by them without the Queens notice and consent To which it was answered that the Assembly neither was nor could be held without her notice because she understood that there was a Reformed Church within the Realm by the Orders whereof they had appointed times for their publick Conventions But as to her allowance of it it was then objected that if the Liberty of the Church should stand upon the Queens allowance or disallowance they were assured that they should not onely want Assemblies but the preaching of the Word it self for if the â—reedom of Assemblies was taken away the Gospel in effect must be also suppressed which could not long subsist without them The putting in of the demurrer concerning the Authority in calling and holding their Assemblies prompted them to present the Book of Discipline to her Majesties view and to sollicite her by all the Friends and means they could for her Royal-Assent But finding no hope of compassing their desires for that Book in general it was thought best to try their Fortune in the pursuit of some particulars contained in it And to that end it was propounded to the Lords of the Council that Idolatry might be suppressed the Churches planted with true Ministers and that certain provision should be made for them according to equity and good Conscience The Ministers till that time had livâ—d for the most part upon such Benevolences as were raised for them on the people the Patrimony of the Church being seized into the hands of private persons and alienated in long Leases by the Popish Clergy The Revenue of the Crown was small when it was at the best exceedingly impaired since the death of King Iames the Fifth and not sufficient to defray the necessary charge and expence of the Court. To satisfie all parties it was ordered by the Lords of the Council that the third part of all the Rents of Ecclesiastical Benefices should be taken up for the use of the Queen that the other two parts should remain to the Clergy or to such as held them in their Right and that the Queen out of the part assigned to her should maintain the Ministers This Order bears date at Edenborough December 20 but gave no satisfaction to the Ministers or their Sollicitors who challenged the whole Patrimony by the Rules of the Discipline to belong onely to themselves Knox amongst others so disliked it that he affirmed openly in the Pulpit of Edenborough That the Spirit of God was not the Author of that Order by which two parts of the Church-Rents were given to the Devil and the third part was to be divided between God and the Devil adding withal that in short time the Devil would have three parts of the third and that a fourth part onely should be left to God 36. But notwithstanding these seditious and uncharitable â—urâ—â—ses of their hot-headed Preachers a Commission is granted by the Queen to certain of her Officers and other persons of Quality not onely to receive the said third part but cut of â—t to assigne such yearly stipends to their Ministers as to them seemed meet They were all such as did profess the Reformed Religion and therefore could not but be thought to be well-affected to the Ministers maintainance to some of which they allowed one hundred Marks by the year unto some three hundred insomuch that it was said by Ledington principal Secretary of Estate that when the Ministers were paid the Stipends assigned unto them the rest would hardly finde the Queen a new pair of Shooes But on the other side the Ministers vehemently exclaimed against these assignments and openly profest it to be very unreasonable that such dumb Dogs and Idle-bellies as the Popish Clergy should have a thousand Marks per annum and that themselves good men who spent their whole time in preaching the Gospel should be put off with two or three hundred They railed with no less bitterness against the Laird of Pittarow who was appointed by the Queen for their pay-Master General and used to say in common Speech that the good Laird of Pittarow Comptroller of her Majesties Houshold was a Zealous Professor of Jesus Christ but that the pay Master or Comptroller would fall to the Devil And for the Queen so far they were from acknowledging the receipt of any favour from her in the true payment of their Stipends that they disputed openly against that Title which she pretended to the thirds out of which she paid them By some it was affirmed that no such part had appertained to any of her Predecessors in a thousand years by others that she had no better Title thereunto whether she kept them to her self or divided them amongst her Servants then had the Souldiers by whom Christ was crucified to divide his Garments 37. It hapned not long after these debates that upon the receiving of some good news from her Friends in France the Qâ—een appeared to be very merry betook her self to dancing and continued in that recreation till after midnight The news whereof being brought to Knox who had his Spies upon her at all times to observe her actions the Pulpit must needs ring of it or else all was marred He chuseth for his Text these words of the second Psalm viz. And now understand O ye Kings and be learned ye that judge the earth Discoursing on which Text he began to tax the ignorance the vanity and the despight of Princes against all Vertue and against all those in whom hatred of Vice and love of Vertue appeared Report is made unto the Queen and this report begets a second Conference betwixt her and Knox in which she must come off with as little credit as she did in the first Knox tells her in plain terms that it is oftentimes the just recompence that God gives the stubborn of the World that because they will not hear God speaking to the comfort of the Penitent and for the amendment of the wicked they are oft compelled to hear the false reports of others to their great displeasure To which immediately he subjoyned that it could not chuse but come to the Ears of Herod that our Saviour Jesus Christ had called him Fox but that the men who told him of it did not also tell him what an odious act he had committed before God in causing Iohn the Baptist to be beheaded to recompence the dancing of an Harlots Daughter The Queen desired after much other talk between them that if he heard any thing of her which distasted him he would repair to her in private and she would willingly hear what he had to say To which he answered with as little reverence and modesty as to all the rest that he was appointed by God to rebuke the vices and sins of all but not to go to every one in particular to make known their offences that if she pleased to frequent the publick Sermons she might then know what he liked or disliked as well in her self as any others
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-Court-Lords whether such Assemblies might be holden
That the Iews dealt not so with any of their Princes and that there was no example to be found in Scripture to shew that subjects may so use their Governours as is there pretended To all these he returns his particular answers and in this sort he answereth to them that is to say That there is nothing more dangerous to be followed then a common custom That the example is but singular and concludeth nothing That as God placed Tyrants to punish the people so he appoints private men to kill them That the Kings of the Iews were not elected by the people and therefore might not deal with them as they might in Scotland where Kings depend wholly on the peoples Election And finally that there were sundry good and wholesome Laws in divers Countries of which there is no example in holy Scripture And whereas others had objected That by St. Pauls Doctrine we are bound to pray for Kings and Princes The Argument is evaded by this handsome shift That we are bound to pray for those whom we ought to punish But these are onely velitations certain preparatory skirmishes to the grand encounter the main battail followeth For finally the principal objection is That St. Paul hath commanded every soul to be subject to the higher Powers and that St. Peter hath required us to submit our selves to every Ordinance of man whether it be unto the King as to the Supreme or unto such as be in Authority by and under him And hereunto they frame their Answer in such a manner as if they knew Gods minde better then the Apostles did or that of the Apostles better then they did themselves 11. The answer is that the Apostles writ this in the Churches infancy when there were not many Christians few of them rich and of ability to make resistance As if said he a man should write to such Christians as are under the Turk in substance poor in courage feeble in strength unarmed in number few and generally subject unto to all kinde of injuries would he not write as the Apostles did who did respect the men they writ to their words not being to be extended to the body or people of the Common wealth For imagine saith he that either of the Apostles were now alive and lived where both the Kings and people did profess Christianity and that there were such Kings as would have their wills to stand for laws as cared neither for God nor Man as bestowed the Churches Revenues upon Iesters and Rascals and such as gibed at those who did profess the more sincere Religion what would they write of such to the Church Surely except they would dissent from themselves they would say That they accounted no such for Magistrates they would forbid all men from speaking unto them and from keeping their company they would leave them to their subjects to be punished nor would they blame them if they accounted not such men for their Kings with whom they could have no society by the Laws of God So excellent a proficient did this man shew himself in the Schools of Calvin that he might worthily have challenged the place of Divinity-Reader in Geneva it self 12. To put these Principles into practice a Bond is made at Stirling by some of the chief Lords of the Congregation pretended for the preservation of the Infant-Prince but aiming also at the punishment of Bothwel and the rest of the Murtherers The first that entred into this Combination were the Earls of Athol Arguile Morton Marre and Glencarne with the Lords Lindsay and Boyd to which were added not long after the Lords Hume and Ruthen this Ruthen being the Son of him who had acted in the Murther of David Risio together with the Lairds of Drumlanrig Tulibardin Seffourd and Grange men of great power and influence on their several Countries besides many others of good note The Earl Murray having laid the plot obtained the Queens leave to retire into France till the times were quieter committing to the Queen the Government of his whole Estate that so if his designe miscarried as it possibly might he might come off without the least hazard of estate or honour Of this conspiracie the Queen receives advertisement and presently prepares for Arms under pretence of rectifying some abuses about the Borders The Confederates were not much behind and having got together a considerable power made an attempt on Borthwick Castle where the Queen and Bothwel then remained But not being strong enough to carry the place at the first attempt Bothwel escaped unto Dunbar whom the Queen followed shortly after in mans apparel Missing their prey the Confederates march toward Edenborough with their little army and make themselves Masters of the Town But understanding that the Queens Forces were upon their march they betook themselves unto the field gained the advantage of the ground and thereby gave her such a diffidence of her good success that having entertained them with a long parley till Bothwel was gone off in safety she put her self into their hands without striking a blow 13. With this great prey the Confederates returned to Edenborough in the middle of Iune and the next day order her to be sent as Prisoner to Lâ—chlevin-house under the conduct of the Lords Ruthen and Lindsay by whom she was delivered in a very plain and sorry attire to the custody of Murray's Mother who domineered over the unfortunate Lady with contempt enough The next day after her commitment the Earl of Glencarne passeth to the Chappel in Halyrood house where he defaceth all the Vestments breaks down the Altar and destroys the Images For which though he was highly magnified by Knox and the rest of the Preachers yet many of the chief Confederates were offended at it as being done without their consent when a great storm was gathering towards them by the conjunction of some other of the principal Lords on the Queens behalf To reconcile this party to them and prevent the Rupture Knox with some other of their Preachers are dispatched away with Letters of Credence and instructions for attoning the difference But they effected nothing to the benefit of them that sent them and not much neither to their own though they had some concernments of self-interest besides the publick which they made tender of to their considerations A general Assembly at the same time was held in Edenborough with which upon the coming back of these Commissioners it was thought necessary to ingratiate themselves by all means imaginable And thereupon it was agreed that the Acts of Parliament made in the year 1560 for the suppressing of Popery should be confirmed in the next Parliament then following that the assignation of the Shires for the Ministers maintainance should be duly put in execution till the whole Patrimony of the Church might be invested in them in due form of Law which was conditioned to be done if it could not be done sooner in that Parliament also Some other points of huge
