Tumults for in the middle of these heats nine of the Lords not being Officers of State convened together at Breda the principal Seat and most assured hold of the Prince of Orange where they drew up a Form of an Association which they called the Covenant contrived by Philip Marnixius Lord of Aldegand a great admirer of the person and parts of Calvin In the preamble whereof they inveighed bitterly against the Inquisition as that which being contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane did far exceed the cruelty of all former Tyrants they then declared in the name of themselves and the rest of the Lords that the care of Religion appertained to them as Councellors born and that they entred into this Association for no other reason but to prevent the wicked practices of such men as under colour of the sentences of death and banishment aimed at the Fortunes and destructions of the greatest persons that therefore they had taken an holy Oath not to suffer the said Inquisition to be imposed upon their Country praying therein that as well God as man would utterly forsake them if ever they forsook their Covenant or failed to assist their Brethren which suffered any thing in that Cause and finally calling God to witness that by this Covenant and Agreement amongst themselves they intended nothing but the Glory of God Honour of their King and their Countries peace And to this Covenant as they subscribed before their parting so by their Emissaries they obtained subscription to it over all their Provinces and for the credit of the business they caused the same to be translated into several Languages and published a Report that not onely the Chief Leaders of the Hugonots in France but many of the Princes of Germany had subscribed it also which whether it were true or not certain it is that the Confederacie was subscribed by a considerable number of the Nobility some of the Lords of the Privy-Council and not a few of the Companions of the Golden Fleece 26. Of the nine which first appeared in the designe the principal were Henry Lord of Brederode descended lineally from Sigefride the second Son of Arnold the fourth Earl of Holland Count Lodowick of Nassaw before mentioned and Florence Count of Culemberg a Town of Gueldres but anciently priviledged from all subjection to the Duke thereof Accompanied with two hundred of the principal Covenanters each of them having a case of Pistols at his Saddle-bow Brederode enters Brussels in the beginning of April to which he is welcomed by Count Horne and the Prince of Orange which last had openly appeared for them at the Council-Table when the unlawfulness of the confederacy was in agitation And having taken up their Lodging in Culemberg-house they did not onely once again subscribe the Covenant but bound themselves to stand to one another by a solemn Oath The tenour of which Oath was to this effect That if any of them should be imprisoned either for Religion or for the Covenant immediately the rest all other business laid aside should take up arms for his assistance and defence Marching the next day by two and two till they came to the Court they presented their petition to the Lady Regent by the hands of Brederode who desired her in a short Speech at the tendry of it to believe that they were honest men and propounded nothing to themselves but obedience to the Laws Honour to the King and safety to their Country The sum of the Petition was That the Spanish Inquisition might be abolished the Emperours Edicts repealed and new ones made by the advice of the Estates of the Countries Concerning which we are to know that the Emperour had past several Edicts against the Lutherans the first of which was published in the year 1521 and the second about five years after Anno 1526 by means whereof many well-meaning people had been burnt for Hereticks but that which most extremely gaulled them was the Edict for the bringing in of the Inquisition published upon the 29 of April as before was said Against these Edicts they complained in the said Petition To which upon the morrow she returned such an answer by the consent of the Council as might give them good hopes that the Inquisition should be taken away and the Edicts moderated but that the King must first be made acquainted with all particulars before they passed into an Act. With which answer they returned well satisfied unto Culemberg-house which was prepared for the entertainment of the chief Confederates 27. To this House Brederode invites the rest of his Company bestows a prodigal Feast upon them and in the middle of their Cups it was put to the question by what name their Confederacie should be called Those of their party in France were differenced from the rest by the name of Hugonots and in England much about that time by the name of Puritans nor was it to be thought but that their followers might be as capable of some proper and peculiar appellation as in France or England It happened that at such time as they came to tender their Petition the Governess seemed troubled at so great a number and that Count Barlamont a man of most approved fidelity to his Majesties service advised her not to be discouraged at it telling her in the French tongue betwixt jest and earnest that they were but Gueux or Gheuses as the Dutch pronounced it that is to say men of dissolute lives and broken fortunes or in plain English Rogues and Beggars Upon which ground they animated one another by the name of Gheuses and calling for great bowls of Wine drank an health to the name their Servants and Attendants crying out with loud acclamations Vive les Gueus long live the Gheuses For the confirming of which name Brederode takes a Waâ—let which he spyed in the place and laid it on one of his Shoulders as their Beggars do and out of a Wooden dish brim-full drinks to all the Company thanks them for following him that day with such unanimity and binds himself upon his honour to spend his life if need should be for the generality of the Confederates and for every member of them in particular Which done he gave his Dish and Wallet to the next unto him who in like manner past it round till they had bound themselves by this ridiculous Form of initiation to stand to one another in defence of their Covenant the former acclamation of Long live the Gheuses being doubled and redoubled at every Health The jollity and loud acclamations which they made in the House brought thither the Prince of Orange Count Egmont and Count Horne men of most Power and Reputation with the common people who seemed so far from reprehending the debauchery which they found amongst them that they rather countenanced the same the former Healths and Acclamations being renewed and followed with more heat and drunken bravery then they were a first on which incouragement they take upon themselves
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
through the lower part thereof over which there is a passage by two fair Bridges one of them the more ancient and the the better fortified belonging heretofore to the old Helvetians but broken down by Iulius Caesar to hinder them from passing that way into Gallia The compass of the whole City not above two Miles the Buildings fair and for the most part of Free-stone the number of the inhabitants about seventeen thousand and the whole Territory not exceeding a Diameter of six Leagues where it is at the largest Brought under the obedience of the Romans by the power of Caesar it continued a member of that Empire till the Burgundians in the time of Honorius possessed themselves of all those Gallick Provinces which lay toward the Alpes In the Division of those Kingdoms by Charles the Bald it was made a part of Burgundie called Transjurana because it lay beyond the Iour and was by him conferred on Conrade a Saxon Prince son of Duke Witibind the third and younger brother of Robert the first Earl of Anjow At the expiring of whose line by which it had been held under several Titles of King Earl and Duke it was by Rodolph the last Prince bestowed on the Emperour Henry sirnamed the Black as his nearest kinsman and by that means united to â—he Germane Empire governed by such Imperial Officers as were appointed by those Emperours to their several Provinces till by the weakness or improvidence of the Lords in Chief Those Officers made themselves Hereditary Princes in their several Territories 3. In which division of the prey the City and Signiory of Geneva which before was governed by Officiary and Titulat Earls accountable to the German Empire was made a Soveraign Estate under its own Proprietary Earls as the sole Lords of it Betwixt these and the Bishâ—ps Susiraâ—ans to the Archbishop of Vienna in Daulphine grew many quarrels for the absolute command thereof In time the Bishops did obtain of the Emperour Frederick the first that they and their Successors should be the sole Princes of Geneva free from all taxes and not accountable to any but the Emperours which notwithstanding the Earl continuing still to molest the Bishops they were fain to call unto their aid the Earl of Savoy who took upon him first as Protector onely but afterwards as Lord in Chief For when the Rights of the Earls of Geneva by the Marriage of Thomas Earl of Savoy with Beatrix a Daughter of the Earls fell into that house then Ame or Amade the first of that name obtain'd of the Emperour Charles the Fourth to be Vicar-General of the Empire in his own Country and in that right Superiour to the Bishop in all Temporal matters and Ame or Amade the first Duke got from Pope Martin to the great prejudice of the Bishops a grant of all the Temporal jurisdictions of it After which time the Bishops were constrained to do homage to the Dukes of Savoy and acknowledge them for their Soveraign Lords the Authority of the Dukes being grown so great notwithstanding that the people were immediately subject unto their Bishop onely that the Money in Geneva was stamped with the Dukes Name and Figure capital offenders were pardoned by him no sentence of Law executed till his Officers first made acquainted nor league contracted by the people of any validity without his privity and allowance and finally the Keys of the Town presented him as often as he should please to lodge there as once for instance to Charles the Third coming thither with Beatrix his Wife Daughter of Portugal But still the City was immediately subject to the Bishops onely who had as well the Civil as the Ecclesiastial jurisdiction over it as is confest by Calvin in a Letter unto Cardinal Sadolet though as he thought extorted fraudulently or by force from the lawful Magistrate which lash he added in defence of the Genevians who had then newly wrested the Supream Authority out of the hands of the Bishop and took it wholly upon themselves it being no Felony as he conceived to rob the Thief or to deprive him of a power to which he could pretend no title but an usurpation 4. In this condition it continued till the year 1528 when those of Berne after a publike Disputation held hâ—d made an Alteration in Religion defacing Images and innovating all things in the Church on the Zuinglian Principles Viretus and Farellus two men exceeding studious of the Reformation had gained some footing in Geneva about that time and laboured with the Bishop to admit of such Alterations as had been newly made in Berne But when they saw no hopes of prevailing with him they practised on the lower part of the People with whom they had gotten most esteem and travelled so effectually with them in it that the Bishop and his Clergie in a popular tumult are expelled the Town never to be restored to their former Power After which they proceeded to reform the Church defacing Images and following in all points the example of Berne as by Viretus and Farellus they had been instructed whose doings in the same were afterwards countenanced and approved by Calvin as himself confesseth Nor did they onely in that Tumult alter every thing which had displeased them in the Church but changed the Government of the Town disclaiming all Allegiance either to their Bishop or their Duke and standing on their own Liberty as a Free Estate governed by a Common Council of 200 persons out of which four are chosen annually by the name of Syndicks who sit as Judges in the Court the Mayors and Bayliffs as it were of the Corporation And for this also they were most indebted to the active counsels of Farellus whom Calvin therefore calls the father of the publike Liberty and saith in an Epistle unto those of Zurick dated 26 Novemb. 1553 that the Genevians did owe themselves wholly to his care and counsels And it appears by Calvin also that the people could have been content to live under their Bishop if the Bishop could have been content to reform Religion and more then so that they had deserved the greatest Censures of the Church if it had been otherwise For thus he writes in his said Letter to Cardinal Sadolet Talem nobis Hierarchiam si exhibeant c. If saith he they could offer to us such a Hierarchy or Episcopal Government wherein the Bishops shall so rule as that they refuse not to submit themselves to Christ that they also depend upon him as their onely head and can be content to refer themselves to him in which they will so keep brotherly society amongst themselves as to be knit together by no other bond then that of Truth then surely if there shall be any that will not submit themselves to that Hierarchy reverently and with the greatest obedience that may be I must confess there is no kinde of Anathema or casting to the devil which they are not worthy of But
being displaced the Elder turned out of his Office Perine and his Wife clapt up in Prison and all the rest exposed to some open shame So he in his Epistle to his Friend Farellus Anno 1546. Upon this ground Perinus always made himself of the opposite party and thereupon sollicited the relaxation given to Bertilier but in the end was forced together wâ—â—h the rest to submit themselves unto this yoak and the final sentence of the said four Churches was imposed upon them And so we have the true beginning of the Genevian Discipline begotten in Rebellion born in Sedition and nursed up by Faction 10. Thus was the Discipline confirmed and Calvin setled in the jurisdiction which he had aspired to But long he could not be content with so narrow a Diocess as the Town and Territory of Geneva and would have thought himself neglected if all those Churches which embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines had not withal received the Genevian Discipline for the confirming whereof at home and the promoting it in all parts abroad there was no passage in the Scripture which either spake of Elders or Excommunication but he applyed the same for justifying the Authority of his new Presbytery in which the Lay-elders were considered as distinct from those which laboured in the Word and Sacraments but joyned with them in the exercise of a Jurisdiction even that of Ordination also which concerned the Church Assuredly we are as much in love with the Children of our Brains as of our Bodies and do as earnestly desire the preferment of them Calvin had no sooner conceived and brought forth this Discipline but he caused it first to be nourished and brought up at the charge of Geneva and when he found it strong enough to go abroad of it self he afterwards commended it to the entertainment of all other Churches in which he had attained to any credit proceeding finally so far as to impose it upon the world as a matter necessary and not to be refused on pain of Gods high displeasure by means whereof what Jealousies Heart-burnings Jars and Discords have been occasioned in the Protestant Reformed Churches will be made manifest by the course of this present History Which notwithstanding might easily have been prevented if the Orders which he devised for the use of this City had not been first established in themselves then tendered unto others as things everlastingly required by the Law of that Lord of lords against whose Statutes there was no exception to be taken In which respect it could not chuse but come to pass that his Followers might condemn all other Churches which received it not of manifest disobedience to the Will of Christ And being once engaged could not finde a way how to retire again with Honour Whenas the self-same Orders having been established in a Form more wary and suspence and to remain in force no longer then God should give the oportunity of some general Conference the Genevians either never had obtruded this Discipline on the rest of the Churches to their great disquiet or left themselves a fair liberty of giving off when they perceived what trouble they had thereby raised to themselves and others 11. Now for the means by which this Discipline was made acceptable to the many Churches which had no dependance on Geneva nor on Calvin neither they were chiefly these that is to say â—irst The great contentment which it gave the Common people to see themselves intrusted with the weightiest matters in Religion and thereby an equality with if not by reason of their number being two for one superiority above their Ministers Secondly the great Reputation which Calvin had attained unto for his diligence in Writing and Preaching whereby his Dictates came to be as authentick amongst some Divines as ever the Popes Ipse dixit was in the Church of Rome Thirdly his endeavours to promote that Platform in all other Churches which was first calculated for the Meridian of Geneva onely of which we shall speak more particularly in the course of this History Fourthly the like endeavours used by Beza who not content to recommend it as convenient for the use of the Church higher then which Calvin did not go imposed it as a matter necessary upon all the Churches so necessary that it was utterly as unlawful to recede from this as from the most material Points of the Christian Faith of which more hereafter Fifthly the self-ends and ambition of particular Ministers affecting the Supremacy in their several Parishes that themselves might lord it over Gods Inheritance under pretence of setting Christ in his Throne Upon which ground they did not onely prate against the Bishops with malicious words aâ— Dieotrephes did against the Apostles but were resolved to cast them out of the Church neither receiving them amongst themselves nor suffering those that would have done it if they might Sixthly the covetousness of some great persons and Lay-Patrons of which the one intended to raise themselves great Fortunes by the spoil of the Bishopricks and the other to return those Titles to their own proper use to which they onely were to nominate some deserving person For compassing of which three last ends their followers drove on so furiously that rather then their Discipline should not be admitted and the Episcopal Government destroyed in all the Churches they are resolved to depose Kings ruine Kingdoms and subvert the Fundamental Constitutions of all Civil States 12. Thus have we seen the Discipline setled at the last after many struglings but setled onely by the forestalled judgement and determination of four neighbouring Churches which neither then did entertain it nor could be ever since induced to receive the same And we have took a general view of those Arts and Practices by which it hath been practised and imposed upon other Nations as also of those grounds and motives on which it was so eagerly pursued by some and advanced by others We must now therefore cast our eyes back on that Form of Worship which was by him devised at first for the Church of Geneva commended afterwards to all other Churches which were not of the Lutheran Model and finally received if not imposed upon most Churches which imbraced the Discipline Which Form of Worship what it was may best be gathered from the summary or brief view thereof which Beza tendreth to the use of the French and Dutch Churches then established in the City of London and is this that followeth The publick Meetings of the Church to be held constantly on the Lords day to be alike observed both in Towns and Villages but so that in the greater Towns some other day be set apart on which the Word is to be preached unto the people at convenient times Which last I take to be the grounds of those Week-day-Lectures which afterwards were set up in most of the great Towns or Cities of this Realm of England a Prayer to usher in the Sermon and another after it the frame
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
in all the Churches of his Platform In which as his Doctrine in some other points had first prepared the way to bring in his Discipline so was it no hard matter for the Discipline to support these Doctrines and crush all them that durst oppose them Onely it was permitted unto Beza and his Disciples to be somewhat milder then the rest in placing the Decree of Predestination before the Fall which Calvin himself though in some passages of his Writings he may seem to look the same way also hath placed more judiciously in Massa corrupta in the corrupted mass of mankinde and the more moderate Calvinians as rightly presuppose for a matter necessary before there could be any place for Election or Reprobation of particular Persons But being they concurred with the rest as to the personal Election oâ— Reprobation of particular men the restoring of the benefit of our Saviours sufferings to those few particulars whom onely they had honoured with the glorious Name of Gods Elect the working on them by the irresistable power of Grace in the act of Conversion and bringing them infallibly by the continual assistance of the said Grace unto life everlasting there was hardly any notice taken of their Deviation insomuch that they were scarce beheld in the condition of erring brethren though they differed from them in the main Foundation which they built upon but generally passed under the name of Calvinists as the other did Which Doctrines though I charge not wholly on the score of Presbytery in regard that many of our English Divines who abhorred that Government appeared in favour of the same yet I may truely father them on the two grand Patrons of the Presbyterians by whom they have been since exposed as their dearest darling and no less eagerly contended for then the holy Discipline 23. Another of Calvins great designs was to cry down that Civil Idolatry which he conceived had been committed unto Kings and Princes in making them Supreme and uncontrollable in their several Countries For pulling down of whose Authority even in Civil Matters he attributes such power to such popular Officers as are by them appointed for the ease of their Subjects that by his Doctrine they may call the Supreme Magistrate to a strict account whensoever they shall chance to exceed those bounds which they had prescribed unto themselves onely by which they may be circumscribed by others For having in the last Chapter of his Institutions first published in the year 1536 exceeding handsomely laid down the Doctrine of Obedience and the unlawfulness of resistance in what case soever he gives in the close such a qualification as utterly overthrows his former Doctrine and proved the sole ground of such Rebellions Treasons and Assassinates as have disfigured the otherwise undefiled beauty of the Church of Christ. Which passages I shall here lay down in the Authors words with a translation by their side that the Reader may perceive there is no wrong done him and afterwards proceed to the discovery of those sad effects which have ensued upon them in too many places wherein his Discipline hath either been received or contended for His Doctrine in which point is this that followeth 24. Neque enim si ultio Domini est â—ffraenaiae dominationis correctio ideo protinus demandatum nobis arbitremur quibus nullum aliud quam parendi patiendi datum est mandatum De privatis hominibus semper loquar Nam si qui nunc sint Populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori aut Romanis Consulibus Tribuni Plebis aut Atheniensium Senatui Demarchi qua etiam forte potestate ut nunc res habent funguntur in singuli Regnis tres Ordines cum primarios conventus peragunt adeo illos ferocienti Regum licentiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili plebeculae insultantibus conniverunt eorum dissimulationem nefaria nefaria perfidia non carere affirmem quia populi libertatem cujus se Dei ordinatione tutores positos norunt fraudulenter produnt 24. Nor may we think because the punishment of Licentious Princes belongs to God that presently this power is devolved on us to whom no other warrant hath been given by God but onely to obey and suffer But still I must be understood of private persons For if there be now any Popular Officers ordained to moderate the licentiousness of Kings such as were the Ephori set up of old against the Kings of Sparta the Tribunes of the people against the Roman Consuls and the Demarchy against the Athenian Senate and with which power perhaps as the world goes the three States are seiz'd in each several Kingdom when they are solemnly assembled so far am I from hindring them to put restraints upon the exorbitant power of Kings as their Office binds them that I conceive them rather to be guilty of a persidious dissimulation if they connive at Kings when they play the Tyrants or wantonly insult on the Common people in that they treacherously betray the Subjects liberties of which they knew they were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance 25. Which dangerous Doctrine being thus breathed and broached by Calvin hath since been both professed and practised by all his Followers as either they had opportunity to declare themselves or strength enough to put the same in execution Some of whose words I shall here add as a tast to the rest and then refer the rest to their proper places And first we will begin with Beza who in his twenty fourth Epistle inscribed to the Outlandish Churches in England doth resolve it thus If any man saith he contrary to the Laws and Liberties of his native Country shall make himself a Lord or Supreme Magistrate over all the rest or being lawfully invested with the Supreme Magistracie should either unjustly spoil or deprive his Subjects of those Rights and Priviledges which he hath sworn to them to observe or otherwise oppress them by open Tyranny that then the ordinary and inferiour Officers are to oppose themselves against them who both by reason of their several Offices and by Gods appointment are bound in all such cases to protect the Subjects not onely against Forreign but Domestick Tyrants Which is as much as could be possibly contrained in so narrow a compass And if he were the Author as some say he was of the Book called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos published under the name of Stephanus Brutus there hath been no Rebellion raised since that Book was written or likely to be raised in the times ensuing which may not honestly be charged upon his account But because the Author of this Book is commonly reported to be meerly French and none of the Genevian Doctors we may possibly hear more of him in that part of our History which relateth to the Actings of the Presbyterians in the
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
acknowledgeth the great benefit which he had received by his Writings acquaints him with the peaceable estate of the Church of Saxonie but signifies withal that Excommunication was not used amongst them whereunto Calvin makes this Answer That he was glad to hear that the Church of Saxony continued in that condition but sorry that it was not so strengthned by the Nerves of Discipline as might preserve the same inviolated to the times to come He adds that there could be no better way of correcting vice then by the joynt consent of all the Pastors of one City and that he never thought it meet that the power of Excommunicating should reside in the Pastors onely that is to say not in conjunction with their Elders which last he builds on these three Reasons First in regard it is an odious and ungrateful Office next because such a sole and absolute power might easily degenerate into tyranny and finally because the Apostles had taught otherwise in it By which we see that as he builds his Discipline on the Word of God or at the least on Apostolical tradition which comes close unto it so he adventureth to commend it to the Lutheran Churches in which his Reputation was not half so great as amongst those which had embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines 31. But in the Zuinglian Churches he was grown more absolute his Writings being so highly valued and his person so esteemed of in regard of his Writings that most of the Divines thereof depended wholly upon his judgement and were willing to submit to any thing of his Prescription The Church of Strasbourgh where he had remained in the time of his exile received his Discipline with the first as soon as it was finally established in Geneva it self For it appeareth by the Letter which Gasper Oberianus sent to Calvin bearing date April 12. 1560. that the Eldership was then well setled in that Church and the Elders of it in a full possession of their power the exercise whereof they are desired to suspend in one particular which is there offered to his view This Gasper was chief Minister of the Church of Tryers so passionately affected to the name of Calvin that he accounted it for one of his greatest honours to be called a Calvinian Preacher Acquainting him with the condition of the Church of Tryers he tells him amongst other things that he found the people very willing to submit to Discipline and thereupon intreats him for a Copy of those Laws and Orders which were observed in the Consistory of Geneva to the end he might communicate them to such of the Senators as he knew to be zealously affected Calvin who was apt enough to hearken to his own desires sends him a large draught of the whole Platform as well relating to the choice of the Members either Lay or Ministers as to the power and jurisdiction which they were to exercise with all the penalties and particularities with reference unto crimes and persons which depended on it And having given him that account he thus closeth with him This summary saith he I had thought sufficient by which or out of which you may easily frame to your self such a form of Government as I have no reason to prescribe To you it appertains modestly to suggest those counsels which you conceive to be most profitable for the use of the Church that godly and discreet men who seldom take it ill to be well advised may thereupon consider what is best be to done Which words of his though very cautelously couched were so well understood by Oberianus that the Discipline was first admitted in that Church and afterwards propagated into those of the Neighbouring Provinces 32. He hath another way of screwing himself into the good opinion of such Kings and Princes as he conceived to be inclinable to the Reformation sometimes congratulating with them for their good success sometimes encouraging them to proceed in so good a work of which sort were his Letters to King Edward the Sixth to Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Secretary Cecil to the Prince Elector Palatine Duke of Wirâ—inburgh Lantgrave of Hesse But he bestirred himself in no place more then he did in Poland which though he never visited in person yet he was frequent in it by his Lines and Agents The Augustane Confession had been brought thither some years before of which he took but little notice But he had heard no sooner that the Doctrines of Zuinglius began to get some ground upon them under the Reign of Sigismund sirnamed Augustus when presently he posts his Letters to the King and most of the great Officers which were thought to encline that way Amongst which he directs his Letters to Prince Radzeville one of the Chief Palatines and Earl Marshal Spirtetus Castelan of Sunderzee and Lord high-Treasurer to Iohn Count of Tarnaco Castelan of Craco and Lord General of his Majesties Armies besides many other Castelans and persons of great power in the Affairs of that Kingdom In his first Letters to that King dated the fourth of December 1554 he seems to congratulate with him for imbracing the Reformed Religion though in that point he was somewhat out in his intelligence and thereupon exhorts him to be earnest in the propagating of the Faith and Gospel which in himself he had imprest and that he would proceed to reform the Church from the dregs of Popery without regard to any of those dangers and inconveniences which might follow on it But in his next address 1555 he comes up more close speaks of erecting a tribunal or throne to Christ setting up such a perfect Form of the true Religion as came neerest to the Ordinance of Christ. And we know well that in the meaning of his party the settling of Presbytery was affirmed to be nothing else then setting Christ upon his Throne holding the Scepter of the Holy Discipline in his own right-hand And somewhat to this purpose he had also written to the Count of Tarnaco whom in his first Letter he applauds for his great readiness to receive the Gospel But in his second bearing date the nineteenth of November 1558 he seems no less grieved that the Count demurred on something which he had recommended to him under pretence that it was not safe to alter any thing in the State of the Kingdom and that all innovations seemed to threaten some great danger to it which cautelousness in that great person could not relate to any alteration in the State of Religion in which an alteration had been made for some years before and therefore must refer to some Form of Discipline which Calvin had commended to him for the use of those Churches And no man can conceive that he would recommend unto them any other Form then that which he devised for the Church of Geneva 32. But Calvin did not deal by Letters onely in the present business but had his Agents in that Kingdom who busily
Bishops were the first means to advance the Pope so the pretended Bishops would maintain the Relicks of Popery And then he adds that it concerns all those to avoid that plague by which he meanâ— undoubtedly the Episcopal Order who pretend to any care of the Churches safety And therefore since they had so happily discharged that calling in the Church of Scotland they never should again admit it though it might flatter them with some assurance of peace and unity 46. What followed thereupon in Scotland we shall see hereafter But his desires of propagating the Genevian Forms was not to be restrained to that part of the Island In his first Letter unto Grindal he doth not onely justifie the Genevian Discipline and the whole Order of that Church in Sacred Offices as grounded on the Word of God but findes great fault with the Episcopal Government in the Church of England and the great power which was ascribed unto the Queen in Spiritual Matters How so Because said he he found no warrant for it in the Word of God or any of the ancient Canons by which it might be lawful for the Civil Magistrate of his own Authority either to abrogate old Ceremonies or establish new or for the Bishops onely to ordain and determine any thing without the judgement and consent of their Presbyteries being first obtained And in his answer to the Queries of the English brethren he findes no less fault with the manner of proceedings in the Bishops Courts in regard that Excommunications were not therein passed by the common consent of a Presbytery but decreed onely by some Civil Lawyers or other Officers who faâ—e as Judges in the same But first the man was ignorant of the course of those Courts in which the sentence of Excommunication is never published or pronounced but by the mouth of a Minister ordained according to the Rules of the Church of England And secondly it is to be conceived in Reason that any Batchelor or Doctor of the Civil Law is far more fit to be imployed and trusted in the exercise of that part of Discipline then any Trades-man of Geneva though possibly of the number of the five and twenty For the redress of which great mischief and of many other he applies himself unto the Queen to whom he dedicates his Annotations on the New Testament published in the year 1572. In the Epistle whereunto though he acknowledgeth that she had restored unto this Kingdom the true Worship of God yet he insinuates that there was wanting a full Reformation of Ecclesiastical Discipline that our Temples were not fully purged that some high places still remained not yet abolished and therefore wisheth that those blemishes might be removed and those wants supplyed Finally understanding that a Parliament was then shortly to be held in England and that Cartwright had prepared an Admonition to present unto it he must needs interpose his credit with a Peer of the Realm to advance the service as appears plainly by his Letter of the same year and the Nones of Iuly In which though he approves the Doctrine yet he condemns the Government of the Church as most imperfect not onely destitute of many things which were good and profitable but also of some others which were plainly necessary 47. But here it is to be observed that in his Letter to this great person whosoever he was he seems more cautelous and reserved then in that to Grindal but far more modest then in those to Knox and the English Brethren The Government of England was so well setled as not to be ventured on too rashly And therefore he must first see what effect his counsels had produced in Scotland before he openly assaults the English Hierarchy But finding all things there agreeable to his hopes and wishes he published his Tract De Triplici Episcopatu calculated for the Meridian onely of the Kirk of Scotland as being writ at the desire of the Lord Chancellor Glammis but so that it might generally serve for all Great Britain In which Book he informs his Reader of three sorts of Bishops that is to say the Bishop by Divine Institution being no other then the Minister of a particular Church or Congregation the Bishop by humane appointment being the same onely with the President of a Convocation or the Moderator as they phrase it in some Church-assembly and finally the Devils Bishops such as presume to take upon them the whole charge of a Diocess together with a superiority and jurisdiction over other Ministers Which Book was afterwards translated into English by Feild of Wandsworth for the instruction and content of such of the Brethren as did not understand the Latine To serve as a Preface to which Work the Presbyterian Brethren publish their Seditious Pamphlets in defence of the Discipline some in the English Tongue some in the Latine but all of them Printed at Genâ—va For in the year 1570 comes out The plain and full Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God without the name of any Author to gain credit to it And Traverse a furious Zealot amongst the English had published at Geneva also in the Latine Tongue a discourse of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word of God as it was pretended with the declining of the Church of England from the same Anno 1574 which for the same reason must be turned into English also and Printed at Geneva with Beza's Book Anno 1580. What pains was took by some of the Divines of England but more particularly by Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and Dr. Adrian Saravia preferred upon the merit of this service in the Church of Westminster shall be remembred in a place more proper for it when we shall come to a review of those disturbances which were occasioned in this Church by the Puritan Faction Most of which did proceed from no other Fountain then the pragmaticalness of Beza the Doctrines of Calvin and the Example of Geneva which if they were so influential on the Realms of Britain though lying in a colder climate and so far remote it is to be presumed that they were far more powerful in France and Germany which lay nearer to them and in the last of which the people were of a more active and Mercurial Spirit 48. What influence Calvin had upon some of the Princes Cities and Divines of Germany hath been partly touched upon before and how his Doctrines did prevail in the Palatine Churches and his Discipline in many parts and Provinces of the Germane Empire may be shown hereafter In France he held intelligence with the King of Navar the Brethren of Rouen Aix Mont-Pelier and many leading men of the Hugonot party none of which can be thought to have asked his counsel about purchasing Lands the Marriages of their Children or the payment of Debts And when the Fortune of the Wars and the Kings just anger necessitated many of them to forsake their Country they
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
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
