framed to the Visitation viz. Whither in all Churches and Chappels all Images Shrines Tables Candlesticks Trindals and Rolls of Wax Pictures Paintings and other Monuments of feigned and false Miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition were removed abolished and destroyed Numb 2. But these objections carried their own answers in them it being manifest by the words both of the Articles and Injunctions that it never was the meaning of the Queen her Councel or Commissioners to condemn abolish or deface all Images either of Christ himself or of any of the Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and other godly Fathers in the Church of Christ the abuse whereof is ordered to be reformed by the first Injunction but only to remove such Pictures of false and feigned Miracles as had no truth of being or existence in Nature and therefore were the more abused to Superstition and Idolatry in the times of Popery In answer to such passages as are alledged out the said Homilies it is replyed first that is confessed in the beginning of the last of the said three Homilies that Images in Churches are not simply forbidden by the New Testament Hom. Fol. 39. And therefore no offence committed against the Gospel if they be used only for History Example and stirring up of pure Devotion in the souls of men in which respect called not unfitly by Pope Gregory The Lay-mans Books Secondly The Compilers of those Homilies were the more earnest in point of removing or excluding Images the better to wean the People from the sin of Idolatry in which they had been trained up from their very infancy and were not otherwise to be weaned from it then by taking away the occasions of it And thirdly All that vehemence is used against them not as intollerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsettled times an occasion of falling before men could be fully instructed in the right use of them as appears plainly by these passages viz. Our Images also have been and be and if they be publickly suffered in Churches and Chappels ever will be also worshipped and so Idolatry committed to them p. 13. So hard it is and indeed impossible any long time to have Images publickly in Churches and Temples without Idolatry fol. 33. And finally by the passage which before we touched at where after much vehemency not only against Idolatry and Worshipping of Images but also against Idols and Images themselves the heats thereof are qualified by this expression viz I mean alwayes thus herein in that we be stirred and provoked by them to worship them and not as though they were simply forbidden by the New Testament without such occasion and danger ibid. fol. 39. And thereupon it is first alledged by those of contrary judgment that all such as lived in times of Popery being long since dead and the people of this last age sufficiently instructed in the unlawfulness of worshipping such painted Images they may be lawfully used in Churches without fear of Idolatry which seems to have been the main inducement for their first defacing Secondly Many of the Eastern Churches which notwithstanding do abominate the Superstitions of the Church of Rome retained the use of painted Images though they reject those which were cut and carved Thirdly That Images are still used in the Lutheran Churches upon which our first Reformers had a special eye and that Luther much reproved Carolostadius for taking them out of such Churches where before they had been suffered to stand letting him know Ex mentibus hominum potius removendas that the worship of Images was rather to be taken out of mens mindes by diligent and painful preaching then the Images themselves to be so rashly and unadvisedly cast out of the Churches That painted Images were not only retained in the Chappels of the Queen and of many great men of the Realm in most of the Cathedral Churches and in some private Churches and Chappels also without any defacing witness the curious painted Glass in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury the Parish Church of Faireford in the County of Glocester and the Chappel of the Holy Ghost near Basingstoke but a rich and massy Crucifix was kept for many years together on the Table or Altar of the Chappel Royal in Whitehal as appears by Saunders and Du Chesne till it was broke in pieces by Pach the Queens Fool when no wiser man could be got to do it upon the secret instigation of Sir Francis Knollis and finally it appears by the Queens Injunctions that the Priests being commanded not to extol the dignity of any Images Relicks c. and the people diligently to teach that all Goodness Health and Grace ought to be asked and looked for only at the hands of God whereby all Superstition might be taken out of their hearts the Images might lawfully remain as well in publick Churches as in private Houses as they had done formerly 16. As for the times of publick Worship we must behold them in their Institution and their Observation And first as for their Institution it is agreed on of all hands that the Annual Feasts Saints Dayes or Holy Dayes as now commonly called do stand on no other ground then the Authority of the Church which at first ordained them some in one age and some in another till they grow unto so great a number that it was thought fit by King Henry viii and afterwards by King Edward vi to abolish such of them as might best be spared Nor stands the Sunday or Lords Day according to the Doctrine of the Church of England on any other ground then the rest of the Holy dayes for in the Homily touching the time and place of Prayer it is thus doctrinally resolved viz. As concerning the time in which God hath appointed his people to assemble together solemnly it doth appear by the fourth Commandment c. Which Example and Commandment of God the godly Christian people began to follow after the Ascension of our Lord Christ and began to chuse them a standing day in the week to come together in yet not the seventh day which the Jews kept but the Lords day the day of the Lords Resurrection the day after the seventh day which is the first day of the week c. This makes the matter clear enough and yet the Statute 5 and 6 of Edw. vi in which all the Prelates did concur with the other Estates makes it clearer then the Homily doth Forasmuch saith the Statute as men be not at all times so mindeful to laud and praise God so ready to resort to hear Gods holy Word and come to the holy Communion c. as their bounden duty doth require therefore to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmities it hath been wholesomely provided that there should be some certain dayes and times appointed wherein Christians should cease from all kindes of labour and apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly
pertaining to true Religion c. Neither is it to be thought that there is any certain times or definite number of dayes prescribed in Holy Scripture but the appointment both of the time and also of the number of dayes is left by the Authority of Gods Word unto the Liberty of Christs Church to be determined and assigned orderly in every Countrey by the discretion of the Rulers and Ministers thereof as they shall judge most expedient to the setting forth of Gods Glory and the edification of their people Now for the number and particularities of those dayes which were required to be kept holy to the Lord they are thus specified and enumerated in the Common-Prayer-Book confirmed by Parliament in that year These to be kept Holy Dayes and no other that is to say all Sundayes in the Year the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord and Saviour the Feast of the Epiphany c. Which specification and enumeration is made also in the aforesaid Statute 17. As for the observation of those dayes there was no difference made between them by the first Reformers the same Divine Offices prescribed for both the diligent attendance of the people required in both the penalties upon such as wilfully and frequently did absent themselves were the same for both and finally the works of necessary labour no more restrained upon the one then upon the other For first it is declared in the foresaid Homily that Christian People are not tyed so streightly to observe and keep the other Ceremonies of the Sabbath day as were the Iews as touching the forbearing of the work and labour in time of great necessity c. Secondly and more particularly in the Statute before-mentioned we finde it thus viz. That it shall be lawful for every Husband-man Fisher-man and to all and every other person or persons of what Estate Degree or Condition he or they be upon the Holy Dayes aforesaid of which the Lords Day is there reckoned for one in Harvest or at any other times in the Year when necessity shall so require to Labour Ride Fish or Work any kinde of Work at their own will and pleasure Thirdly It is ordered in the Injunctions of the said King Edw. vi that it shall be lawful for the people in time of Harvest to labour upon Holy and Festival Dayes and save that thing which God hath sent and that scrupulosity to abstain from working on those dayes doth grievously offend God Fourthly We finde the like in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth published with the advice of her Council Anno 1559. Being the first year of her Reign viz. That all persons Vicars Curates shall teach and declare unto their Parishioners that they may with a safe and quiet conscience after Common-Prayer in the time of Harvest labour upon the Holy and Festival Dayes and save that thing which God hath sent And if for any scrupulosity or grudge of Conscience men shall superstitiously abstain from working on those dayes that then they should grievously offend and displease God And as for the practice of the Court it was ordered by the said King Edward That the Lords of the Council should upon Sunday attend the publick affairs of the Realm and dispatch answers to Letters for the good order of the State and make full dispatches of all things concluded in the Week before Provided that they be present at Common-Prayers and that on every Sunday night the Kings Secretary should deliver him a memorial of such things as were to be debated in the Privy Council the week ensuing Which course of meeting in the Council on Sunday in the afternoon hath been continued in the Court from the time of the said King Edward the vi to the death of King Charles without dislike or interruption If then the Country people in some times and cases were permitted to employ themselves in bodily labour on the Sundayes and other Holy Dayes and if the Lords of the Council did meet together on those dayes to consult about affairs of State as we see they did there is no question to be made but that all man-like exercises all lawful Recreations and honest Pastimes were allowed of also 18. As for the duties of the people in those times and places it was expected at their hands that due and lowly reverence should be made at their first entrance into the Church the place on which they stood being by Consecration made Holy Ground and the business which they came about being holy business For this there was no Rule nor Rubrick made by the first Reformers and it was not necessary that there should the practice of Gods people in that kinde being so universal Vi Catholicae consuetudinis by vertue of a general and continual usage that there was no need of any Canon to enjoyn them to it Nothing more frequent in the Writings of the ancient Fathers then Adoration toward the East which drew the Primitive Christians into some suspicion of being Worshippers of the Sun Inde suspicio quod innotuerit nos versus orientis regionem praecari as Tertullian hath it And though this pious custom began to be disused and was almost discontinued yet there remains some footsteps of it to this very day For first It was observed by the Knights of the most noble Order of the Garter who I am sure hate nothing more then Superstitious Vanities at their approaches toward the Altar in all the Solemnities of that Order Secondly In the Offerings or Oblations made by the Vice-Chancellor the Proctors and all Proceeders in the Arts and Faculties at the Act at Oxon. And thirdly By most Countrey Women who in the time of my first remembrance and a long time after made their obeysance toward the East before they betook themselves to their Seats though it was then taken or mistaken rather for a Courtesie made unto the Minister revived more generally in these latter times especially amongst the Clergy by the Learned and Reverend Bishop Andrews a man as much verst in Primitive Antiquity and as abhorrent from any thing which was meerly Popish as the greatest Precisian in the Pack Which point I finde exceedingly well applyed and prest in the Speech made by this Arch-Bishop at the Censure of Dr. Bastwick Mr. Burton on Iune 26. 1637. Who speaking to such of the Lords as were Knights of the Garter he accosts them thus And you saith he my Honourable Lords of the Garter in your great solemnities you do reverence and to Almighty God I doubt not but yet it is versus Altare toward the Altar c. And this your reverence you do when you enter the Chappel and when you approach nearer to offer c. And Idolatry it is not to worship God toward his Holy Table for if it had been Idolatry I presume Queen Elizabeth and King Iames would not have practised it no not in this great Solemnity And being not Idolatry but true Divine Worship you will I hope give a poor Priest
which being the very words of the Apostle Eph. 1.4 are generally interpreted by the ancient Fathers of those who do believe in Christ For thus St. Ambrose amongst others Sicut elegit nos in ipso as he hath chosen us in him Prescius enim Deus omnes scit qui credituri essent in Christum For God saith he by his general Presence did fore-know every man that would believe in Christ The like saith Chrysostom on the Text. And that our first Reformers did conceive so it appears by that of Bishop Latimer in his Sermon on the third Sunday after the Epiphany When saith he we hear that some be chosen and some be damned let us have good hope that we be among the chosen and live after this hope that is uprightly and godly then shall we not be deceived Think that God hath chosen those that believe in Christ and Christ is the Book of Life If thou believest in him then art thou written in the Book of Life and shall be saved Secondly The Doctrine of Predestination as before laid down may be further proved out of the last clause of the said 17. Article where it is said That we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and that in all our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared to us in the word of God Then which nothing can be more repugnant to the Doctrine of Predestination delivered by the Contra-Remonstrants whither Supra-lapsarian or Sub-lapsarian is no great matter which restrains Predestination unto Life to a few particulars without respect had to their Faith in Christ or to Christs Sufferings and Death for them which few particulars so predestinated to life eternal shall as they teach us by an irresistable Grace be brought to God and by the infallible conduct of the Holy Spirit be preserved from falling away from grace and favour 33. Such is the Churches Doctrine in the point of Election or Predestination unto life but in the point of Reprobation or Predestination unto death she is utterly silent leaving it to be gathered upon Logical Inferences from that which is delivered by her in the point of Election for Contrariorum contraria est ratio as Logicians say though that which is so gathered ought rather to be called a Dereliction then a Reprobation No such absolute irreversible and irrespective decree of Reprobation taught or maintained in any publick Monument or Record of the Church of England by which the far greatest part of mankinde are prae-ordained and consequently prae-condemned to the pit of Torments without respect had unto their sins as the Supra-lapsarians or to their credulities as generally is maintained by the Sublapsarians in the Schools of Calvin Much I am sure there is against it in the Writings of Bishop Hooper and Bishop Latimer who took great pains in the first carrying on of the Reformation and therefore we may judge by them of the Churches meaning in that particular For in the Preface to a Book written by Iohn Hooper afterwards Bishop of Glocester containing an Exposition of the Ten Commandments and published Anno 1550. we shall finde it thus viz. That Cain was no more excluded from the promise of Christ till he excluded himself then Abel Saul then David Iudas then Peter Esau then Iacob that God is said to have hated Esau not because he was dis-inherited of eternal Life but in laying his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness Mal. 1.3 That the threatnings of God against Esau if he had not of his wilful malice excluded himself from the promise of Grace should no more have hindered his Salvation then Gods threatnings against Ninive c That it is not a Christian mans part to say That God hath written fatal Laws as the stoick and with necessity of destiny violently pulleth the one by the hair into Heaven and thrusteth the other head-long into Hell that the cause of Rejection or Damnation is sin in man which will not hear neither receive the promise of the Gospel c. And in a Sermon on the third Sunday after Epiphany we finde Bishop Latimer speaking thus viz. That if the most are damned the fault is not in God but in themselves for Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri God would that all men should be saved but they themselves procure their own damnation and despise the Passion of Christ by their wicked and inordinate living Thus also in his fourth Sermon Preached in Lincolnshire That Christ only and no man else merited Remission Iustification and eternal felicity for as many as will believe the same that Christ shed as much Blood for Iudas as for Peter that Peter believed it and therefore was saved that Iudas would not believe therefore was condemned the fault being in him only and no body else More of which passages might be gathered from the Writings of those godly Martyrs were not these sufficient And though the Calvinian fancies in the points of Election and Reprobation got so much ground on this Church that they began to be obtruded on the people for the Doctrines of it yet were they vigorously opposed by some of our Confessors in Prison in Queen Maries dayes by Dr. Harsnet and Mr Banret in the Pulpit and Peter Baro and Dr. Overald in the Divinity Schools of Cambridge in Queen Elizabeths time by Dr. Bancroft then Lord Bishop of London in the Conference at Hampton-Court Anno 1603. being the first year of King Iames and finally by King Iames himself refusing as he did to admit the nine Articles of Lambeth containing all the points and particularities of the Calvinian Doctrines of Predestination and Reprobation among the Articles of Religion here by Law establisht when Dr. Reynolds in that Conference did desire it of him But nothing better proves the Churches Doctrine in these points than the Church it self by holding sorth the universal Redemption of all mankinde by the Death of Christ the free co-operation of the will of man with the Grace of God in the chief acts of his Conversion the possibility of falling into grievous sins Gods displeasure and consequently from the grace received all which are utterly destructive of Calvins Doctrine in this point and that not of the whole Machina only but of every part and parcel of that ruinous building as will appear by the particulars hereafter following 34. And first the Universal Redemption of all mankinde by the death of Christ hath been so clearly and explicitely delivered by the Church of England that nothing can be more plain For in the second Article it is said expresly That Christ suffered was Crucified Dead and Buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a Sacrifice not only for Original Guilt but also for the actual sins of men Agreeable whereunto it is declared Art 31. That the offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption Propitiation
goes a little further and tells us of him That the World wanted Learning to know how Learned he was so skilled in all especially Oriental Languages that some conceive he might if then living almost have served as an Interpreter-General at the Confusion of Tongues In his life time he only published two Books in Latin viz. His Apologie against Cardinal Bellarmine and that which he called Tortura Torti in behalf of King Iames and a small Tract entituled Determinatio Theologica de jure-jurando exigendo quarto Printed at London 1593. And in English nothing but a small Volume of Sermons which he acknowledged for his own The Book of Catechetical Doctrine published in his life by others but without his privity and consent he always professedly disavowed as containing only some imperfect Collections which had been taken from his mouth by some ignorant hand when he was Reader of the Catechism Lecture in Pembroke Hall But after his decease ninety six of his Sermons were collected with great care and industry published in Print and Dedicated to his Sacred Majesty by Laud then Bishop of London and Buckeridge at that time Bishop of Ely 1628. For Felton of Ely dying the year before Buckeridge had been translated thither by the Power and Favour of that his dear Friend and quondam Pupil Curle Dean of Litchfield and one of the Residentiaries of Salisbury succeeding after his Translation in the See of Rochester By the same hands some other Pieces of his both in English and Latin were very carefully drawn together and published with the like Dedication to his Sacred Majesty Anno 1629. He that desires to hear more of him let him first consult the Funeral Sermon before mentioned extant at the end of the great Volume of his Sermons and afterwards peruse his Epitaph in the Church of St. Maries Over-rhe transcribed in Stows Survey of London of the last Edition After his death the See of Winton was kept vacant till the latter end of the year next following the profits of it being in the mean time taken up for his Majesties use and answered into the Exchequer according to an ancient Custom but more old than commendable used frequently by the Kings of England since the time of William sirnamed Rufus from whom it is said to have took beginning But the Deanry of the Chappel had not been void above nine days when Laud was nominated to it and was actually admitted into that Office on the sixth day of October following by Philip Earl of Montgomery Lord Chamberlain of his Majesties Houshold before whom he took the usual and appointed Oath He had before observed a Custom as ill though not so old as the other used in the Court since the first entrance of King Iames. The Custom was That at what part soever of the Publick Prayers the King came into his Closet which looked into the Chappel to hear the Sermon the Divine Service was cut off and the Anthem sung that the Preacher might go into the Pulpit This the new Dean disliked as he had good reason and thereupon humbly moved his Majesty that he would be present at the Liturgie as well as the Sermon every Lords day and that at whatsoever part of Prayers he came the Priest who Ministred should proceed to the end of the Service To which his Majesty most readily and religiously condescended and gave him thanks for that his seasonable and pious Motion As for the Deanry of the Chappel it was of long standing in the Court but had been discontinued from the death of Dr. George Carew Dean of Windsor the Father of George Lord Carew of Clopton and Earl of Totness Anno 1572. till King Iames his coming to this Crown at what time Bancroft then Bishop of London conceiving into what dangers the Church was like to run by the multitude of Scots about him thought it expedient that some Clergy-men of Note and Eminence should be attendant always in and about the Court And thereupon it was advised that to the Bishop Almoner and the Clerk of the Closet a Dean of the Chappel should be added to look unto the diligent and due performance of Gods Publick Service and order matters of the Quire According to which resolution Dr. Iames Mountague was recommended to the King for the first Dean of the Chappel in his time succeeded in that place by Andrews and he now by Laud. But to proceed Whilest matters went on thus smoothly about the Court they met with many Rubbs in the Country some of the Preachers did their parts according as they were required by the said Instructions amongst whom Sibthorp Vicar of Brackly in Northampton-shire advanced the Service in a Sermon preached by him at the Assizes for that County The scope of which Sermon was to justifie the Lawfulness of the general Loane and of the Kings imposing Taxes by his own Regal Power without consent in Parliament and to prove that the people in point of Conscience and Religion ought chearfully to submit to such Loans and Taxes without any opposition The Licencing of which Sermon when it was offered to the Press being refused by Archbishop Abbot and some exceptions made against it the perusing of it was referred to Laud April 24. 1627 by whom after some qualifications and corrections it was approved and after published by the Author under the name of Apostolical Obedience About the same time Manwaring Doctor in Divinity one of his Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary and Vicar of the Parish Church of St. Giles in the Fields published two Sermons of his preaching on the same occasion the one before the King the other in the hearing of his own Parishioners These Sermons he entituled by the name of Religion and Allegiance both of them tending to the justification of the lawfulness of the Kings imposing Loans and Taxes on his people without consent in Parliament and that the imposition of such Loans and Taxes did so far bind the Consciences of the Subjects of this Kingdom that they could not refuse the payment of them without peril of eternal damnation But neither the Doctrine of these Preachers or of any other to that purpose nor the distress of the King of Denmark nor the miserable estate of Rochel did so far prevail amongst the people but that the Commissioners for the Loane found greater opposition in it than they did expect Many who had been Members in the two former Parliaments opposed it with their utmost power and drew a great part of the Subjects in all Countries some to the like refusal For which refusal some Lords and many of the choice Gentry of the Kingdom and others of inferiour sort were committed unto several Prisons where they remained till the approach of the following Parliament Insomuch that the Court was put upon the necessity of some further Project The Papists would have raised a Provision for the setting forth both of Ships and Men for the defence of the Narrow Seas and working
and not Absolved before he make a publick Revocation of his Error Such was the Canon passed in this Convocation for the approbation and reception of the Articles of the Church of England Which Canon was no sooner passed confirmed and published but the Primate and his Party saw the danger which they had cast themselves into by their inadvertency and found too late That by receiving and approving the English Articles they had abrogated and repealed the Irish. To salve this sore it concerned them to bestir themselves with their utmost diligence and so accordingly they did For first the Primate and some Bishops of his opinions required subscription to the Articles of both Churches of all such as came to be ordained at the next Ordination But it went no further than the next for if the Papists made it a matter of Derision to have three Confessions in the three Churches of his Majesties Kingdoms How much more matter must it give them of scorn and laughter that there should be two different Confessions in the same Church and both subscribed unto but as one and the same The Primate next applies himself to the Lord Deputy beseeching him that the former Articles might receive a new Ratification by Act of Parliament for preventing all innovations in the Religion there established But he found but little comfort there the Lord Deputy threatning to cause the said Confession to be burnt by the hand of the hangman if at the least the Scots Commissioners may be believed amongst whose Articles against him I find this for one Finding no better hopes on that side of the Sea he dispatcheth his Letters of Advice to his Friends in England one to an Honourable Person amongst the rest assuring them that though by a Canon passed in that Convocation they had received and approved the Articles of England yet that the Articlers of Ireland were ever called in might well be reckoned for a fancy The like affirmed in a Certificate made by Bernard and Pullen two Members of the Lower House in this Convocation where it is said That whosoever do aver that the said Articles were abolished are grosly mistaken and have abused the said Convocation in delivering so manifest an untruth And to back this another Certificate must be gained from one who comes commended to us under the Title of a most eminent judicious and learned person who having considered of the matter Conceives that both Confessions were consistent and that the Act of the Synod was not a Revocation of the Irish Articles but an approbation of the English as agreeing with them But all this would not serve the turn or save those Articles from being brought under a Repeal by the present Canon For first it appeareth by the Canon That they did not only approve but receive the Articles of the Church of England Their approbation of them had they gone no further had been a sufficient manifestation of their agreement with the Church of England in the Confession of the same Protestant Religion But their receiving of the same doth intimate a superinducing of them upon the other and is equivalent both in Fact and Law to the Repealing of the old For otherwise St. Paul must needs be out in the Rules of Logick when he proved the Abrogating of the old Covenant by the superinduction of a new For having affirmed that God by speaking of a New Covenant had antiquated and made void the first or made the first old as our English read it he adds immediatly That that which is old decayeth and is ready to vanish away that is to say as Diodati descants on it The old being disanulled by the new there must necessarily follow the abolishment of its use and practice Nor find they any other abrogation of the Iewish Sabbath then by the superinducing of the Lords day for the day of worship By means whereof the Sabbath was lessened in authority and reputation by little and little and in short time was absolutely laid aside in the Church of Christ the fourth Commandement by which it was at first ordained being still in force So then according to these grounds the Articles of Ireland were virtually though not formally abrogated or else it must be granted that there were two Confessions in the same one Church different both in form and matter and contrary in some points unto one another which would have been so far from creating an uniformity between the Churches in the concernments of Religion that it would have raised a greater disagreement within Ireland it self than was before between the Churches of both Kingdoms And certainly the gaining of this point did much advantage the Archbishop conducing visibly to the promotion of his ends and Counsels in making the Irish Clergy subject to the two Declarations and accountable for their breaking and neglect thereof that is to say his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports and that prefixt before the book of Articles for appeasing Controversies Take for a farewell this acknowledgment of a late Historian speaking as well the sense of others as his own A Convocation concurrent with a Parliament was called saith he and kept at Dublin in Ireland wherein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England were received in Ireland for all to subscribe unto It was adjudged fit seeing that Kingdom complies with England in the Civil Government it should also conform thereunto in matters of Religion And thereupon he thus concludes That in the mean time the Irish Articles concluded formerly in a Synod 1616. mistaken for 1615. wherein Arminianism was condemned in terminis terminantibus and the observation of the Lords day resolved Iure divino were utterly excluded But leaving Ireland to the care of the Lord Deputy and the Bishop of Derry who under him had the chief managing of the affairs of that Church let us see how the new Archbishop proceeds in England where he had so many plows going at once too many as it after proved to work well together For not thinking he had done enough in order to the peace and uniformity of the Church of England by taking care for it here at home his thoughts transported him with the like affection to preserve it from neglect abroad To which end he had offered some considerations to the Lords of the Council as before was said Anno 1622. relating to the regulation of Gods publick Worship amongst the English Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas and the reducing of the French and Dutch Churches settled in divers parts of this Realm unto some conformity In reference to the first he had not sate long in the Chaire of Canterbury when he procured an Order from the Lords of the Council bearing date Octob. 1. 1633. By which their English Churches and Regiments in Holland and afterwards by degrees in all other Foreign parts and plantations were required strictly to observe the English Liturgie with all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in it
