not able to resist that is to say for so I understand his meaning that they should rather leave their Churches then submit themselves to such conditions But this direction being given toward the end of October Anno 1567 seems to be qualified in his Epistle to the Brethren of the Forreign Churches which were then in England bearing date Iune the fifth in the year next following in which he thus resolves the case proposed unto him That for avoiding all destructive ruptures in the body of Christ by dividing the members thereof from one another it was not lawful for any man of what Rank soever to separate himself upon any occasion from the Church of Christ in which the Doctrine is preserved whereby the people are instructed in the ways of God and the right use of the Sacraments ordained by Christ is maintained inviolable 38. This might I say have stopped the breach in the first beginning had not the English Puritans been resolved to try some conclusions before they hearkned to the Premises But finding that their party was not strong enough to bear them out or rich enough to maintain them on their private purses they thought it not amiss to follow the directions of their great Dictator And hereunto the breaking out of those in Surrey gave some further colour by which they say that nothing but confusion must needs fall upon them and that so many Factions Subdivisions and Schismatical Ruptures as would inevitably ensue on the first separation must in fine crumble them to nothing And on these grounds it was determined to unite themselves to the main body of the Church to reap the profit of the same and for their safer standing in it to take as well their Orders as their Institution from the hands of the Bishops But so that they would neither wear the Surplice oftner then meer necessity compelled them or read more of the Common-prayers then what they thought might save them harmless if they should be questioned and in the mean time by degrees to bring in that Discipline which could not be advanced at once in all parts of the Kingdom Which half Conformity they were brought to on the former grounds and partly by an Act of Parliament which came out this year 13 Eliz. cap. 12. for the reforming of disorders amongst the Ministers of the Church And they were brought unto no more then a half-Conformity by reason of some clashing which appeared unto them between the Canons of the Convocation and that Act of Parliament as also in regard of some interposings which are now made in their behalf by one of a greater Title though of no more power then Calvin Martyr Beza or the rest of the Advocates 39. The danger threatned to the Queen by the late sentence of Excommunication which was past against her occasioned her to call the Lords and Commons to assemble in Parliament the Bishops and Clergy to convene in their Convocation These last accordingly met together in the Church of St. Paul on the 5 of April 1571. At which time Dr. Whitgift Master of Trinity-Colledge in Gambridge preached the Latine Sermon In which he insisted most especially upon the Institution and Authority of Synodical Meetings on the necessary use of Ecclesiastical Vestments and other Ornaments of the Church the opposition made against all Orders formerly Established as well by Puritans as Papists touching in fine on many other particularities in rectifying whereof the care and diligence of the Synod was by him required And as it proved his counsel was not given in vain For the first thing which followed the Conforming of the Prolocutor was a command given by the Archbishop That all such of the lower House of Convocation who not had formerly subscribed unto the Articles of Religion agreed upon Anno 1562 should subscribe them now or on their absolute refusal or procrastinations be expelled the House Which wrought so well that the said Book of Articles being publickly read was universally approved and personally subscribed by every Member of both Houses as appears clearly by the Ratification at the end of those Articles In prosecution of which necessary and prudent course it was further ordered That the Book of Articles so approved should be put into Print by the appointment of the Right Reverend Dr. John Jewel then Bishop of Sarum and that every Bishop should take a competent number of them to be dispersed in their Visitations or Diocesan Synods and to be read four times in every year in all the Parishes of their several and respective Diocesses Which questionless might have settled a more perfect Conformity in all parts of the Kingdom somâ— Câ—nons of the Convocation running much that way if the Parliament had spoke as clearly in it as the Convocation or if some sinister practice had not been excogitated to pervert those Articles in making them to come out imperfect and consequently deprived of life and vigour which otherwise they would have carried 40. The Earl of Leicester at that time was of great Authority and had apparently made himself the head of the Puritan faction They also had the Earl of Huntingdon the Lord North and others in the House of Peers Sir Francis Knollis Walsingham and many more in the House of Commons To which if Zanchy be to be believed as perhaps he may be some of the Bishops may be added who were not willing to tye the Puritans too close to that Subscription by the Act of Parliament which was required of them by the Acts and Canons of the Convocation It had been ordered by the Bishops in their Convocation That all the Clergy then assembled should subscribe the Articles And it was ordered by the unanimous consent of the Bishops and Clergie That none should be admitted from thenceforth unto Holy-Orders till he had first subscribed the same and solemnly obliged himself to defend the things therein contained as consonant in all points to the Word of God Can. 1571. Cap. de Episcop But by the first Branch of the Act of Parliament Subscription seemed to be no otherwise required then to such Articles alone as contained the Confession of the trâ—e Christian Faith and the Doctrine of the holy Sacraments Whereby all Articles relating to the Book of Homilieâ— the Form of Consecrating Archbishops and Bishops the Churches power for the imposing of new Rites and Ceremonies and retaining those already made seemed to be purposely omitted as not within the compass of the said Subscription And although no such Restriction do occur in the following Branches by which Subscription is required indefinitely unto all the Articles yet did the first Branch seem to have such influence upon all the rest that it was made to serve the turn of the Puritan Faction whensoever they were called upon to subscribe to the Episcopal Government the Publick Liturgie of the Church or the Queens Supremacy But nothing did more visibly discover the designs of the Faction and the great power their Patrons had in
run on till they came to the end of the Race of which in general King Iames hath given us this description in a Declaration of his published not long after the surprising of his person by the Earl of Gowry 15â—2 where we finde it thus The Bishops having imbraced the Gospel it was at first agreed even by the Brethren with the consent of Regent that the Bishops estate should be maintained and authorized This endured for sundry years but then there was no remedy the Calling it self of Bishops was at least become Antichristian and down they must of necessity whereupon they commanded the Bishops by their own Authority to leave their Offices and Iurisdiction They decreed in their Assemblies That Bishops should have no vote in Parliament and that done they desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and Council might from thenceforth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate They also directed their Commissioners to the Kings Majesty commanding him and the Council under pain of the Censures of the Church Excommunication they meant to appoint no Bishops in time to come because they the Brethren had concluded that State to be unlawful And that it might appear to those of the suffering party that they had not acted all these things without better Authority then what they had given unto themselves they dispatched their Letters unto Beza who had succeeded at Geneva in the Chair of Calvin from whence they were encouraged and perswaded to go on in that course and never re-admit that plague he means thereby the Bishops to have place in that Church although it might flatter them with a shew of retaining unity 17. But all this was not done at once though laid here together to shew how answerable their proceedings were to their first beginnings To cool which heats and put some Water in their Wine the Queen by practising on her Keepers escapes the Prison and puts her self into Hamilton Castle to which not onely the dependants of that powerful Family but many great Lords and divers others did with great cheerfulness repair unto her with their several followers Earl Murray was at Stirling when this news came to him and it concerned him to bestir himself with all celerity before the Queens power was grown too great to be disputed He therefore calls together such of his Friends and their adherents as were near unto him and with them gives battail to the Queen who in this little time had got together a small Army of four thousand men The honour of the day attends the Regent who with the loss of one man onely bought an easie Victory which might have proved more bloudy to the conquered Army for they lost but three hundred in the fight it he had not commanded back his Souldiers from the execution The Queen was placed upon a Hill to behold the battail But when she saw the issue of it she posted with all speed to the Port of Kerbright took Ship for England and landed most unfortunately as it after proved at Wirckington in the County of Cumberland From thence she dispatched her Letters to Queen Elizabeth full of Complaints and passionate bewailings of her wretched fortune desires admittance to her presence and that she might be taken into her protection sending withal a Ring which that Queen had given her to be an everlasting token of that love and amity which was to be maintained between them But she soon found how miserably she had deceived her self in her Expectations Murray was grown too strong for her in the Court of England and others which regarded little what became of him were glad of her misfortunes in relation to their own security which could not better be consulted then by keeping a good Guard upon her now they had her there And so instead of sending for her to the Court the Queen gives order by Sir Francis Knollis whom she sent of purpose to remove the distressed Lady to Carlisle as the safer place until the equity of her cause might be fully known She hath now took possession of the Realm which she had laid claim to but shall pay dearly for the purchase the Crown whereof shall come at last to her Posterity though it did not fall upon her person 18. Now that the equity of her cause might be understood the Regent is required by Letters from the Court of England to desist from any further prosecution of the vanquished party till that Queen were perfectly informed in all particulars touching these Affairs Which notwithstanding he thought fit to make use of his Fortune summoned a Parliament in which some few of each sort noble and ignoble were proscribed for the present by the terrour whereof many of the rest submitted and they which would not were reduced by force of Arms. Elizabeth not well pleased with these proceedings requires that some Commissioners might be sent from Scotland to render an account to her or to her Commissioners of the severity and hard dealing which they had shewed unto their Queen And hereunto he was necessitated to conform as the case then stood The French being totally made against him the Spaniards more displeased then they and no help 〈◊〉 be had from any but the English onely At York Commissioners attend from each part in the end of September From Queen Elizabeth Thomas Duke of Norfolk Thomas Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadlier Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster For the unfortunate Queen of Scots Iohn Lesly Bishop of Ross the Lords Levington Boyd c. And for the Infant King besides the Regent himself there appeared the Earl of Morton the Lord Lindsay and certain others After such protestations made on both sides as seemed expedient for preserving the Authority of the several Crowns an Oath is took by the Commissioners to proceed in the business according to the Rules of Justice and Equity The Commissioners from the Infant-King present a Declaration of their proceedings in the former troubles to which an answer is returned by those of the other side Elizabeth desiring to be better satisfied in some particulars requires the Commissioners of both sides some of them at the least to repair unto her where after much sending and proving as the saying is there was nothing done which might redound unto the benefit of the Queen of Scots 19. For whilst these matters were in agitation in the Court of England Letters of hers were intercepted written by her to those which continued of her party in the Realm of Scotland In which Letters she complained that the Queen of England had not kept promise with her but yet desired them to be of good heart because she was assured of aid by some other means and hoped to be with them in a short time Which Letters being first sent to Murray and by him shewed to Queen Elizabeth prevailed so much for his advantage that he was not onely dismissed with favour but waited
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
privity and advice Which whether it were done with greater Moderation or Discretion it is hard to say 27. So good a Foundation being laid the building could not chuse but go on apace But first they must prepare the matter and remove all doubts which otherwise might interrupt them in the course of their building And herein Beza is consulted as the Master-Workman To him they send their several scruples and he returns such answer to them as did not onely confirm them in their present obstinacy but fitted and prepared them for the following Schism To those before they add the calling of the Ministers and their ordaining by the Bishops neither the Presbyterie being consulted nor any particular place appointed for their Ministration Which he condemns as contrary to the Word of God and the ancient Canons but so that he conceives it better to have such a Ministery then none at all praying withal that God would give this Church a more lawful Ministery the Church was much beholding to him for his zeal the while in his own good time Concerning the Interrogatories proposed to Infants in their Baptism he declares it to be onely a corruption of the ancient Form which was used in the baptizing persons of riper years And thereupon desires as heartily as before That as the Church had laid aside the use of Oyl and the old Rite of Exorcising though retained at Rome so they would also abdicate those foolish and unnecessary Interrogations which are made to Infanâ—â— And yet he could not chuse but vaunt that there was somewhat in one of S. Augustines Epistles which might seem to favour it and that such questionâ— were proposed to Infants in the time of Origen who lived above Two hundred years before S. Augustine In some Churches and particularly in Westminster-Abbey they still retained the use of Wafers made of bread unleavened to which we can find nothing contrary in the Publik Rubricks This he acknowledgeth of it self for a thing indifferent but so that ordinary leavened bread is preferred before it as being more agreeable to the Institution of our Lord and Saviour And yet he could not chuse but grant that Christ administred the Sacrament in unleavened bread no other being to be used by the Law of Moses at the time of the Passover He dislikes also the deciding of Civil causes by which he means those of Tythes Marriages and the Last-Wills or Testaments of men deceased in the Bishops Courts but more that the Bishops Chancellors did take upon them to decree any Excommunication without the approbation and consent of the Presbyters Whose acts therein he Majestically pronounceth to be void and null not to oblige the Conscience of any man in the sight of God and otherwise to be a foul and shameful prophanation of the Churches Censures 28. To other of their Queries Touching the Musick in the Church Kneeling at the Communion The Cross in Baptism and the rest He answers as he did before without remitting any thing of his former censure Which Letter of his bearing date on the 24 of October 1567. was superscribed Ad quosdam Anglicanum Ecclesiarum fratres c. To certain of the brethren of the Churches in England touching some points of Ecclesiastical Order and concernment which were then under debate by the receiving whereof they found themselves so fully satisfied and encouraged that they fell into an open Schism in the year next following At which time Benson Button Hallingham Coleman and others taking upon them to be of a more Ardent zeal then others in professing the true Reformed Religion resolved to allow of nothing in Gods Publick Service according to the Rules laid down by Calvin and Beza but what was found expresly in the holy Scriptures And whether out of a desire of Reformation which pretence had gilded many a rotten post or for singularity sake and Innovation they openly questioned the received Discipline of the Church of England yea condemned the same together with the Publick Liturgie and the Calling of Bishops as savouring too much of the Religion of the Church of Rome Against which they frequently protested in their Pulpits affirming That it was an impious thing to hold any correspondency with the Church and labouring with all diligence to bring the Church of England to a Conformity in all points with the Rules of Geneva These although the Queen commanded to be laid by the heels yet it is incredible how upon a sudden their followers increased in all parts of the Kingdom distinguished from the rest by the name of Puritans by reason of their own perverseness and most obstinate refusal to give ear to more sound advice Their numbers much encreased on a double account first by the negligence of some and the connivance of other Bishops who should have looked more narrowly into their proceedings And partly by the secret favour of some great men in the Court who greedily gaped after the Remainder of the Churches Patrimony 29. It cannot be denied but that this Faction received much encouragement underhand from some great persons near the Queen from no man more then from the Earl of Leicester the Lord North Knollis and Walsingham who knew how mightily some numbers of the Scots both Lords and Gentlemen had in short time improved their fortune by humoring the Knoxian Brethren in their Reformation and could not but expect the like in their own particulars by a compliance with those men who aimed apparently at the ruine of the Bishops and Cathedral Churches But then it must be granted also that they received no smaâ—l encouragement from the negligence and remissness of some great Bishops whom Calvin and Beza â—ad cajoled to a plain connivance Of Calvins writing unto Grindal for setting up a French Church in the middle of London we have seen before And we have seen how Beza did address himself unto him in behalf of the Brethren who had suffered for their inconformity to established Orders But now he takes notice of the Schism a manifest defection of some members from the rest of the body but yet he cannot chuse but tamper with him to allow their doings or otherwise to mitigate the rigour of the Laws in force For having first besprinkled him with some commendation for his zeal to the Gospel and thanked him for his many favours to the new French Church he begins roundly in plain terms to work him to his own perswasions He lays before him first how great an obstacle was made in the course of Religion by those petite differences not onely amongst weak and ignorant but even Learned men And then adviseth that some speedy remedy be applied to so great a mischief by calling an Assembly of such Learned and Religious men as were least contentious of which he hoped to be the chief if that work went forwards With this Proviso notwithstanding That nothing should be ordered and determined by them with reference unto Ancient or Modern usages but that all Popish Rites
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
which had been brought in behalf of the Queen So that the strugling on both sides much confirmed the Power which they endeavoured to destroy the Power of that Commission being better fortified both by Law and Argument than it had been formerly For by the over-ruling of Cawdrey's Case in confirmation of the Sentence which was past against him and the great pains which Parsons took to so little purpose the Power of that Commission was so well established in the Courts of Judicature that it was afterwards never troubled with the like Disputes The Guides of the Faction therefore are resolved on another course To strike directly at the Root to question the Episcopal Power and the Queen's Authority the Jurisdiction of their Courts the exacting of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio and their other proceedings in the same And to this purpose it was published in Print by some of their Lawyers or by their directions at the least That men were heavily oppressed in the Ecclesiastical Courts against the Laws of the Realm That the Queen could neither delegate that Authority which was vested in it nor the Commissioners to exercise the same by her delegation That the said Courts could not compel the taking of the Oath called the Oath Ex Officio since no man could be bound in Reason to accuse himself That the said Oath did either draw men into wilful Perjury to the destruction of their souls or to be guilty in a manner of their own condemnation to the loss both of their Fame and Fortunes And finally That the ordinary Episcopal Courts were not to meddle in any Causes whatsoever but only Testamentary and Matrimonial by consequence not in matter of Tythes all Mis-behaviours in the Church or punishing of Incontinency or Fornication Adultery Incest or any the like grievous or enormous Crimes but on the contrary it was affirmed by the Professors of the Civil Laws That to impugn the Authority which had been vested in the Queen by Act of Parliament was nothing in effect but a plain Invasion of the Royal Prerogative the opening of a way to the violation of the Oath of Allegiance and consequently to undermine the whole Frame of the present Government It was proved also That the ordinary Episcopal Courts had kept themselves within their bounds that they might lawfully deal in all such Causes as were then handled in those Courts that their proceedings in the same by the Oath Ex Officio was neither against Conscience Reason nor the Laws of the Land and therefore that the Clamours on the other side were unjust and scandalous In which as many both Divines and Civilians deserved exceeding well both of the Queen and the Church so none more eminently than Dr. Richard Cosins Dean of the Arches in a Learned and Laborious Treatise by him writ and published called An Apology for Proceedings in Courts Ecclesiastical c. Printed in the year 1593. 22. But notwithstanding the Legality of these Proceedings the punishing of some Ring-leaders of the Puritan Faction and the Imprisonment of others a Book comes out under the name of A Petition to Her Majesty The scope and drift whereof was this That the Ecclesiastical Government of the Church of England was to be changed That the Eldership or Presbyterial Discipline was to be established as being the Government which was used in the Primitive Church and commanded to be used in all Ages That the Disciplinarian Faction hath not offended against the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. And That Iohn Vdal was unjustly condemned upon it That the Consistorial Patrons are unjustly slandered with desire of Innovation and their Doctrine with Disorder and Disloyalty And this being said the Author of the Pamphlet makes it his chief business by certain Questions and Articles therein propounded to bring the whole Ecclesiastical State into envy and hatred This gave the Queen a full assurance of the restless Spirit wherewith the Faction was possessed and that no quiet was to be expected from them till they were utterly supprest To which end She gives Order for a Parliament to begin in February for the Enacting of some Laws to restrain those Insolencies with which the Patience of the State had been so long exercised The Puritans on the other side are not out of hope to make some good use of it for themselves presuming more upon the strength of their Party by reason of the Pragmaticalness of some Lawyers in the House of Commons than they had any just ground for as it after proved To which end they prepared some Bills sufficiently destructive of the Royal Interest the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the whole Form of their Proceedings in their several Courts With which the Queen being made acquainted before their meeting or otherwise suspecting by their former practises what they meant to do She thought it best to strangle those Conceptions in the very Womb. And to that purpose She gave Order for the signification of Her Pleasure to the Lords and Commons at the very first opening of the Parliament That they should not pass beyond their bounds That they should keep themselves to the redressing of such Popular Grievances as were complained of to them in their several Countreys but that they should leave all Matters of State to Her self and the Council and all Matters which concerned the Church unto Her and Her Bishops 23. Which Declaration notwithstanding the Factors for the Puritans are resolved to try their Fortune and to encroach upon the Queen and the Church at once The Queen was always sensible of the Inconveniences which might arise upon the nominating of the next Successor and knew particularly how much the Needle of the Puritans Compass pointed toward the North Which made Her more tender in that Point than She had been formerly But Mr. Peter Wentworth whom before we spake of a great Zealot in behalf of the Holy Discipline had brought one Bromley to his lure and they together deliver a Petition to the Lord Keeper Puckering desiring that the Lords would joyn with them of the Lower-House and become Suppliants to the Queen for entailing of the Succession of the Crown according to a Bill which they had prepared At this the Queen was much displeased as being directly contrary to her strict Command and charged the Lords of the Council to call the said Gentlemen before them and to proceed against them for their disobedience Upon which signification of Her Majesty's Pleasure Sir Thomas Hennage then Vice-Chamberlain and one of the Lords of the Privy-Council convents the Parties reprehends them for their Misdemeanor commands them to forbear the Parliament and not to go out of their several Lodgings until further Order Being afterwards called before the Lord Treasurer Burleigh the Lord Buckhurst and the said Sir Thomas Wentworth is sent unto the Tower Bromley committed unto the Fleet and with him Welsh and Stevens two other Members of that House were committed also as being privy to the Projects of