make good their interest nor any head to order and direct those few hands they had At last the Earl of Sussex with some Souldiers came toward the borders supplied them with such Forces as enabled them to drive the Lords of the Queens Faction out of all the South and thereby gave them some encouragement to nominate the old Earl of Lenox for their Lord-Lieutenant till the Queens pleasure in it might be further known And in this Broyl the Kirk must needs act somewhat also For finding that their party was too weak to compel their Opposites to obedience by the Mouth of the Sword they are resolved to try what they can do by the Sword of the Mouth And to that end they send their Agents to the Duke of Chasteau-Harald the Earls of Arguile Eglington Cassels and Cranford the Lords Boyde and Ogilby and others Barons and Gentlemen of name and quality whom they require to return to the Kings obedience and ordain Certification to be made unto them that if they did otherwise the Spiritual Sword of Excommunication should be drawn against them By which though they effected nothing which advanced the cause yet they shewed their affections and openly declared thereby to which side they inclined if they were left unto themseves And for a further evidence of their inclinations they were so temperate at that time or so obsequious to the Lords whose cause they favoured that they desisted from censuring a seditious Sermon upon an Intimation sent from the Lords of the Council that the Sermon contained some matter of Treason and therefore that the Cognizance of it belonged unto themselves and the Secular Judges 23. The Confusions still encrease amongst them the Queen of England seeming to intend nothing more then to ballance the one side by the other that betwixt both she might preserve her self in safety But in the end she yields unto the importunity of those who appeared in favour of the King assures them of her aid and succours when their needs required and recommends the Earl of Lenox as the fittest man to take the Regency upon him The Breach now widens more then ever The Lords commissionated by the Queen are possest of Edenborough and having the Castle to their Friend call a Parliament thither as the new Regent doth the like at Stirling and each pretends to have preheminence above the other The one because it was assembled in the Regal City the other because they had the Kings Person for their countenance in it Nothing more memorable in that at Edenborough then that the Queens extorted Resignation was declared null and void in Law and nothing so remarkable in the other as that the Young King made a Speech unto them which had been put into his mouth at their first setting down In each they forfeit the Estates of the opposite party and by Authority of each destroy the Countrey in all places in an hostile manner The Ministers had their parts also in these common sufferings compelled in all such places where the Queen prevailed to recommend her in their Prayers by her Name or Titles or otherwise to leave the Pulpit unto such as would In all things else the Kirk had the felicity to remain in quiet care being taken by both parties for the Preservation of Religion though in all other things at an extream difference amongst themselves But the new Regent did not long enjoy his Office of which he reaped no fruit but cares and sorrows A sudden Enterprize is made on Stirling by one of the Hamiltons on the third of September at what time both the Parliament and Assembly were there convened And he succeeded so well in it as to be brought privately into the Town to seize on all the Noblemen in their several Lodgings and amongst others to possess themselves of the Regents person But being forced to leave the place and quit their Prisoners the Regent was unfortunately kill'd by one of Hamiltons Souldiers together with the Gentleman himself unto whom he had yielded The Earl of Marre is on the fifth of the same moneth proclaimed his Successor His Successor indeed not onely in his cares and sorrows but in the shortness of his Rule for having in vain attempted Edenborough in the very beginning of his Regency he was able to effect as little in most places else more then the wasting of the Country as he did Edenborough 24. The Subjects in the mean time were in ill condition and the King worse They had already drawn their Swords against their Queen first forced her to resign the Crown and afterwards drove her out of the Kingdom And now it is high time to let the young King know what he was to trust to to which end they command a piece of Silver of the value of Five shillings to be coyned and made currant in that Kingdom on the one side whereof was the Arms of Scotland with the Name and Title of the King in the usual manner on the other side was stamped an Armed Hand grasping a naked Sword with this Inscription viz. Si bene pro me si male contra me By which the people were informed that if the King should govern them no otherwise then he ought to do they should then use the Sword for his preservation but if he governed them amiss and transgressed their Laws they should then turn the point against him Which words being said to have been used by the Emperor Trajan in his delivering of the Sword unto one of his Courtiers when he made him Captain of his Guard have since been used by some of our Presbyterian Zealots for justifying the Authority of inferior Officers in censuring the actions and punishing the persons of the Supreme Magistrate It was in the year 1552 that this learned piece of Coyn was minted but whether before or after the death of the Earl of Marre I am not able to say for he having but ill success in the course of his Government contracted such a grief of heart that he departed this life on the eighth of October when he had held that Office a little more then a year followed about seven weeks after by that great Incendiary Iohn Knox who dyed at Edenborough on the 27 of November leaving the State imbroyled in those disorders which by his fire and fury had been first occasioned 25. Morton succeeds the Earl of Marre in this broken Government when the affairs of the young King seemed to be at the worse but he had so good fortune in it as by degrees to settle the whole Realm in some Form of peace He understood so well the estate of the Countrey as to assure himself that till the Castle of Edenborough was brought under his power he should never be able to suppress that party whose stubborn standing out as it was interpreted did so offend the Queen of England that she gave order unto Drury then Marshal of Berwick to pass with some considerable Forces into Scotland for
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
further Order And it was then resolved also That if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest or detain the person of any Member of their House without first acquainting the House therewith and receiving further Order from the House that then it should be lawful for such Member or any person to resist him and to stand upon his or their guard of defence and to make resistance according to the Protestation taken to defend the Liberties of Parliament This brings the King on Tuesday morning to the Commons House attended only by His Guard and some few Gentlemen no otherwise weaponed than with Swords where having placed Himself in the Speaker's Chair He required them to deliver the Impeached Members to the hands of Justice But they had notice of His Purpose and had retired into London as their safest Sanctuary to which the whole House is adjourned also and sits in the Guild-Hall as a Grand Committee The next day brings the King to the City also where in a Speech to the Lord Mayor and Common-Council He signified the Reasons of His going to the House of Commons That He had no intent of proceeding otherwise against the Members than in a way of Legal Tryal and thereupon desired That they might not be harboured and protected in despite of Law For answer whereunto He is encountred with an insolent and sawcy Speech made by one Fowk a Member of the Common-Council concerning the Impeached Members and the King's proceedings and followed in the Streets by the Rascal-Rabble by some of which a Virulent and Seditious Pamphlet entituled Every man to his Tents O Israel is cast into His Coach and nothing sounded in His Ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament with most horrible out-cries The same night puts them into Arms with great fear and tumult upon a rumour that the King and the Cavaliers for so they called such Officers of the late Army as attended on him for their Pay had a design to sack the City who were then sleeping in their beds and little dreamed of any such Seditious practises as were then on foot for the enflaming of the people 15. And now comes Calvin's Doctrine for restraining the Power of Kings to be put in practise His Majesty's going to the House of Commons on the fourth of Ianuary is voted for so high a breach of their Rights and Priviledges as was not to be salved by any Retractation or Disclaimer or any thing by Him alledged in excuse thereof The Members are brought down in triumph both by Land and Water guarded with Pikes and Protestations to their several Houses and the forsaken King necessitated to retire to Windsor that he might not be an eye-witness of his own disgraces The Lord Digby goes to Kingston in a Coach with six Horses to bestow a visit upon Collonel Lundsford and some other Gentlemen each Horse is reckoned for a Troop and these Troops said to have appeared in a warlike manner Which was enough to cause the prevailing-party of the Lords and Commons to declare against it and by their Order of the 13 th of Ianuary to give command That all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom assisted by the Iustices and Trained-Bands of the Countrey should take care to suppress all unlawful Assemblies and to secure the Magazines of their several Counties The King's Attorney must be called in question examined and endangered for doing his duty in the impeachment of their Members that no man might hereafter dare to obey the King And though His Majesty had sent them a most Gracious Message of the twentieth of Ianuary in which He promised them to equal or exceed all Acts of Favour which any of His Predecessors had extended to the People of England yet nothing could secure them from their fears and jealousies unless the Trained-bands and the Royal Navy the Tower of London and the rest of the Forts and Castles were put into such hands as they might confide in On this the King demurrs a while but having shipped the Queen for Holland with the Princess Mary and got the Prince into his power he denies it utterly And this denial is reputed a sufficient reason to take the Militia to themselves and execute the Powers thereof without His consent 16. But leaving them to their own Councils he removes to York assembleth the Gentry of that County acquaints them with the reasons of His coming thither and desires them not to be seduced by such false reports as had been raised to the dishonour of His Person and disgrace of His Government By their Advice he makes a journey unto Hull in which he had laid up a considerable Magazine of Cannon Arms and Ammunition intended first against the Scots and afterwards designed for the Warr of Ireland but now to be made use of in his own defence And possibly He might have got it into His possession if He had kept His own Counsel and had not let some words fall from Him in a Declaration which betrayed His purpose For hereupon Hotham a Member of their House and one of the two Knights for the County of York is sent to Garrison the Town who most audaciously refused to give him entrance though he was then accompanied with no more than his private Guards and for so doing is applauded and indempnified by the rest of the Members This sends him back again to York and there he meets as great a Baffle as he did at Hull For there he is encountred with a new Committee from the House of Commons consisting of Ferdinand Lord Fairfax Sir Henry Cholmnly Sir Hugh Cholmnly and Sir Philip Stapleton sent thither on purpose to serve as Spies upon his actions to undermine all his proceedings and to insinuate into the people that all their hopes of peace and happiness depended on their adhering to the present Parliament And they applied themselves to their Instructions with such open Confidence that the King had not more meetings with the Gentry of that County in his Palace called the Mannor-house than they had with the Yeomanry and Free-holders in the great Hall of the Deanry All which the King suffered very strangely and thereby robbed himself of the opportunity of raising an Army in that County with which he might have marched to London took the Hen sitting on her Nest before she had hatched and possibly prevented all those Calamities which after followed 17. But to proceed during these counter-workings betwixt them and the King the Lords and Commons plied him with continual Messages for his return unto the Houses and did as frequently endeavour to possess the people with their Remonstrances and Declarations to his disadvantage To each of which his Majesty returned a significant Answer so handsomely apparelled and comprehending in them such a strength of Reason as gave great satisfaction to all equal and unbyassed men None of these Messages more remarkable than that which brought the Nineteen Propositions to his Majesty's hands In which it was desired
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
but that to wait at her Chamber-door or elsewhere and then to have no further liberty then to whisper in her ear what he had to say or to tell her what others did speak of her was neither agreeable to his vocation nor could stand with his Conscience 38. At Midsummer they held a general Assembly and there agreed upon the Form of a Petition to be presented to the Queen in the name of the Kirk the substance of it was for abolishing the Mass and other superstitious Rites of the Romish Religion for inflicting some punishment against Blasphemie Adultery contempt of the Word the Profanation of Sacraments and other like vices condemned by the Word of God whereof the Laws of the Realm did not take any hold for referring all actions of Divorce to the Churches judgement or at the least to men of good knowledge and conversation for excluding all Popish Church-men from holding any place in Council or Session and finally for the increase and more assured payment of the Ministers Stipends but more particularly for appropriating the Glebes and Houses unto them alone This was the sum of their desires but couched in such irreverent coarse and bitter expressions and those expressions justified with such animosities that Lethington had much ado to prevail upon them for putting it into a more dutiful and civil Language All which the Queen knew well enough and therefore would afford them no better answer but that she would do nothing to the prejudice of that Religion which she then professed and that she hoped to have Mass restored before the end of the year in all parts of the Kingdom Which being so said or so reported gave Knox occasion in his preachings to the Gentry of Kyle and Galloway to which he was commissioned by the said Assembly to forewarn some of them of the dangers which would shortly follow and thereupon earnestly to exhort them to take such order that they might be obedient unto Authority and yet not suffer the Enemies of Gods 〈◊〉 to have the upper-hand And they who understood his meaning at half a word assembled themselves together on the 4 of September at the Town of Air where they entred into a common Bond subscribed by the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Boyd and Vâ—hiliry with one hundred and thirty more of Note and Quality besides the Provost and Burgesses of the Town of Air which made forty more The tenour of which Bond was this that followeth 39. We whose names are under written do promise in the presence of God and in the presence of his Son our Lord Iesus Christ that we and every one of us shall and will maintain the Preaching of his holy Evangel now of his mercy offered and granted to this Realm and also will maintain the Ministers of the same against all persons Power and Authority that will oppose themselves to the Doctrine proposed and by us received And further with the same solemnity we protest and promise that every one of us shall assist another yea and the while Body of the Protestants within this Realm in all lawful and just occasions against all persons so that whosoever shall hurt 〈◊〉 or trouble any of our bodies shall be reputed enemies to the whole except that the offender will be content to submit himself to the Government of the Church now established amongst us And this we do as we desire to be accepted and favoured of the Lord Iesus and accepted worthy of credit and honesty in the presence of the Godly 40. And in pursuance of this Bond they seize upon some Priests and give notice to others that they would not trouble themselves of complaining to the Queen of Council but would execute the punishment appointed to Idolaters in the Law of God as they saw occasion whensoever they should be apprehended At which the Queen was much offended but there was no remedy All she could do was once again to send for Knox and to desire him so to deal with the Barons and other Gentlemen of the West that they would not punish any man for the cause of Religion as they had resolved To which he answered with as little reverence as at other times That if her Majesty would punish Malefactors according to the Laws he durst assure her that she should finde peace and quietness at the hand of those who professed the Lord Iesus in that Kingdom That if she thought or had a purpose to illude the Laws there were some who would not fail to let the Papists understand that they should not be suffered without punishment to offend their God Which said he went about to prove in a long discourse that others were by God intrusted with the Sword of Justice besides Kings and Princes which Kings and Princes if they failed in the right use of it and drew it not against Offenders they must not look to finde obedience from the rest of the Subjects 41. It is not to be doubted but that every understanding Reader will be able to collect out of all the premises both of what Judgement Knox and his Brethren were touching the Soveraignty of Kings or rather the Supreme Power invested naturally in the people of a State or Nation as also from what Fountain they derived their Doctrine and to whose sentence onely they resolved to submit the same But we must make a clearer demonstration of it before we can proceed to the rest of our History that so it may appear upon what ground and under the pretence of what Authority so many Tumults and Discords were acted on the Stage of Scotland by the Knoxian Brethren It pleased the Queen to hold a Conference with this man in the pursuit whereof they fell upon the point of resisting Princes by the Sword the lawfulness whereof was denyed by her but maintained by him The Queen demands whether Subjects having power may resist their Princes Yea Madam answered Knox if Princes do exceed their bounds and do against that wherefore they should be obeyed there is no doubt but that they may be resisted even by power For said he there is neither greater honour nor greater obedience to be given to Kings and Princes then God hath commanded to be given unto our Fathers and Mothers and yet it may so happen that the Father may be stricken with a Phrensie and in some fit attempt the slaying of his Children In which case if the Children joyn themselves together apprehend their Father take the Sword out of his hand and keep him in Prison till his Phrensie be over-past it is not to be thought that God will be offended with them for their actings in it And thereupon he doth infer that so it is with such Princes also as out of a blind Zeal would murther the Children of God which are subject to them And therefore to take the Sword from them to binde their hands and to cast them into Prison till that they may be brought to a more sober minde is not
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
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
on by her command through every County by the Sheriffs and Gentry till he came to Berwick from whence he passed safely unto Edenborough where he was welcomed with great joy by his Friends and Followers Nothing else memorable in this Treaty which concerns our History but that when Murray and the rest of the Scots Commissioners were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to give a reason of their proceedings against that Queen they justified themselves by the Authority of Calvin by which they did endeavour to prove as my Author hath it That the Popular Magistrates are appointed and made to moderate and keep in order the excess and unruliness of Kings and that it was lawful for them to put the Kings that be evil and wicked into prison and also to deprive them of their Kingdoms Which Doctrine how it relished with Queen Elizabeth may be judged by any that knows with what a Soveraign power she disposed of all things in her own Dominions without fear of rendring an account to such Popular Magistrates as Calvins Doctrine might encourage to require it of her But Calvin found more Friends in Scotland then in all the world there being no Kingdom Principality or other Estate which had herein followed Calvins Doctrine in the imprisoning deposing and expelling their own natural Prince till the Scots first led the way unto it in this sad Example 20. Between the last Parliament in Scotland and the Regents journey into England a general Assembly of the Kirk was held at Edenborough In which they entred into consideration of some disorders which had before been tolerated in the said Assemâ—ly and were thought fit to be redressed For remedy whereof it was enacted That none should be admitted to have voice in these Assemblies but Superintendents Visitors of Churches Commissioners of Shires and Vniversities together with such other Ministers to be elected or approved by the Superintendents as were of knowledge and ability to dispute and reason of such Matters as were there propounded It was ordained also That all Papists which continued obstinate after lawful admonition should be Excommunicated as also that the committers of Murther Incest Adultery and other such hainous crimes should not be admitted to make satisfaction by any particulur Church till they did first appear in the habit of penitents before the general Assembly and there receive their Order in it It was also condescended to upon the humble Supplication of the Bishop of Orkney that he should be restored unto his place from which they had deposed him for his acting in the Queens Marriage Which favour they were pleased to extend unto him upon this Condition That for removing of the scandal he should in his first Sermon acknowledge the fault which he had committed and crave pardon of God the Kirk and the State whom he had offended But their main business was to alter the Book of Discipline especially in that part of it which related to the Superinterdents whom though they countenanced for the present by the former Sanction till they had put themselves in a better posture yet they resolve to bring them by degrees to a lower station and to lay them level with the rest In reference whereunto the Regent is sollicited by their Petition that certain Lords of secret Council might be appointed to confer with some of the said Assembly touching the Pâ—lity and Jurisdiction of the Kirk and to assign some time and place to that effect that it might be done before the next Session of Parliament To which Petition they received no answer till the Iuly following But there came no great matter of it by reason of the Regents death which soon after hapned 21. For so it was that after his return from England he became more feared by some and obeyed by others then he had been formerly which made him stand more highly upon terms of Honor and Advantage when Queen Elizabeth had propounded some Conditions to him in favour of the Queen of Scots whose cause appearing desperate in the eyes of most who wished well to her they laboured to make their own peace and procure his Friendship Duke Hamilton amongst the rest negotiated for a Reconcilement and came to Edenborough to that purpose but unadvisedly interposing some delays in the business because he would not act apart from the rest of the Queens Adherents he was sent Prisoner to the Castle This puts the whole Clan of the Hamiltons into such displeasures being otherwise no good friends to the Race of the Stewarts that they resolved upon his death compassed not long after by Iames Hamilton whose life he had spared once when he had it in his power At Lithgoe on the 23 of Ianuary he was shot by this Hamilton into the belly of which wound he dyed the Murtherer escaping safely into France His death much sorrowed for by all that were affected to the Infant-King of whom he had shewed himself to be very tender which might have wiped a way the imputation of his former aspirings if the Kings death could have opened his way unto the Crown before he had made sure of the Hamiltons who pretended to it But none did more lament his death then his Friends of the Kirk who in a General Assembly which they held soon after decreed That the Murtherer should be Excommunicated in all the chief Boroughs of the Realm and That whosoever else should happen to be afterwards convicted of the Crime should be proceeded against in the same sort also And yet they were not so intent upon the prosecution of the Murtherers as not to be careful of themselves and their own Concernments They had before addressed their desires unto the Regent that remedy might be provided against chopping and changing of Benefices diminution of Rentals and setting of Tythes into long Leases to the defrauding of Ministers and their Successors That they who possessed pluralities of Benefices should leave all but one and That the Jurisdiction of the Kirk might be made separate and distinct from that of the Civil Courts But now they take the benefit of the present distractions to discharge the thirds assigned unto them from all other Incumbrances then the payment of Five thousand Marks yearly for the Kings support which being reduced to English money would not amount unto the sum of Three hundred pound and seems to be no better then the sticking up a feather in the ancient By-word when the Goose was stollen 22. As touching the distractions which emboldened them to this Adventure they did most miserably afflict the whole State of that Kingdom The Queen of Scots had granted a Commission to Duke Hamilton the Earls of Huntley and Arguile to govern that Realm in her Name and by her Authority in which they were opposed by those who for their own security more then any thing else professed their obedience to the King Great spoils and Rapines hereupon ensued upon either side but the Kings party had the worst as having neither hands enough to
his Majesty his Council and proceedings or to meddle in the Affairs of his Highness under pain of treason And lastly an Act was paâ—s'd for calling in of Buchanans History that Master-piece of Sedition intituled De jure Regni apud Sootos and that most infamous Libel which he called The Detection by which last Acts his Majesty did not onely take care for preventing the like scandalous and seditious practices for the time to come but satisfied himself by taking some revenge upon them in the times foregoing 63. The Ministers could not want intelligence of particulars before they were passed into Acts. And now or never was the time to bestir themselves when their dear Helena was in such apparent danger to be ravished from them And first it was thought necessary to send one of their number to the King to mediate either for the total dismissing of the Bills prepared or the suspending of them at the least for a longer time not doubting if they gained the last but that the first would easily follow of it self On this Errand they imploy Mr. David Lindsay Minister of the Church of Leith a man more moderate then the rest and therefore more esteemed by the King then any other of that body And how far he might have prevailed it is hard to say But Captain Iames Stewart commonly called the Earl of Arran who then governed the Affairs of that Kingdom having notice of it caused him to be arrested under colour of maintaining intelligence with the Fugitive Ministers in England imprisoned him for one night in Edenborough and sends him the next day to the Castle of Blackness where he remained almost a year Upon the news of his commitment Lawson and Belcanqual two of the Ministers of Edenborough forsake their Churchâ—s and joyn themselves unto their Brethren in England first leaving a Manifest behind them in which they published the Reasons of their sudden departure Iohn Dury so often before mentioned had lately been confined at Montross so that no Preacher was now left in Edenborough or the Port adjoyning to intercede for themselves and the Kirk in that present exigent By means whereof the Acts were passed without interruption But when they were to be proclaimed as the custom is Mr. Robert Pont Minister of St. Cutberts and one of the Senators of the Colledge of Justice for the good Ministers might act in Civil Matters though the Bishops might not took Instruments in the hands of a publick Notary and openly protested against those Acts never agreed to by the Kirk and therefore that neither the Kirk nor any of the Kirk-men were obliged to be obedient to them Which having done he fled also into England to the rest of his Brethren and being proclaimed Rebel lost his place in the Sessions 64 The flying of so many Ministers and the noise they made in England against those Acts encreased a scandalous opinion which themselves had raised of the Kings being inclined to Popery and it began to be so generally believed that the King found himself under a necessity of rectifying his reputation in the eye of the world by a publick Manifest In which he certified as well to his good subjects as to all others whatsoever whom it might concern as well the just occasion which had moved him to pass those Acts as the great Equity and Reason which appeared in them And amongst these occasions he reckoneth the justifying of the Fact at Ruthen by the publick suffrage of the Kirk Melvins declining of the judgement of the King and Council the Fast indicted at the entertainment of the French Ambassadors their frequent general Fasts proclaimed and kept in all parts of the Realm by their Authority without his privity and consent the usurping of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a certain number of Ministers and unqualified Gentlemen in the Presbyteries and Assemblies the alteration of the Laws and making new ones at their pleasure which must binde the Subject the drawing to themselves of all such Causes though properly belonging to the Courts of Justice in which was any mixture of scandal On which account they forced all those also to submit to the Churches Censures who had been accused in those Courts for Murther Theft or any like enormous crimes though the party either were absolved by the Court it self or pardoned by the King after condemnation But all this could not stop the Mouthes and much less stay the Pens of that Waspish Sect some flying out against the King in their scurrilous Libels bald Pamphlets and defamatory Rythmes others with no less violence inveighing against him in their Pulpits but most especially in England where they were out of the Kings reach and consequently might rail on without fear of punishment By them it was given out to render the King odious both at home and abroad That the King endeavoured to extinguish the light of the Gospel and to that end had caused those Acts to pass against it That he had left nothing of the whole ancient Form of Justice and Polity in the Spiritual Estate but a naked shaddow That Popery was immediately to be established if God and all good men came not in to help them That for opposing these impieties they had been forced to flee their Country and sing the Lords Song in a strange Land with many other reproachful and calumnious passages of like odious nature 65. But loosers may have leave to talk as the saying is and by this barking they declared sufficiently that they could not bite I have now brought the Presbyterians to their lowest fall but we shall see them very shortly in their resurrections In the mean time it will be seasonable to pass into England that we may see how things were carried by their Brethren there till we have brought them also to this point of time and then we shall unite them all together in the course of their story The end of the fifth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VI. Containing The beginning progress and proceedings of the Puritan-Faction in the Realm of England in reference to their Innovations both in Doctrines and Forms of Worship their Opposition to the Church and the Rules thereof from the beginning of the Reign of King Edward VI. 1548 to the Fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1572. 1. THE Reformation of the Church of England was put into so good a way by King Henry the Eighth that it was no hard matter to proceed upon his beginnings He had once declared himself so much in favour of the Church of Rome by writing against Martin Luther that he was honored with the Title of Defensor Fidei or the Defender of the Faith by Pope Leo X. Which Title he afterwards united by Act of Parliament to the Crown of this Realm not many years before his death But a breach hapning betwixt him and Pope Clement VII concerning his desired Divorce he first prohibits all appeals and other occasions of resort to
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
the honor to themselves To which end Heywood Parsons and Campian first set foot in England and both by secret practices and printed Pamphlets endeavoured to withdraw the Subjects from their due obedience Nothing more ordinary in their mouths or upon their pens then that the Crown belonged of right to the Queen of Scots That Elizabeth was to be deprived That if the Pope commanded one thing and the Queen another the Popes commands were to be obeyed and not the Queens And in a word That all the Subjects were absolued from their Allegiance and might declare as much when they found it necessary Which that it might be done with the greater safety Pope Gregory the XIII is desired to make an Explication of the former Bull. By which it should be signified to the English Catholicks that the said former Bull of Pope Pius V should remain obligatory unto none but the Hereticks onely but that the Romish Catholicks should not be bound by it as the case then stood till they should find themselves in a fit capacity to put the same in execution without fear of danger And presently upon their first entrance a Book is published by one Howlet containing many reasons for deterring the Papists from joyning in any Act of Worship with the English Protestants the going or not going to Church being from henceforth made a sign distinctive as they commonly phrased it In this year also Beza published his Schismatical Pamphlet intituled De triplici Episcopatu of which see Lib. 1. numb 47. Lib. 5. numb 40. first written at the request of Knox and other of the Presbyterians of the Kirk of Scotland that they might have the better colour to destroy Episcopacy translated afterwards into English for the self-same reason by Field of Wandsworth Against this Book Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum writ a large Discourse intituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England not published till the year 1587 when the Authority thereof was most highly stood on The like done afterward by Dr. Hadrian Savavia of which we shall speak more in its proper place 23. And now the waters are so troubled that Cartwright might presume of gainful fishing at his coming home Who having settled the Presbytery in Iersey and Guernsey first sends back Snape to his old Lecture at Northampton there to pursue such Orders and Directions as they had agreed on and afterwards put himself into the Factory of Antwerp and was soon chosen for their Preacher The news whereof brings Travers to him who receives Ordination if I may so call it by the Presbytery of that City and thereupon is made his Partner in that charge It was no hard matter for them to perswade the Merchants to admit that Discipline which in their turns might make them capable of voting in the Publick Consistory And they endeavoured it the rather that by their help they might effect the like in the City of London whensoever they should find the times to be ready for them The like they did also in the English Church at Middleborough the chief Town in Zealand in which many English Merchants had their constant residence To which two places they drew over many of the English Nation to receive admission to the Ministery in a different Form from that which was allowed in the Church of England Some of which following the example of Cartwright himself renounced the Orders which they had from the hands of the Bishops and took a new Vocation from these Presbyters as Fennor Arton c. and others there admitted to the rank of Ministers which never were ordained in England as Hart Guisin c. not to say any thing of such as were elected to be Elders or Deacons in those Forreign Consistories that they might serve the Churches in the same capacity at their coming home And now at last they are for England where Travers puts himself into the service of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by whose Recommendation he is chosen Lecturer of the Temple Church which gave him opportunity for managing all affairs which concerned the Discipline with the London-Ministers Cartwright applies himself to the Earl of Leicester by whom he is sent down to Warwick and afterwards made Master of an Hospital of his Foundation In the chief Church of which Town he was pleased to preach as often as he could dispense with his other business At his admission to which place he faithfully promised if he might be but tolerated to Preach not to impugne the Laws Orders Policy Government nor Governours in this Church of England but to perswade and procure so much as he could both publickly and privately the estimation and peace of this Church 24. But scarce was he setled in the place when he made it manifest by all his actions how little care he took of his words and promises for so it was when any Minister either in private Conferences or by way of Letters required his advice in any thing which concerned the Church he plainly shewed his mislike of the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law Established and excepted against divers parts of the Publick Liturgie according to the Tenour of the two Admonitions by him formerly published By means whereof he prevailed with many who had before observed the Orders of the Common-prayer-book now plainly to neglect the same and to oppose themselves against the Government of Bishops as far as they might do it safely in relation to the present times And that he might not press those points to others which he durst not practice in himself he many times inveighed against them in his Prayers and Sermons The like he also did against many pâ—ssages in the Publick Liturgie as namely The use of the Surplice the Interrogatories to God-fathers in the name of Infants the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Thanksgiving after Child-birth Burials by Ministers the kneeling at Communions some points of the Litany certain Collects and Prayers the reading of Portions of Scripture for the Epistle and Gospel and the manner of singing in Cathedral Churches And for example unto others he procured his Wife not to give thanks for her Delivery from the peril of Childbirth after such Form and in such place and manner as the Church required Which as it drew on many other women to the like contempt so might he have prevailed upon many more if he had not once discoursed upon matters of Childbirth with such in discretion that some of the good Wives of Warwick were almost at the point to stone him as he walked the streets But that he might not seem to pull down more with one hand then he would be thought sufficiently able to build up with both he highly magnified in some of his Sermons the Government of the Church by Elderships in each Congregation and by more Publick Conferences in Classical and Synodical Meetings which he commended for the onely lawful Church-Government as being of Divine Institution and ordained by
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
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-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
London-Brethren became forthwith bindiâ—g to the rest none being admitted into any of the aforesaid Classes before he hath promised under his hand That he would submit himself and be obedient unto all such Orders and Decrees as are set down by the Classis to be observed At these Classes they enquired into the Life and Doctrine of all that had subscribed unto them censuring some deposing others as they saw occasion in nothing more severe than in censuring those who had formerly used the Cross in Baptism or otherwise had been conâ—ormable to the Rules of the Church And unto every Classis there belonged a Register who took the Heads of all that passed and saw them carefully entred in a Book for that purpose that they might remain upon Record 22. It may seem strange that in a constituted Church backed by Authority of Law and countenanced by the Favour of the Supreme Magistrate a distinct Government or Discipline should be put in practise in contempt of both but more that they should deal in such weighty matters as were destructive of the Government by Law established Some Questions had before been started at a Meeting in Cambridg the final decision whereof was thought fit to be referred to the Classis of Warwick where Cartwright governed as the perpetual Moderator And they accordingly assembling on the tenth day of the fourth Month for so they phrased it did then and there determine in this manner follow That private Baptism is unlawful That it is not lawful to read Homilies in the Church and that the sign of the Cross is not to be used in Baptism That the Faithful ought not to communicate with unlearned Ministers although they may be present at their Service in case they come of purpose to hear a Sermon the reading of the Service being looked on as a Lay-man's Office That the Calling of Bishops c. is unlawful That as they deal in Causes Ecclesiastical there is no duty belonging to them nor any publickly to be given them That it is not lawful to be ordained by them into the Ministry or to denounce either Suspensions or Excommunications sent by their Authority that it is not lawful for any man to rest in the Bishop's deprivation of him from his Charge except upon consultation it seem good unto his Flock and the Neighbouring-Ministers but that he continue in the same until he be compelled to the contrary by Civil Force That it is not lawful to appear in a Bishop's Court but with a Protestation of their unlawfulness That Bishops are not to be acknowledged either for Doctors Elders or Deacons as having no ordinary Calling in the Church of Christ. That touching the restauration of the Ecclesiastical Discipline it ought to be taught to the people datâ occasione as occasion should serve and that as yet the people are not to be sollicited publickly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledg of it And finally That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing the Discipline and the practise of it as far as they shall be well able with the Peace of the Church 23. But here we are to understand That this last Caution was subjoined in the close of all not that they had a care of the Church's Peace but that they were not of sufficient strength to disturb the same without drawing ruine on themselves which some of the more hot-headed Brethren were resolved to hazzard of which they had some loss this year by the Imprisonment of Barrow Greenwood Billet Boudler and Studley who building on their Principles and following the Example of Robert Brown before remembred had brake out into open Schism when their more cunning Brethren kept themselves within the Pale of the Church But these we only touch at now leaving the further prosecution of them to a fitter place Suffice it that their present sufferings did so little moderate the heats of some fiery spirits that they resolved to venture all for the Holy Discipline as appears by Pain 's Letter unto Feild Our zeal to Gods Glory saith he our love to his Church and the due planting of the same in this For-headed Age should be so warm and stirring in us as not to care what adventure we give or what censures we abide c. For otherwise the Diabolical boldness of the Iesuits and Seminaries will cover our faces with shame c. And then he adds It is verily more than time to register the Names of the fittest and hottest Brethren round about our several dwellings whereby to put the godly Counsel of Specanus in execution Note that Specanus was one of the first Presbyterian Ministers in the Belgick Churches that is to say Si quis objiciat c. If any man object That the setting up the lawful practise of the Discipline in the Church be hindred by the Civil Magistrate let the Magistrate be freely and modestly admonished of his duty in it and if he esteem to be accounted either a Godly or Christian Magistrate without doubt he will admit wholesome Counsels but if he do not yet let him be more exactly instructed that he may serve God in fear and lend his Authority in defence of God's Church and his Glory Marry if by this way there happen no good success then let the Ministers of the Church execute their Office according to the appointment of Christ for they must rather obey God than men In which last point saith Pain we have dolefully failed which now or never stands us in hand to prosecute with all celerity without lingring or staying so long for Parliaments But this Counsel of Paine being thought too rash in regard they could not find a sufficient number of Brethren to make good the Action it was thought fit to add the Caution above-mentioned The Hundred thousand Hands which they so much bragged of were not yet in readiness and therefore it was wisely ordered That as yet the whole multitude were not to be allured publickly to the practise of it until men were better instructed in the knowledg of so rare a Mystery Till when it could not be safe for them to advance their Discipline in the way of force 24. Now to prepare the people for the entertainment of so great a Change it was found necessary in the first place to return an Answer to some Books which had been written in defence of Episcopal Government and in the next to make the Bishops seem as odious and contemptible in the eyes of their Profelytes as Wit and Malice could devise Dr. Iohn Bridges Dean of Sarum and afterwards Bishop of Oxford published a Book in the year 1587 entâ—tuled A Defence of the Government of the Church of England intended chiefly against Beza but so that it might serve to satisfie all Doubts and Cavils which had been made against that Government by the English Puritans To which an Answer is returned by some zealous Brethren under the Name of A
distinctly assure him upon their Credits That by the Laws of the Realm he was bound to take the Oath required for making a true answer unto the Interrogatories which were to be propounded to him To which he made no other Answer but that he could find no such thing in the Law of God and so continuing in his obstinacy was committed also But the Commissioners having spent some time in preparing the matter and thinking the cognizance thereof more fitter for the Star-Chamber referred both the Persons and the Cause to the care of that Court. In which an Information was preferred against them by the Queen's Attorney for setting forth and putting in practise without warrant and authority a new form of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments together with the Presbyterial Discipline not allowed by Law Upon the news whereof the Brethren enter into consultation as well about some course to be presently taken for relief of the Prisoners as for the putting of their Discipline into further practise What the result was may be gathered from a Letter of Wiggingtons one of the hottest heads amongst them in which he thus writes to Porter of Lancaster viz. Mr. Cartwright is in the Fleet for refusing the Oath as I hear and Mr. Knewstubs is sent for and sundry worthy Ministers are disquieted who have been spared long So that we look for some bickering ere long and then a Battel which cannot long endure 5. But before any thing could be done upon either side in order to the proceedings of the Coâ—rt or the release of the Prisoners there brake out such a dangerous Treason as took up all the thoughts of the Lords of the Council and the Brethren too The Brethren had so fixed their Fancies on the Holy Discipline and entertained such strange devices to promote the same beyond the warrant of God's Word and the Rule of Law that at the last God gave them up to strong delusions and suffered them to be transported by their own ill spirits to most dangerous downfalls One Coppinger a Gentleman of a very good Family had been so wrought upon by some of the chief Factors to the Presbyterians that he became a great admirer of their Zeal and Piety and being acquainted with one Arthington a Lay Genevian but very zealous in the Cause he adviseth with him of some means for the good of the Prisoners But upon long deliberation they could think of no course at all unless it would please God by some extraordinary Calling to stir up some zealous Brethren to effect their desires and if God pleased to take that way why might not one or both of them be chosen as fit Instruments in so great a service than whom they knew of none more able and of few more zealous On these Preparatories they betake themselves to Prayer and Fasting hold a strict Fast together on the 15 th of December and then began to â—ind themselves extraordinarily exercised as appears by their Letters writ to Lancaster in whose House they held it Immediately upon this Fact Coppinger takes a journey into Kent and fancies by the way that he was admitted to a familiar Conference with God himself that he received from Him many strange Directions to be followed by him whensoever God should please to use his service for the good of His Church and more particularly that he was shewed a way to bring the Queen to repentance and to cause all the Nobles to do the like out of hand or else to prove them to be Traytors to Almighty God Another Fast is held by him and Arthington at his coming back in which he finds himself more strongly stirred to a matter of some great importance than he was before of which he gives notice unto Gibson in Scotland by his Letter of the last of December and afterward to Wiggington above-mentioned by them to be communicated to the rest of the Brethren Another Fast follows upon this at which Wiggington and some others did vouchsafe their presence who had before confirmed them in the fancy of some such extraordinary Calling as he seemed to drive at With the intention of this last Cartwright and other of the Prisoners were made acquainted before-hand to the intent that by the benefit of their secret prayers the Action might be crowned with an End more glorious And the same night Coppinger finds himself in Heaven exceedingly astonished at the Majesty of Almighty God but very much comforted by the Vision and every day more and more encouraged to some great Work which he communicates at several times and by several Letters to Cartwright Travers Clark c. amongst the Preachers and from the Lay-Brethren unto Lancaster and Sir Peter Wentworth 6. And now we must make room for another Actor a greater Zealot than the other and one that was to rob them of the glory of their Dreams and Dotages Hacket an inconsiderable Fellow both for Parts and Fortune pretends to a more near Familiarity with Almighty God than either of the other durst aspire to A Wretch of such a desperate Malice that bearing an old grudg to one that had been his School-Master he bit off his Nose And when the poor man humbly prayed him to let him have it again to the end it might be sowed on before it was cold he most barbarously chewed it with his teeth and so swallowed it down After this having wasted that small Estate which he had by his Wife he becomes a Proselyte pretends at first to more than ordinary zeal for a Reformation and afterwards to extraordinary Revelations for the compassing of it This brings him into the acquaintance of some zealous Ministers who were then furiously driving on for the Holy Discipline but none more than Wiggington before remembred who brings him presently to Coppinger at such time as the poor man was raised to the height of his Follies Hacket had profited so well in the School of Hypocrisie that by his counterfeit-holiness his fervent and continual praying ex tempore fasting upon the Lord's Days making frequent brags of his Conflicts with Satan and pretending to many personal Conferences with the Lord Himself that he became of great esteem with the rest of the Brethren insomuch that some of them did not stick to say not only that he was one of God's beloved but greater in His Favour than Moses or Iohn the Baptist. And he himself made shew That he was a Prophet sent to foretell God's Judgments where His Mercies were neglected prophesying That there should be no more Popes and that England this present Year should be afflicted with Famine Warr and Pestilence unless the Lord's Discipline and Reformation were forthwith admitted These men being both governed by the same ill spirit were mutually over-joyed at this new acquaintance and forthwith entred into counsel for freeing Cartwright Snape and the rest of the Ministers not only from the several Prisons in which they lay but from the danger of their Censure in the
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
do somewhat which is worse p. 85. Which notwithstanding they gave out That all was theirs and that they had obtained an absolute Victory but more particularly that the King gratified Dr. Reynolds in every thing which he proposed and that Dr. Reynolds obtained and prevailed in every thing they did desire That if any man report the contrary he doth lye and that they could give him the lye from Dr. Reynolds his mouth that these things now obtained by the Reformers were but the beginning of Reformation the greater matters being yet to come That my Lord of Winton stood mute and said little or nothing That my Lord of London called Dr. Reynolds Schismatick he thanks him for it but otherwise said little to the purpose That the King's Majesty used the Bishops with very hard words but embraced Dr. Reynolds and used most kind speeches to him That my Lord of Canterbury and my Lord of London falling on their knees besought his Majesty to take their Cause into his own Hands and to make some good end of it such as might stand with their Credit 7. All this and more they scattered up and down in their scurrilous Papers to keep up the spirits of their Party two of which coming to the hands of Dr. Barlow before-mentioned he caused them to be published at the end of the Conference The Truth and Honesty of whose Collections having been universally approved above fifty years hath been impugned of late by some sorry Scriblers of the Puritan Faction and a report raised of some Retractation which he is fabled to have made at the time of his death of the great wrong which he had done to Dr. Reynolds and the rest of the Millenaries The silliness of which Fiction hath been elsewhere canvased and therefore not to be repeated in this time and place But for the clearing of that Reverend person from so soul a Calumny we shall not make use of any other Argument than the words of K. IAMES who tells us in his Proclamation of the fifth of March that he could not conceal That the success of that Conferrence was such as hapneth to many other things which moving great expectations before they be entred into in their issue produce small effects That he found mighty and vehement Informations supported with so weak and slender Proofs as it appeared unto him and his Council that there was no cause why any change should be in that which was most impugned namely the Book of Common-Prayer containing the publick Service of God here established nor in the Doctrine which appeared to be sincere nor in the Forms and Rites which were justified out of the practise of the primitive Churrh And finally that though with the consent of the Bishops and other Learned men then and there assembled some passages therein were rather explained than altered yet that the same might very well have been born amongst such men who would have made a reasonable construction of them Which I conceive to be sufficient for the vindication of that Learned Prelate for clearing him from doing any injury to Dr. Reynolds in the repeating of his words as is suggested by some Puritan Scriblers of these present times 8. But to proceed this Conference was followed with the Proclamation of the fifth of March in which his Majesty having first declared the occasion and success thereof in the words formerly laid down proceeds to signifie the present course which he had taken for causing the Book of Common-Prayer to be so explained and being so explained to be forthwith Printed not doubting but that all his Subjects both Ministers and others would receive the same with due reverence and conform themselves to it Which notwithstanding he conceived it necessary to make known his Authorizing of the same by his Proclamation and by that Proclamation to require and enjoyn all men as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal to conform themselves thereunto as to the only publick Form of serving God established and allowed in this Realm Which said he lays a strict Command on all Arch-bishops and Bishops and all other publick Ministers as well Ecclesiastical as Civil for causing the same to be observed and punishing all Offenders to the contrary according to the Laws of the Realm made in that behalf Finally He admonisheth all his Subjects of what sort soever not to expect hereafter any Alteration in the publick Form of God's Service from that which he had then established And this he signified