own peace at home he might the less regard the Tumults which were raised in the Netherlands and yet for fear that Project might not take effect it was agreed upon that a combination should be made between the heads of the Covenanters and the principal Merchants between whom it was finally concluded and the conclusion ratified by a solemn taking of the Sacrament on either side that the Covenanters should protect the Merchants against all men whatsoever who laboured to restrain them in the freedom of Conscience and that the Merchants should supply the Covenanters with such sums of money as might enable them to go through with the Work begun It also was agreed upon that the Calvinian party for a time should suppress their own and make profession of conformity to the Lutheran Doctrines contained in the Confession of Ausberg in hope thereby of having succour and relief from the Lutheran Princes if the King should seek to force them in the way of Arms which was accordingly performed And that being done they cast themselves into a separate and distinct Republick from that of the State erect a Supreme Consistory in the City of Antwerp and some inferiour Judicatories in the other Cities but all subordinate unto that of Antwerp in which they take upon them the choice of Magistrates for managing and directing all Affairs which concerned the Faction 34. Of all these Plots and Consultations the King is punctually informed by the vigilant Governess and thereupon caused a report to be dispersed that he intended to bestow a Royal visit on his Belgick Provinces but first to smooth the way before him by a puissant Army On this advertisement the Governess resumes her courage complains how much the Covenanters had abused her favours and publickly declares that she had onely given them leave to meet together for hearing Sermons of their own but that their Ministers had took upon them to Baptize and Marry and perform all other Sacred Offices in a different manner from that allowed of by the Church That they had set up divers Consistories and new Forms of Government not warranted by the Laws of the several Provinces That they had opened divers Schools for training up their Children in Heretical Principles That they had raised great sums of Money under pretence of purchasing a toleration of the King whose Piety was too well known to be so corrupted but in plain truth to levy Souldiers for a War against him That therefore she commands all Governours and Deputy-Governours in their several Provinces not onely to dissolve Heretical Meetings otherwise then for Sermons onely in the time to come but to put Garrisons into such of the Towns and Cities as were held suspected or were most likely to be seized on to the Kings disservice By this Remonstrance seconded with the news of the Kings intention the leading Covenanters were so startled that they resolved on the beginning of the War and were accordingly in Arms before the Governess had either raised Horse or Foot more then the ordinary Train bands which were to be maintained in continual readiness by the Rules of that Government But first they thought it most agreeable to the State of Affairs to possess themselves of such strong Towns as either stood convenient for the letting in of Forreign Succours or otherwise for commanding the adjoyning Territories In which designe they speed so well that many great Towns declare for them of their own accord some were surprised by such of the Calvinian Leaders as had friends amongst them and some were willing to stand neutral till they saw more of it But none fared better at the first then Anthony of Bomberg one of the Calvinists of Antwerp who having formerly served the Hugonot Princes in the Wars of France had put himself into the Bosch from whence the Faction had not long before expelled their Bishop And there he played his game with such fraud and cunning that he put the people into Arms made himself Master of the Town and turned the Cannon upon Count Meghen who was Commissionated by the Governess amongst other things to plant a Garrison in the same 35. This good success encouraged many of the rest to the like attempts but few of them with so good Fortune The Count of Brederode having Fortified his own Town of Viana a small Town of Holland stretcheth his Arms from thence to imbrace the rest and takes in Amsterdam it self without opposition but having the like aim on Vtrecht he found his hopes defeated by the Count of Meghen who got in before him Worse fared â—t with Philip de Marnix Lord of Tholouse another of the Antwerpian Calvinists of greater power then Bomberg but of less dexterity holding intelligence with the Provost of Middleberg he entertained a design of surprising Vlushing and therewith the whole Isle of Walcheren and the rest of Zealand To which end he embarks his men and sails down the Scheldt not without some good hope of effecting his enterprize before any discovery was made of it But the Governess knew of what importance the said Island was and was there before him in her Forces though not in her person Repulsed from thence he marcheth back again towards Antwerp takes up his Quarters in the Borough of Ostervill the Southwark as it were of Antwerp and from thence so named where he is set upon by Lanoy another of the Regents Captains the Borough fired about his ears himself burned in a Barn fifteen thousand of his Souldiers killed in the flight three hundred of them taken and then put to the Sword Which execution was thought necessary as the case then stood for fear the Calvinists in the City might renew the fight and put him worse to it then before Nor were they wanting to their Friends in that desperate exigent whose slaughter they beheld from the Walls of the City But when they thought to pass the Bridge they found no Bridge at all to give them passage the Prince of Orange being then at Antwerp had caused it to be broken down the day before not out of any designe to prevent the Calvinists from assisting their Brethren but rather to hinder the Victorious Catholicks if it should so happen from making any use of it to possess the City But the Calvinists not knowing of his secret purposes tumultuously assembled to the number of fourteen thousand men fell foul upon him in the Streets reviled him by the name of Traytor and clapped a Pistol to his Breast and questionless had proceeded to some greater outrage if the Lutherans hating the Calvinists and as hateful to them had not joyned with the Papists and thereby over-powered them both in strength and numbers 36. But none fared worse then the Calvinians of Tournay and Valenciennes though they were both stronger and more numerous then in other places Those of Valenciennâ—s had refused to admit a Garrison encouraged by their French Preachers to that disobedience But being besieged by Norcarmius Deputy-Governour of
Authority over rhem Knox goes to work more cautiously but comes home at last For having first approved whatsoever had been said by Willock he adds this to it That the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Soveraign nor did he wish that any such sentence against her should be pronounced but that when she should change her course and submit her self to good counsels there should be place left unto her of regress to the same honours from which for just cause she ought to be deprived 19. So said the Oracle and as the Oracle decreed so the sentence passed for presently upon this judgement in the case a publick Instrument is drawn up in which the most part of the passages in the course of her Government were censured as grievances and oppressions on the Subjects of Scotland to the violating of the Laws of the Land the Liberty of the Subjects and the enslaving of them to the power and domination of strangers In which respect they declare her to be fallen from the publick Government discharge all Officers and others from yeilding any obedience to her subscribing this Instrument with their hands requiring it to be published in all the Head-Boroughs of the Kingdom and causing it to be proclaimed with sound of Trumpet Thus they began with the Queen Regent but we shall see them end with the Queen her self their annoynted Soveraign This Instrument bears date on the 23 of October a memorable day for many notable occurrences which have hapned on it in our Brittish Stories Of all these doings they advertised her by express Letters sent back by the same Herald who had brought her last message to them and having so done they resolve immediately to try their fortune upon Leith in the way of Scalada But the worst was the Souldiers would not â—ight without present money and money they had none to pay them on so short a warning Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution but would not satisfie And thereupon it was advised that the Lords and other great men should bring in their Plate and cause it to be presently melted to content the Souldiers But they who had so long made a gain of Godliness did not love Godliness so well as not to value and prefer their gain before it And therefore some had so contrived it that the Irons of the Mint were missing and by that handsome fraud they preserved their Plate 20. It was not to be thought that the Scots durst have been so bold in the present business if they had not been encouraged underhand from some Friends in England which the Queen Regent well observed and prest it on them in her Declaration as before was noted To which particular though the Confederates made no reply in their Anti-remonstrance at that time yet afterwards they both acknowledged and defended their intelligence with the English Nation For in a subsequent Declaration They acknowledge plainly that many Messages had past betwixt them and that they had craved some support from thence but that it was onely to maintain Religion and suppress Idolatry And they conceived that in so doing they had done nothing which might make them subject unto any just censure it being lawful for them where their own power failed to seek assistance from their Neighbours And now or never was the time to make use of such helps their Contribution falling short and the Plate not coming to the Mint as had been projected In which extremity it was advised to try some secret Friends at Barwick especially Sir Ralph Sudlieur and Sir Iames Crofts by whose encouragement it may be thought they had gone so far that now there was no going back without manifest ruine By the assistance of these men they are furnished with four thousand Crowns in ready Money But the Queen Regent had advertisement of the negotiation and intercepts it by the way The news of this ill Fortune makes the Souldiers desperate some of them secretly steal away others refuse to venture upon any service so that the Lords and others of the chief Confederates are put upon a necessity of forsaking Edenborough The French immediately take possession of it compel the Ministers and most of those who profest the Reformed Religion to desert their dwellings restore the Mass and reconcile with many Ceremonies the chief Church of the City I mean that dedicated unto St. Gyles as having been prophaned by Heretical Preachings But the abandoning of Edenborough proved the ruine of Glasgow To which Duke Hamilton repairing he caused all the Images and Altars to be pulled down and made himself Master of the Castle out of which upon the noise of the Bishops coming with some Bands of French he withdraws again and quits the Town unto the Victor No way now left to save their persons from the Law their Estates from forfeiture their Country from the French and their Religion from the Pope but to cast themselves upon the favour of the Qeeen of England And to that course as the Lord Iames did most incline and Knox most preached for so there might be some probable Reasons which might assure them of not failing of their expectations 21. No sooner was Queen Mary of England dead but Mary the young Queen of Scots not long before Married to the Daulphin of France takes on her self the name and title of Queen of England the Arms whereof she quarters upon all her Plate some of her Coyn and upon no small part of her Houshold-Furniture Which though she did not as she did afterwards alledge of her own accord but as she was over-ruled in it by the perswasion of her Husband and the Authority which was not in her to dispute of the King his Father yet Queen Elizabeth looked upon it as a publick opposition to her own Pretensions an open disallowing of her Title to the Crown of this Realm She had good reason to presume that they by whose Authority and Counsel she was devested of her Title would leave no means untryed nor no stone unmoved by the rouling whereof she might be tumbled out of her Government and deprived also of her Kingdom Which jealousie so justly setled received no small increase from the putting over of so many French distributing them into so many Garrisons but more especially by their fortifying of the Town of Leith at which Gate all the strengths of France might enter when occasion served And then how easie a passage might they have into England divided only by small Rivers in some places and in some other places not divided at all But that which most assured her of their ill intentions was the great preparations lately made by the Marquiss of Elboeuf one of the Brothers of the Queen Regent and consequently Uncle to the Queen of Scots For though he was so distressed by tempests that eighteen Ensignes were cast away on the Coast of Holland and the rest forced for the present to return
visitation of all the Ministers and Churches in their several bounds to fix their dwellings in the chief Towns or Cities within the same and to be chosen by the Burgesses of the said Towns or Cities together with the suffrages of the Ministers of their several Circuits and more particularly that the County or Province of Lothaine shall be abstracted from the Diocess of St. Andrews and have a Superintendent of its own who was to keep his Residence in the City of Edenborough which afterwards in the year 1633 was erected by King Charles into a Bishops See and Lothaine assigned him for his Diocess as was here devised That for the better maintainance of the Ministers and Superintendents as also for defraying of all other publick charges which concerned the Churches the lands belonging unto the Bishops as also to all Cathedral and Convenâ—â—al Churches and to the Houses of Monks and Fryars shall be set apart not otherwise to be imployed That in all Churches there be two Elders annually chosen to be associate with the Ministers in the Cognizance of all Ecclesiastical Causes and in the Censures of the Church That the said Elders shall have power not onely to admonish but correct their Ministers if occasion be but not to proceed to deprivation without the allowance and consent of the Superintendent and that the Deacons shall be joyned as Assistants in judgement with the Elders and Ministers That no man presume to eat or drink or otherwise to converse familiarly with excommunicate persons except those of his own Family onely That their Children should not be Baptised till they came unto the years of discretion And that all Murtherers and other Malefactors punishable by death according to the Laws of the Land though they be pardoned for the same by the supreme Magistrates shall notwithstanding be esteemed as excommunicate persons and not received into the Church without such satisfaction and submission as is required of other notorious offenders by the Rules of the Discipline It appears also by this Book that there was one standing Supreme Câ—uncil for ordering the Affairs of the Church and by which all publick grievances were to be redressed but of what persons it consisted and in what place it was held is not mentioned in it 28. This Book being tendered to the consideration of the Convention of Estates was by them rejected whether it were because they could not make such a manifest separation from the Polity of the Church of England or that it concerned them more particularly in their own proper interest in regard of the Church-lands Tythes which they had amongst them or perhaps for both Certain it is that some of them past it over by no better Title then that of some devout Imaginations which could not be reduced to practice This so offended Knox and others who had drawn it up if any other but Knox onely had a hand therein that they spared not bitterly to revile them for their coldness in it taxing them for their carnal liberty their love untâ—â— their worldly Commodities and their corrupt imaginations Some of them are affirmed to have been licentious some greedily to have griped the possessions of the Church and others to be so intent upon the getting of Christs Coat that they would not stay till he was crucified Of the Lord Erskin who refused to subscribe to the Book it is said particularly that he had a very evil woman to his Wife and that if the Schools the poor and the Ministry of the Church had their own his Kiâ—â—hâ—n would have lacked two parts of that which he then possessed Of all of them it was admired that for such a long continuance they could hear the threatnings of God against Thieves and Robbers and that knowing themselves to be guilty of those things which were most rebuked they should never have any remorse of Conscience nor intend the restoring of those things which they had so stolen For so it was if they may be believed that said it that none in all the Realm were more unmerciful to the poor Ministers then they that had invaded and possessed themselves of the greatest Rents of right belonging unto the Church and therein verified as well the old Proverb That the belly hath no ears at all as a new observation of their own devising That nothing would suffice a wretch Such were the discontents and evaporations of these zealous men when they were crossed in any thing which concerned them in their power or profit 30. But in another of their projects they had better Fortune They had sollicited the Convention of Estates for demolishing of all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry in which number they accounted all Cathedral Churches as well as Monasteries and other Religious Houses which they insisted on the rather because it was perceived and perhaps given out that the â—apists would again erect their old Idolatry and take upon them a command as before they did upon the Consciences of the people that so as well the great men of the Realm as such whom God of his Mercy so they tell us had subjected to them should be compelled to obey their lawless appetites In this some hopes were given them that they should be satisfied but nothing done in execution of the same till the May next following And possibly enough it might have been delayed to a longer time if the noise and expectation of the Queens return had not spurred it on For either fearing or not knowing what might happen to them if she should interpose her power to preserve those places whose demolishing they so much desired they introduce that Discipline by little and little which they could not settle all at once They begin first planting Churches and nominating Superintendents for their several Circuits they superinduce their own Ministers over the heads of the old incumbents establish their Presbyteries divide them into several Classes and hold their general Assemblies without any leave desired of the Queen or Council They proceed next to execute all sorts of Ecclesiastical Censures and arrogate Authority to their selves and their Elders to Excommunicate all such as they found unconformable to their new devices For the first tryal of their power they convent one Sanderson who had been accused to them for Adultery whom they condemned to be carted and publickly exposed unto the scorn of Boys and Children An uproar had been made in Edenborough about the chusing of a Robbinhood or a whitson-Whitson-Lord in which some few of the preciser sort opposed all the rest and for this crime they excommunicate the whole multitude wherein they shewed themselves to be very unskilful in the Canon-law in which they might have found that neither the Supreme Magistrate nor any great multitudes of people are to be subject to that Censure They proceed afterwards to the appointing of solemn Fasts and make choice of Sunday for the day which since that time hath been made use of for those Fasts more then any
of those uncomfortable times which she found amongst them Against Sunday being the 24 there were great preparations made for celebrating Mass in the Chappel-Royal of Holyâ—ood-House At which the Brethren of the Congregation were so highly offended that some of them cryed out aloud so as all might hear them That the Idolatrous Priests should dye the death according to Gods Law others affirming with less noise but with no less confidence That they could not abide that the Land which God by his power had purged of Idolatry should in their sight be polluted with the same again And questionless some great mischief must have followed on it if the Lord Iames Steward to preserve the honour of his Nation in the eye of the French had not kept the door which he did under a preâ—ence that none of the Scottish Nation should be present at the hearing of Mass contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf but in plain truth to hinder them by the power and reputation which he had amongst them from thronging in tumultuously to disturb the business 33. For remedy whereof for the time to come an Order was issued the next day by the Lords of the Council and Authorized by the Queen in which it was declared that no manner of person should privately or openly take in hand to alter or innovate any thing in the State of Religion which the Queen found publickly and universally received at her Majesties arrival in that Realm or attempt any thing against the same upon pain of death But then it was required withal that none of the Leiges take in hand to trouble or molest any of her Majesties Domestick Servants or any other persons which had accompanied her out of France at the time then present for any cause whatsoever in word deed or countenance and that upon the pain of death as the other was But notwithstanding the equality of so just an Order the Earl of Arrane in the name of the rest of the Congregation professed openly on the same day at the Cross in Edenborough That no protection should be given to the Queens Domesticks or to any other person that came out of France either to violate the Laws of the Realm or offend Gods Majesty more then was given to any other subjects And this he did as he there affirmed because Gods Law had pronounced death to the Idolater and the Laws of the Realm had appointed punishment for the sayers and hearers of Mass from which he would have none exempted till some Law were publickly made in Parliament and such as was agreeable to the Word of God to annul the former The like distemper had possest all the rest of the Lords at their first coming to the Town to attend her Majesty to congratulate her safe arrival but they cooled all of them by degrees when they considered the unreasonableness of the Protestation in denying that Liberty of Conscience to their Soveraign Queen which every one of them so much desired to enjoy for himself Onely the Earl Arrane held it out to the last He had before given himself some hopes of marrying the Queen and sent her a rich Ring immediately on the death of the King her Husband but finding no return agreeable to his expectation he suffered himself to be as much transported to the other extreme according to the natural Genius of the Presbyterians who never yet knew any mean in their loves or hatred 34. Iohn Knox makes good the Pulpit in the chief Church at Edenborough on the Sunday following in which he bitterly inveighed against Idolatry shewing what Plagues and Punishments God had inflicted for the same upon several Nations And then he adds that one Mass was more fearful to him then if ten thousand armed Enemies were landed in any part of the Realm on purpose to suppress their whole Religion that in God there was strength to resist and confound whole multitudes iâ— unfeignedly they depended on him of which they had such good experience in their former troubles but that if they joyned hands with Idolatry they should be deprived of the comfortable presence and assistance of Almighty God A Conference hereupon ensued betwixt him and the Queen at the hearing whereof there was none present but the Lord Iames Steward besides two Gentlemen which stood at the end of the Room In the beginning whereof she charged him with raising Sedition in that Kingdom putting her own Subjects into Arms against her writing a Book against the Regiment of Women and in the end descendâ—d to some points of Religion To all which Knox returned such answers or else so favourably reports them to his own advantage for we must take the whole story as it comes from his pen that he is made to go away with as easie a victory as when the Knight of the Boot encounters with some Dwarf or Pigmy in the old Romances All that the Queen got by it from the mouth of this Adversary was that he found in her a proud minde a crafâ—y wit and an obdurate heart against God and his Truth And in this Character be thought himself confirmed by her following actions For spending the rest of the Summer in visiting sâ—me of the chief Towns of her Kingdom she carried the Mass with her into all places wheresoever she came and at her coming back gave order for setting out the Mass with more solemnity on Alhallows day then at any time or place before Of this the Minâ—sters complain to such of the Nobility as were then Resident in the City but finde not such an eagerness in them as in former times For now some of them make a doubt whether the Subjects might use force for suppressing the Idolatry of their Prince which heretofore had passed in the affirmative as a truth infallible A Conâ—erence is thereupon appointed between some of the Lords and such of the Ministers as appeared most Zâ—alous against the Mass the Lords disputing for the Queen and urging that it was not lawful to deprive her of that in which she placed so great a part of her Religion The contrary was maintained by Knox and the rest of the Ministers who seeing that they could not carry it as before by their own Authority desired that the deciding of the point might be referred to the godly Brethren of Geneva of whose concurring in opinion with them they were well assured And though the drawing up of the point and the Inditing of the Letter being committed unto Ledington the principal Secretary was not dispatched with such poâ—â— haste as their Zeal required yet they shewed plainly by insisting on that proposition both from whose mouth they had received the Doctrines of making Soveraign Princes subject to the lusts of the people and from whose hands they did expect the defence thereof 35. A general Assembly being indicted by them about that time or not long after a question is made by some of the Court-Lords whether such Assemblies might be holden
a very sorry case when not her people onely must be poysoned with this dangerous Doctrine but that she must be baffled and affronted by each sawcy Presbyter who could pretend unto a Ministry in the Church Of which the dealing of thâ—s man gives us proof sufficient who did not onely revile her parson in the Pulpit and traduce her Government but openly pronounced her to be an Idolatress and therefore to be punished by her Subjects as the Law required Nothing more ordinary with him in his factious Sermons then to call her a Slave to Sathan and to tell the people that Gods vengeance hanged over the Realm by reason of her impiety which what else was it but to inflame the hearts of the people as well against the Queen as all them that served her For in his publick Prayers he commonly observed this Form viz. O Lord if it be thy good pleasure purge the Queens heart from the venom of Idolatry and deliver her from the bondage and thraldom of Sathan in the which she yet remains for lack of true Doctrine c. that in so doing she may avoid the eternal damnation which is ordained for all obstinate and impenitent to thee and that this Realm may also escape that plague and vengeance which inevitably follows Idolatry maintained in this Kingdom against thy manifest Word and the Light thereof set forth unto them Such in a word was the intemperancie of his spirit his hatred of her person or contempt of her Government that he opposed and crossed her openly in all her courses and for her sake fell foul upon all men of more moderate counsels 46. During the interval between the death of her Father and her own coming back from France there had been little shewn of a Court in Scotland as not much before But presently on her return a greater bravery in Apparel was taken up by the Lords and Ladies and such as waited near her person then in former times never more visibly then when they waited on her in a pompous manner as she went to the Parliament of this year This gives great scandal to the Preachers to none more then Knox. The Preachers boldly in their Pulpits that I say not malapertly declared against the superfluity of their Clothes and against the rest of their Vanities which they affirm'd should provoke Gods vengeance not onely against those foolish Women but the whole Realm and especially against those that maintained them in that odious abusing all things which might have better been bestowed A course is taken principally by their sollicitations that certain Articles were agreed on and proposed in Parliament for regulating all excess in Apparel as a great enormity the stinking pride of Women as Knox plainly calls it Who being sent for to the Court upon the like occasion could not but pass a scorn upon such of the Ladies whom he found more gorgeously attired then agreed with his liking by telling them what a pleasant life it was they lived if either it would always last or that they might go to Heaven in all that gear But sie on that knave death quoth he that will come whether we will or not and when he hath laid an arrest then foul worms will be busie with this â—â—esh be it never so fair and tender and the silly soul I fear â—iâ—l be so feeble that it can neither carry with it gold garnishing â—urbishing pearl nor precious stones So Zealous was be for a Purity both in Church and State as not to tolerate soft Raiment though in Princes Palaces The Queen had graced the Parliament with her presence three days together in one of which she entertains them with a Speech to the great satisfaction of all her good Subjects Knox calls it by the name of a painted Oration tells us in scorn that one might have heard amongst her flatterers that it was Vox Dianae the voice of a Goddess for it could not be Vox Dei and not of a woman â—thers as he pursues the Jeer crying out God save that sweet face was there ever Orator spake so properly and so sweetly c. And this as much displeased the Preachers as the pride of the Ladies 47. The Queen had gained the thirds of all Church-Rents by an Act of State for the more honourable support of her self and her Family upon condition of making some allowance out of it to defray the Ministers How Knox approved of this hath been shewn before We must now see how he had trained up Goodman if they were not both rather trained up by the same great Master to pursue the quarrel and how far he was seconded by the rest of the Brethren In a general Assembly held this year the business of the thirds was again resumed by some Commissioners of the Kirk To which no satâ—sfactory answer being given by the Queen and her Council it was said by those of the Assembly If the Queen will not we must for both second and third parts are rigorously taken from us and our tenants Knox added that if others would fellow his counsel the Guard and the Papists should complain as long as their Ministers Goodman takes fire upon this strain and starts a doubt about the Title which the Queen had unto the thirds or the Papists to the other two parts of the Church-Rents At which when he was put in minde by Ledington that he was a stranger and therefore was to be no medler he boldly answered that though he was a stranger in the Civil Policie of that Realm yet stranger he was none in the Church of God the care whereof did appertain to him no less in Scotland then if he were in the midst of England his own natâ—ve Country So little was there got by talking unto any of these powerful Zealots At whose exhorbitances when the Lord Iames Steward not long before made Earl of Murray seemed to be offended and otherwise had appeared more favourable to the Queen then agreed with their liking Knox who before adored him above all men living discharged himself by Letter in a churlish manner from any further intermedling in his affairs in which he commits him to his own wit so the Letter words it and to the conduct of those men who would better please him and in the end thereof upbraids him that his preferment never came by any complying with impiety nor by the maintaining of pestilent Papists 48. But to proceed to greater matters the Queen began her Summers Progress and left a Priest behinde in Halyrood-house to execute Divine-Offices in the Chappel to the rest of her Family Some of the Citizens of Edenborough were observed to repair thither at the time of Mass whereof the Preachers make complaint and stir the people in their Sermons to such a fury that they flock in great multitudes to the Palace violently force open the Chappel-doors seize upon such as they found there and commit them to Prison the Priest escaping with much difficulty by a
very pleasing news to those of the Congregation who thought it more expedient to their Affairs that the Queen should not Marry at all or at least not Marry any other Husband but such as should be recommended to her by the Queen of England on whom their safety did depend In which regard they are resolved to oppose this Match though otherwise they were assured that it would make the Queen grow less in reputation both at home and abroad to Marry with one of her own subjects of what blood soever 51. And now comes Knox to play his prize who more desired that the Earl of Leicester as one of his own Faction should espouse the Queen then the Earl desired it for himself If she will Marry at all let her make choice of one of the true Religion for other Husband she should never have if he could help it And to this end he lays about him in a Sermon preached before the Parliament at which the Nobility and Estates were then assembled And having roved sufficiently as his custom was at last he tells them in plain terms desiring them to note the day and take witness of it That whensover the Nobility of Scotland who profess the Lord Iesus should consent that an Infidel and all Papists are Infidels saith he should be head to their Soveraign they did so far as in them lyes banish Christ Iesus from this Realm yea and bring Gods judgements upon the Country a plague upon themselves and do small comfort to her self For which being questioned by the Queen in a private conference he did not onely stand unto it without the least qualifying or retracting of those harsh expressions but must intitle them to God as if they had been the immediate Inspirations of the holy Ghost for in his Dialogue with the Queen he affirmed expresly that out of the preaching place few had occasion to be any way oâ—fended with him but there that is to say in the Church or Pulpit he was not Master of himself but must obey him that commands him to speak plain and flatter no flesh upon the face of the Earth This insolent carriage of the man put the Queen into passion insomuch that one of her Pages as Knox himself reports the story could hardly finde Handkerchiefs enough to dry her eyes with which the proud fellow shewed himself no further touched then if he had seen the like fears from any one of his own Boys on a just correction 52. Most men of moderate spirits seemed much offended at the former passage when they heard it from him in the Pulpit more when they heard of the affliction it had given the Queen But it prevailed so far on the generality of the Congregation that presently it became a matter of Dispute amongst them Whether the Queen might chuse to her self an Husband or whether it were more fitting that the Estates of the Land should appoint one for her Some sober men affirmed in earnest that the Queen was not to be barred that liberty which was granted to the meanest Subject But the Chief leading-men of the Congregation had their own ends in it for which they must pretend the safety of the Common-wealth By whom it was affirmed as plainly that in the Heir unto a Crown the case was different because said they such Heirs in assuming an Husband to themselves did withal appoint a King to be over the Nation And therefore that it was more fit that the whole people should chuse a Husband to one Woman then one Woman to elect a King to Rule over the whole people Others that had the same designe and were possibly of the same opinion concerning the imposing of a Husband on her by the States of the Realm disguised their purpose by pretending another Reason to break off this Marriage The Queen and the young Noble-man were too near of Kindred to be conjoyned in Marriage by the Laws of the Church her Father and his Mother being born of the same Venter as our Lawyers phrase it But for this blow the Queen did easily provide a Buckler and dispatched one of her Ministers to the Court of Rome for a Dispensation The other was not so well warded but that it fell heavy at the last and plunged her into all those miseries which ensued upon it 53. But notwithstanding these obstructions the Match went forwards in the Court chiefly sollicited by one David Risio born in Piedmont who coming into Scotland in the company of an Ambassador from the Duke of Savoy was there detained by the Queen first in the place of a Musician afterwards imployed in writing Letters to her Friends in France By which he came to be acquainted with most of her secrets and as her Secretary for the French Tongue to have a great hand in the managing of all Forreign transactions This brought him into great envy with the Scots proud in themselves and not easie to be kept in fair terms when they had no cause unto the contrary But the preferring of this stranger was considered by them as a wrong to their Nation as if not able to afford a sufficient man to perform that Office to which the Educating of so many of them in the Court of France had made them no less fit and able then this Mungrel Italian To all this Risio was no stranger and therefore was to cast about how to save himself and to preserve that Power and Reputation which he had acquired Which to effect he laboured by all means to promote the Match that the young Lord being obliged unto him for so great a benefit might stand the faster to him against all Court-factions whensoever they should rise against him And that it might appear to be his work onely Ledington the chief Secretary is dispatched for England partly to gain the Queens consent unto the Marriage and partly to excuse the Earl of Lenox and his Son for not returning to the Court as she had commanded In the mean time he carries on the business with all care and diligence to the end that the Match might be made up before his return Which haste he made for these two Reason first lest the dissenting of that Queen whose influence he knew to be very great on the Kingdom of Scotland might either beat it off or at least retard it the second that the young Lord Darnley for so they called him might have the greater obligation to him for effecting the business then if it had been done by that Queens consent 54. To make all sure as sure at least as humane Wisdom could project it a Convention of the Estates is called in May and the business of the Marriage is propounded to them To which some yeilded absolutely without any condition others upon condition that Religion might be kept indempnified onely the Lord Vehiltry one who adher'd to Knox in his greatest difficulties maintained the Negative affirming openly that he would never admit a King of the Popish Religion Encouraged
by which general and free consent of the chief Nobility then present the Lord Darnly not long after is made Baron of Ardmonack created Earl of Ross and Duke of Rothesay titles belonging to the eldest and the second Sons of the Kings of Scotland But on the other side such of the great Lords of the Congregation as were resolved to work their own ends out of these present differences did purposely absent themselves from that Convention that is to say the Earls of Murray Glencarne Rothes Arguile c. together with Duke Hamilton and his dependants whom they had drawn into the Faction and they convened at Stirling also though not until the Queen and her retinue were departed from thence and there it was resolved by all means to oppose the Marriage for the better avoiding of such dangers and inconveniences which otherwise might ensue upon it For whose encouragement the Queen of England furnished them with ten thousand pounds that it might serve them for advance-money for the listing of Souldiers when an occasion should be offered to embroyl that Kingdom Nor was Knox wanting for his part to advance the troubles who by his popular declamations against the Match had so incensed the people of Edenborough that they resolved to put themselves into a posture of War to elect Captains to command them and to disarm all those who were suspected to wish well unto it But the Queen came upon them in so just a time that the chief Leaders of the Faction were compelled to desert the Town and leave unto her mercy both their Goods and Families to which they were restored not long after by her grace and clemency 55. A general Assembly at the same time was held in Edenborough who falsely thinking that the Queen in that conjuncture could deny them nothing presented their desires unto her In the first whereof it was demanded That the Papistical and blasphemous Mass with all Popish Idolatry and the Popes jurisdictions should be universally supprest and abolished throughout the whole Realm not onely amongst the Subjects but in the Queens Majesties own Person and Family In the next place it was desired That the true Religion formerly received should be professed by the Queen as well as by the Subjects and people of all sorts bound to resort upon the Sundays at least to the Prayers and Preachings as in the former times to Mass That sure provision should be made for sustentation of the Ministry as well for the time present as for the time to come and their Livings assigned them in the places where they served or at least in the parts next adjacent and that they should not be put to crave the same at the hands of any others That all Benefices then vacant and such as had fallen void since March 1558 or should happen thereafter to be void should be disposed to persons qualified for the Ministry upon tryal and admission by the Superintendent with many other demands of like weight and quality To which the Queen returned this answer first That she could not be perswaded that there was any impiety in the Mass That she had been always bred in the Religion of the Church of Rome which she esteemed to be agreeable to the Word of God and therefore trusted that her subjects would not force her to do any thing against her conscience That hitherto she never had nor did intend hereafter to force any mans conscience but to leave every one to the free exercise of that Religion which to him seemed best which might sufficiently induce them to oblige her by the like indulgence She answered to the next That she did not think it reasonable to defraud her self of such a considerable part of the Royal Patrimony as to put the Patronages of Benefices out of her own power the publick necessities of the Crown being such that they required a great part of the Church-Rents to defray the same Which notwithstanding she declared that the necessities of the Crown being first supplyed care should be taken for the sustentation of the Ministers in some reasonable and fit proportion to be assigned out of the nearest and most commodious places to their several dwellings For all the rest she was contented to refer her self to the following Parliament to whose determinations in the particulars desired she would be conformable 56. Not doubting but this answer might sufficiently comply with all expectations she proceeds to the Marriage publickly solemnized in the midst of Iuly by the Dean of Restalrig whom I conceive to be the Dean of her Majesties Chappel in which that service was performed and the next day the Bridegroom was solemnly proclaimed King by the sound of Trumpet declared to be associated with her in the publick Government and order given to have his name used in all Coyns and Instruments But neither the impossibility of untying this knot nor the gracious answer she had made to the Commissioners of the late Assembly could hinder the Confederate Lords from breaking out into action But first they published a Remonstrance as the custom was to abuse the people in which it was made known to all whom it might concern That the Kingdom was openly wronged the liberties thereof oppressed and a King imposed upon the people without the consent of the Estates which they pretend to be a thing not practised in the former time contrary to the Laws and received Customs of the Country And thereupon desired all good Subjects to take the matter into consideration and to joyn with them in resisting those beginnings of Tyranny But few there were that would be taken with these Baits or thought themselves in any danger by the present Marriage which gave the Queen no power at home and much less abroad And that they might continue always in so good a posture the young King was perswaded to shew himself at Knoxes Sermon but received such an entertainment from that fiery and seditious spirit as he little looked for For Knox according to his custom neither regarding the Kings presence nor fearing what might follow on his alienating from the cause of the Kirk fell amongst other things to speak of the Government of wicked Princes who for the sins of the people were sent as Tyrants and Scourges to plague them but more particularly that people were never more scourged by God then by advancing boys and Women to the Regal Throne Which if it did displease the King and give offence to many Conscientious and Religious men can seem strange to none 57. In the mean time the discontented Lords depart from Stirling more discontented then they came because the people came not in to aid them as they had expected From Stirling they remove to Paisely and from thence to Hamilton the Castle whereof they resolved to Fortifie for their present defence But they were followed so close by the King and Queen and so divided in opinion amongst themselves that it seemed best to them to be gone and try what
