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
Realm of France What was taught afterwards in pursuance of Calvins Doctrines by Hottaman and him that calls himself Eusebius Philadelphos amongst the French by Vrsine and Pareus in the Palatine Churches by Buchanan and Knox amongst the Scots and by some principal Disciplinarians amongst the English we shall hereafter see in their proper places And we shall then see also what was done in point of practice first by the Princes on the House of Bourbon and afterwards by some great Lords of the Hugonot party against Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth Kings of France by William Prince of Orange and other of the Belgick Lords in the final abdication of King Philip the Second by the Hungarians and Bohemians in their revolting from the Princes of the House of Austria by the Rebellious Scots in deposing imprisoning and expelling of their rightful Queen and finally by the Genevian Faction in the Realm of England in their imbroylments of the Nation under Queen Elizabeth and that calamitious War but more calamitous in the issue and conclusion of it against Charles the First All which are built upon no other ground then this Doctrine of Calvin accommodated and applyed to their several purposes as appears plainly by the Answer of the Scots to Queen Elizabeth who justified the deposing of their natural and lawful Queen on those words of Calvin which they relyed on for the sole ground of that horrible Treason and their Indemnity therein of which more hereafter 26. In the mean time I shall content my self with the following passage faithfully gathered out of the Common Places of William Bucan Divinity-Reader in the small University of Lawsanna sâ—ituate on the Lake Lemane in the Canton of Berne and consequently a neer Neighbour to the Town of Geneva who treating in his forty one Chapter of the Duty of Magistrates propounds this question toward the close viz. What a good Christian ought to do if by a cruel Prince he be distressed by some grievous and open injury To which he thus returns his Answer That though Princes and Subjects have relation unto one another yet Subjects in the course of nature were before their Princes and therefore that such Princes if they usurp not a plain Tyranny in their several Kingdoms are not Superiour to the rest by nature in the right of Father hood but are setled by the suffrages and consent of the people on such conditions as originally were agreed between them and that it follows thereupon according unto Buchanans Doctrine that Subjects are not born for the good of their Kings but that all Kings were made to serve for the good of the people that it is lawful to defend Religion by force of Arms not onely against the assaults of such Forreign Nations as have no jurisdiction over us but also against any part of the same Common-wealth the common consent of the Estates being first obtained which doth indeavour to subvert it that no violence is to be offered to the person of the Supreme Magistrate though he play the Tyrant by any private man whatsover except he be warranted thereunto by some extraordinary and express command from the Lord himself but the oppression rather to be born with patience then that God should be offended by such rash attempts that the Protection of the Supreme Magistrate was to be required against the unjust oppressions of inferiour Officers and that in a free Common-wealth the Supreme Magistrate is rather to be questioned in a course of Law then by open Force that Subjects may lawfully take up Arms in defence of their Wives and Children if the Chief Magistrate make any violent assault upon them as Lyons and other brute Creatures sight to defend their young ones this last exemplified by that of Trajan giving the Sword to the Captain of his Guard with these following words Hoc ense pro me justa faciente injusta facienâ—e contra me utaris that is to say That he should use the Sword against him in defence of himself and for the protection of all those who in regard of his Office were subject to him that therefore it was well done by the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of the House had exercised more then ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country that David might lawfully have killed Saul because he gave his Wife to another man expelled him from his native Country murdered the Priests for doing some good Offices to him and pursued him from one place to another with his flying Army but that he did forbear to do it lest he should give an Example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by ambition might be like enough to imitate 27. Such is the Commentary of Buchanus upon Calvins Text by which all Christian Kings are made accountable even in Civil Matters to the three Estates or any other ordinary Officers of their own appointing Which Doctrines being once by him delivered and inforced by others what else could follow thereupon but first an undervaluing of their transcendent Authority afterwards a contempt of their persons and finally a reviling of them with reproachful Language From hence it was that Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine assuring us that all the Devils in Hell were not half so mischievous and that Knox could not finde for her any better titles then that of Iezabel mischievous Mary of the Spaniards blood the professed enemy of God From hence it was that Beza calls Mary Queen of Scots by the names of Medea and Athaliah of which the one was no less infamous in the Sacred then the other was in the Heathen story that the English Puritans compared Queen Elizabeth to an idle slut who swept the middle of the room but left all the dust and filth thereof behind the doors that Didoclavius calls King Iames the greatest and most deadly enemy of the holy Gospel and positively affirms of all Kings in general that they are naturally enemies to the Kingdom of Christ. And finally from hence it was that the seditious Author of the base and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath so bespattered the great Princes of the House of France that he hath made them the most ugly Monsters in their lusts and cruelty which ere Nature produced and could devise no fitter names for Queen Mary of Scotland then those of Medea Clytemnestra Proserpine with that of monstrum Exitiale in the close of all And that the late most mighty Monarch of Great Britain was handled by his Subjects of this Faction with no less scurrility then if he had been raised on high for no other purpose then to be made the mark against which they were to shoot their Arrows even most bitter words the object of all false tongues and calumnious Pens Thus do they deal with Kings and Princes as Pilate in 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
the honor to themselves To which end Heywood Parsons and Campian first set foot in England and both by secret practices and printed Pamphlets endeavoured to withdraw the Subjects from their due obedience Nothing more ordinary in their mouths or upon their pens then that the Crown belonged of right to the Queen of Scots That Elizabeth was to be deprived That if the Pope commanded one thing and the Queen another the Popes commands were to be obeyed and not the Queens And in a word That all the Subjects were absolued from their Allegiance and might declare as much when they found it necessary Which that it might be done with the greater safety Pope Gregory the XIII is desired to make an Explication of the former Bull. By which it should be signified to the English Catholicks that the said former Bull of Pope Pius V should remain obligatory unto none but the Hereticks onely but that the Romish Catholicks should not be bound by it as the case then stood till they should find themselves in a fit capacity to put the same in execution without fear of danger And presently upon their first entrance a Book is published by one Howlet containing many reasons for deterring the Papists from joyning in any Act of Worship with the English Protestants the going or not going to Church being from henceforth made a sign distinctive as they commonly phrased it In this year also Beza published his Schismatical Pamphlet intituled De triplici Episcopatu of which see Lib. 1. numb 47. Lib. 5. numb 40. first written at the request of Knox and other of the Presbyterians of the Kirk of Scotland that they might have the better colour to destroy Episcopacy translated afterwards into English for the self-same reason by Field of Wandsworth Against this Book Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum writ a large Discourse intituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England not published till the year 1587 when the Authority thereof was most highly stood on The like done afterward by Dr. Hadrian Savavia of which we shall speak more in its proper place 23. And now the waters are so troubled that Cartwright might presume of gainful fishing at his coming home Who having settled the Presbytery in Iersey and Guernsey first sends back Snape to his old Lecture at Northampton there to pursue such Orders and Directions as they had agreed on and afterwards put himself into the Factory of Antwerp and was soon chosen for their Preacher The news whereof brings Travers to him who receives Ordination if I may so call it by the Presbytery of that City and thereupon is made his Partner in that charge It was no hard matter for them to perswade the Merchants to admit that Discipline which in their turns might make them capable of voting in the Publick Consistory And they endeavoured it the rather that by their help they might effect the like in the City of London whensoever they should find the times to be ready for them The like they did also in the English Church at Middleborough the chief Town in Zealand in which many English Merchants had their constant residence To which two places they drew over many of the English Nation to receive admission to the Ministery in a different Form from that which was allowed in the Church of England Some of which following the example of Cartwright himself renounced the Orders which they had from the hands of the Bishops and took a new Vocation from these Presbyters as Fennor Arton c. and others there admitted to the rank of Ministers which never were ordained in England as Hart Guisin c. not to say any thing of such as were elected to be Elders or Deacons in those Forreign Consistories that they might serve the Churches in the same capacity at their coming home And now at last they are for England where Travers puts himself into the service of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by whose Recommendation he is chosen Lecturer of the Temple Church which gave him opportunity for managing all affairs which concerned the Discipline with the London-Ministers Cartwright applies himself to the Earl of Leicester by whom he is sent down to Warwick and afterwards made Master of an Hospital of his Foundation In the chief Church of which Town he was pleased to preach as often as he could dispense with his other business At his admission to which place he faithfully promised if he might be but tolerated to Preach not to impugne the Laws Orders Policy Government nor Governours in this Church of England but to perswade and procure so much as he could both publickly and privately the estimation and peace of this Church 24. But scarce was he setled in the place when he made it manifest by all his actions how little care he took of his words and promises for so it was when any Minister either in private Conferences or by way of Letters required his advice in any thing which concerned the Church he plainly shewed his mislike of the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law Established and excepted against divers parts of the Publick Liturgie according to the Tenour of the two Admonitions by him formerly published By means whereof he prevailed with many who had before observed the Orders of the Common-prayer-book now plainly to neglect the same and to oppose themselves against the Government of Bishops as far as they might do it safely in relation to the present times And that he might not press those points to others which he durst not practice in himself he many times inveighed against them in his Prayers and Sermons The like he also did against many pâ—ssages in the Publick Liturgie as namely The use of the Surplice the Interrogatories to God-fathers in the name of Infants the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Thanksgiving after Child-birth Burials by Ministers the kneeling at Communions some points of the Litany certain Collects and Prayers the reading of Portions of Scripture for the Epistle and Gospel and the manner of singing in Cathedral Churches And for example unto others he procured his Wife not to give thanks for her Delivery from the peril of Childbirth after such Form and in such place and manner as the Church required Which as it drew on many other women to the like contempt so might he have prevailed upon many more if he had not once discoursed upon matters of Childbirth with such in discretion that some of the good Wives of Warwick were almost at the point to stone him as he walked the streets But that he might not seem to pull down more with one hand then he would be thought sufficiently able to build up with both he highly magnified in some of his Sermons the Government of the Church by Elderships in each Congregation and by more Publick Conferences in Classical and Synodical Meetings which he commended for the onely lawful Church-Government as being of Divine Institution and ordained by
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
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
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
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
