following and there received the Sentence of death in due form of Law But such was the exceeding Lenity of the good Arch-bishop that he looked more upon the Parts of the man than upon his Passions upon his Learning and Abilities though too much abused than the ill use that he made of them in those stirring-times And so far he engaged himself with his Royal Mistress who used to call him Her Black Husband that she gave way to a Reprieve though she could not easily be induced to grant a Pardon Which notwithstanding the Arch-bishop could not scape the lash of some virulent Tongues by whom he stood more accused for the Condemnation than he was magnified for the Reprieve of the man condemned And therefore it was after pleaded in his justification That Vdal's Book was clearly within the compass of the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. for punishing Seditious words against the Queen according to the Resolution of the Judges before laid down That divers Seditious Sermons might have been objected against him as well as the making of that Book which would have rendred him more culpable in the sight of his Judges and that whereas one Catsfield could have spoken more materially against him than any of the rest of the Witnesses he was never called unto the Barr to give in his Evidence the Jurors being fully satisfied in the former Proofs So that the whole Indictment being rightly grounded the Prosecution favourable and the Evidence full the man remained a living-Monument of the Arch-bishop's extraordinary Goodness to him in the preserving of that Life which by the Law he had forfeited But how long he remained alive I am not able to say and therefore shall add only this That he left a Son behind called Ephraim who afterwards was Beneficed at the Church of St. Augustines near St. Paul's Church-yard and proved as great a Zealot for Conformity in the time of King CHARLES as his Father was reputed for his Non-conformity in the times we write of And he paid almost as deer for it as his Father did being sequestred about the year 1643 not submitting to some Oaths and Covenants then required of him his bed-rid Wife turned out of doors and left most unmercifully in the open Streets 13. Now whilst the State was taken up in these Criminal Processes the Learned men and others interessed on each side were no less busied in defence of their own Concernments Adrian Saravia born in the Lower-Germany but better studied in the Fathers than the most of his Rank had found by search into their Writings of what Antiquity and Necessity the Calling of Bishops had been reckoned in the Primitive times even in the days of the Apostles but finding no encouragement to maintain any such opinion in his Native Countrey where the Presbyteries governed all and Parity of Ministers was received as an Article of their publike Confession he put himself upon the Favour and Protection of the Church of England He had before fashioned his Reply to Beza's Book entituled De Triplici Episcopatu as before was said But the first Piece published by him on his coming hither was a right learned Work entituled De diversis gradibus Ministrorum Evangelii In which he proved by undeniable Arguments That Bishops were a different Order as well as by Degrees superior to all other Presbyters This Book he dedicates to the Ministers of the Belgick Churches as appears by his Epistle dated March 26 Anno 1590. Amongst whom though he could not hope for much approbation yet he received but little or no opposition But so it prov'd not at Geneva where Beza governed backed by Danaeus and the rest of the Consistorians who looked upon it as destructive to their whole Contrivements Beza had other Work in hand and therefore leaves him for the present to the lash of Danaeus who falls upon him with Reproaches instead of Arguments as Saravia complained in his Reply reckoning his Corpulency for a Crime calling him Swineherd Hog a man born only for the stuffing of a filthy paunch with many the like scurrilous strains of Genevian Rhetorick Beza comes slowly on but he comes at last not publishing his Answer to it till the third year after to which Saravia replies in the year next following Anno 1594. In which he made an exact parallel amongst other things betwixt the practises of Hacket and the Puritan Faction on the one side and those of Iohn of Leyden and the Anabaptists when they reigned in Munster In the end Beza gave him over which raised him to such eminent note with the English Prelates that he was made a Prebendary of the Church of Westminster and otherwise well provided for to his full contentment 14. In the mean time the Minister of the Italian Church in the City of London could not rest satisfied with the enjoying the same Priviledges which the French and Dutch Churches had before procured but published a Book in maintenance and commendation of the Holy Discipline which gave a just occasion to Dr. Matthew Suttliff then Dean of Exon to set out a judicious Work in Latin touching the nature of the truly Catholick and Christian Church wherein he grated somewhat hard on the point of Presbytery and was the first English man that did so in the Latin Tongue And though he named Beza only and no more than named him yet Beza thought his Name so sacred or himself so high that he conceived himself to be much dishonoured reproaches him by the name of a petulant Railer and complains of the affront in an Epistle to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury But he got nothing by the Bargain For as he was handsomely shaked up for it by Saravia in his Replication so the Arch-bishop in an Answer to the said Epistle dated in Ianuary 1593 severely reprehends him for his intermedling with the Church of England and plainly lays before him all those disturbances which by his means had been occasioned in the same so that being learnedly refuted by Saravia on the one side and gravely reprehended on the other by that Reverend Prelate he grows wise at last leaving the English Puritans to their own defences And more than so in his Reply to his last Letter he gives him his due Titles of the most Reverend Father in Christ and his honoured Lord assuring him That in all his writings touching Church-Government he impugned only the Romish Hierarchy but never intended to touch the Ecclesiastical Polity of this Church of England nor to exact of us to frame our selves or our Church to the pattern of their Presbyterian Discipline And thereunto he added this safe Conclusion That as long as the substance of Doctrine was uniform in the Church of Christ they may lawfully vary in other matters as the circumstance of time place and persons requires and as prescription of Antiquity may warrant And to that end he wished and hoped that the Sacred and Holy Colledges of Bishops for so he calls them would
gave notice to the several Ministers of the present Dangers and advised them to excite their Flocks to be in readiness to the end they might oppose these Resolutions of the King and Council as far as lawfully they might A day was also set apart for Humiliation and Order given to the Presbyteries to excommunicate all such as either harboured any of the Popish Lords or kept company with them and this Excommunication to be passed summarily on the first Citation because the safety of the Church seemed to be in danger which was the mischief by the King suspected under that Reserve They appointed also that sixteen of their Company should remain at Edenborough according to the number of the Tribunes at Paris who together with some of the Presbytery of that City should be called The Council of the Kirk That four or five of the said sixteen should attend Monthly on the Service in their turns and courses and that they should convene every day with some of that Presbytery to receive such Advertisements as should be sent from other places and thereupon take counsel of the best Expedients that could be offered in the case And for the first Essay of their new Authority the Lord Seaton President of the Sessions appears before them transmitted unto their Tribunal by the Synod of Lothian for keeping intelligence with the Earl of Huntley From which with many affectations having purged himself he was most graciously dismist Which though the King beheld as an Example of most dangerous consequence yet being willing to hold fair with the Kirk he connived at it till he perceived them to be fixed on so high a pin so cross to his Commands and Purposes that it was time to take them down He therefore signifies to them once for all That there could be no hope of any right understanding to be had between them during the keeping up of two Jurisdictions neither depending on the otherâ— That in their Preachings they did censure the Affairs of the State and Council convocate several Assemblies without his Licenses and there conclude what they thought good without his Allowance and Approbation That in their Synods Presbyteries and particular Sessions they embraced all manner of business under colour of scandal and that without redress of these Misdemeanors there either was no hope of a good Agreement or that the said Agreement when made could be long kept by either Party 21. The Ministers on the other side had their Grievances also that is to say The Favours extended by his Majesty to the Popish Lords the inviting of the Lady Huntley to the Baptism of the Princess Elizabeth being then at hand the committing of the Princess to the Custody of the Lady Levingston and the â—estrangement of his Countenance from themselves And though the King gave very satisfactory Answers to all these Complaints yet could not the suspitions of the Kirk be thereby removed every day bringing forth some great cry or other That the Papists were favoured in the Court The Miâ—â—â—ters troubled for the free rebuke of sin and the Scepter of Christ's Kingdom sought to be overthrown In the mean time it hapned that one David Blake one of the Ministers of St. Andrews had in a Sermon uttered divers Seditioâ—s Speeches of the King and Queen as also against the Council and the Lords of the Session but more particularly that as all Kings were the Devils Barns so the heart of K. IAMES was full of Treachery That the Queen was not to be prayed for but for fashion-sake because they knew that she would never do them good That the Lords of the Council were corrupt and takers of Bribes and that the Queen of England was an Atheist one of no Religion Notice whereof being given to the English Ambassador he complains of it to the King and Blake is cited to appear before the Lords of the Council Melvin makes this a common Cause and gives it out That this was only done upon design against the Ministers to bring their Doctrine under the censure and controlment of the King and Council or at the least a meer device to divert the Ministers from prosecuting their just Suit against the coming and reception of the Popish Lords and that if Blake or any other should submit their Doctrines to the tryal of the King and Council the Liberties of the Kirk would be quite subverted By which means he prevailed so far on the rest of the Council I mean the Council of the Kirk that they sent certain of their number to intercede in the business and to declare how ill it might be taken with all sorts of people if the Ministers should now be called in question for such trifling matters when the Enemies of the Truth were both spared and countenanced But not being able by this means to delay the Censure it was advised that Blake should make his Declinatour renounce the King and Council as incompetent Judges and wholly put himself upon tryal of his own Presbytery Which though it seemed a dangerous course by most sober men yet was it carryed by the major part of the Voices as the Cause of God 22. Encouraged by this general Vote and enflamed by Melvin he presents his Declinatour with great confidence at his next appearance And when he was interrogated amongst other things Whether the King might not as well judg in matters of Treason as the Kirk of Heresie He answered That supposing he had spoken Treason yet could he not be first judged by the King and Council till the Kirk had taken cognizance of it In maintenance of which proceeding the Commissioners of the Kirk direct their Letters to all the Presbyteries of the kingdom requiring them to subscribe the said Declinatour to recommend the Cause in their Prayers to God and to stir up their several Flocks in defence thereof This puts the King to the necessity of publishing his Proclamation of the Month of November In which he first lays down the great and manifold encroachments of this new Tribunal to the overthrow of his Authority The sending of the Declinatour to be subscribed generally by all the Ministers The convocating of the Subjects to assist their proceedings as if they had no Lord or Superior over them and in the mean time that the Ministers forsake their Flocks to wait on these Commissioners and attend their service which being said he doth thereby charge the said Commissioners from acting any thing according to that deputation commanding them to leave Edenborough to repair to their several Flocks and to return no more for keeping such unlawful Meetings under pain of Rebellion He published another Proclamation at the same time also by which all Barons Gentlemen and other Subjects were commanded not to joyn with any of the Ministry either in their Presbyteries Synods or other Ecclesiastical Assemblies without his License Which notwithstanding he was willing to revoke those Edicts and remit his Action against Blake if the Church would either
v. 28. The second was Dr. Buckeridg then Master of St. Iohn's Colledg in Oxon and afterwards preferred to the See of Rochester who no less learnedly evinced the King's Supremacy in all Concernments of the Church selecting for his Text the words of same Apostle Rom. 13. v. 1. Next followed Dr. Andrews then Bishop of Chichester who taking for his Text those words of Moses viz. Make thee two Trumpets of silver c. Numb 10. v. 2. convincingly demonstrated out of all Antiquity That the calling of all General and National Councils had appertained unto the Supreme Christian Magistrate Dr. King then Dean of Christ-Church brings up the Rear and taking for his Text those words of the Canticles Cap. 8. v. 11. disproved the calling of Lay-Elders as men that had no Power in governing the Church of Christ nor were so much as heard of in the Primitive times But neither the Learned Discourses of these Four Prelates nor the Arguments of the Scottish Bishops nor the Authority and Elocution of the King could gain at all on these deaf Adders who came resolved not to hear the voice of those Charmers charmed they never so wisely Thus have we seen them in their Crimes and now we are to look upon them in their several Punishments And first the Ministers which had been summoned into England were there commanded to remain until further The six which were condemned for Treason were sentenced by the King to perpetual banishment and never to return to their Native Countrey upon pain of death And as for those which had acknowledged their offence and submitted to mercy they were confined unto the Isles and out-parts of the Kingdom where they may possibly work some good but could do no harm After which Andrew Melvin having made a Seditious Libel against the Altar and the Furniture thereof in His Majesty's Chappel was brought into the Starr-Chamber by an Ore tenus where he behaved himself so malepertly toward all the Lords and more particularly towards the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London and there remained till he was begged by the Duke of Bouillon and by him made Professor of Divinity in the School of Sedan 21. During the time that all men's Eyes were fastned on the issue of this great Dispute the King thought fit to call a Parliament in Scotland which he managed by Sir George Hume his right trusty Servant not long before created Earl of Dunbar and made Lord Treasurer of that Kingdom His chief Work was to settle the Authority of the King and the Calling of Bishops that they might mutually support each other in the Government of the Church and Stateâ—punc It was supposed that no small opposition would be made against him by some Puritan Ministers who repaired in great numbers to the Town as on their parts it was resolved on But he applyed himself unto them with such Art and Prudence that having taken off their edg the Acts passed easily enough with the Lords and Commons By the first Act the King's Prerogative was confirmed over all Persons and in all Causes whatsoever Which made Him much more Absolute in all Affairs which had relation to the Church than he had been formerly And by the next entituled An Act for Restitution of the Estate of Bishops the Name of Bishops was conferred upon such of the Ministers as by the King were nominated unto any of the Bishop-Sees and thereby authorized to have place in Parliament A course was also taken by it to repossess the Bishops of the Lands of their several Churches as well as their Titles and Degree not that a Plenary re-possession of their Lands was then given unto them but that by a Repeal of the late Act of Annexation the King was put into a capacity of restoring so much of the Rents as remained in the Crown and otherwise providing for them out of his Revenues And that the like distraction might not be made of their Estates for the time to come an Act was passed for restraining such Dilapidations as had impoverish'd all the Bishopricks since the Reformation After which and the dooming of the greater Zealots to their several Punishments he indicts a general Assembly at Linlithgow in December following at which convened One hundred thirty six Ministers and about Thirty three of the Nobility and principal Gentry In this Assembly it was offered in behalf of his Majesty That all Presbyteries should have their constant Moderators for whose encouragement his Majesty would assign to each of them a yearly stipend amounting to One hundred pounds or Two hundred Marks in the Scots account That the Bishops should be Moderators of all Presbyteries in the Towns and Cities where they made their residence as also in Provincial and Diocesan Synods and that the Bishops should assume upon themselves the charge of prosecuting Papists till they returned to their obedience to the King and the Church In the obtaining of which Acts there was no small difficulty but he obtained them at the last though not without some limitations and restrictions super-added to them under pretence of keeping the Commissioners hereafter to be called Bishops within their bounds 22. The Presbyterians notwithstanding were not willing to forgo their Power but strugling like half-dying men betwixt life and death laid hold on all advantages which were offered to them in opposition to the Acts before agreed on Gladstanes Arch-bishop of St. Andrews taking upon him to preside as Moderator in the Synod of Fife being within his proper Diocese and Jurisdiction was for a while opposed by some of the Ministers who would have gone to an Election as at other times The Presbyteries also in some places refused to admit the Bishops for their Moderators according to the Acts and Constitutions of the said Assembly Which though it put the Church into some disorder yet the Bishops carried it at the last the stoutest of the Ministers suâ—mitting in the end unto that Authority which they were not able to contend with In which conjuncture the King gives order for a Parliament to be held in Iune in which He passed some severe Laws against the Papists prohibiting the sending of their Children to be educated beyond the Seas and giving order for the choice of Pedagogues or Tutors to instruct them there as also against Jesuits and the Sayers and Hearers of Mass. The cognizance of several Causes which anciently belonged to the Bishops Courts had of late times been setled in the Sessions or Colledg of Justice But by an Act of this Parliament they are severed from it and the Episcopal Jurisdiction restored as formerly the Lords of the Session being in lieu thereof rewarded with Ten thousand pounds yearly which must be understood according to the Scottish account out of the Customs of that Kingdom It was enacted also That the King from thenceforth might appoint such Habit as to him seemed best to Judges Magistrates and Church-men Which
Acts being past Patterns were sent from London in a short time after for the Apparel of the Lords of the Session the Justice and other inferior Judges for the Advocates the Lawyers the Commissairs and all that lived by practise of the Law with a command given to every one whom the Statutes concerned to provide themselves of the Habits prescribed within a certain space under the pain of Rebellion But for the habit of the Bishops and other Church-men it was thought fit to respite the like appointment of them till the new Bishops had received their Consecration to which now we hasten 23. But by the way we must take notice of such preparations as were made towards it in the next General Assembly held at Glasgow Anno 1610 and managed by the Earl of Dunbar as the former was in which it was concluded That the King should have the indiction of all General Assemblies That the Bishops or their Deputies should be perpetual Moderators of the Diocesan Synods That no Excommunication or Absolution should be pronounced without their approbation That all presentations of Benefices should be made by them and that the deprivation or suspension of Ministers should belong to them That every Minister at his admission to a Benefice should take the Oath of Supremacy and Canonical Obedience That the Visitation of the Diocese shall be performed by the Bishop or his Deputy only And finally That the Bishop should be Moderator of all Conventions for Exercisings or Prophesyings call them which you will which should be held within their bounds All which Conclusions were confirmed by Act of Parliament in the year 1612 in which the Earl of Dumferling then being Lord Chancellor of that Kingdom sate as chief Commissioner who in the same Session also procured a Repeal of all such former Acts more patticularly of that which passed in favour of the Discipline 1592. as were supposed to be derogatory to the said Conclusions In the mean time the King being advertised of all which had been done at Glasgow calls to the Court by special Letters under his Sign-Manual Mr. Iohn Spotswood the designed Arch-bishop of Glasgow Mr. Gawen Hamilton nominated to the See of Galloway and Mr. Andrew Lamb appointed to the Church of Brechin to the intent that being consecrated Bishops in due Form and Order they might at their return give consecration to the rest of their Brethren They had before been authorized to vote in Parliament commended by the King unto their several Sees made the perpetual Moderators of Presbyteries and Diocesan Synods and finally by the Conclusions made at Glasgow they were restored to all considerable Acts of their Jurisdiction The Character was only wanting to compleat the Work which could not be imprinted but by Consecration according to the Rules and Canons of the Primitive times 24. And that this Character might be indelibly imprinted on them His Majesty issues a Commission under the Great Seal of England to the Bishops of London Ely Wells and Rochester whereby they were required to proceed to the Consecration of the said three Bishops according to the Rules of the English Ordination which was by them performed with all due solemnity in the Chappel of the Bishop of London's House near the Church of St. Pauls Octob. 21 1610. But first a scruple had been moved by the Bishop of Ely concerning the capacity of the persons nominated for receiving the Episcopal Consecration in regard that none of them had formally been ordained Priests which scruple was removed by Arch-bishop Bancroft alledging that there was no such necessity of receiving the Order of Priesthood but that Episcopal Consecrations might be given without it as might have been exemplified in the Cases of Ambrose and Nectarius of whichâ— the first was made Arch-bishop of Millain and the other Patriarch of Constantinople without receiving any intermediate Orders whether of Priest Deacon or any other if there were any other at that time in the Church And on the other side the Prelates of Scotland also had their Doubts and Scruples fearing lest by receiving Consecration of the English Bishops they might be brought to an acknowledgment of that Superiority which had been exercised and enjoyed by the Primates of England before the first breaking out of the Civil Warrs betwixt York and Lancaster Against which fear the King sufficiently provided by excluding the two Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York who only could pretend to that Superiority out of His Commission which Bancroft very cheerfully condescended to though he had chiefly laid the plot and brought on the work not caring who participated in the Honour of it as long as the Churches of both Kingdoms might receive the Benefit 25. This great Work being thus past over the King erects a Court of High Commission in the Realm of Scotland for ordering all matters which concerned that Church and could not safely be redressed in the Bishops Courts He also gave them some Directions for the better exercise of their Authority by them to be communicated to the Bishops and some principal Church-men whom he appointed to be called to Edenborough in the following February where they were generally well approved But as all general Rules have some Exceptions so some Exceptions were found out against these Commissions and the proceedings thereupon Not very pleasing to those great Persons who then sate at the Helm and looked upon it as a diminution to their own Authority and could not brook that any of the Clergy should be raised to so great a Power much more displeasing to the principal sticklers in the Cause of Presbytery who now beheld the downfall of their glorious Throne which they had erected for themselves in the Name of Christ. One thing perhaps might comfort them in the midst of their sorrows that is to say the death of the most Reverend Arch-bishop Bancroft who left this life upon the second of November not living above thirteen days after the Scottish Bishops had received Consecration For which great blessing to the Church he had scarce time to render his just acknowledgments unto God and the King when he is called on to prepare for his Nunc Dimittis And having seen so great a work accomplished for the glory of God the honour of his Majesty and the good of both Kingdoms beseecheth God to give him leave to depart in peace that with his eyes he might behold that great Salvation which was ordained to be a Light unto the Gentiles and to be the Glory of his people Israel 26. Bancroft being dead some Bishops of the Court held a Consultation touching the fittest Person to succeed him in that eminent Dignity The great Abilities and most exemplary Piety of Dr. Lancelot Andrews then Bishop of Ely pointed him out to be the man as one sufficiently able to discharge a Trust of such main importance and rather looked on as a Preferment to that See than preferred unto it Him they commended to King IAMES who had him in a high
blood of others After a long and bloody War which ended in the year 1250 they were almost rooted out of the Country also the residue or remainders of them having betook themselves into the mountainous parts of Daulphine Provence Piemont and Savoy for their greater safety By means whereof becoming neer Neighbours to the Switzers and possibly managing some traffick with the Town of Geneva their Doctrines could neither be unknown to Zuinglius amongst the one nor to many Inhabitants of the other of best note and quality 2. The rest of France had all this while continued in the Popes obedience and held an outward uniformity in all points with the Church of Rome from which it was not much diverted by the Writings of Zuinglius or the more moderate proceedings of the Lutheran Doctors who after the year 1517 had filled many Provinces of Germany with their opinions But in the year 1533 the Lutherans found an opportunity to attempt upon it For Francis the First favouring Learned men and Learning as commonly they do whose Actions are worthy a learned Pen resolved to erect a University at Paris making great offers to the most Learned Scholars of Italy and Germany for their entertainment Luther takes hold of that advantange and sends Bucer and some others of his ablest Followers who by disputing in such a confluence of Learned men might give a strong essay to bring in his Doctrines Nor wanted there some which were taken with the Novelty of them especially because such as were questioned for Religion had recourse into Aquitaine to Margaret of Valois the Kings Sister married to Henry of Albert King of Navar who perhaps out of hatred to the Bishop of Rome by whom her Husbands Father was deprived of that Kingdom might be the more favourable to the Lutherans or rather moved as she confessed before her death with commiseration to those condemned persons that fled to her protection she became earnest with her brother in defence of their persons so that for ten years together she was the chief means of maintaining the Doctrines of Luther in the Realm of France Nor was the King so bent in their Extermination as otherwise he would have been in regard of those many Switz and Germans that served him in his Wars against Charles the Fifth till at last being grievously offended with the contumacie of the men and their continual opposition to the Church of Rome he published many Edicts and Proclamations against them not onely threatning but executing his penal Laws until he had at last almost extinguished the name of Luther in his Kingdom 3. But Calvins stratagem succeeded somewhat better who immediately upon the Death of Francis the First whilst King Henry was ingag'd in the Wars with Charles attempted France by sending his Pamphlets from Geneva writ for the most part in the French Tongue for the better captivating and informing of the common people And as he found many possessed with Luthers opinions so he himself inflamed them with a Zeal to his own the Vulgar being very proud to be made Judges in Religion and pass their Votes upon the abstrusest Controversies of the Christian Faith So that in short time Zuinglius was no more remembred nor the Doctrine of Luther so much followed as it had been formerly The name of Calvin carrying it amongst the French The sudden propagating of whose Opinions both by preaching and writing gave great offence unto the Papists but chiefly to Charles Cardinal of Lorrain and his Brother Francis Duke of Guise then being in great power and favour with King Henry the Second By whose continual sollicitation the King endeavoured by many terrible and severe executions to suppress them utterly and did reduce his Followers at the last to such a condition that they durst neither meet in publick or by open day but secretly in Woods or Private-houses and for the most part in the night to avoid discovery And at this time it was and on this occasion that the name of Hugonots was first given them so called from St. Hugoes Gate in the City of Towrs out of which they were observed to pass to their secret Meetings or from a night-spirit or Hobgobling which they called St. Hugo to which they were resembled for their constant night-walks But neither the disgrace which that name imported nor the severity of the Kings Edicts so prevailed upon them but that they multiplyed more and more in most parts of the Realm especially in the Provinces which either were nearest to Geneva or lay more open towards the Sea to the trade of the English And though the fear of the danger and the Kings displeasure deterred such as lived within the air of the Court from adhering openly unto them yet had they many secret favourers in the Royal Palace and not a few of the Nobility which gave them as much countenance as the times could suffer The certainty whereof appeared immediately on the death of King Henry who left this life at Paris on the tenth of Iuly Anno 1559 leaving the Crown to Francis his Eldest Son then being but fifteen years of age neither in strength of body nor in vigour of Spirit enabled for the managing of so great an Empire 4. This young King in his Fathers life-time had married Mary Queen of Scots Daughter and Heir of Iames the Fifth by Mary of Lorrain a Daughter of the House of Guise and Sister to the two great Favourites before remembred This gave a great improvement to the power and favour which the two brothers had before made greater by uniting themselves to Katherine de Medices the young Kings Mother a Woman of a pestilent Wit and one that studied nothing more then to maintain her own greatness against all opposers By this confederacie the Princes of the House of Bourbon Heirs in Reversion to the Crown if the King and his three brothers should depart without Islue-Male as in fine they did were quite excluded from all office and imployment in the Court or State The principal of which was Anthony Duke of Vendosme and his brother Lewis Prince of Conde men not so near in birth as of different humours the Duke being of an open nature flexible in himself and easily wrought upon by others but on the other side the Prince was observed to be of a more enterprising disposition violent but of a violence mixed with cunning in the carrying on of his designs and one that would not patiently dissemble the smallest injuries These two had drawn unto their side the two Chastilions that is to say Gasper de Collignie Admiral of the Realm of France and Monsieur D' Andilot his brother Commander of the Infantry of that Kingdom to which Offices they had been advanced by the Duke of Montmorency into whose Family they had married during the time of his Authority with the King deceased for whose removal from the Court by the confederacy of the Queen Mother with the House of Guise they were