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
adds more Fewel to the former flame and he resolves to give the Queen as little comfort of that Crown as if it were a Crown of Thorns as indeed it proved For taking England in his way he applies himself to some of the Lords of the Council to whom he represents the dangers which must needs ensue to Queen Elizabeth if Mary his own Queen were suffered to return into her Country and thereby lay all passages open to the powers of France where she had still a very strong and prevailing party But when he found that she had fortunately escaped the Ships of England that the Subjects from all parts had went away extremely satisfied with her gratious carriage he resolved to make one in the Hosanna as afterwards he was the Chief in the Crucifige he applies himself unto the Queens humour with all art and industry and really performed to her many signal services in gratifying her with the free exercise of her own Religion in which by reason of his great Authority with the Congregation he was best able to oblige both her self and her servants By this means he became so great in the eyes of the Court that the Queen seemed to be governed wholly by him and that he might continue always in so good a posture she first conferred upon him the Earldom of Murray and after married him to a Daughter of Keith Earl-Marshal of Scotland Being thus honoured and allyed his next care was to remove all impediments which he found in the way to his aspiring The Ancient and Potent Family of the Gourdons he suppressed and ruined though after it reflourished in its ancient glory But his main business was to oppress the Hamiltons as the next Heirs unto the Crown in the common opinion the Chief whereof whom the French King had created Duke of Chasteau-Herald a Town in Poictou he had so discountenanced that he was forced to leave the Court and suffer his eldest Son the Earl of Arrane to be kept in prison under pretence of some distemper in his brain When any great Prince sought the Queen in Marriage he used to tell her that the Scots would never brook the power of a stranger and that whensoever that Crown had fallen into the hands of a Daughter as it did to her a Husband was chosen for her by the Estates of the Kingdom of their own Language Laws and Parentage But when this would not serve his turn to break off the Marriage with the young Lord Darnley none seemed more forward then himself to promote that Match which he perceived he could not hinder Besides he knew that the Gentleman was very young of no great insight in business mainly addicted to his pleasures and utterly unexperienced in the affairs of that Kingdom so that he need not fear the weakning of his power by such a King who desired not to take the Government upon him And in this point he agreed well enough with David Risio though on different ends But when he found the Queen so passionately affected to this second Husband that all Graces and Court-favours were to pass by him that he had not the Queens ear so advantagiously as before he had and that she had revoked some Grants which were made to him and others during her minority as against the Law he thought it most expedient to the furthering of his own concernments to peece himself more nearly with the Earls of Morton Glencarne Arguile and Rothes the Lords Ruthen Vchiltry c. whom he knew to be zealously affected to the Reformation and no way pleased with the Queens Marriage to a person of the other Religion By whom it was resolved that Morton and Ruthen should remain in the Court as well to give as to receive intelligence of all proceedings The others were to take up Arms and to raise the people under pretence of the Queens Marriage to a man of the Popish Religion not taking with her the consent of the Queen of England But being too weak to keep the Field they first put themselves into Carlisle and afterwards into New-castle as before was said and being in this manner fled the Kingdom they are all proclaimed Traytors to the Queen a peremptory day appointed to a publick Tryal on which if they appeared not at the Bar of Justice they were to undergo the sentence of a condemnation 4. And now their Agents in the Court begin to bustle the King was soon perceived to be a meer outside-man of no deep reach into Affairs and easily wrought on which first induced the Queen to set the less value on him nor was it long before some of their Court-Females whispered into her ears that she was much neglected by him that he spent more of his time in Hawking and Hunting and perhaps in more unfit divertisements if Knox speak him rightly then he did in her company and therefore that it would be requisite to lure him in before he was too much on the Wing and beyond her call On these suggestions she gave order to her Secretaries and other Officers to place his name last in all publick Acts and in such Coyns as were new stamped to leave it out This happened as they would have wished For hereupon Earl Morton closeth with the King insinuates unto him how unfit it was that he should be subject to his Wife that it was the duty of women to obey and of men to govern and therefore that he might do well to set the Crown on his own head and take that power into his hands which belonged unto him When they perceived that his ears lay open to the like temptations they then began to buz into them the Risio was grown too powerful for him in the Court that he out-vied him in the bravery both of Clothes and Horses and that this could proceed from no other ground then the Queens affection which was suspected by wise men to be somewhat greater then might stand with honour And now the day draws on apace on which Earl Murray and the rest were to make their appearance and therefore somewhat must be done to put the Court into such confusion and the City of Edenborough into such disorder that they might all appear without fear or danger of any legal prosecution to be made against him The day designed for their appearance was the twelfth day of March and on the day before say some or third day before as others the Conspirators go unto the King seemed to accuse him of delay tell him that now or never was the time to revenge his injuries for that he should now finde the fellow in the Queens private Chamber without any force to make resistance So in they rush findâ— David sitting at the Queens Table the Countess of Arguile onely between them Ruthen commands him to arise and to go with him telling him that the place in which he sate did no way beseem him The poor fellow runs unto the Queen for protection and clasps his arms
That the Iews dealt not so with any of their Princes and that there was no example to be found in Scripture to shew that subjects may so use their Governours as is there pretended To all these he returns his particular answers and in this sort he answereth to them that is to say That there is nothing more dangerous to be followed then a common custom That the example is but singular and concludeth nothing That as God placed Tyrants to punish the people so he appoints private men to kill them That the Kings of the Iews were not elected by the people and therefore might not deal with them as they might in Scotland where Kings depend wholly on the peoples Election And finally that there were sundry good and wholesome Laws in divers Countries of which there is no example in holy Scripture And whereas others had objected That by St. Pauls Doctrine we are bound to pray for Kings and Princes The Argument is evaded by this handsome shift That we are bound to pray for those whom we ought to punish But these are onely velitations certain preparatory skirmishes to the grand encounter the main battail followeth For finally the principal objection is That St. Paul hath commanded every soul to be subject to the higher Powers and that St. Peter hath required us to submit our selves to every Ordinance of man whether it be unto the King as to the Supreme or unto such as be in Authority by and under him And hereunto they frame their Answer in such a manner as if they knew Gods minde better then the Apostles did or that of the Apostles better then they did themselves 11. The answer is that the Apostles writ this in the Churches infancy when there were not many Christians few of them rich and of ability to make resistance As if said he a man should write to such Christians as are under the Turk in substance poor in courage feeble in strength unarmed in number few and generally subject unto to all kinde of injuries would he not write as the Apostles did who did respect the men they writ to their words not being to be extended to the body or people of the Common wealth For imagine saith he that either of the Apostles were now alive and lived where both the Kings and people did profess Christianity and that there were such Kings as would have their wills to stand for laws as cared neither for God nor Man as bestowed the Churches Revenues upon Iesters and Rascals and such as gibed at those who did profess the more sincere Religion what would they write of such to the Church Surely except they would dissent from themselves they would say That they accounted no such for Magistrates they would forbid all men from speaking unto them and from keeping their company they would leave them to their subjects to be punished nor would they blame them if they accounted not such men for their Kings with whom they could have no society by the Laws of God So excellent a proficient did this man shew himself in the Schools of Calvin that he might worthily have challenged the place of Divinity-Reader in Geneva it self 12. To put these Principles into practice a Bond is made at Stirling by some of the chief Lords of the Congregation pretended for the preservation of the Infant-Prince but aiming also at the punishment of Bothwel and the rest of the Murtherers The first that entred into this Combination were the Earls of Athol Arguile Morton Marre and Glencarne with the Lords Lindsay and Boyd to which were added not long after the Lords Hume and Ruthen this Ruthen being the Son of him who had acted in the Murther of David Risio together with the Lairds of Drumlanrig Tulibardin Seffourd and Grange men of great power and influence on their several Countries besides many others of good note The Earl Murray having laid the plot obtained the Queens leave to retire into France till the times were quieter committing to the Queen the Government of his whole Estate that so if his designe miscarried as it possibly might he might come off without the least hazard of estate or honour Of this conspiracie the Queen receives advertisement and presently prepares for Arms under pretence of rectifying some abuses about the Borders The Confederates were not much behind and having got together a considerable power made an attempt on Borthwick Castle where the Queen and Bothwel then remained But not being strong enough to carry the place at the first attempt Bothwel escaped unto Dunbar whom the Queen followed shortly after in mans apparel Missing their prey the Confederates march toward Edenborough with their little army and make themselves Masters of the Town But understanding that the Queens Forces were upon their march they betook themselves unto the field gained the advantage of the ground and thereby gave her such a diffidence of her good success that having entertained them with a long parley till Bothwel was gone off in safety she put her self into their hands without striking a blow 13. With this great prey the Confederates returned to Edenborough in the middle of Iune and the next day order her to be sent as Prisoner to Lâ—chlevin-house under the conduct of the Lords Ruthen and Lindsay by whom she was delivered in a very plain and sorry attire to the custody of Murray's Mother who domineered over the unfortunate Lady with contempt enough The next day after her commitment the Earl of Glencarne passeth to the Chappel in Halyrood house where he defaceth all the Vestments breaks down the Altar and destroys the Images For which though he was highly magnified by Knox and the rest of the Preachers yet many of the chief Confederates were offended at it as being done without their consent when a great storm was gathering towards them by the conjunction of some other of the principal Lords on the Queens behalf To reconcile this party to them and prevent the Rupture Knox with some other of their Preachers are dispatched away with Letters of Credence and instructions for attoning the difference But they effected nothing to the benefit of them that sent them and not much neither to their own though they had some concernments of self-interest besides the publick which they made tender of to their considerations A general Assembly at the same time was held in Edenborough with which upon the coming back of these Commissioners it was thought necessary to ingratiate themselves by all means imaginable And thereupon it was agreed that the Acts of Parliament made in the year 1560 for the suppressing of Popery should be confirmed in the next Parliament then following that the assignation of the Shires for the Ministers maintainance should be duly put in execution till the whole Patrimony of the Church might be invested in them in due form of Law which was conditioned to be done if it could not be done sooner in that Parliament also Some other points of huge
run on till they came to the end of the Race of which in general King Iames hath given us this description in a Declaration of his published not long after the surprising of his person by the Earl of Gowry 15â—2 where we finde it thus The Bishops having imbraced the Gospel it was at first agreed even by the Brethren with the consent of Regent that the Bishops estate should be maintained and authorized This endured for sundry years but then there was no remedy the Calling it self of Bishops was at least become Antichristian and down they must of necessity whereupon they commanded the Bishops by their own Authority to leave their Offices and Iurisdiction They decreed in their Assemblies That Bishops should have no vote in Parliament and that done they desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and Council might from thenceforth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate They also directed their Commissioners to the Kings Majesty commanding him and the Council under pain of the Censures of the Church Excommunication they meant to appoint no Bishops in time to come because they the Brethren had concluded that State to be unlawful And that it might appear to those of the suffering party that they had not acted all these things without better Authority then what they had given unto themselves they dispatched their Letters unto Beza who had succeeded at Geneva in the Chair of Calvin from whence they were encouraged and perswaded to go on in that course and never re-admit that plague he means thereby the Bishops to have place in that Church although it might flatter them with a shew of retaining unity 17. But all this was not done at once though laid here together to shew how answerable their proceedings were to their first beginnings To cool which heats and put some Water in their Wine the Queen by practising on her Keepers escapes the Prison and puts her self into Hamilton Castle to which not onely the dependants of that powerful Family but many great Lords and divers others did with great cheerfulness repair unto her with their several followers Earl Murray was at Stirling when this news came to him and it concerned him to bestir himself with all celerity before the Queens power was grown too great to be disputed He therefore calls together such of his Friends and their adherents as were near unto him and with them gives battail to the Queen who in this little time had got together a small Army of four thousand men The honour of the day attends the Regent who with the loss of one man onely bought an easie Victory which might have proved more bloudy to the conquered Army for they lost but three hundred in the fight it he had not commanded back his Souldiers from the execution The Queen was placed upon a Hill to behold the battail But when she saw the issue of it she posted with all speed to the Port of Kerbright took Ship for England and landed most unfortunately as it after proved at Wirckington in the County of Cumberland From thence she dispatched her Letters to Queen Elizabeth full of Complaints and passionate bewailings of her wretched fortune desires admittance to her presence and that she might be taken into her protection sending withal a Ring which that Queen had given her to be an everlasting token of that love and amity which was to be maintained between them But she soon found how miserably she had deceived her self in her Expectations Murray was grown too strong for her in the Court of England and others which regarded little what became of him were glad of her misfortunes in relation to their own security which could not better be consulted then by keeping a good Guard upon her now they had her there And so instead of sending for her to the Court the Queen gives order by Sir Francis Knollis whom she sent of purpose to remove the distressed Lady to Carlisle as the safer place until the equity of her cause might be fully known She hath now took possession of the Realm which she had laid claim to but shall pay dearly for the purchase the Crown whereof shall come at last to her Posterity though it did not fall upon her person 18. Now that the equity of her cause might be understood the Regent is required by Letters from the Court of England to desist from any further prosecution of the vanquished party till that Queen were perfectly informed in all particulars touching these Affairs Which notwithstanding he thought fit to make use of his Fortune summoned a Parliament in which some few of each sort noble and ignoble were proscribed for the present by the terrour whereof many of the rest submitted and they which would not were reduced by force of Arms. Elizabeth not well pleased with these proceedings requires that some Commissioners might be sent from Scotland to render an account to her or to her Commissioners of the severity and hard dealing which they had shewed unto their Queen And hereunto he was necessitated to conform as the case then stood The French being totally made against him the Spaniards more displeased then they and no help 〈◊〉 be had from any but the English onely At York Commissioners attend from each part in the end of September From Queen Elizabeth Thomas Duke of Norfolk Thomas Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadlier Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster For the unfortunate Queen of Scots Iohn Lesly Bishop of Ross the Lords Levington Boyd c. And for the Infant King besides the Regent himself there appeared the Earl of Morton the Lord Lindsay and certain others After such protestations made on both sides as seemed expedient for preserving the Authority of the several Crowns an Oath is took by the Commissioners to proceed in the business according to the Rules of Justice and Equity The Commissioners from the Infant-King present a Declaration of their proceedings in the former troubles to which an answer is returned by those of the other side Elizabeth desiring to be better satisfied in some particulars requires the Commissioners of both sides some of them at the least to repair unto her where after much sending and proving as the saying is there was nothing done which might redound unto the benefit of the Queen of Scots 19. For whilst these matters were in agitation in the Court of England Letters of hers were intercepted written by her to those which continued of her party in the Realm of Scotland In which Letters she complained that the Queen of England had not kept promise with her but yet desired them to be of good heart because she was assured of aid by some other means and hoped to be with them in a short time Which Letters being first sent to Murray and by him shewed to Queen Elizabeth prevailed so much for his advantage that he was not onely dismissed with favour but waited
men Calvin then dead and Theodore Beza then alive in the point of Church-Government After which premises he fell upon this conclusion That none ought to bear any Office in the Church of Christ whose titles were not found in the holy Scripture That though the name of Bishop did occur in Scripture yet was it not to be taken in that sence in which it was commonly understood That no Superiority was allowed by Christ amongst the Ministers of the Church all of them being of the same degree and having the same power in all Sacred Matters That the corruptions crept into the Estate of Bishops were so great and many that if they should not be removed Religion would not long remain in Purity And so referred the whole matter to their consideration 31. The Game being thus started and pursued by so good a Huntsman it was thought fit by the Assembly to commend the chase thereof to six chosen Members who were to make report of their diligence to the rest of the Brethren Of which though Melvin took a care to be named for one and made use of all his wit and cunning to bring the rest of the Referrees to his own opinion yet he prevailed no further at that time then under colour of a mannerly declining of the point in hand to lay some further restrictions upon the Bishops in the exercise of their Power and Jurisdictions then had been formerly imposed The sum of their report was to this effect Viz. That they did not hold it expedient to answer the Questions propounded for the present but if any Bishop was chosen that had not qualities required by the Word of God he should be tryed by the General Assembly That they judged the name of a Bishop to be common to all Ministers who had the charge of a particular flock and that by the Word of God his chief function consisted in the Preaching of the Word the Ministration of the Sacraments and the exercise of Ecclesiastical Discipline with the consent of the Elders That from amongst the Ministry some one might be chosen to oversee and visit such reasonable bounds besides his own flock as the General Assembly should appoint That the Minister so elected might in those bounds appoint Preachers with the advice of the Ministers of that Province and the consent of the flock which should be admitted and that he might suspend Ministers from the exercise of their Office upon reasonable causes with the consent of the Ministers of the bounds This was the sum of the Report and that thus much might be reported to begin the game with great care was took by Melvin and his Adherents that neither any of the Bishops nor Superintendents which were then present in the Assembly being eight in number were either nominated to debate the points proposed nor called to be present at the Conference But somewhat further must be done now their hand was in And therefore that the rest might see what they were to trust to if this world went on they deposed Iames Patton Bishop of Dunkelden from his place and dignity without consulting the Lord-Regent or any of the secret Council in so great a business 32. The next Assembly makes some alteration in propounding the question and gives it out with a particular reference to their own concernment in this manner following that is to say Whether the Bishops as they were in Scotland had their Function warranted by the Word of God But the determining of this question was declined as formerly Onely it was conceived expedient for a further preparative both to approve the opinions of the Referrees in the former Meeting and to add this now unto the rest That the Bishops should take to themselves the service of some one Church within their Diocess and nominate the particular flock whereof they would accept the charge News of which last addition being brought to the Regent he required by a special Message either to stand to the Conclusions before mentioned which were made at Leith or else devise some other Form of Church-Government which they would abide And this fell out as Melvin and his Tribe would have it For after this there was nothing done in the Assemblies for two years together but hammering forming and reforming a new Book of Discipline to be a standing Rule for ever to the Kirk of Scotland But possible it is that the design might have been brought to perfection sooner if the Regent had not thought himself affronted by them in the person of his Chaplain Mr. Patrick Adamson whom he had recommended to the See of S. Andrews For the Election being purposely delayed by the Dean and Chapter till the sitting of the next Assembly Adamson then present was interrogated whether he would submit himself unto the tryal and undertake that Office upon such conditions as the Assembly should prescribe To which he answered That he was commanded by the Regent not to accept thereof upon any other terms then such as had been formerly agreed upon between the Commissioners of the Kirk and the Lords of the Council On this refusal they inhibit the Chapter from proceeding in the said Election though afterwards for fear of the displeasure of so great a man their command therein was disobeyed and the party chosen Which so provoked those meek and humble-spirited men that at their next Meeting they discharged him from the exercise of all Jurisdiction till by some General Assembly he were lawfully licensed And this did so exasperate the Regent on the other side that he resolved to hinder them from making any further Innovation in the Churches Polity as long as he continued in his place and power 33. But the Regent having somewhat imprudently dismissed himself of the Government and put it into the hands of the King in the beginning of March An. 1577 they then conceived they had as good an opportunity as could be desired to advance their Discipline which had been hammering ever since in the Forge of their Fancies And when it hapned as it was not long before it did they usher in the Design with this following Preamble viz. The General Assembly of the Kirk finding universal corruption of the whole Estates of the body of this Realm the great coldness and slackness in Religion in the greatest part of the Professors of the same with the daily increase of all kind of fearful sins and enormities as Incests Adulteries Murthers committed in Edenborough and Stirling cursed Sacriledge ungodly Sedition and Division within the bowels of the Realm with all manner of disordered and ungodly living which justly hath provoked our God although long-suffering and patient to stretch out his arm in his anger to correct and visit the iniquity of the Land and namely by the present penury famine and hunger joyned with the Civil and Intestine Seditions Whereunto doubtless greater judgements must succeed if these his corrections work on Reformation and amendment in mens hearts Seeing also the bloody exclusions of
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
endeavoured by all the Friends they could to advance his Discipline to which they were incouraged by the brothers here and the Governors there The Governours in each Island advanced the project out of a covetous intent to inrich themselves by the spoil of the Deanries the brethren have hereupon a hope to gain ground by little and little for the erecting of the same in most parts of England And in pursuance of this plot both Islands joyn in confederacy to petition the Queen for an allowance of this Discipline Anno 1563. In the year next following the Signiour de St. Owen and Monsieur de Soulemount were delegated to the Court to sollicite in it where they received a gratious answer and full of hopes returned to their several homes In the mean time the Queen being strongly perswaded that this designe would much advance the Reformation in those Islands was contented to give way unto it in the Towns of St. Peters Port and St. Hillaries only but no further To which purpose there were Letters decretory from the Council directed to the Bayliff the Iurates and others of each Island subscribed by Bacon Lord Keeper of the Great Seal the Marquess of Northampton the Earl of Leicester the Lord Clynton afterwards Earl of Lincolne Rogers Knollis and Cecil The Tenour of which Letter in relation to the Isle of Iarsey was this that followeth 21. After our very hearty commendations unto you where the Queens most excellent Majesty understandeth that the Isles of Guernsey and Jarsey have anciently depended on the Diocess of Constance and that there be certain Churches in the same Diocess well reformed agreeable throughout in the Doctrine as is set forth in this Realm knowing therewith that they have a Minister which ever since his arrival in Jarsey hath used the like Order of Preaching and Administration as in the said reformed Churches or as it is used in the French Church of London her Majesty for divers respects and considerations moving her Highness is well pleased to admit the same Order of Preaching and Administration to be continued at St. Hillaries as hath been hitherto accustomed by the said Minister Provided always that the residue of the Parishes in the said Isle shall diligently put aside all superstitions used in the said Diocess and so continue there the Order of Service ordained within this Realm with the Injunctions necessary for that purpose Wherein you may not fail diligently to give your aids and assistance as best may serve for the advancement of Gods Glory And so farewel From Richmond the 7 of August Anno 1565. 22. Where note that the same Letter the names onely of the places being changed and subscribed by the same men was sent also unto those of Guernsey for the permission of the said Discipline in the Port of St. Peters In which though there be no express mention of allowing their Discipline but onely of their Form of Prayer aâ—d Administration of Sacraments yet they presumed so far on the general words as to put it presently in practice In prosecution of which Counsels the Ministers and Elders of both Churches held their first Synod in the Isle of Guernsey on the 2 of September Anno 1567 where they concluded to advance it by degrees in all the rest of the Parishes as opportunity should serve and the condition of Affairs permit to the great joy no question of their great Friends in England who could not but congratulate their own good Fortune in these fair beginnings 23. At home they found not such success as they did abroad not a few of them being deprived of their Benefices and other preferments in the Church for their inconformity exprest in their refusing to officiate by the publick Liturgy or not submitting to the directions of their Ordinaries in some outward matters as Caps and Surplices and the like The news of which severity flies to France and Scotland occasioning Beza in the one and Knox and his Comrades in the other to interpose themselves in behalf of their brethren With what Authority Beza acted in it we shall see anon And we may now take notice that in Knoxes Letter sent from the general Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland the Vestments in dispute are not onely called Trifles and Rags of Rome but are discountenanced and decryed for being such Garments as Idolaters in time of greatest darkness used in their Superstitious and idolatrous service thereupon it is inferred That if Surplice Cap and Tippet have been badges of Idolaters in the very act of their Idolatry that then the Preachers of Christian Liberty and the Rebukers of Superstition were to have nothing to do with the dregs of that Romish beast Which inference is seconded by this Request viz. That the Brethren in England which refused those Romish Rags might finde of them the Bishops who use and urge them such favour as their Head and Master commandeth each one of his Members to shew to another And this they did expect to receive of their courtesie not onely because they hoped that they the said Bishops would not offend God in troubling their Brethren for such Vain trifles but because they hoped that they would not refuse the request of them their Brethren and fellow-Ministers in whom though there appeared no worldly Pomp yet they assured themselves that they were esteemed the servants of God and such as travelled to set forth Gods Glory against the Antichrist of Rome that conjured enemy of true Religion the Pope The days say they are evil iniquity abounds charity alas waxeth cold and therefore that it concerned them all to walk diligently because it was uncertain at what hour the Lord would come to whom they were to render an account of their Administration After which Apostolical Admonition they commit them to the Mighty protection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we conclude their Zealous Letter dated December 27. 1566. 24. With more Authority writes Beza as the greater Patriarch and he writes too concerning things of greater consequence then Caps and Surplices For in a Letter of his to Grindal bearing date Iuly anno 1566 he makes a sad complaint concerning certain Ministers unblameable as he saith both in life and Doctrine suspended from the Ministery by the Queens Authority and the good liking of the Bishops for not subscribing to some new Rites and Ceremonies imposed upon them Amongst which Rites he specifies the wearing of such Vestments as were then worn by Baals Priests in the Church of Rome the Cross in Baptism kneeling at the Communion and such Rites as had degenerated as he tell us into most filthy Superstition But he seems more offended that Women were suffered to baptize in extreme necessities That power was granted to the Queen for ordaining such other Rites and Ceremonies as should seem convenient but most especially which was indeed the point most grieved at that the Bishops were invested with a sole Authority for all matters of the Church without consulting
privity and advice Which whether it were done with greater Moderation or Discretion it is hard to say 27. So good a Foundation being laid the building could not chuse but go on apace But first they must prepare the matter and remove all doubts which otherwise might interrupt them in the course of their building And herein Beza is consulted as the Master-Workman To him they send their several scruples and he returns such answer to them as did not onely confirm them in their present obstinacy but fitted and prepared them for the following Schism To those before they add the calling of the Ministers and their ordaining by the Bishops neither the Presbyterie being consulted nor any particular place appointed for their Ministration Which he condemns as contrary to the Word of God and the ancient Canons but so that he conceives it better to have such a Ministery then none at all praying withal that God would give this Church a more lawful Ministery the Church was much beholding to him for his zeal the while in his own good time Concerning the Interrogatories proposed to Infants in their Baptism he declares it to be onely a corruption of the ancient Form which was used in the baptizing persons of riper years And thereupon desires as heartily as before That as the Church had laid aside the use of Oyl and the old Rite of Exorcising though retained at Rome so they would also abdicate those foolish and unnecessary Interrogations which are made to Infanâ—â— And yet he could not chuse but vaunt that there was somewhat in one of S. Augustines Epistles which might seem to favour it and that such questionâ— were proposed to Infants in the time of Origen who lived above Two hundred years before S. Augustine In some Churches and particularly in Westminster-Abbey they still retained the use of Wafers made of bread unleavened to which we can find nothing contrary in the Publik Rubricks This he acknowledgeth of it self for a thing indifferent but so that ordinary leavened bread is preferred before it as being more agreeable to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour And yet he could not chuse but grant that Christ administred the Sacrament in unleavened bread no other being to be used by the Law of Moses at the time of the Passover He dislikes also the deciding of Civil causes by which he means those of Tythes Marriages and the Last-Wills or Testaments of men deceased in the Bishops Courts but more that the Bishops Chancellors did take upon them to decree any Excommunication without the approbation and consent of the Presbyters Whose acts therein he Majestically pronounceth to be void and null not to oblige the Conscience of any man in the sight of God and otherwise to be a foul and shameful prophanation of the Churches Censures 28. To other of their Queries Touching the Musick in the Church Kneeling at the Communion The Cross in Baptism and the rest He answers as he did before without remitting any thing of his former censure Which Letter of his bearing date on the 24 of October 1567. was superscribed Ad quosdam Anglicanum Ecclesiarum fratres c. To certain of the brethren of the Churches in England touching some points of Ecclesiastical Order and concernment which were then under debate by the receiving whereof they found themselves so fully satisfied and encouraged that they fell into an open Schism in the year next following At which time Benson Button Hallingham Coleman and others taking upon them to be of a more Ardent zeal then others in professing the true Reformed Religion resolved to allow of nothing in Gods Publick Service according to the Rules laid down by Calvin and Beza but what was found expresly in the holy Scriptures And whether out of a desire of Reformation which pretence had gilded many a rotten post or for singularity sake and Innovation they openly questioned the received Discipline of the Church of England yea condemned the same together with the Publick Liturgie and the Calling of Bishops as savouring too much of the Religion of the Church of Rome Against which they frequently protested in their Pulpits affirming That it was an impious thing to hold any correspondency with the Church and labouring with all diligence to bring the Church of England to a Conformity in all points with the Rules of Geneva These although the Queen commanded to be laid by the heels yet it is incredible how upon a sudden their followers increased in all parts of the Kingdom distinguished from the rest by the name of Puritans by reason of their own perverseness and most obstinate refusal to give ear to more sound advice Their numbers much encreased on a double account first by the negligence of some and the connivance of other Bishops who should have looked more narrowly into their proceedings And partly by the secret favour of some great men in the Court who greedily gaped after the Remainder of the Churches Patrimony 29. It cannot be denied but that this Faction received much encouragement underhand from some great persons near the Queen from no man more then from the Earl of Leicester the Lord North Knollis and Walsingham who knew how mightily some numbers of the Scots both Lords and Gentlemen had in short time improved their fortune by humoring the Knoxian Brethren in their Reformation and could not but expect the like in their own particulars by a compliance with those men who aimed apparently at the ruine of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches But then it must be granted also that they received no smaâ—l encouragement from the negligence and remissness of some great Bishops whom Calvin and Beza â—ad cajoled to a plain connivance Of Calvins writing unto Grindal for setting up a French Church in the middle of London we have seen before And we have seen how Beza did address himself unto him in behalf of the Brethren who had suffered for their inconformity to established Orders But now he takes notice of the Schism a manifest defection of some members from the rest of the body but yet he cannot chuse but tamper with him to allow their doings or otherwise to mitigate the rigour of the Laws in force For having first besprinkled him with some commendation for his zeal to the Gospel and thanked him for his many favours to the new French Church he begins roundly in plain terms to work him to his own perswasions He lays before him first how great an obstacle was made in the course of Religion by those petite differences not onely amongst weak and ignorant but even Learned men And then adviseth that some speedy remedy be applied to so great a mischief by calling an Assembly of such Learned and Religious men as were least contentious of which he hoped to be the chief if that work went forwards With this Proviso notwithstanding That nothing should be ordered and determined by them with reference unto Ancient or Modern usages but that all Popish Rites
the same Arts which they brought hither with them Such welcome Guests must needs have some Encouragement to remain here always And what Encouragement could be greater and more welcome to them then to enjoy the liberty of their own Religion according to such Government and Forms of Worship as they had exercised at home King Edward had indulged the like priviledges to Iohn Alasco and Queen Elizabeth to the French neither of which were so considerable as the Flemish Inmates A suit is therefore made by their Friends in Court for granting them the Church of Augustine-Fryers where Iohn Alasco formerly held his Dutch Congregation and granting it with all such Priviledges and Immunitiâ—s as the Dutch enjoyed And that they might proceed in setting up their Presbyteries and new Forms of Worship they obtain not onely a Connivance or Toleration but a plain Approbation of their actings in it For in the Letters which confirmed this new Church unto them it is expresly signified by the Lords of the Council That they knew well that from the first beginning of the Christian Faith different Rites and Ceremonies had been used in some parts thereof which were not practised in the other That whilst some Christians worshipped God upon their knees others erect upon their feet and some again groveling on the ground there was amongst them all but one and the same Religion as long as the whole action tended to the honor of God and that there was no Superstition and Impiety in it That they contemned not the Rites which these Dutch brought with them nor purposed to compel them to the practice of those which were used in England but that they did approve and allow their Ceremonies as sitted and accommodated to the nature of the Countrey from whence they came Which priviledges they enlarged bâ— their Letter of the 29 of Iune in the year next following An. 1574 extending them to all such of the Belgick Provinces as reâ—orted hither and joyned themselves unto that Church thâ—ugh otherwise dispersed in several parts and Sea-Towns for their own conveniences which gave the first beginning to the nâ—w Dutch Churches in Canterbury Sandwich Yarmouth Norwich and some other places in the North to the great animation or the Presbyters and the discomfort of all such who were of judgement to foresee the sad consequents of it 8. With like felicity they drove on their designs in Iersey and Guernsey in the two principal Towns whereof the Discipline had been permitted by an Order of the Lords of the Council as before was said But not content with that allowance which the Lords had given them by His Majesties great grace and favour their Preachers being for the most part natural Frenchmen had introduced it by degrees into all the Villages furthered therein by the Sacrilegious Avarice of the several Governors out of a hope to have the spoil of the poor Deanries to ingross all the Tythes unto themselves and then put off the Ministers with some sorry stipends as in fine they did But first those Islands were to be dissevered by some Act of State from being 〈◊〉 longer Members of the Diocess or subject to the Juriâ—â—iction of the Bishops of Constance And that being easily obtained it was thought fit that Snape and Cartwright the great Supporters of the cause in England should be sent unto them to put their Churches in a posture and settle the Discipline amongst them in such form and manner as it was practised in Geneva and amongst the French Which fell out happily for Cartwright as his case stood who being worsted in the last Encounter betwixt him and Whitgift had now a handsome opportunity to go off with credit not as if worsted in the fight but rather called away to another tryal Upon thâ—s Invitation they set sail for the Islands and take the charge thereof upon them the one of them being made the titular Pastor of the Castle of Mount-Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey and the other of Castle-Cornet in the Rode of Guernsey Thus qualified they convene the Churches of each Island communicate unto them a rude Draught of the Holy Discipline which afterwards was polished and accommodated to the use of those Islands but not agreed upon and exercised until the year next following as appears by the Title of it which is this viz. The Ecclesiastical Discipline observed and practised by the Churches of Jersey and Guernsey after the Reformation of the same by the Ministers Elders and Deacons of the Isles of Guernsey Jersey Sark and Alderney confirmed by the Authority and in the presence of the Governors of the same Isles in a Synod holden in Guernsey the 28 of June 1576 and afterwards revived by the said Ministers and Elders and confirmed by the said Governors in a Synod holden in Jersey the 11 12 13 14 15 and 17 days of October 1577. 9. With worse success but less diligence did Travers labour in the cause who being one of the same spirit published a book in maintenance of the Holy Discipline which he caused to be printed at Geneva and was thus intituled viz. Ecclesiasticae Disciplinae Anglicanae Ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis plena e verbo Dei Dilucida Explicatio that is to say A full and perfect Explication of Ecclesiastical Discipline according to the Word â—f God and of the Church of Englands departing from it In which book he advanced the Discipline to so great a height as made it necessary for all Christian Kings and Princes to submit unto it and lay down their Crowns and Scepters at the Churches feet even to the very licking up of the dust thereof if occasion were But Travers sojourned in Geneva when he wrote this book and was to frame it to the palate of Beza and the rest of that Confistory who had by this time made the Discipline as essenâ—ial to the true being of a Church as either the Preaching of the Word or the Administration of the holy Sacraments Beza had so declared it in a Letter to Knox An. 1572. In which he reckons it as a great and signal blessing from Almighty God that they had introduced in Scotland not onely the true Worship of God but the Discipline also which was the best Preservative of the truth of Doctrine Which therefore he desires him so to keep together as to be sure that if the one be lost that is laid aside the other is not like to continue long And Cartwright leading in the same path also heightned it above all which had gone before or that followed after him Some of the Brethren have extolled it to the very Skies as being the onely Bond of Peace the Bane of Heresie the Punisher of Sin and maintainer of Righteousness A Discipline full of all goodness for the peace and honour of Gods people ordained for the joy and happiness of all the Nations But Cartwright sets them such a leap as they durst not reach at not onely telling us in
English Martyrologist addrest his Letters to the Queen in which he supplicated for the lives of those wretched men and offered many pious and prudential reasons for the reversing of that sentence or at the least for staying it from execution By which he so prevailed upon her that she consented to a gratious sparing of their lives iâ— on a months Reprieve and Conference in the mean time with Learned men they could be gained unto a retractation of their damnable Heresies But that expedient being tryed and found ineffectual the forfeiture of their lives was taken and the sentence executed Nor had the Dutch Church of Norwich any better Fortune or could pretend to be more free from harbouring some Fanatical spirits then the Dutch Congregation in the Augustine Fryars From some of which it may be probably supposed that Matthew Hamant a poor Plow-wright of Featherset within three Miles of Norwich took his first impressions which afterwards appeared in more horrid blasphemies then any English ever had been acquainted with in the times preceding For being suspected to hold many dangerous and unsound Opinions he was convented before the Bishop of that City at what time it was charged upon him that he had publickly maintained these Heresies following that is to say That the new Testament or Gospel was but meer foolishness and a story of men or rather a meer Fable That he was restored to Grace of the free Mercy of God without the means of Christ his Blood and Passion That Christ is not God or the Saviour of the World but a sinful man a meer man and an abominable Idol and that all they that worship him are abominable Idolaters That Christ did not rise again from death to life by the power of his Godhead neither that he ascended into Heaven That the Holy Ghost is not God and that there is no such thing as an Holy Ghost That Baptism is not necessary in the Church of God nor the use of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. For which he was coâ—demned for an Heretick in the Bishops Consistory on the Fourteenth of April and being thereupon delivered to the Sheriff of the City he was burnt in the Castle-Ditch on the Twentieth of May 1579. As a preparative to which punishment his ears had been cut off on the Thirteenth of that Moneth for base and slanderous words against the Queen and Council 12. About the same time that the Anabaptists were first brought to Censure there spawned another Fry of Hereticks who had its first Original amongst the Dutch and from thence came for England with the rest of their brethren These called themselves the Family of Love as before is said and were so well conceited of their own great holiness that they thought none to be Elected to Eternal life but such as were admitted into their Society The particulars of their Opinions and the strange manner of Expressions have been insisted on before Let it suffice that by their seeming Sanctity and other the like deceitful arts of Dissimulation they had drawn some of the English to them who having broke the bond of peace could not long keep themselves to the Spirit of Unity Some of them being detected and convented for it were condemned to do Penance at S. Pauls Cross and there to make a Retractation of their former Errors According to which Sentence five of them are brought thither on the 12 of Iune who there confest themselves utterly to detest as well the Author of that Sect H. N. as all his damnable Heresies Which gentle punishment did rather serve to multiply then decrease the Sect which by the diligence of the Hereticks and the remisness of the new Archbishop came to such an height that course was taken at the last for thâ—ir apprehension and for the severe punishing of those which were so apprehended For the Queen seriously considering how much she was concerned both in honor and safety to preserve Religion from the danger threatned by such desperate Hereticks published her Proclamation on the ninth of October An. 1580 for bringing their persons unto Justice and causing their pestilent Pamphlets to be openly burnt And to that end she gave a strict Command to all Temporal Judges and other Ministers of Justice to be assistant to the Bishops and their under Officers in the severe punishing of those Sects and Sectaries by which the happiness of the Church was so much endangered By which severities and a Formal Abjuration prescribed unto them by the Lords of the Council these Sects were seasonably suppressed or had the reason to conceal themselves amongst such of the Brethren as did continue in their Separation from the Church of England 13. In the mean time there hapned a great alteration in the state of the Church by the death of one and the preferment of another of the greatest Prelates Archbishop Parker left this life on the 17 of May Anno 1575. To whom succeeded Dr. Edmond Grindal Translated from the See of York unto that of Canterbury on the 15 of February The first a Prelate of great parts and no less Eminent for his zeal in the Churches cause which prompted him to keep as hard a hand on all Sects and Sectaries and more particularly on those of the Genevian Platform as the temper of the times could bear But Grindal was a man of another spirit without much difficulty wrought upon by such as applied themselves to him And having maintained a correspondence when he lived in Exile with Calvin Beza and some others 〈◊〉 â—he Consistory he either could not shake off their acquaintâ—â—â—e at his coming home or was as willing to continue it as they câ—uld desire Being advanced unto the Bishoprick of London he condescends to Calvins motion touching the setling of a French Church in that City on Genevian Principles and received thanks from him for the same And unto whom but him must Beza make his Applications when any of the brethren were suspended deprived or sequestred for not conforming to the Vestments then by Law required Being Translated unto York which wâ—s upon the 22 of May 1370 he entertains a new Intelligence with Zanchy a Divine of Heidelburg somewhat more moderate then the other but no good Friend neither to the Church of England as appears by his interposings in behalf of the brethren when they were under any Censure for their inconformity To this man Grindal renders an account of his Preferment both to York and Canterbury To him he sends Advertisement how things went in Scotland at his Advancement to the first and of the present state of affairs in England when he came to the other The like Intelligence he maintained with Bullinger Gualter and some of the chief Divines amongst the Switzers taking great pride in being courted by the Leading-men of those several Churches though they had all their ends upon him for the advancing of Presbytery and Inconformity in the Church of England 14. Upon these grounds
directly of the Spirit of God nothing of those impurities and prophanations of the Church of England Hereupon followed a defection from the Church it self not as before amongst the Presbyterians from some Offices in it Browns Followers which from him took the name of Brownists refusing obstinately to joyn with any Congregation with the rest of the people for hearing the Word preached the Sacraments administred and any publick act of Religious Worship This was the first gathering of Churches which I finde in England and for the justifying hereof he caused his Books to be dispersed in most parts of the Realm Which tending as apparently to Sedition brought both the Dispersers of them within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. Of which we are informed by Stow that Elias Thasker was hanged at Bury on the fourth of Iune and Iohn Copping on the sixth of the same Month for spreading certain Books seditiously penned by Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer established by the Laws of this Realm as many of their Books as could be found being burnt before them 31. As for the Writer of the Books and the first Author of the Schism he was more favourably dealt with then these wretched instruments and many other of his Followers in the times succeeding Being convented before Dr. Edmond Freak then Bishop of Norwich and others of the Queens Commissioners in conjunction with him he was by them upon his refractory carriage committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Norwich But being a near kinsman by his Mother to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh he was at his request released from his imprisonment and sent to London where some course was taken to reclaim him if it might be possible totally or in part at least as God pleased to bless it Whitgift by this time had attained to the See of Canterbury a man of excellent patience and dexterity in dealing with such men as were so affected By whose fair usage powerful Reasons and exemplary piety he was prevailed upon so far as to be brought unto a tolerable compliance with the Church of England In which good humour he was favourably dismist by the Arch-bishop and by the Lord-Treasurer Burleigh to the care of his Father to the end that being under his eye and dealt with in a kinde and temperate manner he might in time be well recovered and finally withdrawn from all the Reliques of his fond opinions Which Letters of his bear date on the 8 of October 1585. But long he had not staid in his Fathers house when he returned unto his vomit and proving utterly incorrigible was dismist again the good old Gentleman being resolved upon this point that he would not own him for a Son who would not own the Church of England for his Mother But at the last though not till he had passed through two and thirty prisons as he used to brag by the perswasions of some Friends and his own necessities the more powerful Orators of the two he was prevailed with to accept of a place called A Church in Northamptonshire beneficed with cure of Souls to which he was presented by Thomas Lord Burleigh after Earl of Exon and thereunto admitted by the Bishop of Peterborough upon his promise not to make any more disturbances in the proceedings of the Church A Benefice of good value which might tempt him to it the rather in regard that he was excused as well from preaching as from performing any other part of the publick Ministry which Offices he discharged by an honest Curate and allowed him such a competent maintainance for it as gave content unto the Bishop who had named the man And on this Benefice he lived to a very great age not dying till the year 1630 and then dying in Northampton Gaol not on the old account of his inconformity but for breach of the Peace A most unhappy man to the Church of England in being the Author of a Schism which he could not close and most unfortunate to many of his Friends and Followers who suffered death for standing unto those conclusions from which he had withdrawn himself divers years before 32. But it is time that we go back again to Cartwright upon whose principles and positions he first raised this Schism Which falling out so soon upon the Execution which was done on Stubs could not but put a great rebuke upon his spirit and might perhaps have tended more to his discouragement had not his sorrows been allayed and sweetned by a Cordial which was sent from Beza sufficient to revive a half-dying brother Concerning which there is no more to be premised but that Geneva had of late been much wasted by a grievous pestilence and was somewhat distressed at this time by the Duke of Savoy Their peace not to be otherwise procured but by paying a good sum of money and money not to be obtained but by help of their Friends On this account he writes to Travers being then Domestick Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh but so that Cartwright was to be acquainted with the Tenour of it that by the good which the one might do upon the Queen by the means of his Patron and the great influence which the other had on all his party the contribution might amount to the higher pitch But as for so much of the said Letter as concerns our business it is this that followeth viz. If as often dear Brother as I have remembred thee and our Cartwright so often I should have written unto thee you had been long since overwhelmed with my Letters no one day passing wherein I do not onely think of you and your matters which not onely our ancient Friendship but the greatness of those affairs wherein you take pains seems to require at my hands But in regard that you were fallen into such times wherein my silence might be safer far then my writing I have though most unwillingly been hitherto silent Since which time understanding that by Gods Grace the heats of some men are abated I could not suffer this my Friend to come unto you without particular Letters from me that I may testifie my self to be the same unto you as I have been formerly as also that at his return I may be certified of the true state of your affairs After which Preamble he acquaints him with the true cause of his writing the great extremities to which that City was reduced and the vast debts in which they were plunged whereby their necessities were grown so grievous that except they were relieved from other parts they could not be able to support them And then he addes I beseech thee my dear Brother not onely to go on in health with thy daily prayers but that if you have any power to prevail with some persons shew us by what honest means you can how much you love us in the Lord. Finally having certified him of other Letters which he had writ to certain Noblemen and to all the Bishops
to reject the publick Liturgie and being resolved not to conform themselves unto it they fell upon a course of hiring some Lay-brother as Snape did a Lame Souldier of Barwick or possibly some ignorant Curate to read the Prayers to such as had a minde to hear them neither themselves nor their Disciples coming into the Church till the singing of the Psalm before the Sermon Concerning which one of the brethren writes to Field That having nothing to do with the prescribed form of Common-prayer he preached every Lords day in his Congregation and that â—e did so by the counsel of the Reverend Brethren by whom such was Gods goodness to him he had been lately called to be one of the Classis which once a week was held in some place or other 36. In this condition stood the Affairs when the Reverend Whitgift came to the See of Canterbury A man that had appeared so stoutly in the Churches quarrels that there could be no fear of his Grindâ—llizing by winking at the plots and practices of the Puritan Faction So highly valued by the Queen that when she first preferred him to the See of Worcester Anno 1576 she gave him the disposing of all the Prebendaries of that Church to the end he might be served with the ablest and most Learned men Nor was he less esteemed for his civil prudence which moved Sir Henry Sidney to select him before all others to be his Vice-President in Wales at such time as he was to go Lord-Deputy for the Realm of Ireland Upon this man the Queen had always kept her eye since Grindal fell into disfavour and willingly would have made him his Co-adjutor if he could have been perswaded to accept the offer Which moderation altered nothing of the Queens minde toward him who was so constant in her choice and designations of fit men to serve her that upon Grindals death which happened on the 6 of Iuly 1583 she preferred Whitgift to the place To which he was actually translated before Michaelmas following that he might have the benefit of the half-years-rent Which as it was another Argument of the Queens good affection to him who otherwise was sufficiently intent on her personal profit so for a further demonstration of it she caused one hundred pounds to be abated in his Tenths and first Fruits which had been over-charged on his Predecessor And which was more then both together she suffered him to Commence a Suit against Sir Iames Crofts Comptroller of her Houshold Governour of the Town of Barwick and a privy Councellor for the recovery of some Lands to the quantity of one thousand Acres which had been first alienated to the Queen and by the Queen was given to Crofts on a Court-petition Which suit as he had courage enough to take in hand so had he the felicity of an happy Issue in the recovering of those Lands from such Potent Competitors without loosing any part of her Majesties favour But these things are not pertinent to my present business unless it be to shew upon what ground he stood and that he was resolved to abate of nothing which concerned the honour of the Church who was so vigilant and intent without fear of envy or displeasure on the profit of it 37. The Queen was set upon a point of holding her Prerogative-Royal at the very height and therefore would not yield to any thing in Civil matters which seemed to tend to any sensible diminution of it And in like sort she was resolved touching her Supremacy which she considered as the fairest Jewel in the Regal Diadem and consequently could as little hearken to such Propositions as had been made in favor of the Puritan Faction by their great Agents in the Court though she had many times been sollicited in it To ease herself of which Sollicitations for the time to come she acquaints Whitgift at his first coming to the place that she determined to discharge herself from the trouble of all Church-concernments and leave them wholly to his care That he should want no countenance and encouragement for carrying on the great trust committed to him That she was sensible enough into what disorder and confusion the affairs of the Church were brought by the connivance of some Bishops the obstinancy of some Ministers and the power of some great Lords both in Court and Countrey but that notwithstanding all these difficulties he must resolve not onely to assert the Episcopal Power but also to restore that Uniformity in Gods Publick Worship which by the weakness of his Predecessor was so much endangered Thus authorized and countenanced he begins his Government And for the first Essay thereof he sends abroad three Articles to be subscribed by all the Clergy of his Province The Tenour of which Articles because they afterwards created so much trouble to him I shall here subjoyn First therefore he required the Clergy to subscribe to this That the Queen had Supreme Authority over all persons born within her Dominions of what condition soever they were and that no other Prince Prelate or Potentate either had or ought to have any jurisdiction Civil or Ecclesiastical within her Realms and Dominions 2. That the Book of Common-prayer and the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons contained nothing contrary to the Word of God but might lawfully be used and that they would use that and no other 3. That he allowed the Articles of Religion agreed in the Synod holden at London in the year of our Lord 1562 and published by the Queens Authority and did believe them to be consonant to the Word of God 38. It is not easie to imagine what clamours were raised amongst the Brethren upon this occasion how they moved Heaven and Earth the Court and Country and all the Friends they had of the Clergie or Laity to come to their assistance in this time of their tryal By means whereof they raised so strong an opposition against his proceedings that no man of less courage then Whitgift and none but Whitgift so well backed and countenanced by a gratious Mistress could have withstood the violence and fury of it But by the Queens constancie on the one side who gave Semper Eadem for her Motto to shew that she was always one and by his most invincible patience on the other side whose Motto being Vincit qui patitur declared what hopes he had that by a discreet patience he might get the Victory he had the happiness to see the Church reduced to her former lustre by the removing of all obstacles which lay before him The first of which was laid by some of his own Diocess who being required by him to subscribe for an Example to others not onely refused so to do but being thereupon suspended for their contumacy in due Form of Law they petitioned to the Lords of the Council for relief against him the like Petition was presented to them by some Ministers of the Diocess of Norwich against Dr. Edmond Freak
shall hereafter treat of them as they come before us with reference to the Practises and Proceedings of their English Brethren And first beginning with the Scots it is to be remembred that we left them at a very low ebb the Earl of Goury put to death many of the Nobility exiled into Forreign Countreys and the chief Zealots of the Faction amongst the Ministers putting themselves into a voluntary Banishment because they could not have their wills on the King and Council England as nearest hand was the common Sanctuary to which some Lords and almost all the Refractory Ministers had retired themselves Much countenanced by Mr. Secretary Walsingham who had set them on work and therefore was obliged to gratifie them in some fit proportion To such of the Nobility as had fled into England he assigned the Isle of Lindisfarm commonly called the Holy Island not far from Berwick with order to the Lord Hundsdon who was then Governour of that Town to give them the possession of it But Hundsdon though he had less Zeal had so much knowledg of his Duty as to disobey him considering the great consequence of the place and that there was no impossibility in it but that the Scots might make use of it to the common prejudice if they should prove Enemies to this Crown as perhaps they might A matter which the Secretary would not have passed over in so light a manner but that an Ambassador was sent at the same time from the King of Scots by whom it was desired that the Fugitives of that Nation whatsoever they were might either be remitted home or else commanded not to live so near the Borders where they had opportunity more than stood with the good of that Kingdom to pervert the Subjects Which Reasonable Desire being yeelded unto the Lords and Great men of that Nation were ordered to retire to Norwich and many of the Ministers permitted to prepare for London Oxon Cambridg and some other places where some of them procured more mischief to the Church of England than all of them could have done to their own Countrey had they staid at Berwick 2. At London they are suffered by some zealous Brethren to possess their Pulpits in which they rail without comptroll against their King the Council of that Kingdom and their natural Queen as if by the practises of the one and the connivence of the other the Reformed Religion was in danger to be rooted out Some Overtures had been made at that time by the Queen of Scots by which it was desired that she might be restored unto the Liberty of her person associating with the young King in the Government of the Realm of Scotland and be suffered to have the Mass said in her private Closet for her self and her Servants The news whereof being brought to London filled all the Pulpits which the Scots were suffered to invade with terrible Complaints and Exclamations none of them sparing to affirm That her Liberty was inconsistent with Queen Elizabeth's Safety That both Kingdoms were undone if she were admitted to the joynt-Government of the Realm of Scotland and That the Reformed Religion must needs breathe its last if the Popish were permitted within the Walls of the Court. Which points they pressed with so much vehemence and heat that many were thereby inflamed to join themselves in the Association against that Queen which soon after followed Against their King they railed so bitterly and with such reproach one Davinson more than any other that upon complaint made by the Scottish Ambassador the Bishop of London was commanded to silence all the Scots about the City and the like Order given to the rest of the Bishops by whom they were inhibited from preaching in all other places But the less noise they made in the Church the more closely and dangerously they practised on particular persons in whom they endeavoured to beget an ill opinion of the present Government and to engage them for advancing that of the Presbyterian in the place thereof But this they had followed more successfully at the Act in Oxon where they are liberally entertained by Genebrand and the rest of the Brethren amongst which Wilcox Hen and Ackton were of greatest note And at this time a question was propounded to them concerning the proceeding of the Minister in his duty without the assistance or tarrying for the Magistrate How they resolved this question may be easily guessed partly by that which they had done themselves when they were in Scotland and partly by the Actings of their English Brethren in pursuance of it 3. For presently after Gelibrand deals with divers Students in their several Colledges to put their hands unto a paper which seemed to contain somewhat in it of such dangerous nature that some did absolutely refuse and others required further time of deliberation of which Gelibrand thus writes to Field on the 12 th of Ian. then next following I have already saith he entred into the matters whereof you write and dealt with three or four several Colledges concerning those amongst whom they live I find that men are very dangerous in this point generally favouring Reformation but when it comes to the particular point some have not yet considered of the things for which others in the Church are so much troubled others are afraid to testifie any thing with their hands lest it breed danger before the time and many favour the Cause of the Reformation but they are not Ministers but young Students of whom there is good hope if they be not cut off by violent dealing before the time As I hear by you so I mean to go forward where there is any hope and to learn the number and certifie you thereof c. But that these secret practises might not be suspected they openly attend the Parliament of this year as at other times in hope of gaining some advantage against the Bishops and the received Orders of the Church For in the Parliament of this year which began on the Twenty third of November they petitioned amongst other things That a Restraint might be laid upon the Bishops for granting of Faculties conferring of Orders as also in the executing of Ecclesiastical Censure the Oath Ex Officio permitting Non-residence and the like But the Queen would not hearken to it partly because of the dislike she had of all Innovations which commonly tend unto the worse but chiefly in regard that all such Applications as they made to the Parliament were by her looked on as derogatory to her own Supremacy So that instead of gaining any of those points at the hands of the Parliament they gained nothing but displeasure from the Queen who is affirmed by Stow to have made a Speech at the end of their Session and therein to have told the Bishops That if they did not look more carefully to the discharge of their Duties she must take order to deprive them Sharp words and such as might necessitate the Bishops to
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-hand to the redress of these Enormities being indeed a matter of State and not of the least moment I shall think my coming unto this Place to have been for my punishment and my hap very hard that when I think to deserve best and in a manner consume my self to satisfie that which God Her Majesty and the Church requireth of me I should be evilly rewarded Sed meliora spero It is objected by some that my desire of Uniformity by way of Subscription is for the better maintenance of my Book They are mine Enemies that say so but I trust my Friends have a better opinion of me Why should I seek for any confirmation of my Book after twelve years approbation Or what shall I get thereby more than already I have Yet if Subscription may confirm it it is confirmed long ago by the Subscription of almost all the Clergy of England before my time Mine Enemies likewise and the slanderous Tongues of this uncharitable Sect report that I am revolted bâ—come a Papist and I know not what But it proceedeth from thâ—â—r Leudness and not from any desert of mine 19. I am further burthened with Wilfulness I hope my Friends are better perswaded of me to whose Consciences I appeal It is strange that a man of my place dealing by so good a warrant as I do should be so encountred and for not yeelding counted Wilful But I must be content Vincit qui patitur There is a difference betwixt Wilfulness and Constancy I have taken upon me by the Place
with Whitgift who when he might have been elected Chancellor of the University of Oxon on the death of Leicester chose rather to commend his dear Friend the Lord Chancellor Hatton to the place than to assume it on himself and after Hatton's death to nominate the Lord Buckburst to them who was also chosen The young Earl had an eye upon that great Office that he might be as powerful amongst men of the Gown as he was amongst Gentlemen of the Sword and took it for an high affront that the Arch-bishop should presume to commend any other to that Honour which he designed unto himself But the Queen easily took him off and made him so far Friends with Whitgift as not to make any open profession of displeasure toward him by which the opposite Faction might be animated to their former Insolencies which notwithstanding the Arch-bishop kept a vigilant eye upon all his actions as one that was not to be told of his private practises the secret intelligence which he had with the Heads of that Party and saw that most of his Allies and Kindred were engaged that way For though upon the reconciliation which was made between them the Earl had offered him to run a course in Clergy-Causes according to his directions and advice yet what he did therein proceeded rather from a fear of the Queen's displeasure than from any love to Whitgift or the Church it self as afterwards appeared most evidently in the course of his actions 2. But that which gave the Brethren their greatest blow was the death of Walsingham who dyed on the sixt of April 1590. The Queen had lately been more sensible of those manifold dangers which both the Principles and Practises of the Disciplinarians did most apparently threaten to her whole Estate more now than ever by the coming out of a Pamphlet called The humble Motion In which it was affirmed That thousands did sigh for the Discipline ten thousands had sought it and that the most worthy men of every Shire had consented to it That the Eldership was at hand That the people were inflamed with a zeal to have it and that it was hard dangerous and impossible to stand against it Incensed thereat and fearing the sad consequences of such pestilent Pamphlets She resolved upon some speedy course to prevent the mischief and therefore gave the greater countenance to the Arch-bishops Bishops and their subordinate Officers for proceeding with them On which encouragement the seeming-neutrality of the Earl of Essex and the sickness of Walsingham Snape and some others of their principal Leaders were called before the High-Commission at Lambeth in the first beginning of Easter-Term which though it seemed both strange and unwelcome to them yet there was no remedy Appear they did because they must but were resolved that their appearance should conduce as little as might be to their disadvantage For being required to take their Oaths according to the use of the Court to answer punctually to all such Interrogatories as were to be propounded to them the Oath is absolutely refused unless the Interrogatories might be shewed unto them First therefore they were made acquainted with the substance of them but that would not serve They were assured in the next place That they should be required to answer no further unto any of them than they were bound to do by the Laws of the Land But that served as little In fine it was resolved That the Interrogatories should be shewed unto them here contrary to the practise of all Courts in Criminal Causes which served least of all For now Snape finding what was like to be charged upon them gave notice of the same to the rest of the Brethren and did not only refuse the Oath as before he did but put the rest upon a course of premeditation both whether it were fit to answer upon Oath or not and then what Answer they would make if they were put to it But so it hapned that his Letters being intercepted were produced against him upon which he was clapped up in Prison and a great terror thereby struck into all the Brethren who now began to apprehend the dangers they were fallen into by their former Insolencies 3. It may be gathered by those Letters that no small diligence had been used by such as had employed themselves in it to search into the bottom of their deepest Counsels and most secret Purposes and that so perfect a discovery had been made thereof as might warrant the High Commissioners to proceed severely without the least fear of being foyled in their undertakings For Snape confesseth in those Letters That they had the knowledg not only of Generals but of Specials and Particulars also that is to say touching the places where they met Oxford London Cambridg c. the times of their accustomed Meetings as Sturbridg-Faire Acts Terms c. the persons which assembled at them as Cartwright Perkins Travers Chark c. and finally the very matters which they dealt in and agreed upon Much troubled the good man seemed to be in guessing at that false Brother who had made the discovery but that they were discovered he is sure enough for he affirmeth that their Actings neither were or could be any longer concealed and therefore that the Lord called upon them to be resolute in the present case And thereupon it was propounded Whether it were better and more safe that one man with the consent of the rest should boldly freely and wisely confess and lay open c or that some weak or wicked man should without consent and in evil sort acknowledg c. He tells them That the matter aimed at by High Commissioners was To bring them within danger of Law for holding Conventicles That in Causes of Murther and the like it was commonly asked Whether the Party fled upon it and therefore that they should do well to consider of it in reference to the present case and so advising That T. C. should be sent to with all speed he concludes his Letter 4. This Letter coming up so close to the former discoveries brings Cartwright into play in September following But first a consultation must be had amongst them at the House of one Gardiner Whether and if at all how far it might be fit for him to reveal all or any of the matters which had passed in conference or disputation in any of their former Assemblies And as it seems it was determined in the Negative according to the Doctrine of the old Priscilianists that he should not do it For when the Oath was offered to him he refused to take it The High-Commission-Court was at that time held in the Bishop of London's Consistory in the Church of St. Paul At which were present amongst others the Lord Bishop of London the two Chief Justices Serjeant Puckering afterwards Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Mr. Justice Gaudie and Popham then Attorney-General but afterwards Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas All which did severally and
distinctly assure him upon their Credits That by the Laws of the Realm he was bound to take the Oath required for making a true answer unto the Interrogatories which were to be propounded to him To which he made no other Answer but that he could find no such thing in the Law of God and so continuing in his obstinacy was committed also But the Commissioners having spent some time in preparing the matter and thinking the cognizance thereof more fitter for the Star-Chamber referred both the Persons and the Cause to the care of that Court. In which an Information was preferred against them by the Queen's Attorney for setting forth and putting in practise without warrant and authority a new form of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments together with the Presbyterial Discipline not allowed by Law Upon the news whereof the Brethren enter into consultation as well about some course to be presently taken for relief of the Prisoners as for the putting of their Discipline into further practise What the result was may be gathered from a Letter of Wiggingtons one of the hottest heads amongst them in which he thus writes to Porter of Lancaster viz. Mr. Cartwright is in the Fleet for refusing the Oath as I hear and Mr. Knewstubs is sent for and sundry worthy Ministers are disquieted who have been spared long So that we look for some bickering ere long and then a Battel which cannot long endure 5. But before any thing could be done upon either side in order to the proceedings of the Coâ—rt or the release of the Prisoners there brake out such a dangerous Treason as took up all the thoughts of the Lords of the Council and the Brethren too The Brethren had so fixed their Fancies on the Holy Discipline and entertained such strange devices to promote the same beyond the warrant of God's Word and the Rule of Law that at the last God gave them up to strong delusions and suffered them to be transported by their own ill spirits to most dangerous downfalls One Coppinger a Gentleman of a very good Family had been so wrought upon by some of the chief Factors to the Presbyterians that he became a great admirer of their Zeal and Piety and being acquainted with one Arthington a Lay Genevian but very zealous in the Cause he adviseth with him of some means for the good of the Prisoners But upon long deliberation they could think of no course at all unless it would please God by some extraordinary Calling to stir up some zealous Brethren to effect their desires and if God pleased to take that way why might not one or both of them be chosen as fit Instruments in so great a service than whom they knew of none more able and of few more zealous On these Preparatories they betake themselves to Prayer and Fasting hold a strict Fast together on the 15 th of December and then began to â—ind themselves extraordinarily exercised as appears by their Letters writ to Lancaster in whose House they held it Immediately upon this Fact Coppinger takes a journey into Kent and fancies by the way that he was admitted to a familiar Conference with God himself that he received from Him many strange Directions to be followed by him whensoever God should please to use his service for the good of His Church and more particularly that he was shewed a way to bring the Queen to repentance and to cause all the Nobles to do the like out of hand or else to prove them to be Traytors to Almighty God Another Fast is held by him and Arthington at his coming back in which he finds himself more strongly stirred to a matter of some great importance than he was before of which he gives notice unto Gibson in Scotland by his Letter of the last of December and afterward to Wiggington above-mentioned by them to be communicated to the rest of the Brethren Another Fast follows upon this at which Wiggington and some others did vouchsafe their presence who had before confirmed them in the fancy of some such extraordinary Calling as he seemed to drive at With the intention of this last Cartwright and other of the Prisoners were made acquainted before-hand to the intent that by the benefit of their secret prayers the Action might be crowned with an End more glorious And the same night Coppinger finds himself in Heaven exceedingly astonished at the Majesty of Almighty God but very much comforted by the Vision and every day more and more encouraged to some great Work which he communicates at several times and by several Letters to Cartwright Travers Clark c. amongst the Preachers and from the Lay-Brethren unto Lancaster and Sir Peter Wentworth 6. And now we must make room for another Actor a greater Zealot than the other and one that was to rob them of the glory of their Dreams and Dotages Hacket an inconsiderable Fellow both for Parts and Fortune pretends to a more near Familiarity with Almighty God than either of the other durst aspire to A Wretch of such a desperate Malice that bearing an old grudg to one that had been his School-Master he bit off his Nose And when the poor man humbly prayed him to let him have it again to the end it might be sowed on before it was cold he most barbarously chewed it with his teeth and so swallowed it down After this having wasted that small Estate which he had by his Wife he becomes a Proselyte pretends at first to more than ordinary zeal for a Reformation and afterwards to extraordinary Revelations for the compassing of it This brings him into the acquaintance of some zealous Ministers who were then furiously driving on for the Holy Discipline but none more than Wiggington before remembred who brings him presently to Coppinger at such time as the poor man was raised to the height of his Follies Hacket had profited so well in the School of Hypocrisie that by his counterfeit-holiness his fervent and continual praying ex tempore fasting upon the Lord's Days making frequent brags of his Conflicts with Satan and pretending to many personal Conferences with the Lord Himself that he became of great esteem with the rest of the Brethren insomuch that some of them did not stick to say not only that he was one of God's beloved but greater in His Favour than Moses or Iohn the Baptist. And he himself made shew That he was a Prophet sent to foretell God's Judgments where His Mercies were neglected prophesying That there should be no more Popes and that England this present Year should be afflicted with Famine Warr and Pestilence unless the Lord's Discipline and Reformation were forthwith admitted These men being both governed by the same ill spirit were mutually over-joyed at this new acquaintance and forthwith entred into counsel for freeing Cartwright Snape and the rest of the Ministers not only from the several Prisons in which they lay but from the danger of their Censure in the
for ever continue and maintain such their Right and Title in the Church's Government with all Equity and Christian Moderation 15. At this time grew the Heats also betwixt Hooker and Travers the first being Master of the Temple and the other Lecturer Hooker received his Education in Corpus Christi Colledg in Oxon from whence he came well stocked in all kind of Learning but most especially in Fathers Councils and other approved Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity Travers was bred in Trinity Colledg in Cambridg well skilled in the Oriental Tongues and otherwise better studied in Words than Matter being Cotemporary with Cartwright and of his Affection He sets up his studies in Geneva and there acquaints himself with Beza and the rest of that Consistory of whom and their new Discipline he grew so enamoured that before his coming into England he was made Minister as well at least as such hands could make him by the Presbytery of Antwerp as appears by their Certificate for I dare not call them Letters of Orders dated May 14 1578. Thus qualified he associates himself with Cartwright whom he found there at his coming in preaching to the Factory of English Merchants and follows him not long after into England also By the commendation of some Friends he was taken into the House of William Lord Burleigh whom he served first in the nature of a Pedagogue to his younger Son and after as one of his Chaplains Preferments could not chuse but come in his way considering the Greatness of his Master whose eminent Offices of Lord Treasurer Chief Secretary and Master of the Wards could not but give him many opportunities to prefer a Servant to the best places in the Church But Travers knew his incapacity to receive such Favours as neither lawfully ordained according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England nor willing to subscribe to such Rites and Ceremonies as he found were used in the same But being a great Factor for promoting the Holy Discipline he gets himself into the Lecture of the Temple which could not easily be denyed when the Chaplain of so great a Councellor was a Suitor for it 16. In this place he insinuates himself by all means imaginable into the good affections of many young Students and some great Lawyers of both Houses on whom he gained exceedingly by his way of Preaching graced with a comely Gesture and a Rhetorical manner of Elocution By which advantages he possest many of the long Robe with a strong affection to the devices of Geneva and with as great a prejudice to the English Hierarchy the fruits whereof discovered themselves more or less in all following Parliaments when any thing concerning the Church came in agitation And by the opportunity of this Place he had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Disciplinarians presiding for the most part in their Classical Meetings and from hence issuing their Directions to the rest of the Churches And so it stood till Hooker's coming to be Master who being a man of other Principles and better able to defend them in a way of Argument endeavoured to instruct his Auditors in such Points of Doctrine as might keep them in a right perswasion of the Church of England as well in reference to her Government as her Forms of Worship This troubled Travers at the heart as it could not otherwise to see that the fine Web which he had been so long in weaving should be thus unravell'd Rather than so Hooker shall tell them nothing in the Morning but what he laboured to confute in the Afternoon not doubting but that a great part of the Auditors would pass Sentence for him though the truth might run most apparently on the other side Hooker endured it for some time but being weary at the last of the opposition he complains thereof to the Arch-bishop who had deservedly a very great opinion of him and this Complaint being seasonably made in that point of time when Cartwright Snape and other Leading-men of the Puritan Faction were brought into the High Commission it was no hard matter for him to procure an Order to suppress his Adversary silenced from preaching in the Temple and all places else Which Order was issued upon these grounds that is to say That he was no lawfully ordained Minister according to the Church of England That he took upon him to preach without being licensed and That he had presumed openly to confute such Doctrine as had been publickly delivered by another Preacher without any notice given thereof to the lawful Ordinary contrary to a Provision made in the Seventh year of the Queen for avoiding Disturbances in the Church 17. But Travers was too stiff and too well supported to sit down on the first Assault He makes his supplication therefore to the Lords of the Council where he conceived himself as strong and as highly favoured as Hooker was amongst the Bishops and the High Commissioners In this Petition he complains of some obliquity in the proceedings had against him for want of some Legalities in the conduct of it But when he came to answer to the Charges which were laid upon him his Defences appeared very weak and flat and could not much conduce to his justification when they were seriously examined in the scale of Judgment His exercising the Ministry without lawful Orders he justified no otherwise than that by the Communion of Saints all Ordinations were of like Authority in a Christian Church The Bishop of London had commended him by two Letters unto that Society to be chosen Lecturer and That he took for a sufficient License as might enable him to preach to that Congregation And as for his confuting in the Afternoon what had been preached by Mr. Hooker in the morning before he conceived that he had warrant for it from St. Paul's example in withstanding St. Peter to his face for fear lest otherwise God's Truth might receive some prejudice The weakness and insufficiency of which Defences was presently made known in Hooker's Answer to the Supplication Which wrought so much upon the Lords and was so strongly seconded by the Arch-bishop himself that all the Friends which Travers had amongst them could not do him good especially when it was represented to them how dangerous a thing it was that a man of such ill Principles and of worse Affections should be permitted to continue in his former Lecture which what else were it in effect but to retain almost half the Lawyers of England to be of Councel in all Causes which concerned the Church whensoever those of the Genevian or Puritan Faction should require it of them But so it hapned and it hapned very well for Travers that the Queen had erected an University at Dublin in the year fore-going 1591 Founding therein a Colledg dedicated to the Holy Trinity to the Provostship whereof he was invited by the Arch-bishop of Dublin who had been once a Fellow of the same House with him Glad of which opportunity
to go off with credit he prepares for Ireland But long he had not dwelt on his new Preferment when either he proved too hot for the Place or the Countrey by reason of the following Warrs grew too hot for him Which brought him back again to England where he lived to a very great age in a small Estate more comfortably than before because less troublesome to the Church than he had been formerly 18. Thus have we seen Travers taken off and Beza quieted nor was it long before Cartwright was reduced to a better temper But first it was resolved to try all means for his delivery both at home and abroad Abroad they held intelligence with their Brethren in the Kirk of Scotland by means of Penry here and of Gibson there two men as fit for their Designs as if they had been made of purpose to promote the Mischief Concerning which thus Gibson writes in one of his Letters to Coppinger before remembred whereby it seems that he was privy to his practices also The best of our Ministers saith he are most careful of your estate and had sent for that effect a Preacher of ours the last Summer of purpose to confer with the best affected of your Church to lay down a plot how our Church might best travel for your relief The Lord knows what care we have of you both in our publick and private Prayers c. For as feeling-members of one body we reckon the affliction of your Church to be our own This showed how great they were with child of some good Affections but there wanted strength to be delivered of the Burthen They were not able to raise Factions in the Court of England as Queen ELIZABETH had done frequently on their occasions in the Realm of Scotland All they could do was to engage the King in mediating with the Queen in behalf of Cartwright Vdal and some others of the principal Brethren then kept in Prison for their contumacy in refusing the Oath And they prevailed so far upon Him who was not then in a condition to deny them any thing as to direct some Lines unto Her in this tenour following 19. RIght Excellent High and Mighty Princess Our dearest Sister and Cousin in Our heartiest manner We recommend Us unto You. Hearing of the Apprehension of Master Vdal and Master Cartwright and certain other Ministers of the Evangel within Your Realm of whose good Erudition and Faithful Travels in the Church We hear a very credible commendation however that their diversity from the Bishops and other of Your Clergy in matters touching their Conscience hath been a mean by their delation to work them your misliking at this time We cannot weighing the Duty which We owe to such as are afflicted for their Conscience in that Profession but by Our most effectuous and earnest Letter interpone Us at Your Hands to stay any harder usage of them for that cause Requesting You most earnestly That for Our Cause and Intercession it may please You to let them be relieved of their present Strait and whatsoever further Accusation or Pursuit depending upon that ground respecting both their former Merit in setting forth the Evangel the simplicity of their Conscience in this Defence which cannot well be their Lett by Compulsion and the great slander which would not fail to fall out upon their further straitning for any such occasion Which We assure Us Your Zeal to Religion besides the expectation We have of Your good will to pleasure Us will willingly accord to Our Request having such proofs from time to time of Our like disposition to You in any matter which You recommend unto Us. And thus Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Princess Our dear Sister and Cousin We commit You to God's Protection Edenborough Iune 12. 1591. 20. This Letter was presented to the Queen by the hands of one Iohnson a Merchant of that Nation then remaining in London But it produced not the Effect which the Brethren hoped for For the Queen looked upon it as extorted rather by the importunity of some which were then about Him than as proceeding from Himself who had no reason to be too indulgent unto those of that Faction This Project therefore not succeeding they must try another and the next tryal shall be made on the High Commission by the Authority whereof Cartwright and Snape and divers others were committed Prisoners If this Commission could be weakned and the Power thereof reduced to a narrower compass the Brethren might proceed securely in the Holy Discipline the Prisoners be released and the Cause established And for the questioning thereof they took this occasion One Caudreys Parson of North-Luffengham in the County of Rutland had been informed against about four years since in the High Commission for preaching against the Book of Common-Prayer and refusing to celebrate Divine Service according to the Rules and Rubricks therein prescribed For which upon sufficient proof he was deprived of his Benefice by the Bishop of London and the rest of the Queen's Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes Four years together he lay quiet without acting any thing against the Sentence of the Court But now it was thought by some of those Lawyers whom Travers had gained unto the side to question the Authority of that Commission and consequently the illegality of his Deprivation In Hillary Term Anno 1591 the Cause was argued in the Exchequer Chamber by all the Judges according to the usual custom in all cases of the like importance and it was argued with great Learning as appears by the sum and substance of their several Arguments drawn up by Coke then being the Queen's Sollicitor-General and extant amongst the rest of his Reports both in English and Latin inscribed De Iure Regis Ecclesiastico but known most commonly by the name of Cawdrey's Case In the debating of which Point the Result was â—his That the Statute of 10 of the Queen for restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction c. was not to be accounted introductory of a new Authority which was not in the Crown before but only declaratory of an old which naturally and originally did belong to all Christian Princes and amongst others also to the Kings of England For proof whereof there wanted not sufficient evidence in our English Histories as well as in some old Records of unquestioned Credit exemplifying the continual practise of the Kings of England before and since the Norman Conquest in ordering and directing matters which concerned the Church In which they ruled sometimes absolutely without any dispute and sometimes relatively in reference to such opposition as they were to make against the Pope and all Authority derived from the See of Rome 21. Against this Case so solidly debated and so judiciously drawn up when none of the Puritan Professors could make any Reply Parsons the Iesuit undertook it but spent more time in searching out some contrary Evidence which might make for the Pope than in disproving that
which had been brought in behalf of the Queen So that the strugling on both sides much confirmed the Power which they endeavoured to destroy the Power of that Commission being better fortified both by Law and Argument than it had been formerly For by the over-ruling of Cawdrey's Case in confirmation of the Sentence which was past against him and the great pains which Parsons took to so little purpose the Power of that Commission was so well established in the Courts of Judicature that it was afterwards never troubled with the like Disputes The Guides of the Faction therefore are resolved on another course To strike directly at the Root to question the Episcopal Power and the Queen's Authority the Jurisdiction of their Courts the exacting of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio and their other proceedings in the same And to this purpose it was published in Print by some of their Lawyers or by their directions at the least That men were heavily oppressed in the Ecclesiastical Courts against the Laws of the Realm That the Queen could neither delegate that Authority which was vested in it nor the Commissioners to exercise the same by her delegation That the said Courts could not compel the taking of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio since no man could be bound in Reason to accuse himself That the said Oath did either draw men into wilful Perjury to the destruction of their souls or to be guilty in a manner of their own condemnation to the loss both of their Fame and Fortunes And finally That the ordinary Episcopal Courts were not to meddle in any Causes whatsoever but only Testamentary and Matrimonial by consequence not in matter of Tythes all Mis-behaviours in the Church or punishing of Incontinency or Fornication Adultery Incest or any the like grievous or enormous Crimes but on the contrary it was affirmed by the Professors of the Civil Laws That to impugn the Authority which had been vested in the Queen by Act of Parliament was nothing in effect but a plain Invasion of the Royal Prerogative the opening of a way to the violation of the Oath of Allegiance and consequently to undermine the whole Frame of the present Government It was proved also That the ordinary Episcopal Courts had kept themselves within their bounds that they might lawfully deal in all such Causes as were then handled in those Courts that their proceedings in the same by the Oath Ex Officio was neither against Conscience Reason nor the Laws of the Land and therefore that the Clamours on the other side were unjust and scandalous In which as many both Divines and Civilians deserved exceeding well both of the Queen and the Church so none more eminently than Dr. Richard Cosins Dean of the Arches in a Learned and Laborious Treatise by him writ and published called An Apology for Proceedings in Courts Ecclesiastical c. Printed in the year 1593. 22. But notwithstanding the Legality of these Proceedings the punishing of some Ring-leaders of the Puritan Faction and the Imprisonment of others a Book comes out under the name of A Petition to Her Majesty The scope and drift whereof was this That the Ecclesiastical Government of the Church of England was to be changed That the Eldership or Presbyterial Discipline was to be established as being the Government which was used in the Primitive Church and commanded to be used in all Ages That the Disciplinarian Faction hath not offended against the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. And That Iohn Vdal was unjustly condemned upon it That the Consistorial Patrons are unjustly slandered with desire of Innovation and their Doctrine with Disorder and Disloyalty And this being said the Author of the Pamphlet makes it his chief business by certain Questions and Articles therein propounded to bring the whole Ecclesiastical State into envy and hatred This gave the Queen a full assurance of the restless Spirit wherewith the Faction was possessed and that no quiet was to be expected from them till they were utterly supprest To which end She gives Order for a Parliament to begin in February for the Enacting of some Laws to restrain those Insolencies with which the Patience of the State had been so long exercised The Puritans on the other side are not out of hope to make some good use of it for themselves presuming more upon the strength of their Party by reason of the Pragmaticalness of some Lawyers in the House of Commons than they had any just ground for as it after proved To which end they prepared some Bills sufficiently destructive of the Royal Interest the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the whole Form of their Proceedings in their several Courts With which the Queen being made acquainted before their meeting or otherwise suspecting by their former practises what they meant to do She thought it best to strangle those Conceptions in the very Womb. And to that purpose She gave Order for the signification of Her Pleasure to the Lords and Commons at the very first opening of the Parliament That they should not pass beyond their bounds That they should keep themselves to the redressing of such Popular Grievances as were complained of to them in their several Countreys but that they should leave all Matters of State to Her self and the Council and all Matters which concerned the Church unto Her and Her Bishops 23. Which Declaration notwithstanding the Factors for the Puritans are resolved to try their Fortune and to encroach upon the Queen and the Church at once The Queen was always sensible of the Inconveniences which might arise upon the nominating of the next Successor and knew particularly how much the Needle of the Puritans Compass pointed toward the North Which made Her more tender in that Point than She had been formerly But Mr. Peter Wentworth whom before we spake of a great Zealot in behalf of the Holy Discipline had brought one Bromley to his lure and they together deliver a Petition to the Lord Keeper Puckering desiring that the Lords would joyn with them of the Lower-House and become Suppliants to the Queen for entailing of the Succession of the Crown according to a Bill which they had prepared At this the Queen was much displeased as being directly contrary to her strict Command and charged the Lords of the Council to call the said Gentlemen before them and to proceed against them for their disobedience Upon which signification of Her Majesty's Pleasure Sir Thomas Hennage then Vice-Chamberlain and one of the Lords of the Privy-Council convents the Parties reprehends them for their Misdemeanor commands them to forbear the Parliament and not to go out of their several Lodgings until further Order Being afterwards called before the Lord Treasurer Burleigh the Lord Buckhurst and the said Sir Thomas Wentworth is sent unto the Tower Bromley committed unto the Fleet and with him Welsh and Stevens two other Members of that House were committed also as being privy to the Projects of
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
But we will let them run unto the end of their Line and then pull them back 38. And first We will begin with the Conspiracies and Treasons of Francis Steward Earl of Bothwell Son of Iohn Prior of Coldingham one of the many Bastards of K. Iames the Fifth who by the Daughter and Heir of Iames Lord Hepborn the late Earl of Bothwell became the Father of this Francis A man he was of a seditious and turbulent nature principled in the Doctrines of the Presbyterians and thereby fitted and disposed to run their courses At first he joyned himself to the banished Lords who seized upon the King at Sterling not because he was any way engaged in their former Practises for which they had been forced to flye their Countrey but because he would ingratiate himself with the Lords of that Faction and gain some credit with the Kirk But being a man also of a dissolute Life gave such scandal to all Honest and Religious men that in the end to gain the Reputation of a Convert he was contented to be brought to the Stool of Repentance to make Confession of his Sins and promise Reformation for the time to come Presuming now upon the Favour of the Kirk he consults with Witches enquires into the Liâ—e of the King how long he was to reign and what should happen in the Kingdom after his decease and more than so deals with the Witch of Keith particularly to employ her Familiar to dispatch the King that he might set on foot some Title to the Crown of that Realm For which notorious Crimes and so esteemed by all the Laws both of God and Man he was committed unto Ward and breaking Prison was confiscated proclaimed Traytor and all Intelligence and Commerce interdicted with him After this he projects a Faction in the Court it self under pretence of taking down the Power and Pride of the Lord Chancellor then being But finding himself too weak to atchieve the Enterprise he departs secretly into England His Faction in the Court being formed with some more Advantage he is brought privily into the Palace of Haly-Rood House makes himself Master of the Gates secureth the Fort and violently attempts to seize the King But the King hearing of the noise retired himself to a strong Tower and caused all the Passages to be locked and barred Which Bothwell not being able to force he resolves to burn the Palace and the King together But before Fire could be made ready the Alarm was taken the Edenbourgers raised and the Conspirators compelled with the loss of some of their Lives to quit the place 39. The next year he attempts the like at Falkland where he showed himself with a Party of six-score Horse but the rest of the Conspirators not appearing he retires again is entertained privately by some eminent Persons and having much encreased his Faction lives concealed in England The Queen negotiates his return and by the Lord Burrough her Ambassador desires the King to take him into Grace and Favour Which being denyed a way is found to bring him into the King's Bed-chamber together with one of his Confederates with their Swords in their hands followed immediately by many others of the Faction by whom the King is kept in a kind of Custody till he had granted their Desires At last upon the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some of the Ministers of Edenborough who were of Counsel in the Plot the King is brought to condescend to these Conditions that is to say That Pardon should be given to Bothwell and his Accomplices for all matters past and that this Pardon should be ratified by Act of Parliament in November following That in the mean time the Lord Chancellor the Lord Hume the Master of Glammir and Sir George Hume who were all thought to favour the Popish Lords should be excluded from the Court. And finally That Bothwell and all his Party should be held good Subjects But these Conditions being extorted were not long made good Agreed on August the 14 th and declared void by a Convention of Estates at Sterling on the 7 th of September Some Troubles being raised upon this occasion and as soon blown over Bothwell is cited to appear at Edenborough and failing of his day is declared Rebel which only served to animate him to some greater Mischief For being under-hand assisted by the English Ambassador he prepares new Forces desires the Lords which were of his Confederacy to do the like under pretence of banishing to Popish Lords but in plain truth to make the King of no signification in the Power of Government Accompanied with Four hundred Horse he puts himself into Leith to the great affrightment of the King who was then at Edenborough But understanding that the rest of his Associates were not drawn together it was thought good to charge upon him with the Bands of that City and some Artillery from the Castle before his Numbers were encreased Which Counsel sped so well that he lost the day and therewith all his hopes in Scotland and in England too 40. For Queen Elizabeth being sensible at the last of the great Dishonour which she had drawn upon her self by favouring such an Infamous Rebel caused Proclamation to be made That no man should receive or harbour him within her Dominions And the Kirk moved by her Example and the King's Request when they perceived that he could be no longer serviceable to their Ends and Purposes gave Order that the Ministers in all Places should disswade their Flocks from concurring with him for the time to come or joyning with any other in the like Insurrections against that Authority which was divested by God in His Majesty's Person The Treasons and Seditious practises of which man I have laid together the better to express those continual Dangers which were threatned by him to the King by which He was reduced to the necessity of complying with the desires of the Kirk setling their Discipline and in all points conforming to them for His own preservation But nothing lost the Rebel more than a new Practise which he had with the Popish Lords whereby he furnished the King with a just occasion to lay him open to the Ministers and the rest of the Subjects in his proper colours as one that was not acted by a Zeal to Religion though under that disguise he masked his Ambitious Ends. In fine being despised by the Queen of England and Excommunicated by the Kirk for joyning with the Popish Lords he was reduced to such a miserable condition that he neither knew whom to trust nor where to flye Betrayed by those of his own Party by whom his Brother Hercules was impeached discovered and at last brought to Execution in the Streets at Edenborough he fled for shelter into France where finding sorry entertainment he removed into Spain and afterwards retired to Naples in which he spent the short remainder of his Life in Contempt and Beggery 41.
About this time one of the Ministers named Rosse uttered divers Treasonable and Irreverent speeches against His Majesty in a Sermon of his preached at Perth for which the King craved Justice of the next Assembly and he required this also of them That to prevent the like for the times ensuing the Ministers should be inhibited by some Publick Order from uttering any irreverent speeches in the Pulpit against His Majesty's Person Council or Estate under the pain of Deprivation This had been often moved before and was now hearkned to with as little care as in former times All which the King got by it was no more but this that Rosse was only admonished to speak so reverently of His Majesty for the time to come as might give no just cause of complaint against him As ill success he had in the next Assembly to which he recommended some Conditions about the passing of the Sentence of Excommunication two of which were to this effect 1. That none should be excommunicated for Civil causes for any Crimes of leight importance or for particular wrongs offered to the Ministers lest the Censure should fall into contempt 2. That no summary Excommunication should be thenceforth used but that lawful citations of the Parties should go before in all manner of Causes whatsoever To both which he received no other Answer but That the Points were of too great weight to be determined on the sudden and should be therefore agitated in the next Assembly In the mean time it was provided That no Summary Excommunication should be used but in such occasions in which the Safety of the Church seemed to be in danger Which Exception much displeased the King knowing that they would serve their turn by it whensoever they pleased Nor sped he better with them when he treated severally than when they were in the Assembly The Queen of England was grown old and he desired to be in good terms with all his Subjects for bearing down all opposition which might be made against his Title after her decease To which end he deals with Robert Bruce a Preacher of Edenborough about the calling home the Popish Lords men of great Power and Credit in their several Countreys who had been banished the last year for holding some intelligence with the Catholick King Bruce excepts only against Huntley whom the King seemed to favour above all the rest and positively declared That the King must lose him if he called home Huntley for that it was impossible to keep them both And yet this Bruce was reckoned for a Moderate man one of the quietest and best-natur'd of all the Pack What was the issue of this business we shall see hereafter 42. In the mean time let us pass over into France and look upon the Actions of the Hugonots there of whose deserting their new King we have spoke of before And though they afterwards afforded him some Supplies both of Men and Money when they perceived him backed by the Queen of England and thereby able to maintain a defensive Warr without their assistance yet they did it in so poor a manner as made him utterly despair of getting his desired Peace by an absolute Victory In which perplexity he beholds his own sad condition his Kingdom wasted by a long and tedious Warr invaded and in part possessed by the Forces of Spain new Leagues encreasing every day both in strength and number and all upon the point of a new Election or otherwise to divide the Provinces amongst themselves To prevent which he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome goes personally to the Mass and in all other publick Offices which concerned Religion conformed himself unto the directions of the Pope And for so doing he gives this account to Wilks the Queen's Ambassador sent purposely to expostulate with him upon this occasion that is to say That Eight hundred of the Nobility and no fewer than Nine Regiments of the Protestant Party who had put themselves into the Service of his Predecessor returned unto their several homes and could not be induced to stay with him upon any perswasions That such of the Protestants as he had taken at the same time to his Privil-Council were so intent on their own business that they seldom vouchsafed their presence at the Council-Table so that being already forsaken by those on whom he relyed and fearing to be forsaken by the Papists also he was forced to run upon that course which unavoidable necessity had compelled him to and finally that being thus necessitated to a change of Religion he rather chose to make it look like his own free Act that he might thereby free the Doctrine of the Protestants from those Aspersions which he conceived must otherwise needs have fallen upon it if that Conversion had been wrought upon him by Dispute and Argument for hearkening whereunto he had bound himself when he first took the Crown upon him If by this means the Hugonots in France shall fall to as low an ebb as the Fortunes of their Brethren did in England at the same time they can lay the blame on nothing but their own Ingratitude their Disobedience to their King and the Genevian Principles that were rooted in them which made them Enemies to the Power and Guidance of all Soveraign Princes But the King being still in heart of his own Religion or at least exceeding favourable to all those that professed the same he willingly passed over all unkindness which had grown between them and by his countenance or connivence gave them such advantages as made them able to dispute the point with his Son and Successor whether they would continue Subjects to the Crown or not 43. In the Low-Countreys all things prospered with the Presbyterians who then thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledg By whose example the Calvinians take up Arms in the City of Embden renounce all obedience to their Prince and put themselves into the Form of a Commonwealth This Embden is the principal City of the Earl of East-Friesland situate on the mouth of the River Emns called Amasus by Latin Writers and from thence denominated Beautified with a Haven so deep and large that the greatest Ships with full sail are admitted into it The People rich the Buildings general fair both private and publick especially the Town-Hall and the stately Castle Which last being situate on a rising-ground near the mouth of the Haven and strongly fortified toward the Town had for long time been the Principal Seat of the Earls of that Province The second Earl hereof called Ezard when he had governed this Countrey for the space of sixty years or thereabouts did first begin to introduce the Doctrines of Luther into his Estates Anno 1525. But being old he left the Work to be accomplished by Enno his eldest Son who first succeeded in that Earldom and using the assistance of Hardimbergius a Moderate and Learned man established the Augustine Confession in the
History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB X. Containing A Relation of their Plots and Practises in the Realm of England Their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the Year 1595 to the Year 1603. THE English Puritans having sped so ill in a course of violence were grown so wise as to endeavour the subverting of that Fort by an undermining which they had no hope to take by storm or battery And the first course they fell upon besides the Artifices lately mentioned for altering the posture of the Preacher in the Spittle-Sermons and that which was intended as a consequent to it was the Design of Dr. Bound though rather carried under his Name than of his devising for lessening by degrees the Reputation of the ancient Festivals The Brethren had tryed many ways to suppress them formerly as having too much in them of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome but they had found no way succesful till they fell on this which was To set on foot some new Sabbath-Doctrine and by advancing the Authority of the Lord's-Day Sabbath to cry down the rest Some had been hammering on this Anvil ten years before and had procured the Mayor and Aldermen of London to present a Petition to the Queen for the suppressing of all Plays and Interludes on the Sabbath-day as they pleased to call it within the Liberties of their City The gaining of which point made them hope for more and secretly to retail those Speculations which afterward Bound sold in gross by publishing his Treatise of the Sabbath which came out this year 1595. And as this Book was published for other Reasons so more particularly for decrying the yearly-Festivals as appears by this passage in the same viz. That he seeth not where the Lord hath given any Authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctifie any day except that which he hath sanctified himself And makes it an especial Argument Argument against the goodness of Religion in the Church of Rome That to the Seventh-day they had joyned so many other days and made them equal with the Seventh if not superior thereunto as well in the solemnity of Divine Offices as restraint from labour So that we may perceive by this what their intent was from the very beginning To cry down the Holy-days as superstitious Popish Ordinances that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone and Sabbath now it must be called might become more eminent Some other Ends they might have in it as The compelling of all persons of what rank soever to submit themselves unto the yoak of their Sabbath-rigors whom they despaired of bringing under their Presbyteries Of which more hereafter 2. Now for the Doctrine it was marshalled in these Positions that is to say That the Commandment of sanctifying every Seventh day as in the Mosaical Decalogue is Natural Moral and Perpetual That when all other things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken away this stands the observation of the Sabbath And though Jewish and Rabinical this Doctrine was it carried a fair shew of Piety at the least in the opinion of the common people and such as did not stand to examine the true grounds thereof but took it up on the appearance such as did judg thereof not by the workmanship of the Stuff but the gloss and colour In which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only to give way unto it but without more 〈…〉 the same till in the end and that in very little time it grew the most bewitching error the most popular infatuation that ever wa◠infused into the people of England For what did follow hereupon but such monstrous Paradoxes and those delivered in the Pulpit as would make every good man tremble at the hearing of them It being preached at a Market-Town as my Author tells me That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit Adultery In Somersetshire That to throw a Bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man In Norfolk That to make a Feast or dress a Wedding-Dinner on the same was as great a sin as for a Father to take a Knife and cut his Child's throat And in Suffolk That to ring more Bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to commit a Murther Some of which Preachers being complained of occasioned a more strict enquiry into all the rest and not into their Persons only but their Books and Pamphlets insomuch that both Arch-bishop Whitgift and Chief Justice Popham commanded these Books to be called in and neither to be Printed nor made common for the time to come Which strict proceedings notwithstanding this Doctrine became more dispersed than can be imagined and possibly might encrease the more for the opposition no System of Divinity no Book of Catechetical Doctrine from thenceforth published in which these Sabbath-Speculations were not pressed on the People's Consciences 3. Endearing of which Doctrines as formerly to advance their Elderships they spared no place or Text of Scripture where the Word Elder did occurre and without going to the Heralds had framed a Pedigree thereof from Iethro from Noah's Ark and from Adam finally So did these men proceed in their new Devices publishing out of Holy Writ both the Antiquity and the Authority of their Sabbath-day No passage of God's Book unransacked where there was mention of a Sabbath whether the Legal Sabbath charged upon the Iews or the Spiritual Sabbath of the Soul from sin which was not fitted and applied to the present purpose though if examined as it ought with no lesse reason than Paveant illi non paveam Ego was by an ignorant Priest alledged from Scripture to prove that his Parishioners ought to pave the Chancel And on the confidence of those Proofs they did presume exceedingly of their success by reason of the general entertainment which those Doctrines found with the common people who looked upon them with as much regard and no less reverence than if they had been sent immediately from the Heavens themselves for encrease of Piety Possest with which they greedily swallowed down the Hook which was baited for them 4. A Hook indeed which had so fastned them to those men who love to fish in troubled waters that by this Artifice there was no small hope conceived amongst them to fortifie their Side and make good that Cause which till this trim Device was so thought of was almost grown desperate By means whereof they btought so great a bondage on all sorts of people that a greater never was imposed on the Iews themselves though they had pinned their Consciences on the Sleeves of the Scribes and Pharises But then withall by bringing all sorts of people into such a bondage they did so much improve their Power and encrease their Party that they were able at the last to oppose
Edctis of the two next Kings for tolerating lawful sports upon that Day and to confirm some of their Sabbatarian Rigors by Act of Parliament 5. From this Design let us proceed to the next which was briefly this When the Genevian-English resolved to erect their Discipline it was thought requisite to prepare the way unto it by introducing the Calvinian Doctrines of Predestinationn that so men's Judgments being formed and possessed by the one they might the more easily be enclined to embrace the other so long connived at by the Supream Governours of the Church and State to which they were exceeding serviceable against the Pope that in the end those Doctrines which at first were counted Aliens came by degrees to be received as Denizens and at last as Natives For being supposed to contain nothing in them contrary to Faith and Manners they were first commended to the Church as probable next imposed as necessary and finally obtruded on the people as her Natural Doctrines And possibly they might in time have found a general entertainment beyond all exception if the Calvinian-spirit being impatient of the least opposition could have permitted other men to enjoy that liberty which they had took unto themselves and not compelled them to Apologize in their own defences and thereby shew the Reasons of dissenting from them One of the first Examples whereof for I pass by the branglings between Champney and Crowley as long since forgotten was the complaint of Travers to the Lords of the Council against incomparable Hooker In whom he faulteth this amongst other things That he had taught another Doctrine of Predestination than what was laid down in the Word of God as it was understood by all the Churches which professed the Gospel To which it was replyed by that learned man That the matter was not uttered by him in a blind Alley where there was none to hear it who either had Judgment or Authority to comptrole the same or covertly insinuated by some gliding sentence but that it was publickly delivered at St. Paul's Cross not hudled in amongst other matters to the end it might pass without observation but that it was opened proved and for some reasonable time insisted on And therefore that he could not see how the Lord Bishop of London that was present at it could either excuse so great a fault or patiently hear without rebuke then and controlement afterwards that any man should preach doctrine contrary to the Word of God especially if the word of God be so understood not by the private interpretation of some as two or three men or by a special construction received in some few Books but as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and therefore even by our own Church amongst the rest 6. This hapned in the year 1591 or thereabouts somewhat before the breakings out of the stirrs at Cambridg occasioned by a a Treatise published by William Perkins a well-known Divine but withall a professed Presbyterian entituled Armilla Aurea or The Golden Chain containing the Order of the Causes of Salvation and Damnation according to the Word of God Maintaining in this Book the Dostrine of the Supra-lapsarians and countenanced therein by Dr. Whitacres the Queen's Professor some opposition was soon made by Dr. Baroe Professor for the Lady Margaret in the same University Which Baroe being by birth a French-man but being very well studied in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers had constantly for the space of more than twenty years maintained a different Doctrine of Predestination from that which had been taught by Calvin and his Disciples but he was never quarrelled for it till the year 1595 and then not quarrelled for it but in the person of one Barret who in a Sermon at St. Maries Church had preached such Doctrines as were not pleasing unto Perkins Whitacre and the rest of that Party For which being questioned and condemned to a Recantation he rather chose to quit his place in the University than to betray his own Judgment and the Church of England by a Retractation The rest of Baroe's Followers not well pleased with these Haâ—sh proceedings begin to show themselves more publickly than before they did which made Baroe think himself obliged to appear more visibly in the head of his Company and to encounter openly with Dr. Whitacre whom he beheld as the Chief Leader of the opposite Forces And the Heats grew so high at last that the Calvinians thought it necessary in point of Prudence to effect that by Power and Favour which they could not obtain by force of Argument To which end they first addressed themselves to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh then being their Chancellor with the disturbances made by Barret thereby preparing him to hearken to such further motions as should be made by them in pursuit of that Quarrel 7. But finding little comfort there they resolved to steer their course by another Compass And having pre-possest the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift with the turbulent carriage of those men the Affionts given to Dr. Whitacre whom for his learned and laborious Writings against Cardinal Bellarmine he most highly favoured and the great Inconveniences like to grow by that publick Discord they gave themselves good hope of composing those differences not by way of an Accommodation but an absolute Conquest And to this end they dispatched to him certain of their number in the name of the rest such as were interested in the Quarrels Dr. Whitacre himself for one and therefore like to stirr hard for obtaining their Ends The Articles to which they had reduced the whole state of the business being ready drawn and there wanting nothing to them but the Face of Authority wherewith as with Medusa's Head to confound their Enemies and turn their Adversaries into stones And that they might be sent back with the Face of Authority the most Reverend Arch-bishop calling unto him Dr. Flecher Bishop of Bristol then newly elected unto London and Dr. Richard Vaughan Lord Elect of Bangor together with Dr. Trindal Dean of Ely Dr. Whitacre and the rest of the Divines which came from Cambridg proposed the said Articles to their consideration at his House in Lambeth on the tenth of November by whom these Articles from thenceforth called the Nine Articles of Lambeth were presently agreed upon and sent down to Cambridg not as the Doctrines of the Church but as a necessary Expedient to compose those differences which had been raised amongst the Students of that University And so much was acknowledged by the Arch-bishop himself when he was questioned by the Queen for his actings in it For so it was that the Queen being made acquainted with all that passed became exceedingly offended at the Innovation and was upon the point of causing all of them to be attainted in a Praemunire but by the mediation of some Friends of Whitgift's and the high opinion which she had of his Parts and Person she was willing to admit him to
his defence And he accordingly declared in all humble manner That he and his Associates had not made any Canons Articles or Decrees with an intent that they should serve hereafter for a standing-Rule to direct the Church but only had resolved on some Propositions to be sent to Cambridg for quieting some unhappy differences in that University With which Answer Her Majesty being somewhat pacified commanded notwithstanding That he should speedily recall and suppress those Articles Which was performed with such Care and Diligence that a Copy of them was not to be found for a long time after 8. As for the Articles themselves they were so contrived that both the Sabbatarians and the Supra-lapsarians very considerably at odds amongst themselves might be sheltred under them to the intent that both may be secured from the common Adversary Which Articles I find translated in these following words viz. I. God from Eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life certain men he hath reprobated II. The moving or efficient Cause of Predestination unto life is not the fore-sight of Faith or of Perseverance or of Good Works or of any thing that is in the person predestinated but only the Good Will and Pleasure of God III. There is predetermined a certain number of the Predestinate which can neither be augmented nor diminished IV. Those who are not predestinate to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins V. A true living and justifying-faith and the Spirit of God justifying is not extinguished falleth not away it vanisheth not away in the Elect either totally or finally VI. A man truly faithful that is such an one who is endued with a justifying-faith is certain with the full assurance of Faith of the remission of his sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ. VII Saving-Grace is not given is not granted is not communicated to all men by which they may be saved if they will VIII No man can come unto Christ unless it be given unto him and unless the Father shall draw him and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son IX It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved 9. Such were the Articles of Lambeth so much insisted on by those of the Calvinian Faction in succeeding times as comprehending in them the chief Heads of Calvin's Doctrine in reference to the points of the Divine Election and Reprobation of Universal Grace and the impossibility of a total or a final falling from the true justifying-faith which were the subject of the Controversies betwixt Baroe and Whitacre Some have adventured hereupon to rank this most Reverend Arch-bishop in the List of these Calvinists conceiving that he could not otherwise have agreed to those Articles if he had not been himself of the same Opinion And possible it is that he might not look so far into them as to consider the ill consequences which might follow on them or that he might prefer the pacifying of some present Dissenters before the apprehension of such Inconveniences as were more remote or else according to the custom of all such as be in Authority he thought it necessary to preserve Whitacre in power and credit against all such as did oppose him the Merit and Abilities of the man being very eminent For if this Argument were good it might as logically be inferred That he was a Iesuit or a Melancthonian at the least in these points of Doctrine because he countenanced those men who openly and professedly had opposed the Calvinian In which respect as he took part with Hooker at the Council-Table against the Complaints and Informations of Travers as before is said so he received into his service Mr. Samuel Harsnet then being one of the Fellows of Pembroke-Hall who in a Sermon preached at St. Paul's Cross the 27 th of October 1584 had so dissected the whole Zuinglian Doctrine of Reprobation as made it seem most ugly in the ears of his Auditors as afterwards in the eyes of all Spectators when it came to be Printed Which man he did not only entertain as his Chaplain at large but used his Service in his House as a Servant in ordinary employed him in many of his Affairs and finally commended him to the care of King IAMES by whom he was first made Master of Pembroke-Hall and afterwards preferred to the See of Chichester from thence translated to Norwich and at last to York 10. No less remarkable was this year for the repairing of the Cross in Cheap-side which having been defaced in the year 1581 and so continued ever since was now thought fit to be restored to its former beauty A Cross it was of high esteem and of good Antiquity erected by K. Edward the first Anno 1290 in honour of Queen Elienor his beloved Wife whose Body had there rested as it was removed to the place of her Burial But this Cross being much decayed Iohn Hatherly Lord Mayor of London in the year 1441 procured leave of K. HENRY the 6 th to take it down and to re-edifie the same in more beautiful manner for the greater honour of the City Which leave being granted and 200 hundred Fodder of Lead allowed him toward the beginning of the Work it was then curiously wrought at the charge of divers wealthy Citizens adorned with many large and massie Images but more especially advanced by the Munificence of Iohn Fisher Mercer who gave Six hundred Marks for the finishing of it The whole Structure being reared in the second year of K. HENRY the 7 th Anno 1486 was after gilded over in the year 1522 for the entertainment of the Emperor CHARLES the fifth new burnished against the Coronation of Queen Anne Bullen Anno 1533 as afterwards at the Coronation of King EDWARD the sixth and finally at the Magnificent Reception of King PHILIP 1554. And having for so long time continued an undefaced Monument of Christian Piety was quarrelled by the Puritans of the present Reign who being emulous of the Zeal of the French Calvinians whom they found to have demolished all Crosses wheresoever they came they caused this Cross to be presented by the Jurors in several Ward-Motes for standing in the High-way to the hindering of Carts and other Carriages but finding no remedy in that course they resolved to apply themselves unto another In pursuance whereof they first set upon it in the night Iune 21 Anno 1581 violently breaking and defacing all the lowest Images which were placed round about the same that is to say the Images of Christ's Resurrection of the Virgin MARY K. EDWARD the Confessor c. But more particularly the Image of the blessed Virgin was at that time robbed of her Son and her Arms broke by which she held Him in her Lap and her whole Body haled with Ropes and left likely to fall Proclamation presently was made with promise of Reward to any one that could or would discover the chief Actors in it But without effect
11. In which condition it remained till this present year when the said Image was again fastned and repaired the Images of Christ's Resurrection and the rest continuing broken as before And on the East side of the said Cross where the steps had been was then set up a curious wrought Tabernacle of gray Marble and in the same an Alablaster Image of Diana from whose naked Breasts there trilled continually some streams of Water conveyed unto it from the Thames But the madness of this Faction could not so be stayed for the next year that I may lay all things together which concern this Cross a new mishapen Son as born out of time all naked was put into the Arms of the Virgin 's Image to serve for matter of derision to the common people And in the year 1599 the figure of the Cross erected on the top of the Pile was taken down by Publick Order under pretence that otherwise it might have fallen and endangered many with an intent to raise a Pyramis or Spire in the place thereof which coming to the knowledg of the Lords of the â—â—uncil they directed their Letters to the Lord Mayor then being whom they required in the Queen's Name to cause the said Cross to be repaired and advanced as formerly But the Cross still remaining headless for a year and more and the Lords not enduring any longer such a gross Contempt they re-inforced their Letters to the next Lord Mayor dated December 24 in the year 1600. In which they willed and commanded him in pursuance of her Majesty's former Directions to cause the said Cross without more delay to be re-advanced respecting in the same the great Antiquity and continuance of that stately Monument erected for an Ensign of our Christianity In obedience unto which Commands a Cross was forthwith framed of timber cover'd with lead and set up and gilded and the whole body of the Pile new cleansed from filth and rubbish Which gave such fresh displeasure to some zealous Brethren that within twelve nights after the Image of the blessed Virgin was again defaced by plucking off her Crown and almost her Head dispossessing her of her naked Child and stabbing her into the breast c. Most ridiculous Follies 12. In the beginning of the year we find Sir Thomas Egerton advanced to the Custody of the Great Seal of England Lord Chancellor in effect under the Title of Lord Keeper to which Place he was admitted on the sixth of May to the great joy of the Arch-bishop who always looked upon him as a lover of Learning a constant favourer of the Clergy zealous for the established Government and a faithful Friend unto himself upon all occasions Who being now Peered with the Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Essex assured of the good-will of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh and strengthned with the Friendship of Sir Robert Cicil Principal Secretary of State was better fortified than ever And at this time Her Majesty laying on his shoulders the burden of all Church-Concernments told him It should fall on his Soul and Conscience if any thing fell out amiss in that by reason of her age she had thought good to ease her self of that part of her Cares and looked that he should yeeld an account thereof to Almighty God So that upon the matter he was all in all for all Church-Affairs and more especially in the disposing of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Promotions For his first entrance on which Trust he preferrs Dr. Thomas Bilson to the See of Worcester who received his Episcopal Consecration on the 13 th of Iune Anno 1596. and by his Favour was translated within two years after to the Church of Winchester He advanced also his old Friend Dr. Richard Bancroft to the See of London whom he consecrated on the 8 th of May Anno 1597 that he might always have him near him for Advice and Counsel Which Famous Prelate that I may note this by the way was born at Farnworth in the County of Lancaster Baptized September 1544. His Father was Iohn Bancroft Gentleman his Mother Mary Curwin Daughter of Iohn Brother of Hugh Curwin Bishop of Oxon whose eldest Son was Christopher the Father of Dr. Iohn Bancroft who after dyed Bishop of that See Anno 1640. But this Richard of whom now we speak being placed by his Unkle Dr. Curwin in Christ's Colledg in Cambridg from thence removed to Iesus Colledg in the same University because the other was suspected to incline to Novelism His Unkle Dr. Curwin being preferred to the Arch-bishoprick of Dublin made him a Prebend of that Church after whose death he became Chaplain to Cox Bishop of Ely who gave him the Rectory of Teversham not far from Cambridg Being thus put into the Road of Preferment he proceeded Batchellor of Divinity Anno 1580 and Doctor in the year 1585 About which time he put himself into the Service of Sir Christopher Hatton by whose recommendation he was made a Prebend of St. Peters in Westminster 1592. From whence he had the earlier passage to St. Pauls in London 13. About this time brake out the Juglings of Iohn Darrel who without any lawful Calling had set up a new Trade of Lecturing in the Town of Nottingham and to advance some Reputation to his Person pretends an extraordinary Power in casting out Devils He practised first on one Catharine Wright An. 1586. But finding some more powerful Practises to be then on foot in favour of the Presbyterian Discipline he laid that Project by till all others failed him But in the year 1592 he resumes the Practise hoping to compass that by Wit and Legerdemain which neither Carthwright by his Learning nor Snape by his Diligence Penry by his Seditions or Hacket by his damnable Treasons had the good fortune to effect He first begins with William Summers an unhappy Boy whom he first met at Ashby de la Zouch in the Country of Him he instructs to do such Tricks as might make him seem to be possest acquaints him with the manner of the Fits which were observed by Catharine Wright delivers them in writing to him for his better remembrance wished him to put the same in practise and told him that in so doing he should not want But either finding no great forwardness in the Boy to learn his Lesson or being otherwise discouraged from proceeding with him he applies himself to one Thomas Darling commonly called The Boy of Burton Anno 1596 whom he found far more dextrous in his Dissimulations the History of whose Possessings and Dispossessings was writ at large by Iesse Bee a Religious sad Lyar contracted by one Denison a Countrey-Minister Seen and Allowed by Hildersham one of the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery and Printed with the good leave and liking of Darrel himself who growing famous by this means remembers Summers his first Scholar to whom he gives a second meeting at the Park of Ashby teacheth him to act them better than before
he did sends him to see the Boy and Burton that he might learn him to behave himself on the like occasions And finding him at last grown perfect sends him to Nottingham with intimation that he should make mention of him in his Fits Darrel is hereupon made Lecturer of the Town of Nottingham that being the Fish for which he angled as being thought a marvellous Bug to scare the Devil And though he had no lawful Calling in that behalf yet was this given out to be so comfortable a Vocation and so warrantable in the sight of God that very few Ministers have had the like there being no Preacher setled there as he gave it out since her Majesty's Reign as if neither Parsons nor Vicars nor any that bear such Popish Names might pass for Preachers 14. After this he pretends occasion for a journey to Lancashire where he finds seven women possest with Devils and out of every one of them was affirmed to have cast as many as had entred into Mary Magdalen Of this he published a Book Anno 1600 though the Exploit was done in this present year Anno 1597. These things being noised abroad by his Consederates this extraordinary Faculty of casting out Devils was most highly magnified and cryed up both in Sermons and Printed Pamphlets as a Candle lighted by God upon a Candlestick in the heart and Center of the Land And no small hopes were built upon it that it would prove a matter of as great consequence as ever did any such Work that the Lord gave extraordinarily since the time that he restored the Gospel and as profitable to all that profess the knowledg of Jesus Christ. Now what this Plot was may appear by this which is deposed by Mr. More one of Mr. Darrel's great Admirers and Companions viz. That when a Prayer was read out of the Common-Prayer-Book in the hearing of those which were possessed in Lancashire the Devils in them were little moved with it but afterwards when Mr. Darrel and one Mr. Dicon did severally use such Prayers as for the present occasion they had conceived then saith he the wicked Spirits were much more troubled or rather the wicked Spirits did much more torment the Parties So little do premeditated Prayers which are read out of a Book and so extreamly do extemporary and conceived Prayers torment the Devil 15. But Summers at the last grown weary of his frequent Counterfeitings tired out with his possessings dispossessings and repossessings and in that Fit discovers all to be but Forgeries and to have been acted by Confederacy Darrell deals with him to revoke his said Confession seeks to avoid it by some shifts discredits it by false Reports and finally procures a Commission from the Arch-bishop of York to whose Province Nottingham belongeth to examine the business A Commission is thereupon directed to Iohn Thorald Esq Sheriff of the County Sir Iohn Byron Knight Iohn Stanhop c. most of them being Darrell's Friends the Commission executed March 20 no fewer than seventeen Witnesses examined by it and the Return is made That he was no Counterfeit But the Boy stands to it for all that and on the last of the same Month confesseth before the Mayor of Nottingham and certain Justices of the Peace the whole contrivement of the Plot and within three days after acts all his Tricks before the Lord Chief Justice at the publick Assizes Upon this news the Boy of Burton also makes the like Confession Darrell thereupon is convented by the High Commissioners at Lambeth and by them committed his Friends and Partizens upon that Commitment are in no small Fury which notwithstanding he and one of his Associates receive their Censure little or nothing eased by the Exclamations of his Friends and Followers who bitterly inveighed against the Judgment and the Judges too To stiâ—â— whose Clamours so maliciously and unjustly raised the story of these leud Impostors is writ by Harsnet then being the Domestick Chaplain of Arch-bishop Whitgift by whom collected faithfully out of the Depositions of the Parties and Witnesses and published in the year next following Anno. 1599. 16. In the same year brake out the Controversie touching Christ's Descent maintained by the Church of England in the litteral sense that is to say That the Soul of Christ being separated from his Body did locally descend into the nethermost Hell to the end that he might manifest the clear light of his Power and Glory to the Kingdom of Darkness triumphing over Satan as before he did over Death and Sin For which consult the Book of Articles Art 4. the Homily of the Resurrection fol. 195. and Nowel's Paraphrase on that Article as it stands in the Creed published in his Authorized Catechism Anno 1572. But Calvin puts another sense upon that Article and the Genevian-English must do the same For Calvin understands by Christ's descending into Hell that he suffered in his Soul both in the Garden of Gethsemanie and upon the Cross all the Torments of Hell even to abjection from God's Presence and Despair it self Which horrid Blasphemy though balked by many of his Followers in the Forreign Churches was taken up and very zealously promoted by the English Puritans By these men generally it was taught in Catechisms and preached in Pulpits That true it was that the death of Christ Jesus on the Cross and his bloodshedding for the remission of our sins were the first cause of our Redemption But then it was as true withall That he must and did suffer the death of the Soul and those very pains which the damned do in Hell before we could be ransomed from the Wrath of God and that this only was the descent of Christ into Hell which we are taught by Christ to believe But more particularly it was taught by Banister That Christ being dead descended into the place of everlasting Torments where in his Soul he endured for a time the very Torments which the damned Spirits without intermission did abide By Paget in his Latin Catechism That Christ alive upon the Cross humbled himself usque ad Inferni tremenda tormenta even to the most dreadful Torments of Hell By Gifford and the Houshold-Catechism That Christ suffered the Torments of Hell the second death abjection from God and was made a Curse i. e. had the bitter anguish of God's Wrath in his Soul and Body which is the fire that shall never be quenched Carlisle more honestly not daring to avouch this Doctrine nor to run cross against the Dictates of his Master affirmed That Christ descended not into Hell at all and therefore that this Article might be thought no otherwise than as an Error and a Fable 17. The Doctrine of the Church being thus openly rejected upon some Conference that passed between Arch-bishop Whitgift and Dr. Thomas Bilson then Bishop of Winchester it was resolved That Bishop Bilson in some Sermons at St. Paul's Cross and other places should publickly deliver what the Scriptures teach touching our
thereof Should our Meetings be in the Name of Man Are we not to take up our selves and to acknowledg our former errors and feebleness in the Work of the Lord It is time for us now when so many of our worthy Brethren are thrust out of their Callings without all order of just proceedings and Jesuits Atheists and Papists are suffered countenanced and advanced to great Rooms in the Realm for the bringing in Idolatry and Captivity more than Babylonical with an high hand and that in our chief City Is it time for us I say of the Ministry to be inveigled and blind-folded with pretence of the preferment of some small number of our Brethren to have voice in Parliament and have Titles of Prelacy Shall we with Sampson sleep still on Dalilah's knees till she say The Philistines be upon thee Sampson c. Which Letter speaks the words of Davidson but the sense of others who having the like discontentments privately whispered them in the ears of those who either seemed zealous for Religion or Factiously enclined to make new Disturbances in this unsetledness of Affairs In which conjuncture it was no hard matter for them so to work upon men's Affections as to assure them to themselves and to be ready to flye out upon all occasions especially when any powerful Head should be offered to them 34. Of the last sort was the Conspiracy and Treason of the Earl of Goury Son of that William Earl of Goury who had been executed for surprizing the King's Person at Ruthen-Castle Anno 1584. And though this Son of his had been restored by the King to his Blood and Hononrs one of his Sisters married to the Duke of Lenox another placed in the Attendance of the Queen and that his Brother Alexander was advanced to a Place in the Bed-Chamber yet all these Favours were not able to obliterate the remembrance of the Execution so justly done upon their Father By nature he was Proud Aspiring and of a Mind greater than his Fortune Ill principled in the course of his Education which made him passionately affected to the Disciplinarians of whom he was ambitious to be thought a Patron To this man they apply themselves who by the loss of their Authority or Tyranny rather measured the Fortunes of the Church as though Religion could not stand if their Empire fell To him they frequently insinuated their Fears and Jealousies the King's aversness from the Gospel his extraordinary Favour to the Popish Lords his present Practises and Designs to subvert the Discipline the only Pillar and Support of the Kirk of Scotland not without some Reflections on the death of his Father whose Zeal to God was testified by the loss of his Life which cryed aloud for vengeance both to God and Man By which insinuations they so wrought upon him that he began to study nothing but Revenge and to that end engaged his Brother Alexander a fierce young man and of a very daring Spirit in the practise with him He also held intelligence with such of the Ministers as were supposed to be most discontented at the present Transactions but most especially with the Preachers of Edenborough who could not easily forget the Injuries so they must be called which they had suffered from the King for some years last past The like intelligence he kept with many Male-contents amongst the Laicks preparing all but opening his Design to few but opening it howsoever to Logen of Restalrig in whom he had more confidence than all the rest 35. Concerning which it was averred by one Sprot a Notary as well upon Examination before the Lords of the Session as his Confession at the Gallows Anno 1608 That he had seen a Letter written by this Logan to the Earl of Goury in which was signified That he would take part with him in revenge of his Father's death That to effect it he must find some way or other to bring the King to Fast-Castle That it was easier to be done by Sea than Land and that they might safely keep him there till they had given advertisement of it to the other Conspirators For proof of which Confession being free and voluntary he told the people on the Ladder that he would give them a Sign which he performed by clapping his hands three times after his turning off by the Executioner It was affirmed also by Mr. William Cowper a right godly man then being Minister at Perth and afterwards made Bishop of Galloway That going to the House of the Earl the Hereditary Provost of that Town not many days before the intended Treason he found him reading a Book entituled De Conjurationibus adversus Principes containing a Discourse of Treasons and Conspiracies against several Princes of which he was pleased to give this Censure That most of them were very foolishly contrived and faulty in some point or other which was the reason that they found not the desired effect By which it seems that he intended to out-go all former Conspirators in the contrivance of his Treason though in the end he fell upon a Plot which was most ridiculous not to be parallel'd by any in that Book which he so much vilified The Design was To draw the King to his House in the Town of Perth under pretence of coming secretly to see a man whom he had lately intercepted with Letters and some quantity of Gold from Rome and having brought him to some remote part of the House to make sure work of him The King was then at Falkland-Castle and going out betimes on Tuesday the fifth of August to take his pleasure in the Park he is met by Alexander who tells him of the News of Perth and that a speedy posting thither would be worth his travel The King comes thither before Dinner accompanied with the Duke of Lenox the Earl of Marre Evesking the Captain of his Guard and some other Gentlemen all of them in their Hunting-Coats as minding nothing but a Visit to the Nobleman Thus is he brought into the toyl but they shall only hunt him to the view and not pull him down 36. The King 's own Dinner being ended the Lords fall to theirs which Alexander takes to be the fittest time to effect the Enterprise and therefore takes the King along with him to an upper Chamber But seeing Eveskin at his heels he willed him to stay behind and made fast the doors Being brought into a Chamber on the top of the House the King perceived a man in a secret corner and presently asked Alexander if he were the Party who had brought the Letters and the Gold But Alexander then changed his countenance upbraided him with the death of his Father for which he was now brought to make satisfaction and therewith left him to the mercy of the Executioner I shall not stand on all particulars of the story the sum whereof is briefly this That the King having having by much strugling gained a Window a corner whereof looked toward the
least that Enormities might be redressed as namely That Excommunication might not come forth under the name of Lay-persons Chancellors Officials c. That men be not excommunicated for Trifles and Twelve-penny matters That none be excommunicated without consent of his Pastors That the Officers be not suffered to extort unreasonable Fees That none having Jurisdiction or a Register's Place put the same to Farm That divers Popish Canons as for restraint of Marriage at certain times be reversed That the length of Suits in Ecclesiastical Courts which hung sometimes two three four five six seven years may be restrained That the Oath Ex Officio whereby men are forced to accuse themselves be more sparingly used That Licenses for Marriages without being Asked may be more sparingly granted 4. And here it is to be observed that though there was not one word in this Petition either against Episcopal Government or Set-forms of Prayer yet the design thereof was against them both For if so many of the Branches had been lopped at once the Body of the Tree must needs have rotted and consumed in a short time after The two Universities on the contrary were no less zealous for keeping up the Discipline and Liturgy of the Church then by Law established And to that end it was proposed and passed at Cambridg on the ninth of Iune That whosoever should oppose by word or writing either the Doctrine or the Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof whatsoever within the Verge and Limits of the same University otherwise than in the way of Disputation he should be actually suspended from all Degrees already taken and utterly disabled for taking any in the time to come They resolved also to return an Answer to the said Petition but understanding that the University of Oxon was in hand therewith and had made a good progress in the same they laid by that purpose congratulating with their Sister-University for her forwardness in it as appears plainly by their Letter of the 7 th of October All this was known unto the King but he resolved to answer them in another way and to that end designed a Conference between the Parties A Conference much desired by those of the Puritan Faction in Queen Elizabeth's time who could not be induced to grant it knowing full well how much it tended to the ruin of all publick Government that matters once established in due form of Law should be made subject to Disputes But K. IAMES either out of a desire of his own satisfaction or to shew his great Abilities in Judgment Oratory and Discourse resolved upon it and accordingly gave Order for it To which end certain Delegates of each Party were appointed to attend upon Him at His Royal Palace of Hampton-Court on the 14 th of Ianuary then next following there to debate the Heads of the said Petition and to abide his Majesty's Pleasure and Determination At what time there attended on behalf of the Church the Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord Bishop of London the Bishops of Durham Winchester Worcester St. Davids Chichester Carlisle and Peterborough The Dean of the Chappel Westminster Christ-Church Pauls Worcester Salisbury Chester and Windsor together with Dr. King Arch-Deacon of Nottingham and Dr. Feild who afterwards was Dean of Glocester Apparelled all of them in their Robes and Habits peculiar to their several Orders 5. There appeared also in the behalf of the Millenaries Dr. Iohn Reynolds and Dr. Thomas Spark of Oxford Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Knewstubs of Cambridg Apparelld neither in Priest's Gowns or Canonical Coats but in such Gowns as were then commonly worn in reference to the form and fashion of them by the Turkey Merchants as if they had subscribed to the Opinion of old T. C. That we ought rather to conform in all outward Ceremonies to the Turks than the Papists Great hopes they gave themselves for setling the Calvinian Doctrines in the Church of England and altering so much in the Polity and Forms of Worship as might bring it nearer by some steps to the Church of Geneva In reference to the first it was much prest by Dr. Reynolds in the name of the rest That the Nine Articles of Lambeth which he entituled by the name of Orthodoxal Assertions might be received amongst the Articles of the Church But this Request upon a true account of the state of that business was by that prudent King rejected with as great a constancy as formerly the Articles themselves had been suppressed under Queen ELIZABETH It was moved also That these words neither totally nor finally might be inserted in the Sixteenth Article of the publick Confession to the intent that the Article so explained might speak in favour of the Zuinglian or Calvinian Doctrine concerning the impossibility of falling from the state of Grace and Justification Which Proposition gave a just occasion to Bishop Bancroft to speak his sense of the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination which he called in plain terms a desperate Doctrine Upon whose interposings in that particular and a short Declaration made by the Dean of St. Pauls touching some Heats which had been raised in Cambridg in pursuit thereof this second Motion proved as fruitless as the first had done 6. Nor sped they better in relation to the Forms of Worship than they had done in reference unto points of Doctrine some pains they took in crying down the Surplice and the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage and the Interrogatories proposed to Infants And somewhat also was observed touching some Errors in the old Translation of the English Psalter as also in the Gospels and Epistles as they stood in the Liturgy But their Objections were so stale and so often answered that the Bishops and Conformable Party went away with an easie Victory not only the King's Majesty but the Lords of his Council being abundantly well satisfied in such former scruples as had been raised against the Church and the Orders of it The sum and substance of which Conference collected by the hand of Dr. Barlow then Dean of Chester can hardly be abbreviated to a lesser compass without great injury to the King and the Conferrees Let it suffice that this great Mountain which had raised so much expectation was delivered only of a Mouse The Millenary Plaintifs have gained nothing by their fruitless travel but the expounding of the word Absolution by Remission of sins the qualifying of the Rubrick about private Baptism the adding of some Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany and of some Questions and Answers in the close of the Catechism But on the other side the Brethren lost so much in their Reputation that the King was very well satisfied in the weakness of their Objections and the Injustice of their Cavils insomuch that turning his head towards some of the Lords If this be all quoth he which they have to say I will either make them conform themselves or hurry them out of the Land or
do somewhat which is worse p. 85. Which notwithstanding they gave out That all was theirs and that they had obtained an absolute Victory but more particularly that the King gratified Dr. Reynolds in every thing which he proposed and that Dr. Reynolds obtained and prevailed in every thing they did desire That if any man report the contrary he doth lye and that they could give him the lye from Dr. Reynolds his mouth that these things now obtained by the Reformers were but the beginning of Reformation the greater matters being yet to come That my Lord of Winton stood mute and said little or nothing That my Lord of London called Dr. Reynolds Schismatick he thanks him for it but otherwise said little to the purpose That the King's Majesty used the Bishops with very hard words but embraced Dr. Reynolds and used most kind speeches to him That my Lord of Canterbury and my Lord of London falling on their knees besought his Majesty to take their Cause into his own Hands and to make some good end of it such as might stand with their Credit 7. All this and more they scattered up and down in their scurrilous Papers to keep up the spirits of their Party two of which coming to the hands of Dr. Barlow before-mentioned he caused them to be published at the end of the Conference The Truth and Honesty of whose Collections having been universally approved above fifty years hath been impugned of late by some sorry Scriblers of the Puritan Faction and a report raised of some Retractation which he is fabled to have made at the time of his death of the great wrong which he had done to Dr. Reynolds and the rest of the Millenaries The silliness of which Fiction hath been elsewhere canvased and therefore not to be repeated in this time and place But for the clearing of that Reverend person from so soul a Calumny we shall not make use of any other Argument than the words of K. IAMES who tells us in his Proclamation of the fifth of March that he could not conceal That the success of that Conferrence was such as hapneth to many other things which moving great expectations before they be entred into in their issue produce small effects That he found mighty and vehement Informations supported with so weak and slender Proofs as it appeared unto him and his Council that there was no cause why any change should be in that which was most impugned namely the Book of Common-Prayer containing the publick Service of God here established nor in the Doctrine which appeared to be sincere nor in the Forms and Rites which were justified out of the practise of the primitive Churrh And finally that though with the consent of the Bishops and other Learned men then and there assembled some passages therein were rather explained than altered yet that the same might very well have been born amongst such men who would have made a reasonable construction of them Which I conceive to be sufficient for the vindication of that Learned Prelate for clearing him from doing any injury to Dr. Reynolds in the repeating of his words as is suggested by some Puritan Scriblers of these present times 8. But to proceed this Conference was followed with the Proclamation of the fifth of March in which his Majesty having first declared the occasion and success thereof in the words formerly laid down proceeds to signifie the present course which he had taken for causing the Book of Common-Prayer to be so explained and being so explained to be forthwith Printed not doubting but that all his Subjects both Ministers and others would receive the same with due reverence and conform themselves to it Which notwithstanding he conceived it necessary to make known his Authorizing of the same by his Proclamation and by that Proclamation to require and enjoyn all men as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal to conform themselves thereunto as to the only publick Form of serving God established and allowed in this Realm Which said he lays a strict Command on all Arch-bishops and Bishops and all other publick Ministers as well Ecclesiastical as Civil for causing the same to be observed and punishing all Offenders to the contrary according to the Laws of the Realm made in that behalf Finally He admonisheth all his Subjects of what sort soever not to expect hereafter any Alteration in the publick Form of God's Service from that which he had then established And this he signified as afterward it followeth in the said Proclamation because that he neither would give way to any to presume that his Judgment having determined in a matter of such weight should be swayed to any Alteration by the Frivolous Suggestions of any leight head nor could be ignorant of the inconveniencies that do arise in Government by admitting Innovation in things once setled by mature deliberation and how necessary it was to use constancy in the publick Determinations of all States for that saith he such is the unquietness and unsteadfastness of some dispositions affecting every year new Forms of things as if they should be followed in their unconstancy would make all Actions of State ridiculous and contemptible whereas the steadfast maintaining of things by good Advice established is the Preservative and Weal of all publick Governments 9. The main Concernments of the Church being thus secured his Majesty proceeds to his first Parliament accompanied as the custom is with a Convocation which took beginning on the twentieth day of March then next ensuing In the Parliament there passed some Acts which concerned the Church as namely one for making void all Grants and Leases which should be made of any of the Lands of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the King's Majesty or any of his Heirs and Successors for more than One and twenty years or Three Lives Which Act was seasonably procured by Bishop Bancroft to prevent the begging of the Scots who otherwise would have picked the Church to the very bone There also past an Act for the repealing of a Statute in the Reign of Queen Mary by means whereof the Statute of King Edward the sixth touching the Lawfulness of Ministers Marriages were revived again as in the Millenary Petition was before desired And either by the Practise of some Puritan Zealots who had their Agents in all corners or by the carelesness and connivence of his Majesty's Council learned in the Laws of this Realm who should have had an eye upon them that Statute of K. EDWARD was revived also by which it was enacted That all Processes Citations Judgments c. in any of the Ecclesiastical Courts should be issued in the King's Name and under the King's Seal of Arms which afterwards gave some colour to the Puritan Faction for creating trouble to the Bishops in their Jurisdiction The Convocation was more active some days before the sitting whereof the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift departs this life and leaves it to the managing of Dr. Richard Bancroft Bishop of London
having none to joyn in Opinion with him baptized himself and thereby got the name of a Se-baptist which never any Sectary or Heretick had obtained before 15. It fell not out much otherwise in the Belgick Provinces with those of the Calvinian Judgment who then began to find some diminution of that Power and Credit wherewith they carried all before them in the times preceding Iunius a very moderate and learned man and one of the Professors for Divinity in the Schools of Leyden departed out of this life in the same year also into whose Place the Overseers or Curators as they call them of that University made choice of Iacob Van Harmine a man of equal Learning and no less Piety He had for fifteen years before been Pastor as they love to phrase it to the great Church of Amsterdam the chief City of Holland during which time he published his Discourse against the Doctrine of Predestination as laid down by Perkins who at that time had printed his Armilla Aurea and therein justified all the Rigours of the Supra-lapsarians Encouraged with his good success in this Adventure he undertakes a Conference on the same Argument with the Learned Iunius one of the Sub-lapsarian Judgment the sum whereof being spread abroad in several Papers was afterward set forth by the name of Amica Collatio By means whereof as he attained a great esteem with all moderate men so he exceedingly exasperated most of the Calvinian Ministers who thereupon opposed his coming to Leyden with their utmost power accusing him of Heterodoxies and unsound Opinions to the Council of Holland But the Curators being constant in their Resolutions and Harmin having purged himself from all Crimes objected before his Judges at the Hague he is dispatched for Leyden admitted by the University and confirmed by the Estate Towards which the Testimonial-Letters sent from Amsterdam did not help a little in which he stands commended for a man of an unblamable life sound Doctrine and fair behaviour as by their Letters may appear exemplified in an Oration which was made at his Funeral 16. By which Attractives he prevailed as much amongst the Students of Leyden as he had done amongst the Merchants at Amsterdam For during the short time of his sitting in the Chair of Leyden he drew unto him a great part of that University who by the Piety of the man his powerful Arguments his extream diligence in that place and the clear light of Reason which appeared in all his Discourses became so wedded at the last unto his Opinions that no time or trouble could divorce them from Harmin Dying in the year 1609 the Heats betwixt his Scholars and those of a contrary Perswasion were rather encreased than abated the more encreased for want of such prudent Moderators as had before preserved the Churches from a publick Rupture The breach between them growing wider and wider each side thought fit to seek the countenance of the State and they did accordingly For in the year 1610 the Followers of Arminius address their Remonstrance containing the Antiquity of their Doctrines and the substance of them to the States of Holland which was encountred presently by a Contra-Remonstrance exhibited by those of Calvin's Party from hence the Name of Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants so frequent in their Books and Writings Which though it brought some trouble for the present on the Churches of Holland conduced much more to the advantage of the Church of England whose Doctrine in those points had been so over-born if not quite suppressed by those of the Calvinian Party that it was almost reckoned for a Heresie to be sound and Orthodox according to the tenour of the Book of Articles and other publick Monuments of the Religion here by Law established For being awakened by the noise of the Belgick Troubles most men began to look about them to search more narrowly into the Doctrines of the Church and by degrees to propagate maintain and teach them against all Opposers as shall appear more largely and particularly in another place 17. At the same time more troubles were projected in the Realm of Sweden Prince Sigismund the eldest Son of Iohn and the Grand-child of Gustavus Ericus the first King of that Family was in his Father's life-time chosen King of Poland in reference to his Mother the Lady Catherine Sister to SIGISMVND the Second But either being better pleased with the Court of Poland or not permitted by that people to go out of the Kingdom he left the Government of Sweden to his Unkle CHARLES a Prince of no small Courage but of more Ambition At first he governed all Affairs as Lord Deputy only but practised by degrees the exercise of a greater Power than was belonging to a Vice-Roy Finding the Lutherans not so favourable unto his Designs as he conceived that he had merited by his Favours to them he raised up a Calvinian Party within the Realm according to whose Principles he began first to withdraw his obedience from his Natural Prince and after to assume the Government to himself But first he suffers all Affairs to fall into great Disorders the Realm to be invaded by the Muscovites on the one side by the Danes on the other that so the people might be cast on some necessity of putting themselves absolutely under his protection In which distractions he is earnestly solicited by all sorts of people except only those of his own Party to accept the Crown which he consents to at the last as if forced unto it by the necessities of his Countrey But he so play'd his Game withall that he would neither take the same nor protect the Subjects till a Law was made for entailing the Crown for ever unto his Posterity whether Male or Female as an Hereditary Kingdom In all which Plots and Purposes he thrived so luckily if to usurp another Prince's Realm may be called Good luck that after a long Warr and some Bloody Victories he forced his Nephew to desist from all further Enterprises and was Crowned King at Stockholm in the year 1607 But as he got this Kingdom by no better Title than of Force and Fraud so by the same the Daughter of his Son Gustavus Adolphus was divested of it partly compelled and partly cheated out of her Estate So soon expired the Race of this great Politician that many thousands of that people who saw the first beginning of it lived to see the end 18. Such Fortune also had the French Calvinians in their glorious Projects though afterwards it turned to their destruction For in the year 1603 they held a general Synod at Gappe in Daulphine anciently the chief City of the Apencenses and at this time a Bishop's-See Nothing more memorable in this Synod as to points of Doctrine than that it was determined for an Article of their Faith That the Pope was Antichrist But far more memorable was it for their Usurpations on the Civil Power For at this Meeting they gave Audience to
it pleased God to put into the heart of the late Queen Our most dear Sister to permit and allow unto the Isles of Jersey and â—uernsey parcel of the Dutchy of Normandy the use of the â—â—â—â—ment of the Reformed Churches of the said Dutchy whereof they have stood possessed until Our coming to the Crown For this cause We desiring to follow the pious Example of Our said Sister in this behalf as well for the advancement of the Glory of Almighty God as for the edification of his Church do will and ordain That Our said Isles shall quietly enjoy their said Liberty in the use of Ecclesiastical Discipline there now established Forâ—idding any one to give them any trouble or impeachment so long as they contain themselves in Our obedience and attempt not any thing against the Power and Sacred Word of God Given at our Palace at Hampton-Court the 8th of August in the first year of Our Reign of England 1603. 36. This Letter was communicated unto all whom it might concern in a Synod of both Islands held in Iersey Anno 1605. But long they were not suffered to enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation For sir Iohn Peiton who succeeded Governour of Iersey in the place of Raleigh had of himself no good affections to that Platform and possibly might be furnished with some secret Instructions for altering it in the Island on the first conveniency The ground whereof was laid upon this occasion The Curate of St. Iohn's being lately dead it pleased the Colloquie of that Island according to their former method to appoint one Brevin to succeed him Against this course the Governour the King's Attorney and other the Officers of the Crown protested publickly as being prejudicial to the Rights and Profits of the King Howbeit the Case was over-ruled and the Colloquie for that time carried it Hereupon a Bill of Articles was exhibited to the Lords of the Council against the Ministers of that Island by Peiton the Governour Marret the Attorney and the rest as viz. That they had usurped the Patronage of all Benefices in the Island That thereby they admitted men to Livings without any Form or Presentation and by that means deprived his Majesty of Vacancies and First-fruits That by the connivance to say no worse of it of the former Governours they exercised a kind of Arbitrary Iurisdiction making and disannulling Laws at their own most uncertain pleasure In consideration whereof they humbly pray His Sacred Majesty to grant them such a Discipline as might be fittest to the nature of the Place and less derogatory to the Royal Prerogative 37. In the pursuance of this Project Sir Robert Gardiner once Chief Justice of Ireland and Iames Husley Dr. of the Laws are sent Commissioners unto that Island though not without the colour of some other business To these Commissioners the Ministers give in their Answer which may be generally reduced to these two heads First That their appointment of men into the Ministry and the exercise of Jurisdiction being principal parts of the Church-Discipline had been confirmed unto them by His Sacred Majesty And secondly That the payment of First-fruits and Tenths had never been exacted from them since they were freed from their subordination to the Bishops 〈◊〉 â—onstance to whom formerly they had been due But these Anâ—â—â—â— giving no just satisfaction unto the Council of England and nothing being done in order to a present Settlement a foul deformity both of Confusion and Distraction did suddenly overgrow the face of those wretched Churches For in the former times all such as took upon them any publick Charge either in Church or Common-wealth had bound themselves by Oath to cherish and maintain the Discipline That Oath is now disclaimed as dangerous and unwarrantable Before it was their custom to exact subscription to their Plat-form of all such as purposed to receive the Sacrament but now the King's Attorney and others of that Party chose rather to abstain from the Communion than to yeeld Subscription Nay even the very Elders silly souls that thought themselves as sacro sancti as a Roman Tribune were drawn with Process into the Civil Courts and there reputed with the Vulgar Nor was the Case much better in the Sacred Consistory the Jurates in their Cohu or Town-Hall relieving such by their Authority whom that once paramount Tribunal had condemned or censured And yet this was not all the Mischief which befel them neither Those of the lower rank seeing the Ministers begin to stagger in their Chairs refused to set out their Tythes and if the Curates mean to exact their Dues the Law is open to all comers to try their Title Their Benefices which before were accounted as exempt and priviledged are now brought to reckon for First-fruits and Tenths and that not according to the Book of Constance as they had been formerly but by the will and pleasure of the present Governour And to make up the total sum of their Mis-fortunes one of the Constables preferrs a Bill against them in the common Cohu in which they were accused of Hypocrisie in their Conversation and Tyranny in the Exercise of their Jurisdiction and finally of holding some secret practises against the Governour which consequentially did reflect on the King Himself 38. In this Confusion they address themselves to the Earl of Salisbury then being Lord Treasurer of England and in great credit with King IAMES who seeming very much pleased with their Application advised them to invite their Brethren of the Isle of Guernsey to joyn with them in a Petition to the King for a redress of those Grievances which they then complained of A Counsel which then seemed rational and of great respect but in it self of greater cunning than it seemed in the first appearance For by this means as certainly he was a man of a subtile Wit he gave the King more time to compass his Designs in Scotland before he should declare himself in the present business and by engaging those of Guernsey in the same desires intended to subject them also to the same conclusion But this Counsel taking no effect by reason of the death of the Councellor they fall into another trouble of their own creating The Parish of St. Peters falling void by the death of the Minister the Governour presents unto it one Aaron Messering one that had spent his time in Oxon and had received the Order of Priesthood from the Right Reverend Dr. Bridges then Bishop of that Diocess but of himself a Native of the Isle of Iersey A thing so infinitely stomacked by those of the Colloquy that they would by no means yeeld unto his admission not so much in regard of his presentation by the Power of the Governour as because he had taken Orders from the hands of a Bishop For now they thought that Popery began to break in upon them and therefore that it did concern them to oppose it to the very last A new Complaint is
hereupon preferred against them to the Lords of the Council in which their Lordships were informed That the Inhabitants generally of the Isle were discontented with the present Discipline and guidance of the Church that most of them would be easily perswaded to submit to the English Goverment and that many of them did desire it 39. This brings both Parties to the Court the Governour and his Adherents to prosecute the Suit and make good their Intelligence the Ministers to answer to the Complaint and stand to the Pleasure of His Majesty in the final Judgment And at the first the Ministers stood fast together but as it always happeneth that there is no Confederacy so well jointed but one Member of it may be severed from the rest and thereby the whole Practise overthrown so was it also in this business For those who there sollicited some private business of the Governour 's had kindly wrought upon the weakness and ambition of De la Place one of the Ministers appointed to attend the Service perswading him That if the Government were altered and the Dean restored he was infallibly resolved on to be the man Being fashioned into this hope he speedily betrayed the Counsels of his Fellows and furnished their Opponents at all their Interviews with such Intelligence as might make most for their advantage At last the Ministers not well agreeing in their own demands and having little to say in defence of their proper Cause whereunto their Answers were not provided before-hand my Lord of Canterbury at the Council Table thus declared unto them the Pleasure of the King and Council viz. That for the speedy redress of their disorders it was reputed most convenient to establish amongst them the Authority and Office of the Dean That the Book of Common-Prayer being again Printed in the French should be received into their Churches but the Ministers not tyed to the strict observance of it in all particulars That Messervy should be admitted to his Benefice and that so they might return to their several Charges This said they were commanded to depart and to signifie to those from whom they came the full scope of His Majesty's Resolution and so they did But being somewhat backward in obeying this Decree the Council intimated to them by Sir Philip de Carteret chief Agent for the Governour and Estates of the Island That the Ministers from among themselves should make choice of three Learned and Grave persons whose Names they should return unto the Board out of which His Majesty should resolve on one to be their Dean 40. But this Proposal little edified amongst the Brethren not so much out of any dislike of the alteration with which they seemed all well enough contented but because every one of them gave himself some hopes of being the man And being that all of them could not be elected they were not willing to destroy their particular hopes by the appointment of another In the mean time Mr. David Bandinell an Italian born then being Minister of St. Mary's under pretence of other business of his own is dispatched for England and recommended by the Governour as the fittest person for that Place and Dignity And being well approved of by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury who found him answerable in all points to the Governour 's Character he was established in the Place by his Majesty's Letters Patents bearing date Anno 1619 and was accordingly invested in all such Rights as formerly had been inherent in that Office whether it were in point of Profit or of Jurisdiction And for the executing of this Office some Articles were drawn and ratified by His Sacred Majesty to be in force until a certain Body of Ecclesiastical Canons should be digested and confirmed Which Articles he was pleased to call the Interim a Name devised by CHARLES the fifth on the like occasion as appears by His Majesty's Letters Paters Patents for confirmation of the Canons not long after made And by this Interim it was permitted for the present that the Ministers should not be obliged to bid the Holy-days to use the Cross in Baptism or to wear the Surplice or not to give the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unto any others but such as did receive it kneeling but in all other things it little differed from the Book of Canons which being first drawn up by the Dean and Ministers was afterwards carefully perused corrected and accommodated for the use of that Island by the Right Reverend Fathers in God George Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury Iohn Lord Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and Lancelot Lord Bishop of Winchester whose Diocess or Jurisdiction did extend over both the Islands In which respect it was appointed in the Letters Patents by which His Majesty confirmed these Canons Anno 1623 That the said Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Winchester should forthwith by his Commission under his Episcopal Seal as Ordinary of the place give Authority unto the said Dean to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Isle according to the Canons and Constitutions thus made and established Such were the Means and such the Counsels by which this Island was reduced to a full conformity with the Church of England 41. Guâ—rnsey had followed in the like if first the breach between K. IAMES and the King of Spain and afterwards between K. CHARLES and the Crown of France had not took off the edg of the prosecution During which time the Ministers were much heartned in their Inconformity by the Practises of De la Place before remembred Who stomacking his disappointment in the loss of the Deanry abandoned his Native Countrey and retired unto Guernsey where he breathed nothing but disgrace to the English Liturgy the Person of the new Dean and the change of the Government Against the first so perversly opposite that when some Forces were sent over by King CHARLES for defence of the Island he would not suffer them to have the use of the English Liturgy in the Church of St. Peter's being the principal of that Island but upon these Conditions that is to say That they should neither use the Liturgy therein nor receive the Sacrament And secondly Whereas there was a Lecture weekly every Thursday in the said Church of St. Peters when once the Feast of Christ's Nativity fell upon that day he rather chose to disappoint the Hearers and put off the Sermon than that the least honour should reflect on that ancient Festival An Opposition far more superstitious than any observation of a day though meerly Iewish By his Example others were encouraged to the like perversness insomuch that they refused to baptize any Child or Children though weak and in apparent danger of present death but such as were presented unto them on the day of Preaching And when some of them were compelled by the Civil Magistrate to perform their duty in this kind a great Complaint thereof was made to the Earl of
the Dukes of Bouilâ—on That he was most disgracefully deprived of his Place and Function by those of the Calvinian Party because he had delivered in a Sermon on those words of St. â—ames c. 1. v. 13. God tempteth no man c. That God was not the Author of Sin 7. But possibly it may be said That these Oppressions Tyrannies and Partialities are not to be ascribed to the Sect of Calvin in the capacity of Presbyterians but of Predestinarians and therefore we will now see what they acted in behalf of Presbytery which was as dear to all the Members of that Synod but the English only as any of the Five Points whatsoever it was For in the Hundred forty fifth Session being held on the 20 th of April the Belgick Confession was brought in to be subscribed by the Provincials and publickly approved by the Forreign Divines In which Confession there occurred one Article which tended plainly to the derogation and dishonour of the Church of England For in the Thirty one Article it is said expresly That forasmuch as doth concern the Ministers of the Church of Christ in what place soever they are all of equal Power and Authority with one another as being all of them the Ministers of Iesus Christ who is the only Vniversal Bishop and sole Head of His Church Which Article being as agreeable to Calvin's Judgment in point of Discipline as their Determinations were to his Opinion in point of Doctrine was very cheerfully entertained by the Forreign Divines though found in few of the Confessions of the Forreign Churches But being found directly opposite to the Government of the Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops with which a parity of Ministers can have no consistence was cordially opposed by the Divines of the British Colledg but most especially by Dr. George Carlton then Lord Bishop of Landaff and afterwards translated to the See of Chichester who having too much debased himself beneath his Calling in being present in a Synod or Synodical Meeting in which an ordinary Presbyter was to take the Chair and have precedency before him thought it high time to vindicate himself and the Church of England to enter a Legal Protestation against those proceedings Which though it was admitted and perhaps recorded received no other Answer but neglect if not scorn withall Concerning which he published a Declaration after his return in these words ensuing 8. When we were to yeeld our consent to the Belgick Confession at Dort I made open protestation in the Synod That whereas in the Confession there was inserted a strange conceit of the Parity of Ministers to be instituted by Christ I declared our dissent utterly in that point I showed that by Christ a Parity was never instituted in the Church that he ordained Twelve Apostles as also Seventy Disciples that the Authority of the Twelve was above the other that the Church preserved this Order left by our Saviour And therefore when the extraordinary Power of the Apostles ceased yet this ordinary Authority continued in Bishops who succeeded them who were by the Apostles left in the Government of the Church to ordain Ministers and to see that they who were so ordained should preach no other Doctrine that in an inferior degree the Ministers were governed by Bishops who succeeded the Seventy Disciples that this Order hath been maintained in the Church from the times of the Apostles and herein I appealed to the Iudgment of Antiquity and to the Iudgment of any Learned man now living and craved herein to be satisfied if any man of Learning could speak to the contrary My Lord of Salisbury is my Witness and so are all the rest of our Company who speak also in the Cause To this there was no answer made by any whereupon we conceived that they yeelded to the truth of the Protestation But it was only he and his Associates which conceived so of it and so let it go 9. His Lordship adds that in a Conference which he had with some Divines of that Synod he told them That the cause of all their troubles was because they had no Bishops amongst them who by their Authority might repress turbulent spirits that broached Novelty every man having liberty to speak or write what they list and that as long as there were no Ecclesiastical men in Authority to repress and censure such contentious Spirits their Church could never be without trouble To which they answered That they did much honour and reverence the good Order and Discipline of the Church of England and with all their hearts would be glad to have it established amongst them but that could not be hoped for in their State that their hope was That seeing they could not do what they desired God would be merciful to them if they did what they could This was saith he the sum and substance of their Answer which he conceived to be enough to free that people from aiming at an Anarchy and open-Confusion adding withall that they groaned under the weight of that burden and would be eased of it if they could But by his Lordship's leave I take this to be nothing but a piece of dissimulation of such a sanctified Hypocrisie as some of the Calvinians do affirm to be in Almighty God For certainly they might have Bishops if they would as well as the Popish Cantons of the Switzers or the State of Venice of which the one is subject to an Aristocracy the other to a Government no less popular than that of the Netherlands In which respect it was conceived more lawful by the late Lord Primate for any English Protestant to communicate with the Reformed Churches in France who cannot have Bishops if they would than with the Dutch who will not have Bishops though they may there still remaining in their hands Seven Episcopal Sees with all the Honours and Revenues belonging to them that is to say the Bishoprick of Harlem in Holland of Middlebourgh in Zealand of Lewarden in Friesland of Groining in the Province so called of Deventer in the County of Overyssell and of Ruremond in the Dutchy of Gueldress all of them but the last subordinate to the Church of Vtrect which they keep also in their Power 10. Somewhat was also done in the present Synod in order to the better keeping of the Lord's Day than it had been formerly For till this time they had their Faires and Markets upon this day their Kirk-masses as they commonly called them Which as they constantly kept in most of the great Towns of Holland Zealand c. even in Dort it self so by the constant keeping of them they must needs draw away much people from the Morning-Service to attend the business of their Trades And in the Afternoon as before was noted all Divine Offices were interdicted by a Constitution which received life here Anno 1574 that time being wholly left to be disposed of as the people pleased either upon their profit or their recreation But their
acquaintance with the English brought them to more sense of Piety And now they took the opportunity to train the people to the Church in the Afternoon by the Authority and Reputation of the present Synod For having entertained the Palatine Catechism in their publick Schools it was resolved that it should be taught in all their Churches on Sunday in the After-noon That the Ministers should be bound to read and expound that Catechism though none were present at the Exercises but those of their own Families only in hope that others might be drawn after their example and that the Civil Magistrate should be employed by the Synod to restrain all Servile Works and other Prophanations of that day wherewith the Afternoons had commonly been spent that so the people might repair to the Catechisings And though some Reformation did ensue upon it in the greater Towns yet in their lesser Villages where men are more intent on their Worldly businesses it remains as formerly 11. As little of the Sabbatarian had the Palatine Churches which in all points adhered tenaciously unto Calvin's Doctrine For in those Churches it was ordinary for the Gentlemen to betake themselves in the After-noon of the Lord's Day unto Hawking and Hunting as the season of the year was fit for either or otherwise in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them As usual it was also with the Husband-man to spend the greatest part of the After-noon in looking over his Grounds ordering his Cattel and following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his Nature and Education no publick Divine Offices being prescribed for any part of that Day but the Morning only And so it stood in the year 1612 At what time the Lady ELIZABETH Daughter to K. Iames and Wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every After-noon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England gave the first hint unto that Prince to cause the like Religious Offices to be celebrated in his part of the Family afterwards by degrees in all the Churches of Heldenbourgh and finally in most other Cities and Towns of his Dominions Had he adventured no further on the confidence of that Power and Greatness which accrued to him by contracting an Alliance with so great a Monarch it had been happy for himself and the Peace of Christendom But being tempted by Scultetus and some other of the Divines about him Not to neglect the opportunity of advancing the Gospel and making himself the principal Patton of it he fell on some Designs destructive to himself and his Who though he were a Prince of a Flegmatick nature and of small Activity yet being prest by the continual sollicitation of some eager Spirits he drew all the Provinces and Princes which profest the Calvinian Doctrines to enter into a strict League or Union amongst themselves under pretence of looking to the Peace and Happiness of the true Religion 12. It much advantaged the Design that the Calvinians in all parts of Germany had began to stir as men resolved to keep the Saddle or to lose the Horse In Aix the Latins call it Aquisgranum an Imperial City they first appeared considerable for their Power and Numbers Anno 1605 at what time they shrewdly shaked the Estate thereof But being thereupon debarred the exercise of their Religion and punished for the Misdemeanor they kept themselves quiet till the year 1614 when in a popular Tumult they surprise the City secure the principal Magistrates of it and eject the Jesuits And though by the Mediation of the French Agents and those of Iulier's a Peace was for the present clapt up between them yet neither Party was resolved to stand longer to it than might serve their turns But whosoever made the reckoning the Calvinists were at last compelled to pay the shot For the Town being proscribed by Matthias the Emperor and the execution of the Ban committed to Arch-Duke Albert he sends the Marquess of Spinola with an Army thither by whom the Town is brought to a surrender the ancient Magistrates restored and the Calvinians either forced to forsake the place or to submit themselves unto Fine and Ransome if they kept their dwellings Nor did they speed much better in the City of Colen where their Party was not strong enough to suppress the Catholicks and therefore they forsook the City and retired to Mulleime which they began to build and fortifie for their habitation But those of Colen fearing that this new Town might in short time overtop that City both in Wealth and Power addrest themselves unto the Emperor Matthias By whose Command the Duke of Newbourgh falls upon it destroys the greatest part thereof and leaves the finishing of that Work to the Marquess Spinola 13. In Hassia their Affairs succeeded with more prosperous Fortune where Lodowick of the second House of the Lantgraves who had the City of Marperge for his Seat and Residence declared himself in favour of their Forms and Doctrines at such time as the Calvinists of Aix before remembred first began to stirr followed therein by George his Brother commonly called the Lantgrave of Darmstad from the place of his dwelling half of which Town belonging to the Patrimony of the Prince Elector had easily made way for Calvinism into all the rest And though this Lodowick was disturbed in his Government or Possession by his Cousin Maurice commonly called the Lantgrave of Cassells from his principal City who seized upon the Town of Marperge Anno 1612 yet was he shortly after restored to his whole Estate by the Palatine-League which for the time carried a great sway in those parts of Germany But of greater consequence were the agitations about Cleve and Gulick occasioned by a difference between the Marquess of Brandenbourgh and the Duke of Newbourgh about the partage of the Patrimony and Estates of the Duke of Cleve For Iohn-William the last Duke of Cleve deceasing without Issue in the year 1610 left his Estates between the Children of his Sisters of which the eldest called Maria Leonora was married to Albert of Brandenbourgh Duke of Prussia whose Daughter Ann being married to Iohn Sigismund the Elector of Brandenbough was Mother of George-William the young Marquess of Brandenbourgh who in her Right pretended to the whole Estate The like pretence was made by Wolfgangus Guilielmus Duke of Newbourgh descended from the Electoral Family of the Princes Palatine whose Mother Magdalen was the second Sister of the said Iohn-William The first of these Pretenders was wholly of a Lutheran Stock and the other as inclinable to the Sect of Calvin though afterwards for the better carrying on of their Affairs they forsook their Parties 14. For so it hapned that the Duke of Newbourgh finding himself too weak for the House of Brandenbourgh put himself under the protection of the Catholick King who
Saxon Weimar were taken Prisoners the Bohemian Ordnance all suprised Prague forced to yeeld unto the Victor the King and Queen compelled to flye into Silesia from whence by many difficult passages and untravelled ways they came at last in safety to the Hague in Holland Nor is it altogether unworthy of our observation That this great Victory was obtained on a Sunday morning being the 8 th of November and the 23 d Sunday after Trinity in the Gospel of which day occurred that memorable passage Reddite Caesari qua sunt Caesaris that is to say Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars Which seemed to judgâ— the Quarrel on the Emperor's side Hereupon followed the most Tragical or rather most Tyranical Execution of the chief Directors who had a hand in the Design the suppressing of the Protestant Reformed Religion in all the Emperor's Estates the falling back of Bethlem Gabor into Transylvania the proscribing of the Prince Elector and his Adherents the transferring of the Electoral Dignity together with the Upper Palatinate on the Duke of Bavaria the Conquest of the lower Palatinate by the King of Spain and the setting up of Popery in all parts of both In which condition they remained till the restoring of Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector to the best part of his Estate by the Treaty of Munster 1648. 35. Such was the miserable end of the Warr of Bohemia raised chiefly by the Pride and Pragmaticalness of Calvin's Followers out of a hope to propagate their Doctrines and advance their Discipline in all parts of the Empire Nor sped the Hugonots much better in the Realm of France where by the countenance and connivance of King HENRY the 4 th who would not see it and during the minority of LEWIS the 13 th who could not help it they possessed themselves of some whole Countreys and near Two hundred strong Towns and fortified places Proud of which Strength they took upon them as a Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom summoned Assemblies for the managing of their own Affairs when and as often as they pleased Gave Audience to the Ministers of Forreign Churches and impowred Agents of their own to negotiate with them At the same Meetings they consulted about Religion made new Laws for Government displaced some of their old Officers and elected new ones the King's consent being never asked to the Alterations In which licentious calling of their own Assemblies they abused their Power to a neglect of the King's Authority and not dissolving those Assemblies when they were commanded they improved that Neglect to a Disobedience Nay sometimes they run cross therein to those very Edicts which they had gained by the effusion of much Christian Blood and the expence of many Hundred thousand Crowns For by the last Edict of Pacification the King had granted the free exercise of both Religions even in such Towns as were assigned for Caution to the Hugonot Party Which liberty being enjoyed for many years was at last interrupted by those very men who with so much difficulty had procured it For in an Assembly of theirs which they held at Loudun Anno 1619 they strictly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuit nor those of any other Order to preach in any of the Towns assigned to them though licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess in due Form of Law And when upon a dislike of their proceedings the King had declared their Meetings to be unlawful and contrary to the Publick Peace and had procured the Declaration to be verified in the Court of Parliament they did not only refuse to separate themselves as they were required but still insisted upon terms of Capitulation even to a plain justifying of their actings in it 36. These carriages gave the King such just offence that he denied them leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Dort to which they had been earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands For being so troublesome and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their Provincial or National Meetings what danger might not be suspected from a general Confluence in which the Heads of all the Faction might be laid together But then to sweeten them a little after this Refusal he gave them leave to hold an Assembly at Charenton four miles from Paris there to debate those points and to agree those differences which in that Synod had been agitated by the rest of their Party Which Liberty they made such use of in the said Assembly that they approved all the Determinations which were made at Dort commanded them to be subscribed and bound themselves and their Successors in the Ministry by a solemn Oath Not only stedfastly and constantly to adhere unto them but to persist in maintenance thereof to the last gasp of their breath But to return to the Assembly at Loudun They would not rise from thence though the King commanded it till they had taken order for another Assembly to be held at Rochel the chief place of their strength and the Metropolis or principal City of their Common-wealth Which General Assembly being called by their own Authority and called at such a time as had given the King some trouble in composing the Affairs of Bearn was by the King so far disliked and by especial Edict so far prohibited that they were all declared to be guilty of Treason who should continue in the same without further Order Which notwithstanding they sate still and very undutifully proceeded in their former purposes Their business was to draw up a Remonstrance of their present Grievances or rather of the Fears and Jealousies which they had conceived on the King's journey into Bearn This they presented to the King by their own Commissioners and thereunto received a fair and plausible Answer sent in a Letter to them by the Duke Des Diguiers by whom they were advised to dissolve the Assembly and submit themselves unto the King Instead whereof they published a Declaration in defence of their former Actions and signified a Resolution not to separate or break up that Meeting until their Grievances were redressed 37. It hapned at the same time that the Lord of Privas a Town in which the Hugonots made the strongest Party married his Daughter and Heir to the Viscount of Cheylane and dying left the same wholly unto his disposal Who being of different perswasions from the greatest part of his Vassals altered the Garrison and placed his own Servants and Dependents in it as by Law he might This moved the Hugonots of the Town and the Neighbouring Villages to put themselves into a posture of Warr to seize upon the places adjoining and thereby to compel the young Noble-man to forsake his Inheritance Which being signified to the King he presently scored this insolence on the account of the Rochellers who standing in defiance of his Authority was thought to have given some animation unto the Town of Privas to commit
in the Liturgy should be expunged and others altered to the worse That Decency and Reverence in officiating God's publick Service should be brought within the compass of Innovations That Doctrinal Calvinism should be entertained in all parts of the Church and all their Sabbath-Speculations though contrary to Calvin's Judgment super-added to it But before any thing could be concluded in those weighty matters the Commons set their Bill on foot against Root and Branch for putting down all Bishops and Cathedral Churches which put a period to that Meeting without doing any thing And though the Bill upon a full debate thereon amongst the Peers was cast out of that House and was not by the course of Parliaments to be offered again yet contrary to all former Custom it was prest from one time to another till in the end they gained the point which they so much aimed at Hereupon followed some Petitions from the Universities in favour of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches without which Learning must be destitute of its chief encouragements and some Petitions from whole Counties in behalf of Episcopacy without which there was like to be no preservative against Sects and Heresies But nothing was more memorable than the inter-pleadings in the House of Commons between Dr. Iohn Hâ—cket one of the Prebendaries of St. Pauls and Arch-Deacon of Bedford and Dr. Cornelius Burges a right doubty Disputant but better skilled in drawing down his Myrmidons than in mustering Arguments the issue of whose Plea was this That though Cathedrals were unnecessary and the Quire-men scandalous yet that their Lands could not be alienated unto private persons without guilt of Sacriledg 9. But little did this edifie with the Leading-part in the House of Commons who were resolved to practise on the Church by little and little and at the last to play at sweep-stake and take all together First therefore they began with taking down the Starr-Chamber and the High Commission without which Courts the Subjects could not easily be kept in order nor the Church from Faction And in the Act for taking down the Court of the High Commission a clause is cunningly inserted which plainly took away all Coercive Power which had been vested in the Bishops and their Under-Officers disabling them from imposing any pain or penalty and consequently from inflicting all Church-Censures on notorious sinners Their Jurisdiction being thus gone it was not likely that their Lands should stay long behind though in good manners it was thought convenient to strip them first from having any place or suffrage in the House of Peers And when they once were rendred useless to the Church and State the Lands would follow of themselves without any great trouble And that they might attain the end which they so much aimed at Burges draws down his Myrmidons to the Doors of he Parliament and teacheth them to cry No Bishops No Bishops with their wonted violence By which confused Rabble some indignities and affronts are very frequently put upon them either in keeping them off from landing if they came by water or offer violence to their persons if they came by Land Which multiplied Injuries gave such just cause of fear and trouble that they withdrew themselves from the House of Peers but sent withall a Protestation to preserve their Rights In which it was declared That all Acts made or to be made in the time of their absence considering their absenâ—e was inforced not voluntary should be reputed void and null to all intents and purposes in the Law whatsoever This Protestation being tendred in the House of Peers communicated to the House of Commons and the supposed offence extreamly aggravated by the Lord Keeper Littleton the Bishops are impeached of Treason nine of them sent Prisoners to the Tower and two committed to the custody of the Gentleman-Usher 10. And there we leave them for a while to look into the Fortunes of the publick Liturgy not like to stand when both the Scots and English Presbyterians did conspire against it The Fame whereof had either caused it totally to be laid aside or performed by halfs in all the Counties where the Scots were of strength and power and not much better executed in some Churches of London wherein that Faction did as much predominate as if it had been under the protection of a Scottish Army But the first great interruption which was made at the officiating of the publick Liturgy was made upon a Day of Humiliation when all the Members of the House of Commons were assembled together at St. Margaret's in Westminster At what time as the Priest began the second Service at the Holy Table some of the Puritans or Presbyterians began a Psalm and were therein followed by the rest in so loud a Tune that the Minister was thereby forced to desist from his duty and leave the Preacher to perform the rest of that day's Solemnity This gave encouragement enough to the rest of that Party to set as little by the Liturgy in the Countrey as they did in the City especially in all such usages and rights thereof as they were pleased to bring within the compass of Innovations But they were more encouraged to it by an Order of the Lower-House bearing date on the 8 th of September Anno 1641. By which all Church-Wardens were required in their several Parishes to remove the Holy Table from the East-end of the Chancel to any other part of the Church to take away the Ralis before it and not to suffer any Tapers Candlesticks or Basons to be placed upon it It was required also by the same That there should be no bowing at the Name of Jesus nor adoration toward the East nor any reverence used in men's approaches to the Holy Table And by the same all Dancing and other lawful Recreations were prohibited on their Lord's-day-Sabbath after the duties of the Day and Catechising turned into After-noon-Sermons directly contrary to His Majesty's Declarations and Instructions given in that behalf And though the Lords refused to join with them in that Vote and sent them back unto an Order of the 16 th of Ianuary by which they had confirmed and enjoined the use of the Liturgy yet Pym commands the Order to be put in execution by a Warrant under his own hand only and that too during the Recess when almost all the Lords and Commons had retired themselves to their several dwellings 11. Hereupon followed such an alteration in all Churches and Chappels that the Church-Wardens pulled down more in a Week or two than all the Bishops and Clergy had been able to raise in two Weeks of years And hereupon there followed such irreverences ni God's publick Service and such a discontinuance of it in too many places that His Majesty was compelled to give new life to it by His Proclamation of the tenth of December and taking order in the same for punishing all the wilful Contemners and Disburbers of it But this Proclamation being published in that point
That all the Lords of his Majesty's Council all the great Officers both of Court and State the two Chief Iustices and the Chief Barons of the Exchequer should be from thenceforth nominated and approved by both Houses of Parliament That all the great Affairs of the Kingdom should be managed by them even unto the naming of a Governour for his Majesty's Children and for disposing them in Marriage at the will of the Houses That no Popisâ— Lord as long as he continued such should vote in Parliament And amongst many other things of like importance That he would give consent to such a Reformation of Church-Government and Liturgy as both the Houses should advise But he knew well enough that to grant all this was plainly to divest himself of all Regal-Power which God had put into his hands And therefore he returned such an Answer to them as the necessity of his Affairs coâ—pared with those impudent Demands did suggest unto him But as for their Demand about Reformation he had answered it in part before they made it by ordering a Collection of sundry Petitions presented to himself and both Houses of Parliament in behalf of Episcopacy and for the preservation of the Liturgy to be printed and published By which Petitions it appeared that there was no such general disaffection in the Subjects unto either of them whether they were within the power of the Houses or beyond their reach as by the Faction was pretended the total number of Subscribers unto seven of them only the rest not being calculated in the said Collection amounting to Four hundred eighty two Lords and Knights One thousand seven hundred and forty Esquires and Gentlemen of note Six hundred thirty one Doctors and Divines and no fewer than Forty four thousand five hundred fifty nine Free-holders of good name and note 18. And now the Warr begins to open The Gentlemen of Yorkshire being sensible of that great affront which had been offered to his Majesty at the Gates of Hull and no less sensible of those dangers which were threatned to him by so ill a Neighbourhood offered themselves to be a Guard unto his person The Houses of Parliament upon the apprehension of some fears and jealousies had took a Guard unto themselves in December last but they conceived the King had so much innocence that he needed none and therefore his accepting of this Guard of Gentlemen is voted for a levying of Warr against the Parliament and Forces must be raised in defence thereof It hapned also that some Members of the House of Commons many of his Domestick Servants and not a few of the Nobility and great men of the Realm repaired from several places to the King at York so far from being willing to involve themselves in other mens sins that they declared the constancy of their adhaesion to his Majesty's service These men they branded first by the Name of Malignants and after looked upon them in the notion of evil Councellors for whose removing from the King they pretend to arm but now the stale device must be taken up as well as in their own defence Towards the raising of which Army the Presbyterian Preachers so bestir themselves that the wealthy Citizens send in their Plate the zealous Sisters rob'd themselves of their Bodkins and Thimbles and some poor Wives cast in their Wedding-Rings like the Widow's Mite to advance the Service Besides which they set forth Instructions dispersed into all parts of the Realm for bringing in of Horses Arms Plate Money Jewels to be repayed agâ—in on the Publick Faith appoint their Treasurers for the Warr and nominate the Earl of Essex for their chief Commander whom some Disgraces from the Court had made wholly theirs Him they commissionate to bring the King from his Evil Councellors with power to kill and slay all such as opposed them in it And that he might perform the Service with a better Conscience they laid fast hold on an Advantage which the King had given them who in his Declaration of the 16 th of Iune either by some incogitancy or the slip of his Pen had put himself into the number of the Three Estates for thereupon it was inferred That the Two Houses were co-ordinate with him in the Publick Government and being co-ordinate might act any thing without his consent especially in case of his refusal to co-operate with them or to conform to their desires Upon which ground both to encrease their Party and abuse the people who still had held the Name of King in some veneration the Warr is managed in the Name of King and Parliament as if both equally concerned in the Fortunes of it It was also Preached and Printed by the Presbyterians to the same effect as Buchanan and Knox Calvin and some others of the Sect had before delivered That all Power was originally in the people of a State or Nation in Kings no otherwise than by Delegation or by way of Trust which Trust might be recalled when the People pleased That when the underived Majesty as they loved to phrase it of the Common People was by their voluntary act transferred on the Supreme Magistrate it rested on that Magistrate no otherwise than cumulativè but privativè by no means in reference unto them that gave it That though the King was Major singulis yet he was Minor universis Superior only unto any one but far inferior to the whole Body of the People That the King had no particular property in his Lands Rents Ships Arms Towers or Castles which being of a publike nature belonged as much to the people as they did to him That it was lawful for the Subjects to resist their Princes even by force of Arms and to raise Armies also if need required for the preservation of Religion and the common Liberties And finally for what else can follow such dangerous premises That Kings being only the sworn Officers of the Commonwealth they might be called to an account and punished in case of Male-administration even to Imprisonment Deposition and to Death it self if lawfully convicted of it But that which served their turns best was a new distinction which they had coined between the Personal and Political capacity of the Supreme Magistrate alledging that the King was present with the Houses of Parliament in his Political capacity though in his Personal at York That they might fight against the King in his Personal capacity though not in his Politick and consequently might destroy CHARLES STVART without hurting the King This was good Presbyterian Doctrine but not so edifying at York as it was at Westminster For his Majesty finding a necessity to defend CHARLES STVART if he desired to save the King began to entertain such Forces as repaired unto him and put himself into a posture of defence against all his Adversaries 19. In York-shire he was countermined and prevailed but little not having above Two thousand men when he left that County At Nottingham he sets up his Standard
brake down the Rails before the Table and burnt them in the very place in the heats of Iuly but wretchedly prophaned the very Table it self by setting about it with their Tobacco and Ale before them and not without the company of some of their zealous Lecturers to grace the Action What else they did in imitation of the Brethren of Exon in laying their filth and execrements about it also I abhor to mention And now I must crave leave to step into the Colledg the Government whereof was taken from the Dean and Prebendaries and given to a select Committee of fifty persons some Lords but Members for the most part of the Lower-House who found there a sufficient quantity of Plate and some other good Houshold-stuff to a very good value which was so Husbanded amongst them that it was either stoln or sold or otherwise imbezilled and inverted to the use of some private persons who best knew how to benefit themselves by the Church's Patrimony 35. But the main business of this year and the three next following was the calling sitting and proceedings of the new Assembly called the Assembly of Divines but made up also of so many of the Lords and Commons as might both serve as well to keep them under and comptroll their Actions as to add some countenance unto them in the eye of the people A Convocation had been appointed by the King when he called the Parliament the Members whereof being lawfvlly chosen and returned were so discountenanced and discouraged by the Votes of the Lower-House the frequent Tumults raised in Westminster by the Rascal Rabble and the preparatives for a Warr against the King that they retired unto their Houses but still continued undissolved and were in a capacity of acting as a Convocation whensoever they should be thereunto required and might do it with safety But being for the most part well affected to the Church of England they were not to be trusted by the Houses of Parliament who then designed the hammering of such a Reformation both in Doctrine and Discipline as might unite them in a perpetual Bond and Confederation with their Scottish Brethren And that they might be furnished with such men the Knights of every Shire must make choice of two to serve as Members for that County most of them Presbyterians some few Royallists four of the Independent Faction and two or three to represent the Kirk of Scotland Which ploughing with an Ox and an Ass as it was no other was anciently prohibited by the Law of Moses And yet these men associated with some Members of either House as before is said no ways impow'red or authorised by the rest of the Clergy must take upon them all the Powers and Priviledges of a Convocation to which they were invited by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date Iune the 12 th His Majesty makes a start at this encroachment on His Royal Prerogative and countermands the same by His Proclamation of the 22 d. In which He takes notice amongst other things That the far greatest part of those who had been nominated to the present Service were men of neither Learning or Reputation eminently disaffected to the Government of the Church of England and such as had openly preached Rebellion by their exciting of the people to take Arms against Him and therefore were not like to be proper Instruments of Peace and Happiness either unto the Church or State For maintenance whereof and for the preservation of His own Authority he inhibits them from meeting at the time appointed declares their Acts to be illegal and threatens them with the punishments which they had incurred by the Laws of the Land 36. But they go forwards howsoever hold their first Meeting on the first of Iuly and elect Dr. Twisse of Newberry a rigid Sabbatarian but a professed Calvinian in all other points for their Prolocutor called to this Iourney-work by the Houses they were dispensed with for Non-residence upon their Livings against the Laws preferred to the best Benefices of the Sequestred Clergy some of them three or four together and had withall four shillings a man for their daily wages besides the honour of assisting in so great an action as the ruin of the Church and the subversion of the present Government of the Realm of England In reference whereunto they were to be employed from time to time as occasion was to stir up the people of the Counties for which they served to rise and arm themselves against the King under colour of their own defence as appears plainly by the Order of the tenth of August And that they might be looked upon with the greater reverence they maintain a constant intercourse by Letters with their Brethren of Scotland the Churches of the Netherlands the French and Switzers but chiefly with Geneva it self In which they laid such vile Reproaches on His Majesty and the Church of England the one for having a design to bring in Popery the other for a readiness to receive the same that His Majesty was necessitated to set out a Manifest in the Latin Tongue for laying open the Imposture to the Churches of all Forreign Nations Amongst the rest of this Assembly Dr. Dan. Featly not long before made Chaplain in Ordinary to the King must needs sit for one whether to shew his Parts or to head a Party or out of his old love to Calvinism may best be gathered from some Speeches which he made and printed But he was theirs in heart before and therefore might afford them his body now though possibly he may be excused from taking the Covenant as the others did An Exhortation whereunto was the first great work which was performed by these Masters in Israel after their assembling the Covenant taken by them in most solemn manner at St. Margarets in Westminster on the 25th of September the Exhortation voted to be published on the 9th of February 37. Now to begin the blessed Reformation which they had in hand the Houses were resolved upon exterminating all external Pomp and comely Order out of the Worship of Almighty God And to this end upon the humble motion of these Divines of the Assembly and the sollicitation of some zealous Lecturers who were grown very powerful with them or to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish Covenanters whose help they began to stand in need of or finally out of the perversness of their own cross humours they published an Ordinance on the 28 th of August For the utter demolishing removing and taking away all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which notion it was ordered That before the last of November then next following all Altars and Tables of stone as if any such were then erected should be demolished in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom That the Communion-Tables should in all such places be removed from the East end of the Chancel unto some other part of the Church or Chappel That all such Rails as had been
placed before or about the same should be taken away and the ground levelled with the rest which had been raised for the standing of any such Table within the space of twenty years then last past That all Tapers Candlesticks and Basons which had of late been used on any of the said Tables should also be removed and taken away neither the same nor any such like to be from thenceforth used in God's Publick Service That all Crucifixes Crosses and all Images and Pictures of any one or more Persons of the Trinity or of the Virgin Mary and all other Images and Pictures of Saints should be also demolished and defaced whether they stood in any of the said Churches or Chappels or in any Church-yard or other open place whatsoever never to be erected or renewed again With a Proviso notwithstanding for preserving all Images Pictures and Coats of Arms belonging to any of their Ancestors or any of the Kings of this Realm or any other deceased persons which were not generally considered and beheld as Saints 38. But yet to make sure work of it this Ordinance was re-inforced and enlarged by another of the 9th of May in the year next following wherein besides the particulars before recited they descend to the taking away of all Coaps Surplices and other Superstitious Vestments as they pleased to call them as also to the taking away of all Organs and the Cases in which they stood and the defacing of the same requiring the same course to be also taken in the removing and defacing of Roods Rood-Lofts and Holy-water-water-Fonts as if any such things had been of late erected or permitted in the Church of England as indeed there were not whereupon followed the defacing of all Glass Windows and the demolishing of all Organs within the compass of their power the transposing of the holy Table from the place of the Altar into some other part of the Church or Chancel the tearing and defacing of all Coaps and Surplices or otherwise employing them to domestick uses and finally the breaking down and removing of the Sacred Fonts anciently used for the Ministration of holy Baptism the name of Holy-water-fonts being extended made use of to comprise them also hereupon followed also the defacing and demolishing of many Crosses erected as the Monuments of Christianity in Cities Towns and most of our Country-Villages none being spared which came within the compass of those Enemies of the Cross of Christ. Amongst which Crosses none more eminent for Cost and Workmanship than those of Cheapside in London and Abington in the County of Berks both of them famous for the excellencies of the Statua's which were placed in them more for the richness of the trimming which was used about them But the Divine Vengeance fell on some of the Executioners for a terror to others one of them being killed in pulling down the Cross of Cheapside and another hanged at Stow on the Wold within short time after he had pulled down the first Image of the Cross in Abington And because no Order had been made for the executing of this Order in His Majesty's Chappels as there was in all Cathedral and Parish-Churches a private Warrant was obtained by Harlow a Knight of Herefordshire for making the said Chappels equal to all the rest by depriving them of all such Ornaments of State and Beauty with which they had been constantly adorned in all times since the Reformation And all this done or at the least pretended to be done as the Ordinance tell us as being pleasing unto God and visibly conducing to the blessed Reformation so much desired but desired only as it seems by those Lords and Commons who had a hand in the Design 39. So far they went to show their hatred unto Superstition their dislike of Popery but then they must do somewhat also for expressing their great zeal to the glory of God by some Acts of Piety And nothing seemed more pious or more popular rather than to enjoin the more strict keeping of their Lords-day-Sabbath by some publick Ordinance With this they had begun already on the fifth of May on which it was ordered by no worse men than the Commons in Parliament the Lords being either not consulted or not concurring That His Majesty's Book for tolerating sports on the Lord's Day should be forthwith burned by the hands of the common Hangman in Cheapside and other usual places and that the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex should see the same put in execution which was done accordingly Than which an Act of a greater scorn an Act of greater Insolency and disloyal impudence was never offered to a Soveraign and Annointed Prince So as it was no marvel if the Lords joined with them in the Ordinance of the sixth of April 1644 for to expose all Books to the like disgrace which had been writ or should be writ hereafter by any person or persons against the Morality of the Sabbath By which Ordinance it was also signified That no manner of person whatsoever should publickly cry shew forth and expose to sale any Wares Merchandises Fruits Herbs or other Goods upon that day on pain of forfeiting the same or travel carry burthens or do any act of Labour on it on pain of forfeiting Ten shillings for the said offence That no person from thenceforth on the said day should use exercise keep maintain or be present at any wrestling shooting bowling ringing of Bells for pleasure or pastime Mask Wake otherwise called Feasts Church-Ale Games Dancing Sport or other pastimes whatsoever under the several penalties therein contained And that we may perceive with what weighty cares the heads of these good men were troubled when the whole Nation was involved in Blood and Ruin a Clause was added for the taking down of May-poles also with a Command unto all Constables and Tything-men to see it done under the penalty of forfeiting five shillings weekly till the said May-poles which they looked upon as an Heathenish Vanity should be quite removed Which Nail was driven so far at last that it was made unlawful for any Taylor to carry home a new Suit of Clothes or any Barber to trim the man that was to wear them for any Water-man to Ferry a passenger cross the Thames and finally to any person whatsoever though neither new trimmed or new apparelled to sit at his own door or to walk the streets or take a mouth-full of fresh air in the open Fields Most Rabinical Dotages 40. The day of publick Worship being thus new-molded they must have new Priests also and new Forms of Prayer a new Confession of the Faith new Catechisms and new Forms of Government Towards the first an Ordinance comes out from the Lords and Commons in October following Advice being first had with the Assembly of Divines by which a power was given to some chief men of the Assembly and certain Ministers of London or to any seven or more of them to impose hands upon such persons
whatsoever whom they found qualified and gifted for the holy Ministry a Clause being added thereunto That every person and persons which were so ordained should be reputed deemed and taken for a Minister of the Church of England sufficiently authorised for any Office or Employment in it and capable of receiving all advantages which appertained to the same To shew the nullity and invalidity of which Ordinations a learned Tractate was set out by Dr. Bohe Chaplain sometimes to the Right Reverend Dr. Houson Bishop of Oxford first and of Durham afterwards Never since answered by the Presbyterians either Scots or English Next after comes the Directory or new Form of Worship accompanied with an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons on the third of Ianuary for authorising the said Directory or Form of Worship as also for suppressing the publick Liturgy repealing all the Acts of Parliament which confirmed the same and abrogating all the ancient and established Festivals that so Saint Sabbath as sometimes they called it might be all in all The insufficiency of which Directory to the Ends proposed in the same pronounced the weakness of the Ordinance which authorised it and the excellency of the publick Liturgy in all the parts and offices of it was no less learnedly evinced by Dr. Hammond then newly made a Chaplain in ordinary to His Sacred Majesty Which though it might have satisfied all equal and unbyassed men yet neither Learning nor Reason could be heard in the new Assembly or if it were the voice thereof was drowned by the noise of the Ordinances 41. For on the 23 d of August Anno 1645 another Ordinance comes thundering from the Lords and Commons for the more effectual Execution of the Directory for publick Worship with several Clauses in the same not only for dispersing and use thereof but for calling in the Book of Common-prayer under several penalties Which coming to His Majesty's knowledg as soon as he returned to His Winter-Quarters He published His Proclamation of the 13th of November commanding in the same the use of the Common-Prayer notwithstanding any Ordinance to the contrary from the Houses of Parliament For taking notice first of those notable Benefits which had for Eighty years redounded to this Nation by the use of the Liturgy He next observes that by abolishing the said Book of Common-Prayer and imposing the Directory a way would be left open for all Ignorant Factious and Evil men to broach their Fancies and Conceits be they never so erroneous to mislead people into Sin and Rebellion against the King to raise Factions and Divisions in the Church and finally to utter those things for their Prayers in the Congregation to which no Conscientious can say Amen And thereupon He gives Commandment to all Ministers in their Parish-Churches to keep and use the said Book of Common-Prayer in all the Acts and Offices of God's Publick Worship according to the Laws made in that behalf and that the said Directory should in no sort be admitted received or used the said pretended Ordinances or any thing contained in them to the contrary notwithstanding But His Majesty sped no better by His Proclamation than the two Doctors did before by their Learned Arguments For if He had found little or no obedience to his Proclamations when he was strong and in the head of a victorious and successful Army He was not to expect it in a low condition when his Affairs were ruinated and reduced to nothing 42. For so it was that the Scots having raised an Army of Eighteen thousand Foot and Three thousand Horse taking the Dragoons into the reckoning break into England in the depth of Winter Anno 1643 and marched almost as far as the Banks of the River Tine without opposition There they received a stop by the coming of the Marquess of Newcastle with his Northern Army and entertain'd the time with some petit skirmishes till the sad news of the surprise of Selby by Sir Thomas Fairfax compelled him to return towards York with all his Forces for the preserving of that place on which the safety of the North did depend especially The Scots march after him amain and besiege that City in which they were assisted by the Forces of the Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester who by the Houses were commanded to attend that Service The issue whereof was briefly this that having worsted the great Army of Prince Rupert at Marston-moor on the second of Iuly York yeelded on Composition upon that day fortnight the Marquess of Newcastle with many Gentlemen of great Note and Quality shipt themselves for France and the strong Town of Newcastle took in by the Scots on the 19th of October then next following More fortunate was His Majesty with His Southern Army though at the first he was necessitated to retire from Oxon at such time as the Forces under Essex and Waller did appear before it The news whereof being brought unto them it was agreed that Waller should pursue the King and that the Earl's Army should march Westward to reduce those Countreys And here the Mystery of Iniquity began to show its self in its proper colours For whereas they pretended to have raised their Army for no other end but only to remove the King from his Evil Councellors those Evil Councellors as they call them were left at Oxon and the King only hunted by his insolent Enemies But the King having totally broken Waller in the end of Iune marched after Essex into Devonshire and having shut him up in Cornwall where he had neither room for forrage nor hope of succours he forced him to flye ingloriously in a Skiff or Cockboat and leave his Army in a manner to the Conqueror's Mercy But his Horse having the good fortune to save themselves the King gave quarter to the Foot reserving to Himself their Cannons Arms and Ammunition as a sign of His Victory And here again the Warr might possibly have been ended if the King had followed his good fortune and march'd to London before the Earl of Essex had united his scattered Forces and Manchester was returned from the Northern Service But setting down before Plymouth now as he did before Glocester the last year he lost the opportunity of effecting his purpose and was fought withall at Newberry in his coming back where neither side could boast of obtaining the Victory 43. But howsoever having gained some reputation by his Western Action the Houses seem inclinable to accept His offer of entring into Treaty with Him for an Accommodation This He had offered by His Message from Evesham on the 4th of Iuly immediately after the defeat of Waller and pressed it by another from Tavestock on the 8th of September as soon as he had broken the great Army of the Earl of Essex To these they hearkned not at first But being sensible of the out-cries of the common people they condescend at last appointing Vxbridg for the place and the thirtieth day of Ianuary for the
and gave such satisfactory Answers unto all his Cavils that he remained Master of the Field as may sufficiently appear by the Printed Papers And it was credibly reported that Henderson was so confounded with grief and shame that he fell into a desparate sickness which in fine brought him to his Grave professing as some say that he dyed a Convert and frequently extolling those great Abilities which when it was too late he had found in his Majesty Of the particular passages of this Disputation the English Commissioners had received a full Information and therefore purposely declined all discourse with his Majesty by which the merit of their Propositions might be called in question All that they did was to insist upon the craving of a positive Answer that so they might return unto those that sent them and such an Answer they shall have as will little please them 56. For though his Fortunes were brought so low that it was not thought safe for him to deny them any thing yet he demurred upon the granting of such points as neither in Honour nor in Conscience could be yeelded to them Amongst which those Demands which concerned Religion and the abolishing of the ancient Government of the Church by Arch-bishops and Bishops may very justly be supposed to be none of the least But this delay being taken by the Houses for a plain denial and wanting money to corrupt the unfaithful Scots who could not otherwise be tempted to betray their Soveraign they past an Ordinance for abolishing the Episcopal Government and setling their Lands upon Trustees for the use of the State Which Ordinance being past on the ninth of October was to this effect that is to say That for the better raising of moneys for the just and necessary Debts of the Kingdom in which the same hath been drawn by a Warr mainly promoted in favour of Arch-bishops and Bishops and other their Adherents and Dependents it was ordained by the Authority of the Lords and Commons That the Name Title Stile and Dignity of Arch-bishop of Canterbury Arch-bishop of York Bishop of Winchester and Bishop of Durham and all other Bishops or Bishopricks within the Kingdom should from and after the fifth of September 1646 then last past be wholly abolished or taken away and that all persons should from thenceforth be disabled to hold that Place Function or Stile within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales or the Town of Berwick or exercise any Iurisdiction or Authority â—hereunto formerly belonging by vertue of any Letters Patents from the Crown or any other Authority whatsoever any Law or Statute to the contrary notwithstanding As for their Lands they were not to be vested now in the Kings possession as had been formerly intended but to be put into the power of some Trustees which are therein named to be disposed of to such uses intents and purposes as the two Houses should appoint 57. Amongst which uses none appeared so visible even to vulgar eyes as the raising of huge Sums of Money to content the Scots who from a Remedy were looked on as the Sickness of the Common-wealth The Scots Demands amounted to Five hundred thousand pounds of English money which they offered to make good on a just account but were content for quietness sake to take Two hundred thousand pounds in full satisfaction And yet they could not have that neither unless they would betray the King to the power of his Enemies At first they stood on terms of Honour and the Lord Chancellor Lowdon ranted to some tune as may be seen in divers of his Printed Speeches concerning the indelible Character of Disgrace and Infamy which must be for ever imprinted on them if they yeelded to it But in the end the Presbyterians on both sides did so play their parts that the sinful Contract was concluded by which the King was to be put into the hands of such Commissioners as the two Houses should appoint to receive his Person The Scots to have One hundred thousand pounds in ready money and the Publick Faith which the Houses very prodigally pawned upon all occasions to secure the other According unto which Agreement his Majesty is sold by his own Subjects and betrayed by his Servants by so much wiser as they thought than the Traytor Iudas by how much they had made a better Market and raised the price of the Commodity which they were to sell. And being thus sold he is delivered for the use of those that bought him into the custody of the Earl of Pembroke who must be one in all their Errands the Earl of Denbigh and the Lord Mountague of Boughton with twice as many Members of the Lower House with whom he takes his Journey towards Holdenby before remembred on the third of February And there so closely watcht and guarded that none of his own Servants are permitted to repair unto him Marshal and Caril two great sticklers in behalf of Presbytery but such as after warped to the Independents are by the Houses nominated to attend as Chaplains But he refused to hear them in their Prayers or Preachings unless they would officiate by the publick Liturgy and bind themselves unto the Rules of the Church of England Which not being able to obtain he moves the Houses by his Message of the 17th of that Month to have two Chaplains of his own Which most unchristianly and most barbarously they denyed to grant him 58. Having reduced him to this streight they press him once again with their Propositions which being the very same which was sent to Newcastle could not in probability receive any other Answer This made them keep a harder hand upon him than they did before presuming that they might be able to extort those Concessions from him by the severity and solitude of his restraint when their Perswasions were too weak and their Arguments not strong enough to induce him to it But Great God! How fallacious are the thoughts of men How wretchedly do we betray our selves to those sinful hopes which never shall be answerable to our expectation The Presbyterians had battered down Episcopacy by the force of an Ordinance outed the greatest part of the Regular Clergy of their Cures and Benefices advanced their new Form of Government by the Votes of the Houses and got the King into their power to make sure work of it But when they thought themselves secure they were most unsafe For being in the height of all their Glories and Projectments one Ioice a Cornet of the Army comes thither with a Party of Horse removes his Guards and takes him with them to their Head-Quarters which were then at Woburn a Town upon the North-west Road in the County of Bedford Followed not long after by such Lords and others as were commanded by the Houses to attend upon him Who not being very acceptable to the principal Officers were within very few weeks discharged of that Service By means whereof the Presbyterians lost all those great advantages