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
his Majesty his Council and proceedings or to meddle in the Affairs of his Highness under pain of treason And lastly an Act was paâ—s'd for calling in of Buchanans History that Master-piece of Sedition intituled De jure Regni apud Sootos and that most infamous Libel which he called The Detection by which last Acts his Majesty did not onely take care for preventing the like scandalous and seditious practices for the time to come but satisfied himself by taking some revenge upon them in the times foregoing 63. The Ministers could not want intelligence of particulars before they were passed into Acts. And now or never was the time to bestir themselves when their dear Helena was in such apparent danger to be ravished from them And first it was thought necessary to send one of their number to the King to mediate either for the total dismissing of the Bills prepared or the suspending of them at the least for a longer time not doubting if they gained the last but that the first would easily follow of it self On this Errand they imploy Mr. David Lindsay Minister of the Church of Leith a man more moderate then the rest and therefore more esteemed by the King then any other of that body And how far he might have prevailed it is hard to say But Captain Iames Stewart commonly called the Earl of Arran who then governed the Affairs of that Kingdom having notice of it caused him to be arrested under colour of maintaining intelligence with the Fugitive Ministers in England imprisoned him for one night in Edenborough and sends him the next day to the Castle of Blackness where he remained almost a year Upon the news of his commitment Lawson and Belcanqual two of the Ministers of Edenborough forsake their Churchâ—s and joyn themselves unto their Brethren in England first leaving a Manifest behind them in which they published the Reasons of their sudden departure Iohn Dury so often before mentioned had lately been confined at Montross so that no Preacher was now left in Edenborough or the Port adjoyning to intercede for themselves and the Kirk in that present exigent By means whereof the Acts were passed without interruption But when they were to be proclaimed as the custom is Mr. Robert Pont Minister of St. Cutberts and one of the Senators of the Colledge of Justice for the good Ministers might act in Civil Matters though the Bishops might not took Instruments in the hands of a publick Notary and openly protested against those Acts never agreed to by the Kirk and therefore that neither the Kirk nor any of the Kirk-men were obliged to be obedient to them Which having done he fled also into England to the rest of his Brethren and being proclaimed Rebel lost his place in the Sessions 64 The flying of so many Ministers and the noise they made in England against those Acts encreased a scandalous opinion which themselves had raised of the Kings being inclined to Popery and it began to be so generally believed that the King found himself under a necessity of rectifying his reputation in the eye of the world by a publick Manifest In which he certified as well to his good subjects as to all others whatsoever whom it might concern as well the just occasion which had moved him to pass those Acts as the great Equity and Reason which appeared in them And amongst these occasions he reckoneth the justifying of the Fact at Ruthen by the publick suffrage of the Kirk Melvins declining of the judgement of the King and Council the Fast indicted at the entertainment of the French Ambassadors their frequent general Fasts proclaimed and kept in all parts of the Realm by their Authority without his privity and consent the usurping of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a certain number of Ministers and unqualified Gentlemen in the Presbyteries and Assemblies the alteration of the Laws and making new ones at their pleasure which must binde the Subject the drawing to themselves of all such Causes though properly belonging to the Courts of Justice in which was any mixture of scandal On which account they forced all those also to submit to the Churches Censures who had been accused in those Courts for Murther Theft or any like enormous crimes though the party either were absolved by the Court it self or pardoned by the King after condemnation But all this could not stop the Mouthes and much less stay the Pens of that Waspish Sect some flying out against the King in their scurrilous Libels bald Pamphlets and defamatory Rythmes others with no less violence inveighing against him in their Pulpits but most especially in England where they were out of the Kings reach and consequently might rail on without fear of punishment By them it was given out to render the King odious both at home and abroad That the King endeavoured to extinguish the light of the Gospel and to that end had caused those Acts to pass against it That he had left nothing of the whole ancient Form of Justice and Polity in the Spiritual Estate but a naked shaddow That Popery was immediately to be established if God and all good men came not in to help them That for opposing these impieties they had been forced to flee their Country and sing the Lords Song in a strange Land with many other reproachful and calumnious passages of like odious nature 65. But loosers may have leave to talk as the saying is and by this barking they declared sufficiently that they could not bite I have now brought the Presbyterians to their lowest fall but we shall see them very shortly in their resurrections In the mean time it will be seasonable to pass into England that we may see how things were carried by their Brethren there till we have brought them also to this point of time and then we shall unite them all together in the course of their story The end of the fifth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS 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. 1. THE Reformation of the Church of England was put into so good a way by King Henry the Eighth that it was no hard matter to proceed upon his beginnings He had once declared himself so much in favour of the Church of Rome by writing against Martin Luther that he was honored with the Title of Defensor Fidei or the Defender of the Faith by Pope Leo X. Which Title he afterwards united by Act of Parliament to the Crown of this Realm not many years before his death But a breach hapning betwixt him and Pope Clement VII concerning his desired Divorce he first prohibits all appeals and other occasions of resort to
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
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
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
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
and promiseth neither to meddle further with the Bishoprick nor to exercise any Office in the Ministry but as they should license him thereunto But this inconstancie he makes worse by another as bad for finding the Kings countenance towards him to be very much changed he resolves to hold the Bishoprick makes a journey to Glasgow and entring into the Church with a great train of Gentlemen which had attended him from the Court he puts by the ordinary Preacher and takes the Pulpit to himself For this disturbance the Presbytery of the Town send out Process against him but are prohibited from proceeding by his Majesties Warrant presented by the Mayor of Glasgow But when it was replyed by the Moderator That they would proceed in the cause notwithstanding this Warrant and that some other words were multiplyed upon that occasion the Provost pulled him out of his Chair and committed him Prisoner to the Talebooth The next Assembly look on this action of the Provost as a foul indignity and prosecute the whole matter unto such extremity that notwithstanding the Kings intercession and the advantage which he had against some of their number the Provost was decreed to be excommunicated and the Excommunication formerly decreed against Montgomery was actually pronounced in the open Church 55. The Duke of Lenox findes himself so much concerned in the business that he could not but support the man who for his sake had been exposed to all these affronts he entertains him at his Table and hears him preach without regard unto the Censures under which he lay This gives the general Assembly a new displeasure Their whole Authority seemed by these actions of the Duke to be little valued which rather then they would permit they would proceed against him in the self-same manner But first it was thought fit to send some of their Members as well to intimate unto him that Montgomery was actually excommunicated as also to present the danger in which they stood by the Rules of the Discipline who did converse with excommunicated persons The Duke being no less moved then they demanded in some choler Whether the King or Kirk had the Supreme Power and therewith plainly told them That he was commanded by the King to entertain him whose command he would not disobey for fear of their Censures Not satisfied with this defence the Commissioners of the general Assembly presented it unto the King amongst other grievances to which it was answered by the King that the Excommunication was illegal and was declared to be so upon very good Reasons to the Lords of the Council and therefore that no manner of person was to be lyable to censure upon that account The King was at this time at the Town of Perth to which many of the Lords repaired who had declared themselves in former times for the Faction of England and were now put into good heart by supplies of money according unto Walsinghams counsel which had been secretly sent unto them from the Queen Much animated or exasperated rather by some Leading-men who managed the Affairs of the late Assemblies and spared not to inculcate to them the apparent dangers in which Religion stood by the open practices of the Duke of Lenox and the Kings crossing with them upon all occasions To which the Sermons of the last Fast did not add a little which was purposely indicted as before was said in regard of those oppressions which the Kirk was under but more because of the great danger which the company of wicked persons might bring to the King whom they endeavoured to corrupt both in Religion and Manners All which inducements coming together produced a resolution of getting the King into their power forcing the Duke of Lenox to retire into France and altering the whole Government of the Kingdom as themselves best pleased 56. But first the Duke of Lenox must be sent out of the way And to effect this they advised him to go to Edenborough and to erect there the Lord-Chamberlains Court for the reviving of the ancient Jurisdiction which belonged to his Office He had not long been gone from Perth when the King was solemnly invited to the House of William Lord Ruthen not long before made Earl of Gowry where he was liberally feasted but being ready to depart he was stayed by the Eldest Son of the Lord Glammis the Master of Glammis he is called in the Scottish Dialect and he was stayed in such a manner that he perceived himself to be under a custody The apprehensions whereof when it drew some tears from him it moved no more compassion nor respect from the froward Scots but that it was fitter for boys to shed tears then bearded men This was the great work of the 23 day of August to which concurred at the first to avoid suspiâ—ion no more of the Nobility but the Earls of Marre and Gowry the Lords Boyd and Lindsay and to the number of ten more of the better sort but afterwards the act was owned over all the Nation not onely by the whole Kirk-party but even by those who were of contrary Faction to the Duke of Lenox who was chiefly aimed at The Duke upon the first advertisement of this surprize dispatched some men of Noble Quality to the King to know in what condition he was whether free or Captive The King returned word that he was a Captive and willed him to raise what force he could to redeem him thence The Lords on the other side declared That they would not suffer him to be misled by the Duke of Lenox to the oppression of Himself the Church and the whole Realm and therefore the Duke might do well to retire into France or otherwise they would call him to a sad account for his former actions And this being done they caused the King to issue out a Proclamation on the 28. In which it was declared That he remained in that place of his own free-will That the Nobility then present had done nothing which they were not in duty obliged to do That he took their repairing to him for a service acceptable to himself and profitable to the Commonwealth That therefore all manner of persons whatsoever which had levied any Forces under colour of his present restraint should disband them within six hours under pain of Treason But more particularly they cause him to write a Letter to the Duke of Lenox whom they understood to be grown considerably strong for some present action by which he was commanded to depart the Kingdom before the 20 of September then next following On the receipt whereof he withdraws himself to the strong Castle of Dunbritton that there he might remain in safety whilst he staid in Scotland and from thence pass safely into France whensoever he pleased 57. The news of this Surprize is posted with all speed to England And presently the Queen sends her Ambassadors to the King by whom he was advertised to restore the Earl of Angus who had lived
to redound unto him by his Letter to the Lord Protector he sets upon the King himself and tells him plainly that there were many things amiss which required Reformation In his Letters unto the King and Council as he writes to Bullinger he had excited them to proceed in the good work which they had begun that is to say that they should so proceed as he had directed With Cranmer he is more particular and tells him in plain terms That in the Liturgie of this Church as then it stood there remained a whole mass of Popery which did not onely blemish but destroy Gods Publick Worship But fearing he might not edifie with the godly King assisted by so wise a Council and such Learned Prelates he hath his Emissaries in the Court and amongst the Clergie his Agents in the City and Countrey his Intelligencers one Monsieur Nicholas amongst the rest in the University All of them active and industrious to advance his purposes but none more mischievously practical then Iohn Alasco a Polonian born but a profest Calvian both in Doctrine and Forms of Worship who coming out of Poland with a mixed Congregation under pretence of being forced to fly their Countrey for professing the Reformed Religion were gratified with the Church of Augustine-Fryers in London for their publick use and therein suffered to enjoy their own way both in Worship and Government though in both exceeding different from the Rules of this Church In many Churches of this Realm the Altars were left standing as in former times and in the rest the holy Table was placed Altar-wiâ—e at the East-end of the Quire But by his party in the Court he procures an Order from the Lords of the Council for causing the said Table to be removed and to be placed in the middle of the Church or Chancel like a common Table It was the usage of this Church to give the holy Sacrament unto none but such as kneeled at the participation according to the pious order of the primitive times But Iohn Alasco coming out of Poland where the Arrians who deny the Divinity of Christ our Saviour had introduced the use of â—itting brought that irreverend custom into England with him And not content with giving scandal to this Church by the use thereof in his own Congregâ—tion he publisheth a Pamphlet in defence of that irreverend and sawey gesture because most proper for a Supper The Liturgie had appointed several Offices for many of the Festivals observed in the most regular times of Christianity Some of the Clergy in the Convocation must be set on work to question the conveniencie if not the lawfulness of those observations considering that all days are alike and therefore to be equally regarded in a Church Reformed And some there were which raised a scruple touching the words which were prescribed to be used in the delivery of the Bread and Wine to the Congregation 5. Not to proceed to more particulars let it suffice that these Emissaries did so ply their work by the continual solliciting of the King the Council and the Convocation that at the last the Book was brought to a review The product or result whereof was the second Liturgie confirmed in Parliament Anno 5 6 Edw. 6. By the tenour of which Act it may appear first that there was nothing contained in the said Book but what was agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive Church very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation and most profitable to the Estate of this Realm And secondly That such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise thereof proceeded rather from the curiosity of the Minister and Mistakers then of any other worthy cause And thereupon we may conclude that the first Liturgie was discontinued and the second superinduced upon it after this review to give satisfaction unto Calvins Cavils the curiosities of some and the mistakes of others of his Friends and Followers But yet this would nor serve the turn they must have all things modelled by the Form of Geneva or else no quiet to be had Which since they could not gain in England in the Reign of King Edward who did not long out-live the setling of the second Liturgie they are resolved more eagerly to pursue the project in a Foâ—reign Country during their exile and affliction in the Reign of Queen Mary Such of the English as retired to Embden Strasburg Basil or any other of the Free and Imperial Cities observed no Form of Worship in their Publick Meetings but this second Liturgie In contrary whereof such as approved not of that Liturgy when they were in England united themselves into a Church or Congregation in the City of Frankfort where they set up a mixt Form of their own devising but such as carried some resemblance to the Book of England Whittingham was the first who took upon himself the charge of this Congregation which after he resigned to Knox as the fitter man to carry on the work intended who having retired to Geneva on the death of King Edward and from thence published some tedious Pamphlets against the Regiment of Women and otherwise defamatory of the Emperour and the Queen of England was grown exceeding dear to Calvin and the rest of that Consistory By his indeavours and forwardness of too many of the Congregation that little which was used of the English Liturgie was quite laid aside and all things brought more near the Order which be found at Geneva though so much differing from that also as to intitle Knox for the Author of it 6. The noise of this great Innovation brings Gryndal and Chambers from the Church of Strasburg to set matters right By whom it was purposed that the substance of the English Book being still retained there might be a forbearance of some Ceremonies and Offices in it But Knox and Whittingham were as much bent against the substance of the Book as against any of the Circumstantials and Extrinsecals which belonged unto it So that no good effect following on this interposition the Agents of the Church of Strasburg return back to their brethren who by their Letters of the 13 of December expostulate in vain about it To put an end to these Disputes no better way could be devised by Knox and Whittingham then to require the countenance of Calvin which they thought would carry it To him they send an Abstract of the Book of England that by his positive and determinate Sentence which they presumed would be in favour of his own it might stand or fall And he returns this Answer to them That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable Fooleries that though there was no manifest impiety yet it wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it and that it contained many Relicts of the dregs of Popery and finally that though it was lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments yet it behooved
leaving the Reader for his further satisfaction to the History of the Reformation not long since published in which they are laid down at large in their times and places 9. Nor did they work less trouble to the Church in those early days by their endeavouring to advance some Zuinglian Doctrines by which the blame of all mens sins was either charged upon Gods will or his Divine Decree of Predestination These men are called in Bishop Hooper's Preface to the Ten Commandments by the name of Gospellers for making their new Doctrines such a necessary part of our Saviours Gospel as if men could not possibly be saved without it These Doctrines they began to propagate in the Reign of King Edward but never were so busie at it as when they lived at Geneva or came newly thence For first Knox publisheth a book against an Adversary of Gods Predestination wherein it is declared That whatsoever the Ethnicks and ignorant did attribute to Fortune by Christians is to be assigned to Gods heavenly Providence That we ought to judge nothing to come of Fortune but that all cometh by the determinate counsel of God And finally that it would be displeasing unto God if we esteem any thing to proceed from any other and that we do not onely behold him as the principal cause of all things but also the Author appointing all things to one or the other by his onely Counsel After came out a book first written in French and aâ—terwards by some of them translated into English which they called A brief Declaration of the Table of Predestination In which is put down for a principal Aphorism That in like manner as God hath appointed the end it is necessary that he should appoint the causes leading to the same end but more particularly That by virtue of Gods will all things are done yea even those things which are evil and execrable 10. At the same time came out another of their books pretended to be writ Against a privy Papist as the Title tells us wherein is maintained more agreeably to Calvins Doctrine That all evil springeth of Gods Ordinance and that Gods Predestination was the cause of Adams fall and of all wickedness And in a fourth book published by Robert Cowley who afterwards was Rector of the Church of S. Giles near Cripplegate intituled The confutation of Thirteen Articles it is said expresly That Adam being so perfect a creature that there was in him no lust to sin and yet so weak that of himself he was not able to resist the assault of the subtile Serpent that therefore there can be no remedy but that the onely cause of his fall must needs be the Predestination of God In which book it is also said That the most wicked persons that have been were of God appointed to be wicked even as they were That if God do predestinate a man to do things rashly and without any deliberation he shall not deliberate at all but run headlong upon it be it good or evil And in a word That we are compelled by Gods Predestination to do those things for which we are damned By which Defenders of the absolute Decree of Reprobation as God is made to be Author of sin either in plain terms or undeniable consequence so from the same men and the Genevian Pamphlets by them dispersed our English Calvinists have borrowed all their Grounds and Principles on which they build the absolute and irrespective Decree of Predestination contrary to the Doctrines publickly maintained and taught in the Church of England in the time of King Edward and afterwards more clearly explicated under Queen Elizabeth 11. Such was the posture of affairs at Queen Elizabeths first coming to the Crown of England when to the points before disputed both at home and abroad was raised another of more weight and consequence then all the rest and such as if it could be gained would bring on the other Such as had lived in exile amongst the Zwitzers or followed Knox at his return unto Geneva became exceedingly enamored of Calvins Platform by which they found so much Authority ascribed unto the Ministers in the several Churches as might make them absolute and independant without being called to an account by King or Bishop This Discipline they purposed to promote at their coming home and to that end leaving some few behind them to attend the finishing of the Bible with the Genevian Notes upon it which was then in the Press the rest return a main for England to pursue the Project But Cox had done their errand before they came and she had heard so much from others of their carriage at Frankfort and their untractableness in point of Decency and comely Order in the Reign of her brother as might sufficiently forewarn her not to hearken to them Besides she was not to be told with what reproaches Calvin had reviled her Sister nor how she had been persecuted by his followers in the time of her Reign some of them railing at her person in their scandalous Pamphlets some practising by false but dangerous allusions to subvert her Government and others openly praying to God That he would either turn her heart or put an end to her days And of these men she was to give her self no hope but that they would proceed with her in the self-same manner whensoever any thing should be done how necessary and just soever which might cross their humours The consideration whereof was of such prevalency with those of her Council who were then deliberating about the altering of Religion that amongst other remedies which were wisely thought of to prevent such dangers as probably might ensue upon it it was resolved to have an eye upon these men who were so hot in the pursuit of their flattering hopes that out of a desire of Innovation as my Author tells me they were busied at that very time in setting up a new Form of Ecclesiastical Polity and therefore were to be supprest with all care and diligence before they grew unto a head 12. But they were men of harder metal then to be broken at the first blow which was offered at them Queen Maries death being certified to those of Geneva they presently dispatched their Letters to their Brethren at Frankfort and Arrow to which Letters of theirs an answer is returned from Frankfort on the third from Arrow on the 16 of Ianuary And thereupon it is resolved to prepare for England before their party was so sunk that it could not without much difficulty be buoyed up again Some of their party which remained all the time in England being impatient of delay and chusing rather to anticipate then expect Authority had set themselves on work in defacing Images demolishing the Altars and might have made foul work if not stopped in time Others began as hastily to preach the Protestant Doctrine in private Houses first and afterwards as opportunity was offered in the open Churches Great multitudes of people resorting to