was the ruine of their Party and that they could not otherwise preserve their power then by open War The Prince of Conde seizeth on La Fere in Picardy and the King of Navar makes himself Master by strong hand on the City of Cahors which draws the King again from his Meditations under which must be covered his retirement from all publick business But La Fere being regained from the Prince of Conde the sacking of Cahors was connived at and the breach made up that so the Hugonots might be tempted to consume their Forces in the Wars of Flanders to which they were invited by their Brethren of the Belgick Provinces who had called in the Duke of Anjou against their King And so long France remained in quiet as that War continued But when the Duke returned after two or three years and that there was no hopes of his reverting to so great a charge the Hugonots wanting work abroad were furnished with this occasion to break out at home The Catholick League had now layn dormant for some years none seeming more Zealous then the King in the Cause of Rome But when it was considered by the Duke of Guise and the rest of the League that the Duke of Anjou being dead and the King without any hope of Issue the Crown must fall at last to the King of Navar it was resolved to try all means by which he might be totally excluded from the right of Succession For what hope could they give themselves to preserve Religion when the Crown should fall upon the head of an Heretick an Heretick relapsed and therefore made uncapable of the Royal Dignity by the Canon-Laws Of these Discourses and Designes of the Guisian Faction the King of Navar takes speedy notice and prepares accordingly thinking it best to be before-hand and not to be taken unprovided when they should come And to that end having first cleared himself by a Declaration from the crime of Heresie and now particularly from being a relapsed Heretick with many foul recriminations on the House of Guise he sends his Agents to sollicite the German Princes to come in to aid him against the oppressions of the League which seemed to aim at nothing but the ruine of the Realm of France which so exasperated those of the Guisian Faction that they prevailed by their Emissaries with Pope Sixtus the Fifth to Excommunicate the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde and to declare them both uncapable of the Royal Succession as relapsed Hereticks Which he performed in open Consistory on the ninth of September 1585 and published the sentence by a special Bull within three dayes after 41. The French King in the mean time findes himself so intangled in the Snares of the League and such a general defection from him in most parts of the Kingdom that he was forced by his Edict of the ninth of Iuly to revoke all former grants and capitulations which had been made in favour of the Hugonot party After which followed a new War in which the Switz and Germans raise great Levies for the aid of the Hugonots sollicited thereunto amongst many others by Theodore Beza who by his great Eloquence and extraordinary diligence did prevail so far that the Princes Palatine the Count Wirtemberge the Count of Montbelguard and the Protestant Cantons of the Switz agreed to give them their assistance Amongst whom with the helps which they received from the King of Denmark and the Duke of Saxony a mighty Army was advanced consisting of thirty two thousand Horse and Foot that is to say twelve thousand German Horse four thousand Foot and no fewer then sixteen thousand Switz For whose advance besides a general contribution made on all the Churches of France the sum of sixty thousand Crowns was levyed by the Queen of England and put into the hands of Prince Casimire before remembred who was to have the Chief Command of these Forreign Forces These Forreign Forces made much greater by the accession of eight thousand French which joyned unto them when they first shewed themselves upon the Borders Of which two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot were raised by the Signory of Geneva But before this vast Army could come up to the King of Navar the Duke of Ioyeuse gives him battel near a place called Coutrasse at which time his whole Forces were reduced to four thousand Foot and about two thousand five hundred Horse with which small Army encountred a great power of the Duke of Ioyeuse and obtained a very signal Victory there being slain upon the place no fewer then three thousand men of which the Duke of Ioyeuse himself was one more then three thousand taken prisoners together with all the Baggage Arms and Ammunition which belonged to the Enemy After which followed the defeat of the Germans by the Duke of Guise and the violent proceedings of the Leaguers against the King which brought him to a necessity of joyning with the King of Navar and craving the assistance of his Hugonot Subjects whose Arms are now legitimated and made acts of Duty In which condition I shall leave them to their better Fortunes first taking a survey of the proceedings of the Calvinists in the neighbouring Germany passing from thence to the Low Countries and after crossing over to the Isles of Britain The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration of the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformation begun by Luther and pursued by Zuinglius was entertained in many Provinces of the Higher Germany according as they stood affected to either party or were transported by the ends and passions of their several Princes But generally at the first they inclined to Luther whose way of Reformation seemed less odious to the Church of Rome and had the greatest approbation from the States of the Empire the Duke of Saxony adhered unto him at his first beginning as also did the Marquess of Brandenbourg the Dukes of Holsteine the two Northern Kings and by degrees the rest of the German Princes of most power and value except onely those of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria the three Elector Bishops the Duke of Cleve the Marquess of Baden and generally all the Ecclesiasticks which were not under the Command of the Lutheran States The Prince Electoâ— Palatine came not in to the party till the year 1546. At which time Frederick the Second though scarce warm in his own Estate on which he entred Anno 154â— took the advantage of the time to reform his Churches the Emperour being then brought low by the change of Fortune and forced not long after to abandon Germany Upon the 1â— of Ianuary he caused Divine Offices to be celebrated in the Mother-tongue in
and safety of the Common-wealth For the French Preachers being more practical and Mercurial then the other were and not well principled in respect of Monarchical Government were looked upon as men more likely to beget commotions and alienate the peoples hearts from their natural Governour And at the first the Prince of Orange enclined most to the Lutheran party whose Forms and Doctrines had been setled by his Father in the County of Nassaw And for the clear manifestation of the good opinion which he harboured of them he Married Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony the greatest of the Lutheran Princes At which when the Dutchess of Parma seemed to be displeased he openly assured her of his Adhesion to the Catholick Cause and caused his Eldest Son which he had of that Marriage to be Baptized according to the Prescript of the Church of Rome but underhand promoted for a time the Lutheran Interest which he had sucked in as it were with his Mothers Milk But it was onely for a time that he so promoted it For finding the Calvinians to be men of another Metal more quick and stirring of themselves more easily exasperated against their Governours and consequently more fit to advance his purposes he made â—imself the great Protector of that faction and spared not to profess himself for such upon all occasions insomuch that being afterwards questioned about his Religion by the Duke of Arescot he discovered to him his bald head and told him plainly thâ—t there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart 17. But to make way for these designes there were two obstacles to be removed without which nothing could be done in pursuance of them King Philip at his going for Spain had left three thousand Spanish Souldiers the onely remainder of those great Armies which had served his Father and himself against the French in Garrison upon the Borders under pretence of shutting up the back-door against the French but generally thought to be left of purpose for a curb to the Natives in case of refractoriness or opposition unto his Commands They must be first removed and the Country cleared of all such rubs as otherwise would have made the way less passable unto private ends For though the King had put those Souldiers under the Command of two Lords of the Netherlands that is to say the Prince of Orange himself and the Count Egmont that they might rather seem to be the natural Militia of the Country then a power of strangers yet that device did little edifie amongst them for the two Lords especially the Prince of Orange expressed such contentment in the trust and honour which was therein conferred upon them that they excited the whole Country both to move the King before his going and the Governess after his departure to dismiss those Souldiers which could not be imposed upon them without breach of their Priviledges To this request the King had given a gratious answer and promised to remove them within four months after his going into Spain but secretly gave order to the Lady Regent to retain them longer till the new Bishops and the Inquisition were confirmed amongst them And she conceived her self so bound to those instructions and their â—etaining there so necessary for his Majesties Service that she delayed time as long as possibly she could Which being observed by those which were of greatest power and credit with the common people it was resolved that no more contribution should be raised on the several Provinces toward the payment of their wages and on the other side the Regent was so constant to her resolution that she took up money upon interest for their satisfaction But being wearied in the end by the importunity of all sorts of people counselled by her Husband the Duke of Parma to give way unto it and authorized at last by the King himself to hearken unto their desires she gives order to have them drawn out of their several Garrisons and Shipt at Flushing from thence to be transported into Spain with the first fair winde 18. The easie removing of this rub incouraged those who managed the designe for innovating in the Church and State to make the like attempt against the Cardinal Granvel whose extraordinary parts and power they were more affraid of then of all the Spaniards in the Country This man being of the â—erenots of Granvel in the Country of Burgundy was trained up by a Father of such large abilities that he was by Charles the Fifth made Chancellor of the German Empire and trusted by him in Affairs of the greatest moment And he declared himself to be such a quick proficient in the Schools of Learning that he became the Master of no fewer then seven Languages in all which he was able to express himself with a fluent eloquence and at twenty four years of age was made Bishop of Arras commended by his Father to the Emperour Charles and by him unto King Philip the Second he served them both with great fidelity and courage and had withall such a dexterity of dispatch in all concernments as if he had been rather born then made a States-man And unto these he added such a moderation in his pleasures such abstinence both from food and sleep when the case required it such extraordinary pains in accommodating all the difficulties which came before him and such a diligent observance of his Princes motions that his greatest Adversaries could not chuse but say that he was a Jewel fit to be owned by none but the greatest Kings By means whereof he so prevailed upon the King whilst he staid amongst them that he did nothing eitheâ— at home or abroad made neither Peace nor League with Kings or Nations concluded no Marriage quieted no Seditions acted nothing that related to Religion or the Church in which the counsels of this mâ—n were not influential The like Authority he held with the Dutchess of Parma not onely out of that report which the King made of him but her own election who found his counsel so applyable to all occasions that seldom any private or publick business came in agitation in which his judgement had not been previously required before it was openly delivered And though his previous resolutions in matters of counsel were carried with all imaginable care and closeness from the eyes of the Courtiers yet no man doubted but that all Affairs were tâ—ansacted by him imputing many things unto him as it often happeneth which he had no hand â—n 19. In the first risings of this man he was dâ—spised for an upstart by the Prince of Orange and some other great men of the Country not fearing any thing from him as an alien born unfurnished of dependants and who by reason of his caâ—ling could make no strong Alliance to preserve his Power But when they found that his Authority increased that all things bended to that point at which he aimed and that some of
confused Rabble of the Knoxian Brethren brake in upon them dismounted the Image brake off his head against the stones scattered all the Company pulled the Priests Surplices over their Ears beat down their Crosses and in a word so discomposed the Order of that mock-Solemnity that happy was the man who could first save himself in some House or other neither their Bag-pipes nor their Banners their Tabrets nor their Trumpets which made a Principal part in that days triumph though free enough from superstition in themselves could escape their fury but ran the same Fortune with the rest And though no diligence was wanting for finding out the principal actors in that Commotion yet as the story hath informed us the Brethren kept themselves together in such Companies singing of Psalms and openly encouraging one another that no body durst lay hands upon them 7. Finding by this experiment that they were strong enough to begin the work it was thought fit to call back Knox to their assistance to which end they dispatched their Letters to him in the March next following to be conveyed by one Iames Sym whom they had throughly instructed in all particulars touching their affairs In May the Letters are delivered the contents whereof he first communicateth to his own Congregation and afterwards to Calvin and the rest of the Brethren of that Consistory by whom it was unanimously declared unto him that he could not refuse that Vocation unless he would shew himself rebellious unto his God and unmerciful to his native Country He returned answer thereupon That he would visit them in Scotland with all convenient expedition and comes accordingly to Dieppe in October following where contrary to expectation he is advertised by Letters from some secret Friends that all affairs there seemed to be at a stand so that his coming to them at that time might be thought unnecessary Highly displeased with such a cooling Card as he did not look for he sends his Letters thence to the Nobility and principal Gentry in which he lets them know how much he was confounded for travailing so far in their Affairs by moving them to the most Godly and most Learned men by which he means Calvin and the Consistorians who at that time did live in Europe whose judgements and grave counsels he conceived expedient as well for the assurance of their own Consciences as of his own that it must needs redound both to his shame and theirs if nothing should succeed in such long consultations that he left his Flock and Family at Geneva to attend their service to whom he should be able to make but a weak account of his leaving them in that condiâ—ion if he were asked at his return concerning the impediment of his purposed Journey that he fore-saw with grief of spirit what grievous plagues what misery and bondage would most inevitably befal that miserable Realm and every Inhabitant thereof if the power of God with the liberty of his Gospel did not deliver them from the same that though his words might seem sharp and to be somewhat undiscreetly spoken yet wise men ought to understand that a true Friend can be no flatterer especially when the question is concerning the Salvation both of body and soul not onely of a few men but of States and Nations that if any perswade them for fear of dangers which might follow to faint in their intended purpose though otherwise he might seem to be wise and friendly yet was he to be accounted foolish and their mortal enemie in labouring to perswade them to prefer their worldly rest to Gods Praise and Glory and the friendship of the wicked before the salvation of their Brethren that they ought to hazard their own lives be it against Kings or Emperours for the deliverance of the people from spiritual bondage for which cause onely they received from their Brethren Tribute Honour and Homage at Gods Commandment Finally having laid before them many strong inducements to quicken them unto the work he ends with this most memorable Aphorism which is indeed the sum and substance of the whole Consistorian Doctrine in the present case that the Reformation of Religion and of publick enormities doth appertain to more then the Clergy or chief Rulers called Kings 8. On the receiving of these Letters they are resolved to proceed in their former purpose and would rather commit themselves and all theirs to the greatest dangers then suffer that Religion which they called Idolatry any longer to remain amongst them or the people to be so defrauded as they had been formerly of that which they esteemed to be the onely true preaching of Christ's Gospel And to this end they entred into a common Bond or Covenant in the name of themselves their Vassals Tenants and dependants dated upon the third of Decemb and subscribed by the Earls of Arguile Glencarne and Morton the Lords Lorne Ereskin of Dun c. the Tenour of which was as followeth viz. 9. We perceiving how Satan in his members the Antichrists of our time cruelly do rage seeking to overâ—hrow and destroy the Gospel of Christ and his Congregation ought according to our bounden duty to strive in our Masters cause even unto the death being certain of the victory in him The which one duty being well considerâ—d we do promise before the Majesty of God and his Congregation that we by his Grace shall with all diligence continualâ—y apply our whole power substance and our very lives to maintain set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God and his Congregation And shall labour according to our power to have faithful Ministers truely and purely to minister Christs Gospel and Sacraments to his people we shall maintain them nourish them and defend them the whole Congregation of Christ and every Member thereof according to our whole powers and waging of our lives against Sathan and all wicked power that doth intend tyranny or trouble against the aforesaid Congregation Vnto the which holy Word and Congregation we do joyn us and so do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Antichrist with all the Superstitious Abomination and Idolatry thereof And moreover shall declare our selves manifest enemies thereto by this our faithful promise before God testified to this Congregation by our subscription of these presents 10. Having subscribed unto this Bond their next care was to issue out these directions following for the promoting of the work which they were in hand with 1. That in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-prayer-book that is to say the Common-prayer book of the Church of England should be read upon the Sundays and Holydays in the Parish-Church together with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament by the same appointed 2. That preaching and interpretation of Scripture be had and used in private Houses without any great convention of the people at them till it should please God to put it into the heart of the Prince to allow thereof in publick Churches And
into France yet afterwards with one thousand Foot and some remainders of his Horse he recovered Leith and joyned himself unto the rest of that Nation who were there disposed of Of all which passages and provocations the Chief Confederates of the Congregation were so well informed as might assure them that Queen Elizabeth would be easily moved for her own security to aid them in expelling the French and then the preservation of Religion and the securing of themselves their Estates and Families would come in of course 22. It was upon this Reason of State and not for any quarrel about Religion that Queen Elizabeth put her self into Arms and lent the Scots a helping hand to remove the French And by the same she might have justified her self before all the World if she had followed those advantages which were given her by it and seized into her hands such Castles Towns and other places of importance within that Kingdom as might give any opportunity to the French-Scots to infest her Territories For when one Prince pretends a Title to the Crown of another or otherwise makes preparations more then ordinary both by Land and Sea and draws them together to some place from whence he may invade the other whensoever he please the other party is not bound to sit still till the War be brought to his own doors but may lawfully keep it at a distance as far off as he can by carrying it into the Enemies Country and getting into his power all their strong Passes Holds and other Fortresses by which he may be hindred from approaching nearer But this can no way justifie or excuse the Scots which are not to be reckoned for the less Rebels against their own undoubted Soveraign for being subservient in so just a War to the Queen of England as neither the Caldeans or the wilde Arabians could be defended in their thieving or Nebuchadnezzar justified in his pride and Tyranny because it pleased Almighty God for tryal of Iobs faith and patience to make use of the one and of the other for chastising his people Israel The point being agitated with mature deliberation by the Councel of England it was resolved that the French were not to be suffered to grow strong so near the Border that the Queen could not otherwise provide for her own security then by expelling them out of Scotland and that it was not to be compassed at a less expence of bloud and Treasure then by making use of the Scots themselves who had so earnestly supplicated for her aid and succours Commissioners are thereupon appointed to treat at Barwick Betwixt whom and the Agents for the Lords of the Congregation all things in reference to the War are agreed upon The sum and result whereof was this That the English with a puissant Army entred into Scotland reduced the whole War to the Siege of Leith and brought the French in short time into such extremities that they were forced in conclusion to abandon Scotland and leave that Country wholly in a manner to the Congregation 23. These were the grounds and this the issue of those counsels which proved so glorious and successful unto Queen Elizabeth in all the time of her long Reign For by giving this seasonable Aid to those of the Congregation in their greatest need and by feeding some of the Chiefs amongst them with small annual Pensions she made her self so absolute and of such Authority over all the Nation that neither the Queen Regent nor the Queen her self nor King Iames her son nor any of their Predecessors were of equal power nor had the like Command upon them The Church was also for a while a great gainer by it the Scots had hitherto made use of the English Liturgie in Gods publick Worship the fancie of extemporary Prayers not being then taken up amongst them as is affirmed by Knox himself in his Scottish History But now upon the sence of so great a benefit and out of a desire to unite the Nations in the most constant bonds of friendship they binde themselves by their subscription to adhere unto it For which I have no worse a Witness then their own Buchanan And that they might approach as near unto it in the Form of Government as the present condition of the times would bear as they placed several Ministers for their several Churches as Knox in Edenborough Goodman at St. Andrews Aeriot at Aberdeen c. so they ordained certain Superintendants for their Ministers all the Episcopal Sees being at that time filled with Popish Prelates And happy it had been for both had they continued still in so good a posture and that the Presbyterian humour had not so far obliterated all remembrance of their old affections as in the end to prosecute both the Liturgie and Episcopacie to an extermination And there accrued a further benefit by it to the Scots themselves that is to say the confirmation of the Faith which they so contended for by Act of Parliament for by difficulties of Agreement between the Commissioners authorized on all sides to attone the differences it was consented to by those for the Queen of Scots that the Estates of the Realm should convene and hold a Parliament in the August following and that the said Convention should be as lawful in all respects as if it should be summoned by the particular and express command of the Kings themselves According to which Article they hold a Parliament and therein pass an Act for the ratification of the Faith and Doctrine as it was then drawn up into the Form of a Confession by some of their Ministers But because this Confession did receive a more plenary Confirmation in the first Parliament of King Iames we shall refer all further speech of it till we come to that They also passed therein other Acts to their great advantage first for abolishing the Popes Authority the second for repealing all former Statutes which were made and maintained of that which they called Idolatry and the third against the saying or hearing of Mass. 24. It was conditioned in the Articles of the late agreement that the Queen of Scots should send Commissioners to their present Parliament that the results thereof might have the force and effect of Laws but she intended not for her part to give their Acts the countenance of Supreme Authority and the Chief-leading-men of the Congregation did not much regard it as thinking themselves in a capacity to manage their own business without any such countenance For though they had addressed themselves to the King and Queen for confirmation of such Acts as had passed in this Parliament yet they declared that what they did was rather to express their obedience to them then to beg of them any strength to their Religion They had already cast the Rider and were resolved that neither King nor Queen should back them for the time to come The Qâ—een Regent wearied and worn out with such horrid insolencies departed this
about her middle which the King forcibly unfastneth and puts him to the power of his mortal enemies by whom he was dragged down the Stairs and stabbed in so many places fifty three saith Knox that his whole body seemed to be like a piece of Cut-work Which barbarous Murther Knox proclaims for an act of justice calls it a just punishment on that Pultron and vile Knave David for abusing the Common wealth and his other villanies and heavily complains that the Chief Actors in the same which he extols for a just act and most worthy of all praise p. 96. were so unworthily left by the rest of their Brethren and forced to suffer the bitterness of exile and banishment 5. The Queen was then grown great with Childe and being affrighted at the suddenness of this execution and the fear of some treasonable attempt against her person was in no small danger of miscarrying The Court was full of Tumult and the noise thereof so alarmed the Town that the people flocked thither in great multitudes to know the matter to whom the King signified out of a Window that the Queen was safe which somewhat appeased them for the present But notwithstanding both the Court and City were in such distraction that when the Earl of Murray and the rest of the Confederates tendred their appearance and offered themselves unto the tryal of the Law there was no information made against them nor any one sufficiently instructed for the prosecution Which being observed they address themselves to the Parliament House and there take instruments to testifie upon Record that they were ready to answer whatsoever could be charged upon them but none there to prosecute And here the Scene begins to change Morton and Ruthen and the rest of their accomplices betake themselves to New-castle as the safest Sanctuary and Murray staid behinde to negotiate for them And he applyed himself so dextrously in his negotiation that fiâ—st he endears himself to the Qâ—een his Sister by causing her Guards to be again restored unto her which had been taken from her at the time of the murther She on the other side to shew how much she valued the affection of so dear a Brother was easily intreated that Morton Lindesay and the rest who remained at New-castle should be permitted to return but so that it should rather seem to be done upon the earnest sollicitations of the Earls of Huntley and Arguile then at his request The King in the mean time findes his errour and earnestly supplicates unto her for a reconcilement assuring her that he had never fallen on that desperate action but as he was forcibly thrust upon it by Morton and Murray And that he might regain his reputation in the sight of the people he openly protested his innocency at the Cross in Edenborough by sound of Trumpet and publickly averred that his consent had gone no further with the Murtherers then for the recalling of the banished Lords which were sled into England The young Prince was not so well studied in the School of mischief as to have learned that there is no safety in committing one act of wickedness but by proceeding to another or at the least by standing stoutly unto that which was first committed that so his confidence might in time be took for innocencie A lesson which the rest of the Confederates had took out long since and were now upon the point to practice it upon himself 6. For by this piece of ostentation and impertinencie the King gained nothing on the people and lost himself exceedingly amongst the Peers for as none of the common sort did believe him to be the more innocent of the wicked murther because he washed his hands of it in the sight of the multitude so the great men which had the guiding of the Faction disdained him as a weak and impotent person not to be trusted in affairs of his own concernment nor did he edifie better with the Queen then he did with the Subjects who was so far from suffering any hearty reconciliation to be made between them that she exprest more favour unto Murray then in former times Which so exasperated the neglected and forsaken Prince that he resolved on sending Murray after Risio with which he makes the Queen acquainted in hopes she would approve of it as an excellent service but she disswades him from the fact and tells Murray of it knowing full well that which soever of the two miscarried in it she should either loose an hated Friend or a dangerous Enemy Murray communicates the Affair with Morton and the rest of his Friends By whom it is agreed that they should take into their Friendship the Earle of Bothwel a man of an audacious spirit apt for any mischief but otherwise of approved valour and of a known fidelity to the Queen in her greatest dangers He had before some quarrels with the Earl of Murray of whose designs he was not distrustful without cause and therefore laboured both by force and practice either to make him less or nothing But Murray was too hard for him at the weapon of Wit and was so much too powerful for him both in Court and Consistory that he was forced to quit the Kingdom and retire to France Returning at such time as Murray and the rest of the Confederates were compelled to take sanctuary at New-castle he grew into great favour with the Queen whose discontents against the King he knew how to nourish which made his friendship the more acceptable and his assistance the more useful in the following Tragedy Thus Herod and Pilate are made friends and the poor King must fall a peace offering for their Redintegration 7. But first they would expect the issue of the Queens delivery by the success whereof the principal conspirators were resolved to steer their course On the 19 day of Iuly she is delivered of a Son in the Castle of Edenborough to the general joy of all the Kingdom and the particular comfort of the chief Governours of Affairs for the Congregation There was no more use now of a King or Queen when God had given them a young Prince to sit upon the Throne of his Fathers in whose minority they might put themselves into such a posture that he should never be able to act much against them when he came to age And now they deal with Bothwel more effectually then before they did incourage him to remove the King by some means or other to separate himself from his own Wife a Daughter of the House of Huntley and Espouse the Queen Let him but act the first part as most proper for him and they would easily finde a way to bring on the rest For the performance whereof and to stand to him in it against all the world they bound themselves severally and joyntly under Hand and Seal In which most wicked practice they had all these ends first the dispatching of the King next the confounding of Bothwel whom they feared and
the King in â—â—rliament and the approving of the same deferred to a furâ—her time they took this not for a delay but a plain denyal and therefore it was agreed in the next general Assembly as before is said to put the same in execution by their own Authority without expecting any further confirmation of it from the King or Council Which that they might effect without fear of disturbance they first discharge the Bishops and Superintendents from intermedling in Affairs which concerned Religion but onely in their own particular Churches that so their Elderships according to this new establishment might grow up and flourish And then they took upon them with their own adherents to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction without respect to Prince or Prelate they altered the Laws according to their own appetite they assembled the Kings Subjects and injoyned Ecclesiastical pains unto them they made Decrees and put the same in execution they prescribed Laws to the King and State they appointed Fasts throughout the whole Realm especially when some of their Faction were to move any great enterprise they used very traytorous seditious and contumelious words in the Pulpits Schools and otherwise to the disdain and reproach of the King and being called to answer the same they utterly disclaimed the Kings Authority saying he was an incompetent Judge and that matters of the Pulpit ought to be exempted from the judgement and correction of Princes And finally they did not onely animate some of those that adhered unto them to seize upon the Kings person and usurp his power but justified the same in one of their general Assemblies held at Edenborough for a lawful Act ordaining all those to be excommunicated which did not subscribe unto the same This we take up by whole-sale now but shall return it by retail in that which follows 37. And first they begin with Mr. Iames Boyd Archbishop of Glasco a man of a mild and quiet nature and therefore the more like to be conformable to their commands requiring him to submit himself to the Assembly and to suffer the corruptions of the Episcopal Order to be reformed in his person To which proud intimation of their will and pleasure he returned this Answer which for the modesty or piety thereof deserves to be continued to perpetual memory I understand saith he the name Office and Reverence given to a Bishop to be lawful and allowed by the Scriptures of God and being elected by the Church and King to be Bishop of Glasco I esteem my Office and Calling lawful and shall endeavour with all my power to perform the duties required submitting my self to the judgement of the Church if I shall be tryed to offend so as nothing be required of me but the performance of those duties which the Apostle prescribeth Finding him not so tractable as they had expected they Commissionate certain of their Members to require his subscription to the Act made at Stirling for reformation of the State Episcopal by which it was agreed that every Bishop should take charge of some flock in particular And this they prest upon him with such heat and violence that they never left prosecuting the poor man till they had brought him to his Grave By none more violently pursued then by Andrew Melvin whom he had brought to Glasco and made Principal of the Colledge there gave him a free access to his House and Table or otherwise very liberally provided for him But Scots and Presbyterians are not won by favours nor obliged by Benefits For Melvin so disguised his nature that when he was in private with him at his Table or elsewhere he would use him with all reverence imaginable giving him the title of his Lordship with all the other honours which pertained unto him but in all particular Meetings whatsoever they were he would onely call him Mr. Boyd and otherwise carried himself most despitefully towards him 38. Their rough and peremptory dealing with this Reverend Prelate discouraged all the rest from coming any more to their Assemblies Which hapned as they could have wished For thereupon they agree amongst themselves upon certain Articles which every Bishop must subscribe or else quit his place that is to say 1. That they should be content to be Ministers and Pastors of a flock 2. That they should not usurp any criminal jurisdiction 3. That they should not vote in Parliament in the name of the Church unless they had a Commission from the general Assembly 4. That they should not take up for maintaining their ambition the Rents which might maintain many Pastors Schools and Poor but content themselves with a reasonable portion for discharge of their Offices 5. That they should not claim the title of Temporal Lords nor usurp any Civil Iurisdiction whereby they might be drawn from their charge 6. That they should not Empire over Presbyteries but be subject to the same 7. That they should not usurp the power of Presbyteries nor take upon them to visit any bounds that were not committed to them by the Church 8. That if any more corruptions should afterwards be tryed the Bishop should agree to have them reformed These Articles were first tendred to Patrick Adamson Archbishop of St. Andrews and Metropolitan of all Scotland against whom they had a former quarrel not onely because he was preferred elected and admitted to that eminent Dignity without their consent but had also exercised the Jurisdiction which belonged unto it in express and direct opposition unto their commands And first they quarrelled with him for giving Collation unto Benefices and for giving voice in Parliament not being authorized thereunto by the Kirk They quarrelled with him afterwards for drawing or advising the Acts of Parliament Anno 1584 which they conceived to be so prejudicial to the Rights of the Kirk and held the King so hard unto it that he was forced to counsel the poor Prelate to subscribe some Articles by which he seemed in a manner to renounce his Calling of which more hereafter They quarrelled with him again in the year 1589 for marrying one of the Daughters of the late Duke of Lenox to the Earl of Huntly without their consent wherein the King was also fain to leave him to their discretion And finally they so vexed and persecuted him from one time to another upon pretence of not conforming to their lawless pleasures that they reduced him in the end to extreme necessity published a false and scandalous Paper in his name as he lay on his death bed containing a Recantation as they called it or rather a renouncing of his Episcopal Function together with his approbation of their Presbyteries which Paper he disowned at the the hearing of it By which and many such unworthy courses they brought his gray hairs as they did some others of his Order with shame and sorrow to the Grave 39. Mention was made before of an Act of Parliament made in the time of the Interregnum before the Queens coming back from