as afterward it followeth in the said Proclamation because that he neither would give way to any to presume that his Judgment having determined in a matter of such weight should be swayed to any Alteration by the Frivolous Suggestions of any leight head nor could be ignorant of the inconveniencies that do arise in Government by admitting Innovation in things once setled by mature deliberation and how necessary it was to use constancy in the publick Determinations of all States for that saith he such is the unquietness and unsteadfastness of some dispositions affecting every year new Forms of things as if they should be followed in their unconstancy would make all Actions of State ridiculous and contemptible whereas the steadfast maintaining of things by good Advice established is the Preservative and Weal of all publick Governments 9. The main Concernments of the Church being thus secured his Majesty proceeds to his first Parliament accompanied as the custom is with a Convocation which took beginning on the twentieth day of March then next ensuing In the Parliament there passed some Acts which concerned the Church as namely one for making void all Grants and Leases which should be made of any of the Lands of Arch-bishops and Bishops to the King's Majesty or any of his Heirs and Successors for more than One and twenty years or Three Lives Which Act was seasonably procured by Bishop Bancroft to prevent the begging of the Scots who otherwise would have picked the Church to the very bone There also past an Act for the repealing of a Statute in the Reign of Queen Mary by means whereof the Statute of King Edward the sixth touching the Lawfulness of Ministers Marriages were revived again as in the Millenary Petition was before desired And either by the Practise of some Puritan Zealots who had their Agents in all corners or by the carelesness and connivence of his Majesty's Council learned in the Laws of this Realm who should have had an eye upon them that Statute of K. EDWARD was revived also by which it was enacted That all Processes Citations Judgments c. in any of the Ecclesiastical Courts should be issued in the King's Name and under the King's Seal of Arms which afterwards gave some colour to the Puritan Faction for creating trouble to the Bishops in their Jurisdiction The Convocation was more active some days before the sitting whereof the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift departs this life and leaves it to the managing of Dr. Richard Bancroft Bishop of London
in the Liturgy should be expunged and others altered to the worse That Decency and Reverence in officiating God's publick Service should be brought within the compass of Innovations That Doctrinal Calvinism should be entertained in all parts of the Church and all their Sabbath-Speculations though contrary to Calvin's Judgment super-added to it But before any thing could be concluded in those weighty matters the Commons set their Bill on foot against Root and Branch for putting down all Bishops and Cathedral Churches which put a period to that Meeting without doing any thing And though the Bill upon a full debate thereon amongst the Peers was cast out of that House and was not by the course of Parliaments to be offered again yet contrary to all former Custom it was prest from one time to another till in the end they gained the point which they so much aimed at Hereupon followed some Petitions from the Universities in favour of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches without which Learning must be destitute of its chief encouragements and some Petitions from whole Counties in behalf of Episcopacy without which there was like to be no preservative against Sects and Heresies But nothing was more memorable than the inter-pleadings in the House of Commons between Dr. Iohn Hâ—cket one of the Prebendaries of St. Pauls and Arch-Deacon of Bedford and Dr. Cornelius Burges a right doubty Disputant but better skilled in drawing down his Myrmidons than in mustering Arguments the issue of whose Plea was this That though Cathedrals were unnecessary and the Quire-men scandalous yet that their Lands could not be alienated unto private persons without guilt of Sacriledg 9. But little did this edifie with the Leading-part in the House of Commons who were resolved to practise on the Church by little and little and at the last to play at sweep-stake and take all together First therefore they began with taking down the Starr-Chamber and the High Commission without which Courts the Subjects could not easily be kept in order nor the Church from Faction And in the Act for taking down the Court of the High Commission a clause is cunningly inserted which plainly took away all Coercive Power which had been vested in the Bishops and their Under-Officers disabling them from imposing any pain or penalty and consequently from inflicting all Church-Censures on notorious sinners Their Jurisdiction being thus gone it was not likely that their Lands should stay long behind though in good manners it was thought convenient to strip them first from having any place or suffrage in the House of Peers And when they once were rendred useless to the Church and State the Lands would follow of themselves without any great trouble And that they might attain the end which they so much aimed at Burges draws down his Myrmidons to the Doors of he Parliament and teacheth them to cry No Bishops No Bishops with their wonted violence By which confused Rabble some indignities and affronts are very frequently put upon them either in keeping them off from landing if they came by water or offer violence to their persons if they came by Land Which multiplied Injuries gave such just cause of fear and trouble that they withdrew themselves from the House of Peers but sent withall a Protestation to preserve their Rights In which it was declared That all Acts made or to be made in the time of their absence considering their absenâ—e was inforced not voluntary should be reputed void and null to all intents and purposes in the Law whatsoever This Protestation being tendred in the House of Peers communicated to the House of Commons and the supposed offence extreamly aggravated by the Lord Keeper Littleton the Bishops are impeached of Treason nine of them sent Prisoners to the Tower and two committed to the custody of the Gentleman-Usher 10. And there we leave them for a while to look into the Fortunes of the publick Liturgy not like to stand when both the Scots and English Presbyterians did conspire against it The Fame whereof had either caused it totally to be laid aside or performed by halfs in all the Counties where the Scots were of strength and power and not much better executed in some Churches of London wherein that Faction did as much predominate as if it had been under the protection of a Scottish Army But the first great interruption which was made at the officiating of the publick Liturgy was made upon a Day of Humiliation when all the Members of the House of Commons were assembled together at St. Margaret's in Westminster At what time as the Priest began the second Service at the Holy Table some of the Puritans or Presbyterians began a Psalm and were therein followed by the rest in so loud a Tune that the Minister was thereby forced to desist from his duty and leave the Preacher to perform the rest of that day's Solemnity This gave encouragement enough to the rest of that Party to set as little by the Liturgy in the Countrey as they did in the City especially in all such usages and rights thereof as they were pleased to bring within the compass of Innovations But they were more encouraged to it by an Order of the Lower-House bearing date on the 8 th of September Anno 1641. By which all Church-Wardens were required in their several Parishes to remove the Holy Table from the East-end of the Chancel to any other part of the Church to take away the Ralis before it and not to suffer any Tapers Candlesticks or Basons to be placed upon it It was required also by the same That there should be no bowing at the Name of Jesus nor adoration toward the East nor any reverence used in men's approaches to the Holy Table And by the same all Dancing and other lawful Recreations were prohibited on their Lord's-day-Sabbath after the duties of the Day and Catechising turned into After-noon-Sermons directly contrary to His Majesty's Declarations and Instructions given in that behalf And though the Lords refused to join with them in that Vote and sent them back unto an Order of the 16 th of Ianuary by which they had confirmed and enjoined the use of the Liturgy yet Pym commands the Order to be put in execution by a Warrant under his own hand only and that too during the Recess when almost all the Lords and Commons had retired themselves to their several dwellings 11. Hereupon followed such an alteration in all Churches and Chappels that the Church-Wardens pulled down more in a Week or two than all the Bishops and Clergy had been able to raise in two Weeks of years And hereupon there followed such irreverences ni God's publick Service and such a discontinuance of it in too many places that His Majesty was compelled to give new life to it by His Proclamation of the tenth of December and taking order in the same for punishing all the wilful Contemners and Disburbers of it But this Proclamation being published in that point
a fresh Body of Horse which reach'd him not until the Evening before the fight and secondly by the intercepting of some Letters sent from General Goring in which His Majesty was advised to decline all occasion of Battel till he could come up to him with his Western Forces This hastned the Design of fighting in the adverse Party who fall upon the King's Army in the Fields near Naisby till that time an obscure Village in Northamptonshire on Saturday the 19th of Iune the Battels joined and at first His Majesty had the better of it and might have had so at the last if Prince Rupert having routed one Wing of the Enemy's Horse had not been so intent upon the chase of the Flying-Enemy that he left his Foot open to the other Wing Who pressing hotly on them put them to an absolute Rout and made themselves Masters of his Camp Carriage and Cannon and amongst other things of His Majesty's Cabinet In which they found many of his Letters most of them written to the Queen which afterwards were published by Command of the Houses to their great dishonour For whereas the Athenians on the like success had intercepted a Packet of Letters from Philip King of Macedon their most bitter Enemy unto several Friends they met with one amongst the rest to the Queen Olympias the rest being all broke open before the Council that they might be advertised of the Enemy's purposes the Letter to the Queen was returned untouch't the whole Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to pry into the Conjugal Secrets betwixt Man and Wife A Modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Hilladius Bisantinus an ancient Writer as the chief Leading-men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for want of it in succeeding Stories 47. But to proceed this miserable Blow was followed by the surrendry of Bristol the storming of Bridgwater the surprise of Hereford and at the end of Winter with the loss of Chester During which time the King moved up and down with a Running-Army but with such ill Fortune as most commonly attends a declining-side In which distress he comes to his old Winter-Quarters not out of hope of bringing his Affairs to a better condition before the opening of the Spring From Oxon he sends divers Messages to the Houses of Parliament desiring that He might be suffered to return to Westminster and offering for their security the whole Power of the Kingdom the Navy Castles Forts and Armies to be enjoyed by them in such manner and for so long time as they had formerly desired But finding nothing from them but neglect and scorn His Messages despised and His Person vilified He made an offer of Himself to Fairfax who refused also Tired with repulse upon repulse and having lost the small remainder of His Forces near Stow on the Wold He puts Himself in the beginning of May into the hands of the Scots Commissioners residing then at Southwell in the County of Nottingham a Mannor-House belonging to the See of York For the Scots having mastered the Northern parts in the year 1644 spent the next year in harrasing the Countrey even as far as Hereford which they besieged for a time and perhaps had carried it if they had not been called back by the Letters of some special Friends to take care of Scotland then almost reduced to the King's obedience by the Noble Marquess of Montross On which Advertisement they depart from Hereford face Worcester and so marcht Northward From whence they presently dispatch Col. David Leshly with Six thousand Horse and with their Foot employed themselves in the Siege of Newark which brought down their Commissioners to Southwell before remembred From thence the King is hurried in post-haste to the Town of Newcastle which they looked on as their strongest Hold. And being now desirous to make eeven with their Masters to receive the wages of their Iniquity and being desirous to get home in safety with that Spoil and Plunder which they had gotten in their marching and re-marching betwixt Tweed and Hereford they prest the King to fling up all the Towns and Castles which remained in His Power or else they durst not promise to continue Him under their Protection 48. This Turn seemed strange unto the King Who had not put Himself into the Power of the Scots had He not been assured before-hand by the French Ambassador of more courteous usage to whom the Scots Commissioners had engaged themselves not only to receive His Person but all those also which repaired unto Him into their protection as the King signified by His Letters to the Marquess of Ormond But having got Him into their Power they forget those Promises and bring Him under the necessity of writing to the Marquesses of Montross and Ormond to discharge their Soldiers and to His Governours of Towns in England to give up their Garrisons Amongst which Oxford the then Regal City was the most considerable surrendred to Sir Thomas Fairfax upon Midsommer-day And by the Articles of that Surrendry the Duke of York was put into the Power of the Houses of Parliament together with the Great Seal the Signet and the Privy-Seal all which were most despitefully broken in the House of Peers as formerly the Dutch had broke the Seals of the King of Spain when they had cast off all Fidelity and Allegiance to him and put themselves into the Form of a Common-wealth But then to make him some amends they give him some faint hopes of suffering him to bestow a visit on his Realm of Scotland his ancient and native Kingdom as he commonly called it there to expect the bettering of his Condition in the changes of time But the Scots hearing of his purpose and having long ago cast off the yoke of subjection voted against his coming in a full Assembly so that we may affirm of him as the Scripture doth of our Saviour Christ viz. He came unto his own and his own received him not John cap. 1.2 The like resolution was taken also by the Commissioners of that Nation and the chief Leaders of their Army who had contracted with the two Houses of Parliament and for the sum of Two hundred thousand pounds in ready money sold and betrayed him into the hands of his Enemies as certainly they would have done the Lord Christ himself for half the money if he had bowed down the Heavens and came down to visit them Being delivered over unto such Commissioners as were sent by the Houses to receive him he was by them conducted on the third of February to his House of Holdenby not far from the good Town of Northampton where he was kept so close that none of his Domestick Servants no not so much as his own Chaplains were suffered to have any access unto him And there we leave him for the present but long he shall not be permitted to continue there as shall be shewn hereafter in due place and time