Stephens Colemanstreet Stephens Walbrook Dr. Howel through vexation forced to forsake it sequestred out of all and fled divers since turned out Swithens Mr. Owen sequestred Thomas Apostle Mr. Cooper sequestred and plundred sent prisoner to Leeds-Castle in Kent Trinity Parish Mr. Harrison dead with grief In the 97 Parishes within the Walls besides St. Pauls outed 85 dead 16. Parishes without the Walls Andrew Holborn Dr. Hacket sequestred Bartholomew Great Dr. Westfield abused in the streets sequestred forced to flye and dead Bartholomew Less Brides Parish Mr. Palmer sequestred Bridewel Precinct Mr. Brown turned out Botolph Aldersgate Mr. Booth sequestred Botolph Aldgate Mr. Swadlin sequestred plundered imprisoned at Gresham-Colledg and Newgate his Wife and Children turned out of doors Botolph Bishopsgate Mr. Rogers sequestred Dunstans West Dr. March sequestred and dead in remote parts George Southwark Mr. Cook sequestred Giles Cripplegate Dr. Fuller sequestred plundred and imprisoned at Ely-House and Mr. Hatton his Curate assaulted in the Church and imprisoned Olaves Southwark Dr. Turner sequestred plundred fetched up Prisoner with a Troop of Soldiers and afterwards forced to flye Saviours Southwark Sepulchers Parish Mr. Pigot the Lecturer turned out Thomas Southwark Mr. Spencer sequestred and imprisoned Trinity Minories In the 16 Parishes without the Walls outed 14 and 2 dead In the Ten out-Parishes Clement Danes Dr. Dukeson sequestred and forced to flye Covent-Garden Mr. Hail sequestred and forced to flye Giles in the Fields Dr. Heywood sequestred imprisoned in the Counter Ely-House and the ships forced to flye his Wife and Children turned out of doors James Clerkenwell Katharine Tower Leonard Shoreditch Mr. Squire sequestred imprison'd in Gresham-Colledg Newgate and the King's Bench his Wife and Children plundred and turned out of doors Martins in the Fields Dr. Bray sequestred imprisoned plundred forced to flye and dead in remote parts Mary Whitechappel Dr. Iohnson sequestred Magdalen Bermondsey Dr. Paske sequestred Savoy Dr. Balcanqual sequestred plundered forced to flye and dead in remote parts and Mr. Fuller forced to flye In the ten out-Parishes outed 9 dead 2. In the adjacent Towns The Dean and Prebends of the Abby-Church of Westminster but only Mr. Lambert Osbaston sequestred Margarets Westminster Dr. Wimberly sequestred Lambeth Dr. Featly sequestred plundred imprisoned and dead a prisoner Newington Mr. Heath sequestred Hackney Mr. Moor sequestred Rederif Islington Divers turned out Stepney Dr. Stamp sequestred plundred and forced to flye In the adjacent Towns besides those of the Abby-Church and Islington outed 7 dead 1. The Total of the Ministers of London within this Bill of Mortality besides Pauls and Westminster turned out of their Livings 115. Whereof Doctors in Divinity above most of them plundred of their Goods their Wives and Children turned out of doors 40. Imprisoned in London and in the Ships and in several Gaols and Castles in the Countrey 20 Fled to prevent Imprisonment 25. Dead in remote parts and Prisons with grief 22. And at the same time about forty Churches void having no constant Minister in them Usque quo Domine Rev. 6.10 30. By this sad Bill confined within the Lines of Commuuication and some Villages adjoining we may conjecture at the greatness of that Mortality which fell amongst the Regular Clergy in all parts of the Kingdom by Plundring Sequestring and Ejecting or finally by vexing them into their Graves by so many Miseries as were inflicted on them in the Ships or their several Prisons In all which ways more men were outed of their Livings by the Presbyterians in the space of Three years than were deprived by the Papists in the Reign of Queen Mary or had been silenced suspended or deprived by all the Bishops from the first year of Queen ELIZABETH to these very times And that it might be done with some colour of Justice they instituted a Committee for Plundred Ministers under pretence of making some provision for such godly Preachers as had either suffered loss of Goods by His Majesty's Soldiers or loss of Livings for adhering to the Houses of Parliament Under which stiles they brought in a confused Rabble of their own perswasions or such at least as were most likely to be serviceable to their ends and purposes some of which had no Goods and most of them no Livings at all to lose But the truth was they durst not trust the Pulpits to the Regular Clergy who if they had offended against the Laws by the same Laws they ought to have been tryed condemned and deprived accordingly that so the Patrons might present more deserving persons to the vacant Churches But then this could not stand with the main Design For possibly the Patrons might present such Clarks as would go on in the old way and could not be admitted but by taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to our Lord the King and by subscribing to the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church of England which they were then resolved to alter Or could they have prevailed so far with the several Patrons as to present those very men whom they had designed unto the Profits of the Sequestred Benefices yet then they were to have enjoyed them for term of life and might pretend a Legal Right and Title to them which would have cut off that dependance on the Houses of Parliament which this Design did chiefly aim at So that the best of this new Clergy were but Tenants at will and therefore must be servile and obsequious to their mighty Landlords upon whose pleasure they depended for their present Livelihood 31. Such were the Mischiefs of this year For remedy whereof His Majesty most graciously published two Proclamations one of them bearing date the 15 th of May and the other on the 9 th of October In the first of which His Majesty takes especial notice That many of the Clergy no less eminent for their Learning than their Zeal and Piety were either driven or forced from their habitations or silenced or discharged from attending on their Cures That they suffered these oppressions for no other reasons but because they published his legal and just Commands or had refused to pray against Him or to submit against their Consciences to illegal Taxes for the continuance of the Warr or were comformable to the Book of Common-Prayer or preacht God's Word according to the purity of it without any mixture of Sedition That being for these Crimes discharged of their several Cures others were put into their Places to sow Sedition and seduce His Majejesty's good Subjects from their due obedience contrary to the Word of God and the Laws of the Land His Majesty thereupon commandeth That all such courses be forborn for the time to come That all His good Subjects for the present set forth their Tythes and pay them to the lawful Incumbents or their Farmers only That the Church-Wardens Side-men and other Parishioners shall resist all such persons as have been or shall be intruded into any of the Cures aforesaid but that they should contribute their
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
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
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
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
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
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
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
life at Edenborough on the 10 of Iune and none was nominated to succeed with like Authority The French Forces were imbarked on the 16 of Iuly except some few which were permitted to remain in the Castle of Dunbar and the Isle of Inchkeeth so few that they seemed rather to be left for keeping possession of the Kingdom in the name of the Queen then either to awe the Country or command obedience And that they might be free from the like fears for the times ensuing Francis the Second dyeth on the 5 of December leaving the Queen of Scots a desolate and friendless Widdow assisted onely by her Uncles of the House of Guise who though they were able to do much in France could do little out of it This put the Scots I mean the leading Scots of the Congregation into such a stomack that they resolved to steer their course by another compass and not to Sail onely by such Winds as should blow from England They knew full well that the breach between the two Queens was not reconcileable and that their own Queen would be always kept so low by the power of England that they might trample on her as they pleased now they had her under And though at first they had imbraced the Common-prayer-Book of the Church of England and afterwards confirmed the use of it by a solemn Subscription yet when they found themselves delivered from all fear of the French by the death of their King and the breach growing in that Kingdom upon that occasion they then began to tack about and to discover their affections to the Church of Geneva Knox had before devised a new book of Discipline contrived for the most part after Calvins platform and a new Form of Common-prayer was digested also more consonant to his infallible judgement then the English Liturgie But hitherto they had both lain dormant because they stood in need of such help from England as could not be presumed on with so great a confidence if they had openly declared any dissent or disaffection to the publick Forms which were established in that Church Now their estate is so much bettered by the death of the King the sad condition of their Queen and the assurances which they had from the Court of England from whence the Earls of Morton and Glencarne were returned with comfort that they resolve to perfect what they had begun to prosecute the desolation of Religious Houses and the spoyl of Churches to introduce their new Forms and suspend the old For compassing of which end they summoned a Convention of the Estates to be held in Ianuary 25. Now in this Book of Discipline they take upon them to innovate in most things formerly observed and practised in the Church of Christ and in some things which themselves had setled as the ground-work of the Reformation They take upon them to discharge the accustomed Fasts and abrogate all the ancient Festivals not sparing those which did relate particularly unto Christ our Saviour as his Nativity Passion Resurrection c. They condemned the use of the Cross in Baptism give way to the introduction of the New Order of Geneva for ministring the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and commend sitting for the most proper and convenient gesture to be used at it They require that all Churches not being Parochial should be forthwith demolished declare all Forms of Gods publick Worship which are not prescribed in his Word to be meer Idolatry and that none ought to administer the holy Sacraments but such as are qualified for preaching They appoint the Catechism of Geneva to be taught in their Schools Ordained three Universities to be made and continued in that Kingdom with Salaries proportioned to the Professors in all Arts and Sciences and time assigned for being graduated in the same They decree also in the same that Tythes should be no longer paid to the Romish Clergy but that they shall be taken up by Deacons and Treasurers by them to be imployed for maintainance of the poor the Ministers and the said Universities They complained very sensibly of the Tyranny of Lay-Patrons and Impropriators in exacting their Tythes in which they are said to be more cruel and unmerciful then the Popish Priests and therefore take upon them to determine as in point of Law what Commodities shall be Tythable what not and declare also that all Leases and Alienations which formerly had been made of Tythes should be utterly void 26. Touching the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments and the performance of other Divine Offices it is therein ordered That Common-prayers by which they mean the new Form of their own devising be said every day in the greater Towns except it be upon the days of publick Preaching but then to be forborn that the Preachers own Prayer before and after Sermon may not be despised or disrespected That Baptism be Administred onely upon the Sundays and other days of publick Preaching for the better beating down of that gross Opinion of the Papists so they pleas'd to call it concerning the necessity of it That the first Sundays of March Iune September and December should be from thenceforth set apart for the holy Communion the better to avoid the superstitious receiving of it at the Feast of Easter That all persons exercise themselves in singing Psalms to the end they may the better perform that service in the Congregation That no singing of Psalms no reading of Scriptures should be used at burials That no Funeral-Sermon shall be preached by which any difference may be made between the rich and the poor and that no dead body for the same cause shall be buried in Churches That Prophesyings and Interpreting of the holy Scriptures shall be used at certain times and places according to the custom of the Church of Corinth That in every Church there shall be one Bell to call the people together one Pulpit for the Word and a Bason for Baptism And that the Minister may the better attend these Duties it is ordered that he shall not haunt the Court nor be of the Council nor bear charge in any Civil Affairs except it be to assist the Parliament when the same is called 27. Concerning Ecclesiastical persons their Function Calling Maintainance and Authority it was ordered in the said Book of Discipline That Ministers shall from thenceforth be elected by the Congregation where they are to preach that having made tryal of their Gifts and being approved of by the Church where they are to Preach they shall be admitted to their charge but without any imposition of hands as in other Churches That some convenient pension be assigned to every Minister for the term of life except he deserve to be deprived with some provision to be made after his decease for his Wife and Children That the bounds of the former Diocesses being contracted or enlarged there shall be ten or twelve Superintendents appointed in the place of the former Bishops who are to have the
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
the Kings Person and maintain his Power against the practices and attempts of a prevalent Faction which openly appeared in favour of his Mothers pretensions And in this course he much desired to keep the King when he had took the Government upon himself as before was said prevailing with him much against the mind of most of the Lords to send an Ambassador for that purpose Which put such fears and jealousies into the heads of the French on whom the Sâ—ots had formerly depended upon all occasions that they thought â—it to countermine the English party in the Court and so blow them up No better Engine for this purpose then the Lord Esme Stewart Seignieur of Aubigny in France and Brothers Son to Matthew the late Earl of Lenox the Young Kings Grandfather By him it was conceived that they might not onely work the King to the party of France but get some ground for re-establishing the old Religion or at least to gain some countenance for the Favourers and Professors of it With these Instructions he prepares to the Court of Scotland makes himself known unto the King and by the affability of his conversation wins so much upon him that no Honor or Preferment was thought great enough for so dear a Kinsman The Earldom of Lenox being devolved upon the King by the death of his Grandfather was first conferred on Robert Bishop of Orknay one of the Natural Sons of King Iames V. Which he to gratifie the King and oblige the Favorite resigned again into his hands in recompence whereof he is preferred unto the title of Earl of March. As soon as he had made this Resignation of the Earldom of Lenox the King confers it presently on his Cosin Aubigny who studied to appear more serviceable to him every day then other And that his service might appear the more considerable a report is cunningly spread abroad that the Earl of Morton had a purpose to convey the King into England by means whereof the Scots would forfeit all the Priviledges which they held France Morton sufficiently clear'd himself from any such practice But howsoever the suspicion prevailed so far that it was thought fit by those of the Adverse party to appoint a Lord-Chamberlain who was to have the care of His Majesties Person and that a Guard of twenty four Noblemen should be assigned to the said Lord-Chamberlain for that end and purpose Which Trust and Honor was immediately conferred on the Earl of Lenox who had been sworn to the Council much about that time and within less then two years after was created Duke 50. The sudden Preferments of this man being well known to be a professed Votary of the Church of Rome encouraged many Priests and Jesuits to repair into Scotland who were sufficiently practical in propagating the Opinions and advancing the interest of that Church Which gave occasion to the Brethren to exclaim against him and many times to fall exceeding foul on the King himself The King appears sollicitous for their satisfaction and deals so effectually with his Kinsman that he was willing to receive