the Churches committed to our charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Iustice and that you would protect and defend us as every good King in his Kingdom ought to be a Protector and Defender of the Bishops and the Churches under their Government The King answereth With a willing and devout heart I promisâ— and grant my pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches commâ—â—ted tâ—â—â—ur charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Iustice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my power by the Assistance of God as every good King ought in his Kingdom in right to protect and deâ—end the Bishops and Churches under theiâ— Government The King ariseth and is leaâ— to the Communion Table where he makes a soleâ—n Oath in â—ight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his Hand upon the Book saith The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me Gâ—â— and the Contents of this Book Such was the Coronation-Oath accustomably taken by the Kings of England Which notwithstanding it was objected by the Lords and Commons in the time of the Long Parliament 〈…〉 the same which ought to have been taken by him And for proof thereof an antiquated Oath was found and published in a Remonstrance of theirs bearing date the twentieth of May 1642. To which his Majesty made this Answer That the Oath which he took at his Coronation was warranted and enjoyned by the Customs of his Predecessors and that the Ceremony of their and his taking of it they might find in the Records of the Exchequer And this it is c. Now in performing the Solemnities of the Coronation the Abbot anciently and for more than one hundred years last past the Deans of Westminster had a special place To them belonged the Custody of the old Regalia that is to say the Crown Sword Scepter Spurs c. of King Edward Sirnamed the Confessor kept by them in a secret place of Westminster Abbey not easily acceâ—â—able to any but such as know the mystery of it never brought forth but at the Coronation of a King or his going to Parliament Williams the late Lord Keeper was at this time Dean But being under the Kings displeasure was commanded to forbear his attendance at the Coronation and to depute one of the Prebends in his place This put him into some dispute within himself He had no mind to nominate Laud being then one of the Prebendaries of that Church because he lookt upon him as his Corrival and Supplanter in the Dukes good Grace and to have named otâ—er of a lower order there being a Bishop in the number would have subjected him to some discourse and misconstruction He therefore very wisely sent unto his Majesty the names degrees and dignities of all the Prebends leaving it unto him alone to make the Election who thereupon without any Hesitancy or deliberation deputed Laud unto the Service Laud being thus nominated and deputed prepared all things ready for that great Solemnity And finding the Old Crucifix among the Regalia he caused it to be placed on the Altar as in former times The Coronation being ended his Majesty going in his Robes to Westminster Hall did there deliver them to Laud representing in that Pomp the Dean of Westminster together with the Crown Scepter and the Sword called Cortena to be laid up with the rest of the Regalia in their old repository which he receiving from the King returned into the Abbey Church offered solemnly on the Altar in his Majesties name as by his place he was to do and so laid them up Two things there were remarkable in this Coronation which seemed to have something in them of Presage Senhouse who had been once his Chaplain when Prince of Wales and was now Bishop of Carlile had the honour to preach upon the day of that great Solemnity An eloquent man he was reputed and one that could very well express a passion but he had chosen such a Text as was more proper for a Funeral than a Coronation his Text being this viz. I will give thee a Crown of life Apoc. 2.10 and was rather thought to put the new King in mind of his Death than his duty in Government and to have been his Funeral Sermon when he was alive as if he were to have none when he was to be buried It was observed also that his Majesty on that day was cloathed in White contrary to the Custom of his Predecessors who were on that day clad in Purple And this he did not out of any necessity for want of Purple Velvet enough to make a Suite for he had many yards of it in his outward Garment but at his own choice only to declare that Virgin Purity with which he came to be espoused unto his Kingdom White as we know is the colour of the Saints who are represented to us in White Robes by St. Iohn in the Revelation and Purple is the Imperial and Regal colour so proper heretofore unto Kings and Emperours that many of the Constantinopolitan Emperours were called Porphyrogenites because at their first coming into the world they were wrapt in Purple And this some looked on also as an ill Presage that the King laying aside his Purple the Robe of Majesty should cloath himself in White the Robe of innocence as if thereby it were fore-signified that he should devest himself of that Regal Majesty which might and would have kept him safe from affront and scorn to rely wholly on the innocence of a vertuous life which did expose him finally to calamitous ruine No sooner were the Pomps of the Coronation ended but the Second Parliament began at the opening whereof on Munday the sixt of February our Bishop of St. Davids preacht before his Majesty the Lords c. in the Abbey Church He was appointed to have preached in the beginning of the former Parliament on Saturday the eighteenth of Iune but that turn being otherwise supplied he preached the same Sermon the next day before his Majesty at Whitehall his Text then Psal. 75.2 3. When I shall receive the Congregation I will judge according unto right c. But now he chose for the Theam or Subject of his discourse the 3 4 5 verses of the 112 Psalm viz. Ierusalem is like a City that is at unity in it self c. In which considering Ierusalem as a Type of the Church and State he first beholds it as a type of the State or Civil Government Where he considered That Ordo Politicus the wise ordering of the people in Concord and Vnity was simply the strongest Wall of a State But break Vnity once and farewell all strength And therefore disjoynted Factions in a State when they work upon Division are Publica irae divinae incendia the publick kindlings of Gods Anger and they burn down all before them And God seldom suffers these to fire a State till himself be heated first
greatest Battel with Darius the Persian he fell into so â—ound asleep 〈◊〉 his Princes â—ardly could awake him when the morning came And it was likewise certified of this Great Prelate That on the Evening before his Passover the night before the dismal Combate betwixt him and Death after he had refreshed his Spirits with a moderate Supper he betook himself unto his Rest and slept very soundly till the time came in which his Servants were appointed to attend his Rising A most assured sign of a Soul prepared The fatal morning being come he first applied himself to his private Prayers and so continued till Pennington and others of their Publick Officers came to conduct him to the Scaffold which he ascended with so brave a Courage such a chearful Countenance as if he had mounted rather to behold a Triumph than be made a Sacrifice and came not there to Die but to be Translated And though some rude and uncivil People reviled him as he pass'd along with opprobrious Language as loth to let him go to the Grave in Peace yet it never discomposed his Thoughts nor disturb'd his Patience For he had profited so well in the School of Christ that when he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed his cause to him that judgeth righteously And as he did not fear the Frowns so neither did he covet the Applause of the Vulgar Herd and therefore rather chose to read what he had to speak unto the People than to affect the ostentation either of Memory or Wit in that dreadful Agony whether with greater Magnanimity than Prudence I can hardly say As for the matter of his Speech besides what did concern himself and his own Purgation his great care was to cleer his Majesty and the Church of England from any inclination to Popery with a perswasion of the which the Authors of the then present Miseries had abused the People and made them take up Arms against their Sovereign A faithful Servant to the last By means whereof as it is said of Samson in the Book of Iudges That the men which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life So may it be affirmed of this famous Prelate That he gave a greater blow unto the Enemies of the Church and the King at the hour of his death than he had given them in his whole life before But this you will more clearly see by the Speech it self which followeth here according to the best and most perfect Copy delivered by his own hands unto one of his Chaplains and in his name presented to the King by the Lord Iohn Bellasis at the Court in Oxon. The Speech of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury spoken at his Death upon the Scaffold on the Tower Hill Ian. 10. 1644. Good People THis is an uncomfortable time to preach yet I shall begin with a Text of Scripture Heb. 12.2 Let us run with Patience the Race which is set before us looking unto JESUS the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him enâ—dured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God I have been long in my Race and how I have looked to JESUS the Author and finisher of my faith he best knows I am now to come to the end of my Race and here I find the Cross a death of shame but the shame must be despised or no coming to the right hand of God JESUS despised the shame for me and God forbid but that I should despise the shame for him I am going apace as you see towards the Red Sea and my feet are now upon the very brinke of it anâ— Argument I hope that God is bringing me into the Land of Promise for that was the way through which he led his people But before they came to it he instituted a Passeover for them a Lamb it was but it must be eaten with soure herbs I shall obey and labour to digest the soure herbs as well as the Lamb. And I shall remember it is the Lords Passeover I shall not think of the Herbs nor be angry with the hand which gathereth them but look up only to him who instituted that and governs these for men can have no more power over me than what is given them from above I am not in love with this passage through the Red Sea for I have the weakness and infirmities of flesh and bloud plentifully in me And I have prayed with my Saviour Ut transirâ—t Calix iste that this Cup of red wine might pass from me but if not Gods will not mine be done and I shall most willing drink of this Cup as deep as he pleases and enter in this Sea yea and pass through it in the way that he shall lead me But I would have it remembred Good People That when Gâ—â—â— Servants were in this boysterous Sea and Aaron amongst them the Egyptians which persecuted them and did in a manner drive them into that Sea were drowned in the same Waters while they were in pursuit of them I know my God whom I serve is as able to deliver me from the sea of bloud as he was to deliver the three Children from the Furnace and I humbly thank my Saviour for it my Resolution is now as theirs was then They would not worship the Image the King had set up nor will I the Imaginations which the People are setting up nor will I forsake the Temple and the truth of God to follow the bleating of Jeroboams Calves in Dan and Bethel And as for this People they are at this day miserably misled God of his mercy open their â—â—es that they may see the right way for at this day the blind lead the blind and if they go on both will certainly fall into the ditch For my self I am and I acknowledge it in all humility a most grievous sinâ—â— many waies by thought word and deed I cannot doubt but that 〈◊〉 hath mercy in store for me a poor Penitent as well as for other sinners I have now and upon this sad occasion ransacked every corner of my 〈◊〉 and yet I thank God I have not found among the many any 〈◊〉 sin which deserves death by any known Law of this Kingdom and yet hereby I charge nothing upon my Iudges for if they proceed upon proof by valuable witnesses I or any other innocent may be justly condemned And I thank God though the weight of my Sentence he heavy upon me I am as quiet within as ever I was in my life And though I am not only the first Archbishop but the first man that ever 〈◊〉 by an Ordinance in Parliament yet some of my Predecessors have gone this way though not by this means For Elphegus was hurried away and lost his head by the Danes and Simon Sudbury in the fury of Wat Tiler and his Fellows Before
of note above 300. Divines 108. Freeholders and Subsidy men 800. A greater number in the total â—â—en might have been expected from so small a Diocess consisting 〈◊〉 of 257. Parishes distempered by the mixture of so many Churches of French and Dutch and wholly under the command of the Houses of Parliament Many Petitions of like nature came from other Counties where the People were at any Liberty to speak their own sense and had not their hands tied from Acting in their own concernments All which with some of those which had led the way unto the Rest were published by Order from his Majesty bearing date May 20. 1642. under the title of a Collection of the Petitions of divers Countries c. Which Petitions being so drawn together and besides many which were presented after this Collection amounted to nineteen in all that is to say two from the County of Chester two from Cornwall one from the University of Oxon. and another from the University of Cambridge One from the Heads of Colledges and Halls this from the Diocess of Canterbury another from the Diocess of Exeter one from the six Counties of North-wales and one apiece from the Counties of Notingham Huntington Somerset Rutland Stafford Lancaster Kent Oxford and Hereford Nor came these Petitions thus collected either from Persons â—ew in Number or inconsiderable in quality like those of the Porters Watermen and other poor people which clamored with so much noise at the doors of the Parliament but from many thousands of the best and most eminent Subjects of the Realm of England The total Number of Subscribers in seven of the said Counties only besides the Diocess of Canterbury and the Burrough of Southwark the rest not being computed in the said Collection amounting to 482. Lords and Knights 1748. Esquires and Gentlemen of Note 631. Doctors and Ministers 44559. Freeholders which shows how generally well affected the People were both to the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England if they had not been perverted and over-awed by the Armies and Ordinances of the House of Parliament which Commanded the greatest part of the Kingdom And though perhaps the Subscribers on the other side might appear more numerous considering how Active and United that party was yet was it very well observed in reference to the said Subscriptions by a Noble Member of that House That the numberless number of those of a different sense appeared not publickly nor cried so loud as being persons more quiet secure in the goodness of their Laws the wisdom of their Law-makers and that it was not a thing usual to Petition for what men have but for what they have not But notwithstanding the importunity of the Petitioners on the one side and the Moderation of the Kings Answer on the other the prevailing party in both Houses had Resolved long since upon the Question which afterwards they declared by their publick Votes For on the 11 â—h of September tâ—e Vote passed in the house of Commons for abolishing Bishops Deans and Chapters celebrated by the inâ—atuated Citizâ—ns as all other publick mischiefs were with Bells and Bonfires â—the Lords not coming in till the end of Ianuary when it past there also The War in the mean time begins to open The Parliament had their Guards already and the affront which Hotham had put upon his Majesty at Hull prompted the Gentlemen of Yorkshire to tender themselves for a Guard to his Person This presently Voted by both Houses to be a leavying of War against the Parliament for whose defence not only the Trained Bands of London must be in readiness and the Good people of the Country required to put themselves into a posture of Arms but Regiments of Horse and Food are Listed a General appointed great Summs of Mony raised and all this under pretence of taking the King out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors The noise of these preparations hastens the King from York to Notingham where he sets up his Standard inviting all his good Subjects to repair unto him for defence of their King the Laws and Religion of their Country He encreased his forces as he marched which could not come unto the Reputation of being an Army till he came into Shropshire where great Bodies of the Loyall and Stout hearted Welch resorted to him Strengthened with this and furnished sufficiently with field Pieces Arms and Ammunition which the Queen had sent to him out of Holland he resolves upon his March to London but on Sunday the 23th of Octob. was encountred on the way at a place called Edghill by the Parliaments Forces The Fight very terrible for the time no fewer then 5000 men slain upon the place The Prologue for a greater slaughter if the Dark night had not put an end to that dispute Each part pretended the Victory but it went cleerly on the Kings side who though he lost his General yet he kept the Field and possessed himself of the Dead bodies and not so only but he made his way open unto London and in his way forced Banbury Castle in the very sight as it were of the Earl of Essex who with his flying Army made all the hast he could toward the City that he might be there before the King to serve the Parliament More certain signs there could not be of an absolute victory In the battel of Turo between the Confederates of Italy and Charles the 8th of France it happened so that the Confederates kept the Field possest themselves of the Camp Baggage and Artillery which the French in their breaking through had left behind them And yet the Honour of the day was generally given unto the French For though they lost the Field their Camp Artillery and Baggage yet they obtained what they fought for which was the opening of their way to France and which the Confederates did intend to deprive them off Which Resolution in that Case may be a Ruling Case to this the King having not only kept the Field possest himself of the dead bodies Pillaged the Carriages of the Enemy but forcibly opened his way toward London which the Enemy endeavoured to hinder and finally entred Triumphantly into Oxon with no fewer then one hundred and twenty Colours taâ—en in the fight Having assured himself of Oxon. for his Winter Quarters he Resolved on his Advance toward London but made so many Halts in the way that Essex was got thither before him who had disposed of his Forces at Kingston Branford Acton and some other places thereabouts not only to stop his March but to fall upon him in the Rere as occasion served Yet he goes forward notwithstanding as far as Brainford out of which he beats two of their best Regiments takes 500 Prisoners sinks their Ordnance with an intent to march forward on the morrow after being Sunday November 13. But understanding that the Earl of Essex had drawn his Forces out of Kingston and joyning with the London Auxiliaries lay in the
depriving the Bishops of their Vote and the Churches Birth-right And this was it which helped them in that time of need And yet not thinking this Device sufficient to fright their Lordships to a present compliance Stroud was sent up with a Message from the House of Commons to let them know That the Londoners would shortly bring a Petition with 20000 Hands to obtain that Ordinance By which stale and common Stratagem they wrought so far on some weak Spirits the rest withdrawing themselves as formerly in the case of the Earl of Strafford that in a thin and slender House not above six or seven in number it was pass'd at last The day before they pass'd the Ordinance for establishing their new Directory which in effect was nothing but a total abolition of the Common-Prayer-Book and thereby shewed unto the World how little hopes they had of settling their new Form of Worship if the foundation of it were not laid in the blood of this famous Prelate who had so stoutly stood up for it against all Novellism and Faction in the whole course of his Life â—e was certified by some Letters to Oxon. and so reported in the Mercurius Aulicus of the following week That the Lord Bruce 〈◊〉 better known by the name of the Earl of Elgin was one of the number of those few Lords which had Voted to the Sentence of his Condâ—mnation The others which concurred in that fatal Sentence being the Earls of Kent Pembroke Salisbury and Bullingbrook together with the Lord North and the Lord Gray of Wark But whatsoever may be said of the other six I have been advertised lately from a very good hand That the said Lord Bruce hath frequently disclaimed that Action and solemnly professed his detestation of the whole Proceedings as most abhorrent from his nature and contrary to his known aâ—fections as well unto his Majesties Service as the Peace and Preservation of the Church of England This Ordinance was no sooner passed but it revived many of those Discourses which had before been made on the like occasion in the Business of the Earl of Strafford For hereupon it was observed That as the predominant Party in the Vnited Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt subverted all those Fundamental Laws of the Belgick Liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip ii So the Contrivers of this Mischief had violated all the Fundamental Laws of the English Government for maintenance whereof they had pretended to take up Arms against the King It was said they a Fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta That the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable Yet to make way unto the Condemnation of this Innocent Man the Bishops must be Voted out of their Place in Parliament which most of them have held far longer in their Predecessors than any of our Noble Families in their Progenitors and if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the People must come down to the House in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishâ—ps at the Parliament doors till by the terrour of their Tumults 〈◊〉 extort it from them It is a Fundamental Law of the English 〈◊〉 That no Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause 〈◊〉 or be detained without being brought unto his Answer in due form of Law Yet here we see a Freeman imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any Charge was brought against him and kept in Prison three whole years more before his General Accusation was by them reduced unto Particulars and for a year almost detained close Prisoner without being brought unto his Answer as the Law requires It is a Fundamental Law of the English Government 〈…〉 be disserzâ—â— of his Freehold or Liberties but by the known Laws of the Land Yet here we see a man disseized of his Rents and Lands spoiled of his Goods deprived of his Iurisdiction devested of his Right of Patronage and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land that no particular Charge was so much as thought of It is a Fundamental Law of the English Liberty That no man shall be condemned or put to death bâ—â— by the Lawful Iudgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land that is in the ordinary way of Legal Tryal And sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of Tryal for the English Subject or ever reckoned to be such in former times And finally It is a Fundamental Law in the English Government That if any other cause than those recited in the Statute of King Edward iii. which is supposed to be Treason do happen before any of his Majesties Juâ—tices the Justices shall tarry without giving Iudgment till the Cause be shâ—wn and declared before the King and his Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not Yet here we have a new found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of his Majesties Iustices nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and his Parliament but only Voted to be such by some of those Members which â—are at Westminster who were resolved to have it so for their private Ends. The first Example of this kind the first thaâ— ever suffered death by the shot of an Ordinance as himself very well observed in his dying Speech upon the Scaffold though purposely omitted in Hind's Printed Copy to which now he hasteneth For the passing of the Ordinance being signified to him by the then Lieutenant of the Tower he neither entertained the news with a Stâ—ical Apathy nor waâ—led his fate with weak and womanish Lamentations to which Extremes most men are carried in this case but 〈◊〉 it with so even and so smooth a Temper as shewed he neither was ashamed to live nor afraid to die The time between the Sentence and Execution he spent in Prayers and Applications to the Lord his God having obtained though not without some diâ—lâ—â—nâ—ty a Chaplain of his own to attend upon him and to assist him in the Work of his Preparation though little Preparation â—â—â—ded to receive that blow which could not but be welcome because long expected For so well was he studied in the Art of Dying especially in the last and strictest part of his Imprisonment that by continual Fastings Watchings Prayers and such like Acts of Christiaâ— Humiliation his Flesh was rarified into Spirit and the whole maâ— so fitted for Eternal Glories that he was more than half in Heaven before Death brought his bloody but Triumphant 〈◊〉 to convey him thither He that had so long been a Confessâ—â—â—ould â—ould not but think it a Release of Miseries to be made a 〈◊〉 It is Recorded of Alexander the Great That the night before his last and