Government Amongst which no small care was taken for making twelve Classes of the Ministers of London only and after for dividing each particular County into several Classes with reference to the largeness and extent thereof Which Orders and Directions were after seconded by the Ordinance of October the twentieth containing certain Rules for the suspension of scandalous and ignorant persons from the holy Supper and giving power to certain persons therein named to sit as Judges and Tryers as well concerning the Election as the Integrity and Ability of all such men as are elected Elders within any of the Twelve Classes of the Province of London It is not to be thought but that the London-Elderships made sufficient haste to put themselves into the actual possession of their new Authority But in the Countrey most men were so cold and backward that the Lower-House was fain to quicken them with some fresh Resolves by which it was required on the twentieth of February That choice be forthwith made of Elders thoroughout the Kingdom according to such former Directions as had past both Houses and that all Classes and Parochial Congregations should be thereby authorised effectually to proceed therein And that the Church might be supplied with able Ministers in all times succeeding the Power of Ordination formerly restrained to certain persons residing in and about the City of London according to the Ordinance of the second of October 1644. is now communicated to the Ministers of each several Classes as men most like to know the wants of the Parish-Churches under their Authority 53. But here it is to be observed that in the setling of the Presbyterian Government in the Realm of England as the Presbyteries were to be subordinate to the Classical Provincial and National Assemblies of the Church so were they all to be subordinate to the Power of the Parliament as appears plainly by the Ordinance of the fourteenth of March which makes it quite another thing from the Scottish Presbyteries and other Assemblies of that Kirk which held themselves to be supream and unaccountable in their actings without respect unto the King the Parliament and the Courts of Justice But the truth is that as the English generally were not willing to receive that yoak so neither did the Houses really intend to impose it on them though for a while to hold fair quarter with the Scots they seemed forward in it And this appears sufficiently by a Declaration of the House of Commons published on the seventeenth of April 1646 in which they signifie That they were not able to consent to the granting of an Arbitrary and unlimited Power and Iurisdiction to near Ten thousand Iudicatories to be erected in the Kingdom which could not be consistent with the Fundamental Laws and Government of it and which by necessary consequence did exclude the Parliament from having any thing to do in that Iurisdiction On such a doubtful bottom did Presbytery stand till the King had put himself into the Power of the Scots and that the Scots had posted him in all haste to the Town of Newcastle Which caused the Lords and Commons no less hastily to speed their Ordinance of the fifth of Iune For the present setling of the Presbyterial Government without further delay as in the Title is exprest And though it was declared in the end of that Ordinance That it was to be in force for three years only except the Houses should think fit to continue it longer yet were the London-Ministers so intent upon them that they resolve to live no longer in suspence but to proceed couragiously in the execution of those several Powers which both by Votes and Ordinances were intrusted to them And to make known to all the World what they meant to do they published a Paper with this Title that is to say Certain Considerations and Cautions agreed upon by the Ministers of London and Westminster and within the Lines of Communication Iune the nineteenth 1646. According to which they resolve to put the Presbyterial Government into execution upon the Ordinances of Parliament before published 54. In which conjuncture it was thought expedient by the Houses of Parliament to send Commissioners to Newcastle and by them to present such Propositions to his Sacred Majesty as they conceived to be agreeable to his present condition In the second of which it was desired That according to the laudable Example of his Royal Father of happy memory he would be pleased to swear and sign the Solemn League and Covenant and cause it to be taken by Acts of Parliament in all his Kingdoms and Estates And in the third it was proposed That a Bill should pass for the utter abolishing and taking away of Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Commissaries Deans c. as they occur before in the Oxon Articles Num. 21. That the Assembly of Divines and Reformation of Religion according to the said Covenant should be forthwith setled and confirmed by Act of Parliament and that such unity and uniformity between the Churches of both Kingdoms should in like manner be confirmed by Act of Parliament as by the said Covenant was required after Advice first had with the Divines of the said Assembly It was required also in the said Propositions That he should utterly divest himself of all power to protect his people by putting the Militia into the hands of the Houses and that he should betray the greatest part of the Lords and Gentry which had adhered unto him in the course of the Warr to a certain ruin some of which were to be excluded from all hope of Pardon as to the saving of their Lives others to forfeit their Estates and to lose their Liberties the Clergy to remain under sequestration the Lawyers of both sorts to be disabled from the use of their Callings Demands of such unreasonable and horrid nature as would have rendred him inglorious and contemptible both at home and abroad if they had been granted 55. These Propositions were presented to him on the eleventh day of Iuly at Newcastle by the Earls of Pembroke and Suffolk of the House of Peers Erle Hipisly Robinson and Goodwin from the House of Commons Of whom his Majesty demanded Whether they came impowred to treat with him or not And when they answered That they had no Authority so to do He presently replied That then the Houses might as well have sent their Propositions by an honest Trumpeter and so parted with them for the present His Majesty had spent the greatest part of his time since he came to Newcastle in managing a dispute about Church-Government with Mr. Alexander Henderson the most considerable Champion for Presbytery in the Kirk of Scotland Henderson was possest of all advantages of Books and Helps which might enable him to carry on such a Disputation But His Majesty had the better Cause and the stronger Arguments Furnished with which though destitute of all other Helps than what he had within himself he prest his Adversary so hard
it pleased God to put into the heart of the late Queen Our most dear Sister to permit and allow unto the Isles of Jersey and â—uernsey parcel of the Dutchy of Normandy the use of the â—â—â—â—ment of the Reformed Churches of the said Dutchy whereof they have stood possessed until Our coming to the Crown For this cause We desiring to follow the pious Example of Our said Sister in this behalf as well for the advancement of the Glory of Almighty God as for the edification of his Church do will and ordain That Our said Isles shall quietly enjoy their said Liberty in the use of Ecclesiastical Discipline there now established Forâ—idding any one to give them any trouble or impeachment so long as they contain themselves in Our obedience and attempt not any thing against the Power and Sacred Word of God Given at our Palace at Hampton-Court the 8th of August in the first year of Our Reign of England 1603. 36. This Letter was communicated unto all whom it might concern in a Synod of both Islands held in Iersey Anno 1605. But long they were not suffered to enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation For sir Iohn Peiton who succeeded Governour of Iersey in the place of Raleigh had of himself no good affections to that Platform and possibly might be furnished with some secret Instructions for altering it in the Island on the first conveniency The ground whereof was laid upon this occasion The Curate of St. Iohn's being lately dead it pleased the Colloquie of that Island according to their former method to appoint one Brevin to succeed him Against this course the Governour the King's Attorney and other the Officers of the Crown protested publickly as being prejudicial to the Rights and Profits of the King Howbeit the Case was over-ruled and the Colloquie for that time carried it Hereupon a Bill of Articles was exhibited to the Lords of the Council against the Ministers of that Island by Peiton the Governour Marret the Attorney and the rest as viz. That they had usurped the Patronage of all Benefices in the Island That thereby they admitted men to Livings without any Form or Presentation and by that means deprived his Majesty of Vacancies and First-fruits That by the connivance to say no worse of it of the former Governours they exercised a kind of Arbitrary Iurisdiction making and disannulling Laws at their own most uncertain pleasure In consideration whereof they humbly pray His Sacred Majesty to grant them such a Discipline as might be fittest to the nature of the Place and less derogatory to the Royal Prerogative 37. In the pursuance of this Project Sir Robert Gardiner once Chief Justice of Ireland and Iames Husley Dr. of the Laws are sent Commissioners unto that Island though not without the colour of some other business To these Commissioners the Ministers give in their Answer which may be generally reduced to these two heads First That their appointment of men into the Ministry and the exercise of Jurisdiction being principal parts of the Church-Discipline had been confirmed unto them by His Sacred Majesty And secondly That the payment of First-fruits and Tenths had never been exacted from them since they were freed from their subordination to the Bishops 〈◊〉 â—onstance to whom formerly they had been due But these Anâ—â—â—â— giving no just satisfaction unto the Council of England and nothing being done in order to a present Settlement a foul deformity both of Confusion and Distraction did suddenly overgrow the face of those wretched Churches For in the former times all such as took upon them any publick Charge either in Church or Common-wealth had bound themselves by Oath to cherish and maintain the Discipline That Oath is now disclaimed as dangerous and unwarrantable Before it was their custom to exact subscription to their Plat-form of all such as purposed to receive the Sacrament but now the King's Attorney and others of that Party chose rather to abstain from the Communion than to yeeld Subscription Nay even the very Elders silly souls that thought themselves as sacro sancti as a Roman Tribune were drawn with Process into the Civil Courts and there reputed with the Vulgar Nor was the Case much better in the Sacred Consistory the Jurates in their Cohu or Town-Hall relieving such by their Authority whom that once paramount Tribunal had condemned or censured And yet this was not all the Mischief which befel them neither Those of the lower rank seeing the Ministers begin to stagger in their Chairs refused to set out their Tythes and if the Curates mean to exact their Dues the Law is open to all comers to try their Title Their Benefices which before were accounted as exempt and priviledged are now brought to reckon for First-fruits and Tenths and that not according to the Book of Constance as they had been formerly but by the will and pleasure of the present Governour And to make up the total sum of their Mis-fortunes one of the Constables preferrs a Bill against them in the common Cohu in which they were accused of Hypocrisie in their Conversation and Tyranny in the Exercise of their Jurisdiction and finally of holding some secret practises against the Governour which consequentially did reflect on the King Himself 38. In this Confusion they address themselves to the Earl of Salisbury then being Lord Treasurer of England and in great credit with King IAMES who seeming very much pleased with their Application advised them to invite their Brethren of the Isle of Guernsey to joyn with them in a Petition to the King for a redress of those Grievances which they then complained of A Counsel which then seemed rational and of great respect but in it self of greater cunning than it seemed in the first appearance For by this means as certainly he was a man of a subtile Wit he gave the King more time to compass his Designs in Scotland before he should declare himself in the present business and by engaging those of Guernsey in the same desires intended to subject them also to the same conclusion But this Counsel taking no effect by reason of the death of the Councellor they fall into another trouble of their own creating The Parish of St. Peters falling void by the death of the Minister the Governour presents unto it one Aaron Messering one that had spent his time in Oxon and had received the Order of Priesthood from the Right Reverend Dr. Bridges then Bishop of that Diocess but of himself a Native of the Isle of Iersey A thing so infinitely stomacked by those of the Colloquy that they would by no means yeeld unto his admission not so much in regard of his presentation by the Power of the Governour as because he had taken Orders from the hands of a Bishop For now they thought that Popery began to break in upon them and therefore that it did concern them to oppose it to the very last A new Complaint is