Canonry in Christ-Church to be annexed for ever to the Orators place whose yearly Pension till that time was but twenty Nobles Injoyed first by Dr. William Strode admitted thereunto on the first of Iuly Anno 1638. and after his decease by Dr. Henry Hammond Anno 1644. Such were the benefits which the University received from him in this present year And that he might both do himself and the University some honour in the eye of the Kingdom he invites the King the Queen the Prince Elector and his Brother to an Academical entertainment on the twenty ninth day of August then next following being the Anniversary day on which the Presidentship of St. Iohns Colledge was adjudged to him by King Iames. The time being come and the University put into a posture for that Royal visit their Majesties were first received with an eloquent Speech as he passed by the house being directly in his way betwixt Woodstock and Christ-Church not without great honour to the Colledge that the Lord Archbishop the Lord Treasurer the Chancellor the Vice-Chancellor and one of the Proctors should be at that time of the same foundation At Christ-Church his Majesty was entertained with another Oration by Strode the University Oratour the University presenting his Majesty with a fair and costly pair of Gloves as their custome was the Queen with a fair English Bible the Prince Elector with Hookers Books of Ecclesiastical Politie his Brother Rupert with Caesars Commentaries in English illustrated by the learned Explanations and Discourses of Sir Clement Edmonds His Majesty was lodged in Christ-Church in the great Hall whereof one of the goodliest in the World he was entertained together with the Queen the two Princes and the rest of the Court with an English Comedy but such as had more of the Philosopher than the Poet in it called Passions Calmed or the settling of the Floating Islands On the morrow morning being Tuesday he began with a Sermon preacht before him in that Cathedral on these words of St. Luke viz. Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord peace in heaven and glory in the highest Luk. 19.38 The Sermon being ended the Archbishop as Chancellor of the University calls a Convocation in which he admits the Prince Elector his Brother Prince Rupert and many of the chief Nobility to the degree of Masters of Art and that being done attends the King and Queen to St. Iohns Colledge Where in the new Gallery of his own building he entertains the King and Queen the two Princes with all the Lords and Ladies of the Court at a stately and magnificent Dinner the King and Queen sitting at one Table at the South end of the Room the two Princes with the Lords and Ladies at a long Table reaching almost from one end to the other at which all the Gallantry and beauties of the Kingdom seemed to meet Nor did he make Provision only for those two Tables but every Office in the Court had their several diets disposed of in convenient places for their reception with great variety of Achates not only sufficient for contentment but for admiration After dinner he entertains his principal Guests with a pleasant Comedy presented in the publick Hall and that being done attends them back again to Christ-Church where they were feasted after Supper with another Comedy called The Royal Slave the Enterludes represented with as much variety of Scenes and motions as the great wit of Inigo Iones Surveyor General of his Majesties Works and excellently well skilled in setting out a Court Masque to the best advantage could extend unto It was the day of St. Felix as himself observeth and all things went happily On Wednesday the next morning the Court removed his Majesty going that same night to Winchester and the Archbishop the same day entertaining all the Heads of Houses at a solemn Feast order being given at his departure that the three Comedies should be acted again for the content and satisfaction of the University in the same manner as before but only with the Alteration of the Prologues and Epilogues But to return unto the publick On the same day in which the new Statutes were received at Oxon. he procured a Supplement to be added to the old Statutes of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches touching the letting of their Lands Some Informations had been given that the Deans and Prebends of those Churches had enricht themselves their Wives and Children by taking great Fines for turning leases of twenty one years into leases for lives leaving their Successors destitute of that growing means which otherwise might come in to help them This was the outside of the business but the chief motive to it was that the Gentry and Yeomanry and some of the Nobility also holding Lands of those Churches might have a greater respect to the Church and Church-men when they must depend upon them from time to time for renewing of their said Estates at the end of every ten or twelve years at the most For though it be a like lawful by the Law of the Land 13 Eliz. c. 20. to make Leases of three lives or one and twenty years at the pleasure of the Dean and Chapter yet the difference is so great between them that once a Tenant to my knowledge after a Lease for three lives had continued 29 years in being chose rather to give a Fine for the change of one life than to take a new Lease of 21 years without paying any thing All which his Majesty taking into his Princely consideration he caused Letters under his Royal Signature to be sent to all the Deans and Chapters of this Kingdom respectively Calling and commanding them upon pain of his utmost displeasure that they presumed not to let any Lease belonging to their Church into lives which was not in lives already and further that when any fair opportunity was offered if any such be they fail not to reduce such as are in lives into years requiring further that those his Majesties said Letters should be exemplified in the Register-books of the said Churches and preâ—erved in the Registries of the Bishops of their several Diocess to the end that the said Bishop might take notice of their doing therein and give his Majesty and his Successors notice thereof if any presumed to disobey And in regard that some of the Deans of the said Cathedrals were a Corporation of themselves and held their Lands distinct from the rest of their Chapters a clause was added to those Letters to preserve those Lands for the benefit of their Successors as formerly in his Majesties Instructions for ordering and disposing the Lands of Bishops on the like occasions His Majesty therefore first declares That he had taken order by his late Instructions that no Bishop should let any Lease after they had been named to a better Bishoprick but had not therein named the Deans as he therein intended And therefore secondly that no Dean should presume from thenceforth
those who adhered unto him to fly the Country but intercepted his Revenues seazed on all his Forts and Castles and put themselves into a Posture of open War And that they might be able to manage it with the greater credit they called home some of their Commanders out of Germany and some which served under the Pay of the States General so far prevailing with those States as to continue such Commanders in their Pay and Places as long as they remained in the Service of the Scottish Covenanters A favour which his Majesty could not get at their hands nor had he so much reason to expect it as the others had iâ— considered rightly It had been once their own case and they conceived they had good reason to maintain it in others It may deservedly be a matter of no small amazement that this poor and unprovided Nation should dare to put such baffles and affronts upon their Lawful King the King being backt by the united Forces of England and Ireland obeyed at home and rendred formidable unto all his Neighbours by a puissant Navy they must have some assurances more than ordinary which might enflame them to this height and what they were it may not be amiss to enquire into First then they had the King for their natural Country-man born in that Air preserving a good affection for them to the very laâ—t and who by giving them the Title of his Ancient and Native Kingdom as he did most commonly gave them some reason to believe that he valued them above the English They had in the next place such a strong Party of Scots about him that he could neither stir or speak scarce so much as think but they were made acquainted with it In the Bed-Chamber they had an equal number of Gentlemen and seven Grooms for one in the Presence-Chamber more than an equal number amongst the Gentlemen Ushers Quarter-Waiters c. In the Privy-Chamber besides the Carvers and Cup-bearers such disproportion of the Gentlemen belonging to it that once at a full Table of Waiters each of them having a Servant or two to attend upon him I and my man were the only English in all the Company By which the King was so obsâ—rved and betrayed withal that as far as they could find his meaning by Words by Signs and Circumstances or the silent language of a shrug it was posted presently into Scotland some of his Bed-Chamber being grown so bold and saucy that they used to Ransack his Pockets when he was in bed to transcribe such Letters as they found and send the Copies to their Countrymen in the way of intelligence A thing so well known about the Court that the Archbishop of Canterbury in one of his Letters gave him this memento that he should not trust his Pockets with it For Offices of trust and credit they wâ—re as well accomodated as with those of service Hamilton Master of the Horse who stocked the Stables with that People The Earl of Morton Captain of his Majesties Guard The Earl of Ancram Keeper of the Privy Purse The Duke of Lenox Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle Balfore Lieutenant of the Tower the Fortress of most power and command in England And Wemmys the Master Gunner of his Majesties Navy who had the issuing of the Stores and Ammunition designed unto it Look on them in the Church and we shall find so many of that Nation beneficed and preferred in all parts of this Country that their Ecclesiastical Revenues could not but amount to more then all the yearly Rents of the Kirk of Scotland and of all these scarce one in ten who did not cordially espouse and promote their Cause amongst the People They had beside no less assurance of the English Puritans than they had of their own those in Court of which there was no very small number being headed by the Earl of Holland those in the Country by his Brother the Earl of Warwick The fâ—rst being aptly called in a Letter of the Lord Conways to the Lord Archbishop The spiritual and invisible head the other The visible and temporal head of the Puritan Faction And which was more than all the rest they had the Marquiss of Hamilton for their Lord and Patron of so great power about the King such Authority in the Court of England such a powerful influence on the Council of Scotland and such a general Command over all that Nation that his pleasure amongst them past for Law and his words for Oracles all matters of Grace and Favour ascribed to him matters of harshness or distate to the King or Canterbury To speak the matter in a word he was grown King of Scots in Fact though not in Title His Majesty being looked on by them as a Cypher only in the Arithmetick of State But notwithstanding their confidence in all these Items taking in the Imprimis too they might have reckoned without their Host in the Summa Tetalis the English Nation being generally disaffected to them and passionately affecting the Kings quarrel against them The sense and apprehension of so many indignities prevailed upon the King at last to unsheath the Sword more justly in it self and more justifiably in the sight of others the Rebels having rejected all 〈◊〉 oâ—â—ers of Grace and Favour and growing the more insolent by his Condescensions So that resolved or rather forced upon the War he must bethink himself of means to go thorow with it To which end Burrows the Principal King of Arms is commanded to search into the Records of the Tower and to return an Extract of what he found relating to the War of Scotland which he presented to the Archbishop in the end of December to this effect viz. 1. That such Lords and others as had Lands and Livings upon the Borders were commanded to reside there with their Retinue and those that had Castles there were enjoined to Fortifie them 2. That the Lords of the Kingdom were Summoned by Writ to attend the Kings Army with Horse and Armour at a certain time and place according to their Service due to the King or repair to the Exchequer before that day and make Fine for their Service As also were all Widows Dowagers of such Lords as were deceased and so were all Bishops and Ecclesiastical Persons 3. That Proclamations were likewise made by Sheriffs in every County That all men holding of the King by Knights-Service or Sergeancy should come to the Kings Army or make Fines as aforesaid with a strict command That none should conceal their Service under a great Penalty 4. As also That all men having 40 l. Land per Annum should come to the Kings Army with Horse and Armour of which if any failed to come or to make Fine their Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels were distrained by the Sheriâ—f upon Summons out of the Exchequer 5. That Commissions should be issued out for Levying of Men in every County and bringing them to the Kings
of the Peace between the two Nations And thus they entertained the time till the beginning of the Parliament which removed the Treaty from Rippon to London where the Scots were sure of more Friends and of warmer Quarters than the Northern Counties could afford them In the mean time it may be asked what became all this while oâ— the Irish Army consisting of 8000 Foot and 1000 Horse which had been raised with so much zeal by the Earl of Strafford at the beginning of the Spring and by the power whereof kept ever since in constant pay and continual exercise his Majesty might have reduced the Scots to their due obedience as was declared by the Earl at the Council Table on May 6. being the next day after the dissolving of the former Parliament Which Army if it had been put over into Cumberland to which from the Port of Carickfergus in Ireland is but a short and easie passage they might have got upon the Back of the Scots and caught the wretched People in a pretty Pitfall so that having the English Army before them and the Irish behind them they could not but be ground to powder as between two Milstones But this design if it were ever thought of was never put in execution so as that Army was dissolved without doing any thing in order to his Majesties Service the Commons in the following Parliament not thinking themselves or their affairs in any security as long as those Forces were maintained and held together It may be askt in the next place why the Parliament called at such a time and on such an occasion that is to say the over-running of the Northern parts of the Kingdom by a Scottish Army should be held at Westminster when York where the King was then in Person lay nearer to the danger and the Scene of Action and to the place of Treaty betwixt the Nations These Reasons were sufficient to have moved the King to hold this Parliament at York and not at Westminster had he known nothing of the disaffections and engagements of the neighbouring City as he knew too much And he had some good Presidents too which might have added no small weight to the consideration For when King Edward was busie in the Conquest of Wales he called his Parliament to Acton Burnel being in the Marches of that Country and when he turned his Forces to the Conquest of Scotland he called his Parliament to Carlisle if my memory fall me not being on the borders of that Kingdom Had the King made choice of the like Place for this present Parliament which he did afterward endeavour to alter when it was too late he had undoubtedly prevented all those inconveniencies or rather mischiefs which the Pride Purse Faction and Tumultuousness of the Londoners did afterwards inforce upon him And finally It might be asked What might move his Majesty to transfer the Treaty from Rippon to London where the Commissioners of the Scots were Complemented Feasted and presented by the wanton Citizens Their Lodgings more frequented for Prayers and Sermons than the houses of Foreign Embassadors had ever been for hearing Mass by any of the English Papists By means whereof they had the greater opportunity to enflame that City and make it capable of any impression which they thought fit to imprint upon it exprest not long after by their going down in such huge multitudes after Alderman Pennington to present a Petition to the Parliament subscribed by some Thousands of hands against the Government of Bishops here by Law estalisâ—t as afterwards in no less number to clamour at the Parliament doors for Justice on the Earl of Strafford which were the points most aimed at by the Scottish Covenanters To which no Answer can be given but that all these things were so disposed of by the supreme and over-ruling power of the Heavenly Providence contrary to all reason of State and Civil Prudence But to proceed the third of November drawing on when the Parliament was to take beginning A Letter was writ to the Archbishop of Canterbury advertising that the Parliament of the twentieth year of King Henry viii which began in the Fall of Cardinal Wolsey continued in the Diminution of the Power and Priviledges of the Clergy and ended in the dissolution of the Abbeys and Religious Houses was begun on the third day of November and therefore that for good-luck sake he would move the King to Respite the first sitting of it for a day or two longer But the Archbishop not harkning to this Advertisement the Parliament had its first sitting at the time appointed Which Parliament as it began in the Fall and Ruine of the Archbishop himself and was continued in the total Dissipation of the remaining Rites and Priviledges of the English Clergy so did it not end till it had subverted the Episcopal Government dissolved as much as in them was all Capitular Bodies and left the Cathedrals of this Land not presently ruined I confess but without means to keep them up for the time to come The day appointed being come his Majesty declined the accustomed way of riding in a Magnificent Pomp from Whitehall to the Church of Westminster and making his entry there at the great Western Gate but rather chose to pass thither privately by water attended by such of the Lords as could accommodate themselves with convenient Barges Entring the Church at the Little door which openeth toward the East he was received by the Sub-Dean and Prebendaries under a Canopy of State and so conducted to the place where he heard the Sermon the performance of which work was commended by his Grace of Canterbury to the Bishop of Oxon. and by him learnedly discharged The Sermon being done his Majesty attended by the Peers and Prelates returned the same way to Westminster Hall and from thence went to the Parliament House where causing the Commons to be called before him he acquainted both Houses with the Insolencies committed by the Scots who not content to embroyle their own Country had invaded this requiring their timely assistance to drive the Rebels out of the Kingdom and casting â—imself upon the good affections of his English Subjects The Commons were not more willing to hear that his Majesty was resolved to cast himself wholly on their good affections than many zealous Patriots seemed to be troubled at it knowing how ill it sorts with Kings when they have no way to subsist or carry on their great Designs but by casting themselves wholly on the love of the People These on the other side were not better pleased with hearing his Majesty call the Scots by the name of Rebels whom he had too long courted by the name of his Scottish Subjects than the Prevailing Members in the House of Commons were offended at it the name of Rebels rendring them uncapable of those many Favours which were designed them by that House And the displeasure went so high that his Majesty finding into what condition he had cast
that every man that could pronounce well was not found able to endite and every man that could endite not being to be trusted in a business of such weight and moment it seemed good in the Wisdom of the first Reformers to compile some good and profitable Sermons called by the name of Homilies to be read carefully and distinctly on the Sundayes and Holy dayes for the instruction of the people 11. Such course was taken for the peace and edification of the Church by the first Reformers not only in the choice of the men to whom they gave Licences to preach but in supplying the defect and want of such preaching by the Book of Homilies and they had as great a care too for the keeping the people in good stomach not cloying them with continual Preaching or Homilizing but limiting them to once a day as appears by the Rubrick after the Nicene or rather the Constantinopolitan Creed One Sermon or Homily in the mornings of Sundayes and other Holy dayes for the edification of the â—lder and Catechizing by way of question and answer in the afternoon for the instruction of the younger was esteemed sufficient Lectures upon the week dayes were not raised upon this foundation but were brought in afterwards borrowed by Travers and the â—est toward the latter end of Queen Elizabeths Reign from the new fashions of Geneva the Lecturer being super-added to the Parson or Vicar as the Doctor was unto the Pastor in some forreign Churches Nor were they raised so much out of care and conscience for training up the people in the wayes of Faith and Piety as to advance a Faction and to alienate the peoples mindes from the Government and Forms of Worship here by Law established For these Lecturers having no dependance upon the Bishops nor taking the Oath of Canonical Obedience to them nor subscribing to the doctrine and establisht Ceremonies made it their work to please those Patrons on whose arbitrary maintenance they were planted and consequently to carry on the Puritan interest which their Patron drove at A generation of men neither Lay nor Clergy having no place at all in the Prayers of the Church where we finde mention only of Bishops Pastors and Curates nor being taken notice of in the terms of Law as being neither Parsons nor Vicars or to speak them in the vulgar proverb neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring No creature in the world so like them as the Bats or Reremice being neither Birds nor Beasts and yet both together Had these men been looked upon in time before their numbers were increased and their power grown formidable before the people went a madding after new inventions most of the mischiefs which have thence ensued might have been prevented And had there been more reading of Homilies in which the Reader speaks the sense of the Church and not so much of Sermonizing in which the Preacher many times speaks his own factious and erronâ—ous sense the people might have been trained up in no less knowledge but in much more obedience then they have been in these latrer times 12. As for the Sacraments which were advanced to the number of seven in the Church of Rome this Church hath brought them back to two as generally necessary to salvation Baptisme and the Holy Supper Four of the rest that is to say Marriage Orders Confirmation and the Visitation though not the Extream Vnction of the Sick being retained under the name of Sacramentals in our publick Liturgy Of which the Book of Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. is by the Act of Parliament 8 Eliz. c. 1. affirmed to be a Supplement or Additional only added put to and annexed as the words do vary to the said Book of Common-Prayer And of these four two are reserved unto the Bishop that is to say Confirmation and the giving of Orders the other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick being common to both alike though executed in the most part by the Presbyter only Of those reserved unto the Bishop the one is so reserved ad necessitatem operis because it cannot be done without him the other ad honorem sacerdotii as the Schools distinguish because it cannot be well done but by him Touching the first we have the general consent of all ancient Writers and the example of Coluthus who took upon him the ordaining of Presbyters contrary to the Rules of the Church and the Canons of thâ— most famous Councils But when the business came to be examined his Ordinations were declared to be null and void because he was a Presbyter only and not a Bishop as is affirmed by Athanasius in Apol. 2. The other grounded on the 8th Chapter of the Acts as St Cyprian in his 73. Epistle tells us where Peter and Iohn are said to have laid hands on them in Samaria which had been before Baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus that they might receive the Holy Ghost and that by laying on of their hands they did receive the Holy Ghost accordingly verse 16 17. Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur c. Which is also done saith St. Cyprian and Cyprian flourisht in the middle of the third Century amongst our selves when they which be already Baptized are brought unto the Prelates of the Church Praepositis Ecclesiae offeruntur that by our Prayer and Imposition of our hands they may receive the Holy Ghost and be strengthened by the Seal of the Lord. Upon which grounds beâ—iâ—â—â—â—he great antiquity of it it was retained by the first Reformers as in the Rubrick before Confirmation in the Common-Prayer-Book And â—ad it been as diligently practised by the Bishops in the declining times of this Church as it was piously and religiously retained by them it would have much conduced to their saâ—e standing in the Church and procured a greater veneration to their Persons also The other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick together with the Burial of the Dead and the Churching of Women after Child-birth are left to the officiating of the Priest or Parochial Minister unless the Bishop please to take that work upon himself in some certain cases 13. But as for Penance one of the seven Sacraments in the Church of Rome we must look upon in a double capacity First As it was solemnly performed on Ashwednesday as a preparative to the approaching Feast of Easter the people humbling themselves before the Lord in Sackcloth and Ashes whence it had the name And secondly As imposed on such particular persons as lay under the censures of the Church Touching the first it is related in the beginning of the Commination that in the Primitive Church there was a godly Discipline That at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Penance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the day of the Lord and that others admonished by their example might be the more afraid to
Rubrick before the beginning of that Service it is ordered that the Priest standing at the Holy Table shall say the Lords Prayer with the Collect following c. And it is ordered in the first Rubrick after the Communion That on the Holy Dayes if there be no Communion shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion until the end of the Homily concluding with the general Prayer for Christs Church Militant here on earth and one or more of the Collects before rehearsed as occasion shall serve No place appointed for the reading of the second Service but only at the Altar or Communion Table 24. Here then we have the Wood the Altar sed ubi est victima holocausti as Isaac said unto his Father But where is the Lamb for the burnt-offering Gen. 22.7 Assuredly if the Priest and Altar be so near the Lamb for the Burnt-Offering cannot be far off even the most blessed Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world as the Scripture styles him whose Passion we finde commemorated in the Sacrament called therefore the Sacrament of the Altar as before is said called for the same reason by St. Augustine in his Enchiridion Sacrificium Altaris the Sacrifice of the Altar by the English Liturgy in the Prayer next after the participation the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving Sacrificium laudis by Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the remembrance of a Sacrifice by many Learned Writers amongst our selves a commemorative Sacrifice For thus saith Bishop Andrews in his answer to Cardinal Bellarmine c. 8. Tollite de Missa Transubstantiationem vestram nec di◠nobiscum lis erit de Sacrificio c. Take from the Mass your Transubstantiation and we will have no difference with you about the Sacrifice And the King grants he means the learned Prince King Iames the name of a Sacrifice to have been frequent with the Fathers Which Sacrifice he sometimes calls Commemorationem Sacrificii and sometimes Sacrificium Commemorativum A Commemorative Sacrifice The like we finde in Bishop Morton who in his Book of the Roman Sacrifice l. 6. c. 5. called the Eucharist a representative and commemorative Sacrifice in as plain terms as can be spoken But what need any thing have been said for the proof hereof when the most Reverend Archbishop Cranmer one and the chief of the Compilers of the publick Liturgy and one who suffered death for opposing the Sacrifice of the Mass distinguisheth most plainly between the Sacrifice propitiatory made by Christ himself only and the Sacrifice commemorative and gratulatory made by Priests and People for which consult his Defence against Bishop Gardiner lib. 5. p. 439. And finally the testimony of Iohn Lambert who suffered for his Conscience in the time of King Henry viii whose words are these Christ saith he being offered up once for all in his own proper person is yet said to be offered up not only every year at Easter but also every day in the Celebration of the Sacrament because his Oblations once for all made it thereby represented Act. Mon. p. 2.35 So uniform is the consent of our Liturgy our Martyrs and our Learned Writers in the name of Sacrifice so that we may behold the Eucharist or the Lords Supper First as it is a Sacrifice or the Commemoration of that Sacrifice offered unto God by which both we and the whole Church do obtain remission of our Sins and all other benefits of Christs Passion And secondly As it is a Sacrament participated by men by which we hope that being made partakers of that Holy Communion we may be fulfilled with his Grace and heavenly Benediction Both which occur in the next Prayer after the Communion Look on it as a Sacrifice and then the Lords Board not improperly may be called an Altar as it is properly called the Table in respect of the Sacrament 25. With the like uniform consent we finde the Doctrine of a Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be maintained and taught in the first Constitution of this Church and this is first concluded from the words of Distribution retained in the first Liturgy of King Edward vi and formerly prescribed in the ancient Missals viz. The Body and Blood of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul unto life everlasting The Blood of our Lord Iesus Christ which was shed for thee c. Which words being thought by some precise and scrupulous persons to encline too much toward Transubstantiation and therefore not unfit to justifie a Real Presence were quite omitted in the second Liturgy of that King the words of Participation Take and eat this c. Take and drink this c. being used in the place thereof Which alteration notwithstanding it is affirmed by Bishop Ridley one of the principal Compilers of these two Books that in the Sacrament of the Altar is the natural Body and Blood of Christ. And if there be the Natural Body there must needs be a Real Presence in his opinion When this last Liturgy was reviewed by the command of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1558. the former clause was super-added to the other which put the business into the same state and condition in which we finde it at the first And when by the Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1562. the Sacrifice of the Mass was declared to be a pernicious Imposture a blasphemous Figment and that Transubstantiation was declared to be repugnant to the plain words of Holy Scripture to overthrow the Nature of a Sacrament and to have given occasion to many Superstitions yet still the Doctrine of a Real Presence was maintained as formerly Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls was chosen Prolocutor for that Convocation and therefore as like to know the true intent and meaning of the Church of England in every point which was there concluded as any other whatsoever and yet he thought it no contradiction to any of them to maintain and teach a Real Presence For in his Catechism publickly allowed of in all the Grammar Schools of this Realm he first propounds this question viz. Coelestis pars ab omni sensu externo longe disjuncta quaenam est c. that is to say What is the Heavenly or Spiritual part of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which no sense is able to discover To which the party Catechized returns this answer Corpus Sanguis Christi quae fidelibus in coena dominica praebentur ab illis accipiuntur comeduntur bibuntur coelesti tantum spirituali modo verè tamen atque reipsa That is to say the heavenly or spiritual part is the Body and Blood of Christ which are given to the faithful in the Lords Supper and are taken eaten and drank by them which though it be only in an heavenly and spiritual manner yet are they both given and taken truly and really or in very deed Conform to which we have in brief the
Doctrine or to the establisht Government and Forms of Worship of the Church of England they are not for so doing to be branded by the name of Papists or their writings to be censured and condemned for Popish because perhaps they differ in those matters from the Churches of Calvins Platform Veritas a quocunque est est a spiritu sancto as divinely Ambrose Truth is no more restrained to the Schools of Calvin then to those of Rome some truths being to be found in each but not all in either And certainly in this the first Reformers did exceeding wisely in not tying up the judgements of learned men where they might be freed but leaving them a sufficient scope to exercise their wits and Pens as they saw occasion Had they done otherwise and condemned every thing for Popish which was either taught or used in the times of Popery they must then have condemned the Doctrine of the Trinity it self as was well observed by King Iames in the Conference at Hampton-Court And then said he You Dr. Reynolds must go barefoot because they wore hose and shooes in times of Popery p. 75. Besides which inconvenience it must needs have followed that by a general renouncing of all such things as have been taught and used by the Church of Rome the Confession of the Church of England must have been like that both in condition and effect which Mr. Craig composed for the Kirk of Scotland of which King Iames tells us p. 39. that with his I renounce and I abhor his Detestations and Protestations he did so amaze the simple people that they not able to conceive all those things utterly gave over all falling back to Popery or still remaining in their former ignorance 41. Such was the Moderation which was used by our first Reformers and on such Principles and Positions did they ground this Church Which I have laid down here at large that so we may the better Judge of those Deviations which afterwards were made by Factious and unquiet men as also of the Piety of their endeavours who aimed at the Reduction of her to her first condition If the great Prelate whom I write of did either labour to subvert the Doctrine or innovate any thing either in the Publick Government or Formes of Worship here by Law Established contrary to the Principles and Positions before expressed his Adversaries had the better Reason to clamor against him whilst he lived and to persue their clamors till the very last But on the other side if neither in his own person or by the diligence and activity of his subservient Ministers he acted or suffered any thing to be justified in point of Practice or allowed any thing to be Preached or Prayed or hindred any thing from being Published or Preached but what may be made good by the Rules of the Church and the complexion of the times in which he lived those foul Reproaches which so unjustly and uncharitably have been laid upon him must return back upon the Authors from whom they came as stones thrown up against the Heavens do many times fall upon the heads of those that threw them But whither side deserved the blame for innovating in the Doctrine Rites and Ceremonies of the Anglican Church according to the first Principles and Positions of it will best appear by the course of the ensuing History Relation being had to this Introduction which I have here placed in the front as a Lamp or Candle such as we find commonly in the Porches of Great Mens houses to light the way to such as are desirous to go into them that they may enter with delight converse therein with pleasure and return with safety CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES Second MONARCH of Great-Brittain PART I. Containing the History of his Life and Actions from the day of his Birth Octob. 7. 1573. to the day of his Nomination to the See of Canterbury August 6. 1633. LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for A. Seile 1668. THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB I. Extending from the time of his Birth till his being made Bishop of St. Davids TO Recommend unto Posterity the Lives and Actions of eminent and famous Persons hath alwayes been esteemed a work becoming the most able Pens Nothing so much enobleth Plutarch as his committing unto memory the Actions and Achievements of the most renowned Greeks and Romans or added more unto the fame of Diogenes Laertius than that which he hath left us of the Lives and Apophthegms of the old Philosophers Some pains have fortunately been taken in this kind by Paulus Iavius Bishop of Como and by Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury in the dayes of our Fathers Nor can we be so little studdied in the World as not to know that even particular persons I speak not here of Kings and Princes have had their own particular and distinct Historians by whom their Parts and Piety their Military Exploits or Civil Prudence have been transmitted to the knowledge of succeeding ages So that adventuring on the Life of this famous Prelate I cannot be without Examples though without Encouragements For what Encouragements can there be to such a work in which there is an impossibility of pleasing all more than an ordinary probability of offending many no expectation of Reward nor certainty of any thing but misconstructions and Detractings if not dangers also Howsoever I shall give my self the satisfaction of doing my last duty to the memory of a man so Famous of such a Publick Spirit in all his actions so eminently deserving of the Church of England With which profession of my Piety and Ingenuity I shall not be altogether out of hope but that my Labours in this Piece may obtain a pardon if they shall not reach to an Applause William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury was born on the 7th day of October An. 1573. A year remarkable for the buslings of the Puritan Faction who before they had served an Apprentiship in the Trade of Sedition began to set up for themselves and seeing they could not have the countenance of Authority to justifie the advancing of their Holy Discipline resolved to introduce it by little and little as opportunity should be given them which they did accordingly His Birth place Reading the principal Town of Berks for Wealth and Beauty remarkable heretofore for a stately and magnificent Abby founded and liberally Endowed by King Henry I. and no less eminent in these last Ages for the Trade of Clothing the Seminary of some Families of Gentry within that County And of this Trade his Father was who kept not only many Lomes in his