that every man that could pronounce well was not found able to endite and every man that could endite not being to be trusted in a business of such weight and moment it seemed good in the Wisdom of the first Reformers to compile some good and profitable Sermons called by the name of Homilies to be read carefully and distinctly on the Sundayes and Holy dayes for the instruction of the people 11. Such course was taken for the peace and edification of the Church by the first Reformers not only in the choice of the men to whom they gave Licences to preach but in supplying the defect and want of such preaching by the Book of Homilies and they had as great a care too for the keeping the people in good stomach not cloying them with continual Preaching or Homilizing but limiting them to once a day as appears by the Rubrick after the Nicene or rather the Constantinopolitan Creed One Sermon or Homily in the mornings of Sundayes and other Holy dayes for the edification of the â—lder and Catechizing by way of question and answer in the afternoon for the instruction of the younger was esteemed sufficient Lectures upon the week dayes were not raised upon this foundation but were brought in afterwards borrowed by Travers and the â—est toward the latter end of Queen Elizabeths Reign from the new fashions of Geneva the Lecturer being super-added to the Parson or Vicar as the Doctor was unto the Pastor in some forreign Churches Nor were they raised so much out of care and conscience for training up the people in the wayes of Faith and Piety as to advance a Faction and to alienate the peoples mindes from the Government and Forms of Worship here by Law established For these Lecturers having no dependance upon the Bishops nor taking the Oath of Canonical Obedience to them nor subscribing to the doctrine and establisht Ceremonies made it their work to please those Patrons on whose arbitrary maintenance they were planted and consequently to carry on the Puritan interest which their Patron drove at A generation of men neither Lay nor Clergy having no place at all in the Prayers of the Church where we finde mention only of Bishops Pastors and Curates nor being taken notice of in the terms of Law as being neither Parsons nor Vicars or to speak them in the vulgar proverb neither flesh nor fish nor good red herring No creature in the world so like them as the Bats or Reremice being neither Birds nor Beasts and yet both together Had these men been looked upon in time before their numbers were increased and their power grown formidable before the people went a madding after new inventions most of the mischiefs which have thence ensued might have been prevented And had there been more reading of Homilies in which the Reader speaks the sense of the Church and not so much of Sermonizing in which the Preacher many times speaks his own factious and erronâ—ous sense the people might have been trained up in no less knowledge but in much more obedience then they have been in these latrer times 12. As for the Sacraments which were advanced to the number of seven in the Church of Rome this Church hath brought them back to two as generally necessary to salvation Baptisme and the Holy Supper Four of the rest that is to say Marriage Orders Confirmation and the Visitation though not the Extream Vnction of the Sick being retained under the name of Sacramentals in our publick Liturgy Of which the Book of Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. is by the Act of Parliament 8 Eliz. c. 1. affirmed to be a Supplement or Additional only added put to and annexed as the words do vary to the said Book of Common-Prayer And of these four two are reserved unto the Bishop that is to say Confirmation and the giving of Orders the other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick being common to both alike though executed in the most part by the Presbyter only Of those reserved unto the Bishop the one is so reserved ad necessitatem operis because it cannot be done without him the other ad honorem sacerdotii as the Schools distinguish because it cannot be well done but by him Touching the first we have the general consent of all ancient Writers and the example of Coluthus who took upon him the ordaining of Presbyters contrary to the Rules of the Church and the Canons of thâ— most famous Councils But when the business came to be examined his Ordinations were declared to be null and void because he was a Presbyter only and not a Bishop as is affirmed by Athanasius in Apol. 2. The other grounded on the 8th Chapter of the Acts as St Cyprian in his 73. Epistle tells us where Peter and Iohn are said to have laid hands on them in Samaria which had been before Baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus that they might receive the Holy Ghost and that by laying on of their hands they did receive the Holy Ghost accordingly verse 16 17. Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur c. Which is also done saith St. Cyprian and Cyprian flourisht in the middle of the third Century amongst our selves when they which be already Baptized are brought unto the Prelates of the Church Praepositis Ecclesiae offeruntur that by our Prayer and Imposition of our hands they may receive the Holy Ghost and be strengthened by the Seal of the Lord. Upon which grounds beâ—iâ—â—â—â—he great antiquity of it it was retained by the first Reformers as in the Rubrick before Confirmation in the Common-Prayer-Book And â—ad it been as diligently practised by the Bishops in the declining times of this Church as it was piously and religiously retained by them it would have much conduced to their saâ—e standing in the Church and procured a greater veneration to their Persons also The other two viz. Marriage and the Visitation of the Sick together with the Burial of the Dead and the Churching of Women after Child-birth are left to the officiating of the Priest or Parochial Minister unless the Bishop please to take that work upon himself in some certain cases 13. But as for Penance one of the seven Sacraments in the Church of Rome we must look upon in a double capacity First As it was solemnly performed on Ashwednesday as a preparative to the approaching Feast of Easter the people humbling themselves before the Lord in Sackcloth and Ashes whence it had the name And secondly As imposed on such particular persons as lay under the censures of the Church Touching the first it is related in the beginning of the Commination that in the Primitive Church there was a godly Discipline That at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Penance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the day of the Lord and that others admonished by their example might be the more afraid to
their own distaste or smoothing up of those idle fancies which in this blessed time of so long a Peace doth boil in the brains of an unadvised People That many of their Sermons were full of rude and undecent railings not only against the Doctrines but even against the persons of Papists and Puritans And finally that the People never being instructed in the Catechism and fundamental Grounds of Religion for all these aiery novellisms which they received from such Preachers were but like new Table-books ready to be filled up either with the Manuals and Catechisms of the Popish Priests or the Papers and Pamphlets of Anabaptists Brownists and other Puritans His Majesty thereupon taking the Premises into his Princely Consideration which had been represented to him by sundry grave and reverend Prelates of this Church thought it expedient to cause some certain Limitations and Cautions concerning Preachers and Preaching to be carefully digested and drawn up in Writing Which done so done as Laud appears to have a hand in the doing of it and being very well approved by the King he caused them to be directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by them to be communicated to the Bishops of their several Provinces and by those Bishops to be put in execution in their several Diocesses Which Directions bearing date of the fourth of August 1622. being the 20th year of his Majesties Reign I have thought convenient to subjoin and are these that follow viz. I. That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church and they upon the Kings days only and set Festivals do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any set course or common place otherwise than by opening the coherence and division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in essence substance effect or natural inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562. or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a help of non-preaching but withal as a pattern as it were for the Preaching Ministers and for their further instruction for the performance thereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies II. That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation hereafter upon Sundays and Holy-days in the Afternoons in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout this Kingdom but upon some part of the Catechism or some Text taken â—ut of the Creed or Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted and that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend their Afternoons Exercise in the Examination of Children in their Catechisms which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England III. That no Preacher of what Title soever under the degree of a Bishop or Dean at the least do from henceforth presume to Preach in any popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the universality efficacity resistibility or irresistibility of Gods Grace but rather leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that modestly and moderately by Vse and Application rather than by way of positive Doctrine as being fitter for Schools and Vniversities than for simple Auditories IV. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to declare limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Lecture or Sermon the Power Prerogative Iurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or therein meddle with matters of State and reference between Princes and People than as they are instructed in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to these two Heads of Faith and Good Life which are all the subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies V. That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent railing Speeches against the Papists or Puritans but wisely and gravely when they are occasioned thereunto by the Text of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the aspersions of either adversary especially when the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other infection VI. Lastly That the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for their former remisseness be more wary and choice in Licencing of Preachers and Verbal Grants made to any Chancellor Officiall or Commissary to pass Licence in this Kingdom And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new body severed from the ancient Clergy of England as being neither Parson Vicar or Curate be licensed henceforward in the Court of Faculties only upon recommendation of the party from the Bishop of the Diocess under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and a confirmation under the Great Seal of England and that such as transgress any of his directions be suspended by the Bishop of the Diocess or in his default by the Lord Archbishop of that Province Ab officio beneficio for a year and a day untill his Majesty by the advice of the next Convocation prescribe for some further punishment No sooner were these Instructions published but strange it was to hear the several descants and discourses which were made upon them How much they were misreported amongst the People and misinterpreted in themselves those very men who saw no just reason to condemn the Action being howsoever sure to misconstrue the end For though they were so discreetly ordered that no good and godly man could otherwise than acknowledge that they tended very much to Edification Yet such Interpretations were put upon them as neither could consist with his Majesties meaning nor the true sense of the Expressions therein used By some it was given out that those Instructions did tend to the restraint of Preaching at the lest as to some necessary and material points by others that they did abate the number of Sermons by which the People were to be instructed in the Christian Faith by all the Preachers of that Party that they did but open a gap for Ignorance and Superstition to break in by degrees upon the People Which coming to his Majesties Ears it brought him under the necessity of making an Apology for himself and his actions in it And to this end having summed up the reasons which induced him to it he required the Archbishop of Canterbury to communicate them to his Brother of York by both to be imparted to their several Suffragans the inferiour Clergy and to all others whosoever whom it might concern which notwithstanding it
book he found that besides some few Doctrines which properly and truly did belong to the Church of England there were crouded into it all Points of Calvinism such Heterodoxies and out-landish Fancies as the Church of England never owned And therefore in his Answer to that Popish Gagger he severed or discriminated the opinions of particular men from the Authorized Doctrines of this Church leaving the one to be maintained by their private Fautors and only defending and maintaining the other And certainly had he not been a man of a mighty Spirit and one that easily could contemn the cry and clamours which were raised against him for so doing he could not but have sunk remedilesly under the burden of disgrace and the fears of Ruine which that performance drew upon him This Book came out about the latter end of December and coming out made such a general amazement amongst those of the Calvinian Party that they began to fear the sad consequents of it The opening of this secret was of such importance that if the Author and his Book were not speedily crushed they must no longer shroud their private opinions under the name of the received Doctrine of the Church of England excluded from that Sanctuary they could find no place of strength and saâ—ety in which they should not be exposed to assaults and dangers And that the Author and the Book might be crusht together it was thought fit that Yates and Ward two of the Lecturers or Preachers in Ipswich should gather out of his Book some especial Points tending to Popery and Arminianism as they conceived to be presented to the Censure of the following Parliament Having got a Copy of the Information intended to be made against him he flies for refuge to King Iames now grown more moderate and since the death of Mountague the late Bishop of Winton into a better liking of those opinions which he had laboured to condemn at the Synod of Dort His Majesty knew the man and his great abilities and was well pleased with his performance against the History of Tithes where he had beaten the then thought matchless Selden at his own weapon and shewed himself the greater Philologer of the two Upon which ground he looked upon him as the fittest man to encounter Baronius against whom the right learned Casanbon had some preparatory velitations before his death but made no further progress in it Mountague flying to King Iames as before is said had presently his discharge or quietus est as to his Majesties good opinion both of him and the book it self And more than so his Majesty took notice that the Information was divulged and the Clamor violent and therefore gave him leave to make an Appeal from the said Defamers unto his own mosâ— Sacred Cognizance in publick and to represent his just defence against their slanders and false surmises unto the world And that the queaziness of the times might the better brook it he gave express order unto Dr. White then Dean of Carlile cried up when Lecturer of St. Pauls for the stoutesâ— Champion of this Church against those of Rome for the authorizing and publishing thereof which was done accordingly This Book he entituled by the name of APPELLO CAESAREM or a just APPEAL from two unjust INFORMERS But the King dying before it was finished at the Press it was presented to King Charles in the first entrance of his Reign and there we shall be sure to hear further of it In the mean time it may not be unnecessary to enquire what the said Informers Yates and Ward might and did mean by Popery and Arminianism with which two crimes they charged the Answer to the Gagger And first we find upon due search That by Popery they understood all such Points of Doctrine as being determined by this Church hold some correspondence and agreement with the Doctrines of the Church of Rome or being not determined by this Church are left at liberty for every man to please himself in his own opinion how hear soever he may come to such compliance Of the first sort they reckoned for points of Popery The Doctrine of the Perpetual Visibility of the Church of Christ The Local Descent of Christ into Hell The Lawfulness of Images Signing with the Sign of the Cross Confession and Sacerdotal Absolution The Real Presence The Reward of Good Works The Sacrament of Orders quarrelling even with very words Sacrifice Altar and the like All which upon a perfect Examination will be found to be the genuine Doctrines and to speak nothing but the Language of the Church of England as we have punctually discovered in our Introduction Amongst the last I reckon the Disputes concerning Evangelical Counsels Antichrist and Limbus Patrum of which the Church of Englâ—nd hath determined nothing and therefore the Appellant was left at liberty to follow his own Judgment and to chuse what guides he pleased to direct his Judgment in those particular Debates Yet such was the temper of those Times that whosoever held any of the Points aforesaid or any other controverted with the Church of Rome contrary to the sense of Calvin must presently be accused of Popery He that adhered unto the Tendries of the Ancient Fathers in such particulars as the Church was pleased to leave undetermined or bound himself in matters publickly resolved on to vindicate this Church to her genuine Tenents was presently made Subject to all those Clamors and Reproaches which the Tongues and Pens of that Predominating Faction could either raise upon him or asperse him with Laud had found good experience of it when he lived in Oxon. and so had Houson and Corbet too as before was noted But none of them were able to break through those difficulties till Mountague took the Work in hand who being well back'd and having the Ice somewhat broke before him waded with confidence and courage through the middest of those Waters which otherwise might have overwhelmed the most tried Adventurer In the next place it will be no hard work to finde what they meant by Arminianism under which name they comprehend the Melancthonian Doctrine of Predestination The Vniversal Redemption of Mankind by the Death of Christ The cooperation of the Will of Man with the Grace of God and The Possibility of falling from Grace received All which appear by plain and evident proofs in our said Introduction to have been the true original and native Doctrines of this Church at her first Reformation But Calvinism had so overspread the face of this Church by Humphries long sitting in the Chair at Oxon. and the discountenancing of Peter Baro at Cambridge that the natural Doctrines and Determinations of it were either so forgotten that they were not known or else so overpowred that none durst undertake to own them And so it stood till thâ— breaking out of the Predestinarian Quarrels in the Belgick Churches between Arminius and his Followers on the one side and the Rigid Calvinians on the other