as much disquieted and as apt for action as the Princes of the House of Bourbon for the former Reasons Many designs were offered to consideration in their private Meetings but none was more likely to effect their business then to make themselves the Heads of the Hugonot Faction which the two Chastilions had long favoured as far as they durst By whose assistance they might draw all affairs to their own disposing get the Kings person into their power shut the Queen-mother into a Cloyster and force the Guises into Lorrain out of which they came 5. This counsel was the rather followed because it seemed most agreeable to the inclinations of the Queen of Navar Daughter of Henry of Albret and the Lady Margaret before-mentioned and Wife of Anthony Duke of Vendosm who in her Right acquired the title to that Kingdom Which Princess being naturally averse from the Popes of Rome and no less powerfully transported by some flattering hopes for the recovery of her Kingdoms conceived no expedient so effectual to revenge her self upon the one and Inthrone her self in the other as the prosecuting this design to the very utmost Upon which ground she inculcated nothing more into the ears of her Husband then that he must not suffer such an opportunity to slip out of his hands for the recovery of the Crown which belonged unto her that he might make himself the Head of a mighty Faction containing almost half the strength of France that by so doing he might expect assistance from the German Princes of the same Religion from Queen Elizabeth of England and many discontented Lords in the Belgick Provinces besides such of the Catholick party even in France it self as were displeased at the Omni-Regency of the House of Guise that by a strong Conjunction of all these interesses he might not onely get his ends upon the Guises but carry his Army cross the Mountains make himself Master of Navar with all the Rights and Royalties appertaining to it But all this could not so prevail on the Duke her Husband whom we will henceforth call the King of Navar as either openly or under-hand to promote the enterprise which he conceived more like to hinder his affairs then to advance his hopes For the Queen-Mother having some intelligence of these secret practices sends for him to the Court commends unto his care her Daughter the Princess Isabella affianced to Philip the Second King of Spain and puts him chief into Commission for delivering her upon the Borders to such Spanish Ministers as were appointed to receive her All which she did as she assured him for no other ends but out of the great esteem which she had of his person to put him into a fair way for ingratiating himself with the Catholick King and to give him such a hopeful opportunity for solliciting his own affairs with the Grandees of Spain as might much tend to his advantage upon this imployment Which device had so wrought upon him and he had been so finely fitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King that he thought himself in a better way to regain his Kingdom then all the Hugonots in France together with their Friends in Germany and England could chalk out unto him 6. But notwithstanding this great coldness in the King of Navar the business was so hotly followed by the Prince of Conde the Admiral Colligny and his brother D' Andelot that the Hugonots were drawn to unite together under the Princes of that House To which they were spurred on the faster by the practices of Godfrey de la Bar commonly called Renaudie from the name of his Signiory a man of a most mischievous Wit and a dangerous Eloquence who being forced to abandon his own Country for some misdemeanors betook himself unto Geneva where he grew great with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistory and coming back again in the change of times was thought the fittest instrument to promote this service and draw the party to a body Which being industriously pursued was in fine effected many great men who had before concealed themselves in their affections declaring openly in favour of the Reformation when they perceived it countenanced by such Potent Princes To each of these according as they found them qualified for parts and power they assigned their Provinces and Precincts within the limits whereof they were directed to raise Men Arms Money and all other necessaries for carrying on of the design but all things to be done in so close a manner that no discovery should be made till the deed was done By this it was agreed upon that a certain number of them should repair to the King at Bloise and tender a Petition to him in all humble manner for the Free exercise of the Religion which they then professed and for professing which they had been persecuted in the days of his Father But these Petitioners were to be backed with multitudes of armed men gathered together from all parts on the day appointed who on the Kings denyal of so just a suit should violently break into the Court seize on the person of the King surprise the Queen and put the Guises to the Sword And that being done Liberty was to be Proclaimed Free exercise of Religion granted by publick Edict the managery of affairs committed to the Prince of Conde and all the rest of the Confederates gratified with rewards and honours Impossible it was that in a business which required so many hands none should be found to give intelligence to the adverse party which coming to the knowledge of the Queen-Mother and the Duke of Guise they removed the Court from Bloise a weak open Town to the strong Castle of Amboise pretending nothing but the giving of the King some recreation in the Woods adjoyning But being once setled in the Castle the King is made acquainted with the threatned danger the Duke of Guise appointed Lieutenant-General of the Realm of France And by his care the matter was so wisely handled that without making any noise to affright the Confederates the Petitioners were admitted into the Town whilst in the mean time several Troopes of Horse were sent out by him to fall on such of their accomplices as were well armed and ready to have done the mischief if not thus prevented 7. The issue of the business was that Renaudie the chief Actor in it was killed in the fight many of the rest slain and some taken Prisoners the whole body of them being routed and compelled to flee yet such was the clemencie of the King and the diâ—creet temper of the Guises in the course of this business that a general pardon was proclaimed on the 18 of March being the third day after the Execution to all that being moved onely with the Zeal to Religion had entred themselves into the Conspiracie if within twenty four hours they laid down their Arms and retired to their own Houses But this did little edifie with those hot spirits which had
Gates and thereby got possession of that part of the City was in apparent danger to be utterly broken by the Catholick party if the Prince had not come so opportunely to renew the fight but by his coming they prevailed made themselves Masters of the City and handselled their new Government with the spoil of all the Churches and Religious Houses which either they defaced or laid waste and desolate Amongst which none was used more coursely then the Church of St. Crosse being the Cathedral of that City not so much out of a dislike to all Cathedrals though that had been sufficient to expose it unto Spoil and Rapine as out of hatred to the name Upon which furious piece of Zeal they afterwards destroyed all the little Crosses which they found in the way between Mont-Martyr and St. Denis first raised in memory of Denis the first Bishop of Paris and one that passeth in account for the chief Apostle of the Gallick Nations 17. But to proceed to put some fair colour upon this foul action a Manifest is writ and published in which the Prince and his adherents signifie to all whom it might concern that they had taken arms for no other reason but to restore the King and Queen to their personal liberty kept Prisoners by the power and practice of the Catholick Lords that obedience might be rendred in all places to his Majesties Edicts which by the violence of some men had been infringed and therefore that they were willing to lay down Arms if the Constable the Duke of Guise and the Marshal of St. Andrews should retire from Paris leaving the King and Queen to their own disposing and that liberty of Religion might be equally tolerated and maintained unto all alike These false Colours were wiped off by a like Remonstrance made by the Parliament of Paris In which it was declared amongst other things that the Hugonots had first broke those Edicts by going armed to their Assemblies and without an Officer That they had no pretence to excuse themselves from the crime of Rebellion considering they had openly seized on many Towns raised Souldiers assumed the Munition of the Kingdom cast many pieces of Ordnance and Artillery assumed unto themselves the Coyning of Money and in a word that they have wasted a great part of the publick Revenues robbed all the rich Churches within their power and destroyed the rest to the dishonour of God the scandal of Religion and the impoverishing of the Realm The like answer was made also by the Constable and the Duke of Guise in their own behalf declaring in the same that they were willing to retire and put themselves into voluntary exile upon condition that the Arms taken up against the King might be quite laid down the places kept against him delivered up the Churches which were ruined restored again the Catholick Religion honourably preserved and an intire obedience rendred to the lawful King under the Government of the King of Navar and the Regencie of the Queen his Mother Nor were the King and Queen wanting to make up the breach by publishing that they were free from all restraint and that the Catholick Lords had but done their duty in waiting on them into Paris that since the Catholick Lords were willing to retire from Court the Prince of Conde had no reason to remain at that distance that therefore he and his adherents ought to put themselves together with the places which they had possessed into the obedience of the King which if they did they should not onely have their several and respective Pardons for all matters past but be from thenceforth looked upon as his Loyal Subjects without the least diminution of State or honour 18. These Paper-pellets being thus spent both sides prepare more furiously to charge each other But first the Prince of Conde by the aid of the Hugonots makes himself Master of the great Towns and Câ—ties of chief importance such as were Rouen the Parliamentary City of the Dukedom of Normandy the Ports of Diepe and New-haven the Cities of Angiers Towres Bloise Vendosme Bourges and Poictiers which last were reckoned for the greatest of all the Kingdom except Rouen and Paris after which followed the rich City of Lyons with that of Valence in the Province of Daulphiny together with almost all the strong places in Gascoigne and Languedock Provinces in a manner wholly Hugonot except Tholouse Bourdeaux and perhaps some others But because neither the Contributions which came in from the Hugonots though they were very large nor the spoil and pillage of those Cities which they took by force were of themselves sufficient to maintain the War the Prince of Conde caused all the Gold and Silver in the Churches to be brought unto him which he coyned into Money They made provision of all manner of Artillery and Ammunition which they took from most of the Towns and laid up in Orleance turning the Covent of the Franciscans into a Magazine and there disposing all their stores with great art and industry The Catholicks on the other side drew their Forces together consisting of 4000 Horse and six thousand Foot most of them old experienced Souldiers and trained up in the War against Charles the Fifth The Prince had raised an Army of an equal number that is to say three thousand Horse and seven thousand Foot but for the most part raw and young Souldiers and such as scarcely knew how to stand to their Arms And yet with these weak Forces he was grown so high that nothing would content him but the banishment of the Constable the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise free liberty for the Hugonots to meet together for the Exercise of their Religion in walled Towns Cities and Churches to be publickly appointed for them the holding of the Towns which he was presently possessed of as their absolute Lord till the King were out of his Minority which was to last till he came to the age of two and twenty He required also that the Popes Legate should be presently commanded to leave the Kingdom that the Hugonots should be capable of all Honours and Offices and finally that security should be given by the Emperour the Catholick King the Queen of England the State of Venice the Duke of Savoy and the Republick of the Switzers by which they were to stand obliged that neither the Constable nor the Duke of Guise should return into France till the King was come unto the age before remembred 19. These violent demands so incensed all those which had the Government of the State that the Prince and his Adherents were proclaimed Traytors and as such to be prosecuted in a course of Law if they laid not down their Arms by a day appointed Which did as little benefit them as the proposals of the Prince had pleased the others For thereupon the Hugonots united themselves more strictly into a Confederacie to deliver the King the Queen the Kingdom from the violence of their
Kingdom Normandy was in no small danger of being wilfully betrayed into the hands of the English who therefore were to be removed or at the least to be expulsed out of Rouen before the Kings Army was consumed in Actions of inferiour consequence The issue of which War was this That though the English did brave service for defence of the City and made many gallant attempts for relief thereof by their men and shipping from New-haven yet in the end the Town was taken by assault and for two days together made a prey to the Souldiers The joy of the Royalists for the reduction of this great City to the Kings obedience was much abated by the death of the King of Navar who had unfortunately received his deaths wound in the heat of the Seige and dyed in the forty fourth year of his age leaving behind him a young Son called Henry who afterward succeeded in the Crown of France And on the contrary the sorrow for this double loss was much diminished in the Prince of Conde and the rest of his party by the seasonable coming of four thousand Horse and five thousand Foot which Monsieur d' Andelot with great industry had raised in Germany and with as great courage and good fortune had conducted safely to the Prince 22. By the accession of these Forces the Hugonots are incouraged to attempt the surprizing of Paris from which they were disswaded by the Admiral but eagerly inflamed to that undertaking by the continual importunity of such Preachers as they had about them Repulsed from which with loss both of time and honour they were encountred in a set battel near the Câ—ty of Dreux in the neighbouring Province of Le Beausse In which battel their whole Army was overthrown and the Prince of Conde taken prisoner but his captivity sweetned by the like misfortune which befel the Constable took prisoner in the same battel by the hands of the Admiral who having drawn together the remainder of his broken Army retires towards Orleance and leaving there his Brother D' Andelot with the Foot to make good that City takes with him all the German Horse and so goes for Normandy there to receive such Monies as were sent from England But the Monies not coming at the time by reason of cross windes and tempestuous weather the Germans are permitted to spoil and plunder in all the parts of the Country not sparing places either Profane or Sacred and reckoning no distinction either betwixt Friends or Enemies But in short time the Seas grew passable and the Monies came an hundred and fifty thousand Crowns according to the French account together with fourteen pieces of Cannon and a proportionable stock of Ammunition by which supply the Germans were not onely well paid for spoiling the Country but the Admiral was thereby inabled to do some good service from which hâ— had been hindred for want of Cannon In the mean time the Duke of Guise had laid Siege to Orleance and had reduced it in a manner to terms of yeilding where he was villanously murdred by one Poltrot a Gentleman of a good Family and a ready Wit who having lived many years in Spain and afterward imbracing the Calvinian Doctrines grew into great esteem with Beza and the rest of the Consistorians by whom it was thought fit to execute any great Attempt By whom commended to the Admiral and by the Admiral excited to a work of so much merit he puts himself without much scruple on the undertaking entreth on the Kings service and by degrees became well known unto the Duke Into whose favour he so far insinuated that he could have access to him whensoever he pleased and having gained a fit opportunity to effect his purpose dispatched him by the shot of a Musket laden with no fewer then three bullets in the way to his lodging 23. This murder was committed on Feb. 24. an 1562. and being put to the Rack he on the Rack confessed upon what incentives he had done the fact But more particularly he averred that by the Admirall he was promised great rewards and that he was assured by Beza that by taking out of the world such a great persecutor of the Gospel he could not but exceedingly merit at the hands of Almighty God And though both Beza and the Admiral endeavoured by their Manifests and Declarations to wipe off this stain yet the confession of the murtherer who could have no other ends in it then to speak his conscience left most men better satisfied in it then by both their writings But as it is an ill wind which blows no body good so the Assassinate of this great person though very grievous to his friends served for an Introduction to the peace ensuing For he being taken out of the way the Admirall engaged in Normandy the Constable Prisoner in the City and the Prince of Conde in the Camp it was no hard matter for the Queen to conclude a peace upon such terms as might be equall to all parties By which accord it was concluded that all that were free Barons in the Lands and Castles which they were possessed of or held them of no other Lord then the King himself might freely exercise the Reformed Religion in their own jurisdictions and that the other which had not such Dominions might doe the same in their own Houses and Families only provided that they did not the same in Towns and Cities that in every Province certain Cities should be assigned in the Suburbs whereof the Hugonots might have the free exercise of their Religion that in the City of Paris and in all other Towns and places whatsoever where the Court resided no other Religion should be exercised but the Roman Catholick though in those Cities every man might privately enjoy his conscience without molestation that those of the Reformed Religion should observe the Holy Days appointed in the Roman Kalendar and in their Marriages the Rites and Constitutions of the Civil Law and finally that a general pardon should be granted to all manner of persons with a full restitution to their Lands and Liberties their Honors Offices and Estates Which moderation or restriction of the Edict of Ianuary did much displease some zealous Hugonots but their Preachers most who as they loved to exercise their gifts in the greatest Auditories so they abominated nothing more then those observances 24. After this followed the reduction of New-haven to the Crown of France and the expulsion of the English out of Normandy the Prince of Conde and some other leading men of the Hugonot faction contributing both their presence and assistance to it which had not been so easily done had not God fought more against the English then the whole French Armies for by cross winds it did not only hinder all supplyes from coming to them till the surrendry of the Town but hastened the surrender by a grievous Pestilence which had extreamly wasted them in respect of number and miserably dejected them
desires though the Prince of Orange openly appeared for them they were resolved no longer to expect the lazie temper of Authority but actually took possession of some of the Churches in Brabant Gelderland and Flanders and openly exercised that Religion which till then they had professed in secret nor durst the Estates do any thing in vindication of their own Authority considering what necessary use they might have of them in the present War against Don Iohn and from how great a person they received incouragement But in the midst of this career they received a stop for the Confederates being vanquished by Don Iohn at the battail of Gemblack Brussels and all the Towns of Brabant submitted themselves one after another to the power of the conquerour Philipivil a strong Town of Haynalt Limburg and Dalem with some others not so easily yeilding were either forced by long siege or some violent storming or otherwise surrended upon capitulations During which Sieges and Surrendries the Prince of Orange who had escaped with safety from the battail of Gemblack was busied in establishing his Dominion on the Coast of Holland In which designe he found no opposition but at Amsterdam constant at that time even to miracle both to their old Religion and their old Obedience But being besieged on all sides both by Sea and Land they yeilded on condition of enjoying the free exercise of their former Faith and of the like Freedom from all Garrisons but of Native Citizens But when they had yeilded up the Town they were not onely forced to admit a Garrison but to behold their Churches spoil'd their Priests ejected and such new Teachers thrust upon them as they most abominated But liberty of Religion being first admitted a confused liberty of opinions followed shortly after till in the end that Town became the common Sink of all Sects and Sectaries which hitherto have disturbed the Church and proved the greatest scandal and dishonor of the Reformation 46. Holland had lately been too fruitful of this viperous brood but never more unfortunate then in producing David George of Delfe and Henry Nicholas of Leiden the two great Monsters of that age but the impieties of the first were too gross and horrid to finde any followers the latter was so smoothed over as to gain on many whom the Impostor had seduced The Anabaptists out of Westphalia had found shelter here in the beginning of the Tumults and possibly might contribute both their hearts and hands to the committing of those spoils and outrages before remembred In imitation of whose counterfeit piety and pretended singleness of heart there started up another Sect as dangerous and destructive to humane Society as the former were for by insinuating themselves into the heart of the ignorant multitude under a shew of singular Sanctity and Integrity did afterwards infect their mindes with damnable Heresies openly repugnant to the Christian Faith In ordinary Speech they used new and monstrous kindes of expressions to which the ears of men brought up in the Christian Church had not been accustomed and all men rather wondered at then understood To difference themselves from the rest of mankinde they called their Sect by the name of the Family of Love and laboured to perswade their hearers that those onely were elected unto life Eternal which were by them adopted Children of that Holy Family and that all others were but Reprobates and Damned persons One of their Paradoxes was and a safe one too that it was lawful for them to deny upon oath whatsoever they pleased before any Magistrate or any other whomsoever that was not of the same Family or Society with them Some Books they had in which their dotages were contained and propagated first writ in Dutch and afterwards translated into other Languages as tended most to their advantage that is to say The Gospel of the Kingdom The Lords Sentences The Prophesie of the Spirit of the Lord The publication of peace upon earth by the Author H. N. But who this H. N. was those of the Family could by no fair means be induced or inforced by threatnings to reveal But after it was found to be this Henry Nicholas of Leiden whom before we spake of Who being emulous of the Glories of King Iohn of Leiden that most infamous Botcher had most blasphemously preached unto all his followers that he was partaker of the Divinity of God as God was of his humane nature How afterwards they past over into England and what reception they found there may be told hereafter 50. By giving freedom of Conscience to all Sects and Sectaries and amongst others to these also the Prince of Orange had provided himself of so strong a party in this Province that he was able to maintain a defensive War against all his opposites especially after he had gained the Ports of Brill and Vlushing which opened a fair entrance unto all adventurers out of England and Scotland For on the Rumour of this War the Scots in hope of prey and plunder the English in pursuit of Honour and the use of Arms resorted to the aid of their Belgick Neighbours whose absolute subjugation to the King of Spain was looked on as a thing of dangerous consequence unto either Nation And at the first they went no otherwise then as Voluntiers of their own accord rather connived at then permitted by their several Princes But when the Government was taken into the hands of the States and that the War was ready to break out betwixt them and Don Iohn the Queen of England did not onely furnish them with large sums of money but entred into a League or Confederation by which it was agreed That the Queen should send unto their aid one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot that they should conclude nothing respecting either Peace or War without her consent and approbation that they should not enter into League with any person or persons but with her allowance and she if she thought good to be comprehended in the same that the States should send the like aid unto the Queen if any Prince attempted any act of Hostility against her or her Kingdoms and that they should furnish her with forty Ships of sufficient burthen to serve at her pay under the Lord Admiral of England whensoever she had any necessary occasion to set forth a Navy and finally not to insist upon the rest that if any difference should arise amongst themselves it was to be referred and offered unto her Arbitrament And to this League she was the rather induced to grant her Royal assent because she had been certainly advertised by the Prince of Orange that Don Iohn was then negotiating a marriage with the Queen of Scots that under colour of her Title he might advance himself to the Crown of England And yet she ventured neither men nor money but on very good terms receiving in the way of pawn the greatest part of the rich Jewels and massie Ornaments of Plate which anciently