to make her some Reparation in point of Honour by taking her into his Bosom as a Lawful Wiâ—e Besides he had some Children by her before she was actually separated from the Bed of Rich some of which afterwards attained to Titles of Honour whom he conceived he might have put into a capability of a Legitimation by this subsequent Marriage according to the Rule and Practice of the Civil Laws in which it passeth for a Maxime That subsequens Matrimonium legitimat prolem And to that end he dealt so powerfully with his Chaplain that he disposed him to perform the Rites of that Solemnization which was accordingly done at Wansteed Decemb. 26. being the Festival of St. Steven Anno 1605. Nor did he want some Reasons to induce him to it besides the perswasion of his Friends which might have gained upon a man not so much concerned in it as he was and may be used for his excuse if not for his justification also He found by the averment of the Parties that some assurances of Marriage had passed between them before she was espoused to Rich which though they could not amount to a pre-Contract in Foro Iudicii in a Court of Judicature yet he might satisfie himself in the truth thereof in Foro Conscientiae in the Court of his own private Conscience And thereupon he might conclude That being satisfied in the reality and truth of those Assurances and finding that Rich had quitted his pretensions to her by a formal Sentence of Divorce he might conceive it lawful for him to perform that Service which was required at his hands He had found also three Opinions touching the lawfulness or unlawfulness of such Marriages which are made after a Divorce The first That such Marriages are lawful unto neither Party as long as either of them liveth which is the Doctrine of the Papists determined positively in the Councel of Trent The second That such Marriages are lawful to the Party wronged but not unto the Guilty also which Opinion is maintained by some of the Calvinists and divers of the Ancient Writers The third That both the innocent and the guilty Party may lawfully marry if they please which Maldonate makes to be the general Opinions of the Lutheran and Calvinian Ministers as also of some Catholick Doctors And then why might he not conceive that course most fit to be followed in which all Parties did agree than either of the other two which was commended to him but by one Party only And though he followed in this case the worst way of the three â—et may it serve for a sufficient Argument that he was no Papist nor cordially affected unto that Religion because he acted so directly against the Doctrines and Determinations of the Church of Rome If any other considerations of Profit Preferment or Compliance did prevail upon him as perhaps they might they may with Charity be looked on as the common incidencies of Humane frailty from which the holiest and most learned men cannot plead Exemption But whatsoever motives either of them had to put a fair colour upon the business certain it is that it succeeded well with neither The Earl found presently such an alteration in the Kings countenance towards him and such a lessening of the value which formerly had been set upon him that he was put to a necessity of writing an Apology to defend his action But finding how little it edified both in Court and Country it wrought such a sad impression on him that he did not much survive the mischief ending his life before the end of the year next following Nor did the Chaplain brook it long without such a check of Conscience as made him turn the Annual Festival of St. Steven into an Anniversary Fast humbling himself from year to year upon that day before the Father of Mercies and craving pardon for that Error which by the perswasions of some Friends and other the temptations of flesh and blood he had fallen into And for this purpose he composed this ensuing Prayer BEhold thy Servant O my God and in the bowels of thy mercy have compassion on me Behold I am become a Reproach to thy holy Name by serving my Ambition and the sins of others which though I did by the perswasion of other men yet my own Conscience did check and upbraid me in it Lord I beseech thee for the mercies of Iesus Christ enter not into Iudgement with me thy Servant but hear his blood imploring thy mercies for me Neither let this Marriage prove a Divorcing of my Soul from thy grace and favour for much more happy had I been if being mindful of this day I had suffered Martyrdom as did St. Steven the first of Martyrs denying that which either my less faithful friends or less godly friends had pressed upon me I promised to my self that the darkness would hide me but that hope soon vanished away Nor doth the light appear more plainly than I that have committed that soul offence Even so O Lord it pleased thee of thy infinite mercy to deject me with this heavy Ignominy that I might learn to seek thy Name O Lord how grievous is the remembrance of my sin to this very day after so many and such reiterated Prayers poured forth unto thee from a sorrowful and afflicted Spirit Be merciful O Lord unto me hearken to the Prayers of thy humble and dejected Servant and raise me up again O Lord that I may not die in this my sin but that I may live in thee hereafter and living evermore rejoyce in thee through the merits and the mercies of Iesus Christ my Lord and Saviour Amen A brave example of a penitent and afflicted Soul which many of us may admire but few will imitate And though I doubt not but that the Lord in mercy did remit this fault yet was he not so mercifully dealt with at the hands of men by whom it was so frequently and reproachfully cast in the way of his Preferment that he was fain to make the Duke of Buckingham acquainted with the story of it and by his means to possess King Charles his gracious Master with the truth thereof So long it was before his Enemies had desisted from pressing this unhappy Error to his disadvantage The Earl of Devonshire being dead he was by Doctor Buckridge his most constant friend Anno 1608. commended to the Service of Doctor Richard Neile then Bishop of Rochester a man who very well understood the Constitution of the Church of England though otherwise not so eminent in all parts of Learning as some other Bishops of his time But what he wanted in himself he made good in the choice of his Servants having more able men about him from time to time than any other of that age Amongst which not to reckon Laud of whom now I speak were Doctor Augustine Linsell Bishop of Hereford Doctor Thomas Iackson President of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxon. and Dean of
alledged yet it was generally conceived that as the Book fared the worse for the Authors sake so the Author did not speed the better for his Patron the Archbishops sake betwixt whom and Doctor Iames Montague then Bishop of Winchester there had been some differences which the rest of the Court Bishops were apt enough to make some use of to his disadvantage But having thus fallen upon the burning of this Book I shall speak something of it here because of some particulars in it which may conduce unto our Story in the times succeeding This Doctor Mocket being Chaplain to Archbishop Abbot and Warden of All Souls Colledged in Oxon. had publish'd in the Latin tongue the Liturgie of the Church of England the Publick Catechisms the 39. Articles the Book of Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons and many Doctrinal Points extracted out of the Book of Homilies together with Bishop Iewel 's Apology Mr. Noel's Chatechism and his own Book De Politia c. A Collection which the good man published in a pious zeal for gaining Honour to this Church amongst Forrein Nations But then this Zeal of his was accompanied with so little Knowledge in the Constitution of this Church or so much biassed toward those of Calvin's Plat-form that it was thought fit not only to call it in but to expiate the Errors of it in a publick Flame For first his Extracts out of the Book of Homilies were conceived to be rather framed according to his own Judgment which enclin'd him toward the Calvinian Doctrines as his Patron did than squared according to the Rules and Dictates of the Church of England And possible enough it is that some just offence might be taken at him for making the Fasting-days appointed in the Liturgie of the Church of England to be commanded and observed ob Politicas solum Rationes for politick Considerations only as insinuated p. 308. whereas those Fasting-days were appointed in the first Liturgy of King Edward vj. Anno 1549. with reference only to the Primitive Institution of those several Fasts when no such Politick Considerations were so much as thought on But that which I conceive to have been the true cause why the Book was burned was that in publishing the 20th Article concerning the Authority of the Church he totally left out the first Clause of it viz. Habet Ecclesia Ritus sive Ceremonias statuendi jus in Controverfiis Fidei Authoritatem By means whereof the Article was apparently falsified the Churches Authority disavowed and consequently a wide gap opened to dispute her Power in all her Canons and Determinations of what sort soever I note this here because of the Relation which it hath to some following passages in the year 1637. when we shall finde Laud charged by those of the Puritan Faction for adding this omitted Clause to the rest of that Article In the next year 1618. we finde not a little done at home but much more abroad the Puritan Faction being discountenanced here and the Calvinists encouraged there The Sabbatarian Doctrines by the diligence of Archbishop Whitgift and the severity of Justice Popham had been crush'd at their first starting out and afterwards not daring to implore the Countenance of Authority they got footing again in divers places by the cunning of the Puritan Faction the ignorant confidence of some of their Lecturers and the misguided zeal of some publick Ministers of Justice And they prevailed so far at last that the Annual Festivals being turned into days of Labour and the Lords day wholly taken up in Religious Duties there was no time left for lawful Recreations amongst the People Which being made known unto King Iames as he passed thorow Lancashire the last Summer he gave some present Order in it for the ease and comfort of his good Subjects in that County and that it might not serve only for the present but the times to come he published his Royal Declaration to the same effect bearing date at Greenwich May 24. of this present year In which Declaration there are three things to be observed viz. the Motives the Liberties and the Restrictions First for the Motives which induced that King to this Declaration they were chiefly four 1. The general Complaints of all sorts of People as he passed thorow Lancashire of the Restraint of those innocent and lawful Pastimes on that day which by the Rigors of some Preachers and Ministers of Justice had been laid upon them 2. The hindrance of the Conversion of many Papists who by this means were made to think that the Protestant Religion was inconsistent with all harmless and modest Recreations 3. That by debarring them from all man-like Exercises on those days on which only they were freed from their daily Labours they were made unactive unable and unfit for Warriors if either himself or any of his Successors should have such occasion to employ them 4. That men being hindred from these open Pastimes betook themselves to Tipling-houses and there abused themselves with Drunkenness and censured in their Cups his Majesties Proceedings both in Church and State Next for the Liberties which were indulged upon that day his Majesty declares his Pleasure That after Divine Service being ended his good People should not be discouraged or letted from any lawful Recreations such as Dancing either Men or Women Archery for Men Leaping Vaulting or any other such harmless Recreations not from having of May-games Whitsun-Ales and Morris-dances and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used and that Women shall have leave to carry Rushes to the Church for the decoring of it according to their old Custom with this Proviso notwithstanding That under the general term of Lawful Recreations he intended neither Bear-baiting nor Bull-baiting Interludes nor at all times in the meaner sort of People prohibited Bowling And last of all for the Restrictions they were these that follow 1. That these Pastimes should be no impediment or let to the publick Duties of that day 2. That no Recusant should be capable of the benefit of them 3. Not such as were not diligently present at the time of all Divine Offices which the day required And 4. That the benefit thereof should redound to none but such as kept themselves in their own Parishes Such was the substance of his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports which raised great clamour at the present but greater when revived in the Reign of King Charles at what time we shall finde Laud charged for the Re-publishing of it so much the greater by how much the more the Sabbatarian Doctrines had prevailed amongst us This being done for the discountenancing of the Calvinian Faction here at home we must next see what was done abroad on the same account that which was done abroad in relation to it being of great concernment to this Church and therefore necessary to be known in reference to the person of whom I write The Bishops and conformable Clergy of Scotland had
long experience with his great abilities his constancy courage and dexterity for managing affairs of moment And thereupon entring into speech with him in the beginning of Iune he was pleased to take notice of the long and unrewarded service which he had done him telling him that he looked on the Deanry of Glocester but as a Shell without a Kernel This gave him the first hopes of his growing Fortunes On Sunday the nineteenth of that Month he preached before the King at Wansteed that being the first of those Sermons which are now in Print And on St. Peters day next following there was a general expectation about the Court that he should have been made Dean of Westminster in the place of Williams who having been sworn Privy-Counsellor on the tenth of that Month and nominated to the See of Lincoln was on the tenth of Iuly honoured with the Custody of the great Seal of England upon the Deprivation of the Lord Chancellor St. Albans which before we spake of but Williams so prevailed at Court that when he was made Bishop of Lincoln he retained this Deanry in Commendam together with such other Preferments as he held at that time That is to say A Prebend and Residentiary place in the Cathedral Church at Lincoln and the Rectory of Walgrave in Northampton-shire so that he was a perfect Diocess within himself as being Bishop Dean Prebend Residentiary and Parson and all these at once But though Laud could not get the Deanry yet he lost nothing by the example which he made use of in retaining not only his Prebends place in the same Church of Westminster and his Benefices in the Country that being an ordinary indulgence to such as were preferred to the smaller Bishopsricks but also the Presidentship of his Colledge in Oxon which he valued more than all the Rest. For that his own expectation might not be made as frustrate as was that of the Court his Majesty nominated him the same day to the See of St. Davids in former times the Metropolitan City of the Welsh or Brittish But though he was nominated then he could not receive the Episcopal Character till five Months after the stay was long but the necessity unavoydable by reason of a deplorable misfortune which had befallen Archbishop Abbot and was briefly this The Archbishop had long held a dear and entire Friendship with Edward Lord Zouch a person of an eminent and known Nobility On whom he pleased to bestow a visit in his house at Bramshall invited to see a Deer hunted that he might take the fresh air and revive his Spirits a Cross-bow was put into his hand to shoot one of the Deer but his hand most unhappily swerving or the Keeper as unfortunately coming in his way it so pleased God the Disposer of Humane Affairs that he missed the Beast and shot the Man On which sad accident being utterly uncapable of consolation he retired himself to Guilford the place of his birth there to expect the Issue of his wofull Fortunes in an Hospital of his own Foundation The news of this wretched misadventure as ill news flies far came the same day to the Lord Keeper Williams and he as hastily dispatches this Advertisement of it to the Marquess of Buckingham My most Noble Lord AN unfortunate occasion of my Lords Grace his killing of a man casually as it is here constantly reported is the cause of my seconding of my yesterdays Letter unto your Lordship His Grace upon this Accident is by the Common Law of England to forfeit all his Estate unto his Majesty and by the Canon Law which is in force with us irregular ipso facto and so suspended from all Ecclesiastical Function until he be again restored by his Superiour which I take it is the Kings Majesty in this Rank and Order of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction If you send for Doctor Lamb he will acquaint your Lordship with the distinct Penalties in this kind I wish withal my heart his Majesty would be as merciful as ever he was in all his life but yet I held it my duty to let his Majesty know by your Lordship that his Majesty is fallen upon a matter of great Advice and Deliberation To add affliction unto the afflicted as no doubt he is in mind is against the Kings Nature To leave virum sanguinum or a man of blood Primate and Patriarch of all his Churches is a thing that sounds very harsh in the old Councils and Canons of the Church The Papists will not spare to descant upon one and the other I leave the knot to his Majesties deep Wisdom to advise and resolve upon A rheum fallen into mine eye c. Which Letter bearing date Iuly 27. 1621. points us directly to the time of this woful Accident Being thus pre-judged and pre-condemned the miserable man must needs have had a hard bout of it if his cause had been referred to an hearing in Chancery But King Iames was as compassionate as just and as regardful of the Church as he was compassionate to the man Advising therefore with his Council and some chief Clergy-men about him though more with his own gracious disposition he after issued a Commission to the Lord Keeper Williams the Bishops of London Winchester St. Davids and Exon as also unto Hubbert and Dodderidge two of the Justices of the Courts at Westminster-hall Martin and Steward Doctors of the Civil Laws men of great Eminence and Abilities in their several Studies to make Inquiry into the Fact And having made Inquiry into the Fact they were to give their Resolution unto His Majesty whether the Archbishop had been made irregular by that sad accident as it was commonly reported In the managing of which great Cause there was much variety of Opinions amongst the Delegates some making him obnoxious to Irregularity and others as much labouring to acquit him of it Amongst these last were Doctor Andrews then Bishop of Winchester and Sir Henry Martin then Dean of the Arches and not long after Judge of the Prerogative Court to whose Authority and Judgment the rest of the Commissioners did in time conform Martin for his part had received his Offices and Preferments from him and therefore in an honest Gratitude thought himself obliged to bend the Law as much as possibly he could to his best Advantage But Andrews had no such impulsives there being between them some disgust which might have rather prevailed with him to have been his Enemy First therefore he was willing not to stand too rigidly upon the strictness of the Canons for fear lest others of the Bishops and himself amongst them either through ignorance or incogitancy might commit some acts which without a fair and mild construction might render them as uncanonical as that poor man was And then he saw that if the Archbishop at that time had been pronounced irregular and the See made void Williams being then Lord Keeper and in great favour with his Majesty and the Marquis too would
have step'd into it of whom he knew too much to venture that great charge and trust of the Church of England to his Care and Government the dangerous Consequences whereof he was able to foretell without the Spirit of Prophecy Nor was this conjecture of his without very good grounds Williams declaring in his said Letter to the Marquis That his Majesty had promised him upon the relinquishing of the Seal one of the best places in this Church And what place could be more agreable to his affection than the Chair of Canterbury Nor was this unfortunate Prelate less befriended in this desperate plunge by Sir Edward Coke a man of most profound Learning in the Laws of this Land who being ask'd the Question Whether a Bishop might lawfully hunt in his own or in any other Park in which point lay the greatest pinch of the present difficulty returned this Answer thereunto viz. That by the Law a Bishop at his death was to leave his Pack of Dogs by the French called Marte de Chiens in some old Records to be disposed of by the King at his Will and Pleasure And if the King was to have the Dogs when the Bishop died there is no question to be made but that the Bishop might make use of them when he was alive By reason of this intercurrence the new Elected Bishops could not receive the Episcopal Character till November following on the eleventh day of which Month the Lord Keeper Williams was Consecrated Bishop of Lincoln in the Chappel of King Henry by vertue of a Commission under the Broad Seal directed to certain other Bishops according to the Statute of King Henry viij And on the Sunday following by vertue of a like Commission directed to the Bishops of London Worcester Chichester Ely Landaff and Oxon. Doctor Laud Lord Elect of St. Davids Doctor Davenant Lord Elect of Salisbury and Doctor Cary Lord Elect of Exceter received Episcopal Consecration in the Chappel of London-House The next day after he took his place amongst the Bishops in the House of Peers the Parliament having been re-assembled some few days before But there was little for them to do as the case then stood The Commons were so far from gratifying the King with fresh Supplies who before had gratified them in the destruction of such Ministers as were neer unto him that they entertained him with Petitions and Remonstrances touching the danger threatned to our Religion by the growth of Popery in which they were so far transported beyond their bounds as to propose unto the King the taking of the Sword into his Hands against the Spaniard and the Marrying of his dear Son the Prince to a Lady of the Reformed Religion Of this the King had speedy notice and in a Letter sent to Sir Thomas Richardson then Speaker of the House of Commons he lets them know how sensible he was of their incroachments how bold they had made themselves with the King of Spain forbidding them to deal hereafter in Affairs of State or meddle with the Marriage of his Son the Prince concluding That if any such Petition or Remonstrance should be brought unto him he would neither vouchsafe the Answering or the Reading of it The Commons startled with this Letter and thinking to have made a benefit of the Kings Necessities cry out against it as a violation of their Ancient Priviledges and on the nineteenth day of December then next ensuing drew up the following Protestation and caused it to be entred on Record in their Journal Books viz. The PROTESTATION of the COMMONS THe Commons now Assembled being justly occasioned thereunto concerning sundry Liberties Franchises and Priviledges of Parliament amongst others here mentioned do make this Protestation here following That the Liberties Franchises Priviledges and Iurisdictions of Parliaments are the ancient and undoubted Birthright and Inheritance of the Subjects of England and the maintenance and making of Laws and redresses of Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen within this Realm are proper Subjects and matter of Debate in Parliament and that in the handling or proceeding of those businesses every Member of the House of Parliament hath and of right ought to have freedom of Speech to Propound Treat Reason and bring to conclusion the same and that the Commons in Parliament have like freedom and liberty to Treat of those Matters in such Order as to their Iudgments shall seem fittest and that every Member of the said House hath like freedom from all Impeachments Imprisonment and Molestation other than by Censure of the House it self for or concerning any Speaking Reasoning or Declaring of any Matter or Matters touching the Parliament or Parliament business and that if any of the said Members be complained of or questioned for any thing done or said in Parliament the same is to be shewed to the King by the Advice and Assent of all the Commons assembled in Parliament before the King give credence to any private Information More was the King startled at the news of this Protestation whereof he had Intelligence before it came unto the Vote than the Commons were upon the Reading of his Majesties Letters He saw his Prerogative invaded his Paternal Right disputed a popular State growing up in the midst of a Monarchy and at the present a great Faction formed against him which if not speedily suppressed might prove unresistable Way he found none to extricate himself out of these troubles but to proceed vigorously in the Treaty for the Match with Spain which he conceived to be the only expedient to compose all Differences and recover the Patrimony of his Children For should he break off with that King and declare for a present War against him as had been desired he was to cast himself entirely on the Love of his People of whose Affections and Designs their present Actions gave just cause to be distrustful He therefore first gives Order on the nineteenth of December being the very day on which the Protestation was Voted at Westminster to Adjourn the Parliament to the 8th of February under pretence that the Members might retire into the Country for keeping Hospitality and entertaining their Neighbours in the Christmas Holydays according to the laudable Custom of the English Nation But having thus dismissed them to their several Countries without noise or trouble it was not his intent or purpose that they should come together again at the time appointed according to which Resolution he Disolves the Parliament and by his Proclamation bearing date the ninth of Ianuary discharges the Members of both Houses from any further attendance The Dissolving of this Parliament and the Transactions in the same administred much variety of Discourse in all parts of the Kingdom It was observed by some That his Majesty had broken one of the strongest Ligaments of the Regal Power by delivering up his Servants and Ministers into the hands of his People in Parliament which was a thing not used by any of his Predecessors That neither
Calverts Letter unto Digby on the fifth of this present Ianuary That he could have no rest for his young Master for being called on early and late to hasten the dispatch of all Some Messages and dispatches had been brought by Porter out of Spain about three daies before which winged his feet and added Spurs to the design The Journey being thus agreed on was in the very nature of it to be made a secret and therefore not communicable to the Lords of the Council for fear of staying him at home or rendring him obnoxious to the danger of an interception as he past through France which mischief if it had befaln him he must either have submitted unto such conditions or suffered under such restraints as might seem intollerable in themselves but absolutely destructive of his present purpose which may the rather be believed by reason of the like proceedings of that King with the present Prince Elector Palatine who posting disguised through France in hope to get the Command of Duke Bernards Army was stayed in the middle of his Journey by that Kings command and kept so long under Restraint that he lost the opportunity of eâ—fecting that which he desired It is not to be thought but that much danger did appear in the undertaking but Love which facilitates impossibilities overcomes all dangers On the eighteenth day of February accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham Mr. Endimion Porter and Mr. Francis Cottington he took Ship at Dover and landed safe at Boloigne a Port of Picardy Advanced on his way as far as Paris his Curiosity carried him to the Court to see a Masque at which he had a view of that incomparable Princess whom he after married But he was like to have paid dear for this curiosity For no sooner had he left the City but the French King upon Advertisement of his being there dispatcht away many of his Servants in pursuance of him commanding them not only to stay his Journey but to bring him back unto the Court But he rides fast who rides upon the wings of Love and Fear so that the Prince had past Bayonne the last Town of France without being overtaken by them and posting speedily to Madrid he entred the Lord Ambassadors Lodging without being known to any but his Confidents only That Danger being thus escaped he cast himself upon another For having put himself into the Power of the King of Spain it was at the curtesie of that King whither he should ever return or not it being a Maxime among Princes that if any one of them without leave sets foot on the ground of another he makes himself ipso facto to become his Prisoner Richard the First of England passing in disguise through some part of the dominions of the Arch-Duke of Austria was by him took prisoner and put unto so high a Ransome that the Arch-Duke is said to have bought the Earldom of Styria or Styrmark with some part of the money and to have walled Vienna with the rest Nor wanted the Spaniards some Examples of a latter date which might have justified his detention there had they been so minded and those too borrowed from our selves Philip the first of Spain one of the Predecessors of the King then Reigning being cast by tempest on the Coast of England was here detained by King Henry the Seventh till he had delivered up the Earl of Suffolk who had put himself under his protection In like manner Mary Queen of Scots being forced by her Rebellious Subjects to flee into this Realm was presently seized on as a Prisoner and so continued till her lamentable and calamitous death And what could more agree with the rules of Justice and the old known practise of Retaliation then that the English should be punished by the rigour of their own severities Such were the Dangers which the Princes person was exposed to by this unparalell'd adventure not otherwise to be commended in most mens opinions but by the happy success of his Return And yet there were some fears of a greater danger than any could befall his Person by Sea or Land that is to say the danger of his being wrought on to alter his Religion and to make shipwrack of his Faith and this by some uncharitable persons is made the ground of the design to the indelible reproach of those who were supposed to have had a hand in the contrivement of the Plot. Amongst those the Marquiss stands accused by the Earl of Bristol as appears by the first Article of the Charge which was exhibited against him in the Parliament of the year 1626. And our new Bishop stands reproached for another of them by the Author of the book entituled Hidden works of darkness c. But then it cannot be denied but that his Majesty and the Prince must be the Principals in this Fact this Hidden work of darkness as that Author calls it Buckingham and St. Davids being only accessaries and subservient instruments But who can think they durst have undertaken so soul a business which could not be washt off but by their bloud had not the King commanded and the Prince consented Now for the King there is not any thing more certain than the great care he took that no danger should accrue to the Religion here by Law established by the Match with Spain And this appears so clearly by the Instructions which he gave to Digby at the first opening of this Treaty as if it had been written with a beam of the Sun The matter of Religion saith he is to us of most principal consideration for nothing can be to us dearer than the honour and safety of the Religion we profess And therefore seeing that this Marriage and Alliance if it shall take place is to be with a Lady of a different Religion from us it becometh us to be tender as on the one part to give them all satisfaction convenient so on the other to admit nothing that may blemish our Conscience or detract from the Religion here established And to this point he stood to the very last not giving way to any alteration in this or tolleration of that Religion though he was pleased to grant some personal graces to the Recusants of this Kingdom and to abate somewhat of the Rigour of those Capitall Laws which had been formerly enacted against Priests and Jesuites Next for the Prince he had been brought up for some years then last past at the feet of this most learned and wise Gamaliel by whom he was so fortified in the true Protestant Religion established by the Laws of this Realm that he feared not the encounter of the strongest Adversary and of this the King was grown so confident that when Maw and Wren the Princes Chaplains were to receive his Majesties Commands at their going to Spain there to attend upon their Master he advised them not to put themselves upon any unnecessary Disputations but to be only on the defensive part if they should