instruction from some of their Ministers by whom he is made a real Proselyte to the Religion then establish'd which he declared by making profession of his Faith in the great Church of Edenborough and his diligent frequenting the Church at their Prayers and Sermons But it hapned very unfortunately for him that some Dispensations sent from Rome were intercepted whereby the Catholicks were permitted to promise swear subscribe and do what else should be required of them if still they kept their hearts and secretly imployed their counsels for the Church of Rome Against this blow the Gentleman could find no buckler nor was there any ready way either to take off the suspicions or to still the clamors which by the Presbyterian Brethren were raised against him Their out-cries much encreased by the severities then shewed to the Earl of Morton whom they esteemed to be a most assured Friend as indeed he was to their Religion though indeed in all points not corresponding with them to the book of Discipline For so it was that to break off all hopes of fastning a dependance on the Realm of England Morton was publickly accused at the Council Table for being privy to the Murther of His Majesties Father committed to the Castle of Edenborough on the second of Ianuary removed to Dunbritton on the twentieth Where having remained above four moneths he was brought back to Edenborough in the end of May condemned upon the first of Iune and the next day executed His Capital Accuser being admitted to sit Judge upon him 51. This news exceedingly perplexed the Queen of England she had sent Bows and Randolph at several times to the King of Scots who were to use their best endeavours as well to lessen the Kings favour to the Earl of Lenox as to preserve the life of Morton For the effecting of which last a promise was made by Randolph unto some of his Friends both of men and money But as Walsingham sent word from France she had not took the right course to effect her purpose She had of late been negligent in paying those persons which had before confirmed the Scots to the English interest which made them apt to tack about and to apply themselves to those who would bid most for them And yet the business at the present was not gone so far but that they might have easily been reduced unto her devotion if we had now sent them ready money instead of promises for want whereof that Noble Gentleman so cordially affected to Her Majesties service was miserably cast away Which quick advice though it came over-late to preserve his life came time enough to put the Queen into a way for recovering Her Authority amongst the Scots of which more hereafter Nor were the Ministers less troubled at it then the Queen of England imputing unto Lenox the contrivance of so sad a Tragedy Somewhat before this time he had been taxed in the Pulpit by Drury one of the Brethren of Edenborough for his unsoundness in Religion and all means used to make him odious with the people For which committed by the Council to the Castle of Edenborough he was not long after at the earnest intreaty of his Fellow-Ministers and some promise on his own part for his good behaviour restored again unto his charge But after Mortons death some other occasions coming in he breaks out again and mightily exclaims against him insomuch that the King gave order to the Provost of Edenborough to see him removed out of the Town The Magistrate advises him to leave the Town of his own accord But he must first demand the pleasure of the Kirk convened at the same time in an Assembly Notwithstanding whose Mediation he was forced to leave the Town a little while to which he was brought back in Triumph within few moneths after A Fast was also kept by order of the said Assembly For the
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
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
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
directly of the Spirit of God nothing of those impurities and prophanations of the Church of England Hereupon followed a defection from the Church it self not as before amongst the Presbyterians from some Offices in it Browns Followers which from him took the name of Brownists refusing obstinately to joyn with any Congregation with the rest of the people for hearing the Word preached the Sacraments administred and any publick act of Religious Worship This was the first gathering of Churches which I finde in England and for the justifying hereof he caused his Books to be dispersed in most parts of the Realm Which tending as apparently to Sedition brought both the Dispersers of them within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. Of which we are informed by Stow that Elias Thasker was hanged at Bury on the fourth of Iune and Iohn Copping on the sixth of the same Month for spreading certain Books seditiously penned by Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer established by the Laws of this Realm as many of their Books as could be found being burnt before them 31. As for the Writer of the Books and the first Author of the Schism he was more favourably dealt with then these wretched instruments and many other of his Followers in the times succeeding Being convented before Dr. Edmond Freak then Bishop of Norwich and others of the Queens Commissioners in conjunction with him he was by them upon his refractory carriage committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Norwich But being a near kinsman by his Mother to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh he was at his request released from his imprisonment and sent to London where some course was taken to reclaim him if it might be possible totally or in part at least as God pleased to bless it Whitgift by this time had attained to the See of Canterbury a man of excellent patience and dexterity in dealing with such men as were so affected By whose fair usage powerful Reasons and exemplary piety he was prevailed upon so far as to be brought unto a tolerable compliance with the Church of England In which good humour he was favourably dismist by the Arch-bishop and by the lord-Lord-Treasurer Burleigh to the care of his Father to the end that being under his eye and dealt with in a kinde and temperate manner he might in time be well recovered and finally withdrawn from all the Reliques of his fond opinions Which Letters of his bear date on the 8 of October 1585. But long he had not staid in his Fathers house when he returned unto his vomit and proving utterly incorrigible was dismist again the good old Gentleman being resolved upon this point that he would not own him for a Son who would not own the Church of England for his Mother But at the last though not till he had passed through two and thirty prisons as he used to brag by the perswasions of some Friends and his own necessities the more powerful Orators of the two he was prevailed with to accept of a place called A Church in Northamptonshire beneficed with cure of Souls to which he was presented by Thomas Lord Burleigh after Earl of Exon and thereunto admitted by the Bishop of Peterborough upon his promise not to make any more disturbances in the proceedings of the Church A Benefice of good value which might tempt him to it the rather in regard that he was excused as well from preaching as from performing any other part of the publick Ministry which Offices he discharged by an honest Curate and allowed him such a competent maintainance for it as gave content unto the Bishop who had named the man And on this Benefice he lived to a very great age not dying till the year 1630 and then dying in Northampton Gaol not on the old account of his inconformity but for breach of the Peace A most unhappy man to the Church of England in being the Author of a Schism which he could not close and most unfortunate to many of his Friends and Followers who suffered death for standing unto those conclusions from which he had withdrawn himself divers years before 32. But it is time that we go back again to Cartwright upon whose principles and positions he first raised this Schism Which falling out so soon upon the Execution which was done on Stubs could not but put a great rebuke upon his spirit and might perhaps have tended more to his discouragement had not his sorrows been allayed and sweetned by a Cordial which was sent from Beza sufficient to revive a half-dying brother Concerning which there is no more to be premised but that Geneva had of late been much wasted by a grievous pestilence and was somewhat distressed at this time by the Duke of Savoy Their peace not to be otherwise procured but by paying a good sum of money and money not to be obtained but by help of their Friends On this account he writes to Travers being then Domestick Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh but so that Cartwright was to be acquainted with the Tenour of it that by the good which the one might do upon the Queen by the means of his Patron and the great influence which the other had on all his party the contribution might amount to the higher pitch But as for so much of the said Letter as concerns our business it is this that followeth viz. If as often dear Brother as I have remembred thee and our Cartwright so often I should have written unto thee you had been long since overwhelmed with my Letters no one day passing wherein I do not onely think of you and your matters which not onely our ancient Friendship but the greatness of those affairs wherein you take pains seems to require at my hands But in regard that you were fallen into such times wherein my silence might be safer far then my writing I have though most unwillingly been hitherto silent Since which time understanding that by Gods Grace the heats of some men are abated I could not suffer this my Friend to come unto you without particular Letters from me that I may testifie my self to be the same unto you as I have been formerly as also that at his return I may be certified of the true state of your affairs After which Preamble he acquaints him with the true cause of his writing the great extremities to which that City was reduced and the vast debts in which they were plunged whereby their necessities were grown so grievous that except they were relieved from other parts they could not be able to support them And then he addes I beseech thee my dear Brother not onely to go on in health with thy daily prayers but that if you have any power to prevail with some persons shew us by what honest means you can how much you love us in the Lord. Finally having certified him of other Letters which he had writ to certain Noblemen and to all the Bishops
to wonder and much more marvelled that the Bishops had not yet suppressed the Puritans some way or other Pandocheus is made to tell him That one of their Preachers had affirmed in the Pulpit That there were One hundred thousand of them in England and that their Number in all places did encrease continually 10. By this last brag about their Numbers and somewhat which escaped from the mouth of Paul touching his hopes of seeing the Consistorian Discipline erected shortly it may be gathered That they had a purpose to proceed in their Innovations out of a hope to terrifie the State to a compliance by the strength of their Party But if that failed they would then do as Penry had advised and threatned that is to say they would present themselves with a Petition to the Houses of Parliament to the delivering whereof One hundred thousand Hands should be drawn together In the mean time it was thought fit to dissemble their purposes and to make tryal of such other means as appeared less dangerous To which end they present with one Hand a Petition to the Convocation in which it was desired That they might be freed from all Subscriptions and with the other publish a seditious Pamphlet entituled A Complaint of the Commons for a Learned Ministry But for the putting of their Counsels in execution they were for the present at a stand The Book of Discipline upon a just examination was not found so perfect but that it needed a review and the review thereof is referred to Traverse By whom being finished after a tedious expectation it was commended to the Brethren and by them approved But the worst was it was not so well liked of in the Houses of Parliament as to pass for current which so incensed those meek-spirited men that they fell presently to threatning and reviling all who opposed them in it They had prepared their way to the Parliament then sitting Anno 1586 by telling them That if the Reformation they desired were not granted they should betray God his Truth and the whole Kingdom that they should declare themselves to be an Assembly wherein the Lords Cause could not be heard wherein the felicity of miserable men could not be respected wherein Truth Religion and Piety could bear no sway an Assembly that willingly called for the Judgments of God upon the whole Realm and finally that not a man of their seed should prosper be a Parliament-man or bear rule in England any more 11. This necessary preparation being thus premised they tender to the Parliament A Book of the form of Common-Prayer by them desired containing also in effect the whole pretended Discipline so revised by Traverse and their Petition in behalf thereof was in these words following viz. May it therefore please your Majesty c. that the Book hereunto annexed c. Entituled A Book of the Form of Common-Prayers and Administration of Sacraments c. and every thing therein contained c. may be from henceforth put in use and practised through all your Majesty's Dominions c. But this so little edified with the Queen or that Grave Assembly that in the drawing up of a General Pardon to be passed in Parliament there was an Exception of all those that committed any offence against the Act for the Uniformity of Common-Prayers or that were Publishers of Seditious Books or Disturbers of Divine Service And to say the truth the Queen had little reason to approve of that Form of Discipline in which there was so little consideration of the Supreme Magistrate in having either vote or place in any of their Synodical Meetings unless he be chosen for an Elder or indicting their Assemblies either Provincial or National or what else soever or insomuch as nominating the particular time or place when and where to hold them or finally in requiring his assent to any of their Constitutions All which they challenge to themselves with far greater arrogancy than ever was exercised by the Pope or any Bishop or inferior Minister under his Command during the times of greatest Darkness But the Brethren not considering what just Reason the Queen had to reject their Bill and yet fearing to fall foul upon her in regard of the danger they let flye at the Parliament in this manner that is to say That they should be in danger of the terrible Mass of God's Wrath both in this life and that to come and that for their not abrogating the Episcopal Government they might well hope for the Favour and Entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law the Favour and loving-Countenance of Jesus Christ they should never see 12. It may seem strange that Queen ELIZABETH should carry such a hard hand on her English Puritans as well by severe Laws and terrible Executions as by excluding them from the benefit of a General Pardon and yet protect and countenance the Presbyterians in all places else But that great Monster in Nature called Reason of State is brought to plead in her defence by which she had been drawn to aid the French Hugonots against their King to supply the Rebel Scots with Men Money Arms and Ammunition upon all occasions and hitherto support those of the Belgick Provinces against the Spaniard Now she receives these last into her protection being reduced at that time unto great Extremities partly by reason of the death of the Prince of Orange and partly in regard of the great Successes of the Prince of Parma In which extremity they offered her the Soveraignty of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland to which they frame for her an unhandsom Title grounded on her descent from Philippa Wife of Edward the third Sister of William the third Earl of Heynalt Holland c. But she not harkning to that offer about the Soveraignty as a thing too invidious and of dangerous consequence cheerfully yeelded to receive them into her protection to raise an Army presently toward their defence consisting of Five thousand Foot and One thousand Horse with Money Ammunition Arms and all other necessaries and finally to put the same Arms so appointed under the Command of some Person of Honour who was to take the charge and trust of so great a Business The Confederates on the other side being very prodigal of that which was none of their own delivered into her hands the Keys of the Countrey that is to say the Towns of Brill and Flushing with the Fort of Ramekins And more then so as soon as the Earl of Leicester came amongst them in the Head of this Army which most ambitiously he affected for some other Ends they put into his hands the absolute Government of these Provinces gave him the Title of His Excellency and generally submitted to him with more outward cheerfulness than ever they had done to the King of Spain It is not to be thought but that the Presbyterian Discipline went on succesfully in those Provinces under this new Governor who having countenanced them in England