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
place because of that influence which they had on the Realm of England and the connexion of affairs between both the Kingdoms till they were both united under the command of one Soveraign Prince And this being said I shall without more preamble proceed to the following History 2. It was about the year 1527 that the Reformation of Religion begun by Luther was first preached in Scotland by the Ministry of one Patrick Hamilton a man of eminent Nobility in regard of his birth as being Brothers Son to Iames Earl of Arran but far more eminent in those times for his parts and piety then the Nobility of his House spending some time at Witteberg in the pursuit of his Studies he grew into acquaintance with Martin Luther Philip Melancthon and other men of name and note in that University and being seasoned with their Doctrine he returned into Scotland where he openly declared himself against Pilgrimages Purgatory Prayer to the Saints and for the dead without going further And further as he did not go so indeed he could not For on the noise of these his preachings he was prevailed with by Iames Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews to repair to that City but was so handled at his coming that after some examinations he was condemned to the fire which sentence was inflicted on him on the last of February But the Church is never made more fruitful then when the soyl thereof is watered with the blood of Martyrs For presently upon the commiâ—ting of this Fact most men of Quality begâ—n to look into the Reasons of such great severities and were the more inquisitive after all particulars because they had not been affrighted with the like Example in the memory of the oldest man which then lived amongst them By this means the opinions of this man being known abroad found many which approved but very few which had just reason to condemn them and passing thus from hand to hand gave further cause to those of the Popish Party to be watchful over them And for long time they were on the suffering hand patiently yeilding up their lives to the Executioners wheresoever any sentence of death was past upon them And it stood till the decease of King Iames the Fifth Anno 1542 when the unsetledness of Affairs the tender infancie of the young Queen not above nine days old at the death of her Father and the conferring of the Regencie after some disputes on Iames Earl of Arran who was thought to favour their opinions imboldned them to appear more openly in defence of themselves and to attempt upon the Chiefs of the contrary party whereof they gave a terrible Example in the death of Cardinal David Beton immediately or not long after the cruel burning of George Wischart whose name is mollified by Buchanan into Sofocardius a man of great esteem amongst them who having spent some time in France and being conversant with some Calvinists of that Nation returned into his Native Country with such French Commissioners as were sent unto the Earl of Arran Anno 1544. In little time he had gained unto himself so many followers that he became formidable to the greatest Prelates but unto none more then unto Cardinal David Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews also and Nephew unto Iames his Predecessor By whose Authority and procurement he was condemned to the like death as Hamilton before had suffered in the year next following 3. Amongst the followers of this man the most remarkable in reference to my present purpose were Norman Lesly eldest Son to the Earl of Rothes Iohn Lesly Uncle unto Norman Iames Melvin and the Kirkaldies Lairds of Grange By whom and others of that party a plot was laid to surprise the Castle and take revenge upon the Cardinal for the death of Wishart Having possest themselves of the Gates of the Castle they forced their way into his Chamber and were upon the point of striking the fatal blow when Iames Melvin told them with great shews of gravity that the business was not to be acted with such heat and passion And thereupon holding a Ponyard at his brest put him in minde of shedding the innocent bloud of that famous Martyr Mass George Wishart which now called loud to God for vengeance in whose name they were come to do justice on him which said he made this protestation That neither hatred to his person nor love to his Riches nor the fear of any thing concerning his own particular had moved him to the undertaking of that execution but onely because he had been and still remained an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his holy Gospel Upon which words without expecting any answer or giving the poor man any time of application to the Father of Mercies he stabbed him twice or thrice into the body with so strong a malice that he left him dead upon the place In the relating of which Murder in Knox hâ—s History a note was given us in the Margent of the first Edition printed at London in Octavo which points us to the godly act and saying of Iames Melvin for so the Author calls this most wicked deed But that Edition being stopt at the Press by tâ—â— Queens command the History never came out perfect till the year of our Lord 1644 when the word godly was left out of the Marginal Note for the avoiding of that horrible scandal which had been thereby given to all sober Readers But to proceed unto my story it was upon the 29 of May that the Murderers possest themselves of that strong peece into which many flocked from all parts of the Realm both to congratulate the act and assist the Actors So that at last they cast themselves into a Congregation and chose Iohn Rough who after suffered death in England to be one of their Preachers Iohn Knox that great incendiary of the Realm of Scotland for another of them And thus they stood upon their guard till the coming of one and twenty Gallies and some Land-Forces out of France by whom the Castle was besieged and so fiercely battered that they were forced to yeild on the last of Iuly without obtaining any better conditions then the hope of life 4. The Castle being yeilded and the Country quieted the French returned with their booty of which their Prisoners which they brought along with them made the principal part not made the tamer by their sufferings in the enemies Gallies insomuch that when the Image of the Virgin Mary was offered to them to be kissed on some solemn occasion one of them snatched it into his hands flung it into the Sea and said unto them that brought it in a jeering manner That her Ladyship was light enough and might learn to swim Which desperate and unadvised action as it was no other is said by Knox to have produced this good effect that the Scots were never after tempted to the like Idolatries Knox at this time was Prisoner in the Gallies amongst the
had they stood to that they had been unblameable but finding by the Subscriptions which they had received from all parts of the Kingdom that they were nothing inferiour to their Adversaries in power and number they were not able to hold long in so good an humour Howsoever it was thought expedient for the avoiding of Scandal that they should first proceed in the way of supplication to the Queen and Council in which it was desired that it might be lawful for them to meet publickly or privately for having the Common-prayers in the vulgar tongue that the Sacrament of Baptism might be administred in the same Tongue also the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in both kindes according to Christs Institution and that a Reformation might be made of the wicked lives of Prelates Priests and other Ecclesiastical persons The Queen of Scots was in the mean time Married to the Daulphin of France upon whose head it was desired by the French that at the least the Matrimonial Crown should be solemnly placed and that all the French Nation should forthwith be naturalized in the Realm of Scotland For the better effecting whereof in the following Parliament the Queen Regent thought it no ill peece of State-craft so far to gratifie the Petitioners in their desires as to license them to meet in publick or private for the exercise of their own Religion so that it were not in the City of Edenborough or the Port of Leith for fear some Tumult or Sedition might ensue upon it But not content with this Indulgence they were resolved to move the Parliament for an Abrogation of all former Laws made against Sects and Heresies by which they might incur the loss of Life Land or Liberty and that none of their profession should be condemned for Heresie unless they were first convinced by the Word of God to have erred from the Faith which the holy Spirit witnesseth to be necessary to mans Salvation 11. But hereunto they could not get the Queens consent And thereupon they caused a Protestation to be drawn and openly pronounced in the face of the Parliament in which it was declared amongst other things that neither they nor any other of the Godly who pleased to joyn with them in the true Faith grounded upon the Word of God should incur any danger of Life or Lands or other particular pains for not observing such acts as have passed heretofore in favour of their Adversaries or for violating such Rites as have been invented by man without the Commandment of God that if any Tumult or Uproar should happen to arise in the Realm or that any violence should be used in reforming of such things as were amiss in the state of the Church the blame should not be laid on them who had desired that all things might be rectified by publick Order And finally that they pretended to no other end but onely for the reforming of such abuses as were found in Religion and therefore that they might no otherwise be thought of then as faithful and obedient Subjects to Supreme Authority And now the Scheme begins to open the Town of Perth by some called St. Iohnstone declared in favour of the Lords of the Congregation which name they had took unto themselves the news whereof was so unpleasing to the Queen that she commanded the Lord Ruthuen a man of principal Authority in the parts adjoyning to take some order for suppressing those Innovations in Religion which some busie people of that Town had introduced To which he answered That he was able if she pleased to force their bodies and to seize their goods but that he had no power to compel their Consciences which answer did not more displease the Queen then it encouraged those of the Congregation who now from all parts flocked to Perth as a Town strong by scituation well fortified and standing in a fruitful Country from whence they might receive all necessaries if any open force or violence should be used against them 12. Knox in the mean time had retreated to his charge at Geneva not thinking fit to tempt that danger by an unseasonable return which he had so narrowly escaped at his being there He onely waited opportunity to go back with safety and would not stir though frequently sollicited by his Friends in Scotland In so much that means was made to Calvin by especial Letters to re-ingage him in the Cause Which Letters were brought to him in the Month of November Anno 1558. And that it may appear what influence Calvin had upon all the counsels and designes of the Congregation he is advertised from time to time of their successes of the estate of their Affairs whether good or bad in so much that when the Queen Regent had fed them with some flattering hopes Calvin is forthwith made acquainted with their happiness in it And who but he must be desired to write unto her that by his Grave counsel and exhortation she might be animated to go forward constantly in promoting the Gospel But though these Letters came to Calvin in the Month of November yet we finde not Knox in Scotland till the May next following when those of his party had possessed themselves of the Town of Perth though he loved Calvin well and the Gospel better yet all that a man hath he will give for his life and Knox was dearer to himself then either of them But unto Perth he comes at last on the fifth of May. In the chief Church whereof he preached such a thundring Sermon against the Adoration of Images and the advancing of them in places of Gods publick Worship as suddenly beat down all the Images and Religious Houses within the Precincts of that Town For presently after the end of the Sermon when almost all the rest of the people were gone home to dinner some few which remained in the Church pullâ—d down a glorious Tabernacle which stood on the Altar broke it in pieces and defaced the Images which they found therein Which being dispatched they did the like execution on all the rest in that Church and were so nimble at their work that they had made a clear riddance of them before the tenth man in the Town was advertised of it The news hereof causeth the Rascal Multitude so my Author calls them to resort in great numbers to the Church But because they found that all was done before they came they fell with great fury on the Monastery of Carthusian Monks and the Houses of the Preaching and Franciscan Fryars beginning wiâ—h the Images first but after spoyling them of all their provisions Bedding and Furniture of Houshold which was given for a prey unto the poor And in the ruinating of these Houses they continued with much force and eagerness so that within the compass of two days they had left nothing standing of those goodly Edifices but the outward Walls 13. It was reported that the Queen was so inraged when she heard the news that she vowed
utterly to destroy the Town Man Woman and Childe to consume the same with â—ire and after to sow Salt upon it in signe of perpetual desolation And it is possible she might have been as good as her word if the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Vchiltrie and Boyd the young Sheriff of Air and many other men of eminent Quality attended by two thousand five hundred Horse and Foot had not come very opportunely to the aid of their Brethren Perth being thus preserved from the threatned danger but forced to receive a Garrison of the Queens appointment Knox leaves the Town and goes in company with the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward toward the City of St. Andrews In the way to which he preached at a Town called Craâ—le inveighs most bitterly against such French Forces as had been sent thither under the Command of Monsieur d' Osselle exhorting his Auditors in fine to joyn together as one man till all strangers were expulsed the Kingdom and either to prepare themselves to live like men or to dye victorious Which exhortation so prevailed upon most of the hearers that immediately they betook themselves to the pulling down of Altars and Images and finally destroyed all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry which they found in the Town The like they did the next day at a place called Anstruther From thence they march unto St. Andrews in the Parishâ—Church whereof Knox preached upon our Saviours casting the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple and with his wonted Rhetorick so inflamed the people that they committed the like outrages there as before at Perth destroying Images and pulling down the Houses of the Black and Gray-fryars with the like dispatch This happened upon the 11 of Iune And because it could not be supposed but that the Queen would make some use of her French Forces to Chastise the chief Ring-leaders of that Sedition the Brethren of the Congregation flock so fast unto them that before Tuesday night no fewer then three thousand able men from the parts adjoyning were come to Cooper to their aid By the accession of which strength they first secured themselves by a Capitulation from any danger by the French and then proceeded to the removing of the Queens Garrison out of Perth which they also effected Freed from which yâ—ke some of the Towns-men joyning themselves with those of Dundee make an assault upon the Monastery of Scone famous of long time for the Coronation of the Kings of Scotland and for that cause more sumptuously adorned and more richly furnished then any other in the Kingdom And though the Noblemen and even Knox himself endeavoured to appease the people and to stop their fury that so the place might be preserved yet all endeavours proved in vain or were coldly followed So that in fine a ter some spoyl made in defacing of Images and digging up great quantity of hidden goods which were buried there to be preserved in expectation of a better day they committed the whole House to the Mercie of Fire the flame whereof gave grief to some and joy to others of St. Iohn stones scituate not above a Mile from that famous Abby 14. They had no sooner plaid this prize but some of the Chiefs of them were advertised that Queen Regent had a purpose of putting some French Forces into Sterling the better to cut off all intercourse and mutual succours which those of the Congregation on each side of the Fryth might otherwise have of one another For the preventing of which mischief the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward were dispatched away Whose coming so inflamed the zeal of the furious multitude that they pulled down all the Monasteries which were in the Town demolished all the Altars and defaced all the Images in the Churches of it The Abbey of Cambuskenneth near adjoyning to it was then ruined also Which good success encouraged them to go on to Edenborough that the like Reformation might be made in the capital City Taking Linlithgow in their way they committed the like spoyl there as before at Sterling but were prevented of the glory which they chiefly aimed at in the Saccage of Edenborough Upon the news of their approach though their whole Train exceeded not three hundred persons the Queen Regent with great fear retires to Dunbar and the Lord Seaton being then Provest of the Town staid not long behind But he was scarce gone out of the City when the Rascal Rabble fell on the Religious Houses destroyed the Covents of the Black and Gray-fryars with all the other Monasteries about the Town and shared amongst them all the goods which they found in those Houses In which they made such quick dispatch that they had finished that part of the Reformation before the two Lords and their attendants could come in to help them 15. The Queen Regent neither able to endure these outrages nor of sufficient power to prevent or punish them conceived it most expedient to allay these humours for the present by some gentle Lenitive that she might hope the better to extinguish them in the time to come which when she had endeavoured but with no effect she caused a Proclamation to be published in the name of the King and Queen in which it was declared That she perceived a seditious Tumult to be raised by a part of the Lieges who named themselves the Congregation and under pretence of Religion had taken Arms Thâ—t by the advice of the Lords of the Council for satisfying every mans Conscience and pacifying the present troubles she had made offer to call a Parliament in January then following but would call it sooner if they pleased for establishing an Vniversal Order in Affairs of Religion That in the mean time every man should be suffered to live at liberty using their own Consciences without trouble until further order That those who called themselves of the Congregation rejecting all reasonable offers had made it manifest by their actions that they did not so much seek for satisfaction in point of Religion as the subversion of the Crown For proof whereof she instanced in some secret intelligence which they had in England seizing the Irons of the Mans and Coyning Money that being one of the principal Iewels of the Royal Diadem In which regard she straightly willeth and commandeth all manner of persons not being Inhabitants of the City to depart from Edenborough within six hours after publication thereof and live obedient to her Authority except they would be holden and reputed Traytors 16. This Proclamation they encountred with another which they published in their own names for satisfaction of the people some of which had begun to shrink from them at the noise of the former And â—herein they made known to all whom it may concern That such crimes as they were charged with never entred into their hearts That they had no other intention then to banish Idolatry to advance true Religion and to defend the Preachers
Authority over rhem Knox goes to work more cautiously but comes home at last For having first approved whatsoever had been said by Willock he adds this to it That the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Soveraign nor did he wish that any such sentence against her should be pronounced but that when she should change her course and submit her self to good counsels there should be place left unto her of regress to the same honours from which for just cause she ought to be deprived 19. So said the Oracle and as the Oracle decreed so the sentence passed for presently upon this judgement in the case a publick Instrument is drawn up in which the most part of the passages in the course of her Government were censured as grievances and oppressions on the Subjects of Scotland to the violating of the Laws of the Land the Liberty of the Subjects and the enslaving of them to the power and domination of strangers In which respect they declare her to be fallen from the publick Government discharge all Officers and others from yeilding any obedience to her subscribing this Instrument with their hands requiring it to be published in all the Head-Boroughs of the Kingdom and causing it to be proclaimed with sound of Trumpet Thus they began with the Queen Regent but we shall see them end with the Queen her self their annoynted Soveraign This Instrument bears date on the 23 of October a memorable day for many notable occurrences which have hapned on it in our Brittish Stories Of all these doings they advertised her by express Letters sent back by the same Herald who had brought her last message to them and having so done they resolve immediately to try their fortune upon Leith in the way of Scalada But the worst was the Souldiers would not â—ight without present money and money they had none to pay them on so short a warning Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution but would not satisfie And thereupon it was advised that the Lords and other great men should bring in their Plate and cause it to be presently melted to content the Souldiers But they who had so long made a gain of Godliness did not love Godliness so well as not to value and prefer their gain before it And therefore some had so contrived it that the Irons of the Mint were missing and by that handsome fraud they preserved their Plate 20. It was not to be thought that the Scots durst have been so bold in the present business if they had not been encouraged underhand from some Friends in England which the Queen Regent well observed and prest it on them in her Declaration as before was noted To which particular though the Confederates made no reply in their Anti-remonstrance at that time yet afterwards they both acknowledged and defended their intelligence with the English Nation For in a subsequent Declaration They acknowledge plainly that many Messages had past betwixt them and that they had craved some support from thence but that it was onely to maintain Religion and suppress Idolatry And they conceived that in so doing they had done nothing which might make them subject unto any just censure it being lawful for them where their own power failed to seek assistance from their Neighbours And now or never was the time to make use of such helps their Contribution falling short and the Plate not coming to the Mint as had been projected In which extremity it was advised to try some secret Friends at Barwick especially Sir Ralph Sudlieur and Sir Iames Crofts by whose encouragement it may be thought they had gone so far that now there was no going back without manifest ruine By the assistance of these men they are furnished with four thousand Crowns in ready Money But the Queen Regent had advertisement of the negotiation and intercepts it by the way The news of this ill Fortune makes the Souldiers desperate some of them secretly steal away others refuse to venture upon any service so that the Lords and others of the chief Confederates are put upon a necessity of forsaking Edenborough The French immediately take possession of it compel the Ministers and most of those who profest the Reformed Religion to desert their dwellings restore the Mass and reconcile with many Ceremonies the chief Church of the City I mean that dedicated unto St. Gyles as having been prophaned by Heretical Preachings But the abandoning of Edenborough proved the ruine of Glasgow To which Duke Hamilton repairing he caused all the Images and Altars to be pulled down and made himself Master of the Castle out of which upon the noise of the Bishops coming with some Bands of French he withdraws again and quits the Town unto the Victor No way now left to save their persons from the Law their Estates from forfeiture their Country from the French and their Religion from the Pope but to cast themselves upon the favour of the Qeeen of England And to that course as the Lord Iames did most incline and Knox most preached for so there might be some probable Reasons which might assure them of not failing of their expectations 21. No sooner was Queen Mary of England dead but Mary the young Queen of Scots not long before Married to the Daulphin of France takes on her self the name and title of Queen of England the Arms whereof she quarters upon all her Plate some of her Coyn and upon no small part of her Houshold-Furniture Which though she did not as she did afterwards alledge of her own accord but as she was over-ruled in it by the perswasion of her Husband and the Authority which was not in her to dispute of the King his Father yet Queen Elizabeth looked upon it as a publick opposition to her own Pretensions an open disallowing of her Title to the Crown of this Realm She had good reason to presume that they by whose Authority and Counsel she was devested of her Title would leave no means untryed nor no stone unmoved by the rouling whereof she might be tumbled out of her Government and deprived also of her Kingdom Which jealousie so justly setled received no small increase from the putting over of so many French distributing them into so many Garrisons but more especially by their fortifying of the Town of Leith at which Gate all the strengths of France might enter when occasion served And then how easie a passage might they have into England divided only by small Rivers in some places and in some other places not divided at all But that which most assured her of their ill intentions was the great preparations lately made by the Marquiss of Elboeuf one of the Brothers of the Queen Regent and consequently Uncle to the Queen of Scots For though he was so distressed by tempests that eighteen Ensignes were cast away on the Coast of Holland and the rest forced for the present to return