omit the incongruities of the Translation which King Iames judged to be the worst that he had ever seen in the English Tongue the Notes upon the same in many places savour of Sedition and in some of Faction destructive of the Persons and Powers of Kings and of all civil intercourse and humane society That Learned King hath told us in the Conference at Hampton-Court that the Notes on the Genevian Bible were partial untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and trayterous conceits For proof whereof he instanced in the Note of Exod. 1. v. 19. where they allow of disobedience unto Kings and Soveraign Princes And secondly in that on 2 Chron. 8.15 16. where Asa is taxed for not putting his Mother to death but deposing her onely from the Regency which before she executed Of which last note the Scotish Presbyterians made especial use not onely in deposing Mary their lawful Queen but prosecuting her openly and under-hand till they had took away her life And to this too he might have added that on Matth. 2.12 where it is said that Promise ought not be kept where Gods honor and preaching of his truth is hindred or else it ought not to be broken Which opens a wide gap to the breach of all Oaths Covenants Contracts and Agreements not onely between man and man but between Kings and their Subjects For what man can be safe or King secure what Promise can oblige or what Contract bind or what Oath tye a man to his Faith and duty if on pretence of Gods honor or the propagating of his truth he may lawfully break it And yet this Doctrine passed so currantly amongst the French that it was positively affirmed by Eusebius Philadelphus whosoever he was That Queen Elizabeth was no more bound to keep the League which she had made and sworn with Charles IX because forsooth the preaching of the Gospel might be hindred by it then Herod was obliged to keep the Oath which he had sworn to the Dancing-Harlot Follow them to Rev. 9. and they will tell us in their Notes upon that Chapter that by the Locusts which came out of the smoak are meant false Teachers Hereticks and worldly subtile Prelates with Monks Fryers Cardinals Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops Doctors Batchelors and Masters To which though they subjoyn these words viz. Which forsake Christ to maintain false Doctrine yet lays it a disgrace on all Archbishops and Bishops and on all such as take Academical degrees by bringing them under the name of Locusts and joyning them with Monks and Friers whom they beheld no otherwise then as Limbs of Antichrist Which being the design of their Annotations agreeable to Calvins Doctrine in reference to Civil Ecclesiastical Government there is no doubt but that they come up roundly to him in reference to Predestination and the points appendant for which I shall refer the Reader to the Notes themselves observing onely in this place that they exclude Christ and all his sufferings from being any way considerable in mans Election which they found onely on the absolute will and pleasure of Almighty God but are content to make him an inferiour cause and onely an inferiour cause of a mans salvation For which consult them on Rom 9.15 16. Now with this Bible and these Notes which proved so advantagious to them in their main projectments they also brought in Davids Psalms in English metre of which they served themselves to some tune in the time succeeding Which device being first taken up by Clement Marot and continued afterwards by Beza as before is said was followed here in England by Thomas Sternhold in the Reign of King Edward and afterwards by Iohn Hopkins and some others who had retired unto Geneva in the time of Queen Mary Being there finished and printed at the end of their Bibles they were first recommended to the use of private Families next brought into the Church for an entertainment before the beginning of the Morning and Evening Service And finally published by themselves or at the end of the Psalter with this Declaration that they were set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons But first no such allowance can be found as is there pretended nor could be found when this allowance was disputed in the High Commission by such as have been most industrious and concerned in the search thereof And then whereas it is pretended that the said Psalms should be sung before and after Morning and Evening Prayer as also before and after Sermons which shews they were not to be intermingled with the Publick Liturgie in very little time they prevailed so far in most Parish-Churches as to thrust out the Te Deum and the Benedicite the Benedictus the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis quite out of the Church And thirdly by the practices and endeavours of the Puritan party who had an eye upon the usage of Geneva they came to be esteemed the most Divine part of Gods publick service the reading Psalms together with the first and second Lessons being heard in many places with a covered head but all men sitting bare-headed when the Psalm is sung And to that end the Parish-Clerk must be taught to call upon the people to sing it to the Praise and Glory God no such preparatory Exhortation being used at the naming of the Chapters or the daily Psalms 17. By these preparatives they hoped in time to bring in the whole body of Calvinism as well in reference to Government and forms of Worship as to points of Doctrine But then they were to stay their time and not to shew too much at once of the main designe but rather to divert on some other counsels The Liturgy was so well fortified by the Law and the Bishops so setled in their jurisdictions that it had been a madness to attempt on either till they should finde themselves increased both in power and number and that they had some Friend in Court not onely to excuse but defend their actions In which respect nothing seemed more expedient to them then to revive the Quarrels of King Edwards time about Caps and Tippets and other Vestments of the Clergy which had not the like Countenance from the Laws of the Land In which as they assured themselves of all help from the hands of Peter Martyr so they despaired not of obtaining the like from Calvin and Beza whensoever it should be required But as one Wave thrusts another forwards so this dispute brings in some others in which the judgement of Peter Martyr was demanded also that is to say concerning the Episcopal Habit the Patrimony of the Church the manner of proceedings to be held against Papists the Perambulation used in the Rogation-Week with many other points of the like condition Which Quarrels they pursued for five years together till the setling of that business by the Book of Advertisements Anno 1565. They also
shall hereafter treat of them as they come before us with reference to the Practises and Proceedings of their English Brethren And first beginning with the Scots it is to be remembred that we left them at a very low ebb the Earl of Goury put to death many of the Nobility exiled into Forreign Countreys and the chief Zealots of the Faction amongst the Ministers putting themselves into a voluntary Banishment because they could not have their wills on the King and Council England as nearest hand was the common Sanctuary to which some Lords and almost all the Refractory Ministers had retired themselves Much countenanced by Mr. Secretary Walsingham who had set them on work and therefore was obliged to gratifie them in some fit proportion To such of the Nobility as had fled into England he assigned the Isle of Lindisfarm commonly called the Holy Island not far from Berwick with order to the Lord Hundsdon who was then Governour of that Town to give them the possession of it But Hundsdon though he had less Zeal had so much knowledg of his Duty as to disobey him considering the great consequence of the place and that there was no impossibility in it but that the Scots might make use of it to the common prejudice if they should prove Enemies to this Crown as perhaps they might A matter which the Secretary would not have passed over in so light a manner but that an Ambassador was sent at the same time from the King of Scots by whom it was desired that the Fugitives of that Nation whatsoever they were might either be remitted home or else commanded not to live so near the Borders where they had opportunity more than stood with the good of that Kingdom to pervert the Subjects Which Reasonable Desire being yeelded unto the Lords and Great men of that Nation were ordered to retire to Norwich and many of the Ministers permitted to prepare for London Oxon Cambridg and some other places where some of them procured more mischief to the Church of England than all of them could have done to their own Countrey had they staid at Berwick 2. At London they are suffered by some zealous Brethren to possess their Pulpits in which they rail without comptroll against their King the Council of that Kingdom and their natural Queen as if by the practises of the one and the connivence of the other the Reformed Religion was in danger to be rooted out Some Overtures had been made at that time by the Queen of Scots by which it was desired that she might be restored unto the Liberty of her person associating with the young King in the Government of the Realm of Scotland and be suffered to have the Mass said in her private Closet for her self and her Servants The news whereof being brought to London filled all the Pulpits which the Scots were suffered to invade with terrible Complaints and Exclamations none of them sparing to affirm That her Liberty was inconsistent with Queen Elizabeth's Safety That both Kingdoms were undone if she were admitted to the joynt-Government of the Realm of Scotland and That the Reformed Religion must needs breathe its last if the Popish were permitted within the Walls of the Court. Which points they pressed with so much vehemence and heat that many were thereby inflamed to join themselves in the Association against that Queen which soon after followed Against their King they railed so bitterly and with such reproach one Davinson more than any other that upon complaint made by the Scottish Ambassador the Bishop of London was commanded to silence all the Scots about the City and the like Order given to the rest of the Bishops by whom they were inhibited from preaching in all other places But the less noise they made in the Church the more closely and dangerously they practised on particular persons in whom they endeavoured to beget an ill opinion of the present Government and to engage them for advancing that of the Presbyterian in the place thereof But this they had followed more successfully at the Act in Oxon where they are liberally entertained by Genebrand and the rest of the Brethren amongst which Wilcox Hen and Ackton were of greatest note And at this time a question was propounded to them concerning the proceeding of the Minister in his duty without the assistance or tarrying for the Magistrate How they resolved this question may be easily guessed partly by that which they had done themselves when they were in Scotland and partly by the Actings of their English Brethren in pursuance of it 3. For presently after Gelibrand deals with divers Students in their several Colledges to put their hands unto a paper which seemed to contain somewhat in it of such dangerous nature that some did absolutely refuse and others required further time of deliberation of which Gelibrand thus writes to Field on the 12 th of Ian. then next following I have already saith he entred into the matters whereof you write and dealt with three or four several Colledges concerning those amongst whom they live I find that men are very dangerous in this point generally favouring Reformation but when it comes to the particular point some have not yet considered of the things for which others in the Church are so much troubled others are afraid to testifie any thing with their hands lest it breed danger before the time and many favour the Cause of the Reformation but they are not Ministers but young Students of whom there is good hope if they be not cut off by violent dealing before the time As I hear by you so I mean to go forward where there is any hope and to learn the number and certifie you thereof c. But that these secret practises might not be suspected they openly attend the Parliament of this year as at other times in hope of gaining some advantage against the Bishops and the received Orders of the Church For in the Parliament of this year which began on the Twenty third of November they petitioned amongst other things That a Restraint might be laid upon the Bishops for granting of Faculties conferring of Orders as also in the executing of Ecclesiastical Censure the Oath Ex Officio permitting Non-residence and the like But the Queen would not hearken to it partly because of the dislike she had of all Innovations which commonly tend unto the worse but chiefly in regard that all such Applications as they made to the Parliament were by her looked on as derogatory to her own Supremacy So that instead of gaining any of those points at the hands of the Parliament they gained nothing but displeasure from the Queen who is affirmed by Stow to have made a Speech at the end of their Session and therein to have told the Bishops That if they did not look more carefully to the discharge of their Duties she must take order to deprive them Sharp words and such as might necessitate the Bishops to
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
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
leisure to coâ—sult the same or otherwise may make a judgement of them by this small scantling as the wise Mathematician took the just measure of the body of Hercules by the impression which he made in the sand by one of his Feet And therefore I shall look no further then upon such specialities as have relation to the Doctrine Discipline or Forms of Worship which are most proper to the rest Some of the Brethren not fully setled in a Church had laid aside the singing of Psalms either for fear of being discovered or otherwise terrified and discouraged by the threats of the adversary For this he reprehends them in a tedious Letter dated Iuly 19. 1559. imputes it to their fearfulness or pasillanimity accuseth them of plain tergiversation and shutting up all passages against the entrance of the Graces of Almighty God The Brethren of Mont-Pelyard for I think the former lived in Mettz the chief City of Lorrein were required by the Guardians of their Prince that is to say the Palatine of Zuibrook and the Duke of Wirtenberge to hold conformity in some Ceremonies with the Lutheran Church as namely in the Form of their Catechising the manner of Administring the Holy Sacrament the Form of publick Prayers and Solemnizing of Marriages They were required also to imploy themselves in Preaching down the errours and corruptions of the Church of Rome in some small Signiories which were lately fallen unto their Prince and had not formerly been instructed in the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches But absolutely they refused the one and would do nothing in the other without Calvins leave to whose infallible judgement and determination they refer the points whereunto he returns such answer by his Letters bearing date September 25. 1562 as confirmed them in their first refusal excepting more particularly against suffering Midwives to Baptize and against praying for the joyful Resurrection of a man deceased at the time of his Burial But in the other he adviseth them to accept the charge as visibly conducing to the propagation of the true Religion and the inlarging of Christs Kingdom 37. So for the Discipline which seemed to be devised at first upon humane prudence accommodated to the present condition of Geneva onely the use of Excommunication had been discontinued in the Protestant Churches and no such creatures as Lay-Elders heard of in the Primitive times or glanced at in the holy Scriptures So that to trust them with the power of the Churches-censures could not pretend to any ground in the Word of God supposing that the use of Excommunication was to be every where received Calvin himself confesses in his Letter unto those of Zurick that in the judgement of most Learned and Religious men there was no need of Excommunication under Christian Princes Beza acknowledgeth the like in the Life of Calvin and what Ligerus saith for the Church of Saxonie hath been shewed already But by degrees it came to be intituled to Divine Authority at first commended as convenient and at last as necessary With the opinion of the Sacred and Divine Authority of the holy Discipline he had so far possessed Saligniar a man of Eminent power in the City of Paris and one that for thirty years before had declared himself in favour of the Reformation that he acknowledgeth it in the end to be Apostolical For in his Letter written unto Calvin on the Ides of December he lets him know how vehemently he did desire that they might have such a Form of Ecclesiastical Polity as Calvin seemed to breath and could not be denyed to be Apostolical From hence it was that he declared so positively in his Epistle to Poppius February 25. 1559 that the Magistrates were to be sollicited for the Exercise of Excommunication by publick Authority which if it could not be obtained the Ministers were to make this protestation that they durst not give the Sacrament to unworthy receivers for fear of coming under the censure of casting that which was holy before Dogs and Swine More fully in his answer to some questions about the Discipline in which we finde and that goes very high indeed that the safety of the Church cannot otherwise be provided for then by the free use of Excommunication for the purifying of the same from filth the restraint of licentiousness abolishing enormous crimes and the correcting of ill manners the moderate exercise whereof he that will not suffer doth plainly shew himself to be no sheep of our Saviours Pasture 38. And so far Calvin had proceeded but he went no further neither condemning the Estate of Bishops as Antichristian and unlawful nor thinking his Lay-elders so extreamly necessary that no Decree of Excommunication could be past without them But Beza who succeeded in the Chair of Calvin is resolved on both For Calvin having sate eight and twenty years in the Chair of Geneva ended his life in the year 1564. During which time he had attained to such an height of Reputation that even the Churches of the Switzers lost the name of Zuinglians and thought it no small honour to them as well as those of Germany France Pole or Scotland to be called Calvinian Onely the English held it out and neither had imbraced his Doctrines nor received his Discipline And though the Puritan party in it took the name of Calvinists our Divines commonly called Calvinists say the two Informers yet both Saravia stomached it to be so accounted Mountague in answer to the two Informers doth protest against it and all the true sons of the Church of England do as much disclaim it Beza endeavoured what he could to introduce his Discipline and Forms of Worship into all the Churches which did pretend to any Reformation of their ancient Errours In the pursuit whereof he drives on so furiously like Iehu in the holy Scriptures as if no Kings or Princes were to stand before him Scarce was he setled in his Chair when one of his professed Champions for Presbytery puts himself into Heidelberg which had not long before admitted the Calvinian Doctrines but not submitted to the Discipline as extrinsecal to them This Champion therefore challenges the Divines thereof to a disputation publickly holds forth this proposition which he then defended that is to say That to a Minister with his Elders there is power given by express warrant from Gods Word to Excommunicate all offenders even the greatest Prince From hence proceeded that dispute which afterwards Erastus of whom more hereafter maintained with Beza the point being put upon this issue Whether all Churches ought to have their Eldership invested with a power of Excommunication and that Lay-elders were so necessary in every Eldership that nothing could be done without them In which dispute as it is very well observed by judicious Hooker they seemed to divide the whole truth between them Beza most truely holding the necessity of Excommunication in a Church well constituted Erastus no less truely shewing
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
Gates and thereby got possession of that part of the City was in apparent danger to be utterly broken by the Catholick party if the Prince had not come so opportunely to renew the fight but by his coming they prevailed made themselves Masters of the City and handselled their new Government with the spoil of all the Churches and Religious Houses which either they defaced or laid waste and desolate Amongst which none was used more coursely then the Church of St. Crosse being the Cathedral of that City not so much out of a dislike to all Cathedrals though that had been sufficient to expose it unto Spoil and Rapine as out of hatred to the name Upon which furious piece of Zeal they afterwards destroyed all the little Crosses which they found in the way between Mont-Martyr and St. Denis first raised in memory of Denis the first Bishop of Paris and one that passeth in account for the chief Apostle of the Gallick Nations 17. But to proceed to put some fair colour upon this foul action a Manifest is writ and published in which the Prince and his adherents signifie to all whom it might concern that they had taken arms for no other reason but to restore the King and Queen to their personal liberty kept Prisoners by the power and practice of the Catholick Lords that obedience might be rendred in all places to his Majesties Edicts which by the violence of some men had been infringed and therefore that they were willing to lay down Arms if the Constable the Duke of Guise and the Marshal of St. Andrews should retire from Paris leaving the King and Queen to their own disposing and that liberty of Religion might be equally tolerated and maintained unto all alike These false Colours were wiped off by a like Remonstrance made by the Parliament of Paris In which it was declared amongst other things that the Hugonots had first broke those Edicts by going armed to their Assemblies and without an Officer That they had no pretence to excuse themselves from the crime of Rebellion considering they had openly seized on many Towns raised Souldiers assumed the Munition of the Kingdom cast many pieces of Ordnance and Artillery assumed unto themselves the Coyning of Money and in a word that they have wasted a great part of the publick Revenues robbed all the rich Churches within their power and destroyed the rest to the dishonour of God the scandal of Religion and the impoverishing of the Realm The like answer was made also by the Constable and the Duke of Guise in their own behalf declaring in the same that they were willing to retire and put themselves into voluntary exile upon condition that the Arms taken up against the King might be quite laid down the places kept against him delivered up the Churches which were ruined restored again the Catholick Religion honourably preserved and an intire obedience rendred to the lawful King under the Government of the King of Navar and the Regencie of the Queen his Mother Nor were the King and Queen wanting to make up the breach by publishing that they were free from all restraint and that the Catholick Lords had but done their duty in waiting on them into Paris that since the Catholick Lords were willing to retire from Court the Prince of Conde had no reason to remain at that distance that therefore he and his adherents ought to put themselves together with the places which they had possessed into the obedience of the King which if they did they should not onely have their several and respective Pardons for all matters past but be from thenceforth looked upon as his Loyal Subjects without the least diminution of State or honour 18. These Paper-pellets being thus spent both sides prepare more furiously to charge each other But first the Prince of Conde by the aid of the Hugonots makes himself Master of the great Towns and Câ—ties of chief importance such as were Rouen the Parliamentary City of the Dukedom of Normandy the Ports of Diepe and New-haven the Cities of Angiers Towres Bloise Vendosme Bourges and Poictiers which last were reckoned for the greatest of all the Kingdom except Rouen and Paris after which followed the rich City of Lyons with that of Valence in the Province of Daulphiny together with almost all the strong places in Gascoigne and Languedock Provinces in a manner wholly Hugonot except Tholouse Bourdeaux and perhaps some others But because neither the Contributions which came in from the Hugonots though they were very large nor the spoil and pillage of those Cities which they took by force were of themselves sufficient to maintain the War the Prince of Conde caused all the Gold and Silver in the Churches to be brought unto him which he coyned into Money They made provision of all manner of Artillery and Ammunition which they took from most of the Towns and laid up in Orleance turning the Covent of the Franciscans into a Magazine and there disposing all their stores with great art and industry The Catholicks on the other side drew their Forces together consisting of 4000 Horse and six thousand Foot most of them old experienced Souldiers and trained up in the War against Charles the Fifth The Prince had raised an Army of an equal number that is to say three thousand Horse and seven thousand Foot but for the most part raw and young Souldiers and such as scarcely knew how to stand to their Arms And yet with these weak Forces he was grown so high that nothing would content him but the banishment of the Constable the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise free liberty for the Hugonots to meet together for the Exercise of their Religion in walled Towns Cities and Churches to be publickly appointed for them the holding of the Towns which he was presently possessed of as their absolute Lord till the King were out of his Minority which was to last till he came to the age of two and twenty He required also that the Popes Legate should be presently commanded to leave the Kingdom that the Hugonots should be capable of all Honours and Offices and finally that security should be given by the Emperour the Catholick King the Queen of England the State of Venice the Duke of Savoy and the Republick of the Switzers by which they were to stand obliged that neither the Constable nor the Duke of Guise should return into France till the King was come unto the age before remembred 19. These violent demands so incensed all those which had the Government of the State that the Prince and his Adherents were proclaimed Traytors and as such to be prosecuted in a course of Law if they laid not down their Arms by a day appointed Which did as little benefit them as the proposals of the Prince had pleased the others For thereupon the Hugonots united themselves more strictly into a Confederacie to deliver the King the Queen the Kingdom from the violence of their