ground whereof they alledged amongst other things not onely the oppression of the Church in general but the danger wherein the Kings Person stood by a company of wicked men who laboured to corrupt him in Religion as well as manners 52. But no man laid more hastily about him or came better off then Walter Belcanqual another Preacher of that City Who in a Sermon by him preached used some words to this purpose That within this four years Popery had entred into the Countrey and Court and was maintained in the Kings Hall by the Tyranny of a great Champion who was called Grace which Adjunct they gave ordinarily to their Dukes in Scotland but that if his Grace continued in opposing himself to God and his Word he should come to little Grace in the end The King at the first hearing of it gives order to the General Assembly to proceed therein Which being signified to Belcanqual he is said to have given thanks to God for these two things first For that he was not accused for any thing done against his Majestie and the Laws But principally because he perceived the Church had obtained some Victory And for the last he gave this reason That for some quarrel taken at a former Sermon the Council had took upon them to be Iudges of a Ministers Doctrine but now that he was ordered to appear before the Assembly he would most joyfully submit his Doctrine to a publick Tryal But those of the Assembly sending word to the King that they could not warrantably proceed against him without the business were prosecuted by some Accuser and made good by witnesses the King was forced for fear of drawing any of his Servants into their displeasures to let fall the cause But Belcanqual would not so give over The Kings desisting from the prosecution would not serve his turn unless he were absolved also by the whole Assembly who had been present at the Sermon This was conceived to be most reasonable and just for having put it to the vote his Doctrine was declared to be â—ound and Orthodox and that he had delivered nothing which might give just offence unto any person The King begins to see by these particulars what he is to trust to But they will presently find out another expedient as well for tryal of their own power as his utmost patience 52. A corrupt Contract had been made betwixt Montgomery before mentioned and the Duke of Lenox by which it was agreed That Montgomery should be advanced by the Dukes Intercession to the Archbishoprick of Glasgow and that Montgomery in requital of so great a favour should grant unto the Duke and his Heirs for ever the whole Estate and Rents of the said Archbishoprick upon the yearly payments of One thousand pound Scotch with some Horse Corn and Poultry No sooner had the Kirk notice of this Transaction but without taking notice of so base a Contract they censured him for taking on him the Episcopal Function The King resolves to justifie him in the Acceptation unless they could be able to charge him with unfoundess of Doctrine or corruption of manners Hereupon certain Articles are preferred against him and amongst others it was charged that he had said The Discipline was a thing indifferent and might stand the one way or the other That to prove the lawfulness of Bishops in the Church he had used the Examples of Ambrose and Augustine That at another time he called the Discipline and the lawful Calling of the Church the triefls of Policy That he said the Ministers were captious and men of curious brains That he charged them with sedition and warned them not to meddle in the disposing of Crowns and that if they did they should be reproved That he accused them of Pasquils Lying Backbiting c. And finally he denyed that any mention of Presbytery or Eldership was made in any part of the New Testament For which and other Errours of like nature in point of Doctrine though none of them sufficiently proved when it came to tryal it was resolved by the Assembly that he should stand to his Ministry in the Church of Stirling and meddle no further with the Bishoprick under the pain of Excommunication But not content with ordering him to give off the Bishoprick they suspend him on another quarrel from the use of his Ministry To neither of which sentences when he would submit as being supported by the King on one side and the Duke on the other they cited him to appear before the Synod of Lothian to hear the sentence of Excommunication pronounced against him This moved the King to interpose his Royal Authority to warn the Synod to appear before him at the Court at Stirling and in the mean time to desist from all further Process Pont and some others make appearance in the name of the rest but withal make this protestation That though they had appeared to testifie their obedience to his Majesties warrant yet they did not acknowledge the King and Council to be competent Iudges in that matter and therefore that nothing done at that time should either prejudge the Liberties of the Church or the Laws of the Realm Which Protestation notwithstanding they were inhibited by the Council from using any further proceedings against the man and so departed for the present 54. But the next general Assembly would not leave him so but prosecute him with more heat then ever formerly and were upon the point of passing their judgement on him when they were required by a Letter missive from the King not to trouble him for any matter about the Bishoprick or any other cause preceding in regard the King resolved to have the business heard before himself But Melvin hereupon replyed That they did not meddle with any thing belonging to the Civil Power and that for matters Ecclesiastical they had Authority enough to proceed against him as being a Member of their Body The Master of the Requests who had brought the Letter perceiving by these words that they meant to proceed in it as they had begun commanded a Messenger at Arms whom he had brought along with him to charge them to desist upon pain of Rebellion This moves them as little as the Letter and he is summoned peremptorily to appear next morning that he might receive his sentence Next morning he appears by his Procurator and puts up an appeal from them to the King and Council the rather in regard that one who was his principal Accuser in the last Assembly was now to sit amongst his Judges But neither the Appeal it self nor the Equity of it could so far prevail as to hinder them from passing presently to the Sentence by which upon the specification and recital of his several crimes he was ordained to be deprived and cast out of the Church And now the courage of the man begins to fail him He requires a present Conference with some of the Brethren submits himself to the Decrees of the Assembly
of Blackross 7. Of the same temper were the rest who notwithstanding the late Acts of Parliament inhibiting all Assembly and Classical Conventions without leave from the King held a new Synod at St. Andrews in the April following consisting for the most part of Barons and Lay-Gentlemen Masters of Colledges and ignorant School-Masters Which Synod if it may be called so was purposely indicted by Andrew Melvin for censuring the Arch-bishop of that City whom they suspected and gave out to be the chief Contriver of the Acts of Parliament made in 1584 so prejudicial to the Kirk and to have penned the Declaration in defence thereof And hereunto he found the rest so ready to conform themselves that they were upon the point of passing the Sentence of Excommunication against him before he was cited to appear most of them crying out aloud It was the Cause of God and That there needed no citation where the iniquity was so manifest But being cited at the last he appears before them puts up his Protestation concerning the unlawfulness of that Convention and his disowning any Jurisdiction which they challenged over him and so demanded of them What they had to say His Accusation was That he had devised the Acts of Parliament in 84 to the subversion of the Kirk and the Liberties of it To which he answered That he only had approved and not devised the said Acts which having past the approbation of the Three Estates were of a nature too Supreme for such Assemblies and thereupon appealed unto the King the Council and the following Parliament But notwithstanding this Appeal the Sentence of Excommunication is decreed against him drawn into Writing and subscribed Which when neither the Moderator being a meer Layick nor any of the Ministers themselves had confidence enough to pronounce and publish one Hunter a Pedagogue in the House of Andrew Melvin professing that he had the Warrant of the Spirit for it took the charge upon him and with sufficient audacity pronounced the Sentence 8. The informality and perversness of these proceedings much displeased the King but more he feared what would be done in the next Assembly appointed to be held at Edenborough and then near at hand Melvin intended in the same not only to make good whatsoever had been done at the former Meeting but to dispute the nature and validity of all Appeals which should be made against them on the like occasions To break which blow the King could find no other way but to perswade the Arch-bishop to subscribe to these three points viz. That he never publickly professed or intended to claim any Superiority or to be judg over any other Pastors and Ministers or yet a vowed the same to have any warrant in Gods Word That he never challenged any Jurisdiction over the late Synod at St. Andrews and must have erred by his contempt of the said Meeting if he had so done And thirdly That he would behave himself better for the time to come desiring pardon for the oversight of his former Actions promising to be such a Bishop from thenceforth as was described by St. Paul And finally submitting both himself and Doctrine to the Judgment of the said Assembly without appealing from the same in the times to come To such unworthy Conditions was the poor man brought only to gain the King some peace and to reserve that little Power which was left unto Him though the King lost more by this Transaction than possibly He could have done by his standing out For notwithstanding the Submissions on the part of the Bishop the Assembly would descend no lower than to declare That they would hold the said Sentence for not pronounced and thereby leave the Bishop in the same estate in which they found him and not this neither but upon some hopes and assurance given them that the King would favourably concurr with them in the building of the House of God Which Agreement did so little satisfie the adverse party that they justified their former process and peremptorily confirmed the Sentence which had been pronounced Which when it could not be obtained from the greater part of the Assembly who were not willing to lose the glory of so great a Victory Hunter stands up by the advice of Andrew Melvin and publickly protested against it declaring further That notwithstanding any thing which had been done to the contrary the Bishop should be still reputed for an Excommunicated person and one delivered unto Satan It was moved in this Assembly also That some Censure should be laid upon the Ministers who had subscribed the Acts of Parliament made in 84. But their number proved so great that a Schism was feared and they were wise enough to keep all together that they might be the better able upon all occasions to oppose the King Somewhat was also done concerning the Establishment of their Presbyteries and the defining of their Power of which the King would take no notice reserving his disgust of so many Insolencies till he should find himself in a condition to do them Reason 9. In these Exorbitances they are followed by the English Puritans who had been bad enough before but henceforth showed themselves to have more of the Scot in them than in former times For presently upon the news of the good success which their Scottish Brethren had at Sterling a scandalous Libel in the nature of a Dialogue is published and dispersed in most parts of England in which the state of this Church is pretended to be laid open in a Conference between Diotrephes representing the person of a Bishop Tertullus a Papist brought in to plead for the Orders of our Church Demetrius an Usurer signifying such as live by unlawful Trades Pandocheus an Inn-keeper a receiver of all and a soother of every man for his Gain and Paul a Preacher of the Word of God sustaining the place and person of the Consistorians In the contrivance of which piece Paul falls directly on the Bishop whom he used most proudly spightfully and slanderously He condemneth both the Calling of Bishops as Antichristian and censureth their proceedings as Wicked Popish Unlawful and Cruel The Bishop is supposed to have been sent out of England into Scotland for suppressing the Presbyteries there and is made upon his return homewards to be the Reporter of the Scottish Affairs and withall to signifie his great fear lest he and the rest of the Bishops in England should be served shortly as the Bishops had lately been in Scotland viz. at Edenborough St. Andrews c. Tertullus the Papist is made the Bishop's only Counsellor in the whole course of the Government of the Church by whose Advice the Bishops are made to bear with the Popish Recusants and that so many ways are sought to suppress the Puritans And he together with Pandocheus the Host and Demetrius the Usurer relate unto the Bishop such Occurrences as had happened in England during his stay amongst the Scots At which when the Bishop seemed
openness both of Heart and Hand as did not only make him able to keep the Field but to gain ground on the untraceable and insulting Rebels Which when the Hugonots observed and saw that he was like enough to do well without them they then came freely to his aid and were content to take such terms as he pleased to give them 34. And now again we are for Scotland where we shall find the King's Affairs grown from bad to worse We left him in a great vexation for not being able to prevail in any thing in behalf of Montgomery unless he relinquished his pursuit against Gibson and Cooper For so it was that he must do and suffer more than he had done hitherto before he could give himself any hopes of living peaceably amongst them A Parliament is therefore summoned to be held at Edenborough in the end of Iuly In which he was contented to pass some Acts for ratifying all Laws made in his Minority in favour of the Kirk of Scotland for trying and censuring the Adversaries of true Religion as also for the punishing of such as did menace or invade the Ministers But that which gave them most content was an Act of Parliament for Annexing of all the Temporalties of Bishopricks Abbeys and other Religious Houses which had not otherwise been disposed of to the Crown of that Realm which they promoted under colour of improving the Royal Patrimony that the King might have Means to bear forth the Honour of his Estate and not trouble his Subjects with Taxations but in plain truth to overthrow the Calling and Estate of Bishops which they presumed that no man of Quality would accept when the Lands were aliened And this the King was the more willing to consent to in regard that he had been perswaded by some about him That the Episcopal Houses being reserved out of that Grant together with the Tythes of the Churches formerly annexed to their Benefices would be sufficient to maintain their Dignity in some fit proportion But the King soon found himself abused For the rest of the Temporalties which formerly had been disposed of amongst the Laity being setled and confirmed upon them in the present Parliament there remained so little to the Crown by this Annexation as left him nothing behind but the envy of so high a Sacriledg the gain and benefit whereof was injoyed by others And of that little which remained unto him by the Annexation he received very small contentment most of it being squandered away by some begging Courtiers till he had left himself unable to reward or gratifie a deserving Minister But this he did not find till it was too late though the disease was past all remedy had he found it sooner But what he could not do himself when he lived in Scotland he first commended to the doing of his Son Prince Henry in his Book called Basilicon Doron and after lived to see it remedied in part when he reigned in England 35. There hapned also a Dispute in the present Parliament betwixt the Ministers of the Kirk and such of the Gentry as formerly had possessed themselves of Abbeys and Priories and thereby challenged to themselves a place in Parliament Concerning which we are to know that most of the Monasteries and Religious Houses had been founded upon Tythes and Impropriations though not without some good proportion of Demesnes which were laid unto them But when the Scots were set upon the humour of Reformation and set upon it in a way which shewed them rather to proceed upon private Ends than the publick Interest of Religion the principal men amongst them seized on all which they could lay hands on and after kept it to themselves by no better Title than that of the first Usurpation only and no more than so Some of the Bishops and Abbots also seeing how things were like to go and that the Church's Patrimony was not like to hold in the same Successions which had conveyed it unto them dismembred the best Tythes and Mannors from them or otherwise resigned the whole to the hands of such as appeared most able to protect them And so it stood till Murrey was made Regent of the Realm in the King 's first Infancy who did not only wink at those Usurpations the questioning whereof would most infallibly have estranged the Occupants from adhering to him but suffered many of the Layards and Gentlemen to invade the Tythes which had not formerly been appropriated to Religious Houses and to annex them to the rest of their own Estates By means whereof some of them were possessed of six ten twelve or twenty Tythings united into one Estate as they lay most convenient for them The Ministers being put off with beggerly stipends amounting in few places to ten pounds per annum of good English money These with the rest they called the Lords of new erection and they did Lord it over the poor people with pride and tyranny enough For neither would they suffer the Occupant or Land-holder to carry away his nine parts of the Fruits till they had taken off their Tenth and sometimes out of spight or self-will or any other pestant humour would suffer their tenth part to lye at waste in the open Field that the poor Labourer of the Earth might suffer the more damage by it But that which did most grieve the Ministers in the present exigent was That such Lairds and Gentlemen as had robbed the Church and plumed their own Nests with the Feathers of it should sit and vote in Parliament as Spiritual Persons and they themselves be quite excluded from those publick Councils A great heat hereupon was struck in the present Session by Pont and Lindsey commissionated by the Kirk for that employment who openly propounded in the Name of the Kirk That the said pretended Prelates might be removed at the present and disabled for the time to come to sit in Parliament as having no Authority from the Church and most of them no Function or Calling in it Bruce Commendator of Kinlosse was chosen for the mouth of the rest and he appeared so strongly in it that the Petition of the Ministers was referred to the Lords of the Articles and by them rejected though afterwards they had their Ends in it by a following Parliament 36. Being made secure from any further fear of Bishops by reason of the Poor Submission which was made by Montgomery and the annexing of Arch-bishops Lands to the Royal Patrimony the Ministers became more insolent and imperious than they had been formerly and in that jolly humour they so vexed and terrified him that he could find no other way in point of King-craft to preserve himself against their insolences and attempts but by giving some encouragement to the Popish party The exercise whereof brought out many Priests and Jesuits some of them more particularly to negotiate in behalf of the King of Spain who was then a setting forward his great Armada But the King well
But we will let them run unto the end of their Line and then pull them back 38. And first We will begin with the Conspiracies and Treasons of Francis Steward Earl of Bothwell Son of Iohn Prior of Coldingham one of the many Bastards of K. Iames the Fifth who by the Daughter and Heir of Iames Lord Hepborn the late Earl of Bothwell became the Father of this Francis A man he was of a seditious and turbulent nature principled in the Doctrines of the Presbyterians and thereby fitted and disposed to run their courses At first he joyned himself to the banished Lords who seized upon the King at Sterling not because he was any way engaged in their former Practises for which they had been forced to flye their Countrey but because he would ingratiate himself with the Lords of that Faction and gain some credit with the Kirk But being a man also of a dissolute Life gave such scandal to all Honest and Religious men that in the end to gain the Reputation of a Convert he was contented to be brought to the Stool of Repentance to make Confession of his Sins and promise Reformation for the time to come Presuming now upon the Favour of the Kirk he consults with Witches enquires into the Liâ—e of the King how long he was to reign and what should happen in the Kingdom after his decease and more than so deals with the Witch of Keith particularly to employ her Familiar to dispatch the King that he might set on foot some Title to the Crown of that Realm For which notorious Crimes and so esteemed by all the Laws both of God and Man he was committed unto Ward and breaking Prison was confiscated proclaimed Traytor and all Intelligence and Commerce interdicted with him After this he projects a Faction in the Court it self under pretence of taking down the Power and Pride of the Lord Chancellor then being But finding himself too weak to atchieve the Enterprise he departs secretly into England His Faction in the Court being formed with some more Advantage he is brought privily into the Palace of Haly-Rood House makes himself Master of the Gates secureth the Fort and violently attempts to seize the King But the King hearing of the noise retired himself to a strong Tower and caused all the Passages to be locked and barred Which Bothwell not being able to force he resolves to burn the Palace and the King together But before Fire could be made ready the Alarm was taken the Edenbourgers raised and the Conspirators compelled with the loss of some of their Lives to quit the place 39. The next year he attempts the like at Falkland where he showed himself with a Party of six-score Horse but the rest of the Conspirators not appearing he retires again is entertained privately by some eminent Persons and having much encreased his Faction lives concealed in England The Queen negotiates his return and by the Lord Burrough her Ambassador desires the King to take him into Grace and Favour Which being denyed a way is found to bring him into the King's Bed-chamber together with one of his Confederates with their Swords in their hands followed immediately by many others of the Faction by whom the King is kept in a kind of Custody till he had granted their Desires At last upon the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some of the Ministers of Edenborough who were of Counsel in the Plot the King is brought to condescend to these Conditions that is to say That Pardon should be given to Bothwell and his Accomplices for all matters past and that this Pardon should be ratified by Act of Parliament in November following That in the mean time the Lord Chancellor the Lord Hume the Master of Glammir and Sir George Hume who were all thought to favour the Popish Lords should be excluded from the Court. And finally That Bothwell and all his Party should be held good Subjects But these Conditions being extorted were not long made good Agreed on August the 14 th and declared void by a Convention of Estates at Sterling on the 7 th of September Some Troubles being raised upon this occasion and as soon blown over Bothwell is cited to appear at Edenborough and failing of his day is declared Rebel which only served to animate him to some greater Mischief For being under-hand assisted by the English Ambassador he prepares new Forces desires the Lords which were of his Confederacy to do the like under pretence of banishing to Popish Lords but in plain truth to make the King of no signification in the Power of Government Accompanied with Four hundred Horse he puts himself into Leith to the great affrightment of the King who was then at Edenborough But understanding that the rest of his Associates were not drawn together it was thought good to charge upon him with the Bands of that City and some Artillery from the Castle before his Numbers were encreased Which Counsel sped so well that he lost the day and therewith all his hopes in Scotland and in England too 40. For Queen Elizabeth being sensible at the last of the great Dishonour which she had drawn upon her self by favouring such an Infamous Rebel caused Proclamation to be made That no man should receive or harbour him within her Dominions And the Kirk moved by her Example and the King's Request when they perceived that he could be no longer serviceable to their Ends and Purposes gave Order that the Ministers in all Places should disswade their Flocks from concurring with him for the time to come or joyning with any other in the like Insurrections against that Authority which was divested by God in His Majesty's Person The Treasons and Seditious practises of which man I have laid together the better to express those continual Dangers which were threatned by him to the King by which He was reduced to the necessity of complying with the desires of the Kirk setling their Discipline and in all points conforming to them for His own preservation But nothing lost the Rebel more than a new Practise which he had with the Popish Lords whereby he furnished the King with a just occasion to lay him open to the Ministers and the rest of the Subjects in his proper colours as one that was not acted by a Zeal to Religion though under that disguise he masked his Ambitious Ends. In fine being despised by the Queen of England and Excommunicated by the Kirk for joyning with the Popish Lords he was reduced to such a miserable condition that he neither knew whom to trust nor where to flye Betrayed by those of his own Party by whom his Brother Hercules was impeached discovered and at last brought to Execution in the Streets at Edenborough he fled for shelter into France where finding sorry entertainment he removed into Spain and afterwards retired to Naples in which he spent the short remainder of his Life in Contempt and Beggery 41.
the Ambassadors of some Forreign States as if they had been a Common-wealth distinct from the Realm of France More than which they audaciously importuned the King of whose affection to them they presumed too far by their several Agents for liberty of going wheresoever they listed or sending whomsoever they pleased to the Councils and Assemblies of all Neighbouring-Estates and Nations which profest the same Religion with them This though it had not been the first was looked on as their greatest encroachment on the Royal Authority which in conclusion proved the ruin of their Cause and Party For what else could this aim at as was well observed by the King then reigning but to make themselves a State distinct and independent to raise up a new Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom and to make the Schism as great in Civil as in Sacred matters Which wrought so far upoa the Councils of his next Successor who had not been trained up amongst them as his Father was that he resolved to call them to a sober reckoning on the next occasion and to deprive them all at once of those Powers and Priviledges which they so wantonly abused unto his disturbance Of which we shall speak more hereafter in its proper place In the mean time let us cross over into Scotland where all Assairs moved retrograde and seemed to threaten a relapse to their old Confusions A general Assembly had been intimated to be held at Aberdeen in the Month of Iuly Anno 1604 which by reason that the King was wholly taken up with effecting the Union was adjourned to the same Month in the year next following In the mean season some of the more Factious Ministers hoping to raise no small advantage to themselves and their Party by the absence of so many persons of most Power and Credit began to entertain new Counsels for the unravelling of that Web which the King had lately wrought with such care and cunning The King hears of it and gives Order to suspend the Meeting till his further Pleasure were declared Wherein he was so far obeyed by the major part that of the fifty Presbyteries into which the whole Kingdom was divided Anno 1592 nine only sent Commissioners to attend at Aberdeen When the day came the Meeting was so thin and slender that there appeared not above one and twenty when they were at the fullest But they were such as were resolved to stand stoutly to it each man conceiving himself able in the Cause of God to make resistance to an Army The Laird of Lowreston commands them in the King's Name to return to their Houses to discontinue that unlawful Assembly and not to meet on any publick occasion which concerned the Church but by his Majesty's Appointment They answer That they were assembled at that time and place according to the word of God and the Laws of the Land and that they would not betray the Liberties of the Kirk of Scotland by obeying such unlawful Prohibitions Which said and having desired him to withdraw a while they made choice of one Forbes for their Moderator and so adjourned themselves to September following Lowreston thereupon denounced them Rebels and fearing that some new affront might be put upon him and consequently on the King in whose Name he acted he seeks for Remedy and Prevention to the Lords of the Council Forbes and Welch the two chief sticklers in the Cause are by them convented and not abating any thing of their former obstinacy are both sent Prisoners unto Blackness A day is given for the appearance of the rest which was the third day of October at what time thirteen of the number made acknowledgment of their offence and humbly supplicated that their Lordships would endeavour to procure their Pardon the rest remaining in their disobedience are by the Lords disposed of into several Prisons 19. But these proceedings did so little edifie with that stubborn Faction that the Lords of the Council were condemned for their just severity and all their Actings made to aim at no other end but by degrees to introduce the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of England The King endeavours by a Declaration to undeceive his good people and reclaim these obstinate persons from the ways of ruin and intimates withall that a new Assembly should be held at Dundee in the Iuly following But this prevails as little as the former course Which puts the business on so far that either the King must be conformable to their present humour or they submit themselves to the King 's just Power The Lords resolve upon the last command them to appear at the Council-Table to receive their Sentence and nominated the 24 th of October for the Day of Doom Accordingly they came but they came prepared having subscribed a publick Instrument under all their hands by which they absolutely decline the Judgment of the King and Council as altogether incompetent and put themselves upon the tryal of the next Assembly as their lawful Judg. Before they were convented only for their Disobedience but by this Declinator they have made themselves Traytors The King is certified of all this and being resolved upon the maintenance of his own Authority gave order That the Law should pass upon them according to the Statute made in Parliament Anno 1584. Hereupon Forbes Welch Duncam Sharp Davie Straghan are removed from Blackness arraigned at an Assize held in Linlithgoe found guilty by the Jury and condemned to death but all of them returned to their several Prisons till the King's Pleasure should be known for their Execution The Melvins and some other of the principal Zealots caused Prayers and Supplications to be made in behalf of the Traytors though they had generally refused to perform that office when the King's Mother was upon the point of losing her life upon a more unwarrantable Sentence of Condemnation This brought forth first a Proclamation inhibiting all Ministers to recommend the condemned persons unto God in their Prayers or Sermons and afterwards a Letter to some Chiefs amongst them for waiting on His Majesty at the Court in England where they should be admitted to a publick Conference and have the King to be their Judg. 20. Upon this Summons there appear in behalf of the Church the Arch-bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow the Bishops of Orkney and Galloway together with Nicolson the designed Bishop of Dunkeeden And for the Kirk the two Melvins Colt Carmichall Scot Balfour and Watson The place appointed for the Conference was Hampton-Court at which they all attended on Septemb. 20. But the Kirk-Party came resolved neither to satisfie the King nor be satisfied by him though he endeavoured all fit ways for their information To which end he appointed four Eminent and Learned Prelates to preach before them in their turns the first of which was Dr. Barlow then Bishop of Rochester who learnedly asserted the Episcopal Power out of those words to the Elders at Ephesus recorded Acts 20.