other and in this point they shewed themselves directly contrary to the practice of the Primitive Church in which it was accounted a great impiety to keep any Fast upon that day either private or publick They Interdict the Bishops from exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdictâ—on in their several Diocesses and openly quarrel with their Queen for giving a Commission to the Archbishop of St. Andrews to perform some Acts which seemed to them to savour of Episcopal power Having attained unto this height they maintain an open correspondence with some Forreign Churches give audience to the Agents of Berne Basil and Geneva from whom they received the sum of their Confessions and signified their consent with them in all particulars except Festivals onely which they had universally abolished throughout the Kingdom and finally they take upon them to write unto the Bishops of England whom they admonished not to vex or suspend their Brethren for not conforming to the Rules of the Church especially in refusing the Cap and Surplice which they call frequently by the name of trifles vain trifles and the old badges of idolatry All which they did and more in pursuit of their Discipline though never authorized by Law or confirmed by the Queen nor justified by the Convenâ—ion of Estates though it consisted for the most part of their own Prosessors A Petition is directed to the Lords of secret Council from the Assemblies of the Church in which their Lordships are sollicited to dispatch the business But not content with that which they had formerly moved it was demanded also that some severe course might be taken against the Sayers and Hearers of Mass that fit provision should be made for their Superintendents Preachers and other Ministers and that they should not be compellable to pay their Tythes as formerly to the Popish Clegy with other particulars of that nature And that they might not trifle in it as they had done hitherto the Petition carried in it more threats and menaces then words of humble supplication as became Petitioners For therein it said expresly That before those Tyrants and dumb Dogs should have Empire over them and over such as God had subjected unto them they were fully determined to hazard both life and whatsoeever they had received of God in Temporal things that therefore they besought their Lordships to take such order that the Petitioners if they may be called so might have no occasion to take the Sword of just defence into their hands which they had so willingly resigned after the Victory obtained into those of their Lordships that so doing their Lordships should perceive they would not onely be obedient unto them in all things lawful but ready at all times to bring all such under their obedience as should at any time rebel against their Authority and finally that those enemies of God might assure themselves that they would no no longer suffer Pride and Idolatry and that if their Lordships would not take some order in the premises they would then proceed against them of their own Authority after such a manner that they should neither do what they list nor live upon the sweat of the brows of such as were in no sort debtors to them 31. On the receipt of this Petition an Order presently is made by the Lords of the Council for granting all which was desired and had more been desired they had granted more so formidable were the Brethren grown to the opposite party Nor was it granted in words onely which took no effect but execution caused to be done upon it and warrants to that purpose issued to the Earls of Arrane Arguile and Glencarne the Lord Iames Steward c. Whereupon followed a pitiful devastation of Churches and Church-buildings in all parts of the Realm no difference made but all Religious Edifices of what sort soever were either terribly defaced or utterly ruinated the holy Vessels and whatsoever else could be turned into money as Lead Bells Timber Glass c. was publickly exposed to sale the very Sepulchres of the dead not spared the Registers of the Church and the Libraries thereunto belonging defaced and thrown into the fire Whatsoever had escaped the former tumults is now made subject to destruction so much the worse because the violence and sacrilegious actings of these Church-robbers had now the countenance of Law And to this work of spoyl and rapine men of all Ranks and Orders were observed to put their helping hands mâ—n of most Note and Quality being forward in it in hope of getting to themselves the most part of the booty those of the poorer sort in hope of being gratified for their pains therein by their Lords and Patrons Both sorts encouraged to it by the Zealous madness of some of their sedirious Preachers who frequently cryed out that the places where Idols had been worshipped ought by the Law of God to be destroyed that the sparing of them was the reserving of things execrable and that the Commandment given to Israel for destroying the places where the Canaanites did worship their false Gods was a just warrant to the people for doing the like By which encouragements the madness of the people was transported beyond the bounds which they had first prescribed unto it In the beginning of the heats they designed onely the destruction of Religious Houses for fear the Monks and Fryars might otherwise be restored in time to their former dwellings But they proceeded to the demolition of Cathedral Churches and ended in the ruine of Parochial also the Chancels whereof were sure to be levelled in all places though the Isles and bodies of them might be spared in some 32. Such was the entertainment which the Scots prepared for their Queens coming over Who taking no delight in France where every thing renewed the memory of her great loss was easily intreated to return to her native Kingdom Her coming much desired by those of the Popish party in hope that by her power and presence they might be suffered at the least to enjoy the private Exercise of their Religion if not a publick approbation and allowance of it Sollicited as earnestly by those of the Knoxian interest upon a confidence that they should be better able to deal with her when she was in their power assisted onely by the Counsels of a broken Clergy then if she should remain in France from whence by her Alliances and powerful Kindred she might create more mischief to them then she could at home On the 19 day of August she arrives in Scotland accompanied by her Uncles the Duke of Aumales the Marquess of Elboeuf and the Lord grand Pryor with other Noble-men of France The time of her arrival was obscured with such Fogs and Mists that the Sun was not seen to shine in two days before nor in two days after Which though it made her passage safe from the Ships of England which were designed to intercept her yet was it looked upon by most men as a sad presage
of those uncomfortable times which she found amongst them Against Sunday being the 24 there were great preparations made for celebrating Mass in the Chappel-Royal of Holyâ—ood-House At which the Brethren of the Congregation were so highly offended that some of them cryed out aloud so as all might hear them That the Idolatrous Priests should dye the death according to Gods Law others affirming with less noise but with no less confidence That they could not abide that the Land which God by his power had purged of Idolatry should in their sight be polluted with the same again And questionless some great mischief must have followed on it if the Lord Iames Steward to preserve the honour of his Nation in the eye of the French had not kept the door which he did under a preâ—ence that none of the Scottish Nation should be present at the hearing of Mass contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf but in plain truth to hinder them by the power and reputation which he had amongst them from thronging in tumultuously to disturb the business 33. For remedy whereof for the time to come an Order was issued the next day by the Lords of the Council and Authorized by the Queen in which it was declared that no manner of person should privately or openly take in hand to alter or innovate any thing in the State of Religion which the Queen found publickly and universally received at her Majesties arrival in that Realm or attempt any thing against the same upon pain of death But then it was required withal that none of the Leiges take in hand to trouble or molest any of her Majesties Domestick Servants or any other persons which had accompanied her out of France at the time then present for any cause whatsoever in word deed or countenance and that upon the pain of death as the other was But notwithstanding the equality of so just an Order the Earl of Arrane in the name of the rest of the Congregation professed openly on the same day at the Cross in Edenborough That no protection should be given to the Queens Domesticks or to any other person that came out of France either to violate the Laws of the Realm or offend Gods Majesty more then was given to any other subjects And this he did as he there affirmed because Gods Law had pronounced death to the Idolater and the Laws of the Realm had appointed punishment for the sayers and hearers of Mass from which he would have none exempted till some Law were publickly made in Parliament and such as was agreeable to the Word of God to annul the former The like distemper had possest all the rest of the Lords at their first coming to the Town to attend her Majesty to congratulate her safe arrival but they cooled all of them by degrees when they considered the unreasonableness of the Protestation in denying that Liberty of Conscience to their Soveraign Queen which every one of them so much desired to enjoy for himself Onely the Earl Arrane held it out to the last He had before given himself some hopes of marrying the Queen and sent her a rich Ring immediately on the death of the King her Husband but finding no return agreeable to his expectation he suffered himself to be as much transported to the other extreme according to the natural Genius of the Presbyterians who never yet knew any mean in their loves or hatred 34. Iohn Knox makes good the Pulpit in the chief Church at Edenborough on the Sunday following in which he bitterly inveighed against Idolatry shewing what Plagues and Punishments God had inflicted for the same upon several Nations And then he adds that one Mass was more fearful to him then if ten thousand armed Enemies were landed in any part of the Realm on purpose to suppress their whole Religion that in God there was strength to resist and confound whole multitudes iâ— unfeignedly they depended on him of which they had such good experience in their former troubles but that if they joyned hands with Idolatry they should be deprived of the comfortable presence and assistance of Almighty God A Conference hereupon ensued betwixt him and the Queen at the hearing whereof there was none present but the Lord Iames Steward besides two Gentlemen which stood at the end of the Room In the beginning whereof she charged him with raising Sedition in that Kingdom putting her own Subjects into Arms against her writing a Book against the Regiment of Women and in the end descendâ—d to some points of Religion To all which Knox returned such answers or else so favourably reports them to his own advantage for we must take the whole story as it comes from his pen that he is made to go away with as easie a victory as when the Knight of the Boot encounters with some Dwarf or Pigmy in the old Romances All that the Queen got by it from the mouth of this Adversary was that he found in her a proud minde a crafâ—y wit and an obdurate heart against God and his Truth And in this Character be thought himself confirmed by her following actions For spending the rest of the Summer in visiting sâ—me of the chief Towns of her Kingdom she carried the Mass with her into all places wheresoever she came and at her coming back gave order for setting out the Mass with more solemnity on Alhallows day then at any time or place before Of this the Minâ—sters complain to such of the Nobility as were then Resident in the City but finde not such an eagerness in them as in former times For now some of them make a doubt whether the Subjects might use force for suppressing the Idolatry of their Prince which heretofore had passed in the affirmative as a truth infallible A Conâ—erence is thereupon appointed between some of the Lords and such of the Ministers as appeared most Zâ—alous against the Mass the Lords disputing for the Queen and urging that it was not lawful to deprive her of that in which she placed so great a part of her Religion The contrary was maintained by Knox and the rest of the Ministers who seeing that they could not carry it as before by their own Authority desired that the deciding of the point might be referred to the godly Brethren of Geneva of whose concurring in opinion with them they were well assured And though the drawing up of the point and the Inditing of the Letter being committed unto Ledington the principal Secretary was not dispatched with such poâ—â— haste as their Zeal required yet they shewed plainly by insisting on that proposition both from whose mouth they had received the Doctrines of making Soveraign Princes subject to the lusts of the people and from whose hands they did expect the defence thereof 35. A general Assembly being indicted by them about that time or not long after a question is made by some of the Court-Lords whether such Assemblies might be holden
a very sorry case when not her people onely must be poysoned with this dangerous Doctrine but that she must be baffled and affronted by each sawcy Presbyter who could pretend unto a Ministry in the Church Of which the dealing of thâ—s man gives us proof sufficient who did not onely revile her parson in the Pulpit and traduce her Government but openly pronounced her to be an Idolatress and therefore to be punished by her Subjects as the Law required Nothing more ordinary with him in his factious Sermons then to call her a Slave to Sathan and to tell the people that Gods vengeance hanged over the Realm by reason of her impiety which what else was it but to inflame the hearts of the people as well against the Queen as all them that served her For in his publick Prayers he commonly observed this Form viz. O Lord if it be thy good pleasure purge the Queens heart from the venom of Idolatry and deliver her from the bondage and thraldom of Sathan in the which she yet remains for lack of true Doctrine c. that in so doing she may avoid the eternal damnation which is ordained for all obstinate and impenitent to thee and that this Realm may also escape that plague and vengeance which inevitably follows Idolatry maintained in this Kingdom against thy manifest Word and the Light thereof set forth unto them Such in a word was the intemperancie of his spirit his hatred of her person or contempt of her Government that he opposed and crossed her openly in all her courses and for her sake fell foul upon all men of more moderate counsels 46. During the interval between the death of her Father and her own coming back from France there had been little shewn of a Court in Scotland as not much before But presently on her return a greater bravery in Apparel was taken up by the Lords and Ladies and such as waited near her person then in former times never more visibly then when they waited on her in a pompous manner as she went to the Parliament of this year This gives great scandal to the Preachers to none more then Knox. The Preachers boldly in their Pulpits that I say not malapertly declared against the superfluity of their Clothes and against the rest of their Vanities which they affirm'd should provoke Gods vengeance not onely against those foolish Women but the whole Realm and especially against those that maintained them in that odious abusing all things which might have better been bestowed A course is taken principally by their sollicitations that certain Articles were agreed on and proposed in Parliament for regulating all excess in Apparel as a great enormity the stinking pride of Women as Knox plainly calls it Who being sent for to the Court upon the like occasion could not but pass a scorn upon such of the Ladies whom he found more gorgeously attired then agreed with his liking by telling them what a pleasant life it was they lived if either it would always last or that they might go to Heaven in all that gear But sie on that knave death quoth he that will come whether we will or not and when he hath laid an arrest then foul worms will be busie with this â—â—esh be it never so fair and tender and the silly soul I fear â—iâ—l be so feeble that it can neither carry with it gold garnishing â—urbishing pearl nor precious stones So Zealous was be for a Purity both in Church and State as not to tolerate soft Raiment though in Princes Palaces The Queen had graced the Parliament with her presence three days together in one of which she entertains them with a Speech to the great satisfaction of all her good Subjects Knox calls it by the name of a painted Oration tells us in scorn that one might have heard amongst her flatterers that it was Vox Dianae the voice of a Goddess for it could not be Vox Dei and not of a woman â—thers as he pursues the Jeer crying out God save that sweet face was there ever Orator spake so properly and so sweetly c. And this as much displeased the Preachers as the pride of the Ladies 47. The Queen had gained the thirds of all Church-Rents by an Act of State for the more honourable support of her self and her Family upon condition of making some allowance out of it to defray the Ministers How Knox approved of this hath been shewn before We must now see how he had trained up Goodman if they were not both rather trained up by the same great Master to pursue the quarrel and how far he was seconded by the rest of the Brethren In a general Assembly held this year the business of the thirds was again resumed by some Commissioners of the Kirk To which no satâ—sfactory answer being given by the Queen and her Council it was said by those of the Assembly If the Queen will not we must for both second and third parts are rigorously taken from us and our tenants Knox added that if others would fellow his counsel the Guard and the Papists should complain as long as their Ministers Goodman takes fire upon this strain and starts a doubt about the Title which the Queen had unto the thirds or the Papists to the other two parts of the Church-Rents At which when he was put in minde by Ledington that he was a stranger and therefore was to be no medler he boldly answered that though he was a stranger in the Civil Policie of that Realm yet stranger he was none in the Church of God the care whereof did appertain to him no less in Scotland then if he were in the midst of England his own natâ—ve Country So little was there got by talking unto any of these powerful Zealots At whose exhorbitances when the Lord Iames Steward not long before made Earl of Murray seemed to be offended and otherwise had appeared more favourable to the Queen then agreed with their liking Knox who before adored him above all men living discharged himself by Letter in a churlish manner from any further intermedling in his affairs in which he commits him to his own wit so the Letter words it and to the conduct of those men who would better please him and in the end thereof upbraids him that his preferment never came by any complying with impiety nor by the maintaining of pestilent Papists 48. But to proceed to greater matters the Queen began her Summers Progress and left a Priest behinde in Halyrood-house to execute Divine-Offices in the Chappel to the rest of her Family Some of the Citizens of Edenborough were observed to repair thither at the time of Mass whereof the Preachers make complaint and stir the people in their Sermons to such a fury that they flock in great multitudes to the Palace violently force open the Chappel-doors seize upon such as they found there and commit them to Prison the Priest escaping with much difficulty by a
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
very pleasing news to those of the Congregation who thought it more expedient to their Affairs that the Queen should not Marry at all or at least not Marry any other Husband but such as should be recommended to her by the Queen of England on whom their safety did depend In which regard they are resolved to oppose this Match though otherwise they were assured that it would make the Queen grow less in reputation both at home and abroad to Marry with one of her own subjects of what blood soever 51. And now comes Knox to play his prize who more desired that the Earl of Leicester as one of his own Faction should espouse the Queen then the Earl desired it for himself If she will Marry at all let her make choice of one of the true Religion for other Husband she should never have if he could help it And to this end he lays about him in a Sermon preached before the Parliament at which the Nobility and Estates were then assembled And having roved sufficiently as his custom was at last he tells them in plain terms desiring them to note the day and take witness of it That whensover the Nobility of Scotland who profess the Lord Iesus should consent that an Infidel and all Papists are Infidels saith he should be head to their Soveraign they did so far as in them lyes banish Christ Iesus from this Realm yea and bring Gods judgements upon the Country a plague upon themselves and do small comfort to her self For which being questioned by the Queen in a private conference he did not onely stand unto it without the least qualifying or retracting of those harsh expressions but must intitle them to God as if they had been the immediate Inspirations of the holy Ghost for in his Dialogue with the Queen he affirmed expresly that out of the preaching place few had occasion to be any way oâ—fended with him but there that is to say in the Church or Pulpit he was not Master of himself but must obey him that commands him to speak plain and flatter no flesh upon the face of the Earth This insolent carriage of the man put the Queen into passion insomuch that one of her Pages as Knox himself reports the story could hardly finde Handkerchiefs enough to dry her eyes with which the proud fellow shewed himself no further touched then if he had seen the like fears from any one of his own Boys on a just correction 52. Most men of moderate spirits seemed much offended at the former passage when they heard it from him in the Pulpit more when they heard of the affliction it had given the Queen But it prevailed so far on the generality of the Congregation that presently it became a matter of Dispute amongst them Whether the Queen might chuse to her self an Husband or whether it were more fitting that the Estates of the Land should appoint one for her Some sober men affirmed in earnest that the Queen was not to be barred that liberty which was granted to the meanest Subject But the Chief leading-men of the Congregation had their own ends in it for which they must pretend the safety of the Common-wealth By whom it was affirmed as plainly that in the Heir unto a Crown the case was different because said they such Heirs in assuming an Husband to themselves did withal appoint a King to be over the Nation And therefore that it was more fit that the whole people should chuse a Husband to one Woman then one Woman to elect a King to Rule over the whole people Others that had the same designe and were possibly of the same opinion concerning the imposing of a Husband on her by the States of the Realm disguised their purpose by pretending another Reason to break off this Marriage The Queen and the young Noble-man were too near of Kindred to be conjoyned in Marriage by the Laws of the Church her Father and his Mother being born of the same Venter as our Lawyers phrase it But for this blow the Queen did easily provide a Buckler and dispatched one of her Ministers to the Court of Rome for a Dispensation The other was not so well warded but that it fell heavy at the last and plunged her into all those miseries which ensued upon it 53. But notwithstanding these obstructions the Match went forwards in the Court chiefly sollicited by one David Risio born in Piedmont who coming into Scotland in the company of an Ambassador from the Duke of Savoy was there detained by the Queen first in the place of a Musician afterwards imployed in writing Letters to her Friends in France By which he came to be acquainted with most of her secrets and as her Secretary for the French Tongue to have a great hand in the managing of all Forreign transactions This brought him into great envy with the Scots proud in themselves and not easie to be kept in fair terms when they had no cause unto the contrary But the preferring of this stranger was considered by them as a wrong to their Nation as if not able to afford a sufficient man to perform that Office to which the Educating of so many of them in the Court of France had made them no less fit and able then this Mungrel Italian To all this Risio was no stranger and therefore was to cast about how to save himself and to preserve that Power and Reputation which he had acquired Which to effect he laboured by all means to promote the Match that the young Lord being obliged unto him for so great a benefit might stand the faster to him against all Court-factions whensoever they should rise against him And that it might appear to be his work onely Ledington the chief Secretary is dispatched for England partly to gain the Queens consent unto the Marriage and partly to excuse the Earl of Lenox and his Son for not returning to the Court as she had commanded In the mean time he carries on the business with all care and diligence to the end that the Match might be made up before his return Which haste he made for these two Reason first lest the dissenting of that Queen whose influence he knew to be very great on the Kingdom of Scotland might either beat it off or at least retard it the second that the young Lord Darnley for so they called him might have the greater obligation to him for effecting the business then if it had been done by that Queens consent 54. To make all sure as sure at least as humane Wisdom could project it a Convention of the Estates is called in May and the business of the Marriage is propounded to them To which some yeilded absolutely without any condition others upon condition that Religion might be kept indempnified onely the Lord Vehiltry one who adher'd to Knox in his greatest difficulties maintained the Negative affirming openly that he would never admit a King of the Popish Religion Encouraged