opposites to stand to one another in the defence of the Edicts and altogether to submit to the Authority of the Prince of Conde as the head of their Union publishing a tedious Declaration with their wonted confidence touching the motives which induced them to this Combination This more estranged the Queen from them then she was at first and now she is resolved to break them by some means or other but rather to attempt it by Wit then by Force of Arms And to this end she deals so dexterously with the Constable and the Duke of Guise that she prevailed with them to leave the Court and to prefer the common safety of their Country before their own particular and personal greatness which being signified by Letters to the Prince of Conde he frankly offered under his hand that whensoever these great Adversaries of his were retired from the Court which he conceived a matter of impossibility to perswade them to he would not onely lay down Arms but quit the Kingdom But understanding that the Constable and the Duke had really withdrawn themselves to their Country-houses devested of all power boâ—h in Court and Council he stood confounded at the unadvisedness and precipitation of so rash a promise as he had made unto the Queen For it appeared dishonourable to him not to keep his word more dangerous to relinquish his command in the Army but most destructive to himself and his party to dissolve their Forces and put himself into a voluntary exile not knowing whither to retreat At which dead lift he is refreshed by some of his Calvinian Preachers with a Cordial comfort By which learned Casuists it was resolved for good Divinity that the Prince having undertaken the maintenance of those who had imbraced the purity of Religion and made himself by Oath Protector of the Word of God no following obligation could be of force to make him violate the first In which determining of the Case they seemed to have been guided by that Note in the English Bibles translated and printed at Geneva where in the Margine to the second Chapter of St. Matthews Gospel it is thus advertised viz. That promise ought not to be kept when Gods honour and the preaching of the Truth is hindred or else it ought not to be broken They added to make sure work of it at the least they thought so that the Queen had broken a former promise to the Prince in not bringing the King over to his party as she once assured him and therefore that he was not bound to keep faith with her who had broke her own 20. But this Divinity did not seem sufficient to preserve his honour another temperament was found by some wiser heads by which he might both keep his promise and not leave his Army By whose advice it was resolved that he should put himself into the power of the Queen who was come within six Miles of him with a small reâ—inue onely of purpose to recâ—ive him that having done his duty to her he should express his readiness to forsake the Kingdom as soon as some Accord was settled and that the Admiral D' Andelot and some other of the principal Leaders should on the sudden shew themselves forcibly mount him on his Horse and bring him back into the Army Which Lay-device whether it had more cunning or less honesty then that of the Cabal of Divines it is hard to say But sure it is that it was put in execution accordingly the Queen thereby deluded and all the hopes of Peace and Accommodation made void and frustrate But then a greater difficulty seized upon them The King had re-inforced his Army by the accession of ten Cornets of German Horse and six thousand Switz The Princes Army rather diminished then increased and which was worse he wanted Money to maintain those Forces which he had about him so that being neither able to keep the Field for want of men nor keep his men together for want of Money it was resolved that he must keep his men upon free-quarter in such Towns and Cities as followed the Fortune of his side till he was seconded by some strength from England or their Friends in Germany The Queen of England had been dealt with but she resolved not to engage on their behalf except the Port of Havre-de-grace together with the Town of Diepe were put into her hands and that she might have leave to put a Garrison of English into Rouen it self Which Proposition seemed no other to most knowing men then in effect to put into her power the whole Dukedom of Normandy by giving her possession of the principal City and hanging at her Girdle the two Keys of the Province by which she might enter when she pleased with all the rest of her Forces But then the Ministers being advised with who in all publick Consultations were of great Authority especially when they related unto Cases of Conscience it was by them declared for sound Doctrine That no consideration was to be had of worldly things when the maintenance of Coelestial Truths and the propagation of the Gospel was brought in question and therefore that all other things were to be contemned in reference to the establishment of true Religion and the freedom of Conscience According to which notable determination the Seneschal of Rouen and the young Visdame of Chartres are dispatched to England with whom it was accorded by the Queens Commissioners that the Queen should presently supply the Prince and his Confederates with Monies Arms and Ammunition that she should aid him with an Army of eight thousand Foot to be maintained at her own pay for defence of Normandy and that for her security in the way of caution the Town of New haven which the French call Havre-de-grace as is before said should be forthwith put into her hands under a Governour or Commander of the English Nation that she should place a Garrison of two thousand English in the City of Rouen and a proportionable number in the Town of Diepe but the Chief Governours of each to be natural French Which Covenants were accordingly performed on both sides to the dishonour of the French and the great damage and reproach of the Realm of England as it after proved For so it was that the Prince of Conde being forced to disperse his Souldiers and to dispose of them in such manner as before was noted the King being Master of the Field carryed the War from Town to Town and from place to place and in that course he speeds so well as to take in the Cities of Angiers Tours Bloise Poictiers and Bourges with divers others of less note some of which were surrended upon composition some taken by assault and exposed to spoil And now all passages being cleared and all rubs removed they were upon the point of laying Siege to the City of Orleance when at the Queens earnest sollicitation they changed that purpose for the more profitable expedition to the King and
and provocations the King resolved to proceed in his former indifferency hoping thereby to break the Hugonots without blows and bloud-shed and thereby to regain the good opinion of his Popish Subjects To which end he was pleased to grant such priviledges to the Hugonot Faction as they durst not ask and never had aspired unto in their greatest heats which he conceived he had more reason to do in the present pinch then any of his Predecessors had in far less extremities For the Hugonots had not onely brought in a formidable Army of Switz and Germans under the conduct of Prince Casimir one of the younger sons of Frederick the Third then Elector Palatine but had also made a fraction in the Court it self by drawing Francis Duke of Alanzon his youngest Brother to be Head of their Party who brought along with him a great number of Romish Catholicks who then past under the name of the Male-contents To break which blow and free his Kingdom from the danger of so great an Army he first capitulates to pay the Germans their Arrears amounting to a million and two hundred thousand Ducats to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Signory of Chasteau-Thierry in the Province of Champaigne with a Pension of fourteen thousand Crowns and a Command of a hundred Lances To confer the Government of Picardie with the strong Town of Perrone on the Prince of Conde and settle on his Brother the Duke of Alanzon the Provinces of Berry Touraine and Anjou together with one hundred thousand Crowns of yearly Pension and made him also Duke of Anjou foâ— his greater honour And then to pacifie and oblige the Hugonots if such men could be gained or pacified by acts of favour he grants unto them by his Edict of the 14 of May 1576 that they should peaceably enjoy the exercise of their Religion together with full power for erecting Colledges and Schools for holding Synods of Celebrating Matrimony and Administring the Sacraments with the same freedom as was used by his Catholick Subjects that those of the Reformed Religion should be permitted to execute any Places or Offices and enjoy any Dignities of what sort soever without such distinction betwixt them and the rest of that Nation as had been of late times observed that in each Parliament of France a new Court should be presently erected consisting equally of Judges and Officers of both Religions and they to have the Cognizance of all Causes which concerned the Hugonots that all sentences past against the Admiral the Count of Montgomery and the rest of that party should be revoked and made null and the eight cautionary Towns being all places of great strength and consequence should remain with the Hugonots till all these Articles were confirmed and the Peace concluded 38. The passing of this Edict gave great scandal to the Catholick party which thereupon was easily united by the Duke of Guise into a common Bond or League for maintainance and defence of their Religion apparently indangered by those large Indulgences by the first Article whereof they bound themselves for the Establishment of the Law of God in its first Estate to restore and settle his holy Service according to the Form and Manner of the Catholick Apostolick Roman Church and to abjure and renounce all errors contrary thereunto Then followed many other Articles relating to the preservation of the Kings Authority the maintainance of the common liberties and Priviledges of their Country the mutual defence of one another in defence of this League against all persons whatsoever the constancy of their obedience to any one whom they should chuse to be the Head of their Conâ—ederacie and finally the prosecuting of all those without exception who should endeavour to oppose and infringe the same And for the keeping of this League they severally and joyntly bound themselves by this following Oath viz. I swear by God the Creator laying my hand upon the holy Gospel and under pain of Excommunication and eternal Damnation that I enter into this holy Catholick League according to the Form thereof now read unto 〈◊〉 â—nd that I do faithfully and sincerely enter into it with a will either to command or to obey and serve as I shall be appointed â—nd I promise upon my life and honour unto the last drop of my bloud never to depart from it or transgress it for any command preâ—ence excuse or occasion which by any means whatsoever can be represented to me And as the Hugonots had puâ— themselves under the Protection of the Queen of England and called the â—â—â—mans to their aid so they resolved according unto this example to put themselves under the Patronage of the Catholick King and to call in the Forces of the King Pope and the Princes of Itâ—ly if their occasions so required The news of which conâ—edeâ—acy so amazed the King that he proceeded not to the performance of those Indulgences contained in the Eâ—iâ—t of the 14 of May which seemed most odious and offensive in the eyes of the Catholicks so that both sides being thus â—xaâ—perated against one another and each side jealous of the King the old confusions were revived the disorders multiplyed and all things brought into a worse condition then at his first coming to the Crown For though the Catholick King had willingly consented to be head of the League yet to bâ—â—ak â—ff all such dependance as was by that means to be fastned on him by the rest of the Leaguers the French King findes himself necessitated to assume that honour to himself And thereupon in the Assembly held at Blois having in vain tryed many ways to untie this knot he publickly declared himself to be the Principal Head and Protector of it with many specious protestations that he would spend his last breath in a cause so glorious as the reducing of his people unto one Religion which as it raised many jealousies in the mindes of the Hugonots so it begot no confidence of him in the hearts of their opposites 39. Hereupon a new War breaks out and a new Peace followeth by which some Clauses in the former Edict were restrained and moderated though otherwise sufficiently advantagious to all those of the Reformation so as now hoping that all matters were accorded between the parties the King pretends to betake himself wholly to his private Devotions falls on the institution of a new Order of Knighthood called The Order of the Holy Ghost commends his Brother for a Suâ—ter to the Queen of England to keep him out of harms way for the time to come and finally failing of the project procureth his advancement to the Dukedom of Brabant and to be made the General-Governour of the Belgick Provinces which had withdrawn themselves from their Obedience to the King of Spain 40. But in the midst of these devices the Leaders of the Hugonots are again in Arms under colour that the former Edict had not been observed but in plain truth upon a clear and manifest experience that Peace
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
belonged unto the Princes of the House of Burgundy 51. This League exceedingly increased the reputation of the new Confederacy and made the States appear considerable in the eye of the world And more it might have been if either Don Iohn's improsperous Government had continued longer or if the Prince of Orange had not entertained some designs apart for himself But Don Iohn dyes in the year 1578 and leaves his Forces in the power of Alexander Farneze Prince of Parma Son to that Dutchess whom we have so often mentioned in this part of our History A Prince he was of no less parts and Military Prowess then any of his Predecessors but of a better and more equal temper then the best amongst them whereof he gave sufficient testimony in his following Government in which he was confirmed after the Kings occasioned lingrings with great state and honour For having regained from the States some of the best Towns of which they had possessed themselves before the arrival of Don Iohn he forced them to a necessity of some better counsels then those by which they steered their course since they came to the Helm And of all counsels none seemed better to the Prince of Orange then that the Country should be so cantoned amongst several Princes that every one being ingaged to defend his own the whole might be preserved from the power of the Spaniards To this end it had been advised that Flanders and Artois should return to the Crown of France of which they were holden and to the Kings whereof the Earls of both did homage in the times foregoing The Queen of England was to have been gratified with the Isles of Zealand the Dukedom of Gueldres to divert to the next Heirs of it Groning and Deventer to be incorporated with the Hans Holland and Friesland together with the districht of Vtrecht to be appropriated wholly to the Prince of Orange as the reward of his deservings the Brabanters to a new Election according to their native rights the rest of the Provinces to remain to the German Empire of which they had anciently Eleired 52. This distribution I confess had some cunning in it and must have quickly brought the Spanish pride to a very low ebb if he that laid the plot could have given the possession It is reported that when the Pope offered the Realms of Naples and Sicily to King Henry the Third for Edmond Earl of Lancaster his youngest Son he offered them on such hard conditions and so impossible in a manner to be performed that the Kings Embassadors merrily told him he might as well create a Kingdom in the Moon and bid his Master climb up to it for it should be his And such a Lunary conceit was that of the division and subdivision of the Belgick Provinces in what Calvinian head soever it was forged and hammered For being that each of the Donces was to conquer his part before he could receive any benefit from it the device was not like to procure much profit but onely to the Prince of Orange who was already in possession and could not better fortifie and assure himself in his new Dominion then by cutting out so much work for the King of Spain as probably might keep him exercised to the end of the world But this device not being likely to succeed it seemed better to the Prince of Orange to unite the Provinces under his command into a Solemn League and Association to be from thenceforth called the Perpetual Vnion Which League Association or perpetual Union bears date at Vtrecht on the 23 of Ianuary 1578 and was then made between the Provinces of Holland Zealand Guelders Zutphen Vtrecht Friesland and Overyssel with their Associates called ever since that time the Vnited Provinces In the first making of which League or perpetual Union it was provided in the first place that they should inseparably joyn together for defence of themselves their Liberty and Religion against the power of the Spaniard But it was cautioned in the second that this Association should be made without any diminution or alteration of the particular Priviledges Rights Freedoms Exemptions Statutes Customs Uses Preheminencies which any of the said Towns Provinces Members or Inhabitants at that time enjoyed Liberty of Religion to be left to those of Holland and Zealand in which they might govern themselves as to them seemed good and such a Freedom left to those of other Provinces as was agreed on at the Pacification made at Gaunt by which it was not lawful to molest those of the Church of Rome in any manner whatsoever 53. But more particularly it was provided and agreed on that such Controversies as should grow between the said Provinces Towns or Members of this Union touching their Priviledges Customs Freedoms c. should be decided by the ordinary course of Justice or by some amicable and friendly composition amongst themselves and that no other Countries Provinces Members or Towns whom those Countries did no way concern shall in any part meddle by way of friendly intermission tending to an accord Which caution I the rather note in this place and time because we may perhaps look back upon it in the case of Barnevelt when they had freed themselves from the power of the Spaniards and were at leisure to infringe the publick Liberties in the pursuit of their particular Animosities against one another But to proceed this Union as it was more advantagious unto Queen Elizabeth then the general League so was it afterwards more cordially affected by her when their necessities inforced them to cast themselves and their Estates upon her protection But these proceedings so exasperated the King of Spain that he proscribed the Prince of Orange by his publick Edict bearing date Iune 18. 1581. And on the other side the Prince prevailed so far upon those of the Union as to declare by publick Instrument that the King of Spain by reason of his many violations of their Rights and Liberties had forfeited his Estate and Interest in the several Provinces and therefore that they did renounce all manner of fidelity and obedience to him Which Instrument bears date on the twenty sixth of Iuly then next following Upon the publishing whereof they brake in pieces all the Seals Signets and Counter-signets of the King of Spain appointed others to be made by the States General for dispatch of such business as concerned the Vnion or Confederation requiring all subjects to renounce their Oaths to the said King of Spain and to take a new Oath of Fidelity to the general Estates against the said King and his adherents the like done also by all Governours Superintendents Chancellors Councellors and other Officers c. They had before drawn the Sword against him and now they throw away the Scabberd For to what end could this action aim at but to make the breach irreparable between them and the King to swell the injury so high as not to be within the compass of future
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