with the sins of the State But then he will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel Gen. 49. Nay scatter Iacob and Israel it self for them Which said in general he descended to a more particular application putting his Auditory in mind of those words of Tacitus That nothing gave the Romans powerful enemies though they were more advantage against the ancient Britains than this Quod Factionibus studiis trahebantur That they were broken into Factions and would not so much as take counsel and advice together And they smarted for it But I pray what is the difference for men not to meet in counsel and to fall to pieces when they meet If the first were our Fore-fathers errour God of his mercy grant this second be not ours And for the Church that is as the City too just so Doctrine and Discipline are the Walls and the Towers of it But be the one never so true and the other never so perfect they come both short of Preservation if that body be not at unity in it self The Church take it Catholick cannot stand well if it be not compacted together into an holy unity with Faith and Charity And as the whole Church is in regard of the affairs of Christendom so is each particular Church in the Nation and Kingdom in which it sojourns If it be not at unity in it self it doth but invite Malice which is ready to do hurt without any invitation and it ever lies with an open side to the devil and all his batteries So both Church and State then happy and never till then when they are at unity within themselves and one with another Well both State and Church owe much to Vnity and therefore very little to them that break the peace of either Father forgive them they know not what they do But if unity be so necessary how may it be preserved in both How I will tell you Would you keep the State in Vnity In any case take heed of breaking the peace of the Church The peace of the State depends much upon it For divide Christ in the minds of men or divide the minds of men about their hopes of Salvation in Christ and tell me what unity there will be Let this suffice so far as the Church is an ingredient into the unity of the State But what other things are concurring to the unity of it the State it self knows better than I can teach This was good Doctrine out of doubt The Preacher had done his part in it but the hearers did not the Parliament not making such use of it as they should have done At such time as the former Parliament was adjourned to Oxon the Divinity School was prepared for the House of Commons and a Chair made for the Speaker in or near the place in which his Majesties Professor for Divinity did usually read his publick Lectures and moderate in all publick Disputations And this first put them into conceit that the determining of all Points and Controversies in Religion did belong to them As Vibius Rufus in the Story having married Tullies Widow and bought Caesars Chair conceived that he was then in a way to gain the Eloquence of the one and the power of the other For after that we find no Parliament without a Committee for Religion and no Committee for Religion but what did think it self sufficiently instructed to manage the greatest Controversies of Divinity which were brought before them And so it was particularly with the present Parliament The Commons had scarce setled themselves in their own House but Mountague must be called to a new account for the Popery and Arminianism affirmed to have been maintained by him in his books In which Books if he had defended any thing contrary to the established Doctrine of the Church of England the Convocation of the two was the fitter Judge And certainly it might have hapned ill unto him the King not being willing to engage too far in those Emergences as the case then stood if the Commons had not been diverted in pursuit of the Duke of Buckingham which being a more noble game they laid this aside having done nothing in it but raised a great desire in several Members of both Houses to give themselves some satisfaction in those doubtful Points To which end a Conference was procured by the Earl of Warwick to be held at York House between Buckeridge Bishop of Rochester and White Dean of Carlile on the one side Morton then of Lichfield and Preston then of Lincolns-Inn of whom more hereafter on the other The Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Pembroke many other Lords and many other persons of inferiour quality being present at it To this Conference which was holden on the eleventh of this February another was added the next week on the seventeenth In which Mountague acted his own part in the place of Buckeridge the Concourse being as great both for the quality and number of the persons as had been at the former And the success was equal also The Friends and Fautors of each side giving the victory to those as commonly it happens in such cases whose cause they favoured After this we hear no more of Mountague but the passing of some Votes against him in the April following which â—eats being over he was kept cold till the following Parliament And then he shall be called for In the mean time the King perceiving that the Commons had took no notice of his own occasions gave order to Sir Richard Weston then Chancellour of his Exchequer to mind them of it by whom he represented to them the return of the last years Fleet and the want of Money to satisfie the Mariners and Souldiers for their Arrâ—ars That he had prepared a new Fleet of forty Sail ready to set forth which could not stir without a present supply of money And that without the like supply not only his Armies which were quartered upon the Coasts would disband or mutiny but that the Forces sent for Ireland would be apt to rebell and therefore he desired to know without more adoe what present supply he must depend upon from them that accordingly he might shape his course These Propositions being made Clem. Coke a younger Son of Sir Edward Coke who had successively been Chief Justice of either Bench obstructs the Answer by this rash and unhandsome expression That it was better to dye by a Forreign Enemy than to be destroyed at home Which general words were by one Turner a Doctor of Physick and then a Member of that House restrained and applied more particularly to the Duke of Buckingham The Commons well remembred at what Point they were cut off in the former Parliament and carefully watcht all advantages to resume it in this They had begun a great clamour against him on the first of March for staying a French Ship called the St. Peter of Newhaven and Turner now incites them to a higher distemper by six
any business to bring about amongst the people she used to tune the Pulpits as her saying was that is to say to have some Preachers in and about London and other great Auditories in the Kingdom ready at command to cry up her design as well in their publick Sermons as their private Conferences Which course was now thought fit to be followed in preparing the people toward a dutifull compliance to these his Majesties desires And to that end Laud received a Command from his Majesty by the Duke of Buckingham to reduce certain instructions into Form partly Political partly Ecclesiastical in the Cause of the King of Denmark not long before beaten and now much distressed by Count Tilly to be published in all Parishes within the Realm To this he chearfully conformed and brought the said Instructions to the Duke within two daies after being the sixteenth of September And having read them over first to the Duke and after to the King himself he received from both a very favourable acceptation On the next day they were communicated to the Lords of the Council who approved them also By whose advice he sent them to the Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him by his Letters bearing date September 29. to see them published and dispersed in the several Diocesses of his Province The like Letters he also writ to the Archbishop of York And they accordingly gave order to their several and respective Suffragans To see them made known to the worthy Preachers and Ministers in their Diocess and so far as their Lordships might in their own persons to put these things in execution and to call upon the Clergy which was under them in their Preachings and private Conferences to stir up all sorts of people to express their Zeal to God their Duty to the King and their Love unto their Country and one to another that all good and Christian-like course might be taken for the preservation of true Religion both in this Land and through all Christendom Now the tenour of the said Instructions was as followeth Most Reverend Father in God right trusty and right well-beloved Counsellour We greet you well WE have observed that the Church and the State are so nearly united and knit together that though they may seem two bodies yet indeed in some relation they may be accounted but as one inasmuch as they both are made up of the same men which are differenced only in relation to Spiritual or Civil ends This neerness makes the Church call in the help of the State to succour and support her whensoever she is pressed beyond her strength And the same nearness makes the State call in for the service of the Church both to teach that duty which her Members know not and to exhort them to and encourage them in that duty which they know It is not long since we ordered the State to serve the Church and by a timely Proclamation settled the peace of it And now the State looks for the like assistance from the Church that she and all her Ministers may serve God and us by preaching peace and unity at home that it may be the better able to resist Forraign Force uniting and multiplying against it And to the end that they to whom we have committed the Government of the Church under us may be the better able to dispose of the present occasions we have with the Advice of our Council thought fit to send unto you these Instructions following to be sent by you to the Bishops of your Province and such others whom it may concern and by them and all their Officers directed to all the Ministers throughout the several Diocesses that according to these punctually they may instruct and exhort the people to serve God and us and labour by their Prayers to divert the dangers which hang over us The danger in which we are at this time is great It is encreased by the late blow given our good Vncle the King of Denmark who is the chief Person in those parts that opposed the spreading Forces of Spain If he cannot subsist there is little or nothing left to hinder the House of Austria from being Lord and Master of Germany And that is a large and mighty Territory and such as should it be gotten would make an open way for Spain to do what they pleased in all the West part of Christendom For besides the great strength which Germany once possessed would bring to them which are two strong already you are to consider first how it enables them by Land in that it will joyn all or the most part of the Spaniards now distracted Territories and be a means for him safely and speedily to draw down Forces against any other Kingdom that shall stand in his way Nor can it be thought the Low Countries can hold out longer against him if he once become Lord of the upper parts And secondly You are to weigh how it will advantage him by Sea and make him strong against us in our particular which is of easie apprehension to all men And besides if he once get Germany he will be able though he had no Gold from India to supply the necessity of those Wars and to hinder all Trade and Traffick of the greatest Staple Commodities of this Kingdom Cloth and Wool and so make them of little or no value You are to know therefore that to prevent this is the present care of the King and State and there is no probable way left but by sending Forces and other Supplies to the said King of Denmark our dear Vncle to enable him to keep the Field that our Enemies be not Masters of all on the sudden You are further to take notice how both we and the whole State stand bound in Honour and Conscience to supply the present necessity of the King of Denmark For this quarrel is more nearly ours the recovery of the Ancient Inheritance of our dear Sister and her Children The King of Denmark stands not so near in bloud unto her as we do Yet for her and our sakes that brave and valiant King hath adventured into the field and in that ingagement hath not only hazarded his Person but as things go now it may turn to some danger to his own Kingdom and Posterity should he not receive aide and succour from us without delay Which should it happen as God forbid will be one of the greatest dishonours that ever this Kingdom was stained withall Nor is danger and dishonour all the mischief that is like to follow this disaster For if it be not presently relieved the Cause of Religion is not only likely to suffer by it in some one part as it hath already in a fearful manner in the Palatinate but in all places where it hath gotten any footing So that if we supply not presently our Allies and Confederates in this case it is like to prove the extirpation of true Religion and the re-planting of Romish Superstition in all
Foreign Title exercised all manner of Episcopal Jurisdiction in the Church of England And on the other side Archbishop Abbot a great Confident of the Popular Party in the House of Commons is sent for to the Court about Christmas and from out of his Barge received by the Archbishop of York and the Earl of Dorset by them accompanied to the King who giving him his Hand to kiss enjoined him not to fail the Council-Table twice a week And so far all was well beyond all exception but whether it were so in the two next also hath been much disputed Barnaby Potter Provost of Queens Colledge in Oxon. a thorow-pac'd Calvinian but otherwise his ancient Servant is preferr'd to the Bishoprick of Carlisle then vacant by the Translation of White to the See of Mountague's Book named Appello Caesarem must be called in also not in regard of any false Doctrine contained in it but for being the first cause of those Disputes and Differences which have since much troubled the quiet of the Church His Majesty hoping That the occasion being taken away men would no longer trouble themselves with such unnecessary Disputations Whether his Majesty did well in doing no more if the Book contained any false Doctrine in it or in doing so much if it were done only to please the Parliament I take not upon me to determine But certainly it never falleth out well with Christian Princes when they make Religion bend to Policy or think to gain their ends on men by doing such things as they are not plainly guided to by the Light of Conscience And so it hapned to his Majesty at this present time those two last Actions being looked on only as Tricks of King-craft done only out of a design for getting him more love in the hearts of his People than before he had Against the calling in of Mountague's Book it was objected commonly to his disadvantage That it was not done till three years after it came out till it had been questioned in three several Parliaments till all the Copies of it were dispersed and sold and then too That it was called in without any Censure either of the Author or his Doctrines That the Author had been punished with a very good Bishoprick and the Book seemingly discountenanced to no other end but to divert those of contrary perswasion from Writing or Acting any thing against it in the following Parliament And as for Potter what could he have done less in common gratitude than to prefer him to a Bishoprick for so many years Service as Potter in his time had done him both as Prince and King So true is that of the wise Historian When Princes once are in discredit with their Subjects as well their good Actions as their bad are all accounted Grievances For notwithstanding all these preparatory actions the Commons were resolved to begin at the same Point where before they ended The Parliament had been Prorogued as they were hammering a Remonstrance against Tonnage and Poundage which animated Chambers Rouls and some other Mercâ—ants to refuse the payment for which refusal some of their Goods was seised by Order from the Lord Treasurer Weston and some of them committed Prisoners by the Kings Command These matters so possessed their thoughts that a week was passed before they could resume their old care of Religion or think of Petitioning his Majesty for a Publick Fast but at last they fell upon them both To their Petition for a Fast not tendred to his Majesty till the thirtieth of Ianuary he returned this Answer the next day viz. That this Custom of Fasts at every Session was but lately begun That he was not so fully satisfied of the necessity of it at this time That notwithstanding for the avoiding of Questions and Jealousies he was pleased to grant them their Request with this Proviso That it should not hereafter be brought into President but on great occasions And finally That as for the form and times thereof he would advise with his Bishops and then return unto both Houses a particular Answer But so long it was before that Answer came unto them and so perverse were they in crossing with his Majesties Counsels that the Parliament was almost ended before the Fast was kept in London and Westminster and dissolved many days before it was to have been kept in the rest of the Kingdom And for Religion they insisted on it with such importunity that his Majesty could no longer dissemble his taking notice of it as a meer artifice and diversion to stave him off from being gratified in the Grant of Tonnage and Poundage which he so often press'd them to And thereupon he lets them know That he understood the cause of their delay in his business to be Religion of the preservation whereof none of them should have greater care than himself and that either it must be an Argument he wanted Power to preserve it which he thought no body would affirm or at the least That he was very ill counselled if it were in so much danger as they had reported This notwithstanding they proceed in their former way His Majesty had granted several Pardons to Mountague Cosens Manwaâ—ring and Sibthâ—rp before-mentioned These Pardons must be questioned and the men summoned to appear And Information is preferred by Iones against Mountague's Confirmation in the See of Chichester which after many disputes is referred to a Select Committee Complaint is made against Neile Bishop of Winton for for saying to some Divines of his Diocess That they must not Preach against Papists now as they had done formerly Marshall and Moor two Doctors in Divinity but such as had received some displeasures from him are brought in to prove it Upon him also it was charged That the Pardons of Mountague and Cosens were of his procuring Insomuch that Eliot pronounced positively That all the Dangers which they feared were contracted in the person of that Bishop and thereupon desired That a Motion might be made to his Majesty to leave him to the Iustice of that House Many Reports come flowing in to the Committee for Religion of turning Tables into Altars adoring towards or before them and standing up at the Gospels and the Gloria Patri which must be also taken into consideration The Articles of Lambeth are declared to be the Doctrines of this Church and all that did oppose them to be called in question Walker delivered a Petition from the Booksellers and Printers in complaint of the Restraint of Books written against Popery and Arminianism and the contrary allowed of by the only means of the Bishop of London and That divers of them had been Pursevanted for Printing of Orthodox Books and That the Licencing of Books was only to be restrained to the said Bishop and his Chaplains Hereupon followed a Debate amongst them about the Licencing of Books which having taken up some time was referred to the Committee also as the other was By these Embraceries the Committee
paid for that purpose all which amounted to three thousand two hundred forty seven pound sixteen shillings two pence half-peny The Clergy of England within the Province of Canterbury freely contributed the fortieth part of all such Church Livings as were charged with First-fruits and the thirtieth part of all their Benefices not so charged those of London only excepted who besides the thirtieth part of such as paid First-fruits gave the twentieth part of all the rest Which Contribution of the Clergy amounted to one thousand four hundred sixty one pound thirteen shillings and eleven pence whereunto was added by the benevolence of the Bishop of London at several times coming in all to nine hundred five pound one shilling and eleven pence By the Dean and Chapter one hundred thirty six pound thirteen shillings and four pence and made of the surplusage of Timber one hundred nineteen pound three shillings and nine pence Given by the Justices and Officers of the Common Pleas thirty four pound five shillings and by those of the Kings Bench seventeen pound sixteen shillings eight pence All which together made no more than six thousand seven hundred and two pound thirteen shillings and four pence And yet with this small Sum such was the cheapness of those Times the Work was carried on so prosperously that before the Month of April 1566. all the Roofs of Timber whereof those large ones of the East and West framed in Yorkshire and brought by Sea were perfectly finished and covered with Lead the adding of a new Steeple being thought unnecessary because too chargeable though divers Models have been made and presented of it The whole Roof being thus Repaired the Stone-work of it stood as before it did sensibly decaying day by day by reason of the corroding quality of the Sea-coal smoke which on every side annoyed it Which being observed by one Henry Farley about the middle of the Reign of King Iames he never left solliciting the King by several Petitions and Addresses to take the Ruinous Estate thereof into his Princely Consideration till at last it was resolved on by the King And to create the greater Veneration to so good a Work he bestowed that magnificent Visit on it described at large in the first Book of this History Anno 1620. The product and result whereof was the issuing out a Commission under the Great Seal of England bearing date the sixteenth day of November then next following directed to Sir Francis Iones Knight then Lord Mayor of London George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Francis Lord Verulam then Lord Chancellor of England and divers others to the number of sixty Persons and upwards Which Commission importing That this Church being the greatest and most eminent as also one of the principal Ornaments of the Realm and in much decay any six or more of these Commissioners whereof three to be of the said Kings Privy-Council should meet to make Particulars of the decay and likewise what Houses Cellars c. had been built near it either to the annoyance of it or the Church-yard And moreover to Inquire what Lands Rents c. had been given towards its Repair or Sums of Money collected to that purpose and not accordingly employed And further to consider of the most fit and proper means to raise money to carry on the said Repair And lastly to appoint Surveyors and other Officers of their Work and to make Certificate of their Proceedings therein into the Chancery Upon the Meeting of which Commissioners and diligent search made into the Particulars afore-mentioned it was acknowledged that the Bishop of London had the whole care of the Body of that Church and the Dean and Chapter of the Choires But that which each of them enjoyed to this purpose was so little that they yearly expended double as much upon the Roof and other parts decayed to preserve them from present ruine Which being made evident to the Commissioners as also that in former times even from the very first foundation thereof it had been supported partly out of the large Oblations of those that visited the Shrines and Oratories therein and partly from Publick Contributions in all parts of the Kingdom It was concluded to proceed in the same way now as had been done formerly And that it might proceed the better the King himself and many of the principal Nobility and Gentry declared by their Superscriptions for the encouragement of others to so good a Work what Sums they resolved to give in pursuance of it Doctor Iohn King then Bishop of London subscribing for 100 l. per Annum as long as he should continue in that See Mountain who succeeded not long after in that Bishoprick procured with great charge and trouble some huge massie Stones to be brought from Portland for the beginning of the Work But money coming slowly in and he being a man of small activity though of good affecâ—ions the heat of this great business cooled by little and little and so came to nothing But Laud succeeding him in the See of London and having deservedly attained unto great Authority with his Majesty no sooner saw his Office settled both at home and abroad but he possessed him with a Loyal and Religious Zeal to persue that Work which King Iames had so piously designed though it went not much further than the bare design Few words might serve to animate the King to a Work so pious who aimed at nothing more than the Glory of God in the Advancement of the Peace and Happiness of the Church of England And therefore following the example oâ— his Royal Father he bestowed the like Visit on St. Pauls whither he was attended with the like Magnificence and entertained at the first entrance into the Church with the like Solemnity The Divine Service being done and the Sermon ended which tended principally unto the promoting of a Work so honourable both to his Majesties Person and the English Nation his Majesty took a view of the Decays of that Church and there Religiously promised not to be wanting in the Piety of his best Endeavours to the Repair of those Ruines which Age the Casualties of Weather or any other Accidents had brought upon it In order whereunto in the beginning oâ— this year he issued out his Royal Commission under the Great Seal of England bearing date the tenth of April in the seventh year of his Reign directed to Sir Robert Ducy Lord Mayor of the City of Londan George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Coventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seal c. William Lord Bishop of London Richard Lord Bishop of Winton Iohn Lord Bishop of Ely c. Nicholas Rainton Ralph Freeman Rowland Heylyn c. Aldermen of the City of London Edward Waymack and Robert Bateman Chamberlain of the said City of London In which Commission the said King taking notice of this Cathedral as the goodliest Monument and most ancient Church of his whole Dominions as also that it was the principal
thinking favourably of our Churches or resorting to them and to some moderate Protestants also in beautifying and adorning Churches after such a manner as without giving just offence might draw the greater Estimation to those sacred Places In which respect Laud did not only aggravate the Crime as much as he could in reference to the dangerous Consequences which might follow on it but shewed how far the use of painted Images in the way of Ornament and Remembrance might be retained in the Church not justifying the painting of God the Father in the shape of an Old Man as he was commonly misreported but only laying down the Reason which induced some Painters to that Representation which they grounded on Daniel 7.9 where God the Father is not only called the Ancient of Days to signifie his Eternity before all time which was so much insisted on by the Earl of Dorset but described after the similitude of an Old Man the hair of whose head was like the pure wooll In fine though Sherfeild found some Friends yet they were but few the major part concurring in this Sentence on him that is to say to be fined a thousand pounds to the King deprived of his Recordership bound to his good behaviour for the time to come as also to make a publick Acknowledgment of his Offence not only in the Parish Church of St. Edmonds where it was committed but in the Cathedral Church it self that the Bishop in contempt of whose Authority he had plaid this Pageant might have Reparation This Censure being past on Sherfeild on the eighth of February Order is given to Noy the Atturney-General to make preparation for another but of greater consequence We shew'd before how busie Prynne had made himself in some present Controversies and with what insolence he carried himself from the High-Commission Prepared with confidence and success for a further Calamity he publishes a small Pamphlet called Lame GILES his Halting An Appendix against Bowing at the Name of IESVS a larger Book called Anti-Arminianism and notably bestirs himself in discovering a mistake an Imposture it must needs be called in the Historical Narration published 1631. against which he never lest exclaiming till he had procured Archbishop Abbot with whom he was grown very gracious to call it in But not contented with that Triumph he prepares another Pageant for us in the end of Michaelmas Term this year known by the name of Histrio-Mastyx in which he seemed to breath nothing but Disgrace to the Nation Infamy to the Church Reproaches to the Court Dishonour to the Queen and some things which were thought to be tending to the destruction of his Majesties Person Neither the Hospitality of the Gentry in the time of Christmas nor the Musick in Cathedrals and the Chappels Royal nor the Pomps and Gallantries of the Court nor the Queens harmless Recreations nor the Kings solacing himself sometimes in Masques and Dances could escape the venom of his Pen expressed for the most part in such bitter Language and frequently interlaced with such dangerous Aggravations and Insinuations that it was not possible for the Author to escape uncensured This Book being brought before the Lords of the Council toward the end of Ianuary and found too tedious for their Lordships to be troubled with it it pleased his Majesty to give order that the Book should be committed to the Reading of one of the Prebends of Westminster with command to draw out of it and digest such particular Passages as tended to the danger or dishonour of the King or State On the finishing and return of which Collection Prynne is committed to the Tower on Sunday being Candlemas day and on the morrow after the Collector received a further Order to review his Notes and deduct out of them such Logical Inferences and Conclusions as might and did naturally arise on those dangerous Premises One Copy of the same to be leâ—t for the Lords of the Council and another with Noy the Atturney-General and the rest of his Majesties Council-Learned in the Laws of this Realm which Papers gave such satisfaction to the one and such help to the other that when the Cause was brought to hearing in the Star-Chamber they repeated his Instructions only as Prynne himself informed against him to the House of Commons What was done further in this business we shall see hereafter This business being put into a course our Bishop offereth some Considerations to the Lords of the Council concerning the Dishonour done to the Church of England by the wilful negligence of some Chaplains and other Ministers both in our Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas together with the Inconveniencies which redounded to it from the French and Dutch Congregations settled in many places amongst our selves He had long teemed with this Design but was not willing to be his own Midwife when it came to the Birth and therefore it was so contrived that Windebank should make the Proposition at the Council-Table and put the Business on so far that the Bishop might be moved by the whole Board to consider of the several Points in that weighty Business who being thus warranted to the execution of his own desires presented two Memorials to their Lordships at the end of this year March 22. The one relating to the Factories and Regiments beyond the Seas the other to the French and Dutch Plantations in London Kent Norfolk Yorkshire Hampshire and the Isle of Axhelme He had observed not without great indignation how Tenacious the French and Dutch Churches were of their own received Forms both in Worship and Government as on the other side how ignoble and degenerous the English had shown themselves in neglecting the Divine Service of this Church in their several Factories where they were licenced to make use of it by the Power and Countenance of that State in which they Traded The Earl of Leicester being sent this year to negotiate some Affairs with the King of Denmark and Anstrother ready to come from the Court of the Emperour they were appointed by his Majesty to meet at Hamborough there to expect the coming of Pennington with some Ships to conduct them home The English driving a great Trade in that Town were by the Magistrates thereof indulged all the Priviledges of an English Church but they retained nothing of a Church of England governing themselves wholly by Calvin's Plat-form which they had taken up in England The two Embassadors being met but the Ships not come the Elders of the Church humbly desired their Lordships to do them so much honour in the eyes of the People as to vouchsafe their presence at the English Church and that their Lordships Chaplains might be ordered to Exercise in the Congregation This Motion being chearfully embraced by both the Earl of Leicester's Chaplain first mounts the Pulpit and after a short Psalm according to the Genevian fashion betakes himself unto his Sermon The like was done by Iohnson Anstrothers Chaplain for I remember