against the Laws might very well afford them all his best assistances when Law and Liberty seemed to speak in favour of it But being there was nothing done by them which was more than ordinary as little more than ordinary could be done amongst them after they had betrayed their Countrey to the Power of Strangers We shall leave him to pursue their Warrs and return for England where we shall find the Queen of Scots upon the point of acting the last part of her Tragedy 13. Concerning which it may not be unfit to recapitulate so much of Her story as may conduct us fairly to the knowledg of her present condition Immediately on the death of Queen MARY she had taken on her self the Title and Arms of England which though she did pretend to have been done by the command of her Husband and promised to disclaim them both in the Treaty of Edenborough yet neither were the Arms obliterated in her Plate and Hangings after the death of that Husband nor would she ever ratifie and confirm that Treaty as had been conditioned On this first grudg Queen ELIZABETH furniâ—heth the Scots both with Men and Arms to expel the French affords them such a measure both of Money and Countenance as made them able to take the Field against their Queen to take her Prisoner to depose her and finally to compel her to forsake the Kingdom In which Extremity she lands in Cumberland and casts her self upon the favour of Queen ELIZABETH by whom she was first confined to Carlisle and afterwards committed to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury Upon the death of FRANCIS the Second her first Husband the King of Spain designed her for a Wife to his Eldest Son But the Ambition of the young Prince spurred him on so fast that he brake his Neck in the Career The Duke of Norfolk was too great for a private Subject of a Revenue not inferior to the Crown of Scotland insomuch that the Queen was counselled when she came first to the Throne either to take him for her Husband or to cut him off He is now drawn into the Snare by being tempted to a hope of Marriage with the Captive-Queen which Leicester and the rest who had moved it to him turned to his destruction Don Iohn of Austria Governour of the Netherlands for the King of Spain had the like design that by her Title he might raise himself to the Crown of England To which end he recalled the Spanish Soldiers out of Italy to whose dismission he had yeelded when he first came to that Government and thereby gave Q. ELIZABETH a sufficient colour to aid the Provinces against him But his aspirings cost him deer for he fell soon after The Guisards and the Pope had another project which was To place her first on the Throne of England and then to find an Husband of sufficient Power to maintain her in it For the effecting of which Project the Pope commissionated his Priests and Jesuits and the Guisards employed their Emissaries of the English Nation by Poyson Pistol open Warr or secret practises to destroy the one that so they might advance the other to the Regal Diadem 14. With all these Practises and Designs it was conceived that the Imprisoned Queen could not be ignorant and many strong presumptions were discovered to convict her of it Upon which grounds the Earl of Leicester drew the form of an Association by which he bound himself and as many others as should enter into it To make enquiry against all such persons as should attempt to invade the Kingdom or raise Rebellion or should attempt any evil against the Queen's Person to do her any manner of hurt from or by whomsoever that layed any claim to the Crown of England And that that Person by whom or for whom they shall attempt any such thing shall be altogether uncapable of the Crown shall be deprived of all manner of Right thereto and persecuted to the death by all the Queen 's Loyal Subjects in case they shall be found guilty of any such Invasion Rebellion or Treason and should be so publickly declared Which Band or Association was confirmed in the Parliament of this year ending the 29 th of March Ann. 1585 exceedingly extolled for an Act of Piety by those very men who seemed to abominate nothing more than the like Combination made not long before between the Pope the Spaniard and the House of Guise called the Holy League which League was made for maintenance of the Religion then established in the Realm of France and the excluding of the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde and the rest of the House of Bourbon from their succession to the Crown as long as they continued Enemies to that Religion The Brethren in this case not unlike the Lamiae who are reported to have been stone-blind when they were at home but more than Eagle-sighted when they went abroad Put that they might not trust to their own strength only Queen ELIZABETH tyes the French King to her by investing him with the Robes and Order of St. George called the Garter She draws the King of Scots to unite himself unto her in a League Offensive and Defensive against all the World and under colour of some danger to Religion by that Holy League she brings all the Protestant Princes of Germany to confederate with her 15. And now the Queen of Scots is brought to a publick Tryal accelerated by a new Conspiracy of Babington Tichborn and the rest in which nothing was designed without her privity And it is very strange to see how generally all sorts of people did contribute toward her destruction the English Protestants upon an honest apprehension of the Dangers to which the Person of their Queen was subject by so many Conspiracies the Puritans for fear lest she should bring in Popery again if she came to the Crown the Scots upon the like conceit of over-throwing their Presbyteries and ruinating the whole Machina of their Devices if ever she should live to be Queen of England The Earl of Leicester and his Faction in the Court had their Ends apart which was To bring the Imperial Crown of this Realm by some means or other into the Family of the Dudley's His Father had before designed it by marrying his Son Guilford with the Lady Iane descended from the younger Sister of K. HENRY the Eighth And he projects to set it on the Head of the Earl of Huntington who had married his Sister and looked upon himself as the direct Heir of George Duke of Clarence And that they might not want a Party of sufficient strength to advance their Interest they make themselves the Heads of the Puritan Faction the Earl of Leicester in the Court and the Earl of Huntingdon in the Countrey For him he obtaineth of the Queen the command of the North under the Title of Lord President of the Councel iu York to keep out the Scots and for himself the Conduct
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-hand to the redress of these Enormities being indeed a matter of State and not of the least moment I shall think my coming unto this Place to have been for my punishment and my hap very hard that when I think to deserve best and in a manner consume my self to satisfie that which God Her Majesty and the Church requireth of me I should be evilly rewarded Sed meliora spero It is objected by some that my desire of Uniformity by way of Subscription is for the better maintenance of my Book They are mine Enemies that say so but I trust my Friends have a better opinion of me Why should I seek for any confirmation of my Book after twelve years approbation Or what shall I get thereby more than already I have Yet if Subscription may confirm it it is confirmed long ago by the Subscription of almost all the Clergy of England before my time Mine Enemies likewise and the slanderous Tongues of this uncharitable Sect report that I am revolted bâ—come a Papist and I know not what But it proceedeth from thâ—â—r Leudness and not from any desert of mine 19. I am further burthened with Wilfulness I hope my Friends are better perswaded of me to whose Consciences I appeal It is strange that a man of my place dealing by so good a warrant as I do should be so encountred and for not yeelding counted Wilful But I must be content Vincit qui patitur There is a difference betwixt Wilfulness and Constancy I have taken upon me by the Place
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
City of Embden and afterwards in all places under his command prohibiting the exercise of all Religion but the Lutheran only Which Prohibition notwithstanding some Anabaptists from the Neighbouring Westphalia found way to plant themselves in Embden where liberty of Trade was freely granted to all comers which allured thither also many Merchants and Artificers with their Wives and Families out of the next-adjoining Provinces of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland then subject to the King of Spain Who being generally Calvinians in point of Doctrine were notwithstanding suffered to plant there also in regard of the great benefit which accrued unto it by their Trade and Manufactures But nothing more encreased the Power and Wealth of that City than the Trade of England removed from Antwerp thither on occasion of the Belgick Troubles and the great fear they had conceived of the Duke of Alva who seemed to breathe nothing but destruction unto their Religion And though the English Trade was removed not long after unto Hambourgh upon the hope of greater Priviledges and Immunities than they had at Embden yet still they kept a Factory in it which added much to the improvement of their Wealth and Power insomuch that the Inhabitants of this Town only are affirmed to have Sixty Ships of One hundred Tun a-piece and Six hundred lesser Barks of their own besides Seven hundred Busses and Fishing Boats maintained for the most part by their Herring-fishing on the Coast of England 44. Having attained unto this Wealth they grew proud withall and easily admitting the Calvinian Doctrines began to introduce also the Genevian Discipline connived at by Ezardus the second the Son of Enno in respect of the profit which redounded by them to his Exchequer though they began to pinch upon him to the diminution of his Power In which condition it remained till his marriage with Catharine the Daughter of Gustavus Ericus King of Sweden who being zealously addicted to the Lutheran Forms and sensible of those great Incroachments which had been made upon the Earl's Temporal Jurisdiction by the Consistorians perswaded him to look better to his own Authority and to regain what he had lost by that Connivence Something was done for the recovering of his Power but it went on slowly hoping to compass that by time and dissimulation which he could not easily obtain by force of Arms. After whose death and the short Government of Enno the second the matter was more stoutly followed by Rodolphus the Nephew of Catharine who did not only curb the Consistorians in the exercise of their Discipline but questioned many of those Priviledges which the unwariness of his Predecessors had indulged unto them The Calvinians had by this time made so strong a Party that they were able to remonstrate against their Prince complaining in the same That the Earl had violated their Priviledges and infringed their Liberties That he had interposed his Power against Right and Reason in matters which concerned the Church and belonged to the Consistory That he assumed unto himself the Power of distributing the Alms or publick Collections by which they use to bind the poor to depend upon them That he prohibited the exercise of all Religions except only the Confession of Ausberg And that he would not stand to the Agreement which was made betwixt them for interdicting all Appeals to the Chamber of Spires Having prepared the way by this Remonstrance they take an opportunity when the Earl was absent arm themselves and seize by force upon his Castle demolished part of it which looks toward the Town and possest themselves of all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition with an intent hereafter to employ them against him And this being done they govern all Affairs in the Name of the Senate without relation to their Prince making themselves a Free-Estate or Commonwealth like their Belgick Neighbours 45. Extreamly moved with this affront and not being able otherwise to reduce them to a sense of their duty he borrows Men and Arms from Lubeck to compel them to it With which assistance he erects a Fort on the further side of the Haven to spoil their Trade and by impoverishing the people to regain the Town The Senate hereupon send abroad their Edicts to the Nobility and Commons of East-Friesland it self requiring them not to aid their own lawful Prince with Men Arms or Money threatning them if they did the contrary to stop the course of all Provisions which they had from their City and by breaking down their Dams and Sluces to let the Ocean in upon them and drown all their Countrey Which done they make their Applications to the States of Holland requiring their assistance in that common Cause to which they had been most encouraged by their Example not doubting of their Favour to a City of their own Religion united to them by a long intercourse of Trade and resemblance of Manners and not to be deserted by them without a manifest betraying of their own Security All this the States had under their consideration But they consider this withall That if they should assist the Embdeners in a publick way the Earl would presently have recourse for some aid from the Spaniard which might draw a Warr upon them on that side where they lay most open Therefore they so contrived the matter with such Art and Cunning that carrying themselves no otherwise than as Arbiters and Umpires between the Parties they discharged some Companies of Soldiers which they had in West-Friesland who presently put themselves into the Pay of the Embdens and thereby caused the Earl to desist from his Intrenchments on the other side of the Haven After which followed nothing but Warrs and Troubles between the City and the Earl till the year 1606. At what time by the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some other Honourable Friends the differences were compromised to this effect That all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition which were found in the Castle should be restored unto the Earl That he should have to his own use the whole Profit of the Imposts which were laid on Wine and half the benefit of those Amercements or Fines which should be raised upon Delinquents together with the sole Royalties both of Fishing and Hunting And on the other side That the Embdeners should have free Trade with all the Profits and Emoluments belonging to it which should be granted to them by Letters Patents But for admitting him to any part of the Publick Government or making restitution of his House or Castles the ancient Seat of his abode as there was nothing yeelded or agreed on then so could he never get possession of them from that time to this Which said we must cross over again into the Isle of Brittain where we shall find the English Puritans climbing up by some new devices and the Scottish Presbyterians tumbling down from their former height till they were brought almost to as low a fall as their English Brethren AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The
