of Justice to be assistant to the Bishops and their under Officers in the severe punishing of those Sects and Sectaries by which the happiness of the Church was so much endangered By which severities and a Formal Abjuration prescribed unto them by the Lords of the Council these Sects were seasonably suppressed or had the reason to conceal themselves amongst such of the Brethren as did continue in their Separation from the Church of England 13. In the mean time there hapned a great alteration in the state of the Church by the death of one and the preferment of another of the greatest Prelates Archbishop Parker left this life on the 17 of May Anno 1575. To whom succeeded Dr. Edmond Grindal Translated from the See of York unto that of Canterbury on the 15 of February The first a Prelate of great parts and no less Eminent for his zeal in the Churches cause which prompted him to keep as hard a hand on all Sects and Sectaries and more particularly on those of the Genevian Platform as the temper of the times could bear But Grindal was a man of another spirit without much difficulty wrought upon by such as applied themselves to him And having maintained a correspondence when he lived in Exile with Calvin Beza and some others 〈◊〉 â—he Consistory he either could not shake off their acquaintâ—â—â—e at his coming home or was as willing to continue it as they câ—uld desire Being advanced unto the Bishoprick of London he condescends to Calvins motion touching the setling of a French Church in that City on Genevian Principles and received thanks from him for the same And unto whom but him must Beza make his Applications when any of the brethren were suspended deprived or sequestred for not conforming to the Vestments then by Law required Being Translated unto York which wâ—s upon the 22 of May 1370 he entertains a new Intelligence with Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg somewhat more moderate then the other but no good Friend neither to the Church of England as appears by his interposings in behalf of the brethren when they were under any Censure for their inconformity To this man Grindal renders an account of his Preferment both to York and Canterbury To him he sends Advertisement how things went in Scotland at his Advancement to the first and of the present state of affairs in England when he came to the other The like Intelligence he maintained with Bullinger Gualter and some of the chief Divines amongst the Switzers taking great pride in being courted by the Leading-men of those several Churches though they had all their ends upon him for the advancing of Presbytery and Inconformity in the Church of England 14. Upon these grounds
was the ruine of their Party and that they could not otherwise preserve their power then by open War The Prince of Conde seizeth on La Fere in Picardy and the King of Navar makes himself Master by strong hand on the City of Cahors which draws the King again from his Meditations under which must be covered his retirement from all publick business But La Fere being regained from the Prince of Conde the sacking of Cahors was connived at and the breach made up that so the Hugonots might be tempted to consume their Forces in the Wars of Flanders to which they were invited by their Brethren of the Belgick Provinces who had called in the Duke of Anjou against their King And so long France remained in quiet as that War continued But when the Duke returned after two or three years and that there was no hopes of his reverting to so great a charge the Hugonots wanting work abroad were furnished with this occasion to break out at home The Catholick League had now layn dormant for some years none seeming more Zealous then the King in the Cause of Rome But when it was considered by the Duke of Guise and the rest of the League that the Duke of Anjou being dead and the King without any hope of Issue the Crown must fall at last to the King of Navar it was resolved to try all means by which he might be totally excluded from the right of Succession For what hope could they give themselves to preserve Religion when the Crown should fall upon the head of an Heretick an Heretick relapsed and therefore made uncapable of the Royal Dignity by the Canon-Laws Of these Discourses and Designes of the Guisian Faction the King of Navar takes speedy notice and prepares accordingly thinking it best to be before-hand and not to be taken unprovided when they should come And to that end having first cleared himself by a Declaration from the crime of Heresie and now particularly from being a relapsed Heretick with many foul recriminations on the House of Guise he sends his Agents to sollicite the German Princes to come in to aid him against the oppressions of the League which seemed to aim at nothing but the ruine of the Realm of France which so exasperated those of the Guisian Faction that they prevailed by their Emissaries with Pope Sixtus the Fifth to Excommunicate the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde and to declare them both uncapable of the Royal Succession as relapsed Hereticks Which he performed in open Consistory on the ninth of September 1585 and published the sentence by a special Bull within three dayes after 41. The French King in the mean time findes himself so intangled in the Snares of the League and such a general defection from him in most parts of the Kingdom that he was forced by his Edict of the ninth of Iuly to revoke all former grants and capitulations which had been made in favour of the Hugonot party After which followed a new War in which the Switz and Germans raise great Levies for the aid of the Hugonots sollicited thereunto amongst many others by Theodore Beza who by his great Eloquence and extraordinary diligence did prevail so far that the Princes Palatine the Count Wirtemberge the Count of Montbelguard and the Protestant Cantons of the Switz agreed to give them their assistance Amongst whom with the helps which they received from the King of Denmark and the Duke of Saxony a mighty Army was advanced consisting of thirty two thousand Horse and Foot that is to say twelve thousand German Horse four thousand Foot and no fewer then sixteen thousand Switz For whose advance besides a general contribution made on all the Churches of France the sum of sixty thousand Crowns was levyed by the Queen of England and put into the hands of Prince Casimire before remembred who was to have the Chief Command of these Forreign Forces These Forreign Forces made much greater by the accession of eight thousand French which joyned unto them when they first shewed themselves upon the Borders Of which two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot were raised by the Signory of Geneva But before this vast Army could come up to the King of Navar the Duke of Ioyeuse gives him battel near a place called Coutrasse at which time his whole Forces were reduced to four thousand Foot and about two thousand five hundred Horse with which small Army encountred a great power of the Duke of Ioyeuse and obtained a very signal Victory there being slain upon the place no fewer then three thousand men of which the Duke of Ioyeuse himself was one more then three thousand taken prisoners together with all the Baggage Arms and Ammunition which belonged to the Enemy After which followed the defeat of the Germans by the Duke of Guise and the violent proceedings of the Leaguers against the King which brought him to a necessity of joyning with the King of Navar and craving the assistance of his Hugonot Subjects whose Arms are now legitimated and made acts of Duty In which condition I shall leave them to their better Fortunes first taking a survey of the proceedings of the Calvinists in the neighbouring Germany passing from thence to the Low Countries and after crossing over to the Isles of Britain The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration of the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformation begun by Luther and pursued by Zuinglius was entertained in many Provinces of the Higher Germany according as they stood affected to either party or were transported by the ends and passions of their several Princes But generally at the first they inclined to Luther whose way of Reformation seemed less odious to the Church of Rome and had the greatest approbation from the States of the Empire the Duke of Saxony adhered unto him at his first beginning as also did the Marquess of Brandenbourg the Dukes of Holsteine the two Northern Kings and by degrees the rest of the German Princes of most power and value except onely those of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria the three Elector Bishops the Duke of Cleve the Marquess of Baden and generally all the Ecclesiasticks which were not under the Command of the Lutheran States The Prince Electoâ— Palatine came not in to the party till the year 1546. At which time Frederick the Second though scarce warm in his own Estate on which he entred Anno 154â— took the advantage of the time to reform his Churches the Emperour being then brought low by the change of Fortune and forced not long after to abandon Germany Upon the 1â— of Ianuary he caused Divine Offices to be celebrated in the Mother-tongue in
which I hold under Her Majesty the defence of the Religion and the Rites of the Church of England to appease the Schisms and Sects therein to reduce all the Ministers thereof to Uniformity and to due Obedience and not to waver with every wind which also my Place my Person the Laws Her Majesty and the goodness of the Cause do require of me and wherein the Lords of Her Highness Privy Council all things considered ought in duty to assist and countenance me But How is it possible that I should perform what I have undertaken after so long Liberty and lack of Discipline if a few persons so meanly qualified as most of these Factious Sectaries are should be countenanced against the whole state of the Clergy of greatest account both for Learning Years Stayedness Wisdom Religion and Honesty and open Breakers and Impugners of the Law young in Years proud in Conceit contentious in Disposition should be maintained against their Governours seeking to reduce them to Order and Obedience Haec sunt initia Haereticorum ortus atque conatus Schismaticorum male cogitantium ut sibi placeant ut praepositum superbo tumore contemnant sic de Ecclesiâ— receditur sic altare profanum foris collocatur sic contra Pacem Christi Ordinationem atque Veritatem Dei Rebellatur The first Fruits of Hereticks and the first Births and Endeavours of Schismaticks are To admire themselves and in their swelling-pride to contemn any that are set over them Thus do men fall from the Church of God thus is a Forreign Unhallowed Altar erected and thus is Christ's Peace and God's Ordination and Unity rebelled against 20. For my own part I neither have done nor do any thing in these matters which I do not think my self in Conscience and Duty bound to do and which Her Majesty hath not with earnest Charge committed unto me and which I am not well able to justifie to be most requisite for this Church and State whereof next to Her Majesty though most unworthy if not most unhappy the chief Care is committed to me which I will not by the Grace of God neglect whatsoever come upon me there-for Neither may I endure their notorious Contempts unless I will become Aesop's Block and undo all that which hitherto hath been done It is certain that if way be given unto them upon their unjust Surmises and Clamours it will be the cause of that confusion which hereafter the State will be sorry for I neither care for the honour of this Place I hold which is onus unto me nor the largeness of the Revenue neither any Worldly thing I thank God in respect of doing my duty neither do I fear the displeasure of man nor the evil Tongue of the uncharitable who call me Tyrant Pope Knave and lay to my charge things that I never did or thought Scio enim hoc esse opus Diaboli ut servos Dei mendaciis laceret opinionibus falsis gloriosum nomen infamet ut qui Conscientiae suae luce clarescunt alienis Rumoribus sordidentur For I know that this is the work of that Accuser the Devil that he may tear in pieces the Servants of God with Lyes that he may dishonour their glorious Name with false surmises that they who through the clearness of their own Consciences are shining bright may have the filth of other men's slanders cast upon them So was Cyprian himself used and other godly Bishops to whom I am not comparable But that which most of all grieveth me and is to be wondered at and lamented is That some of those who give countenance to these men and cry out for a Learned Ministry should watch their opportunity and be Instruments and Means to place most unlearned men in the chiefest Places and Livings of the Ministry thereby to make the state of the Bishops and Clergy contemptible and I fear salable This Hypocrisie and Dissembling with God and Man in pretending one thing and doing another goeth to my heart and maketh me think that God's Judgments are not far off The day will come when all mens hearts shall be opened In the mean time I will depend upon Him who never faileth those that put their trust in Him 21. It may be gathered from this Abstract what a hard Game that Reverend Prelate had to play when such great Masters in the Art held the Cards against him For at that time the Earls of Huntington and Leicester Walsingham Secretary of Estate and Knolls Comptroller of the Houshold a professed Genevian were his open Adversaries Burleigh a Neutral at the best and none but Hatton then Vicechamberlain and afterwards Lord Chancellor firmly for him And him he gained but lately neither but gained him at the last by the means of Dr. Richard Bancroft his Domestick Chaplain of whom we shall have cause to speak more hereafter By his procurement he was called to the Council-Table at such time as the Earl of Leicester was in Holland which put him into a capacity of going more confidently on without checks or crosses as before in the Church's Cause A thing which Leicester very much stomacked at his coming back but knowing it was the Queen's pleasure he disguised his trouble and appeared fair to him in the publick though otherwise he continued his former Favours to the Puritan Faction Sure of whose countenance upon the perfecting and publishing of the Book of Discipline they resolved to put the same in practise in most parts of the Realm as they did accordingly But it was no where better welcome than it was in London the Wealth and Pride of which City was never wanting to cherish and support those men which most apparently opposed themselves to the present Authority or practised the introducing of Innovations both in Church and State The several Churches or Conventicles rather which they had in that City they reduced into one great and general Classis of which Cartwright Egerton or Traverse were for the most part Moderators and whatsoever was there ordered was esteemed for current from thence the Brethren of other places did fetch their light and as doubts did arise thither they were sent to be resolved the Classical and Synodical Decrees of other places not being Authentical indeed till they were ratified in this which they held the Supreme Consistory and chief Tribunal of the Nation But in the Countrey none appeared more forward than they did in Northampton-shire which they divide into three Classes that is to say the Classis of Northampton Daventry and Kettring and the device forthwith is taken up in most parts of England but especially in Warwick-shire Suffolk Norfolk Essex c. In these Classes they determined in points of Doctrine interpreted hard places of Scripture delivered their Resolution in such Cases of Conscience as were brought before them decided Doubts and Difficulties touching Contracts of Marriage And whatsoever was concluded by such as were present but still with reference to the better judgment of the
wretched Popish priests and the Convocation-House of Devils and Belzebub of Canterbury the chief of these Devils The like Reproaches they bestow on the Common-Prayer of which they say That it is full of Corruption and that many of the Contents thereof are against the Word of God the Sacraments wickedly mangled and prophaned therein the Lord's Supper not eaten but made a Pageant or Stage-play and that the Form of publick Baptism is full of Childish Superstitious Toys So that we are not to admire if the Brownists please themselves in their separation from a Church so polluted and unreformed from men so wicked and prophane from such a Cinque of Satan such a Den of Devils But much less can we wonder that the Papists should make use of these horrible Slanders not only to confirm but encrease their Party By shewing them from the Pens of their greatest Adversaries what ugly Monsters had the Government of the Church of England from what Impieties they were preserved by not joyning with them One I am sure that is Parsons in his Book of Three Conversions reports these Calumnies and Slanders for undoubted Truths That Martin Mar-Prelate is affirmed by Sir Edwine Sandys to pass in those times for unquestion'd Credit in the Court of Rome his Authority much insisted on to disgrace this Church and finally that Kellison one of later date doth build as much upon the Credit of these Libels to defame the Clergy as if they had been dictated by the same Infallible Spirit which the Pope pretends to Such excellent Advantages did these Saints give unto the Devil that all the Locusts in the Revelation which came out of the Pit never created so much scandal to the Primitive times 28. To still these Clamours or at the least to stop the mouths of these Railing Rabshecha's that so the abused people on all sides might be undeceived as good a course was took by Whitgift and the rest of the Prelates as Human Wisdom could devise For first A grave Discourse is published in the year next following entituled An Admonition to the People of England in answer to the slanderous Untruths of Martin the Libeller But neither this nor any other grave Refutal would ever put them unto silence till they were undertaken by Tom Nash a man of a Sarcastical and jeering Wit who by some Pamphlets written in the like loose way which he called Pasquill and Marsorius The Counter-Scuffle Pappe with a Hatchet and the like stopped their mouths for ever none of them daring to deal further in that Commodity when they saw what Coyn they should be paid in by so frank a Customer Mention was made before of a sorry Pamphlet entituled The Complaint of the Commons for a Preaching-Ministry which Penry seconded by another called by the Name of A Supplication for Preaching in Wales In both which it was intimated to all sorts of people That the Gospel had no free passage amongst us That there was no care taken for Preaching the Word of God for the instruction of the people for want whereof they still remained in darkness and the shadow of death For the decrying of which scandalous and leud suggestions Order was given unto the Bishops to take the Names and Number of the Preachers in their several Diocesses and to present a true and perfect Catalogue of them in the Convocation which was then at hand By which Returns it will appear That at this time when so much noise was made for want of Preaching there were within the Realm of England and the Dominion of Wales no fewer than Seven thousand four hundred sixty three Preachers and Catechisers which last may be accounted the best sort of Preachers for the instruction of the people Of which great Number there were found to be no fewer than One hundred forty five Doctors in Divinity Three hundred forty eight Batchellors of Divinity Thirty one Doctors of both Laws Twenty one Batchelors of the same Eighteen hundred Masters in Arts Nine hundred forty six Batchelors of Arts and Two thousand seven hundred forty six Catechisers So that neither the number of bare Reading-Ministers was so great nor the want of Preaching so deplorable in most parts of the Kingdom as those Pamphlets made it the Authors whereof ought rather to have magnified the Name of God for sending such a large Encrease of Labourers in his Heavenly Husbandry as could not any where be parallel'd in so short a time there passing no more than Thirty years between the first beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and the rendring of this Account to the Convocation 29. And that the Parliament might receive the same satisfaction a most excellent and judicious Sermon was Preached at St. Paul's Cross on Sunday the ninth of February being the first Sunday after their Assembling by Dr. Richard Bancroft being then Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Hatton preferred within some few years after to the See of London and from thence to Canterbury In the performance of which Service he selected for the Theam or Subject of his Discourse 1 Iohn 4.1 viz. Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world In canvasing which Text he did so excellently set forth the false Teachers of those times in their proper colours their Railing against Bishops their Ambition their Self-love their Covetousness and all such Motives as had spurred them on to disturb this Church as satisfied the greatest part of that huge Congregation touching the Practises and Hypocrisies of these holy Brethren He also shewed on what a weak Foundation they had built their Discipline of which no tract or footsteps could be found in the Church of Christ from the Apostles days to Calvin and with what Infamy the Aerian Hereticks were reproached in the Primitive times for labouring to introduce that Parity which these men designed He further laid before them the great danger which must needs ensue if private men should take upon them to deny or dispute such matters as had been setled in the Church by so good Authority Against which troublesome Humour many Provisions had been made by the Canons of Councils and the Edicts of Godly and Religious Emperors To which he added the necessity of requiring Subscription in a Church well constituted by all the Ministers of the same which he justified by the example of Geneva and the Churches of Germauy to be the best way to try the spirits whether they be of God or not as his Text required Next he insisted on the excellency of the Common-Prayer-Book applauded by the Divines of Foreign Churches approved by Bucer Fox Alesius the Parliaments and Convocations of this Kingdom and after justified by Arch-bishop Cranmer against the Papists by Bishop Ridley against Knox and by divers others showing withall the many gross Absurdities found in extemporary Prayers to the great dishonour of God and the shame of Religion Hence he proceeds to justifie
for ever continue and maintain such their Right and Title in the Church's Government with all Equity and Christian Moderation 15. At this time grew the Heats also betwixt Hooker and Travers the first being Master of the Temple and the other Lecturer Hooker received his Education in Corpus Christi Colledg in Oxon from whence he came well stocked in all kind of Learning but most especially in Fathers Councils and other approved Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity Travers was bred in Trinity Colledg in Cambridg well skilled in the Oriental Tongues and otherwise better studied in Words than Matter being Cotemporary with Cartwright and of his Affection He sets up his studies in Geneva and there acquaints himself with Beza and the rest of that Consistory of whom and their new Discipline he grew so enamoured that before his coming into England he was made Minister as well at least as such hands could make him by the Presbytery of Antwerp as appears by their Certificate for I dare not call them Letters of Orders dated May 14 1578. Thus qualified he associates himself with Cartwright whom he found there at his coming in preaching to the Factory of English Merchants and follows him not long after into England also By the commendation of some Friends he was taken into the House of William Lord Burleigh whom he served first in the nature of a Pedagogue to his younger Son and after as one of his Chaplains Preferments could not chuse but come in his way considering the Greatness of his Master whose eminent Offices of Lord Treasurer Chief Secretary and Master of the Wards could not but give him many opportunities to prefer a Servant to the best places in the Church But Travers knew his incapacity to receive such Favours as neither lawfully ordained according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England nor willing to subscribe to such Rites and Ceremonies as he found were used in the same But being a great Factor for promoting the Holy Discipline he gets himself into the Lecture of the Temple which could not easily be denyed when the Chaplain of so great a Councellor was a Suitor for it 16. In this place he insinuates himself by all means imaginable into the good affections of many young Students and some great Lawyers of both Houses on whom he gained exceedingly by his way of Preaching graced with a comely Gesture and a Rhetorical manner of Elocution By which advantages he possest many of the long Robe with a strong affection to the devices of Geneva and with as great a prejudice to the English Hierarchy the fruits whereof discovered themselves more or less in all following Parliaments when any thing concerning the Church came in agitation And by the opportunity of this Place he had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Disciplinarians presiding for the most part in their Classical Meetings and from hence issuing their Directions to the rest of the Churches And so it stood till Hooker's coming to be Master who being a man of other Principles and better able to defend them in a way of Argument endeavoured to instruct his Auditors in such Points of Doctrine as might keep them in a right perswasion of the Church of England as well in reference to her Government as her Forms of Worship This troubled Travers at the heart as it could not otherwise to see that the fine Web which he had been so long in weaving should be thus unravell'd Rather than so Hooker shall tell them nothing in the Morning but what he laboured to confute in the Afternoon not doubting but that a great part of the Auditors would pass Sentence for him though the truth might run most apparently on the other side Hooker endured it for some time but being weary at the last of the opposition he complains thereof to the Arch-bishop who had deservedly a very great opinion of him and this Complaint being seasonably made in that point of time when Cartwright Snape and other Leading-men of the Puritan Faction were brought into the High Commission it was no hard matter for him to procure an Order to suppress his Adversary silenced from preaching in the Temple and all places else Which Order was issued upon these grounds that is to say That he was no lawfully ordained Minister according to the Church of England That he took upon him to preach without being licensed and That he had presumed openly to confute such Doctrine as had been publickly delivered by another Preacher without any notice given thereof to the lawful Ordinary contrary to a Provision made in the Seventh year of the Queen for avoiding Disturbances in the Church 17. But Travers was too stiff and too well supported to sit down on the first Assault He makes his supplication therefore to the Lords of the Council where he conceived himself as strong and as highly favoured as Hooker was amongst the Bishops and the High Commissioners In this Petition he complains of some obliquity in the proceedings had against him for want of some Legalities in the conduct of it But when he came to answer to the Charges which were laid upon him his Defences appeared very weak and flat and could not much conduce to his justification when they were seriously examined in the scale of Judgment His exercising the Ministry without lawful Orders he justified no otherwise than that by the Communion of Saints all Ordinations were of like Authority in a Christian Church The Bishop of London had commended him by two Letters unto that Society to be chosen Lecturer and That he took for a sufficient License as might enable him to preach to that Congregation And as for his confuting in the Afternoon what had been preached by Mr. Hooker in the morning before he conceived that he had warrant for it from St. Paul's example in withstanding St. Peter to his face for fear lest otherwise God's Truth might receive some prejudice The weakness and insufficiency of which Defences was presently made known in Hooker's Answer to the Supplication Which wrought so much upon the Lords and was so strongly seconded by the Arch-bishop himself that all the Friends which Travers had amongst them could not do him good especially when it was represented to them how dangerous a thing it was that a man of such ill Principles and of worse Affections should be permitted to continue in his former Lecture which what else were it in effect but to retain almost half the Lawyers of England to be of Councel in all Causes which concerned the Church whensoever those of the Genevian or Puritan Faction should require it of them But so it hapned and it hapned very well for Travers that the Queen had erected an University at Dublin in the year fore-going 1591 Founding therein a Colledg dedicated to the Holy Trinity to the Provostship whereof he was invited by the Arch-bishop of Dublin who had been once a Fellow of the same House with him Glad of which opportunity
But we will let them run unto the end of their Line and then pull them back 38. And first We will begin with the Conspiracies and Treasons of Francis Steward Earl of Bothwell Son of Iohn Prior of Coldingham one of the many Bastards of K. Iames the Fifth who by the Daughter and Heir of Iames Lord Hepborn the late Earl of Bothwell became the Father of this Francis A man he was of a seditious and turbulent nature principled in the Doctrines of the Presbyterians and thereby fitted and disposed to run their courses At first he joyned himself to the banished Lords who seized upon the King at Sterling not because he was any way engaged in their former Practises for which they had been forced to flye their Countrey but because he would ingratiate himself with the Lords of that Faction and gain some credit with the Kirk But being a man also of a dissolute Life gave such scandal to all Honest and Religious men that in the end to gain the Reputation of a Convert he was contented to be brought to the Stool of Repentance to make Confession of his Sins and promise Reformation for the time to come Presuming now upon the Favour of the Kirk he consults with Witches enquires into the Liâ—e of the King how long he was to reign and what should happen in the Kingdom after his decease and more than so deals with the Witch of Keith particularly to employ her Familiar to dispatch the King that he might set on foot some Title to the Crown of that Realm For which notorious Crimes and so esteemed by all the Laws both of God and Man he was committed unto Ward and breaking Prison was confiscated proclaimed Traytor and all Intelligence and Commerce interdicted with him After this he projects a Faction in the Court it self under pretence of taking down the Power and Pride of the Lord Chancellor then being But finding himself too weak to atchieve the Enterprise he departs secretly into England His Faction in the Court being formed with some more Advantage he is brought privily into the Palace of Haly-Rood House makes himself Master of the Gates secureth the Fort and violently attempts to seize the King But the King hearing of the noise retired himself to a strong Tower and caused all the Passages to be locked and barred Which Bothwell not being able to force he resolves to burn the Palace and the King together But before Fire could be made ready the Alarm was taken the Edenbourgers raised and the Conspirators compelled with the loss of some of their Lives to quit the place 39. The next year he attempts the like at Falkland where he showed himself with a Party of six-score Horse but the rest of the Conspirators not appearing he retires again is entertained privately by some eminent Persons and having much encreased his Faction lives concealed in England The Queen negotiates his return and by the Lord Burrough her Ambassador desires the King to take him into Grace and Favour Which being denyed a way is found to bring him into the King's Bed-chamber together with one of his Confederates with their Swords in their hands followed immediately by many others of the Faction by whom the King is kept in a kind of Custody till he had granted their Desires At last upon the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some of the Ministers of Edenborough who were of Counsel in the Plot the King is brought to condescend to these Conditions that is to say That Pardon should be given to Bothwell and his Accomplices for all matters past and that this Pardon should be ratified by Act of Parliament in November following That in the mean time the Lord Chancellor the Lord Hume the Master of Glammir and Sir George Hume who were all thought to favour the Popish Lords should be excluded from the Court. And finally That Bothwell and all his Party should be held good Subjects But these Conditions being extorted were not long made good Agreed on August the 14 th and declared void by a Convention of Estates at Sterling on the 7 th of September Some Troubles being raised upon this occasion and as soon blown over Bothwell is cited to appear at Edenborough and failing of his day is declared Rebel which only served to animate him to some greater Mischief For being under-hand assisted by the English Ambassador he prepares new Forces desires the Lords which were of his Confederacy to do the like under pretence of banishing to Popish Lords but in plain truth to make the King of no signification in the Power of Government Accompanied with Four hundred Horse he puts himself into Leith to the great affrightment of the King who was then at Edenborough But understanding that the rest of his Associates were not drawn together it was thought good to charge upon him with the Bands of that City and some Artillery from the Castle before his Numbers were encreased Which Counsel sped so well that he lost the day and therewith all his hopes in Scotland and in England too 40. For Queen Elizabeth being sensible at the last of the great Dishonour which she had drawn upon her self by favouring such an Infamous Rebel caused Proclamation to be made That no man should receive or harbour him within her Dominions And the Kirk moved by her Example and the King's Request when they perceived that he could be no longer serviceable to their Ends and Purposes gave Order that the Ministers in all Places should disswade their Flocks from concurring with him for the time to come or joyning with any other in the like Insurrections against that Authority which was divested by God in His Majesty's Person The Treasons and Seditious practises of which man I have laid together the better to express those continual Dangers which were threatned by him to the King by which He was reduced to the necessity of complying with the desires of the Kirk setling their Discipline and in all points conforming to them for His own preservation But nothing lost the Rebel more than a new Practise which he had with the Popish Lords whereby he furnished the King with a just occasion to lay him open to the Ministers and the rest of the Subjects in his proper colours as one that was not acted by a Zeal to Religion though under that disguise he masked his Ambitious Ends. In fine being despised by the Queen of England and Excommunicated by the Kirk for joyning with the Popish Lords he was reduced to such a miserable condition that he neither knew whom to trust nor where to flye Betrayed by those of his own Party by whom his Brother Hercules was impeached discovered and at last brought to Execution in the Streets at Edenborough he fled for shelter into France where finding sorry entertainment he removed into Spain and afterwards retired to Naples in which he spent the short remainder of his Life in Contempt and Beggery 41.
oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government in the Realm of Scotland their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. Lib. VI. Containing The beginning progress and proceedings of the Puritan Faction in the Realm of England in reference to their Innovations both in Doctrines and Forms of Worship their Opposition to the Church and the Rules thereof from the beginning of the Reign of King Edward VI 1548 to the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1572. Lib. VII Containing A Relation of their secret and open Practices the Schism and Faction by them raised for advancing the Genevian Discipline in the Church of England from the year 1572 to the year 1584. Lib. VIII Containing The Seditious Practices and positions of the said English Puritans their Libelling Railing and Reviling in order to the setting up of the holy Discipline from the year 1584 to the year 1589. The undutiful carriage of the French and the horrible insolencies of the Scottish Presbyters from the year 1585 to the year 1592. Lib. IX Containing Their Disloyalties Treasons and Seditions in France the Country of East-Friesland and the Isles of Britain but more particularly in England together with the several Laws made against them and the several exceptions in pursuance of them from the year 1589 to the year 1595. Lib. X. Containing A relation of their Plots and Practices in the Realm of England their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the year 1595 to year 1603. Lib. XI Containing Their successes either good or bad in England Scotland Ireland and the Isles of Jersey from the year 1602 to the year 1623 with somewhat touching their affairs as well in France and Sweden as the Belgick Provinces Lib. XII Containing Their tumultuating in the Belgick Provinces their Practices and Insurrections in the Higher-Germany the frustrating their designe on the Churches of Brandenberg the revolts of Transylvania Hungary Austria and Bohemia and the Rebellions of the French from the year 1610 to the year 1628. Lib. XIII Containing The Insurrection of the Presbyterian and Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland the Rebellions raised by them in England their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline and the great Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1536 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independants Advervisement of Books newly printed The History of the late Wars in Denmark comprizing all the Transactions both Military and Civil during the differences betwixt the two Northern Crowns in the years 1657 1658 1659 1660. Illustrated with several Maps By R. Manley To be sold by Tho. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet A Help to English History Containing a Succession of all the Kings of England the English Saxons and the Britains the Kings and Princes of Wales the Kings and Lords of Man the Isle of Wight As also of all the Dukes Marquesses Earls and Bishops thereof with the description of the places from whence they had their Titles continued and enlarged with the names and ranks of the Viscounts Barons and Baronets to the year 1669. By Peter Heylyn AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB I Containing The first institution of Presbyterie in the Town of Geneva the Arts and Practices by which it was imposed on the neck of that City and pressed upon all the Churches of the Reformation together with the dangerous Principles and Positions of the chief Countrivers in the pursuance of that project from the year 1536 to the year 1585. AT such time as it pleased God to raise up Martin Luther a Divine of Saxonie to write against the errours and corruptions of the Church of Rome Vlderick Zuinglius a Cannon of the Church of Zurick endeavoured the like Reformation amongst the Switzers but holding no intelligence with one another they travailed divers ways in pursuance of it which first produced some Animosities between themselves not to be reconciled by a personal Conference which by the Lantgrave of Hassia was procured between them but afterwards occasioned far more obstinate ruptures between the followers of the parties in their several stations The Zuinglian Reformation was begun in defacing Images decrying the established Fasts and appointed Festivals abolishing set forms of worship denying the old Catholick Doctrine of a real presence and consequently all external reverence in the participation of the blessed Sacrament which Luther seriously laboured to preserve in the same estate in which he found them at the present They differed also in the Doctrine of Predestination which Luther taught according to the current of the ancient Fathers who lived and flourished before the writings of St. Augustine so that the Romanists had not any thing to except against in that particular when it was canvassed by the School-men in the Council of Trent But Zuinglius taught as was collected from his writings That God was the total cause of all our Works both good and evil that the Adultery of David the cruelty of Manlius and the treason of Iudas were the works of God as well as the vocation of Saul that no man hath power to think well or ill but that all cometh of absolute necessity that man doth nothing towards his Predestination or Reprobation but all is in the Will of God that the Predestinate cannot be condemned nor the Reprobate saved that the Elect and Predestinate are truely justified that the justified are bound by Faith to believe they are in the number of the Predestinated that the justified cannot fall from Grace but is rather bound to believe that if he chance to fall from Grace he shall receive it again and finally that those who are not in the number of the Predestinate shall never receive Grace though offered to them Which difference being added unto that of the Sacrament and eagerly pursued on both sides occasioned such a mortal and implacable hatred between the parties that the Lutherans have solemnly vowed rather to fall off roundly to the Church of Rome then yeild to those Predestinarian and Sacramentary pestilences as they commonly called them But Zuinglius in the mean time carried it amongst the Switzers five of those thirteen Cantons entertain his Doctrine the like did also divers Towns and Seignories which lay nearest to them of which Geneva in a short time became most considerable 2. Geneva is a City of the Alpian Provinces belonging anciently to the Allobroges and from thence called Aurelia Allobrogum by some Latine writers scituated on the South-side of the Lake Lemane opposite to the City of Lozanne in the Canton of Berne from which it is distant six Dutch Miles the River Rhosâ—o having passed through the lake with so clear a colour that it seemeth not at all to mingle with the waters of it runeth
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
the Sixth brought thither by the noise of so great a Schism that the Liturgie of England was again restored Knox was so far from yeilding to the Gravity and Authority of that Learned man that he inveighed against him in the Pulpit without fear or wit But Cox not able to endure a baffle from so mean a fellow informs against him to the Senate touching some passages in one of his Seditious Pamphlets in which it is affirmed that Queen Mary whom elsewhere he calls by the odious name of Iesabel and a Traytoress to England ought not to joyn her self in Marriage with the Emperours Son because the Emperour himself maintained Idolatry and was a greater Enemy to Christ then ever was Nero. Knox hereupon departs by Moon-light but howsoever quits the Town and retires to Geneva leaving the Liturgie for the present in a better condition then he had found it at hiâ— first coming thither But Cox considering with himself how necessary Calvins favour might be to him salutes him with a civil Letter subscribed by himself and fourteen others all of them being men of Note in their several places In which they excused themselves for having set that Church in order without his advice not without some rejoycing that they had brought the greatest part of those who withstood their doings to be of the same Opinion with them Which how agreeable it was to Calvin may be seen by his return to Cox and his adherents Coxo Gregalibus suis as the Latine hath it bearing date Iune 14. 1555. 19. In which Letter having first craved pardon for not writing sooner he lets them know that he had freely signified to Dr. Sampson a very fit man to be acquainted with his secrets what he conceived of the Disputes which were raised at Frankfort as also that he had been certified by some Friends of his who complained much of it that they did stand so strictly on the English Ceremonies as shewed them to be too much wedded to the Rites of their Country And further certified that he had heard somewhat of those Reasons which they stood on most for not receding any thing from the Form established but they were such as might receive an easie Answer that he had writ to those of the opposite party to carry themselves with moderation in the present business though nothing was therein remitted by Cox and his and howsoever was now glad to hear that the difference was at last composed He speaks next touching their retaining of Crosses Tapers and such other trifles of that nature proceeding at the first from superstition and thereupon infers that they who so earnestly contended for them when it was in their choice not to do it did draw too neer upon the dregs He adds that he could see no Reason why they should charge the Church with frivolous and impertinent Ceremonies which he should no way wrong if he called them dangerous when they were left at liberty to compose an Order for themselves more pure and simple that in his judgement it was done with little Piety and less brotherly Love on any clancular informations to call Knox in question for so I understood him by his letter N and that they had done better to have stay'd at home then to have kindled the coals by such a piece of unjust cruelty in a Forreign Country by which others also were inflamed and finally that he had written howsoever unto some of the adverse party of whose intent to leave that place he had been advertised that they should continue where they were and not violate the League of their Friendship by their separations with other things to that effect But notwithstanding this advice many of the Schismatical party removed from Frankfort and put themselves into Geneva the principal of which were Whittingham Knox Goodman and he which afterwards was able to do more then all the rest Mr. Francis Knollis allyed by Marriage to the Caryes descended from a younger Sister of Queen Anne Bullen and consequently neer of Kin to Queen Elizabeth These men grew very great with Calvin with whose good leave they put themselves into the form of a Congregation chose Knox and Goodman for their Brethren and in all points conformed themselves to the Rules of that Church which afterwards they laboured to promore in England and actually did effect in Scotland to the no small disturbance of either Kingdom By the perswasion of these men he is resolved to try his Fortune once again on the Church of England before the resetling of the Liturgie under Queen Elizabeth might render the design impossible or at least unprosperous To which end he addresseth his desires to the Queen her self at her first coming to the Crown The like he doth to Mr. Secretary Cecil by his Letters bearing date the 17 of Ianuary 1558 in which he makes mention of the other in both he spurs them on to a Reformation complaining that they had not shewed such a forwardness in it as all good men expected and that cause required But above all things he desires that a pure and perfect Worship of God may be fully setled that the Church may be throughly purged of its former filth and that the Children of God in England might be left at liberty to use such purity in all Acts of publick Worship as to them seemed best And what else could he aim at by these expressions comparing them with the Contents of his two last Letters but that the former Liturgie should be abolished or brought unto a neerer conformity to the Rules of Geneva or at the least that liberty might be left to the godly party to use any other Form of Worship which they though more pure But finding no such good return to either Letter as he had promised to himself he leaves the cause to be pursued by such English Zealots as he had trained up at Geneva or otherwise had setled their abode amongst the Switzers where all set Forms of Worship were as much decryed as they were with him And that they might not slacken in the midst of their course he recommends the general Superintendents of the Church of England to the care of Beza who after his decease succeeded both in his place and power of whose pragmaticalness in pursuing this design against the Liturgie condemning all established Orders of this Church his interposing in behalf of such of his Followers as had heen silenced suspended or deprived for their inconformity we shall speak more large at when we come to England 20. There happened another quarrel in the Church of England and he must needs make himself a party in it Mr. Iohn Hooper having well deserved by his pains in preaching and publishing some Books which very much conduced to the peace of the Church is nominated by the King to the See of Glocester Willing enough he was to accept the charge but he had lived so long at Zurick in the Reign of King Henry where there
that there was no necessity of Lay-elders to be Ministers of it 40. But his main business was to settle the Calvinian Forms in the Realms of Britain in which he aimed at the acquiring of as great a name as Calvin had obtained in France or Poland Knox had already so prevailed amongst the Scots that though they once subscribed to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England yet he had brought them to admit such a Form of Worship as came more neer to the Example of Geneva And he had brought the Discipline to so good a forwardness that Beza was rather wanting to confirm then to introduce it as shall appear at large when we come to Scotland But Knox had many opportunities to effect his business during the absence of their Queen the Regencie of Queen Mary of Lorreign and the unsettledness of affairs in the State of that Kingdom which the Brethren could not finde in England where the Fabrick of the State was joyned together with such Ligaments of Power and Wisdom that they were able to act little and effect much less Some opposition they had made after their coming back from Frankfort and Geneva their two chief Retreats against the Vestments of the Church and the distinction of Apparel betwixt Priests and Lay-men In which some of them did proceed with so vain an obstinacie that some of them were for a time suspended and others totally deprived of their Cures and Benefices some of them also had begun to take exception against some parts and Offices of the publick Liturgie refusing thereupon to conform unto it and thereupon likely to incur the very same penalties which were inflicted on the other In both these cases they consult the Oracle resolving to adhere to his determination in them whatsoever it was First therefore he applyes himself to Grindal then Bishop of London and very zealously affected to the name of Calvin to whom he signifies by his Letter of the 26 of Iune 1566 how much he was afflicted with the sad reports out of France and Germany by which he was advertised that many Ministers in England being otherwise unblamable both for Life and Doctrine had been exauctorated or deprived by the Queens Authority the Bishops giving their consent and approbation onely for not subscribing to some Rites and Ceremonies but more particularly that divers of them were deprived not onely for refusing to wear those Vestments which were peculiar to Baals Priests in the times of Popery but for not conforming to some Rites which had degenerated into most shameful superstitions such as the Cross in Baptism kneeling at the Communion and the like to these That Baptism was admitted sometimes by Midwives That power was left unto the Queen to Ordain other Rites and Ceremonies as she saw occasion and finally that the Bishops were invested with the sole Authority for ordering matters in the Church the other Ministers not advised with or consulted in them 41. Such is the substance of his charge against each particular point whereof he bends his forces as if he had a minde to batter down the Bulwarks of the Church of England and lay it open to Geneva I shall not note how much he blames the Ancient Fathers for bringing in so many Ceremonies into use and practice which either had been borrowed from the Iews or derived from the Gentiles or how he magnifieth the nakedness and simplicity of those Forreign Churches which abominate nothing more then such outward trappings But the result of all is this that whatsoever Rite or Ceremony was either brought into the Church from the Iews or Gentiles not warranted by the institution of Christ or by any Examples of the Apostles as also all significant Ceremonies which by no right were at first brought into the Church ought all at once to be prohibited and suppressed there being no hope that the Church would otherwise be restored to her native Beauty I onely note that he compares the Cross in Baptism to the Brazen Serpent abused as much to Superstition and Idolatry and therefore to be abrogated with as great a Zeal in a Church well ordered as that Image was destroyed by King Hezekiah He falls soul also on that manner of singing which was retained in the Queens Chappels all the Cathedrals and some Parish-Churches of this Kingdom because perhaps it was set forth with Organs and such Musical Instruments as made it sitter in his judgement to be used in Dancing then in Sacred actions and tended more to please the ears then to raise the affections Nor seems he better pleased with that Authority which was enjoyed and exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury in granting Licenses for Pluralities non-Residence contracting Marriages in the Church and eating Flesh on days prohibited with many other things of that nature which he accounts not onely for so many stains and blemishes in the Face of Christendom but for a manifest defection even from Christ himself in which respect they rather were to be commended then condemned and censured that openly opposed themselves against such corruptions 42. Yet notwithstanding these complaints he grants the matters in dispute and the Rites prescribed to be things indifferent not any way impious in themselves nor such as should necessitate any man to forsake his Flock rather then yeild obedience and conformity to them But then he adds that if they do offend who rather chuse to leave their Churches then to conform themselves to those Rites and Vestments against their Consciences a greater guilt must be contracted by those men before God and his Angels who rather chuse to spoil these Flocks of able Pastors then suffer those Pastors to make choice of their own Apparel or rather chuse to rob the people of the Food of their souls then suffer them to receive it otherwise then upon their knees But in his Letter of the next year he adventureth further and makes it his request unto all the Bishops that some fit Medicine be forthwith applyed to the present mischief which did not onely give great scandal to the weak and ignorant but even to many Learned and Religious Persons And this he seems to charge upon them as they will answer for the contrary at the Judgement-Seat of Almighty God to whom an account is to be given of the poorest Sheep which should be forced to wander upon this occasion from the rest of the Flock Between the writing of which Letters some of their brethren had propounded their doubts unto him touching the calling of the Ministers as it was then and still is used in the Church of England the wearing of the Cap and Surplice and other Vestments of the Clergy which was then required the Musick and melodious singing in Cathedral Churches the interrogatories proposed to Infants at the time of their Baptism the signing of them with the sign of the Cross kneeling at the Communion administring the same in unleavened Bread though the
Bishops were the first means to advance the Pope so the pretended Bishops would maintain the Relicks of Popery And then he adds that it concerns all those to avoid that plague by which he meanâ— undoubtedly the Episcopal Order who pretend to any care of the Churches safety And therefore since they had so happily discharged that calling in the Church of Scotland they never should again admit it though it might flatter them with some assurance of peace and unity 46. What followed thereupon in Scotland we shall see hereafter But his desires of propagating the Genevian Forms was not to be restrained to that part of the Island In his first Letter unto Grindal he doth not onely justifie the Genevian Discipline and the whole Order of that Church in Sacred Offices as grounded on the Word of God but findes great fault with the Episcopal Government in the Church of England and the great power which was ascribed unto the Queen in Spiritual Matters How so Because said he he found no warrant for it in the Word of God or any of the ancient Canons by which it might be lawful for the Civil Magistrate of his own Authority either to abrogate old Ceremonies or establish new or for the Bishops onely to ordain and determine any thing without the judgement and consent of their Presbyteries being first obtained And in his answer to the Queries of the English brethren he findes no less fault with the manner of proceedings in the Bishops Courts in regard that Excommunications were not therein passed by the common consent of a Presbytery but decreed onely by some Civil Lawyers or other Officers who faâ—e as Judges in the same But first the man was ignorant of the course of those Courts in which the sentence of Excommunication is never published or pronounced but by the mouth of a Minister ordained according to the Rules of the Church of England And secondly it is to be conceived in Reason that any Batchelor or Doctor of the Civil Law is far more fit to be imployed and trusted in the exercise of that part of Discipline then any Trades-man of Geneva though possibly of the number of the five and twenty For the redress of which great mischief and of many other he applies himself unto the Queen to whom he dedicates his Annotations on the New Testament published in the year 1572. In the Epistle whereunto though he acknowledgeth that she had restored unto this Kingdom the true Worship of God yet he insinuates that there was wanting a full Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline that our Temples were not fully purged that some high places still remained not yet abolished and therefore wisheth that those blemishes might be removed and those wants supplyed Finally understanding that a Parliament was then shortly to be held in England and that Cartwright had prepared an Admonition to present unto it he must needs interpose his credit with a Peer of the Realm to advance the service as appears plainly by his Letter of the same year and the Nones of Iuly In which though he approves the Doctrine yet he condemns the Government of the Church as most imperfect not onely destitute of many things which were good and profitable but also of some others which were plainly necessary 47. But here it is to be observed that in his Letter to this great person whosoever he was he seems more cautelous and reserved then in that to Grindal but far more modest then in those to Knox and the English Brethren The Government of England was so well setled as not to be ventured on too rashly And therefore he must first see what effect his counsels had produced in Scotland before he openly assaults the English Hierarchy But finding all things there agreeable to his hopes and wishes he published his Tract De Triplici Episcopatu calculated for the Meridian onely of the Kirk of Scotland as being writ at the desire of the Lord Chancellor Glammis but so that it might generally serve for all Great Britain In which Book he informs his Reader of three sorts of Bishops that is to say the Bishop by Divine Institution being no other then the Minister of a particular Church or Congregation the Bishop by humane appointment being the same onely with the President of a Convocation or the Moderator as they phrase it in some Church-assembly and finally the Devils Bishops such as presume to take upon them the whole charge of a Diocess together with a superiority and jurisdiction over other Ministers Which Book was afterwards translated into English by Feild of Wandsworth for the instruction and content of such of the Brethren as did not understand the Latine To serve as a Preface to which Work the Presbyterian Brethren publish their Seditious Pamphlets in defence of the Discipline some in the English Tongue some in the Latine but all of them Printed at Genâ—va For in the year 1570 comes out The plain and full Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God without the name of any Author to gain credit to it And Traverse a furious Zealot amongst the English had published at Geneva also in the Latine Tongue a discourse of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God as it was pretended with the declining of the Church of England from the same Anno 1574 which for the same reason must be turned into English also and Printed at Geneva with Beza's Book Anno 1580. What pains was took by some of the Divines of England but more particularly by Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and Dr. Adrian Saravia preferred upon the merit of this service in the Church of Westminster shall be remembred in a place more proper for it when we shall come to a review of those disturbances which were occasioned in this Church by the Puritan Faction Most of which did proceed from no other Fountain then the pragmaticalness of Beza the Doctrines of Calvin and the Example of Geneva which if they were so influential on the Realms of Britain though lying in a colder climate and so far remote it is to be presumed that they were far more powerful in France and Germany which lay nearer to them and in the last of which the people were of a more active and Mercurial Spirit 48. What influence Calvin had upon some of the Princes Cities and Divines of Germany hath been partly touched upon before and how his Doctrines did prevail in the Palatine Churches and his Discipline in many parts and Provinces of the Germane Empire may be shown hereafter In France he held intelligence with the King of Navar the Brethren of Rouen Aix Mont-Pelier and many leading men of the Hugonot party none of which can be thought to have asked his counsel about purchasing Lands the Marriages of their Children or the payment of Debts And when the Fortune of the Wars and the Kings just anger necessitated many of them to forsake their Country they
found no place so open to them as the Town of Geneva and none more ready to befriend them then Calvin was whose Letters must be sent to all the Churches of the Switzers and the Neighbouring Germany for raising Contributions and Collections toward their relief which so exasperated the French King that he threatned to make War upon the Town as the fomenter of those discords which embroyled his Kingdom the Receptacle of his Rebels the Delphos as it were of that Sacred Oracle which Soveraignly directed all affairs of moment But of these things and how Beza did co-operate to the common troubles which did so miserably distract the peace of France shall be delivered more particularly in the following Book 49. As for the Town and Territory of Geneva it self it had so far submitted unto their Authority that Calvin wanted nothing of a Bishop in it but the name and title The City of Geneva had been anciently an Episcopal See consisting of many Parishes and Country Villages all subject by the Rules of the Discipline unto one Presbytery of which Calvin for the term of his life had the constant Precedency under the style of Moderator without whom nothing could done which concerned the Church And sitting as chief President in the Court or Consistory he had so great an influence on the Common-council as if he had been made perpetual Dictator also for ordering the affairs of the Common-wealth The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Beza also for the space of ten years or thereabouts after his decease At what time Lambertus Danaeus one of the Ministers of that City thinking himself inferiour to him in no part of Scholarship procured the Presidency in that Church to go by turns that he and others might be capable of their courses in it By which means the Genevians being freed from those powerful Riders would never suffer themselves to be bridled as they had been formerly For thereupon it was concluded by a Decree of the Senate that the Presbytery should have no power to convent any man before them till the Warrant was first signed by one of the Syndicks Besides which curb as the Elders are named by the lesser Council and confirmed by the greater the Ministers advice being first had in the nomination so do they take an Oath at their admission to keep the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Civil Magistrate In which respect their Consistory doth not challenge an exorbitant and unlimited power as the Commissioners of Christ as they did afterwards in Scotland but as Commissioners of the State or Signiory by which they are restrained in the exercise of that Jurisdiction which otherwise they might and would have challenged by their first institution and seemed at first a yoke too insupportable for the necks of the people In reference to their Neighbouring Princes their City was so advantageously seaâ—ed that even their Popish Neighbours were more ready to support and aid them then suffer the Town to fall into the power of the Duke of Savoy And then it is not to be doubted but such States and Kingdoms as were Zealous in the Reformation did liberally contribute their assistance to them The conâ—â—uence of so many of the French as had retired thither in the heat of the Civil Wars had brought a miserable Plague upon them by which their numbers were so lessened and their strength so weakned that the Duke of Savoy took the oppornity to lay Siege unto it In which distress they supplicate by Letters to all their Friends or such as they conceived might wish well unto them in the cause of Religion and amongst others to some Bishops and Noble-men of the Church of England Anno 1582. But Beza having writ to Traverse a most Zealous Puritan to negotiate in it the business sped the worse for the Agents sake no great supply being sent unto them at that time But afterwards when they were distressed by the Savoyard Anno 1589 they were relieved with thirteen thousand Crowns from England twenty four thousand Crowns from the State of Venice from France and Florence with intelligence of the enemies purposes onely the Scots though otherwise most zealous in advancing the Discipline approved themselves to be true Scots or false Brethren to them For having raised great sums of mony under pretence of sending seasonable relief to their friends in Geneva the most part of it was assigned over to the Earl of Bothwel then being in Rebellion against their King and having many ways endeavoured to surprise his person and in fine to take away his life But this prank was not play'd until some years after and therefore falls beyond the time of my design which was and is to draw down the successes of the Presbyterians in their several Countries till the year 1585 and then to take them all together as they related unto England or were co-incident with the Actions and Affairs thereof But we must make our way by France as lying nearest to the practices of the Mother-City though Scotland at a greater distance first took fire upon it and England was as soon attempted as the French themselves The end of the first Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB II. Containing The manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. 1. THe Realm of France having long suffered under the corruptions of the Church of Rome was one of the first Western Kingdoms which openly declared against those abuses Beringarius in the Neighbouring Italy had formerly opposed the Gross and Carnal Doctrines of the Papists in the point of the Sacrament Whose opinions passing into France from one hand to another were at last publickly maintained by Peter Waldo one of the Citizens of Lyons who added thereunto many bitter invectives against the Supremacy of the Pope the Adoration of Images the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Purgatory His Followers from the place of his Habitation were at first called in contempt The poor men of Lyons as afterwards from the name of their Leader they were by the Latines called Waldenses by the French Les Vandoise But Lyons proving no safe place for them they retired into the more desert parts of Languedock and spreading on the banks of the River Alby obtained the name of Albigenses in the Latine Writers and of Les Albigeoise in the French supported by Raymond the Fourth Earl of Tholouse they became so insolent that they murthered Trincanel their Viscount in the City Beziers and dasht out the teeth of their Bishop having taken Sanctuary in St. Magdalens Church one of the Churches of that City For which high outrages and many others of like nature which ensued upon them they were warred upon by Lewis the Ninth of France Sirnamed the Saint and many Noble adventurers who sacrificed many of them in the self-same Church wherein they had spilt the
as much disquieted and as apt for action as the Princes of the House of Bourbon for the former Reasons Many designs were offered to consideration in their private Meetings but none was more likely to effect their business then to make themselves the Heads of the Hugonot Faction which the two Chastilions had long favoured as far as they durst By whose assistance they might draw all affairs to their own disposing get the Kings person into their power shut the Queen-mother into a Cloyster and force the Guises into Lorrain out of which they came 5. This counsel was the rather followed because it seemed most agreeable to the inclinations of the Queen of Navar Daughter of Henry of Albret and the Lady Margaret before-mentioned and Wife of Anthony Duke of Vendosm who in her Right acquired the title to that Kingdom Which Princess being naturally averse from the Popes of Rome and no less powerfully transported by some flattering hopes for the recovery of her Kingdoms conceived no expedient so effectual to revenge her self upon the one and Inthrone her self in the other as the prosecuting this design to the very utmost Upon which ground she inculcated nothing more into the ears of her Husband then that he must not suffer such an opportunity to slip out of his hands for the recovery of the Crown which belonged unto her that he might make himself the Head of a mighty Faction containing almost half the strength of France that by so doing he might expect assistance from the German Princes of the same Religion from Queen Elizabeth of England and many discontented Lords in the Belgick Provinces besides such of the Catholick party even in France it self as were displeased at the Omni-Regency of the House of Guise that by a strong Conjunction of all these interesses he might not onely get his ends upon the Guises but carry his Army cross the Mountains make himself Master of Navar with all the Rights and Royalties appertaining to it But all this could not so prevail on the Duke her Husband whom we will henceforth call the King of Navar as either openly or under-hand to promote the enterprise which he conceived more like to hinder his affairs then to advance his hopes For the Queen-Mother having some intelligence of these secret practices sends for him to the Court commends unto his care her Daughter the Princess Isabella affianced to Philip the Second King of Spain and puts him chief into Commission for delivering her upon the Borders to such Spanish Ministers as were appointed to receive her All which she did as she assured him for no other ends but out of the great esteem which she had of his person to put him into a fair way for ingratiating himself with the Catholick King and to give him such a hopeful opportunity for solliciting his own affairs with the Grandees of Spain as might much tend to his advantage upon this imployment Which device had so wrought upon him and he had been so finely fitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King that he thought himself in a better way to regain his Kingdom then all the Hugonots in France together with their Friends in Germany and England could chalk out unto him 6. But notwithstanding this great coldness in the King of Navar the business was so hotly followed by the Prince of Conde the Admiral Colligny and his brother D' Andelot that the Hugonots were drawn to unite together under the Princes of that House To which they were spurred on the faster by the practices of Godfrey de la Bar commonly called Renaudie from the name of his Signiory a man of a most mischievous Wit and a dangerous Eloquence who being forced to abandon his own Country for some misdemeanors betook himself unto Geneva where he grew great with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistory and coming back again in the change of times was thought the fittest instrument to promote this service and draw the party to a body Which being industriously pursued was in fine effected many great men who had before concealed themselves in their affections declaring openly in favour of the Reformation when they perceived it countenanced by such Potent Princes To each of these according as they found them qualified for parts and power they assigned their Provinces and Precincts within the limits whereof they were directed to raise Men Arms Money and all other necessaries for carrying on of the design but all things to be done in so close a manner that no discovery should be made till the deed was done By this it was agreed upon that a certain number of them should repair to the King at Bloise and tender a Petition to him in all humble manner for the Free exercise of the Religion which they then professed and for professing which they had been persecuted in the days of his Father But these Petitioners were to be backed with multitudes of armed men gathered together from all parts on the day appointed who on the Kings denyal of so just a suit should violently break into the Court seize on the person of the King surprise the Queen and put the Guises to the Sword And that being done Liberty was to be Proclaimed Free exercise of Religion granted by publick Edict the managery of affairs committed to the Prince of Conde and all the rest of the Confederates gratified with rewards and honours Impossible it was that in a business which required so many hands none should be found to give intelligence to the adverse party which coming to the knowledge of the Queen-Mother and the Duke of Guise they removed the Court from Bloise a weak open Town to the strong Castle of Amboise pretending nothing but the giving of the King some recreation in the Woods adjoyning But being once setled in the Castle the King is made acquainted with the threatned danger the Duke of Guise appointed Lieutenant-General of the Realm of France And by his care the matter was so wisely handled that without making any noise to affright the Confederates the Petitioners were admitted into the Town whilst in the mean time several Troopes of Horse were sent out by him to fall on such of their accomplices as were well armed and ready to have done the mischief if not thus prevented 7. The issue of the business was that Renaudie the chief Actor in it was killed in the fight many of the rest slain and some taken Prisoners the whole body of them being routed and compelled to flee yet such was the clemencie of the King and the diâ—creet temper of the Guises in the course of this business that a general pardon was proclaimed on the 18 of March being the third day after the Execution to all that being moved onely with the Zeal to Religion had entred themselves into the Conspiracie if within twenty four hours they laid down their Arms and retired to their own Houses But this did little edifie with those hot spirits which had