Clergy Fourthly That they should double the yearly Rents which were reserved unto the Crown by their former Grants And finally That these Conditions being performed on their parts the King should settle their Estates by Act of Parliament Home went the Commissioners with joy for their good success expecting to be entertained with Bells and Bonfires but they found the contrary the proud Scots being generally resolved rather to put all to hazard than to quit that Power and Tyranny which they had over their poor Vassals by which name after the manner of the French they called their Tenants And hereunto they were encouraged under-hand by a Party in England who feared that by this Agreement the King would be so absolute in those Northern Regions that no Aid could be hoped from thence when the necessity of their designs might most require it Just as the Castilians were displeased with the Conquest of Portugal by King Philip the Second because thereby they had no place left to retire unto when either the Kings displeasure or their disobedience should make their own Country to hot for them Such was the face of Church and State when his Majesty began his Journey for Scotland to receive the Crown a Journey of great expence on both sides but of small profit unto either On the thirteenth day of May he advanced toward the North but by such leisurely Removes that he recovered not the City of York till the twenty fourth into which he made a Solemn and Magnificent Entrance attended by the Flower of the English Nobility the principal Officers of his Court and some of the Lords of his Privy Council He was received at his first entrance into Scotland with a gallant body of that Nation consisting for the most part of the like Ingredients and so conducted into Edenborough on the tenth of Iune Edenborough the chief City of the Realm of Scotland and indeed the Summa totalis of that Kingdom extended a whole mile in length from the Palace-Royal of Holy-Rood-House lying at the foot of the Hill to a fair and ancient Castle mounted on the top thereof From this Castle the King was to descend the Street in a Royal Pomp till he came to his Palace as the Kings of England commonly on the like occasion ride from the Tower thorow London to the Court of Whitehall where the Solemnities of the Coronation were to be perform'd The day designed for it was the eighteenth of Iune the concourse of People beyond expression and the expressions of their Joy in gallantry of Apparel sumptuous Feastings and Acclamations of all sorts nothing inferiour to that concourse But this was only the Hosanna of his first Reception they had a Crucifige for him when he came to his Parliament It was conceived at his Majesties first going toward the North that he would have settled the English Liturgie in that Church at his being there but he either carried no such thoughts with him or if he did he kept them to himself as no more than thoughts never discovering any such thing in his words or actions The Scots were of another temper than to be easily won to any thing which they had no mind to and a less mind they could have to nothing than the English Liturgie King Iames had taken order at his being in Scotland Anno 1617. That it should constantly be read twice every day in his Chappel-Royal for that City and gave command that the Lords of his Privy-Council and the Lords of Session should be present at it on the Sundays and there receive the Holy Communion according to the form prescribed in the Common-Prayer-Book And this he did unto this end That as well the Citizens of Edenborough as such as came thither upon Business might by degrees be made acquainted with the English Forms and consequently be prepared for the receiving of such a Liturgie as the King with the Advice of his Bishops and other Learned Men according to the Act of the Assembly at Aberdeen should commend unto them But these Directions being either discontinued or carelesly followed after his decease and the five Articles of Perth not press'd so diligently on the People as they might have been the Scots were generally as great Strangers to the Liturgie of the Church of England as when King Iames first came amongst us His Majesty could not be so ill served as not to be well enough informed how things went in Scotland and therefore was not to venture rashly upon such a business wherein he might receive a foil He thereupon resolves to proceed no further in Matters which concerned the Church than to pass an Act of Ratification an Act Confirmatory of such Laws and Statutes relating unto Church-concernments as by King Iames had been obtained with great charge and cunning And though he carried this Act at last yet was it not without a far greater opposition than he had reason to expect from that Convention But the Commission of Surrendry did so stick in their stomacks that they could not chuse but vent their disaffections on the first occasion Nor would they suffer him to enjoy the benefit of that Act so hardly gotten with Peace and Honour but followed him into England with a pestilent Libel in which they charged him to have carried that Act by corrupting some and a plain down-right buying of the Voices of others This was the first taste which they gave the King of their malevolency towards his Person and Government but it shall not prove to be the last His Majesty had another business to effect at his being there for which he needed not their Assistance and for that reason did not ask it This was the raising of the City of Edenborough to a See Episcopal which before was only a Borough Town belonging anciently to the Diocess and Jurisdiction of St. Andrews The Metropolitan of St. Andrews was willing for the common good to yield unto this diminution of his Power and Profit and that the whole County of Lothian extending from Edenborough-Fryth to the Town of Barwick should be dismembred from his own Diocess to serve as a Diocess to this Bishop of new Election And on the other side the Duke of Lenox whose Ancestors had long enjoyed the Priory of St. Andrews with a great part of the Lands belonging to it was willing to let his Majesty have a good penyworth of some part of those Lands to serve as a Patrimony to this new Episcopal See and the Bishop of it Which Provision being thus made and settled Forbesse a right grave and solid Divine is made the first Bishop of this City his Cathedral fixed in the Church of St. Giles being the fairest in the Town a Dean appointed for that Church some Ministers of Edenborough and the Parts adjoining being nominated for the Canons or Prebends of it A design pious in it self and purposely intended to inure the Edenburghers to the Fatherly Government of a Bishop who by tempering the exorbitancies of
their fears in that were groundless so their conjectures were no better grounded than their fears there never being a greater Patron of the Episcopal order than he lived and died but whether there might not be some presage in it in reference to the Archbishops person the diminution of his Dignity and fall of his Power may be best judged by this suspension and the consequents which followed on it And though he lived not long under the disgrace yet in the interval of time he saw so much of his Authority devolved on Laud that he grew more and more discontented and was ready in a manner to have made himself the head of the Puritan Faction It is related by a late Writer That towards his death he was not only discontented himself but that his house was the Rendezvouz of all the Malecontents in Church and State that he turned Midnight to Noonday-by constant keeping of Candles lighted in his Chamber and Study as also that such Visitants as repaired unto him called themselves Nicodemites because of their secret coming to him by night I know how much that Author hath been mistaken in other things but I see nothing in this which may not be consistent with the truth of History Certain I am his Chaplains were successively declared Calvinians his Secretary a professed Patron of the Puritan Faction his doors continually open to the Chiefs of that party and such as stickled in that cause and amongst others to him by whose Suggestion if we may take his own report the Historical Narration was called in for the great danger which it threatned to the grounds of Calvinism For his compliance with the Gentry against the Clergie this reason is alledged from his own mouth That he was so severe to the Clergy on purpose to rescue them from the severity of others and to prevent the punishment of them by lay Iudges to their greater shames which leaves the poor Clergy under a greater obloquy than any which their enemies had laid upon them But the truer reason of it was that having never been Parson Vicar nor Curate he was altogether ignorant of those afflictions which the Clergy do too often suffer by the pride of some and the Avarice of others of their Country Neighbours and consequently shewed the least compassion towards them when any of them had the hard fortune to be brought before him And for his compliance with the Puritans against the Church this reason is alledged by others viz. That he shewed the greater favour to them to keep the ballance even betwixt them and the Papists as Laud was thought to be indulgent to the Papists the better to keep down the pride and prevalency of the Puritan Faction But the truer reason of it was That he had been alwaies inclinable to them from his first beginnings insomuch that when he went Chaplain into Scotland with the Earl of Dunbar imployed by King Iames in some negotiation about that Church he was upon the point of betraying the cause if Hodgskins afterwards one of the Residentiaries of York who went Chaplain with him had not preacquainted the Earl with his tergiversation And as he laboured to be Popular upon both accounts so he endeavoured a more particular correspondence with the Gentry of Kent but most especially of his own Diocess It had been formerly the custom of his Predecessors to spend the greaâ—est part of the long vacations in the Palace of Canterbury met at the first entrance into the Diocess with a body of five hundred horse conducting them to Canterbury with great love and duty feasting the Gentry relieving the poor City entertaining their Tenants and by them liberally furnished on the other side with all sorts of provisions Abbot affected not this way and therefore never bestowed any such visit upon his Diocess but when he was confined to his house at Ford by the Kings appointment and yet resolved upon a course which carried some equivalence with it towards his design For once or twice in every year and sometimes oftner at the end of the term he would cause enquiry to be made in Westminster Hall the common Rendezvouz in St. Pauls Church and the Royal Exchange for all such Gentlemen of his Diocess as lodged in and about the City of London dispersing several Tickets from one to another by which they were invited to a general entertainment at his house in Lambeth the next day after the end of the present term where he feasted them with great bounty and familiarity A course as acceptable to the Kentish Gentry as if he had kept open Hospitality in his Palace at Canterbury because it saved them both the trouble of attending on him and the charge of sending Presents to him both which had been expected if he had spent any part of the year amongst them But this he discontinued also for three or four years or more before his death fearing as his affairs then stood that it might render him obnoxious to some misconstructions which he was willing to avoid To bring his Story to an end I shall say no more but that he had his Birth at Guilford the chief Town of Surrey and the best part of his breeding in Baliol Colledge in Oxon. whereof he was Fellow and from thence preferred to be Master of Vniversity Colledge and Dean of Winton Other preferments he had none till he came to Lichfield of which he was consecrated Bishop on the third of December Anno 1609. from thence translated unto London within few Months after and within twelve Months after that to the See of Canterbury Marks of his Benefaction we find none in places of his Breeding and Preferments but a fair Hospital well built and liberally endowed in the place of his Birth To which the woful man retired in the first extremity of those afflictions which his misfortune at Bramzill had drawn upon him and to this place he designed his body whensoever it should please God to translate him out of the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant which hapned on the fourth of August as before was said The End of the First Part. CYPRIANUS ANGLICUS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF The most Reverend and Renowned PRELATE WILLIAM By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan Chancellor of the Universities of Oxon. and Dublin and one of the Lords of the Privy Council to His late most SACRED MAJESTY King CHARLES Second MONARCH of Great-Brittain PART II. Carrying on the History from his Nomination to the Metropolitical See of Canterbury August 6. 1633. to the day of his Death and Burial Jan. 10. 1644. LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for A. Seile 1668. THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB IV. Extending from his being made Archbishop of Canterbury to the end of the Parliament and Convocation Anno 1640. CANTERBVRY was anciently the principal City of the Kingdom and afterwards of the
is nothing more dear to us than the preservation of true Religion as it is now setled and established in this Our Kingdom to the Honour of God the great Comâ—ort of Our Self and Our Loyal People and there can nothing more conduce to the Advancement thereof than the strict observations of such Canons of the Church as concern those who are to take Orders in their several Times more especially of keeping that particular Canon which enjoins That no man be made a Priest without a Title For We find that many not so qualified do by favour or other means procure themselves to be Ordained and afterwards for want of Means wander up and down to the scandal of their Calling or to get Maintenance fall upon such Courses as were most unfit for them both by humouring their Auditors and other ways altogether unsufferable We have therefore thought fit and We do hereby straightly command require and charge you to call such Bishops to you as are now present in or near Our City of London and to acquaint them with this Our Resolution And further That you fail not in the beginning of the next Term to give notice of this Our Will and Pleasure openly in Our High-Commisâ—ion Court and that you call into your said Court every Bishop respectively that shall presume to give Orders to any man that hath not a Title and there to censure him as the Canon aforesaid doth enjoin which is to maintain the Party so Ordered till he give him a Title and with what other Censure you in Iustice shall think fit And Our further Will is That nothing shall be reputed a Title to enable a man for Orders but that which is so by the Ancient Course of the Church and the Canon-Law so far forth as that Law is received in this our Church of England And as you must not fail in these our Directions nor in any part of them so We expect that you give us from time to time a strict Account of your Proceedings in the same Given under Our Signet at Our Palace of Westminster Septemb. 19. in the ninth year of Our Reign 1633. On the Receipt of these Letters which himself had both advised and digested he called such of his Suffragan Bishops who were then about London to come before him acquaints them with the great scandal which was given the Church the danger of Schism and Faction which might thence arise and the more than ordinary displeasure which had been taken by his Majesty and the Lords of his Council at such unlawful and uncanonical Ordinations he required them therefore to be more careful for the time to come and not to give the like offence to his Sacred Majesty who was resolved to see the Canons of the Church in that particular more punctually observed than they had been formerly and to call all such to an account who should presume hereafter to transgress therein Which said he gave to each of them a Copy of his Majesties Letters and sent the like Copies unto all the rest of his Suffragan Bishops inclosed in Letters of his own in which Letters having declared unto them as much as he spake unto the rest touching his Majesties pious Care to redress that Mischief he requires them and every one of them That at all times of Ordination they be very careful to admit none into Holy Orders but such men as for Life and Learning are fit and which have a Title for their maintenance according to the Laws and the ancient Practice of the Church assuring them that his Majesty had commanded him to let them know That he would not fail to call for an account of those his Letters both from him and them and therefore That he did not doubt but that they would have a special care both of the good of the Church and his Majesties Contentment in it The like Letters were sent from his Majesty by his procurement to the Archbishop of York who was as sensible of the inconvenience as himself could be And though nothing was required in either of the said Letters but what had been provided for in the Canon of 1603. yet was it as much inveighed against as if it had been a new device never heard of formerly The reason was because that neither any Lecture nor any possibility of being entertained as a Chaplain in the Houses of Noblemen or others of the inferiour Gentry could be allowed of for a Title and consequently no Orders to be given hereafter under those Capacities But notwithstanding those Reproaches the Archbishops so bestirred themselves and kept such a strict eye on their several Suffragans that from henceforth we hear but little of such vagrant Ministers and Trencher-Chaplains the old brood being once worn out as had pestred and annoyed the Church in those latter Times It is to be observed That the Archbishops Letter to his several Suffragans bears date on the eighteenth of October which day gives date also to his Majesties Declaration about Lawful Sports concerning which we are to know That the Commons in the first Parliament of his Majesties Reign had gained an Act That from thenceforth there should be no Assembly or Concourse of People out of their own Parishes on the Lords day or any Bull-baiting Bear-baiting Enterludes Common Plays or any other unlawful Exercises or Pastimes in their own Parishes on the same Which being gained they obtained another in the third Parliament for inhibiting all Carriers Waggoners Drovers Pack-men for Travelling on the said day with their Horses Waggons Packs c. As also That no Butcher should from thenceforth kill or sell any Victual upon that day either by himself or any other under the several Penalties therein contained And though it was not his Majesties purpose in those Acts to debar any of his good Subjects from any honest and harmless Recreations which had not been prohibited by the Laws of the Land or that it should not be lawful for them in case of necessity to buy a piece of Meat for the use of their Families the Butchers Shop not being set open as on other days yet presently some Publick Ministers of Justice began to put another sense upon those Acts than ever came within the compass of his meaning For at the Summer Assizes held in Exon Anno 1627. an Order was made by Walter then Chief Baron and Denham one of the puisne Barons of the Court of Exchequer for suppressing all Revels Church-Ales Clerk-Ales which had been used upon that day requiring the Justices of the Peace within the said County to see the same put in execution and that every Minister in his Parish-Church should publish the said Order yearly on the first Sunday in February The like Order made in the same year also for the Counties of Somerset and Dorset and probably enough for some of the other Counties of that Western Circuit none of them in those squeasie and unsettled Times being questioned for it And then in
without Mayors Bayliffs Constables and other Officers to take notice and to see observed as they tender Our displeasure And We further Will That Publication of this Our Commmand be made by Order from the Bishops thorow all the Parish Churches of their several Diocesses respectively Given at our Palace at Westminster Oct. 18. in the ninth year of Our Reign 1633. His Majesty had scarce dried his Pen when he dipt it in the Ink again upon this occasion The Parishioners of St. Gregories in St. Pauls Church-yard had bestowed much cost in beautifying and adorning their Parish Church and having prepared a decent and convenient Table for the holy Sacrament were ordered by the Dean and Chapter of St. Pauls as being Ordinaries of the place to dispose of it in such a Posture in the East end of the Chancel as anciently it had stood and did then stand in the Mother Cathedral Against this some of the Parishioners not above five in number appeal unto the Dean of the Arches and the Dean and Chapter to the King The third day of November is appointed for debating the Point in controversie before the Lords of the Council his Majesty sitting as chief Judge accompanied with Laud Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Keeper Lord Archbishop of Yorke Lord Treasurer Lord Privy Seal Lord Duke of Lenox Lord High Chamberlaine Earle Marshal Lord Chamberlaine Earle of Bridgewater Earle of Carlisle Lord Cottington Mr. Treasurer Mr. Comptroller Mr. Secretary Cooke Mr. Secretary Windebanke The cause being heard and all the Allegations on both sides exactly pondered his Majesty first declared his dislike of all Innovations and receding from ancient Constitutions grounded upon just and warrantable reasons c. And afterwards gave Sentence in behalf of the Dean and Chapter But because this Order of his Majesty in the case of St. Gregories was made the Rule by which all other Ordinaries did proceed in causing the Communion Table to be placed Altarwise in the Churches of their several and respective Diocesses I will subjoyn it here verbatim as it lies before me At Whitehall Novem. 3. 1633. This day was debated before his Majesty sitting in Council the question and difference which grew about the removing of the Communion Table in St. Gregories Church near the Cathedral Church of St. Paul from the middle of the Chancel to the upper end and there placed Altarwise in such manner as it standeth in the said Cathedral and Mother-Church as also in other Cathedrals and in his Majesties own Chappel and as is consonant to the practice of approved Antiquity which removing and placing of it in that sort was done by order of the Dean and Chapter of St. Pauls who are Ordinaries thereof as was avowed before his Majesty by Doctor King and Doctor Montfort two of the Prebends there Yet some few of the Parishioners being but five in number did complain of this act by appeal to the Court of Arches pretending that the Book of Common Prayer and the 82 Canon do give permission to place the Communion Table where it may stand with most fitness and convenience Now his Majesty having heard a particular relation made by the Counsell of both parties of all the carriage and proceedings in this cause was pleased to declare his dislike of all innovation and receding from ancient Constitutions grounded upon just and warrantable reasons especially in matters concerning Ecclesiastical Orders and Government knowing how easily men are drawn to affect Novelties and how soon weak Iudgments in such cases may be overtaken and abused And he was also pleased to observe that if those few Parishioners might have their wills the difference thereby from the foresaid Cathedral Mother-Church by which all other Churches depending thereon ought to be guided would be the more notorious and give more subject of discours and disputes that might be spared by reason of the nearness of St. Gregories standing close to the Wall thereof And likewise for so much as concerns the Liberty by the said Common Book or Canon for placing the Communion Table in any Church or Chappel with most conveniency that liberty is not so to be understood as if it were ever left to the discretion of the Parish much less to the particular fancy of any humorous person but to the judgment of the Ordinary to whose place and Function it doth properly belong to give direction in that point both for the thing it self and for the time when and how long as he may find cause Vpon which consideration his Majesty declared himself that he well approved and confirmed the Act of the said Ordinary and also gave commandment that if those few Parishioners before mentioned do proceed in their said Appeal then the Dean of the Arches who was then attending at the hearing of the cause should confirm the said Order of the aforesaid Dean and Chapter Of this last Declaration there was no great notice took at first the danger being remote the case particular and no necessity imposed of conforming to it But the other was no sooner published then it was followed and pursued with such loud outcries as either the Tongues or Pens of the Sabbatarians could raise against it Some fell directly on the King and could find out no better names for this Declaration than a Profane Edict a maintaining of his own honour and a Sacrilegious robbing of God A Toleration for prophaning the Lords day Affirming That it was impossible that a spot of so deep a dye should be emblanched though somewhat might be urged to qualifie and alleviate the blame thereof Others and those the greatest part impute the Republishing of this Declaration to the new Archbishop and make it the first remarkable thing which was done presently after he took possession of his Graceship as Burton doth pretend to wit it in his Pulpit Libell And though these Books came not out in Print till some years after yet was the clamour raised on both at the very first encreasing every day more and more as the reading of it in their Churches had been pressed upon them To stop the current of these clamours till some better course might be devised one who wisht well both to the Parties and the Cause fell on a fancy of Translating into the English Tongue a Lecture or Oration made by Dr. Prideaux at the Act in Oxon. Anno 1622. In which he solidly discoursed both of the Sabbath and Sunday according to the judgment of the ancient Fathers and the most approved Writers of the Protestant and Reformed Churches This Lecture thus translated was ushered also with a Preface In which there was proof offered in these three Propositions First That the keeping holy of one day of seven is not the moral part of the fourth Commandment Secondly That the alteration of the day is only an humane and Ecclesiastical Constitution Thirdly That still the Church hath power to change the day and to transfer it to some other Which as they are the general Tendries of the
it was not easie to Transcribe them insomuch that few of the Presbyters themselves could tell which of them were authentical which not So unsafely and uncertainly kept that they knew not where to address themselves for consulting with them That by reducing those numerous Act and those not known unto themselves to such a paucity of Canons published and exposed to the publick view no man should be insnared by ignorance or have just reason to complain of their multiplicity And finally That not one in all that Kingdom did either live under the Obedience of the Acts of those General Assemblies or did know what they were or where to find them Upon which grounds the Book of Canons being drawn up and presented to him he gave a Warrant under his Hand to the Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him together with the Bishop of London to peruse the same to see that they were well fitted to the Church-Government and as near as conveniently might be to the Canons of the Church oâ— England giving them and either of them full power to alter any thing in the said Canons as they found most fitting Which being done as he commanded and the Book made ready for the Press he pass'd his Royal Confirmation of it under the Great Seal oâ— the Kingdom in this manner following CHARLES REX WE 〈◊〉 of Our Royal Care for the Maintenance of the present Estate and Government of the Church of Scotland have diligently and with great content considered all the Canons and Constitutions after following and finding the same such as We are perswaded will be profitable not only to our whole Clergy but to the whole Church of that our Kingdom if so they be well observed Have for Vs Our Heirs and Lawful Successors of Our especial Grace certain Knowledâ—â— â—nd meer â—otion given and by these presents do give Our 〈◊〉 Assâ—â—t â—nto all the said Canons Orders and Constitutions 〈◊〉 all and every thing in them contained as they are afterwards set 〈◊〉 And further We do not only by Our Prerogative Royal and Supreme 〈◊〉 in Causes Ecclesiastical Ratifie and Confirm by these Our Letters Patâ—nts the said Canons Orders and Constitutions â—nd all â—nd every thing in them contained But likewise We command by 〈◊〉 â—uthority Royal and by these Letters Patents the same to be diligently observed and executed by all Our Loving Subjects of that Our Kingdom both within the Province of St. Andrews and â—lascow in all points wherein they do or may concern every or any of them according to this Our Will and Pleasure hereby expressed and declared And for the better observation of them We straightly Charge and Command all Our Archbishops Bishops and all others thaâ— exercise any Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction within that Our Realm to see the same Canons Orders and Constitutions to be in all points duly observed not sparing to execute the Penalties in them severally mentioned upon any that shall willingly break or neglect to observe the same as they tender the Honour of God the Peace of the Church the Tranquility of the Kingdom and their Service and Duty to Vs their King and Sovereign Given at Our Mannor of Greenwich 23 May 1635. These Canons when they came abroad were presently quarrelled and disclaimed by the Scottish Presbyters Quarrelled in reference to the subject matter comprehended in them Disclaimed because imposed upon them without their own approbation and consent The points most quarrelled at were these 1. That whosoever should affirm That the Kings Majesty had not the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical that the Godly Kings had among the Jews or the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church or impugn in any part his Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical was to incur the Censure of Excommunication 2. The like Censure to be inflicted on those who should affirm That the Worship contained in the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments though at the making of these Canons there was no such Book of Common Prayer recommended to them or That the Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops or the form of Making and Consecrating Archbishops and Bishops c. did contain any thing repugnant to the Scriptures or was corrupt superstitious or unlawful in the Service and Worship of God 3. That the Ordinations were restrained to four times in the year that is the first Weeks of March June September and December 4. That every Ecclesiastical Person at his Admission should take the Oath of Supremacy according to the form required by Parliament and the like Oath for avoiding Symonie required in the Book of Consecration 5. That every Presbyter shall either by himself or by another Person lawfully called read or cause Divine Service to be done according to the form of the Book of that Common Prayer before all Sermons and that he should Officiate by the said Book of Common Prayer in all the Offices Parts and Rubricks of it when as yet none of them had seen the said Book or Liturgie 6. That no Preacher should impugn the Doctrine delivered by another in the same Church or any neer adjoining to it without leave from the Bishop which they conceived to be the way to pin their whole Religion on the Bishops Sleeves 7. That no Presbyter should hereafter become Surety or Cautioner for any Person whosoever in Civil Bonds and Contracts under pain of Suspension 8. That whatsoever remained of the Bread and Wine prepared for the Communion should be distributed to the poorer sort which receive that day to be eaten and drunken of them before they go out of the Church 9. That Presbyters are enjoined to Minister the Sacrament of Baptism in private Houses and upon every day alike in case of infirmity and that the People were required not to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but upon their knees 10. That in all Sentences of Separation a Thoro Mensa there shall be a Caution inserted and given accordingly That the Persons so separated should live continently and chastly and not contract Marriage with any Person during each others life which seemed to put the innocent Party into as bad a condition as the guilty contrary to the Judgment of the Reformed Churches 11. That no private Meeting be kept by Presbyters or any other Persons whatsoever for expounding Scripture or for consulting upon matters Ecclesiastical Such matters to be handled only in the Lawful Synods held by Bishops 12. That under pain of Excommunication no Presbyter or Layman jointly or severally make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical or to add or detract from any Rubricks or Articles or other things now established without the Authority of the King or his Successors 13. That National or General Assemblies were to be called only by the Kings Authority That the Decrees thereof should bind as well the Absent as the Present in Matters Ecclesiastical and That it should not be lawful for the Bishops themselves in such Assemblies or otherwise to
consent in the times foregoing so were they now upon the point of having those old Rules broken on them by the King in making Canons and putting Laws and Orders on them for their future Government to which they never had consented And therefore though his Majesty had taken so much care as himself observed for facilitating and conveniencing their obedience by furthering their knowledge in those points which before they knew not yet they did generally behold it and exclaimed against it as one of the most grievous burthens that ever had been laid upon them More clamour but on weaker grounds was made against the Book of Common Prayer when it first came out which was not till the year 1637. and then we shall hear further of it Mean while we will return to England and see what our Archbishop doth as a chief Counsellor and States-man in his Civil Actings It was about four or five years since Anno 1631 that he first discovered how ill his Majesties Treasury had been managed between some principal Officers of his Revenue to the enriching of themselves to the impoverishing of their Master and the no small amazement of all good Subjects But the abuses being too great to be long concealed his Majesty is made acquainted with all particulars who thereupon did much estrange his countenance from the principal of them For which good service to the King none was so much suspected by them as the Archbishop of Canterbury against whom they began to practise endeavouring all they could to remove him from his Majesties ear or at the least to lessen the esteem and reputation which his fidelity and upright dealing had procured of him Factions are heightned in the Court Private ends followed to the prejudice of Publick Service and every mouth talkt openly against his proceedings But still he kept his ground and prevailed at last appointed by his Majesty on the fifth of February 1634. to be one of the great Committee for Trade and the Kings Revenue and seeing Wesâ—ons Glories set under a cloud within few weeks after Weston being dead it pleased his Majesty to commit the managing of the Treasury by Letters Patents under the Broad Seal bearing date on the fourteenth day of March to the Lord Archbishop Cottington Chancellor of the Exchequer Cooke and Windebank principal Secretaries and certain others who with no small envy looked upon him as if he had been set over them for a Supervisor Within two daies after his being nominated for this Commission his Majesty brought him also into the Foreign Committee which rendred him as considerable abroad as he was at home This as it added to his power so it encreased the stomach which was borne against him The year 1635. was but new began when clashing began to grow between him and Cottington about executing the Commission for the Treasury And that his grief and trouble might be the greater his old Friend Windebank who had received his preferment from him forsook him in the open field and joyned himself with Cottington and the rest of that Party This could not chuse but put him to the exercise of a great deal of Patience considering how necessary a friend he had lost in whose bosome he had lodged a great part of his Counsels and on whose Activity he relied for the carrying on of his designs at the Council Table But for all this â—e carries on 〈◊〉 Commâ—â—â—ion the whole year about acquaints himself with the Mysteries and secrets of it the honest advantages which the Lord Treasurers had for enriching themselves to the value of seven tâ—ousand pound a year and upwards as I have heard from his own mouth without defrauding the King or abusing the Subject He had observed that divers Treasurers of late years had raised themselves from very mean and private Fortunes to the Titles and Estates oâ— Earls which he conceived could not be done without wrong to both and therefore he resolves to commend such a man to his Majesty for the next Lord Treasurer who having no Family to raise no Wife and Children to provide for might better manage the Incomes of the Treasury to the Kings advantage than they had been formerly And who more like to come into his eye for that preferment than Iuxon his old and trusty Friend then Bishop of London a man of such a well tempered disposition as gave exceeding great content both to Prince and People and one whom he knew capable of as much instruction as by a whole years experience in the Commission for the Treasury he was able to give him It was much wondred at when first the Staff was put into this mans hand in doing whereof the Archbishop was generally conceived neither to have consulted his own present peace nor his future safety Had he studied his own present peace he should have given Cottington leave to put in for it who being Chancellor of the Exchequer pretended himself to be the next in that Ascendent the Lord Treasurers Associate while he lived and the presumptive heir to that office after his decease And had he studied his own safety and preservation for the times to come he might have made use of the power by recommending the Staff to the Earles of Bedford Hartford Essex the Lord Say or some such man of Popular Nobility by whom he might have been reciprocated by their strength and interess with the People in the change of times But he preferred his Majesties Advantages before his particular concernments the safety of the Publick before his own Nor did he want some seasonable considerations in it for the good of the Church The peace and quiet of the Church depended much on the conformity of the City of London and London did as much depend in their trade and payments upon the Love and Justice of the Lord Treasurer of England This therefore was the more likely way to conform the Citizens to the directions of their Bishop and the whole Kingdom unto them No small encouragement being thereby given to the London Clergy for the improving of their Tythes For with what confidence could any of the old Cheats adventure on a publick Examination in the Court of Exchequer the proper Court for suits and grievances of that nature when a Lord Bishop of London sate therein as the principal Judge Upon thâ—se Counsels he proceeds and obtains the Staff which was delivered to the Bishop of London on Sunday March 6. sworn on the same day Privy Counsellor and on the first of the next Term conducted in great state from London House to Westminster Hall the Archbishop of Canterbury riding by him and most of the Lords and Bishops about the Town with many Gentlemen of chief note and quality following by two and two to make up the Pomp. It was much feared by some and hoped by others that the new Treasurer would have sunk under the burden of that place as Williams did under the custody of the Seal but he deceived them both