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
Vniversities than for simple Auditories Which said Instructions bearing date at Windsor on the 10 th of August 1622 opened the way to the suppression of that heat and fierceness by which the Calvinists had been acted in some years fore-going 29. During which Heats and Agitations between the Parties a Plot was set on foot to subvert the Church in the undoing of the Clergy and there could be no readier way to undo the Clergy than to reduce them unto such a Beggerly Competency for by that name they love to call it as they had brought them to in all the rest of the Calvinian or Genevian Churches This the design of many hands by whom all passages had been scored in Cotton's Library which either did relate to the point of Tythes or the manner of payment But the Collections being brought together and the Work compleated there appeared no other Name before it than that of Selden then of great Credit in the World for his known Abilities in the retired Walks of Learning The History of Tythes writ by such an Author could not but raise much expectation amongst some of the Laity who for a long time had gaped after the Church's Patrimony and now conceived and hoped to swallow it down without any chewing The Author highly magnified the Book held unanswerable and all the Clergy looked on but as Pigmies to that great Goliah who in his Preface had reproached them with Ignorance and Laziness upbraided them with having nothing to keep up their Credit but Beard Title and Habit and that their studies reached no further than the Breviary the Postills and the Polyanthea Provoked wherewith he was so galled by Tillesly so gagged by Mountague and stung by Netles that he never came off in any of his Undertakings with more loss of Credit By which he found that some of the Ignorant and Lazy Clergy were of as retired Studies as himself and could not only match but over-match him too in his own Philology But the chief Governours of the Church went a shorter way and not expecting till the Book was answered by particular men resolved to seek for reparation of the wrong from the Author himself upon an Information to be brought against him in the High Commission Fearing the issue of the business and understanding what displeasures were conceived against him by the King and the Bishops he made his personal appearance in the open Court at Lambeth on the 28 th day of Ianuary 1618 where in a full Court he tendred his submission and acknowledgment all of his own hand-writing in these following words My Lords I most humbly acknowledg my Error which I have committed in publishing The History of Tythes and especially in that I have at all by shewing any Interpretations of Holy Scriptures by medling with Councils Fathers or Canons or by whatsoever occurrs in it offered any occasion of Argument against any Right of Maintenance â—ure Divino of the Ministers of the Gospel beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment together with the unfeigned Protestation of my grief for that through it I have so incurred both His Majesty's and your Lordships Displeasure conceived against me in behalf of the Church of England JOHN SELDEN This for the present was conceived to be the most likely Remedy for the preventing of the Mischief but left such smart Remembrances in the mind of the Author as put him on to act more vigorously for the Presbyterians of which more hereafter by whom he seemed to be engaged in the present Service 30. But it is now high time for us to cross over St. George's Channel and take a short view of the poor and weak Estate of the Church of Ireland where these Designs were carried on with better Fortune A Church which for the most part had been modelled by the Reformation which was made in England But lying at a greater distance and more out of sight it was more easily made a prey to all Invaders the Papists prevailing on the one side and the Puritans on the other getting so much ground that the poor Protestants seemed to be crucified in the midst between them Some Order had been taken for establishing the English Liturgy together with the Bible in the English Tongue in all the Churches of that Kingdom which not being understood by the natural Irish left them as much in Ignorance and Superstition as in the darkest times of the Papal Tyranny And for the Churches of the Pale which very well understood the English Language they suffered themselves to be seduced from the Rules of the Church and yeelded to the prevalency of those zealous Ministers who carried on the Calvinian Project with their utmost power In order whereunto it was held necessary to expose the Patrimony of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches to a publick Port-sale that being as much weakned in their Power as they were in Estate they might be rendred inconsiderable in the eyes of the people Hence-forward such a general devastation of the Lands of the Church that some Episcopal-Sees were never since able to maintain a Bishop but have been added to some others two or three for failing to make up somewhat like a Competency for an Irish Prelate The Bishoprick of Ardagh was thereupon united unto that of Kill more but the Cathedral of the one together with the Bishop's House adjoyning to it had been levelled with the very ground the other in some better repair but neither furnished with Bell Font or Chalice The like union had been also made between the Bishopricks of Clonfert and Killmare Ossery and Kilkenny Down and Connour Waterford and Lismore Cork and Rosse c. and was projected by the late Lord Primate between the See of Kilfanore and that of Killallow not to descend any more particulars of the like Conjunctions 31. Such also were the Fortunes of the Rural Clergy whose Churches in some places lay unrooted in others unrepaired and much out of order The Tythes annexed for the most part to Religions Houses fell by the ruin of those Houses to the Power of the Crown and by the Kings and Queens of England were aliened from the Church and by them became Lay-Fees The Vicaridges generally so ill provided that in the whole Province of Connaught most of the Vicars Pensions came but to forty shillings per annum and in some places but sixteen only And of such Vicaridges as appeared to be better endowed three four or five were many times ingrossed into one man's hands who neither understood the Language nor performed the Service In which respect it was no marvel if the people took up that Religion which came next to hand such as did either serve most fitly to continue them in their former Errors or to secure them in the quiet enjoyment of those Estates which they had ravished from the Church and still possessed by the Title of the first Usurpers In which estate we find the Church of Ireland at the death
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
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
condemned the Calling of Bishops the Articles of Perth the Liturgy and the Book of Canons as inconsistent with the Scripture and the Kirk of Scotland They proceed next to the rejecting of the five controverted points which they called Arminianism and finally decreed a general subscription to be made to these Constitutions For not conforming whereunto the Bishops and a great part of the Regular Clergy are expelled the Countrey although they had been animated unto that Refusal as well by the Conscience of their duty as by his Majesty's Proclamation which required it of them 5. They could not hope that the King's Lenity so abused might not turn to Fury and therefore thought it was high time to put themselves into Arms to call back most of their old Soldiers from the Warrs in Germany and almost all their Officers from such Commands in the Netherlands whom to maintain they intercept the King's Revenue and the Rents of the Bishops and lay great Taxes on the people taking up Arms and Ammunition from the States Vnited with whom they went on Ticket and long days of payment for want of ready money for their satisfaction But all this had not served their turn if the King could have been perswaded to have given them battel or suffered any part of that great Army which he brought against them to lay waste their Countrey Whose tenderness when they once perceived and knew withall how many friends they had about him they thought it would be no hard matter to obtain such a Pacification as might secure them for the present from an absolute Conquest and give them opportunity to provide better for themselves in the time to come upon the reputation of being able to divert or break such a puissant Army And so it proved in the event For the King had no sooner retired his Forces both by Sea and Land and given his Soldiers a License to return to their several Houses but the Scots presently protest against all the Articles of the Pacification put harder pressures on the King's Party than before they suffered keep all their Officers in pay by their Messengers and Letters apply themselves to the French King for support and succours By whom encouraged under-hand and openly countenanced by some Agents of the Cardinal Richelieu who then governed all Affairs in France they enter into England with a puissant Army making their way to that Invasion by some Printed Pamphlets which they dispersed into all parts thereby to colour their Rebellions and bewitch the people 6. And now the English Presbyterians take the courage to appear more publickly in the defence of the Scots and their proceedings than they had done hitherto A Parliament had been called on the 13 th of April for granting Moneys to maintain the Warr against the Scots But the Commons were so backward in complying with the King's Desires that he found himself under the necessity of dissolving the Parliament which else had blasted his Design and openly declared in favour of the publick Enemies This puts the discontented Rabble into such a fury that they violently assaulted Lambeth-House but were as valiantly repulsed and the next day break open all the Prisons in Southwark and release all the Prisoners whom they found committed for their Inconformities Benstead the Ring-leader in these Tumults is apprehended and arraigned condemned and executed the whole proceeding being grounded on the Statute of the 25 th of K. EDWARD the 3 d for punishing all Treasons and Rebellions against the King But that which threatned greater danger to the King and the Church than either the Arms of the Scots or the Tumults in Southwark was a Petition sent unto the King who was then at York subscribed by sundry Noble-men of the Popular Faction concluded on the 28 th of August carried by the Lord Mandevil and the Lord Howard of Escrigg and finally presented on the third of September In which it was petitioned amongst other things That the present War might be composed without loss of blood That a Parliament should be forthwith called for redress of Grievances amongst which some pretended Innovations in Religion must be none of the least and that the Authors and Counsellors of such Grievances as are there complained of might be there brought to such a Legal Tryal and receive such condign punishment as their Crimes required This hastned the assembling of the great Council of the Peers at York and put the King upon the calling of a Parliament of His own accord which otherwise might be thought extorted by their importunity 7. The Scots in the mean time had put by such English Forces as lay on the South-side of the Tine at the passage of Newborn make themselves Masters of Newcastle deface the goodly Church of Durham bring all the Countreys on the North-side of the Tees under contribution and tax the people to all payments at their only pleasure The Council of Peers and a Petition from the Scots prepare the King to entertain a Treaty with them the managing whereof was chiefly left unto those Lords who had subscribed the Petition before remembred But the third day of November coming on a-pace and the Commissioners seeming desirous to attend in Parliament which was to begin on that day the Treaty is adjourned to London which gave the Scots a more dangerous opportunity to infect that City than all their Emissaries had obtained in the times fore-going Nor was it long before it openly appeared what great power they had upon their Party in that City which animated Pennington attended with some hundreds of inferior note to tender a Petition to the House of Commons against the Government of Bishops here by Law established It was affirmed that this Petition was subscribed by many thousands and it was probable enough to be so indeed But whether it were so or not he gave thereby such an occasion to the House of Commons that they voted down the Canons which had passed in the late Convocation condemned the Bishops and Clergy in great sums of Money which had subscribed to the same decry the Power of all Provincial or National Synods for making any Canons or Constitutions which could bind the Subject until they were confirmed by an Act of Parliament And having brought this general terror on the Bishops and Clergy they impeach the Arch-bishop of High Treason cause him to be committed to the Black Rod and from thence to the Tower Which being done some other of the Bishops and Clergy must be singled out informed against by scandalous Articles and those Articles printed without any consideration either true or false 8. And though a Convocation were at that time sitting yet to encrease the Miseries of a falling-Church it is permitted that a private Meeting should be held in the Deanry of Westminster to which some Orthodox and Conformable Divines were called as a foil to the rest which generally were of Presbyterian or Puritan Principles By them it was proposed That many passages
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