the Parliament and Convocation were admitted to the kiss of her hand whom she most graciously received For on the Saturday before being Iune the eighteenth the Parliament had took beginning Which fell out not unseasonably that the French Lords might see with what Royal Magnificence he was attended by the Prelates Peers and other Officers of State besides his own Domestick Servants to the Parliament House At their first meeting he put them in mind of the War in which they had engaged his Father and of the promise they had made to stand to him in it with their lives and fortunes That both his Land and Sea Forces were now in readiness to set forwards And That there wanted nothing but a present supply of money to quicken and expedite the affaire That the eyes of all Christendom were fixt upon him And that if he should miscarry in his first attempt it would blemish all the honour of his future actions And therefore That they should endeavour to deliver him out of that War in which they had incumbred he hoped it would never be said that they had betrayed him In answer whereunto the Commons past a Bill of two Subsidies only so short of that excessive charge which the maintenance of so great a Fleet and Army required at their hands that being distributed amongst the Officers Souldiers and Mariners it would scarce have served for Advance-money to send them going Which notwithstanding he very graciously accepted of it taking it as an earnest of their good affections in reference to the greater Sums which were to follow In order whereunto he audited his account unto them as well for such moneys as had remained undisbursed of the former aides as for the defraying of such further Charges as his present Fleet consisting of 120 Sail and a considerable Land Army must needs lay upon him The particulars of which account stood thus viz. 32000 pounds for securing of Ireland 47000 pounds for strengthning the Forts 37000 pounds for the repair of the Navy 99000 pounds upon the four English Regiments in the States Country 62000 pounds laid out for Count Mansfield Totall 287000 pounds Besides which he sent in a demand of 200000 pounds and upwards upon the Navy 48000 pounds upon the Ordnance 45000 pounds in Charges of the Land men 20000 pounds a month to Count Mansfield and 46000 pounds to bring down the King of Denmarke the totall of which latter Sum amounts to 339000 pounds Both Sums make no less than 626000 pounds to which the Grant of two Subsidies holds but small proportion But the Commons had other game to follow Their Grievances must first be heard A List whereof they had presented to King IAMES toward the end of the former Parliament of which the greatest part were still unredressed To these his Majesty vouchsafed a very gracious and for the most part a full and satisfactory Answer Amongst which Grievances a sober and discreet man would not think to find that the building of all houses in London and the parts adjoyning in one uniform way with a face of brick toward the streets should be passed for one then which there could not be a greater ornament to that City or a greater honour to his Majesties Government And to that his Majesty returned this Answer That there had much good come by such a reformation of Building in his Fathers time and therefore that he was resolved to go on with the work Which Resolution so much tending to the glory of the English Nation and no objection being ready for his other Answers the matter of Grievances could no longer be insisted on especially in such a time when the concernments of the State his Majesties honour and all the motives which induced them to ingage him in this present War ought in all reason to precede their Grievances had they been greater than they were But then they had some Religious Grievances which required a more speedy redress than any which concerned them in their Civil Interesses The Lords day was pretended to be much profaned by unlawful pastimes and People frequently resorted out of their own Parishes to feast in Revels Of this a remedy is desired by Act of Parliament Had any such Bill been offered in King Iames his time it would have found a sorry welcome but this King being under a necessity of compliance with them resolved to grant them their desires in that Particular to the end that they might grant his also in the aide required when that obstruction was removed The Sabbatarians took the benefit of this opportunity for the obtaining of this grant the first that ever they obtained by all their struglings which of what consequence it was we shall see hereafter But then the Doctrine of the Church was more in danger than ever In former Parliaments they were afraid of the Papists only But now there was as much danger to be feared from Arminianism as before from Popery An Information had been made by Yales and Ward as before is said against some passages in Mountagues Answer to the Romish Gagger and he had agravated his offence by justifying all his Popish and Arminian Tenents in a book newly published called Appello Caesarem It could not be denied but that this book was Licenced by Dr. White then Dean of Carlile by whom it was affirmed to be agreeable to the Publick Faith Doctrine and Discipline established in the Church of England But White they said was now turned black and what is the Established Doctrine of the Church of England compared with Calvins Doctrine in his Institutions What Trifles are the Articles of Religion agreed on by the Bishops and Clergy in two several Synods held in London compared with the determinations of the Synod of Dort which Mountague that bold man had despised and vilified This was a matter which became the care of the House of Commons and Mountague is cited to appear before them on the seventh of Iuly Being brought unto the Bar the Speaker declared to him the pleasure of the House which was that they would refer his Censure to the next meeting and that in the interim he should stand committed to the Serjeants Ward and entred baile for his appearance to the value of two thousand pound His Majesty had present notice of this occurrence And being very sensible of this new incroachment he thereupon caused intimation to be made unto them that he was not pleased with their proceedings against Mountague being one of his Chaplains adding withall that he conceived his Servants to be as capable of protection from all imprisonments and arrests as any of the Servants of the Knights and Burgesses It was not long before Laud found an opportunity to give Mountague notice of his Majesties great care of him and affection to him Which must needs be a Soveraign Cordial to the man notwithstanding that the Commons were so stiff in their Rigors toward him that his bail-bond of 2000 pound did remain uncancelled Notice
for Religion had Work enough more than they knew how to turn their hands to But before they could bring any thing to perfection his Majesty was so exasperated by their rigorous Proceedings against the Farmers of his Customs the Imprisoning of Acton Sheriff of London their Voting down his Right to Tonnage and Poundage and their threatning Speeches against the Lord Treasurer Weston whom he highly favoured That on the second of March he Adjourned the House and on the tenth of the same Month Dissolved the Parliament At which Adjournment some of the Members carried themselves in such an undutiful I must not say a seditious manner that they locked up the Doors of the House put the Keys into one of their Pockets excluded the Kings Messenger from coming in to deliver his Errand compelled the Speaker to return to his Chair and held him there by strong hand till they had thundred out their Anathema's not only against such as should dare to Levy the Tonnage and Poundage but those also who should willingly pay it before it had been granted by Act of Parliament for which Contempts and Disobediencies the principal Sticklers were convented by the Lords of the Council and after brought before the Justices of his Majesties Bench by whom they were not only fined but committed unto several Prisons notwithstanding all they could pretend or plead from the Petition of Right which they so much stood on So hard a thing it is to finde a cord so strong as to bind the Prerogative when Kings have either Power or Will to make use thereof During this last Parliament Leighton a Scot by birth a Doctor of Physick by Profession a fiery Puritan in Faction dedicated a most pestilent Book unto them called Sions Plea In this Book he incited them to kill all the Bishops and to smite them under the fifth Rib inveighing also against the Queen whom he branded by the name of an Idolatress a Canaanite and the Daughter of Heth. And that this general Doctrine might not be Preached without a particular Application a Paper was cast into the yard belonging to the House of the Dean of St. Pauls March 2. to this effect viz. Laud look to thy self be assured thy Life is sought as thou art the fauterer of all Wickedness Repent thee repent thee of thy monstrous sins before thou be taken out of the World c. And assure thy self neither God nor the World can indure such a vile Counsellor to live or such a Whisperer Another was found at the same time and place against the Lord Treasurer who now is made the Scape-Goat to bear all those faults in Civil Matters which formerly had been imputed to the Duke of Buckingham It was no need to bid them have a care of themselves after two such Warnings Leighton is therefore brought into the Star-Chamber as soon as he could be apprehended where he was Sentenced to have his Ears cropp'd his Nose slit his Forehead stigmatized and to be whipped But between the Sentence and Execution he made his escape out of the Fleet though by better hap to the Warden than to himself he was retaken in Bedfordshire and underwent the punishment appointed for him but this hapned not till November 29. 1630. The rest of this Year in reference to our present Story was of little Action Laud falling into a burning Fever on the fourteenth of August at the House of Windebank his old Friend by which he was brought to such a low and weak estate that he was not able to reach to his own House till October 20. nor to put himself into the Service of his Place till the end of March Yet such was the Activeness of his Spirit that though his Body was infirm yet his Thoughts were working He saw the Church decaying both in Power and Patrimony Her Patrimony dilapidated by the Avarice of several Bishops in making havock of their Woods to enrich themselves and more than so in filling up their Grants and Leases to the utmost term after they had been nominated to some other Bishoprick to the great wrong of their Successors Her Power he found diminished partly by the Bishops themselves in leaving their Diocesses unregarded and living altogether about Westminster to be in a more ready way for the next Preferment partly by the great increase of Chaplains in the Houses of many private Gentlemen but chiefly by the multitude of Irregular Lecturers both in City and Country whose work it was to undermine as well the Doctrine as the Government of it For the preventing of such mischiefs as might hence ensue some Conference had passed betwixt him and Harsnet who lately had succeeded Mountain before he had half warmed his Chair in the See of York and certain Considerations were resolved upon to be propounded to the King for the peace and well-ordering of the Church which being reduced into form and by Laud presented to his Majesty were first signed by his Majesties Royal Hand and published in December following by the Title of His Majesties Instructions to the most Reverend Father in God George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury containing certain Orders to be observed and put in execution by the several Bishops in his Province Which said Instructions were as â—olloweth CHARLES REX I. That the Lords the Bishops be commanded to their several Sees there to keep Residence excepting those which are at necessary Attendance at Court II. That none of them Reside upon his Land or Lease that he hath Purchased nor on his Commendam if he hold any but in one of his Episcopal Houses if he have any such And that he waste not the Woods where any are left III. That they give Charge in their Triennial Visitations and at other convenient times both by themselves and their Arch-Deacons That the Declaration for settling all Questions in difference be strictly observed by all Parties IV. That there be a special Care taken by them all That their Ordinations be Solemn and not of unworthy Persons V. That they take great Care concerning the Lecturers in their several Diocesses for whom We give these Special Directions following 1. That in all Parishes the afternoon Sermons be turned into Catechising by Question and Answer where and whensoever there is not some great cause apparent to break this ancient and profitable Order 2 That every Bishop Ordain in his Diocess That every Lecturer do read Divine Service according to the Liturgy Printed by Authority in his Surplice and before the Lecture 3. That where a Lecture is set up in a Market-Town it may be Read by a Company of Grave and Orthodox Divines near adjoining and in the same Diocess and that they Preach in Gowns and not in Cloaks as too many do use 4. That if a Corporation do maintain a single Lecturer he be not suffered to Preach till he profess his willingness to take upon him a Living with Cure of souls within that incorporation and that he do actually take such Benefice or
Cure so soon as the same shall be fairely procured for him VI. That the Bishops do incourage and countenance the grave and Orthodox Divines of their Clergy and that they use all means by some of their Clergy or others that they have knowledge how both Lecturers and Preachers within their Diocesses behave themselves in their Sermons that so they may take order for any abuse accordingly VII That the Bishop suffer none under Noblemen and men qualified by the Law to have any private Chaplain in his house VIII That they take especial care that Divine Service be diligently frequented as well for the Prayers and Catechism as Sermons and take particular notice of all such as absent themselves as Recusants or otherwise IX That every Bishop who by Our Grace and Favour and good opinion of his Service shall be nominated by Vs to another Bishoprick shall not from that day of nomination presume to make any Lease for three Lives or one and twenty years or Concurrent Lease or any way renew any Estate or cut any wood or timber but meerly to receive the Rents due and so quit the place For we think it a hateful thing that any mans leaving the Bishoprick should almost undo his Successor And if any man shall presume to break this Order We will refuse him at Our Royal Assent and keep him at the place which he hath so abused X. And lastly We command you to give Vs an account every year on the second of January of the performance of these Our Commands The Reader may think strange that in the second of these Instructions we should find any Bishop under a supposition of having no Episcopal house for his habitation concerning which he is to know that the Bishops of Oxon at that time had no house left belonging to their Episcopal See either in the City or in the Country but dwelt at their Parsonage houses which they held in commendam as before Dr. Bridges who had no commendam within the Diocess did for the most part in hired houses For though at the foundation of the Bishoprick of Oxon in the Abbey of Oseney the King appointed Glocester Hall for the Bishops Palace yet when that foundation was dissolved and the Bishops See removed to Christ Church the Grant of Glocester Hall was dissolved also The Bishops thereupon retired to some Country house within the Diocess which appertained unto them in the right of their See as long as any of their Mannours Land and Houses were left unsould But they being finally made a prey to the Lust and Sacriledge of some great persons they have since lived for the most part in hired houses or on their Commendams if they had any such within their Diocesses till the year 1632. when Dr. Iohn Bancroft was made Bishop of Oxon who having at or about that time obtained of the King that the Vicaridge oâ— Cudsden about five miles from Oxon being of his own proper Patronage and Donation might be annexed for ever unto his Episcopal See built there at the perswasion of our Bishop of London a very fair and convenient house with a decent Chappel thereunto to be the ordinary dwelling place of himself and his Successors But the house proved almost as short lived as the Founder being burned down by Collonel Leg during the short time that he was Governour of Oxon for fear it might be made a Garrison by the Parliament Forces though with as much reason and more piety he might have garrisoned it for the King and preserved the house But to proceed No sooner were these Instructions come to the hands of Archbishop Abbot but they were presently dispersed and communicated to the Suâ—raâ—an Bishops In this he acted only Ministerially and durst do no otherwise but when he came to act Authoritatively in his own capacity he betrayed the cause he neither liked the third Instruction for observing his Majesties Declaration before the Articles that being looked on as an Artifice to bring in Arminianism Nor was he pleased with any of the Limitations concerning Lecturers to whom as the chief sticklers in the Puritan Cause he was alwaies favourable which last affection he was so unable to conceal that when the Dean and Archdeacon of Canterbury had suspended Palmer and Vdnay two of the Lecturers in that Diocess whom they found obstinately inconformable to the Kings Directions He restored them not long after to their several Lectures inhibiting the Archdeacon from his Jurisdiction and exposing all that Acted in it to contempt and scorn And if an Archbishop could be so unsatisfied for putting these Instructions into execution as his place required there is no question to be made but various descants and reports would be raised upon them by most sorts of People The Country Gentlemen took it ill to be deprived of the liberty of keeping Chaplains in their houses from which they had not been debarred by the Laws of the Land The Laws indeed had taken order that no persons under the Degree of a Baron some Judges and great Offices excepted only should qualifie any of their Chaplaines for a dispensation to hold more than one Benefice with Cure of Soules or to be dispensed with for not residing on such Cures as they were preferred to And they had taken order how many Chaplains every such person according to his Rank and Degree in the Scale of Nobility should be enabled to qualifie to those ends and purposes but otherwise all persons had been left at liberty to keep as many as they would and as long as they pleased without any comptroll Nor were the Chaplains better pleased than their Masters were For having lived upon hard commons and perhaps under some smart Discipline also in their Halls and Colledâ—es they thought that they had spent their studies to good purpose by finding ease and a full belly in these Gentlemens houses from whom there was some possibility of preferment also which better Scholars then themselves might have otherwise hoped for Such of the Bishops as were possessed of the poorer Bishopricks were as much troubled as the other and thought it the worst kind of banishments to be confined unto the Country complaining privately that now the Court-Bishops had served their own turns upon the King they cared not what miseries their poor brethren were exposed unto who if they were constrained to live in their Episcopal houses or in any other place within their Diocesses must be constrained also to keep up such a Port and maintain such open Hospitality as their Revenues could not bear Nor was it thought a less injury to them that they could not make the best of their time but were required to be good husbands for another man who was to enjoy the place which they were to leave when they were fain to take it as it came to their hands without any prevention going before or satisfaction following after But greater were the clamours of the Puritan Faction reviving all whâ—ch had been made
about it Maxwell applying himself to Laud then Bishop of London from whom he received this positive Answer That if his Majesty would have a Liturgie setled there different from what they had already it was best to take the English Liturgie without any variation from it that so the same Service-Book might pass through all his Majesties Dominions Maxwell replying That the Scottish Bishops would be better pleased to have a Liturgie of their own but such as should come near the English both in Form and Matter the Cause was brought before the King who on a serious consideration of all Particulars concurred in Judgment for the English And on these terms it stood till this present year Laud standing hard for admitting the English Liturgie without alteration the Scottish Bishops pleading on the other side That a Liturgie made by themselves and in some things different from the English Service would best please their Countrymen whom they found very jealous of the least dependence on the Church of England But because Letters writtten in the time of Action are commonly conceived to carry more truth in them than Relations made upon the post-fact for particular ends take here this short Remembrance in one of his Letters to the Earl of Traquaire dated September 11. 1637. where we find this Passage And since saith he I hear from others That some exception is taken because there is more in that Liturgie in some few particulars than is in the Liturgie of England Why did they not admit the Liturgie of England without more ado But by their refusal of that and the dislike of this 't is more than manifest they would have neither and perhaps none at all were they left to themselves But besides this there was another Invitation which wrought much upon him in order to the present Journey At his first coming to the Crown the great Engagements then upon him want of Supply from England and small help from Scotland forced him to have recourse to such other ways of assistances as were offered to him of which this was one In the Minority of King Iames the Lands of all Cathedral Churches and Religious Houses which had been setled on the Crown by Act of Parliament were shared amongst the Lords and great men of that Kingdom by the connivence of the Earl of Murrey and some other of the Regents to make them sure unto that side And they being thus possessed of the same Lands with the Regalities and Tythes belonging to those Ecclesiastical Corporations Lorded it with Pride and Insolence enough in their several Territories holding the Clergy to small Stipends and the poor Peasant under a miserable Vassalage and subjection to them not suffering them to carry away their nine parts till the Lord had carried off his Tenth which many times was neglected out of pride and malice those Tyrants not caring to lose their Tythe so that the poor mans Crop might be left unto spoil and hazard King Iames had once a purpose to revoke those Grants but growing into years and troubles he left the following of that Project to his Son and Successor Having but little help from thence to maintain his Wars by the Advice of some of the Council of that Kingdom he was put upon a course of resuming those Lands Tythes and Regalities into his own hand to which the present Occupants could pretend no other Title than the unjust Usurpation of their Predecessors This to effect he resolves upon an Act of Revocation Commissionating for that purpose the Earl of Annandale and the Lord Maxwell afterwards Earl of Niddisdale to hold a Parliament in Scotland for Contribution of Money and Ships against the Duynkirkers and arming Maxwell also with some secret Instructions for passing the said Act of Revocation if he found it feasible Being on the way as far as Barwick Maxwell was there informed That his chief errand being made known had put all at Edenborough into Tumult That a rich Coach which he had sent before to Dalkeith was cut in pieces the poor Horses killed the People seeming only sorry that they could not do so much to the Lord himself Things being brought unto this stand the King was put to a necessity of some second Counsels amongst which none seemed more plausible and expedient to him than that of Mr. Archibald Achison who from a puisne Judge in Ireland was made his Majesties Procurator or Solicitor-General in the Kingdom of Scotland who having told his Majesty That such as were Estated in the Lands in question had served themselves so well by the bare naming of an Act of Revocation as to possess the People whom they found apt to be inflamed on such Suggestions That the true intendment of that Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and settling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland And therefore That it would be unsafe for his Majesty to proceed that way Next he advised That instead of such a General Revocation as the Act imported a Commission should be issued out under the Great Seal of that Kingdom for taking the Surrendries of all such Superiorities and Tythes within the Kingdom at his Majesties Pleasure And that such as should refuse to submit unto it should be Impleaded one by one to begin first with those whom he thought least able to stand out or else most willing to conform to his Majesties Pleasure Assuring him That having the Laws upon his side the Courts of Iustice must and would pass Iudgment for him The King resolved upon this course sends home the Gentleman not only with Thanks and Knighthood which he had most worthily deserved but with Instructions and Power to proceed therein and he proceeded in it so effectually to the Kings Advantage that some of the impleaded Parties being cast in the Suit and the rest seeing that though they could raise the People against the King they could not raise them against the LaWs it was thought the best and safest way to compound the business Hereupon in the year 1630. Commissioners are sent to the Court of England and amongst others the Learned and right Noble Lord of Marcheston from whose mouth I had this whole Relation who after a long Treaty with the King did at last agree That the said Commission should proceed as formerly and That all such Superiorities and Tythes as had been or should be surrendred should be re-granted by the King on these Conditions First That all such as held Hereditary Sheriffdoms or had the Power of Life and Death over such as lived within their Iurisdiction should quit those Royalties to the King Secondly That they should make unto their Tenants in their several Lands some permanent Estates either for their Lives or one and twenty years or some such like Term that so the Tenants might be encouraged to Build and Plant and improve the Patrimony of that Kingdom Thirdly That some Provisions should be made for augmenting the Stipends of the