adds more Fewel to the former flame and he resolves to give the Queen as little comfort of that Crown as if it were a Crown of Thorns as indeed it proved For taking England in his way he applies himself to some of the Lords of the Council to whom he represents the dangers which must needs ensue to Queen Elizabeth if Mary his own Queen were suffered to return into her Country and thereby lay all passages open to the powers of France where she had still a very strong and prevailing party But when he found that she had fortunately escaped the Ships of England that the Subjects from all parts had went away extremely satisfied with her gratious carriage he resolved to make one in the Hosanna as afterwards he was the Chief in the Crucifige he applies himself unto the Queens humour with all art and industry and really performed to her many signal services in gratifying her with the free exercise of her own Religion in which by reason of his great Authority with the Congregation he was best able to oblige both her self and her servants By this means he became so great in the eyes of the Court that the Queen seemed to be governed wholly by him and that he might continue always in so good a posture she first conferred upon him the Earldom of Murray and after married him to a Daughter of Keith Earl-Marshal of Scotland Being thus honoured and allyed his next care was to remove all impediments which he found in the way to his aspiring The Ancient and Potent Family of the Gourdons he suppressed and ruined though after it reflourished in its ancient glory But his main business was to oppress the Hamiltons as the next Heirs unto the Crown in the common opinion the Chief whereof whom the French King had created Duke of Chasteau-Herald a Town in Poictou he had so discountenanced that he was forced to leave the Court and suffer his eldest Son the Earl of Arrane to be kept in prison under pretence of some distemper in his brain When any great Prince sought the Queen in Marriage he used to tell her that the Scots would never brook the power of a stranger and that whensoever that Crown had fallen into the hands of a Daughter as it did to her a Husband was chosen for her by the Estates of the Kingdom of their own Language Laws and Parentage But when this would not serve his turn to break off the Marriage with the young Lord Darnley none seemed more forward then himself to promote that Match which he perceived he could not hinder Besides he knew that the Gentleman was very young of no great insight in business mainly addicted to his pleasures and utterly unexperienced in the affairs of that Kingdom so that he need not fear the weakning of his power by such a King who desired not to take the Government upon him And in this point he agreed well enough with David Risio though on different ends But when he found the Queen so passionately affected to this second Husband that all Graces and Court-favours were to pass by him that he had not the Queens ear so advantagiously as before he had and that she had revoked some Grants which were made to him and others during her minority as against the Law he thought it most expedient to the furthering of his own concernments to peece himself more nearly with the Earls of Morton Glencarne Arguile and Rothes the Lords Ruthen Vchiltry c. whom he knew to be zealously affected to the Reformation and no way pleased with the Queens Marriage to a person of the other Religion By whom it was resolved that Morton and Ruthen should remain in the Court as well to give as to receive intelligence of all proceedings The others were to take up Arms and to raise the people under pretence of the Queens Marriage to a man of the Popish Religion not taking with her the consent of the Queen of England But being too weak to keep the Field they first put themselves into Carlisle and afterwards into New-castle as before was said and being in this manner fled the Kingdom they are all proclaimed Traytors to the Queen a peremptory day appointed to a publick Tryal on which if they appeared not at the Bar of Justice they were to undergo the sentence of a condemnation 4. And now their Agents in the Court begin to bustle the King was soon perceived to be a meer outside-man of no deep reach into Affairs and easily wrought on which first induced the Queen to set the less value on him nor was it long before some of their Court-Females whispered into her ears that she was much neglected by him that he spent more of his time in Hawking and Hunting and perhaps in more unfit divertisements if Knox speak him rightly then he did in her company and therefore that it would be requisite to lure him in before he was too much on the Wing and beyond her call On these suggestions she gave order to her Secretaries and other Officers to place his name last in all publick Acts and in such Coyns as were new stamped to leave it out This happened as they would have wished For hereupon Earl Morton closeth with the King insinuates unto him how unfit it was that he should be subject to his Wife that it was the duty of women to obey and of men to govern and therefore that he might do well to set the Crown on his own head and take that power into his hands which belonged unto him When they perceived that his ears lay open to the like temptations they then began to buz into them the Risio was grown too powerful for him in the Court that he out-vied him in the bravery both of Clothes and Horses and that this could proceed from no other ground then the Queens affection which was suspected by wise men to be somewhat greater then might stand with honour And now the day draws on apace on which Earl Murray and the rest were to make their appearance and therefore somewhat must be done to put the Court into such confusion and the City of Edenborough into such disorder that they might all appear without fear or danger of any legal prosecution to be made against him The day designed for their appearance was the twelfth day of March and on the day before say some or third day before as others the Conspirators go unto the King seemed to accuse him of delay tell him that now or never was the time to revenge his injuries for that he should now finde the fellow in the Queens private Chamber without any force to make resistance So in they rush findâ— David sitting at the Queens Table the Countess of Arguile onely between them Ruthen commands him to arise and to go with him telling him that the place in which he sate did no way beseem him The poor fellow runs unto the Queen for protection and clasps his arms
together in the Temple-Church there to have Preaching and to joyn together in Prayer with Humiliation and Fasting for the assistance of Gods Spirit in all their consultations during this Parliament and for the preservation of the Queens Majesty and her Realms And though they were so cautious in the choice of their Preachers to refer the naming of them to the Lords of the Council which were then Members of the House in hope to gain them also to avow the action yet neither could this satisfie the Queen or affect their Lordships For some of them having made the Queen acquainted with their purpose in it she sends a Message to them by Sir Christopher Hatton who was then Vice-Chamberlain by which he lets them know That her Majesty did much admire at so great a rashness in that House as to put in execution such an Innovation without her privity and pleasure first made known unto them Which Message being so delivered he moved the House to make humble submission to her Majesty acknowledging the said offence and contempt craving the remission of the same with a full purpose to forbear the committing of the like hereafter Which motion being hearkned to as there was good reason Mr. Vice-Chamberlain is desired to present their submission to the Queen and obtain her pardon which he accordingly performed 20. This practice gave the Queen so fair a Prospect into the counsels of the Faction that she perceived it was high time to look about her and to provide for the preserving of her power and Prerogative-Royal but more for the security of her Realm and Person To which end she procured a Statute to be made in that very Parliament by which it was Enacted That if any person or persons forty days after the end of that Session should advisâ—dly devise or write or print or set forth any manner of Book Rhyme Ballad Letter or Writing containing any false seditious or slanderous matter to the Defamation of the Queens Majestie or to the encouraging stirring or moving of any Insurrection or Rebellion within this Realm or any of the Dominions to the same belonging Or if any person after the time aforesaid as well within the Queens Dominions as in any other place without the same should procure such Book Rhyme Ballad c. to be written printed published or set forth c. the said offence not being within the compass of Treason by vertue of any former Statute that then the said Offenders upon sufficient proof thereof by two lawful witnesses should suffer death and loss of goods as in case of Felony And that the Queen may be as safe from the Machinations of the Papists as she was secured by this Act from the plots of the Puritans a Law was past To make it Treason for any Priest or Iesuit to seduce any of the Queens Subjects to the Romish Religion and for the Subjects to be reconciled to the Church of Rome This Act intituled An Act for retaining the Queens Subjects in their due obedience the other For the punishing seditious words against the Queen 23 Eliz. cap. 1 2. Which Statutes were contrived of purpose to restrain the Insolency of both Factions and by which many of them were adjudged to death in times ensuing Some of them as in case of Treason and others as the Authors or the Publishers of Seditious Pamphlets But the last Statute being made with Limitation to the life of the Queen it expired with her And had it been revived as it never was by either of the two last Kings it might possibly have prevented those dreadful mischiefs which their posterity for so long a time have been involved in 21. Together with this Parliament was held a Convocation as the Custom is In the beginning whereof an Instrument was produced under the Seal of Archbishop Grindal for substituting Dr. Iohn Elmore then Bishop of London a Prelate of great parts and spirit but of a contrary humour to the said Archbishop to preside therein which in the incapacity of the other he might have challenged as of right belonging to him Nothing else memorable in this Convocation but the admitting of Dr. William Day then Dean of Windsor to be Prolocutor of the Clergie the passing of a Bill for the grant of Subsidies and a motion made unto the Prelates in the name of the Clergie for putting the late Book of Articles in execution Nothing else done within those walls though much was agitated and resolved on by those of Grindals party in their private Meetings Some of the hotter heads amongst them had proposed in publick That the Clergie should decline all business even the grant of Subsidies till the Archbishop were restored to his place and suffrage But this could find no entertainment amongst wiser men Others advised That a Petition should be drawn in the name of both Houses by which Her Majestie might be moved to that restitution And though I find nothing to this purpose in the Publick Registers which may sufficiently evince that it never passed as an Act of the Convocation yet I find that such a Petition was agreed upon and drawn into form by Dr. Tobie Matthews then Dean of Christ-Church and by some Friends presented to Her Majesties sight Matthews was master of an elegant and fluent stile and most pathetically had bemoaned those sad misfortunes which had befallen that Prelate and the Church in â—im by suffering under the displeasure of a gratious Sovereign The mitigation whereof was the rather hoped for in regard he had offended more out of the tenderness of his Conscience then from the obstinacy of his will But no such answer being given unto this Petition as by his Friends might be expected Grindal continued under his Suspension till the time of his death Once it was moved to have a Co-adjutor imposed upon him who should not onely exercise the Iurisdiction but receive all the Rents and profits which belonged to his Bishoprick And so far they proceeded in it that Dr. Iohn Whitgift who had been preferred to the See of Worcester 1576. was nominated for the man as one sufficiently furnished with abilities to discharge the trust But he most worthily declined it and would not suffer the poor man to be stript of his clothes though for the apparelling of his own body with the greater honour till death had laid him in the bed of Eternal rest 22. But the troubles of this year were not ended thus For neither those good Laws before remembred nor the Executions done upon them could prevail so far as to preserve the Church from falling into those distractions which both the Papists and the Presbyterians had projected in it The Jesuits had hitherto been content to be lookers on aâ—d suffered the Seminary Priests to try their Fortunes in the reduction of this Kingdom to the See of Rome But finding how little had been done by them in twenty years so little that it came almost to less then nothing they are resolved to take
directly of the Spirit of God nothing of those impurities and prophanations of the Church of England Hereupon followed a defection from the Church it self not as before amongst the Presbyterians from some Offices in it Browns Followers which from him took the name of Brownists refusing obstinately to joyn with any Congregation with the rest of the people for hearing the Word preached the Sacraments administred and any publick act of Religious Worship This was the first gathering of Churches which I finde in England and for the justifying hereof he caused his Books to be dispersed in most parts of the Realm Which tending as apparently to Sedition brought both the Dispersers of them within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. Of which we are informed by Stow that Elias Thasker was hanged at Bury on the fourth of Iune and Iohn Copping on the sixth of the same Month for spreading certain Books seditiously penned by Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer established by the Laws of this Realm as many of their Books as could be found being burnt before them 31. As for the Writer of the Books and the first Author of the Schism he was more favourably dealt with then these wretched instruments and many other of his Followers in the times succeeding Being convented before Dr. Edmond Freak then Bishop of Norwich and others of the Queens Commissioners in conjunction with him he was by them upon his refractory carriage committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Norwich But being a near kinsman by his Mother to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh he was at his request released from his imprisonment and sent to London where some course was taken to reclaim him if it might be possible totally or in part at least as God pleased to bless it Whitgift by this time had attained to the See of Canterbury a man of excellent patience and dexterity in dealing with such men as were so affected By whose fair usage powerful Reasons and exemplary piety he was prevailed upon so far as to be brought unto a tolerable compliance with the Church of England In which good humour he was favourably dismist by the Arch-bishop and by the Lord-Treasurer Burleigh to the care of his Father to the end that being under his eye and dealt with in a kinde and temperate manner he might in time be well recovered and finally withdrawn from all the Reliques of his fond opinions Which Letters of his bear date on the 8 of October 1585. But long he had not staid in his Fathers house when he returned unto his vomit and proving utterly incorrigible was dismist again the good old Gentleman being resolved upon this point that he would not own him for a Son who would not own the Church of England for his Mother But at the last though not till he had passed through two and thirty prisons as he used to brag by the perswasions of some Friends and his own necessities the more powerful Orators of the two he was prevailed with to accept of a place called A Church in Northamptonshire beneficed with cure of Souls to which he was presented by Thomas Lord Burleigh after Earl of Exon and thereunto admitted by the Bishop of Peterborough upon his promise not to make any more disturbances in the proceedings of the Church A Benefice of good value which might tempt him to it the rather in regard that he was excused as well from preaching as from performing any other part of the publick Ministry which Offices he discharged by an honest Curate and allowed him such a competent maintainance for it as gave content unto the Bishop who had named the man And on this Benefice he lived to a very great age not dying till the year 1630 and then dying in Northampton Gaol not on the old account of his inconformity but for breach of the Peace A most unhappy man to the Church of England in being the Author of a Schism which he could not close and most unfortunate to many of his Friends and Followers who suffered death for standing unto those conclusions from which he had withdrawn himself divers years before 32. But it is time that we go back again to Cartwright upon whose principles and positions he first raised this Schism Which falling out so soon upon the Execution which was done on Stubs could not but put a great rebuke upon his spirit and might perhaps have tended more to his discouragement had not his sorrows been allayed and sweetned by a Cordial which was sent from Beza sufficient to revive a half-dying brother Concerning which there is no more to be premised but that Geneva had of late been much wasted by a grievous pestilence and was somewhat distressed at this time by the Duke of Savoy Their peace not to be otherwise procured but by paying a good sum of money and money not to be obtained but by help of their Friends On this account he writes to Travers being then Domestick Chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh but so that Cartwright was to be acquainted with the Tenour of it that by the good which the one might do upon the Queen by the means of his Patron and the great influence which the other had on all his party the contribution might amount to the higher pitch But as for so much of the said Letter as concerns our business it is this that followeth viz. If as often dear Brother as I have remembred thee and our Cartwright so often I should have written unto thee you had been long since overwhelmed with my Letters no one day passing wherein I do not onely think of you and your matters which not onely our ancient Friendship but the greatness of those affairs wherein you take pains seems to require at my hands But in regard that you were fallen into such times wherein my silence might be safer far then my writing I have though most unwillingly been hitherto silent Since which time understanding that by Gods Grace the heats of some men are abated I could not suffer this my Friend to come unto you without particular Letters from me that I may testifie my self to be the same unto you as I have been formerly as also that at his return I may be certified of the true state of your affairs After which Preamble he acquaints him with the true cause of his writing the great extremities to which that City was reduced and the vast debts in which they were plunged whereby their necessities were grown so grievous that except they were relieved from other parts they could not be able to support them And then he addes I beseech thee my dear Brother not onely to go on in health with thy daily prayers but that if you have any power to prevail with some persons shew us by what honest means you can how much you love us in the Lord. Finally having certified him of other Letters which he had writ to certain Noblemen and to all the Bishops
their Bishop to whom the planting of so many Dutch Churches in the principal City and other of the chief Towns of his Diocess had given trouble enough To the Petition of the Kentish Ministers which concerned himself he was required to answer at the Council-Table on the Sunday following Instead whereof he lays before them in the Letter That the Petitioners for the most part were ignorant and raw young men few of them licensed Preachers and generally disaffected to the present Government That he had spent the best part of two or three days in labouring to reduce them to a better understanding of the points in question but not being able to prevail he had no otherwise proceeded then the Law required That it was not for him to sit in that place if every Curate in his Diocess might be permitted so to use him nor possible for him to perform the Duty which the Queen expected at his hands if he might not proceed to the execution of that power by her Majesty committed to him without interruption That he could not be perswaded that their Lordships had any purpose to make him a party or to require him to come before them to defend those actions wherein he supposed that he had no other Iudge but the Queen her self and therefore in regard that he was called by God to that place and function wherein he was to be their Pastor he was the rather moved to desire their assistance in matters pertaining to his Office for the quietness of the Church the credit of Religion and the maintainance of the Laws in defence thereof without expecting any such attendance on them as they had required for fear of giving more advantage to those wayward persons then he conceived they did intend And thereunto he added this protestation That the three Articles whereunto they were moved to subscribe were such as he was ready by Learning to defend in manner and form as there set down against all opponents either in England or elsewhere 39. In reference to the paper of the Suffolk Ministers he returns this answer It seemeth something strange to me that the Ministers of Suffolk finding themselves agrieved with the doings of their Diocesans should leave the ordinary course of proceeding by the Law which is to appeal unto me and extraordinarily trouble your Lordships in a matter not so incident as I think to that honourable Board seeing it hath pleased her Majesty her own self in express words to commit these causes Ecclesiastical to me as to one who is to make answer unto God and her Majesty in this behalf my Office also and place requiring the same In answer unto their complaint touching their ordinary proceedings with them I have herewith sent your Lordships a Copy of a Letter lately received from his Lordship wherein I think that part of their Bill to be fully answered Touching the rest I know not what to judge of it but in some points it talketh as I think modestly and charitably They say they are no Iesuits sent from Rome to reconcile c. True it is neither are they charged to be so but notwithstanding they are contentious in the Church of England and by their contentions minister occasion of offence to those which are seduced by Jesuits and give the Sacraments against the form of publick Prayer used in this Church and by Law established and thereby increase the number of them and confirm them in their wilfulness They also make a Schism in the Church and draw many other of her Majesties Subjects to a misliking of her Laws and Government in Causes Ecclesiastical So far are they from perswading them to obedience or at the least if they perswade them to it in the one part of her Authority it is in Causes Civil they disswade them from it as much in the other that iâ— in Causes Ecclesiastical so that indeed they pluck down with the one hand that which they seem to build with the other 40. More of which Letter might be added were not this sufficient as well to shew how perfectly he understood both his place and power as with what courage and discretion he proceeded in the maintenance of it Which being observed by some great men about the Court who had ingaged themselves in the Puritan quarrels but were not willing to incur the Queens displeasure by their opposition it was thought best to stand a while behind the Curtain and set Beal upon him of whose impetuosity and edge against him they were well assured This Beal was in himself a most eager Puritan trained up by Walsingham to draw dry-foot after Priests and Jesuits his extream hatred to those men being looked on as the onely good quality which he could pretend to But being over-blinded by zeal and passion he was never able to distinguish rightly between truth and falshood between true Sanctity and the counterfeit appearance of it This made him first conceive that whatsoever was not Puritan must needs be Popish and that the Bishops were to be esteemed no otherwise then the sons of Antichrist because they were not looked upon as Fathers by the holy Brotherhood And so far was he hurried on by these dis-affections that though he was preferred to be one of the Clerks of the Council yet he preferred the interest of the Faction before that of the Queen Insomuch that he was noted to jeer and gibe at all such Sermons as did most commend Her Majesties Government and move the Auditory to obedience not sparing to accuse the Preachers upon such occasions to have broached false Doctrine and falsly to alledge the Scriptures in defence thereof This man had either writ or countenanced a sharp Discourse against Subscription inscribed to the Archbishop and presented to him and thereupon caused speeches to be cast abroad that the three Articles to which Subscription was required should shortly be revoked by an Act of the Council which much encreased the obstinacy of the self-willed Brethren But after fearing lest the Queen might have a sight of the Papers he resolved to get them out of his hands and thereupon went over to Lambeth where he behaved himself in such a rude and violent manner as forced the Archbishop to give an acconnt thereof by Letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh who hitherto had stood fair towards him in these following words 41. I have born saith he with Mr. Beals intemperate speeches unseemly for him to use though not in respect of my self yet in respect of Her Majestie whom he serveth and of the Laws established whereunto he ought to shâ—w some duty Yesterday he came to my house as it seems to demand the Book he delivered unto me I told him That the book was written unto me and therefore no reason why he should require it again especially seeing I was assured that he had a Copy thereof otherwise I would cause it to be written out for him Whereupon he fell into very great passions with me which I think