make good their interest nor any head to order and direct those few hands they had At last the Earl of Sussex with some Souldiers came toward the borders supplied them with such Forces as enabled them to drive the Lords of the Queens Faction out of all the South and thereby gave them some encouragement to nominate the old Earl of Lenox for their Lord-Lieutenant till the Queens pleasure in it might be further known And in this Broyl the Kirk must needs act somewhat also For finding that their party was too weak to compel their Opposites to obedience by the Mouth of the Sword they are resolved to try what they can do by the Sword of the Mouth And to that end they send their Agents to the Duke of Chasteau-Harald the Earls of Arguile Eglington Cassels and Cranford the Lords Boyde and Ogilby and others Barons and Gentlemen of name and quality whom they require to return to the Kings obedience and ordain Certification to be made unto them that if they did otherwise the Spiritual Sword of Excommunication should be drawn against them By which though they effected nothing which advanced the cause yet they shewed their affections and openly declared thereby to which side they inclined if they were left unto themseves And for a further evidence of their inclinations they were so temperate at that time or so obsequious to the Lords whose cause they favoured that they desisted from censuring a seditious Sermon upon an Intimation sent from the Lords of the Council that the Sermon contained some matter of Treason and therefore that the Cognizance of it belonged unto themselves and the Secular Judges 23. The Confusions still encrease amongst them the Queen of England seeming to intend nothing more then to ballance the one side by the other that betwixt both she might preserve her self in safety But in the end she yields unto the importunity of those who appeared in favour of the King assures them of her aid and succours when their needs required and recommends the Earl of Lenox as the fittest man to take the Regency upon him The Breach now widens more then ever The Lords commissionated by the Queen are possest of Edenborough and having the Castle to their Friend call a Parliament thither as the new Regent doth the like at Stirling and each pretends to have preheminence above the other The one because it was assembled in the Regal City the other because they had the Kings Person for their countenance in it Nothing more memorable in that at Edenborough then that the Queens extorted Resignation was declared null and void in Law and nothing so remarkable in the other as that the Young King made a Speech unto them which had been put into his mouth at their first setting down In each they forfeit the Estates of the opposite party and by Authority of each destroy the Countrey in all places in an hostile manner The Ministers had their parts also in these common sufferings compelled in all such places where the Queen prevailed to recommend her in their Prayers by her Name or Titles or otherwise to leave the Pulpit unto such as would In all things else the Kirk had the felicity to remain in quiet care being taken by both parties for the Preservation of Religion though in all other things at an extream difference amongst themselves But the new Regent did not long enjoy his Office of which he reaped no fruit but cares and sorrows A sudden Enterprize is made on Stirling by one of the Hamiltons on the third of September at what time both the Parliament and Assembly were there convened And he succeeded so well in it as to be brought privately into the Town to seize on all the Noblemen in their several Lodgings and amongst others to possess themselves of the Regents person But being forced to leave the place and quit their Prisoners the Regent was unfortunately kill'd by one of Hamiltons Souldiers together with the Gentleman himself unto whom he had yielded The Earl of Marre is on the fifth of the same moneth proclaimed his Successor His Successor indeed not onely in his cares and sorrows but in the shortness of his Rule for having in vain attempted Edenborough in the very beginning of his Regency he was able to effect as little in most places else more then the wasting of the Country as he did Edenborough 24. The Subjects in the mean time were in ill condition and the King worse They had already drawn their Swords against their Queen first forced her to resign the Crown and afterwards drove her out of the Kingdom And now it is high time to let the young King know what he was to trust to to which end they command a piece of Silver of the value of Five shillings to be coyned and made currant in that Kingdom on the one side whereof was the Arms of Scotland with the Name and Title of the King in the usual manner on the other side was stamped an Armed Hand grasping a naked Sword with this Inscription viz. Si bene pro me si male contra me By which the people were informed that if the King should govern them no otherwise then he ought to do they should then use the Sword for his preservation but if he governed them amiss and transgressed their Laws they should then turn the point against him Which words being said to have been used by the Emperor Trajan in his delivering of the Sword unto one of his Courtiers when he made him Captain of his Guard have since been used by some of our Presbyterian Zealots for justifying the Authority of inferior Officers in censuring the actions and punishing the persons of the Supreme Magistrate It was in the year 1552 that this learned piece of Coyn was minted but whether before or after the death of the Earl of Marre I am not able to say for he having but ill success in the course of his Government contracted such a grief of heart that he departed this life on the eighth of October when he had held that Office a little more then a year followed about seven weeks after by that great Incendiary Iohn Knox who dyed at Edenborough on the 27 of November leaving the State imbroyled in those disorders which by his fire and fury had been first occasioned 25. Morton succeeds the Earl of Marre in this broken Government when the affairs of the young King seemed to be at the worse but he had so good fortune in it as by degrees to settle the whole Realm in some Form of peace He understood so well the estate of the Countrey as to assure himself that till the Castle of Edenborough was brought under his power he should never be able to suppress that party whose stubborn standing out as it was interpreted did so offend the Queen of England that she gave order unto Drury then Marshal of Berwick to pass with some considerable Forces into Scotland for
France for demolishing all Religious Houses and other Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which name all the Cathedrals were interpreted to be contained and by that means involved in the general ruine onely the Church at Glasco did escape that storm and remained till this time undefaced in its former glory But now becomes a very great eye-sore to Andrew Melvin by whose practices and sollicitations it was agreed unto by some Zealous Magistrates that it should forthwith be demolished that the materials of it should be used for the building of some lesser Churches in that City for the ease of the people and that such Masons Quarriers and other Workmen whose service was requisite thereunto should be in readiness for that purpose at the day appointed The Arguments which he used to perswade those Magistrates to this Act of Ruine were the resorting of some people to that Church for their private Devotions the huge vastness of the Fabrick which made it incommodious in respect of hearing and especially the removing of that old Idolatrous Monument which only was kept up in despite of the Zeal and Piety of their first Reformers But the business was not carried so closely as not to come unto the knowledge of the Crafts of the City who though they were all sufficiently Zealous in the cause of Religion were not so mad as to deprive their City of so great an Ornament And they agreed so well together that when the Work-men were beginning to assemble themselves to speed the business they made a tumult took up Arms and resolutely swore that whosoever pulled down the first stone should be buried under it The Work-men upon this are discharged by the Magistrates and the people complained of to the King for the insurrections The King upon the hearing of it receives the actors in that business into his protection allows the opposition they had made and layes command upon the Ministers who had appeared most eager in the prosecution not to meddle any more in that business or any other of that nature adding withal that too many Churches in that Kingdom were destroyed already and that he would not tolerate any more abuses of such ill example 40. The King for matter of his Book had been committed to the institution of George Buchanan a most fiery and seditious Calvinist to moderate whose heats was added Mr. Peter Young father of the late Dean of Winchester a more temperate and sober man whom he very much esteemed and honoured with Knighthood and afterwards preferred to the Mastership of St. Cross in England But he received his Principles for maâ—ter of State from such of his Council as were most tender of the pubâ—lick interest of their Native Country By whom but most especially by the Earl of Morton he was so well instructed that he was able to distinguish between the Zeal of some in promoting the Reformed Religion and the madness or sollies of some others who practised to introduce their innovations under that pretence Upon which grounds of State and Prudence he gave order to the general Assembly sitting at this time not to make any alteration in the Polity of the Church as then it stood but to suffer things to continue in the state they were till the following Parliament to the end that the determinations of the three Estates might not be any ways prejudged by their conclusions But they neglecting the command look back upon the late proceedings which were held at Stirling where many of the most material points in the Book of Discipline were demurred upon And thereupon it was ordained that nothing should be altered in Form or Matter which in that Book had been concluded by themselves With which the King was so displeased that from that time he gave less countenance to the Ministers then he had done formerly And to the end that they might see what need they had of their Princes favour he suffered divers sentences to be past at the Council Table for the suspending of their Censures and Excommunications when any matter of complaint was heard against them But they go forwards howsoever confirmed and animated by a Discourse of Theodore Beza which came out this year entituled De Triplici Episcopatu In which he takes notice of three sorts of Bishops the Bishop of Divine Institution which he makes to be no other then the ordinary Minister of a particular Congregation the Bishop of humane Constitution that is to say the President or Moderator in the Church-assemblies and last of all the Devils Bishop such as were then placed in a perpetual Authority over a Diocesâ— or Province in most parts of Christendom under which last capacity they beheld their Bishops in the Kirk of Scotland And in the next Assembly held at Dundee in Iuly following it was concluded That the Office of a Bishop as it was then used and commonly taken in that Realm had neither foundation ground nor warrant in the holy Scriptures And thereupon it was decreed That all persons either called unto that Office or which should hereafter be called unto it should be required to renounce the same as an Office unto which they are not warranted by the Word of God But because some more moderate men in the next Assembly held at Glasgow did raise a scruple touching that part of the Decree in which it was affirmed That the calling of Bishops was not warranted by the Word of God it was first declared by the Assembly that they had no other meaning in that Expression then to condemn the estate of Bishops as they then stood in Scotland With which the said moderate men did not seem contented but desired that the conclusion of the matter might be respited to another time by reason of the inconvenience which might ensue They are cryed down by all the rest with great heat and violence insomuch that it was proposed by one Montgomery Minister of Stirling that some Censure might be laid on those who had spoken in defence of that corrupted estate Nay such was the extream hatred to that Sacred Function in the said Assembly at Dundee that they stayed not here They added to the former a Decree more strange inserting That they should desist and cease from Preaching ministring the Sacraments or using in any sort of Office of a Pastor in the Church of Christ till by some General Assembly they were De Novo Authorized and admitted to it no lower Censure then that of Excommunication if they did the contrary As for the Patrimony of the Church which still remained in their hands it was resolved that the next General Assembly should dispose thereof 49. There hapned at this time an unexpected Revolution in the Court of Scotland which possibly might animate them to these high presumptions It had been the great Master-piece of the Earl of Morton in the time of his Regency to fasten his dependance most specially on the Queen of England without which he saw it was impossible to preserve
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
the Publick Government then the omitting the first Clause in the Twentieth Article In which it was declared That the Church hâ—d power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith Which Clause though extant in the Registers oâ— the Convocation as a part of that Article and printed as a part thereof both in Latine and English Anno 1562 was totally left out in this new Impression and was accordingly left out in all the Harmonies of Confessions or other Collections of the same which were either printed at Geneva or any other place where Calvinism was of most predominancy And so it stood with us in England till the death of Leicester After which in the year 1593 the Articles were reprinted and that Clause resumed according as it stands in the Publick Registers By which Clause it was after published in the third year of K. Iames and in the tenth year of the said King Anno 1512 and in all following Impressions from that time to this Once cunningly omitted in a Latine Impression with came out at Oxon An. 1536. but the forgery was soon discovered and the Book call'd in the Printer checked and ordered to reprint the same with the Clause prefixed Which makes it the more strange and almost incredible that the Puritans should either plainly charge it as an Innovation on the late Archbishop or that any other sober or indifferent man should make a question whether the Addition of that Clause were made by the Prelates or the Substraction of it by the Puritans for their several purposes 41. There also past a Book of Canons in this Convocation by which it was required That all such as were admitted unto Holy-Orders should subscribe the Book of Articles as before was said That the Gâ—ay Amice still retained as it seems by some of the old Priests of Queen Maries time should be from thenceforth laid aside and no longer used That the Deans and Residentiaries of Cathedral Churches should admit no other Form of saying or singing Divine Service of the Church or administring the holy Sacraments then that which was prescribed in the Publick Liturgie That if any Preacher in the same should openly maintain any point of Doctrine contrary to any thing contained in the Book of Articles or the Book of Common-Prayer the Bishop should be advertised of it by the Dean and Prebendaries to the end he might proceed therein as to him seemed best That no man be admitted to preach in what Church soever till he be licensed by the Queen or the Archbishop of the Province or the Bishop of the Diocess in which he serveth And that no Preacher beng so licensed should preach or teach any thing for Doctrinal to bâ— believed by the people but what was consonant to the Word of God in Holy Scripture or by the Ancient Fathers or Orthodox Bishops of the Church had been gathered from it That no Parson Vicar or Curate should from thenceforth read the Common Prayers in any Chappel Oratory or Private House unlâ—ss he were licensed by the Bishop under hand and seâ—â— And that none of the persons aforesaid should 〈◊〉 his Ministery or carry himself in his apparel or kind of life like â—o one of the Laity That the said Parsons Vicars and Curates should yearly certifie to their several Ordinaries the names and Sirnames of all persons of fourteen years of age and upwards who had not received the Communion or did refuse to be instructed in the Publick Catechiâ—m or that they should not suffer any such persons to be God-Father or God-Mother to any child or to contract any Marriage either between themselves or with any other It was also ordered in those Canons That every Bishop should cause the Holy Bible in the largest Volume to be set up in some convenâ—ent place of his Hall or Parlour that as well those of his own Family as all such strangers as resorted to him might have recourse to it if they pleased And that all Bishops Deans and Archdeacon should cause the Book called The Acts and Monuments to be disposed of in like sort for the use aforesaid The first of which Injunctions seems to have been made for keeping up the Reputation of the English Bibles publickly Authoâ—ized for the use of this Church The credit and Authority of which Translation was much decryed by those of the Genevian Faction to advance their own By the other there was nothing aimed at but to gain credit to the Book which served so seasonably to create an odium in all sorts of people against the Tyrannies and Superstitions of the Pope of Rome whose plots and practices did so apparently intend the ruine of the Queen and Kingdom No purpose either in the Bishops or Clergie to justifie all or any of the passages in the same contained which have been since made use of by the Disciplinarians either to countenance some strange Doctrine or decry some Ceremony to which he shewed himself a Friend or Enemy as the case might vary 42. Fortified with these Canons and Synodical Acts the Prelates shew themselves more earnest in requiring Subscription more zealous in pressing for Conformity then before they did but found a stiffer opposition in the Puritan Faction then could be rationally expected For whether it were that they relyed upon their Friends in Court or that some Lawyers had informed them that by the Statute no Subscription was to be required of them but only unto points of Doctrine certain it is that they were now more insolent and intractable then they had been formerly For now the bettâ—r to disguise their Projects to wound the Discipline the quarrels about Surplices and other Vestments which seemed to have been banished a while are revived again complaints made of their sufferings in it to the Forreign Churches and the report is spread abroad to gain the greater credit to their own perverseness that many of the Bishops did as much abominate those Popish Vestments as any of the brethren did For so writes Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg in his Letters unto Queen Elizabeth of September the second and writes so by direction from the Prince Elector whom they had engaged in the cause out of an hope to take her off from giving any further countenance to the Bishops in that point of Conformity To the same purpose he writes also to Bishop Iewel on the 11 of September Where he informs as he had been informed himself That many of the Ecclesiastical Order would rather chuse to quit their station in the Church and resign their Offices then yield to the wearing of those Vestments which had been formerly defiled by such gross Superstition He also signifies what he had writ unto the Queen of whose relenting he could give himself no great assurance and that he had also been advised to write to some of the Clergie to the end that they might be perswaded to a present Conformity rather then deprive the Church of their future Ministery The
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
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
Starr-Chamber which was then at hand 7. It was expected that the Censure would have passed upon them on the last day of Easter-Term of which Coppinger gives Hacket notice and sends him word withall That he meant to be at the hearing of it and that if any Severity should be used towards them he should be forced in the Name of the Great and Fearful God of Heaven and Earth to protest against it The like expectation was amongst them in the Term next following at what time Coppinger was resolved on some desperate act to divert the Sentence For thus he writes to Lancaster before-remembred That if our Preachers in Prison do appear to morrow in the Starr-Chamber and if our great men deal with them so as it is thought they will and that if then God did not throw some fearful Iudgment amongst them c. that is to say for so we must make up the sense let him give no more credit unto him or his Revelations But the Hearing being deferred at that time also and nothing like to be done in it till after Michaelmas the Conspirators perceived they had time enough for new Consultations And in these Consultations they resolve amongst them to impeach the two Arch-bishops of High-Treason that so they might be made uncapable of proceeding in a Legal way against the Prisoners or otherwise to assassinate both together with the Lord Chancellor Hatton whom they deadly hated if any severe Sentence was pronounced against them But Hacket was for higher matters The Spirit of Infatuation had so wrought upon him that he conceived himself to partake of the same Divine Nature with Almighty God That he was appointed by his God to be King of Europe and therefore looked upon all Kings but the Queen especially as the Usurpers of the Throne which belonged unto him And against her he carried such a bitter hatred that against her he often cast forth dangerous speeches That she had lost her Right to the Crown and spared not to do execution upon her in her Arms and Pictures by stabbing his Dagger into both whensoever he saw them Thâ— people also must be dealt with to make use of their Power according unto that Maxim of the Disciplinarians That if the Magistrate will not reform the Church and State then the People must And that he might wind them to this height he scatter'd certain Rhimes or Verses amongst them by which it was insinuated That a true Christian though he were a Clown or poor Countrey-man which was Hacket's own case might teach Kings how to manage their Scepters and that they might depose the Queen if she did not zealously promote the Reformation 8. Finding to what an admiration he had raised himself in the esteem of Coppinger and his Fellow Arthington he looks upon them as the fittest Instruments to advance his Treasons perswading them That they were endued not only with a Prophetical but an Angelical Spirit And they believing what he said performed all manner of obedience to him as one that was appointed to reign over them by God himself setting themselves from that time forward to raise some Sedition in which the people might be moved unto what they pleased Being thus possest they intimate to Wiggington fore-mentioned That Christ appeared to them the night before not in his own body as He sits in Heaven but in that especial Spirit by which he dwelt in Hacket more than in any other They added also That Hacket was the very Angel which should come before the Day of Judgment with his Fan in the one hand and his Shepherds Crook in the other to distinguish the Sheep from the Goats to tread down Satan and ruine the Kingdom of Antichrist What Counsel they received from Wiggington is not certainly known though it may be judged by the event For presently on their going from him which was on the sixteenth of Iuly they repair to Hacket whom he found lazing in his bed in a private House at Broken-wharf and casting themselves upon their knees as if they were upon the point of Adoration Arthington suddenly ariseth and adviseth Coppinger in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to annoint their King But Hacket cunningly declines it telling them that he was already annointed by the Holy Ghost and therefore that they were to do what he should command them Which said he ordains Coppinger to be his Prophet of Mercy and Arthington to be his Prophet of Justice and gives them their Mission in this manner Go now saith he and tell up and down the City That Jesus Christ is come with his Fan in his hand to judg the World if any ask you where he is direct them to this place if they will not believe you let them come and see if they can kill me As sure as God is in Heaven no less assuredly is Christ now come to judg the World With this Commission flye the two new Prophets from one street to another till they came to Cheapside crying out Christ is come Christ is come all the way they went and adding with as loud a voice Repent Repent In Cheapside they mount into a Cart a proper Pulpit for such Preachers proclaiming thence that Hacket participated of Christ's glorified Body by his especial Spirit and was now come with his Fan to propagate the Gospel to settle the Discipline for that was the impulsive to all this madness and to establish in England a new Commonwealth They added further That themselves were two Prophets the one of Mercy and the other of Justice the truth whereof they took upon their salvation That Hacket was the only Supreme Monarch of the World and That all the Kings of Europe held of him as his Vassals That therefore he only ought to be obeyed and the Queen deposed and That Vengeance should shortly fall from Heaven not only on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury but the Lord Chancellor Hatton 9. Infinite were the throngs of people which this strange Novelty had drawn together to that place but they found none so mad as themselves none so besotted as to cry God save King Hacket so that not able to be heard by reason of the Noise nor to go forward in their Mission because of the Throng they dismounted their Chariot and by the help of some of their Friends conveyed themselves to Hacket's Lodging They had not staid there long when they were all three apprehended and brought before the Lords of the Council to whom they showed so little reverence that they never moved their Hats unto them and told them that they were above all Magistrates of what rank soever Hacket is afterward arraigned Iuly 26. and two days after drawn to his Execution which was to be done upon him in that part of Cheapside in which his two Prophets had proclaimed him Neither the Sentence past upon him nor the fear of death mitigated any thing of that Spirit of Infatuation with which the Devil had possest him Insomuch that he exclaimed most
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
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.