Robert Naunton principal Secretary of Estate Which Letters bearing date on the 12 th of December Anno 1619 are to be found at large in the Printed Cabala p. 169 c. and thither I refer the Reader for his satisfaction But neither the Perswasions of so great a Prelate nor the sollicitations of the Princess and her publick Ministers nor the troublesome interposings of the House of Commons in a following Parliament were able to remove that King from his first Resolution By which though he incurred the high displeasure of the English Puritans and those of the Calvinian Party in other places yet he acquired the Reputation of a Just and and Religious Prince with most men besides and those not only of the Romish but the Lutheran Churches And it is hard to say which of the two were most offended with the Prince Elector for his accepting of that Crown which of them had more ground to fear the ruin of their Cause and Party if he had prevailed and which of them were more impertinently provoked to make Head against him after he had declared his acceptance of it 32. For when he was to be Inaugurated in the Church of Prague he neither would be crowned in the usual Form nor by the hands of the Arch-bishop to whom the performing of that Ceremony did of Right belong but after such a form and manner as was digested by Scultetus his Domestick Chaplain who chiefly governed his Affairs in all Sacred matters Nor would Scultetus undertake the Ceremony of the Coronation though very ambitious of that Honour till he had cleared the Church of all Carved Images and defaced all the Painted also In both respects a-like offensive to the Romish Clergy who found themselves dis-priviledged their Churches Sacrilegiously invaded and further ruin threatned by these Innovations A Massie Crucifix had bin erected on the bridg of Prague which had stood there for many hundred years before neither affronted by the Lutherans nor defaced by the Iews though more averse from Images than all people else Scultetus takes offence at the sight thereof as if the Brazen Serpent were set up and worshipped perswades the King to cause it presently to be demolished or else he never would be reckoned for an Hezekiah in which he found Conformity to his Humour also And thereby did as much offend all sober Lutherans who retain Images in their Churches and other places as he had done the Romish Clergy by his former Follies This gave some new encrease to those former Jealousies which had been given them by that Prince first by endeavouring to suppress the Lutheran Forms in the Churches of Brandenburgh by the Arts and Practises of his Sister And secondly By condemning their Doctrine at the Synod of Dort in which his Ministers were more active than the rest of the Forreigners though in the persons of those men whom they called Arminians But that which gave them greatest cause of offence and fear was his determinarion in a Cause depending between two Sisters at his first coming to the Crown of which the youngest had been married to a Calvinian the eldest to a Lutheran Lord. The place in difference was the Castle and Seignury of Gutscin of which the eldest Sister had took possession as the Seat of her Ancestors But the King passing Sentence for the younger Sister and sending certain Judges and other Officers to put the place into her actual possession they were all blown up with Gun-Powder by the Lutheran Lady not able to concoct the Indignity offered nor to submit unto Judgment which appeared so partial 33. In the mean time whilst the Elector was preparing for his Journey to Prague the Faction of Bohemia not being able to withstand such Forces as the Emperor had poured in upon them invited Bethlem Gabor not long before made Prince of Transylvania by the help of the Turks to repair speedily to their success Which invitation he accepts raiseth an Army of Eighteen thousand men ransacks all Monasteries and Religious Houses wheresoever he came and in short time becomes the Master of the Vpper Hungary and the City of Presburgh the Protestants in all places but most especially the Calvinians submitting readily unto him whom they looked upon as their Deliverer from some present servitude From thence he sends his Forces to the Gates of Vienna and impudently craves that the Provinces of Styria Carinthia and Carniola should be united from thenceforth to the Realm of Hungary the better to enable the Hungarians to resist the Turk And having a design for ruining the House of Austria he doth not only crave protection from the Ottoman Emperor but requires the new King and Estates of Bohemia with the Provinces incorporate to it to send their Ambassadors to Constantinople for entring into a Confederacy with the common Enemy Hereupon followed a great Meeting of Ambassadors from Bohemia Austria Silesia Lusatia Venice â—oland and Turkie All which assembled at Newhasall in the Vpper Hungary where the Turk readily entred into the Association and the Venetian Ambassador undertook the like in the Name of that Seignury Encouraged wherewith the Transylvanian is proclaimed King of Hungary who to make good a Title so unjustly gotten provides an Army of no fewer than Thirty thousand others say Fifty thousand men With which if he had entred into any part of Bohemia before the new King had lost himself in the Battel of Prague it is most probabable that he might have absolutely assured that Kingdom to the Prince Elector acquired the other for himself and parted the Estates of Austria amongst their Confederates 34. But so it hapned that some Lutheran and Popish Princes being both equally jealous of their own Estates and careful to preserve the Interest of their several Parties entred into League with the Emperor FERDINAND for the defence of one another and the recovery of that Kingdom to the House of Austria In prosecution of which League Iohn-George the Duke Elector of Saxony invades Lusatia another of the incorporate Provinces with a puissant Army and in short time reduceth it under his Command And with like puissance Maximilian Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the Catholick Princes falleth into Bohemia and openeth all the way before him to the Walls of Prague Joyning with the Imperial Forces under Count Bucquoy they are said to have made up an Army of Fifty thousand With which they gave battel to the Army of the Prince Elector consisting of Thirty thousand men under the Conduct of the Prince of Anhalt and the Count of Thurne It is reported that the Prince Elector was so good a Husband for the Emperor as to preserve his Treasures in the Castle of Prague without diminishing so much thereof as might pay his Soldiers which made many of them throw away their Arms and refuse to fight But sure it is that the Imperials gained a great and an easie Victory in the pursuit whereof the young Prince of Anhalt together with Count Thurne and
those out-rages Doubly affronted and provoked the King resolves to right Himself in the way of Arms. But at the instant request of Des Diguiers before remembred who had been hitherto a true Zealot to the Hugonot Cause he was content to give them Four and twenty days of deliberation before he drew into the Field He offered them also very fair and reasonable Canditions not altogether such as their Commissioners had desired for them but far better than those which they were glad to accept at the end of the Warr when all their strengths were taken from them But the Hugonots were not to be told that all the Calvinian Princes and Estates of the Empire had put themselves into a posture of Warr some for defence of the Palatinate and others in pursuance of the Warr of Bohemia Of which they gave themselves more hopes than they had just cause for In which conjuncture some hot spirits then assembled at Rochel blinded with pride or hurried on by the fatality of those Decrees which they maintained to be resolved upon by God before all Eternity reject all offers tending to a Pacification and wilfully run on to their own destruction For presently upon the tendry of the King's Proposals they publish certain Orders for the regulating of their Disobedience as namely That no Agreement should be made with the King but by the consent of a General Convocation of the Chiefs of their Party about the payment of their Soldiers Wages and intercepting the Revenues of the King and Clergie toward the maintenance of the Warr. They also Cantoned the whole Kingdom into seven Divisions assigned to each of those Divisions a Commander in Chief and unto each Commander their particular Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and other Officers with several Limitations and Directions prescribed to each of them for their proceeding in this service 38. This makes it evident that the King did not take up Arms but on great necessities He saw his Regal Authority neglected his especial Edicts wilfully violated his Gracious Offers scornfully slighted his Revenues Feloniously intercepted his whole Realm Cantoned before his face and put into the power of such Commanders as he could not trust So that the Warr being just on his part he had the more reason to expect such an issue of it as was agreeable to the Equity of so good a Cause He had besides all those Advantages both at home and abroad which in all probability might assure him of the End desired The Prince Elector Palatine had been worsted in the Warr of Bohemia and all the Princes of the Union scattered to their several Homes which they were hardly able to defend against so many Enemies so that there was no danger to be feared from them And on the other side the King of Great Britain whom he had most cause to be afraid of had denied assistance to his own Children in the Warr of Bohemia which seemed to have more Justice in it than the Warr of the Hugonots and therefore was not like to engage in behalf of strangers who rather out of wantonness than any unavoidable necessity had took up Arms against their Lawful and Undoubted Soveraign At home the Rochellers were worse befriended than they were abroad I mean the Common-wealth of Rochel as King LEWIS called it The whole Confederacy of the Hugonots there contrived and sworn to they had Cantoned the whole Realm into seven Divisions which they assigned to the Command of the Earl of Chastillon the Marquess De la Force the Duke of Soâ—bize the Duke of Rohan the Duke of Trimoville the Duke Des Diguer and the Duke of Bouillon whom they designed to be the Generalissimo over all their Forces But neither he nor Des Diguers nor the Duke of Trimoville nor Chastillon would act any thing in it or accept any such Commissions as were sent unto them Whether it were that they were terrified with the ill success of the Warr of Bohemia or that the Conscience of their duty did direct them in it I dispute not now So that the Rochellers being deserted both at home and abroad were forced to rely upon the Power and Prudence of the other three and to supply all other wants out of the Magazine of Obstinacy and Perversness with which they were plentifully stored Two instances I shall only touch at and pass over the rest The town of Clerack being summoned the 21 of Iuly 1621 returned this Answer to the King viz. That if he would permit them to enjoy their Liberties withdraw his Armies and leave their Fortifications in the same estate in which he found them they would remain his faithful and obedient Subjects More fully those of Mount Albon on the like occasion That they resolve to live and dye not in obedience to the King as they should have said but in the Vnion of the Churches Most Religious Rebels 39. Next let us look upon the King who being brought to a necessity of taking Arms first made his way unto it by his Declaration of the second of April published in favour of all those of that Religion who would contain themselves in their due obedience In pursuance whereof he caused five persons to be executed in the City of Tours who had tumultuously disturbed the Hugonots whom they found busied at the burial of one of their dead He also signified to the King of Great Britain the Princes of the Empire and the States of the Netherlands That he had not undertook this Warr to suppress the Religion but to chastise the Insolencies of Rebellious Subjects And what he signified in words he made good by his deeds For when the Warr was at the hottest all those of the Religion in the City of Paris lived as securely as before and had their accustomed Meetings at Charenton as in times of peace Which safety and security was enjoyed in all other places even where the King's Armies lodged and quartered Nay such a care was taken of their preservation that when some of the Rascality in the City of Paris upon the first tydings of the death of the Duke of Mayenne who had been slain at the Siege of Mont-albon amongst many others breathed nothing but slaughter and revenge to the Hugonot Party the Duke of Mounbazon being then Governour of the City commanded their Houses and the Streets to be safely guarded so that no hurt was done to their Goods or Persons And when the Rabble being disappointed of their Ends in Paris had run tumultuously the next day to Charenton and burned down their Temple an Order was presently made by the Court of Parliament for the re-edifying it at the King 's sole Charges and that too in a far more beautiful Fabrick than before it had But in the conduct of the Warr he governed not his Counsels with like moderation suffering the Sword too often to range at liberty as if he meant to be as terrible in his Executions as he desired to be accounted just in his Undertakings But
condemned the Calling of Bishops the Articles of Perth the Liturgy and the Book of Canons as inconsistent with the Scripture and the Kirk of Scotland They proceed next to the rejecting of the five controverted points which they called Arminianism and finally decreed a general subscription to be made to these Constitutions For not conforming whereunto the Bishops and a great part of the Regular Clergy are expelled the Countrey although they had been animated unto that Refusal as well by the Conscience of their duty as by his Majesty's Proclamation which required it of them 5. They could not hope that the King's Lenity so abused might not turn to Fury and therefore thought it was high time to put themselves into Arms to call back most of their old Soldiers from the Warrs in Germany and almost all their Officers from such Commands in the Netherlands whom to maintain they intercept the King's Revenue and the Rents of the Bishops and lay great Taxes on the people taking up Arms and Ammunition from the States Vnited with whom they went on Ticket and long days of payment for want of ready money for their satisfaction But all this had not served their turn if the King could have been perswaded to have given them battel or suffered any part of that great Army which he brought against them to lay waste their Countrey Whose tenderness when they once perceived and knew withall how many friends they had about him they thought it would be no hard matter to obtain such a Pacification as might secure them for the present from an absolute Conquest and give them opportunity to provide better for themselves in the time to come upon the reputation of being able to divert or break such a puissant Army And so it proved in the event For the King had no sooner retired his Forces both by Sea and Land and given his Soldiers a License to return to their several Houses but the Scots presently protest against all the Articles of the Pacification put harder pressures on the King's Party than before they suffered keep all their Officers in pay by their Messengers and Letters apply themselves to the French King for support and succours By whom encouraged under-hand and openly countenanced by some Agents of the Cardinal Richelieu who then governed all Affairs in France they enter into England with a puissant Army making their way to that Invasion by some Printed Pamphlets which they dispersed into all parts thereby to colour their Rebellions and bewitch the people 6. And now the English Presbyterians take the courage to appear more publickly in the defence of the Scots and their proceedings than they had done hitherto A Parliament had been called on the 13 th of April for granting Moneys to maintain the Warr against the Scots But the Commons were so backward in complying with the King's Desires that he found himself under the necessity of dissolving the Parliament which else had blasted his Design and openly declared in favour of the publick Enemies This puts the discontented Rabble into such a fury that they violently assaulted Lambeth-House but were as valiantly repulsed and the next day break open all the Prisons in Southwark and release all the Prisoners whom they found committed for their Inconformities Benstead the Ring-leader in these Tumults is apprehended and arraigned condemned and executed the whole proceeding being grounded on the Statute of the 25 th of K. EDWARD the 3 d for punishing all Treasons and Rebellions against the King But that which threatned greater danger to the King and the Church than either the Arms of the Scots or the Tumults in Southwark was a Petition sent unto the King who was then at York subscribed by sundry Noble-men of the Popular Faction concluded on the 28 th of August carried by the Lord Mandevil and the Lord Howard of Escrigg and finally presented on the third of September In which it was petitioned amongst other things That the present War might be composed without loss of blood That a Parliament should be forthwith called for redress of Grievances amongst which some pretended Innovations in Religion must be none of the least and that the Authors and Counsellors of such Grievances as are there complained of might be there brought to such a Legal Tryal and receive such condign punishment as their Crimes required This hastned the assembling of the great Council of the Peers at York and put the King upon the calling of a Parliament of His own accord which otherwise might be thought extorted by their importunity 7. The Scots in the mean time had put by such English Forces as lay on the South-side of the Tine at the passage of Newborn make themselves Masters of Newcastle deface the goodly Church of Durham bring all the Countreys on the North-side of the Tees under contribution and tax the people to all payments at their only pleasure The Council of Peers and a Petition from the Scots prepare the King to entertain a Treaty with them the managing whereof was chiefly left unto those Lords who had subscribed the Petition before remembred But the third day of November coming on a-pace and the Commissioners seeming desirous to attend in Parliament which was to begin on that day the Treaty is adjourned to London which gave the Scots a more dangerous opportunity to infect that City than all their Emissaries had obtained in the times fore-going Nor was it long before it openly appeared what great power they had upon their Party in that City which animated Pennington attended with some hundreds of inferior note to tender a Petition to the House of Commons against the Government of Bishops here by Law established It was affirmed that this Petition was subscribed by many thousands and it was probable enough to be so indeed But whether it were so or not he gave thereby such an occasion to the House of Commons that they voted down the Canons which had passed in the late Convocation condemned the Bishops and Clergy in great sums of Money which had subscribed to the same decry the Power of all Provincial or National Synods for making any Canons or Constitutions which could bind the Subject until they were confirmed by an Act of Parliament And having brought this general terror on the Bishops and Clergy they impeach the Arch-bishop of High Treason cause him to be committed to the Black Rod and from thence to the Tower Which being done some other of the Bishops and Clergy must be singled out informed against by scandalous Articles and those Articles printed without any consideration either true or false 8. And though a Convocation were at that time sitting yet to encrease the Miseries of a falling-Church it is permitted that a private Meeting should be held in the Deanry of Westminster to which some Orthodox and Conformable Divines were called as a foil to the rest which generally were of Presbyterian or Puritan Principles By them it was proposed That many passages
further Order And it was then resolved also That if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest or detain the person of any Member of their House without first acquainting the House therewith and receiving further Order from the House that then it should be lawful for such Member or any person to resist him and to stand upon his or their guard of defence and to make resistance according to the Protestation taken to defend the Liberties of Parliament This brings the King on Tuesday morning to the Commons House attended only by His Guard and some few Gentlemen no otherwise weaponed than with Swords where having placed Himself in the Speaker's Chair He required them to deliver the Impeached Members to the hands of Justice But they had notice of His Purpose and had retired into London as their safest Sanctuary to which the whole House is adjourned also and sits in the Guild-Hall as a Grand Committee The next day brings the King to the City also where in a Speech to the Lord Mayor and Common-Council He signified the Reasons of His going to the House of Commons That He had no intent of proceeding otherwise against the Members than in a way of Legal Tryal and thereupon desired That they might not be harboured and protected in despite of Law For answer whereunto He is encountred with an insolent and sawcy Speech made by one Fowk a Member of the Common-Council concerning the Impeached Members and the King's proceedings and followed in the Streets by the Rascal-Rabble by some of which a Virulent and Seditious Pamphlet entituled Every man to his Tents O Israel is cast into His Coach and nothing sounded in His Ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament with most horrible out-cries The same night puts them into Arms with great fear and tumult upon a rumour that the King and the Cavaliers for so they called such Officers of the late Army as attended on him for their Pay had a design to sack the City who were then sleeping in their beds and little dreamed of any such Seditious practises as were then on foot for the enflaming of the people 15. And now comes Calvin's Doctrine for restraining the Power of Kings to be put in practise His Majesty's going to the House of Commons on the fourth of Ianuary is voted for so high a breach of their Rights and Priviledges as was not to be salved by any Retractation or Disclaimer or any thing by Him alledged in excuse thereof The Members are brought down in triumph both by Land and Water guarded with Pikes and Protestations to their several Houses and the forsaken King necessitated to retire to Windsor that he might not be an eye-witness of his own disgraces The Lord Digby goes to Kingston in a Coach with six Horses to bestow a visit upon Collonel Lundsford and some other Gentlemen each Horse is reckoned for a Troop and these Troops said to have appeared in a warlike manner Which was enough to cause the prevailing-party of the Lords and Commons to declare against it and by their Order of the 13 th of Ianuary to give command That all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom assisted by the Iustices and Trained-Bands of the Countrey should take care to suppress all unlawful Assemblies and to secure the Magazines of their several Counties The King's Attorney must be called in question examined and endangered for doing his duty in the impeachment of their Members that no man might hereafter dare to obey the King And though His Majesty had sent them a most Gracious Message of the twentieth of Ianuary in which He promised them to equal or exceed all Acts of Favour which any of His Predecessors had extended to the People of England yet nothing could secure them from their fears and jealousies unless the Trained-bands and the Royal Navy the Tower of London and the rest of the Forts and Castles were put into such hands as they might confide in On this the King demurrs a while but having shipped the Queen for Holland with the Princess Mary and got the Prince into his power he denies it utterly And this denial is reputed a sufficient reason to take the Militia to themselves and execute the Powers thereof without His consent 16. But leaving them to their own Councils he removes to York assembleth the Gentry of that County acquaints them with the reasons of His coming thither and desires them not to be seduced by such false reports as had been raised to the dishonour of His Person and disgrace of His Government By their Advice he makes a journey unto Hull in which he had laid up a considerable Magazine of Cannon Arms and Ammunition intended first against the Scots and afterwards designed for the Warr of Ireland but now to be made use of in his own defence And possibly He might have got it into His possession if He had kept His own Counsel and had not let some words fall from Him in a Declaration which betrayed His purpose For hereupon Hotham a Member of their House and one of the two Knights for the County of York is sent to Garrison the Town who most audaciously refused to give him entrance though he was then accompanied with no more than his private Guards and for so doing is applauded and indempnified by the rest of the Members This sends him back again to York and there he meets as great a Baffle as he did at Hull For there he is encountred with a new Committee from the House of Commons consisting of Ferdinand Lord Fairfax Sir Henry Cholmnly Sir Hugh Cholmnly and Sir Philip Stapleton sent thither on purpose to serve as Spies upon his actions to undermine all his proceedings and to insinuate into the people that all their hopes of peace and happiness depended on their adhering to the present Parliament And they applied themselves to their Instructions with such open Confidence that the King had not more meetings with the Gentry of that County in his Palace called the Mannor-house than they had with the Yeomanry and Free-holders in the great Hall of the Deanry All which the King suffered very strangely and thereby robbed himself of the opportunity of raising an Army in that County with which he might have marched to London took the Hen sitting on her Nest before she had hatched and possibly prevented all those Calamities which after followed 17. But to proceed during these counter-workings betwixt them and the King the Lords and Commons plied him with continual Messages for his return unto the Houses and did as frequently endeavour to possess the people with their Remonstrances and Declarations to his disadvantage To each of which his Majesty returned a significant Answer so handsomely apparelled and comprehending in them such a strength of Reason as gave great satisfaction to all equal and unbyassed men None of these Messages more remarkable than that which brought the Nineteen Propositions to his Majesty's hands In which it was desired
time thereof For a preparative whereunto and to satisfie the importunity and expectation of their Brethren of Scotland they attaint the Arch-bishop of High Treason in the House of Commons and pass their Bill by Ordinance in the House of Peers in which no more than seven Lords did concur to the Sentence but being sentenced howsoever by the malice of the Presbyterians both Scots and English he was brought to act the last part of his Tragedy on the 10th of Ianuary as shall be told at large in another place This could presage no good success to the following Treaty For though Covenants sometimes may be writ in blood yet I find no such way for commencing Treaties And to say truth the King's Commissioners soon found what they were to trust to For having condescended to accompany the Commissioners from the Houses of Parliament and to be present at a Sermon preached by one of their Chaplains on the first day of the meeting they found what little hopes they had of a good conclusion The Preacher's Name was Love a Welsh-man and one of the most fiery Presbyters in all the Pack In whose Sermon there were many passages very scandalous to His Majesty's Person and derogatory to His Honour stirring up the people against the Treaty and incensing them against the King's Commissioners telling them That they came with hearts full of Blood and that there was as great a distance betwixt the Treaty and Peace as there was between Heaven and Hell Of this the Oxon Lords complained but could obtain no reparation for the King or themselves though afterwards Cromwel paid the debt and brought him to the Scaffold when he least looked for it 44. But notwithstanding these presages of no good success the King's Commissioners begin the long-wisht-for Treaty which is reduced to these three Heads viz. Concernments of the Church The Power of the Militia and the Warr of Ireland In reference to the first for of the other two I shall take no notice His Majesty was pleased to condescend to these particulars that is to say 1. That freedom be left to all persons whatsoever in matters of Ceremony and that all the penalties of the Laws and Canons which enjoin those Ceremonies be suspended 2. That the Bishops should exercise no act of Iurisdiction or Ordination without the consent and counsel of the Presbyters who shall be chosen by the Clergy of each Diocess out of the gravest and most learned men amongst themselves 3. That the Bishop shall be constantly resident in his Diocess except he be required to attend His Majesty and shall preach every Sunday in some Church or other within the Diocess if he be not hindred either by old age or sickness 4. That Ordination shall be publick and in solemn manner and none to be admitted into Holy Orders but such as are well qualified and approved of by the Rural Presbyters 5. That an improvement be made of all such Vicaridges as belonged to Bishops Deans and Chapters the said improvement to be made out of Impropriations and confirmed by Parliament 6. That from thenceforth no man should hold two Churches with Cure of Souls And 7. That One hundred thousand pound should be forthwith raised out of the Lands belonging to the Bishops and Cathedral Churches towards the satisfaction of the Publick Debts An Offer was also made for regulating the Jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts in Causes Testamentary Decimal and Matrimonial for rectifying some Abuses in the exercise of Excommunication for moderating the excessive Fees of the Bishops Officers and ordering their Visitations to the best advantage of the Church and all this to be done by consent of Parliament 45. His Majesty also offered them the Militia for the space of three years which might afford them time enough to settle the Affairs of the Kingdom had they been so pleased and to associate the Houses with Him in the Warr of Ireland but so as not to be excluded from His Care of that People But these Proposals did not satisfie the Puritan English much less the Presbyterian Scots who were joined in that Treaty They were resolved upon the abolition of Episcopacy both Root and Branch of having the Militia for Seven years absolutely and afterwards to be disposed of as the King and the Houses could agree and finally of exercising such an unlimited power in the Warr of Ireland that the King should neither be able to grant a Cessation or to make a Peace or to show mercy unto any of that people on their due submission And from the rigour of these terms they were not to be drawn by the King's Commissioners which rendred the whole Treaty fruitless and frustrated the expectation of all Loyal Subjects who languished under the calamity of this woful Warr. For as the Treaty cooled so the Warr grew hotter managed for the most part by the same Hands but by different Heads Concerning which we are to know That not long after the beginning of this everlasting Parliament the Puritan Faction became subdivided into Presbyterians and Independents And at the first the Presbyterians carried all before them both in Camp and Council But growing jealous at the last of the Earl of Essex whose late miscarriage in the West was looked on as a Plot to betray his Army they suffered him to be wormed out of his Commission and gave the chief Command of all to Sir Thomas Fairfax with whose good Services and Affections they were well acquainted To him they joined Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell who from a private Captain had obtained to be Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the associated Counties as they commonly called them and having done good Service in the Battel of Marston-moor was thought the fittest man to conduct their Forces And on the other side the Earl of Brentford but better known by the Name of General Ruthuen who had commanded the King's Army since the Fight at Edg-hill was outed of his Place by a Court-Contrivement and that Command conferred upon Prince Rupert the King's Sisters Son not long before made Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness 46. By these new Generals the Fortune of the Warr and consequently the Fate of the Kingdom which depended on it came to be decided And at the first the King seemed to have much the better by the taking of Leicester though afterwards it turned to his disadvantage For many of the Soldiers being loaded with the Spoil of the place withdrew themselves for the disposing of their Booty and came not back unto the Army till it was too late News also came that Fairfax with his Army had laid siege to Oxon which moved the King to return back as far as Daventry there to expect the re-assembling of his scattered Companies Which hapning as Fairfax had desired he marcht hastily after him with an intent to give him Battel on the first opportunity In which he was confirmed by two great Advantages first by the seasonable coming of Cromwel with
AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR THE HISTORY OF THE Presbyterians CONTAINING The Beginnings Progress and Successes of that active Sect. Their Oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government Their Innovations in the Church and Their Imbroylments of the Kingdoms and Estates of Christendom in the pursuit of their Designes From the Year 1536 to the Year 1647. By PETER HEYLYN D. D. And Chaplain to Charles the First and Charles the Second MONARCHS of GREAT BRITAIN OXFORD Printed for Io. Crosley and are to be sold in London by Tho. Basset at the George neer Cliffords-Inne in Fleetstreet and Chr. Wilkinson at the Black-Boy over against S. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1670. To the Right Honorable The LORDS SPIRITUAL TEMPORAL and COMMONS in Parliament assembled May it please Your Honors YOu are here most humbly implored for the Patronage of a Post-humous birth of my dear and honored Fathers Laborious mind in the Cause of this Kingdoms profest and settled Religion You may safely believe the Title-Page reports to You the true and genuine Author of the Book but it 's most humbly intreated that You would not For if You rather please to read it You will be assured of the Parent by the Lineaments remarkable upon the Child and therewith too receive I hope such satisfaction as may justly flow from the perusal of an History which in some measure confirms the Excellency of those Laws You have devised and Sacred Majestie confirm'd for the Protection of that Religion and Government You profess and stand for The Beauty Iustice and Prudence of the Sanctions will not a little appear in the ill visage of that Party whose Rude humor and ungoverned Zeal is here represented It would be an immodest boldness in me to press Your belief with my Assertions of the happy performances herein And they being for the most part but faithful Collections of matter of Fact transacted by the Ancestors of a Sect to this day more then enough warm in the Bowels of these Kingdoms are to stand and fall in Your Grave and Iudicious opinions according to their correspondency with the Annals of Your own and other Countreys If I had nothing to plead for the Publication of this History but the zeal of a Son to preserve his Fathers Off-spring from treading too close after him to the Grave I doubt not it would easily prevail with so much Nobleness as the High and Honorable Court of Parliament doth imply But I am moreover apt to believe that when Your Wisdoms please to consider that the Party hereby proved peccant are still so far from Repentance that they dare to boast their Innocency and vie Loyalty and peaceable mindedness at the same rate at least they did before our late Troubles and present Distempers made their Turbulencies and Seditions notorious I may then reasonably I hope beg Your favorable acceptance of this Dedication or at least depend upon that pardon from you which the offended Party will be unwilling to allow to him who though unworthy so great an honor craves leave to subscribe himself Right Honorable Lords and Gentlemen Your most Devoted and Obedient Servant Henry Heylyn THE PREFACE INtending a compleat History of the Presbyterians in all the Principles Practices and most remarkable Proceedings of that dangerous Sect I am to take a higher aim then the time of Calvin though he be commonly pretended for the Founder of it and fetch their Pedigree from those whose stepts they follow For as our Saviour said to some of the Jews that they were of their Father the Devil and the works of their Father they would do So by their works that is to say by the Opinions which they hold the Doctrines which they preach and the Disturbances by them made in these parts of Christendome we may best find from what Original they derive themselves I know that some out of pure zeal unto the Cause would fain intitle them to a descent from the Jewish Sanhedrim ordained by God himself in the time of Moses And that it might comply the better with their ends and purposes they have endeavoured to make that famous Consistory of the Seventy Elders not onely a co-ordinate power with that of Moses and after his decease with the Kings and Princes of that State in this Publick Government but a Power Paramount and Supreme from which lay no appeal to any but to God himself A power by which they were enabled not onely to control the actions of their Kings and Princes but also to correct their persons Which as I can by no means grant to be invested in the Sanhedrim by God himself or otherwise usurped and practised by them in the times of that Monarchy though possibly they might predominate in those times and intervals in which there was no King in Israel as such times there were so neither can I yield unto the Presbyterians any such Prerogative as to derive themselves and their pretensions whether it be over Kings or Bishops from the Jewish Sanhedrim And yet I shall not grutch them an Antiquity as great as that which they desire as great as that of Moses or the Jewish Sanhedrim from which they would so willingly derive themselves For if we look upon them in their professed opposition as well to all Monarchical as Episcopal Government we cannot but give them an Extraction from that famous Triumvirate Korah Dathan and Abiram combined in a Design against Moses and Aaron against the Chief-Priest and the Supreme Prince though otherwise of different Families and having different Counsels amongst themselves For Dathan and Abiram were descended from the Line of Reuben the eldest Son of Father Iacob and therefore thought themselves more capable of the Soveraign Power then Moses who descended from a younger house And Korah thought himself as much neglected in seeing Elizaphan the Son of Vzziel to have been made the Prince of the Kohathites the principal Family of the Levites next to that of Gerson when he himself descended of the elder Brother Nor was he able to discern but that if there were any such necessity of having one Priest above the rest in place and power the Mitre might sit as well upon his head as on that of Aaron whose readiness in complying with the peoples humor in setting up the Golden-Calf had rendred him uncapable of so great a trust Having conferred their notes and compared their grievances they were resolved to right themselves and to have neither any Chief-Priest or Soveraign Prince to lord it over them but to erect a parity both in Sacred and Civil matters as most agreeable to the temper of a free born Nation They had got little else by being set at liberty from the House of Bondage if they should now become the Vassals of their Fathers Children But first they were to form their party and they did it wisely drawing no fewer then two hundred and fifty of the chief men of the Assembly to conspire with them in the Plot. And that they might