hereupon preferred against them to the Lords of the Council in which their Lordships were informed That the Inhabitants generally of the Isle were discontented with the present Discipline and guidance of the Church that most of them would be easily perswaded to submit to the English Goverment and that many of them did desire it 39. This brings both Parties to the Court the Governour and his Adherents to prosecute the Suit and make good their Intelligence the Ministers to answer to the Complaint and stand to the Pleasure of His Majesty in the final Judgment And at the first the Ministers stood fast together but as it always happeneth that there is no Confederacy so well jointed but one Member of it may be severed from the rest and thereby the whole Practise overthrown so was it also in this business For those who there sollicited some private business of the Governour 's had kindly wrought upon the weakness and ambition of De la Place one of the Ministers appointed to attend the Service perswading him That if the Government were altered and the Dean restored he was infallibly resolved on to be the man Being fashioned into this hope he speedily betrayed the Counsels of his Fellows and furnished their Opponents at all their Interviews with such Intelligence as might make most for their advantage At last the Ministers not well agreeing in their own demands and having little to say in defence of their proper Cause whereunto their Answers were not provided before-hand my Lord of Canterbury at the Council Table thus declared unto them the Pleasure of the King and Council viz. That for the speedy redress of their disorders it was reputed most convenient to establish amongst them the Authority and Office of the Dean That the Book of Common-Prayer being again Printed in the French should be received into their Churches but the Ministers not tyed to the strict observance of it in all particulars That Messervy should be admitted to his Benefice and that so they might return to their several Charges This said they were commanded to depart and to signifie to those from whom they came the full scope of His Majesty's Resolution and so they did But being somewhat backward in obeying this Decree the Council intimated to them by Sir Philip de Carteret chief Agent for the Governour and Estates of the Island That the Ministers from among themselves should make choice of three Learned and Grave persons whose Names they should return unto the Board out of which His Majesty should resolve on one to be their Dean 40. But this Proposal little edified amongst the Brethren not so much out of any dislike of the alteration with which they seemed all well enough contented but because every one of them gave himself some hopes of being the man And being that all of them could not be elected they were not willing to destroy their particular hopes by the appointment of another In the mean time Mr. David Bandinell an Italian born then being Minister of St. Mary's under pretence of other business of his own is dispatched for England and recommended by the Governour as the fittest person for that Place and Dignity And being well approved of by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury who found him answerable in all points to the Governour 's Character he was established in the Place by his Majesty's Letters Patents bearing date Anno 1619 and was accordingly invested in all such Rights as formerly had been inherent in that Office whether it were in point of Profit or of Jurisdiction And for the executing of this Office some Articles were drawn and ratified by His Sacred Majesty to be in force until a certain Body of Ecclesiastical Canons should be digested and confirmed Which Articles he was pleased to call the Interim a Name devised by CHARLES the fifth on the like occasion as appears by His Majesty's Letters Paters Patents for confirmation of the Canons not long after made And by this Interim it was permitted for the present that the Ministers should not be obliged to bid the Holy-days to use the Cross in Baptism or to wear the Surplice or not to give the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unto any others but such as did receive it kneeling but in all other things it little differed from the Book of Canons which being first drawn up by the Dean and Ministers was afterwards carefully perused corrected and accommodated for the use of that Island by the Right Reverend Fathers in God George Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury Iohn Lord Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and Lancelot Lord Bishop of Winchester whose Diocess or Jurisdiction did extend over both the Islands In which respect it was appointed in the Letters Patents by which His Majesty confirmed these Canons Anno 1623 That the said Reverend Father in God the Bishop of Winchester should forthwith by his Commission under his Episcopal Seal as Ordinary of the place give Authority unto the said Dean to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the said Isle according to the Canons and Constitutions thus made and established Such were the Means and such the Counsels by which this Island was reduced to a full conformity with the Church of England 41. Guâ—rnsey had followed in the like if first the breach between K. IAMES and the King of Spain and afterwards between K. CHARLES and the Crown of France had not took off the edg of the prosecution During which time the Ministers were much heartned in their Inconformity by the Practises of De la Place before remembred Who stomacking his disappointment in the loss of the Deanry abandoned his Native Countrey and retired unto Guernsey where he breathed nothing but disgrace to the English Liturgy the Person of the new Dean and the change of the Government Against the first so perversly opposite that when some Forces were sent over by King CHARLES for defence of the Island he would not suffer them to have the use of the English Liturgy in the Church of St. Peter's being the principal of that Island but upon these Conditions that is to say That they should neither use the Liturgy therein nor receive the Sacrament And secondly Whereas there was a Lecture weekly every Thursday in the said Church of St. Peters when once the Feast of Christ's Nativity fell upon that day he rather chose to disappoint the Hearers and put off the Sermon than that the least honour should reflect on that ancient Festival An Opposition far more superstitious than any observation of a day though meerly Iewish By his Example others were encouraged to the like perversness insomuch that they refused to baptize any Child or Children though weak and in apparent danger of present death but such as were presented unto them on the day of Preaching And when some of them were compelled by the Civil Magistrate to perform their duty in this kind a great Complaint thereof was made to the Earl of
That all the Lords of his Majesty's Council all the great Officers both of Court and State the two Chief Iustices and the Chief Barons of the Exchequer should be from thenceforth nominated and approved by both Houses of Parliament That all the great Affairs of the Kingdom should be managed by them even unto the naming of a Governour for his Majesty's Children and for disposing them in Marriage at the will of the Houses That no Popisâ— Lord as long as he continued such should vote in Parliament And amongst many other things of like importance That he would give consent to such a Reformation of Church-Government and Liturgy as both the Houses should advise But he knew well enough that to grant all this was plainly to divest himself of all Regal-Power which God had put into his hands And therefore he returned such an Answer to them as the necessity of his Affairs coâ—pared with those impudent Demands did suggest unto him But as for their Demand about Reformation he had answered it in part before they made it by ordering a Collection of sundry Petitions presented to himself and both Houses of Parliament in behalf of Episcopacy and for the preservation of the Liturgy to be printed and published By which Petitions it appeared that there was no such general disaffection in the Subjects unto either of them whether they were within the power of the Houses or beyond their reach as by the Faction was pretended the total number of Subscribers unto seven of them only the rest not being calculated in the said Collection amounting to Four hundred eighty two Lords and Knights One thousand seven hundred and forty Esquires and Gentlemen of note Six hundred thirty one Doctors and Divines and no fewer than Forty four thousand five hundred fifty nine Free-holders of good name and note 18. And now the Warr begins to open The Gentlemen of Yorkshire being sensible of that great affront which had been offered to his Majesty at the Gates of Hull and no less sensible of those dangers which were threatned to him by so ill a Neighbourhood offered themselves to be a Guard unto his person The Houses of Parliament upon the apprehension of some fears and jealousies had took a Guard unto themselves in December last but they conceived the King had so much innocence that he needed none and therefore his accepting of this Guard of Gentlemen is voted for a levying of Warr against the Parliament and Forces must be raised in defence thereof It hapned also that some Members of the House of Commons many of his Domestick Servants and not a few of the Nobility and great men of the Realm repaired from several places to the King at York so far from being willing to involve themselves in other mens sins that they declared the constancy of their adhaesion to his Majesty's service These men they branded first by the Name of Malignants and after looked upon them in the notion of evil Councellors for whose removing from the King they pretend to arm but now the stale device must be taken up as well as in their own defence Towards the raising of which Army the Presbyterian Preachers so bestir themselves that the wealthy Citizens send in their Plate the zealous Sisters rob'd themselves of their Bodkins and Thimbles and some poor Wives cast in their Wedding-Rings like the Widow's Mite to advance the Service Besides which they set forth Instructions dispersed into all parts of the Realm for bringing in of Horses Arms Plate Money Jewels to be repayed agâ—in on the Publick Faith appoint their Treasurers for the Warr and nominate the Earl of Essex for their chief Commander whom some Disgraces from the Court had made wholly theirs Him they commissionate to bring the King from his Evil Councellors with power to kill and slay all such as opposed them in it And that he might perform the Service with a better Conscience they laid fast hold on an Advantage which the King had given them who in his Declaration of the 16 th of Iune either by some incogitancy or the slip of his Pen had put himself into the number of the Three Estates for thereupon it was inferred That the Two Houses were co-ordinate with him in the Publick Government and being co-ordinate might act any thing without his consent especially in case of his refusal to co-operate with them or to conform to their desires Upon which ground both to encrease their Party and abuse the people who still had held the Name of King in some veneration the Warr is managed in the Name of King and Parliament as if both equally concerned in the Fortunes of it It was also Preached and Printed by the Presbyterians to the same effect as Buchanan and Knox Calvin and some others of the Sect had before delivered That all Power was originally in the people of a State or Nation in Kings no otherwise than by Delegation or by way of Trust which Trust might be recalled when the People pleased That when the underived Majesty as they loved to phrase it of the Common People was by their voluntary act transferred on the Supreme Magistrate it rested on that Magistrate no otherwise than cumulativè but privativè by no means in reference unto them that gave it That though the King was Major singulis yet he was Minor universis Superior only unto any one but far inferior to the whole Body of the People That the King had no particular property in his Lands Rents Ships Arms Towers or Castles which being of a publike nature belonged as much to the people as they did to him That it was lawful for the Subjects to resist their Princes even by force of Arms and to raise Armies also if need required for the preservation of Religion and the common Liberties And finally for what else can follow such dangerous premises That Kings being only the sworn Officers of the Commonwealth they might be called to an account and punished in case of Male-administration even to Imprisonment Deposition and to Death it self if lawfully convicted of it But that which served their turns best was a new distinction which they had coined between the Personal and Political capacity of the Supreme Magistrate alledging that the King was present with the Houses of Parliament in his Political capacity though in his Personal at York That they might fight against the King in his Personal capacity though not in his Politick and consequently might destroy CHARLES STVART without hurting the King This was good Presbyterian Doctrine but not so edifying at York as it was at Westminster For his Majesty finding a necessity to defend CHARLES STVART if he desired to save the King began to entertain such Forces as repaired unto him and put himself into a posture of defence against all his Adversaries 19. In York-shire he was countermined and prevailed but little not having above Two thousand men when he left that County At Nottingham he sets up his Standard