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
gave notice to the several Ministers of the present Dangers and advised them to excite their Flocks to be in readiness to the end they might oppose these Resolutions of the King and Council as far as lawfully they might A day was also set apart for Humiliation and Order given to the Presbyteries to excommunicate all such as either harboured any of the Popish Lords or kept company with them and this Excommunication to be passed summarily on the first Citation because the safety of the Church seemed to be in danger which was the mischief by the King suspected under that Reserve They appointed also that sixteen of their Company should remain at Edenborough according to the number of the Tribunes at Paris who together with some of the Presbytery of that City should be called The Council of the Kirk That four or five of the said sixteen should attend Monthly on the Service in their turns and courses and that they should convene every day with some of that Presbytery to receive such Advertisements as should be sent from other places and thereupon take counsel of the best Expedients that could be offered in the case And for the first Essay of their new Authority the Lord Seaton President of the Sessions appears before them transmitted unto their Tribunal by the Synod of Lothian for keeping intelligence with the Earl of Huntley From which with many affectations having purged himself he was most graciously dismist Which though the King beheld as an Example of most dangerous consequence yet being willing to hold fair with the Kirk he connived at it till he perceived them to be fixed on so high a pin so cross to his Commands and Purposes that it was time to take them down He therefore signifies to them once for all That there could be no hope of any right understanding to be had between them during the keeping up of two Jurisdictions neither depending on the otherâ— That in their Preachings they did censure the Affairs of the State and Council convocate several Assemblies without his Licenses and there conclude what they thought good without his Allowance and Approbation That in their Synods Presbyteries and particular Sessions they embraced all manner of business under colour of scandal and that without redress of these Misdemeanors there either was no hope of a good Agreement or that the said Agreement when made could be long kept by either Party 21. The Ministers on the other side had their Grievances also that is to say The Favours extended by his Majesty to the Popish Lords the inviting of the Lady Huntley to the Baptism of the Princess Elizabeth being then at hand the committing of the Princess to the Custody of the Lady Levingston and the â—estrangement of his Countenance from themselves And though the King gave very satisfactory Answers to all these Complaints yet could not the suspitions of the Kirk be thereby removed every day bringing forth some great cry or other That the Papists were favoured in the Court The Miâ—â—â—ters troubled for the free rebuke of sin and the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom sought to be overthrown In the mean time it hapned that one David Blake one of the Ministers of St. Andrews had in a Sermon uttered divers Seditioâ—s Speeches of the King and Queen as also against the Council and the Lords of the Session but more particularly that as all Kings were the Devils Barns so the heart of K. IAMES was full of Treachery That the Queen was not to be prayed for but for fashion-sake because they knew that she would never do them good That the Lords of the Council were corrupt and takers of Bribes and that the Queen of England was an Atheist one of no Religion Notice whereof being given to the English Ambassador he complains of it to the King and Blake is cited to appear before the Lords of the Council Melvin makes this a common Cause and gives it out That this was only done upon design against the Ministers to bring their Doctrine under the censure and controlment of the King and Council or at the least a meer device to divert the Ministers from prosecuting their just Suit against the coming and reception of the Popish Lords and that if Blake or any other should submit their Doctrines to the tryal of the King and Council the Liberties of the Kirk would be quite subverted By which means he prevailed so far on the rest of the Council I mean the Council of the Kirk that they sent certain of their number to intercede in the business and to declare how ill it might be taken with all sorts of people if the Ministers should now be called in question for such trifling matters when the Enemies of the Truth were both spared and countenanced But not being able by this means to delay the Censure it was advised that Blake should make his Declinatour renounce the King and Council as incompetent Judges and wholly put himself upon tryal of his own Presbytery Which though it seemed a dangerous course by most sober men yet was it carryed by the major part of the Voices as the Cause of God 22. Encouraged by this general Vote and enflamed by Melvin he presents his Declinatour with great confidence at his next appearance And when he was interrogated amongst other things Whether the King might not as well judg in matters of Treason as the Kirk of Heresie He answered That supposing he had spoken Treason yet could he not be first judged by the King and Council till the Kirk had taken cognizance of it In maintenance of which proceeding the Commissioners of the Kirk direct their Letters to all the Presbyteries of the kingdom requiring them to subscribe the said Declinatour to recommend the Cause in their Prayers to God and to stir up their several Flocks in defence thereof This puts the King to the necessity of publishing his Proclamation of the Month of November In which he first lays down the great and manifold encroachments of this new Tribunal to the overthrow of his Authority The sending of the Declinatour to be subscribed generally by all the Ministers The convocating of the Subjects to assist their proceedings as if they had no Lord or Superior over them and in the mean time that the Ministers forsake their Flocks to wait on these Commissioners and attend their service which being said he doth thereby charge the said Commissioners from acting any thing according to that deputation commanding them to leave Edenborough to repair to their several Flocks and to return no more for keeping such unlawful Meetings under pain of Rebellion He published another Proclamation at the same time also by which all Barons Gentlemen and other Subjects were commanded not to joyn with any of the Ministry either in their Presbyteries Synods or other Ecclesiastical Assemblies without his License Which notwithstanding he was willing to revoke those Edicts and remit his Action against Blake if the Church would either
Noble Lord command is given unto the Provost of Edenborough To attach the Ministers But they had notice of his purpose and escape into England making Newcastle their retreat as in former times 25. It is a true saying of the wise Historian That every Insurrection of the people when it is suppressed doth make the Prince stronger and the Subject weaker And this the King found true in his own particular The Citizens of Edenborough being pinched with the Proclamation and the removal of the Court and the Courts of Justice offered to purge themselves of the late Sedition and tendred their obedience unto any thing whatsoever which his Majesty and the Council should be pleased to enjoyn whereby they might repair the huge Indignity which was done to his Majesty provided that they should not be thought guilty of so great a Crime which from their hearts they had detested But the King answers That he would admit of no purgation that he would make them know that he was their King And the next day proclaims the Tumult to be Treason and proclaims all for Traytors who were guilty of it This made them fear their utter ruine to be near at hand The ordinary Judicatories were removed to Leith the Sessions ordained to be held at Perth their Ministers were fled their Magistrates without regard and none about the King but their deadly Enemies And to make up the full measure of their disconsolation Counsel is given unto the King to raze the Town and to erect a Pillar in the place thereof for a perpetual Monument of so great an Insolence But he resolves to travel none but Legal ways and being somewhat sweetned by a Letter from the Queen of England he gives command unto the Provost and the rest of the Magistrates to enter their persons at Perth on the first of February there to keep ward until they either were acquitted or condemned of the former uproar Whilst things remained in this perplexity and suspence he is advised to make his best use of the conjuncture for setling matters of the Church and to establish in it such a decent Order as was agreeable to God's Word To which end he appoints a National-Assembly to be held at Perth and prepares certain Queries fifty five in number to be considered and debated in the said Assembly all of them tending to the rectifying of such Abuses which were either crept into the Discipline or occasioned by it Nothing so much perplexed the principal Ministers who had the leading of the rest as that the Discipline should be brought under a dispute which they had taught to be a part of the Word of God But they must sing another Tune before all be ended 26. For the King having gained a considerable Party amongst the Ministers of the North and treated with many of the rest in several whom he thought most tractable prevailed so far on the Assembly that they condescend at the last upon many particulars which in the pride of their prosperity had not been required The principal of which were these viz. That it should be lawful to his Majesty by himself or his Commissioners or to the Pastors to propone in a general Assembly whatsoever point he or they desired to be resolved in or reformed in matters of External Government alterable according to Circumstances providing it be done in right time and place Animo aedificandi non tentandi 2. That no Minister should reprove his Majesty's Laws and Statutes Acts or Ordinances until such time as he hath first by the advice of his Presbytery or Synodal or General Assemblies complained and sought remedy of the same from his Majesty and made report of his Majesty's Answer before any further proceedings 3. That no man's Name should be expressed in the Pulpit except the Fault be notorious and publick and so declared by an Assize Excommunication Contumace and lawful Admonition nor should he be described so plainly by any other Circumstances than publick Vices always damnable 4. That in all great Towns the Ministers shall not be chosen without his Majesty's consent and the consent of the Flock 5. That no matter of Slander should be called before them wherein his Majesty's Authority is pre-judged Causes Ecclesiastical only excepted 6. And finally That no Conventions shall be amongst Pastors without his Majesty's knowledg except their Sessions Presbyteries and Synods the Meetings at the Visitation of Churches admission or deprivation of Ministers taking up of deadly Feuds and the like which had not already been found fault with by his Majesty According to which last Artiele the King consents unto another general Assembly to be held at Dundee and nominates the tenth of May for the opening of it 27. It was about this time that Dr. Richard Bancroft Bishop of London began to run a constant course of Correspondence with the King of Scots whom he beheld as the undoubted Heir and Successor of the Queen then Reigning And well considering how conducible it was to the Peace of both Kingdoms that they should both be governed in one Form of Ecclesiastical Policy he chalked him out a ready way by which he might restore Episcopacy to the Kirk of Scotland To which end as the King had gained the liberty in the last Assembly to question and dispute the Government then by Law established and gained a power of nominating Ministers in the principal Cities so in the next they gratified him in this point That no man should from thenceforth exercise a Minister without having a particular Flock nor be admitted to that Flock without Ordination by the Imposition of hands He required also in the same That before the conclusion of any weighty matter his Highness Advice and Approbation should be first obtained And so far they consented to the Proposition as to express how glad they were to have his Majesty's Authority interposed to all Acts of importance which concerned the Church so as matters formerly concluded might not be drawn in question He gained some other points also in the same Assembly no less important than the other towards his Design as namely 1. That no Minister shall exercise any Iurisdiction either by making of Constitutions or leading of Processes without advice and concurrence of his Session Presbytery Synod or General Assembly 2. That Presbyteries shall not meddle with any thing that is not known without all controversie to belong to the Ecclesiastical Iudicatory and that therein Vniformity should be observed throughout the Countrey And 3. That where any Presbyteries shall be desired by his Majesty's Missive to stay their proceedings as being prejudicial to the Civil Iurisdiction or private men's Rights they should desist until his Majesty did receive satisfaction But that which made most toward his purpose was the appointing of Thirteen of their number to attend his Majesty as the Commissioners of the Kirk whom we may call the High Commissioners of Scotland the King 's Ecclesiastical Council the Seminary of the future Bishops to whom
Street cryed out so loud that he was heard by all the Lords and Gentlemen of his Retinue who thereupon prepared themselves for his assistance In the pursuit whereof the Earl himself is killed by Eveskin as he was making haste to help his Brother and Alexander is dispatched by Ramsey one of the King's Pages who being acquainted with the House came by the back-stairs time enough to preserve his Master Of this great Danger and Deliverance the King gives notice to all his Subjects desiring them to joyn with him in thanks to Almighty God for so great a Mercy which was accordingly performed by all honest men but the whole Story disbelieved discredited mis-reported by the Presbyterians whom it concerned to wash their hands of so foul a Treason And how far they were Parties in it or at least well-wishers to it may appear by this That when the Ministers of Edenborough were desired to convene their people and give God thanks for this deliverance of the King they excused themselves as not being well acquainted with all particulars And when it was replyed unto them That they were only required to make known to the people That the King had escaped a great Danger and to excite them to Thansgiving for his deliverance They answered That they were not very well satisfied in the truth of the matter That nothing was to be delivered in the Pulpit the truth whereof was not certainly known and that they were to utter nothing in that place but that which migh be spoke in Faith On which Refusal it was ordered by the Lords of the Council That the people should be drawn together into the Market-place That the Bishop of Ross should make a Declaration of the whole Design and therewithall conceive a Prayer of Thanksgiving for the King's Deliverance Which was performed on his part with a true affection and entertained by the people with great joy and gladness 37. But the whole Nation was not so besotted by the Presbyterians as either to dispute the Story or despise the Mercy Which wrought so far upon the Consciences of all honest men that in a Parliament held at Edenborough in November following the Estate of Goury was confiscate his Sons disherited the Name of Ruthen utterly abolished but the last dispenced with the bodies of the two Brothers brought to Edenborough there hanged and quartered the Heads of both being fixed upon the top of the Common Prison and finally The Fifth of August ordained by Act of Parliament for a Day of Thanksgiving in all times succeeding The like done also two years after at a General Assembly of the Ministers of the Church held in Haly-Rood-House as to the Day of Thanksgiving which they decreed to be kept solemnly from thenceforth in all the Churches of that Kingdom And it was well they did it then the King not venturing the Proposal to them in the year fore-going when they assembled at Burnt-Island whether in reference to some indisposition of Body which he found in himself or rather of some greater indisposition of Mind which he found in them But now it went clearly for him without contradiction as did some other things propounded to their consideration His Ey now looks unto the Crown of England and he resolved to bring the Churches of both Kingdoms to an Uniformity but so to do it as might make neither noise nor trouble The solemnizing of Marriage had been prohibited on Sundays by the Rules of the Discipline but by an Order made in the present Assembly it was indifferently permitted on all days alike Sundays as well as other days at the will of the Parties Before this time the Sacrament of Baptism was not administred but only at the times of Preaching on some opinion which they had of the indifferency or at the least the non-necessity thereof But now it was ordained with a joynt consent That the Ministers should not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to Infants nor delay the same upon whatsoever pretext the same being required by the Parents or others in their name Which brought them two steps nearer to the Church of England than before they were 38. It was not long after the end of this Assembly when the King received Intelligence of Queen Elizabeth's death and of the general acknowledgment of his Succession both by Peers and People This puts him on a preparation for a Journey to England where he is joyfully received and found no small contentment in the change of his Fortunes here sitting amongst Grave Learned and Reverend men not as before a King without State without Honour without Order where Beardless Boys would every day brave him to his face where Jack and Tom and Will and Dick did at their pleasures cenâ—â—re the proceedings of him and his Council where Will stood up and said he would have it thus and Dick replied Nay marry but it shall be so as he describes their carriage in the Conference at Hampton-Court p. 4. and 80. So leaves he Scotland and the Puritans there with this Character of them recorded in the Preface of his Book called Basilicon Doron in which he paints them out as people which refusing to be called Anabaptists too much participated of their Humours not only agreeing with them in their General Rule the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams Imaginations and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that agree not to their Fancies in making for every particular Question of the Polity of the Church as much Commotion as if the Article of the Trinity was called in question in making the Scripture to be ruled by their Conscience and not their Conscience by the Scripture in accounting every body Ethnicus Publicanus not worthy to enjoy the benefit of breathing much less to participate with them in the Sacraments that denies the least jot of their Grounds and in suffering King People Law and all to be trod under foot before the least jot of their Grounds be impugned in preferring such Holy Warrs to an Vngodly Peace not only in resisting Christian Princes but denying to pray for them for Prayer must come by Faith and it is not revealed that God will bear their Prayers for such a Prince To which He adds this Clause in the Book it self viz. That they used commonly to tell the people in their Sermons That all Kings and Princes were naturally Enemies to the Liberty of the Church and could never patiently bear the Yoak of Christ. And thereupon he gives this Counsel to the Prince To take heed all of such Puritans whom he calls the very Pests of the Church and Commonwealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind breathing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations the square of their Conscience protesting before the Great God That he should never find in any Highlander baser Thieves greater Ingratitude and more Lyes and vile
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
the Ambassadors of some Forreign States as if they had been a Common-wealth distinct from the Realm of France More than which they audaciously importuned the King of whose affection to them they presumed too far by their several Agents for liberty of going wheresoever they listed or sending whomsoever they pleased to the Councils and Assemblies of all Neighbouring-Estates and Nations which profest the same Religion with them This though it had not been the first was looked on as their greatest encroachment on the Royal Authority which in conclusion proved the ruin of their Cause and Party For what else could this aim at as was well observed by the King then reigning but to make themselves a State distinct and independent to raise up a new Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom and to make the Schism as great in Civil as in Sacred matters Which wrought so far upoa the Councils of his next Successor who had not been trained up amongst them as his Father was that he resolved to call them to a sober reckoning on the next occasion and to deprive them all at once of those Powers and Priviledges which they so wantonly abused unto his disturbance Of which we shall speak more hereafter in its proper place In the mean time let us cross over into Scotland where all Assairs moved retrograde and seemed to threaten a relapse to their old Confusions A general Assembly had been intimated to be held at Aberdeen in the Month of Iuly Anno 1604 which by reason that the King was wholly taken up with effecting the Union was adjourned to the same Month in the year next following In the mean season some of the more Factious Ministers hoping to raise no small advantage to themselves and their Party by the absence of so many persons of most Power and Credit began to entertain new Counsels for the unravelling of that Web which the King had lately wrought with such care and cunning The King hears of it and gives Order to suspend the Meeting till his further Pleasure were declared Wherein he was so far obeyed by the major part that of the fifty Presbyteries into which the whole Kingdom was divided Anno 1592 nine only sent Commissioners to attend at Aberdeen When the day came the Meeting was so thin and slender that there appeared not above one and twenty when they were at the fullest But they were such as were resolved to stand stoutly to it each man conceiving himself able in the Cause of God to make resistance to an Army The Laird of Lowreston commands them in the King's Name to return to their Houses to discontinue that unlawful Assembly and not to meet on any publick occasion which concerned the Church but by his Majesty's Appointment They answer That they were assembled at that time and place according to the word of God and the Laws of the Land and that they would not betray the Liberties of the Kirk of Scotland by obeying such unlawful Prohibitions Which said and having desired him to withdraw a while they made choice of one Forbes for their Moderator and so adjourned themselves to September following Lowreston thereupon denounced them Rebels and fearing that some new affront might be put upon him and consequently on the King in whose Name he acted he seeks for Remedy and Prevention to the Lords of the Council Forbes and Welch the two chief sticklers in the Cause are by them convented and not abating any thing of their former obstinacy are both sent Prisoners unto Blackness A day is given for the appearance of the rest which was the third day of October at what time thirteen of the number made acknowledgment of their offence and humbly supplicated that their Lordships would endeavour to procure their Pardon the rest remaining in their disobedience are by the Lords disposed of into several Prisons 19. But these proceedings did so little edifie with that stubborn Faction that the Lords of the Council were condemned for their just severity and all their Actings made to aim at no other end but by degrees to introduce the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of England The King endeavours by a Declaration to undeceive his good people and reclaim these obstinate persons from the ways of ruin and intimates withall that a new Assembly should be held at Dundee in the Iuly following But this prevails as little as the former course Which puts the business on so far that either the King must be conformable to their present humour or they submit themselves to the King 's just Power The Lords resolve upon the last command them to appear at the Council-Table to receive their Sentence and nominated the 24 th of October for the Day of Doom Accordingly they came but they came prepared having subscribed a publick Instrument under all their hands by which they absolutely decline the Judgment of the King and Council as altogether incompetent and put themselves upon the tryal of the next Assembly as their lawful Judg. Before they were convented only for their Disobedience but by this Declinator they have made themselves Traytors The King is certified of all this and being resolved upon the maintenance of his own Authority gave order That the Law should pass upon them according to the Statute made in Parliament Anno 1584. Hereupon Forbes Welch Duncam Sharp Davie Straghan are removed from Blackness arraigned at an Assize held in Linlithgoe found guilty by the Jury and condemned to death but all of them returned to their several Prisons till the King's Pleasure should be known for their Execution The Melvins and some other of the principal Zealots caused Prayers and Supplications to be made in behalf of the Traytors though they had generally refused to perform that office when the King's Mother was upon the point of losing her life upon a more unwarrantable Sentence of Condemnation This brought forth first a Proclamation inhibiting all Ministers to recommend the condemned persons unto God in their Prayers or Sermons and afterwards a Letter to some Chiefs amongst them for waiting on His Majesty at the Court in England where they should be admitted to a publick Conference and have the King to be their Judg. 20. Upon this Summons there appear in behalf of the Church the Arch-bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow the Bishops of Orkney and Galloway together with Nicolson the designed Bishop of Dunkeeden And for the Kirk the two Melvins Colt Carmichall Scot Balfour and Watson The place appointed for the Conference was Hampton-Court at which they all attended on Septemb. 20. But the Kirk-Party came resolved neither to satisfie the King nor be satisfied by him though he endeavoured all fit ways for their information To which end he appointed four Eminent and Learned Prelates to preach before them in their turns the first of which was Dr. Barlow then Bishop of Rochester who learnedly asserted the Episcopal Power out of those words to the Elders at Ephesus recorded Acts 20.