in that expectation carrying himself with such an even and steady hand that every one applauded but none envied his preferment to it insomuch as the then Lord Faulkland in a bitter Speech against the Bishops about the beginning of the Long Parliament could not chuse but give him this faire Testimony viz. That in an unexpected place and power he expressed an equal moderation and humility being neither ambitious before nor proud after either of the Crozier or White Staff The Queen about these times began to grow into a greater prevalâ—nâ—y over his Majesties Affections than formerly she had made shew of But being too wise to make any open alteration of the conduct of aâ—â—airs she thought it best to take the Archbishop into such of her Counsels as might by him be carried on to her contentment and with no dishonour to himself of which he gives this intimation in the Breviate on the thirtieth of August 1634. viz. That the Queen sent for him to Oatlands and gave him thanks for a business which she had trusted him withall promising him to be his Friend and that he should have immediate access to her when he had occasion This seconded with the like intimation given us May 18. 1635. of which he writes that having brought his account to the Queen on May 18. Whitsunday the Court then at Greenwich it was put of till the Sunday after at which time he presented it to her and received from her an assurance of all that was desired by him Panzani's coming unto London in the Christmas holydaies makes it not improbable that the facilitating of his safe and favourable reception was the great business which the Queen had committed to the Archbishops trust and for his effecting of it with the King had given him those gracious promises of access unto her which the Breviate spake of For though Panzani was sent over from the Pope on no other pretence than to prevent a Schism which was then like to be made between the Regulars and the Secular Priests to the great scandall of that Church yet under that pretence were muffled many other designs which were not fit to be discovered unto Vulgar eyes By many secret Artifices he works himself into the fauour of Cottington Windebank and other great men about the Court and at last grew to such a confidence as to move this question to some Court-Bishops viz. Whether his Majesty would permit the residing of a Catholick Bishop of the English Nation to be nominated by his Majesty and not to exercise his Function but as his Majesty should limit Upon which Proposition when those Bishops had made this Quaere to him Whether the Pope would allow of such a Bishop of his Majesties nominating as held the Oath of Allegiance lawful and should permit the taking of it by the Catholick Subjects he puts it off by pleading that he had no Commission to declare therein one way or other And thereupon he found some way to move the King for the permission of an Agent from the Pope to be addressed to the Queen for the concernments of her Religion which the King with the Advice and Consent of his Council condescended to upon condition that the Party sent should be no Priest This possibly might be the sum of that account which the Archbishop tendred to the Queen at Greenwich on the Whitsontide after Panzani's coming which as it seems was only to make way for Con of whom more hereafter though for the better colour of doing somewhat else that might bring him hither he composed the Rupture between the Seculars and the Regulars above-mentioned I cannot tell whether I have hit right or not upon these particulars But sure I am that he resolved to serve the Queen no further in her desires than might consist both with the honour and safety of the Church of England which as it was his greatest charge so did he lay out the chief parts of his cares and thoughts upon it And yet he was not so unmindful of the Foreign Churches as not to do them all good offices when it came in his way especially when the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of England was not concerned in the same For in the year 1634. having received Letters from the Queen of Bohemia with whom he held a constant course of Correspondence about the furtherance of a Collection for the exiled Ministers of the Palatinate he moved the King so effectually in it that his Majesty granted his Letters Patents for the said Collection to be made in all parts of the Kingdom which Letters Patents being sealed and brought unto him for his further Direction in prosecution of the same he found a passage in it which gave him no small cause of offence and was this that followeth viz. Whose cases are the more to be deplored for that this extremity is fallen upon them for their sincerity and constancy in the true Religion which we together with them professed and which we are all bound in conscience to maintain to the utmost of our powers whereas these Religious and Godly persons being involved amongst other their Country-men might have enjoyed their Estates and Fortunes if with other backsliders in the times of Trial they would have submitted themselves to the Antichristian Yoke and have renounced or dissembled the Profession of the true Religion Upon the reading of which passage he observed two things First That the Religion of the Palatine Churches was declared to be the same with ours And secondly That the Doctrine and Government of the Church of Rome is called an Antichristian Yoke neither of which could be approved of in the same terms in which they were presented to him For first he was not to be told that by the Religion of those Churches all the Calvinian Rigors in the point of Predestination and the rest depending thereupon were received as Orthodox that they maintain a Parity of Ministers directly contrary both to the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England and that Pareus Profesâ—or of Divinity in the University of Heydelberg who was not to be thought to have delivered his own sense only in that point ascribes a power to inferiour Magistrates to curb the power controule the persons and resist the Authority of Soveraign Princes for which his Comment on the Romans had been publickly burnt by the appointment of King Iames as before is said Which as it plainly proves that the Religion of those Churches is not altogether the same with that of ours so he conceived it very unsafe that his Majesty should declare under the Great Seal of England that both himself and all his Subjects were bound in conscience to maintain the Religion of those Churches with their utmost power And as unto the other point he lookt upon it as a great Controversie not only between some Protestant Divines and the Church of Rome but between the Protestant Divines themselves hitherto not determined in any Council nor
after his being named to a Bishoprick or a better Deanry to renew any Lease either into lives or years His Majesty having well observed that at such times of remove many men care not what or how they let their Estates to the prejudice of the Church and their Successors Which Letters bear date at Greenwich in the twelfth year of his Reign Iune 27. Nor was he less careful to preserve the Parochial Clergy from being oppressed by their neighbours in rates and taxes than he had been in maintaining the Estates of Capitular bodies for the greater honour of those bodies at the present time and the benefit of Succession for the time to come During the Remiss Government of King Iames his Majesties late embroylments with France and Spain and his entanglements at home the Hollanders had invaded the Regality of the Narrow Seas and questioned the property of his Dominion in the same not only growing to such an height of insolency as to dispute their striking Sail in passing by any of his Majesties Ships but publishing a Discourse in Latine called Mare Liberum in defence thereof These affronts occasioned Noy the Atturney Generall to put his Majesty in mind of setting out a strong power of Ships for the recovery of his Rights against all pretenders And the better to enable him for it adviseth him to set on foot the old Naval Aide required of the Subject by his Predecessors He was a man extremely well versed in old Records with which consulting frequently in the course of his studies he had excerpted and laid by many notes and precedents for the Kings levying of such Navil Aide upon the Subjects by his own Authority whensoever the preservation and safety of the Kingdom did require it of them which Notes and Precedents he had taken as they came in his way in small pieces of Paper most of them no bigger than ones hand he kept in the Coffin of a Pye which had been sent him by his Mother and kept there till the mouldiness and corruptibleness of it had perished many of his Papers And by these Notes it did appear that many times in the same years wherein the Kings had received Subsidies by way of Parliament they levied this Naval Aide by their own sole power For if as he discoursed it to me at his house near Brentford the King wanted money either to support his own expences or for the enlarging of his Dominions in Foreign Conquests or otherwise to advance his honour in the eye of the World good reason he should be beholden for it to the love of his People But if the Kingdom was in danger and that the safety of the Subject was concerned in the business he might and did raise such sums of money as he thought expedient for the preventing of the danger and providing for the publick safety of him and his Subjects According to which precedents he prepares a Writ by which his Majesty commandeth the Maritime Counties to provide a certain number of Ships for defence of the Kingdom prescribing to each Ship its several burden the number of Mariners and great Pieces of Ordnance with Victuals Arms and Ammunition thereunto proportioned The Subject not daring at the first to dispute the Command collected money for the Service according to the several rates imposed on them in their several Counties but dealt so unmercifully with the Clergy in the levying of it that they laid upon them generally the fifth or sixth part of the sum imposed The Ice thus broken and his Majesty finding that provision not sufficient to effect his purpose issued out his Writs in the next year after anno 1635. into all the Counties of the Kingdom for preparing of a Royal Fleet to be in readiness against the beginning of this year in which the Clergy were as like to suffer as before they did By the best was that they had not only a gracious Patron but a very powerful Mediatour Upon whose humble desire his Majesty was pleased to direct his Letters to all the Sheriffs in England respectively requiring them that no Tax should be laid upon any Clergy-man possest of a Parsonage above the tenth part of the Land-rate of their several Parishes and that consideration should be had of the poor Vicars in their several Parishes according to their small revenue compared with the Abilities of the Parishioners amongst whom they lived The whole Sum levied by this Tax amounted to 236000 li. or there abouts which comes not to 20000 li. a month and being instead of all other payments seemed to be no such heavy burthen as it was generally made by the Popular Party many of which quarrelled and and refused it But his Majesty was two just a Prince to exact any thing by power when he had neither Law nor Reason to make it good And therefore as he had the opinion of all his Judges subscribed by their hands for justifying the Legality of this Naval Tax amongst the Subjects so he thought fit to publish some defence of his Dominion Right and Soveraignty in the Narrow Seas for the satisfaction of his Neighbours Iohn Selden of the Inner Temple a name that stands in need of no titles of honour had written a Discourse in the time of King Iames which in answer to that of Grotius called Mare Liberum 〈◊〉 intituled by the name of Mare Clausum But stomacking the submission and acknowledgment which he was forced to make in the High Commission for publishing his book of Tythes and sensible of the smart which he had found from the Pens of Tillesly Montague and Nettles in their Answers to him he did not only suppress the â—ook which he had written in the Kings defence but carried an evil eye to the Court and Church for a long time after But being a man of great parts and eminent in the retired walks of Learning he was worth the gaining which Canterbury takes upon him and at last efâ—ecteth By his perswasion he not only perfected but published that laborious piece which he dedicated to his Majesty whose cause he pleaded By whom it was so well approved that he sent it by Sir William Beecher one of the Clerks of his Council to the Barons of the Exchequer in open Court by them to be laid up as a most inestimable Jewel amongst the choice Records which concerned the Crowns In this book which came out this year he first asserts the Soveraignty or Dominion of the Brittish Seas to the Crown of England And that being cleared he proved by constant and continual practice that the Kings of England used to levy money from the Subjects without help of Parliament for the providing of Ships and other necessaries to maintain the Soveraignty which did of right belong unto them This he brought down unto the times of King Henry the Second and might have brought it nearer to his own times had he been so pleased and thereby paved a plain way to the payment of Ship-money as
But now Laud being Archbishop of Canterbury and Wren Dean of the Chappel it was resolved to move his Majesty that the Lent Sermons might be preached on Wednesdaies as they had been Anciently To which his Majesty condescending and the Bill of Lent-Preachers being drawn accordingly it was first muttered secretly and afterwards made a publick clamour that this was one of the Archbishops Artifices a trick devised for putting down the Tuesday Sermons of which you should never hear more when this Lent was over Which Cry growing lowder and lowder as the Lent continued was suddenly hush'd and stilled again on the Easter Tuesday when they saw the Preacher in the Pulpit as at other times So usual is it with some men to be afraid of their own shadows and terrified with fears of their own devising This Interruption thus past over I shall unwillingly resume my former Argument concerning Bastwick and the rest of his fellow-Criminals who being called unto their Answer used so many delays that the Case could not come to Sentence before Midsomer Term. Some Answers they had drawn but they were so Libellous and full of scandal that no Counsellor could be found to put his hand to them according to the course of that Court Instead whereof they exhibited a cross Bill against Canterbury and his Confederates as they called them charging them with the greatest part of those Reproaches which had been made the subject-matter of their former Libels which being signed by no hands but their own and tendred so to the Lord Keeper was by him rejected and themselves taken pro confessis their obstinacy in not answering in due form of Law being generally looked on by the Court as a self-conviction On the fourteenth of Iune they received their Sentence which briefly was to this effect Prynne to be fined 5000 l. to the King to lose the remainder of his ears in the Pillory to be branded on both cheeks with the Letters S. L. for a Schismatical Libeller and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvan Castle Bastwick and Burton condemned in the like Fine of 5000 l. to be Pilloried and lose their Ears the first to be imprisoned in the Castle of Lanceston in Cornwal and the second in the Castle of Lancaster On the thirtieth of the same Month Burton being first degraded of his Ministry in the High-Commission they were brought into the Palace-yard of Westminster to receive their punishment not executed on them with such great severity as was injuriously given out But being executed howsoever it was a great trouble to the spirits of many very moderate and well-meaning men to see the three most Eminent Professions in all the World Divinity Law and Physick to be so wretchedly dishonoured in the Persons of the Malefactors as was observed by the Archbishop himself in his Epistle to the King Which part of the Punishment being inflicted they were conveyed with care and safety to their several Prisons the People either foolishly or factiously resorting to them as they passed and seeming to bemoan their Sufferings as unjustly Rigorous And such a haunt there was to the several Castles to which they were condemned of purpose for preventing all Intelligence and Correspondence to be held between them that the State found it necessary to remove them further Prynne to the Castle of Mont Orgueil in the Isle of Iersey Burton to Castle-Cornet in the Road of Guernsey and Bastwick to St. Maries Castle in the Isle of Silly which last remembreth me of the like Confinement to which Instantius a professed Priscilianist a very near Kinsman of the English Puritan had been condemned by the Justice of the Primitive Times At the pronouncing of this Sentence the Archbishop made a long and elaborate Speech in vindication of himself and the rest of the Bishops from any Design to bring in Popery or innovating in the Government and Forms of Worship here by Law established He made his Introduction to it in a brief Discourse touching the nature of the Crime shewing how odious a thing it was to think of defending Religion in the way of Libels a thing not used by any of the Primitive Christians in the greatest heats of Persecution and then professing for his own part That he had done nothing as a Bishop but with a sincere intention for the good Government and Honour of the Church of England and the maintenance of the Orthodox Truth and Religion professed and established in it adding withal That nothing but his Care of reducing the Church into Order in the External Worship of God and the settling of it on the Rules of its first Reformation had raised this Storm against himself and the rest of the Bishops for which alone they stood accused of Innovations by those which were the greatest Innovators in the Christian World He spake next touching the Calling of Bishops which he maintained to be Iure Divino though not all the Adjuncts of that Calling averring further That from the time of the Apostles to the days of Calvin the Government of the Church was by Bishops only Lay-Elders being never heard of which Claim by Divine Right derogateth not from the King either in Right or Power as the Libellers made it no more than the Calling of the Presbyters by the same Right could be thought to do in regard they exercised not any Iurisdiction in the Kings Dominions but with his Licence for so doing Or were it otherwise yet that the Bishops stood in England in as good a case as the present Laws could make them and therefore they that Libelled against them Libelled against the King and State by the Laws whereoâ— they were established and consequently could aim at no other end than the stirring of Sedition amongst the People As touching the design of bringing in Popery by which Artifice they chiefly hoped to inflame the People he first acquitted the King of it by shewing his sincerity and constancy in his Religion exemplified by his Carriage in Spain where he wanted no temptations to draw him from it and his Deportment since in England in which â—e had so often declared a settled Resolution to maintain the same Or were it otherwise and that the King had any mind to change Religion he must seek for other Instruments than himself to effect that purpose most humbly thanking God That as yet he knew not how to serve any Man against the Truth of Christ so â—e hoped he should never learn professing further for the satisfaction of all which heard him That he knew of no plot nor purpose of altering the Religion here established and that for his own part he had ever been far from attempting any thing which might be truly said to tend that way in the least degree to both which he was ready to take his Oath Which said in general he briefly touch'd on those Innovations which in those Libels had been charged on him and the rest of the Bishops in order unto that Design To the