Ammunition for an hour it was some favour to his Soldiers to be taken to Mercy But whatsoever Mercy was exprest to them the poor Town found but little and the Church much less the Town being miserably plundered for no other reason but that they were not able to keep Grandison out had they been so minded Which though it was sufficient to impoverish a more Wealthy City yet Waller had two pulls more at it in the course of the Warr to the undoing of some Families and the spoil of others But it was more defaced by Ogle about three years after in burning down some Houses about the Castle but most of all by pulling down the Bishop's Palace the Deanry and no fewer than eight Prebends Houses sold by the Presbyterians to make money of the Lead and Timber the Iron Glass and Stones which made up those Edifices 23. But for the Church though it was not the first Example of their Reformation according to the practise of the Hugonot-French the Scottish and the Belgick Zealots yet fared it worse in some respects than the other Cathedrals because it fell unto the Scots commanding some Scotizing English to do execution For they not only broke the Organs in pieces and defaced the Carved Work of the Quire containing the story of the Old and New Testament in most excellent Imagery but threw down the Communion-Table and broke down the Rails which they burnt afterwards in an Ale-house and strewed the Pavements of the Quire with the torn leaves and Fragments of the Common-prayer-Books Next they proceeded to the spoiling of the Tombs and Monuments erected to the memory of some eminent Prelates which had been formerly both an Ornament and an Honour to it as namely that of Cardinal Beaufort a principal Benefactor to the Church and Hospital of St. Cross neighbouring near unto the City and that of William Wainflet the Magnificent and sole Founder of Magdalen-Colledg in Oxon. And whereas the Remainders of the Bodies of some Saxon Kings and many Bishops of those times had been gathered into several Leaden Chests by Bishop Fox who lived and flourished in the last times of K. HENRY the 7th the barbarous Soldiers Sacrilegiously threw down those Chests scattered the dust remaining of their Bodies before the wind and threw their bones about the Pavements of the Church They break down as many of the Glass Windows as they could reach with Swords and Pikes and at the rest they threw the Bones of the dead Kings or shot them down with their Muskets the spoil of which Windows could not be repaired for one thousand pounds After all this they seize upon the Communion-Plate the Surplices of the Priests and Quire-men all the rich Hangings and large Cushions of Velvet and the costly Pulpit-clothes somes of which were of Cloath of Silver and others of Gold And finding two Brazen Statua's of K. IAMES and K. CHARLES at the first entrance of the Quire they brake off the two Swords which were placed by their sides and with their own mangled the Crown upon the head of K. CHARLES swearing in scorn That they would bring him back again to his Houses of Parliament 24. This hapned upon Thursday the fifteenth of December and the same Month proved as calamitous to the Church of Chichester which City had received some Soldiers of His Majesty's Party who either were too few to keep it or found it not tenable enough to make any resistance Waller presents himself before it and without any great dispute becomes Master of it by which the Town got little and the Church lost more For upon Innocents-day the Soldiers forcibly break into it where they seize upon the Vestments and Ornaments of the Church together with the Consecrated Plate serving for the Altar not leaving so much as a Cushion for the Pulpit or a Chalice for the blessed Sacrament But this rich spoil being committed by the Marshal and other Officers the rest was left unto the hands and weapons of the common Soldiers who with their Pole-axes did not only break down the Organs but cut in pieces the Communion-Table with the Rail before it They defaced the two Tables of the Law at the East end of the Quire for fear they should rise up against them in the Day of Judgment most miserably made havock of the History of that Churches Foundation which they found on the one side of the South-cross Isle pourtrayed in Artificial manner with the Statues of the Kings of England and coming to the Portraiture of K. EDWARD the sixth they picked out his eyes saying in scorn That all this Mischief came from him in establishing the Book of Common-prayer Which that it might not be officiated as in former times they break open all the Chests and Cupboards in which the Quire-men had laid up their Singing-Books Common-Prayer-Books Gowns and Surplices strewing the Pavements of the Church with the Leaves of the Books but turning the Gowns and Surplices into ready money To all which Acts of Sacrilegious Spoil and Rapine as Waller gave some countenance by his personal presence and in that somewhat worse than Nero as the story tells us So Haslerig gave much more by his Voice and Actions For forcing his way into the Chapter-House he did not only command the Soldiers to break down the Wainscot but seized on all the rich Plate which belonged to the Church And when it was desired that they would leave one Chalice only for the use of the Sacrament answer was most prophanely made by one of the Scots of which Nation the two Houses had employed too many That they might serve the turn with a Wooden Dish Nor were some Presbyterian Zealots in the City of Exeter more favourable to their own Cathedrals than the rude Soldiers were to this where being incensed by some of their Sediâ—ious Preachers they acted over all those outrages of Spoil and Rapine which have been formerly recited and added to them such prodigious and unheard Irreverences by turning the Church into a â—akes and leaving their filth on and about the holy Altar as fills me with Religious horror at the thinking of it 25. But their first Furies in this kind brake out in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury and that of Rochester under the conduct and command of Colonel Sandys one of the Natives of that County who taking some Forces with him to make sure of Canterbury came thiâ—her in the end of August and having got the Keys of the Cathedral into his possession gave a free entrance to the Rabbâ—e which attended on him forcing their way into the Quire they overthrew the Communion-Table tore the Velvet Cloath which they found about it defaced the goodly Screen or Tabernacle-work violated the Monuments of the dead spoiled the Organs brake down the ancient Rails and Seats with the brazen Eagle which did support the Bible forced open the Cupboards of the Singing-men rent some of their Surplices Gowns and Bibles and carried away others mangled all
best assistance to the lawful Ministers for the receiving and enjoying of their Glebes and Tythes With an Injunction to all Sheriffs Mayors and other Ministers of Iustice to be aiding to them and to resist by force of Arms all such as should endeavour to disturb them in their lawful possessions But this served rather for a Declaration of His Majesty's Piety than an Example of His Power For notwithstanding all this Care his faithful Subjects of the Clergy in all parts of the Realm were plundred sequestred and ejected for the Crime of Loyalty some of them never being restored and others most unjustly kept from their Estates till this present year Anno 1660. 32. In the other Proclamation he forbids the tendring or taking of the Covenant before remembred Which Proclamation being short but full of substance shall be recited in His Majesty's own words which are these that follow Whereas saith he there is a printed Paper entituled A Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religion the Honour and Happiness of the King the Peace and Safety of the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the 21 of September last to be printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make some specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against Vs and against the established Religion and Laws of the Kingdom in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and Endeavour to bring in Forreign Forces to invade this Kingdom We do therefore straightly charge and command all Our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever upon their Allegiance that they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby forbid and inhibit them to impose administer or tender the said Covenant as they and every of them will answer the contrary at their utmost and extreamest perils Such was the tenour of this Proclamation of the 9 th of October which though it served for a sufficient testimony of His Majesty's Prudence yet it prevailed as little as the other did For as the Two Houses did extend their Quarters and enlarge their Power so were the Subjects forced more generally to receive this yoak and to submit themselves to those Oaths and Covenants which they could neitâ—â—r take for fear of God's and the King's Displeasure and dared not to refuse for fear of losing all which was dear unto them So that it was esteemed for a special favour as indeed it was for all those which came in on the Oxford Articles to be exempted from the taking of this leud and accursed Covenant by which they were to bind themselves to betray the Church and to stand no further to the King than as he stood for the defence of that Religion which they then allowed of and of those Liberties which they had acquired by what way soever 33. And to say truth it was no wonder that the Presbyterians should impose new Oaths when they had broken all the old or seize upon the Tythes and Glebes of the Regular Clergy when they had sequestred the Estates of the Loyal Gentry and intercepted the Revenues of the King and Queen And it would be no wonder neither that they should seize on the Revenues of the King and Queen when they were grown to such a high degree of impudence as to impeach the Queen of Treason and were resolved of having no more Kings to comptroll their Actions They had already voted for the making of a new Great Seal though so to do was made High Treason by the Statute of K. EDWARD the third that they might expedite their Commissions with the more Authority and add some countenance of Law to the present Warr. Which must be managed in the Name of the King and Parliament the better to abuse the people and add some Reputation to the Crime of their undertakings And being Masters of a Seal they thought themselves in a capacity of acting as a Common-wealth as a State distinct but for the present making use of His Majesty's Name as their State-holder for the ordering of their new Republick But long He must not hold that neither though that was locked up as a Secrete amongst those of the Cabala till it was blurted out by Martin then Knight for Berks. By whom it was openly declared That the felicity of this Nation did not consist in any of the House of STVART Of which His Majesty complained but without reparation And for a further evidence of their good intentions a view is to be taken of the old Regalia and none so fit as Martin to perform that Service Who having commanded the Sub-dean of Westminster to bring him to the place in which they were kept made himself Master of the Spoil And having forced open a great Iron Chest took out the Crowns the Robes the Swords and Scepter belonging anciently to K. EDWARD the Confessor and used by all our Kings at their Inaugurations With a scorn greater than his Lusts and the rest of His Vices he openly declares That there would be no further use of those Toys and Trifles And in the jollity of that humour invests George Withers an old Puritan Satyrist in the Royal Habiliments Who being thus Crown'd and Royally array'd as right well became him first marcht about the Room with a stately Garb and afterwards with a thousand Apish and Ridiculous actions exposed those Sacred Ornaments to contempt and laughter Had the Abuse been script and whipt as it should have been the foolish Fellow possibly might have passed for a Prophet though he could not be reckoned for a Poet. 34. But yet the mischief stayed not here Another visit is bestowed upon these Regalia not to make merry with them but some money of them Mildmay a Puritan in Faction and Master of the Jewel-House by his Place and Office conceived that Prey to belong properly to him and having sold the King must needs buy the Crowns But being as false to his new Masters as he was to his old he first pickt out the richest Jewels and then compounded for the rest at an easie rate The like ill fortune fell unto the Organs Plate Coaps Hangings Altar-Cloaths and many other costly Utensils which belonged to the Church all which were either broke in pieces or seized upon and plundered for the use of the State Amongst the rest there was a goodly Challice of the purest Gold which though it could not be less worth than 300 l. was sold to Allyn a decayed Gold-Smith but then a Member of the House at the rate of 60 l. The Birds being flown the Nest is presently designed to the use of the Soldiers who out of wantonness and not for want of Lodging in that populous City must be quartered there And being quartered they omitted none of those shameless Insolencies which had been acted by their Fellows in other Churches For they not only
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
a fresh Body of Horse which reach'd him not until the Evening before the fight and secondly by the intercepting of some Letters sent from General Goring in which His Majesty was advised to decline all occasion of Battel till he could come up to him with his Western Forces This hastned the Design of fighting in the adverse Party who fall upon the King's Army in the Fields near Naisby till that time an obscure Village in Northamptonshire on Saturday the 19th of Iune the Battels joined and at first His Majesty had the better of it and might have had so at the last if Prince Rupert having routed one Wing of the Enemy's Horse had not been so intent upon the chase of the Flying-Enemy that he left his Foot open to the other Wing Who pressing hotly on them put them to an absolute Rout and made themselves Masters of his Camp Carriage and Cannon and amongst other things of His Majesty's Cabinet In which they found many of his Letters most of them written to the Queen which afterwards were published by Command of the Houses to their great dishonour For whereas the Athenians on the like success had intercepted a Packet of Letters from Philip King of Macedon their most bitter Enemy unto several Friends they met with one amongst the rest to the Queen Olympias the rest being all broke open before the Council that they might be advertised of the Enemy's purposes the Letter to the Queen was returned untouch't the whole Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to pry into the Conjugal Secrets betwixt Man and Wife A Modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Hilladius Bisantinus an ancient Writer as the chief Leading-men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for want of it in succeeding Stories 47. But to proceed this miserable Blow was followed by the surrendry of Bristol the storming of Bridgwater the surprise of Hereford and at the end of Winter with the loss of Chester During which time the King moved up and down with a Running-Army but with such ill Fortune as most commonly attends a declining-side In which distress he comes to his old Winter-Quarters not out of hope of bringing his Affairs to a better condition before the opening of the Spring From Oxon he sends divers Messages to the Houses of Parliament desiring that He might be suffered to return to Westminster and offering for their security the whole Power of the Kingdom the Navy Castles Forts and Armies to be