v. 28. The second was Dr. Buckeridg then Master of St. Iohn's Colledg in Oxon and afterwards preferred to the See of Rochester who no less learnedly evinced the King's Supremacy in all Concernments of the Church selecting for his Text the words of same Apostle Rom. 13. v. 1. Next followed Dr. Andrews then Bishop of Chichester who taking for his Text those words of Moses viz. Make thee two Trumpets of silver c. Numb 10. v. 2. convincingly demonstrated out of all Antiquity That the calling of all General and National Councils had appertained unto the Supreme Christian Magistrate Dr. King then Dean of Christ-Church brings up the Rear and taking for his Text those words of the Canticles Cap. 8. v. 11. disproved the calling of Lay-Elders as men that had no Power in governing the Church of Christ nor were so much as heard of in the Primitive times But neither the Learned Discourses of these Four Prelates nor the Arguments of the Scottish Bishops nor the Authority and Elocution of the King could gain at all on these deaf Adders who came resolved not to hear the voice of those Charmers charmed they never so wisely Thus have we seen them in their Crimes and now we are to look upon them in their several Punishments And first the Ministers which had been summoned into England were there commanded to remain until further The six which were condemned for Treason were sentenced by the King to perpetual banishment and never to return to their Native Countrey upon pain of death And as for those which had acknowledged their offence and submitted to mercy they were confined unto the Isles and out-parts of the Kingdom where they may possibly work some good but could do no harm After which Andrew Melvin having made a Seditious Libel against the Altar and the Furniture thereof in His Majesty's Chappel was brought into the Starr-Chamber by an Ore tenus where he behaved himself so malepertly toward all the Lords and more particularly towards the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London and there remained till he was begged by the Duke of Bouillon and by him made Professor of Divinity in the School of Sedan 21. During the time that all men's Eyes were fastned on the issue of this great Dispute the King thought fit to call a Parliament in Scotland which he managed by Sir George Hume his right trusty Servant not long before created Earl of Dunbar and made Lord Treasurer of that Kingdom His chief Work was to settle the Authority of the King and the Calling of Bishops that they might mutually support each other in the Government of the Church and Stateâ—punc It was supposed that no small opposition would be made against him by some Puritan Ministers who repaired in great numbers to the Town as on their parts it was resolved on But he applyed himself unto them with such Art and Prudence that having taken off their edg the Acts passed easily enough with the Lords and Commons By the first Act the King's Prerogative was confirmed over all Persons and in all Causes whatsoever Which made Him much more Absolute in all Affairs which had relation to the Church than he had been formerly And by the next entituled An Act for Restitution of the Estate of Bishops the Name of Bishops was conferred upon such of the Ministers as by the King were nominated unto any of the Bishop-Sees and thereby authorized to have place in Parliament A course was also taken by it to repossess the Bishops of the Lands of their several Churches as well as their Titles and Degree not that a Plenary re-possession of their Lands was then given unto them but that by a Repeal of the late Act of Annexation the King was put into a capacity of restoring so much of the Rents as remained in the Crown and otherwise providing for them out of his Revenues And that the like distraction might not be made of their Estates for the time to come an Act was passed for restraining such Dilapidations as had impoverish'd all the Bishopricks since the Reformation After which and the dooming of the greater Zealots to their several Punishments he indicts a general Assembly at Linlithgow in December following at which convened One hundred thirty six Ministers and about Thirty three of the Nobility and principal Gentry In this Assembly it was offered in behalf of his Majesty That all Presbyteries should have their constant Moderators for whose encouragement his Majesty would assign to each of them a yearly stipend amounting to One hundred pounds or Two hundred Marks in the Scots account That the Bishops should be Moderators of all Presbyteries in the Towns and Cities where they made their residence as also in Provincial and Diocesan Synods and that the Bishops should assume upon themselves the charge of prosecuting Papists till they returned to their obedience to the King and the Church In the obtaining of which Acts there was no small difficulty but he obtained them at the last though not without some limitations and restrictions super-added to them under pretence of keeping the Commissioners hereafter to be called Bishops within their bounds 22. The Presbyterians notwithstanding were not willing to forgo their Power but strugling like half-dying men betwixt life and death laid hold on all advantages which were offered to them in opposition to the Acts before agreed on Gladstanes Arch-bishop of St. Andrews taking upon him to preside as Moderator in the Synod of Fife being within his proper Diocese and Jurisdiction was for a while opposed by some of the Ministers who would have gone to an Election as at other times The Presbyteries also in some places refused to admit the Bishops for their Moderators according to the Acts and Constitutions of the said Assembly Which though it put the Church into some disorder yet the Bishops carried it at the last the stoutest of the Ministers suâ—mitting in the end unto that Authority which they were not able to contend with In which conjuncture the King gives order for a Parliament to be held in Iune in which He passed some severe Laws against the Papists prohibiting the sending of their Children to be educated beyond the Seas and giving order for the choice of Pedagogues or Tutors to instruct them there as also against Jesuits and the Sayers and Hearers of Mass. The cognizance of several Causes which anciently belonged to the Bishops Courts had of late times been setled in the Sessions or Colledg of Justice But by an Act of this Parliament they are severed from it and the Episcopal Jurisdiction restored as formerly the Lords of the Session being in lieu thereof rewarded with Ten thousand pounds yearly which must be understood according to the Scottish account out of the Customs of that Kingdom It was enacted also That the King from thenceforth might appoint such Habit as to him seemed best to Judges Magistrates and Church-men Which
Acts being past Patterns were sent from London in a short time after for the Apparel of the Lords of the Session the Justice and other inferior Judges for the Advocates the Lawyers the Commissairs and all that lived by practise of the Law with a command given to every one whom the Statutes concerned to provide themselves of the Habits prescribed within a certain space under the pain of Rebellion But for the habit of the Bishops and other Church-men it was thought fit to respite the like appointment of them till the new Bishops had received their Consecration to which now we hasten 23. But by the way we must take notice of such preparations as were made towards it in the next General Assembly held at Glasgow Anno 1610 and managed by the Earl of Dunbar as the former was in which it was concluded That the King should have the indiction of all General Assemblies That the Bishops or their Deputies should be perpetual Moderators of the Diocesan Synods That no Excommunication or Absolution should be pronounced without their approbation That all presentations of Benefices should be made by them and that the deprivation or suspension of Ministers should belong to them That every Minister at his admission to a Benefice should take the Oath of Supremacy and Canonical Obedience That the Visitation of the Diocese shall be performed by the Bishop or his Deputy only And finally That the Bishop should be Moderator of all Conventions for Exercisings or Prophesyings call them which you will which should be held within their bounds All which Conclusions were confirmed by Act of Parliament in the year 1612 in which the Earl of Dumferling then being Lord Chancellor of that Kingdom sate as chief Commissioner who in the same Session also procured a Repeal of all such former Acts more patticularly of that which passed in favour of the Discipline 1592. as were supposed to be derogatory to the said Conclusions In the mean time the King being advertised of all which had been done at Glasgow calls to the Court by special Letters under his Sign-Manual Mr. Iohn Spotswood the designed Arch-bishop of Glasgow Mr. Gawen Hamilton nominated to the See of Galloway and Mr. Andrew Lamb appointed to the Church of Brechin to the intent that being consecrated Bishops in due Form and Order they might at their return give consecration to the rest of their Brethren They had before been authorized to vote in Parliament commended by the King unto their several Sees made the perpetual Moderators of Presbyteries and Diocesan Synods and finally by the Conclusions made at Glasgow they were restored to all considerable Acts of their Jurisdiction The Character was only wanting to compleat the Work which could not be imprinted but by Consecration according to the Rules and Canons of the Primitive times 24. And that this Character might be indelibly imprinted on them His Majesty issues a Commission under the Great Seal of England to the Bishops of London Ely Wells and Rochester whereby they were required to proceed to the Consecration of the said three Bishops according to the Rules of the English Ordination which was by them performed with all due solemnity in the Chappel of the Bishop of London's House near the Church of St. Pauls Octob. 21 1610. But first a scruple had been moved by the Bishop of Ely concerning the capacity of the persons nominated for receiving the Episcopal Consecration in regard that none of them had formally been ordained Priests which scruple was removed by Arch-bishop Bancroft alledging that there was no such necessity of receiving the Order of Priesthood but that Episcopal Consecrations might be given without it as might have been exemplified in the Cases of Ambrose and Nectarius of whichâ— the first was made Arch-bishop of Millain and the other Patriarch of Constantinople without receiving any intermediate Orders whether of Priest Deacon or any other if there were any other at that time in the Church And on the other side the Prelates of Scotland also had their Doubts and Scruples fearing lest by receiving Consecration of the English Bishops they might be brought to an acknowledgment of that Superiority which had been exercised and enjoyed by the Primates of England before the first breaking out of the Civil Warrs betwixt York and Lancaster Against which fear the King sufficiently provided by excluding the two Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York who only could pretend to that Superiority out of His Commission which Bancroft very cheerfully condescended to though he had chiefly laid the plot and brought on the work not caring who participated in the Honour of it as long as the Churches of both Kingdoms might receive the Benefit 25. This great Work being thus past over the King erects a Court of High Commission in the Realm of Scotland for ordering all matters which concerned that Church and could not safely be redressed in the Bishops Courts He also gave them some Directions for the better exercise of their Authority by them to be communicated to the Bishops and some principal Church-men whom he appointed to be called to Edenborough in the following February where they were generally well approved But as all general Rules have some Exceptions so some Exceptions were found out against these Commissions and the proceedings thereupon Not very pleasing to those great Persons who then sate at the Helm and looked upon it as a diminution to their own Authority and could not brook that any of the Clergy should be raised to so great a Power much more displeasing to the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery who now beheld the downfall of their glorious Throne which they had erected for themselves in the Name of Christ. One thing perhaps might comfort them in the midst of their sorrows that is to say the death of the most Reverend Arch-bishop Bancroft who left this life upon the second of November not living above thirteen days after the Scottish Bishops had received Consecration For which great blessing to the Church he had scarce time to render his just acknowledgments unto God and the King when he is called on to prepare for his Nunc Dimittis And having seen so great a work accomplished for the glory of God the honour of his Majesty and the good of both Kingdoms beseecheth God to give him leave to depart in peace that with his eyes he might behold that great Salvation which was ordained to be a Light unto the Gentiles and to be the Glory of his people Israel 26. Bancroft being dead some Bishops of the Court held a Consultation touching the fittest Person to succeed him in that eminent Dignity The great Abilities and most exemplary Piety of Dr. Lancelot Andrews then Bishop of Ely pointed him out to be the man as one sufficiently able to discharge a Trust of such main importance and rather looked on as a Preferment to that See than preferred unto it Him they commended to King IAMES who had him in a high
hereupon preferred against them to the Lords of the Council in which their Lordships were informed That the Inhabitants generally of the Isle were discontented with the present Discipline and guidance of the Church that most of them would be easily perswaded to submit to the English Goverment and that many of them did desire it 39. This brings both Parties to the Court the Governour and his Adherents to prosecute the Suit and make good their Intelligence the Ministers to answer to the Complaint and stand to the Pleasure of His Majesty in the final Judgment And at the first the Ministers stood fast together but as it always happeneth that there is no Confederacy so well jointed but one Member of it may be severed from the rest and thereby the whole Practise overthrown so was it also in this business For those who there sollicited some private business of the Governour 's had kindly wrought upon the weakness and ambition of De la Place one of the Ministers appointed to attend the Service perswading him That if the Government were altered and the Dean restored he was infallibly resolved on to be the man Being fashioned into this hope he speedily betrayed the Counsels of his Fellows and furnished their Opponents at all their Interviews with such Intelligence as might make most for their advantage At last the Ministers not well agreeing in their own demands and having little to say in defence of their proper Cause whereunto their Answers were not provided before-hand my Lord of Canterbury at the Council Table thus declared unto them the Pleasure of the King and Council viz. That for the speedy redress of their disorders it was reputed most convenient to establish amongst them the Authority and Office of the Dean That the Book of Common-Prayer being again Printed in the French should be received into their Churches but the Ministers not tyed to the strict observance of it in all particulars That Messervy should be admitted to his Benefice and that so they might return to their several Charges This said they were commanded to depart and to signifie to those from whom they came the full scope of His Majesty's Resolution and so they did But being somewhat backward in obeying this Decree the Council intimated to them by Sir Philip de Carteret chief Agent for the Governour and Estates of the Island That the Ministers from among themselves should make choice of three Learned and Grave persons whose Names they should return unto the Board out of which His Majesty should resolve on one to be their Dean 40. But this Proposal little edified amongst the Brethren not so much out of any dislike of the alteration with which they seemed all well enough contented but because every one of them gave himself some hopes of being the man And being that all of them could not be elected they were not willing to destroy their particular hopes by the appointment of another In the mean time Mr. David Bandinell an Italian born then being Minister of St. Mary's under pretence of other business of his own is dispatched for England and recommended by the Governour as the fittest person for that Place and Dignity And being well approved of by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury who found him answerable in all points to the Governour 's Character he was established in the Place by his Majesty's Letters Patents bearing date Anno 1619 and was accordingly invested in all such Rights as formerly had been inherent in that Office whether it were in point of Profit or of Jurisdiction And for the executing of this Office some Articles were drawn and ratified by His Sacred Majesty to be in force until a certain Body of Ecclesiastical Canons should be digested and confirmed Which Articles he was pleased to call the Interim a Name devised by CHARLES the fifth on the like occasion as appears by His Majesty's Letters Paters Patents for confirmation of the Canons not long after made And by this Interim it was permitted for the present that the Ministers should not be obliged to bid the Holy-days to use the Cross in Baptism or to wear the Surplice or not to give the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unto any others but such as did receive it kneeling but in all other things it little differed from the Book of Canons which being first drawn up by the Dean and Ministers was afterwards carefully perused corrected and accommodated for the use of that Island by the Right Reverend Fathers in God George Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury Iohn Lord Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and Lancelot Lord Bishop of Winchester whose Diocess or Jurisdiction did extend over both the Islands In which respect it was appointed in the Letters Patents by which His Majesty confirmed these Canons Anno 1623 That the said Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Winchester should forthwith by his Commission under his Episcopal Seal as Ordinary of the place give Authority unto the said Dean to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Isle according to the Canons and Constitutions thus made and established Such were the Means and such the Counsels by which this Island was reduced to a full conformity with the Church of England 41. Guâ—rnsey had followed in the like if first the breach between K. IAMES and the King of Spain and afterwards between K. CHARLES and the Crown of France had not took off the edg of the prosecution During which time the Ministers were much heartned in their Inconformity by the Practises of De la Place before remembred Who stomacking his disappointment in the loss of the Deanry abandoned his Native Countrey and retired unto Guernsey where he breathed nothing but disgrace to the English Liturgy the Person of the new Dean and the change of the Government Against the first so perversly opposite that when some Forces were sent over by King CHARLES for defence of the Island he would not suffer them to have the use of the English Liturgy in the Church of St. Peter's being the principal of that Island but upon these Conditions that is to say That they should neither use the Liturgy therein nor receive the Sacrament And secondly Whereas there was a Lecture weekly every Thursday in the said Church of St. Peters when once the Feast of Christ's Nativity fell upon that day he rather chose to disappoint the Hearers and put off the Sermon than that the least honour should reflect on that ancient Festival An Opposition far more superstitious than any observation of a day though meerly Iewish By his Example others were encouraged to the like perversness insomuch that they refused to baptize any Child or Children though weak and in apparent danger of present death but such as were presented unto them on the day of Preaching And when some of them were compelled by the Civil Magistrate to perform their duty in this kind a great Complaint thereof was made to the Earl of
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
possibly this may be excused though not defended as being done in hot blood when the spirits of the Soldiers were enflamed with anger by reason of the loss of so many of their Chief Commanders occasioned by the holding out of the obstinate Party or the loss of their Fellows and could not easily be quenched but by the blood of their Enemies 40. I shall not touch upon the particulars of this Warr which was quick and violent and as succesful on the King's part as he could desire Let it suffice that within the compass of Eighteen Months or thereabouts he stript them of no fewer than One hundred of their strongest places so that their whole strength was reduced in a manner to two Towns only that is to say the strong Town of Montalbon and the Port of Rochel the rest submitting one by one at the first demand A Peace is thereupon concluded before Montpellier agreeable enough to the Will of the Victor and with security enough to the vanquished Party if all Conclusions had been kept with as great a constancy as they had been agreed upon with a seeming alacrity By which Accord the said two Towns were to be held in caution for three years only and the last seemed much over-awed by the Fort of K. Lewis erected by the Count of Soiscons when he lay before it For the demolishing of which Fort the King was earnestly sollicited by their Commissioners and for the not granting whereof when it was desired he was accused for violating the Pacification which he had made with them before Montpellier and solemnly confirmed in the Courts of Parliament And on the other side the King complained as sensibly against the Hugonots in regard they had not setled the Ecclesiasticks in their lawful Possessions nor admitted those of the Roman-Catholick Religion unto Civil Offices in any of their Towns and Territories as by the Articles of that Pacification they were bound to do So that the Wound seemed rather to be skinned than healed and suddenly became more dangerous than at first it was For those of Rochel being somewhat blocked up by Fort Lewis toward the Land practised with the Duke of Soubize to grow strong by Sea and make up a Fleet consisting of Eleven men of Warr besides lesser Vessels enter the large Haven of Blavet in Bretagne seize upon all the Ships which they found therein and amongst others six of great strength and beauty belonging to the Duke of Nevers By the accession of this Strength they seize upon the Isles of Rhe and Oleron with all the Shipping in the same and having gathered together a Navy of no fewer than Seventy Sail they infest the Seas and interrupt the course of Traffick 41. For the repressing of these Pyrates for they were no better the King sends out the Duke of Montmorency with a Naval Power hires Twenty men of Warr of the States of Holland and borrows Eight tall Ships of the King of England With which he gives battel to Soubize beats him at Sea and forceth him to flye dishonourably from the Isle of Rhe which the French presently possess and begin to fortifie For the removal of whose Forces from that Island which blockt up their Haven the Rochellers mediate by Soubize with K. CHARLES of England betwixt whom and his Brother of France some disgust had hapned for sending back the French of both Sexes whom the Queen brought with her For hereupon the French King seizeth upon all the English Ships which traded on the River of Bourdeaux and the English to revenge the wrong sets out a Fleet of Thirty sail all Men of Warr commanded by the Earls of Denbigh and Lindsey with an intent to steer for Rochel and relieve that Town But being encountred with cross winds they came back again and leave the prosecuting of the Action to the Duke of Buckingham Who the next year sets forward with a puissant Army consisting of Ten thousand men and wafted over in One hundred and fifty Sail of Ships all fit for Service His Design was for the recovering of the Isle of Rhe and relieving Rochel Both which he might have compassed without any great difficulty if he had not lost the opportunities which he gained at his landing passed by the Fort of La Pre as not worth the taking and suffering himself to be complemented out of the storming of St. Martins when it was at his mercy For the French Forces entring by the Fort of La Pre compelled him to an unsafe Retreat but of a great part of his Army and sent him back with far less Honour than he brought a-long with him 42. But the Relief of Rochel is not so given over A strong Fleet is prepared for the year next following to be commanded by the Duke who gave himself more hopes of good Fortune in it than his Fates assigned him For being villanously slain at Portsmouth when he was almost ready to embark his Soldiers the Conduct of the Action is committed to the Earl of Lindsey who very cheerfully and couragiously undertook the Service But the French had blockt up the Haven of Rochel with Piles and Ramparts and other most stupendious Works in the midst of the Ocean that it was utterly impossible for the Earl to force his passage though he did most gallantly attempt it Which being observed by those of Rochel who were then besieged to Landward by the King in Person and even reduced unto the last extremity by Plagues and Famine they presently set open their Gates and without making any Conditions for their preservation submitted absolutely to that Mercy which they had scorned so often in their prosperous Fortunes The King thus Master of the Town dismantleth all their Fortifications leaves it quite open both to Sea and Land commands them to renounce the Name of Rochel and to take unto the Town the Name of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary But herein his Command found but small compliance the Name of Rochel still remaining and that of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary almost as soon forgotten as it had been given After which followed the surrendry of Nismess and Montalbon two impregnable places the first of which had been re-fortified in these last Commotions For What Town could presume of standing out against the King when Rochel had been forced to submit to Mercy 43. See now to what a low condition these hot Calvinian spirits have reduced themselves by their frequent Insolencies how different their Affairs were at the end of this Warr from that Felicity which they enjoyed when they first began it Before the beginning of the Warr Anno 1620 they were possessed of well-near Two hundred strong Towns and Castles well fortified for their personal safety besides many fair Houses and large Territories which they had in the Villages in which their Pleasures and their Profits were a-like consulted they slept all of them under their own Vines and their own Fig-trees neither
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
out into open Warr. But finding no occasion they resolve to make one and to begin their first Embroilments upon the sending of the new Liturgy and Book of Canons to the Kirk of Scotland For though the Scots in a general Assembly held at Aberdeen had given consent unto the making of a Liturgy for the use of that Kirk and for drawing up a Book of Canons out of the Acts of their Assemblies and some Acts of Parliament yet when those Books were finished by the Care of King CHARLES and by his Piety recommended unto use and practise it must be looked on as a violation of their Rights and Liberties And though in another of their Assemblies which was held at Perth they had past five Articles for introducing private Baptism communicating of the sick kneeling at the Communion Episcopal Confirmation and the observing of such ancient Festivals as belonged immediately unto Christ yet when those Articles were incorporated in the Common-prayer-Book they were beheld as Innovations in the Worship of God and therefore not to be admitted in so pure and Reformed a Church as that of Scotland These were the Hooks by which they drew the people to them who never look on their Superiors with a greater reverence than when they see them active in the Cause of Religion and willing in appearance to lose all which was dear unto them whereby they might preserve the Gospel in its native purity But it was rather Gain than Godliness which brought the great men of the Realm to espouse this Quarrel who by the Commission of Surrendries of which more elsewhere began to fear the losing of their Tithes and Superiorities to which they could pretend no other title than plain Usurpation And on the other side it was Ambition and not Zeal which enflamed the Presbyters who had no other way to invade that Power which was conferred upon the Bishops by Divine Institution and countenanced by many Acts of Parliament in the Reign of K. IAMES than by embracing that occasion to incense the people to put the whole Nation into tumult and thereby to compel the Bishops and the Regular Clergy to forsake the Kingdom So the Genevians dealt before with their Bishop and Clergy when the Reforming-Humour came first upon them And what could they do less in Scotland than follow the Example of their Mother-City 3. These breakings-out in Scotland smoothed the way to the like in England from which they had received encouragement and presumed on Succours The English Puritaus had begun with Libelling against the Bishops as the Scots did against the King For which the Authors and Abettors had received some punishment but such as did rather reserve them for ensuing Mischiefs than make them sensible of their Crimes or reclaim them from it So that upon the coming of the Liturgy and Book of Canons the Scots were put into such heat that they disturbed the execution of the one by an open Tumult and refused obedience to the other by a wilful obstinacy The King had then a Fleet at Sea sufficiently powerful to have blockt up all the Havens of Scotland and by destroying that small Trade which they had amongst them to have reduced them absolutely to His Will and Pleasure But they had so many of their Party in the Council of Scotland and had so great a confidence in the Marquess of Hamilton and many Friends of both Nations in the Court of England that they feared nothing less than the Power of the King or to be enforced to their obedience in the way of Arms. In confidence whereof they despise all His Proclamations with which Weapons only He encountred them in their first Seditions and publickly protested against all Declarations which He sent unto them in the Streets of Edenborough Nothing else being done against them in the first year of their Tumults they cast themselves into four Tables for dispatch of business but chiefly for the cementing of their Combination For which they could not easily bethink themselves of a speedier course than to unite the people to them by a League or Covenant Which to effect it was thought necessary to renew the old Confession excogitated in the year 1580 for the abjuring of the Tyranny and Superstitions of the Church of Rome subscribed first by the King and His Houshold-Servants and the next year by all the Natives of the Kingdom as was said before And it was also said before that unto this Confession they adjoined a Band Anno 1592 for standing unto one another in defence thereof against all Papists and other professed Adversaries of their Religion This is now made to serve their turn against the King For by a strange interpretation which was put upon it it was declared That both the Government of the Church by Bishops and the Five Articles of Perth the Liturgy and the Book of Canons were all abjured by that Confession and the Band annexed though the three last had no existency or being in the Kirk of Scotland when that Confession was first formed or the Band subjoined 4. These Insolencies might have given the King a just cause to arm when they were utterly unprovided of all such necessaries as might enable them to make the least show of a weak resistance But the King deals more gently with them negotiates for some fair accord of the present differences and sends the Marquess of Hamilton as his chief Commissioner for the transacting of the same By whose sollicitation he revokes the Liturgy and the Book of Canons suspends the Articles of Perth and then rescinds all Acts of Parliament which confirmed the same submits the Bishops to the next General Assembly as their competent Judges and thereupon gives intimation of a General Assembly to be held at Glasgow in which the point of Church-Government was to be debated and all his Condescentions enrolled and registred And which made most to their advantage he caused the Solemn League or Covenant to he imposed on all the Subjects and subscribed by them Which in effect was to legitimate the Rebellion and countenance the Combination with the face of Authority But all this would not do his business though it might do theirs For they had so contrived the matter that none were chosen to have voices in that Assembly but such as were sure unto the side such as had formerly been under the Censures of the Church for their Inconformity and had refused to acknowledg the King's Supremacy or had declared their disaffections to Episcopal Government And that the Bishops might have no encouragement to sit amongst them they cite them to appear as Criminal persons Libel against them in a scandalous and unchristian manner and finally make choice of Henderson a Seditious Presbyter to sit as Moderator or chief President in it And though upon the sense of their disobedience the Assembly was again dissolved by the King's Proclamation yet they continued as before in contempt thereof In which Session they
of time in which the Commons were intent on the Warr of Ireland and the Puritans as much busied in blowing the Trumpet of Sedition in the Kingdom of England it only showed the King's good meaning with his want of Power In which conjuncture hapned the Impeachment and Imprisonment of Eleven of the Bishops Which made that Bench so thin and the King so weak that on the 6 th of February the Lords consented to the taking away of their Votes in Parliament The News whereof was solemnized in most places of London with Bells and Bouâ—â—res Nothing remained but that the King should pass it into Act by his Royal Assent by some unhappy Instrument extorted from Him when he was at Canterbury and signified by His Message to the Houses on the fourteenth of that Month. Which Condescention wrought so much unquietness to His Mind and Conscience and so much unsecureness to His Person for the rest of His Life that He could scarce truly boast of one day's Felicity till God was pleased to put a final period to His Grieâ—s and Sorrows For in relation to the last we find that the next Vote which passed in Parliament deprived Him of His Negative Voice and put the whole Militia of the Kingdom into the hands of the Houses Which was the first beginning of His following Miseries And looking on Him in the first He will not spare to let us know in one of his Prayers That the injury which he had done to the Bishops of England did as much grate upon his Conscience as either the permitting of a wrong way of Worship to be set up in Scotland or suffering innocent blood to be shed under colour of Iustice. 12. For so it was that some of the prevailing-Members in the House of Commons considering how faithfully and effectually the Scots had served them not only voted a Gratuity of Three hundred thousand pounds of good English Money to be freely given them but kept their Army in a constant and continual Pay for Nine Months together And by the terror of that Army they forced the King to pass the Bill for Trienial Parliaments and to perpetuate the present Session at the will of the Houses to give consent for Murthering the Earl of Strafford with the Sword of Justice and suffering the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to be banished from him to fling away the Starr-Chamber and the High-Commission and the Coercive Power of Bishops to part with all his right to Tonnage and Poundage to Ship-money and the Act for Knighthood and by retrenching the Perambulation of His Forests and Chases to leave his Game to the destruction of each Bore or Peasant And by the terror of this Army they took upon them to engage all the Subjects of the Kingdom in a Protestation first hammered on the third of May in order to the condemnation of the Earl of Strafford for maintenance of the Priviledges and Rights of Parliament standing to one another in pursuance of it and bringing all persons to condign punishment who were suspected to oppose them Encouraged also by the same they took upon them an Authority of voting down the Church's Power in making of Canons condemning all the Members of the late Convocation calumniating many of the Bishops and Clergy in most odious manner and vexing some of them to the Grave And they would have done the like to the Church it self in pulling down the Bishops and Cathedral Churches and taking to themselves all their Lands and Houses if by the Constancy and Courage of the House of Peers they had not failed of their Design But at the last the King prevailed so far with the Scots Commissioners that they were willing to retire and withdraw their Forces upon His Promise to confirm the Acts of the Assembly at Glasgow and reach out such a Hand of Favour unto all that Nation as might estate them in a happiness above their hopes On this assurance they march homewards and He followeth after Where he consents to the abolishing of Bishops and alienating all their Lands by Act of Parliament suppresseth by like Acts the Liturgy and the Book of Canons and the five Articles of Perth rewards the chief Actors in the late Rebellion with Titles Offices and Honours and parts with so much of His Royal Prerogative to content the Subjects that He left Himself nothing of a King but the empty Name And to sum up the whole in brief In one hour He unravelled all that excellent Web the weaving whereof had took up more than Forty years and cost His Father and Himself so much Pains and Treasure 13. By this Indulgence to the Scots the Irish Papists are invited to expect the like and to expect it in the same way which the Scots had travelled that is to say by seizing on His Forts and Castles putting themselves into the Body of an Army and forcing many of His good Protestant-Subjects to forsake the Kingdom The Motives which induced them to it their opportunities for putting it in execution and the miscarriage of the Plot I might here relate but that I am to keep my self to the Presbyterians as dangerous Enemies to the King and the Church of England as the Irish Papists For so it hapned that His Majesty was informed at His being in Scotland That the Scots had neither took up Arms nor invaded England but that they were encouraged to it by some Members of the Houses of Parliament on a design to change the Government both of Church and State In which he was confirmed by the Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom presented to Him by the Commons at His first coming back the forcible attempt for breaking into the Abby of Westminster the concourse of seditious people to the Dores of the Parliament crying out that they would have no Bishops nor Popish Lords and their tumultuating in a fearful manner even at White-Hall Gates where they cryed out with far more horror to the Hearers That the King was not worthy to live that they would have no Porter's Lodg between Him and them and That the Prince would govern better Hereupon certain Members of both Houses that is to say the Lord Kimbolton of the Upper Hollis and Haslerig Hampden Pym and Stroud of the Lower-House are impeached of Treason a Serjeant sent to apprehend them and command given for sealing up their Trunks and Closets 14. But on the contrary the Commons did pretend and declared accordingly That no Member of theirs was to be impeached arrested or brought unto a Legal Trial but by the Order of that House and that the sealing up of their Trunks or Closets was a breach of Priviledg And thereupon it was resolved on Monday Ian. 3. being the day of the Impeachment That if any persons whatsoever should come to the Lodgings of any Member of the House or seize upon their persons that then such Members should require the aid of the Constable to keep such persons in safe custody till the House gave
further Order And it was then resolved also That if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest or detain the person of any Member of their House without first acquainting the House therewith and receiving further Order from the House that then it should be lawful for such Member or any person to resist him and to stand upon his or their guard of defence and to make resistance according to the Protestation taken to defend the Liberties of Parliament This brings the King on Tuesday morning to the Commons House attended only by His Guard and some few Gentlemen no otherwise weaponed than with Swords where having placed Himself in the Speaker's Chair He required them to deliver the Impeached Members to the hands of Justice But they had notice of His Purpose and had retired into London as their safest Sanctuary to which the whole House is adjourned also and sits in the Guild-Hall as a Grand Committee The next day brings the King to the City also where in a Speech to the Lord Mayor and Common-Council He signified the Reasons of His going to the House of Commons That He had no intent of proceeding otherwise against the Members than in a way of Legal Tryal and thereupon desired That they might not be harboured and protected in despite of Law For answer whereunto He is encountred with an insolent and sawcy Speech made by one Fowk a Member of the Common-Council concerning the Impeached Members and the King's proceedings and followed in the Streets by the Rascal-Rabble by some of which a Virulent and Seditious Pamphlet entituled Every man to his Tents O Israel is cast into His Coach and nothing sounded in His Ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament with most horrible out-cries The same night puts them into Arms with great fear and tumult upon a rumour that the King and the Cavaliers for so they called such Officers of the late Army as attended on him for their Pay had a design to sack the City who were then sleeping in their beds and little dreamed of any such Seditious practises as were then on foot for the enflaming of the people 15. And now comes Calvin's Doctrine for restraining the Power of Kings to be put in practise His Majesty's going to the House of Commons on the fourth of Ianuary is voted for so high a breach of their Rights and Priviledges as was not to be salved by any Retractation or Disclaimer or any thing by Him alledged in excuse thereof The Members are brought down in triumph both by Land and Water guarded with Pikes and Protestations to their several Houses and the forsaken King necessitated to retire to Windsor that he might not be an eye-witness of his own disgraces The Lord Digby goes to Kingston in a Coach with six Horses to bestow a visit upon Collonel Lundsford and some other Gentlemen each Horse is reckoned for a Troop and these Troops said to have appeared in a warlike manner Which was enough to cause the prevailing-party of the Lords and Commons to declare against it and by their Order of the 13 th of Ianuary to give command That all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom assisted by the Iustices and Trained-Bands of the Countrey should take care to suppress all unlawful Assemblies and to secure the Magazines of their several Counties The King's Attorney must be called in question examined and endangered for doing his duty in the impeachment of their Members that no man might hereafter dare to obey the King And though His Majesty had sent them a most Gracious Message of the twentieth of Ianuary in which He promised them to equal or exceed all Acts of Favour which any of His Predecessors had extended to the People of England yet nothing could secure them from their fears and jealousies unless the Trained-bands and the Royal Navy the Tower of London and the rest of the Forts and Castles were put into such hands as they might confide in On this the King demurrs a while but having shipped the Queen for Holland with the Princess Mary and got the Prince into his power he denies it utterly And this denial is reputed a sufficient reason to take the Militia to themselves and execute the Powers thereof without His consent 16. But leaving them to their own Councils he removes to York assembleth the Gentry of that County acquaints them with the reasons of His coming thither and desires them not to be seduced by such false reports as had been raised to the dishonour of His Person and disgrace of His Government By their Advice he makes a journey unto Hull in which he had laid up a considerable Magazine of Cannon Arms and Ammunition intended first against the Scots and afterwards designed for the Warr of Ireland but now to be made use of in his own defence And possibly He might have got it into His possession if He had kept His own Counsel and had not let some words fall from Him in a Declaration which betrayed His purpose For hereupon Hotham a Member of their House and one of the two Knights for the County of York is sent to Garrison the Town who most audaciously refused to give him entrance though he was then accompanied with no more than his private Guards and for so doing is applauded and indempnified by the rest of the Members This sends him back again to York and there he meets as great a Baffle as he did at Hull For there he is encountred with a new Committee from the House of Commons consisting of Ferdinand Lord Fairfax Sir Henry Cholmnly Sir Hugh Cholmnly and Sir Philip Stapleton sent thither on purpose to serve as Spies upon his actions to undermine all his proceedings and to insinuate into the people that all their hopes of peace and happiness depended on their adhering to the present Parliament And they applied themselves to their Instructions with such open Confidence that the King had not more meetings with the Gentry of that County in his Palace called the Mannor-house than they had with the Yeomanry and Free-holders in the great Hall of the Deanry All which the King suffered very strangely and thereby robbed himself of the opportunity of raising an Army in that County with which he might have marched to London took the Hen sitting on her Nest before she had hatched and possibly prevented all those Calamities which after followed 17. But to proceed during these counter-workings betwixt them and the King the Lords and Commons plied him with continual Messages for his return unto the Houses and did as frequently endeavour to possess the people with their Remonstrances and Declarations to his disadvantage To each of which his Majesty returned a significant Answer so handsomely apparelled and comprehending in them such a strength of Reason as gave great satisfaction to all equal and unbyassed men None of these Messages more remarkable than that which brought the Nineteen Propositions to his Majesty's hands In which it was desired
brake down the Rails before the Table and burnt them in the very place in the heats of Iuly but wretchedly prophaned the very Table it self by setting about it with their Tobacco and Ale before them and not without the company of some of their zealous Lecturers to grace the Action What else they did in imitation of the Brethren of Exon in laying their filth and execrements about it also I abhor to mention And now I must crave leave to step into the Colledg the Government whereof was taken from the Dean and Prebendaries and given to a select Committee of fifty persons some Lords but Members for the most part of the Lower-House who found there a sufficient quantity of Plate and some other good Houshold-stuff to a very good value which was so Husbanded amongst them that it was either stoln or sold or otherwise imbezilled and inverted to the use of some private persons who best knew how to benefit themselves by the Church's Patrimony 35. But the main business of this year and the three next following was the calling sitting and proceedings of the new Assembly called the Assembly of Divines but made up also of so many of the Lords and Commons as might both serve as well to keep them under and comptroll their Actions as to add some countenance unto them in the eye of the people A Convocation had been appointed by the King when he called the Parliament the Members whereof being lawfvlly chosen and returned were so discountenanced and discouraged by the Votes of the Lower-House the frequent Tumults raised in Westminster by the Rascal Rabble and the preparatives for a Warr against the King that they retired unto their Houses but still continued undissolved and were in a capacity of acting as a Convocation whensoever they should be thereunto required and might do it with safety But being for the most part well affected to the Church of England they were not to be trusted by the Houses of Parliament who then designed the hammering of such a Reformation both in Doctrine and Discipline as might unite them in a perpetual Bond and Confederation with their Scottish Brethren And that they might be furnished with such men the Knights of every Shire must make choice of two to serve as Members for that County most of them Presbyterians some few Royallists four of the Independent Faction and two or three to represent the Kirk of Scotland Which ploughing with an Ox and an Ass as it was no other was anciently prohibited by the Law of Moses And yet these men associated with some Members of either House as before is said no ways impow'red or authorised by the rest of the Clergy must take upon them all the Powers and Priviledges of a Convocation to which they were invited by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date Iune the 12 th His Majesty makes a start at this encroachment on His Royal Prerogative and countermands the same by His Proclamation of the 22 d. In which He takes notice amongst other things That the far greatest part of those who had been nominated to the present Service were men of neither Learning or Reputation eminently disaffected to the Government of the Church of England and such as had openly preached Rebellion by their exciting of the people to take Arms against Him and therefore were not like to be proper Instruments of Peace and Happiness either unto the Church or State For maintenance whereof and for the preservation of His own Authority he inhibits them from meeting at the time appointed declares their Acts to be illegal and threatens them with the punishments which they had incurred by the Laws of the Land 36. But they go forwards howsoever hold their first Meeting on the first of Iuly and elect Dr. Twisse of Newberry a rigid Sabbatarian but a professed Calvinian in all other points for their Prolocutor called to this Iourney-work by the Houses they were dispensed with for Non-residence upon their Livings against the Laws preferred to the best Benefices of the Sequestred Clergy some of them three or four together and had withall four shillings a man for their daily wages besides the honour of assisting in so great an action as the ruin of the Church and the subversion of the present Government of the Realm of England In reference whereunto they were to be employed from time to time as occasion was to stir up the people of the Counties for which they served to rise and arm themselves against the King under colour of their own defence as appears plainly by the Order of the tenth of August And that they might be looked upon with the greater reverence they maintain a constant intercourse by Letters with their Brethren of Scotland the Churches of the Netherlands the French and Switzers but chiefly with Geneva it self In which they laid such vile Reproaches on His Majesty and the Church of England the one for having a design to bring in Popery the other for a readiness to receive the same that His Majesty was necessitated to set out a Manifest in the Latin Tongue for laying open the Imposture to the Churches of all Forreign Nations Amongst the rest of this Assembly Dr. Dan. Featly not long before made Chaplain in Ordinary to the King must needs sit for one whether to shew his Parts or to head a Party or out of his old love to Calvinism may best be gathered from some Speeches which he made and printed But he was theirs in heart before and therefore might afford them his body now though possibly he may be excused from taking the Covenant as the others did An Exhortation whereunto was the first great work which was performed by these Masters in Israel after their assembling the Covenant taken by them in most solemn manner at St. Margarets in Westminster on the 25th of September the Exhortation voted to be published on the 9th of February 37. Now to begin the blessed Reformation which they had in hand the Houses were resolved upon exterminating all external Pomp and comely Order out of the Worship of Almighty God And to this end upon the humble motion of these Divines of the Assembly and the sollicitation of some zealous Lecturers who were grown very powerful with them or to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish Covenanters whose help they began to stand in need of or finally out of the perversness of their own cross humours they published an Ordinance on the 28 th of August For the utter demolishing removing and taking away all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which notion it was ordered That before the last of November then next following all Altars and Tables of stone as if any such were then erected should be demolished in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom That the Communion-Tables should in all such places be removed from the East end of the Chancel unto some other part of the Church or Chappel That all such Rails as had been
49. Such being the issue of the Warr let us next look upon the Presbyterians in the acts of Peace in which they threatned more destruction to the Church than the Warr it self As soon as they had setled the strict keeping of the Lord's-day-Sabbath suppressed the publick Liturgy and imposed the Directory they gave command to their Divines of the Assembly to set themselves upon the making a new Confession The Nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England were either thought to have too much of the ancient Fathers or too little of Calvin and therefore fit to be reviewed or else laid aside And at the first their Journey-men began with a Review and fitted Fourteen of the Articles to their own conceptions but in the end despairing of the like success in all the rest they gave over that impertinent labour and found it a more easie task to conceive a new than to accommodate the old Confession to their private Fancies And in this new Confession they establish the Morality of their Lord's-day-Sabbath declare the Pope to be the Antichrist the Son of Perdition and the Man of Sin And therein also interweave the Calvinian Rigours in reference to the absolute Decree of Predestination Grace Free-will c. But knowing that they served such Masters as were resolved to part with no one Branch of their own Authority they attribute a Power to the Civil Magistrate not only of calling Synods and Church-Assemblies but also of being present at them and to provide that whatsoever is therein contracted be done agreebly to the Mind and Will of God But as to the matter of Church-Government the Divine Right of their Presbyteries the setting of Christ upon his Throne the Parity or Imparity of Ministers in the Church of Christ not a word delivered Their mighty Masters were not then resolved upon those particulars and it was fit the Holy Ghost should stay their leisure and not inspire their Journey-men with any other Instruction than what was sent them from the Houses 50. But this Confession though imperfect and performed by halves was offered in the way of an Humble Advice to the Lords and Commons that by the omnipotency of an Ordinance it might pass for currant and be received for the established Doctrine of the Church of England The like was done also in the tendry of their Larger Catechism which seems to be nothing in a manner but the setting out of their Confession in another dress and putting it into the form of Questions and Answers that so it might appear to be somewhat else than indeed it was But being somewhat of the largest to be taught in Schools and somewhat of the hardest to be learned by Children it was brought afterwards into an Epitome commonly called The lesser Catechism and by the Authors recommended to the use of the Church as far more Orthodox than Nowel's more clear than that contained in the Common-Prayer-Book and not inferior to the Palatine or Genevian Forms But in all three they held forth such a Doctrine touching God's Decrees that they gave occasion of reviving the old Blastian Heresie in making God to be the Author of Sin Which Doctrine being new published in a Pamphlet entituled Comfort for Believers in their Sins and Troubles gave such a hot Alarm to all the Calvinists in the new Assembly that they procured it to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman But first they thought it necessary to prepare the way to that execution by publishing in print their detestation of that abominable and blasphemous Opinion That God hath a hand in and is the Author of the sinfulness of his people as the Title tells us So that now Calvin's Followers may sleep supinely without regard to the reproaches of uncivil men who had upbraided them with maintaining such blasphemous Doctrine The Reverend Divines of the Assembly have absolved them from it and showed their Detestation of it and who dares charge it on them for the time to come 51. But these things possibly were acted as they were Calvinians and perhaps Sabbatarians also and no more than so And therefore we must next see what they do on the score of Presbytery for setting up whereof they had took the Covenant called in the Scots and more insisted on the abolition of the Episcopal Function than any other of the Propositions which more concern them To this they made their way in those Demands which they sent to Oxon the Ordinance for Ordination of Ministers and their advancing of the Directory in the fall of the Liturgy They had also voted down the Calling of Bishops in the House of Commons on Septemb. 8. 1642 and caused the passing of that Vote to be solemnized with Bells and Bonfires in the streets of London as if the whole City was as much concerned in it as some Factious Citizens But knowing that little was to be effected by the Propositions and much less by their Votes they put them both into a Bill which past the House of Peers on the third of February some two days after they had tendred their Proposals to the King at Oxon. And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That from the Fifth of November the day designed for the blowing up the Parliament by the Gun-powder-Traytors which should be in the year of our Lord 1643 there should be no Archbishops Bishops Commissaries c. with all their Train recited in the Oxon Article Numb 21. in the Church of England That from thenceforth the Name Title and Function of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors c. or likewise the having using or exercising any Iurisdiction Office and Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Dignity or Function in the Realm of England should utterly and for ever cease And that the King might yeeld the sooner to the Alteration they tempt him to it with a Clause therein contained for putting him into the actual possession of all the Castles Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments belonging to the said Arch-bishops or Bishops or to any of them And for the Lands of Deans and Chapters the Brethren had a hope to parcel them amongst themselves under the colour of encouraging and maintaining of a Preaching-Ministry some sorry pittance being allowed to the old Proprietaries and some short Pension during life to the several Bishops 52. Such was the tenour of the Bill which found no better entertainment than their Propositions So that despairing of obtaining the King's consent to advance Presbytery they resolved to do it of themselves but not till they had broken the King's Forces at the Battel of Naisby For on the nineteenth of August then next following they publish Directions in the name of the Lords and Commons after advice with their Divines of the Assembly for the chusing of RVLING-ELDERS in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom in order to the speedy setling of Presbyterial
Practises the Sacriledges Spoils and Rapins the Tumults Murthers and Seditions the horrid Treasons and Rebellions which have been raised by the Presbyterians in most parts of Christendom for the time of One hundred years and upwards Which having seen we shall conclude this History in the words of that Censure which by the Doctors of the Sorbonne was once passed on the Jesuits that is to say Videtur haec Societas in negotio fidei periculosa pacis Ecclesiae perturbativa Religionis rectae eversiva magis ad destructionem quà m ad aedificationem FINIS A Catalogue of some Books Printed for and are to be sold by Thomas Basset at the George in Fleetstreet near Cliffords-Inn Folio's 1. COsmography in four Books containing the Chorography and History of the whole World and all the principal Kingdoms and Provinces Seas and Isles thereof By P. Heylin Printed 1669 in Columns much better than any of the former Editions Price 20 s. 2. Ecclesia Restaurata or the History of the Reformation of the Church of England containing the beginning progress and successes of it the Counsels by which it was conducted the Rules of Piety and Prudence upon which it was founded the several steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the change of times from the first preparations to it by King Henry the 8th until the legal setling and establishment of it under Queen Elizabeth together with the intermixture of such Civil Actions and Affairs of State as either were co-incident with it or related to it By P. Heylin The second Edition 3. The Voyages and Travels of the Duke of Holstein's Embassadours into Muscovy Tartary and Persia begun in the year 1633 and finisht in 1639 containing a compleat History of those Countreys Whereunto are added the Travels of Mandelso from Persia into the East-Indies begun in 1638 and finisht in 1640. The whole illustrated with divers accurate Maps and Figures Written originally by Adam Olearius Secretary to the Embassy The second Edition corrected Englished by I Davies of Kidwelly Price bound 18 s. 4. An Historical Display of the Romish State Court Interest Policies c. and the mighty influence of the Iesuits in that Church and many other Christian States not hitherto extant Being a full Account of all the Transactions both in France and at Rome concerning the five famous Propositions controverted between the Iansenists and the Molinists from the beginning of that Affair till the Pope's Decision Written originally by Mons. de St. Amour Doctor of Sorbonne Englished by G. Havirs Price bound 14. s. 5. The Compleat Body of the Art Military in three Books being perfect Directions for the right ordering and framing of an Army both of Horse and Foot Together with all the manner of Fortifications and the Art of Gunnery By Rich. Elton Lieutenant-Colonel Price bound 8 s. 1517. a Habebat jus gladii alias civilis jurisdictionis paâ—tes sed magistratui ereptas 1528. b Quae à Vireto Farello facta sunt suffragio meo comprobavi c Libertatis suae patrem c d Farellus cui se totos debent c. e Si quidem Excommunicationi in aliena Ecclesia nullus locus f Quibus sub Principibus Christianis non videtur esse necessaria Excommunicatio f Quod Doctrinam Disciplinam capitibus aliquot comprehensam admitterent Bez. in vit Calv. g Disciplinam qualem vetus habuit Ecclesia apud nos non esse dicis neque nos diffitemur 1537. 1538. h Nec quisquam aut expulsus est invidiosius nec receptus latius Paterc Hist. lib. 2. 1541. a Impudenteâ— Deo â—â—bis meuâ—â—â—â— sunt b Censui ut jurejurando ad veri confessionem adigerentur 1537. a Congressus publici Ecclesiae diebus Dominicis c. Bez. Epist. 241 a Testium seu concuratorum ad paedo-bapâ—esmum advoâ—at â—b 1547 a Si quis mei usus foret c. b Vt ritus illos qui superstitiâ—nis aliquid redolent tâ—llenter è medio c Illa omnia abscindi semel d In qua nihil non ad Dei verbum exegi â—as est e Vt vel moderemur vel reseâ—â—damus c. 1551. a Quae non obscuret modo sed propemodum obruat puâ—um geruinum Dei culium Epist. 1554. a In Liturgia Anglicana qualem mihi describitis multas video tolerabiles ineptias b Si hactenus in Anglia viguisset sincera Religio aliquid in melius correctum multaque detracta esse oportet a Quae sibi velint nescio quos 〈◊〉 Paposhâ—a rantopeâ—e delectant a Certâ—luâ— narta 〈◊〉 ejus facinae nugas ex supersâ—â—â— ne manasâ—e nemo sani judicii negabit unde Constituâ— qui eas in libera optione retineant â—imis â—uâ—ide fâ—ceâ— bauâ—â—â—â— a Vt vigeat purus integer Dei cultus Ecclesia à sâ—â—dibus repurgetur deinde ut filiis Dei apud vos liberum sit nomen ejus puâ—è invocaâ—e Institut lib 4. c 10.8 31. a Si quisquiâ— repugnanâ—bus legibus patriae privilegus sâ—se Dominum auc Magistratum constituit c. Epist 24. a 〈…〉 Amos cap 7 b Infeâ—sissinâ—us Evaâ—ge 〈…〉 Ad Altar Damasc Epist. c Natuâ—â—â—â—situm est 〈◊〉 omnibus 〈◊〉 Châ—isti â—diâ—m 〈◊〉 a 〈…〉 câ—nsiderati c. hoc tâ—e sâ—mper gâ—aviâ—er vexavit In Amos cap. 7. v. 13. b Officium magistratus est Ecclesiam Dei gladio tueri ac conservare c. Bez. Epist. 24. a Moralem esse uniuâ— dici observationem in hebdâ—madâ Instituâ— lib. 2. c. 8. Sect. 34. b Numerum Septenarium non ejus serviâ—uâ—e Ecclesias astringam Li. Ibid. c Quem veteres in eorum subbaâ—um subrogarunt De transferenda solenniâ—ate dominica in feriam quintum lib. 1. cap. ult a Nâ—n posse consisteâ—e Ecclesiam niâ—i câ—rtum Regimen constitueretur quale ex verbo Deâ— nobis presâ—râ—ptum est in veteri Ecclesia fuit observatuâ— Epist. ad Farâ—ll b Excommunicationem apud noâ— adhuc nullam esse c Sed non simul conjunctos esse Disciplinae nervos docendum est c. d Nunquam utile putaâ—i jus Excommunicandi permitti singulis pastoribus nam res odrosa est c. Alium usum Apostoli tradiderunt a De hâ—â—c â—upeâ—em abâ—te commonâ—â—fieri Eccâ—esiam Argentineâ—s c cujus Ecclesiae consideâ—aâ—uroâ— spero Sâ—ntoâ—â—s c. b De mâ— Concionaâ—ore Calvintana c. Ibid. c Legeâ— Coâ—â—â—stoâ—â—â— vâ—stâ—â— opâ—avt 〈◊〉 ad me traâ—smiâ—â—i â— d Ex quo â—ormam aliquam conciperes quam prescribere non debuâ— a Quanti nobis esse debeat sincer a Religio per quam Christo inter nos Tribunal eâ—igitur b In statu Regni nil movendum quod omnis novitas graves motus exitâ—ales minaâ—eretur a Ad quem nâ—stri 〈…〉 etiam sut quidem quos serum adduxii c. b Cum audio Disciplinam Evangelii profâ—ssione conjungi c Vt toti nobilâ—ati libeâ—a reformardiâ—e