shall hereafter treat of them as they come before us with reference to the Practises and Proceedings of their English Brethren And first beginning with the Scots it is to be remembred that we left them at a very low ebb the Earl of Goury put to death many of the Nobility exiled into Forreign Countreys and the chief Zealots of the Faction amongst the Ministers putting themselves into a voluntary Banishment because they could not have their wills on the King and Council England as nearest hand was the common Sanctuary to which some Lords and almost all the Refractory Ministers had retired themselves Much countenanced by Mr. Secretary Walsingham who had set them on work and therefore was obliged to gratifie them in some fit proportion To such of the Nobility as had fled into England he assigned the Isle of Lindisfarm commonly called the Holy Island not far from Berwick with order to the Lord Hundsdon who was then Governour of that Town to give them the possession of it But Hundsdon though he had less Zeal had so much knowledg of his Duty as to disobey him considering the great consequence of the place and that there was no impossibility in it but that the Scots might make use of it to the common prejudice if they should prove Enemies to this Crown as perhaps they might A matter which the Secretary would not have passed over in so light a manner but that an Ambassador was sent at the same time from the King of Scots by whom it was desired that the Fugitives of that Nation whatsoever they were might either be remitted home or else commanded not to live so near the Borders where they had opportunity more than stood with the good of that Kingdom to pervert the Subjects Which Reasonable Desire being yeelded unto the Lords and Great men of that Nation were ordered to retire to Norwich and many of the Ministers permitted to prepare for London Oxon Cambridg and some other places where some of them procured more mischief to the Church of England than all of them could have done to their own Countrey had they staid at Berwick 2. At London they are suffered by some zealous Brethren to possess their Pulpits in which they rail without comptroll against their King the Council of that Kingdom and their natural Queen as if by the practises of the one and the connivence of the other the Reformed Religion was in danger to be rooted out Some Overtures had been made at that time by the Queen of Scots by which it was desired that she might be restored unto the Liberty of her person associating with the young King in the Government of the Realm of Scotland and be suffered to have the Mass said in her private Closet for her self and her Servants The news whereof being brought to London filled all the Pulpits which the Scots were suffered to invade with terrible Complaints and Exclamations none of them sparing to affirm That her Liberty was inconsistent with Queen Elizabeth's Safety That both Kingdoms were undone if she were admitted to the joynt-Government of the Realm of Scotland and That the Reformed Religion must needs breathe its last if the Popish were permitted within the Walls of the Court. Which points they pressed with so much vehemence and heat that many were thereby inflamed to join themselves in the Association against that Queen which soon after followed Against their King they railed so bitterly and with such reproach one Davinson more than any other that upon complaint made by the Scottish Ambassador the Bishop of London was commanded to silence all the Scots about the City and the like Order given to the rest of the Bishops by whom they were inhibited from preaching in all other places But the less noise they made in the Church the more closely and dangerously they practised on particular persons in whom they endeavoured to beget an ill opinion of the present Government and to engage them for advancing that of the Presbyterian in the place thereof But this they had followed more successfully at the Act in Oxon where they are liberally entertained by Genebrand and the rest of the Brethren amongst which Wilcox Hen and Ackton were of greatest note And at this time a question was propounded to them concerning the proceeding of the Minister in his duty without the assistance or tarrying for the Magistrate How they resolved this question may be easily guessed partly by that which they had done themselves when they were in Scotland and partly by the Actings of their English Brethren in pursuance of it 3. For presently after Gelibrand deals with divers Students in their several Colledges to put their hands unto a paper which seemed to contain somewhat in it of such dangerous nature that some did absolutely refuse and others required further time of deliberation of which Gelibrand thus writes to Field on the 12 th of Ian. then next following I have already saith he entred into the matters whereof you write and dealt with three or four several Colledges concerning those amongst whom they live I find that men are very dangerous in this point generally favouring Reformation but when it comes to the particular point some have not yet considered of the things for which others in the Church are so much troubled others are afraid to testifie any thing with their hands lest it breed danger before the time and many favour the Cause of the Reformation but they are not Ministers but young Students of whom there is good hope if they be not cut off by violent dealing before the time As I hear by you so I mean to go forward where there is any hope and to learn the number and certifie you thereof c. But that these secret practises might not be suspected they openly attend the Parliament of this year as at other times in hope of gaining some advantage against the Bishops and the received Orders of the Church For in the Parliament of this year which began on the Twenty third of November they petitioned amongst other things That a Restraint might be laid upon the Bishops for granting of Faculties conferring of Orders as also in the executing of Ecclesiastical Censure the Oath Ex Officio permitting Non-residence and the like But the Queen would not hearken to it partly because of the dislike she had of all Innovations which commonly tend unto the worse but chiefly in regard that all such Applications as they made to the Parliament were by her looked on as derogatory to her own Supremacy So that instead of gaining any of those points at the hands of the Parliament they gained nothing but displeasure from the Queen who is affirmed by Stow to have made a Speech at the end of their Session and therein to have told the Bishops That if they did not look more carefully to the discharge of their Duties she must take order to deprive them Sharp words and such as might necessitate the Bishops to
against the Laws might very well afford them all his best assistances when Law and Liberty seemed to speak in favour of it But being there was nothing done by them which was more than ordinary as little more than ordinary could be done amongst them after they had betrayed their Countrey to the Power of Strangers We shall leave him to pursue their Warrs and return for England where we shall find the Queen of Scots upon the point of acting the last part of her Tragedy 13. Concerning which it may not be unfit to recapitulate so much of Her story as may conduct us fairly to the knowledg of her present condition Immediately on the death of Queen MARY she had taken on her self the Title and Arms of England which though she did pretend to have been done by the command of her Husband and promised to disclaim them both in the Treaty of Edenborough yet neither were the Arms obliterated in her Plate and Hangings after the death of that Husband nor would she ever ratifie and confirm that Treaty as had been conditioned On this first grudg Queen ELIZABETH furniâ—heth the Scots both with Men and Arms to expel the French affords them such a measure both of Money and Countenance as made them able to take the Field against their Queen to take her Prisoner to depose her and finally to compel her to forsake the Kingdom In which Extremity she lands in Cumberland and casts her self upon the favour of Queen ELIZABETH by whom she was first confined to Carlisle and afterwards committed to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury Upon the death of FRANCIS the Second her first Husband the King of Spain designed her for a Wife to his Eldest Son But the Ambition of the young Prince spurred him on so fast that he brake his Neck in the Career The Duke of Norfolk was too great for a private Subject of a Revenue not inferior to the Crown of Scotland insomuch that the Queen was counselled when she came first to the Throne either to take him for her Husband or to cut him off He is now drawn into the Snare by being tempted to a hope of Marriage with the Captive-Queen which Leicester and the rest who had moved it to him turned to his destruction Don Iohn of Austria Governour of the Netherlands for the King of Spain had the like design that by her Title he might raise himself to the Crown of England To which end he recalled the Spanish Soldiers out of Italy to whose dismission he had yeelded when he first came to that Government and thereby gave Q. ELIZABETH a sufficient colour to aid the Provinces against him But his aspirings cost him deer for he fell soon after The Guisards and the Pope had another project which was To place her first on the Throne of England and then to find an Husband of sufficient Power to maintain her in it For the effecting of which Project the Pope commissionated his Priests and Jesuits and the Guisards employed their Emissaries of the English Nation by Poyson Pistol open Warr or secret practises to destroy the one that so they might advance the other to the Regal Diadem 14. With all these Practises and Designs it was conceived that the Imprisoned Queen could not be ignorant and many strong presumptions were discovered to convict her of it Upon which grounds the Earl of Leicester drew the form of an Association by which he bound himself and as many others as should enter into it To make enquiry against all such persons as should attempt to invade the Kingdom or raise Rebellion or should attempt any evil against the Queen's Person to do her any manner of hurt from or by whomsoever that layed any claim to the Crown of England And that that Person by whom or for whom they shall attempt any such thing shall be altogether uncapable of the Crown shall be deprived of all manner of Right thereto and persecuted to the death by all the Queen 's Loyal Subjects in case they shall be found guilty of any such Invasion Rebellion or Treason and should be so publickly declared Which Band or Association was confirmed in the Parliament of this year ending the 29 th of March Ann. 1585 exceedingly extolled for an Act of Piety by those very men who seemed to abominate nothing more than the like Combination made not long before between the Pope the Spaniard and the House of Guise called the Holy League which League was made for maintenance of the Religion then established in the Realm of France and the excluding of the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde and the rest of the House of Bourbon from their succession to the Crown as long as they continued Enemies to that Religion The Brethren in this case not unlike the Lamiae who are reported to have been stone-blind when they were at home but more than Eagle-sighted when they went abroad Put that they might not trust to their own strength only Queen ELIZABETH tyes the French King to her by investing him with the Robes and Order of St. George called the Garter She draws the King of Scots to unite himself unto her in a League Offensive and Defensive against all the World and under colour of some danger to Religion by that Holy League she brings all the Protestant Princes of Germany to confederate with her 15. And now the Queen of Scots is brought to a publick Tryal accelerated by a new Conspiracy of Babington Tichborn and the rest in which nothing was designed without her privity And it is very strange to see how generally all sorts of people did contribute toward her destruction the English Protestants upon an honest apprehension of the Dangers to which the Person of their Queen was subject by so many Conspiracies the Puritans for fear lest she should bring in Popery again if she came to the Crown the Scots upon the like conceit of over-throwing their Presbyteries and ruinating the whole Machina of their Devices if ever she should live to be Queen of England The Earl of Leicester and his Faction in the Court had their Ends apart which was To bring the Imperial Crown of this Realm by some means or other into the Family of the Dudley's His Father had before designed it by marrying his Son Guilford with the Lady Iane descended from the younger Sister of K. HENRY the Eighth And he projects to set it on the Head of the Earl of Huntington who had married his Sister and looked upon himself as the direct Heir of George Duke of Clarence And that they might not want a Party of sufficient strength to advance their Interest they make themselves the Heads of the Puritan Faction the Earl of Leicester in the Court and the Earl of Huntingdon in the Countrey For him he obtaineth of the Queen the command of the North under the Title of Lord President of the Councel iu York to keep out the Scots and for himself the Conduct
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-hand to the redress of these Enormities being indeed a matter of State and not of the least moment I shall think my coming unto this Place to have been for my punishment and my hap very hard that when I think to deserve best and in a manner consume my self to satisfie that which God Her Majesty and the Church requireth of me I should be evilly rewarded Sed meliora spero It is objected by some that my desire of Uniformity by way of Subscription is for the better maintenance of my Book They are mine Enemies that say so but I trust my Friends have a better opinion of me Why should I seek for any confirmation of my Book after twelve years approbation Or what shall I get thereby more than already I have Yet if Subscription may confirm it it is confirmed long ago by the Subscription of almost all the Clergy of England before my time Mine Enemies likewise and the slanderous Tongues of this uncharitable Sect report that I am revolted bâ—come a Papist and I know not what But it proceedeth from thâ—â—r Leudness and not from any desert of mine 19. I am further burthened with Wilfulness I hope my Friends are better perswaded of me to whose Consciences I appeal It is strange that a man of my place dealing by so good a warrant as I do should be so encountred and for not yeelding counted Wilful But I must be content Vincit qui patitur There is a difference betwixt Wilfulness and Constancy I have taken upon me by the Place
the Superiority of Bishops and the Supremacy of the Queen together with the dangerous Practises and Designs of the Disciplinarians exemplified by their Proceedings in Scotland and their Positions in England of which more anon All which particulars with many more upon the by he proved with such evidence of demonstration such great variety of Learning and strength of Arguments that none of all that Party could be found to take Arms against them in defence either of their leud Doctrine or more scandalous Vses And this being done he closed up all with a grave and serious Application in reference to the prevalency and malignity of the present Humours which wrought so much upon his Auditors of both Houses of Parliament that in the passing of a general Pardon at the end of the Sessions there was Exception of Seditious Books Disturbances of Divine Service and Offences against the Act of Vniformity in the Worship of God 30. And yet it is not altogether improbable but that this Exception was made rather at the Queen's Command or by some Caveat interposed by the House of Peers than by the sole Advice or any voluntary Motion of the House of Commons in which the Puritans at that time had a very strong Party By whose Endeavour a smart Petition is presented to the Lords in the Name of the Commons for rectifying of many things which they conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church The whole Petition did consist of Sixteen particulars of which the first Six did relate to a Preaching-Ministry the want of which was much complained of in a Supplication which had been lately Printed and presented to them but such a Supplication as had more in it of a Factious and Seditious Libel than of a Dutiful Remonstrance In the other Ten it was desired 1. That no Oath or Subscription might be tendred to any at their entrance into the Ministry but such as was prescribed by the Statutes of the Realm and the Oath against corrupt Entring 2. That they may not be troubled for omission of some Rites or Offices prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer 3. That such as had been suspended or deprived for no other offence but only for not subscribing might be restored 4. That they may not be called and urged to answer before the Officials and Commissaries but before the Bishops themselves 5. That they might not be called into the High Commission or Moot of the Diocess where they lived except for some notable Offence 6. That it might be permitted to them in every Arch-Deaconry to have some common Exercises and Conferences amongst themselves to be limited and prescribed by the Ordinaries 7. That the high Censure of Excommunication may not be denounced or executed for small matters 8. Nor by Chancellors Commissioners or Officials but by the Bishops themselves with the assistance of grave persons 9. That Non-residency may be quite removed out of the Church Or 10. That at least according to the Queen's Injunctions Art 44. no Non-resident having already a License or Faculty may enjoy it unless he depute an able Curate that may weekly Preach and Catechise as was required by Her Majesty in the said Injunctions Against the violence of this Torrent Arch-bishop Whitgift interposed both his Power and Reason affirming with a sober confidence in the H. of Peers not only that England flourished more at that time with able Ministers than ever it had done before but that it had more able men of eminent Abilities in all parts of Learning than the rest of Christendom besides But finding that the Lord Gray and others of that House had been made of the Party he drew the rest of the Bishops to joyn with him in an humble Address to Her Sacred Majesty in which they represented to Her the true estate of the Business together with those many Inconveniences which must needs arise to the State present and to come to the Two Universities to all Cathedral Churches and the Queen Her Self if the Commons might have had their will though in no other Point than in that of Pluralities All which they prest with such a Dutiful and Religious Gravity that the Queen put an end to that Dispute not only for the present but all Parliaments following 31. Somewhat there must be in it which might make them so afraid of that Subscription which was required at their hands to the Queen's Supremacy as well as to the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the Liturgy and to the Articles of Religion by Law established and therefore it will not be amiss as we have done already in all places else to touch upon the Principles and Positions of our English Puritans that we may see what Harmony and Consent there is betwixt them and their dear Brethren of the Discipline in other Nations For if we look into the Pamphlets which came out this Year we shall find these Doctrines taught for more Sacred Truths viz. That if Princes do hinder them that seek for this Discipline they are Tyrants both to the Church and Ministers and being so may be deposed by their Subjects That no Civil Magistrate hath pre-eminence by ordinary Authority either to determine of Church-Causes or to make Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies That no Civil Magistrate hath such Authority as that without his consent it should not be lawful for Ecclesiastical persons to make and publish Church-Orders That they which are no Elders of the Church have nothing to do with the Government of it That if their Reformation be not hastned forward by the Magistrate the Subjects ought not any longer to tarry for it but must do it themselves That there were many thousands which desired the Discipline And That great Troubles would ensue if it were denied them That their Presbyteries must prevail And That if it be brought about by such ways and means as would make the Bishops hearts to ake let them blame themselves For explication of which last passage Martin Mar-Prelate in his first Book threatens only fists but in the second he adviseth the Parliament then assembled to put down Lord Bishops and bring in the Reformation which they looked for whether Her Majesty would or not 32. But these perhaps were only the Evaporations of some idle Heads the Freaks of Discontent and Passion when they were crossed in their Desires Let us see therefore what is taught by Thomas Cartwright the very Calvin of the English as highly magnified by Martin and the rest of that Faction as the other was amongst the French Dr. Harding in his Answer to Bishop Iewel assures us That the Office of a King is the same in all places not only amongst Christians but amongst the Heathen Upon which Premises he concludes That a Christian Prince hath no more to do in deciding of Church-matters or in making Ceremonies and Orders for the same than hath a Heathen Cartwright affirms himself to be of the same opinion professing seriously his dislike of all such Writers
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
knowing of what consequence that imployment was and how destructive of his Interest to the Crown of England commanded them by publick Proclamation to avoid the Kingdom But withal gave them day till the last of Ianuary that they might not complain of being taken unprovided Which small Indulgence so offended the unquiet brethren that they called a number of Noble-men Barons and Commissioners of Burgly without so much as asking the King's leave in it to meet at Edenborough on the sixt of February to whom they represented the Churches dangers and thereupon agreed to go all together in a full body to the Court to attend the King to the end that by the terror of so great a company they might work him to their own desires But the King hearing of their purpose refused to give access to so great a multitude but signified withall that he was ready to give audience unto some few of them which should be chosen by the rest But this affront the King was forced to put up also to pass by the unlawfulness of that Convention to acknowledg their grievances to be just and to promise a redress thereof in convenient time Which drew him into Action against Maxwel and some others of the Popish Lords and for the same received the publick thanks of the next Assembly that being no ordinary favour in them and was so far gratified withall as to be suffered to take Mr. Patrick Galloway from his Charge in Perth to be one of the Preachers at the Court. Of which particular I had perhaps took little notice but that we are to hear more of him on some other occasion 37. The next fine pranck they plaid relates to the Crowning of Queen Ann with whom the King landed out of Denmark at the Port of Leith on the 20 th of May 1590. aud designed her Coronation on the morrow after None of the Bishops being at hand the King was willing to embrace the opportunity to oblige the Kirk by making choice of one of their own Brethren to perform that Ceremony to which he nominated Mr. Robert Bruce a Preacher at Edenborough and one of the most moderate men in a whole Assembly But when the fitness of it came to be examined by the rest of the Brethren it was resolved to pretermit the Unction or Annointing of Her as a Iewish Ceremony abolished by Christ restored into Christian Kingdoms by the Pope's Authority and therefore not to be continued in a Church Reformed The Doubt first started by one Iohn Davinson who had then no Charge in the Church though followed by a Company of ignorant and seditious people whom Andrew Melvin set on work to begin the Quarrel and then stood up in his defence to make it good Much pains was taken to convince them by the Word of God That the Unction or Annointing of Kings was no Iewish Ceremony but Melvin's Will was neither to be ruled by Reason nor subdued by Argument and he had there so strong a Party that it passed in the Negative Insomuch that Bruce durst not proceed in the Solemnity for fear of the Censures of the Kirk The King had notice of it and returns this word That if the Coronation might not be performed by Bruce with the wonted Ceremonies he would stay till the coming of the Bishops of whose readiness to conform therein he could make no question Rather than so said Andrew Melvin let the Unction pass better it was that a Minister should perform that honourable Office in what Form soever than that the Bishops should be brought again unto the Court upon that occasion But yet unwilling to prophane himself by consenting to it he left them to agree about it as to them seemed best and he being gone it was concluded by the major part of the Voices That the Annointing should be used According whereunto the Queen was Crowned and Annointed on the Sunday following with the wonted Ceremonies but certainly with no great State there being so short an interval betwixt Her Landing and the appointed day of Her Coronation 38. It was not long before that they had a quarrel with the Lords of the Session touching the Jurisdiction of their several Courts but now the Assembly would be held for the chief Tribunal One Graham was conceived to have suborned a publick Notary to forge an Instrument which the Notary confessed on Examination to have been brought to him ready drawn by one of the said Graham's Brethren Graham enraged thereat enters an Action against Sympson the Minister of Sterling as one who had induced the man by some sinister Practises to make that Confession The Action being entred and the Process formed Sympson complains to the Assembly and they give Order unto Graham to appear before them to answer upon the scandal raised on one of their Brethren Graham appears and tells them That he would make good his Accusation before competent Judges which he conceived not them to be And they replyed That he must either stand to their judgment in it or else be censured for the slander The Lords of the Session hereupon interpose themselves desiring the Assembly not to meddle in a Cause which was then dependent in their Court in due form of Law But the Assembly made this Answer That Sympson was a Member of theirs That they might proceed in the purgation of one of their own number without intrenching on the Jurisdiction of the Civil Courts and therefore that their Lordships should not take it ill if they proceeded in the Tryal But let the Lords of the Session or the Party interested in the Cause say what they pleased the Assembly vote themselves to be Judges in it and were resolved to proceed to a Sentence against him as a false Accuser In fine the business went so high on the part of the Kirk that the Lords of the Session were compelled to think of no other Victory than by making a drawn Battel of it which by the Mediation of some Friends was at last effected 39. The Kirk is now advancing to the highest pitch of her Scotch Happiness in having her whole Discipline that is to say their National and Provincial Assemblies together with their Presbyteries and Parochial Sessions confirmed by the Authority of an Act of Parliament In order whereunto they had ordained in the Assembly held at Edenborough on the 4th of August Anno 1590. That all such as then bore Office in the Kirk or from thenceforth should bear any Office in it should actually subscribe to the Book of Discipline Which Act being so material to our present History deserves to be exemplified verbatim as it stands in the Registers and is this that followeth viz. 40. Forasmuch that it is certain That the Word of God cannot be kept in the own sincerity without the Holy Discipline be had in observance It is therefore by the common consent of the whole Brethren and Commissioners present concluded That whosoever hath born Office in the Ministry of the