the Government both of Church and State Some Hugonots which afterwards were took in Gascoyne and by the Marshal of Monluck were exposed to torture are said to have confessed upon the Rack that it was really intended to kill the King together with the Queen and the two young Princes and having so cut off the whole Royal Line to set the Crown upon the head of the Prince of Conde But Charity and Christianity bids me think the contrary and to esteem of this report as a Popish Calumny devised of purpose to create the greater hatred against the Authors of those Wars 27. But whether it were true or not certain it is that the design was carryed with such care and closeness that the Queen had hardly time enough to retire to Meux a little Town twelve Leagues from Paris before the whole Body of the Hugonots appeared in sight from whence they were with no less difficulty conducted by the Switz whom they had suddenly drawn together to the Walls of Paris the Switz being charged upon the way by no fewer then eleven hundred Horse and D' Andelot in the head of one of the parties but gallantly making good their March and serving to the King and the Royal Family for a Tower or Fortress no sooner were they come to Paris but the Hugonots take a resolution to besiege the City before the Kings Forces could assemble to relieve the same To which end they possessed themselves of all the passes upon the River by which provisions came into it and burned down all the Wind-mills about the Town which otherwise might serve for the grinding of such Corn as was then within it No better way could be devised to break this blow then to entertain them with a Parley for an accommodation not without giving them some hope of yeilding unto any conditions which could be reasonably required But the Hugonots were so exorbitant in their demands that nothing would content them but the removing of the Queen from publick Government the present disbanding of the Kings Forces the sending of all strangers out of the Kingdom a punctual execution of the Kings Edict of Ianuary liberty for their Ministers to Preach in all places even in Paris it self and finally that Calice Metz and Havre-de-grace might be consigâ—ed unto them for Towns of caution but in plain truth to serve them for the bringing in of the English and Germans when their occasion so required The Treaty notwithstanding was continued by the Queen with great dexterity till the King had drawn together sixteen thousand men with whom the Constable gives battel to the Enemy on the 10 of November compels them to dislodge makes himself master of the Field but dyed the next day after in the eightieth year of his age having received his deaths wound from the hands of a Switz who most unmanfully shot him when he was not in condition to make any resistance 28. In the mean time the City of Orleance was surprised by the Hugonots with many places of great importance in most parts of the Realm which serving rather to distract then increase their Forces they were necessitated to seek out for some Forraign aid Not having confidence enough to apply themselves to the Queen of England whom in the business of Newhaven they had so betrayed they send their Agents to sollicite the Elector Palatine and prevailed with him for an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot to which the miserable Country is again exposed Encouraged with which great supplies they laid Siege to Chartres the principal City of La Beaue the loss whereof must of necessity have subjected the Parisians to the last extremities The chief Commanders in the Kings Army were exceeding earnest to have given them battel thereby to force them from the Siege But the Queen not willing to venture the whole State of the Kingdom upon one cast of the Dice especially against such desperate Gamesters who had nothing to lose but that which they carryed in their hands so plyed them with new Offers for accommodation that her conditions were accepted and the Germans once again disbanded and sent back to their Country During which broyls the Town of Rochel strongly sâ—ituated on a bay of the Ocean had declared for the Hugonots and as it seems had gone so far that they had left themselves no way to retreat And therefore when most other places had submitted to the late Accord the Rochellers were resolved to stand it out and neither to admit a Garrison nor to submit to any Governour of the Kings appointment in which rebellious obstinacy they continued about sixty years the Town being worthily esteemed for the safest sanctuary to which the Hugonots retired in all times of dangeâ— and most commodious for the letting in of a forraign army when they found any ready to befriend them in that cause and quarrel The standing out of which Town in such obstinate manner not only encouraged many others to doe the like but by the fame thereof drew thither both the Admiral and the Prince of Conde with many other Gentlemen of the Hugonot Faction there to consult about renewing of the war which they were resolved on To whom repaired the Queen of Navarre with the Prince her Son then being but fifteen years of age whom she desired to train up in that holy war upon an hope that he might one day come to be the head of that party as he after was And here being met they publish from hence two several Manifests one in the name of all the Hugonots in general the other in the name of that Queen alone both tending to the same effect that is to say the putting of some specious colour upon their defection and to excuse the breaking of the peace established by the necessity of a warre 29. This rapture so incensed the King and his Council that they resolved no longer to make use of such gentle medicines as had been formerly applyed in the like distempers which resolution was the parent of that terrible Edict by which the King doth first revoke all the former Edicts which had been made during his minority in favour of the Reformed Religion nullifying more particularly the last capitulations made only in the way of Provision to redress those mischiefs for which no other course could be then resolved on And that being done it was ordained and commanded That the exercise of any other Religion then the Roman Catholick ever observed by him and the King his Predecessors should be prohibited and expresly forbidden and interdicted in all places of the Kingdom banished all the Calvinist Ministers and Preachers out of all the Towns and places under his Dominion and within fifteen days upon pain of death to avoid the Realm pardoned through special grace all things past in matters of Religion but requiring for the future under pain of death a general Conformity to the Rites of the Catholick Church and finally ordained that no person should
the chief Church of Heidelberg the principal City of the lower Palatinate and the chief Seat of his 〈◊〉 The news whereof encouraged all the rest of the Protestant Princes to congratulate with him and to desire him to embrace the Confession of Ausberge to which he readâ—ly accorded and setled all things in his Countries by the Lutheran Model as well for Government and Doctrine as for Forms of Worship In which condition it continued during the residue of his life and the short Government of Otho-Henry who succeeded him in those Estates and was the last of the direct Line of the House of Bavaria After whose death Anno 1559 succeeded Frederick Duke of Simmeren descended from Steven Palatine of Zuidbrook or Bipont younger son of the Emperour Rupert From whom the Princes of the other House had delivered their Pedigree Which Prince succeeding by the name of Frederick the Third appeared more favourable to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Forms animated thereunto by some â—eedy Courtiers in hope to make a prey of â—lebe and Tythes and other poor remainders of the Churches Patrimony 2. For the advancing of this Work Gualâ—er a very moderate and learned man is desired from Zurick and cheerfully undertakes the Service in which he prospered so well that he took off most of the Princes from their former opinions and brought them to conform their judgements in all points of Doctrine to the Confession of the Switzer or Helvetian Churches The Discipline of which Churches differed at that time from Calâ—ins Platform as appears clearly by some passages in a Letter of Bullingers bearing date Decemb. 13. 1553 when Calvin was necessitated to beg some tolerable approbation of his new Device For there it is expresly said that though their Discipline at Zurick and the rest of the Cantons agreed not in all points with that of the Consistory which had been setled at Geneva but was accommodated to the temper of their own Dominions yet they desired not the subversion of Calvins Model which seemed so necessary at that time for the Town of Geneva that they advised not to have it altered But more particularly it appears by Beza in the life of Calvin and by the Letter of Ligerus before remembred that Excommunications were not used in any of the Reformed Churches whether they were of Lutheran or Zuinglian judgement But scarce had Gualter so setled Zuinglianism in the Church of Heidelberg and those which did depend upon it when a bold Challenger from Geneva deâ—ies them all and undertakes to prove this Proposition in the publick Schools That to a Minister assisted with the help of his Eldership doth appertain the power of Excommunication by the Law of God Hereupon followed that famous Disputation in the Schools of Heidelberg the substance whereof we finde drawn up in Vrsines Catechism from pag. 835. to pag. 847. of the English Edition By which it doth appear that the name of the Respondent was George Withers a Native of England and that one Peter Boquine was the Moderator and therefore Withers must be taken to have made the Challenge The Theses then maintained by Withers were these two that follow viz That to the sincere preaching of the Word and the lawful administration of the Sacraments is required an Office or Power of Government in the Church 2. That a Minister with his Eldership ought to enjoy and exercise a Power of Convicting Reproving Excommunicating and Executing any part of Ecclesiastical Discipline or any Offenders whatsoever even on Princes themselves 3. The Arguments by which the Respondent was assaulted together with the answers which were made unto them were taken by the pen of Vrsine a Divine of Heidelberg who was present at the Disputation and by his means transmitted to the use of the Church the Title of his Abstract this viz. 〈◊〉 Arguments assoyled whereby some in a publiâ—k Disputation held in Heidelberg 1568 June 10. Dr. Peter Boquine being Moderator and Mr. George Withers English man Respondent endeavoured to abolish Ecclesiastical Discipline Which Arguments and their solutions were taken word for word from the mouth of Dr. Ursine at the repetition of this disputation on the next day privately made in Colleg. Sapient For further satisfaction I refer the Reader to the Book it self and shall now onely add this note viz. that as the Arguments were not found sufficient to beat down that power which Christ had left unto his Church for excommunicating scandalous and notoriâ—us sinners so neither were the Answers strong enough to preserve Lay-elders in the possession of a power that belonged not to them Which was in time the issue of the disputation which afterwards was so hotly followed between Theodore Beza on the one side and Dr. Thomas Erastus whom Calvin mentioneth in his Epistle to Olerianus Doctor of Physick on the other Beza evincing the necessity of Excommunication in the Church of Christ and Erastus proving nothing to the contrary but that Lay-elders were not necessary to the exercise of it Which disputation lasted long and effected little managed on both sides in Printed Tractates the last of which was that of Beza first published at Geneva reprinted afterwards at London An. 1590. But in the mean time the Genevian Discipline was admitted in both Palatinates the Country divided into Classes and Synodical meetings those Classes subdivided into their Presbyteries and each Presbytery furnished with a power of Excommunication and exercising such Church-censures as the Fact required But then we are to know withal that those wise Princes being loath to leave too much Authority in the hands of the Elderships with whose encroachments on the power of the Civil Magistrate they were well acquainted appointed some Superiour Officers of their own nomination to sit as Chief amongst them without whom nothing could be done and they were sure that by them nothing would be done which either might intrench upon their Authority or their people's Liberty A temperament for which they were beholden to the said Erastus who being a Doctor of Physick as before was noted devised this Pill to purge Presbytery of some Popish humours which secretly lay hid in the body of it 4. The like alloy was mixed with the Genevian Discipline in the Churches of Hassia Nassaw and those other petite Estates and Signories which make up the Confederacie of the Wetterâ—vians Which having once received the Doctrine of Zuinglius did shortly after entertain the Calvinian Elderships but moderated and restrained in those Exorbitancies which the Presbyterians actually committed in the Realm of Scotland and in most places else subjected unto their Authority But in regard the Palatine Churches are esteemed as a Rule to the rest the rest of Germany I mean in all points of Doctrine and that the publick Catechism thereof is generally reckoneâ— for Authentick not onely in the Churches of the Higher Germany but in the Netherland-Churches also it will not be amiss to take notice of them in such Doctrinal Points
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
Tumults for in the middle of these heats nine of the Lords not being Officers of State convened together at Breda the principal Seat and most assured hold of the Prince of Orange where they drew up a Form of an Association which they called the Covenant contrived by Philip Marnixius Lord of Aldegand a great admirer of the person and parts of Calvin In the preamble whereof they inveighed bitterly against the Inquisition as that which being contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane did far exceed the cruelty of all former Tyrants they then declared in the name of themselves and the rest of the Lords that the care of Religion appertained to them as Councellors born and that they entred into this Association for no other reason but to prevent the wicked practices of such men as under colour of the sentences of death and banishment aimed at the Fortunes and destructions of the greatest persons that therefore they had taken an holy Oath not to suffer the said Inquisition to be imposed upon their Country praying therein that as well God as man would utterly forsake them if ever they forsook their Covenant or failed to assist their Brethren which suffered any thing in that Cause and finally calling God to witness that by this Covenant and Agreement amongst themselves they intended nothing but the Glory of God Honour of their King and their Countries peace And to this Covenant as they subscribed before their parting so by their Emissaries they obtained subscription to it over all their Provinces and for the credit of the business they caused the same to be translated into several Languages and published a Report that not onely the Chief Leaders of the Hugonots in France but many of the Princes of Germany had subscribed it also which whether it were true or not certain it is that the Confederacie was subscribed by a considerable number of the Nobility some of the Lords of the Privy-Council and not a few of the Companions of the Golden Fleece 26. Of the nine which first appeared in the designe the principal were Henry Lord of Brederode descended lineally from Sigefride the second Son of Arnold the fourth Earl of Holland Count Lodowick of Nassaw before mentioned and Florence Count of Culemberg a Town of Gueldres but anciently priviledged from all subjection to the Duke thereof Accompanied with two hundred of the principal Covenanters each of them having a case of Pistols at his Saddle-bow Brederode enters Brussels in the beginning of April to which he is welcomed by Count Horne and the Prince of Orange which last had openly appeared for them at the Council-Table when the unlawfulness of the confederacy was in agitation And having taken up their Lodging in Culemberg-house they did not onely once again subscribe the Covenant but bound themselves to stand to one another by a solemn Oath The tenour of which Oath was to this effect That if any of them should be imprisoned either for Religion or for the Covenant immediately the rest all other business laid aside should take up arms for his assistance and defence Marching the next day by two and two till they came to the Court they presented their petition to the Lady Regent by the hands of Brederode who desired her in a short Speech at the tendry of it to believe that they were honest men and propounded nothing to themselves but obedience to the Laws Honour to the King and safety to their Country The sum of the Petition was That the Spanish Inquisition might be abolished the Emperours Edicts repealed and new ones made by the advice of the Estates of the Countries Concerning which we are to know that the Emperour had past several Edicts against the Lutherans the first of which was published in the year 1521 and the second about five years after Anno 1526 by means whereof many well-meaning people had been burnt for Hereticks but that which most extremely gaulled them was the Edict for the bringing in of the Inquisition published upon the 29 of April as before was said Against these Edicts they complained in the said Petition To which upon the morrow she returned such an answer by the consent of the Council as might give them good hopes that the Inquisition should be taken away and the Edicts moderated but that the King must first be made acquainted with all particulars before they passed into an Act. With which answer they returned well satisfied unto Culemberg-house which was prepared for the entertainment of the chief Confederates 27. To this House Brederode invites the rest of his Company bestows a prodigal Feast upon them and in the middle of their Cups it was put to the question by what name their Confederacie should be called Those of their party in France were differenced from the rest by the name of Hugonots and in England much about that time by the name of Puritans nor was it to be thought but that their followers might be as capable of some proper and peculiar appellation as in France or England It happened that at such time as they came to tender their Petition the Governess seemed troubled at so great a number and that Count Barlamont a man of most approved fidelity to his Majesties service advised her not to be discouraged at it telling her in the French tongue betwixt jest and earnest that they were but Gueux or Gheuses as the Dutch pronounced it that is to say men of dissolute lives and broken fortunes or in plain English Rogues and Beggars Upon which ground they animated one another by the name of Gheuses and calling for great bowls of Wine drank an health to the name their Servants and Attendants crying out with loud acclamations Vive les Gueus long live the Gheuses For the confirming of which name Brederode takes a Waâ—let which he spyed in the place and laid it on one of his Shoulders as their Beggars do and out of a Wooden dish brim-full drinks to all the Company thanks them for following him that day with such unanimity and binds himself upon his honour to spend his life if need should be for the generality of the Confederates and for every member of them in particular Which done he gave his Dish and Wallet to the next unto him who in like manner past it round till they had bound themselves by this ridiculous Form of initiation to stand to one another in defence of their Covenant the former acclamation of Long live the Gheuses being doubled and redoubled at every Health The jollity and loud acclamations which they made in the House brought thither the Prince of Orange Count Egmont and Count Horne men of most Power and Reputation with the common people who seemed so far from reprehending the debauchery which they found amongst them that they rather countenanced the same the former Healths and Acclamations being renewed and followed with more heat and drunken bravery then they were a first on which incouragement they take upon themselves
desires though the Prince of Orange openly appeared for them they were resolved no longer to expect the lazie temper of Authority but actually took possession of some of the Churches in Brabant Gelderland and Flanders and openly exercised that Religion which till then they had professed in secret nor durst the Estates do any thing in vindication of their own Authority considering what necessary use they might have of them in the present War against Don Iohn and from how great a person they received incouragement But in the midst of this career they received a stop for the Confederates being vanquished by Don Iohn at the battail of Gemblack Brussels and all the Towns of Brabant submitted themselves one after another to the power of the conquerour Philipivil a strong Town of Haynalt Limburg and Dalem with some others not so easily yeilding were either forced by long siege or some violent storming or otherwise surrended upon capitulations During which Sieges and Surrendries the Prince of Orange who had escaped with safety from the battail of Gemblack was busied in establishing his Dominion on the Coast of Holland In which designe he found no opposition but at Amsterdam constant at that time even to miracle both to their old Religion and their old Obedience But being besieged on all sides both by Sea and Land they yeilded on condition of enjoying the free exercise of their former Faith and of the like Freedom from all Garrisons but of Native Citizens But when they had yeilded up the Town they were not onely forced to admit a Garrison but to behold their Churches spoil'd their Priests ejected and such new Teachers thrust upon them as they most abominated But liberty of Religion being first admitted a confused liberty of opinions followed shortly after till in the end that Town became the common Sink of all Sects and Sectaries which hitherto have disturbed the Church and proved the greatest scandal and dishonor of the Reformation 46. Holland had lately been too fruitful of this viperous brood but never more unfortunate then in producing David George of Delfe and Henry Nicholas of Leiden the two great Monsters of that age but the impieties of the first were too gross and horrid to finde any followers the latter was so smoothed over as to gain on many whom the Impostor had seduced The Anabaptists out of Westphalia had found shelter here in the beginning of the Tumults and possibly might contribute both their hearts and hands to the committing of those spoils and outrages before remembred In imitation of whose counterfeit piety and pretended singleness of heart there started up another Sect as dangerous and destructive to humane Society as the former were for by insinuating themselves into the heart of the ignorant multitude under a shew of singular Sanctity and Integrity did afterwards infect their mindes with damnable Heresies openly repugnant to the Christian Faith In ordinary Speech they used new and monstrous kindes of expressions to which the ears of men brought up in the Christian Church had not been accustomed and all men rather wondered at then understood To difference themselves from the rest of mankinde they called their Sect by the name of the Family of Love and laboured to perswade their hearers that those onely were elected unto life Eternal which were by them adopted Children of that Holy Family and that all others were but Reprobates and Damned persons One of their Paradoxes was and a safe one too that it was lawful for them to deny upon oath whatsoever they pleased before any Magistrate or any other whomsoever that was not of the same Family or Society with them Some Books they had in which their dotages were contained and propagated first writ in Dutch and afterwards translated into other Languages as tended most to their advantage that is to say The Gospel of the Kingdom The Lords Sentences The Prophesie of the Spirit of the Lord The publication of peace upon earth by the Author H. N. But who this H. N. was those of the Family could by no fair means be induced or inforced by threatnings to reveal But after it was found to be this Henry Nicholas of Leiden whom before we spake of Who being emulous of the Glories of King Iohn of Leiden that most infamous Botcher had most blasphemously preached unto all his followers that he was partaker of the Divinity of God as God was of his humane nature How afterwards they past over into England and what reception they found there may be told hereafter 50. By giving freedom of Conscience to all Sects and Sectaries and amongst others to these also the Prince of Orange had provided himself of so strong a party in this Province that he was able to maintain a defensive War against all his opposites especially after he had gained the Ports of Brill and Vlushing which opened a fair entrance unto all adventurers out of England and Scotland For on the Rumour of this War the Scots in hope of prey and plunder the English in pursuit of Honour and the use of Arms resorted to the aid of their Belgick Neighbours whose absolute subjugation to the King of Spain was looked on as a thing of dangerous consequence unto either Nation And at the first they went no otherwise then as Voluntiers of their own accord rather connived at then permitted by their several Princes But when the Government was taken into the hands of the States and that the War was ready to break out betwixt them and Don Iohn the Queen of England did not onely furnish them with large sums of money but entred into a League or Confederation by which it was agreed That the Queen should send unto their aid one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot that they should conclude nothing respecting either Peace or War without her consent and approbation that they should not enter into League with any person or persons but with her allowance and she if she thought good to be comprehended in the same that the States should send the like aid unto the Queen if any Prince attempted any act of Hostility against her or her Kingdoms and that they should furnish her with forty Ships of sufficient burthen to serve at her pay under the Lord Admiral of England whensoever she had any necessary occasion to set forth a Navy and finally not to insist upon the rest that if any difference should arise amongst themselves it was to be referred and offered unto her Arbitrament And to this League she was the rather induced to grant her Royal assent because she had been certainly advertised by the Prince of Orange that Don Iohn was then negotiating a marriage with the Queen of Scots that under colour of her Title he might advance himself to the Crown of England And yet she ventured neither men nor money but on very good terms receiving in the way of pawn the greatest part of the rich Jewels and massie Ornaments of Plate which anciently
and in his own Patrimonial Right was Lord of the strong Towns and goodly Signories of Breda Grave and Diest in the Dukedom of Brabant In the right of which last Lordship he was Burgrave of Antwerp He was also Marquess of Vere and Vlushing with some jurisdiction over both in the Isle of Walcheren by Charles the Fifth made Knight of the Golden Fleece and by King Philip Governour of Holland Zealand and the County of Burgundy All which he might have peaceably enjoyed with content and honour as did the Duke of Areschot and many others of the like Nobility if he had aimed onely at a personal or private greatness But it is possible that his thoughts carryed him to a higher pitch and that perceiving what a general hatred was born by the Low Country-men against the Spaniard he thought it no impossible thing to dispossess them at the last of all those Provinces and to get some of them for himself And he had put fair for it had not death prevented him by which his life and projects were cut off together For compassing which projects he made use of that Religion which best served his turn being bred a Lutheran by his Father he profest himself a Romanist under Charles the Fifth and after finding the Calvinians the more likely men to advance his purposes he declared himself chiefly in their favour though he permitted other Sects and Sectaries to grow up with them in which respect he openly opposed all Treaties Overtures and Propositions looking towards a peace which might not come accompanied with such a liberty of Conscience both in Doctrine and Worship as he knew well could never be admitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King But the Calvinians of all others were most dear unto him By his encouragement the Belgick Confession was drawn up and agreed upon 1567. By his countenance being then Burgrave and Governour of Antwerp as before is said they set up their Consistory in that City as afterwards in many others of the Dukedome of Brabant and by his favour they attained unto such Authority and took such deep root in Holland Zealand and the rest of the Provinces under his command that they prevailed in fine over all Religious Sects and Sectaries which are therein tolerated 57. And that they might the better be enabled to retain that power which under him they had acquired they were resolved not to return again to their first obedience which they conceived so inconsistent with it and destructive of it To this end they commit the Government to some few amongst them under the name of the Estates who were to govern all affairs which concerned the publick in the nature of a Common-wealth like to that of the Switzers so much the more agreeable to them because it came more neer to that form or Polity which they had erected in the Church And in this posture they will stand as long as they can which if they found themselves unable to continue with any comfort and that they needs must have a Prince they will submit themselves to the French and English or perhaps the Dane to any rather then their own And to this point it came at last for the Prince of Parma so prevailed that by the taking of Gaunt and Bruges he had reduced all Flanders to the Kings obedience brought Antwerp unto terms of yeilding and carried on the War to the Walls of Vtrecht In which extremity they offered themselves to the French King but his affairs were so perplexed by the Hugonots on the one side and the Guisian Faction on the other that he was not in a fit capacity to accept the offer In the next place they have recourse to the Queen of England not as before to take them into her protection but to accept them for her Subjects and that the acceptance might appear with some shew of justice they insist on her descent from Philip Wife to King Edward the Third Sister and some say Heir of William the Third Earl of Holland Haynalt c. Which Philip if she were the Eldest Daughter of the said Earl William as by their Agents was pretended then was the Queens Title better then that of the King of Spain which was derived from Margaret the other Sister Or granting that Philip was the younger yet on the failer or other legal interruption of the Line of Margaret which seemed to be the case before them the Queen of England might put in for the next Succession and though the Queen upon very good reasons and considerations refused the Soveraignty of those Countries which could not without very great injury to publick justice be accepted by her yet so far she gave way to her own fears the ambition of some great persons who were near unto her and the pretended Zeal of the rest that she admitted them at the last into her protection 58. The Earl of Leicester was at that time of greatest power in the Court of England who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction and eagerly affecting to see himself in the head of an Army sollicited the affair with all care and cunning and it succeeded answerably to his hopes and wishes The Queen consents to take them into her protection to raise an Army of five thousand Foot and one thousand Horse to put it under the Command of a sufficient and experienced General and to maintain it in her pay till the War were ended And it was condescended to on the other side that the Towns of Brill and Vlushing with the Fort of Ramekins should be put into the hands of the English that the Governour whom the Queen should appoint over the Garrisons together with two other persons of her nomination should have place and suffrage in the Council of the States United that all their own Forces should be ranged under the Command of the English General and that the States should make no peace without her consent By which transaction they did not onely totally withdraw themselves from the King of Spain but suffered the English to possess the Gates of the Netherlands whereby they might imbar all Trade shut out all Supplies and hold them unto such conditions as they pleased to give them But any Yoke appeared more tolerable then that of the Spaniard and any Prince more welcome to them then he to whom both God and Nature had made them subject According unto which agreement Vlushing is put into the hands of Sir Philip Sidney the English Army under the Command of the Earl of Leicester and which is more then was agreed on an absolute Authority over all Provinces is committed to him together with the glorious Titles of Governour and Captain-General of Holland Zealand and the rest of the States United which how it did displease the Queen what course was took to mitigate and appease her anger what happened in the war betwixt him and the Prince of Parma and what cross Capers betwixt him and the States themselves is not
place because of that influence which they had on the Realm of England and the connexion of affairs between both the Kingdoms till they were both united under the command of one Soveraign Prince And this being said I shall without more preamble proceed to the following History 2. It was about the year 1527 that the Reformation of Religion begun by Luther was first preached in Scotland by the Ministry of one Patrick Hamilton a man of eminent Nobility in regard of his birth as being Brothers Son to Iames Earl of Arran but far more eminent in those times for his parts and piety then the Nobility of his House spending some time at Witteberg in the pursuit of his Studies he grew into acquaintance with Martin Luther Philip Melancthon and other men of name and note in that University and being seasoned with their Doctrine he returned into Scotland where he openly declared himself against Pilgrimages Purgatory Prayer to the Saints and for the dead without going further And further as he did not go so indeed he could not For on the noise of these his preachings he was prevailed with by Iames Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews to repair to that City but was so handled at his coming that after some examinations he was condemned to the fire which sentence was inflicted on him on the last of February But the Church is never made more fruitful then when the soyl thereof is watered with the blood of Martyrs For presently upon the commiâ—ting of this Fact most men of Quality begâ—n to look into the Reasons of such great severities and were the more inquisitive after all particulars because they had not been affrighted with the like Example in the memory of the oldest man which then lived amongst them By this means the opinions of this man being known abroad found many which approved but very few which had just reason to condemn them and passing thus from hand to hand gave further cause to those of the Popish Party to be watchful over them And for long time they were on the suffering hand patiently yeilding up their lives to the Executioners wheresoever any sentence of death was past upon them And it stood till the decease of King Iames the Fifth Anno 1542 when the unsetledness of Affairs the tender infancie of the young Queen not above nine days old at the death of her Father and the conferring of the Regencie after some disputes on Iames Earl of Arran who was thought to favour their opinions imboldned them to appear more openly in defence of themselves and to attempt upon the Chiefs of the contrary party whereof they gave a terrible Example in the death of Cardinal David Beton immediately or not long after the cruel burning of George Wischart whose name is mollified by Buchanan into Sofocardius a man of great esteem amongst them who having spent some time in France and being conversant with some Calvinists of that Nation returned into his Native Country with such French Commissioners as were sent unto the Earl of Arran Anno 1544. In little time he had gained unto himself so many followers that he became formidable to the greatest Prelates but unto none more then unto Cardinal David Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews also and Nephew unto Iames his Predecessor By whose Authority and procurement he was condemned to the like death as Hamilton before had suffered in the year next following 3. Amongst the followers of this man the most remarkable in reference to my present purpose were Norman Lesly eldest Son to the Earl of Rothes Iohn Lesly Uncle unto Norman Iames Melvin and the Kirkaldies Lairds of Grange By whom and others of that party a plot was laid to surprise the Castle and take revenge upon the Cardinal for the death of Wishart Having possest themselves of the Gates of the Castle they forced their way into his Chamber and were upon the point of striking the fatal blow when Iames Melvin told them with great shews of gravity that the business was not to be acted with such heat and passion And thereupon holding a Ponyard at his brest put him in minde of shedding the innocent bloud of that famous Martyr Mass George Wishart which now called loud to God for vengeance in whose name they were come to do justice on him which said he made this protestation That neither hatred to his person nor love to his Riches nor the fear of any thing concerning his own particular had moved him to the undertaking of that execution but onely because he had been and still remained an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his holy Gospel Upon which words without expecting any answer or giving the poor man any time of application to the Father of Mercies he stabbed him twice or thrice into the body with so strong a malice that he left him dead upon the place In the relating of which Murder in Knox hâ—s History a note was given us in the Margent of the first Edition printed at London in Octavo which points us to the godly act and saying of Iames Melvin for so the Author calls this most wicked deed But that Edition being stopt at the Press by tâ—â— Queens command the History never came out perfect till the year of our Lord 1644 when the word godly was left out of the Marginal Note for the avoiding of that horrible scandal which had been thereby given to all sober Readers But to proceed unto my story it was upon the 29 of May that the Murderers possest themselves of that strong peece into which many flocked from all parts of the Realm both to congratulate the act and assist the Actors So that at last they cast themselves into a Congregation and chose Iohn Rough who after suffered death in England to be one of their Preachers Iohn Knox that great incendiary of the Realm of Scotland for another of them And thus they stood upon their guard till the coming of one and twenty Gallies and some Land-Forces out of France by whom the Castle was besieged and so fiercely battered that they were forced to yeild on the last of Iuly without obtaining any better conditions then the hope of life 4. The Castle being yeilded and the Country quieted the French returned with their booty of which their Prisoners which they brought along with them made the principal part not made the tamer by their sufferings in the enemies Gallies insomuch that when the Image of the Virgin Mary was offered to them to be kissed on some solemn occasion one of them snatched it into his hands flung it into the Sea and said unto them that brought it in a jeering manner That her Ladyship was light enough and might learn to swim Which desperate and unadvised action as it was no other is said by Knox to have produced this good effect that the Scots were never after tempted to the like Idolatries Knox at this time was Prisoner in the Gallies amongst the
confused Rabble of the Knoxian Brethren brake in upon them dismounted the Image brake off his head against the stones scattered all the Company pulled the Priests Surplices over their Ears beat down their Crosses and in a word so discomposed the Order of that mock-Solemnity that happy was the man who could first save himself in some House or other neither their Bag-pipes nor their Banners their Tabrets nor their Trumpets which made a Principal part in that days triumph though free enough from superstition in themselves could escape their fury but ran the same Fortune with the rest And though no diligence was wanting for finding out the principal actors in that Commotion yet as the story hath informed us the Brethren kept themselves together in such Companies singing of Psalms and openly encouraging one another that no body durst lay hands upon them 7. Finding by this experiment that they were strong enough to begin the work it was thought fit to call back Knox to their assistance to which end they dispatched their Letters to him in the March next following to be conveyed by one Iames Sym whom they had throughly instructed in all particulars touching their affairs In May the Letters are delivered the contents whereof he first communicateth to his own Congregation and afterwards to Calvin and the rest of the Brethren of that Consistory by whom it was unanimously declared unto him that he could not refuse that Vocation unless he would shew himself rebellious unto his God and unmerciful to his native Country He returned answer thereupon That he would visit them in Scotland with all convenient expedition and comes accordingly to Dieppe in October following where contrary to expectation he is advertised by Letters from some secret Friends that all affairs there seemed to be at a stand so that his coming to them at that time might be thought unnecessary Highly displeased with such a cooling Card as he did not look for he sends his Letters thence to the Nobility and principal Gentry in which he lets them know how much he was confounded for travailing so far in their Affairs by moving them to the most Godly and most Learned men by which he means Calvin and the Consistorians who at that time did live in Europe whose judgements and grave counsels he conceived expedient as well for the assurance of their own Consciences as of his own that it must needs redound both to his shame and theirs if nothing should succeed in such long consultations that he left his Flock and Family at Geneva to attend their service to whom he should be able to make but a weak account of his leaving them in that condiâ—ion if he were asked at his return concerning the impediment of his purposed Journey that he fore-saw with grief of spirit what grievous plagues what misery and bondage would most inevitably befal that miserable Realm and every Inhabitant thereof if the power of God with the liberty of his Gospel did not deliver them from the same that though his words might seem sharp and to be somewhat undiscreetly spoken yet wise men ought to understand that a true Friend can be no flatterer especially when the question is concerning the Salvation both of body and soul not onely of a few men but of States and Nations that if any perswade them for fear of dangers which might follow to faint in their intended purpose though otherwise he might seem to be wise and friendly yet was he to be accounted foolish and their mortal enemie in labouring to perswade them to prefer their worldly rest to Gods Praise and Glory and the friendship of the wicked before the salvation of their Brethren that they ought to hazard their own lives be it against Kings or Emperours for the deliverance of the people from spiritual bondage for which cause onely they received from their Brethren Tribute Honour and Homage at Gods Commandment Finally having laid before them many strong inducements to quicken them unto the work he ends with this most memorable Aphorism which is indeed the sum and substance of the whole Consistorian Doctrine in the present case that the Reformation of Religion and of publick enormities doth appertain to more then the Clergy or chief Rulers called Kings 8. On the receiving of these Letters they are resolved to proceed in their former purpose and would rather commit themselves and all theirs to the greatest dangers then suffer that Religion which they called Idolatry any longer to remain amongst them or the people to be so defrauded as they had been formerly of that which they esteemed to be the onely true preaching of Christ's Gospel And to this end they entred into a common Bond or Covenant in the name of themselves their Vassals Tenants and dependants dated upon the third of Decemb and subscribed by the Earls of Arguile Glencarne and Morton the Lords Lorne Ereskin of Dun c. the Tenour of which was as followeth viz. 9. We perceiving how Satan in his members the Antichrists of our time cruelly do rage seeking to overâ—hrow and destroy the Gospel of Christ and his Congregation ought according to our bounden duty to strive in our Masters cause even unto the death being certain of the victory in him The which one duty being well considerâ—d we do promise before the Majesty of God and his Congregation that we by his Grace shall with all diligence continualâ—y apply our whole power substance and our very lives to maintain set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God and his Congregation And shall labour according to our power to have faithful Ministers truely and purely to minister Christs Gospel and Sacraments to his people we shall maintain them nourish them and defend them the whole Congregation of Christ and every Member thereof according to our whole powers and waging of our lives against Sathan and all wicked power that doth intend tyranny or trouble against the aforesaid Congregation Vnto the which holy Word and Congregation we do joyn us and so do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Antichrist with all the Superstitious Abomination and Idolatry thereof And moreover shall declare our selves manifest enemies thereto by this our faithful promise before God testified to this Congregation by our subscription of these presents 10. Having subscribed unto this Bond their next care was to issue out these directions following for the promoting of the work which they were in hand with 1. That in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-prayer-book that is to say the Common-prayer book of the Church of England should be read upon the Sundays and Holydays in the Parish-Church together with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament by the same appointed 2. That preaching and interpretation of Scripture be had and used in private Houses without any great convention of the people at them till it should please God to put it into the heart of the Prince to allow thereof in publick Churches And
Authority over rhem Knox goes to work more cautiously but comes home at last For having first approved whatsoever had been said by Willock he adds this to it That the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Soveraign nor did he wish that any such sentence against her should be pronounced but that when she should change her course and submit her self to good counsels there should be place left unto her of regress to the same honours from which for just cause she ought to be deprived 19. So said the Oracle and as the Oracle decreed so the sentence passed for presently upon this judgement in the case a publick Instrument is drawn up in which the most part of the passages in the course of her Government were censured as grievances and oppressions on the Subjects of Scotland to the violating of the Laws of the Land the Liberty of the Subjects and the enslaving of them to the power and domination of strangers In which respect they declare her to be fallen from the publick Government discharge all Officers and others from yeilding any obedience to her subscribing this Instrument with their hands requiring it to be published in all the Head-Boroughs of the Kingdom and causing it to be proclaimed with sound of Trumpet Thus they began with the Queen Regent but we shall see them end with the Queen her self their annoynted Soveraign This Instrument bears date on the 23 of October a memorable day for many notable occurrences which have hapned on it in our Brittish Stories Of all these doings they advertised her by express Letters sent back by the same Herald who had brought her last message to them and having so done they resolve immediately to try their fortune upon Leith in the way of Scalada But the worst was the Souldiers would not â—ight without present money and money they had none to pay them on so short a warning Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution but would not satisfie And thereupon it was advised that the Lords and other great men should bring in their Plate and cause it to be presently melted to content the Souldiers But they who had so long made a gain of Godliness did not love Godliness so well as not to value and prefer their gain before it And therefore some had so contrived it that the Irons of the Mint were missing and by that handsome fraud they preserved their Plate 20. It was not to be thought that the Scots durst have been so bold in the present business if they had not been encouraged underhand from some Friends in England which the Queen Regent well observed and prest it on them in her Declaration as before was noted To which particular though the Confederates made no reply in their Anti-remonstrance at that time yet afterwards they both acknowledged and defended their intelligence with the English Nation For in a subsequent Declaration They acknowledge plainly that many Messages had past betwixt them and that they had craved some support from thence but that it was onely to maintain Religion and suppress Idolatry And they conceived that in so doing they had done nothing which might make them subject unto any just censure it being lawful for them where their own power failed to seek assistance from their Neighbours And now or never was the time to make use of such helps their Contribution falling short and the Plate not coming to the Mint as had been projected In which extremity it was advised to try some secret Friends at Barwick especially Sir Ralph Sudlieur and Sir Iames Crofts by whose encouragement it may be thought they had gone so far that now there was no going back without manifest ruine By the assistance of these men they are furnished with four thousand Crowns in ready Money But the Queen Regent had advertisement of the negotiation and intercepts it by the way The news of this ill Fortune makes the Souldiers desperate some of them secretly steal away others refuse to venture upon any service so that the Lords and others of the chief Confederates are put upon a necessity of forsaking Edenborough The French immediately take possession of it compel the Ministers and most of those who profest the Reformed Religion to desert their dwellings restore the Mass and reconcile with many Ceremonies the chief Church of the City I mean that dedicated unto St. Gyles as having been prophaned by Heretical Preachings But the abandoning of Edenborough proved the ruine of Glasgow To which Duke Hamilton repairing he caused all the Images and Altars to be pulled down and made himself Master of the Castle out of which upon the noise of the Bishops coming with some Bands of French he withdraws again and quits the Town unto the Victor No way now left to save their persons from the Law their Estates from forfeiture their Country from the French and their Religion from the Pope but to cast themselves upon the favour of the Qeeen of England And to that course as the Lord Iames did most incline and Knox most preached for so there might be some probable Reasons which might assure them of not failing of their expectations 21. No sooner was Queen Mary of England dead but Mary the young Queen of Scots not long before Married to the Daulphin of France takes on her self the name and title of Queen of England the Arms whereof she quarters upon all her Plate some of her Coyn and upon no small part of her Houshold-Furniture Which though she did not as she did afterwards alledge of her own accord but as she was over-ruled in it by the perswasion of her Husband and the Authority which was not in her to dispute of the King his Father yet Queen Elizabeth looked upon it as a publick opposition to her own Pretensions an open disallowing of her Title to the Crown of this Realm She had good reason to presume that they by whose Authority and Counsel she was devested of her Title would leave no means untryed nor no stone unmoved by the rouling whereof she might be tumbled out of her Government and deprived also of her Kingdom Which jealousie so justly setled received no small increase from the putting over of so many French distributing them into so many Garrisons but more especially by their fortifying of the Town of Leith at which Gate all the strengths of France might enter when occasion served And then how easie a passage might they have into England divided only by small Rivers in some places and in some other places not divided at all But that which most assured her of their ill intentions was the great preparations lately made by the Marquiss of Elboeuf one of the Brothers of the Queen Regent and consequently Uncle to the Queen of Scots For though he was so distressed by tempests that eighteen Ensignes were cast away on the Coast of Holland and the rest forced for the present to return
life at Edenborough on the 10 of Iune and none was nominated to succeed with like Authority The French Forces were imbarked on the 16 of Iuly except some few which were permitted to remain in the Castle of Dunbar and the Isle of Inchkeeth so few that they seemed rather to be left for keeping possession of the Kingdom in the name of the Queen then either to awe the Country or command obedience And that they might be free from the like fears for the times ensuing Francis the Second dyeth on the 5 of December leaving the Queen of Scots a desolate and friendless Widdow assisted onely by her Uncles of the House of Guise who though they were able to do much in France could do little out of it This put the Scots I mean the leading Scots of the Congregation into such a stomack that they resolved to steer their course by another compass and not to Sail onely by such Winds as should blow from England They knew full well that the breach between the two Queens was not reconcileable and that their own Queen would be always kept so low by the power of England that they might trample on her as they pleased now they had her under And though at first they had imbraced the Common-prayer-Book of the Church of England and afterwards confirmed the use of it by a solemn Subscription yet when they found themselves delivered from all fear of the French by the death of their King and the breach growing in that Kingdom upon that occasion they then began to tack about and to discover their affections to the Church of Geneva Knox had before devised a new book of Discipline contrived for the most part after Calvins platform and a new Form of Common-prayer was digested also more consonant to his infallible judgement then the English Liturgie But hitherto they had both lain dormant because they stood in need of such help from England as could not be presumed on with so great a confidence if they had openly declared any dissent or disaffection to the publick Forms which were established in that Church Now their estate is so much bettered by the death of the King the sad condition of their Queen and the assurances which they had from the Court of England from whence the Earls of Morton and Glencarne were returned with comfort that they resolve to perfect what they had begun to prosecute the desolation of Religious Houses and the spoyl of Churches to introduce their new Forms and suspend the old For compassing of which end they summoned a Convention of the Estates to be held in Ianuary 25. Now in this Book of Discipline they take upon them to innovate in most things formerly observed and practised in the Church of Christ and in some things which themselves had setled as the ground-work of the Reformation They take upon them to discharge the accustomed Fasts and abrogate all the ancient Festivals not sparing those which did relate particularly unto Christ our Saviour as his Nativity Passion Resurrection c. They condemned the use of the Cross in Baptism give way to the introduction of the New Order of Geneva for ministring the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and commend sitting for the most proper and convenient gesture to be used at it They require that all Churches not being Parochial should be forthwith demolished declare all Forms of Gods publick Worship which are not prescribed in his Word to be meer Idolatry and that none ought to administer the holy Sacraments but such as are qualified for preaching They appoint the Catechism of Geneva to be taught in their Schools Ordained three Universities to be made and continued in that Kingdom with Salaries proportioned to the Professors in all Arts and Sciences and time assigned for being graduated in the same They decree also in the same that Tythes should be no longer paid to the Romish Clergy but that they shall be taken up by Deacons and Treasurers by them to be imployed for maintainance of the poor the Ministers and the said Universities They complained very sensibly of the Tyranny of Lay-Patrons and Impropriators in exacting their Tythes in which they are said to be more cruel and unmerciful then the Popish Priests and therefore take upon them to determine as in point of Law what Commodities shall be Tythable what not and declare also that all Leases and Alienations which formerly had been made of Tythes should be utterly void 26. Touching the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments and the performance of other Divine Offices it is therein ordered That Common-prayers by which they mean the new Form of their own devising be said every day in the greater Towns except it be upon the days of publick Preaching but then to be forborn that the Preachers own Prayer before and after Sermon may not be despised or disrespected That Baptism be Administred onely upon the Sundays and other days of publick Preaching for the better beating down of that gross Opinion of the Papists so they pleas'd to call it concerning the necessity of it That the first Sundays of March Iune September and December should be from thenceforth set apart for the holy Communion the better to avoid the superstitious receiving of it at the Feast of Easter That all persons exercise themselves in singing Psalms to the end they may the better perform that service in the Congregation That no singing of Psalms no reading of Scriptures should be used at burials That no Funeral-Sermon shall be preached by which any difference may be made between the rich and the poor and that no dead body for the same cause shall be buried in Churches That Prophesyings and Interpreting of the holy Scriptures shall be used at certain times and places according to the custom of the Church of Corinth That in every Church there shall be one Bell to call the people together one Pulpit for the Word and a Bason for Baptism And that the Minister may the better attend these Duties it is ordered that he shall not haunt the Court nor be of the Council nor bear charge in any Civil Affairs except it be to assist the Parliament when the same is called 27. Concerning Ecclesiastical persons their Function Calling Maintainance and Authority it was ordered in the said Book of Discipline That Ministers shall from thenceforth be elected by the Congregation where they are to preach that having made tryal of their Gifts and being approved of by the Church where they are to Preach they shall be admitted to their charge but without any imposition of hands as in other Churches That some convenient pension be assigned to every Minister for the term of life except he deserve to be deprived with some provision to be made after his decease for his Wife and Children That the bounds of the former Diocesses being contracted or enlarged there shall be ten or twelve Superintendents appointed in the place of the former Bishops who are to have the
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
the Kings Person and maintain his Power against the practices and attempts of a prevalent Faction which openly appeared in favour of his Mothers pretensions And in this course he much desired to keep the King when he had took the Government upon himself as before was said prevailing with him much against the mind of most of the Lords to send an Ambassador for that purpose Which put such fears and jealousies into the heads of the French on whom the Sâ—ots had formerly depended upon all occasions that they thought â—it to countermine the English party in the Court and so blow them up No better Engine for this purpose then the Lord Esme Stewart Seignieur of Aubigny in France and Brothers Son to Matthew the late Earl of Lenox the Young Kings Grandfather By him it was conceived that they might not onely work the King to the party of France but get some ground for re-establishing the old Religion or at least to gain some countenance for the Favourers and Professors of it With these Instructions he prepares to the Court of Scotland makes himself known unto the King and by the affability of his conversation wins so much upon him that no Honor or Preferment was thought great enough for so dear a Kinsman The Earldom of Lenox being devolved upon the King by the death of his Grandfather was first conferred on Robert Bishop of Orknay one of the Natural Sons of King Iames V. Which he to gratifie the King and oblige the Favorite resigned again into his hands in recompence whereof he is preferred unto the title of Earl of March. As soon as he had made this Resignation of the Earldom of Lenox the King confers it presently on his Cosin Aubigny who studied to appear more serviceable to him every day then other And that his service might appear the more considerable a report is cunningly spread abroad that the Earl of Morton had a purpose to convey the King into England by means whereof the Scots would forfeit all the Priviledges which they held France Morton sufficiently clear'd himself from any such practice But howsoever the suspicion prevailed so far that it was thought fit by those of the Adverse party to appoint a Lord-Chamberlain who was to have the care of His Majesties Person and that a Guard of twenty four Noblemen should be assigned to the said Lord-Chamberlain for that end and purpose Which Trust and Honor was immediately conferred on the Earl of Lenox who had been sworn to the Council much about that time and within less then two years after was created Duke 50. The sudden Preferments of this man being well known to be a professed Votary of the Church of Rome encouraged many Priests and Jesuits to repair into Scotland who were sufficiently practical in propagating the Opinions and advancing the interest of that Church Which gave occasion to the Brethren to exclaim against him and many times to fall exceeding foul on the King himself The King appears sollicitous for their satisfaction and deals so effectually with his Kinsman that he was willing to receive instruction from some of their Ministers by whom he is made a real Proselyte to the Religion then establish'd which he declared by making profession of his Faith in the great Church of Edenborough and his diligent frequenting the Church at their Prayers and Sermons But it hapned very unfortunately for him that some Dispensations sent from Rome were intercepted whereby the Catholicks were permitted to promise swear subscribe and do what else should be required of them if still they kept their hearts and secretly imployed their counsels for the Church of Rome Against this blow the Gentleman could find no buckler nor was there any ready way either to take off the suspicions or to still the clamors which by the Presbyterian Brethren were raised against him Their out-cries much encreased by the severities then shewed to the Earl of Morton whom they esteemed to be a most assured Friend as indeed he was to their Religion though indeed in all points not corresponding with them to the book of Discipline For so it was that to break off all hopes of fastning a dependance on the Realm of England Morton was publickly accused at the Council Table for being privy to the Murther of His Majesties Father committed to the Castle of Edenborough on the second of Ianuary removed to Dunbritton on the twentieth Where having remained above four moneths he was brought back to Edenborough in the end of May condemned upon the first of Iune and the next day executed His Capital Accuser being admitted to sit Judge upon him 51. This news exceedingly perplexed the Queen of England she had sent Bows and Randolph at several times to the King of Scots who were to use their best endeavours as well to lessen the Kings favour to the Earl of Lenox as to preserve the life of Morton For the effecting of which last a promise was made by Randolph unto some of his Friends both of men and money But as Walsingham sent word from France she had not took the right course to effect her purpose She had of late been negligent in paying those persons which had before confirmed the Scots to the English interest which made them apt to tack about and to apply themselves to those who would bid most for them And yet the business at the present was not gone so far but that they might have easily been reduced unto her devotion if we had now sent them ready money instead of promises for want whereof that Noble Gentleman so cordially affected to Her Majesties service was miserably cast away Which quick advice though it came over-late to preserve his life came time enough to put the Queen into a way for recovering Her Authority amongst the Scots of which more hereafter Nor were the Ministers less troubled at it then the Queen of England imputing unto Lenox the contrivance of so sad a Tragedy Somewhat before this time he had been taxed in the Pulpit by Drury one of the Brethren of Edenborough for his unsoundness in Religion and all means used to make him odious with the people For which committed by the Council to the Castle of Edenborough he was not long after at the earnest intreaty of his Fellow-Ministers and some promise on his own part for his good behaviour restored again unto his charge But after Mortons death some other occasions coming in he breaks out again and mightily exclaims against him insomuch that the King gave order to the Provost of Edenborough to see him removed out of the Town The Magistrate advises him to leave the Town of his own accord But he must first demand the pleasure of the Kirk convened at the same time in an Assembly Notwithstanding whose Mediation he was forced to leave the Town a little while to which he was brought back in Triumph within few moneths after A Fast was also kept by order of the said Assembly For the
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
obedient subjects The Kings escape was made in the end of Iune and in December following he calls a Convention of the Estates in which the subject of his Proclamation was approved and verified the fact declared to be Crimen laesae Majestatis or Treason in the highest degree For which as some were executed and others fled so divers of the Ministers that had been dealers in that matter pretending they were persecuted had retired into England For notwithstanding his Majesties great clemency in pardoning the Conspirators on such easie conditions they preferred rather the pursuing of their wicked purposes then the enjoying of a peaceable and quiet life For whether it were that they presumed on supplies from England of which they had received no inâ—â—obable hopes as afterwards was confessed by the Earl of Gowry or that they built upon the Kirk-Faction to come in to aid them as the General Assembly had required they begin in all places to prepare for some new Commotion but being deceived in all their hopes and expectations they were confined to several Prisons before the Convention of Estates and after it upon a further discovery of their preparations and intentions compelled to quit the Kingdome and betake themselves for their protection unto several Nations Onely the Earl of Gowry staid behind the rest and he paid well for it For being suspected to be hammering some new design he was took Prisoner at Dundee in the April following 1584 thence brought to Edenborough and there condemned and executed as he had deserved In the mean time the Kirk-men were as troublesome as the Lay-Conspirators Dury so often mentioned in a Sermon at Edenborough had justified the fact at Ruthen for which being cited to appear before the Lords of the Council he stood in maintainance of that which he had delivered but afterwards submitting himself unto the King on more sober thoughts he was kept upon his good â—ehaviour without further punishment But Andrew Melvin was a man of another metal who being commanded to attend their Lordships for the like offence declined the judgement of the King and Council as having no cognizance of the cause To make which good he broached this Presbyterian Doctrine That whatsoever was spoken in the Pulpit ought first to be tryed by the Presbyterie and that neither the King nor Council were to meddle with it though the same were treasonable till the Presbyterie had first taken notice of it But finding that the King and Council did resolve to proceed and had entred upon Examination of some Witnesses which were brought against him he told the King whether with greater Confidence or Impudence is hard to say That he preached the Laws both of God and man For which undutiful Expression he was commanded Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness Instead whereof he takes Sanctuary in the Town of Berwick where he remained till way was made for his return the Pulpits in the mean time sounding nothing but that the Light of the Countrey for Learning and Piety was forced for safety of his life to forsake the Kingdom In which Exile he was followed within few moneths after by Palvart Sub-Dean of Glasgow Galloway and Carmichiel two inferior Ministers who being warned to tender their appearance to the King and Council and not appearing at the time were thereupon pronounced Rebels and fled after the other Nor was the General Assembly held at Edenborough of a better temper then these Preachers were in which the Declaration made at the last Convention of Estates was stoutly crossed and encountred The King with the advice of his Estates had resolved the Fact of surprizing His Majesties person to be treasonable But the Brethren in the said Assembly did not onely authorize and avow the same but also esteeming their own judgement to be the Soveraign judgement of the Realm did ordain all them to be excommunicated that would subscribe unto their opinion 61. The King perceiving that there was no other way to deal with these men then to husband the present opportunity to his best advantage resolved to proceed against them in such a way as might disable them from committing the like insolencies for the time to come The chief Incendiaries had been forced to quit the Kingdom or otherwise deserted it of their own accords the better to escape the punishment which their crimes had merited The great Lords on whose strength they had most presumed were either under the like exile in the neighbouring Countries or else so weakned and disanimated that they durst not stir So that the King being clearly Master of the Field his Counsellors in good heart and generally the Lords and Commons in good terms of obedience it was thought fit to call a Parliament and therein to enact such Laws by which the honour of Religion the personal safety of the King the peace and happiness of the Kingdom and the prosperity of the Church might be made secure In which Parliament it was enacted amongst others things the better to encounter the proceedings of the Kirk and most Zealous Kirkmen That none of his Highness Subjects in time coming should presume to take upon them by word or writing to justifie the late treasonable attempt at Ruthen or to keep in register or store any Books approving the same in any sort And in regard the Kirk had so abused his Majesties goodness by which their Presbyterial Sessions the general Assemblies and other meetings of the Kirk were rather connived at then allowed an Act was made to regulate and restrain them for the times ensuing for by that Act it was ordained That from thenceforth none should presume or take upon them to Convocate Convene or assemble themselves together for holding of Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matters of Estate Civil or Ecclesiastical excepting the ordinary judgements without the Kings special commandment 62. In the next place the Kings lawful Authority in causes Ecclesiastical so often before impugned was approved and confirmed and it was made treason for any man to refuse to answer before the King though it were concerning any matter which was Ecclesiastical The third Estate of Parliament that is the Bishops were restored to the ancient dignity and it was made treason for any man after that time to procure the innovation or diminution of the Power and Authority of any of the three Estates And for as much as through the wicked licentious publick and private Speeches and untrue calumnies of divers his Highness subjects I speak the very words of the Act to the disdain contempt and reproach of his Majesty his Council and proceedings stirring up his Highness subjects thereby to misliking sedition unquietness to cast off their due oâ—edience to his Majesty Therefore it is ordained that none of his subjects shall presume or take upon them privately or publickly in Sermons Declamations oâ— familiar Conferences to utter any false scandalous and untrue Speeches to the disdain reproach and contempt of
the See of Rome procures himself to be acknowledged by the Prelates and Clergie in their Convocation for Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England obtained a promise of them in verbo Sacerdotii which was then equal to an Oath neither to make promulge nor execute any Ecclesiastical Constitutions but as they should be authorized thereunto by his Letters-Patents and then proceedâ— unto an Act for extinguishing the usurped Authority of the Bishop of Rome But knowing what a strong party the Pope had in England by reason of that huge multitudes of Monks and Fryers which depended on him he first dissolves all Monasteries and Religious Houses which were not able to dispend Three hundred Marks of yearly Rent and after draws in all the rest upon Surrendries Resignations or some other Practices And having brought the work so far he caused the Bible to be published in the English Tongue indulged the private reading of it to all persons of quality and to such others also as were of known judgement and discretion commanded the Epistles and Gospels the Lords Prayer the Creed and the Ten Commandment to be rehearsed openly to the people on every Sunday and Holy Day in the English Tongue and ordered the Letany also to be read in English upon Wednesdays and Fridays He had caused moreover many rich Shrines and Images to be defaced such as had most notoriously been abused by Oblations Pilgrimages and other the like acts of Idolatrous Worship and was upon the point also to abolish the Mass it self concerning which he had some secret communication with the French Ambassador if Fox speak him rightly 2. But what he did not live to do and perhaps never would have done had he lived much longer was brought to pass in the next Reign of King Edward VI. In the beginning whereof by the Authority of the Lord Protector the diligence of Archbishop Cranmer and the endeavours of many other Learned and Religious men a Book of Homilies was set out to instruct the people Injunctions published for the removing of all Images formerly abused to Superstition or false and counterfeit in themselves A Statute past in Parliament for receiving the Sacrament in both kinds and order given to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Some other Prelates to draw a Form for the Administration of it accordingly to the honor of God and the most Edification of all good people The news whereof no sooner came unto Geneva but Calvin must put in for a share and forthwith writes his Letters to Archbishop Cranmer in which he offereth his assistance to promote the service if he thought it necessary But neither Cranmer Kidley nor any of the rest of the English Bishops could see any such necessity of it but that they might be able to do well without him They knew the temper of the man how busie and pragmatical he had been in all those places in which he had been suffered to intermeddle that in some points of Christian Doctrine he differed from the general current of the Ancient Fathers and had devised such a way of Ecclesiastical Polity as was destructive in it self to the Sacred Hierarchy and never had been heard of in all Antiquity But because they would give him no offence it was resolved to carry on the work by none but English hands till they had perfected the composing of the Publick Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies in the same contained And that being done it was conceived not to be improper if they made use of certain Learned men of the Protestant Churches for reading the Divinity-Lectures and moderating Disputations in both Universities to the end that the younger Students might be trained up in sound Orthodox Doctrine On which account they invited Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr two men of eminent parts and Learning to come over to them the one of which they disposed in Oxon and the other at Cambridge This might have troubled Calvin more then his own repulse but that he thought himself sufficiently assured of Peter Martyr who by reason of his long living amongst the Switzers and his neaâ— Neighborhood to Geneva might possibly be governed by his Directions But because Bucer had no such dependance on him and had withal been very much conversant in the Lutheran Churches keeping himself in all his Reformations in a moderate course he practiseth to gain him also or at least to put him into such a way as might come nearest to his own Upon which grounds he posts away his Letters to him congratulates his invitation into England but above all adviseth him to have a care that he endeavoured not there as in other places either to be the Author or Approver of such moderate counsels by which the parties might be brought to a Reconcilement 3. For the satisfaction of these strangers but the last especially the Liturgie is translated into Latine by Alexander Alesius a right Learned Scot. A Copy of whose Translation or the sum thereof being sent to Calvin administred no small matter of offence unto him not so much because any thing in it could be judged offenâ—ive but because it so much differed from those of his own conception The people of England had received it as an heavenly treasure sent down by Gods great mercy to them all moderate men beyond the Seas applauded the felicity of the Church of England in fashioning such an excellent Form of Gods Publick Worship and by the Act of Parliament which confirmed the same it was declared to have been done by the special aid of the Holy Ghost But Calvin was resolved to think otherwise of it declaring his dislike thereof in a long Letter written to the Lord Protector In which he excepteth more particularly against Commemoration of the dead which he acknowledgeth notwithstanding to be very ancient as also against Chrism or Oyl in Baptism and the Form of Visiting the sick and then adviseth that as well these as all the rest of the Rites and Ceremonies be cut off at once And that this grave advice might not prove unwelcome he gives us such a Rule or Reason as afterwards raised more trouble to the Church of England then his bare advice His Rule is this That in carrying on the work of a Reformation there is not any thing to be exacted which is not warranted and required by the Word of God That in such cases there is no Rule left for worldly wisdom for moderation and compliance but all things to be ordered as they are directed by his will revealed What use his Followers made of their Masters Rule in crying down the Rites and Ceremonies of this Church as Superstitiouâ— Antichristian and what else they pleased because not found expresly and particularly in the Holy Scriptures we shall see hereafter In the mean time we must behold him in his Applications to the King and Council his tampering with Archbishop Canmer his practising on men of all conditions to encrease his party For finding little benefit
the Learned Godly and Grave Ministers of Christ to set forth something more refinâ—d from Filth and Rustiness Which Letter see at large in the first Book of this History Number 17. This Answer so prevailed upon all his Followers that they who sometimes had approved did now as much dislike the English Liturgie and those who at first had conceived a dislike thereof did afterwards grow into an open detestation of it In which condition of Affairs Dr. Richard Cox Dr. Horne and others of great Note and Quality put themselves also into Frankfort where they found all things contrary to their expectation Cox had been Almoner to King Edward VI Chancellor of the University of Oxon Dean of Westminster one that had a chief hand in composing the English Liturgie which made him very impatient of such Innovations amounting to no less then a total rejection of it as he found amongst them By his Authority and appointment the English Litany is first read and afterwards the whole Book reduced into use and practice Against which when Knox began to rail in a publick Sermon according to his wonted custom he is accused by Cox to the Senate of Frankfort for his defamatory writings against the Emperour and the Queen of England Upon the news whereof Knox forsakes the Town retires himself unto his Sanctuary at Geneva and thither he is followed by a great part of his Congregation who made foul work in England at their coming home 7. But this about the Liturgy though it was the greatest was not the onely quarrel which was raised by the Zuinglian or Calvinian Zealors The Church prescribed the use of Surplices in all Sacred Offices and Coapes in the officiating at the holy Altar It prescribed also a distinct habit in the Clergy from the rest of the people Rocheâ—s and Chimeres for the Bishops Gowns Tippets and Canonical Coats for the rest of the Clergy the square Cap for all Their opposition in the use of the Surplice much confirmed and countenanced as well by the writings as the practice of Peter Martyr who kept a constant intercourse with Calvin at his being here For in his Writings he declared to a Friend of his who required his judgement in the case that such Vestments being in themselves indifferent could make no man godly or ungodly either by forbearance or the use thereof but that he thought it more expedient to the good of the Church that they and all others of that kinde should be taken away when the next convenient opportunity should present it self Which judgement as he grounds upon Calvin's Rule that nothing should be acted in a Reformation which is not warranted expresly by the Word of God so he adds this to it of his own that where there is so much contending for these outward matters there is but little care of the true Religion And he assures us of himself in point of practice that though he were a Canon of Christ-Church and diligent enough in attending Divine Service as the others did yet he could never be perswaded to use that Vestment which must needs animate all the rest of the Genevians to forbear it also The like was done by Iohn Alasco in crying down the Regular habit of the Clergie before describ'd In which prevailing little by his own authority he writes to M. Bucer to declare against it and for the same was most severely reprehended by that moderate and learned man and all his cavils and objections very solidly answered Which being sent unto him in the way of a Letter was afterwards printed and dispersed for keeping down that opposite humour which began then to over-swell the Banks and threatned to bear all before it But that which made the greatest noise was the carriage of Mr. Iohn Hooper Lord Elect of Gloucester who having lived amongst the Switzers in the time of King Henry did rather choose to be denied his Consecration then to receive it in that habit which belonged to his Order At first the Earl of Warwick who after was Duke of Northumberland interceded for him and afterwards drew in the King to make one in the business But Cranmer Ridley and the rest of the Bishops who were most concerned craved leave not to obey His Majestie against his Laws and in the end prevailed so far that Hooper for his contumacy was committed Prisoner and from the Prison writes his Letters to Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr for their opinion in the case From the last of which who had declared himself no Friend to the English Ceremonies he might presume of some encouragement the rather in regard that Calvin had appeared on his behalf who must needs have a hand in this quarrel also For understanding how things went he writes unto the Duke of Sommerset to attone the difference not by perswading Hooper to conform himself to the received Orders of the Church but to lend the man a helping hand by which he might be able to hold out against all Authority 8. But Hooper being deserted by the Earl of Warwick and not daring to relie altogether upon Calvins credit which was unable to support him submits at last unto the pleasure of his Metropolitan and the Rules of the Church So that in fine the business was thus compromised that is to say That he should receive his Consecration attired in his Episcopal Robes That he should be dispensed withal from wearing them at ordinary times as his daily habits but that he should be bound to use them whensoever he preached before the King in his own Cathedral or any other place of like publick nature According to which Agreement being appointed to preach before the King he shewed himself apparelled in his Bishops Robes viz. A long Scarlet Chimere reaching down to the ground for his upper Garment changed in Queen Elizabeths time to one of black Sattin and under that a white linen Rochet with a Square Cap upon his head This Fox reproacheth by the name of a Popish Attire and makes it to be a great cause of shame and contumelie to that godly man But notwithstanding the submission of this Reverend Prelate too many of the inferior Clergie were not found so tractable in their conformity to the Cap and Tippet the Gown and the Canonical Coat the wearing whereof was required of them whensoever they appeared in publick Being decryed also by Alasco and the rest of the Zuinglians or Galvinians as a Superstitions and Popish Attire altogether as unfit for Ministers of the holy Gospel as the Chimere and Rochet were for those who claimed to be the Successors of the Lords Apostles So Tyms replied unto Bishop Gardiner when being asked whether a Coat with stockins of divers colours were a fit apparel for a Deacon He sawcily made answer that his Vesture did not so much vary from a Deacons as his Lordships did from that of an Apostle Which passage as well concerning the debates about the Liturgie as about the Vestments I have here abbreviated
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
with the Pastors of particular flocks He was too well versed in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers as not to know that all the things which he complains of were approved and practiced in the best and happiest times of Christianity as might be otherwise made apparent out of the Writings of Tertullian Cyprian Hierome Chrysostome and indeed who not But Beza has a word for this For first he blames the Ancient Fathers for borrowing many of their Ceremonies from the Jews and Gentiles though done by them out of a good and honest purpose that being all things to all men they might gain the more And thereupon he gives this Rule That all such Rites as had been borrowed either from the Iew or Gentile without express Warrant from Christ or the holy Apostles as also all other significant Ceremonies which had been brought into the Church against right and reason should be immediately removed or otherwise the Church could never be restored to her Native Beauty Which Rule of his if once admitted there must be presently an end of all external Decency and Order in the Worship of God and every man might be left to serve him both for time and place and every particular circumstance in that Sacred action as to him seemed best And what a horrible confusion must needs grow thereby not onely in a whole National Church but in every particular Congregation be it never so small is no hard matter to conceive 25. At the Reforming of this Church not onely the Queens Chappel and all Cathedrals but many Parochial Churches also had preserved their Organs to which they used to sing the appointed Hymns that is to say the Te Deum the Benedictus the Magnificat the Nunc Dimittis c. performed in an Artificial and Melodious manner with the addition of Cornets Sackbuts and the like on the Solemn Festivals For which as they had ground enough from the holy Scripture if the Practice and Authority of David be of any credit so were they warranted thereunto by the godly usage of the primitive times after the Church was once restored to her peace and freedom Certain I am that S. Augustine imputes no small part of his Conversion to that heavenly Melodie which he heard very frequently in the Church of Mâ—llaine professing that it did not onely draw tears from him though against his will but raised his soul unto a sacred Meditation on spiritual matters But Beza having turned so many of the Psalms into metre as had been left undone by Marot gave an example unto Sternhold and Hopkins to attempt the like Whos 's Version being left unfinished but brought unto an end by some of our English Exiles which remained at Geneva there was a purpose for imposing them upon the Church by little and little that they might come as close as might be in all points to their Mother-City At first they sung them onely in their private houses and afterwards as beforesaid adventured to sing them also in the Church as in the way of entertainment to take up the time till the beginning of the Service and afterwards to sing them as a part of the Service it self For so I understand that passage in the Church Historian in which he tells us That Dr. Gervis being then Warden of Merton Colledge had abolished certain Latine superstitious Hymns which had been used on some of the Festivals appointing the Psalms in English to be sung in their place and that as one Leech was ready to begin the Psalm another of the Fellows called Hall snatched the book out of his hands and told him That they could no more dance after his pipe But whatsoever Hall thought of them Beza and his Disciples were perswâ—ded otherwise And that he might the better cry down that Melodious Harmony which was retained in the Church of England and so make way for the Genevian fashion even in that point also he tells us in the same Letter to Bishop Gryndal That the Artificial Musick then retained in the Church of England was fitter to be used in Masks and Dancings then Religious Offices and rather served to please the ear then to move the affections Which censure being pass'd upon it by so great a Rabby most wonderful it was how suddenly some men of good note and quality who otherwise deserved well enough of the Church of England did bend their wits and pens against it and with what earnestness they laboured to have their own Tunes publickly introduced into all the Churches Whâ—ch that they might the better do they procured the Psalms in English metre to be bound in the same Volume with the Publick Liturgie and sometimes with the Bible also setting them forth as being allowed so the Title tells us to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons but with what truth and honesty we have heard before 16. In finâ— he tells the Bishops how guilty they would seem to God and his hâ—ly Angels if they chuse rather to deprive the Ministers of their Cures and Benefices then suffer them to go apparelled otherwise then to them seemed good And rather to deprive many hungry souls of their heavenly food then give them leave to receive it otherwise then upon their knees And this being said he questions the Authority of the Supreme Magistrate as contrary to the Word of God and the Ancient Canons for ordaining any new Rites and Ceremonies in a Church established but much more the Authority ascribed to Bishops in ordering any thing which concerned the Church without calling the Presbytery to advise about it and having their approbation in it This was indeed the point most aimed at And to this point his followers take the courage to drive on amain the Copies of this Letter being presently dispersed for their greater comfort if not also printed Some of the brethren in their zeal to the name of Calvin preferred him once before S. Paul and Beza out of question would have took it ill if he had been esteemed of less Authority then any of those who claimed to be Successors to S. Peter And therefore it were worth the while to compare the Epistles of these men with those of Pope Leo and then to enter seriously into consideration whether of the two took more upon him either Pope Leo where he might pretend to some command or Beza where he had no authority to act at all How much more moderate and discreet were the most eminent men for Learning amongst the Zwitzers may appear by the example of Gualter and Bullinger no way inferior unto the other but in Pride and Arrogancy who being desired by some of the English Zealots to give their judgement in the point of the Churches Vestments returned their approbation of them but sent it in a Letter directed to Horn Sandys and Grindal to let them see that they would not intermeddle in the affairs of this Church without their
and Ceremonies being first abolished they should proceed to the Establishment of such a Form of Ministration in the Church of England as might be grounded on some express Authorities of the Word of God Which as he makes to be a work agreeable unto Grindals piety so Grindal after this and this bears date in Iuly 1568 appeared more favourable every day then other to those common Barretters who used their whole endeavours to embroyl the Church 30. Nor were these years less fatal to the Church of England by the defection of the Papists who till this time had kept themselves in her Communion and did in general as punctually attend all Divine Offices in the same as the vulgar Protestants And it is probable enough that they might have held out longer in their due obedience if first the scandal which was given by the other Faction and afterwards the separation which ensued upon it had not took them off The Liturgie of the Church had been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation by leaving out an offensive passage against the Pope restoring the old Form of words accustomably used in the participation of the holy Sacrament the total expunging of a Rubrick which seemed to make a Question of the Real presence the Scituation of the holy-Table in the place of the Altar the Reverend posture of kneeling at it or before it by all Communicants the retaining of so many of the ancient Festivals and finally by the Vestments used by the Priest or Minister in the Ministration And so long as all things continued in so good a posture they saw no causâ— of separating from the rest of their Brethren in the acts of Worship But when all decency and order was turned out of the Church by the heat and indiscretion of these new Reformers the holy-Table brought into the midst of the Church like a common-Table the Communicants in some places sitting at it with as little Reverence as at any ordinary Table the ancient Fasts and Feasts deserted and Church-Vestments thrown aside as the remainders of the Superstition of the Church of Rome they then began visibly to decline from their first conformity And yet they made no general separation nor defection neither till the Genevian brethren had first made the Schism and rather chose to meet in Barns and Woods yea and common Fields then to associate with their brethren as in former times For that they did so is affirmed by very good Authors who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church in having her bowels torn in pieces by those very Children which she had cherished in her bosom By one of which who must needs be of years and judgement at the time of this Schism we are first told what great contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her Majesties Reign through the peevish frowardness the out-cryes of such as came from Geneva against the Vestments of the Church and such like matters And then he adds That being crossed in their desires touching those particulars they separated from the rest of their Congregations and meeting together in Houses Woods and common Fields kept there their most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles 31. Now at such time as Button Billingham and the rest of the Puritan Faction had first made the Schism Harding and Sanders and some others of the Popish Fugitives imployed themselves as busily in perswading those of that Religion to the like temptation For being licensed by the Pope to exercise Episcopal jurisdiction in the Realm of England they take upon them to absolve all such in the Court of Conscience who should return to the Communion of the Church of Rome as also to dispense in Causes of irregularity except it were incurred by wilful murther and finally from the like irregularities incurred by Heresie if the party who desired the benefit of the Absolution abstain'd from Ministring at the holy Altar for three years together By means whereof and the advantages before mentioned which were given them by the Puritan Faction they drew many to them from the Church both Priests and People their numbers every day increasing as the scandal did And finding how the Sectaries inlarged their numbers by erecting a French Church in London and that they were now upon the point of procuring another for the use and comfort of the Dutch they thought it no ill piece of Wisdom to attempt the like in some convenient place near England where they might train up their Disciples and fit them for imployment upon all occasions Upon which ground a Seminary is established for them at Doway in Flanders Anno 1568 and another not long after at Rhemes a City of Champaigne in the Realm of France Such was the benefit which redounded to the Church of England by the perversness of the Brethren of this first separation that it occasioned the like Schism betwixt her and the Papists who till that time had kept themselves in her Communion as before was said For that the Papists generally did frequent the Church in these first ten years is positively affirmed by Sir Edward Coke in his Speech at the Arraignment of Garnet the Jesuit and afterward at the Charge which was given by him at the general Assizes held in Norwich In both which he speaks on his own certain knowledge not on vulgar hearsay affirming more particularly that â—e had many times seen Bedenfield Cornwallis and some other of the Leading Romanists at the Divine Service of the Church who afterwards were the first that departed from it The like averred by the most Learned Bishop Andrews in his Book called Tortura Torti p. 130. and there asserted undeniably against all opposition And which may serve instead of all we finde the like affirmed also by the Queen her self in her Instructions given to Walsingham then being her Resident with the French King Anno 1570. In which Instructions bearing date on the 11 of August it is affirmed expresly of the Heads of that party and therefore we may judge the like of the Members also that they did ordinarily resort from the beginning of her Reign in all open places to the Churches and to Divine Service in the Church without any contradiction or shew of misliking 32. The parallel goes further yet For as the Puritans were encouraged to this separation by the Missals and Decretory Letters of Theodore Beza whom they beheld as the chief Patriarch of this Church So were the Papists animated to their defection by a Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth whom they acknowledged most undoubtedly for the Head of theirs For the Pope being thrust on by the importunity of the House of Guise in favour of the Queen of Scots whose Title they preferred before that of Elizabeth and by the Court of France in hatred to the Queen her self for aiding the French Hugonots against their King was drawn at last to issue out this Bull against her dated at Rome Feb. 24. 1569. In which Bull he doth not
onely Excommunicate her person deprive her of her Kingdoms and absolve all her Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance but commands all her Subjects of what sort soever not to obey her Laws Injunctions Ordinances or Acts of State The Defection of the Papists had before been voluntary but is now made necessary the Popes command being superadded to the scandal which had before been given them by the Puritan Faction For after this the going or not going to Church was commonly reputed by them for a signe distinctive by which a Roman Catholick might be known from an English Heretick And this appears most plainly by the Preamble to the Act of Parliament against bringing or executing of Bulls from Rome 13 Eliz. 2. Where it is reckoned amongst the effects of those Bulls and Writings That those who brought them did by their lewd practices and subtile perswasions work so farforth that sundry people and ignorant persons have been contented to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and to have withdrawn and absented themselves from all Divine Service most godlily exercised in this Realm By which it seems that till the roaring of those Bulls those of the Popish party did frequent the Church though not so generally in the last five years as our Learned Andrews hath observed as they did the first before they were discouraged by the Innovations of the Puritan Faction 33. But for their coming to our Churches for the first ten years that is to say before the first beginning of the Puritan Schism there is enough acknowledged by some of their own Parsons himself confesseth in his Pamphlet which he calls by the name of Green-Coat That for twelve years together the Court and State was in great quiet and no question made about Religion Brierly in his Apologie speaks it more at large by whom it is acknowledged That in the beginning of the Queens Reign most part of the Catholicks for many years did go to the Heretical Churches and Service That when the better and truer opinion was taught them by Priests and Religious men from beyond the Seas as more perfect and necessary there wanted not many which opposed themselves of the elder sort of Priests of Queen Maries days and finally That this division was not onely favoured by the Council but nourished also for many years by divers troublesome people of their own both in teaching and writing On which the Author of the Reply whomsoever he was hath made this Descant viz. That for the Catholicks going to Church it was perchance rather to be lamented then blamed before it came to be a sign Distinctive by which a Catholick was known from one who was no Catholick Thus as the Schisms began together so are they carried on by the self-same means by Libelling against the State the Papists in their Philopater the Puritans in Martin Mar-Prelate and the rest by breeding up their novices beyond the Seas the Roman Catholicks at Rheims and Doway the Presbyterians at Geneva Amsterdam or Saumure by raising sedition in the State and plotting Treason against the person of the Queen the Papists by Throgmorton Parry Tichbourn Babington c. the Puritans by Thacker Penry Hacket Coppinger c. And finally by the executions made upon either part of which in reference to the Presbyterians we shall speak hereafter But as none of Plutarchs Parallels is so exact but that some difference may be noted and is noted by him betwixt the persons and affairs of whom he writes so was there a great difference in one particular between the fortunes of the Papists and the contrary faction The Presbyterians were observed to have many powerful Friends at Court in which the Papists had scarce any but mortal Enemies Spies and Intelligencers were employed to attend the Papists and observe all their words and actions so that they could not stir without a discovery But all mens eyes were shut upon the other party so that they might do what they listed without observation Of which no reason can be given but that the Queen being startled at the Popes late Bull and finding both her Person and Estate indangered under divers pretences by many of the Romish party both at home and abroad might either take no notice of the lesser mischief or suffer that faction to grow up to confront the other 34. And now comes Cartwright on the Stage on which he acted more then any of the Puritan Faction till their last going off again in the Reign of this Queen It was upon a discontent that he first left Cambridge and in pursuance of the same that he left the Church For being appointed one of the Opponents at the Divinity-Act in Cambridge Anno 1564 at such time as the Queen was pleased to honor it with her Royal presence he came not off so happily in her esteem but that Preston of Kings Colledge for action voyce and elocution was preferred before him This so afflicted the proud man that in a sudden humour he retires from the University and sets up his studies in Geneva where he became as great with Beza and the rest of that Consistory as ever Knox had been with Calvin at his being there As soon as he had well acquainted himself with the Form of their Discipline and studied all such points as were to be reduced to practice at his coming back well stocked with Principles and furnished with Instructions he prepares for England and puts himself into his Colledge Before upon the apprehension of the said neglect he had begun to busie himself with some discourses against the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law established and seemed to entertain a great opinion of himself both for Learning and Holiness and therewithal a great contemner of such others as continued not with him But at his coming from Geneva he became more practical or pragmatical rather condemning the Vocation of Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers the Administration of our holy Sacraments and observations of our Rites and Ceremonies And buzzing these conceits into the Heads of divers young Preachers and Scholars of the University he drew after him a great number of Disciples and Followers Amongst whom he prevailed so far by his secret practices but much more by a Sermon which he Preached one Sunday-morning in the Colledge-Chappel that in the afternoon all the Fellows and Scholars threw aside their Surplices which by the Statutes of the House they were bound to use and went to the Divine Service onely in their Gowns and Caps Dr. Iohn Whitgift was at that time Master of Trinity Colledge and the Queens Professor for Divinity a man of great temper and moderation but one withal that knew well how to hold the Reins and not suffer them to be wrested out of his hand by an Head-strong beast Cartwright was Fellow of that Colledge emulous of the Masters Learning but far more envious at the Credit and Authority which he had acquired for which cause he procured himself to be
prosecution of which work he commends to Iewel that by the interposing of his Authority they might be brought to yield to the points proposed and thereby be continued in the exercise of their Vocation Which last clause could not chuse but be exceeding acceptable to that Reverend Prelate who had shewed himself so earnest for Conformity in a Sermon preached by him at the Cross that he incurred some censure for it amongst the brethren Which put him to this Protestation before his death That his last Sermon at S. Pauls Cross and Conference about the Ceremonies and state of the Church was not to please any man living nor to grieve his brethren of a contrary opinion but onely to this end that neither party might prejudice the other But he was able to act nothing in pursuance of Zanchy's motion by reason of his death within few days after if not some days before he received that Letter For on the 22 of the same Moneth it pleased God to take him to himself and thereby to deprive the Church of the greatest Ornament which she could boast of in that age The end of the sixth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VII Containing A Relation of their secret and open Practices the Schism and Faction by them raised for advancing the Genevian Discipline in the Church of England from the year 1572 to the year 1584. 1. THe English Puritans had hitherto maintained their Quarrel by the Authority of Calvin the sawciness of Knox the bold activities of Beza and the more moderate interposings of some Forreign Divines whose name was great in all the Churches of the Reformation But now they are resolved to try it out by their proper valour to fling away their Bulrushes and lay by their Crutches or at the best to make no other use of Out-landish Forces then as Auxiliaries and Reserves if the worst should happen And hitherto they had appeared onely against Caps and Surplices or questioned some Rites and Ceremonies in the publick Liturgie which might be thought to have been borrowed from the Church of Rome But now they are resolved to venture on the Episcopal Government and to endeavour the erecting of the Presbyterian as time and opportunity should make way unto it Amongst which undertakers none more eminent because none more violent then Cartwright formerly remembred Snape of Northampton a great stickler for the holy Discipline and Feild a Lecturer in London as ridiculously zealous to advance Presbytery as the most forward in the pack But Cartwright was the man upon whose Parts and Learning they did most depend and one who both by private Letters and some Printed Pamphlets had gained more credit to the side then all the rest And yet it was amongst his own onely that he gained such credit For when his Papers had been shewn unto Bishop Iewel and that the Judgement of that Reverend and Learned Prelate was demanded of them he is said to have returned this answer That the Arguments therein contained were too slight to build up and too weak to pull down And so it proved in the event when Cartwrights whole discourses against the Forms of Government and Publick Worship here by Law established came to be seriously debated 2. For having been long great with Childe of some new designe the Babe comes forth in the beginning of the Parliament which was held in the year 1572 intituled by the name of an Admonition in which complaint was made of their many grievances together with a Declaration of the onely way to redress the same which they conceived to be no other then the setling of the Genevian Platform in all parts of the Kingdom But the Parliament was so little pleased with the Title and so much displeased with the matter of the Admonition that the Authors and Preferrers of it were imprisoned by them But this imprisonment could lay no Fetters on their spirits which grew the more exasperated because so restrained For towards the end of the Parliament out comes the second Admonition far more importunate then the first and it comes out with such a flash of Lightning and such claps of Thunder as if Heaven and Earth were presently to have met together In the first he had amassed together all those several Arguments which either his reading could afford or his wit suggest or any of that party could excogitate for him against the Government of Bishops the whole body of the English Liturgie and almost all the particular Offices in the same contained And in the second he not onely justified whatsoever had been found in the first but challenged the Parliament for not giving it a more gratious welcome For there he tells them in plain terms That the State did not shew it self upright alledge the Parliament what it will That all honest men should finde lack of equity and all good Consciences condemn that Court That it should be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Iudgement then for such a Parliament That there is no other thing to be looked for then some speedy vengeance to light upon the whole Land let the Politick Mâ—chiavils of England provide as well as they can though God do his worst And finally that if they of that Assembly would not follow the advice of the first Admonition they would infallibly be thâ—ir own carvers in it the Church being bound to keep Gods Ordeâ— and nothing to be called Gods Order but their present Platform 3. About this time Clark Travers Gardiner Barber Cheston and lastly Crook and Egerton joyned themselves to the Brotherhood Amongst whom the handling of such points as concerned the Discipline became very frequent many motions being made and some conclusions setled in pursuance of it but more particularly it was resolved upon the question That for as much as divers Books had been written and sundry Petitions exhibited to her Majesty the Parliament and their Lordships to little purpose every man should therefore labour by all means possible to bring the Reformation into the Church It was also then and there resolved That for the better bringing in of the said holy Discipline they should not onely as well publickly as privately teach it but by little and little as well as possibly they might draw the same into practice According to which Resolution a Presbytery was erected on the 20 of November at a small Village in Surrey called Wandsworth where Field had the Incumbencie or cure of Souls a place conveniently scituate for the London-Brethren as standing near the bank of the Thames but four miles from the City and more retired and out of sight then any of their own Churches about the Town This first Establishment they indorsed by the name of the Orders of Wandsworth In which the Elders names are agreed on the manner of the Election declared the approvers of them mentioned their Offices agreed on also and described And though the Queen might have no notice of this first
the same Arts which they brought hither with them Such welcome Guests must needs have some Encouragement to remain here always And what Encouragement could be greater and more welcome to them then to enjoy the liberty of their own Religion according to such Government and Forms of Worship as they had exercised at home King Edward had indulged the like priviledges to Iohn Alasco and Queen Elizabeth to the French neither of which were so considerable as the Flemish Inmates A suit is therefore made by their Friends in Court for granting them the Church of Augustine-Fryers where Iohn Alasco formerly held his Dutch Congregation and granting it with all such Priviledges and Immunitiâ—s as the Dutch enjoyed And that they might proceed in setting up their Presbyteries and new Forms of Worship they obtain not onely a Connivance or Toleration but a plain Approbation of their actings in it For in the Letters which confirmed this new Church unto them it is expresly signified by the Lords of the Council That they knew well that from the first beginning of the Christian Faith different Rites and Ceremonies had been used in some parts thereof which were not practised in the other That whilst some Christians worshipped God upon their knees others erect upon their feet and some again groveling on the ground there was amongst them all but one and the same Religion as long as the whole action tended to the honor of God and that there was no Superstition and Impiety in it That they contemned not the Rites which these Dutch brought with them nor purposed to compel them to the practice of those which were used in England but that they did approve and allow their Ceremonies as sitted and accommodated to the nature of the Countrey from whence they came Which priviledges they enlarged bâ— their Letter of the 29 of Iune in the year next following An. 1574 extending them to all such of the Belgick Provinces as reâ—orted hither and joyned themselves unto that Church thâ—ugh otherwise dispersed in several parts and Sea-Towns for their own conveniences which gave the first beginning to the nâ—w Dutch Churches in Canterbury Sandwich Yarmouth Norwich and some other places in the North to the great animation or the Presbyters and the discomfort of all such who were of judgement to foresee the sad consequents of it 8. With like felicity they drove on their designs in Iersey and Guernsey in the two principal Towns whereof the Discipline had been permitted by an Order of the Lords of the Council as before was said But not content with that allowance which the Lords had given them by His Majesties great grace and favour their Preachers being for the most part natural Frenchmen had introduced it by degrees into all the Villages furthered therein by the Sacrilegious Avarice of the several Governors out of a hope to have the spoil of the poor Deanries to ingross all the Tythes unto themselves and then put off the Ministers with some sorry stipends as in fine they did But first those Islands were to be dissevered by some Act of State from being 〈◊〉 longer Members of the Diocess or subject to the Juriâ—â—iction of the Bishops of Constance And that being easily obtained it was thought fit that Snape and Cartwright the great Supporters of the cause in England should be sent unto them to put their Churches in a posture and settle the Discipline amongst them in such form and manner as it was practised in Geneva and amongst the French Which fell out happily for Cartwright as his case stood who being worsted in the last Encounter betwixt him and Whitgift had now a handsome opportunity to go off with credit not as if worsted in the fight but rather called away to another tryal Upon thâ—s Invitation they set sail for the Islands and take the charge thereof upon them the one of them being made the titular Pastor of the Castle of Mount-Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey and the other of Castle-Cornet in the Rode of Guernsey Thus qualified they convene the Churches of each Island communicate unto them a rude Draught of the Holy Discipline which afterwards was polished and accommodated to the use of those Islands but not agreed upon and exercised until the year next following as appears by the Title of it which is this viz. The Ecclesiastical Discipline observed and practised by the Churches of Jersey and Guernsey after the Reformation of the same by the Ministers Elders and Deacons of the Isles of Guernsey Jersey Sark and Alderney confirmed by the Authority and in the presence of the Governors of the same Isles in a Synod holden in Guernsey the 28 of June 1576 and afterwards revived by the said Ministers and Elders and confirmed by the said Governors in a Synod holden in Jersey the 11 12 13 14 15 and 17 days of October 1577. 9. With worse success but less diligence did Travers labour in the cause who being one of the same spirit published a book in maintenance of the Holy Discipline which he caused to be printed at Geneva and was thus intituled viz. Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae Anglicanae Ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis plena e verbo Dei Dilucida Explicatio that is to say A full and perfect Explication of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word â—f God and of the Church of Englands departing from it In which book he advanced the Discipline to so great a height as made it necessary for all Christian Kings and Princes to submit unto it and lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the Churches feet even to the very licking up of the dust thereof if occasion were But Travers sojourned in Geneva when he wrote this book and was to frame it to the palate of Beza and the rest of that Confistory who had by this time made the Discipline as essenâ—ial to the true being of a Church as either the Preaching of the Word or the Administration of the holy Sacraments Beza had so declared it in a Letter to Knox An. 1572. In which he reckons it as a great and signal blessing from Almighty God that they had introduced in Scotland not onely the true Worship of God but the Discipline also which was the best Preservative of the truth of Doctrine Which therefore he desires him so to keep together as to be sure that if the one be lost that is laid aside the other is not like to continue long And Cartwright leading in the same path also heightned it above all which had gone before or that followed after him Some of the Brethren have extolled it to the very Skies as being the onely Bond of Peace the Bane of Heresie the Punisher of Sin and maintainer of Righteousness A Discipline full of all goodness for the peace and honour of Gods people ordained for the joy and happiness of all the Nations But Cartwright sets them such a leap as they durst not reach at not onely telling us in
the coming of the Duke a shot was made at him from a ship with which one of the Watermen was killed but the Ambassador therewith more amazed then hurt The Gunner afterwards was pardoned by the great power the Earl of Leicester had in Court it being pretended that the Piece was discharged upon meer accident and not upon malice or design After this follows a seditious Pamphlet writ by one Stubs of Lincolns Inn who had married one of the Sisters of Thomas Cartwright and therefore may be thought to have done nothing in it without his privity This Book he called The Gaping Gulf in which England was to have been swallowed the wealth thereof consumed and the Gospel irrecoverably drown'd writ with great bitterness of spirit and reproachful language to the disgrace of the French Nation the dishonor of the Dukes own person and not without some vile reflections on the Queen herself as if she had a purpose to betray her Kingdom to the power of Strangers 28. For publishing this book no such excuse could be pretended as was insisted on in defence of the former shot nor could the Queen do less in Justice to her self and her Government as the case then stood then to call the Authors and the Publishers of it to a strict account To which end the said Stubs together with Hugh Singleton and William Page were on the 13 day of October arraigned at Westminster for Writing Printing and dispersing that Seditious Pamphlet and were all then and there condemned to lose their right hands for the said offence Which Sentence was executed on the third of November upon Stubs and Page as the chief offenders but Singleton was pardoned as an Accessary and none of the Principals in the Crime Which execution gave great grief to the Disciplinarians because they saw by that Experiment that there was no dallying with the Queen when either the honor of her Government or the peace of her Dominions seemed to be concerned And they were most afflicted at it in regard of Cartwright whose inability to preserve so near a Friend from the severity and shame of so great a punishment was looked on as a strong presumption that he could be as little able to save himself whensoever it was thought expedient upon reason of State to proceed against him But now they are engaged in the same bottom with him they were resolved to steer their course by no other Compass then that which this grand Pilot had provided for them Not terrified from so doing by the open Schism which was the next year made by one Robert Brown once a Disciple of their own and one who built his Schism upon Cartwrights Principles nor by the hanging of those men who had dispersed his Factious and Schismatical Pamphlets For the better clearing of which matter we must fetch the story of this Brown a little higher and carry it a little lower then this present year 29. This Robert Brown was born at Tolâ—thorp in the County of Rutland the Grand-child of Francis Brown Esquire priviledged in the 18 year of King Henry VIII to wear his Cap in the presence of the King himself or any other Lords Spiritual or Temporal in the Land and not to put it off at any time but onely for his own ease and pleasure He was bred sometimes in Corpus Christi Colledge commonly called Bennet Colledge in the University of Cambridge Where though he was not known to take any degree yet he would many times venture into the Pulpit It was observed that in his preaching he was very vehement which Cartwrights Followers imputed onely to his zeal as being one of their own number But other men suspected him to have worse ends in it Amongst many whom rather curiosity then Devotion had brought to hear him Dr. Iohn Still though possibly not then a Doctor hapned to be one Who being afterwards Master of Trinity-Colledge and finally Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells was used to say That he discerned something extraordinary in him at the very first which he presaged would prove a disturbance to the Church if it were not seasonably prevented Being well verst and conversant in Cartwrights Books and other the like Pamphlets of that time he became more and more estranged from the Church of England Whose Goveâ—â—ment he found to be deâ—amed for Antichristian her Sacraments affirmed to be defiled with Superstition her Liturgie reproached for Popish and in some part Heathenish and finally her Ordination to be made no better then those of Baals Priests amongst the Jews Not able to abide longer in a Church so impure and filthy he puts himself over into Zealand and joyns with Cartwrights new Church in the City of Middleborough But finding there some few remainders of the old impiety he resolves to constitute a new Church of his own Projectment which should have nothing in it but what was most pure and holy The Draught whereof he comprehended in a Book which he printed at Middleborough An. 1582 intituled A Treatise of Reformation and having sent as many of them into England as might serve his turn he followed after in pursuit of his new Plantation 30. The Dutch had then a Church at Norwich as before was said more numerous then any other Church or Congregation within the Precincts of that City Many of which enclining of themselves to the Anabaptists were apt enough to entertain any new Opinions which held Conformity with that Sect. Amongst them he begins and first begins with such amongst them as were most likely to be ruled and governed by him he being of an imperious nature and much offended with the least dissent or contradiction when he had uttered any Paradox in his discourses Having gotten into some Authority amongst the Dutch whose Language he had learned when he lived in Middleborough and grown into a great opinion for his Zeal and Sanctity he began to practise with the English using therein the service and assistance of one Richard Harrison a Country School master whose ignorance made him apt enough to be seduced by so weak a Prophet Of each Nation he began to gather Churches to himself of the last especicially inculcating nothing more to his simple Auditors then that the Church of England had so much of Rome that there was no place left for Christ or his holy Gospel But more particularly he inveighed against the Government of the Bishops the Ordination of Ministers the Offices Rites and Ceremonies of the publick Liturgie according as it had been taught out of Cartwrights Books descending first to this Position That the Church of England was no true and lawful Church And afterwards to this conclusion That all true Christians were obliged to come out of Babylon to separate themselves from those impure and mixt Assemblies in which there was so little of Christs Institution and finally that they should joyn themselves to him and to his Disciples amongst whom there was nothing to be found which savoured not
of Blackross 7. Of the same temper were the rest who notwithstanding the late Acts of Parliament inhibiting all Assembly and Classical Conventions without leave from the King held a new Synod at St. Andrews in the April following consisting for the most part of Barons and Lay-Gentlemen Masters of Colledges and ignorant School-Masters Which Synod if it may be called so was purposely indicted by Andrew Melvin for censuring the Arch-bishop of that City whom they suspected and gave out to be the chief Contriver of the Acts of Parliament made in 1584 so prejudicial to the Kirk and to have penned the Declaration in defence thereof And hereunto he found the rest so ready to conform themselves that they were upon the point of passing the Sentence of Excommunication against him before he was cited to appear most of them crying out aloud It was the Cause of God and That there needed no citation where the iniquity was so manifest But being cited at the last he appears before them puts up his Protestation concerning the unlawfulness of that Convention and his disowning any Jurisdiction which they challenged over him and so demanded of them What they had to say His Accusation was That he had devised the Acts of Parliament in 84 to the subversion of the Kirk and the Liberties of it To which he answered That he only had approved and not devised the said Acts which having past the approbation of the Three Estates were of a nature too Supreme for such Assemblies and thereupon appealed unto the King the Council and the following Parliament But notwithstanding this Appeal the Sentence of Excommunication is decreed against him drawn into Writing and subscribed Which when neither the Moderator being a meer Layick nor any of the Ministers themselves had confidence enough to pronounce and publish one Hunter a Pedagogue in the House of Andrew Melvin professing that he had the Warrant of the Spirit for it took the charge upon him and with sufficient audacity pronounced the Sentence 8. The informality and perversness of these proceedings much displeased the King but more he feared what would be done in the next Assembly appointed to be held at Edenborough and then near at hand Melvin intended in the same not only to make good whatsoever had been done at the former Meeting but to dispute the nature and validity of all Appeals which should be made against them on the like occasions To break which blow the King could find no other way but to perswade the Arch-bishop to subscribe to these three points viz. That he never publickly professed or intended to claim any Superiority or to be judg over any other Pastors and Ministers or yet a vowed the same to have any warrant in Gods Word That he never challenged any Jurisdiction over the late Synod at St. Andrews and must have erred by his contempt of the said Meeting if he had so done And thirdly That he would behave himself better for the time to come desiring pardon for the oversight of his former Actions promising to be such a Bishop from thenceforth as was described by St. Paul And finally submitting both himself and Doctrine to the Judgment of the said Assembly without appealing from the same in the times to come To such unworthy Conditions was the poor man brought only to gain the King some peace and to reserve that little Power which was left unto Him though the King lost more by this Transaction than possibly He could have done by his standing out For notwithstanding the Submissions on the part of the Bishop the Assembly would descend no lower than to declare That they would hold the said Sentence for not pronounced and thereby leave the Bishop in the same estate in which they found him and not this neither but upon some hopes and assurance given them that the King would favourably concurr with them in the building of the House of God Which Agreement did so little satisfie the adverse party that they justified their former process and peremptorily confirmed the Sentence which had been pronounced Which when it could not be obtained from the greater part of the Assembly who were not willing to lose the glory of so great a Victory Hunter stands up by the advice of Andrew Melvin and publickly protested against it declaring further That notwithstanding any thing which had been done to the contrary the Bishop should be still reputed for an Excommunicated person and one delivered unto Satan It was moved in this Assembly also That some Censure should be laid upon the Ministers who had subscribed the Acts of Parliament made in 84. But their number proved so great that a Schism was feared and they were wise enough to keep all together that they might be the better able upon all occasions to oppose the King Somewhat was also done concerning the Establishment of their Presbyteries and the defining of their Power of which the King would take no notice reserving his disgust of so many Insolencies till he should find himself in a condition to do them Reason 9. In these Exorbitances they are followed by the English Puritans who had been bad enough before but henceforth showed themselves to have more of the Scot in them than in former times For presently upon the news of the good success which their Scottish Brethren had at Sterling a scandalous Libel in the nature of a Dialogue is published and dispersed in most parts of England in which the state of this Church is pretended to be laid open in a Conference between Diotrephes representing the person of a Bishop Tertullus a Papist brought in to plead for the Orders of our Church Demetrius an Usurer signifying such as live by unlawful Trades Pandocheus an Inn-keeper a receiver of all and a soother of every man for his Gain and Paul a Preacher of the Word of God sustaining the place and person of the Consistorians In the contrivance of which piece Paul falls directly on the Bishop whom he used most proudly spightfully and slanderously He condemneth both the Calling of Bishops as Antichristian and censureth their proceedings as Wicked Popish Unlawful and Cruel The Bishop is supposed to have been sent out of England into Scotland for suppressing the Presbyteries there and is made upon his return homewards to be the Reporter of the Scottish Affairs and withall to signifie his great fear lest he and the rest of the Bishops in England should be served shortly as the Bishops had lately been in Scotland viz. at Edenborough St. Andrews c. Tertullus the Papist is made the Bishop's only Counsellor in the whole course of the Government of the Church by whose Advice the Bishops are made to bear with the Popish Recusants and that so many ways are sought to suppress the Puritans And he together with Pandocheus the Host and Demetrius the Usurer relate unto the Bishop such Occurrences as had happened in England during his stay amongst the Scots At which when the Bishop seemed
the Superiority of Bishops and the Supremacy of the Queen together with the dangerous Practises and Designs of the Disciplinarians exemplified by their Proceedings in Scotland and their Positions in England of which more anon All which particulars with many more upon the by he proved with such evidence of demonstration such great variety of Learning and strength of Arguments that none of all that Party could be found to take Arms against them in defence either of their leud Doctrine or more scandalous Vses And this being done he closed up all with a grave and serious Application in reference to the prevalency and malignity of the present Humours which wrought so much upon his Auditors of both Houses of Parliament that in the passing of a general Pardon at the end of the Sessions there was Exception of Seditious Books Disturbances of Divine Service and Offences against the Act of Vniformity in the Worship of God 30. And yet it is not altogether improbable but that this Exception was made rather at the Queen's Command or by some Caveat interposed by the House of Peers than by the sole Advice or any voluntary Motion of the House of Commons in which the Puritans at that time had a very strong Party By whose Endeavour a smart Petition is presented to the Lords in the Name of the Commons for rectifying of many things which they conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church The whole Petition did consist of Sixteen particulars of which the first Six did relate to a Preaching-Ministry the want of which was much complained of in a Supplication which had been lately Printed and presented to them but such a Supplication as had more in it of a Factious and Seditious Libel than of a Dutiful Remonstrance In the other Ten it was desired 1. That no Oath or Subscription might be tendred to any at their entrance into the Ministry but such as was prescribed by the Statutes of the Realm and the Oath against corrupt Entring 2. That they may not be troubled for omission of some Rites or Offices prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer 3. That such as had been suspended or deprived for no other offence but only for not subscribing might be restored 4. That they may not be called and urged to answer before the Officials and Commissaries but before the Bishops themselves 5. That they might not be called into the High Commission or Moot of the Diocess where they lived except for some notable Offence 6. That it might be permitted to them in every Arch-Deaconry to have some common Exercises and Conferences amongst themselves to be limited and prescribed by the Ordinaries 7. That the high Censure of Excommunication may not be denounced or executed for small matters 8. Nor by Chancellors Commissioners or Officials but by the Bishops themselves with the assistance of grave persons 9. That Non-residency may be quite removed out of the Church Or 10. That at least according to the Queen's Injunctions Art 44. no Non-resident having already a License or Faculty may enjoy it unless he depute an able Curate that may weekly Preach and Catechise as was required by Her Majesty in the said Injunctions Against the violence of this Torrent Arch-bishop Whitgift interposed both his Power and Reason affirming with a sober confidence in the H. of Peers not only that England flourished more at that time with able Ministers than ever it had done before but that it had more able men of eminent Abilities in all parts of Learning than the rest of Christendom besides But finding that the Lord Gray and others of that House had been made of the Party he drew the rest of the Bishops to joyn with him in an humble Address to Her Sacred Majesty in which they represented to Her the true estate of the Business together with those many Inconveniences which must needs arise to the State present and to come to the Two Universities to all Cathedral Churches and the Queen Her Self if the Commons might have had their will though in no other Point than in that of Pluralities All which they prest with such a Dutiful and Religious Gravity that the Queen put an end to that Dispute not only for the present but all Parliaments following 31. Somewhat there must be in it which might make them so afraid of that Subscription which was required at their hands to the Queen's Supremacy as well as to the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the Liturgy and to the Articles of Religion by Law established and therefore it will not be amiss as we have done already in all places else to touch upon the Principles and Positions of our English Puritans that we may see what Harmony and Consent there is betwixt them and their dear Brethren of the Discipline in other Nations For if we look into the Pamphlets which came out this Year we shall find these Doctrines taught for more Sacred Truths viz. That if Princes do hinder them that seek for this Discipline they are Tyrants both to the Church and Ministers and being so may be deposed by their Subjects That no Civil Magistrate hath pre-eminence by ordinary Authority either to determine of Church-Causes or to make Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies That no Civil Magistrate hath such Authority as that without his consent it should not be lawful for Ecclesiastical persons to make and publish Church-Orders That they which are no Elders of the Church have nothing to do with the Government of it That if their Reformation be not hastned forward by the Magistrate the Subjects ought not any longer to tarry for it but must do it themselves That there were many thousands which desired the Discipline And That great Troubles would ensue if it were denied them That their Presbyteries must prevail And That if it be brought about by such ways and means as would make the Bishops hearts to ake let them blame themselves For explication of which last passage Martin Mar-Prelate in his first Book threatens only fists but in the second he adviseth the Parliament then assembled to put down Lord Bishops and bring in the Reformation which they looked for whether Her Majesty would or not 32. But these perhaps were only the Evaporations of some idle Heads the Freaks of Discontent and Passion when they were crossed in their Desires Let us see therefore what is taught by Thomas Cartwright the very Calvin of the English as highly magnified by Martin and the rest of that Faction as the other was amongst the French Dr. Harding in his Answer to Bishop Iewel assures us That the Office of a King is the same in all places not only amongst Christians but amongst the Heathen Upon which Premises he concludes That a Christian Prince hath no more to do in deciding of Church-matters or in making Ceremonies and Orders for the same than hath a Heathen Cartwright affirms himself to be of the same opinion professing seriously his dislike of all such Writers
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
to go off with credit he prepares for Ireland But long he had not dwelt on his new Preferment when either he proved too hot for the Place or the Countrey by reason of the following Warrs grew too hot for him Which brought him back again to England where he lived to a very great age in a small Estate more comfortably than before because less troublesome to the Church than he had been formerly 18. Thus have we seen Travers taken off and Beza quieted nor was it long before Cartwright was reduced to a better temper But first it was resolved to try all means for his delivery both at home and abroad Abroad they held intelligence with their Brethren in the Kirk of Scotland by means of Penry here and of Gibson there two men as fit for their Designs as if they had been made of purpose to promote the Mischief Concerning which thus Gibson writes in one of his Letters to Coppinger before remembred whereby it seems that he was privy to his practices also The best of our Ministers saith he are most careful of your estate and had sent for that effect a Preacher of ours the last Summer of purpose to confer with the best affected of your Church to lay down a plot how our Church might best travel for your relief The Lord knows what care we have of you both in our publick and private Prayers c. For as feeling-members of one body we reckon the affliction of your Church to be our own This showed how great they were with child of some good Affections but there wanted strength to be delivered of the Burthen They were not able to raise Factions in the Court of England as Queen ELIZABETH had done frequently on their occasions in the Realm of Scotland All they could do was to engage the King in mediating with the Queen in behalf of Cartwright Vdal and some others of the principal Brethren then kept in Prison for their contumacy in refusing the Oath And they prevailed so far upon Him who was not then in a condition to deny them any thing as to direct some Lines unto Her in this tenour following 19. RIght Excellent High and Mighty Princess Our dearest Sister and Cousin in Our heartiest manner We recommend Us unto You. Hearing of the Apprehension of Master Vdal and Master Cartwright and certain other Ministers of the Evangel within Your Realm of whose good Erudition and Faithful Travels in the Church We hear a very credible commendation however that their diversity from the Bishops and other of Your Clergy in matters touching their Conscience hath been a mean by their delation to work them your misliking at this time We cannot weighing the Duty which We owe to such as are afflicted for their Conscience in that Profession but by Our most effectuous and earnest Letter interpone Us at Your Hands to stay any harder usage of them for that cause Requesting You most earnestly That for Our Cause and Intercession it may please You to let them be relieved of their present Strait and whatsoever further Accusation or Pursuit depending upon that ground respecting both their former Merit in setting forth the Evangel the simplicity of their Conscience in this Defence which cannot well be their Lett by Compulsion and the great slander which would not fail to fall out upon their further straitning for any such occasion Which We assure Us Your Zeal to Religion besides the expectation We have of Your good will to pleasure Us will willingly accord to Our Request having such proofs from time to time of Our like disposition to You in any matter which You recommend unto Us. And thus Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Princess Our dear Sister and Cousin We commit You to God's Protection Edenborough Iune 12. 1591. 20. This Letter was presented to the Queen by the hands of one Iohnson a Merchant of that Nation then remaining in London But it produced not the Effect which the Brethren hoped for For the Queen looked upon it as extorted rather by the importunity of some which were then about Him than as proceeding from Himself who had no reason to be too indulgent unto those of that Faction This Project therefore not succeeding they must try another and the next tryal shall be made on the High Commission by the Authority whereof Cartwright and Snape and divers others were committed Prisoners If this Commission could be weakned and the Power thereof reduced to a narrower compass the Brethren might proceed securely in the Holy Discipline the Prisoners be released and the Cause established And for the questioning thereof they took this occasion One Caudreys Parson of North-Luffengham in the County of Rutland had been informed against about four years since in the High Commission for preaching against the Book of Common-Prayer and refusing to celebrate Divine Service according to the Rules and Rubricks therein prescribed For which upon sufficient proof he was deprived of his Benefice by the Bishop of London and the rest of the Queen's Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes Four years together he lay quiet without acting any thing against the Sentence of the Court But now it was thought by some of those Lawyers whom Travers had gained unto the side to question the Authority of that Commission and consequently the illegality of his Deprivation In Hillary Term Anno 1591 the Cause was argued in the Exchequer Chamber by all the Judges according to the usual custom in all cases of the like importance and it was argued with great Learning as appears by the sum and substance of their several Arguments drawn up by Coke then being the Queen's Sollicitor-General and extant amongst the rest of his Reports both in English and Latin inscribed De Iure Regis Ecclesiastico but known most commonly by the name of Cawdrey's Case In the debating of which Point the Result was â—his That the Statute of 10 of the Queen for restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction c. was not to be accounted introductory of a new Authority which was not in the Crown before but only declaratory of an old which naturally and originally did belong to all Christian Princes and amongst others also to the Kings of England For proof whereof there wanted not sufficient evidence in our English Histories as well as in some old Records of unquestioned Credit exemplifying the continual practise of the Kings of England before and since the Norman Conquest in ordering and directing matters which concerned the Church In which they ruled sometimes absolutely without any dispute and sometimes relatively in reference to such opposition as they were to make against the Pope and all Authority derived from the See of Rome 21. Against this Case so solidly debated and so judiciously drawn up when none of the Puritan Professors could make any Reply Parsons the Iesuit undertook it but spent more time in searching out some contrary Evidence which might make for the Pope than in disproving that
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
About this time one of the Ministers named Rosse uttered divers Treasonable and Irreverent speeches against His Majesty in a Sermon of his preached at Perth for which the King craved Justice of the next Assembly and he required this also of them That to prevent the like for the times ensuing the Ministers should be inhibited by some Publick Order from uttering any irreverent speeches in the Pulpit against His Majesty's Person Council or Estate under the pain of Deprivation This had been often moved before and was now hearkned to with as little care as in former times All which the King got by it was no more but this that Rosse was only admonished to speak so reverently of His Majesty for the time to come as might give no just cause of complaint against him As ill success he had in the next Assembly to which he recommended some Conditions about the passing of the Sentence of Excommunication two of which were to this effect 1. That none should be excommunicated for Civil causes for any Crimes of leight importance or for particular wrongs offered to the Ministers lest the Censure should fall into contempt 2. That no summary Excommunication should be thenceforth used but that lawful citations of the Parties should go before in all manner of Causes whatsoever To both which he received no other Answer but That the Points were of too great weight to be determined on the sudden and should be therefore agitated in the next Assembly In the mean time it was provided That no Summary Excommunication should be used but in such occasions in which the Safety of the Church seemed to be in danger Which Exception much displeased the King knowing that they would serve their turn by it whensoever they pleased Nor sped he better with them when he treated severally than when they were in the Assembly The Queen of England was grown old and he desired to be in good terms with all his Subjects for bearing down all opposition which might be made against his Title after her decease To which end he deals with Robert Bruce a Preacher of Edenborough about the calling home the Popish Lords men of great Power and Credit in their several Countreys who had been banished the last year for holding some intelligence with the Catholick King Bruce excepts only against Huntley whom the King seemed to favour above all the rest and positively declared That the King must lose him if he called home Huntley for that it was impossible to keep them both And yet this Bruce was reckoned for a Moderate man one of the quietest and best-natur'd of all the Pack What was the issue of this business we shall see hereafter 42. In the mean time let us pass over into France and look upon the Actions of the Hugonots there of whose deserting their new King we have spoke of before And though they afterwards afforded him some Supplies both of Men and Money when they perceived him backed by the Queen of England and thereby able to maintain a defensive Warr without their assistance yet they did it in so poor a manner as made him utterly despair of getting his desired Peace by an absolute Victory In which perplexity he beholds his own sad condition his Kingdom wasted by a long and tedious Warr invaded and in part possessed by the Forces of Spain new Leagues encreasing every day both in strength and number and all upon the point of a new Election or otherwise to divide the Provinces amongst themselves To prevent which he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome goes personally to the Mass and in all other publick Offices which concerned Religion conformed himself unto the directions of the Pope And for so doing he gives this account to Wilks the Queen's Ambassador sent purposely to expostulate with him upon this occasion that is to say That Eight hundred of the Nobility and no fewer than Nine Regiments of the Protestant Party who had put themselves into the Service of his Predecessor returned unto their several homes and could not be induced to stay with him upon any perswasions That such of the Protestants as he had taken at the same time to his Privil-Council were so intent on their own business that they seldom vouchsafed their presence at the Council-Table so that being already forsaken by those on whom he relyed and fearing to be forsaken by the Papists also he was forced to run upon that course which unavoidable necessity had compelled him to and finally that being thus necessitated to a change of Religion he rather chose to make it look like his own free Act that he might thereby free the Doctrine of the Protestants from those Aspersions which he conceived must otherwise needs have fallen upon it if that Conversion had been wrought upon him by Dispute and Argument for hearkening whereunto he had bound himself when he first took the Crown upon him If by this means the Hugonots in France shall fall to as low an ebb as the Fortunes of their Brethren did in England at the same time they can lay the blame on nothing but their own Ingratitude their Disobedience to their King and the Genevian Principles that were rooted in them which made them Enemies to the Power and Guidance of all Soveraign Princes But the King being still in heart of his own Religion or at least exceeding favourable to all those that professed the same he willingly passed over all unkindness which had grown between them and by his countenance or connivence gave them such advantages as made them able to dispute the point with his Son and Successor whether they would continue Subjects to the Crown or not 43. In the Low-Countreys all things prospered with the Presbyterians who then thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledg By whose example the Calvinians take up Arms in the City of Embden renounce all obedience to their Prince and put themselves into the Form of a Commonwealth This Embden is the principal City of the Earl of East-Friesland situate on the mouth of the River Emns called Amasus by Latin Writers and from thence denominated Beautified with a Haven so deep and large that the greatest Ships with full sail are admitted into it The People rich the Buildings general fair both private and publick especially the Town-Hall and the stately Castle Which last being situate on a rising-ground near the mouth of the Haven and strongly fortified toward the Town had for long time been the Principal Seat of the Earls of that Province The second Earl hereof called Ezard when he had governed this Countrey for the space of sixty years or thereabouts did first begin to introduce the Doctrines of Luther into his Estates Anno 1525. But being old he left the Work to be accomplished by Enno his eldest Son who first succeeded in that Earldom and using the assistance of Hardimbergius a Moderate and Learned man established the Augustine Confession in the
City of Embden and afterwards in all places under his command prohibiting the exercise of all Religion but the Lutheran only Which Prohibition notwithstanding some Anabaptists from the Neighbouring Westphalia found way to plant themselves in Embden where liberty of Trade was freely granted to all comers which allured thither also many Merchants and Artificers with their Wives and Families out of the next-adjoining Provinces of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland then subject to the King of Spain Who being generally Calvinians in point of Doctrine were notwithstanding suffered to plant there also in regard of the great benefit which accrued unto it by their Trade and Manufactures But nothing more encreased the Power and Wealth of that City than the Trade of England removed from Antwerp thither on occasion of the Belgick Troubles and the great fear they had conceived of the Duke of Alva who seemed to breathe nothing but destruction unto their Religion And though the English Trade was removed not long after unto Hambourgh upon the hope of greater Priviledges and Immunities than they had at Embden yet still they kept a Factory in it which added much to the improvement of their Wealth and Power insomuch that the Inhabitants of this Town only are affirmed to have Sixty Ships of One hundred Tun a-piece and Six hundred lesser Barks of their own besides Seven hundred Busses and Fishing Boats maintained for the most part by their Herring-fishing on the Coast of England 44. Having attained unto this Wealth they grew proud withall and easily admitting the Calvinian Doctrines began to introduce also the Genevian Discipline connived at by Ezardus the second the Son of Enno in respect of the profit which redounded by them to his Exchequer though they began to pinch upon him to the diminution of his Power In which condition it remained till his marriage with Catharine the Daughter of Gustavus Ericus King of Sweden who being zealously addicted to the Lutheran Forms and sensible of those great Incroachments which had been made upon the Earl's Temporal Jurisdiction by the Consistorians perswaded him to look better to his own Authority and to regain what he had lost by that Connivence Something was done for the recovering of his Power but it went on slowly hoping to compass that by time and dissimulation which he could not easily obtain by force of Arms. After whose death and the short Government of Enno the second the matter was more stoutly followed by Rodolphus the Nephew of Catharine who did not only curb the Consistorians in the exercise of their Discipline but questioned many of those Priviledges which the unwariness of his Predecessors had indulged unto them The Calvinians had by this time made so strong a Party that they were able to remonstrate against their Prince complaining in the same That the Earl had violated their Priviledges and infringed their Liberties That he had interposed his Power against Right and Reason in matters which concerned the Church and belonged to the Consistory That he assumed unto himself the Power of distributing the Alms or publick Collections by which they use to bind the poor to depend upon them That he prohibited the exercise of all Religions except only the Confession of Ausberg And that he would not stand to the Agreement which was made betwixt them for interdicting all Appeals to the Chamber of Spires Having prepared the way by this Remonstrance they take an opportunity when the Earl was absent arm themselves and seize by force upon his Castle demolished part of it which looks toward the Town and possest themselves of all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition with an intent hereafter to employ them against him And this being done they govern all Affairs in the Name of the Senate without relation to their Prince making themselves a Free-Estate or Commonwealth like their Belgick Neighbours 45. Extreamly moved with this affront and not being able otherwise to reduce them to a sense of their duty he borrows Men and Arms from Lubeck to compel them to it With which assistance he erects a Fort on the further side of the Haven to spoil their Trade and by impoverishing the people to regain the Town The Senate hereupon send abroad their Edicts to the Nobility and Commons of East-Friesland it self requiring them not to aid their own lawful Prince with Men Arms or Money threatning them if they did the contrary to stop the course of all Provisions which they had from their City and by breaking down their Dams and Sluces to let the Ocean in upon them and drown all their Countrey Which done they make their Applications to the States of Holland requiring their assistance in that common Cause to which they had been most encouraged by their Example not doubting of their Favour to a City of their own Religion united to them by a long intercourse of Trade and resemblance of Manners and not to be deserted by them without a manifest betraying of their own Security All this the States had under their consideration But they consider this withall That if they should assist the Embdeners in a publick way the Earl would presently have recourse for some aid from the Spaniard which might draw a Warr upon them on that side where they lay most open Therefore they so contrived the matter with such Art and Cunning that carrying themselves no otherwise than as Arbiters and Umpires between the Parties they discharged some Companies of Soldiers which they had in West-Friesland who presently put themselves into the Pay of the Embdens and thereby caused the Earl to desist from his Intrenchments on the other side of the Haven After which followed nothing but Warrs and Troubles between the City and the Earl till the year 1606. At what time by the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some other Honourable Friends the differences were compromised to this effect That all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition which were found in the Castle should be restored unto the Earl That he should have to his own use the whole Profit of the Imposts which were laid on Wine and half the benefit of those Amercements or Fines which should be raised upon Delinquents together with the sole Royalties both of Fishing and Hunting And on the other side That the Embdeners should have free Trade with all the Profits and Emoluments belonging to it which should be granted to them by Letters Patents But for admitting him to any part of the Publick Government or making restitution of his House or Castles the ancient Seat of his abode as there was nothing yeelded or agreed on then so could he never get possession of them from that time to this Which said we must cross over again into the Isle of Brittain where we shall find the English Puritans climbing up by some new devices and the Scottish Presbyterians tumbling down from their former height till they were brought almost to as low a fall as their English Brethren AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The
11. In which condition it remained till this present year when the said Image was again fastned and repaired the Images of Christ's Resurrection and the rest continuing broken as before And on the East side of the said Cross where the steps had been was then set up a curious wrought Tabernacle of gray Marble and in the same an Alablaster Image of Diana from whose naked Breasts there trilled continually some streams of Water conveyed unto it from the Thames But the madness of this Faction could not so be stayed for the next year that I may lay all things together which concern this Cross a new mishapen Son as born out of time all naked was put into the Arms of the Virgin 's Image to serve for matter of derision to the common people And in the year 1599 the figure of the Cross erected on the top of the Pile was taken down by Publick Order under pretence that otherwise it might have fallen and endangered many with an intent to raise a Pyramis or Spire in the place thereof which coming to the knowledg of the Lords of the â—â—uncil they directed their Letters to the Lord Mayor then being whom they required in the Queen's Name to cause the said Cross to be repaired and advanced as formerly But the Cross still remaining headless for a year and more and the Lords not enduring any longer such a gross Contempt they re-inforced their Letters to the next Lord Mayor dated December 24 in the year 1600. In which they willed and commanded him in pursuance of her Majesty's former Directions to cause the said Cross without more delay to be re-advanced respecting in the same the great Antiquity and continuance of that stately Monument erected for an Ensign of our Christianity In obedience unto which Commands a Cross was forthwith framed of timber cover'd with lead and set up and gilded and the whole body of the Pile new cleansed from filth and rubbish Which gave such fresh displeasure to some zealous Brethren that within twelve nights after the Image of the blessed Virgin was again defaced by plucking off her Crown and almost her Head dispossessing her of her naked Child and stabbing her into the breast c. Most ridiculous Follies 12. In the beginning of the year we find Sir Thomas Egerton advanced to the Custody of the Great Seal of England Lord Chancellor in effect under the Title of Lord Keeper to which Place he was admitted on the sixth of May to the great joy of the Arch-bishop who always looked upon him as a lover of Learning a constant favourer of the Clergy zealous for the established Government and a faithful Friend unto himself upon all occasions Who being now Peered with the Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Essex assured of the good-will of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh and strengthned with the Friendship of Sir Robert Cicil Principal Secretary of State was better fortified than ever And at this time Her Majesty laying on his shoulders the burden of all Church-Concernments told him It should fall on his Soul and Conscience if any thing fell out amiss in that by reason of her age she had thought good to ease her self of that part of her Cares and looked that he should yeeld an account thereof to Almighty God So that upon the matter he was all in all for all Church-Affairs and more especially in the disposing of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Promotions For his first entrance on which Trust he preferrs Dr. Thomas Bilson to the See of Worcester who received his Episcopal Consecration on the 13 th of Iune Anno 1596. and by his Favour was translated within two years after to the Church of Winchester He advanced also his old Friend Dr. Richard Bancroft to the See of London whom he consecrated on the 8 th of May Anno 1597 that he might always have him near him for Advice and Counsel Which Famous Prelate that I may note this by the way was born at Farnworth in the County of Lancaster Baptized September 1544. His Father was Iohn Bancroft Gentleman his Mother Mary Curwin Daughter of Iohn Brother of Hugh Curwin Bishop of Oxon whose eldest Son was Christopher the Father of Dr. Iohn Bancroft who after dyed Bishop of that See Anno 1640. But this Richard of whom now we speak being placed by his Unkle Dr. Curwin in Christ's Colledg in Cambridg from thence removed to Iesus Colledg in the same University because the other was suspected to incline to Novelism His Unkle Dr. Curwin being preferred to the Arch-bishoprick of Dublin made him a Prebend of that Church after whose death he became Chaplain to Cox Bishop of Ely who gave him the Rectory of Teversham not far from Cambridg Being thus put into the Road of Preferment he proceeded Batchellor of Divinity Anno 1580 and Doctor in the year 1585 About which time he put himself into the Service of Sir Christopher Hatton by whose recommendation he was made a Prebend of St. Peters in Westminster 1592. From whence he had the earlier passage to St. Pauls in London 13. About this time brake out the Juglings of Iohn Darrel who without any lawful Calling had set up a new Trade of Lecturing in the Town of Nottingham and to advance some Reputation to his Person pretends an extraordinary Power in casting out Devils He practised first on one Catharine Wright An. 1586. But finding some more powerful Practises to be then on foot in favour of the Presbyterian Discipline he laid that Project by till all others failed him But in the year 1592 he resumes the Practise hoping to compass that by Wit and Legerdemain which neither Carthwright by his Learning nor Snape by his Diligence Penry by his Seditions or Hacket by his damnable Treasons had the good fortune to effect He first begins with William Summers an unhappy Boy whom he first met at Ashby de la Zouch in the Country of Him he instructs to do such Tricks as might make him seem to be possest acquaints him with the manner of the Fits which were observed by Catharine Wright delivers them in writing to him for his better remembrance wished him to put the same in practise and told him that in so doing he should not want But either finding no great forwardness in the Boy to learn his Lesson or being otherwise discouraged from proceeding with him he applies himself to one Thomas Darling commonly called The Boy of Burton Anno 1596 whom he found far more dextrous in his Dissimulations the History of whose Possessings and Dispossessings was writ at large by Iesse Bee a Religious sad Lyar contracted by one Denison a Countrey-Minister Seen and Allowed by Hildersham one of the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery and Printed with the good leave and liking of Darrel himself who growing famous by this means remembers Summers his first Scholar to whom he gives a second meeting at the Park of Ashby teacheth him to act them better than before
Perjuries than amongst those Fanatical spirits he should meet withall 39. But on the contrary he tells us of the Church of England at his first coming thither That he found that Form of Religion which was established under Queen ELIZABETH of famous memory by the Laws of the Land to have been blessed with a most extraordinary Peace and of long continuance which he beheld as a strong evidence of God's being very well pleased with it He tells us also That he could find no cause at all on a full debate for any Alteration to be made in the Common-Prayer-Book though that most impugned that the Doctrines seemed to be sincere the Forms and Rites to have been justified out of the Practise of the Primitive Church And finally he tells us That there was nothing in the same which might not very well have been born withall if either the Adversaries would have made a reasonable construction of them or that his Majesty had not been so nice or rather jealous as himself confesseth for having all publick Forms in the Service of God not only to be free from all blame but from any suâ—spition For which consult his Proclamation of the fifth of March before the Book of Common-Prayer And herewith he declared himself so highly pleased that in the Conference at Hampton-Court he entred into a gratulation to Almighty God for bringing him into the Promised Land so he pleased to call it where Religion was purely profest the Government Ecclesiastical approved by manifold blessings from God himself as well in the encrease of the Gospel as in a glorious and happy Peace and where he had the happiness to sit amongst Grave and Learned men and not to be a King as elsewhere he had been without State without Honour without Order as before was said And this being said we shall proceed unto the rest of our Story casting into the following Book all the Successes of the Puritans or Presbyterians in his own Dominions during the whole time of his Peaceful Government and so much also of their Fortunes in France and Belgium as shall be necessary to the knowledg of their future Actings AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XI Containing Their Successes whether good or bad in England Scotland Ireland and the Isle of Jersey from the Year 1602 to the Year 1623 with somewhat touching their Affairs as well in France and Sweden as the Belgick Provinces 1. THE Puritans and Presbyterians in both Kingdoms were brought so low when King IAMES first obtained the Crown of England that they might have been supprest for ever without any great danger if either that King had held the Rains with a constant hand or been more fortunate in the choice of his Ministers after the old Councellors were worn out than in fine he proved But having been kept to such hard meats when he lived in Scotland he was so taken with the Delicacies of the English Court that he abandoned the Severities and Cares of Government to enjoy the Pleasures of a Crown Which being perceived by such as were most near unto him it was not long before the Secret was discovered to the rest of the people who thereupon resolved to husband all occasions which the times should give them to their best advantage But none conceived more hopes of him than some Puritan Zealots who either presuming on his Education in the Kirk of Scotland or venturing on the easiness of his Disposition began to intermit the use of the Common-Prayer to lay aside the Surplice and neglect the Ceremonies and more than so to hold some Classical and Synodical Meetings as if the Laws themselves had dyed when the Queen expired But these Disorders he repressed by his Proclamation wherein he commanded all his Subjects of what sort soever not to innovate any thing either in Doctrine or Discipline till he upon mature deliberation should take order in it 2. But some more wary than the rest refused to joyn themselves to such forward Brethren whose Actions were interpreted to savour stronger of Sedition than they did of Zeal And by these men it was thought better to address themselves by a Petition to His Sacred Majesty which was to be presented to him in the name of certain Ministers of the Church of England desiring Reformation of sundry Ceremonies and Abuses Given out to be subscribed by a thousand hands and therefore called the Millenary Petition though there wanted some hundreds of that number to make up the sum In which Petition deprecating first the imputation of Schism and Faction they rank their whole Complaints under these four heads that is to say The Service of the Church Church-Ministers the Livings and Maintenance of the Church and the Discipline of it In reference to the first the Publick Service of the Church it was desired That the Cross in Baptism Interrogatories ministred to Infants and Confirmations as superfluous might be taken away That Baptism might not be administred by Women That the Cap and Surplice might not be urged That Examination might go before the Communion and that it be not administred without a Sermon That the terms of Priest and Absolution with the Ring in Marriage and some others might be corrected That the length of Service might be abridged Church-Songs and Musick moderated And that the Lord's Day be not prophaned nor Holy-days so strictly urged That there might be an Uniformity of Doctrine prescribed That no Popish Opinion be any more taught or defended That Ministers might not be charged to teach their people to bow at the Name of Iesus And that the Canonical Scriptures be only read in the Church 3. In reference to Church-Ministers it was propounded That none hereafter be admitted into the Ministry but Able and Sufficient men and those to preach diligently especially upon the Lord's Day but such as be already entred and cannot preach may either be removed and some charitable course taken with them for their Relief or else to be forced according to the value of their Livings to maintain Preachers That Non-residency be not permitted That K. Edward's Statute for the lawfulness of Ministers marriage might be revived That Ministers might not be urged to subscribe but according to the Law the Articles of Religion and the King's Supremacy It was desired also in relation to the Church's Maintenance That Bishops might leave their Commendams some holding Prebends some Parsonages some Vicaridges with their Bishopricks That double-beneficed men might not be suffered to hold some two some three Benefices and as many Dignities That Impropriations annexed to Bishopricks and Colledges be demised only to the Preachers Incumbents for the old Rent That the Impropriations of Lay-men's Fee may be charged with a sixth or seventh part of the worth to the maintenance of a Preaching-Minister And finally in reference to the execution of the Church's Discipline it was humbly craved That the Discipline and Excommunication might be administred according to Christ's own Institution or at the
esteem for his Parts and Piety and setled all things as they thought in so good a posture that some of them retired to their Countrey-houses and others slackned their attendance about the Court. Which opportunity being taken by the Earl of Dunbar he puts in for Abbot who had attended him in some of his Negotiations with the Kirk of Scotland Upon the merits of which Service he was preferred first to the See of Litchfield to which he received his Episcopal Consecration on the third of December 1609 and within the compass of the year was removed to London But Dunbar was resolved to advance him higher And he put in so powerfully on his behalf that at last he carried it to the great detriment of the Church as it after proved For as one very well observeth of him he seemed to be better qualified with merit to attain the Dignity than with a spirit answerable to so great a Function Which made him slack and negligent in the course of his Government and too indulgent to that Party which Bancroft had kept under with such just severity But take his Character in the words of the said Historian and we shall find that he was a man too facil and yeelding in the exercise of that great Office that by his extraordinary remisness in not exacting strict conformity to the prescribed Orders of the Church in point of Ceremony he seemed to resolve those Legal determinations to their first indifferency and finally That he brought in such a habiâ— of Nonconformity that the future reduction of those tender Conscienced-men to a long discontinued obedience was at the last interpreted for an Innovation 27. But to go forwards where we left Bancroft being dead the English Puritans began to put forth again not pushing at the Liturgy and Episcopal Government as in former times but in pursuance of the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors Which having been advanced in the year 1595 as is there declared and afterward laid aside till a fitter season were now thought fit to be resumed as the most proper Mediums for inferring the desired Conclusion In both which they received some countenance from K. IAMES himself but more from the connivence if I may not call it the encouragement of the new Arch-bishop In reference to the first the King had published a Proclamation in the first year of his Reign prohibiting some rude and disorderly Pastimes as namely Ball Baitings Bear-baitings and common Interludes from being followed on the Sunday because they drew away much people from God's publick Service And he had caused the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath to be confâ—â—â—ed amongst the rest of the Irish Articles Anno 1615 of which more anon Which Condescentions were so husbanded by the Puritan Faction that by the raising of the Sabbath they depressed the Festivals and with the Festivals all those ancient and Annual Fasts which had been kept upon the Eves And following close upon the Doctrines of Aerius before remembred they introduced by little and little a general neglect of the Weekly Fasts the holy time of Lent and the Embring-days reducing all the Acts of Humiliation to solemn and occasional Fasts as amongst the Scots and yet this was not all the mischief which ensued on their Sabbath-Doctrines By which and by the temper of the present Government they gave occasion to some Preachers and not a few publick Ministers of Justice in their several Countreys to interdict all lawful sports upon that Day By means whereof the people were perswaded by some Priests and Jesuits especially in Lancashire and some others of the Northern Counties that the Reformed Religion was incompetible with that Christian Liberty which God and Nature had indulged to the sons of men And having brought them to that point it was no hard matter to perswade them to fall off to Popery as a Religion more agreeable to human Society and such as would permit them all such lawful pleasures as by the Stoicism of the other had been interdicted Which brought the King to a necessity of publishing his Declaration about lawful sports dated at Greenwich on the 24 th day of May Anno 1620. Which as it put some Water into the Wine of the Sabbatarians so shewed he within few years after how little he affected the Calvinian Rigors 28. In reference to which last some of the Zealots in the Cause had took encouragement from his Declaration against Vorstus a Divine of the Netherlands in which he had bestowed some unhandsome Epethetes upon the Followers of Van Harmine in the Belgick Provinces This seemed sufficient to expose all those of the same Perswasions unto scorn and hatred and on the other side to animate all those who favoured Calvinism to act such things as drew upon them at the last the King 's high displeasure Calvin had published a blasphemous Fancy touching Christ's suffering of Hell-torments in the time of his Passion even to the horrors of Despair Which being touched upon by Corbet one of the Students of Christ-Church in a Passion-Sermon 1613 he was most sharply reprehended by the Repetitioner for so great a sauciness Dr. Iohn Houson one of the Canons of that Church who had most worthily discharged the Office of Vice-Chancellor twelve years before declared himself somewhat to the prejudice of the Annotations which were made on the Genevian Bibles and for so doing is condemned to a Recantation much about that time though the said Annotations had been censured for their partiality and seditiousness by the Tongue of K. IAMES And finally Dr. William Laud being then President of St. Iohn's Colledg had showed himself no Friend to Calvinism in Doctrine or Discipline and must be therefore branded for a Papist in a publick Sermon preached upon Easter Suâ—â—ay by Dr. Robert Abbot then Vice-Chancellor and Doctor of the Chair in that University Which passages so closely following upon one another ocsioned as most conceived the publishing of some Directions by His Majesty in the year next following In which it was injoyned among other things That young Students in Divinity should be directed to study such Books as were most agreeable in Doctrine and Discipline to the Church of England and be excited to bestow their time in the Fathers and Councils School-men Histories and Controversies and not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators making them the grounds of those Sacred Studies Which as it was the first great blow which was given to Calvinism so was it followed not long after by the King's Instructions touching Preaching and Preachers In which it was precisely cautioned amongst other things That no Preacher of what Title soever under the Degree of a Bishop or Dean at the least should from thenceforth presume to preach in any popular Auditory the deep points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the Vniversality Efficacity Resistibility or Irresistibility of God's Grace but should rather leave those Theams to be handled by Learned men as being fitter for Schools and
Vniversities than for simple Auditories Which said Instructions bearing date at Windsor on the 10 th of August 1622 opened the way to the suppression of that heat and fierceness by which the Calvinists had been acted in some years fore-going 29. During which Heats and Agitations between the Parties a Plot was set on foot to subvert the Church in the undoing of the Clergy and there could be no readier way to undo the Clergy than to reduce them unto such a Beggerly Competency for by that name they love to call it as they had brought them to in all the rest of the Calvinian or Genevian Churches This the design of many hands by whom all passages had been scored in Cotton's Library which either did relate to the point of Tythes or the manner of payment But the Collections being brought together and the Work compleated there appeared no other Name before it than that of Selden then of great Credit in the World for his known Abilities in the retired Walks of Learning The History of Tythes writ by such an Author could not but raise much expectation amongst some of the Laity who for a long time had gaped after the Church's Patrimony and now conceived and hoped to swallow it down without any chewing The Author highly magnified the Book held unanswerable and all the Clergy looked on but as Pigmies to that great Goliah who in his Preface had reproached them with Ignorance and Laziness upbraided them with having nothing to keep up their Credit but Beard Title and Habit and that their studies reached no further than the Breviary the Postills and the Polyanthea Provoked wherewith he was so galled by Tillesly so gagged by Mountague and stung by Netles that he never came off in any of his Undertakings with more loss of Credit By which he found that some of the Ignorant and Lazy Clergy were of as retired Studies as himself and could not only match but over-match him too in his own Philology But the chief Governours of the Church went a shorter way and not expecting till the Book was answered by particular men resolved to seek for reparation of the wrong from the Author himself upon an Information to be brought against him in the High Commission Fearing the issue of the business and understanding what displeasures were conceived against him by the King and the Bishops he made his personal appearance in the open Court at Lambeth on the 28 th day of Ianuary 1618 where in a full Court he tendred his submission and acknowledgment all of his own hand-writing in these following words My Lords I most humbly acknowledg my Error which I have committed in publishing The History of Tythes and especially in that I have at all by shewing any Interpretations of Holy Scriptures by medling with Councils Fathers or Canons or by whatsoever occurrs in it offered any occasion of Argument against any Right of Maintenance â—ure Divino of the Ministers of the Gospel beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment together with the unfeigned Protestation of my grief for that through it I have so incurred both His Majesty's and your Lordships Displeasure conceived against me in behalf of the Church of England JOHN SELDEN This for the present was conceived to be the most likely Remedy for the preventing of the Mischief but left such smart Remembrances in the mind of the Author as put him on to act more vigorously for the Presbyterians of which more hereafter by whom he seemed to be engaged in the present Service 30. But it is now high time for us to cross over St. George's Channel and take a short view of the poor and weak Estate of the Church of Ireland where these Designs were carried on with better Fortune A Church which for the most part had been modelled by the Reformation which was made in England But lying at a greater distance and more out of sight it was more easily made a prey to all Invaders the Papists prevailing on the one side and the Puritans on the other getting so much ground that the poor Protestants seemed to be crucified in the midst between them Some Order had been taken for establishing the English Liturgy together with the Bible in the English Tongue in all the Churches of that Kingdom which not being understood by the natural Irish left them as much in Ignorance and Superstition as in the darkest times of the Papal Tyranny And for the Churches of the Pale which very well understood the English Language they suffered themselves to be seduced from the Rules of the Church and yeelded to the prevalency of those zealous Ministers who carried on the Calvinian Project with their utmost power In order whereunto it was held necessary to expose the Patrimony of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches to a publick Port-sale that being as much weakned in their Power as they were in Estate they might be rendred inconsiderable in the eyes of the people Hence-forward such a general devastation of the Lands of the Church that some Episcopal-Sees were never since able to maintain a Bishop but have been added to some others two or three for failing to make up somewhat like a Competency for an Irish Prelate The Bishoprick of Ardagh was thereupon united unto that of Kill more but the Cathedral of the one together with the Bishop's House adjoyning to it had been levelled with the very ground the other in some better repair but neither furnished with Bell Font or Chalice The like union had been also made between the Bishopricks of Clonfert and Killmare Ossery and Kilkenny Down and Connour Waterford and Lismore Cork and Rosse c. and was projected by the late Lord Primate between the See of Kilfanore and that of Killallow not to descend any more particulars of the like Conjunctions 31. Such also were the Fortunes of the Rural Clergy whose Churches in some places lay unrooted in others unrepaired and much out of order The Tythes annexed for the most part to Religions Houses fell by the ruin of those Houses to the Power of the Crown and by the Kings and Queens of England were aliened from the Church and by them became Lay-Fees The Vicaridges generally so ill provided that in the whole Province of Connaught most of the Vicars Pensions came but to forty shillings per annum and in some places but sixteen only And of such Vicaridges as appeared to be better endowed three four or five were many times ingrossed into one man's hands who neither understood the Language nor performed the Service In which respect it was no marvel if the people took up that Religion which came next to hand such as did either serve most fitly to continue them in their former Errors or to secure them in the quiet enjoyment of those Estates which they had ravished from the Church and still possessed by the Title of the first Usurpers In which estate we find the Church of Ireland at the death
it pleased God to put into the heart of the late Queen Our most dear Sister to permit and allow unto the Isles of Jersey and â—uernsey parcel of the Dutchy of Normandy the use of the â—â—â—â—ment of the Reformed Churches of the said Dutchy whereof they have stood possessed until Our coming to the Crown For this cause We desiring to follow the pious Example of Our said Sister in this behalf as well for the advancement of the Glory of Almighty God as for the edification of his Church do will and ordain That Our said Isles shall quietly enjoy their said Liberty in the use of Ecclesiastical Discipline there now established Forâ—idding any one to give them any trouble or impeachment so long as they contain themselves in Our obedience and attempt not any thing against the Power and Sacred Word of God Given at our Palace at Hampton-Court the 8th of August in the first year of Our Reign of England 1603. 36. This Letter was communicated unto all whom it might concern in a Synod of both Islands held in Iersey Anno 1605. But long they were not suffered to enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation For sir Iohn Peiton who succeeded Governour of Iersey in the place of Raleigh had of himself no good affections to that Platform and possibly might be furnished with some secret Instructions for altering it in the Island on the first conveniency The ground whereof was laid upon this occasion The Curate of St. Iohn's being lately dead it pleased the Colloquie of that Island according to their former method to appoint one Brevin to succeed him Against this course the Governour the King's Attorney and other the Officers of the Crown protested publickly as being prejudicial to the Rights and Profits of the King Howbeit the Case was over-ruled and the Colloquie for that time carried it Hereupon a Bill of Articles was exhibited to the Lords of the Council against the Ministers of that Island by Peiton the Governour Marret the Attorney and the rest as viz. That they had usurped the Patronage of all Benefices in the Island That thereby they admitted men to Livings without any Form or Presentation and by that means deprived his Majesty of Vacancies and First-fruits That by the connivance to say no worse of it of the former Governours they exercised a kind of Arbitrary Iurisdiction making and disannulling Laws at their own most uncertain pleasure In consideration whereof they humbly pray His Sacred Majesty to grant them such a Discipline as might be fittest to the nature of the Place and less derogatory to the Royal Prerogative 37. In the pursuance of this Project Sir Robert Gardiner once Chief Justice of Ireland and Iames Husley Dr. of the Laws are sent Commissioners unto that Island though not without the colour of some other business To these Commissioners the Ministers give in their Answer which may be generally reduced to these two heads First That their appointment of men into the Ministry and the exercise of Jurisdiction being principal parts of the Church-Discipline had been confirmed unto them by His Sacred Majesty And secondly That the payment of First-fruits and Tenths had never been exacted from them since they were freed from their subordination to the Bishops 〈◊〉 â—onstance to whom formerly they had been due But these Anâ—â—â—â— giving no just satisfaction unto the Council of England and nothing being done in order to a present Settlement a foul deformity both of Confusion and Distraction did suddenly overgrow the face of those wretched Churches For in the former times all such as took upon them any publick Charge either in Church or Common-wealth had bound themselves by Oath to cherish and maintain the Discipline That Oath is now disclaimed as dangerous and unwarrantable Before it was their custom to exact subscription to their Plat-form of all such as purposed to receive the Sacrament but now the King's Attorney and others of that Party chose rather to abstain from the Communion than to yeeld Subscription Nay even the very Elders silly souls that thought themselves as sacro sancti as a Roman Tribune were drawn with Process into the Civil Courts and there reputed with the Vulgar Nor was the Case much better in the Sacred Consistory the Jurates in their Cohu or Town-Hall relieving such by their Authority whom that once paramount Tribunal had condemned or censured And yet this was not all the Mischief which befel them neither Those of the lower rank seeing the Ministers begin to stagger in their Chairs refused to set out their Tythes and if the Curates mean to exact their Dues the Law is open to all comers to try their Title Their Benefices which before were accounted as exempt and priviledged are now brought to reckon for First-fruits and Tenths and that not according to the Book of Constance as they had been formerly but by the will and pleasure of the present Governour And to make up the total sum of their Mis-fortunes one of the Constables preferrs a Bill against them in the common Cohu in which they were accused of Hypocrisie in their Conversation and Tyranny in the Exercise of their Jurisdiction and finally of holding some secret practises against the Governour which consequentially did reflect on the King Himself 38. In this Confusion they address themselves to the Earl of Salisbury then being Lord Treasurer of England and in great credit with King IAMES who seeming very much pleased with their Application advised them to invite their Brethren of the Isle of Guernsey to joyn with them in a Petition to the King for a redress of those Grievances which they then complained of A Counsel which then seemed rational and of great respect but in it self of greater cunning than it seemed in the first appearance For by this means as certainly he was a man of a subtile Wit he gave the King more time to compass his Designs in Scotland before he should declare himself in the present business and by engaging those of Guernsey in the same desires intended to subject them also to the same conclusion But this Counsel taking no effect by reason of the death of the Councellor they fall into another trouble of their own creating The Parish of St. Peters falling void by the death of the Minister the Governour presents unto it one Aaron Messering one that had spent his time in Oxon and had received the Order of Priesthood from the Right Reverend Dr. Bridges then Bishop of that Diocess but of himself a Native of the Isle of Iersey A thing so infinitely stomacked by those of the Colloquy that they would by no means yeeld unto his admission not so much in regard of his presentation by the Power of the Governour as because he had taken Orders from the hands of a Bishop For now they thought that Popery began to break in upon them and therefore that it did concern them to oppose it to the very last A new Complaint is
Darby being then Governour of that Island as if the Magistrate had intrenched on the Minister's Office and took upon them the administration of the blessed Sacraments Of these particulars and many others of that nature intelligence was given to the late Arch-bishop Dr. Laud who had proceeded thereupon to a Reformation Anno 1637 if the Distraction then arising in the Realm of Scotland had not enforced him to a discontinuance of that Resolution AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XII Containing Their Tumultuating in the Belgick Provinces their Practises and Insurrections in the Higher Germany the frustrating of their Design on the Churches of Brandenbourgh the Revolts of Transilvania Hungary Austria and Bohemia and the Rebellions of the French from the Year 1610 to the Year 1628. FRom Guernsey we set sail for Holland in which we left the Ministers divided into two main Factiions the one being called the Remonstrants the other taking to themselves the Name of Contra-Remonstrants To put an end to those Disorders a Conference was appointed between the Parties held at the Hague before the General Assembly of Estates of the Belgick Provinces Anno 1610. The Controversiâ— reduced to five Articles only and the Dispute managed by the ablest men who appeared in the Quarrel on either side In which it was conceived that the Remonstrants had the better of the day and came off with Victory But what the Contra-Remonstrants wanted in the strength of Argument they made good by Power For being far the greater number and countenanced by the Prince of Orange as their principal Patron they prosecuted their Opponents in their several Consistories by Suspensions Excommunications and Deprivations the highest Censures of the Church This forced the Remonstrant Party to put themselves under the protection of Iohn Olden Barnevelt an Hollander by birth and one of the most powerful men of all that Nation who fearing that the Prince of Orâ—nge had some secret purpose to make Himself absolute Lord of those Estates received them very cheerfully into his protection not without hope of raising a strong Party by them to oppose the Prince This draws K. IAMES into the Quarrel who being displeased with the Election of Conradus Vorstius to a Divinity-Reader's Place in the Schools of Leiden and not so readily gratified by the Estates in the choice of another published a Declaration against this Vorstius and therein falls exceeding foul upon Iames Van Harmine and all that followed his Opinions in the present Controversies Which notwithstanding Barnevelt gains an Edict from the States of Holland Anno 1613 by which a mutual Toleration was indulged to either Party more to the benefit of the Remonstrants than the contentment of the others An Edict highly magnified by the Learned Grotius in his Pietas Ordinum c. Against which some Answers were returned by Bogerman Sibrandus and some others not without some reflections on the Magistrates for their actings in it 2. This made the breach much wider than it was before King IAMES appearing openly in favour of the Prince of Orange the Spaniard secretly fomenting the Designs of Barnevelt as it was afterwards suggested with what truth I know not But sure it is that as K. IAMES had formerly aspersed the Remonstrant Party in His Declaration against Vorstius before remembred so He continued a most bitter Enemy unto them till he had brought them at the last to an extermination But what induced him thereunto hath been made a question Some think that he was drawn unto it by the powerful perswasions of Arch-bishop Abbot and Bishop Mountague who then much governed his Counsels in all Church-concernments Others impute it to his Education in the Church of Scotland where all the Heterodoxies of Calvin were received as Gospel which might incline him the more strongly to those Opinions which he had sucked in as it were with his Nurse's Milk Some say that he was carried in this business not so much by the clear light of his own understanding as by a transport of affection to the Prince of Orange to whom he had a dear regard and a secret sympathy Others more rationally ascribe it unto Reason of State for the preventing of a dangerous and uncurable Rupture which otherwise was like to follow in the State of the Netherlands He had then a great Stock going amongst them in regard of the two Towns of Brill and Vlushing together with the Fort of Ramekins which had been put into the hands of Queen ELIZABETH for great sums of money In which regard the Governour of the Town of Vlushing and the Ambassador resident for the Crown of England were to have place in all publick Councils which concerned those Provinces on whose Tranquillity and Power he placed a great part of the peace and happiness of his own Dominions He knew that Concord was the strongest Ligament of their Confederation and looked on the Remonstrants as the breakers of that Bond of Unity which formerly had held them so close together 3. Upon this reason he exhorts them in his said Declaration To take heed of such infected persons their own Countrey-men being already divided into Factions upon this occasion which was a matter so opposite to Vnity the only prop and safety of their State next under God as must of necessity by little and little bring them to utter ruin if wisely and in time they did not provide against it And on the same reason he concurred in Counsel and Design with the Prince of Orange for the suppressing of that Party which he conceived to be so dangerous to the common Peace and sending such of his Divines to the Synod of Dort as were most like to be sufficiently active in their condemnation For so it hapned that the Prince of Orange being animated by so great a Monarch suddenly puts himself into the head of his Forces marches from one strong Town to another changeth the Garrisons in some the chief Commanders in the rest and many of the principal Magistrates in most Towns of Holland Vtrecht and the rest of those Provinces Which done he seizeth on the person of Barnevelt as also on Grotius and Leidebrogius and then proclaims a National Synod to be held at Dort in November following to which the Calvinists were invited from all parts of Christendom And yet not thinking themselves strong enough to suppress their Adversaries they first disabled some of them by Ecclesiastical Censures from being chosen Members of it Others who had been lawfully chosen were not permitted to give suffrage with the rest of the Synodists unless they would renounce their Party And finally They took such Order with the rest that they would not suffer them to sit as Judges in the present Controversies but only to appear before them as Parties Criminal All which being condescended to though against all reason they were restrained to such a method in their disputation as carried with it a betraying of their Cause and Interest and for
Arch-Duke Leopold Bishop of Passaw and one of the Emperor's younger Brothers Which Invitation he obeyed entred the Countrey with an Army of Twelve thousand men makes himself Master of New Prague and attempts the Old But he found such resistance there that K. Matthias with a powerful Army came time enough to their relief and dislodged the Besiegers Which Aid he brought them at that time not out of love to their Religion or their Persons either but only upon some Advertisement which had been given him of Duke Leopold's purposes of getting that Kingdom to himself as formerly Matthias had extorted the Realm of Hungary in despight of the Emperor But meaning to make sure work of it he prevailed so far that the Emperor resigned unto him that Kingdom also to which he was cheerfully elected by the Estates of the Countrey before the end of this year Anno 1610. And within two years after was raised to the Imperial Dignity on the death of his Brother Advanced unto which Power and Height he governed his Dominions with great Moderation till the year 1617. When being Himself and all his Brothers without hope of Children he cast his eyes upon his Cousin Ferdinand then Duke of Gratzi a Prince wholly acted by the Jesuits whom he adopted for his Son declared him for his Successor in all the Patrimony and Estates belonging to the House of Austria and in the year 1618 put him into the actual possession of the Realms of Hungary and Bohemia but not with any such formality of Election unto either of them as in his own case had been observed 29. This gave encouragement to some of the Catholick Party to take offence at some Churches lately erected by those of the Reformed Religion â—â—d either totally to deface them or to shut them up Complaint hereof is made unto the Emperor but without any remedy So that being doubly injured as they gave it out they called an Assembly of the States that order might be taken for the preservation of Religion and their Civil Rights both equally endangered by these new encroachments The Emperor disallows the Meeting commanding them by Proclamation to dissolve the same Which so exasperated some hot spirits that the Emperor's Secretary and two of his principal Councellors were cast headlong out of the Castle-Windows And though all three miraculously escaped with life yet the Conspirators conceived the Fact to be so unpardonable that they could find no means of doing better but by doing worse For hereupon they set a Guard of Soldiers on the Baron of Sternberge Governour of the Castle and Kingdom they secure Prague displace all the Emperor 's old Councellors and totally clear the Kingdom of all the Jesuits and presently as well by Letters to Matthias himself as by a publick Declaration scattered in all parts of the Kingdom they justifie themselves and their actings in it Which done they nominate Two and thirty persons of their own Perswasion to have a superintendency over all Affairs which concerned that Kingdom whom they called by the name of Directors and enter into a Solemn League or Covenant to defend each other against all persons whatsoever without excepting either King or Emperor For punishing these Insolencies on the one side and preserving the Malefactors on the other from the hands of Justice a terrible Confusion first and afterwards a more terrible Warr breaks out amongst them In the first heats whereof the Emperor Matthias dyes and Ferdinand is lawfully elected to succeed in the Empire To stop the course of whose good Fortunes the Bohemian Confederates renounce all Allegiance to him proclaim him for no King of theirs nor so to be acknowledged by the Princes and Estates of Germany 30. But their new Governours or Directors as they called them being generally worsted in the Warr and fearing to be called to a strict account for these multiplyed Injuries resolve upon the choice of some Potent Prince to take that unfortunate Crown upon him And who more like to carry it with success and honour than Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine the Head of the Calvinian Party Son-in-law to the King of England descended from a Daughter of the Prince of Orange and by his Wife allyed to the King of Denmark the Dukes of Holstein and Brunswick three great Lutheran Princes These were the Motives on their part to invite him to it and they prevailed as much with him to accept the offer to which he was pushed forward by the secret instigation of the States United whose Truce with Spain was now upon the point of exspiration and they thought fit in point of State-craft that he should exercise his Army further off than in their Dominions And unto these it may be added He had before incurred the Emperor's Displeasure on a double account first for projecting the Confederacy of the Chiefs of the Calvinists whom they called the Princes of the Vnion for defence of themselves and their Religion And secondly for demolishing the Fortifications which were raised at Vdenhaine though authorized by the Placart of Matthias himself for which he was impleaded in the Chamber of Spires Upon which Motives and Temptations he first sends forth his Letters to the Estates of Bohemia in which he signified his acceptance of the Honour conferred upon him and then acquaints K. IAMES with the Proposition whose Counsel he desired therein for his better direction But King IAMES was not pleased in the precipitancy of this rash adventure and thought himself unhandsomely handled in having his Advice asked upon the post-fact when all his Counsels to the contrary must have come too late Besides he had a strong Party of Calvinists in his own Dominions who were not to be trusted with a Power of disposing Kingdoms for fear they might be brought to practise that against Himself which he had countenanced in others He knew no Prince could reign in safety or be established on his Throne with Peace and Honour if once Religion should be made a Cloak to disguise Rebellions 31. Upon these grounds of Christian Prudence he did not only disallow the Action in his own particular but gave command that none of his Subjects should from thenceforth own his Son-in-law for the King of Bohemia or pray for him in the Liturgy or before their Sermons by any other Title than the Prince Elector At which the English Calvinists were extreamly vexed who had already fancied to themselves upon this occasion the raising of a Fifth Monarchy in these parts of Christendom even to the dethroning of the Pope the setting up of Calvin in St. Peter's Chair and carrying on the Warr to the Walls of Constantinople No man more zealous in the Cause than Arch-bishop Abbot who pressed to have the News received with Bells and Bonfires the King to be engaged in a Warr for the defence of such a Righteous and Religious Cause and the Jewels of the Crown to be pawned in pursuance of it as appears plainly by his Letters to Sir
fearing nor having cause to fear the least disturbance With those of the Catholick Party they were grown so intimate by reason of their frequent inter-marriages with one another that in few years they might have been incorporated with them and made of the same Family though of different Faiths The exercise of their Religion had been permitted to them since the passing of the Edict of Nants 1598 without interruption And that they might have satisfaction also in the Courts of Justice some Courts were purposely erected for their ease and benefit which they called Les Chambres d' l' Edict wherein there were as many Judges and other Officers of their own Perswasions as there were of the contrary In a word they lived so secure and happy that they wanted nothing to perpetuate their Felicities to succeeding Ages but Moderation in themselves Gratitude to Almighty God and good Affections towards their King 44. Such were the Fortunes and Successes of the Presbyterians in the rest of Christendom during the last ten years of the Reign of K. IAMES and the beginnings of K. CHARLES By which both Kings might see how unsafe they were if men of such Pragmatical Spirits and Seditious Principles should get ground upon them But K. IAMES had so far supported them in the Belgick Provinces that his own Calvinists presumed on the like Indulgence which prompted them to set nought by his Proclamations to vilifie his Instructions and despise his Messages Finally they made tryal of his patience also by setting up one Knight of Broadgates now called Pembroke Colledg to preach upon the Power of such popular Officers as Calvin thinks to be ordained by Almighty God for curbing and restraining the Power of Kings In which though Knight himself was censured the Doctrines solemnly condemned execution done upon a Book of Pareus which had misguided the unfortunate and ignorant man yet the Calvinians most tenaciously adhered to their Master's tendries with an intent to bring them into use and practise when occasion served So that K. IAMES with all his King-craft could find no better way to suppress their Insolencies than by turning Mountague upon them a man of mighty Parts and an undaunted Spirit and one who knew as well as any how to discriminate the Doctrines of the Church of England from those which were peculiar to the Sect of Calvin By which he galled and gagged them more than his Popish Adversary but raised thereby so many Pens against himself that he might seem to have succeeded in the state of Ismael 45. In this conjuncture of Affairs K. IAMES departs this life and K. CHARLES succeeds who to ingratiate himself with this powerful Faction had plunged his Father in a Warr with the House of Austria by which he was brought under the necessity of calling Parliaments and gave those Parliaments the courage to dispute his Actions For though they promised to stand to him with their Lives and Fortunes in prosecution of that Warr yet when they had engaged him in it they would not part with any money to defray that Charge till they had stripped him of the Richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem But he was much more punished in the consequence of his own Example in aiding those of Rochel against their King whereby he trained up his own Subjects in the School of Rebellion and taught them to confederate themselves with the Scots and Dutch to seize upon his Forts and Castles invade the Patrimony of the Church and to make use of his Revenue against himself To such Misfortunes many Princes do reduce themselves when either they engage themselves to maintain a Party or govern not their Actions by the Rules of Justice but are directed by self-ends or swayed by the corrupt Affections of untrusty Ministers These things I only touch at here which I reserve for the Materials of another History as I do also all the intermediate passages in the Reign of K. CHARLES before the breaking out of the Scottish Tumults and most of the preparatives to the Warr of England AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XIII Containing The Insurrections of the Presbyterian or Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland The Rebellions raised by them in England Their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof Their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline And the greatest Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1636 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independents 1. THE Presbyterian-Scots and the Puritan-English were not so much discouraged by the ill successes of their Brethren in France and Germany as animated by the prosperous Fortunes of their Friends in Holland Who by Rebellion were grown Powerful and by Rapine Wealthy and by the Reputation of their Wealth and Power were able to avenge themselves on the opposite Party To whose Felicities if those in England did aspire they were to entertain those Counsels and pursue those courses by which the others had attained them that is to say They were by secret practises to diminish the King's Power and Greatness to draw the people to depend upon their Directions to dissolve all the Ligaments of the former Government and either call in Forreign Forces or form an Army of their own to maintain their doings And this had been the business of the Puritan Faction since the death of Bancroft when by the retirements of K. IAMES from all cares of Government and the connivance or remisness of Arch-bishop Abbot the Reins were put into their hands Which gave them time and opportunity to grow strong in Parliaments under pretence of standing for the Subjects Property against the encroachments of the Court and for the preservation of the true Religion against the practises of the Papists By which two Artifices they first weakned the Prerogative Royal to advance their own and by the diminution of the King's Authority endeavoured to erect the People's whom they represented And then they practised to asperse with the Name of Papist all those who either join not with them in their Sabbath-Doctrines or would not captivate their Judgments unto Calvin's Dictates Their actings in all which particulars either as Zealots for the Gospel in maintaining Calvinism or Patriots for the Common-wealth in bringing down the Power and Reputation of the two last Kings shall be at large delivered in the Life of the late Arch-bishop and consequently may be thought unnecessary to be here related And therefore pretermitting all their former practises by which their Party was prepared and the Design made ready to appear in publick we will proceed to a Relation of the following passages when they had pulled off their Disguise and openly declared themselves to be ripe for Action 2. The Party in both Kingdoms being grown so strong that they were able to proceed from Counsel unto Execution there wanted nothing but a fair occasion for putting themselves into a posture of defence and from that posture breaking
the Service-Books and Books of Common-Prayer bestrewing the whole Pavement with the Leaves thereof They also exercised their madness on the Arras Hangings which adorned the Quire representing the whole story of our Saviour And meeting with some of his Figures amongst the rest some of them swore that they would stab him and others that they would rip up his bowels which they did accordingly so far forth at the least as those figures in the Arras Hanging could be capable of it And finding another Statua of Christ placed in the Frontispiece of the South-Gate there they discharged Forty Muskets at it exceedingly triumphing when they hit him in the Head or Face And it is thought they would have fallen upon the Fabrick if at the humble suit of the Mayor and Citizens they had not been restrained by their principal Officers Less spoil was made at Rochester though too much in that their Follies being chiefly exercised in tearing the Book of Common-Prayer and breaking down the Rails before the Altar Seaton a Scot and one of some command in the Army afterwards took some displeasure at the Organs but his hands were tyed whether it were that Sandys repented of the Outrages which were done at Canterbury or else afraid of giving more scandal and offence to the Kentish Gentry I am not able to determine But sure it is that he enjoyed but little eomfort in these first beginnings receiving his death's wound about three Weeks after in the fight near Powick of which within few Weeks more he dyed at Worcester 26. But I am weary of reciting such Spoils and Ravages as were not acted by the Goths in the sack of Rome And on that score I shall not take upon me to relate the Fortunes of the present Warr which changed and varied in the West as in other places till the Battel of Stratton in which Sir Ralph Hopton with an handful of his gallant Cornish raised by the reputation of Sir Bevil Greenvile and Sir Nicholas Slaining gave such a general defeat to the Western Rebels as opened him the way towards Oxon with small opposition Twice troubled in his March by Waller grown famous by his taking of Malmsbury and relieving Glocester but so defeated in a fight at Roundway-Down Run-away Down the Soldiers called it that he was forced to flye to London for a new Recruit Let it suffice that the King lost Reading in the Spring received the Queen triumphantly into Oxon within a few Weeks after by whom he was supplied with such a considerable stock of Arms aud other Necessaries as put him into a condition to pursue the Warr. This Summer makes him Master of the North and West the North being wholly cleared of the Enemy's Forces but such as seemed to be imprisoned in the Town of Hull And having lost the Cities of Bristol and Exon no Towns of consequence in the West remained firm unto them but Pool Lime and Plymouth so that the leading-members were upon the point of forsaking the Kingdom and had so done as it was generally reported and averred for certain if the King had not been diverted from his march to London upon a confidence of bringing the strong City of Glocester to the like submission This gave them time to breathe a little and to advise upon some course for their preservation and no course was found fitter for them than to invite the Scots to their aid and succour whose amity they had lately purchased at so deer a rate Hereupon Armin and some others are dispatched for Scotland where they applied themselves so dextrously to that proud and rebellious people that they consented at the last to all things which had been desired But they consented on such terms as gave them an assurance of One hundred thousand pound in ready money the Army to be kept both with Pay and Plunder the chief Promoters of the Service to be rewarded with the Lands and Houses of the English Bishops and their Commissioners to have as great an influence in all Counsels both of Peace and Warr as the Lords and Commons 27. But that which proved the strongest temptation to engage them in it was an assurance of reducing the Church of England to an exact conformity in Government and Forms of Worship to the Kirk of Scotland and gratifying their Revenge and Malice by prosecuting the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the end of his Tragedy For compassing which Ends a Solemn League and Covenant is agreed between them first taken and subscribed to by the Scots themselves and afterwards by all the Members in both Houses of Parliament as also by the principal Officers of the Army all the Divines of the Assembly almost all those which lived within the Lines of Communication and in the end by all the Subjects which either were within their power or made subject to it Now by this Covenant the Party was to bind himself amongst other things first That he would endeavour in his place and calling to preserve the Reformed Religion in Scotland in Doctrine Discipline and Government That he would endeavour in like manner the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches but more particularly to bring the Churches of God in all the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government and Directory for Worship and Catechising Secondly That without respect of persons they would endeavour to extirpate Popery and Prelacy that is to say Church-Government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors Commissairs Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on it And thirdly That he would endeavour the discovery of such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants and evil Instruments either in hindering the Reformation of Religion or in dividing between the King and his people c. whom they should bring to condign punishment before the Supream Iudicatories of either Kingdom as their offences should deserve Of which three Articles the two first tended to the setting up of their dear Presbyteries the last unto the prosecution of the late Arch-bishop whom they considered as their greatest and most mortal Enemy 28. The terror of this Covenant and the severe penalty imposed on those which did refuse it compelled great numbers of the Clergy to forsake their Benefices and to betake themselves to such Towns and Garrisons as were kept under the command of his Majesty's Forces whose vacant places were in part supplied by such Presbyterians who formerly had lived as Lecturers or Trencer-Chaplains or else bestowed upon such Zealots as flocked from Scotland and new-New-England like Vultures and other Birds of Rapine to seek after the prey But finding the deserted Benefices not proportionable to so great a multitude they compelled many of the Clergy to forsake their Houses that so they might avoid imprisonment or some worse Calamity Others they sent to several Gaols or
a fresh Body of Horse which reach'd him not until the Evening before the fight and secondly by the intercepting of some Letters sent from General Goring in which His Majesty was advised to decline all occasion of Battel till he could come up to him with his Western Forces This hastned the Design of fighting in the adverse Party who fall upon the King's Army in the Fields near Naisby till that time an obscure Village in Northamptonshire on Saturday the 19th of Iune the Battels joined and at first His Majesty had the better of it and might have had so at the last if Prince Rupert having routed one Wing of the Enemy's Horse had not been so intent upon the chase of the Flying-Enemy that he left his Foot open to the other Wing Who pressing hotly on them put them to an absolute Rout and made themselves Masters of his Camp Carriage and Cannon and amongst other things of His Majesty's Cabinet In which they found many of his Letters most of them written to the Queen which afterwards were published by Command of the Houses to their great dishonour For whereas the Athenians on the like success had intercepted a Packet of Letters from Philip King of Macedon their most bitter Enemy unto several Friends they met with one amongst the rest to the Queen Olympias the rest being all broke open before the Council that they might be advertised of the Enemy's purposes the Letter to the Queen was returned untouch't the whole Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to pry into the Conjugal Secrets betwixt Man and Wife A Modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Hilladius Bisantinus an ancient Writer as the chief Leading-men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for want of it in succeeding Stories 47. But to proceed this miserable Blow was followed by the surrendry of Bristol the storming of Bridgwater the surprise of Hereford and at the end of Winter with the loss of Chester During which time the King moved up and down with a Running-Army but with such ill Fortune as most commonly attends a declining-side In which distress he comes to his old Winter-Quarters not out of hope of bringing his Affairs to a better condition before the opening of the Spring From Oxon he sends divers Messages to the Houses of Parliament desiring that He might be suffered to return to Westminster and offering for their security the whole Power of the Kingdom the Navy Castles Forts and Armies to be enjoyed by them in such manner and for so long time as they had formerly desired But finding nothing from them but neglect and scorn His Messages despised and His Person vilified He made an offer of Himself to Fairfax who refused also Tired with repulse upon repulse and having lost the small remainder of His Forces near Stow on the Wold He puts Himself in the beginning of May into the hands of the Scots Commissioners residing then at Southwell in the County of Nottingham a Mannor-House belonging to the See of York For the Scots having mastered the Northern parts in the year 1644 spent the next year in harrasing the Countrey even as far as Hereford which they besieged for a time and perhaps had carried it if they had not been called back by the Letters of some special Friends to take care of Scotland then almost reduced to the King's obedience by the Noble Marquess of Montross On which Advertisement they depart from Hereford face Worcester and so marcht Northward From whence they presently dispatch Col. David Leshly with Six thousand Horse and with their Foot employed themselves in the Siege of Newark which brought down their Commissioners to Southwell before remembred From thence the King is hurried in post-haste to the Town of Newcastle which they looked on as their strongest Hold. And being now desirous to make eeven with their Masters to receive the wages of their Iniquity and being desirous to get home in safety with that Spoil and Plunder which they had gotten in their marching and re-marching betwixt Tweed and Hereford they prest the King to fling up all the Towns and Castles which remained in His Power or else they durst not promise to continue Him under their Protection 48. This Turn seemed strange unto the King Who had not put Himself into the Power of the Scots had He not been assured before-hand by the French Ambassador of more courteous usage to whom the Scots Commissioners had engaged themselves not only to receive His Person but all those also which repaired unto Him into their protection as the King signified by His Letters to the Marquess of Ormond But having got Him into their Power they forget those Promises and bring Him under the necessity of writing to the Marquesses of Montross and Ormond to discharge their Soldiers and to His Governours of Towns in England to give up their Garrisons Amongst which Oxford the then Regal City was the most considerable surrendred to Sir Thomas Fairfax upon Midsommer-day And by the Articles of that Surrendry the Duke of York was put into the Power of the Houses of Parliament together with the Great Seal the Signet and the Privy-Seal all which were most despitefully broken in the House of Peers as formerly the Dutch had broke the Seals of the King of Spain when they had cast off all Fidelity and Allegiance to him and put themselves into the Form of a Common-wealth But then to make him some amends they give him some faint hopes of suffering him to bestow a visit on his Realm of Scotland his ancient and native Kingdom as he commonly called it there to expect the bettering of his Condition in the changes of time But the Scots hearing of his purpose and having long ago cast off the yoke of subjection voted against his coming in a full Assembly so that we may affirm of him as the Scripture doth of our Saviour Christ viz. He came unto his own and his own received him not John cap. 1.2 The like resolution was taken also by the Commissioners of that Nation and the chief Leaders of their Army who had contracted with the two Houses of Parliament and for the sum of Two hundred thousand pounds in ready money sold and betrayed him into the hands of his Enemies as certainly they would have done the Lord Christ himself for half the money if he had bowed down the Heavens and came down to visit them Being delivered over unto such Commissioners as were sent by the Houses to receive him he was by them conducted on the third of February to his House of Holdenby not far from the good Town of Northampton where he was kept so close that none of his Domestick Servants no not so much as his own Chaplains were suffered to have any access unto him And there we leave him for the present but long he shall not be permitted to continue there as shall be shewn hereafter in due place and time
which they had fancied to themselves and shall be better husbanded to the use of their Adversaries though it succeeded worse to his Majesty's person than possibly it might have done if they had suffered him to remain at Holdenby where the Houses fixt him 59. This great turn hapned on the fourth of Iune Anno 1647 before he had remained but four Months in the Power of the Houses Who having brought the Warr to the end desired possest themselves of the King's Person and dismissed the Scots resolved upon disbanding a great part of the Army that they might thereby ease the people of some part of their burthens But some great Officers of the Army had their Projects and Designs apart and did not think it consonant to common prudence that they should either spend their blood or consume their strength in raising others to that Power which being acquired by themselves might far more easily be retained than it had been gotten Upon these grounds they are resolved against disbanding stand on their Guards and draw together towards London contrary to the Will and express Commandment of their former Masters by whom they were required to keep at a greater distance The Officers thereupon impeach some Members of the Lower House and knowing of what great Consequence it might be unto them to get the King into their Power a Plot is laid to bring him into their Head-Quarters without noise and trouble which was accordingly effected as before is said Thus have the Presbyterians of both Nations embroiled the Kingdom first in Tumults and afterwards in a calamitous and destructive Warr. In which the Sword was suffered to range at liberty without distinction of Age Sex or Quality More goodly Houses plundered and burnt down to the ground more Churches sacrilegiously prophaned and spoiled more Blood poured out like Water within four years space than had been done in the long course of Civil-Warrs between York and Lancaster With all which Spoil and publick Ruin they purchased nothing to themselves but shame and infamy as may be shown by taking a brief view of their true condition before and after they put the State into these Confusions 60. And first the Scots not long before their breaking out against their King had in the Court two Lords High Stewards and two Grooms of the Stool successively one after another And at their taking up of Arms they had a Master of the Horse a Captain of the Guard a Keeper of the Privy Purse seven Grooms of eight in his Majesty's Bed-Chamber and an equal number at the least of Gentlemen-Ushers Quarter-waiters Cup-bearers Carvers Sewers and other Officers attending daily at the Table I speak not here of those who had places in the Stables or below the Stairs or of the Servants of those Lords and Gentlemen who either lived about the Court or had Offices in it All which together make up so considerable a number that the Cour might well be called an Academy of the Scots Nation in which so many of all sorts had their Breeding Maintenance and Preferment Abroad they had a Lieutenant of the Tower a Fortress of most consequence in all the Kingdom and a Master-Gunner of the Navy an Office of as great a Trust as the other and more of those Monopolies Suits and Patents which were conceived to be most grievous to the Subjects than all the English of the Court. In the Church they had two Deanries divers Prebendaries and so many Ecclesiastical Benefices as equalled all the Revenues of the Kirk of Scotland All which they had lost like Aesop's Dog catching after a shadow And yet by catching at that shadow they lost all those Advantages which before they had both in Court and Countrey and that not only for the present but in all probability for the time to come Such losers were the Scots by this brutish bargain but whether out of pure zeal to the Holy Discipline or their great love to filthy lucre or the perversness of their nature or the rebellious humour of the Nation or of all together let them judg that can 61. If then the Scots became such losers by the bargain as most sure they did as sure it is that their dear Brethren in the Cause of Presbytery the Puritans or Presbyterians in the Realm of England got as little by it The English Puritans laid their heads and hands together to embroil the Realm out of a confidence that having alienated the greatest part of the Tribes from the House of David they might advance the Golden Calves of their Presbyteries in Dan and Bethel and all other places whatsoever within the Land And for the maintenance thereof they had devoured in conceit all Chapter-Lands and parcelled them amongst themselves into Augmentations But no sooner had they driven this Bargain but a Vote passed for selling those Lands towards the payment of the Debts of the Commonwealth Nor have they lived to see their dear Presbytery setled or their Lay-Elders entertained in any one Parish of the Kingdom For the advancement whereof the Scots were first incouraged to begin at home and afterwards to pursue their Work by invading in England Nor fared it better with those great Achitophels of the popular Party who laboured in the raising of a new Common-wealth out of the Ruins of a Glorious and Ancient Monarchy To which end they employed the Presbyterians as the fittest Instruments for drawing the people to their side and preaching up the piety of their Intentions Which Plot they had been carrying on from the first coming of this King to the Crown of England till they had got His Sacred Person into their possession Which made them a fit parallel to those Husband-men in St. Matthew's Gospel Matt. 21.38 who said amongst themselves This is the Heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his Inheritance A Commonwealth which they had founded and so modelled in their brains that neither Sir Thomas Moor's Vtopia nor the Lord Verulam's new Atlantis nor Plato's Platform nor any of the old Idea's were equal to it The Honours and Offices whereof they had distributed amongst themselves and their own dependance But having brought the King though as it chanced by other hands to the End they aimed and being intent on nothing more than the dividing of that rich Prey amongst themselves gratifying one another with huge sums of Money and growing fat on the Revenues of the Crown and the Lands of the Church and guarded as they thought by invincible Armies they were upon a sudden scattered like the dust before the wind turned out of all and pulickly exposed to contempt and scorn All which was done so easily with so little noise that the loss of that exorbitant Power did not cost so much as a broken Head or a bloody Nose in purchasing whereof they had wasted so many Millions of Treasure and more than One hundred thousand Lives Thus have we seen the dangerous Doctrines and Positions the secret Plots and open
other and in this point they shewed themselves directly contrary to the practice of the Primitive Church in which it was accounted a great impiety to keep any Fast upon that day either private or publick They Interdict the Bishops from exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdictâ—on in their several Diocesses and openly quarrel with their Queen for giving a Commission to the Archbishop of St. Andrews to perform some Acts which seemed to them to savour of Episcopal power Having attained unto this height they maintain an open correspondence with some Forreign Churches give audience to the Agents of Berne Basil and Geneva from whom they received the sum of their Confessions and signified their consent with them in all particulars except Festivals onely which they had universally abolished throughout the Kingdom and finally they take upon them to write unto the Bishops of England whom they admonished not to vex or suspend their Brethren for not conforming to the Rules of the Church especially in refusing the Cap and Surplice which they call frequently by the name of trifles vain trifles and the old badges of idolatry All which they did and more in pursuit of their Discipline though never authorized by Law or confirmed by the Queen nor justified by the Convenâ—ion of Estates though it consisted for the most part of their own Prosessors A Petition is directed to the Lords of secret Council from the Assemblies of the Church in which their Lordships are sollicited to dispatch the business But not content with that which they had formerly moved it was demanded also that some severe course might be taken against the Sayers and Hearers of Mass that fit provision should be made for their Superintendents Preachers and other Ministers and that they should not be compellable to pay their Tythes as formerly to the Popish Clegy with other particulars of that nature And that they might not trifle in it as they had done hitherto the Petition carried in it more threats and menaces then words of humble supplication as became Petitioners For therein it said expresly That before those Tyrants and dumb Dogs should have Empire over them and over such as God had subjected unto them they were fully determined to hazard both life and whatsoeever they had received of God in Temporal things that therefore they besought their Lordships to take such order that the Petitioners if they may be called so might have no occasion to take the Sword of just defence into their hands which they had so willingly resigned after the Victory obtained into those of their Lordships that so doing their Lordships should perceive they would not onely be obedient unto them in all things lawful but ready at all times to bring all such under their obedience as should at any time rebel against their Authority and finally that those enemies of God might assure themselves that they would no no longer suffer Pride and Idolatry and that if their Lordships would not take some order in the premises they would then proceed against them of their own Authority after such a manner that they should neither do what they list nor live upon the sweat of the brows of such as were in no sort debtors to them 31. On the receipt of this Petition an Order presently is made by the Lords of the Council for granting all which was desired and had more been desired they had granted more so formidable were the Brethren grown to the opposite party Nor was it granted in words onely which took no effect but execution caused to be done upon it and warrants to that purpose issued to the Earls of Arrane Arguile and Glencarne the Lord Iames Steward c. Whereupon followed a pitiful devastation of Churches and Church-buildings in all parts of the Realm no difference made but all Religious Edifices of what sort soever were either terribly defaced or utterly ruinated the holy Vessels and whatsoever else could be turned into money as Lead Bells Timber Glass c. was publickly exposed to sale the very Sepulchres of the dead not spared the Registers of the Church and the Libraries thereunto belonging defaced and thrown into the fire Whatsoever had escaped the former tumults is now made subject to destruction so much the worse because the violence and sacrilegious actings of these Church-robbers had now the countenance of Law And to this work of spoyl and rapine men of all Ranks and Orders were observed to put their helping hands mâ—n of most Note and Quality being forward in it in hope of getting to themselves the most part of the booty those of the poorer sort in hope of being gratified for their pains therein by their Lords and Patrons Both sorts encouraged to it by the Zealous madness of some of their sedirious Preachers who frequently cryed out that the places where Idols had been worshipped ought by the Law of God to be destroyed that the sparing of them was the reserving of things execrable and that the Commandment given to Israel for destroying the places where the Canaanites did worship their false Gods was a just warrant to the people for doing the like By which encouragements the madness of the people was transported beyond the bounds which they had first prescribed unto it In the beginning of the heats they designed onely the destruction of Religious Houses for fear the Monks and Fryars might otherwise be restored in time to their former dwellings But they proceeded to the demolition of Cathedral Churches and ended in the ruine of Parochial also the Chancels whereof were sure to be levelled in all places though the Isles and bodies of them might be spared in some 32. Such was the entertainment which the Scots prepared for their Queens coming over Who taking no delight in France where every thing renewed the memory of her great loss was easily intreated to return to her native Kingdom Her coming much desired by those of the Popish party in hope that by her power and presence they might be suffered at the least to enjoy the private Exercise of their Religion if not a publick approbation and allowance of it Sollicited as earnestly by those of the Knoxian interest upon a confidence that they should be better able to deal with her when she was in their power assisted onely by the Counsels of a broken Clergy then if she should remain in France from whence by her Alliances and powerful Kindred she might create more mischief to them then she could at home On the 19 day of August she arrives in Scotland accompanied by her Uncles the Duke of Aumales the Marquess of Elboeuf and the Lord grand Pryor with other Noble-men of France The time of her arrival was obscured with such Fogs and Mists that the Sun was not seen to shine in two days before nor in two days after Which though it made her passage safe from the Ships of England which were designed to intercept her yet was it looked upon by most men as a sad presage
of those uncomfortable times which she found amongst them Against Sunday being the 24 there were great preparations made for celebrating Mass in the Chappel-Royal of Holyâ—ood-House At which the Brethren of the Congregation were so highly offended that some of them cryed out aloud so as all might hear them That the Idolatrous Priests should dye the death according to Gods Law others affirming with less noise but with no less confidence That they could not abide that the Land which God by his power had purged of Idolatry should in their sight be polluted with the same again And questionless some great mischief must have followed on it if the Lord Iames Steward to preserve the honour of his Nation in the eye of the French had not kept the door which he did under a preâ—ence that none of the Scottish Nation should be present at the hearing of Mass contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf but in plain truth to hinder them by the power and reputation which he had amongst them from thronging in tumultuously to disturb the business 33. For remedy whereof for the time to come an Order was issued the next day by the Lords of the Council and Authorized by the Queen in which it was declared that no manner of person should privately or openly take in hand to alter or innovate any thing in the State of Religion which the Queen found publickly and universally received at her Majesties arrival in that Realm or attempt any thing against the same upon pain of death But then it was required withal that none of the Leiges take in hand to trouble or molest any of her Majesties Domestick Servants or any other persons which had accompanied her out of France at the time then present for any cause whatsoever in word deed or countenance and that upon the pain of death as the other was But notwithstanding the equality of so just an Order the Earl of Arrane in the name of the rest of the Congregation professed openly on the same day at the Cross in Edenborough That no protection should be given to the Queens Domesticks or to any other person that came out of France either to violate the Laws of the Realm or offend Gods Majesty more then was given to any other subjects And this he did as he there affirmed because Gods Law had pronounced death to the Idolater and the Laws of the Realm had appointed punishment for the sayers and hearers of Mass from which he would have none exempted till some Law were publickly made in Parliament and such as was agreeable to the Word of God to annul the former The like distemper had possest all the rest of the Lords at their first coming to the Town to attend her Majesty to congratulate her safe arrival but they cooled all of them by degrees when they considered the unreasonableness of the Protestation in denying that Liberty of Conscience to their Soveraign Queen which every one of them so much desired to enjoy for himself Onely the Earl Arrane held it out to the last He had before given himself some hopes of marrying the Queen and sent her a rich Ring immediately on the death of the King her Husband but finding no return agreeable to his expectation he suffered himself to be as much transported to the other extreme according to the natural Genius of the Presbyterians who never yet knew any mean in their loves or hatred 34. Iohn Knox makes good the Pulpit in the chief Church at Edenborough on the Sunday following in which he bitterly inveighed against Idolatry shewing what Plagues and Punishments God had inflicted for the same upon several Nations And then he adds that one Mass was more fearful to him then if ten thousand armed Enemies were landed in any part of the Realm on purpose to suppress their whole Religion that in God there was strength to resist and confound whole multitudes iâ— unfeignedly they depended on him of which they had such good experience in their former troubles but that if they joyned hands with Idolatry they should be deprived of the comfortable presence and assistance of Almighty God A Conference hereupon ensued betwixt him and the Queen at the hearing whereof there was none present but the Lord Iames Steward besides two Gentlemen which stood at the end of the Room In the beginning whereof she charged him with raising Sedition in that Kingdom putting her own Subjects into Arms against her writing a Book against the Regiment of Women and in the end descendâ—d to some points of Religion To all which Knox returned such answers or else so favourably reports them to his own advantage for we must take the whole story as it comes from his pen that he is made to go away with as easie a victory as when the Knight of the Boot encounters with some Dwarf or Pigmy in the old Romances All that the Queen got by it from the mouth of this Adversary was that he found in her a proud minde a crafâ—y wit and an obdurate heart against God and his Truth And in this Character be thought himself confirmed by her following actions For spending the rest of the Summer in visiting sâ—me of the chief Towns of her Kingdom she carried the Mass with her into all places wheresoever she came and at her coming back gave order for setting out the Mass with more solemnity on Alhallows day then at any time or place before Of this the Minâ—sters complain to such of the Nobility as were then Resident in the City but finde not such an eagerness in them as in former times For now some of them make a doubt whether the Subjects might use force for suppressing the Idolatry of their Prince which heretofore had passed in the affirmative as a truth infallible A Conâ—erence is thereupon appointed between some of the Lords and such of the Ministers as appeared most Zâ—alous against the Mass the Lords disputing for the Queen and urging that it was not lawful to deprive her of that in which she placed so great a part of her Religion The contrary was maintained by Knox and the rest of the Ministers who seeing that they could not carry it as before by their own Authority desired that the deciding of the point might be referred to the godly Brethren of Geneva of whose concurring in opinion with them they were well assured And though the drawing up of the point and the Inditing of the Letter being committed unto Ledington the principal Secretary was not dispatched with such poâ—â— haste as their Zeal required yet they shewed plainly by insisting on that proposition both from whose mouth they had received the Doctrines of making Soveraign Princes subject to the lusts of the people and from whose hands they did expect the defence thereof 35. A general Assembly being indicted by them about that time or not long after a question is made by some of the Court-Lords whether such Assemblies might be holden
the Presbyterians gave themselves good hopes of the new Archbishop and they soon found how plâ—ant he was like to prove to their expectation He entred on this great Charge in the Moneth of February 1575 at which time the Prelates and Clergie were assembled in a Convocation by whom a Book of Articles was agreed upon for the better Reiglement of the Church In the end whereof this Article was superadded by their procurement viz. That the Bishops should take order that it be published and declared in every Parish-Church within their Diocesses before the first day of May then next following That Marriages might be solemnized at all times in the year so that the Banes on their several Sundays or Holidays in the Service-time were openly asked in the Church and no impediment objected and so that also the said Marriages be publickly solemnized in the face of the Church at the aforesaid time of Morning-Prayer But when the Book was offered to the Queens peiusal she disliked this Article and would by no means suffer it to be printed amongst the rest as appears by a Marginal Note in the Publick Regâ—ster of that Convocation Which though it might sufficiently have discouraged them from the like Innovations yet the next year they ventured on a business of a higher nature which was the falsifying and corrupting of the Common-Prayer-Book In which being then published by Richard Iugge the Queens Majesties Printer and published Cum Privilegio Regiae Majestatis as the Title intimates the whole Order of Private Baptism and Confirmation of Children was quite omitted In the first of which it had been declared That Children being born in Original sin were by the Laver of Regeneration in Baptism ascribed unto the number of Gods Children and made the Heirs of Life Eternal and in the other Thâ—t by the Imposition of hands and Prayer they receive strength against sin the world and the Devil Which grand omissions were designed to no other purpose but by degrees to bring the Church of England into some Conformity to the desired Orders of Geneva This I find noted in the Preface of a book writ by William Reynolds a virulent Papist I confess but one that may be credited in a matter of Fact which might so easily have been refuted by the Book it self if he had any way belyed it 15. Nothing being done for punishing of this great abuse they enter upon another Project Which seemed to tend onely to the encrease of Piety in the Professors of the Gospel but was intended really for the furtherance of the Holy Discipline The design was that all the Ministers within such a Circuit should meet upon a day appointed to exercise their gifts and expound the Scriptures one being chosen at each meeting for the Moderator to govern and direct the Action the manner whereof was 〈◊〉 that followeth The Ministers of some certain Precinct did meet 〈◊〉 some week days in some principal Town of which Meeting some ancient grave Minister was President and an Auditory admitteâ— of Gentlemen and other persons of Leisure There every Minister successively the youngest still beginning did handle one and the same piece of Scripture spending severally some quarter of an hour and better but in the whole some two hours And the Exercise being begun and concluded with prayer the President giving them another Theam for the next Meeting which was every Fortnight the said Assembly was dissolved The Exercise they called by the name of Prophecying grounded upon those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 14.13 viz. For ye may all prophecy one by one that all may learn and all be comforted But finding that the Text was not able to bear it out they added thereunto such pious and prudential Reasons as the best wits amongst them could devise for the present And though this Project was extreamly magnified and doted on with no less passion by some Countrey-Gentlemen who were enamored of the beauty and appearance of it yet was it found upon a diligent enquiry that there was something else intended then their Edification For it was easie to be proved that under colour of those Meetings for Religious Exercises the Brethren met together and consuâ—ted of the common business and furiously declaimed against Church and State 16. These Meetings Grindal first connived at when he sate at York under pretence of training up a preaching Ministery for the Northern parts But afterwards he was so much possessed with the fancy of it that he drew many of the Bishops in the Province of Canterbury to allow them also By means whereof they came to be so frequent in most parts of the Kingdom that they began to look with a face of danger both on Prince and Prelate For having once settled themselves in these new Conventions with some shew of Authority the Leading-Members exercised the Jurisdiction over all the rest intrenching thereby on the power of their several Ordinaries And they incroached so far at last on the Queens Prerogative as to appoint days for solemn Fasts under pretence of Sanctifying those Religious Exercises to the good of the Nation as afterwards in their Classical and Synodical Meetings which took growth from hence Three years these Prophesyings had continued in the Province of Canterbury before the Queen took notice of them But then they were presented to her with so ill a complexion that she began to startle at the first sight of them And having seriously weighed all inconveniences which might thence ensue she sends for Grindal to come to her reproves him for permitting such an Innovation to be obtruded on the Church and gave him charge to see it suddenly suppressed She complained also that the Pulpit was grown too common invaded by unlicensed Preachers and such as preached sedition amongst the people requiring him to take some order that the Homilies might be read more frequently and such Sermons preached more sparingly then of late they had been 〈◊〉 this was hard meat not so easily chewed therefore not like to be digested by so weak a stomach Instead of acting any thing in order to the Queens Commands he writes unto her a most tedious and voluminous Letter In which he first presents her with a sad remembrance of the Discourse which past between them and the great sorrow which he had conceived on the sense thereof Which said he falls into a commendation of Sermonizing of the great benefit thereby redounding unto all her Subjects the manifold advantages which such preachings had above the Homilies of whâ—â— necessary use those Prophesyings were toward the training up of Preachers In fine he also lets her know that by the example of S. Ambrose and his proceedings toward Theodosius and Valentinian two most mighty Emperors he could not satisfie his conscience in the discharge of the great trust committed to him if he should not admonish her upon this occasion not to do any thing which might draw down Gods displeasure upon her and the Nation by stopping the