Realm of France What was taught afterwards in pursuance of Calvins Doctrines by Hottaman and him that calls himself Eusebius Philadelphos amongst the French by Vrsine and Pareus in the Palatine Churches by Buchanan and Knox amongst the Scots and by some principal Disciplinarians amongst the English we shall hereafter see in their proper places And we shall then see also what was done in point of practice first by the Princes on the House of Bourbon and afterwards by some great Lords of the Hugonot party against Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth Kings of France by William Prince of Orange and other of the Belgick Lords in the final abdication of King Philip the Second by the Hungarians and Bohemians in their revolting from the Princes of the House of Austria by the Rebellious Scots in deposing imprisoning and expelling of their rightful Queen and finally by the Genevian Faction in the Realm of England in their imbroylments of the Nation under Queen Elizabeth and that calamitious War but more calamitous in the issue and conclusion of it against Charles the First All which are built upon no other ground then this Doctrine of Calvin accommodated and applyed to their several purposes as appears plainly by the Answer of the Scots to Queen Elizabeth who justified the deposing of their natural and lawful Queen on those words of Calvin which they relyed on for the sole ground of that horrible Treason and their Indemnity therein of which more hereafter 26. In the mean time I shall content my self with the following passage faithfully gathered out of the Common Places of William Bucan Divinity-Reader in the small University of Lawsanna sâ—ituate on the Lake Lemane in the Canton of Berne and consequently a neer Neighbour to the Town of Geneva who treating in his forty one Chapter of the Duty of Magistrates propounds this question toward the close viz. What a good Christian ought to do if by a cruel Prince he be distressed by some grievous and open injury To which he thus returns his Answer That though Princes and Subjects have relation unto one another yet Subjects in the course of nature were before their Princes and therefore that such Princes if they usurp not a plain Tyranny in their several Kingdoms are not Superiour to the rest by nature in the right of Father hood but are setled by the suffrages and consent of the people on such conditions as originally were agreed between them and that it follows thereupon according unto Buchanans Doctrine that Subjects are not born for the good of their Kings but that all Kings were made to serve for the good of the people that it is lawful to defend Religion by force of Arms not onely against the assaults of such Forreign Nations as have no jurisdiction over us but also against any part of the same Common-wealth the common consent of the Estates being first obtained which doth indeavour to subvert it that no violence is to be offered to the person of the Supreme Magistrate though he play the Tyrant by any private man whatsover except he be warranted thereunto by some extraordinary and express command from the Lord himself but the oppression rather to be born with patience then that God should be offended by such rash attempts that the Protection of the Supreme Magistrate was to be required against the unjust oppressions of inferiour Officers and that in a free Common-wealth the Supreme Magistrate is rather to be questioned in a course of Law then by open Force that Subjects may lawfully take up Arms in defence of their Wives and Children if the Chief Magistrate make any violent assault upon them as Lyons and other brute Creatures sight to defend their young ones this last exemplified by that of Trajan giving the Sword to the Captain of his Guard with these following words Hoc ense pro me justa faciente injusta facienâ—e contra me utaris that is to say That he should use the Sword against him in defence of himself and for the protection of all those who in regard of his Office were subject to him that therefore it was well done by the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of the House had exercised more then ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country that David might lawfully have killed Saul because he gave his Wife to another man expelled him from his native Country murdered the Priests for doing some good Offices to him and pursued him from one place to another with his flying Army but that he did forbear to do it lest he should give an Example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by ambition might be like enough to imitate 27. Such is the Commentary of Buchanus upon Calvins Text by which all Christian Kings are made accountable even in Civil Matters to the three Estates or any other ordinary Officers of their own appointing Which Doctrines being once by him delivered and inforced by others what else could follow thereupon but first an undervaluing of their transcendent Authority afterwards a contempt of their persons and finally a reviling of them with reproachful Language From hence it was that Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine assuring us that all the Devils in Hell were not half so mischievous and that Knox could not finde for her any better titles then that of Iezabel mischievous Mary of the Spaniards blood the professed enemy of God From hence it was that Beza calls Mary Queen of Scots by the names of Medea and Athaliah of which the one was no less infamous in the Sacred then the other was in the Heathen story that the English Puritans compared Queen Elizabeth to an idle slut who swept the middle of the room but left all the dust and filth thereof behind the doors that Didoclavius calls King Iames the greatest and most deadly enemy of the holy Gospel and positively affirms of all Kings in general that they are naturally enemies to the Kingdom of Christ. And finally from hence it was that the seditious Author of the base and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath so bespattered the great Princes of the House of France that he hath made them the most ugly Monsters in their lusts and cruelty which ere Nature produced and could devise no fitter names for Queen Mary of Scotland then those of Medea Clytemnestra Proserpine with that of monstrum Exitiale in the close of all And that the late most mighty Monarch of Great Britain was handled by his Subjects of this Faction with no less scurrility then if he had been raised on high for no other purpose then to be made the mark against which they were to shoot their Arrows even most bitter words the object of all false tongues and calumnious Pens Thus do they deal with Kings and Princes as Pilate in the
acknowledgeth the great benefit which he had received by his Writings acquaints him with the peaceable estate of the Church of Saxonie but signifies withal that Excommunication was not used amongst them whereunto Calvin makes this Answer That he was glad to hear that the Church of Saxony continued in that condition but sorry that it was not so strengthned by the Nerves of Discipline as might preserve the same inviolated to the times to come He adds that there could be no better way of correcting vice then by the joynt consent of all the Pastors of one City and that he never thought it meet that the power of Excommunicating should reside in the Pastors onely that is to say not in conjunction with their Elders which last he builds on these three Reasons First in regard it is an odious and ungrateful Office next because such a sole and absolute power might easily degenerate into tyranny and finally because the Apostles had taught otherwise in it By which we see that as he builds his Discipline on the Word of God or at the least on Apostolical tradition which comes close unto it so he adventureth to commend it to the Lutheran Churches in which his Reputation was not half so great as amongst those which had embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines 31. But in the Zuinglian Churches he was grown more absolute his Writings being so highly valued and his person so esteemed of in regard of his Writings that most of the Divines thereof depended wholly upon his judgement and were willing to submit to any thing of his Prescription The Church of Strasbourgh where he had remained in the time of his exile received his Discipline with the first as soon as it was finally established in Geneva it self For it appeareth by the Letter which Gasper Oberianus sent to Calvin bearing date April 12. 1560. that the Eldership was then well setled in that Church and the Elders of it in a full possession of their power the exercise whereof they are desired to suspend in one particular which is there offered to his view This Gasper was chief Minister of the Church of Tryers so passionately affected to the name of Calvin that he accounted it for one of his greatest honours to be called a Calvinian Preacher Acquainting him with the condition of the Church of Tryers he tells him amongst other things that he found the people very willing to submit to Discipline and thereupon intreats him for a Copy of those Laws and Orders which were observed in the Consistory of Geneva to the end he might communicate them to such of the Senators as he knew to be zealously affected Calvin who was apt enough to hearken to his own desires sends him a large draught of the whole Platform as well relating to the choice of the Members either Lay or Ministers as to the power and jurisdiction which they were to exercise with all the penalties and particularities with reference unto crimes and persons which depended on it And having given him that account he thus closeth with him This summary saith he I had thought sufficient by which or out of which you may easily frame to your self such a form of Government as I have no reason to prescribe To you it appertains modestly to suggest those counsels which you conceive to be most profitable for the use of the Church that godly and discreet men who seldom take it ill to be well advised may thereupon consider what is best be to done Which words of his though very cautelously couched were so well understood by Oberianus that the Discipline was first admitted in that Church and afterwards propagated into those of the Neighbouring Provinces 32. He hath another way of screwing himself into the good opinion of such Kings and Princes as he conceived to be inclinable to the Reformation sometimes congratulating with them for their good success sometimes encouraging them to proceed in so good a work of which sort were his Letters to King Edward the Sixth to Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Secretary Cecil to the Prince Elector Palatine Duke of Wirâ—inburgh Lantgrave of Hesse But he bestirred himself in no place more then he did in Poland which though he never visited in person yet he was frequent in it by his Lines and Agents The Augustane Confession had been brought thither some years before of which he took but little notice But he had heard no sooner that the Doctrines of Zuinglius began to get some ground upon them under the Reign of Sigismund sirnamed Augustus when presently he posts his Letters to the King and most of the great Officers which were thought to encline that way Amongst which he directs his Letters to Prince Radzeville one of the Chief Palatines and Earl Marshal Spirtetus Castelan of Sunderzee and Lord high-Treasurer to Iohn Count of Tarnaco Castelan of Craco and Lord General of his Majesties Armies besides many other Castelans and persons of great power in the Affairs of that Kingdom In his first Letters to that King dated the fourth of December 1554 he seems to congratulate with him for imbracing the Reformed Religion though in that point he was somewhat out in his intelligence and thereupon exhorts him to be earnest in the propagating of the Faith and Gospel which in himself he had imprest and that he would proceed to reform the Church from the dregs of Popery without regard to any of those dangers and inconveniences which might follow on it But in his next address 1555 he comes up more close speaks of erecting a tribunal or throne to Christ setting up such a perfect Form of the true Religion as came neerest to the Ordinance of Christ. And we know well that in the meaning of his party the settling of Presbytery was affirmed to be nothing else then setting Christ upon his Throne holding the Scepter of the Holy Discipline in his own right-hand And somewhat to this purpose he had also written to the Count of Tarnaco whom in his first Letter he applauds for his great readiness to receive the Gospel But in his second bearing date the nineteenth of November 1558 he seems no less grieved that the Count demurred on something which he had recommended to him under pretence that it was not safe to alter any thing in the State of the Kingdom and that all innovations seemed to threaten some great danger to it which cautelousness in that great person could not relate to any alteration in the State of Religion in which an alteration had been made for some years before and therefore must refer to some Form of Discipline which Calvin had commended to him for the use of those Churches And no man can conceive that he would recommend unto them any other Form then that which he devised for the Church of Geneva 32. But Calvin did not deal by Letters onely in the present business but had his Agents in that Kingdom who busily
as much disquieted and as apt for action as the Princes of the House of Bourbon for the former Reasons Many designs were offered to consideration in their private Meetings but none was more likely to effect their business then to make themselves the Heads of the Hugonot Faction which the two Chastilions had long favoured as far as they durst By whose assistance they might draw all affairs to their own disposing get the Kings person into their power shut the Queen-mother into a Cloyster and force the Guises into Lorrain out of which they came 5. This counsel was the rather followed because it seemed most agreeable to the inclinations of the Queen of Navar Daughter of Henry of Albret and the Lady Margaret before-mentioned and Wife of Anthony Duke of Vendosm who in her Right acquired the title to that Kingdom Which Princess being naturally averse from the Popes of Rome and no less powerfully transported by some flattering hopes for the recovery of her Kingdoms conceived no expedient so effectual to revenge her self upon the one and Inthrone her self in the other as the prosecuting this design to the very utmost Upon which ground she inculcated nothing more into the ears of her Husband then that he must not suffer such an opportunity to slip out of his hands for the recovery of the Crown which belonged unto her that he might make himself the Head of a mighty Faction containing almost half the strength of France that by so doing he might expect assistance from the German Princes of the same Religion from Queen Elizabeth of England and many discontented Lords in the Belgick Provinces besides such of the Catholick party even in France it self as were displeased at the Omni-Regency of the House of Guise that by a strong Conjunction of all these interesses he might not onely get his ends upon the Guises but carry his Army cross the Mountains make himself Master of Navar with all the Rights and Royalties appertaining to it But all this could not so prevail on the Duke her Husband whom we will henceforth call the King of Navar as either openly or under-hand to promote the enterprise which he conceived more like to hinder his affairs then to advance his hopes For the Queen-Mother having some intelligence of these secret practices sends for him to the Court commends unto his care her Daughter the Princess Isabella affianced to Philip the Second King of Spain and puts him chief into Commission for delivering her upon the Borders to such Spanish Ministers as were appointed to receive her All which she did as she assured him for no other ends but out of the great esteem which she had of his person to put him into a fair way for ingratiating himself with the Catholick King and to give him such a hopeful opportunity for solliciting his own affairs with the Grandees of Spain as might much tend to his advantage upon this imployment Which device had so wrought upon him and he had been so finely fitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King that he thought himself in a better way to regain his Kingdom then all the Hugonots in France together with their Friends in Germany and England could chalk out unto him 6. But notwithstanding this great coldness in the King of Navar the business was so hotly followed by the Prince of Conde the Admiral Colligny and his brother D' Andelot that the Hugonots were drawn to unite together under the Princes of that House To which they were spurred on the faster by the practices of Godfrey de la Bar commonly called Renaudie from the name of his Signiory a man of a most mischievous Wit and a dangerous Eloquence who being forced to abandon his own Country for some misdemeanors betook himself unto Geneva where he grew great with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistory and coming back again in the change of times was thought the fittest instrument to promote this service and draw the party to a body Which being industriously pursued was in fine effected many great men who had before concealed themselves in their affections declaring openly in favour of the Reformation when they perceived it countenanced by such Potent Princes To each of these according as they found them qualified for parts and power they assigned their Provinces and Precincts within the limits whereof they were directed to raise Men Arms Money and all other necessaries for carrying on of the design but all things to be done in so close a manner that no discovery should be made till the deed was done By this it was agreed upon that a certain number of them should repair to the King at Bloise and tender a Petition to him in all humble manner for the Free exercise of the Religion which they then professed and for professing which they had been persecuted in the days of his Father But these Petitioners were to be backed with multitudes of armed men gathered together from all parts on the day appointed who on the Kings denyal of so just a suit should violently break into the Court seize on the person of the King surprise the Queen and put the Guises to the Sword And that being done Liberty was to be Proclaimed Free exercise of Religion granted by publick Edict the managery of affairs committed to the Prince of Conde and all the rest of the Confederates gratified with rewards and honours Impossible it was that in a business which required so many hands none should be found to give intelligence to the adverse party which coming to the knowledge of the Queen-Mother and the Duke of Guise they removed the Court from Bloise a weak open Town to the strong Castle of Amboise pretending nothing but the giving of the King some recreation in the Woods adjoyning But being once setled in the Castle the King is made acquainted with the threatned danger the Duke of Guise appointed Lieutenant-General of the Realm of France And by his care the matter was so wisely handled that without making any noise to affright the Confederates the Petitioners were admitted into the Town whilst in the mean time several Troopes of Horse were sent out by him to fall on such of their accomplices as were well armed and ready to have done the mischief if not thus prevented 7. The issue of the business was that Renaudie the chief Actor in it was killed in the fight many of the rest slain and some taken Prisoners the whole body of them being routed and compelled to flee yet such was the clemencie of the King and the diâ—creet temper of the Guises in the course of this business that a general pardon was proclaimed on the 18 of March being the third day after the Execution to all that being moved onely with the Zeal to Religion had entred themselves into the Conspiracie if within twenty four hours they laid down their Arms and retired to their own Houses But this did little edifie with those hot spirits which had
the conduct of the Cause and had befooled themselves and others with the flattering hopes of gaining the Free exercise of their Religion It cannot be denyed but that they were resolved so to act their parts that Religion might not seem to have any hand in it or at the least might not suffer by it if the plot miscarried To which end they procured the chief Lawyers of France and Germany and many of the reformed Divines of the greatest eminence to publish some Writings to this purpose that is to say that without violating the Majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful Magistrate they might oppose with Arms the violent Domination of the House of Guise who were given out for Enemies to the true Religion hinderers of the course of Justice and in effect no better then the Kings Jaylors as the case then stood But this Mask was quickly taken off and the design appeared bare faced without any vizard For presently upon the routing of the Forces in the Woods of Amboise they caused great tumults to be raised in Poictou Languedock and Provence To which the Preachers of Geneva were forthwith called and they came as willingly their Followers being much increased both in courage and numbers as well by their vehemency in the Pulpit as their private practices In Daulpheny and some parts of Provence they proceeded further seized upon divers of the Churches for the Exercise of their Religion as if all matters had succeeded answerable to their expectation But on the first coming of some Forces from the Duke of Guise they shrunk in again and left the Country in the same condition wherein first they found it Of this particular Calvin gives notice unto Bullenger by his Letters of the 27 of May Anno 1560 complaining much of the extreme rashness and fool-hardiness of some of that party whom no sober counsels could restrain from those ingagements which might have proved so dangerous and destructive to the cause of Religion Which words of his relate not onely to the Action of Daulphine and Provence but to some of the attempts preceding whatsoever they were by him discouraged and disswaded if we may believe him 8. But though we may believe him as I think we may the Pope and Court of France were otherwise perswaded of it Reinadoes going from Geneva to unite the party was as unlikely to be done without his allowance as without his privity But certainly the Ministers of Geneva durst not leave their Flocks to Preach Sedition to the French of Provence and Languedock if he had neither connived at it or advised them to it and such connivings differ but little from commands as we find in Salvian Once it is sure that the Pope suggested to the French King by the Bishop of Viterbo whom he sent in the nature of a Legate that all the mischief which troubled France and the Poyson which infected that Kingdom and the Neighbouring Countries for so I finde in my Authoâ— came from no other Fountain then the Lake of Geneva that by digging at the very Root he might divert a great part of that nourishment by which those mischiefs were fomented and that by prosecuting such a Forraign War he might evacuate those bad humours which distempered his Kingdom and therefore if the King be pleased to engage herein his Holiness would not onely send him some convenient Aids but move the Scotch King and the Duke of Savoy to assist him also But neither the Queen-Mother nor the Guise for the King acted little in his own affairs could approve the motion partly for fear of giving offence unto the Switzers with whom Geneva had confederated thirty years before and partly because none being like to engage in that War but the Catholicks onely the Kingdom would thereby lye open to the adverse party But nothing more diverted the three Princes from concurring in it then the impossibility of complying with their several interesses in the disposing of the Town when it should be taken The Duke of Savoy would not enter into the War before he was assured by the other Princes that he should reap the profit of it that belonging anciently to his jurisdiction But it agreed neither with the interest of France nor Spain to make the Duke greater then he was by so fair an addition as would be made to his Estate were it yeilded to him The Spaniard knew that the French King would never bring him into France or put into his hands such a fortified pass by which he might enter when he pleased As on the other side the Spaniards would not suffer it to fall into the power of the French by reason of its neer Neighbour-hood unto the County of Burgundy which both then was and ever since hath been appendant on the Crown of Spain By reason of which mutual distrusts and jealousies the Pope received no other answer to his motion in the Court of France but that it was impossible to apply themselves to matters abroad when they were exercised at home with so many concernments 9. This answer pinched upon the Pope who found as much confusion in the State of Avignion belonging for some hundreds of years to the See of Rome as the French could reasonably complain in the Bowels of France For lying as it did within the limits of Provence and being visited with such of the French Preachers as had been studied at Geneva the people generally became inclined unto Calvins Doctrines and made profession of the same both in private and publick nay they resolved upon the lawfulness of taking up of Arms against the Pope though their natural Lord partly upon pretence that the Country was unjustly taken from the Earls of Tholouse by the Predecessors of the Pope partly because the present Pope could prove no true Lineal Succession from the first Usurper but chiefly in regard that persons Ecclesiastical were disabled by Christs Commandments from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction over other men Being thus resolved to rebel they put themselves by the perswasion of Alexander Guilatine a professed Civilian into the protection of Charles Count de Mont-brun who had then taken Arms against the King in the Country of Daulphine Mont-brun accepts of the imployment enters the Territory of Avignion with three thousand Foot reduceth the whole Country under his command the Popes Vice-Legate in the City being hardly able for the present to make good the Castle But so it happened that the Cardinal of Tournon whose Niece the Count had married being neer the place prevailed with him after some discourse to withdraw his Forces and to retire unto Geneva assuring him not onely of his Majesties pardon and the restitution of his Goods which had been confiscated but that he should have liberty of Conscience also which he prized far more then both the other By which Action the people were necessitated to return to their old obedience but with so many fears and jealousies on either side that many
been executed both on him and the King of Navar who was then also under a Guard if the death of the young King had not intervened on the fifth of December which put the Court into new Counsels and preserved their lives For the Queen wisely took into consideration that if these two Princes were destroyed there could be no fit counterpoise for the House of Guise which possibly might thereby be temped to revive the old pretensions of the House of Lorrain as the direct Heirs of Charles the Great For which they could not have a better opportunity then they had at the present the Eldest of her three Sons not exceeding ten years of age none of them of a vigorous constitution and therefore the more likely to want Friends in their greatest need Upon these apprehensions she sends secretly for the King of Navar and came at last to this agreement viz. that during the Minority of her son King Charles the Ninth the Queen-mother should be declared Regent and the King of Navar Lord-Lieutenant of France all supplications from the Provinces to be made to the Lord-Lieutenant but all Ambassadors and Letters of Negotiation from Forreign Princes to be presented to the Queen that the Prince of Conde the Visdame of Chartres with all other Prisoners of their party to be set at liberty and the sentences of their condemnations to be so declared null and void that the Queen-Regent should make use of her power and interest with the Catholick King for restoring to the King of Navar the entire possession of that Kingdom or at the least the Kingdom of Sardinia as a recompence for it And at last it was also yeilded though long first and published by the Edict of the 28 of Ianuary That the Magistrates should be ordered to release all Prisoners committed for matters of Religion and to stop any manner of Inquisition appointed for that purpose against any person whatsoever that they should not suffer any disputation in matters of Faith nor permit particular persons to revile one another with the names of Heretick and Papist but that all should live together in peace abstaining from unlawful Assemblies or to raise scandals or Sedition 13. By this Edict the Doctrines of Calvin were first countenanced in the Realm of France under the pretence of hindring the effusion of more Christian blood which carryed an appearance of much Christianity though in plain truth it was to be ascribed to the Queens ambition who could devise no other way to preserve her greatness and counterbalance the Authority of the House of Guise But the Hugonots not being content with a bare connivance resolved to drive it on to a Toleration and to drive it on in such a manner and by such means onely by which they had extorted as they thought these first concessions For thinking the Queen-Regent not to be in a condition to deny them any thing much less to call them into question for their future Actings they presently fell upon the open exercise of their own Religion and every where exceedingly increased both in power and numbers In confidence whereof by publick Assemblies insolent Speeches and other acts the like unpleasing they incurred the hatred and disdain of the Catholick party which put all places into tumult and filled all the Provinces of the Kingdom with seditious rumours so that contrary to the intention of those that governed and contrary to the common opinion the remedy applyed to maintain the State and preserve peace and concord in the Kings minority fell out to be dangerous and destructive and upon the matter occasioned all those dissentions which they hoped by so much care to have prevented For as the Cardinal informed the Council the Hugonots were grown by this connivance to so great a height that the Priests were not suffered to celebrate their daily Sacrifices or to make use of their own Pulpits that the Magistrates were no longer obeyed in their jurisdictions and that all places raged with discords burnings and slaughters through the peevishness and presumption of those who assumed to themselves a liberty of teaching and believing whatsoever they listed Upon which points he so enlarged himself with his wonted eloquence that neither the King of Navar nor any other of that party could make any Reply And the Queen-Mother also being silent in it it was unanimously voted by the Lords of the Council that all the Officers of the Crown should assemble at the Parliament of Paris on the thirteenth of Iuly there to debate in the Kings presence of all these particulars and to resolve upon such remedies as were necessary for the future At which time it was by general consent expresly ordered upon complaint made of the insurrection of the Hugonots in so many places that all the Ministers should forthwith be expelled the Kingdom that no manner of person should from thenceforth use any other Rites or Ceremonies in Religion that were not held and taught by the Church of Rome and that all Assemblies of men armed or unarmed should be interdicted except it were of Catholicks in Catholick Churches for Divine performances according to the usual Custom 14. The Admiral and the Prince of Conde finding themselves unable to cross this Edict resolved upon another course to advance their partie and to that end encouraged the Calvinian Ministers to petition for a Disputation in the Kings presence to be held between them and the Adversaries of their Religion Which Disputation being propounded was opposed by the Cardinal of Tournon upon a just consideration of those inconveniencies which might follow on it the rather in regard of the General Council then convened at Trent where they might safely both propose and dispute their opinions But on the other side the Cardinal of Lorrain being willing to imbrace the occasion for making a general Muster of his own Abilities his subtilty in Divinity and his art of speaking prevailed so far upon the rest that the suit was granted and a Conference thereupon appointed to be held at Poyssie on the tenth day of August 1561. At which time there assembled for the Catholick party the Cardinals of Tournon Lorrain Bourbon Armagnac and Guise with many Bishops and Prelates of greatest eminencie some Doctors of the Sorbon and many great Divines from the Universities The Disputants authorized for the other side were of like esteem amongst those of their own party and perswasions as namely Theodore Beza Peter Marâ—yr Francis de St. Paul Iohn Raimond and Iohn Vizelle with many other Ministers from Geneva Germany and others of the Neighbouring Countries But the result of all was this as commonly it happeneth on the like occasions that both parties challenged to themselves the Victory in it and both indeed were victors in some respects For the King of Navar appeared much unsatisfied by noting the differences of the Ministers amongst themselves some of them adhering to the Augustane and others to the Helvetian Confession in some points of Doctrine
which made him afterwards more cordial to the interest of the Church of Rome notwithstanding all the arguments and insinuations used by his Wife a most zealous Hugonot to withdaaw him from it But the Hugonots gave out on the other side that they had made good their Doctrines convinced the Catholick Doctors confounded the Cardinal of Lorrain and gotten License from the King to Preach Which gave such courage to the rest of that Faction that they began of their own Authority to assemble themselves in such places as they thought most convenient and their Ministers to preach in publick and their Preachings followed and frequented by such infinite multitudes as well of the Nobility as the common People that it was thought impossible to suppress and dangerous to disturb their Meetings For so it was that if either the Magistrates molested them in their Congregations or the Catholicks attemped to drive them out of their Temples without respect to any Authority they put themselves into Arms and in the middle of a full Peace was made a shew of a most terrible and destructive War 15. This being observed by those which sate at the Helme and finding that these tempests were occasioned by the Edict of Iuly it was resolved to stere their course by another winde For the Queen being setled in this Maxime of State That she was not to suffer one Faction to destroy the other for fear she should remain a prey to the Victor not onely gave order for conventing all the Parliaments to a Common-Council but earnestly sollicited for a Pacification which gave beginning to the famous Edict of Ianuary whereby it was granted that the Hugonots should have the Free exercise of their Religion that they might assemble to hearing of Sermons in any open place without their Cities but on condition that they went unarmed and that the Officers of the place were there also present Which Edict so offended the chief Heads of the Catholick party that a strict combination and confederacy was concluded on between the King of Navar the Constable and the Duke of Guise for maintenance of the Religion of the Church of Rome And this reduced the Queen-Regent to the like necessity of making a strict union with the Admiral and the Prince of Conde whereby she was assured of the power of the Hugonots and they became as confident of her Protection In which condition they were able to form their Churches to cast them into Provinces Classes and other subdivisions of a less capacity to settle in them their Presbyteries and Synodical Meetings grounded according to their Rules of Calvins Platform in Doctrine Discipline and Worship The Forms whereof being discribed at large in the former Book may there be found without the trouble of a repetition In so much that it was certified to the Fathers in the Council of Trent that the French Hugonots were at that time distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches each of them furnished with their proper and peculiar Preachers according to a just computation which was taken of them which computation was then made to satisfie the Queen-Regent in the strength of that party for which she could not otherwise declare her self unless she were first made acquainted with their power and numbers But being satisfied in those points she began to shew her self much inclined to Calvinism gave ear unto the Discourses of the Ministers in her private Chamber conferred familiarly with the Prince the Admiral and many others in matters which concerned their Churches and finally so disguised her self that the Pope was not able to discover at what port she aimed For sometimes she would write unto him for such a Council as by the Calvinians was desired at other times for a national one to be held in France sometimes desiring that the Communion might be administred under both kindes otherwhile requiring a Dispensation for Priests to Marry now solliciting that Divine Service might be said in the vulgar tongue then proposing such other like things as were wished and preached for by the Hugonots By which dissimulations she amused the World but gave withal so many notable advantages to the Reformation that next to God she was the principal promoter and advancer of it though this prosperity proved the cause of those many miseries which afterwards ensued upon it 16. For by this means the Preachers having free access into the Court became exceedingly respected in the City of Paris where in short time their followers did increase to so great a multitude as put the Prince of Conde into such a confidence that he assumed unto himself the managery of all great affairs Which course so visibly tended to the diminution of the King of Navar that he resolved by strong hand to remove him from Paris And to that end directed both his Messages and his Letters to the Duke of Guise to come in to help him The Duke was then at Iainville in the Province of Champaigne and happened in his way upon a Village called Vassey where the Hugonots were assembled in great numbers to hear a Sermon A scuffle unhappily is begun between some of the Dukes Footmen and not a few of the more unadvised and adventurous Hugonots which the Duke coming to part was hit with a blow of a stone upon one of his Cheeks which forced him with the loss of some blood to retire again Provoked with which indignity his Followers being two Companies of Lances charge in upon them with their Fire-looks kill sixty of them in the place and force the rest for preservation of their lives into several houses This accident is by the Hugonots given out to be a matter of design the execution done upon those sixty persons must be called a Massacre and in revenge thereof the Kingdom shall be filled with Blood and Rapine Altars and Images defaced Monasteries ruined and pulled down and Churches bruitishly polluted The Queen had so long juggled between both parties that now it was not safe for her to declare for either Upon which ground she removed the Court to Fountain-bleau and left them to play their own Games as the Dice should run The presence of the King was looked upon as a matter of great importance and either party laboured to get him into their power The City of Orleance more especially was aimed at by the Prince of Conde as lying in the heart of the Kingdom rich large and populous sufficiently inclined to novelty and innovations and therefore thought the fittest Stage for his future Actings Being thus resolved he first sends D' Andelot with some Forces to possess the Town and posts himself towards Fountain-Bleau with three thousand Horse But the Catholick Confederates had been there before him and brought the King off safely to his City of Paris which being signified to the Prince as he was on his way he diverts toward Orleance and came thither in a luckie hour to relieve his Friends which having seized upon one of the
in point of courage And yet the anger of God did not stay here neither that Plague being carried into England at the return of the Soldiers which raged extreamly both in London and most parts of the Realme beyond the precedent and example of former ages It was on the 17 of Iuly an 1563 that New-haven was yielded to the French that being the last day of the first war which was raised by the Hugonots and raised by them on no other ground but for extorting the free exercise of their Religion by force of Arms according to the doctrine and example of the Mother-City In the pursuit whereof they did not only with their own hands ruinate and deface the beauty of their native Country but gave it over for a prey to the lust of Strangers The calling in of the English to support their faction whom they knew well to be the antient enemies of the Crown of France and putting into their hands the chief strength of Normandy of whose pretensions to that Dukedome they could not be ignorant were two such actions of a disloyal impolitick nature as no pretence of zeal to that which they called the Gospel could either qualifie or excuse Nor was the bringing in of so many thousand German Souldiers of much better condition who though they could pretend no title to the Crown of France nor to any particular Province in it were otherwise more destructive to the peace of that Country and created far more mischief to the people of it then all the forces of the English for being to be maintained on the pay of the Hugonots and the Hugonots not being able to satisfie their exorbitant Arrears they were suffered to waste the Country in all parts where they came and to expose the whole Kingdom from the very borders of it toward Germany to the English Chanell unto spoyle and rapine so that between the Hugonots themselves on the one side and these German Souldiers on the other there was nothing to be seen in most parts of the Kingdom but the destruction of Churches the profanation of Altars the defacing of Images the demolishing of Monasteries the burning of Religious Houses and even the digging up of the bones of the dead despitefully thrown about the fields and unhallowed places 25. But this first was only raked up in the Embers not so extinguished by the Articles of the late agreement but that it broke out shortly into open flames for the Hugonots pressing hard for the performance of the Edict of Ianuary and the Romanists as earnestly insisting on some clauses of the pacification the whole Realm was filled in a manner with such fears and jealousies as carryed some resemblance of a War in the midst of Peace The Hugonots had some thoughts of surprising Lyons but the Plot miscarryed they practised also upon Narbonne a chief City of Languedock and openly attempted the Popes Town of Avignion but were prevented in the one and suppressed in the other A greater diffidence was raised against them by the unseasonable Zeal of the Queen of Navar who not content with setling the reformed Religion in the Country of Berne when she was absolute and supreme suffered the Catholicks to be infested in her own Provinces which she held immediately of the Crown insomuch that at Pamiers the chief City of the Earldom of Foix the Hugonots taking offence at a solemn Procession held upon Corpus Christi day betook themselves presently to Arms and falling upon those whom they found unarmed not onely made a great slaughter amongst the Church-men but in the heat of the same fury burnt down their Houses Which outrage being suffered to pass unpunished gave both encouragement and example to some furious Zealots to commit the like in other places as namely at Montaban Gaelion Rodez Preieux Valence c. being all scituate in those Provinces in which the Hugonots were predominant for power and number But that which most alarmed the Court was a seditious Pamphlet published by a Native of Orleance in which it was maintained according to the Calvinian Doctrines that the people of France were absolved from their Allegiance to the King then Reigning because he was turned an Idolater In which reason it is lawful also to kill him as opportunity should be offered Which Doctrine being very agreeable unto some designs which were then every where in agitation amongst the Hugonots was afterward made use of for the justifying of the following Wars when the opinion grew more general and more openly maintained both from Press and Pulpit 26. The Catholicks on the other side began to put themselves into a posture of Arms without so much as taking notice of those misdemeanors which they seemed willing to connive at not so much out of any inclinations which they had in themselves but because they found it not agreeable to the will of the Court where such dissimulations were esteemed the best arts of Government The Catholick King had sent the Duke of Alva with a puissant Army to reduce the Low Countries to obedience where the Calvinians had committed as great spoils and Rapines as any where in France or Scotland This Army being to pass in a long march near the Borders of France gave a just colour to the King to arm himself for fear lest otherwise the Spaniards might forget their errand and fall with all their Forces into his Dominions To this end he gives order for a Levy of six thousand Switz which he caused to be conducted through the heart off the Kingdom and quartered them in the Isle of France as if they were to serve to a Guard for Paris far enough off from any of those parts and Provinces by which the Spaniards were to pass But this gave such a jealousie to the heads of the Hugonots that they resorted to Chastillion to consult with the Admiral By whose advice it was resolved that they must get the King and Queen into their power and make such use of both their names as the Catholicks had made of them in the former War This to be done upon the sudden before the opening of a War by the raising of Forces should render the surprize impossible and defeat their purposes The King and Queen lay then at Monceux an House of pleasure within the Territory of Byre in Champaigne not fearing any the least danger in a time of peace and having the Switz near enough to secure their persons against any secret Machinations And thereupon it was contrived that as many Horse as they could raise in several places should draw together at Rosay not far from Monceux on the 27 of September that they should first surprize the King the Queen and her younger Sons and then fall in upon the Switz who being quartered in several places and suspecting nothing less then the present danger might very easily be routed and that being done they should possess themselves of Paris and from thence issue out of all Mandates which concerned
be admitted to any office charge dignity or magistracy whatever if he did not profess and live conformable in all points to the Roman Religion And for a Preamble hereunto the King was pleased to make a long and distinct Narration of the indulgence he had used to reduce the Hugonots to a right understanding and of the ill requital they had made unto him by the seditions and conspiracies which they raised against him their bringing in of forraign forces and amongst others the most mortal enemies of the French Nation putting into their hands the strongest places and most flourishing parts of the Kingdom to the contempt of his authority the despising of his grace and goodness and the continual disquieting of his Dominions and the destruction of his subjects To counter-poise which terrible Edict the Princes and other Leaders of the Hugonots which were then at Rochel entred into a solemn Covenant or Association by which they bound themselves by Oath to persevere till death in defence of their Religion never to lay down arms or condescend to any agreement without the general consent of all the Commanders and not then neither but upon sufficient security for the preservation of their lives and the enjoying of that Liberty of Conscience for which they first began the war 30. But the Admiral well knowing that the business was not to be carried by Oaths and Manifests and that they wanted mony to proceed by arms advised the Rochellers to send their Navy to the sea which in a time when no such danger was expected might spoyle and pillage all they met with and by that means provide themselves of mony and all other necessaries to maintain the war Which Counsel took such good effect that by this kind of Piracy they were enabled to give a fair beginning to this new Rebellion for the continuance whereof it was thought necessary to sollicite their Friends in Germany to furnish them with fresh recruits of able men and Queen Elizabeth of England for such sums of money as might maintain them in the service And in the first of these designs there appears no difficulty the inclination of the Prince Elector together with the rest of the Calvinian Princes and Imperial Cities were easily intreated to assist their Brethren of the same Religion And the same spirit governed many of the people also but on different grounds they undertaking the imployment upon hope of spoil as Mercenaries serving for their Pay but more for Plunder In England their desires were entertained with less alacrity though eagerly sollicited by Odet Bishop of Beauvais a younger Brother of the Admiral who having formerly been raised to the degree of a Cardinal therefore called most commonly the Cardinal of Chastillon had some years since renounced his Habit and Religion but still kept his Titles By the continual sollicitation of so great an Advocate and the effectual interposing of the Queen of Navar Elizabeth was perswaded to forget their former ingratitude and to remember how conducible it was to her personal interest to keep the French King exercised in perpetual troubles upon which Reason of State she is not onely drawn to accommodate the Hugonots with Ships Corn Arms and Ammunition but to supply them with a hundred thousand Crowns of ready money for the maintaining of their Army consisting of fourteen thousand Germans and almost as many more of the natural French And yet it was to be believed that in all this she had done nothing contrary to the League with France which she had sworn not long before because forsooth the Forces of the Hugonots were raised to no other end but the Kings mere service and the assistance of the Crown against the Enemies of both and the professed Adversaries of the true Religion But neither this great lone of money nor that which they had got by robbing upon the Seas was able to maintainâ— War of so long continuance For maintainance whereof they were resolved to sell the Treasures of the Churches in all such Provinces as they kept under their Command the Queen of Navar ingaging her Estate for their security who should adventure on the purchase 31. I shall not touch on the particulars of this Warâ— which ended with the death of the Prince of Conde in the battel of Iarnar the rigorous proceedings against the Admiral whom the King caused to be condemned for a Rebel his Lands to be confiscatedâ— his Houses plundred and pulled down and himself executed in Effigie the loss of the famous battel of Mont-Contour by the Hugonots party Anno 1569 which forced them to abandon all their strong holds except Rochel Angoulesme and St. Ieanâ—d Angeli and finally to shut themselves up within Rochel onely after which followed such a dissembled reconciliation between the parties as proved more bloudy then the War The sudden and suspected death of the Queen of Navar the Marriage of the Prince her Son with the Lady Margaret one of the Sisters of the King the celebrating of the wedding in the death of the Admiral on St. Bartholomews day 1572 and the slaughter of thirty thousand men within few days after the reduction of the whole Kingdom to the Kings obedience except the Cities of Nismes Montauban and Rochel onely the obstinate standing out of Rochel upon the instigation of such Preachers as fled thither for shelter and the reduction of it by the Duke of Anjon to the last extremity the raising of the Siege and the Peace ensuing on the Election of that Duke to the Crown of Poland the resolution of the Hugonots to renew the War as soon as he had left the Kingdom and their ingaging in the same on the Kings last sickness In all which traverses of State there is nothing memorable in reference to my present purpose but onely the conditions of the Pacification which was made at the Siege of Rochel by which it was accorded between the parties on the 11 of Iuly Anno 1573 that all offences should be pardoned to the said three Cities on their submission to the King and that it should be lawful for them to retain the free Exercise of their Religion the people meeting in the same unarmed and but few in numberâ— that all the inhabitants of the said three Cities should be obliged to observe in all outward matters except Baptism and Matrimony the Rites and Holy-days of the Church that the use of the Catholick Religion should be restored in the said Cities and all other places leaving unto the Clergy and Religious persons their Houses Profits and Revenues that Rochel should receive a Governour of the Kings appointment but without Garrison renounce all correspondencies and confederacies with Forreign Princes and not take part with any of the same Religion against the King and finally that the said three Towns should deliver Hostages for the performance of the Articles of the present Agreement to be changed at the end of every three months if the King so pleased It
Tyrants of preceding times which comes up close to those irreverent and lewd expressions which frequently occur in Calvin Beza Knox c. in reference to the two Mary's Queens of England and Scotland and other Princes of that age which have been formerly recited in their proper places 35. The Royal Family being thus wretchedly exposed to the publick hatred he next applyes himself to stir up all the world against them both at home and abroad And first he laboureth to excite some desperate Zealot to commit the like assassinate on the King then Reigning as one Bodillus is reported in some French Histories to have committed on the person of Chilprick one of the last Kings of the Merovignians which he commemorates for a Noble and Heroick action and sets it out for an example and encouragement to some gallant French-man for the delivery of his Country from the Tyranny of the House of Valois the ruine whereof he mainly drives at in his whole designe And though he seem to make no doubt of prevailing in it yet he resolves to try his Fortune otherwise if that should fail And first beginning with their next neighbour the King of Spain he he puts them in remembrance of those many injuries which he and his Ancestors had received from the House of Valois acquaints him with the present opportunity which was offered to him of revenging of thoâ—e wrongs and making himself Master of the Realm of France and chalks him out a way how he might effect it that is to say by coming to a present Accord with the Prince of Orange indulging Liberty of Conscience to the Belgick Provinces and thereby drawing all the Hugonots to adhere unto him which counsel if he did not like he might then make the same use of the Duke of Savoy for whom the Hugonots in France had no small affection and by bestowing on him the adjoyning Regions of Lyonoise Dâ—ulphine and Provence might make himself Lord of all the rest without any great trouble The like temptation must be given to the Queen of England by putting her in minde of her pretences to the Crown it self and shewing how easie a thing it might be for her to acquire those Countries whose Arms and Titles she assumed with like disloyalty he excites the Princes of the Empire to husband the advantage which was offered to them for the recovering of Metz Toule and Verdun three Imperial Cities by this Kings Father wrested betwixt fraud and force from Charles the Fifth and ever since incorporated with the Realm of France If all which failed he is resolved to cast himself on the Duke of Guise though the most mortal and implacable enemy of the Hugonot Faction and makes a full address to him in a second Epistle prefixt before the Book it self in which he puts him in remembrance of his old pretensions to the Crown of France extorted by Hugh Capet from his Ancestors of the House of Loraigne offereth him the assistance of the Hugonot party for the recovery of his Rights and finally beseeches him to take compassion of his ruined Country cheerfully to accept the Crown and free the Kingdom from the spoil and tyranny of Boyes and Women together with that infinite train of Strangers Bawdes and Leachers which depend on them which was as great a Master-piece in the art of mischief as the wit of malice could devise 36. As for his Doctrines in reference to the common duties between Kings and Subjects we may reduce them to these heads that is to say 1. That the Authority of Kings and Supreme Magistrates is circumscribed and limited by certain bounds which if they pass their Subjects are no longer tyed unto their obedience that Magistrates do exceed those bounds when either they command such things as God forbiddeth or prohibit that which he commands that therefore they are no longer to be obeyed if their Commands are contrary to the Rules of Piety or Christian Charity of which the Subjects must be thought the most competent Judges 2. That there were companies and societies of men before any Magistrates were set over them which Magistrates were no otherwise set over them then by common consent that every Magistrate so appointed was bound by certain Articles and Conditions agreed between them which he was tyed by Oath to preserve inviolable that the chief end for which the people chose a Superiour Magistrate was that they might remain in safety under his protection and therefore if such Magistrates either did neglect that end or otherwise infringe the Articles of their first Agreement the Subjects were then discharged from the bond of obedience and that being so discharged from the bond of obedience it was as lawful for them to take up Arms against their King in maintainance of their Religion Laws and Liberties if indangered by him as for a Traveller to defend himself by force of Arms against Thieves and Robbers 3. That no Government can be rightly constituted in which the Grandeur of the Prince is more consulted then the weal of the People that to prevent all such incroachments on the Common Liberty the people did reserve a power of putting a curb upon their Prince or Supreme Magistrates to hold them in such as the Tribunes were in Rome to the Senate and Consuls and the Ephori to the Kings of Sparta that such a power as that of the Spartan Ephori is vested in the seven Electors of the German Empire which gives them an Authority to depose the Emperour if they see cause for it and that the like may be affirmed of the English Parliaments who oftentimes have condemned their Kings but he knows not whom 4. That by the first constitutions of the Realm of France the Supreme power was not entrusted to the King but the three Estates so that it was not lawful for the King to proclaim a War or to lay Taxes on the people but by their consent that these Estates assembled in a Common Council did serve instead of eyes and ears to a prudent Prince but to a wicked and ungoverned for Bit or Bridle and that according to this power they dethroned many of their Kings for their Lusts Luxuries Cruelty Slothfulness Avarice c. that if they proceeded not in like manner with the King then Reigning it was because they had an high esteem with scorn and insolence enough of his eminent Vertues his Piety Justice and Fidelity and the great commendations which was given of his Mothers Chastity and therefore finally which was the matter to be proved by those Factious Principles that it was altogether as lawful for the French to defend themselves their Laws and Liberties against the violent assault of a furious Tyrant so he calls their King as a Traveller by Thieves and Robbers Which Aphorisms he that listeth to consult in the Author may finde them from pag. 57. to 66. of the second Dialogue and part 1. pag. 8. 37. But notwithstanding these indignities
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
of all men that malice it self could make no just exception against the persons A quarrel therefore must be picked against the Form and Manner of their indowment which was by founding them in such wealthy Monasteries as were best able to maintain them the Patrimony which anciently was allotted to the use of the Abbot being to be inverted after the death of the incumbent to the use of the Bishop This was presented to the Monks as a great disfranchisement a plain devesting of them of their Native Priviledges not onely by depriving them of the choice of their Governour but by placing over them an imperious Lord instead of an indulgent Father The Magistrates and people of such of the Cities as were designed for the Sees of the several Bishops were practised on to protest against their admission by whose establishment the common people must be subject to more Masters then before they were and the Magistrates must grow less in power and reputation then they had been formerly They represented to the Merchants that without liberty of Conscience it was not possible there could be liberty of Trade the want whereof must needs bring with it their impoverishing a sensible decay of all sorts of Manufactures and consequently an exposing of the common people to extremest beggery Which consideration as appeared soon after was alone sufficient not onely to ingage the Merchants but to draw after them that huge rabble of Mechanical people which commonly make up the greatest part of all populous Cities that depended on them But nothing better pleased the discontented Nobility then their Invectives against Granvel against whom and such of the Court-Lords as adhered unto him they fastened their most scandalous and infamous Libels upon every post not sparing through his sides to wound the honour of the King and reproach the Government which by this means they made distasteful to the common subjects 23. By these devices and some others of like dangerous nature they gained not onely many of the common people but divers of the greatest Lords some also of the principal Cities and not a few of the Regulars or Monastick Clergy By means whereof their Friends and Factors grew so powerful as to oppose such motions both in Court and Council as tended to the prejudice of the Reformation insomuch that when King Philip had given order to the Dutchess of Parma to send two thousand Hoâ—se to the aid of Charles the French King against the Hugonots the Prince of Orange and his party did openly oppose and finally over-rule it at the Council-Table This gave incouragement to the Calvinists to try their Fortune once again not in Valenciennes as before but in the principal Cities of Brabant and Flanders At Rupelmond a chief Town of Flanders a Priest which had been gained unto their opinions and was imprisoned for the same fell on a desperate design of â—iâ—ing the next room unto him wherein were kept the Monuments and Records of the Prince to the end that while the Guards were busied in preserving things that concerned the publick he might finde a handsome oportunity to get out of their hands But the fire being sooner quenched then he had imagined both he and his Accomplices which were nine in number were brought unto the place of Execution and there justly suffered the Priest himself declaiming bitterly against Calvin at his Execution and charging all his sufferings upon upon that account At Antwerp one Fabricius once a Carmelite Fryar but now a great promoter of Calvins Doctrines had gained much people to that side for which being apprehended he had judgement of death But being brought unto the Stake such a shower of Stones was seen to fall upon the head of the Hang-man that not daring to abide the storm till the fire had done he drew his Sword and sheathed it in the Prisoners body and after saved himself by seeming to make one in the Tumult And the next day they caused some Verses writ in bloud to be posted up in which was signified that there were some in Antwerp who had vowed revenge for the death of Fabricius though afterwards they surceased upon the executing of one of the Mutineers and entertained more sober and religious counsels But the distemper seemed much greater in the Town of Bruges where the Inquisitors Deputy had sent a man to prison on a suspition of Heresie with a Guard of three Officers to attend him at which the Senate was so moved that they commanded the Officers to be seized upon to be committed close prisoners and to be fed with nothing but bread and water the party in the mean time being set at liberty 24. Startled with Tumult after Tumult but more with the unhandsome carriage of the Senate of Bruges the King gives order to his Sister the Lady Governess to see his Fathers Edicts severely executed and more particularly to take special care that the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent be presently received and obeyed in all the Provinces Against which Orders of the King though many of the great Lords opposed at the Council-Table yet the Governess carried it at the last And thereupon the opposite party incensed the Brabanters against admitting the Edicts or the Tridentine Council as tending manifestly to the violation of their ancient priviledges At which though most of them took fire yet it burned but slowly proceeding onely at the first in the way of Remonstrance which for the most part carried more smoke then flame But after the Ministers and Agents of Lodowick Count of Nassaw one of the younger brothers of the Prince of Orange were returned from Heidelberg there appeared a kinde of new spirit amongst the people He had before with certain other Noble-men of his age and quality betook himself unto Geneva either for curiosity or study or for some worse purpose where being wrought upon by the Calvinians which conversed with them and finding their own people to be very inquisitive after new opinions they were not sparing in the commendation of the Religion which they found exercised in that City and seemed to wish for nothing more then that they might have liberty of Conscience to profess the same But knowing that so great a business could not be carried on successfully but by force of Arms he had his Agents in the Court of the Prince Elâ—ctor for getting some assistance if it came to blows or under colour of his name to awe the Governess And it fell out according unto his desire for hereupon the party animated with new hopes renewed their former course of libelling against the present Government with greater acrimony then before dispersing no fewer then five thousand of those scandalous Pamphlets within the compass of a year by which the people were exasperated and fitted for engaging in any action which by the cunning of their Leaders and the insinuations of their Preachers should be offered to them 25. But these were onely the preparatives to the following
Palatinate crossed over the Mose an Army of the French Hugonots should fall into Artois to give the Spaniards the more work by this treble invasion But the French Forces being followed at the heels by some Troops of Horse whom the King sent after them were totally defeated neer the Town of St. Vallery their Chief Commanders brought to Paris and there beheaded Count Hostrat with his Forces had the like misfortune first broken and afterwards totally vanquished by Sancho d' Avila one of Alva's Generals Onely Count Lodowick had the honour of a signal Victory but bought it with the death of his brother Adolph whom he lost in the Battail though afterwards encountring with the Duke himself he lost six thousand of his men besides all his Baggage Ordnance and Ammunition hardly escaping with his life And now it is high time for the Prince to enter who having raised an Army of eight and twenty thousand Horse and Foot increased not long after by the addition of three thousand Foot and five hundred Horse which the French Hugonots out of pure Zeal unto the Cause had provided for him takes his way toward Brabant which he had marked out for his Quarters but there he found the Dukes whole Army to be laid in his way whom he could neither pass by nor ingage in fight the Duke well knowing that such great Armies wanting pay would disband themselves and were more safely broken by delay then battail onely he watched their motions and ingaged by parties in which he always had the better And by these Arts so tired the Prince that in the end he was compelled to dissolve his Forces and retire once more into Nassaw But whilst the Duke was thus imployed in securing the passages of the Country which lay next to Germany he left the Ports and Sea-Towns open to the next Invadour Which being observed by William de March Baron of Luma who with few Ships kept himself upon the Seas out of Alva's reach he suddenly seized upon the Brill a Port of Holland where he defaced such Images as he found in their Churches omitting no irreverence unto any thing which was accounted Sacred but otherwise so fortified and intrenched the Town that it proved impregnable This hapned on Palm-Sunday Anno 1570 and on the Sunday following being Easter-day the Spanish Garrison is turned out of Vlushing the chief Port of Zealand by gaining of which two places it might not be unfitly said that they carried the Keys of Holland and Zealand at their Girdles and were inabled by that means to receive succours from all Parts and Nations which lay towards the Sea as they after did 40. The loss of these two Ports drew along with it a defection of most of the strong Towns in Holland which at the instigation of the Baron of Luma put themselves under the command of the Prince of Orange and at his motion took the Oath of fidelity to him from him they received their Garrison Shipping and Arms and to him they permitted the disposing of all places of Government making of Laws and the distributing of the Revenues which belonged to the Clergy To him such multitudes repaired out of France and England besides Auxiliary Scots that within less then four months a Navy of one hundred and fifty Sail lay rigged in Vlushing and from thence spoiled and robbed all Merchants of the Spanish party Nor were the Dukes Affairs in much better order in the parts next France in which Count Lodowick with the help of some French Hugonots had made himself Master of Mons the chief City of Haynalt which seemed the more considerable in the eyes of Alva because the French King openly but for different ends had avowed the Action By whose permission Gasper Colligny the great Admiral of France and one of the chief Leaders of the Hugonot party had raised an Army in the Borders consisting of six or seven thousand men which he put under the command of the Lord of Iâ—nlis who had before conducted the French Succours to the Prince of Orange But Ienlis being defeated by Don Frederick the Dukes Eldest Son and the Prince of Orange wanting power to relieve the besieged the Town was re-delivered into the hands of the Spaniards upon terms of honour and Lodowick retires to Dilemberg the chief Town of Nassaw 41. The Prince of Orange in the mean time animated by the General revolt of almost all the strong Towns in Holland raised a new Army of no fewer then eleven thousand Foot and six thousand Horse with which he entred into Brabant possest himself of some of the principal Towns and suffered others to redeem themselves with great sums of money with which he satisfied his Souldiers for their pains and hazard in the obtaining of the rest Dendermond and Oudenard two strong Towns of Flanders which had made some resistance he both stormed and plundered the Souldiers in all places making spoil of Churches and in some tyrannizing over the dead whose Monuments they robbed and pillaged But none fared worse then the poor Priests whom out of hate to their Religion they did not onely put to death but put to death with tortures and in some places which fell under the power of the Baron of Luma hanged up their mangled Limbs or Quarters as Butchers do their small Meats in a common Shambles which spoils and cruelties so alienated the affections of all the people that his power in those parts was not like to continue long and having failed of his attempt in relieving Mons crossed the Country into Holland as his surest receptacle on whose retreat the Duke recovers all the Towns which he had taken in Brabant and Flanders follows him into Holland and besiegeth Harlem in which the Souldiers to demonstrate of what Sect they were made a meer Pageant of Religion for setting up Altars on the Bulwarks they dressed them with Images and representations of the Saints and being attired in Copes and Vestments they sung Hymns before them as if they were offering Devotions After which mockery they brought out the resemblances of Priests and Religious persons made of straw whipt them and stabbed them into the body and finally cutting off their heads flung them into the Leaguer Sometimes they also placed the Images of Christ and many of the Saints against the mouth of the Cannon with many other Arts of the like impiety for which they were brought to a dear reckoning when the Town was taken at which time most of them were either put to the Sword or hanged or drowned 42. Frederick the Prince Elector Palatine had hitherto ingaged no further in the Belgick troubles then the rest of his Neighbours But now he doth more cordially espouse the quarrel upon some hope of propagating the Calvinian Doctrines which he had lately introduced into his Dominions And being well affected to the House of Nassaw and knowing what encouragements the Calvinian Faction in the Netherlands had received from them cheerfully hearkened to such
propositions as were made to him at the first by Count Lodowick his Ministers and alter by the Agent of the Prince himself He had sent some aid not long before to support the Hugonots But now his Souldiers being returned from France and grown burdensome to him are drawn together into a body and with the help of some others out of France and Germany compound an Army of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sends Prince Christopher a younger son under the conduct of Count Lodowick and his Brother Henry But they had scarce entred within the Borders of Gelderland where they expected an addition of fresh Forces from the Prince of Orange when they were set upon by Sanchio d' Avila before mentioned and routed with so great a slaughter that almost all the whole Army were either taken prisoners remedilesly wounded or slain outright and as for their three Generals Lodowick of Nassaw Grave Henry and the young Prince Christopher they were either slain fighting in the battail or trampled under the Horses Feet or finally stisled in the flight as they crossed the Fens the last more probable because their bodies were not to be found on the strictest search 43. But not withstanding this misfortune neither the Prince Elector nor the Prince of Orange could be moved to desert the Cause which by the temptation of revenge was grown dearer to them For after this we finde Prince Casimir another of the Palatine Princes in the Head of an Army raised for assisting the Confederates in the Belgick Provinces by which name they began to be commonly called after the death of Requesenes who had succeeded Alva in the publick Government but wanting time before his death to settle the command in some trusty hands till some Supreme Officer might be sent unto them from the Court of Spain the Government devolved for the present on the Council of State and was invaded afterwards by the States themselves whose Deputies assembling in the Council-house or Court of Brussels made up the body of that Council which governed all Affairs both of Peace and War But great contentions growing betwixt them and the Souldiers and those contentions followed on either side with great animosities the Prince of Orange had a most excellent opportunity for the establishing of his new Dictatorship over Holland and Zealand and some of the adjoyning Provinces of less name and note But being weary at the last of their own confusions and more impatient of the insupportable insolencies of the Spanish Souldiers an Association is first made in the Provinces of Brabant Flanders Artois and Haynalt By which it was agreed in Writing and confirmed by Oath that they should mutually assist each other against the Spaniards till they had cleared the Country of them And with these Provinces consisting for the most part of such as were counted Catholicks Holland and Zealand with the rest though esteemed heretical did associate also which Union is called commonly the Pacification of Gaunt because agreed on in that City and was so much insisted on by the Heads of the Leaguers that it was counselled by the Prince not to admit of Don Iohn for their Supreme Governour till he had ratified and confirmed that Association 44. But because there was no mention of maintaining the Kings Authority or preserving the Catholick Religion in the Originals of the League it was found necessary to provide for both by some explication to take away the envy and suspition of that great disloyalty which otherwise must have fallen upon them And by that explication it was thus declared viz. that they would faithfully from thenceforth maintain the League for the conservation of their most Sacred Faith and the Roman Catholick Religion for preserving the Pacification made at Gaunt for the expulsion of the Spaniards and their adherents their due obedience to the Kings most excellent Majesty being always tendered According to which explication it was confirmed by Don Iohn under the name of the perpetual Edict with the Kings consent who thought his own Authority and the Roman Religion to be thereby sufficiently provided for but he found the contrary For when the Prince of Orange was required to subscribe to the Pacification with the addition of two Clauses for constancie in this Religion and the Kings obedience he refused it absolutely assuring such as moved it to him that the Provinces under his command or consederacie with him were barred in Conscience from subscribing to the preservation of the Romish Faith And at this time it was that he merrily told the Duke of Arescot who was one of the Delegates that there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart He well foresaw that the agreement betwixt Don Iohn and the Estates of the Country would not long continue and he resolved to make some advantage of the breach whensoever it hapned Nor was he any thing mistaken in the one or the other for discontents and jealousies encreasing mutually between the parties Don Iohn leaves Brussels and betakes himself to the Castle of Namure for fear of an Assassinate as it was given out which was intended on his person which so incensed the Estates that by a general consent a Dictatorian or Soveraign power was put into the hands of the Prince of Orange by the name Ruart according to the priviledge and practice of the Brabanters in extreme necessities Invested with which power he instituteth a new face of Government both in Brussels it self and many of the Towns adjoyning modelled after the Example of Holland and Zealand He demolished also the great Fort at Antwerp which had been raised with so great Pride and Ostentation by the Duke of Alva The like done also in demolishing the Castles of Gant Vtrecht Lisle Valenciennes and some other places performed by such alacrity by them that did it as if they had shaken off the Yoke of some Forreign servitude An Oath was also framed for renouncing all obedience to Don Iohn their Governour and people of all sorts compelled to take it for the refusal whereof by the Iesuits of Antwerp a Rabble of Calvinian Zealots on the day of Pentecost forced open the doors of that Society plundred their houses of all things Sacred and Prophane and set the Father on board a Ship of the Hollanders with great scorn and insolencie to be landed in some other Country 45. The like done also to the Fathers of Tournay Bruges and Maestricht banished on the same account from their several Cities with whom were also exiled in some places Franciscan Fryars in others many secular Priests who would not easily be perswaded to abjure their Loyalty By whose departure divers Churches were left destitute and unprovided of incumbents to instruct the people which so increased the confidence and hopes of the Calvinians that they not onely petitioned the Estates for liberty of Conscience but for the publick use of Churches in their several Territories but being refused in their
belonged unto the Princes of the House of Burgundy 51. This League exceedingly increased the reputation of the new Confederacy and made the States appear considerable in the eye of the world And more it might have been if either Don Iohn's improsperous Government had continued longer or if the Prince of Orange had not entertained some designs apart for himself But Don Iohn dyes in the year 1578 and leaves his Forces in the power of Alexander Farneze Prince of Parma Son to that Dutchess whom we have so often mentioned in this part of our History A Prince he was of no less parts and Military Prowess then any of his Predecessors but of a better and more equal temper then the best amongst them whereof he gave sufficient testimony in his following Government in which he was confirmed after the Kings occasioned lingrings with great state and honour For having regained from the States some of the best Towns of which they had possessed themselves before the arrival of Don Iohn he forced them to a necessity of some better counsels then those by which they steered their course since they came to the Helm And of all counsels none seemed better to the Prince of Orange then that the Country should be so cantoned amongst several Princes that every one being ingaged to defend his own the whole might be preserved from the power of the Spaniards To this end it had been advised that Flanders and Artois should return to the Crown of France of which they were holden and to the Kings whereof the Earls of both did homage in the times foregoing The Queen of England was to have been gratified with the Isles of Zealand the Dukedom of Gueldres to divert to the next Heirs of it Groning and Deventer to be incorporated with the Hans Holland and Friesland together with the districht of Vtrecht to be appropriated wholly to the Prince of Orange as the reward of his deservings the Brabanters to a new Election according to their native rights the rest of the Provinces to remain to the German Empire of which they had anciently Eleired 52. This distribution I confess had some cunning in it and must have quickly brought the Spanish pride to a very low ebb if he that laid the plot could have given the possession It is reported that when the Pope offered the Realms of Naples and Sicily to King Henry the Third for Edmond Earl of Lancaster his youngest Son he offered them on such hard conditions and so impossible in a manner to be performed that the Kings Embassadors merrily told him he might as well create a Kingdom in the Moon and bid his Master climb up to it for it should be his And such a Lunary conceit was that of the division and subdivision of the Belgick Provinces in what Calvinian head soever it was forged and hammered For being that each of the Donces was to conquer his part before he could receive any benefit from it the device was not like to procure much profit but onely to the Prince of Orange who was already in possession and could not better fortifie and assure himself in his new Dominion then by cutting out so much work for the King of Spain as probably might keep him exercised to the end of the world But this device not being likely to succeed it seemed better to the Prince of Orange to unite the Provinces under his command into a Solemn League and Association to be from thenceforth called the Perpetual Vnion Which League Association or perpetual Union bears date at Vtrecht on the 23 of Ianuary 1578 and was then made between the Provinces of Holland Zealand Guelders Zutphen Vtrecht Friesland and Overyssel with their Associates called ever since that time the Vnited Provinces In the first making of which League or perpetual Union it was provided in the first place that they should inseparably joyn together for defence of themselves their Liberty and Religion against the power of the Spaniard But it was cautioned in the second that this Association should be made without any diminution or alteration of the particular Priviledges Rights Freedoms Exemptions Statutes Customs Uses Preheminencies which any of the said Towns Provinces Members or Inhabitants at that time enjoyed Liberty of Religion to be left to those of Holland and Zealand in which they might govern themselves as to them seemed good and such a Freedom left to those of other Provinces as was agreed on at the Pacification made at Gaunt by which it was not lawful to molest those of the Church of Rome in any manner whatsoever 53. But more particularly it was provided and agreed on that such Controversies as should grow between the said Provinces Towns or Members of this Union touching their Priviledges Customs Freedoms c. should be decided by the ordinary course of Justice or by some amicable and friendly composition amongst themselves and that no other Countries Provinces Members or Towns whom those Countries did no way concern shall in any part meddle by way of friendly intermission tending to an accord Which caution I the rather note in this place and time because we may perhaps look back upon it in the case of Barnevelt when they had freed themselves from the power of the Spaniards and were at leisure to infringe the publick Liberties in the pursuit of their particular Animosities against one another But to proceed this Union as it was more advantagious unto Queen Elizabeth then the general League so was it afterwards more cordially affected by her when their necessities inforced them to cast themselves and their Estates upon her protection But these proceedings so exasperated the King of Spain that he proscribed the Prince of Orange by his publick Edict bearing date Iune 18. 1581. And on the other side the Prince prevailed so far upon those of the Union as to declare by publick Instrument that the King of Spain by reason of his many violations of their Rights and Liberties had forfeited his Estate and Interest in the several Provinces and therefore that they did renounce all manner of fidelity and obedience to him Which Instrument bears date on the twenty sixth of Iuly then next following Upon the publishing whereof they brake in pieces all the Seals Signets and Counter-signets of the King of Spain appointed others to be made by the States General for dispatch of such business as concerned the Vnion or Confederation requiring all subjects to renounce their Oaths to the said King of Spain and to take a new Oath of Fidelity to the general Estates against the said King and his adherents the like done also by all Governours Superintendents Chancellors Councellors and other Officers c. They had before drawn the Sword against him and now they throw away the Scabberd For to what end could this action aim at but to make the breach irreparable between them and the King to swell the injury so high as not to be within the compass of future
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
but that to wait at her Chamber-door or elsewhere and then to have no further liberty then to whisper in her ear what he had to say or to tell her what others did speak of her was neither agreeable to his vocation nor could stand with his Conscience 38. At Midsummer they held a general Assembly and there agreed upon the Form of a Petition to be presented to the Queen in the name of the Kirk the substance of it was for abolishing the Mass and other superstitious Rites of the Romish Religion for inflicting some punishment against Blasphemie Adultery contempt of the Word the Profanation of Sacraments and other like vices condemned by the Word of God whereof the Laws of the Realm did not take any hold for referring all actions of Divorce to the Churches judgement or at the least to men of good knowledge and conversation for excluding all Popish Church-men from holding any place in Council or Session and finally for the increase and more assured payment of the Ministers Stipends but more particularly for appropriating the Glebes and Houses unto them alone This was the sum of their desires but couched in such irreverent coarse and bitter expressions and those expressions justified with such animosities that Lethington had much ado to prevail upon them for putting it into a more dutiful and civil Language All which the Queen knew well enough and therefore would afford them no better answer but that she would do nothing to the prejudice of that Religion which she then professed and that she hoped to have Mass restored before the end of the year in all parts of the Kingdom Which being so said or so reported gave Knox occasion in his preachings to the Gentry of Kyle and Galloway to which he was commissioned by the said Assembly to forewarn some of them of the dangers which would shortly follow and thereupon earnestly to exhort them to take such order that they might be obedient unto Authority and yet not suffer the Enemies of Gods 〈◊〉 to have the upper-hand And they who understood his meaning at half a word assembled themselves together on the 4 of September at the Town of Air where they entred into a common Bond subscribed by the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Boyd and Vâ—hiliry with one hundred and thirty more of Note and Quality besides the Provost and Burgesses of the Town of Air which made forty more The tenour of which Bond was this that followeth 39. We whose names are under written do promise in the presence of God and in the presence of his Son our Lord Iesus Christ that we and every one of us shall and will maintain the Preaching of his holy Evangel now of his mercy offered and granted to this Realm and also will maintain the Ministers of the same against all persons Power and Authority that will oppose themselves to the Doctrine proposed and by us received And further with the same solemnity we protest and promise that every one of us shall assist another yea and the while Body of the Protestants within this Realm in all lawful and just occasions against all persons so that whosoever shall hurt 〈◊〉 or trouble any of our bodies shall be reputed enemies to the whole except that the offender will be content to submit himself to the Government of the Church now established amongst us And this we do as we desire to be accepted and favoured of the Lord Iesus and accepted worthy of credit and honesty in the presence of the Godly 40. And in pursuance of this Bond they seize upon some Priests and give notice to others that they would not trouble themselves of complaining to the Queen of Council but would execute the punishment appointed to Idolaters in the Law of God as they saw occasion whensoever they should be apprehended At which the Queen was much offended but there was no remedy All she could do was once again to send for Knox and to desire him so to deal with the Barons and other Gentlemen of the West that they would not punish any man for the cause of Religion as they had resolved To which he answered with as little reverence as at other times That if her Majesty would punish Malefactors according to the Laws he durst assure her that she should finde peace and quietness at the hand of those who professed the Lord Iesus in that Kingdom That if she thought or had a purpose to illude the Laws there were some who would not fail to let the Papists understand that they should not be suffered without punishment to offend their God Which said he went about to prove in a long discourse that others were by God intrusted with the Sword of Justice besides Kings and Princes which Kings and Princes if they failed in the right use of it and drew it not against Offenders they must not look to finde obedience from the rest of the Subjects 41. It is not to be doubted but that every understanding Reader will be able to collect out of all the premises both of what Judgement Knox and his Brethren were touching the Soveraignty of Kings or rather the Supreme Power invested naturally in the people of a State or Nation as also from what Fountain they derived their Doctrine and to whose sentence onely they resolved to submit the same But we must make a clearer demonstration of it before we can proceed to the rest of our History that so it may appear upon what ground and under the pretence of what Authority so many Tumults and Discords were acted on the Stage of Scotland by the Knoxian Brethren It pleased the Queen to hold a Conference with this man in the pursuit whereof they fell upon the point of resisting Princes by the Sword the lawfulness whereof was denyed by her but maintained by him The Queen demands whether Subjects having power may resist their Princes Yea Madam answered Knox if Princes do exceed their bounds and do against that wherefore they should be obeyed there is no doubt but that they may be resisted even by power For said he there is neither greater honour nor greater obedience to be given to Kings and Princes then God hath commanded to be given unto our Fathers and Mothers and yet it may so happen that the Father may be stricken with a Phrensie and in some fit attempt the slaying of his Children In which case if the Children joyn themselves together apprehend their Father take the Sword out of his hand and keep him in Prison till his Phrensie be over-past it is not to be thought that God will be offended with them for their actings in it And thereupon he doth infer that so it is with such Princes also as out of a blind Zeal would murther the Children of God which are subject to them And therefore to take the Sword from them to binde their hands and to cast them into Prison till that they may be brought to a more sober minde is not
by which general and free consent of the chief Nobility then present the Lord Darnly not long after is made Baron of Ardmonack created Earl of Ross and Duke of Rothesay titles belonging to the eldest and the second Sons of the Kings of Scotland But on the other side such of the great Lords of the Congregation as were resolved to work their own ends out of these present differences did purposely absent themselves from that Convention that is to say the Earls of Murray Glencarne Rothes Arguile c. together with Duke Hamilton and his dependants whom they had drawn into the Faction and they convened at Stirling also though not until the Queen and her retinue were departed from thence and there it was resolved by all means to oppose the Marriage for the better avoiding of such dangers and inconveniences which otherwise might ensue upon it For whose encouragement the Queen of England furnished them with ten thousand pounds that it might serve them for advance-money for the listing of Souldiers when an occasion should be offered to embroyl that Kingdom Nor was Knox wanting for his part to advance the troubles who by his popular declamations against the Match had so incensed the people of Edenborough that they resolved to put themselves into a posture of War to elect Captains to command them and to disarm all those who were suspected to wish well unto it But the Queen came upon them in so just a time that the chief Leaders of the Faction were compelled to desert the Town and leave unto her mercy both their Goods and Families to which they were restored not long after by her grace and clemency 55. A general Assembly at the same time was held in Edenborough who falsely thinking that the Queen in that conjuncture could deny them nothing presented their desires unto her In the first whereof it was demanded That the Papistical and blasphemous Mass with all Popish Idolatry and the Popes jurisdictions should be universally supprest and abolished throughout the whole Realm not onely amongst the Subjects but in the Queens Majesties own Person and Family In the next place it was desired That the true Religion formerly received should be professed by the Queen as well as by the Subjects and people of all sorts bound to resort upon the Sundays at least to the Prayers and Preachings as in the former times to Mass That sure provision should be made for sustentation of the Ministry as well for the time present as for the time to come and their Livings assigned them in the places where they served or at least in the parts next adjacent and that they should not be put to crave the same at the hands of any others That all Benefices then vacant and such as had fallen void since March 1558 or should happen thereafter to be void should be disposed to persons qualified for the Ministry upon tryal and admission by the Superintendent with many other demands of like weight and quality To which the Queen returned this answer first That she could not be perswaded that there was any impiety in the Mass That she had been always bred in the Religion of the Church of Rome which she esteemed to be agreeable to the Word of God and therefore trusted that her subjects would not force her to do any thing against her conscience That hitherto she never had nor did intend hereafter to force any mans conscience but to leave every one to the free exercise of that Religion which to him seemed best which might sufficiently induce them to oblige her by the like indulgence She answered to the next That she did not think it reasonable to defraud her self of such a considerable part of the Royal Patrimony as to put the Patronages of Benefices out of her own power the publick necessities of the Crown being such that they required a great part of the Church-Rents to defray the same Which notwithstanding she declared that the necessities of the Crown being first supplyed care should be taken for the sustentation of the Ministers in some reasonable and fit proportion to be assigned out of the nearest and most commodious places to their several dwellings For all the rest she was contented to refer her self to the following Parliament to whose determinations in the particulars desired she would be conformable 56. Not doubting but this answer might sufficiently comply with all expectations she proceeds to the Marriage publickly solemnized in the midst of Iuly by the Dean of Restalrig whom I conceive to be the Dean of her Majesties Chappel in which that service was performed and the next day the Bridegroom was solemnly proclaimed King by the sound of Trumpet declared to be associated with her in the publick Government and order given to have his name used in all Coyns and Instruments But neither the impossibility of untying this knot nor the gracious answer she had made to the Commissioners of the late Assembly could hinder the Confederate Lords from breaking out into action But first they published a Remonstrance as the custom was to abuse the people in which it was made known to all whom it might concern That the Kingdom was openly wronged the liberties thereof oppressed and a King imposed upon the people without the consent of the Estates which they pretend to be a thing not practised in the former time contrary to the Laws and received Customs of the Country And thereupon desired all good Subjects to take the matter into consideration and to joyn with them in resisting those beginnings of Tyranny But few there were that would be taken with these Baits or thought themselves in any danger by the present Marriage which gave the Queen no power at home and much less abroad And that they might continue always in so good a posture the young King was perswaded to shew himself at Knoxes Sermon but received such an entertainment from that fiery and seditious spirit as he little looked for For Knox according to his custom neither regarding the Kings presence nor fearing what might follow on his alienating from the cause of the Kirk fell amongst other things to speak of the Government of wicked Princes who for the sins of the people were sent as Tyrants and Scourges to plague them but more particularly that people were never more scourged by God then by advancing boys and Women to the Regal Throne Which if it did displease the King and give offence to many Conscientious and Religious men can seem strange to none 57. In the mean time the discontented Lords depart from Stirling more discontented then they came because the people came not in to aid them as they had expected From Stirling they remove to Paisely and from thence to Hamilton the Castle whereof they resolved to Fortifie for their present defence But they were followed so close by the King and Queen and so divided in opinion amongst themselves that it seemed best to them to be gone and try what
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
adds more Fewel to the former flame and he resolves to give the Queen as little comfort of that Crown as if it were a Crown of Thorns as indeed it proved For taking England in his way he applies himself to some of the Lords of the Council to whom he represents the dangers which must needs ensue to Queen Elizabeth if Mary his own Queen were suffered to return into her Country and thereby lay all passages open to the powers of France where she had still a very strong and prevailing party But when he found that she had fortunately escaped the Ships of England that the Subjects from all parts had went away extremely satisfied with her gratious carriage he resolved to make one in the Hosanna as afterwards he was the Chief in the Crucifige he applies himself unto the Queens humour with all art and industry and really performed to her many signal services in gratifying her with the free exercise of her own Religion in which by reason of his great Authority with the Congregation he was best able to oblige both her self and her servants By this means he became so great in the eyes of the Court that the Queen seemed to be governed wholly by him and that he might continue always in so good a posture she first conferred upon him the Earldom of Murray and after married him to a Daughter of Keith Earl-Marshal of Scotland Being thus honoured and allyed his next care was to remove all impediments which he found in the way to his aspiring The Ancient and Potent Family of the Gourdons he suppressed and ruined though after it reflourished in its ancient glory But his main business was to oppress the Hamiltons as the next Heirs unto the Crown in the common opinion the Chief whereof whom the French King had created Duke of Chasteau-Herald a Town in Poictou he had so discountenanced that he was forced to leave the Court and suffer his eldest Son the Earl of Arrane to be kept in prison under pretence of some distemper in his brain When any great Prince sought the Queen in Marriage he used to tell her that the Scots would never brook the power of a stranger and that whensoever that Crown had fallen into the hands of a Daughter as it did to her a Husband was chosen for her by the Estates of the Kingdom of their own Language Laws and Parentage But when this would not serve his turn to break off the Marriage with the young Lord Darnley none seemed more forward then himself to promote that Match which he perceived he could not hinder Besides he knew that the Gentleman was very young of no great insight in business mainly addicted to his pleasures and utterly unexperienced in the affairs of that Kingdom so that he need not fear the weakning of his power by such a King who desired not to take the Government upon him And in this point he agreed well enough with David Risio though on different ends But when he found the Queen so passionately affected to this second Husband that all Graces and Court-favours were to pass by him that he had not the Queens ear so advantagiously as before he had and that she had revoked some Grants which were made to him and others during her minority as against the Law he thought it most expedient to the furthering of his own concernments to peece himself more nearly with the Earls of Morton Glencarne Arguile and Rothes the Lords Ruthen Vchiltry c. whom he knew to be zealously affected to the Reformation and no way pleased with the Queens Marriage to a person of the other Religion By whom it was resolved that Morton and Ruthen should remain in the Court as well to give as to receive intelligence of all proceedings The others were to take up Arms and to raise the people under pretence of the Queens Marriage to a man of the Popish Religion not taking with her the consent of the Queen of England But being too weak to keep the Field they first put themselves into Carlisle and afterwards into New-castle as before was said and being in this manner fled the Kingdom they are all proclaimed Traytors to the Queen a peremptory day appointed to a publick Tryal on which if they appeared not at the Bar of Justice they were to undergo the sentence of a condemnation 4. And now their Agents in the Court begin to bustle the King was soon perceived to be a meer outside-man of no deep reach into Affairs and easily wrought on which first induced the Queen to set the less value on him nor was it long before some of their Court-Females whispered into her ears that she was much neglected by him that he spent more of his time in Hawking and Hunting and perhaps in more unfit divertisements if Knox speak him rightly then he did in her company and therefore that it would be requisite to lure him in before he was too much on the Wing and beyond her call On these suggestions she gave order to her Secretaries and other Officers to place his name last in all publick Acts and in such Coyns as were new stamped to leave it out This happened as they would have wished For hereupon Earl Morton closeth with the King insinuates unto him how unfit it was that he should be subject to his Wife that it was the duty of women to obey and of men to govern and therefore that he might do well to set the Crown on his own head and take that power into his hands which belonged unto him When they perceived that his ears lay open to the like temptations they then began to buz into them the Risio was grown too powerful for him in the Court that he out-vied him in the bravery both of Clothes and Horses and that this could proceed from no other ground then the Queens affection which was suspected by wise men to be somewhat greater then might stand with honour And now the day draws on apace on which Earl Murray and the rest were to make their appearance and therefore somewhat must be done to put the Court into such confusion and the City of Edenborough into such disorder that they might all appear without fear or danger of any legal prosecution to be made against him The day designed for their appearance was the twelfth day of March and on the day before say some or third day before as others the Conspirators go unto the King seemed to accuse him of delay tell him that now or never was the time to revenge his injuries for that he should now finde the fellow in the Queens private Chamber without any force to make resistance So in they rush findâ— David sitting at the Queens Table the Countess of Arguile onely between them Ruthen commands him to arise and to go with him telling him that the place in which he sate did no way beseem him The poor fellow runs unto the Queen for protection and clasps his arms
hated thirdly the weakning of the Queen both in power and credit and consequently the drawing of all Affairs to their own disposing Bothwel in order to the plot makes use of Ledington to prompt the Queen to a Divorce which he conceived might easily be effected in the Court of Rome and is himself as diligent upon all occasions to work upon the Queens displeasures and make the breach wider betwixt her and her Husband The greatness of which breach was before so visible that nothing was more commonly known nor generally complained of amongst the people But never was it made so eminently notorious in the eye of Strangers as at the Christening of the young Prince in December following At which time she would neither suffer the Ambassadors of France or England to give him a visit nor permit him to shew himself amongst them at the Christening Banquet From Stirling where the Prince was Christened he departs for Glasco to finde some comfort from his Father To which place he was brought not without much difficulty for falling sick upon the way it appeared plainly by some symptoms that he had been poysoned the terrible effects whereof he felt in all the parts of his body with unspeakable torments But strength of Nature Youth and Physick did so work together that he began to be in a good way of recovery to the great grief of those who had laid the plot Some other way must now be taken to effect the business and none more expedient then to perswade the Queen to see him to flâ—tter him with some hopes of her former favour and bring him back with her to Edenborough which was done accordingly At Edenborough he was lodged at a private house on the outside of the Town an house unseemly for a King as Knox confesseth and therefore the fitter for their purpose where on the 9 of February at night the poor Prince was strangled his dead body laid in an Orchard near adjoyning with one of his Servants lying by it whom they also murthered and the house most ridiculously blown up with powder as if that blow could have been given without mangling and breaking the two bodies in a thousand pieces 8. The infamy of this horrid murther is generally cast upon the Queen by the arts of those whom it concerned to make her odious with all honest men nor did there want some strong presumptions which might induce them to believe that she was of the counsel in the fact and with the good Brethren of the Congregation every presumption was a proof and every weak proof was thought sufficient to convict her of it But that which most confirmed them in their suspitions was her affection unto Bothwel whom she first makes Duke of Orknay and on the 15 of May is married to him in the Chappel of Halyrood-house according to the form observed by those of the Congregation But against these presumptions there were stronger evidences Bothwel being compelled not long after to flee into Denmark did there most constantly profess both living and dying that the Queen was innocent Morton affirmed the same at his execution above twelve years after relating that when Bothwel dealt with him about the murther and that he shewed himself unwilling to consent unto it without the Queens Warrant and Allowance Bothwel made answer that they must not give themselves any hope of that but that the business must be done without her privity But that which seems to make most for her justification was the confession of Hepbourne Daglish and others of Bothwels servants who were condemned for murdering the young King and being brought unto the Gallows they protested before God and his holy Angels that Bothwel had never told them of any other Authors of so lewd a counsel but onely the two Earls of Morton and Murray In the mean time the common infamy prevailed and none is made more guilty of it then this wretched Queen who had been drawn to give consent to her marriage with Bothwel by the sollicitation and advice of those very men who afterwards condemned her for it In order to whose ends Buchanan publishes a most pestilent and malicious Libel which he called The defection wherein he publickly traduced her for living an adulterous life with David Risio and afterward with Bothwel himself that to precipitate her unlawful marriage with him she had contrived the death of the King her husband projected a Divorce between Bothwel and his former Wife contrary to the Laws both of God and Man Which Libel being printed and dispersed abroad obtained so much credit with most sorts of people that few made question of the truth of the accusations Most true it is that Buchanan is reported by King Iames himself to have confessed with great grief at the time of his death how falsly and injuriously he had dealt with her in that scandalous Pamphlet but this confession came too late and was known to few and therefore proved too weak a remedy for the former mischief 9. He published at the same time also that seditious Pamphlet which he entituled De jure Regni apud Scotos In which he laboured to make proof that the Supreme power of the Scottish Nation was in the body of the people no otherwise in the King but by delegation and therefore that it was in the peoples power not onely to control and censure but also to depose and condemn their Kings if they found them faulty The man was learned for his time but a better Poet then Historian and yet a better Historian then he was a States-man For being of the Genevian Leven he fitted all his State-maximes unto Calvins Principles and may be thought in many points to out-go his Master Now in this Pamphlet we may finde these Aphorisms laid down for undoubted truths which no true Scot must dare to question unless he would be thought to beâ—â—ary his Country that is to say That the people is better then the King and of greater Authority That the people have right to bestow the Crown at their pleasure That the making of the Laws doth belong to the people and Kings are but Masters of the Rolls That they have the same power over the King that the King hath over any one man That it were good that rewards were appointed by the people for such as should kill Tyrants as commonly there is for those that have killed either Wolves or Bears or have taken their Whelps That the people may arraign their Princes that the Ministers may excommunicate their King and that whosoever is by Excommunication cast into Hell is made thereby unworthy to live on earth 10. And that he might make sure work of it he takes upon him to reply upon all Objections which sober and more knowing men had found out to the contrary For whereas it had been objected That custom was against such dealing with Princes That Jeremiah commanded obedience to Nebuchadnezzar That God placed Tyrants sometimes for punishment of his people
on by her command through every County by the Sheriffs and Gentry till he came to Berwick from whence he passed safely unto Edenborough where he was welcomed with great joy by his Friends and Followers Nothing else memorable in this Treaty which concerns our History but that when Murray and the rest of the Scots Commissioners were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to give a reason of their proceedings against that Queen they justified themselves by the Authority of Calvin by which they did endeavour to prove as my Author hath it That the Popular Magistrates are appointed and made to moderate and keep in order the excess and unruliness of Kings and that it was lawful for them to put the Kings that be evil and wicked into prison and also to deprive them of their Kingdoms Which Doctrine how it relished with Queen Elizabeth may be judged by any that knows with what a Soveraign power she disposed of all things in her own Dominions without fear of rendring an account to such Popular Magistrates as Calvins Doctrine might encourage to require it of her But Calvin found more Friends in Scotland then in all the world there being no Kingdom Principality or other Estate which had herein followed Calvins Doctrine in the imprisoning deposing and expelling their own natural Prince till the Scots first led the way unto it in this sad Example 20. Between the last Parliament in Scotland and the Regents journey into England a general Assembly of the Kirk was held at Edenborough In which they entred into consideration of some disorders which had before been tolerated in the said Assemâ—ly and were thought fit to be redressed For remedy whereof it was enacted That none should be admitted to have voice in these Assemblies but Superintendents Visitors of Churches Commissioners of Shires and Vniversities together with such other Ministers to be elected or approved by the Superintendents as were of knowledge and ability to dispute and reason of such Matters as were there propounded It was ordained also That all Papists which continued obstinate after lawful admonition should be Excommunicated as also that the committers of Murther Incest Adultery and other such hainous crimes should not be admitted to make satisfaction by any particulur Church till they did first appear in the habit of penitents before the general Assembly and there receive their Order in it It was also condescended to upon the humble Supplication of the Bishop of Orkney that he should be restored unto his place from which they had deposed him for his acting in the Queens Marriage Which favour they were pleased to extend unto him upon this Condition That for removing of the scandal he should in his first Sermon acknowledge the fault which he had committed and crave pardon of God the Kirk and the State whom he had offended But their main business was to alter the Book of Discipline especially in that part of it which related to the Superinterdents whom though they countenanced for the present by the former Sanction till they had put themselves in a better posture yet they resolve to bring them by degrees to a lower station and to lay them level with the rest In reference whereunto the Regent is sollicited by their Petition that certain Lords of secret Council might be appointed to confer with some of the said Assembly touching the Pâ—lity and Jurisdiction of the Kirk and to assign some time and place to that effect that it might be done before the next Session of Parliament To which Petition they received no answer till the Iuly following But there came no great matter of it by reason of the Regents death which soon after hapned 21. For so it was that after his return from England he became more feared by some and obeyed by others then he had been formerly which made him stand more highly upon terms of Honor and Advantage when Queen Elizabeth had propounded some Conditions to him in favour of the Queen of Scots whose cause appearing desperate in the eyes of most who wished well to her they laboured to make their own peace and procure his Friendship Duke Hamilton amongst the rest negotiated for a Reconcilement and came to Edenborough to that purpose but unadvisedly interposing some delays in the business because he would not act apart from the rest of the Queens Adherents he was sent Prisoner to the Castle This puts the whole Clan of the Hamiltons into such displeasures being otherwise no good friends to the Race of the Stewarts that they resolved upon his death compassed not long after by Iames Hamilton whose life he had spared once when he had it in his power At Lithgoe on the 23 of Ianuary he was shot by this Hamilton into the belly of which wound he dyed the Murtherer escaping safely into France His death much sorrowed for by all that were affected to the Infant-King of whom he had shewed himself to be very tender which might have wiped a way the imputation of his former aspirings if the Kings death could have opened his way unto the Crown before he had made sure of the Hamiltons who pretended to it But none did more lament his death then his Friends of the Kirk who in a General Assembly which they held soon after decreed That the Murtherer should be Excommunicated in all the chief Boroughs of the Realm and That whosoever else should happen to be afterwards convicted of the Crime should be proceeded against in the same sort also And yet they were not so intent upon the prosecution of the Murtherers as not to be careful of themselves and their own Concernments They had before addressed their desires unto the Regent that remedy might be provided against chopping and changing of Benefices diminution of Rentals and setting of Tythes into long Leases to the defrauding of Ministers and their Successors That they who possessed pluralities of Benefices should leave all but one and That the Jurisdiction of the Kirk might be made separate and distinct from that of the Civil Courts But now they take the benefit of the present distractions to discharge the thirds assigned unto them from all other Incumbrances then the payment of Five thousand Marks yearly for the Kings support which being reduced to English money would not amount unto the sum of Three hundred pound and seems to be no better then the sticking up a feather in the ancient By-word when the Goose was stollen 22. As touching the distractions which emboldened them to this Adventure they did most miserably afflict the whole State of that Kingdom The Queen of Scots had granted a Commission to Duke Hamilton the Earls of Huntley and Arguile to govern that Realm in her Name and by her Authority in which they were opposed by those who for their own security more then any thing else professed their obedience to the King Great spoils and Rapines hereupon ensued upon either side but the Kings party had the worst as having neither hands enough to