Starr-Chamber which was then at hand 7. It was expected that the Censure would have passed upon them on the last day of Easter-Term of which Coppinger gives Hacket notice and sends him word withall That he meant to be at the hearing of it and that if any Severity should be used towards them he should be forced in the Name of the Great and Fearful God of Heaven and Earth to protest against it The like expectation was amongst them in the Term next following at what time Coppinger was resolved on some desperate act to divert the Sentence For thus he writes to Lancaster before-remembred That if our Preachers in Prison do appear to morrow in the Starr-Chamber and if our great men deal with them so as it is thought they will and that if then God did not throw some fearful Iudgment amongst them c. that is to say for so we must make up the sense let him give no more credit unto him or his Revelations But the Hearing being deferred at that time also and nothing like to be done in it till after Michaelmas the Conspirators perceived they had time enough for new Consultations And in these Consultations they resolve amongst them to impeach the two Arch-bishops of High-Treason that so they might be made uncapable of proceeding in a Legal way against the Prisoners or otherwise to assassinate both together with the Lord Chancellor Hatton whom they deadly hated if any severe Sentence was pronounced against them But Hacket was for higher matters The Spirit of Infatuation had so wrought upon him that he conceived himself to partake of the same Divine Nature with Almighty God That he was appointed by his God to be King of Europe and therefore looked upon all Kings but the Queen especially as the Usurpers of the Throne which belonged unto him And against her he carried such a bitter hatred that against her he often cast forth dangerous speeches That she had lost her Right to the Crown and spared not to do execution upon her in her Arms and Pictures by stabbing his Dagger into both whensoever he saw them Thâ— people also must be dealt with to make use of their Power according unto that Maxim of the Disciplinarians That if the Magistrate will not reform the Church and State then the People must And that he might wind them to this height he scatter'd certain Rhimes or Verses amongst them by which it was insinuated That a true Christian though he were a Clown or poor Countrey-man which was Hacket's own case might teach Kings how to manage their Scepters and that they might depose the Queen if she did not zealously promote the Reformation 8. Finding to what an admiration he had raised himself in the esteem of Coppinger and his Fellow Arthington he looks upon them as the fittest Instruments to advance his Treasons perswading them That they were endued not only with a Prophetical but an Angelical Spirit And they believing what he said performed all manner of obedience to him as one that was appointed to reign over them by God himself setting themselves from that time forward to raise some Sedition in which the people might be moved unto what they pleased Being thus possest they intimate to Wiggington fore-mentioned That Christ appeared to them the night before not in his own body as He sits in Heaven but in that especial Spirit by which he dwelt in Hacket more than in any other They added also That Hacket was the very Angel which should come before the Day of Judgment with his Fan in the one hand and his Shepherds Crook in the other to distinguish the Sheep from the Goats to tread down Satan and ruine the Kingdom of Antichrist What Counsel they received from Wiggington is not certainly known though it may be judged by the event For presently on their going from him which was on the sixteenth of Iuly they repair to Hacket whom he found lazing in his bed in a private House at Broken-wharf and casting themselves upon their knees as if they were upon the point of Adoration Arthington suddenly ariseth and adviseth Coppinger in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to annoint their King But Hacket cunningly declines it telling them that he was already annointed by the Holy Ghost and therefore that they were to do what he should command them Which said he ordains Coppinger to be his Prophet of Mercy and Arthington to be his Prophet of Justice and gives them their Mission in this manner Go now saith he and tell up and down the City That Jesus Christ is come with his Fan in his hand to judg the World if any ask you where he is direct them to this place if they will not believe you let them come and see if they can kill me As sure as God is in Heaven no less assuredly is Christ now come to judg the World With this Commission flye the two new Prophets from one street to another till they came to Cheapside crying out Christ is come Christ is come all the way they went and adding with as loud a voice Repent Repent In Cheapside they mount into a Cart a proper Pulpit for such Preachers proclaiming thence that Hacket participated of Christ's glorified Body by his especial Spirit and was now come with his Fan to propagate the Gospel to settle the Discipline for that was the impulsive to all this madness and to establish in England a new Commonwealth They added further That themselves were two Prophets the one of Mercy and the other of Justice the truth whereof they took upon their salvation That Hacket was the only Supreme Monarch of the World and That all the Kings of Europe held of him as his Vassals That therefore he only ought to be obeyed and the Queen deposed and That Vengeance should shortly fall from Heaven not only on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury but the Lord Chancellor Hatton 9. Infinite were the throngs of people which this strange Novelty had drawn together to that place but they found none so mad as themselves none so besotted as to cry God save King Hacket so that not able to be heard by reason of the Noise nor to go forward in their Mission because of the Throng they dismounted their Chariot and by the help of some of their Friends conveyed themselves to Hacket's Lodging They had not staid there long when they were all three apprehended and brought before the Lords of the Council to whom they showed so little reverence that they never moved their Hats unto them and told them that they were above all Magistrates of what rank soever Hacket is afterward arraigned Iuly 26. and two days after drawn to his Execution which was to be done upon him in that part of Cheapside in which his two Prophets had proclaimed him Neither the Sentence past upon him nor the fear of death mitigated any thing of that Spirit of Infatuation with which the Devil had possest him Insomuch that he exclaimed most
for ever continue and maintain such their Right and Title in the Church's Government with all Equity and Christian Moderation 15. At this time grew the Heats also betwixt Hooker and Travers the first being Master of the Temple and the other Lecturer Hooker received his Education in Corpus Christi Colledg in Oxon from whence he came well stocked in all kind of Learning but most especially in Fathers Councils and other approved Monuments of Ecclesiastical Antiquity Travers was bred in Trinity Colledg in Cambridg well skilled in the Oriental Tongues and otherwise better studied in Words than Matter being Cotemporary with Cartwright and of his Affection He sets up his studies in Geneva and there acquaints himself with Beza and the rest of that Consistory of whom and their new Discipline he grew so enamoured that before his coming into England he was made Minister as well at least as such hands could make him by the Presbytery of Antwerp as appears by their Certificate for I dare not call them Letters of Orders dated May 14 1578. Thus qualified he associates himself with Cartwright whom he found there at his coming in preaching to the Factory of English Merchants and follows him not long after into England also By the commendation of some Friends he was taken into the House of William Lord Burleigh whom he served first in the nature of a Pedagogue to his younger Son and after as one of his Chaplains Preferments could not chuse but come in his way considering the Greatness of his Master whose eminent Offices of Lord Treasurer Chief Secretary and Master of the Wards could not but give him many opportunities to prefer a Servant to the best places in the Church But Travers knew his incapacity to receive such Favours as neither lawfully ordained according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England nor willing to subscribe to such Rites and Ceremonies as he found were used in the same But being a great Factor for promoting the Holy Discipline he gets himself into the Lecture of the Temple which could not easily be denyed when the Chaplain of so great a Councellor was a Suitor for it 16. In this place he insinuates himself by all means imaginable into the good affections of many young Students and some great Lawyers of both Houses on whom he gained exceedingly by his way of Preaching graced with a comely Gesture and a Rhetorical manner of Elocution By which advantages he possest many of the long Robe with a strong affection to the devices of Geneva and with as great a prejudice to the English Hierarchy the fruits whereof discovered themselves more or less in all following Parliaments when any thing concerning the Church came in agitation And by the opportunity of this Place he had the chief managing of the Affairs of the Disciplinarians presiding for the most part in their Classical Meetings and from hence issuing their Directions to the rest of the Churches And so it stood till Hooker's coming to be Master who being a man of other Principles and better able to defend them in a way of Argument endeavoured to instruct his Auditors in such Points of Doctrine as might keep them in a right perswasion of the Church of England as well in reference to her Government as her Forms of Worship This troubled Travers at the heart as it could not otherwise to see that the fine Web which he had been so long in weaving should be thus unravell'd Rather than so Hooker shall tell them nothing in the Morning but what he laboured to confute in the Afternoon not doubting but that a great part of the Auditors would pass Sentence for him though the truth might run most apparently on the other side Hooker endured it for some time but being weary at the last of the opposition he complains thereof to the Arch-bishop who had deservedly a very great opinion of him and this Complaint being seasonably made in that point of time when Cartwright Snape and other Leading-men of the Puritan Faction were brought into the High Commission it was no hard matter for him to procure an Order to suppress his Adversary silenced from preaching in the Temple and all places else Which Order was issued upon these grounds that is to say That he was no lawfully ordained Minister according to the Church of England That he took upon him to preach without being licensed and That he had presumed openly to confute such Doctrine as had been publickly delivered by another Preacher without any notice given thereof to the lawful Ordinary contrary to a Provision made in the Seventh year of the Queen for avoiding Disturbances in the Church 17. But Travers was too stiff and too well supported to sit down on the first Assault He makes his supplication therefore to the Lords of the Council where he conceived himself as strong and as highly favoured as Hooker was amongst the Bishops and the High Commissioners In this Petition he complains of some obliquity in the proceedings had against him for want of some Legalities in the conduct of it But when he came to answer to the Charges which were laid upon him his Defences appeared very weak and flat and could not much conduce to his justification when they were seriously examined in the scale of Judgment His exercising the Ministry without lawful Orders he justified no otherwise than that by the Communion of Saints all Ordinations were of like Authority in a Christian Church The Bishop of London had commended him by two Letters unto that Society to be chosen Lecturer and That he took for a sufficient License as might enable him to preach to that Congregation And as for his confuting in the Afternoon what had been preached by Mr. Hooker in the morning before he conceived that he had warrant for it from St. Paul's example in withstanding St. Peter to his face for fear lest otherwise God's Truth might receive some prejudice The weakness and insufficiency of which Defences was presently made known in Hooker's Answer to the Supplication Which wrought so much upon the Lords and was so strongly seconded by the Arch-bishop himself that all the Friends which Travers had amongst them could not do him good especially when it was represented to them how dangerous a thing it was that a man of such ill Principles and of worse Affections should be permitted to continue in his former Lecture which what else were it in effect but to retain almost half the Lawyers of England to be of Councel in all Causes which concerned the Church whensoever those of the Genevian or Puritan Faction should require it of them But so it hapned and it hapned very well for Travers that the Queen had erected an University at Dublin in the year fore-going 1591 Founding therein a Colledg dedicated to the Holy Trinity to the Provostship whereof he was invited by the Arch-bishop of Dublin who had been once a Fellow of the same House with him Glad of which opportunity
and assigned unto them with this Proviso super-added That if any of the said persons so abjuring should either not depart the Realm at the time appointed or should come back again unto it without leave first granted that then every such person should suffer death as in case of Felony without the benefit of his Clergy And to say the truth there was no reason why any man should have the benefit of his Clergy who should so obstinately refuse to conform himself to the Rules and Dictates of the Church There also was a penalty of ten pounds by the Month imposed upon all those who harboured any of the said Puritan Recusants if the said Puritan Recusants not being of their near Relations or any of them should forbear coming to some Church or Chappel or other place of Common-prayer to hear the Divine Service of the Church for the space of a Month. Which Statute being made to continue no longer than till the end of the next Session of Parliament was afterwards kept in force from Session to Session till the death of the Queen to the great preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom the safety of Her Majesty's Person aad the tranquillity of the Church free from thenceforth from any such disturbances of the Puritan Faction as had before endangered the Foundations of it 28. And yet it cannot be denied but that the seasonable execution of the former Statute on Barrow Penry and some others of these common Barreters conduced as much to the promoting of this general Calm as the making of this It was in the Month of November 1587 that Henry Barrow Gentleman and Iohn Greenwood Clerk of whose commitment with some others we have spoke before were publickly convented by the High Commissioners for holding and dispersing many Schismatical Opinions and Seditious Doctrines of which the principal were these viz. That our Church is no true Church That the Worship of the English Church is flat Idolatry That we admit into our Church unsanctified persons That our Preachers have no lawful Calling That our Government is ungodly That no Bishop or Preacher preacheth Christ sincerely or truly That the people of every Parish ought to chuse their Bishop And That every Elder though he be no Doctor or Pastor is a Bishop That all of the Preciser sort who refuse the Ceremonies of the Church strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel and are close Hypocrites and walk in a left-handed Policy as Cartwright Wiggington c. That all which make teach or expound Printed or Written Catechisms are idle Shepherds as Calvin Vrsin Nowell c. That the Children of ungodly Parents ought not to be baptized as of Usurers Drunkards c. and finally that set-prayer is blasphemous On their Convention and some short restraint for so many dotages they promised to recant and were enlarged upon their Bonds But being set at liberty they brake out again into further Extremities and drew some others to the side almost as mischievous as themselves and no less Pragmatical the principal whereof not to take notice of the Rabble of besotted people who became their followers were Saxio Billet Gentleman Daniel Studley Girdler Robert Bouler Fish-monger committed Prisoners to the Fleet with their principal Leaders in the Iuly following 29. The times were dangerous in regard of the great Preparations of the King of Spain for the invading of this Kingdom which rendred the imprisonment of these furious Sectaries as necessary to the preservation of the publick safety as the shutting up of so many of the Leading Papists into Wisbich Castle But so it was that the State being totally taken up with the prosecution of that Warr on the Coasts of Spain and the quenching of the fire at home which had been raised by Cartwright Vdal and the rest of the Disciplinarians there was nothing done against them but that they were kept out of harm's way as the saying is by a close Imprisonment During which time Cartwright who was their fellow-Prisoner had a Conference with them the rather in regard it had been reported from Barrow's mouth That he had neither acted nor written any thing but what he was warranted to do by Cartwright's Principles The Conference was private and the result thereof not known to many but left to be conjectured at by this following story The Reverend Whitgift had a great desire to save the men from that destruction in which they had involved themselves by their own perversâ—ess and to that end sends Dr. Thomas Ravis then one of his Chaplains but afterwards Lord Bishop of London to confer with Barrow At whose request and some directions from the Arch-bishop in pursuance of it Cartwright is dealt with to proceed to another Conference but no perswasions would prevail with him for a second Meeting Which being signified to Barrow by the said Dr. Ravys in the presence of divers persons of good account the poor man fetched a great sigh saying Shall I be thus forsaken by him Was it not he that brought me first into these briars and will he now leave me in the same Was it not from him alone that I took my grounds Or did I not out of such Premises as he pleased to give me infer those Propositions and deduce those Conclusions for which I am now kept in Bonds Which said the company departed and left the Prisoners to prepare for their following Tryal By the Imprisonment of Cartwright the Condemnation of Vdal and the Execution of Hacket the times had been reduced to so good a temper that there could be no danger in proceeding to a publick Arraignment The Parliament was then also sitting and possible it is that the Queen might pitch upon that time for their condemnation to let them see that neither the sitting of a Parliament nor any Friends they had in both or either of the Houses could either stay the course of Justice or suspend the Laws Certain it is that on the 21 of March 1592 they were all indicted at the Sessions-Hall without Newgate before the Lord Mayor the two Chief Justices some of the Judges and divers other Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for writing and publishing sundry Seditious Books tending to the slander of the Queen and State For which they were found guilty and had the Sentence of death pronounced upon them March 23. Till the Execution of which Sentence they were sent to Newgate 30. The fatal Sentence being thus passed Dr. Lancelot Andrews afterwards Lord Bishop of Ely Dr. Henry Parrey afterwards Lord Bishop of Worcester Dr. Philip Bisse Arch-Deacon of Taunton and Dr. Thomas White one of the Residentiaries of St. Pauls were sent to Barrow to advise him to recant those Errors which otherwise might be as dangerous to his soul as they had proved unto his body Who having spent some time to this purpose with him were accosted thus You are not saith he the men whom I most dislike in the present differences For though you be out
But we will let them run unto the end of their Line and then pull them back 38. And first We will begin with the Conspiracies and Treasons of Francis Steward Earl of Bothwell Son of Iohn Prior of Coldingham one of the many Bastards of K. Iames the Fifth who by the Daughter and Heir of Iames Lord Hepborn the late Earl of Bothwell became the Father of this Francis A man he was of a seditious and turbulent nature principled in the Doctrines of the Presbyterians and thereby fitted and disposed to run their courses At first he joyned himself to the banished Lords who seized upon the King at Sterling not because he was any way engaged in their former Practises for which they had been forced to flye their Countrey but because he would ingratiate himself with the Lords of that Faction and gain some credit with the Kirk But being a man also of a dissolute Life gave such scandal to all Honest and Religious men that in the end to gain the Reputation of a Convert he was contented to be brought to the Stool of Repentance to make Confession of his Sins and promise Reformation for the time to come Presuming now upon the Favour of the Kirk he consults with Witches enquires into the Liâ—e of the King how long he was to reign and what should happen in the Kingdom after his decease and more than so deals with the Witch of Keith particularly to employ her Familiar to dispatch the King that he might set on foot some Title to the Crown of that Realm For which notorious Crimes and so esteemed by all the Laws both of God and Man he was committed unto Ward and breaking Prison was confiscated proclaimed Traytor and all Intelligence and Commerce interdicted with him After this he projects a Faction in the Court it self under pretence of taking down the Power and Pride of the Lord Chancellor then being But finding himself too weak to atchieve the Enterprise he departs secretly into England His Faction in the Court being formed with some more Advantage he is brought privily into the Palace of Haly-Rood House makes himself Master of the Gates secureth the Fort and violently attempts to seize the King But the King hearing of the noise retired himself to a strong Tower and caused all the Passages to be locked and barred Which Bothwell not being able to force he resolves to burn the Palace and the King together But before Fire could be made ready the Alarm was taken the Edenbourgers raised and the Conspirators compelled with the loss of some of their Lives to quit the place 39. The next year he attempts the like at Falkland where he showed himself with a Party of six-score Horse but the rest of the Conspirators not appearing he retires again is entertained privately by some eminent Persons and having much encreased his Faction lives concealed in England The Queen negotiates his return and by the Lord Burrough her Ambassador desires the King to take him into Grace and Favour Which being denyed a way is found to bring him into the King's Bed-chamber together with one of his Confederates with their Swords in their hands followed immediately by many others of the Faction by whom the King is kept in a kind of Custody till he had granted their Desires At last upon the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some of the Ministers of Edenborough who were of Counsel in the Plot the King is brought to condescend to these Conditions that is to say That Pardon should be given to Bothwell and his Accomplices for all matters past and that this Pardon should be ratified by Act of Parliament in November following That in the mean time the Lord Chancellor the Lord Hume the Master of Glammir and Sir George Hume who were all thought to favour the Popish Lords should be excluded from the Court. And finally That Bothwell and all his Party should be held good Subjects But these Conditions being extorted were not long made good Agreed on August the 14 th and declared void by a Convention of Estates at Sterling on the 7 th of September Some Troubles being raised upon this occasion and as soon blown over Bothwell is cited to appear at Edenborough and failing of his day is declared Rebel which only served to animate him to some greater Mischief For being under-hand assisted by the English Ambassador he prepares new Forces desires the Lords which were of his Confederacy to do the like under pretence of banishing to Popish Lords but in plain truth to make the King of no signification in the Power of Government Accompanied with Four hundred Horse he puts himself into Leith to the great affrightment of the King who was then at Edenborough But understanding that the rest of his Associates were not drawn together it was thought good to charge upon him with the Bands of that City and some Artillery from the Castle before his Numbers were encreased Which Counsel sped so well that he lost the day and therewith all his hopes in Scotland and in England too 40. For Queen Elizabeth being sensible at the last of the great Dishonour which she had drawn upon her self by favouring such an Infamous Rebel caused Proclamation to be made That no man should receive or harbour him within her Dominions And the Kirk moved by her Example and the King's Request when they perceived that he could be no longer serviceable to their Ends and Purposes gave Order that the Ministers in all Places should disswade their Flocks from concurring with him for the time to come or joyning with any other in the like Insurrections against that Authority which was divested by God in His Majesty's Person The Treasons and Seditious practises of which man I have laid together the better to express those continual Dangers which were threatned by him to the King by which He was reduced to the necessity of complying with the desires of the Kirk setling their Discipline and in all points conforming to them for His own preservation But nothing lost the Rebel more than a new Practise which he had with the Popish Lords whereby he furnished the King with a just occasion to lay him open to the Ministers and the rest of the Subjects in his proper colours as one that was not acted by a Zeal to Religion though under that disguise he masked his Ambitious Ends. In fine being despised by the Queen of England and Excommunicated by the Kirk for joyning with the Popish Lords he was reduced to such a miserable condition that he neither knew whom to trust nor where to flye Betrayed by those of his own Party by whom his Brother Hercules was impeached discovered and at last brought to Execution in the Streets at Edenborough he fled for shelter into France where finding sorry entertainment he removed into Spain and afterwards retired to Naples in which he spent the short remainder of his Life in Contempt and Beggery 41.