first Innovation touching the suppressing of Sermons during the time of the late Fast in infected places contrary to the Orders in former times he answered First That after-Ages might without offence learn to avoid any visible inconvenience observed in the former And secondly That the suppressing of those Sermons was no Act of the Bishops but a Command proceeding on a full debate from the Lords of the Council the better to avoid the spreading of the Contagion And thirdly That as Sermons on the Fast-days had been used of late they were so far from humbling men in the sight of God that they were fitter for other operations as the raising of Sedition amongst the People of which there could not be a clearer instance than in that of Burton To the second That by appointing the Weekly Fasts to be on Wednesdays and those Fasts to be kept without any Sermons there was a plot for suppressing all Wednesday Lectures for ever after It was answered That Wednesday was the usual day for such Publick Fasts That it was named by the Lord Keeper no great Friend to Popery and that those men had lived to see the Fast ended and the Wednesday Lectures still continued To the third That the Prayer for Seasonable Weather was left out of the last Book and that the leaving of it out was one cause of the Shipwracks and Tempestuous Weather which followed after He answered generally first That all Fast-Books are made by the command of the King who alone had Power to call such Fasts and that the Archbishops and Bishops who had the ordering of those Books had also Power under the King of putting in and leaving out of those Books whatsoever they think fit for the present occasion Secondly as to this particular That when the Fast-Book was made the Weather was very Seasonable and the Harvest in and that it was not the Custom of the Church to pray for seasonable Weather when they had it but when it was wanting Thirdly That it was very boldly done to ascribe the cause of those Tempests to the leaving out of that Prayer which God had never revealed unto them and they could not otherwise know but by Revelation To the fourth touching a Clause omitted in the first Collect in which Thanks had been given to God for delivering us from Popish Superstition He answered That though our Fore-fathers had been delivered from such Superstitions yet God be blessed that for our parts we were never in them and therefore could not properly be said to have been delivered To the fifth touching the leaving out of a passage in one of the Orders for the Fast concerning the abuse thereof in relation to Merit he answered That it was left out because in this Age and Kingdom there was little opinion of Merit by Fasting insomuch that all Fasts were contemned and scorned both at Lent and all other set times except such as some humerous men called for of themselves to promote their ends The sixth Innovation charged upon them was the leaving of the Lady Elizabeth and her Children out of one of the Collects And the seventh That out of the same Collect the words Father of thine Elect and of their Seed was expunged also To which it was answered That the said Collect was not in the Common-Prayer-Book confirmed by Law neither King Edward vi nor Queen Elizabeth having any Children Secondly That it was added to the Book at the coming in of King Iames who brought a Princely Issue with him and left out again in the beginning of the Reign of King Charles who at that time and for four years after had no Issue neither Thirdly That as the Lady Elizabeth and her Children were put into the Collect when the King had no Issue of his own so when the King had Issue of his own there was as much reason to leave them out Fourthly For the leaving out of that Clause Father of thine Elect c. it was done by his Predecessor and that the leaving out of the Lady Elizabeth and her Issue was done by the Command of the King The eighth Innovation charged upon them was bowing at the Name of IESVS and altering to that end the words in the Epistle on the Sunday next before Easter by changing IN the Name of Iesus to AT the Name of Iesus And it was answered unto this That bowing at the Name of IESVS was no Innovation made by the Prelates of this Age but required by the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth in the very first beginning of the Reformation And secondly Though it be IN the Name of Iesus in the old Editions of the Liturgie yet it is AT the Name of Iesus in the Translation of Geneva Printed in the year 1567. and in the New Translation Authorised by King Iames. The ninth relates to the Alteration of two Passages in the Form of Prayer set forth by Act of Parliament for the Fifth of November in which Form it is thus expressed Root out the Babylonish Sect which say of Jerusalem Down with it c. And in the other place Cut off those Workers of Iniquity whose RELIGION is REBELLION Which are thus altered in the Books which came out last viz. Root out that Babylonish and Antichristian Sect of them which say c. And in the other Cut off those workers of Iniquity who turn RELIGION into REBELLION c. To which it was replied That the Book of Prayer appointed for the Fifth of November was neither made set forth or commanded to be read by Act of Parliament but only made and appointed to be read by the Kings Authority Secondly That being made and appointed to be read by no other Authority than the Kings the King might alter in it what he thought convenient and that he had the Kings hand for those Alterations What Reasons there might be to move his Majesty to it we may enquire into hereafter on another occasion To the tenth for the leaving out the Prayer for the Navy he answered that the King had then no Fleet at Sea nor any known enemy to assault as he had when that Prayer was first put in and that howsoever if there had been any design to bring in Popery to which these Innovations must be made subserviâ—nt they should rather have kept in that Prayer than have left it out Concerning the Communion Table there were three Innovations urged the placing of it Altarwise reading the second Service at it and bowing towards or before it For answer to the first It was proved to have been no Innovation in regard of Practice because it had so stood in his Majesties Chappels and divers Cathedrals of this Kingdom since the first Reformation Which posture if it be decent and convenient for the Service of God either in the Kings Chappels or Cathedrals it may be used also in other Churches but if it served to bring in Popery it was not to be used in them Nor was it any Innovation in regard of Law
the holy Table being appointed to be placed where the Altar stood by the Queens Injunctions Anno 1559. and that position justified by an order of Dr. Davenant Bishop of Sarum of which we have already spoken whom the Libellers themselves were not like to accuse for a man that purposed the ushering in or advancing of Popery The setting of a Raile before it or about it howsoever placed was only for avoiding of Prophanation and for that cause justifiable As for the reading of the Second or Communion Service at the holy Table it was no more than what had formerly been used in many places to his own remembrance first altered in those Churches where the Emissaries of that Faction came to preach and therefore the Innovation to be laid on them Secondly That it is not only fit and proper for that part of the Divine Service to be read at the Communion Table but that it is required so to be by the Rules and Rubricks of the Church It being said in the first Rubrick after the Communion that on the Holy Daies if there be no Communion all shall be read which is appointed at the Communion and in the last Rubrick before the Communion that the Minister standing at the North side of the holy Table shall say the Lords Prayer with that which follows And finally as to that of bowing towards it at their first entrance in the Church or approaches to it it is answered that it was agreeable to the Practice of Moses David Hezekiah recorded in the holy Scriptures and that Venite Adoremus O come let us worship and fall down c. was used constantly in the beginning of the Ancient Liturgies and preserved in the beginning of ours in England and therefore that the people may as well refuse to come as at their coming not to Worship he added that by the Statutes of the noble Order of St. George called the Garter the Knights whereof were bound to do their Reverence versus Altare toward the Altar that it had so continued ever since the time of King Henry the fifth that if there were any Idolatry in it neither Queen Elizabeth who drove out Popery nor King Iames who kept out Popery would have suffered it to remain in Practice and in a word that if it were Gods Worship and not Idolatry he ought to do it as well as they but if it were Idolatry and no Worship of God they ought to do it no more than he But the fourteenth and last charge which most concerned him and the rest of the Bishops to make answer to was the forging of a new Article of Religion brought from Rome to justifie their proceedings and Innovations and foysting it to the beginning of the twentieth Article The Clause pretended to be added is That the Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of â—aith because not found say they in the Latine or English Articles of King Edward the sixth or Queen Elizabeth ratified by Parliament adding that if to forge a Will or Writing be censurable in the Star-Chamber though it be but a wrong to a Private man how much more should the forgery of an Article of Religion be censured there which is a wrong to the whole Church And unto this he answered that the Articles made in the time oâ— King Edward the sixth were not now in force and therefore not material whether that Clause be in or out that in the Articles as they passed in Queen Elizabeths time this Clause was to be found in the English Edition of the year 1612. of the year 1605. of the year 1593. and in Latine in the year 1563. being one of the first Printed Copies after the Articles had been agreed on in the Convocation that it was to be found in the same terms in the Records of Convocation Anno 1562. as he proved by a Certificate under the hand of a publick Notary and therefore finally that no such forgery in adding that Clause unto that Article had been committed by the Prelates to serve their own turns by gaining any power to the Church but that the said Clause had been razed out by some of those men or some of that Faction to weaken the just power of the Church and to serve their own These Innovations thus passed over and discharged he signifies unto their Lordships That some other Charges were remaining in matter of Doctrine that they should presently be answered justo volumine to satisfie all well-minded people and that when Burtons Book was answered his Book he said but not his raylings none of the rest should be answered either by him or by his care leaving that Court to find a way for stopping the mouths of such Libellers or else for him they should raile on as long as they listed And thus beginning to draw toward an end he declares himself to be in the same case with St. Cyprian then Bishop of Carthage bitterly railed upon by a pack of Schismaticks and yet conceiving himself bound which he made his own Resolution also not to answer them with the like Levities or Revilings but to write and speak only as becomes a Priest of God that by Gods grace the Reproaches of such men should not make him faint or start aside either from the right way in matter of Practice or à certa Regula from the certain Rule of Faith Which said and craving pardon of their Lordships for his necessary length he thanks them for their just and honourable censure of those men in their unanimous dislike of them and defence of the Church Makes his excuse from passing any censure of them in regard the business had some reflection on himself and so leaves them to Gods mercy and the Kings Justice Thus have I acted Phocion's part in cutting short the long and well-studied Speech of this grave and Eloquent Demosthenes which I have been the more willing to reduce to so brief an Abstract that the Reader may perceive without the least loss of time and labour on what weak grounds the Puritan Faction raised their outcry against Innovations and what poor trifles many of those Innovations were against which they clamoured and cried out But for the Speech in its full length as it gave great satisfaction unto all that heard it so by his Majesties Command it was afterwards Printed for giving the like satisfaction to all those who should please to read it In obedience unto which Command he caused the said Speech to be Printed and Published although he was not ignorant as he declares in his Epistle to the King that many things while they are spoken and pass by the ears but once give great content which when they come to the eyes of men and their open scanning may lie open to some exceptions And so it proved in the event for though the Speech was highly magnified as it came from his mouth yet it had not been long published in Print when it was encountred with
had been grown so high and so strongly backed that Justice could not safely have been done upon them a way might have been found to have cooled the Fever without loss of Blood by bringing the whole Corporation under the danger of a forfeiture of their Lands and Liberties in a Legal way which course proved so successful unto King IAMES on the like occasion Anno 1597. Or finally supposing that the Cause admitted not such a long delay if then his Majesty had but sent a Squadron of the Royal Navy which he had at Sea to block up their Haven he had soon brought the Edenburghers unto his devotion and consequently kept all the rest of the Kingdom in a safe Obedience This was the way to keep them under and of this course the People of the City were more afraid than of any other Somewhat they are to do which might make his Majesty hope better of them than they had deserved and nothing they could do which might better please him than to express their chearfulness in admitting the Liturgie To this end they addressed their Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury as more concerned in this Affair than any other of the Lords which were neer his Majesty expressing in the same their great dislike of the late Tumult for their Innocency therein they refer themselves to his Majesties Council in that Kingdom declaring further their concurrence with the Bishops which remained in the City and the Ministry of the same for settling the Service-Book and offering Means above their Power to such as should undertake the Reading of it and finally desiring his Grace to make known to his Majesty how ready they were at all points to advance the Service which they promised to accept as an accumulation of his Graces Favours unto them and their City And that this Letter of theirs which bears date the nineteenth of August might bear the greater credit with him they did not only seem industrious for the apprehending of some and the inquiring after others of the Principal Actors but bound themselves by an Obligatory Act of the Common-Council both for the Indempnity and Maintenance of such as should read the Book the Ministers of Edenborough refusing to do their parts in it without such Encouragements But the danger was no sooner over by the coming home of the Fleet but they Petitioned the Lords of the Council to put them into the same condition with the rest of the Subjects and that the Service-Book should be no further pressed on them than it had been in all the other parts of the Kingdom To which they were encouraged by a general confluence of all sorts of People such most especially as had most shewn their disaffection to the work in hand For the Harvest was no sooner in and the People at more leisure than before to pursue that Quarrel but the City swarmed with throngs of People from all parts even to a formidable number which moved the Lords to publish two Proclamations on the seventeenth of October The first commanding all of them to repair to their Dwellings except such as should shew sufficient reason for their stay and continuance there The second for Adjourning the Sessions from Edenborough to the Town of Linlithgow But this served rather like the powring on of Oyl to encrease the Flame than of Water to quench it For the next day the Bishop of Galloway being to Sit with the Lord Chief Justice upon some especial Business in the Council-House he was pursued all along the Street with bitter Railings to the very Door and being drawn in from the rage of the People they immediately beset the House demanding the delivery of him and threatning his destruction The Earl of Traquair being advertised of the Bishops danger who formerly had been his Tutor came to his Relief and with much ado forced an Entrance thorow the Press But being got in he was in no better plight than the Bishop the Clamour still encreasing more and more and encompassing the Council-House with terrible Menaces Hereupon the Provost and City-Council was called to raise the Siege but they returned answer That their condition was the same for they were surrounded with the like Multitude who had enforced them for fear of their Lives to sign a Paper importing First That they should adhere to them in opposition to the Service-Book Secondly To restore to their Places Ramsey and Rollock two Silenced Ministers and one Henderson a Silenced Reader No better Answer being returned the Lord Treasurer with the Earl of Wigton went in Person to the Town-Council-House where they found the heat of the fury somewhat abated because the Magistrates had signed the Paper and returned with some hope that the Magistrates would calm the Disorders about the Council-House so as the Bishop might be preserved But they no sooner presented themselves to the Great Street than they were most boysterously assaulted the Throng being so furious as they pulled down the Lord Treasurer took away his Hat Cloack and White Staff and so haled him to the Council-House The Lords seeing themselves in so great danger at length pitch upon the best expedient for their safety and sent to some of the Noblemen and Gentry who were disaffected to the Service-Book to come to their Aid These Lords and Gentlemen came as was desired and offered both their Persons and Power to protect them which the Lords and the Council-House readily embraced and so were quietly guarded to Holy-Rood-House and the Bishop to his Lodging The Lords of the Council not thinking themselves to be secure published a Proclamation the same day in the afternoon for repressing such Disorders for the time to come But they found slender Obedience yielded to it Commissioners being sent unto them from the Citizens in an insolent manner for demanding the Restitution of their Ministers to their Place and Function and performing all such Matters as had been agreed on at the Pacification These Riots and Seditions might have served sufficiently in another Reign to have drawn a present War upon them before they were provided in the least degree to make any resistance But the Edenburghers knew well enough what they were to do what Friends they had about the King and what a Party they had got among the Lords of his Council which Governed the Affairs of that Kingdom And they were apt enough to hope by the unpunishing of the first Tumult on Iuly 23. That the King might rather have patience enough to bear such Indignities than Resolution to revenge them so that he came at last to that perplexity which a good Author speaks of That he must either out-go his Nature or fore-go his Authority For instead of using his just Power to correct their Insolencies he courts them with his Gracious Proclamation of the seventh of December in which he lets them know How unwilling he was that his Loyal and Faithful Subjects should be possessed with groundless and unnecessary doubts and fears touching
their Religion and therefore was pleased to declare That as he abhorreth all Superstitions of Popery so he would be most careful that nothing should be allowed within his Dominions but that which should most tend to the Advancement of the true Religion as it was presently professed within his Ancient Kingdom of Scotland and that nothing was nor should be done therein against the laudable Laws of that his Native Kingdom The Rioters perceived by this Proclamation that the King was more afraid than hurt And seeing him begin to shrink they resolved to put so many fears upon him one after another as in the end might fashion him to their desires First therefore they began with a new Petition not of a rude Multitude but of Noblemen Barons Ministers Burgesses and Commons the very Flower of the whole Nation against the Liturgie and Canons This Petition being sent to the Courts could do no less and it did no more than produce another Proclamation in Reply to the Substance of it some Menaces being intermingled but sweetned in the close to give them the better relish His Majesty first lets them know the Piety of his Intent in appointing the Liturgie assuring them That he had no other end in it than the maintenance of the true Religion there already professed and the beating down of all Superstition That nothing passed in the said Book but what was seen and approved by himself before the same was either divulged or printed and that he was assured That the Book it self would be a very ready means to preserve the Religion there professed of which he doubted not to give them satisfaction in his own time Which said he lets them know That such as had Assembled for subscribing the said Petition had made themselves liable to his highest Censures both in Life and Fortune That notwithstanding he was pleased to dispence with the errour upon a confidence that it proceeded rather from a preposterous Zeal than a disaffection to Sovereignty on condition that they retired themselves upon notice hereof as became good and dutiful Subjects He interdicted also the like Concourse as had been lately made at Edenborough upon pain of Treason commanding that none of them should repair to Sterling to which the Term was then Adjourned or any other place of Counsel and Session without Warrant from the Lords of the Council and that all such of what sort soever not being Lords of the Council or Session which were not Inhabitants of the Town should within six hours after publication thereof depart the same except they were so Licenced and Warranted as before is said under pain of Treason And finally he concludes with this That he would not shut his ears against any Petition upon this or any other Subject which they should hereafter tender to him provided that the matter and form thereof be not prejudicial to his Regal Authority Had his Majesty followed at the heels of this Proclamation with a powerful Army according to the Custom of his Predecessors Kings of England it might have done some good upon them But Proclamations of Grace and Favour if not backed by Arms are but like Cannons charged with Powder without Ball or Bullet making more noise than execution and serve for nothing in effect but to make the Rebel insolent and the Prince contemptible as it proved in this For on the very day and immediately after the reading of it it was encountered with a Protestation published by the Earl of Hume the Lord Lindsey and others justifying themselves in their Proceedings disclaiming all his Majesties Offers of Grace and Pardon and positively declaring their Resolution to go on as they had begun till they had brought the business to the end intended And in pursuance hereof they erected a new Form of Government amongst themselves despotical enough in respect of those who adhered unto them and unaccountable to his Majesty for their Acts and Orders This Government consisted of four Tables for the four Orders of the State that is to say the Noblemen Barons Burgesses and Ministers each Order consulting at his own Table of such things as were necessary for the carrying on of the Design which being reduced into Form were offered debated and concluded at the General Table consisting of a choice number of Commissioners out of all the rest And that this new Government might be looked on with the greater reverence they fixed themselves in Edenborough the Regal City leaving the Lords of Council and Session to make merry at Sterling where they had little else to do than to follow their Pleasures The Tables were no sooner formed but they resolved upon renewing of the Ancient Confession of that Kirk with a Band thereunto subjoined but fitted and accommodated to the present occasion which had been signed by King Iames on the 28th of Ianuary Anno 1580. after their Account and generally subscribed by all the Nation And by this Band they entred Covenant for Maintenance of their Religion then professed and his Majesties Person but aiming at the destruction of both as appeareth both by the Band it self and their Gloss upon it For by the one they had bound themselues to defend each other against all Persons whatsoever the King himself not being excepted and by the other they declared That under the general Names of Popery Heresie and Superstition which were there expressed they had abjured and required all others so to do not only the Liturgie and Canons lately recommended to them but the Episcopal Government and the five Articles of Perth though confirmed by Parliament And to this Covenant in this sense they required an Oath of all the Subjects which was as great an Usurpation of the Regal Power as they could take upon themselves for confirming their own Authority and the Peoples Obedience in any Project whatsoever which should afterwards issue from those Tables In this Estate we leave the Scots and return to England where we shall find all things in a better condition at least as to the outward appearance whatsoever secret workings were in agitation amongst the Grandees and chief Leaders of the Puritan Faction Little or no noise raised about the publishing of the Book for Sports or silencing the Calvinian Doctrines according to his Majesties Declaration before the Articles No clamour touching the transposing of the Holy Table which went on leisurely in most places vigorously in many and in some stood still The Metropolitical Visitation and the Care of the Bishops had settled these Particulars in so good a way that mens Passions began to calm and their Thoughts to come to some repose when the Commands had been more seriously considered of than at first they were And now the Visitation having been carried into all parts of the Realm of England and Dominion of Wales his Grace began to cast his eye upon the Islands of Guernsey and Iersey two Islands lying on the Coast of Normandy to the Dukedom whereof they once belonged and in the
Honour from them both And therefore briefly in this place to speak of Hamilton and his Proceedings in the weighty Charge committed to him in which he hath been generally suspected to betray his Master we will fetch the Story somewhat higher that we may see what ends he aimed at for himself and what enclined him rather to foment than quench the Flames which had been kindled in that Kingdom Know therefore That the Hamiltonian Family derives it self from one Hamilton an Englishman who went to try what Fortunes he could find in Scotland Neither himself nor his Posterity of any great note till Iames iii. bearing a great affection to Sir Iames Hamilton married him to one of his Sisters whom he had forcibly taken from the Lord Boyd her former Husband From this unlawful Marriage descended another Iames the Grandchild of this as impious and â—dulterous in his second Marriage as his Grandmother had been before For having married a Wife of one of the Noble Houses of Scotland he put her shamefully away and took into his Bed a Niece of Cardinal Beton's who then swayed all things in that Kingdom Of this last Marriage came Iohn Earl of Arran Created by King Iames vi the first Marquis of Hamilton the Father of Iohn and Grandfather of Iames Marquis of Hamilton of whom we now speak This man considering with himself that he was descended from a Daughter of King Iames ii but without taking notice of any intervenient Flaws which occurred in the Pedigree conceived by 〈◊〉 and little That a Crown would look as lovely upon his Head as on the Heads of any which descended from a Daughter of Iames v. To give some life unto his Fancies he found the Great Men amongst the Scots in high discontentments about the Revocation of Church-Lands which the King then busily intended The Popular Party in England no less discontented by the Dissolving of three Parliaments one after another and the Puritans in both by the great Power and Credit which some Bishops had attained unto in either Kingdom In which conjuncture it was not hard for him to conceive That he might make unto himself a strong Party in That without fear of any opposition to be made from This. And so â—ar had his hopes gone with him when he obtained the Conduct of an Army intended by his Majesty for assisting of the King of Sweden in the Wars of Germany An Army for the most part raised in Scotland and most of the Commanders of that Nation also whom he had so obliged unto him by his Arts and Flatteries that a Health was openly begun by David Ramsey a boisterous Ruffian of that Court to King Iames the Seventh And so much of the Design was discovered by him unto Donald Maukie Baron of Ree than being in the Marquisses Camp that the Loyal Gentleman thought himself bound in duty to make it known unto the King Ramsey denying the whole matter and the Lords having no proof thereof as in such secret Practices it could hardly be more than a confident asseveration and the Engagement of his Honour the King thought good to refer the Controversie to the Earl of Lindsey whom he made Lord High-Constable to that end and purpose Many days were spent accordingly in pursuance of it But when most men expected that the matter would be tried by Battel as had been accustomed in such cases the Business was hushed up at Court the Lord Ree dismissed to his Employment in the Wars and contrary to the mind of all good men the Marquis did not only continue in the Kings great Favour but Ramsey was permitted to hold the Place of Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber which had been formerly procured for him As for the Army of Scots consisting of 7000. if my memory fail not transported into Germany in the Summer before Anno 1631. they mouldred away by little and little without acting any thing the King of Sweden being then in a prosperous condition and not desiring the Scots should carry away any part of the Spoil and Honour which he doubted not of acquiring to his own Nation in the course of the War This put the Marquis upon new Counsels and in the course of these new Counsels he was not only to â—oment those Animosities which had been raised in that Nation against the King but to remove all those Impediments which might lye in the way betwixt him and his affected Greatness Two men there were whom he more feared than all the rest both of the House of Graham and both descended from a Son of King Robert the Second and that too by a clearer Descent than the Hamiltons could pretend from the Daughter of King Iames ii The first was William Earl of Menteith descended from an Heir-general of David Earl of Stratherne one of the younger Sons of King Robert ii as before was said A man oâ— sound Abilities and approved Affections and therefore by the King made President of the Council in Scotland In which Office he behaved himself and stood so stoutly in behalf of the King his Master upon all occasions that nothing could be done for Advance of Hamiltons Designs till he was removed from that Place In order whereunto it was put into his head by some of that Faction that he should sue unto the King to be Created Earl of Stratherne as the first and most honourable Title which belonged to his House That his Merits were so great as to assure him not to meet with a denial and that the King could do no less than to give him some nominal Reward for his real Services On these Suggestions he repaired to the Court of England 1632. where without any great difficulty he obtained his Suit and waited on the King the most part of the Summer-Progress no man being so openly honoured and courted by the Scottish Nation as he seemed to be But no sooner was he gone for Scotland but the Hamiltonians terrified the King with the Dangers which he had run into by that Creation whereby he had revived in that proud and ambitious Person the Rights which his Ancestors pretended to the Crown of Scotland That the King could not chuse but see how generally the Scots flock'd about him after his Creation when he was at the Court and would do so much more when he was in Scotland And finally That the proud man already had so far declared himself as to give it out That the King held the Crown of him Hereupon a Commission was speedily posted into Scotland in which those of Hamiltons Faction made the greatest number to inquire into his Life and Actions and to consider of the Inconveniencies which might redound unto the King by his affecting this new Title On the Return whereof the poor Gentleman is removed from his Office from being one of the Privy Council and not only deprived of the Title of the Earl of Stratherne but of that also of Menteith which for a long time had remained in his Ancestors And
same Month he gives Order for a General Assembly to be held at Glasco on November 21. next following in which he could not but be sure that after so many previous Condescensions on his part they would be able to do whatsoever they listed in defiance of him For before the Assembly was Indicted the Covenanters had so laid the Plot that none but those of their own Party should have Suffrage in it as afterwards by several Orders from their Tables they directed that no Chaplain nor Chapter-man nor any who have not subscribed the Covenant should be chosen to it not suffering the Archbishops or Bishops to sit as Moderators in their Presbyteries where the Elections were to pass and citing them to appear as Criminal Persons at the said Assembly by means of which Exclusions and Prelimitations the greatest part of the Assembly did consist of such as either were irregularly chosen by the over-ruling Voices of Lay-Elders which were thrust upon them or else not capable of being Elected some of them being under the Censures of the Kirk of Scotland others under the Censures of the Church of Ireland and some not having taken the Oath of Supremacy required by the Laws of the Land Upon which just and weighty Reasons as also the Admission of the Schismatical Clergy to sit as Judges over their Bishops the intrusion of so many Lay-Elders contrary to the Constitution of former General Assemblies the countenancing of a scandalous Libel against their Function and Persons and the prejudging of their Cause in their several Presbyteries by excluding them from having any Vote in the said Assembly when they were not present to interpose or speak any thing in their own behalf the Archbishops and Bishops in the name of themselves and all which did adhere unto them prepared their Declinator or Protestation against the said General Assembly and all the Acts and Conclusions of it as being void and null in Law to all intents and purposes whatsoever The day being come Hamilton marcheth to the place appointed for the Session in the equipage of a High-Commissioner the Sword and Seal being carried before him the Lords of the Council and all the Officers of State attending on him like a King indeed The reading of his Commission the putting in and rejecting of the Declinator the chusing of Henderson to be Moderator of the Assembly the constituting of the Members of it and some Debates touching the Votes and Suffrages challenged by Hamilton for such as were Assessors to him took up all the time between their first Meeting and their Dissolution which was by Proclamation solemnly declared on the twenty ninth of the same Month having â—ate only eight days by the Kings Authority For notwithstanding the said Dissolution the Members of the said Assembly continued and kept their Session and therein passed many Acts for the utter overthrow of the Polity and Government of the Church the infringing of his Majesties Prerogative Royal and violating the Authority of Parliaments For they not only Excommunicated the Bishops and their Adherents but condemned the very Function it self to be Antichristian and utterly to be abolished out of the Church notwithstanding that several Parliaments had confirmed the same The like Censure they also past on the Service Book and Canons with the five Articles of Perth though the two first received the Stamp of Royal Authority and the five last were confirmed in Parliament also They condemned in one breath all the Arminian Tenents in case of Predestination without examining the Arguments on which they were built and declared all men subject to Excommunication and other Censures of the Church who should refuse to yield obedience to all their unlawful Actings and Determinations And though his Majesty by the same Proclamation had commanded all his faithful Subjects not to yield any obedience to their Acts and Ordinances and bound himself in the Word of a King to defend them in it yet those of the Assembly were resolved to maintain their Authority For notwithstanding his Majesties late Declaration and Commands not only the Bishops and Clergy but also as many of the Layty as had refused to subscribe to the Acts thereof were deprived of their Offices and Preferments banished their Country and forced to fly into England oâ— other places the King not being able to protect them from the power and malice of their Adversaries For having lost the opportunity of suppressing them in their first Insurrection in the year precedent aâ—d afterwards of reducing them by force of Arms in the year next following he was forced to shuffle up such a Pacification in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms Anno 1641. as left his Party dâ—â—â—â—tute of all protection but what they found in England by his Majesties Favour in providing the Clergy of some small Benefices for their present subsistance which possibly might amount to more than formerly they enjoyed in their own Country And yet the Covenanters did not play all parts in this Assembly the King and his Commissioner had one part to act which was the presenting of a Declaration containing the sum and substance of all his Majesties gracious Condescensions exprest in the several Proclamations before remembred and a Command to have it registred in the Acts and Records thereof But upon what considerations and reasons of State his Majesty might be moved to commit that Paper to be registred amongst the Acts of Assembly is beyond my reach 〈◊〉 â—â—ough many times the wisest Princes have sent out Proclamations of Grace for redress of Grievances and pardoning of fore-past o 〈…〉 yet were those Proclamations and Acts of Grace beheld no otherwise than as temporary and occasional Remedies for the present mischiefs not to be drawn into Example and much less put upon Record for the times cusuing his Majesties Condescensions had been large enough and too much to the prejudice of his Crown and Dignity without this Enrolment Nor wants it somewhat of a â—iddle that at such time as Hamilton tendred the Paper of his Majâ—stiâ—s â—racious Concessions for discharging of the Service Book c. to be enrolled amongst the Acts of the Assembly he both declared and protested that his so doing should be no acknowledgment of the lawfulness and validity of that Convention which was instantly to be dissolved or that his Majestie should give order to have those Acts of Grace and Favour enrolled in the Records of the Assembly to stand full and sure to all his good Subjects for their assurance of and in the true Religion which Assembly at the same time â—e declared to be illegal and all the Acts thereof to be null and void I must confess I am not Oedipus enough for so dark a Sphinx and must therefore leave this depth of State-craft to more able heads Only I cannot chuse but note how little his Majesty got by those Condescensions the stubborn and rebellious Scots being so far unsatisfied with these Acts of Grace that they not only forced all
of the Kingdom honoured him with the Order of the Garter and made him one of the Lords of his Privy Council so that no greater characters of Power and Favour could be imprinted on a Subject The Office of Lieutenant General he had committed unto the Earl of Strafford Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of whose Fidelity and Courage he could make no question And the Command of the Horse to Edward Lord Conway whose Father had been raised by King Iames from a private condition to be one of his principal Secretaries and a Peer of the Realm Of which three great Commanders it was observed that one had sufficient health but had no will to the business That another had a good will to it but wanted health and that a third had neither the one nor the other And yet as crasie and infirm as the Earl of Strafford found himself he chearfully undertook the charge of the Army in the Generals absâ—nce and signified by Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that he durst venture upon the peril of his head to drive the Scots out of England but that he did not hold it Counsellable as the case then stood If any other of the Lords had advised the King to try his Fortune in a Battel he doubted not of sending them home in more haste than they came but the Scots had rendred him unfit to make the motion for fear it might be thought that he studied more his own Concernments than he did the Kings For these Invadors finding by whose Counsels his Majesty governed his Affairs resolved to draw them into discredit both with Prince and People And to that end it was declared in a Remonstrance publisht before their taking Arms That their Propositions and Desires so necessary and vital unto that Kingdom could find no access unto the ears of the gracious King by reason of the powerful Diversion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Deputy of Ireland who strengthned with the high and mighty Faction of Papists near his Majesty did only side in all matters of Temporal and Spiritual affairs making the necessity of their Service to his Majesty to appear in being the only fit Instruments under the pretext of vindicating his Majesties Honour to oppress both the just Liberties of his Free Subjects and the true Reformed Religion in all his Kingdoms Seconding this Remonstrance with another Pamphlet called The Intention of the Army they signified therein to the good People of England that they had no design either to waste their Goods or spoyl their Country but only to become Petitioners to his Sacred Majesty to call a Parliament and to bring the said Archbishop and Lord Lieutenant to their condign Punishments In which those modest men express That as they desired the unworthy Authors of their trouble who had come out from themselves to be tried at home according to their own Laws so they would press no further Process against Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland and the rest of those pernicious Counsellors in England whom they called the Authors of all the miseries of both Kingdoms than what their own Parliament should discern to be their just deserving And that the English might see the better whom they chiefly aimed at a book was published by the name of Laudensium Autocatacrisis or the Canterburians Self-conviction in which the Author of it did endeavour to prove out of the Books Speeches and Writings of the Archbishop himself as also of some Bishops and other learned men who had exercised their Pens in the late disputes That there was a strange design in hand for bringing in Superstition Popery and Arminianism to the subversion of the Gospel and of suppressing the Religion here by Law established But as these Reproaches moved not him so neither did their Remonstrance or any other of their Scribbles distract his Majesties Resolutions untill he found himself assaulted by a Petition from some Lords in the South which threatned more danger at his back than he had cause to fear from the Northern Tempest which blew directly in his teeth Complaint was made in this Petition of the many inconvenicences which had been drawn upon this Kingdom by his Majesties engagings against the Scots as also of the great encrease of Popery the pressing of the present payment of Ship-money the dissolving of former Parliaments Monopolies Innovations and some other grâ—evances amongst which the Canons which were made in the late Convocation could not be omitted For Remedy whereof his Majesty is desired to call a Parliament to bring the Authors of the said pretended grievances to a Legal Trial and to compose the present War without Bloudshed Subscribed by the Earls of Essex Hartford Rutland Bedford Exeter Warwick Moulgrave and Bullingbrooke the Lords Say Mandevil Brooke and Howard presented to the King at York on the third of September And seconded by another from the City of London to the same effect His Majesty being thus between two Milstones could find no better way to extricate himself out of these perplexities than to call the great Council of his Peers to whom at their first meeting on the 24 of the same month he signified his purpose to hold a Parliament in London on the third of November and by their Counsel entertained a Treaty with those of Scotland who building on the confidence which they had in some Lords of England had petitioned for it According unto which Advice a Commission is directed to eight Earls and as many Barons of the English Nation seven of which had subscribed the former Petition enabling them to treat with the Scots Commissioners to hear their Grievances and Demands and to report the same to his Majesty and the Lords of his Council These points being gained which the Puritan Faction in both Kingdoms had chiefly aimed at the Scots were insolent enough in their Proposals Requiring freedom of Commerce Reparation of their former Losses and most especially the maintenance of their Army at the charge of the English without which no Cessation would be harkned to Satisfaction being given them in their last Demand and good Assurances for the two first they decline York as being unsafe for their Commissioners and procure Rippon to be named for the place of the Treaty where the Lord Lieutenant was of less influence than he was at York and where being further from the King they might shuffle the Cards and play the Game to their best contentment The rest of October from the end of the first week of it when they excepted against York was drilled on in requiring that some persons of quality intrusted by the Scottish Nation might have more Offices than they had about his Majesty and the Queen and in the Court of the Prince That a Declaration might be made for naturalizing and settling the Capacities and mutual Priviledges of the Subjects in both Kingdoms but chiefly that there might be an Unity and Uniformity in Church-Government as a special means for conserving
Observation of all Rites and Ceremonies then established or from thenceforth to be established by the Kings Authority saying that he would prosecute all Repugners of them to the very Blood The Rest of the Articles relating unto Civil matters I omit of purpose as neither being pertinent or proper to my Present History observing only in this place that for the better carrying on of their charge against him they had gained two points more necessary to be craved than fit to be granted The first was which they carried in the House of Lords by a Major Vote that no Bishop should be of that Committee for the Preparatory Examinations in the present case under colour that they were excluded from acting in it by some Ancient Canons as in Causa sangiums or the cause of blood concerning which a brief discourse entituled De jure Paritatis Episcoporum was presented to his Grace of Canterbury and some other Bishops for asserting all their Rights of Peerage and this of being of that Committe amongst the rest which either by Law or Ancient Custom did belong unto them The second was that the Lords of the Council should be examined upon Oath for anything which was said or done by the Earl of Strafford at the Council Table Which being yielded by the King though tending visibly to the Derogation of his Power and the discouragement of all such as either were or should be of his Privy Council the Archbishop was accordingly Examined on December 4th being the next day after the said Condescention Nor was it long before the like Oath was required and obtained by them against the Archbishop himself being the next man whom the Scots and their Confederates in both houses had an eye upon He knew there was some danger coming toward him by the said combination but thought not at the first it would reach so far as to touch his Life The most he looked for as he told the Author of these Collections on the second or third day after the beginning of the Parliament was to be sequestred from his Majesties Councils and confin'd to his Diocess to which he profest himself as willing as any of his Enemies were desirous of it And as it seems his Enemies at the first had no further thoughts For it appeareth by a passage in his Diary that on Thursday Decemb. 24th four Earls of Great Power in the Upper House declared unto a Parliament man that they were resolved to Sequester him only from the Kings Council and deprive him of the Archiepiscopal dignity and no more then so which though it were too much and savoured of too little Justice to be so resolved before any particular charge was brought against him yet I consider it as an Argument of their first intentions that they aimed not at his Life but at his removal In Order whereunto it was thought expedient that his Majesty should be moved to release the Bishop of Lincoln from his long imprisonment and to restore him to his place in the house of â—â—â—rs knowing full well how Active an Instrument they were sure to find him by reason of some former grudges not only against the Archbishop but the Earl of Stafford Which motion being made and granted he was conducted into the Abby Church by six of the Bishops and there officiated it being a day of Humiliation as Dean of Westminster more honoured at the first by the Lords and Commons then ever any of his Order his person looked upon as Sacred his words deemed as Oracles And be contiâ—â—â—d in tâ—is height tâ—ll having served their turn against the Archâ—isâ—op and the Lord Lieutenant he began sensibly to decline and grew at last to be generally the most hated man of all the Hierarchy Orders are also made by the House of Commons for releasing such as were Imprisoned by the Star-Chamber Council-Table or High-Commission and more particularly for the remanding of Bastwick Prynne and Burton from the several Islands to which they were before confined Upon which general Goal-delivery Burton and Prynne had so contrived it as to come together met on their way as far as Brainford by some thousands of the Puritan Faction out of London and South-wark and by them silently conducted with Bays and Rosemary in their hands to their several Houses to the intolerable affront of the Courts of Justice and his Majesties Government his Majestie conniving at the insolency or not daring to punish it Not well reposed after the toil and trouble of so long a journey Prynne joyns himself with Bagshaw before remembred and both together are admitted to a private conference with the Bishop of Lincoln in the beginning of December which boded no great good to the Church or State or any who had formerly appeared in defence of either These preparations being made the Project was carried on a main For on the 16 â—h of that month the Canons made in the late Convocation were condemned in the House of Commons as being against the Kings Prerogative the Fundamental Laws of the Realm the Liberty and Property of the Subject and containing divers other things tending to Sedition and of dangerous Consequence A Vote was also past for making Canterbury the Principal Author of the said Canons for a Committee to be nominated to enquire into all his former Actions and for preparing a Bill against all those of the said Convocation by whom these Canons were subscribed but the sorrows of that day did not end there neither For on the same a charge was laid against him in the house of Peers by the Scots Commissioners that being the day in which they had accused the Earl of Strafford for doing ill offices and being an Incendiary between the Nations And in pursuance of the plot on Fryday the 18 â—h of the same Moneth he was Impeacht by Hollis in the name of all the Commons of England of no less then Treason and thereupon without any particular charge against him he was committed to the custody of the Gentleman Usher leave only being granted him to repair to his house at Lambeth for the Collecting of such Papers as were necessary for his Justification At Maxwells house for so was the Usher of the Black-Rod called he remained ten weeks before so much as any General charge against him was brought up to the Lords During which time he gained so much on the good opinion of the Gentle-woman of the House that she reported him to some of her Gossips to be one of the goodest mâ—n and most Pious Souls but with all one of the sillest fellows to hold talk with a Lady that ever she met with in all her life On the 26 â—h of February This charge was brought up to the Lords â—y â—ane the younger consisting of fourteen General Articles which Generals he craved time to prove in particular and thereupon a Vote was passed for transmitting the Prisoner to the Tower with leave however to remain at Maxwell's till the Munday following Which day being
twelve years before the end of this Session as we shall see too soon in the course of this History In the mean time the Anti-Prelatical party in the house of Peers so bestirred themselves that they prevailed upon the Rest to put a lower valuation on the Bishops then they had done formerly insomuch that at a Solemn Fast following not long after the Temporal Lords took Precedence of the Bishops contrary to the Custom of their Predecessors in all times foregoing the Bishops not thinking it convenient to contend for place at such time as their whole Order was in danger of Falling Which being observed by the Lord Spencer Is this said he a day of Humiliation wherein we shew so great a Pride in taking place of those to whom it was allowed by all our Ancestors A day of Humiliation if it might be called it was made such to the Bishops only the Temporal Lords being never higher in their Exaltation But now we must look back on the Earl of Strafford the prosecution of whose Impeachment had been long delaid upon some probable hope that the displeasures of his greatest adversaries mâ—â—â— be mitigated by some Court-preferments In Order where 〈◊〉 was agreed upon if my intelligence or memory fail not that the Earl of Bedford should be made Lord Treasurer and 〈◊〉 Chancellor of the Exchequer the Earl of Essex Governour of the Prince and that Hambden should be made his Tutor the Lord Say Maâ—ter of the Wards and Hollis Principal Secretary in the Place of Windebank the Deputieship of Ireland was disposed of also and some command appointed for the Earl of Warwick in the Royal Navy Which Earls together with the Earl of Hartford and the Lord Kimbolton eldest Son to the Earl of Manchester were taken at this time into his Majesties Council that they might witness to the Rest of that Party with what sincerity and Piety his Majesties Affairs were Governed at the Council Table And in Relation to this purpose the Bishop of London delivered to the King the Treasurers Staff the Earl of New-castle relinquished the Governance of the Prince and the Lord Cottington resigned his Offices both in the Exchequer and the Court of Wards there being no doubt but that Bishop Duppa in Order to so good a work would relinquish the Tutorship of the Prince when it should be required of him So gallantly did these great persons deny themselves to advance the Service of their Master But before all these things were fully settled and performed the Kings mind was altered but by whom altered hath been more conjectured then affirmed for certain which so exasperated them who were concerned in this designation that they persued the Earl of Strafford with the great eagerness And somewhat to this purpose was hinted in the Kings Declaration of the 12 â—h of August in which he signified what overâ—â—â—es had been made by them and with what importunity for Offices and preferments what great services should have been done for him and what other undertaking even to have saved the Life of the Earl of Straâ—â—ord By which discovery as he blemished the Reputes of some Principal Members in the eyes of many of the people so he gave no small cause of wonder to many others when they were told from his own Pen at how cheap a Rate a Rate which would have cost him nothing he might have saved the Life of such an able and deserving Minister This design being thus unhappily dasht the Earl was called unto hâ—â— Tryal on the 22 â—h day of March last past which being continued many days with great expectation his Adversaries though the ablest men in the House of Commons perceived that his Defences were so strong and their proof so weak that they thought it not sale to leave the Judgement of the Cause to the House of Peers in way of Judicature For finding that their proofs amounted not to a Legal Evidence and that nothing but Legal Evidence could prevail in a Court of Judicature they Resolved to Steer their course by another wind and to call the Legislative power to their assistance according unto which both Lords and Commons might proceed by the Light of their own Understanding without further Testimony And so it was declared by Saint-Iohns then Solicitor General in a conference between the Committees of both Houses April 29. 1641. Where it is said That although single Testimony â—ight be sufficient to satisfie private Consciences yet how far it would have been satisfactory in a judicial way where forms of Law are more to be stood upon was not so clear whereas in this way of Bill private satisfaction to each mans Conscience is sufficient although no Evidence had been given in at all Thus they Resolved it in this Case But knowing of what dangerous consequence it might be to the Lives and Fortunes of themselves and the Rest of Subjects a saving clause was added to the Bill of Attainder that it should not be drawn into Example for the time to come By which it was Provided That no Iudge or Iudges Iustice or Iustices whatsoever shall adjudge or Interpret any Act or thing to be Treason nor hear or determine any Treason nor in any other manner then he or they should or ought to have done before the making of this Act and as if this Act had never been made His Majesty understanding how things were carried Resolved to use his best endeavours to preserve the man who had deserved so bravely of him And therefore in a Speech to both Houses of Parliament on the first of May absolved him from all Treasons charged upon him conjuring them by the merit of his former graces and the hopes of greater not to compel him to do any thing against his conscience to which no worldly consideration whatsoever should be able to tempt him This put the Lords to such a stand who were before enclinable enough to that unfortunate Gentleman that multitudes of the Rabble were brought down out of London and Southwark to cry for speedy Justice and Execution the names of such as had not voted to the Bill being posted up in the Palace-yard by the Title of Straffordians and Enemies to the Commonwealth Which course so terrified the Lords that most of them withdrawing themselves from the House of Peers the Attainder passed and certain Bishops nominated to attend the King for satisfying his Conscience and perswading him to sign that Destructive Bill Never was Poor Prince brought to so sad an Exigent betwixt his Conscience on the one side and the Fears of such a Publick Rupture on the other as seemed to threaten nothing but destruction to himself and his Family But humane frailty and the continual Solicitation of some about him so prevailed at last that on Munday morning the ninth of May he put a most unwilling hand to that fatal Bill Issuing a Commission unto certain Lords to pass the same into an Act and with the same to speed another which he had also
grosly abused by the multiplicity of Libellous Pamphlets and my self debarred from wonted access to the best of Princes and it is Vox Populi that I am Popishly affected How earnest I have been in my Disputations Exhortations and otherwise to quench such sparks lest they should become Coals I hope after my death you will all acknowledge yet in the midst of all my afflictions there is nothing 〈◊〉 hath so nearly touched me as the remembrance of your free and joyful acceptance of me to be your Chancellour and that I am now shut up from being able to do you that Service which you might justly expect from me When I first received this honour I intended to have carried it with me to my Grave neither were my hopes any less since the Parliament called by his Majesties Royal Command committed me to this Royal Prison But sith by reason of matters of greater consequence yet in hand the Parliament is pleased to procrastinate my Trial I do hereby as thankfully resign my Office of being Chancellor as ever I received that Dignity entreating you to Elect some Honourable Person who upon all occasions may be ready to serve you and I beseech God send you such an one as may do all things for his glory and the furtherance of â—â—ur most famous Vniversity This is the continual Prayer of Your dejected Friend and Chancellour Being the last time I shall write so Will. Cant. Tower Iune 28 1641. This Resignation having eased him of some part of his cares it was no small refreshment to him in the midst of his sorrows that notwithstanding all the clamour about Innovations the Parliament had made no Order to alter any thing which he had laboured to establish The Commons might perhaps have some thoughts that way but they either kept them to themselves or found but little comfort in them when they suffered them to go abroad or shew themselves in any motion to the House of Lords The Peers were then so far from entertaining any such extravagant Fancies that taking notice of the Irregular Zeal of some forward men who had not patience enough to attend the leisure of Authority they joyned together with the Prelates in this Order of Ianuary 16. for putting a stop to their Exorbitancies at the first breaking out For by that Order it was signified to be the pleasure of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the High Court of Parliament That the Divine Service be performed as it is appointed by the Acts of Parliament of this Realm And that all such as shall disturb that wholsom Order shall be severely punished according to the Law And the Parsons Vicars and Curates in the several Parishes shall forbear to introduce any Rites or Ceremonies that may give offence otherwise than those which are established by the Laws of the Land Which last Clause being couched in such general terms related only to such Rites and Ceremonies as otherwise might have been introduced for the time to come not unto such as had been entertained and settled by any former Authority Countenanced and secured by which Declaration the Ordinaries went on chearfully in the exercise of their Jurisdiction suffering no alteration or disturbance to pass unquestioned if any troublesome or unquiet person did begin to stir But no sooner was the Coercive power of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges restrained or rather utterly abolished by the late Act of Parliament and the Kings Journey into Scotland left men and matters at more liberty than before they were but presently the House of Commons took upon them such a Reformation so it must be called in which they neither found concurrence of the House of Peers or could expect it from the King But finding that they were strong enough to set up for themselves without working Journey-work any longer unto either of them they made the following Order of September 8. to be the first Experiment or Essay of their undertakings For though in a Conference had the same day with the Lords they desired their consent therein and that the Lords returned them no other Answer than by sending them the next day being the day of the Recess a Copy of the former Order of Ianuary 16. in which they desired then to concur yet Pym who governed the Committee during that Recess dispatcht his Mandate oâ— the 29 th of the same month over all the Kingdom requiring all Ministers and Churchwardens to publish the said Order in their several Churches to see it put in execution and cause Certificates to be made thereof by the time appointed Which Order being the Leading Card to the Game that followed was verbatim thus viz. WHereas divers Innovations in or about the Worship of God have been lately practised in this Kingdom by enjoyning sâ—me things and prâ—â—â—â—â—â—ng others without warrant of Law to the great grievance and disconâ—ent of his Majesties Subjects For the suppression of such Innovations and for preservation of the Publick Peace It is this day Ordered by the Commons in Parliament assembled That the Churchwardens of every Parish Church or Chappel respectively doth forthwith remove the Communion Table from the East end of the Church Chappel or 〈…〉 some other convenient place and that they take away the 〈…〉 the Chancâ—ls as heretofore they were before the late 〈…〉 That all Crucifixes scandalous Pictures of any one or 〈…〉 of tâ—e Trinity and all Images of the Virgin Mary shall 〈…〉 and aâ—olished and that all Tapers Candlesticks and 〈…〉 from the Communion Table That all Corporal Bâ—w 〈…〉 IESVS or toward the East end of the Church 〈…〉 or towards the Communion Table be henceforth 〈…〉 That the Orders aforesaid be observed in all the several Ca 〈…〉 Churches of this Kingdom and all the Colledges Churches or 〈◊〉 in the two Vniversities or any other part of this Kingdom 〈◊〉 in thâ— Temple Church and the Chappels of other Inns of Court 〈◊〉 the Deaâ—s of the said Cathedral Churches by the Vice-Chancellours of the said Vniversities and by the Heads and Governours of the several Câ—lleâ—ges and Halls aforesaid and by the Benchers and Readers in 〈…〉 Inns â—f Court respectively That the Lords day shall be duly obsâ—râ—ed and sanctified All Dancing or other Sports either before or after Diâ—iâ—e Service be forborne and restrained and that the Preaching 〈…〉 â—â—rd be permitted in the Afternoon in the several Churches and Chappels of this Kiâ—gdom and that Ministers and Preachers be encouâ—â—gâ—d thereunto That the Vice-Chancellours of the Vniversities Heads 〈…〉 Colledges all Parsons Vicars Churchwardens do 〈◊〉 Câ—rtificate of the performance of these Orders and if the same shall 〈◊〉 be observed in any places aforementioned upon complaint therâ—of made to the two next Iustices of the Peace Major and Head-Officers of Cities and Towns Corporate It is ordered That the said Iustices Major and other Head-Officer respectively shall examine the 〈◊〉 of all such complaints and certifie by whose default the same are â—â—mitted All which Certificates are to
and Dangers in the Premises Lastly Whereas these fears are not built upon Conceits but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well terrifie Men of Resolution and much Constancy they do in all Humility and Duty Protest before Your Majesty and the Peers of the Most Honourable House of Parliament against all Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and Determinations as of themselves Null and of None Effect which in their Absence since the 27th of this Instant Moneth of December 1641. have already passed As likewise that all such as shall hereafter Pass in the Most Honourable House during the time of this their Forced and Violent Absence from the said Most Honourable House not denying but if their absenting of themselves were Wilful and Voluntary that Most Honourable House might Proceed in all their Premises their Absence or this Protestation Notwithstanding And humbly beseeching Your Most Excellent Majesty to Command the Clerk of the House of Peers to Enter this their Petition and Protestation among his Records They will ever Pray God to bless c. This Petition being presented to his Majesty was by him deliâ—vered to the Lord Keeper Littleton to be Communicated the next day being the 30th of Decemb. to the House of Peers But the Lord Keeper contrary to his Majesties directions did first impâ—rt iâ— to some of the Preaching party in both Houses of Parliament and after as the plot was laid to the Peers in general Upon the â—eading whereof a conference was desired with the House oâ— Câ—mmons to whom the Lord Keeper whom they had under the Laâ—â— was pleased to signifie that this Petition and Protestation of the twelâ—e Bishops contained matters of high and dangerous consequence extending to the deep intrenching upon the Fundamental Priviledges and Being of Parliament Whereupon the said twelve Bishops were Impeached by the Commons of high Treason The Usher called Black-Rod Commanded to find them out and to bring them to the Bar in the House of Peers which by reason of their scattered and divided Lodgings could not be effected till eight of the Clock at night at what time being brought together their offence was signified unto them and an Order presently made for their commitment to the Tower whither they were all carried the next day Except the Bishops of Durham and Lichfield who found the favour the one by reason of his Eminent Learning and both of them in regard of their age and Infirmities to stand committed to the custody of the Gentleman Usher Our Archbishop had now more Neighbours then â—e desired but not more company then before it being prudently Ordered amongst themselves that none of them should bestow any visits on him for fear of giving some advantage to their common enemy as if they had been hatching some conspiracy against the Publick But they refrained not on either side from sending meâ—â—ages of Love and consolation unto one another those mutual civilities being almost every day performed betwixt the two Archbishops also though very much differing both in their Counsels and Affections in the times foregoing The Archbishop of York was now so much declined in favour tâ—at he stood in as bad terms with the Common People as the other did His picture cut in Brass attired in his Episcopal Robes with his square Cap upon his head and Bandileers about his Neck shouldering a Musket upon one of his shoulders in one hand and a Rest in the other either presaging that which followed or else relating unto that which had passed in defence of the Abbey Together with which a book was Printed in which he was Resembled to the Decoy-Duck alluding to the Decâ—yes in Lincolnshire where he had been Bishop restored to Liberty on design that he might bring more company with him at his coming back and a device Ingraven for the Front of the Book which represented the conceit and that not unhappily Certain I am that our Archbishop in the midst of those sorrows seemed much pleased with the Fancy whither out of his great Love to wit oâ— some other self-satisfaction which he found therein is beyond my knowledge These Bishops bâ—ing thus secured and no body left in a manner to solicite the Common Cause but the Bishop of Rochester the Bill against their Votes passed currantly in the House of Peers on February 6. the Citizens who before had feasted the King with such signs oâ— Affection now celebrating the Concurrence of the House against his Interest with Bâ—lls and Bonfires Nor was it long before the â—ing gave over the Cause for which he had so long contended For either terrified with the Apprehension of his own Dangers or wrought on by the importunity of some about him he signed the Bill at Canterbury on February 14. to which place he had accompanied the Queen in her way toward Holland And by that Bill it was desired to be Enacted That no Archbishop Bishop or any other Person in Holy Orders from February 15. then next following should have any Seat or Place Suffrage or Voice use or execute any Power or Authority in the Parliaments of this Realm nor should be of the Privy-Council of his Majesty his Heirs or Successors or Justices of the Peace of Oyer and Terminer or Gaol-delivery or execute any Temporal Authority by vertue of any Commission but should be wholly disabled or be uncapable to have receive use or execute any of the said Offices Places Powers Authorities and Things aforesaid The passing of which Act what specious Pretences soever were given out for it redounded little to his Majesties Benefit and far less to his Comfort For by cutting off so many of his Friends at a blow he lost his Power in the House of Peers and not long after was deprived of his Negative Voice when the great Business of the Militia came to be disputed And though he pleased himself sometimes with this perswasion of their contentedness in suffering a present diminution of their Rights and Honours for his sake and the Commonwealths yet was it no small trouble to his Conscience at other times that he had added this to the former injury in consenting to the taking away of the Coercive Power of their Jurisdiction for this we find to be one of those three things which lay heaviest on him in the time of his Solitude and Sufferings as appears by this passage in one of his Prayers viz. Was it through ignorance that I suffered innocent Blood to be spilt by a false pretended Iustice Or that I permitted a wrong way of Worship to be set up in Scotlan Or injured the Bishops in England By which we see that the Injury done unto the Bishops of England is put into the same scale with his permitting a wrong way of Worship to be set up in Scotland and the shedding of the innocent Blood of the Earl of Strafford And if this Act proved so unpleasing to the King it must needs be grievous to the Bishops themselves to none more than the
provide them Necessaries before they would budge toward the Tweed And yet all these Temptations were not of such prevalency with the Principal Covenanters as an Assurance which was given them of calling Canterbury their supposed old Enemy to a present Tryal Who having been imprisoned upon their complaint almost three years since seems to have been preserved all this while for no other purpose than for a bait to hook them in for some new Imployments The Walls of some Confederacies like that of Catiline are never thought to be sufficiently well built but when they are cemented with bloud All matters thus resolved on the Covenant agreed on betwixt them and the Scots was solemnly taken by both Houses in St. Margarets Church and generally imposed upon all such as were obnoxious to their power and lived under the command of their Forts and Garrisons the taking whereof conduced as visibly to the destruction of this most reverend and renowned Prelate as to the present subversion of the Government and Liturgy here by Law established In the first branch it was to be covenanted and agreed between the Nations that is to say between the Puritan or Presbyterian Factions in either Kingdom That all endeavours should be used for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland both in Doctrine Worship Liturgy and Government and for bringing the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising And in the second That in like manner they endeavour without any respect of Persons the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops and Bishops their Chancellors or Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on the Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and what soever should be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness But all this might have been pursued to the end of the Chace without danger to the life of any whether they endeavoured it or not whether their lives might be an hindrance or their deaths give a spur to put on the work And therefore in the fourth place it was also Covenanted That they should with all diligence and faithfulness discover all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from one another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publick trial and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient Which Article seems to have been made to no other purpose but to bring the Archbishop to the Block as the like clause was thrust into the Protestation of the third of May Anno 1641. to make sure work with the Earl of Strafford whom they had then designed to the said sad end And this may be the rather thought because the Covenant was contrived and framed in Scotland where none but his sworn Enemies could be supposed to have had any hand in it and being by them so contrived was swallowed without much enewing by the Houses of Parliament who were not then in a con 〈◊〉 to deny them any thing But by whomsoever it was framed his Majesty saw well enough that it aimed at the subversion of the present Government and the diminution of his Power if not the destruction of his Person the preservation and safety whereof was to be endeavoured no further than in defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom Which how great or little it might be or what was meant by true Religion and the publick Liberties was left wholly unto their construction who would be sure not to interpret any thing to his best advantage His Majesty therefore looking on it as a dangerous Combination against himself the established Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom for the bringing in of Foreign Forces to subvert them all interdicted all his Subjects from imposing or taking the same as they would answer the contrary at their utmost Perils Which Proclamation bearing date on the ninth of October came out too late to hinder the taking and enjoyning of this Covenant where the restraint thereof might have been most necessary For the Commons were so quick at their work that on Munday September 25. it had been solemnly taken by all the Members of that House and the Assembly of Divines at St. Margarets in Westminster in the same Church within two daies after it was administred with no less solemnity to divers Lords Knights Gentlemen Colonels Officers Souldiers and others residing in and about the City of London a Sermon being preached by Coleman though otherwise a principal Erastian in point of Government to justifie the Piety and Legality of it and finally enjoyned to be taken on the Sunday following in all Churches and Chappels of London within the Lines of Communication by all and every the Inhabitants within the same as afterward by all the Kingdom in convenient time Prosecuted in all places with such cursed rigour that all such who refused to subscribe the same and to lift up their hands to God in testimony that they called him to witness to it were turned both out of house and home as they use to say not suffered to compound for their Goods or Lands till they had submitted thereunto A terrible and wofull time in which men were not suffered to enjoy their Estates without betraying themselves to the Kings displeasure and making shipwrack of a good conscience in the sight of God Upon which ground considering it consisted of six Principal branches it was compared by some to the six knotted whip or the Statute of the six Articles in the time of King Henry viii this Covenant drawing in the Scots and thereby giving an occasion of shedding infinitely much more bloud than those Articles did Certain I am that if all such as died in the War upon that account may not go for Martyrs all such as irrecoverably lost their Estates and Livings for refusal of it may be called Confessors Others with no unhappy curiosity observing the number of the words which make up this Covenant abstracted from the Preface and Conclusion of it found them amounting in the total to 666. neither more nor less which being the number of the Beast in the Revelation pursued with such an open persecution and prosecuted to the loss of so many lives the undoing of so many Families and the subverting of the Government both of Church and State may very justly intitle it to so much of Antichrist as others have endeavoured to confer on the Popes of Rome For if the Pope shewed any thing of the Spirit of Antichrist by bringing Cranmer the first Protestant
Archbishop of Canterbury to the Stake at Oxon. this Covenant and the Makers of it did express no less in bringing the Last Protestant Archbishop to the Block in London For no sooner was this Covenant taken but to let the Scots see that they were in earnest a further impeachment consisting of ten Articles was prepared against him which being digested into Form and Order were to this effect viz. 1. That to introduce an Arbitrary Government and to destroy Parliaments he had caused the Parliament held in the third and fourth year of his Majesty to be dissolved and used many reproachful speeches against the the same 2. That out of an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws of the Land he had laboured to advance the power of the Council Table the Canons of the Church and the Kings Prerogative against the said Fundamental Laws and had used several Speeches to the same effect 3. That to advance the Ecclesiastical Power above the Laws of the Land he had by undue means to the Judges procured a stop of his Majesties Writs of Prohibition whereby Justice had been delayed and hindred and the Judges diverted from doing their duties 4. That a judgment being given against one Burly for wilful non-residency he caused execution on it to be staid saying That he would never suffer a Judgment to pass against any Clergy-man by a nihil dicit 5. That he had caused Sir Iohn Corbet of Shropshire to be committed to prison by an Order of the Council Table for calling for the Petition of Right and causing it to be read at the Sessions of the Peace for the County upon just and necessary occasion and had used some other Acts of Injustice toward him 6. That he had supprest the Corporation of Feoffees for buying in Impropriations under pretence of being dangerous to the Church and State 7. That contrary to the known Laws of the Land he had advanced Popery and Superstition within this Realm and to that end had wittingly and willingly harboured divers Popish Priests as Sancta Clara and St. Giles 8. That he had said about four years since there must be a blow given to the Church such as hath not been yet given before it could be brought to Conformity 9. That after the dissolution of the Parliament 1640. he caused a Synod or Convocation to be held and divers Canons to be made therein contrary to the Laws of the Realm the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament c. and particularly the Canon which enjoyns the Oath which he caused many Ministers of the Church to take upon pain of Suspension c. 10. That a Vote having been passed at the Council Table a little before the last Parliment for supplying his Majesty in Extraordinary ways if the said Parliament should prove peevish he wickedly advised his Majesty to dissolve the same telling him not long after that now he was absolved from all Rules of Government and left free to use Extraordinary ways for his supply Such was the substance of the Charge which some intended Chiefly for an Introduction to bring on the Tryal or to revive the noise and clamor amongst Ignorant People which rather judge of such particulars by tale then weight For otherwise there is nothing in these last ten which was not easily reducible to the first fourteen no not so much as his suppressing the Feoffees for Impropriations which seemed most odious in the eyes of any knowing men These Articles being thus digested were sent up to the Lords the 23th of Octob. presented by the hands of Wilde a Serjeant at Law and one of the Members of the House of Commons by whom he was designed to manage the Evidence when the cause was Ready for a hearing on the Receipt whereof it was Ordered that he should appear on that day Sevennight and to bring in his answer in writing to the particular Articles of the several charges which Order being served upon him within few hours after found him not very well provided for a present conformity He had obtained leave at his first Commitment to repair to his Study at Lambeth House and to take thence such Papers and Memorials as might conduce to his defence but all these had been forcibly seazed on and in a manner ravisht from him by Prynne and others which made his case not much unlike to that of the Israelites in the House of Bondage deprived first of their former allowance of Straw and Stubble and yet injoyned to make up their whole tale of Brick as at other times His Rents and Goods were Sequestred for the use of others so that he had not a sufficiency for a poor Subsistence but by the Charity of his Friends much less a superabundance out of which to Fee his Counsel and reward his Solicitors And what were seven days to the drawing up of an Answer unto twenty four Articles most of them having young ones in their bellies also as like to make as Loud a cry as the Dams themselves No way to Extricate himself out of this perplexities but by petitioning the Lords and to them he flys humbly beseeching that Chute and Hearn two able Lawyers might be assigned him for his Counsel that he might be allowed money out of his own Estate to reward them and others for their pains in his business his Books and Papers restored to him for the instruction of his Counsel and his own Defence some of his own Servants to attend him for following all such necessary occasions as the cause required and that a Solicitor and further time might be allowed as well for drawing up his answer as providing witnesses To which this Answer was returned Upon reading of the Petition of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury this 24th day of Octob. It is Ordered c. that time is given him until Munday the 6th of November next for putting in his answer in writing into this house unto the particular Articles brought up from the House of Commons in maintenance of their former impeachment of High Treason c. That Master Hearn and Master Chute are hereby assigned to be of Counsel for the drawing up of his Answer who are to be permitted to have free access in and out to him That this house doth hereby recommend to the Committee of Sequestrations that the said Lord Archbishop shall have such means afforded him out of his Estate as will enable him to pay his Counsel and defray his other Charges That when his Lordship shall set down particularly what Papers and Writings are Necessary for his Defence that should be restored unto him their Lordships will take it into consideration That upon his Lordships nominating who shall be hiâ— Solicitor the Lords will return their Answer And for the witnesses when a day shall be appointed for his Lordships tryal this House will give such directions therein as shall be juâ—â— This doubtful Answer gave him small assurance of an equal hearing His desired Counsel was allowed him Hales superadded to the
years and more since it first was made in all which time we hear no news of that performance for which the Ground could be but Little and the evidence less To the other branches of his Charge consisting in Words or Actions he answered first That the Dissolving of the said Parliaments was no Act of his the business being publickly debated at the Council Table and carried by the Unanimous consent of all then Present that the hard measure which he was complained of to have shown to Corbet of Shropshire he being but a Private Subject could not be called an Act of Treason That the words charged upon him at the Council Table and elswhere might well have been spared That no ill effect did follow on them and that they were innocently though suddenly spoken which he hoped might proceed from a man of such a hasty and Incircumspect humour as himself made so as well by nature as by the multiplicity of vexations which were put upon him without involving him in the crime or guilt of Treason That for his words unto the King touching his being absolved from the Rules of Government they contained only matter of opinion and in opinion delivered at the Council Table where all had Liberty to speak their own sense as he did at time which if it were Erroneous and contrary to the sense of others he hoped that no man should justly be condemned of Treason for shewing himself no wiser then God had made him And thereupon he desired the Lords from his misfortune to provide for their own safety and seriously to consider what a way was chalked out to ruine them both in their Lives and their Estates if for every Opinion given in Council or Words suddenly or hastily spoken they who are born to wield the great affairs of the Kingdom should be Arraigned or Sentenced as Traytors To which he added in the close That there was no likelyhood that he had commited Real Acts of Treason when his adverse Party was content to trifle away so much time about Words Neither was there any Treason in them though they had been fully verified and therefore in that as in all other Articles he reserved a Power for his Counsel to dispute in matter of Law Which when it came to the Dispute not called on by the Commons till October 11. the Question or Point in Issue was Whether any Treason was contained in all or any of the Articles which were charged against him And therein Hearn so plaid his part as the mouth of the rest that after the expectation of more months and the expence of almost as many days as had been spent in the Arraignment of the Earl of Strafford his Enemies in the House of Commons were forced to fall again on a Bill of Attainder as they had been before after so much â—â—ise and ostentation of Wit and Eloquence in the case of that Gentleman For being too far engaged to go back with Honour and yet not having confidence enough to venture him to the Judgment of the House of Peers as in the way of Legal Tryal they seemed to be at such a stand as the Thames is said to be at under London-Bridge betwixt Ebb and Flood In which perplexity some who were fit for any mischief imployed themselves to go from door to door and from man to man to get hands against him and so Petition those to hasten to his Condemnation who must forsooth be forced to their own desires whereof and of the Magistrates standing still and suffering them to proceed without any Check he gave them a Memento in his dying Speech Which Preparations being made they followed it with such double diligence that by the beginning of November most men were great with expectation of a final Sentence Conceived by some That the whole Evidence being transmitted with the Prisoner to the Justices of his Majesties Bench he should have been put over to a Middlesex-Iury but they were only some poor Ignorants which conceived so of it The Leading Members of the House thought of no such matter and to say truth it did concern them highly not to go that way For though there was no question to be made at all but that they could have Impanelled a Iury to have found the Bill yet by a Clause in the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford they had bound the Judges not to declare those Facts for Treason in the time to come for which they had Condemned and Executed that Heroick Peer And therefore they resolved on the same course now which they had found before so prosperous and successful to them to proceed now as then by Bill of Attainder and condemn him by Ordinance in which being Parties Witnesses and Judges too they were assured to speed as they would themselves And though for fashion sake he was brought unto the Commons Bar on the eleventh of that Month not without magnifying the Favour of giving him leave to shew some Reason why the Bill should not pass against him yet was this but a matter of Formality only the Ordinance passing in that House within two days after But yet the Business was not done for the Lords stuck at it some of which having not extinguished all the Sparks of Humanity began to find themselves compassionate of his Condition not knowing how soon it should or might be made their own if once disfavoured by the Grandees of that Potent Faction For the Ordinance having been transmitted to the House of Peers and the House of Peers deliberating somewhat long upon it it was Voted on December 4. That all Books Writings and Evidences which concerned the Tryal should be brought before the Lords in Parliament to the end that they might seriously and distinctly consider of all Particulars amongst themselves as they came before them But meaning to make sure work of it they had in the mean time after no small Evaporations of Heat and Passion prepared an Ordinance which they sent up unto the Lords importing the displacing of them from all those Places of Power and Command which they had in the Army Which being found too weak to hold they fall upon another and a likelier Project which was to bring the Lords to sit in the Commons House where they were sure they should be inconsiderable both for Power and Number And to effect the same with more speed and certainty they had recourse to their old Arts drawing down Watkins with his general muster of Subscriptions and putting a Petition into his hands to be tendred by him to the Houses that is themselves wherein it was required amongst other things That they should vigorously proceed unto the punishment of all Delinquents and that for the more quick dispatch of Publick Businesses of State the Lords would please to Vote and Sit together with the Commons On such uncertain terms such a ticklish Tenure did they then hold their Place and Power in Parliament who so officiously complied with the House of Commons in
his holy Angels take it 〈…〉 death that I never endeavoured the subversion of Law or Relâ—gion and I desire you all to remember this Protest of mine for my in 〈…〉 this and from all Treasons whatsoever I have been accused 〈…〉 an Enemy to Parliaments No I understood them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I did mislike the 〈◊〉 governments of some Parliaments many waies and I had good Reason for it For Corruptio optimi est Pessima there is no Corruption iâ— thâ— World so bad as that which is of the best thing within it self Fâ—r the better the thing is in nature the worse it is corrupted And that being the Highest Court over which no other hath Iurisdiction when it is misinformed or misgoverned the Subject is left without all remedy â—ut I have done I forgive all the the World all and every of these 〈◊〉 Enemies which have persecuted me and humbly desire to be forgâ—vâ—n of God first and then of every man whether I have offended him or not if he do but conceive that I have Lord do thou forgive me and I beg forgiveness of him And so I heartily desire you to joyn in Prayer with me Which said with a distinct and audible voice he prayed as followeth O Eternal God and Merciful Father look down upon me in mercy in the Riches and Fulness of all thy mercies look down upon me but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the Cross of Christ not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ not till I have hid my self in the wounds of Christs that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me And since thou art pleased to try me to the utmost I humbly beseech thee give me now in this great instant full Patience Proportionable Comfort and a heart ready to die for thine Honour the Kings Happiness and this Churches preservation And my Zeal to this far from Arrogancy be it spoken is all the sin humane Frailty excepted and all the incidents thereunto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this particular of Treason but otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially what ever they are which have drawn down this present Iudgement upon me and when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own Eyes and carry me through death that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me Amen And that there may be a stop of this Issue of blood in this more then miserable Kingdom I shall desire that I may pray for the people too as well as for my self O Lord I beseech thee give grace of Repentance to all blood-thirsty people but if they will not Repent O Lord confound all their devices Defeat and frustrate all their designs and endeavours upon them which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy Great name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and his Posterity after him in their just Rights and Priviledges the Honour and Conservation of Parliaments in their just power the preservation of this poor Church in her truth peace and Patrimony and the settlement of this Distracted and distressed People under their Ancient Laws and in their Native Liberty And when thou hast done all this in meer mercy to them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulness and with Religious Dutiful obedience to thee and thy Commandments all their days Amen Lord Iesu Amen and receive my soul into thy Bosom Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. The Speech and Prayers being ended â—e gave the Paper which he Read into 〈◊〉 hands oâ— Sterne his Chaplain permitted to attend him in his last extremity whom he desired to Communicate it to his other Chaplains that they might see in what manner â—e leâ—t this world and so prayed God to shew his blessings and mercies on them And taking notice that one Hind had imployed himselâ— in writing tâ—e words of his Speech as it came from his mouth he dâ—sired him not to do him wrong in publishing a false or imperfect Copy This done he next applyed himself to the fatal Block as to the Hâ—ven of his Rest But finding the way full of people who had placed themselves upon the Theatre to behold the Tragedy he desired â—e might have room to die beseeching them to let him have an end of his miseries which he had endured very long All which he did with so Serene and calm a mind as if he rather had been taking Order for a Noble Mans Funeral then making way for his own Being come neer the block he put oâ— his Doublet and used some words to this 〈◊〉 Gods will be done I am willing to go out of this world none can â—e â—â—re willing to send me And seeing through the Chink of the â—oards that some people were got under the Scaffold about the very place where the block was seated he called to the Officer for some dust to stop them or to remove the people thence saying it was â—o part of his desires that his blood should fall upon the heads of the people Never did man put off mortality with a better courage nor look upon his bloody and malicious Enemies with more Christian Charity And thus far he was on his way toward Paradise with such a Primitive Magnanimity as equalled if not exceeded the example of the Ancient Martyrs when he was somewhat interrupted by one of those who had placed himself on the Scaâ—â—old not otherwise worthy to be named but as a Fire-brand brought from Ireland to inflame this Kingdom Who finding that the mockings and revilings of malicious people had no power to move him or shaâ—pen him into any discontent or shew of passion would needs put in and try what he could do with his Spunge and Vinegar and Stâ—pping to him neer the Block he would needs propound unto him some Impertinent questions not so much out of a desire to learn any thing of him but with the same purpose as was found in the Sâ—ribes and Pharisees in propounding questions to our Saviour tâ—at is to say either to intrap him in his Answers or otherwise to â—â—pose him to some disadvantage with the standers by Two of the quâ—stions he made answer to withal Christian meekness The first question was What was the Comfortablest saying which a dying man would have in his mouth to which he meekly made answer Cupio 〈◊〉 esse cum Christo being asked again what was the fittest Speech a man could use to express his Confidence and Assurancâ— he answâ—â—ed with the same Spirit of meekness That such Assâ—â—ancâ— was to be found within and that no words were able 〈…〉 But tâ—is not satisfying this busie man wâ—o aimed at something else as is probable then such satisfaction unless he gave some Word or
Of the Form of Consecration observed but not prescribed since the Reformation What kinde of Images they are which were prohibited by the Queens Injunctions The Articles of the Regal Visitation and What is to be said in answer to such passages as are found against them in the Book of Homilies The Lords Day built upon the same foundation with the other Holy dayes according to the Book of Homilies and The Act of Parliament 5.6 of EDW. vi What works of labour were permitted on the Lords Day and the other Holy dayes by the Book of Homilies The Statute 5. and 6. of EDW. vi The Injunctions of King EDW. vi and Of Queen ELIZ. Practised accordingly in the Court from that time to this Reverence required of the people at their first entrance in to the Church According to the practice of the Primitive times and The example of the Knights of the Garter c. and That example well enforced by Archbishop LAUD p. 47. Kneeling and standing when required The reverence to be used at the name of Iesus continued by Injunct 52. and Afterwards renewed by the Canon of the year 1603. with The Reasons for it The moderate proceedings of the first Reformers In reference to the Pope and The Church of ROME Observed and applauded by K. JAMES The Power of the Church asserted in the twentieth Article In the 34th reduced to practice and Of the power ascribed in Sacred Matters to the Kings of ENGLAND The Sacrament of the Lords Supper called frequently The Sacrament of the Altar as viz. by the Act of Parliament by Bishop RIDLEY Bishop LA TIMER and Some other Martyrs The Lords Table ordered to be placed where the Altar stood by the Injunctions of Q. ELIZ 1559. The Book of Orders 1561 and Advertis of the year 1565. and At the same the second Service to be said on the Sundayes and Holy Dayes The Lords Supper frequently called a Sacrifice by The Ancient Fathers By many Learned men amongst our selves Some of our godly Martyrs also and In what respect A Real Presence proved by The publick Liturgy By Bishop RIDLEY By Mr. Alex. Nowel and By Bishop BILSON The same confirmed â—y the words of the Catechism As also by the testimony of Bishop ANDREWS Bishop Morton The Article of Christs descent made figurative by Calvin and The Lord Primate but Justified to be Local By the Articles of the Church of ENGLAND The words of Mâ— Alexander Nowel and The works of Learned Bishop Bilson The necessity of Baptisme maintained by the first â—eformâ—râ— Justified in the Conference at Hampton-Court and Not gain said by any alteration in the publick Rubrick and Of the efficacy ascribed unto it by the Church Justification how divided betwixt Faith and Works In what respects ascribed to Faith by the Church of ENGL. and In what to Works Of the efficacy of good Works and The Reward belonging to them and Of the Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND in that particular The great Divisions in the Church touching Predestination The stating of the point by the Church of ENGLAND Illustrated by the story of Agilmond and Lamistus Kings of Lombardy Predestinatination how defined The definition explicated The explication justified by the ancient Fathers By Bishop LATIMER and The last clause of the 17th Article The Church why silent in the point of Reprobation The absolute Decree unknown to Bishop HOOPER By Bishop LATIMER and By King Iames. Universal Redemption maintained by the Book of Articles Many plain passages in the Publick Liturgy And the testimony of our ancient Martyrs The freedom of the Will too much advanced by the 〈◊〉 Decryed as much by Luther and The Contra Remonstrants The temper of St. Augustiâ— in it Approved and imitated in the Articles of the Church of ENGL. and Her Publick Liturgie The Churches Doctrine vindicated and explained by Bishop Hoopâ—â— and by Bishop Latimer as also by the Lutheran Churches and St. Augustine himself The Churches Doctrine in the point of Falling away Made clear by some expressions of Bishop Hâ—oper Of Bishop Latimer and The Conference at Hampton Court The harmony and consent in Judgment between Bishop Hooper and Bishop Ridley and Between Bishop Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer The judgment of Archbishop Craâ—â—â—â— in the point disputed The authority ascriâ—ed to the Works of Erasmus by our first Reformers The Points which still remain in difference betwixt the Churches How far with in the possibility of Reconcilement And in what points they joyn together against the Anabaptists and Sectaries Liberty of Opinion left in other Points by the first Reformers 〈◊〉 Their discretion in so doing Approved and commended by King Iames. Anno Dom. 1573. (a) Brev. 1. Lord Brook p. 3. (b) Brev. 1. Lord Brook p. 3. Camld Rens p. 273. last Edit 1589. (d) 〈◊〉 scribendo quam concionaâ—do veâ—â—â—â—tem Evâ—ngâ—â—icam haud sigâ—â—â—er saâ—agiâ— pâ—opugâ—are Godwin Catal. â—pisc 584. (e) Hist. of Scot. lib. 7. p. 497. 1590. 1593. 1599. (f) Full. Hist. lib. 9. p. 234. (g) Cant. Dâ—me p. 469. (h) Hâ—oker Prefâ—ce (i) 〈…〉 quia 〈…〉 in communes errores Ludo. Vives in Aug. de Civit Dei Nisi quod ex illa ipsa doctrina catholici Patres vetâ—res Episcopi câ—llâ—gâ—râ—nt (k) Lib. Can. cap. De conâ—â—â—at p. 19. 1602. 1603. 1604. 1606. L. Decad. 3. 〈◊〉 Cant. Dome p. 409. (m) Injuria contumelici R. E. Clericorum exâ—gitatus in Montani partes transit B Rhen. in Tertull. (n) Câ—llâ—ct of Speeches p. 5 (o) 〈◊〉 n. Mat. 19.9 9 Bre. p. 4. p. 6. 1608. 1610. 1611. (p) Conf. at Hamp p. 85. Hist. of K. Charles by H. L. p 31. 1611. (z) Iohn 21. v. 3 6. 1614. (s) Church Hist. l. 10 p 59. t 〈…〉 Gâ—dw in Continuat 1617. Hist. Scotl. l. 7. p. 531. Nâ—m p. 534. 1618. Hist. 〈◊〉 Scot. â—â—l 5â—0 (b) 1620. Anno Dom. 1621. 1622. (g) Vide quà m praetiolâ—s vaâ—is administrant Mariae Fâ—lâ—â— Socrat. Hist. Eccl. lib. 3. (h) Cant. Dâ—â—â— p. 504 Et tani ad Sacramenta quam Sacramentalia tum Coenae Dominicae tum etiam Baptismatis Sacri in â—andem ministrantur c. Hidden wâ—rks of dâ—rk p. 47 Iâ— p. 25. (m) Hidden works p. 34. Cant. Dâ—â—m p. 276. Hiâ—d Works c. 34. Brev. p. 3. (p) Breviate p. 14. (q) 〈◊〉 p. 47. Sâ—alâ— 530. (r) Digby â—â— Calvert Iul. 25. (s) to Colverâ— Dec. 28. to K. James Octob. 24. Hâ—dd Works p. 6â— Act of Parl. A. 11 Jac. 21. c. 34. (s) D. Whites Preface to his Reply c. (t) Epist. dediâ—at to tâ—e King 16â—7 (e) Epist. dedicatâ— to Appello Caesâ— (a) Hidden 〈◊〉 p. 73. (b) Ib. p. 69. 1625. Breviate p. 6. Breviâ—te p. 6. 〈◊〉 p. 156. (a) Eâ—â— Regia p. 12. Iâ—id p 15. Cant Doom 69. Hist. K. Ch. 20. 〈…〉 Collect 〈…〉 Eâ—act Collâ—â—t of Edw. Huâ—â— 290. Sâ—r. 3. p. 102 Pag. 104. P. 107. P. 109. 1626. Cabal Breviâ—te p. 7. Pa. 8. Hist. King Charles p. 50. Ch. Hist. lib. 2.