do for Kilvert against their Master The Story whereof desireth the Readers further patience though it come somewhat out of time and is briefly this Osbaldston the late Schoolmaster and then Prebend of Westminster a profess'd Creature of the Bishops and much imployed by him in his greatest businesses had written a Letter to him about Christmas in the year 1635. touching some Heats which hapned in that cold Season betwixt the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer Weston Osbaldston conceiving this to be a fit opportunity for the Bishop to close in with Weston and by his means to extricate himself out of those Perplexities in which this Star-Chamber Suit had so long intangled him This Intelligence he disguised in these expressions viz. The little Vermin the Vrchin and Hocus Pocus is this stormy Christmas at true and real variance with the great Leviathan And this conceit the Bishop out of too much jollity makes known to others by whom at last it came to Kilvert who laying hold on the Advantage exhibits a new Bill against him for divulging Scandalous Libels against Privy Counsellors there being good proof to be produced That by the names of Little Vermin Vrchin and Hocus Pocus the writer of that Letter designed no other than the Archbishop and the Lord Treasurer Weston by the Great Leviathan Both being made Parties to the Bill Osbaldston answers for himself That by Leviathan he intended Chief Justice Richardson and Spicer a Doctor of Laws by the other Character The differing statures of the men seeming to make good this Construction which the Grammar of the Text might bear as well as the other The Bishop pleaded for his part That he remembred not the receiving of any such Letter and that if any such Letter had come unto him it could not be brought within the compass of a Libel because not written in such plain and significant terms as might apparently decypher and set forth the Person intended in it But all this proved to be but shifts on either side for Kilvert had a Letter ready which Walker was supposed to have put into his hands to make sure work of it a Letter which the Bishop had writ to the said Walker being then his Secretary at the time of that falling out betwixt Laud and Weston Here is a strange thing saith that Letter Mr. Osbaldston importunes me to contribute to my Lord Treasurers use some Charges upon the Little Great Man and assures me they are mortally out I have utterly refused to meddle in this business and I pray you learn from Mr. S. and Mr. H. if any such falling out be or whether somebody hath not gulled the Schoolmaster in these three last Letters and keep it unto your self what I write unto you If my Lord Treasurer would be served by me he must use a more neer solid and trusty Messenger and free me from the Bonds of the Star-Chamber else let them fight it out for me This Secret thus discovered and the Mystery opened it was not long before the Cause was brought to Censure For the two Letters being compared with the Time and Circumstances it was no hard matter to the Lords who had their own Concerment in it to conclude both of them to be guilty of the Crime called Scandalum Magnatum a Libelling and defaming the Great Men of the Realm proâ—ibited and punishable by the Laws of the Land So that no Buckler being â—ound to bear off the Blow a Fine of another 8000 l. was imposed on the Bishop Osbaldston fined 5000 l. to be deprived of all his Ecclesiastical Preferments his Ears to be tack'd to the Pillory in the Palace-yard and Dammages or Costs of Suit to be paid by both to the Archbishop of Canterbury A Censure greater than the Crime as most men conceived in respect of Osbaldston whose Indiscretion might have been corrected with far less severity and less severity was intended then the Sentence intimated For though Osbaldston at that time conceived the Archbishop to be his greatest Enemy yet the Archbishop was resolved to shew himself his greatest Friend assuring the Author of this History before any thing was known of his supposed flight that he would cast himself at the Kings feet for obtaining a discharge of that corporal punishment unto which he was Sentenced Which may obtain the greater credit first in regard that no course was taken to stop his flight no search made after him nor any thing done in order to his Apprehension And secondly By Osbaldstons readiness to do the Archbishop all good Offices in the time of his Troubles upon the knowledge which was given him at his coming back of such good intentions For Osbaldston not hoping for so much favour and fearing more the shame of the Punishment than the loss of Preferment had seasonably withdrawn himself to a Friendâ— House in London where he lay concealed causing a noise to be spread abroad of his going beyond Sea and signifying by a Paper which he left in his Study That he was gone beyond Canterbury But this hapned not till the latter end of the year next following though I have laid it here together because of the coherence which it hath with the former Story To look back therefore where we left The Bishop of Lincoln was no sooner Suspended by the High-Commission that part of the Sentence being executed Iuly 24. but all the Profits of his Preferments in the Church were Sequestred to the Use of the King A Privy Seal is sent to the Sub-Dean and Prebends of the Church of Westminster requiring them to set apart all the Profits certain and uncertain which of right accrued unto that Dean and to pay the same from time to time into the Receipt of the Exchequer And that his Majesties Profits might not suffer any diminution nor the Prebends of that Church be punished for the fault of their Dean a Commission was issued under the Great Seal of England inabling them to Let and Set to Renew Leases keep Courts and make Grants of Offices and finally to act and do all manner of things which concerned the Government of that Church in as ample manner as if the Dean himself had been present at the doing of them The like course also taken in gathering in the Profits of his other Promotions those of the Bishoprick of Lincoln naturally flowing into the Exchequer as in times of Vacancy And as for his Episcopal Iurisdiction that fell as naturally to the Archbishop of the Province as the Temporal Revenue to the King the Archbishop of Canterbury exercising all kind of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction throughout the Diocess of Lincoln not only as Ordinary of that Diocess but as Visitor of all those Colledges which had any dependence on that See Amongst which Colledges as that of Eaton was the chief so there was somewhat in it which was thought to want a present Remedy some Information being given That they had diminished the number of their Fellows from Ten to Seven
This being a matter easily to be proved they were required to make up their number according to their first Foundation by King Henry vi But against this the Fellows pleaded That out of an hatred to their Founder a great part of their Lands had been taken from them by King Edward iv conferred by him upon the Abby of Westminster and the Church of Windsor and by them enjoyed until this day and that they hoped his Grace would not tye them to maintain the whole number of their Fellows with little more than half their Lands To which so reasonable a desire upon full proof made of the Suggestion his Grace did readily consent and left them in the same state in which he found them The noise of these Proceedings in England in the Iune and Iuly of this year being quickly posted to the Scots became a principal Incentive of those Combustions which not long after inflamed that Kingdom For it could be no hard matter for the Presbyterians there to possess the People with the sense of the like smart Sufferings by the Pride and Tyranny of their Bishops if they permitted them to grow great and powerful and did not cast about in time to prevent the mischief And to exasperate them the more the Superstitions of the Liturgie now at the point of being put in execution were presented to them which if once settled amongst them as was then intended would in short time reduce them under the Obedience of the Church of Rome They could not but confess That many things which were found fault with in the English Liturgie were in this altered unto the better the name of Priest so odious unto them of the Puritan Faction changed to that of Presbyter no fewer than sixty Chapters or thereabouts taken out of the Apocrypha appointed to be read by the Church in the English Book reduced to two and those two to be read only on the Feast of All-Saints The new Translation Authorised by King Iames being used in the Psalms Epistles Gospels Hymns and Sentences instead of the old Translation so much complained of in their Books and Conferences But what was this compared with those Superstitions those horrible Corruptions and Idolatries now ready to be thrust upon them in which this Liturgy as much exceeded that of England as that of England had departed from the simplicity and purity of the holier Churches Now therefore somewhat must be done to oppose the entrance of the Popish superstitious Service-Book either now or never But the Presbyterian Ministers who had gone thus far did not alone bring fewel to feed this flame to which some men of all degrees and qualities did contribute with them The Lords and Gentry of the Realm who feared nothing so much as the Commission of surrendries above mentioned laid hold on this occasion also and they being seconded by some male-contented Spirits of that Nation who had not found the King to be as prodigal of his bounties to them as his Father had been before endeavoured to possess them with Fears and Jealousies that Scotland was to be reduced to the Form of a Province and governed by a Deputy or Lord Lieutenant as Ireland was The like done also by some Lords of secret Counsel who before had governed as they listed and thought their power diminished and their persons under some neglect by the placing of a Lord President over them to direct in Chief So that the People generally being fooled into this opinion that both their Christian and Civil Liberty was in no small danger became capable of any impression which the Presbyterian Faction could imprint upon them nor did they want incouragements from the Faction in England to whom the Publication of the Book for Sports the transposing of the holy Table the suppressing of so many Lecturers and Afternoon Sermons and the inhibiting of Preaching Writing Printing in defence of Calvinism were as distasteful and offensive as the new Liturgie with all the supposed superstitions of it was to those of Scotland This Combination made and the ground thus laid it is no wonder if the people brake out into those distempers which soon after followed Sunday the 23 of Iuly was the day appointed for the first reading of the New Liturgy in all the Churches of that Kingdom and how it sped at Edenborough which was to be exemplary to all the rest shall be told by another who hath done it to my hand already Iuly 23. being Sunday the Dean of Edenborough began to read the Book in St. Giles his Church the chief of that City but he had no sooner entred on it than the inferiour multitude began in a tumultuous manner to fill the Church with uprore whereupon the Bishop of Edenborough stept into the Pulpit and hoping to appease them by minding them of the Sanctity of the place they were the more enraged throwing at him Cudgels Stools and what was in the way of Fury unto the very endangering of his life Upon this the Archbishop of St. Andrews Lord Chancellor was enforced to call down from the Gallery the Provost Bailiffs and other Magistrates of the City to their assistance who with much ado at length thrust the unruly Rabble out of the Church and made fast the doors This done the Dean proceeded in reading the Book the multitude in the mean while rapping at the doors pelting the Windows with stones and endeavouring what in them lay to disturb the Sacred Exercise but notwithstanding all this clamour the Service was ended but not the peoples rage who waiting the Bishops retiring to his Lodging so assaulted him as had he not been rescued by a strong hand he had probably perisht by their violence Nor was S. Giles his Church thus only pestered and profaned but in other Churches also though not in so high a measure the peoples disorders were agreeable The Morning thus past the Lord Chancellor and Council assembled to prevent the like darings in the Afternoon which they so effected as the Liturgy was read without any disturbance Only the Bishop of Edenborough was in his return to his Lodging rudely treated by the people the Earl of Roxboroughs Coach in which he passed serving for no protection to him though Roxborough himself was highly favoured of the People and not without some cause suspected to have had a hand in the Commotions of that day The business having thus miscarried in Edenborough stood at a stand in all other Churches of that Kingdom and therefore it will not be amiss to enquire in this place into the causes and occasions of it it seeming very strange to all knowing and discerning men that the Child that had so long lain in the Womb perfectly formed and now made ready for the birth should not have strength enough to be delivered Amongst which causes if disposed into ranke and order that which appears first is the confidence which Canterbury had in the Earl of Traquaire whom he had raised from the condition of a
private Laird to be a Peer of that Realm made him first Treasurer Depute Chancellor of the Exchequer we should call him in England afterwards Lord Treasurer and Privy Counsellor of that Kingdom This man he wrought himself so far into Lauds good liking when he was Bishop of London only that he looked upon him as the fittest Minister to promote the Service of that Church taking him into his nearest thoughts communicating to him all his Counsels committed to his care the conduct of the whole Affair and giving order to the Archbishops and Bishops of Scotland not to do any thing without his privity and direction But being an Hamiltonian Scot either originally such or brought over at last he treacherously betrayed the cause communicated his Instructions to the opposite Faction from one time to another and conscious of the plot for the next daies tumult withdrew himself to the Earl of Mortons house of Dalkeith to expect the issue And possible it is that by his advice the executing of the Liturgy was put off from Easter at what time the reading of it was designed by his Majesty as appears by the Proclamation of December 20. which confirmed the Book By which improvident delay he gave the Presbyterian Faction the longer time to confederate themselves against it and to possess the people with Fears and Jealousies that by admitting of that book they should lose the Purity of their Religion and be brought back unto the Superstitions and Idolatries of the Church of Rome And by this means the People were inflamed into that Sedition which probably might have been prevented by a quicker prosecution of the Cause at the time appointed there being nothing more destructive of all publick Counsels than to let them take wind amongst the People cooled by delaies and finally blown up like a strong Fortress undermined by some subtle practice And there were some miscarriages also amongst the Prelates of the Kirk in not communicating the design with the Lords of the Council and other great men of the Realm whose Countenance both in Court and Country might have sped the business Canterbury had directed the contrary in his Letters to them when the first draughts of the Liturgy were in preparation and seems not well pleased in another of his to the Archbishop of St. Andrews bearing date September 4. that his advice in it was not followed nor the whole body of the Council made acquainted with their Resolutions or their advice taken or their power called in for their assistance till it was too late It was complained of also by some of the Bishops that they were made strangers to the business who in all Reason ought to have been trusted with the knowledge of that intention which could not otherwise than by their diligence and endeavours amongst their Clergy be brought to a happy execution Nor was there any care taken to adulce the Ministers to gain them to the Cause by fair hopes and promises and thereby to take off the edge of such Leading men as had an influence on the rest as if the work were able to carry on it self or have so much Divine assistance as countervailed the want of all helps from man And which perhaps conduced as much to the destruction of the Service as all the rest a publick intimation must be made in all their Churches on the Sunday before that the Liturgie should be read on the Lords day following of purpose as it were to unite all such as were not well affected to it to disturb the same And there were some miscarriages also which may be looked on as Accessories after the Fact by which the mischief grew remediless and the malady almost incurable For first the Archbishops and Bishops most concerned in it when they saw what hapned consulted by themselves apart and sent up to the King without calling a Council or joyning the Lay Lords with them whereas all had been little enough in a business of that nature and so much opposed by such Factious persons as gathered themselves on purpose together at Edenborough to disturb the Service A particular in which the Lay Lords could not be engaged too far if they had been treated as they ought But having run upon this error they committed a worse in leaving Edenborough to it self and retiring every one to his own Diocess except those of Galloway and Dumblaine For certainly they must needs think as Canterbury writes in one of his Letters to Traquaire that the Adverse party would make use of the present time to put further difficulties upon the work and therefore that they should have been as careful to uphold it the Bishop of Ross especially whose hand had been as much in it as the most But possibly the Bishops might conceive the place to be unsecure and therefore could not stay with safety neither the Lords of the Council nor the Magistrates of the City having taken any course to bring the chief Ringleaders of the Tumult to the Bar of Justice which must needs animate all disaffected and seditious persons and almost break the hearts of those who were well enclined And such indeed was the neglect of the Civil Magistrate that we hear of no man punished scarce so much as questioned for so great a Riot as was not to be expiated but by the death or some proportionable punishment of the chief offenders Which had it been inflicted on some three or four for a terror to others it might have kept that City quiet and the whole Kingdom in obedience for the time to come to the saving of the lives of many thousands some hundreds of thousands at the least in all the three Kingdoms most miserably lost in those long and cruel Wars which ensued upon it But the Lords of Scotland were so far from looking before them that they took care only for the present and instead of executing Justice on the Malefactors suspended the Liturgie it self as the cause of the Tumult conceiving it a safer way to calm the differences than to encrease the storm by a more rigorous and strict proceeding All that they did in order to his Majesties Service or the Churches peace was the calling in of a scandalous Pamphlet entituled A dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded on the Kirk of Scotland which not being done till October 20 following rather declared their willingness to suffer the said Book to be first dispersed and set abroad then to be called in and suppressed Nor seemed the business to be much taken to heart in the Court of England from whom the Scots expected to receive Directions Nor Order given them for unsheathing the Sword of Justice to cut off such unsound and putrified Members which might have saved the whole Body from a Gangreen the drawing of some Blood in the Body Politick by the punishment of Malefactors being like letting Blood in the Body Natural which in some strong Distempers doth preserve the whole Or granting that the Tumult
had been grown so high and so strongly backed that Justice could not safely have been done upon them a way might have been found to have cooled the Fever without loss of Blood by bringing the whole Corporation under the danger of a forfeiture of their Lands and Liberties in a Legal way which course proved so successful unto King IAMES on the like occasion Anno 1597. Or finally supposing that the Cause admitted not such a long delay if then his Majesty had but sent a Squadron of the Royal Navy which he had at Sea to block up their Haven he had soon brought the Edenburghers unto his devotion and consequently kept all the rest of the Kingdom in a safe Obedience This was the way to keep them under and of this course the People of the City were more afraid than of any other Somewhat they are to do which might make his Majesty hope better of them than they had deserved and nothing they could do which might better please him than to express their chearfulness in admitting the Liturgie To this end they addressed their Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury as more concerned in this Affair than any other of the Lords which were neer his Majesty expressing in the same their great dislike of the late Tumult for their Innocency therein they refer themselves to his Majesties Council in that Kingdom declaring further their concurrence with the Bishops which remained in the City and the Ministry of the same for settling the Service-Book and offering Means above their Power to such as should undertake the Reading of it and finally desiring his Grace to make known to his Majesty how ready they were at all points to advance the Service which they promised to accept as an accumulation of his Graces Favours unto them and their City And that this Letter of theirs which bears date the nineteenth of August might bear the greater credit with him they did not only seem industrious for the apprehending of some and the inquiring after others of the Principal Actors but bound themselves by an Obligatory Act of the Common-Council both for the Indempnity and Maintenance of such as should read the Book the Ministers of Edenborough refusing to do their parts in it without such Encouragements But the danger was no sooner over by the coming home of the Fleet but they Petitioned the Lords of the Council to put them into the same condition with the rest of the Subjects and that the Service-Book should be no further pressed on them than it had been in all the other parts of the Kingdom To which they were encouraged by a general confluence of all sorts of People such most especially as had most shewn their disaffection to the work in hand For the Harvest was no sooner in and the People at more leisure than before to pursue that Quarrel but the City swarmed with throngs of People from all parts even to a formidable number which moved the Lords to publish two Proclamations on the seventeenth of October The first commanding all of them to repair to their Dwellings except such as should shew sufficient reason for their stay and continuance there The second for Adjourning the Sessions from Edenborough to the Town of Linlithgow But this served rather like the powring on of Oyl to encrease the Flame than of Water to quench it For the next day the Bishop of Galloway being to Sit with the Lord Chief Justice upon some especial Business in the Council-House he was pursued all along the Street with bitter Railings to the very Door and being drawn in from the rage of the People they immediately beset the House demanding the delivery of him and threatning his destruction The Earl of Traquair being advertised of the Bishops danger who formerly had been his Tutor came to his Relief and with much ado forced an Entrance thorow the Press But being got in he was in no better plight than the Bishop the Clamour still encreasing more and more and encompassing the Council-House with terrible Menaces Hereupon the Provost and City-Council was called to raise the Siege but they returned answer That their condition was the same for they were surrounded with the like Multitude who had enforced them for fear of their Lives to sign a Paper importing First That they should adhere to them in opposition to the Service-Book Secondly To restore to their Places Ramsey and Rollock two Silenced Ministers and one Henderson a Silenced Reader No better Answer being returned the Lord Treasurer with the Earl of Wigton went in Person to the Town-Council-House where they found the heat of the fury somewhat abated because the Magistrates had signed the Paper and returned with some hope that the Magistrates would calm the Disorders about the Council-House so as the Bishop might be preserved But they no sooner presented themselves to the Great Street than they were most boysterously assaulted the Throng being so furious as they pulled down the Lord Treasurer took away his Hat Cloack and White Staff and so haled him to the Council-House The Lords seeing themselves in so great danger at length pitch upon the best expedient for their safety and sent to some of the Noblemen and Gentry who were disaffected to the Service-Book to come to their Aid These Lords and Gentlemen came as was desired and offered both their Persons and Power to protect them which the Lords and the Council-House readily embraced and so were quietly guarded to Holy-Rood-House and the Bishop to his Lodging The Lords of the Council not thinking themselves to be secure published a Proclamation the same day in the afternoon for repressing such Disorders for the time to come But they found slender Obedience yielded to it Commissioners being sent unto them from the Citizens in an insolent manner for demanding the Restitution of their Ministers to their Place and Function and performing all such Matters as had been agreed on at the Pacification These Riots and Seditions might have served sufficiently in another Reign to have drawn a present War upon them before they were provided in the least degree to make any resistance But the Edenburghers knew well enough what they were to do what Friends they had about the King and what a Party they had got among the Lords of his Council which Governed the Affairs of that Kingdom And they were apt enough to hope by the unpunishing of the first Tumult on Iuly 23. That the King might rather have patience enough to bear such Indignities than Resolution to revenge them so that he came at last to that perplexity which a good Author speaks of That he must either out-go his Nature or fore-go his Authority For instead of using his just Power to correct their Insolencies he courts them with his Gracious Proclamation of the seventh of December in which he lets them know How unwilling he was that his Loyal and Faithful Subjects should be possessed with groundless and unnecessary doubts and fears touching
excused for Age and indisposition testified their affections to his Majesties Service in good Sums of money The Flower of the English Gentry would not stay behind but chearfully put themselves into the Action upon a confidence of getting honour for themselves as well as for their King or Country many of which had been at great charge in fâ—rniâ—â—ing themselves for this Expedition on an assurance of being repaid in Favours what they spent in Treasure And not a few of our old Commanders which had been trained up in the Wars of Holland and the King of Sweden deserted their Employments 〈◊〉 to serve their Soveraign whether with a greater gallantry or a â—ection it is hard to say The Horse computed to 6000. as good as ever charged on a standing Enemy The Foot of a sufficient number though not proportionable to the Horse stout men and well a 〈◊〉 for the most part to the Cause in hand the Canon Bullets and all other sorts oâ— Ammunition nothing inferiour to the rest of the Preparations An Army able to have trampled all Scotland under their feet Gods ordinary providence concurring with them and made the King as absolutely Master of that Kingdom as many Prince could be of a conquered Nation The chief Command committed to the Earl of Arundel who though not biassed toward Rome as the Scots reported him was known to be no friend to the Puritan Faction The Earl of Holland having been Captain of his Majesties Guard and formerly appointed to conduct some fresh â—ecruits to the Isle of Rhee was made Lieutenant of the Horse And the Earl of Essex who formerly had seen some service in Holland and very well understood the Art of War Lieutenant-General of the Foot Besides which power that marcht by Land there were some other Forces embarqued in a considerable part of the Royal Navy with plenty of Coin and Ammunition which was put under the command of Hamilton who must be of the Quorum in all businesses with order to ply about the Coasts of Scotland and thereby to surprise their Ships and destroy their Trade and make such further attempts to Landward as opportunity should offer and the nature of affairs require It is reported and I have it from a very good hand that when the old Archbishop of St. Andrews came to take his leave of the King at his setting forward toward the North he desired leave to give his Majesty three Advertisements before his going The first was That his Majesty would suffer none of the Scottish Nation to remain in his Army assuring him that they would never fight against their Countrymen but rather hazard the whole Army by their â—ergiversation The second was that his Majesty would make a Catalogue of all his Counsellors Officers of Houshold and domestick Servants and having so done would with his Pen obliterate and expunge the Scots beginning first with the Archbishop of St. Andrews himself who had given the Counsel conceiving as he then declared that no man could accuse the King of Partiality when they found the Archbishop of St. Andrews who had so faithfully served his Father and himself about sixty years should be expunged amongst the rest A third was That he must not hope to win upon them by Condescensions or the sweetness of his disposition or by Acts of Grace but that he should resolve to reduce them to their duty by such waies of Power as God had put into his hands The Reason of which Counsel was because he found upon a sad experience of sixty years that generally they were a people of so cross a grain that they were gained by Punishments and lost by Favours But contrary to this good Counsel his Majesty did not only permit all his own Servants of that Nation to remain about him but suffered the Earls of Roxborough and Traquaire and other Noblemen of that Kingdom with their several Followers and Retinues to repair to York under pretence of offering of some expedient to compose the differences Where being come they plyed their business so well that by representing to the Lords of the English Nation the dangers they would bring themselves into by the Pride and Tyranny of the Bishops if the Scots were totally subdued they mitigated the displeasures of some and so took off the edge of others that they did not go from York the same men they came thither On the discovery of which Practice and some intelligence which they had with the Covenanters they were confined to their Chambers the first at York the other at Newcastle but were presently dismissed again and sent back to Scotland But they had first done what they came for never men being so suddenly cooled as the Lords of England or ever making clearer shews of an alteration in their words and gestures This change his Majesty soon found or had cause to fear and therefore for the better keeping of his Party together he caused an Oath to be propounded to all the Lords and others of chief Eminency which attended on him before his departure out of York knowing full well that those of the inferiour Orbs would be wholly governed by the motion of the higher Spheres The Tenor of which Oath was this that followeth I A. B. do Swear before the Almighty and Ever-living God That I will bear all faithful Allegiance to my true and undoubted Sovereign King CHARLES who is Lawful King of this Island and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions both by Sea and Land by the Laws of God and Man and by Lawful Succession And that I will mâ—st constantly and most chearfully even to the utmost hazard of my Life and Fortunes oppose all Seditions Rebellions Conjurations Conspiracies whatsoever against his Royal Dignity Crown and Person raised or set up under what pretence or colour soever And if it shall come vailed under pretence of Religion I hold it more abominable both before God and Man And this Oath I take voluntarily in the Faith of a good Christian and Loyal Subject without Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever from which I hold no Power on Earth can absolve me in any part Such was the Tenour of the Oath which being refused by two and but two of the Lords of which one would not Say it nor the other â—rock it the said Refusers were committed to the Custody of the Sheriffs of York and afterwards for their further Tryal Interrogated upon certain Articles touching their approbation or dislike of the War To which their Answers were so doubtful and unsatisfactory that his Majesty thought it safer for him to dismiss them home than to keep them longer about him to corrupt the rest By means whereof he furnished them with an opportunity of doing him more disservice at home where there was no body to attend and observe their Actions than possibly they could have done in the Army where there were so many eyes to watch them and so many hands to pull them back if they proved extravagant As to the
in every Quarter of the year at Morning Prayer And it was added by the Canons that if any Parson Vicar Curate or Preacher should Voluntarily or carelesly neglect his duty in publishing the said Explications and Conclusions according to the Order above prescribed he should be suspended by his Ordinary till his Reformation That all Bishops Priests and Ministers should Teach Preach and Exhort their People to Obey Honour and Serve their King and that they presume not to speak of his Majesties Power any other way then in the Canon is expressed with reference to Excommunication and a Suspension of two years for the first Offence and Deprivation for the second to be inflicted by his Majesties Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical upon all Persons whatsoever which in any Sermon Lecture Determination or Disputation should maintain any point of Doctrine contrary to the said Propositions and Explications In reference to the preservation of the Episcopal power an Oath was dâ—awn up in the Upper and sent down to the Lower House of Convocation by them to be debated approved and ratified upon Approbation Which Oath was required to be taken by all Archbishops Bishops Priests and Deacons before the second day of November then next following to be tendered in the presence of a publike Notary to all Priests and Deacons by the Bishop in person or his Chancellour or some grave Divines named and appointed by the Bishop under his Episcopal Seat In the first words of the Oath aâ— it came from the Lords it was expressed in these words that every man should Swear to the Doctrine and Discipline established in Church of England And this occasioned some dispute concerning the extent of the word Discipline whither it comprehended the Episcopal Government and the publick Forms of Divine Worship or was to be restrained only to the use of the Keys as it was practiced in Ecclesiastical Courts Some would have had the words run thus I. A. B. do swear that I approve the Doctrines Discipline or Government established c. But against this it was objected First that the Government of the Church was sufficiently provided for by the following clause in which there was an especial Enumeratâ—â—â— of all Offices impowred in the Government of the Church and that it was incongruous to make that Discipline and Government to be the same and that Government should be said to contain all things or any thing which was necessary to Salvation And they that thus objected would have had it pass in these words viz. I approve the Doctrine Discipline and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary unto Salvation Which though it seemed more plausible and intelligible then the other was yet being put unto the vote it was carried for Discipline or â—â—â—â—rnment under pretence of not clogging the Oath with things unnecessary and such as might be made capable of a variation According to which Vote the Canon was drawn up with this title viz. An Oath injoyned for the preventing of all Innovations in Doctrine and Government and the Oath it self injoyned in this form following that is to say I. A. B. Do swear that I do Approve the Doctrine and Discipline or Government Established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary to salvation And that I will not endeavour by my self or any other directly or indirectly to bring in any Pâ—pish Doctrine contrary to that which is so established Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the Government of this Church by Archbishops Bishops Deans and Archdeacons c. As it stands now established and as by Right it ought to stand nor yet ever to subject it to the usurpations and Superstitions of the See of Rome And all these things I do plainly and seriously acknowledge and swear according to the plain and Common sense and understanding of the same words without any Equivocation or mental evasion or secret reservation whatsoever And this I do heartily willingly and truly upon the faith of a Christian So help me God in Jesus Christ. The Oath being past the Canon was drawn up by the former hand according to such Instructions as were sent along with it By which it was required that all Masters of Art the Sons of Noblemen only excepted all Bachelors or Doctors in Divinity Law or Physick all that are licenced to practice Physick all Registers â—â—ctuaries and Procters all School-masters all such as being natives oâ— Naturalized do come to be incorporated into the Universities here having taken any Degree in any Foreign University should be bound to take the said Oath the same Oath to be Administred to all such of the persons abovenamed residing in any University by the Governors of their several Houses and by the Bishop Respectively to all which should from thenceforth be admitted to holy Orders or receive any Institution Collation or Licence for the serving of any cure with several Penalties to all beneficed Parsons and all such as were then in any Ecclesiastical dignity for their Refusal of the same that is to say a suspension ab officio for the first Refusal à beneficio officio for the second and Deprivation for the tâ—ird a Moneths deliberation being granted betwixt each Refusal These two great matters being thus concluded A message is delivered by the Prolocutor from the house of Bishops by which the Clergy were desired to consider of the best expedient for inducing an Uniformity in the Church about the situation of the Lords Table the Receiving of the blessed Sacrament and the due Revenue to be used in the house of God and to prepare a Caâ—â—â— to that purpose if they found it necessary On the Receiving of 〈◊〉 message a grand Committee was selected out of the Ablest men oâ— the House to take that great and weighty business into consideration and to Report unto the House whatsoever they should do therein that it might pass or be rejected as the House thought fit The Committee consisted of 27. the Prolocutor being reckoned into the number their meeting to be held the same afternoon in the Chappel of King Hen. 7. Where being met and sitting about the table provided for the use of the Bishops the points were seriously debated every man speaking his opinion in them when it came to his turn without interruption beginning with the Prolocutor and so proceeding from man to man till it concluded with the Clerk for the Church of Westminster So placed of purpose that he might answer all such arguments as had been brought against any of the points proposed and were not answered to his hand The Prolocutor having taken the summe of every mans Judgement declared that the far Major part had appeared for placing the Lords Table where the Altar stood the drawing neer unto it to receive the Sacrament and the making of due Reverences at the entring into the Church and going out of it and thereupon put it to the question whether they
of his Majesties Privy-Council had any thing been contained in them derogatory to the Kings Prerogative or tendinâ— to Faction and Sedition So far they were from being liable to Condemnation in those respects that Justice Crook whose Argument in the Case of Ship-money was Printed afterwards by Order from the House of Commons is credibly affirmed to have lifted up his hands and to have given hearty Thanks to Almighty God that he had lived to see so good Effects of a Convocation On these Encouragements and such a solemn Approbation the Clergy were called up to the House of Bishops to be present at the subscribing oâ— them which was accordingly performed May 29. by the Bishops Deans and Archdeacons in their Seniority and promiscuoâ—sly by the rest of the Clergy till all the Members had Subscribed every mans heart going together with his hand as it is to be presumed from all men of that holy Profession Recusant there was none but the Bishop of Glocester suspected of some inclinations to the Romish Religion in the Times preceding which inclinations he declared more manifestly by this Refusal for which there could be no imaginable Reason to prevail upon him but the severity of the Canon for suppressing the Growth of Popery Some pains was taken with him in the way of perswasion and some Commands laid on him by his Metropolitan as President of the Convocation But when neither of the two Endeavours could remove him from his former obstinacy the Prolocutor and Clergy were required to return to their House again and to consider of the Penalty which he had incurred according to the Rules and Practice of the Catholick Church in National and Provincial Councils Which being done the Proloâ—â—tor had no sooner put the Question but the Clergy unanimously condemned him to a Suspension a Beneficio Officio and found at their return that the House of Bishops who had had some speech thereof before had pronounced the same Sentence against him also A Sentence which might have produced more dangerous effects on this obstinate Prelate if he had not prevented it in time by his submission For the Sentence being reduced into Writing subscribed by the Archbishops hand and publickly pronounced in 〈◊〉 Convocation his Majesty took such just offence at so great a scandal that he committed him to Prison where he staid not long 〈◊〉 on the tenth of Iuly he made acknowledgment of his fault before the Lords of the Council and took the Oath injoyned in the sixth Canon for preserving the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England against all Popish Doctrines which were thereunto repugnant Upon the doing whereof his Majesty was graciously pleased to restore him to his former Liberty though this Submission appeared within few years after to be made either with some mental Reservation or Jesuitical Equivocation which he came prepared with For in the time of his last Sickness he declared himself to be a Member of the Church of Rome and caused it so to be expressed in his last Will and Testament that the news thereof might spread the further and his Apostacy stand upon Record to all future Ages A Scandal so unseasonably given as if the Devil himself had watched an opportunity to despite this Church But these things hapned not till after The Sentence of Suspension was no sooner pronounced but the Archbishop giving great thanks to the Bishops and the rest of the Clergy for their pains and diligence in doing so much Work in so little time produced his Majesties Writ for dissolving the said Convocation which he accordingly executed and dissolved the same The Acts whereof being transmitted unto York were by the Convocation for that Province perused debated and approved without any disputing and so presented to his Majesty with their Names subscribed according to the ancient Custom There remained now nothing more to do for giving these Canons the Authority and Reputation of his Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws but the signifying of his Royal Assent and confirming them by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England And this his Majesty upon mature deliberation was graciously pleased to do commanding in the same That they should be diligently observed executed and equally kept by all his Subjects both within the Provinces of Canterbury and York respectively That for the better observation of them all Ministers should audibly and distinctly read all the said Canons in the Church or Chappel in which they Minister at the time of Divine Service The Book of the said Canons to be provided before Michaelmas at the charge of their Parishes And finally That all Archbishops and Bishops and others having Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall take special care that the said Canons and Ordinances be in all points duly observed not sparing to execute the Penalties in them severally mentioned upon any that shall wittingly or wilfully break or neglect to observe the same as they tendred the Honour of God the Peace of the Church the Tranquility of the Kingdom and their Duties and Service to his Majesty their King and Sovereign With which his Majesties Letters Patents bearing date on Iune 13. confirmatory of the Acts of the said Convocations I conclude the fourth and busiest part of this present History THE LIFE OF The most Reverend FATHER in GOD WILLIAM Lord Archbishop of Canterbury LIB V. Extending from the end of the Convocation Anno 1640. till the day of his Death Jan. 10 th 1644. THus have we brought this Renowned Prelate and with him the Church unto the very Battlement and Pinacle of External Glories But such is the vicissitude of humane affairs that being carried to the height they begin to fall it being no otherwise with the fortunes of States or Men then it is with Plants which have their times of taking Root their Growing Flourishing Maturity and then their Fading and decay And therefore it was very well observed by Paterculus an old Roman Historian that when either Emulation or natural Courage had given to any man an edge to ascend to the highest after they had attained that height they were according to the course of Nature to descend again and that it was no otherwise with States and Nations then with Private men It was just fourscore years from the beginning of the Reformation under Queen Eliz. to the Pacification made at Berwick when the King so unfortunately dismist his Forces and thereby left himself and his party in a worse condition then before the raising of his Army The Church till then might seem to be in the Ascendent in the point of Culminating and was then ready to decline which our Judicious Hooker had before presaged Who had assigned her fourscore years for her growth and flourishing and nothing afterwards but sorrow and disconsolation For taking notice of the inclination of the times to Sacriledge and Spoil and Rapine and finding nothing more frequent in the mouths of men then this that they which endowed Churches with Lands
himself was fain to call both Houses before him within two daies after there to Explain or rather to Retract so harsh a Title calling them afterwards by the name of his Subjects of Scotland as he used to do which gave the Commons such a sense of their Power and of his Compliance that they resolved to husband both to their best advantage and not so easily to part with their Friends of Scotland as his Majesty first hoped they would The differences might have been agreed at York or Rippon if the Commissioners of the Scots had been as forward as the English but the Scots so delayed them as his Majesty noted in that Speech that it was not possible to end it there The Scots had other work to do besides their own and must be kept in pay at the charge of the English till they had brought his Majesty into such a condition that it was not safe for him to deny them any thing which they had the confidence to require Such a beginning had this long and unhappy Parliament unhappy to the King and to all that loved his Power or Person most men who looked on his Affairs with the eye of Judgment presaging that this thrifâ—y omission of the Publick Pomp in the present Conjunctures would prove as inauspicious to him as the like neglect had done at his Coronation and that this Parliament which began without solemnity would prove a Parliament of sorrows unto him and his With little better Fortune did the Convocation take beginning at S. Pauls Church on the morrow after handselled at their first meeting by the sad news of the Decease of Dr. Neile Archbishop of York which had been brought unto the Town the day before A man he was who had past through all Degrees and Orders in the Church of England and thereby made acquainted with the conveniencies or distresses incident to all conditions He had served the Church as Schoolmaster Curate Vicar Parson Master of the Savoy Dean of Westminster Clerk of the Closet to both Kings successively Bishop of Rochester Lichfield Lincoln Durham and Winchester and finally Archbishop of York in which place he died Many good Offices he had done to the Church and Church-men in his attendance at the Court crossing the Scots in most of their suits their Ecclesiastical Preferments which greedily and ambitiously they hunted after and thereby drawing on himself the general hatred not only of the Scots but Scotizing English But of this Prelate we have spoke so much upon other occasions that we may save the labour of any further addition than that he died as full of years as he was of honours an affectionate Subject to his Prince an indulgent Father to his Clergy a bountiful Patron to his Chaplains and a true friend to all which relied upon him more fortunate in the time of his death than the course of his life in being prevented by that blessed opportunity from seeing those calamities which afterwards fell upon the King the Church and all that wish well to either of them which must have been more grievous to him than a thousand deaths But this bad news retarded not the Convocation from proceeding forwards the Prelates and Clergy attending the Archbishop from the Chapter-house into the Choire where they heard the Sermon Preached at that time by Bargrave then Dean of Canterbury which done the Clergy settled to the choice of a Prolocutor electing the same man who had before discharged the Place with so much dexterity Adjourned to Westminster and Protestation made by the Sub-Dean and Prebends according to the usual custome the Prolocutor was presented to the Archbishop and Bishops in the Chappel of King Henry vii at what time the Archbishop in an eloquent but sad Oration bemoaned the infelicities which he saw hanging over the Church advising every one there present to perform their Duties and not to be wanting to themselves or the cause of Religion as far forth as they were concerned in their several places Nothing more done of any moment in this Convocation but that a motion was made by Warmistre one of the Clerks for the Diocess of Worcester to this effect viz. That they should endeavour according to the Levitical Laws to cover the Pit which they had opened and to prevent their Adversaries intention by condemning such offensive Canons as were made in the last Convocation He had before offered at many things in that Convocation but such was his ill-luck that the Vote was for the most part passed before he spake nor had he better fortune in his motion now than his offers then the Members of that House not being willing to condemn themselves till they were accused So that not having any other way to obtain his purpose he caused a long Speech which he had made upon this occasion to be put in Print bitter enough against some Canons and Proceedings in the former Session but such as could not save him from a Sequestration when the rest of the Clergy were brought under the same condition Whilst these things were acting on the Stage of Westminster the Earl of Strafford was not Idle in acting his part at York amongst the Souldiers whose affections he had gained so far that he was generally beheld with esteem and veneration He had before sufficient proof how strongly the Scots aimed at his destruction expressed in their Remonstrance and the Intentions of their Army as they called the Pamphlet but more especially by the refusal of the Scots Commissioners to hold the Treaty at York and the reasons given for their refusal for in a Paper of theirs presented on October 8. They had insisted on the danger apprehended by them in going to York and casting themselves and others who might be joyned with them into the hands of an Army commanded by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland against whom as a chief Incendiary according to their demands which was the subject of the Treaty it self they resolved to proceed They complained also in that Paper That in the Parliament of Ireland he had proceeded against them as Traitors and Rebels That he honoured them in his common talk with no better Titles That his Commission was to destroy them And that by all means and by all occasions he had hindred all Propositions tending to a Pacification for fear himself might be excluded from the benefit of it He was not without a strong presumption that the Scots were animated unto these Demands and incouraged to invade the Kingdom by some of those which were of greatest Prevalency in both Houses of Parliament And lying so near the Scots in the head of his Army he had not only gained assurance as he conceived in many particulars to confirm it but that there was a Confederacy made between the Heads of the Covenanters and some of the leading Members of both Houses his most Capital Enemies to subject the Government of the Church and innovate in that of the Civil State which Intelligence being digested
twelve years before the end of this Session as we shall see too soon in the course of this History In the mean time the Anti-Prelatical party in the house of Peers so bestirred themselves that they prevailed upon the Rest to put a lower valuation on the Bishops then they had done formerly insomuch that at a Solemn Fast following not long after the Temporal Lords took Precedence of the Bishops contrary to the Custom of their Predecessors in all times foregoing the Bishops not thinking it convenient to contend for place at such time as their whole Order was in danger of Falling Which being observed by the Lord Spencer Is this said he a day of Humiliation wherein we shew so great a Pride in taking place of those to whom it was allowed by all our Ancestors A day of Humiliation if it might be called it was made such to the Bishops only the Temporal Lords being never higher in their Exaltation But now we must look back on the Earl of Strafford the prosecution of whose Impeachment had been long delaid upon some probable hope that the displeasures of his greatest adversaries mâ—â—â— be mitigated by some Court-preferments In Order where 〈◊〉 was agreed upon if my intelligence or memory fail not that the Earl of Bedford should be made Lord Treasurer and 〈◊〉 Chancellor of the Exchequer the Earl of Essex Governour of the Prince and that Hambden should be made his Tutor the Lord Say Maâ—ter of the Wards and Hollis Principal Secretary in the Place of Windebank the Deputieship of Ireland was disposed of also and some command appointed for the Earl of Warwick in the Royal Navy Which Earls together with the Earl of Hartford and the Lord Kimbolton eldest Son to the Earl of Manchester were taken at this time into his Majesties Council that they might witness to the Rest of that Party with what sincerity and Piety his Majesties Affairs were Governed at the Council Table And in Relation to this purpose the Bishop of London delivered to the King the Treasurers Staff the Earl of New-castle relinquished the Governance of the Prince and the Lord Cottington resigned his Offices both in the Exchequer and the Court of Wards there being no doubt but that Bishop Duppa in Order to so good a work would relinquish the Tutorship of the Prince when it should be required of him So gallantly did these great persons deny themselves to advance the Service of their Master But before all these things were fully settled and performed the Kings mind was altered but by whom altered hath been more conjectured then affirmed for certain which so exasperated them who were concerned in this designation that they persued the Earl of Strafford with the great eagerness And somewhat to this purpose was hinted in the Kings Declaration of the 12 â—h of August in which he signified what overâ—â—â—es had been made by them and with what importunity for Offices and preferments what great services should have been done for him and what other undertaking even to have saved the Life of the Earl of Straâ—â—ord By which discovery as he blemished the Reputes of some Principal Members in the eyes of many of the people so he gave no small cause of wonder to many others when they were told from his own Pen at how cheap a Rate a Rate which would have cost him nothing he might have saved the Life of such an able and deserving Minister This design being thus unhappily dasht the Earl was called unto hâ—â— Tryal on the 22 â—h day of March last past which being continued many days with great expectation his Adversaries though the ablest men in the House of Commons perceived that his Defences were so strong and their proof so weak that they thought it not sale to leave the Judgement of the Cause to the House of Peers in way of Judicature For finding that their proofs amounted not to a Legal Evidence and that nothing but Legal Evidence could prevail in a Court of Judicature they Resolved to Steer their course by another wind and to call the Legislative power to their assistance according unto which both Lords and Commons might proceed by the Light of their own Understanding without further Testimony And so it was declared by Saint-Iohns then Solicitor General in a conference between the Committees of both Houses April 29. 1641. Where it is said That although single Testimony â—ight be sufficient to satisfie private Consciences yet how far it would have been satisfactory in a judicial way where forms of Law are more to be stood upon was not so clear whereas in this way of Bill private satisfaction to each mans Conscience is sufficient although no Evidence had been given in at all Thus they Resolved it in this Case But knowing of what dangerous consequence it might be to the Lives and Fortunes of themselves and the Rest of Subjects a saving clause was added to the Bill of Attainder that it should not be drawn into Example for the time to come By which it was Provided That no Iudge or Iudges Iustice or Iustices whatsoever shall adjudge or Interpret any Act or thing to be Treason nor hear or determine any Treason nor in any other manner then he or they should or ought to have done before the making of this Act and as if this Act had never been made His Majesty understanding how things were carried Resolved to use his best endeavours to preserve the man who had deserved so bravely of him And therefore in a Speech to both Houses of Parliament on the first of May absolved him from all Treasons charged upon him conjuring them by the merit of his former graces and the hopes of greater not to compel him to do any thing against his conscience to which no worldly consideration whatsoever should be able to tempt him This put the Lords to such a stand who were before enclinable enough to that unfortunate Gentleman that multitudes of the Rabble were brought down out of London and Southwark to cry for speedy Justice and Execution the names of such as had not voted to the Bill being posted up in the Palace-yard by the Title of Straffordians and Enemies to the Commonwealth Which course so terrified the Lords that most of them withdrawing themselves from the House of Peers the Attainder passed and certain Bishops nominated to attend the King for satisfying his Conscience and perswading him to sign that Destructive Bill Never was Poor Prince brought to so sad an Exigent betwixt his Conscience on the one side and the Fears of such a Publick Rupture on the other as seemed to threaten nothing but destruction to himself and his Family But humane frailty and the continual Solicitation of some about him so prevailed at last that on Munday morning the ninth of May he put a most unwilling hand to that fatal Bill Issuing a Commission unto certain Lords to pass the same into an Act and with the same to speed another which he had also
signed with the same Penful of Ink for the continuance of the present Parliament during the pleasure of the Houses The Act thus past on Munday Morning the Earl was brought unto the Scaffold on the Wednesday following desiring earnestly but in vain to Exchange some words with the Archbishop before his Death Which gave occasion to a report that a little before his Death he had charged his misfortunes oversights and misdemeanours upon the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Prime Author of the same and had bitterly Curst the day of their first acquaintance Which being so scandalous and dishonourable to this great Prelate I shall lay down the whole truth in this particular as it came from the Archbishops own mouth in the presence of Balfore a Scot and then Lieutenant of the Tower who was required to attest to each period of it The Lord Strafford the night before the Execution sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and asked him whether it were possible he might speak with the Archbishop The Lieutenant told him he might not do it without Order from the Parliament Whereupon the Earl replied You shall hear what passeth between us for it is not a time now either for him to plot Heresie or me to plot Treason The Lieutenant answered That he was limited and therefore desired his Lordship would Petition the Parliament for that Favour No said he I have gotten my dispatch from them and will trouble them no more I am now Petitioning an Higher Court wâ—ere neither partiality can be expected nor Error â—eared But my Lord said he turning to the Primate of Ireland whose company he had procured of the Houses in that fatal Exigent I will tell you what I should have spoken to my Lords Grace of Canterbury You shall desire the Archbishop to lend me his Prayers this night and to give me his Blessing when I do go abroad to morrow and to be in his Window that by my last Farewell I may give him thanks for this and all other his former Favours The Primate having delivered the Message without delay the Archbishop replied That in conscience he was bound to the first and in duty and obligation to the second but he feared his weakness and passion would not lend him eyes to behold his last Departure The next morning at his coming forth he drew near to the Archbishops Lodging and said to the Lieutenant Though I do not see the Archbishop yet give me leave I pray you to do my last observance towards his Rooms In the mean time the Archbishop advertised of his approach came out to the Window Then the Earl bowing himself to the ground My Lord said he your Prayers and your Blessing The Archbishop lift up his hands and bestowed both but overcome with grief fell to the ground in Animi deliquio The Earl bowing the second time said Farewell my Lord God protect your Innocency And because he feared that it might perhaps be thought an effeminacy or vnbecoming weakness in him to sink down in that manner he addâ—d That he hoped by Gods Assistance and his own Innocency that when he came to his own Execution which he daily longed for the World should perceive he had been more sensible of the Lord Strafford's Loss than of his own And good reason it should be so said he for the Gentleman was more serviceable to the Church he would not mention the State than either himself or any of all the Church-men had ever been A gallant Farewell to so eminent and beloved a Friend Thus march'd this Great Man to the Scaffold more like a General in the Head of an Army to breath out Victory than like a Condemned Man to undergo the Sentence of death The Lieutenant of the Tower desired him to take Coach for fear the People should rush in upon him and tear him in pieces No said he to the Lieutenant I dare look Death in the face and I hope the People too Have you a care that I do not escape and I care not how I die whether by the hand of the Executioner or the madness and fury of the People If that may give them better content it is all one to me In his last Speech upon the Scaâ—fold he declared That in all his Imployments since he had the honour to serve his Majesty he never had any thing in the purpose of his heart but what tended to the joynt and individual prosperity both of King and People That he was so far from being an Enemy to Parliaments which had been charged amongst his Crimes that he did always think the Parliaments of England to be the most happy Constitution that aâ—y Kingdom or Nation lived under and the best means under God to make the King and People happy That he acquitted all the World for his death heartily beseeching the God of Heaven to forgive all them that contrived it though in the intentions and purposes of his heart he was not guilty of the Oâ—fences which he was to die for That it was a great comfort to him that his Majesty conceived him not meriting so severe and heavy a Punishment as the utmost execution of this Sentence And finally after many other Expressions That he died a true Son of the Church of England in which he had been born and bred for the Peace and Prosperity whereof he most heartily prayed Turning his eyes unto his Brother Sir George Wentworth he desired him to charge his Son to fear God to continue an obedient Son to the Church of England and not to meddle with Church-Livings as that which would prove a Moth or Canker to him in his Estate And having several times recommended his prepared Soul to the Mercies of God he submiâ—ted his Neck with most Christian Magnanimity to the stroke of the 〈◊〉 which took his Head from him at one blow before he had filled up the number of fifty years A man on whom his Majesty looked as one whose great Abilities might rather make a Prince afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest Affairs of State â—or those were proâ—e to create in him great confidence of Undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great Errors and many Enemies whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a Sphere and with so vigorous a Lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious Exhalations which condensed by a Popular Odium were capable to cast a Cloud upon the highest Merit and Integrity So far he stood commended by the Pen of his sorrowful Sovereign who never could sufficiently â—â—waâ—l his own Infelicity in giving way unto an Act of such 〈…〉 justice as he calls it there of which he gives this Testimony in his Meditation on the Death of this unfortunate Earl That he wa◠〈◊〉 far from excusing or denying that Compliance on his part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in his own judgment he thought not by any clear
Archbishop of Canterbury who had sâ—t so great a part of his affections on the preserving of this Church in her Power and Glory Whose sense hereof is thus express'd by one who for the time was his greatest Adversary That it struck proud Canterbury to the heart and undermined all his Prelatical Designs to advance the Bishops Pomp and Power whether with greater bitterness or truth is hard to say Their great hâ—pe was though it was such a hope as that of â—â—â—aham which the Scripture calls a hope against hope that havinâ— pâ—red the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and impaired their Power tâ—â—y would have suffered them to enjoy their Function with Peace and quiet as the only remaining Ornament and Honour of the Church oâ— England Conform therein unto the gallantry of the Ancient Romans who when they had brought the Carthaginians unto that condition as to compel them to deliver up their Ships Arms and Elephants and to make neither War nor Peace without their permission esteemed it an especial honour to their Commonwealth to preserve the City which was no longer to be feared though formerly it had contended for the Superiority But the Bishops Crimes were still unpunished And as the old Roman Citizen cried out upon his fine Country-house and pleasant Gardens when he found his name posted up amongst the Proscripts in the time of Sylla so might these Holy men complain of those fair Houses and goodly Manors which belonged to their Episcopal Sees as the only mâ—ans of the Subverâ—â—on of their Sacred Calling This had been formerly resolved oâ— but was not to be done at once as before was noâ—ed nor to be followed now but on some such colour as was pretended â—or depriving them of their Jurisdiction and Place in Parliament It was pretended for suppressing the Court of High-Commissiâ—n and the coercive Power of Jurisdiction That the Prelates had abused them both to the insufferable wrong and oppression of his Majesties Subjects And for the taking away of their Votes in Parliament with all other Civil Power in Church-men That it was found to be an occasion of great mischief both to Church and State â—he Office of the Ministry being of such great importance as to take up the whole Man And now to make way for the Abolition of the Calling it self it was given out amongst the People to have been made of no use to the Church by the Bishops themselves against whom these Objections were put in every mans mouth That they had laid aside the use of Confirming Children though required by Law whereby they had deprived themselves of that dependence which People of all sorts formerly had fastned on them That they had altogether neglected the duty of Preaching under the colour of attending their several Governments That in their several Governments they stood only as Cyphers transmitting their whole Jurisdiction to their Chancellors and under-Officers That none of them used to sit in their Consistories for hearing Grievances and Administring Justice to the Subject whether Clergy or Laity leaving them for a prey to Registers Proctors and Apparitors who most unconscionably extorted from them what they pleased That few or none of them held their Visitations in person whereby the face of the Bishop was unknown to the greatest part of the Clergy and the greatest part of the Clergy was unknown to him to the discouragement oâ— the Godly and painful Ministers and the encouragement of vicious and irregular Parsons That few of them lived in their Episcopal Cities and some there were who had never seen them whereby the Poor which commonly abound most in populous places wanted that Relief and those of the better sort that Hospitality which they had reason to expect the Divine Service in the mean time performed irreverently and perfunctorily in the Cathedrals of those Cities for want of the Bishops Residence and Superinspection That they had transferred the solemn giving of Orders from the said Cathedrals to the Chappels of their private Houses or some obscure Churches in the Country not having nor requiring the Assistance of their Deans and Chapters as they ought to do That they engrossed a sole or solitary Power to themselves alone in the Sentence of Deprivation and Degradation without the Presences and Consents of their said Deans and Chapters or any Members of the same contrary to the Canons in that behalf by which last Acts they had rendred those Capitular Bodies as useless to the Church as they were themselves And finally That seeing they did nothing which belonged unto the place of a Bishop but the receiving of their Rents living in ease and worldly pomp and domineering over the rest of their Brethren it was expedient to remove the Function out of the Church and turn their Lands and Houses unto better uses This I remember to have been the substance of those Objections made by some of the Gentry and put into the mouths of the Common People in which if any thing were true as I hope there was not such Bishops as offended in the Premises or in any of them have the less reason to complain of their own misfortunes and the more cause to be complained of for giving such Advantages to the Enemies of their Power and Function Nor was the alienating of their Lands and Houses the Total Sum of the Design though a great part of it As long as the Episcopal Jurisdiction stood much Grist was carried from the Mills in Westminster-Hall Toll whereof was taken by the Bishops Officers Therefore those Courts to be suppressed which could not be more easily done than in abolishing the Bishops whose Courts they were that so the managing of all Causes both Ecclesiastical and Civil might be brought into the hands of those who thought they could not thrive sufficiently by their own Common Law as long as any other Law was Common besides their own By means whereof all Offices and Preferments in the Admiral Archiepiscopal and Diocesan Courts being taken from the Civil Lawyers nothing can follow thereupon but the discouragement and discontinuance of those Noble Studies which formerly were found so advantagious to the State and Nation It is not to be thought that such a general Concussion should befal the Church so many Practices entertained against it and so many Endeavours used for the Ruine of it and that no man should lend a helping hand to support the Fabrick or to uphold the Sacred Ark when he saw it tottering Some well-affected in both Houses appeared stoutly for it amongst which none more cordially than the Lord George Digby in a Speech made upon occasion of the City-Petition and Sir Lucius Cary Viscount Faulkland both Members of the House of Commons Which last though he expressed much bitterness against the Bishops in one of his Speeches made in the first heats and agitation of business yet afterwards in another of them he shewed himself an especial Advocate in behalf of the Episcopal Order In which Speech of his
back again to the Tower where he continued till the end of the year 1659. without any Charge or Accusation produced against him But as for the Archbishop of Canterbury as he first took possession of that Fatal Lodging before any of the rest came to him so he continued there after their dismission without hope of finding his passage out of it by any other door than the door of Death which as he did not look for before it came so when it came he did not fear it He had then been fifteen months a Prisoner since his first Commitment to that place as far from being brought unto his Trial as he was at the first and is to lye there as much longer before he should hear any thing of them which might tend that way only they had some pulls at him from one time to another to keep him in remembrance of his present condition and to prepare him by degrees to his last dissolution For on October 23. in the year foregoing the House of Peers sequestred his Jurisdiction from him conferring it on Brent and others of his under-officers and ordered that he should bestow none of the Benefices within his gift without acquainting them with the name and quality of the party whom he intended to prefer leaving to them the Approbation if they saw cause for it And on October 15. this present year for so long he remained without further disturbance it was resolved upon the Question That the Fines Rents and Profits of Archbishops and Bishops should be sequestred for the use and service of the Commonwealth In which though he was no more concerned yet he was as much concerned as any other of the Episcopal Order so much the more as being sure to find less favour whensoever that Vote should be put in execution by them that made it For on the ninth of November following his house at Lambeth was forcibly possessed by a Party of Souldiers to keep it for the publick Service and 78 pounds of his Rents as forcibly taken from some of his Officers by an Order under the hands of some of the Lords upon pretence of imploying it to the maintenance of his Majesties Children But upon his Petition shortly after he had an Order for securing of his Goods and Books though he secured them rather from the power of the Souldiers than from the hands of any other on whom the Houses should bestow them when they saw time for it Upon the neck of that came another Order to bar him from having Conference with any of the other Prisoners or speaking with any other but in the presence of the Warder who was appointed to attend him and from having the Liberty of the Tower or from sending any of his Servants into the City but on occasion of providing Victuals and other necessaries Not long after the Souldiers brake open the doors of his Chappel in Lambeth house and began to make foul work with the Organs there but before any great hurt was done their Captain came and put a period to their fury On December 21. his Saddle-horse was seised on by Order from some Members in the House of Commons and on 23. Leighton the Schismatick who had before been sentenced in the Star-Chamber for his libellous and seditious Pamphlets came with an Order from that house to disposses the Souldiers of their quarters there and turn his house into a Prison His Wood and Coals seised on without any permission to make any use of them for himself On March 14. he had word brought him of a plot for sending him and Bishop Wren his fellow Prisoner to perpetual Exile in New-England and that Wells a factious Preacher which came lately thence had laid wagers of it but when the matter came in agitation in the House of Commons it appeared to be so horrible and foul a practice that it was generally rejected In the beginning of May 1643 the Windows in his Chappel were defaced and the steps torn up his Goods and Books seised on by Leighton and some others And on the sixteenth of the same month he was served with an Order of both Houses debarring him from bestowing any of his Benefices which either were or should be vacant for the time to come And on the last day of the same an Order issued from some Members of that close Committee directed unto Prynne and others to seise on all his Letters and Papers to be perused by such as should be Authorised to that end and purpose So far they had proceeded in pulling him from himself piece-meal before they were ready for his Trial or seemed to have any thoughts which might look that way They had then a greater game to play and on this occasion His Majesty at his late being in Scotland expostulated with some of the chief amongst them touching their late coming into England in an hostile manner and found that some who were now leading men in the Houses of Parliament had invited them to it and having furnished himself with some proofs for it he commanded his Atturney General to impeach some of them of High Treason that is to say the Lord Kimbolton a Member of the House of Peers Hollis Pym Hasterig Stroud and Hambden of the House of Commons But sending a Serjeant at Arms to Arrest their persons there came a countermand from the House of Commons by which the Serjeant was deferred from doing his office and the Members had the opportunity of putting themselves into the Sanctuary of the City The next day being Ianuary 4. his Majesty being no otherwise attended than with his ordinary Servants and some few Gentlemen armed no otherwise than with Swords and Courage went to the House of Commons to demand the five Members that he might proceed against them in a way of Justice but his intention was discovered and the birds flown before his coming And this was voted by the House of Commons for such an unexpiable breach of Priviledge that neither tâ—e Kings qualifying of that Action nor his desisting from the prosecution of that impeachment nor any thing that he could either say or do would give satisfaction nothing must satisfie their Iealâ—usies and secure their Fears but the putting the Tower of London into their hands together with the Command of the Royal Navy as also of the Forts Castles and the Train-bands of the Kingdom all comprehended under the name of the Militia which if his Majesty would fling after all the rest they would continue his most loyal and obedient subjects On this the King demurs a while but having shipt the Queen for Holland and got the Prince into his own power he becoms more resolute and stoutly stands on the denial But finding the Members too strong for him and London by reason of the continual tumults to be a dangerous Neighbour to him he withdraws to York that being in a place of safety he might the better find a way to compose those differences which now began to embroil
years and more since it first was made in all which time we hear no news of that performance for which the Ground could be but Little and the evidence less To the other branches of his Charge consisting in Words or Actions he answered first That the Dissolving of the said Parliaments was no Act of his the business being publickly debated at the Council Table and carried by the Unanimous consent of all then Present that the hard measure which he was complained of to have shown to Corbet of Shropshire he being but a Private Subject could not be called an Act of Treason That the words charged upon him at the Council Table and elswhere might well have been spared That no ill effect did follow on them and that they were innocently though suddenly spoken which he hoped might proceed from a man of such a hasty and Incircumspect humour as himself made so as well by nature as by the multiplicity of vexations which were put upon him without involving him in the crime or guilt of Treason That for his words unto the King touching his being absolved from the Rules of Government they contained only matter of opinion and in opinion delivered at the Council Table where all had Liberty to speak their own sense as he did at time which if it were Erroneous and contrary to the sense of others he hoped that no man should justly be condemned of Treason for shewing himself no wiser then God had made him And thereupon he desired the Lords from his misfortune to provide for their own safety and seriously to consider what a way was chalked out to ruine them both in their Lives and their Estates if for every Opinion given in Council or Words suddenly or hastily spoken they who are born to wield the great affairs of the Kingdom should be Arraigned or Sentenced as Traytors To which he added in the close That there was no likelyhood that he had commited Real Acts of Treason when his adverse Party was content to trifle away so much time about Words Neither was there any Treason in them though they had been fully verified and therefore in that as in all other Articles he reserved a Power for his Counsel to dispute in matter of Law Which when it came to the Dispute not called on by the Commons till October 11. the Question or Point in Issue was Whether any Treason was contained in all or any of the Articles which were charged against him And therein Hearn so plaid his part as the mouth of the rest that after the expectation of more months and the expence of almost as many days as had been spent in the Arraignment of the Earl of Strafford his Enemies in the House of Commons were forced to fall again on a Bill of Attainder as they had been before after so much â—â—ise and ostentation of Wit and Eloquence in the case of that Gentleman For being too far engaged to go back with Honour and yet not having confidence enough to venture him to the Judgment of the House of Peers as in the way of Legal Tryal they seemed to be at such a stand as the Thames is said to be at under London-Bridge betwixt Ebb and Flood In which perplexity some who were fit for any mischief imployed themselves to go from door to door and from man to man to get hands against him and so Petition those to hasten to his Condemnation who must forsooth be forced to their own desires whereof and of the Magistrates standing still and suffering them to proceed without any Check he gave them a Memento in his dying Speech Which Preparations being made they followed it with such double diligence that by the beginning of November most men were great with expectation of a final Sentence Conceived by some That the whole Evidence being transmitted with the Prisoner to the Justices of his Majesties Bench he should have been put over to a Middlesex-Iury but they were only some poor Ignorants which conceived so of it The Leading Members of the House thought of no such matter and to say truth it did concern them highly not to go that way For though there was no question to be made at all but that they could have Impanelled a Iury to have found the Bill yet by a Clause in the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford they had bound the Judges not to declare those Facts for Treason in the time to come for which they had Condemned and Executed that Heroick Peer And therefore they resolved on the same course now which they had found before so prosperous and successful to them to proceed now as then by Bill of Attainder and condemn him by Ordinance in which being Parties Witnesses and Judges too they were assured to speed as they would themselves And though for fashion sake he was brought unto the Commons Bar on the eleventh of that Month not without magnifying the Favour of giving him leave to shew some Reason why the Bill should not pass against him yet was this but a matter of Formality only the Ordinance passing in that House within two days after But yet the Business was not done for the Lords stuck at it some of which having not extinguished all the Sparks of Humanity began to find themselves compassionate of his Condition not knowing how soon it should or might be made their own if once disfavoured by the Grandees of that Potent Faction For the Ordinance having been transmitted to the House of Peers and the House of Peers deliberating somewhat long upon it it was Voted on December 4. That all Books Writings and Evidences which concerned the Tryal should be brought before the Lords in Parliament to the end that they might seriously and distinctly consider of all Particulars amongst themselves as they came before them But meaning to make sure work of it they had in the mean time after no small Evaporations of Heat and Passion prepared an Ordinance which they sent up unto the Lords importing the displacing of them from all those Places of Power and Command which they had in the Army Which being found too weak to hold they fall upon another and a likelier Project which was to bring the Lords to sit in the Commons House where they were sure they should be inconsiderable both for Power and Number And to effect the same with more speed and certainty they had recourse to their old Arts drawing down Watkins with his general muster of Subscriptions and putting a Petition into his hands to be tendred by him to the Houses that is themselves wherein it was required amongst other things That they should vigorously proceed unto the punishment of all Delinquents and that for the more quick dispatch of Publick Businesses of State the Lords would please to Vote and Sit together with the Commons On such uncertain terms such a ticklish Tenure did they then hold their Place and Power in Parliament who so officiously complied with the House of Commons in
of their Tithes and procured the Repealing of the Irish Articles and those of England to be approved and received in the placâ— thereof And what said they could be more unadvisedly and unâ—politickly done then to draw upon himself at once the 〈…〉 pleasure of three Kingdoms in the several Concernments of each Nation as also all the Genevian Churches abroad in their Propâ— Interesses Fomented by the Pride and Purse of the City of 〈◊〉 and prosecuted by the Malice and Activity of the Puritanâ—â—ction â—â—ction in them all united in the Common quarrel or the Lords day Sabbath They added that King Edward the first began not with the Conquest of Wales before he had well settled his affairs in England and that he undertook not the following War against the Scots whom afterwards he brought under his obedience till some years after he had finished the Conquest of Wales that as all Supâ—râ—â—tations are dangerous to the Product of the Births of Nature and nothing more Repugnant to a Regular Diet than to fill the 〈◊〉 with fresh viands before it is Emptied of the Former so notâ—ing 〈◊〉 iâ— more destructive to the Body Politick than to try two many Expâ—riments at once upon it which cannot possibly work well together to tâ—e publick health and therefore that he should have practised upon one Kingdom after another as best became so able a Physician and so exact a Maâ—ter in the Art of a Christian Warfare that one of them might have followed the good Example of the other and not all joyn together like so many ill humours to the common disturbance of the work Such were the Censures and Discourses which were passed upon him betwixt his Imprisonment and his Death and for some years after In which how much or little there is of truth is left unto the â—udgment of those who are more thoroughly acquainted with his disposition and aâ—â—ections his secret Counsels and the Reasons which directed him in the conduct of them than I can honestly pretend to All I can say is that which may be said by any other which â—ad no more access to him than my self Of Stature he was low but of strong Composition so short a Trunck never contained so much excellent Treasure which therefore was to be the stronger by reason of the wealth which was lodged within it His Countenance chearful and well-bloudied more fleshy as I have often heard him say than any other part of his body which chearfulness and vivacity he carried with him to the very Block notwithstanding the Afflictions of four years Imprisonment and the infelicity of the times For at his first Commitment he besought God as is observed in the Breviate to give him full patience proportionable comfort and contentment with whatsoever he should send and he was heard in what he prayed for for notwithstanding that he had fed long on the bread of carefulness and drank the water of affliction yet as the Scripture telleth us of the four Hebrew Children His Countenance appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than any of those who eat their portion of the Kings Meat and drank of his Wine A gallant Spirit being for the most part like the Sun which shews the greater at his setting But to proceed in that weak Character which my Pen is able to afford him Of Apprehension he was quick and sudden of a very sociable Wit and a pleasant Humour and one that knew as well how to put off the Gravity of his Place and Person when he saw occasion as any man living whatsoâ—ver Accessible enough at all times but when he was tired out with multiplicity and vexation of business which some who did not understand him ascribed unto the natural ruggedness of his Disposition Zealous he was in the Religion here established as hath been made apparent in the course of this History Constant not only to the Publick Prayers in his Chappel but to his private Devotions in his Closet A special Benefactor to the Town of Reading where he had his Birth and to the University of Oxon. where he had his Breeding so much the more to this last as he preferred his Well 〈…〉 〈◊〉 his Bâ—â—â—iâ— Happy in this that he accomplished those good works in the time of his Life which otherwise must have â—hrunk to nothing in the hands of Executors To speak of the Integrity of so great a Person would be an injury to his Vertues One Argument whereof may be if there were no other That in so long a time of Power and Greatness wherein he had the principal managing of Affairs both in Church and State he made himself the Master of so small a Fortune that it was totally exhausted in his Benefactions unto Oxon. and Reading before remembred The rest I shall refer to the Breviate of his Life and Action though published of purpose to defame him and render him more odious to the Common People In which it will appear to an equal and impartial Reader That he was a man of such eminent Vertues such an exemplary Piety towards God such an unwearied Fidelity to his Gracious Sovereign of such a publick Soul towards Church and State so fixt a Constancy in Friendship and one so little byassed by his private Interesses that Plutarch if he were alive would be much troubled to find a sufficient Parallel wherewith to match him in all the Lineaments of perfect Vertue Thus lived this most Reverend Renowned and Religious Prelate and thus he died when he had lived seventy one years thirteen Weeks and four daies if at the least he may be properly said to die the great Example of whose Vertue shall continue alway not only in the Minds of Men but in the Annals of succeeding Ages with Renown and Fame His Death the more remarkable in falling on St. Williams day as if it did design him to an equal place in the English Calendar with that which William Archbishop of Bourgeois had obtained in the French Who being as great a Zealot in his time against the spreading and increase of the Albigenses as Laud was thought to be against those of the Puritan Faction and the Scottish Covenanters hath ever since been honoured as a Saint in the Gallican Church the tenth of Ianuary being destined for the solemnities of his Commemoration on which day our Laud ascended from the Scaffold to a Throne of Glory The End of the Second Part. ERRATA PAge 12. l. 33. read accâ—rding to p. 14. l. 4. r. out of l. 5. r. that it is p 31. l. 32. r. Pâ—â—seâ—â—nce p. 35. l. 13. r. there be no. p. 47. l. 30. r. Lord â—ip p. 59. l. 43. for 〈◊〉 Colledge r. Pâ—rnâ—â—â—ke Hall p. 66 l 41. r. redounded p. 68. l. 42. â— Chair 〈◊〉 14. r. â—â—â—sances l. 30. r. divuâ—ged it over r. also The City was p. 74. l. 21. ◠〈…〉 smâ—â—â— p. 91. l. 38. r. commends and propounds p. 108. l. 40. r. Pâ—pe p. 〈◊〉 l. 25. r. Church of p. 112. l. 39