enjoyed by them in such manner and for so long time as they had formerly desired But finding nothing from them but neglect and scorn His Messages despised and His Person vilified He made an offer of Himself to Fairfax who refused also Tired with repulse upon repulse and having lost the small remainder of His Forces near Stow on the Wold He puts Himself in the beginning of May into the hands of the Scots Commissioners residing then at Southwell in the County of Nottingham a Mannor-House belonging to the See of York For the Scots having mastered the Northern parts in the year 1644 spent the next year in harrasing the Countrey even as far as Hereford which they besieged for a time and perhaps had carried it if they had not been called back by the Letters of some special Friends to take care of Scotland then almost reduced to the King's obedience by the Noble Marquess of Montross On which Advertisement they depart from Hereford face Worcester and so marcht Northward From whence they presently dispatch Col. David Leshly with Six thousand Horse and with their Foot employed themselves in the Siege of Newark which brought down their Commissioners to Southwell before remembred From thence the King is hurried in post-haste to the Town of Newcastle which they looked on as their strongest Hold. And being now desirous to make eeven with their Masters to receive the wages of their Iniquity and being desirous to get home in safety with that Spoil and Plunder which they had gotten in their marching and re-marching betwixt Tweed and Hereford they prest the King to fling up all the Towns and Castles which remained in His Power or else they durst not promise to continue Him under their Protection 48. This Turn seemed strange unto the King Who had not put Himself into the Power of the Scots had He not been assured before-hand by the French Ambassador of more courteous usage to whom the Scots Commissioners had engaged themselves not only to receive His Person but all those also which repaired unto Him into their protection as the King signified by His Letters to the Marquess of Ormond But having got Him into their Power they forget those Promises and bring Him under the necessity of writing to the Marquesses of Montross and Ormond to discharge their Soldiers and to His Governours of Towns in England to give up their Garrisons Amongst which Oxford the then Regal City was the most considerable surrendred to Sir Thomas Fairfax upon Midsommer-day And by the Articles of that Surrendry the Duke of York was put into the Power of the Houses of Parliament together with the Great Seal the Signet and the Privy-Seal all which were most despitefully broken in the House of Peers as formerly the Dutch had broke the Seals of the King of Spain when they had cast off all Fidelity and Allegiance to him and put themselves into the Form of a Common-wealth But then to make him some amends they give him some faint hopes of suffering him to bestow a visit on his Realm of Scotland his ancient and native Kingdom as he commonly called it there to expect the bettering of his Condition in the changes of time But the Scots hearing of his purpose and having long ago cast off the yoke of subjection voted against his coming in a full Assembly so that we may affirm of him as the Scripture doth of our Saviour Christ viz. He came unto his own and his own received him not John cap. 1.2 The like resolution was taken also by the Commissioners of that Nation and the chief Leaders of their Army who had contracted with the two Houses of Parliament and for the sum of Two hundred thousand pounds in ready money sold and betrayed him into the hands of his Enemies as certainly they would have done the Lord Christ himself for half the money if he had bowed down the Heavens and came down to visit them Being delivered over unto such Commissioners as were sent by the Houses to receive him he was by them conducted on the third of February to his House of Holdenby not far from the good Town of Northampton where he was kept so close that none of his Domestick Servants no not so much as his own Chaplains were suffered to have any access unto him And there we leave him for the present but long he shall not be permitted to continue there as shall be shewn hereafter in due place and time
which they had fancied to themselves and shall be better husbanded to the use of their Adversaries though it succeeded worse to his Majesty's person than possibly it might have done if they had suffered him to remain at Holdenby where the Houses fixt him 59. This great turn hapned on the fourth of Iune Anno 1647 before he had remained but four Months in the Power of the Houses Who having brought the Warr to the end desired possest themselves of the King's Person and dismissed the Scots resolved upon disbanding a great part of the Army that they might thereby ease the people of some part of their burthens But some great Officers of the Army had their Projects and Designs apart and did not think it consonant to common prudence that they should either spend their blood or consume their strength in raising others to that Power which being acquired by themselves might far more easily be retained than it had been gotten Upon these grounds they are resolved against disbanding stand on their Guards and draw together towards London contrary to the Will and express Commandment of their former Masters by whom they were required to keep at a greater distance The Officers thereupon impeach some Members of the Lower House and knowing of what great Consequence it might be unto them to get the King into their Power a Plot is laid to bring him into their Head-Quarters without noise and trouble which was accordingly effected as before is said Thus have the Presbyterians of both Nations embroiled the Kingdom first in Tumults and afterwards in a calamitous and destructive Warr. In which the Sword was suffered to range at liberty without distinction of Age Sex or Quality More goodly Houses plundered and burnt down to the ground more Churches sacrilegiously prophaned and spoiled more Blood poured out like Water within four years space than had been done in the long course of Civil-Warrs between York and Lancaster With all which Spoil and publick Ruin they purchased nothing to themselves but shame and infamy as may be shown by taking a brief view of their true condition before and after they put the State into these Confusions 60. And first the Scots not long before their breaking out against their King had in the Court two Lords High Stewards and two Grooms of the Stool successively one after another And at their taking up of Arms they had a Master of the Horse a Captain of the Guard a Keeper of the Privy Purse seven Grooms of eight in his Majesty's Bed-Chamber and an equal number at the least of Gentlemen-Ushers Quarter-waiters Cup-bearers Carvers Sewers and other Officers attending daily at the Table I speak not here of those who had places in the Stables or below the Stairs or of the Servants of those Lords and Gentlemen who either lived about the Court or had Offices in it All which together make up so considerable a number that the Cour might well be called an Academy of the Scots Nation in which so many of all sorts had their Breeding Maintenance and Preferment Abroad they had a Lieutenant of the Tower a Fortress of most consequence in all the Kingdom and a Master-Gunner of the Navy an Office of as great a Trust as the other and more of those Monopolies Suits and Patents which were conceived to be most grievous to the Subjects than all the English of the Court. In the Church they had two Deanries divers Prebendaries and so many Ecclesiastical Benefices as equalled all the Revenues of the Kirk of Scotland All which they had lost like Aesop's Dog catching after a shadow And yet by catching at that shadow they lost all those Advantages which before they had both in Court and Countrey and that not only for the present but in all probability for the time to come Such losers were the Scots by this brutish bargain but whether out of pure zeal to the Holy Discipline or their great love to filthy lucre or the perversness of their nature or the rebellious humour of the Nation or of all together let them judg that can 61. If then the Scots became such losers by the bargain as most sure they did as sure it is that their dear Brethren in the Cause of Presbytery the Puritans or Presbyterians in the Realm of England got as little by it The English Puritans laid their heads and hands together to embroil the Realm out of a confidence that having alienated the greatest part of the Tribes from the House of David they might advance the Golden Calves of their Presbyteries in Dan and Bethel and all other places whatsoever within the Land And for the maintenance thereof they had devoured in conceit all Chapter-Lands and parcelled them amongst themselves into Augmentations But no sooner had they driven this Bargain but a Vote passed for selling those Lands towards the payment of the Debts of the Commonwealth Nor have they lived to see their dear Presbytery setled or their Lay-Elders entertained in any one Parish of the Kingdom For the advancement whereof the Scots were first incouraged to begin at home and afterwards to pursue their Work by invading in England Nor fared it better with those great Achitophels of the popular Party who laboured in the raising of a new Common-wealth out of the Ruins of a Glorious and Ancient Monarchy To which end they employed the Presbyterians as the fittest Instruments for drawing the people to their side and preaching up the piety of their Intentions Which Plot they had been carrying on from the first coming of this King to the Crown of England till they had got His Sacred Person into their possession Which made them a fit parallel to those Husband-men in St. Matthew's Gospel Matt. 21.38 who said amongst themselves This is the Heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his Inheritance A Commonwealth which they had founded and so modelled in their brains that neither Sir Thomas Moor's Vtopia nor the Lord Verulam's new Atlantis nor Plato's Platform nor any of the old Idea's were equal to it The Honours and Offices whereof they had distributed amongst themselves and their own dependance But having brought the King though as it chanced by other hands to the End they aimed and being intent on nothing more than the dividing of that rich Prey amongst themselves gratifying one another with huge sums of Money and growing fat on the Revenues of the Crown and the Lands of the Church and guarded as they thought by invincible Armies they were upon a sudden scattered like the dust before the wind turned out of all and pulickly exposed to contempt and scorn All which was done so easily with so little noise that the loss of that exorbitant Power did not cost so much as a broken Head or a bloody Nose in purchasing whereof they had wasted so many Millions of Treasure and more than One hundred thousand Lives Thus have we seen the dangerous Doctrines and Positions the secret Plots and open
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
the Sixth brought thither by the noise of so great a Schism that the Liturgie of England was again restored Knox was so far from yeilding to the Gravity and Authority of that Learned man that he inveighed against him in the Pulpit without fear or wit But Cox not able to endure a baffle from so mean a fellow informs against him to the Senate touching some passages in one of his Seditious Pamphlets in which it is affirmed that Queen Mary whom elsewhere he calls by the odious name of Iesabel and a Traytoress to England ought not to joyn her self in Marriage with the Emperours Son because the Emperour himself maintained Idolatry and was a greater Enemy to Christ then ever was Nero. Knox hereupon departs by Moon-light but howsoever quits the Town and retires to Geneva leaving the Liturgie for the present in a better condition then he had found it at hiâ— first coming thither But Cox considering with himself how necessary Calvins favour might be to him salutes him with a civil Letter subscribed by himself and fourteen others all of them being men of Note in their several places In which they excused themselves for having set that Church in order without his advice not without some rejoycing that they had brought the greatest part of those who withstood their doings to be of the same Opinion with them Which how agreeable it was to Calvin may be seen by his return to Cox and his adherents Coxo Gregalibus suis as the Latine hath it bearing date Iune 14. 1555. 19. In which Letter having first craved pardon for not writing sooner he lets them know that he had freely signified to Dr. Sampson a very fit man to be acquainted with his secrets what he conceived of the Disputes which were raised at Frankfort as also that he had been certified by some Friends of his who complained much of it that they did stand so strictly on the English Ceremonies as shewed them to be too much wedded to the Rites of their Country And further certified that he had heard somewhat of those Reasons which they stood on most for not receding any thing from the Form established but they were such as might receive an easie Answer that he had writ to those of the opposite party to carry themselves with moderation in the present business though nothing was therein remitted by Cox and his and howsoever was now glad to hear that the difference was at last composed He speaks next touching their retaining of Crosses Tapers and such other trifles of that nature proceeding at the first from superstition and thereupon infers that they who so earnestly contended for them when it was in their choice not to do it did draw too neer upon the dregs He adds that he could see no Reason why they should charge the Church with frivolous and impertinent Ceremonies which he should no way wrong if he called them dangerous when they were left at liberty to compose an Order for themselves more pure and simple that in his judgement it was done with little Piety and less brotherly Love on any clancular informations to call Knox in question for so I understood him by his letter N and that they had done better to have stay'd at home then to have kindled the coals by such a piece of unjust cruelty in a Forreign Country by which others also were inflamed and finally that he had written howsoever unto some of the adverse party of whose intent to leave that place he had been advertised that they should continue where they were and not violate the League of their Friendship by their separations with other things to that effect But notwithstanding this advice many of the Schismatical party removed from Frankfort and put themselves into Geneva the principal of which were Whittingham Knox Goodman and he which afterwards was able to do more then all the rest Mr. Francis Knollis allyed by Marriage to the Caryes descended from a younger Sister of Queen Anne Bullen and consequently neer of Kin to Queen Elizabeth These men grew very great with Calvin with whose good leave they put themselves into the form of a Congregation chose Knox and Goodman for their Brethren and in all points conformed themselves to the Rules of that Church which afterwards they laboured to promore in England and actually did effect in Scotland to the no small disturbance of either Kingdom By the perswasion of these men he is resolved to try his Fortune once again on the Church of England before the resetling of the Liturgie under Queen Elizabeth might render the design impossible or at least unprosperous To which end he addresseth his desires to the Queen her self at her first coming to the Crown The like he doth to Mr. Secretary Cecil by his Letters bearing date the 17 of Ianuary 1558 in which he makes mention of the other in both he spurs them on to a Reformation complaining that they had not shewed such a forwardness in it as all good men expected and that cause required But above all things he desires that a pure and perfect Worship of God may be fully setled that the Church may be throughly purged of its former filth and that the Children of God in England might be left at liberty to use such purity in all Acts of publick Worship as to them seemed best And what else could he aim at by these expressions comparing them with the Contents of his two last Letters but that the former Liturgie should be abolished or brought unto a neerer conformity to the Rules of Geneva or at the least that liberty might be left to the godly party to use any other Form of Worship which they though more pure But finding no such good return to either Letter as he had promised to himself he leaves the cause to be pursued by such English Zealots as he had trained up at Geneva or otherwise had setled their abode amongst the Switzers where all set Forms of Worship were as much decryed as they were with him And that they might not slacken in the midst of their course he recommends the general Superintendents of the Church of England to the care of Beza who after his decease succeeded both in his place and power of whose pragmaticalness in pursuing this design against the Liturgie condemning all established Orders of this Church his interposing in behalf of such of his Followers as had heen silenced suspended or deprived for their inconformity we shall speak more large at when we come to England 20. There happened another quarrel in the Church of England and he must needs make himself a party in it Mr. Iohn Hooper having well deserved by his pains in preaching and publishing some Books which very much conduced to the peace of the Church is nominated by the King to the See of Glocester Willing enough he was to accept the charge but he had lived so long at Zurick in the Reign of King Henry where there
openness both of Heart and Hand as did not only make him able to keep the Field but to gain ground on the untraceable and insulting Rebels Which when the Hugonots observed and saw that he was like enough to do well without them they then came freely to his aid and were content to take such terms as he pleased to give them 34. And now again we are for Scotland where we shall find the King's Affairs grown from bad to worse We left him in a great vexation for not being able to prevail in any thing in behalf of Montgomery unless he relinquished his pursuit against Gibson and Cooper For so it was that he must do and suffer more than he had done hitherto before he could give himself any hopes of living peaceably amongst them A Parliament is therefore summoned to be held at Edenborough in the end of Iuly In which he was contented to pass some Acts for ratifying all Laws made in his Minority in favour of the Kirk of Scotland for trying and censuring the Adversaries of true Religion as also for the punishing of such as did menace or invade the Ministers But that which gave them most content was an Act of Parliament for Annexing of all the Temporalties of Bishopricks Abbeys and other Religious Houses which had not otherwise been disposed of to the Crown of that Realm which they promoted under colour of improving the Royal Patrimony that the King might have Means to bear forth the Honour of his Estate and not trouble his Subjects with Taxations but in plain truth to overthrow the Calling and Estate of Bishops which they presumed that no man of Quality would accept when the Lands were aliened And this the King was the more willing to consent to in regard that he had been perswaded by some about him That the Episcopal Houses being reserved out of that Grant together with the Tythes of the Churches formerly annexed to their Benefices would be sufficient to maintain their Dignity in some fit proportion But the King soon found himself abused For the rest of the Temporalties which formerly had been disposed of amongst the Laity being setled and confirmed upon them in the present Parliament there remained so little to the Crown by this Annexation as left him nothing behind but the envy of so high a Sacriledg the gain and benefit whereof was injoyed by others And of that little which remained unto him by the Annexation he received very small contentment most of it being squandered away by some begging Courtiers till he had left himself unable to reward or gratifie a deserving Minister But this he did not find till it was too late though the disease was past all remedy had he found it sooner But what he could not do himself when he lived in Scotland he first commended to the doing of his Son Prince Henry in his Book called Basilicon Doron and after lived to see it remedied in part when he reigned in England 35. There hapned also a Dispute in the present Parliament betwixt the Ministers of the Kirk and such of the Gentry as formerly had possessed themselves of Abbeys and Priories and thereby challenged to themselves a place in Parliament Concerning which we are to know that most of the Monasteries and Religious Houses had been founded upon Tythes and Impropriations though not without some good proportion of Demesnes which were laid unto them But when the Scots were set upon the humour of Reformation and set upon it in a way which shewed them rather to proceed upon private Ends than the publick Interest of Religion the principal men amongst them seized on all which they could lay hands on and after kept it to themselves by no better Title than that of the first Usurpation only and no more than so Some of the Bishops and Abbots also seeing how things were like to go and that the Church's Patrimony was not like to hold in the same Successions which had conveyed it unto them dismembred the best Tythes and Mannors from them or otherwise resigned the whole to the hands of such as appeared most able to protect them And so it stood till Murrey was made Regent of the Realm in the King 's first Infancy who did not only wink at those Usurpations the questioning whereof would most infallibly have estranged the Occupants from adhering to him but suffered many of the Layards and Gentlemen to invade the Tythes which had not formerly been appropriated to Religious Houses and to annex them to the rest of their own Estates By means whereof some of them were possessed of six ten twelve or twenty Tythings united into one Estate as they lay most convenient for them The Ministers being put off with beggerly stipends amounting in few places to ten pounds per annum of good English money These with the rest they called the Lords of new erection and they did Lord it over the poor people with pride and tyranny enough For neither would they suffer the Occupant or Land-holder to carry away his nine parts of the Fruits till they had taken off their Tenth and sometimes out of spight or self-will or any other pestant humour would suffer their tenth part to lye at waste in the open Field that the poor Labourer of the Earth might suffer the more damage by it But that which did most grieve the Ministers in the present exigent was That such Lairds and Gentlemen as had robbed the Church and plumed their own Nests with the Feathers of it should sit and vote in Parliament as Spiritual Persons and they themselves be quite excluded from those publick Councils A great heat hereupon was struck in the present Session by Pont and Lindsey commissionated by the Kirk for that employment who openly propounded in the Name of the Kirk That the said pretended Prelates might be removed at the present and disabled for the time to come to sit in Parliament as having no Authority from the Church and most of them no Function or Calling in it Bruce Commendator of Kinlosse was chosen for the mouth of the rest and he appeared so strongly in it that the Petition of the Ministers was referred to the Lords of the Articles and by them rejected though afterwards they had their Ends in it by a following Parliament 36. Being made secure from any further fear of Bishops by reason of the Poor Submission which was made by Montgomery and the annexing of Arch-bishops Lands to the Royal Patrimony the Ministers became more insolent and imperious than they had been formerly and in that jolly humour they so vexed and terrified him that he could find no other way in point of King-craft to preserve himself against their insolences and attempts but by giving some encouragement to the Popish party The exercise whereof brought out many Priests and Jesuits some of them more particularly to negotiate in behalf of the King of Spain who was then a setting forward his great Armada But the King well
knowing of what consequence that imployment was and how destructive of his Interest to the Crown of England commanded them by publick Proclamation to avoid the Kingdom But withal gave them day till the last of Ianuary that they might not complain of being taken unprovided Which small Indulgence so offended the unquiet brethren that they called a number of Noble-men Barons and Commissioners of Burgly without so much as asking the King's leave in it to meet at Edenborough on the sixt of February to whom they represented the Churches dangers and thereupon agreed to go all together in a full body to the Court to attend the King to the end that by the terror of so great a company they might work him to their own desires But the King hearing of their purpose refused to give access to so great a multitude but signified withall that he was ready to give audience unto some few of them which should be chosen by the rest But this affront the King was forced to put up also to pass by the unlawfulness of that Convention to acknowledg their grievances to be just and to promise a redress thereof in convenient time Which drew him into Action against Maxwel and some others of the Popish Lords and for the same received the publick thanks of the next Assembly that being no ordinary favour in them and was so far gratified withall as to be suffered to take Mr. Patrick Galloway from his Charge in Perth to be one of the Preachers at the Court. Of which particular I had perhaps took little notice but that we are to hear more of him on some other occasion 37. The next fine pranck they plaid relates to the Crowning of Queen Ann with whom the King landed out of Denmark at the Port of Leith on the 20 th of May 1590. aud designed her Coronation on the morrow after None of the Bishops being at hand the King was willing to embrace the opportunity to oblige the Kirk by making choice of one of their own Brethren to perform that Ceremony to which he nominated Mr. Robert Bruce a Preacher at Edenborough and one of the most moderate men in a whole Assembly But when the fitness of it came to be examined by the rest of the Brethren it was resolved to pretermit the Unction or Annointing of Her as a Iewish Ceremony abolished by Christ restored into Christian Kingdoms by the Pope's Authority and therefore not to be continued in a Church Reformed The Doubt first started by one Iohn Davinson who had then no Charge in the Church though followed by a Company of ignorant and seditious people whom Andrew Melvin set on work to begin the Quarrel and then stood up in his defence to make it good Much pains was taken to convince them by the Word of God That the Unction or Annointing of Kings was no Iewish Ceremony but Melvin's Will was neither to be ruled by Reason nor subdued by Argument and he had there so strong a Party that it passed in the Negative Insomuch that Bruce durst not proceed in the Solemnity for fear of the Censures of the Kirk The King had notice of it and returns this word That if the Coronation might not be performed by Bruce with the wonted Ceremonies he would stay till the coming of the Bishops of whose readiness to conform therein he could make no question Rather than so said Andrew Melvin let the Unction pass better it was that a Minister should perform that honourable Office in what Form soever than that the Bishops should be brought again unto the Court upon that occasion But yet unwilling to prophane himself by consenting to it he left them to agree about it as to them seemed best and he being gone it was concluded by the major part of the Voices That the Annointing should be used According whereunto the Queen was Crowned and Annointed on the Sunday following with the wonted Ceremonies but certainly with no great State there being so short an interval betwixt Her Landing and the appointed day of Her Coronation 38. It was not long before that they had a quarrel with the Lords of the Session touching the Jurisdiction of their several Courts but now the Assembly would be held for the chief Tribunal One Graham was conceived to have suborned a publick Notary to forge an Instrument which the Notary confessed on Examination to have been brought to him ready drawn by one of the said Graham's Brethren Graham enraged thereat enters an Action against Sympson the Minister of Sterling as one who had induced the man by some sinister Practises to make that Confession The Action being entred and the Process formed Sympson complains to the Assembly and they give Order unto Graham to appear before them to answer upon the scandal raised on one of their Brethren Graham appears and tells them That he would make good his Accusation before competent Judges which he conceived not them to be And they replyed That he must either stand to their judgment in it or else be censured for the slander The Lords of the Session hereupon interpose themselves desiring the Assembly not to meddle in a Cause which was then dependent in their Court in due form of Law But the Assembly made this Answer That Sympson was a Member of theirs That they might proceed in the purgation of one of their own number without intrenching on the Jurisdiction of the Civil Courts and therefore that their Lordships should not take it ill if they proceeded in the Tryal But let the Lords of the Session or the Party interested in the Cause say what they pleased the Assembly vote themselves to be Judges in it and were resolved to proceed to a Sentence against him as a false Accuser In fine the business went so high on the part of the Kirk that the Lords of the Session were compelled to think of no other Victory than by making a drawn Battel of it which by the Mediation of some Friends was at last effected 39. The Kirk is now advancing to the highest pitch of her Scotch Happiness in having her whole Discipline that is to say their National and Provincial Assemblies together with their Presbyteries and Parochial Sessions confirmed by the Authority of an Act of Parliament In order whereunto they had ordained in the Assembly held at Edenborough on the 4th of August Anno 1590. That all such as then bore Office in the Kirk or from thenceforth should bear any Office in it should actually subscribe to the Book of Discipline Which Act being so material to our present History deserves to be exemplified verbatim as it stands in the Registers and is this that followeth viz. 40. Forasmuch that it is certain That the Word of God cannot be kept in the own sincerity without the Holy Discipline be had in observance It is therefore by the common consent of the whole Brethren and Commissioners present concluded That whosoever hath born Office in the Ministry of the