About this time one of the Ministers named Rosse uttered divers Treasonable and Irreverent speeches against His Majesty in a Sermon of his preached at Perth for which the King craved Justice of the next Assembly and he required this also of them That to prevent the like for the times ensuing the Ministers should be inhibited by some Publick Order from uttering any irreverent speeches in the Pulpit against His Majesty's Person Council or Estate under the pain of Deprivation This had been often moved before and was now hearkned to with as little care as in former times All which the King got by it was no more but this that Rosse was only admonished to speak so reverently of His Majesty for the time to come as might give no just cause of complaint against him As ill success he had in the next Assembly to which he recommended some Conditions about the passing of the Sentence of Excommunication two of which were to this effect 1. That none should be excommunicated for Civil causes for any Crimes of leight importance or for particular wrongs offered to the Ministers lest the Censure should fall into contempt 2. That no summary Excommunication should be thenceforth used but that lawful citations of the Parties should go before in all manner of Causes whatsoever To both which he received no other Answer but That the Points were of too great weight to be determined on the sudden and should be therefore agitated in the next Assembly In the mean time it was provided That no Summary Excommunication should be used but in such occasions in which the Safety of the Church seemed to be in danger Which Exception much displeased the King knowing that they would serve their turn by it whensoever they pleased Nor sped he better with them when he treated severally than when they were in the Assembly The Queen of England was grown old and he desired to be in good terms with all his Subjects for bearing down all opposition which might be made against his Title after her decease To which end he deals with Robert Bruce a Preacher of Edenborough about the calling home the Popish Lords men of great Power and Credit in their several Countreys who had been banished the last year for holding some intelligence with the Catholick King Bruce excepts only against Huntley whom the King seemed to favour above all the rest and positively declared That the King must lose him if he called home Huntley for that it was impossible to keep them both And yet this Bruce was reckoned for a Moderate man one of the quietest and best-natur'd of all the Pack What was the issue of this business we shall see hereafter 42. In the mean time let us pass over into France and look upon the Actions of the Hugonots there of whose deserting their new King we have spoke of before And though they afterwards afforded him some Supplies both of Men and Money when they perceived him backed by the Queen of England and thereby able to maintain a defensive Warr without their assistance yet they did it in so poor a manner as made him utterly despair of getting his desired Peace by an absolute Victory In which perplexity he beholds his own sad condition his Kingdom wasted by a long and tedious Warr invaded and in part possessed by the Forces of Spain new Leagues encreasing every day both in strength and number and all upon the point of a new Election or otherwise to divide the Provinces amongst themselves To prevent which he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome goes personally to the Mass and in all other publick Offices which concerned Religion conformed himself unto the directions of the Pope And for so doing he gives this account to Wilks the Queen's Ambassador sent purposely to expostulate with him upon this occasion that is to say That Eight hundred of the Nobility and no fewer than Nine Regiments of the Protestant Party who had put themselves into the Service of his Predecessor returned unto their several homes and could not be induced to stay with him upon any perswasions That such of the Protestants as he had taken at the same time to his Privil-Council were so intent on their own business that they seldom vouchsafed their presence at the Council-Table so that being already forsaken by those on whom he relyed and fearing to be forsaken by the Papists also he was forced to run upon that course which unavoidable necessity had compelled him to and finally that being thus necessitated to a change of Religion he rather chose to make it look like his own free Act that he might thereby free the Doctrine of the Protestants from those Aspersions which he conceived must otherwise needs have fallen upon it if that Conversion had been wrought upon him by Dispute and Argument for hearkening whereunto he had bound himself when he first took the Crown upon him If by this means the Hugonots in France shall fall to as low an ebb as the Fortunes of their Brethren did in England at the same time they can lay the blame on nothing but their own Ingratitude their Disobedience to their King and the Genevian Principles that were rooted in them which made them Enemies to the Power and Guidance of all Soveraign Princes But the King being still in heart of his own Religion or at least exceeding favourable to all those that professed the same he willingly passed over all unkindness which had grown between them and by his countenance or connivence gave them such advantages as made them able to dispute the point with his Son and Successor whether they would continue Subjects to the Crown or not 43. In the Low-Countreys all things prospered with the Presbyterians who then thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledg By whose example the Calvinians take up Arms in the City of Embden renounce all obedience to their Prince and put themselves into the Form of a Commonwealth This Embden is the principal City of the Earl of East-Friesland situate on the mouth of the River Emns called Amasus by Latin Writers and from thence denominated Beautified with a Haven so deep and large that the greatest Ships with full sail are admitted into it The People rich the Buildings general fair both private and publick especially the Town-Hall and the stately Castle Which last being situate on a rising-ground near the mouth of the Haven and strongly fortified toward the Town had for long time been the Principal Seat of the Earls of that Province The second Earl hereof called Ezard when he had governed this Countrey for the space of sixty years or thereabouts did first begin to introduce the Doctrines of Luther into his Estates Anno 1525. But being old he left the Work to be accomplished by Enno his eldest Son who first succeeded in that Earldom and using the assistance of Hardimbergius a Moderate and Learned man established the Augustine Confession in the
his defence And he accordingly declared in all humble manner That he and his Associates had not made any Canons Articles or Decrees with an intent that they should serve hereafter for a standing-Rule to direct the Church but only had resolved on some Propositions to be sent to Cambridg for quieting some unhappy differences in that University With which Answer Her Majesty being somewhat pacified commanded notwithstanding That he should speedily recall and suppress those Articles Which was performed with such Care and Diligence that a Copy of them was not to be found for a long time after 8. As for the Articles themselves they were so contrived that both the Sabbatarians and the Supra-lapsarians very considerably at odds amongst themselves might be sheltred under them to the intent that both may be secured from the common Adversary Which Articles I find translated in these following words viz. I. God from Eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life certain men he hath reprobated II. The moving or efficient Cause of Predestination unto life is not the fore-sight of Faith or of Perseverance or of Good Works or of any thing that is in the person predestinated but only the Good Will and Pleasure of God III. There is predetermined a certain number of the Predestinate which can neither be augmented nor diminished IV. Those who are not predestinate to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins V. A true living and justifying-faith and the Spirit of God justifying is not extinguished falleth not away it vanisheth not away in the Elect either totally or finally VI. A man truly faithful that is such an one who is endued with a justifying-faith is certain with the full assurance of Faith of the remission of his sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ. VII Saving-Grace is not given is not granted is not communicated to all men by which they may be saved if they will VIII No man can come unto Christ unless it be given unto him and unless the Father shall draw him and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son IX It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved 9. Such were the Articles of Lambeth so much insisted on by those of the Calvinian Faction in succeeding times as comprehending in them the chief Heads of Calvin's Doctrine in reference to the points of the Divine Election and Reprobation of Universal Grace and the impossibility of a total or a final falling from the true justifying-faith which were the subject of the Controversies betwixt Baroe and Whitacre Some have adventured hereupon to rank this most Reverend Arch-bishop in the List of these Calvinists conceiving that he could not otherwise have agreed to those Articles if he had not been himself of the same Opinion And possible it is that he might not look so far into them as to consider the ill consequences which might follow on them or that he might prefer the pacifying of some present Dissenters before the apprehension of such Inconveniences as were more remote or else according to the custom of all such as be in Authority he thought it necessary to preserve Whitacre in power and credit against all such as did oppose him the Merit and Abilities of the man being very eminent For if this Argument were good it might as logically be inferred That he was a Iesuit or a Melancthonian at the least in these points of Doctrine because he countenanced those men who openly and professedly had opposed the Calvinian In which respect as he took part with Hooker at the Council-Table against the Complaints and Informations of Travers as before is said so he received into his service Mr. Samuel Harsnet then being one of the Fellows of Pembroke-Hall who in a Sermon preached at St. Paul's Cross the 27 th of October 1584 had so dissected the whole Zuinglian Doctrine of Reprobation as made it seem most ugly in the ears of his Auditors as afterwards in the eyes of all Spectators when it came to be Printed Which man he did not only entertain as his Chaplain at large but used his Service in his House as a Servant in ordinary employed him in many of his Affairs and finally commended him to the care of King IAMES by whom he was first made Master of Pembroke-Hall and afterwards preferred to the See of Chichester from thence translated to Norwich and at last to York 10. No less remarkable was this year for the repairing of the Cross in Cheap-side which having been defaced in the year 1581 and so continued ever since was now thought fit to be restored to its former beauty A Cross it was of high esteem and of good Antiquity erected by K. Edward the first Anno 1290 in honour of Queen Elienor his beloved Wife whose Body had there rested as it was removed to the place of her Burial But this Cross being much decayed Iohn Hatherly Lord Mayor of London in the year 1441 procured leave of K. HENRY the 6 th to take it down and to re-edifie the same in more beautiful manner for the greater honour of the City Which leave being granted and 200 hundred Fodder of Lead allowed him toward the beginning of the Work it was then curiously wrought at the charge of divers wealthy Citizens adorned with many large and massie Images but more especially advanced by the Munificence of Iohn Fisher Mercer who gave Six hundred Marks for the finishing of it The whole Structure being reared in the second year of K. HENRY the 7 th Anno 1486 was after gilded over in the year 1522 for the entertainment of the Emperor CHARLES the fifth new burnished against the Coronation of Queen Anne Bullen Anno 1533 as afterwards at the Coronation of King EDWARD the sixth and finally at the Magnificent Reception of King PHILIP 1554. And having for so long time continued an undefaced Monument of Christian Piety was quarrelled by the Puritans of the present Reign who being emulous of the Zeal of the French Calvinians whom they found to have demolished all Crosses wheresoever they came they caused this Cross to be presented by the Jurors in several Ward-Motes for standing in the High-way to the hindering of Carts and other Carriages but finding no remedy in that course they resolved to apply themselves unto another In pursuance whereof they first set upon it in the night Iune 21 Anno 1581 violently breaking and defacing all the lowest Images which were placed round about the same that is to say the Images of Christ's Resurrection of the Virgin MARY K. EDWARD the Confessor c. But more particularly the Image of the blessed Virgin was at that time robbed of her Son and her Arms broke by which she held Him in her Lap and her whole Body haled with Ropes and left likely to fall Proclamation presently was made with promise of Reward to any one that could or would discover the chief Actors in it But without effect
11. In which condition it remained till this present year when the said Image was again fastned and repaired the Images of Christ's Resurrection and the rest continuing broken as before And on the East side of the said Cross where the steps had been was then set up a curious wrought Tabernacle of gray Marble and in the same an Alablaster Image of Diana from whose naked Breasts there trilled continually some streams of Water conveyed unto it from the Thames But the madness of this Faction could not so be stayed for the next year that I may lay all things together which concern this Cross a new mishapen Son as born out of time all naked was put into the Arms of the Virgin 's Image to serve for matter of derision to the common people And in the year 1599 the figure of the Cross erected on the top of the Pile was taken down by Publick Order under pretence that otherwise it might have fallen and endangered many with an intent to raise a Pyramis or Spire in the place thereof which coming to the knowledg of the Lords of the â—â—uncil they directed their Letters to the Lord Mayor then being whom they required in the Queen's Name to cause the said Cross to be repaired and advanced as formerly But the Cross still remaining headless for a year and more and the Lords not enduring any longer such a gross Contempt they re-inforced their Letters to the next Lord Mayor dated December 24 in the year 1600. In which they willed and commanded him in pursuance of her Majesty's former Directions to cause the said Cross without more delay to be re-advanced respecting in the same the great Antiquity and continuance of that stately Monument erected for an Ensign of our Christianity In obedience unto which Commands a Cross was forthwith framed of timber cover'd with lead and set up and gilded and the whole body of the Pile new cleansed from filth and rubbish Which gave such fresh displeasure to some zealous Brethren that within twelve nights after the Image of the blessed Virgin was again defaced by plucking off her Crown and almost her Head dispossessing her of her naked Child and stabbing her into the breast c. Most ridiculous Follies 12. In the beginning of the year we find Sir Thomas Egerton advanced to the Custody of the Great Seal of England Lord Chancellor in effect under the Title of Lord Keeper to which Place he was admitted on the sixth of May to the great joy of the Arch-bishop who always looked upon him as a lover of Learning a constant favourer of the Clergy zealous for the established Government and a faithful Friend unto himself upon all occasions Who being now Peered with the Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Essex assured of the good-will of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh and strengthned with the Friendship of Sir Robert Cicil Principal Secretary of State was better fortified than ever And at this time Her Majesty laying on his shoulders the burden of all Church-Concernments told him It should fall on his Soul and Conscience if any thing fell out amiss in that by reason of her age she had thought good to ease her self of that part of her Cares and looked that he should yeeld an account thereof to Almighty God So that upon the matter he was all in all for all Church-Affairs and more especially in the disposing of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Promotions For his first entrance on which Trust he preferrs Dr. Thomas Bilson to the See of Worcester who received his Episcopal Consecration on the 13 th of Iune Anno 1596. and by his Favour was translated within two years after to the Church of Winchester He advanced also his old Friend Dr. Richard Bancroft to the See of London whom he consecrated on the 8 th of May Anno 1597 that he might always have him near him for Advice and Counsel Which Famous Prelate that I may note this by the way was born at Farnworth in the County of Lancaster Baptized September 1544. His Father was Iohn Bancroft Gentleman his Mother Mary Curwin Daughter of Iohn Brother of Hugh Curwin Bishop of Oxon whose eldest Son was Christopher the Father of Dr. Iohn Bancroft who after dyed Bishop of that See Anno 1640. But this Richard of whom now we speak being placed by his Unkle Dr. Curwin in Christ's Colledg in Cambridg from thence removed to Iesus Colledg in the same University because the other was suspected to incline to Novelism His Unkle Dr. Curwin being preferred to the Arch-bishoprick of Dublin made him a Prebend of that Church after whose death he became Chaplain to Cox Bishop of Ely who gave him the Rectory of Teversham not far from Cambridg Being thus put into the Road of Preferment he proceeded Batchellor of Divinity Anno 1580 and Doctor in the year 1585 About which time he put himself into the Service of Sir Christopher Hatton by whose recommendation he was made a Prebend of St. Peters in Westminster 1592. From whence he had the earlier passage to St. Pauls in London 13. About this time brake out the Juglings of Iohn Darrel who without any lawful Calling had set up a new Trade of Lecturing in the Town of Nottingham and to advance some Reputation to his Person pretends an extraordinary Power in casting out Devils He practised first on one Catharine Wright An. 1586. But finding some more powerful Practises to be then on foot in favour of the Presbyterian Discipline he laid that Project by till all others failed him But in the year 1592 he resumes the Practise hoping to compass that by Wit and Legerdemain which neither Carthwright by his Learning nor Snape by his Diligence Penry by his Seditions or Hacket by his damnable Treasons had the good fortune to effect He first begins with William Summers an unhappy Boy whom he first met at Ashby de la Zouch in the Country of Him he instructs to do such Tricks as might make him seem to be possest acquaints him with the manner of the Fits which were observed by Catharine Wright delivers them in writing to him for his better remembrance wished him to put the same in practise and told him that in so doing he should not want But either finding no great forwardness in the Boy to learn his Lesson or being otherwise discouraged from proceeding with him he applies himself to one Thomas Darling commonly called The Boy of Burton Anno 1596 whom he found far more dextrous in his Dissimulations the History of whose Possessings and Dispossessings was writ at large by Iesse Bee a Religious sad Lyar contracted by one Denison a Countrey-Minister Seen and Allowed by Hildersham one of the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery and Printed with the good leave and liking of Darrel himself who growing famous by this means remembers Summers his first Scholar to whom he gives a second meeting at the Park of Ashby teacheth him to act them better than before
gave notice to the several Ministers of the present Dangers and advised them to excite their Flocks to be in readiness to the end they might oppose these Resolutions of the King and Council as far as lawfully they might A day was also set apart for Humiliation and Order given to the Presbyteries to excommunicate all such as either harboured any of the Popish Lords or kept company with them and this Excommunication to be passed summarily on the first Citation because the safety of the Church seemed to be in danger which was the mischief by the King suspected under that Reserve They appointed also that sixteen of their Company should remain at Edenborough according to the number of the Tribunes at Paris who together with some of the Presbytery of that City should be called The Council of the Kirk That four or five of the said sixteen should attend Monthly on the Service in their turns and courses and that they should convene every day with some of that Presbytery to receive such Advertisements as should be sent from other places and thereupon take counsel of the best Expedients that could be offered in the case And for the first Essay of their new Authority the Lord Seaton President of the Sessions appears before them transmitted unto their Tribunal by the Synod of Lothian for keeping intelligence with the Earl of Huntley From which with many affectations having purged himself he was most graciously dismist Which though the King beheld as an Example of most dangerous consequence yet being willing to hold fair with the Kirk he connived at it till he perceived them to be fixed on so high a pin so cross to his Commands and Purposes that it was time to take them down He therefore signifies to them once for all That there could be no hope of any right understanding to be had between them during the keeping up of two Jurisdictions neither depending on the otherâ— That in their Preachings they did censure the Affairs of the State and Council convocate several Assemblies without his Licenses and there conclude what they thought good without his Allowance and Approbation That in their Synods Presbyteries and particular Sessions they embraced all manner of business under colour of scandal and that without redress of these Misdemeanors there either was no hope of a good Agreement or that the said Agreement when made could be long kept by either Party 21. The Ministers on the other side had their Grievances also that is to say The Favours extended by his Majesty to the Popish Lords the inviting of the Lady Huntley to the Baptism of the Princess Elizabeth being then at hand the committing of the Princess to the Custody of the Lady Levingston and the â—estrangement of his Countenance from themselves And though the King gave very satisfactory Answers to all these Complaints yet could not the suspitions of the Kirk be thereby removed every day bringing forth some great cry or other That the Papists were favoured in the Court The Miâ—â—â—ters troubled for the free rebuke of sin and the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom sought to be overthrown In the mean time it hapned that one David Blake one of the Ministers of St. Andrews had in a Sermon uttered divers Seditioâ—s Speeches of the King and Queen as also against the Council and the Lords of the Session but more particularly that as all Kings were the Devils Barns so the heart of K. IAMES was full of Treachery That the Queen was not to be prayed for but for fashion-sake because they knew that she would never do them good That the Lords of the Council were corrupt and takers of Bribes and that the Queen of England was an Atheist one of no Religion Notice whereof being given to the English Ambassador he complains of it to the King and Blake is cited to appear before the Lords of the Council Melvin makes this a common Cause and gives it out That this was only done upon design against the Ministers to bring their Doctrine under the censure and controlment of the King and Council or at the least a meer device to divert the Ministers from prosecuting their just Suit against the coming and reception of the Popish Lords and that if Blake or any other should submit their Doctrines to the tryal of the King and Council the Liberties of the Kirk would be quite subverted By which means he prevailed so far on the rest of the Council I mean the Council of the Kirk that they sent certain of their number to intercede in the business and to declare how ill it might be taken with all sorts of people if the Ministers should now be called in question for such trifling matters when the Enemies of the Truth were both spared and countenanced But not being able by this means to delay the Censure it was advised that Blake should make his Declinatour renounce the King and Council as incompetent Judges and wholly put himself upon tryal of his own Presbytery Which though it seemed a dangerous course by most sober men yet was it carryed by the major part of the Voices as the Cause of God 22. Encouraged by this general Vote and enflamed by Melvin he presents his Declinatour with great confidence at his next appearance And when he was interrogated amongst other things Whether the King might not as well judg in matters of Treason as the Kirk of Heresie He answered That supposing he had spoken Treason yet could he not be first judged by the King and Council till the Kirk had taken cognizance of it In maintenance of which proceeding the Commissioners of the Kirk direct their Letters to all the Presbyteries of the kingdom requiring them to subscribe the said Declinatour to recommend the Cause in their Prayers to God and to stir up their several Flocks in defence thereof This puts the King to the necessity of publishing his Proclamation of the Month of November In which he first lays down the great and manifold encroachments of this new Tribunal to the overthrow of his Authority The sending of the Declinatour to be subscribed generally by all the Ministers The convocating of the Subjects to assist their proceedings as if they had no Lord or Superior over them and in the mean time that the Ministers forsake their Flocks to wait on these Commissioners and attend their service which being said he doth thereby charge the said Commissioners from acting any thing according to that deputation commanding them to leave Edenborough to repair to their several Flocks and to return no more for keeping such unlawful Meetings under pain of Rebellion He published another Proclamation at the same time also by which all Barons Gentlemen and other Subjects were commanded not to joyn with any of the Ministry either in their Presbyteries Synods or other Ecclesiastical Assemblies without his License Which notwithstanding he was willing to revoke those Edicts and remit his Action against Blake if the Church would either
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment