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
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
the conduct of the Cause and had befooled themselves and others with the flattering hopes of gaining the Free exercise of their Religion It cannot be denyed but that they were resolved so to act their parts that Religion might not seem to have any hand in it or at the least might not suffer by it if the plot miscarried To which end they procured the chief Lawyers of France and Germany and many of the reformed Divines of the greatest eminence to publish some Writings to this purpose that is to say that without violating the Majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful Magistrate they might oppose with Arms the violent Domination of the House of Guise who were given out for Enemies to the true Religion hinderers of the course of Justice and in effect no better then the Kings Jaylors as the case then stood But this Mask was quickly taken off and the design appeared bare faced without any vizard For presently upon the routing of the Forces in the Woods of Amboise they caused great tumults to be raised in Poictou Languedock and Provence To which the Preachers of Geneva were forthwith called and they came as willingly their Followers being much increased both in courage and numbers as well by their vehemency in the Pulpit as their private practices In Daulpheny and some parts of Provence they proceeded further seized upon divers of the Churches for the Exercise of their Religion as if all matters had succeeded answerable to their expectation But on the first coming of some Forces from the Duke of Guise they shrunk in again and left the Country in the same condition wherein first they found it Of this particular Calvin gives notice unto Bullenger by his Letters of the 27 of May Anno 1560 complaining much of the extreme rashness and fool-hardiness of some of that party whom no sober counsels could restrain from those ingagements which might have proved so dangerous and destructive to the cause of Religion Which words of his relate not onely to the Action of Daulphine and Provence but to some of the attempts preceding whatsoever they were by him discouraged and disswaded if we may believe him 8. But though we may believe him as I think we may the Pope and Court of France were otherwise perswaded of it Reinadoes going from Geneva to unite the party was as unlikely to be done without his allowance as without his privity But certainly the Ministers of Geneva durst not leave their Flocks to Preach Sedition to the French of Provence and Languedock if he had neither connived at it or advised them to it and such connivings differ but little from commands as we find in Salvian Once it is sure that the Pope suggested to the French King by the Bishop of Viterbo whom he sent in the nature of a Legate that all the mischief which troubled France and the Poyson which infected that Kingdom and the Neighbouring Countries for so I finde in my Authoâ— came from no other Fountain then the Lake of Geneva that by digging at the very Root he might divert a great part of that nourishment by which those mischiefs were fomented and that by prosecuting such a Forraign War he might evacuate those bad humours which distempered his Kingdom and therefore if the King be pleased to engage herein his Holiness would not onely send him some convenient Aids but move the Scotch King and the Duke of Savoy to assist him also But neither the Queen-Mother nor the Guise for the King acted little in his own affairs could approve the motion partly for fear of giving offence unto the Switzers with whom Geneva had confederated thirty years before and partly because none being like to engage in that War but the Catholicks onely the Kingdom would thereby lye open to the adverse party But nothing more diverted the three Princes from concurring in it then the impossibility of complying with their several interesses in the disposing of the Town when it should be taken The Duke of Savoy would not enter into the War before he was assured by the other Princes that he should reap the profit of it that belonging anciently to his jurisdiction But it agreed neither with the interest of France nor Spain to make the Duke greater then he was by so fair an addition as would be made to his Estate were it yeilded to him The Spaniard knew that the French King would never bring him into France or put into his hands such a fortified pass by which he might enter when he pleased As on the other side the Spaniards would not suffer it to fall into the power of the French by reason of its neer Neighbour-hood unto the County of Burgundy which both then was and ever since hath been appendant on the Crown of Spain By reason of which mutual distrusts and jealousies the Pope received no other answer to his motion in the Court of France but that it was impossible to apply themselves to matters abroad when they were exercised at home with so many concernments 9. This answer pinched upon the Pope who found as much confusion in the State of Avignion belonging for some hundreds of years to the See of Rome as the French could reasonably complain in the Bowels of France For lying as it did within the limits of Provence and being visited with such of the French Preachers as had been studied at Geneva the people generally became inclined unto Calvins Doctrines and made profession of the same both in private and publick nay they resolved upon the lawfulness of taking up of Arms against the Pope though their natural Lord partly upon pretence that the Country was unjustly taken from the Earls of Tholouse by the Predecessors of the Pope partly because the present Pope could prove no true Lineal Succession from the first Usurper but chiefly in regard that persons Ecclesiastical were disabled by Christs Commandments from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction over other men Being thus resolved to rebel they put themselves by the perswasion of Alexander Guilatine a professed Civilian into the protection of Charles Count de Mont-brun who had then taken Arms against the King in the Country of Daulphine Mont-brun accepts of the imployment enters the Territory of Avignion with three thousand Foot reduceth the whole Country under his command the Popes Vice-Legate in the City being hardly able for the present to make good the Castle But so it happened that the Cardinal of Tournon whose Niece the Count had married being neer the place prevailed with him after some discourse to withdraw his Forces and to retire unto Geneva assuring him not onely of his Majesties pardon and the restitution of his Goods which had been confiscated but that he should have liberty of Conscience also which he prized far more then both the other By which Action the people were necessitated to return to their old obedience but with so many fears and jealousies on either side that many
years were spent before the Pope could be assured of the love of his Subjects or they relye upon the Clemency and good will of their Prince Such issue had the first attempts of the Calvinians in the Realm of France 10. In the mean time it was determined by the Cabinet Council in the Court to smother the indignity of these insurrections that the hot spirits of the French might have time to cool and afterwards to call them to a sober reckoning when they least looked for it In order whereunto an Edict is published in the Kings name and sent to all the Parliamentary Courts of France being at that time eight in all concerning the holding of an Assembly at Fountain-bleau on the 21 of August then next following for composing the distractions of the Kingdom And in that Edict he declares that without any evident occasion a great number of persons had risen and taken Arms against him that he could not but impute the cause thereof to the Hugonots onely who having laid aside all belief to God and all affection to their Country endeavoured to disturb the peace of the Kingdom that he was willing notwithstanding to pardon all such as having made acknowledgement of their errours should return to their Houses and live conformable to the Rites of the Catholick Church and in obedience to the Laws that therefore none of his Courts of Parliament should proceed in matters of Religion upon any manner of information for offences past but to provide by all severity for the future against their committing of the like and finally that for reforming all abuses in Government he resolved upon the calling of an Assembly in which the Princes and most Eminent Persons of the Kingdom should consult together the saâ—d Assembly to be held at his Majesties Palace of Fountain-bleau on the 21 of August then next following and free leave to be therein granted to all manner of persons not onely to propound their grievances but to advise on some expedient for redress thereof According unto which appointment the Assembly holds but neither the King of Navar nor the Prince of Conde could be perswaded to be present being both bent as it appeared not long after on some further projects But it was ordered that the Admiral Collignie and his brother D' Andelot should attend the service to the end that nothing should be there concluded without their privity or to the prejudice of their Cause And that they might the better strike a terrour into the Heart of the King whom they conceived to have been frighted to the calling of the present Assembly the Admiral tenders a Petition in behalf of those of the reformed Religion in the Dukedom of Normandy which they were ready to subscribe with one hundred and fifty thousand hands if it were required To which the Cardinal of Lorrain as bravely answered that if 150000 seditious could be found in France to subscribe that paper he doubted not but that there were a million of Loyal Subjects who would be ready to encounter them and oppose their insolencies 11. In this Assembly it was ordered by the common consent that for rectifying of abuses amongst the Clergy a meeting should be held of Divines and Prelates in which those discords might be remedied without innovating or disputing in matters of Faith and that for setling the affairs of the Kingdom an Assembly of the three Estates should be held at Orleance in the beginning of October to which all persons interested were required to come All which the Hugonots imputed to the consternation which they had brought upon the Court by their former risings and the great fear which was conceived of some new insurrections if all things were not regulated and reformed according unto their desires Which misconceit so wrought upon the principal Leaders that they resolved to make use of the present fears by seizing on such Towns and places of consequence as might enable them to defend both themselves and their parties against all opponents And to that end it was concluded that the King of Navar should seize upon all places in his way betwixt Bearn and Orleance that the City of Paris should be seized on by the help of the Marshal of Montmorency the Dukes Eldest Son who was Governour of it that they should assure themselves of Picardy by the Lords of Tenepont and Bouchavanne and of Britain by the Duke of Estampes who was powerful in it that being thus fortified well armed and better accompanied by the Hugonots whom they might presume of they should force the Assembly of the Estates to depose the Queen remove the Guises from the Government declare the King to be in his minority till he came to twenty two years of age appoint the King of Navar the Constable and the Prince of Conde for his Tutors and Governours which practice as it was confessed by Iaques de la Sague one of the Servants of the King of Navar who had been intercepted in his journey to him so the confession was confirmed by some Letters from the Visdame of Chartres which he had about him But this discovery being kept secret the Hugonots having taken courage from the first conspiracie at Amboise and the open profession of the Admiral began to raise some new commotions in all parts of the Kingdom and laying aside all obedience and respect of duty not onely made open resistance against the Magistrates but had directly taken arms in many places and practised to get into their hands some principal Towns to which they might retire in all times of danger Amongst which none was more aimed at then the City of Lyons a City of great Wealth and Trading and where great numbers of the people were inclined to Calvins Doctrine by reason of their neer Neighbourhood to Geneva and the Protestant Cantons Upon this Town the Prince of Conde had a plot and was like to have carried it though in the end it fell out contrary to his expectation which forced him to withdraw himself to Bearn there to provide for the security of himself and his Brother 12. But the King of Navar not being so deeply interested in these late designs in which his name had been made use of half against his will could not so much distrust himself and his personal safety as not to put himself into a readiness for his journey to Orleance To which he could by no means perswade the Prince and was by him much laboured not to go in person till they were certified that the King was sending Forces to fetch them thence which could not be without the wasting of the Country and the betraying of themselves unto those suspicions which otherwise they might hope to clear No sooner were they come to Orleance but the Prince was arrested of high Treason committed close Prisoner with a Guard upon him the cognizance of his Cause appointed unto certain Delegates his Process formed and Sentence of death pronounced against him which questionless had
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
found no place so open to them as the Town of Geneva and none more ready to befriend them then Calvin was whose Letters must be sent to all the Churches of the Switzers and the Neighbouring Germany for raising Contributions and Collections toward their relief which so exasperated the French King that he threatned to make War upon the Town as the fomenter of those discords which embroyled his Kingdom the Receptacle of his Rebels the Delphos as it were of that Sacred Oracle which Soveraignly directed all affairs of moment But of these things and how Beza did co-operate to the common troubles which did so miserably distract the peace of France shall be delivered more particularly in the following Book 49. As for the Town and Territory of Geneva it self it had so far submitted unto their Authority that Calvin wanted nothing of a Bishop in it but the name and title The City of Geneva had been anciently an Episcopal See consisting of many Parishes and Country Villages all subject by the Rules of the Discipline unto one Presbytery of which Calvin for the term of his life had the constant Precedency under the style of Moderator without whom nothing could done which concerned the Church And sitting as chief President in the Court or Consistory he had so great an influence on the Common-council as if he had been made perpetual Dictator also for ordering the affairs of the Common-wealth The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Beza also for the space of ten years or thereabouts after his decease At what time Lambertus Danaeus one of the Ministers of that City thinking himself inferiour to him in no part of Scholarship procured the Presidency in that Church to go by turns that he and others might be capable of their courses in it By which means the Genevians being freed from those powerful Riders would never suffer themselves to be bridled as they had been formerly For thereupon it was concluded by a Decree of the Senate that the Presbytery should have no power to convent any man before them till the Warrant was first signed by one of the Syndicks Besides which curb as the Elders are named by the lesser Council and confirmed by the greater the Ministers advice being first had in the nomination so do they take an Oath at their admission to keep the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Civil Magistrate In which respect their Consistory doth not challenge an exorbitant and unlimited power as the Commissioners of Christ as they did afterwards in Scotland but as Commissioners of the State or Signiory by which they are restrained in the exercise of that Jurisdiction which otherwise they might and would have challenged by their first institution and seemed at first a yoke too insupportable for the necks of the people In reference to their Neighbouring Princes their City was so advantageously seaâ—ed that even their Popish Neighbours were more ready to support and aid them then suffer the Town to fall into the power of the Duke of Savoy And then it is not to be doubted but such States and Kingdoms as were Zealous in the Reformation did liberally contribute their assistance to them The conâ—â—uence of so many of the French as had retired thither in the heat of the Civil Wars had brought a miserable Plague upon them by which their numbers were so lessened and their strength so weakned that the Duke of Savoy took the oppornity to lay Siege unto it In which distress they supplicate by Letters to all their Friends or such as they conceived might wish well unto them in the cause of Religion and amongst others to some Bishops and Noble-men of the Church of England Anno 1582. But Beza having writ to Traverse a most Zealous Puritan to negotiate in it the business sped the worse for the Agents sake no great supply being sent unto them at that time But afterwards when they were distressed by the Savoyard Anno 1589 they were relieved with thirteen thousand Crowns from England twenty four thousand Crowns from the State of Venice from France and Florence with intelligence of the enemies purposes onely the Scots though otherwise most zealous in advancing the Discipline approved themselves to be true Scots or false Brethren to them For having raised great sums of mony under pretence of sending seasonable relief to their friends in Geneva the most part of it was assigned over to the Earl of Bothwel then being in Rebellion against their King and having many ways endeavoured to surprise his person and in fine to take away his life But this prank was not play'd until some years after and therefore falls beyond the time of my design which was and is to draw down the successes of the Presbyterians in their several Countries till the year 1585 and then to take them all together as they related unto England or were co-incident with the Actions and Affairs thereof But we must make our way by France as lying nearest to the practices of the Mother-City though Scotland at a greater distance first took fire upon it and England was as soon attempted as the French themselves The end of the first Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB II. Containing The manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. 1. THe Realm of France having long suffered under the corruptions of the Church of Rome was one of the first Western Kingdoms which openly declared against those abuses Beringarius in the Neighbouring Italy had formerly opposed the Gross and Carnal Doctrines of the Papists in the point of the Sacrament Whose opinions passing into France from one hand to another were at last publickly maintained by Peter Waldo one of the Citizens of Lyons who added thereunto many bitter invectives against the Supremacy of the Pope the Adoration of Images the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Purgatory His Followers from the place of his Habitation were at first called in contempt The poor men of Lyons as afterwards from the name of their Leader they were by the Latines called Waldenses by the French Les Vandoise But Lyons proving no safe place for them they retired into the more desert parts of Languedock and spreading on the banks of the River Alby obtained the name of Albigenses in the Latine Writers and of Les Albigeoise in the French supported by Raymond the Fourth Earl of Tholouse they became so insolent that they murthered Trincanel their Viscount in the City Beziers and dasht out the teeth of their Bishop having taken Sanctuary in St. Magdalens Church one of the Churches of that City For which high outrages and many others of like nature which ensued upon them they were warred upon by Lewis the Ninth of France Sirnamed the Saint and many Noble adventurers who sacrificed many of them in the self-same Church wherein they had spilt the
blood of others After a long and bloody War which ended in the year 1250 they were almost rooted out of the Country also the residue or remainders of them having betook themselves into the mountainous parts of Daulphine Provence Piemont and Savoy for their greater safety By means whereof becoming neer Neighbours to the Switzers and possibly managing some traffick with the Town of Geneva their Doctrines could neither be unknown to Zuinglius amongst the one nor to many Inhabitants of the other of best note and quality 2. The rest of France had all this while continued in the Popes obedience and held an outward uniformity in all points with the Church of Rome from which it was not much diverted by the Writings of Zuinglius or the more moderate proceedings of the Lutheran Doctors who after the year 1517 had filled many Provinces of Germany with their opinions But in the year 1533 the Lutherans found an opportunity to attempt upon it For Francis the First favouring Learned men and Learning as commonly they do whose Actions are worthy a learned Pen resolved to erect a University at Paris making great offers to the most Learned Scholars of Italy and Germany for their entertainment Luther takes hold of that advantange and sends Bucer and some others of his ablest Followers who by disputing in such a confluence of Learned men might give a strong essay to bring in his Doctrines Nor wanted there some which were taken with the Novelty of them especially because such as were questioned for Religion had recourse into Aquitaine to Margaret of Valois the Kings Sister married to Henry of Albert King of Navar who perhaps out of hatred to the Bishop of Rome by whom her Husbands Father was deprived of that Kingdom might be the more favourable to the Lutherans or rather moved as she confessed before her death with commiseration to those condemned persons that fled to her protection she became earnest with her brother in defence of their persons so that for ten years together she was the chief means of maintaining the Doctrines of Luther in the Realm of France Nor was the King so bent in their Extermination as otherwise he would have been in regard of those many Switz and Germans that served him in his Wars against Charles the Fifth till at last being grievously offended with the contumacie of the men and their continual opposition to the Church of Rome he published many Edicts and Proclamations against them not onely threatning but executing his penal Laws until he had at last almost extinguished the name of Luther in his Kingdom 3. But Calvins stratagem succeeded somewhat better who immediately upon the Death of Francis the First whilst King Henry was ingag'd in the Wars with Charles attempted France by sending his Pamphlets from Geneva writ for the most part in the French Tongue for the better captivating and informing of the common people And as he found many possessed with Luthers opinions so he himself inflamed them with a Zeal to his own the Vulgar being very proud to be made Judges in Religion and pass their Votes upon the abstrusest Controversies of the Christian Faith So that in short time Zuinglius was no more remembred nor the Doctrine of Luther so much followed as it had been formerly The name of Calvin carrying it amongst the French The sudden propagating of whose Opinions both by preaching and writing gave great offence unto the Papists but chiefly to Charles Cardinal of Lorrain and his Brother Francis Duke of Guise then being in great power and favour with King Henry the Second By whose continual sollicitation the King endeavoured by many terrible and severe executions to suppress them utterly and did reduce his Followers at the last to such a condition that they durst neither meet in publick or by open day but secretly in Woods or Private-houses and for the most part in the night to avoid discovery And at this time it was and on this occasion that the name of Hugonots was first given them so called from St. Hugoes Gate in the City of Towrs out of which they were observed to pass to their secret Meetings or from a night-spirit or Hobgobling which they called St. Hugo to which they were resembled for their constant night-walks But neither the disgrace which that name imported nor the severity of the Kings Edicts so prevailed upon them but that they multiplyed more and more in most parts of the Realm especially in the Provinces which either were nearest to Geneva or lay more open towards the Sea to the trade of the English And though the fear of the danger and the Kings displeasure deterred such as lived within the air of the Court from adhering openly unto them yet had they many secret favourers in the Royal Palace and not a few of the Nobility which gave them as much countenance as the times could suffer The certainty whereof appeared immediately on the death of King Henry who left this life at Paris on the tenth of Iuly Anno 1559 leaving the Crown to Francis his Eldest Son then being but fifteen years of age neither in strength of body nor in vigour of Spirit enabled for the managing of so great an Empire 4. This young King in his Fathers life-time had married Mary Queen of Scots Daughter and Heir of Iames the Fifth by Mary of Lorrain a Daughter of the House of Guise and Sister to the two great Favourites before remembred This gave a great improvement to the power and favour which the two brothers had before made greater by uniting themselves to Katherine de Medices the young Kings Mother a Woman of a pestilent Wit and one that studied nothing more then to maintain her own greatness against all opposers By this confederacie the Princes of the House of Bourbon Heirs in Reversion to the Crown if the King and his three brothers should depart without Islue-Male as in fine they did were quite excluded from all office and imployment in the Court or State The principal of which was Anthony Duke of Vendosme and his brother Lewis Prince of Conde men not so near in birth as of different humours the Duke being of an open nature flexible in himself and easily wrought upon by others but on the other side the Prince was observed to be of a more enterprising disposition violent but of a violence mixed with cunning in the carrying on of his designs and one that would not patiently dissemble the smallest injuries These two had drawn unto their side the two Chastilions that is to say Gasper de Collignie Admiral of the Realm of France and Monsieur D' Andilot his brother Commander of the Infantry of that Kingdom to which Offices they had been advanced by the Duke of Montmorency into whose Family they had married during the time of his Authority with the King deceased for whose removal from the Court by the confederacy of the Queen Mother with the House of Guise they were
was also condescended to in favour of particular persons that all Lords of free Mannors throughout the Kingdoms might in their own Houses lawfully celebrate Marriage and Baptism after their own manner provided that the Assembly exceeded not the number of ten and that there should be no inquisition upon mens Consciences Liberty being given to such as had no minde to abide in the Kingdom that they might sell their Lands and Goods and live where they pleased 32. Such were the Actings of the French Calvinians as well by secret practices as open Arms during the troublesome Reign of Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth and such their variable Fortunes according to the interchanges and successes of those broken times in which for fifteen years together there was nothing to be heard but Wars and rumours of Wars short intervals of Peace but such as generally were so full of fears and jealousies that they were altogether as unsafe as the Wars themselves So that the greatest calm of Peace seemed but a preparation to a War ensuing to which each party was so bent that of a poyson it became their most constant Food In which distraction of affairs dyed King Charles the Ninth in the â—ive and twentieth year of his age and fourteenth of his Reign leaving this life at Paris on the 30 of May Anno 1574. He had been used for some months to the spitting of bloud which brought him first into a Feaver and at last to his grave not without some retaliation of the Heavenly Justice in punishing that Prince by vomiting up the bloud of his Body natural which had with such prodigious cruelty exhausted so much of the best bloud of the body Politick After whose death the Crown descended upon Henry the new King of Poland who presently upon the news thereof forsook that Kingdom and posted with all speed to Venice and from thence to France where he was joyfully received by all loyal Subjects At his first coming to the Crown he resolved to put an end to those combustions which had so often inflamed his Kingdom and extinguish all those heats which had exasperated one party against another that he might sit as Umpire or Supreme Moderator of the present differences and draw unto himself an absolute Soveraignty over both alike which to effect he resolves to prosecute the War so coldly that the Hugonots might conceive good hopes of his moderation but still to keep the War on foot till he could finde out such a way to bring on the peace as might create no suspition of him in the hearts of the Catholicks By which means hoping to indulge both parties he was perfectly believed by none each party shewing it self distrustful of his inclinations and each resolving to depend on some other Heads 33. About this time when all men stood amazed at these proceedings of the Court the State began to swarm with Libels and Seditious Pamphlets published by those of the Hugonot Faction full of reproach and fraught with horrible invectives not onely against the present Government but more particularly against the persons of the Queen and all her Children Against the Authors whereof when some of the Council purposed to proceed with all severity the Queen-mother interposed her power and moderated by her prudence the intended rigors affirming as most true it was that such severity would onely gain the greater credit to those scurrilous Pamphlets which would otherwise vanish of themselves or be soon forgotten Amongst which Pamphlets there was none more pestilent then that which was composed in the way of a Dialogue pretending one â—usebius Philadelphus for the Author of it Buchanan buildinâ— first upon Calvins Principles had published his Seditious Pamphlet De jure Regni apud Scotos together with that scurrilous and infamous Libel which he called The Detection repleat with nothing but reproaches of his lawful Soveraign But this Eusebius Philadelphus or whosoever he was that masked himself under that disguise resolved to go beyond his pattern in all the acts of Malice Slandering and Sedition but be out gone by none that should follow after him in those ways of wickedness Two other Tracts were published about this time also both of them being alike mischievous and tending to the overthrow of all publick Government but wanting something of the Libel in them as the other had Of these the one was called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos or the rescuing of the people from the power of Tyrants published under the name of Stephanus Brutus but generally believed to be writ by Beza the chief surviving Patron of the Presbyterians In which he prostitutes the dignity of the Supreme Magistrate to the lusts of the people and brings them under the command of such popular Magistrates as Calvin makes to be the Conservators of the publick Liberty The other was intituled De jure Magistratos in subditos built on the same grounds and published with the same intention as the others were A piece so mischievous in it self and so destructive of the peace of Humane Society that each side was ashamed to own it the Papists fathering it upon Hottoman a French Civilian the Presbyterians on Hiclerus a Romish Priest But it appears plainly by the Conference at Hampton-Court that it was published by some of the Disciplinarians at whose doors I leave it 34. But for Eusebius Philadelphus he first defames the King and Queen in a most scandalous manner exposes next that flourishing Kingdom for a prey to strangers and finally lays down such Seditious Maximes as plainly tend to the destruction of Monarchical Government He tells us of the King himself that he was trained up by his Tutors in no other qualities then drinking whoring swearing and forswearing frauds and falsehoods and whatsoever else might argue a contempt both of God and Godliness that as the Court by the Example of the King so by the Example of the Court all the rest of the Kingdom was brought into a reprobate sence even to manifest Atheism and that as some of their former Kings were honoured with the Attributes of fair wise debonaire well-beloved c. so should this King be known by no other name then Charles the treacherous The Duke of Anjou he sets forth in more ugly colours then he doth the King by adding this to all the rest of his Brothers vices that he lived in a constant course of Incest with his Sister the Princess Margaret as well before as after her Espousal to the King of Navar. For the Queen-mother he can finde no better names then those of Fredegond Brunechild Iezabel and Messalina of which the two first are as infamous in the stories of France as the two latter in the Roman and Sacred Histories And to expose them all together he can give the Queen-mother and her Children though his natural Princes no more cleanly title then that of a Bitch-wolfe and her Whelps affirming that in Luxury Cruelty and Perfidiousness they had exceeded all the
Tyrants of preceding times which comes up close to those irreverent and lewd expressions which frequently occur in Calvin Beza Knox c. in reference to the two Mary's Queens of England and Scotland and other Princes of that age which have been formerly recited in their proper places 35. The Royal Family being thus wretchedly exposed to the publick hatred he next applyes himself to stir up all the world against them both at home and abroad And first he laboureth to excite some desperate Zealot to commit the like assassinate on the King then Reigning as one Bodillus is reported in some French Histories to have committed on the person of Chilprick one of the last Kings of the Merovignians which he commemorates for a Noble and Heroick action and sets it out for an example and encouragement to some gallant French-man for the delivery of his Country from the Tyranny of the House of Valois the ruine whereof he mainly drives at in his whole designe And though he seem to make no doubt of prevailing in it yet he resolves to try his Fortune otherwise if that should fail And first beginning with their next neighbour the King of Spain he he puts them in remembrance of those many injuries which he and his Ancestors had received from the House of Valois acquaints him with the present opportunity which was offered to him of revenging of thoâ—e wrongs and making himself Master of the Realm of France and chalks him out a way how he might effect it that is to say by coming to a present Accord with the Prince of Orange indulging Liberty of Conscience to the Belgick Provinces and thereby drawing all the Hugonots to adhere unto him which counsel if he did not like he might then make the same use of the Duke of Savoy for whom the Hugonots in France had no small affection and by bestowing on him the adjoyning Regions of Lyonoise Dâ—ulphine and Provence might make himself Lord of all the rest without any great trouble The like temptation must be given to the Queen of England by putting her in minde of her pretences to the Crown it self and shewing how easie a thing it might be for her to acquire those Countries whose Arms and Titles she assumed with like disloyalty he excites the Princes of the Empire to husband the advantage which was offered to them for the recovering of Metz Toule and Verdun three Imperial Cities by this Kings Father wrested betwixt fraud and force from Charles the Fifth and ever since incorporated with the Realm of France If all which failed he is resolved to cast himself on the Duke of Guise though the most mortal and implacable enemy of the Hugonot Faction and makes a full address to him in a second Epistle prefixt before the Book it self in which he puts him in remembrance of his old pretensions to the Crown of France extorted by Hugh Capet from his Ancestors of the House of Loraigne offereth him the assistance of the Hugonot party for the recovery of his Rights and finally beseeches him to take compassion of his ruined Country cheerfully to accept the Crown and free the Kingdom from the spoil and tyranny of Boyes and Women together with that infinite train of Strangers Bawdes and Leachers which depend on them which was as great a Master-piece in the art of mischief as the wit of malice could devise 36. As for his Doctrines in reference to the common duties between Kings and Subjects we may reduce them to these heads that is to say 1. That the Authority of Kings and Supreme Magistrates is circumscribed and limited by certain bounds which if they pass their Subjects are no longer tyed unto their obedience that Magistrates do exceed those bounds when either they command such things as God forbiddeth or prohibit that which he commands that therefore they are no longer to be obeyed if their Commands are contrary to the Rules of Piety or Christian Charity of which the Subjects must be thought the most competent Judges 2. That there were companies and societies of men before any Magistrates were set over them which Magistrates were no otherwise set over them then by common consent that every Magistrate so appointed was bound by certain Articles and Conditions agreed between them which he was tyed by Oath to preserve inviolable that the chief end for which the people chose a Superiour Magistrate was that they might remain in safety under his protection and therefore if such Magistrates either did neglect that end or otherwise infringe the Articles of their first Agreement the Subjects were then discharged from the bond of obedience and that being so discharged from the bond of obedience it was as lawful for them to take up Arms against their King in maintainance of their Religion Laws and Liberties if indangered by him as for a Traveller to defend himself by force of Arms against Thieves and Robbers 3. That no Government can be rightly constituted in which the Grandeur of the Prince is more consulted then the weal of the People that to prevent all such incroachments on the Common Liberty the people did reserve a power of putting a curb upon their Prince or Supreme Magistrates to hold them in such as the Tribunes were in Rome to the Senate and Consuls and the Ephori to the Kings of Sparta that such a power as that of the Spartan Ephori is vested in the seven Electors of the German Empire which gives them an Authority to depose the Emperour if they see cause for it and that the like may be affirmed of the English Parliaments who oftentimes have condemned their Kings but he knows not whom 4. That by the first constitutions of the Realm of France the Supreme power was not entrusted to the King but the three Estates so that it was not lawful for the King to proclaim a War or to lay Taxes on the people but by their consent that these Estates assembled in a Common Council did serve instead of eyes and ears to a prudent Prince but to a wicked and ungoverned for Bit or Bridle and that according to this power they dethroned many of their Kings for their Lusts Luxuries Cruelty Slothfulness Avarice c. that if they proceeded not in like manner with the King then Reigning it was because they had an high esteem with scorn and insolence enough of his eminent Vertues his Piety Justice and Fidelity and the great commendations which was given of his Mothers Chastity and therefore finally which was the matter to be proved by those Factious Principles that it was altogether as lawful for the French to defend themselves their Laws and Liberties against the violent assault of a furious Tyrant so he calls their King as a Traveller by Thieves and Robbers Which Aphorisms he that listeth to consult in the Author may finde them from pag. 57. to 66. of the second Dialogue and part 1. pag. 8. 37. But notwithstanding these indignities
of it That they were ready to continue in all duty toward their Soveraign and her Mother there Regent provided they might have the free exercise of their own Religion In reference to their medling with the Irons of the Mint and the Coyning of Money they justified themselves as being most of them Councellors born and doing nothing in it but for the good of the people To which effect they writ their Letters also to the Regent her self whom they assured in the close that if she would make use of her authority for the abolishing of Idolatry and Superstitious abuses which agreed not with the Word of God she should finde them as obedient as any Subjects within the Realm Which in plain truth was neither more nor less then this that if they might not have their wills in the point of Religion she was to look for no obedience from them in other matters whereof they gave sufficient proof by their staying in Edenborough her command to the contrary notwithstanding by pressing more then ever for a toleration and adding this over and above to their former demands that such French Forces as remained in Scotland might be disbanded and sent back to their native Country In the first of which demands they were so unreasonable that when the Queen offered them the exercise of their own Religion upon condition that when she had occasion to make use of any of their Churches for her own Devotions such exercise might be suspended and the Mass onely used in that conjuncture they would by no means yeild unto it And they refused to yeild unto it for this Reason onely because it would be in her power by removing from one place unto another to leave them without any certain Exercise of their Religion which in effect was utterly to overthrow it And hereto they were pleased to add that as they could not hinder her from exercising any Religion which she had a minde to but this was more then they would stand to in their better Fortunes so could they not agree that the Ministers of Christ should be silenced upon any occasion and much less that the true Worship of God should give place to Idolatry A point to which they stood so stifly that when the Queen Regent had resetled her Court at Edenborough she could neither prevail so far upon the Magistrates of that City as either to let her have the Church of St. Gyles to be appropriated onely to the use of the Mass or that the Mass might be said in it at such vacant times in which they made no use of it for themselves or their Ministers 17. But in their other demands for sending the French Souldiers out of Scotland they were not like to finde any such compliance as had been offered in the former Henry the Third of France dyed about that time and left the Crown to Francis the Second Married not long before to the Queen of Scots the preservation of whose power and prerogative Royal must be his concernment And he declared himself so sensible of those indignities which had been lately put upon her as to protest that he would rather spend the Crown of France then not be revenged of the seditious Tumults raised in Scotland in pursuance of which resolution he sends over a French Captain called Octavian who brought with him a whole Regiment of Souldiers great sums of money and all provisions necessary to maintain a War Followed not long after with four Companies more which made up twenty Ensigns compleat together with four Ships of War both to defend the Town of Leith and command the Haven Incouraged with whose coming the Queen Regent did not onely fortifie that Town but put a strong Garrison of the French into it which gave a new grievance unto those of the Congregation the Trade and Town of Edenborough being like by this means to be brought under her command and to rest wholly in a manner at her devotion The breach made wider on the one side by the taking of the Fort of Boughty Crag into the hands of those of the Congregation which was pretended to be done for fear lest otherwise it might have been seized on by the French and on the other side by the coming of two thousand French Souldiers out of France under pretence of being a Convoy to the Bishop of Amiens and some other persons sent thither to dispute as it was given out with the Scotish Ministers Which great accession of French Forces so amazed the Lords of the Congregation that they excited the whole Kingdom by a publick Writing to arm against them requiring all those which were or desired to be accounted for nâ—tural Scotch-men to judge betwixt the Queen and them and not abstract the just and dutiful support from their Native Country in so needful a time assuring them that whosoever did otherwise should be esteemed betrayers of their Country to the power of strangers 18. And that the people might not cool in the midst of this heat they draw their Forces together and march toward Edenborough on the 18 of October upon the news whereof the Queen Regent put her self into Leith as the safer place and leaves them Masters of the City From whence they send a Letter to her requiring in a peremptory and imperious manner that the fortifications about Leith be forthwith slighted the Forts about the same to be demolished and all strange Souldiers to be immediately removed Which if she not pleased to do they must bethink themselves of some such other remedies as they thought most necessary But when their Messenger returned unsatisfied and that Lyon King at Arms was sent presently after him commanding them amongst other things to remove from Edenborough they then resolve for putting that in execution which had been long before in deliberation that is to say the deposing of the Queen Regent from the publick Government But first they must consult with their Ghostly Fathers that by their countenance and authority they might more certainly prevail upon all such persons as seemed unsatisfied in the point Willock and Knox are chosen above all the rest to resolve this doubt if at the least any of them doubted of it which may well be questioned They were both Factors for Geneva and therefore both obliged to advance her interest Willock declares that albeit God had appointed Magistrates onely to be his Lieutenants on Earth honouring them with his own title and calling them Gods yet did he never so establish any but that for just causes they might be deprived Which having proved by some Examples out of holy Scripture he thereupon inferred that since the Queen Regent had denyed her chief Duty to the Subjects of this Realm which was to preserve them from invasion of Strangers and to suffer the Word of God to be freely preached seeing also she was a maintainer of superstition and despised the counsel of the Nobility he did think they might justly deprive her from all Regiment and
other and in this point they shewed themselves directly contrary to the practice of the Primitive Church in which it was accounted a great impiety to keep any Fast upon that day either private or publick They Interdict the Bishops from exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdictâ—on in their several Diocesses and openly quarrel with their Queen for giving a Commission to the Archbishop of St. Andrews to perform some Acts which seemed to them to savour of Episcopal power Having attained unto this height they maintain an open correspondence with some Forreign Churches give audience to the Agents of Berne Basil and Geneva from whom they received the sum of their Confessions and signified their consent with them in all particulars except Festivals onely which they had universally abolished throughout the Kingdom and finally they take upon them to write unto the Bishops of England whom they admonished not to vex or suspend their Brethren for not conforming to the Rules of the Church especially in refusing the Cap and Surplice which they call frequently by the name of trifles vain trifles and the old badges of idolatry All which they did and more in pursuit of their Discipline though never authorized by Law or confirmed by the Queen nor justified by the Convenâ—ion of Estates though it consisted for the most part of their own Prosessors A Petition is directed to the Lords of secret Council from the Assemblies of the Church in which their Lordships are sollicited to dispatch the business But not content with that which they had formerly moved it was demanded also that some severe course might be taken against the Sayers and Hearers of Mass that fit provision should be made for their Superintendents Preachers and other Ministers and that they should not be compellable to pay their Tythes as formerly to the Popish Clegy with other particulars of that nature And that they might not trifle in it as they had done hitherto the Petition carried in it more threats and menaces then words of humble supplication as became Petitioners For therein it said expresly That before those Tyrants and dumb Dogs should have Empire over them and over such as God had subjected unto them they were fully determined to hazard both life and whatsoeever they had received of God in Temporal things that therefore they besought their Lordships to take such order that the Petitioners if they may be called so might have no occasion to take the Sword of just defence into their hands which they had so willingly resigned after the Victory obtained into those of their Lordships that so doing their Lordships should perceive they would not onely be obedient unto them in all things lawful but ready at all times to bring all such under their obedience as should at any time rebel against their Authority and finally that those enemies of God might assure themselves that they would no no longer suffer Pride and Idolatry and that if their Lordships would not take some order in the premises they would then proceed against them of their own Authority after such a manner that they should neither do what they list nor live upon the sweat of the brows of such as were in no sort debtors to them 31. On the receipt of this Petition an Order presently is made by the Lords of the Council for granting all which was desired and had more been desired they had granted more so formidable were the Brethren grown to the opposite party Nor was it granted in words onely which took no effect but execution caused to be done upon it and warrants to that purpose issued to the Earls of Arrane Arguile and Glencarne the Lord Iames Steward c. Whereupon followed a pitiful devastation of Churches and Church-buildings in all parts of the Realm no difference made but all Religious Edifices of what sort soever were either terribly defaced or utterly ruinated the holy Vessels and whatsoever else could be turned into money as Lead Bells Timber Glass c. was publickly exposed to sale the very Sepulchres of the dead not spared the Registers of the Church and the Libraries thereunto belonging defaced and thrown into the fire Whatsoever had escaped the former tumults is now made subject to destruction so much the worse because the violence and sacrilegious actings of these Church-robbers had now the countenance of Law And to this work of spoyl and rapine men of all Ranks and Orders were observed to put their helping hands mâ—n of most Note and Quality being forward in it in hope of getting to themselves the most part of the booty those of the poorer sort in hope of being gratified for their pains therein by their Lords and Patrons Both sorts encouraged to it by the Zealous madness of some of their sedirious Preachers who frequently cryed out that the places where Idols had been worshipped ought by the Law of God to be destroyed that the sparing of them was the reserving of things execrable and that the Commandment given to Israel for destroying the places where the Canaanites did worship their false Gods was a just warrant to the people for doing the like By which encouragements the madness of the people was transported beyond the bounds which they had first prescribed unto it In the beginning of the heats they designed onely the destruction of Religious Houses for fear the Monks and Fryars might otherwise be restored in time to their former dwellings But they proceeded to the demolition of Cathedral Churches and ended in the ruine of Parochial also the Chancels whereof were sure to be levelled in all places though the Isles and bodies of them might be spared in some 32. Such was the entertainment which the Scots prepared for their Queens coming over Who taking no delight in France where every thing renewed the memory of her great loss was easily intreated to return to her native Kingdom Her coming much desired by those of the Popish party in hope that by her power and presence they might be suffered at the least to enjoy the private Exercise of their Religion if not a publick approbation and allowance of it Sollicited as earnestly by those of the Knoxian interest upon a confidence that they should be better able to deal with her when she was in their power assisted onely by the Counsels of a broken Clergy then if she should remain in France from whence by her Alliances and powerful Kindred she might create more mischief to them then she could at home On the 19 day of August she arrives in Scotland accompanied by her Uncles the Duke of Aumales the Marquess of Elboeuf and the Lord grand Pryor with other Noble-men of France The time of her arrival was obscured with such Fogs and Mists that the Sun was not seen to shine in two days before nor in two days after Which though it made her passage safe from the Ships of England which were designed to intercept her yet was it looked upon by most men as a sad presage
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
and Ceremonies being first abolished they should proceed to the Establishment of such a Form of Ministration in the Church of England as might be grounded on some express Authorities of the Word of God Which as he makes to be a work agreeable unto Grindals piety so Grindal after this and this bears date in Iuly 1568 appeared more favourable every day then other to those common Barretters who used their whole endeavours to embroyl the Church 30. Nor were these years less fatal to the Church of England by the defection of the Papists who till this time had kept themselves in her Communion and did in general as punctually attend all Divine Offices in the same as the vulgar Protestants And it is probable enough that they might have held out longer in their due obedience if first the scandal which was given by the other Faction and afterwards the separation which ensued upon it had not took them off The Liturgie of the Church had been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation by leaving out an offensive passage against the Pope restoring the old Form of words accustomably used in the participation of the holy Sacrament the total expunging of a Rubrick which seemed to make a Question of the Real presence the Scituation of the holy-Table in the place of the Altar the Reverend posture of kneeling at it or before it by all Communicants the retaining of so many of the ancient Festivals and finally by the Vestments used by the Priest or Minister in the Ministration And so long as all things continued in so good a posture they saw no causâ— of separating from the rest of their Brethren in the acts of Worship But when all decency and order was turned out of the Church by the heat and indiscretion of these new Reformers the holy-Table brought into the midst of the Church like a common-Table the Communicants in some places sitting at it with as little Reverence as at any ordinary Table the ancient Fasts and Feasts deserted and Church-Vestments thrown aside as the remainders of the Superstition of the Church of Rome they then began visibly to decline from their first conformity And yet they made no general separation nor defection neither till the Genevian brethren had first made the Schism and rather chose to meet in Barns and Woods yea and common Fields then to associate with their brethren as in former times For that they did so is affirmed by very good Authors who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church in having her bowels torn in pieces by those very Children which she had cherished in her bosom By one of which who must needs be of years and judgement at the time of this Schism we are first told what great contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her Majesties Reign through the peevish frowardness the out-cryes of such as came from Geneva against the Vestments of the Church and such like matters And then he adds That being crossed in their desires touching those particulars they separated from the rest of their Congregations and meeting together in Houses Woods and common Fields kept there their most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles 31. Now at such time as Button Billingham and the rest of the Puritan Faction had first made the Schism Harding and Sanders and some others of the Popish Fugitives imployed themselves as busily in perswading those of that Religion to the like temptation For being licensed by the Pope to exercise Episcopal jurisdiction in the Realm of England they take upon them to absolve all such in the Court of Conscience who should return to the Communion of the Church of Rome as also to dispense in Causes of irregularity except it were incurred by wilful murther and finally from the like irregularities incurred by Heresie if the party who desired the benefit of the Absolution abstain'd from Ministring at the holy Altar for three years together By means whereof and the advantages before mentioned which were given them by the Puritan Faction they drew many to them from the Church both Priests and People their numbers every day increasing as the scandal did And finding how the Sectaries inlarged their numbers by erecting a French Church in London and that they were now upon the point of procuring another for the use and comfort of the Dutch they thought it no ill piece of Wisdom to attempt the like in some convenient place near England where they might train up their Disciples and fit them for imployment upon all occasions Upon which ground a Seminary is established for them at Doway in Flanders Anno 1568 and another not long after at Rhemes a City of Champaigne in the Realm of France Such was the benefit which redounded to the Church of England by the perversness of the Brethren of this first separation that it occasioned the like Schism betwixt her and the Papists who till that time had kept themselves in her Communion as before was said For that the Papists generally did frequent the Church in these first ten years is positively affirmed by Sir Edward Coke in his Speech at the Arraignment of Garnet the Jesuit and afterward at the Charge which was given by him at the general Assizes held in Norwich In both which he speaks on his own certain knowledge not on vulgar hearsay affirming more particularly that â—e had many times seen Bedenfield Cornwallis and some other of the Leading Romanists at the Divine Service of the Church who afterwards were the first that departed from it The like averred by the most Learned Bishop Andrews in his Book called Tortura Torti p. 130. and there asserted undeniably against all opposition And which may serve instead of all we finde the like affirmed also by the Queen her self in her Instructions given to Walsingham then being her Resident with the French King Anno 1570. In which Instructions bearing date on the 11 of August it is affirmed expresly of the Heads of that party and therefore we may judge the like of the Members also that they did ordinarily resort from the beginning of her Reign in all open places to the Churches and to Divine Service in the Church without any contradiction or shew of misliking 32. The parallel goes further yet For as the Puritans were encouraged to this separation by the Missals and Decretory Letters of Theodore Beza whom they beheld as the chief Patriarch of this Church So were the Papists animated to their defection by a Bull of Pope Pius the Fifth whom they acknowledged most undoubtedly for the Head of theirs For the Pope being thrust on by the importunity of the House of Guise in favour of the Queen of Scots whose Title they preferred before that of Elizabeth and by the Court of France in hatred to the Queen her self for aiding the French Hugonots against their King was drawn at last to issue out this Bull against her dated at Rome Feb. 24. 1569. In which Bull he doth not
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
onely Excommunicate her person deprive her of her Kingdoms and absolve all her Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance but commands all her Subjects of what sort soever not to obey her Laws Injunctions Ordinances or Acts of State The Defection of the Papists had before been voluntary but is now made necessary the Popes command being superadded to the scandal which had before been given them by the Puritan Faction For after this the going or not going to Church was commonly reputed by them for a signe distinctive by which a Roman Catholick might be known from an English Heretick And this appears most plainly by the Preamble to the Act of Parliament against bringing or executing of Bulls from Rome 13 Eliz. 2. Where it is reckoned amongst the effects of those Bulls and Writings That those who brought them did by their lewd practices and subtile perswasions work so farforth that sundry people and ignorant persons have been contented to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and to have withdrawn and absented themselves from all Divine Service most godlily exercised in this Realm By which it seems that till the roaring of those Bulls those of the Popish party did frequent the Church though not so generally in the last five years as our Learned Andrews hath observed as they did the first before they were discouraged by the Innovations of the Puritan Faction 33. But for their coming to our Churches for the first ten years that is to say before the first beginning of the Puritan Schism there is enough acknowledged by some of their own Parsons himself confesseth in his Pamphlet which he calls by the name of Green-Coat That for twelve years together the Court and State was in great quiet and no question made about Religion Brierly in his Apologie speaks it more at large by whom it is acknowledged That in the beginning of the Queens Reign most part of the Catholicks for many years did go to the Heretical Churches and Service That when the better and truer opinion was taught them by Priests and Religious men from beyond the Seas as more perfect and necessary there wanted not many which opposed themselves of the elder sort of Priests of Queen Maries days and finally That this division was not onely favoured by the Council but nourished also for many years by divers troublesome people of their own both in teaching and writing On which the Author of the Reply whomsoever he was hath made this Descant viz. That for the Catholicks going to Church it was perchance rather to be lamented then blamed before it came to be a sign Distinctive by which a Catholick was known from one who was no Catholick Thus as the Schisms began together so are they carried on by the self-same means by Libelling against the State the Papists in their Philopater the Puritans in Martin Mar-Prelate and the rest by breeding up their novices beyond the Seas the Roman Catholicks at Rheims and Doway the Presbyterians at Geneva Amsterdam or Saumure by raising sedition in the State and plotting Treason against the person of the Queen the Papists by Throgmorton Parry Tichbourn Babington c. the Puritans by Thacker Penry Hacket Coppinger c. And finally by the executions made upon either part of which in reference to the Presbyterians we shall speak hereafter But as none of Plutarchs Parallels is so exact but that some difference may be noted and is noted by him betwixt the persons and affairs of whom he writes so was there a great difference in one particular between the fortunes of the Papists and the contrary faction The Presbyterians were observed to have many powerful Friends at Court in which the Papists had scarce any but mortal Enemies Spies and Intelligencers were employed to attend the Papists and observe all their words and actions so that they could not stir without a discovery But all mens eyes were shut upon the other party so that they might do what they listed without observation Of which no reason can be given but that the Queen being startled at the Popes late Bull and finding both her Person and Estate indangered under divers pretences by many of the Romish party both at home and abroad might either take no notice of the lesser mischief or suffer that faction to grow up to confront the other 34. And now comes Cartwright on the Stage on which he acted more then any of the Puritan Faction till their last going off again in the Reign of this Queen It was upon a discontent that he first left Cambridge and in pursuance of the same that he left the Church For being appointed one of the Opponents at the Divinity-Act in Cambridge Anno 1564 at such time as the Queen was pleased to honor it with her Royal presence he came not off so happily in her esteem but that Preston of Kings Colledge for action voyce and elocution was preferred before him This so afflicted the proud man that in a sudden humour he retires from the University and sets up his studies in Geneva where he became as great with Beza and the rest of that Consistory as ever Knox had been with Calvin at his being there As soon as he had well acquainted himself with the Form of their Discipline and studied all such points as were to be reduced to practice at his coming back well stocked with Principles and furnished with Instructions he prepares for England and puts himself into his Colledge Before upon the apprehension of the said neglect he had begun to busie himself with some discourses against the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law established and seemed to entertain a great opinion of himself both for Learning and Holiness and therewithal a great contemner of such others as continued not with him But at his coming from Geneva he became more practical or pragmatical rather condemning the Vocation of Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers the Administration of our holy Sacraments and observations of our Rites and Ceremonies And buzzing these conceits into the Heads of divers young Preachers and Scholars of the University he drew after him a great number of Disciples and Followers Amongst whom he prevailed so far by his secret practices but much more by a Sermon which he Preached one Sunday-morning in the Colledge-Chappel that in the afternoon all the Fellows and Scholars threw aside their Surplices which by the Statutes of the House they were bound to use and went to the Divine Service onely in their Gowns and Caps Dr. Iohn Whitgift was at that time Master of Trinity Colledge and the Queens Professor for Divinity a man of great temper and moderation but one withal that knew well how to hold the Reins and not suffer them to be wrested out of his hand by an Head-strong beast Cartwright was Fellow of that Colledge emulous of the Masters Learning but far more envious at the Credit and Authority which he had acquired for which cause he procured himself to be