make good their interest nor any head to order and direct those few hands they had At last the Earl of Sussex with some Souldiers came toward the borders supplied them with such Forces as enabled them to drive the Lords of the Queens Faction out of all the South and thereby gave them some encouragement to nominate the old Earl of Lenox for their Lord-Lieutenant till the Queens pleasure in it might be further known And in this Broyl the Kirk must needs act somewhat also For finding that their party was too weak to compel their Opposites to obedience by the Mouth of the Sword they are resolved to try what they can do by the Sword of the Mouth And to that end they send their Agents to the Duke of Chasteau-Harald the Earls of Arguile Eglington Cassels and Cranford the Lords Boyde and Ogilby and others Barons and Gentlemen of name and quality whom they require to return to the Kings obedience and ordain Certification to be made unto them that if they did otherwise the Spiritual Sword of Excommunication should be drawn against them By which though they effected nothing which advanced the cause yet they shewed their affections and openly declared thereby to which side they inclined if they were left unto themseves And for a further evidence of their inclinations they were so temperate at that time or so obsequious to the Lords whose cause they favoured that they desisted from censuring a seditious Sermon upon an Intimation sent from the Lords of the Council that the Sermon contained some matter of Treason and therefore that the Cognizance of it belonged unto themselves and the Secular Judges 23. The Confusions still encrease amongst them the Queen of England seeming to intend nothing more then to ballance the one side by the other that betwixt both she might preserve her self in safety But in the end she yields unto the importunity of those who appeared in favour of the King assures them of her aid and succours when their needs required and recommends the Earl of Lenox as the fittest man to take the Regency upon him The Breach now widens more then ever The Lords commissionated by the Queen are possest of Edenborough and having the Castle to their Friend call a Parliament thither as the new Regent doth the like at Stirling and each pretends to have preheminence above the other The one because it was assembled in the Regal City the other because they had the Kings Person for their countenance in it Nothing more memorable in that at Edenborough then that the Queens extorted Resignation was declared null and void in Law and nothing so remarkable in the other as that the Young King made a Speech unto them which had been put into his mouth at their first setting down In each they forfeit the Estates of the opposite party and by Authority of each destroy the Countrey in all places in an hostile manner The Ministers had their parts also in these common sufferings compelled in all such places where the Queen prevailed to recommend her in their Prayers by her Name or Titles or otherwise to leave the Pulpit unto such as would In all things else the Kirk had the felicity to remain in quiet care being taken by both parties for the Preservation of Religion though in all other things at an extream difference amongst themselves But the new Regent did not long enjoy his Office of which he reaped no fruit but cares and sorrows A sudden Enterprize is made on Stirling by one of the Hamiltons on the third of September at what time both the Parliament and Assembly were there convened And he succeeded so well in it as to be brought privately into the Town to seize on all the Noblemen in their several Lodgings and amongst others to possess themselves of the Regents person But being forced to leave the place and quit their Prisoners the Regent was unfortunately kill'd by one of Hamiltons Souldiers together with the Gentleman himself unto whom he had yielded The Earl of Marre is on the fifth of the same moneth proclaimed his Successor His Successor indeed not onely in his cares and sorrows but in the shortness of his Rule for having in vain attempted Edenborough in the very beginning of his Regency he was able to effect as little in most places else more then the wasting of the Country as he did Edenborough 24. The Subjects in the mean time were in ill condition and the King worse They had already drawn their Swords against their Queen first forced her to resign the Crown and afterwards drove her out of the Kingdom And now it is high time to let the young King know what he was to trust to to which end they command a piece of Silver of the value of Five shillings to be coyned and made currant in that Kingdom on the one side whereof was the Arms of Scotland with the Name and Title of the King in the usual manner on the other side was stamped an Armed Hand grasping a naked Sword with this Inscription viz. Si bene pro me si male contra me By which the people were informed that if the King should govern them no otherwise then he ought to do they should then use the Sword for his preservation but if he governed them amiss and transgressed their Laws they should then turn the point against him Which words being said to have been used by the Emperor Trajan in his delivering of the Sword unto one of his Courtiers when he made him Captain of his Guard have since been used by some of our Presbyterian Zealots for justifying the Authority of inferior Officers in censuring the actions and punishing the persons of the Supreme Magistrate It was in the year 1552 that this learned piece of Coyn was minted but whether before or after the death of the Earl of Marre I am not able to say for he having but ill success in the course of his Government contracted such a grief of heart that he departed this life on the eighth of October when he had held that Office a little more then a year followed about seven weeks after by that great Incendiary Iohn Knox who dyed at Edenborough on the 27 of November leaving the State imbroyled in those disorders which by his fire and fury had been first occasioned 25. Morton succeeds the Earl of Marre in this broken Government when the affairs of the young King seemed to be at the worse but he had so good fortune in it as by degrees to settle the whole Realm in some Form of peace He understood so well the estate of the Countrey as to assure himself that till the Castle of Edenborough was brought under his power he should never be able to suppress that party whose stubborn standing out as it was interpreted did so offend the Queen of England that she gave order unto Drury then Marshal of Berwick to pass with some considerable Forces into Scotland for
the Kings Person and maintain his Power against the practices and attempts of a prevalent Faction which openly appeared in favour of his Mothers pretensions And in this course he much desired to keep the King when he had took the Government upon himself as before was said prevailing with him much against the mind of most of the Lords to send an Ambassador for that purpose Which put such fears and jealousies into the heads of the French on whom the Sâ—ots had formerly depended upon all occasions that they thought â—it to countermine the English party in the Court and so blow them up No better Engine for this purpose then the Lord Esme Stewart Seignieur of Aubigny in France and Brothers Son to Matthew the late Earl of Lenox the Young Kings Grandfather By him it was conceived that they might not onely work the King to the party of France but get some ground for re-establishing the old Religion or at least to gain some countenance for the Favourers and Professors of it With these Instructions he prepares to the Court of Scotland makes himself known unto the King and by the affability of his conversation wins so much upon him that no Honor or Preferment was thought great enough for so dear a Kinsman The Earldom of Lenox being devolved upon the King by the death of his Grandfather was first conferred on Robert Bishop of Orknay one of the Natural Sons of King Iames V. Which he to gratifie the King and oblige the Favorite resigned again into his hands in recompence whereof he is preferred unto the title of Earl of March. As soon as he had made this Resignation of the Earldom of Lenox the King confers it presently on his Cosin Aubigny who studied to appear more serviceable to him every day then other And that his service might appear the more considerable a report is cunningly spread abroad that the Earl of Morton had a purpose to convey the King into England by means whereof the Scots would forfeit all the Priviledges which they held France Morton sufficiently clear'd himself from any such practice But howsoever the suspicion prevailed so far that it was thought fit by those of the Adverse party to appoint a Lord-Chamberlain who was to have the care of His Majesties Person and that a Guard of twenty four Noblemen should be assigned to the said Lord-Chamberlain for that end and purpose Which Trust and Honor was immediately conferred on the Earl of Lenox who had been sworn to the Council much about that time and within less then two years after was created Duke 50. The sudden Preferments of this man being well known to be a professed Votary of the Church of Rome encouraged many Priests and Jesuits to repair into Scotland who were sufficiently practical in propagating the Opinions and advancing the interest of that Church Which gave occasion to the Brethren to exclaim against him and many times to fall exceeding foul on the King himself The King appears sollicitous for their satisfaction and deals so effectually with his Kinsman that he was willing to receive instruction from some of their Ministers by whom he is made a real Proselyte to the Religion then establish'd which he declared by making profession of his Faith in the great Church of Edenborough and his diligent frequenting the Church at their Prayers and Sermons But it hapned very unfortunately for him that some Dispensations sent from Rome were intercepted whereby the Catholicks were permitted to promise swear subscribe and do what else should be required of them if still they kept their hearts and secretly imployed their counsels for the Church of Rome Against this blow the Gentleman could find no buckler nor was there any ready way either to take off the suspicions or to still the clamors which by the Presbyterian Brethren were raised against him Their out-cries much encreased by the severities then shewed to the Earl of Morton whom they esteemed to be a most assured Friend as indeed he was to their Religion though indeed in all points not corresponding with them to the book of Discipline For so it was that to break off all hopes of fastning a dependance on the Realm of England Morton was publickly accused at the Council Table for being privy to the Murther of His Majesties Father committed to the Castle of Edenborough on the second of Ianuary removed to Dunbritton on the twentieth Where having remained above four moneths he was brought back to Edenborough in the end of May condemned upon the first of Iune and the next day executed His Capital Accuser being admitted to sit Judge upon him 51. This news exceedingly perplexed the Queen of England she had sent Bows and Randolph at several times to the King of Scots who were to use their best endeavours as well to lessen the Kings favour to the Earl of Lenox as to preserve the life of Morton For the effecting of which last a promise was made by Randolph unto some of his Friends both of men and money But as Walsingham sent word from France she had not took the right course to effect her purpose She had of late been negligent in paying those persons which had before confirmed the Scots to the English interest which made them apt to tack about and to apply themselves to those who would bid most for them And yet the business at the present was not gone so far but that they might have easily been reduced unto her devotion if we had now sent them ready money instead of promises for want whereof that Noble Gentleman so cordially affected to Her Majesties service was miserably cast away Which quick advice though it came over-late to preserve his life came time enough to put the Queen into a way for recovering Her Authority amongst the Scots of which more hereafter Nor were the Ministers less troubled at it then the Queen of England imputing unto Lenox the contrivance of so sad a Tragedy Somewhat before this time he had been taxed in the Pulpit by Drury one of the Brethren of Edenborough for his unsoundness in Religion and all means used to make him odious with the people For which committed by the Council to the Castle of Edenborough he was not long after at the earnest intreaty of his Fellow-Ministers and some promise on his own part for his good behaviour restored again unto his charge But after Mortons death some other occasions coming in he breaks out again and mightily exclaims against him insomuch that the King gave order to the Provost of Edenborough to see him removed out of the Town The Magistrate advises him to leave the Town of his own accord But he must first demand the pleasure of the Kirk convened at the same time in an Assembly Notwithstanding whose Mediation he was forced to leave the Town a little while to which he was brought back in Triumph within few moneths after A Fast was also kept by order of the said Assembly For the
and promiseth neither to meddle further with the Bishoprick nor to exercise any Office in the Ministry but as they should license him thereunto But this inconstancie he makes worse by another as bad for finding the Kings countenance towards him to be very much changed he resolves to hold the Bishoprick makes a journey to Glasgow and entring into the Church with a great train of Gentlemen which had attended him from the Court he puts by the ordinary Preacher and takes the Pulpit to himself For this disturbance the Presbytery of the Town send out Process against him but are prohibited from proceeding by his Majesties Warrant presented by the Mayor of Glasgow But when it was replyed by the Moderator That they would proceed in the cause notwithstanding this Warrant and that some other words were multiplyed upon that occasion the Provost pulled him out of his Chair and committed him Prisoner to the Talebooth The next Assembly look on this action of the Provost as a foul indignity and prosecute the whole matter unto such extremity that notwithstanding the Kings intercession and the advantage which he had against some of their number the Provost was decreed to be excommunicated and the Excommunication formerly decreed against Montgomery was actually pronounced in the open Church 55. The Duke of Lenox findes himself so much concerned in the business that he could not but support the man who for his sake had been exposed to all these affronts he entertains him at his Table and hears him preach without regard unto the Censures under which he lay This gives the general Assembly a new displeasure Their whole Authority seemed by these actions of the Duke to be little valued which rather then they would permit they would proceed against him in the self-same manner But first it was thought fit to send some of their Members as well to intimate unto him that Montgomery was actually excommunicated as also to present the danger in which they stood by the Rules of the Discipline who did converse with excommunicated persons The Duke being no less moved then they demanded in some choler Whether the King or Kirk had the Supreme Power and therewith plainly told them That he was commanded by the King to entertain him whose command he would not disobey for fear of their Censures Not satisfied with this defence the Commissioners of the general Assembly presented it unto the King amongst other grievances to which it was answered by the King that the Excommunication was illegal and was declared to be so upon very good Reasons to the Lords of the Council and therefore that no manner of person was to be lyable to censure upon that account The King was at this time at the Town of Perth to which many of the Lords repaired who had declared themselves in former times for the Faction of England and were now put into good heart by supplies of money according unto Walsinghams counsel which had been secretly sent unto them from the Queen Much animated or exasperated rather by some Leading-men who managed the Affairs of the late Assemblies and spared not to inculcate to them the apparent dangers in which Religion stood by the open practices of the Duke of Lenox and the Kings crossing with them upon all occasions To which the Sermons of the last Fast did not add a little which was purposely indicted as before was said in regard of those oppressions which the Kirk was under but more because of the great danger which the company of wicked persons might bring to the King whom they endeavoured to corrupt both in Religion and Manners All which inducements coming together produced a resolution of getting the King into their power forcing the Duke of Lenox to retire into France and altering the whole Government of the Kingdom as themselves best pleased 56. But first the Duke of Lenox must be sent out of the way And to effect this they advised him to go to Edenborough and to erect there the Lord-Chamberlains Court for the reviving of the ancient Jurisdiction which belonged to his Office He had not long been gone from Perth when the King was solemnly invited to the House of William Lord Ruthen not long before made Earl of Gowry where he was liberally feasted but being ready to depart he was stayed by the Eldest Son of the Lord Glammis the Master of Glammis he is called in the Scottish Dialect and he was stayed in such a manner that he perceived himself to be under a custody The apprehensions whereof when it drew some tears from him it moved no more compassion nor respect from the froward Scots but that it was fitter for boys to shed tears then bearded men This was the great work of the 23 day of August to which concurred at the first to avoid suspiâ—ion no more of the Nobility but the Earls of Marre and Gowry the Lords Boyd and Lindsay and to the number of ten more of the better sort but afterwards the act was owned over all the Nation not onely by the whole Kirk-party but even by those who were of contrary Faction to the Duke of Lenox who was chiefly aimed at The Duke upon the first advertisement of this surprize dispatched some men of Noble Quality to the King to know in what condition he was whether free or Captive The King returned word that he was a Captive and willed him to raise what force he could to redeem him thence The Lords on the other side declared That they would not suffer him to be misled by the Duke of Lenox to the oppression of Himself the Church and the whole Realm and therefore the Duke might do well to retire into France or otherwise they would call him to a sad account for his former actions And this being done they caused the King to issue out a Proclamation on the 28. In which it was declared That he remained in that place of his own free-will That the Nobility then present had done nothing which they were not in duty obliged to do That he took their repairing to him for a service acceptable to himself and profitable to the Commonwealth That therefore all manner of persons whatsoever which had levied any Forces under colour of his present restraint should disband them within six hours under pain of Treason But more particularly they cause him to write a Letter to the Duke of Lenox whom they understood to be grown considerably strong for some present action by which he was commanded to depart the Kingdom before the 20 of September then next following On the receipt whereof he withdraws himself to the strong Castle of Dunbritton that there he might remain in safety whilst he staid in Scotland and from thence pass safely into France whensoever he pleased 57. The news of this Surprize is posted with all speed to England And presently the Queen sends her Ambassadors to the King by whom he was advertised to restore the Earl of Angus who had lived
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
obedient subjects The Kings escape was made in the end of Iune and in December following he calls a Convention of the Estates in which the subject of his Proclamation was approved and verified the fact declared to be Crimen laesae Majestatis or Treason in the highest degree For which as some were executed and others fled so divers of the Ministers that had been dealers in that matter pretending they were persecuted had retired into England For notwithstanding his Majesties great clemency in pardoning the Conspirators on such easie conditions they preferred rather the pursuing of their wicked purposes then the enjoying of a peaceable and quiet life For whether it were that they presumed on supplies from England of which they had received no inâ—â—obable hopes as afterwards was confessed by the Earl of Gowry or that they built upon the Kirk-Faction to come in to aid them as the General Assembly had required they begin in all places to prepare for some new Commotion but being deceived in all their hopes and expectations they were confined to several Prisons before the Convention of Estates and after it upon a further discovery of their preparations and intentions compelled to quit the Kingdome and betake themselves for their protection unto several Nations Onely the Earl of Gowry staid behind the rest and he paid well for it For being suspected to be hammering some new design he was took Prisoner at Dundee in the April following 1584 thence brought to Edenborough and there condemned and executed as he had deserved In the mean time the Kirk-men were as troublesome as the Lay-Conspirators Dury so often mentioned in a Sermon at Edenborough had justified the fact at Ruthen for which being cited to appear before the Lords of the Council he stood in maintainance of that which he had delivered but afterwards submitting himself unto the King on more sober thoughts he was kept upon his good â—ehaviour without further punishment But Andrew Melvin was a man of another metal who being commanded to attend their Lordships for the like offence declined the judgement of the King and Council as having no cognizance of the cause To make which good he broached this Presbyterian Doctrine That whatsoever was spoken in the Pulpit ought first to be tryed by the Presbyterie and that neither the King nor Council were to meddle with it though the same were treasonable till the Presbyterie had first taken notice of it But finding that the King and Council did resolve to proceed and had entred upon Examination of some Witnesses which were brought against him he told the King whether with greater Confidence or Impudence is hard to say That he preached the Laws both of God and man For which undutiful Expression he was commanded Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness Instead whereof he takes Sanctuary in the Town of Berwick where he remained till way was made for his return the Pulpits in the mean time sounding nothing but that the Light of the Countrey for Learning and Piety was forced for safety of his life to forsake the Kingdom In which Exile he was followed within few moneths after by Palvart Sub-Dean of Glasgow Galloway and Carmichiel two inferior Ministers who being warned to tender their appearance to the King and Council and not appearing at the time were thereupon pronounced Rebels and fled after the other Nor was the General Assembly held at Edenborough of a better temper then these Preachers were in which the Declaration made at the last Convention of Estates was stoutly crossed and encountred The King with the advice of his Estates had resolved the Fact of surprizing His Majesties person to be treasonable But the Brethren in the said Assembly did not onely authorize and avow the same but also esteeming their own judgement to be the Soveraign judgement of the Realm did ordain all them to be excommunicated that would subscribe unto their opinion 61. The King perceiving that there was no other way to deal with these men then to husband the present opportunity to his best advantage resolved to proceed against them in such a way as might disable them from committing the like insolencies for the time to come The chief Incendiaries had been forced to quit the Kingdom or otherwise deserted it of their own accords the better to escape the punishment which their crimes had merited The great Lords on whose strength they had most presumed were either under the like exile in the neighbouring Countries or else so weakned and disanimated that they durst not stir So that the King being clearly Master of the Field his Counsellors in good heart and generally the Lords and Commons in good terms of obedience it was thought fit to call a Parliament and therein to enact such Laws by which the honour of Religion the personal safety of the King the peace and happiness of the Kingdom and the prosperity of the Church might be made secure In which Parliament it was enacted amongst others things the better to encounter the proceedings of the Kirk and most Zealous Kirkmen That none of his Highness Subjects in time coming should presume to take upon them by word or writing to justifie the late treasonable attempt at Ruthen or to keep in register or store any Books approving the same in any sort And in regard the Kirk had so abused his Majesties goodness by which their Presbyterial Sessions the general Assemblies and other meetings of the Kirk were rather connived at then allowed an Act was made to regulate and restrain them for the times ensuing for by that Act it was ordained That from thenceforth none should presume or take upon them to Convocate Convene or assemble themselves together for holding of Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matters of Estate Civil or Ecclesiastical excepting the ordinary judgements without the Kings special commandment 62. In the next place the Kings lawful Authority in causes Ecclesiastical so often before impugned was approved and confirmed and it was made treason for any man to refuse to answer before the King though it were concerning any matter which was Ecclesiastical The third Estate of Parliament that is the Bishops were restored to the ancient dignity and it was made treason for any man after that time to procure the innovation or diminution of the Power and Authority of any of the three Estates And for as much as through the wicked licentious publick and private Speeches and untrue calumnies of divers his Highness subjects I speak the very words of the Act to the disdain contempt and reproach of his Majesty his Council and proceedings stirring up his Highness subjects thereby to misliking sedition unquietness to cast off their due oâ—edience to his Majesty Therefore it is ordained that none of his subjects shall presume or take upon them privately or publickly in Sermons Declamations oâ— familiar Conferences to utter any false scandalous and untrue Speeches to the disdain reproach and contempt of
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
onely Excommunicate her person deprive her of her Kingdoms and absolve all her Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance but commands all her Subjects of what sort soever not to obey her Laws Injunctions Ordinances or Acts of State The Defection of the Papists had before been voluntary but is now made necessary the Popes command being superadded to the scandal which had before been given them by the Puritan Faction For after this the going or not going to Church was commonly reputed by them for a signe distinctive by which a Roman Catholick might be known from an English Heretick And this appears most plainly by the Preamble to the Act of Parliament against bringing or executing of Bulls from Rome 13 Eliz. 2. Where it is reckoned amongst the effects of those Bulls and Writings That those who brought them did by their lewd practices and subtile perswasions work so farforth that sundry people and ignorant persons have been contented to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and to have withdrawn and absented themselves from all Divine Service most godlily exercised in this Realm By which it seems that till the roaring of those Bulls those of the Popish party did frequent the Church though not so generally in the last five years as our Learned Andrews hath observed as they did the first before they were discouraged by the Innovations of the Puritan Faction 33. But for their coming to our Churches for the first ten years that is to say before the first beginning of the Puritan Schism there is enough acknowledged by some of their own Parsons himself confesseth in his Pamphlet which he calls by the name of Green-Coat That for twelve years together the Court and State was in great quiet and no question made about Religion Brierly in his Apologie speaks it more at large by whom it is acknowledged That in the beginning of the Queens Reign most part of the Catholicks for many years did go to the Heretical Churches and Service That when the better and truer opinion was taught them by Priests and Religious men from beyond the Seas as more perfect and necessary there wanted not many which opposed themselves of the elder sort of Priests of Queen Maries days and finally That this division was not onely favoured by the Council but nourished also for many years by divers troublesome people of their own both in teaching and writing On which the Author of the Reply whomsoever he was hath made this Descant viz. That for the Catholicks going to Church it was perchance rather to be lamented then blamed before it came to be a sign Distinctive by which a Catholick was known from one who was no Catholick Thus as the Schisms began together so are they carried on by the self-same means by Libelling against the State the Papists in their Philopater the Puritans in Martin Mar-Prelate and the rest by breeding up their novices beyond the Seas the Roman Catholicks at Rheims and Doway the Presbyterians at Geneva Amsterdam or Saumure by raising sedition in the State and plotting Treason against the person of the Queen the Papists by Throgmorton Parry Tichbourn Babington c. the Puritans by Thacker Penry Hacket Coppinger c. And finally by the executions made upon either part of which in reference to the Presbyterians we shall speak hereafter But as none of Plutarchs Parallels is so exact but that some difference may be noted and is noted by him betwixt the persons and affairs of whom he writes so was there a great difference in one particular between the fortunes of the Papists and the contrary faction The Presbyterians were observed to have many powerful Friends at Court in which the Papists had scarce any but mortal Enemies Spies and Intelligencers were employed to attend the Papists and observe all their words and actions so that they could not stir without a discovery But all mens eyes were shut upon the other party so that they might do what they listed without observation Of which no reason can be given but that the Queen being startled at the Popes late Bull and finding both her Person and Estate indangered under divers pretences by many of the Romish party both at home and abroad might either take no notice of the lesser mischief or suffer that faction to grow up to confront the other 34. And now comes Cartwright on the Stage on which he acted more then any of the Puritan Faction till their last going off again in the Reign of this Queen It was upon a discontent that he first left Cambridge and in pursuance of the same that he left the Church For being appointed one of the Opponents at the Divinity-Act in Cambridge Anno 1564 at such time as the Queen was pleased to honor it with her Royal presence he came not off so happily in her esteem but that Preston of Kings Colledge for action voyce and elocution was preferred before him This so afflicted the proud man that in a sudden humour he retires from the University and sets up his studies in Geneva where he became as great with Beza and the rest of that Consistory as ever Knox had been with Calvin at his being there As soon as he had well acquainted himself with the Form of their Discipline and studied all such points as were to be reduced to practice at his coming back well stocked with Principles and furnished with Instructions he prepares for England and puts himself into his Colledge Before upon the apprehension of the said neglect he had begun to busie himself with some discourses against the Ecclesiastical Government then by Law established and seemed to entertain a great opinion of himself both for Learning and Holiness and therewithal a great contemner of such others as continued not with him But at his coming from Geneva he became more practical or pragmatical rather condemning the Vocation of Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers the Administration of our holy Sacraments and observations of our Rites and Ceremonies And buzzing these conceits into the Heads of divers young Preachers and Scholars of the University he drew after him a great number of Disciples and Followers Amongst whom he prevailed so far by his secret practices but much more by a Sermon which he Preached one Sunday-morning in the Colledge-Chappel that in the afternoon all the Fellows and Scholars threw aside their Surplices which by the Statutes of the House they were bound to use and went to the Divine Service onely in their Gowns and Caps Dr. Iohn Whitgift was at that time Master of Trinity Colledge and the Queens Professor for Divinity a man of great temper and moderation but one withal that knew well how to hold the Reins and not suffer them to be wrested out of his hand by an Head-strong beast Cartwright was Fellow of that Colledge emulous of the Masters Learning but far more envious at the Credit and Authority which he had acquired for which cause he procured himself to be
look well about them 4. It happened also that some of the great Lords at Court whom they most relyed on began to cool in their affections to the Cause and had informed the Queen of the weakness of it upon this occasion The Earl of Leicester Walsingham and some others of great place and power being continually prest unto it by some Leading-men prevailed so far on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as to admit them in their hearing to a private Conference To which the Arch-bishop condescends and having desired the Arch-bishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester to associate with him that he might not seem to act alone in that weighty business he was pleased to hear such Reasons as they could alledg for refusing to conform themselves to the Orders of the Church established At which time though the said most Reverend Prelate sufficiently cleared all their Doubts and satisfied all Exceptions which they had to make yet at the earnest request of the said great persons he gave way unto a second Conference to be held at Lambeth at which such men were to be present whose Arguments and Objections were conceived unanswerable because they had not yet been heard But when the points had been canvased on both sides for four hours together the said great persons openly professed before all the Company That they did not believe the Arch-bishops Reasons to have been so strong and those of the other side so weak and trivial as they now perceived them And having thanked the Lord Arch-bishop for his pains and patience they did not only promise him to inform the Queen in the truth of the business but endeavoured to perswade the opposite Party to a present Conformity But long they did not stay in so good a humour of which more hereafter 5. With better fortune sped the Lords of the Scottish Nation in the advance of their Affairs Who being admitted to the Queens presence by the means of Walsingham received such countenance and support as put them into a condition of returning homewards and gaining that by force and practise which they found impossible to be compassed any other way All matters in that Kingdom were then chiefly governed by the Earl of Arran formerly better known by the name of Captain Iones who being of the House of the Stuarts and fastening his dependence on the Duke of Lenox at his first coming out of France had on his instigation undertaken the impeaching of the Earl of Morton after which growing great in favour with the King himself he began to ingross all Offices and Places of Trust to draw unto himself the managery of all Affairs and finally to assume the Title of Earl of Arran at such time as the Chiefs of the Hamiltons were exiled and forfeited Grown great and powerful by these means and having added the Office of Lord Chancellor to the rest of his Honours he grew into a general hatred will all sorts of people And being known to have no very good affections to the Queen of England she was the more willing to contribute towards his destruction Thus animated and prepared they make toward the Borders and raising the Countrey as they went marched on to Sterling where the King then lay And shewing themselves before the Town with Ten thousand men they publish a Proclamation in their own terms touching the Reasons which induced them to put themselves into Arms. Amongst which it was none of the least That Acts and Proclamations had not long before been published against the Ministers of the Kirk inhibiting their Presbyteries Assemblies and other Exercises Priviledges and Immunities by reason whereof the most Learned and Honest of that number were compelled for safety of their Lives and Consciences to abandon their Countrey To the end therefore that all the affâ—icted Kirk might be comforted and all the said Acts fully made in prejudice of the same might be cancelled and for ever abolished they commanded all the King's Subjects to come in to aid them 6. The King perceiving by this Proclamation what he was to trust to first thinks of fortifying the Town but finding that to be untenable he betakes himself unto the Castle as his surest strength The Conquerors having gained the Town on the first of October possest themselves also of the Bulwarks about the Castle which they inviron on all sides so that it was not possible for any to escape their hands In which extremity the King makes three Requests unto them viz. That his Life Honour and Estate might be preserved That the Lives of certain of his Friends might not be touched And that all things might be transacted in a peaceable manner They on the other side demand three things for their security and satisfaction viz. 1. That the King would allow of their intention and subscribe their Proclamation until further Order were established by the Estates c. and that he would deliver into their hands all the Strong-holds in the Land 2. That such as had disquieted the Commonwealth might be delivered to them and abide their due tryal by Law And 3. That the old Guard might be removed and another placed which was to be at their disposal To which Demands the King consents at last as he could not otherwise though in their Second they had purposely run a-cross to the Second of his wherein he had desired that the Lives of such as were about him might not be endangered Upon the yeelding of which points which in effect was all that he had to give unto them he puts himself into their hands hath a new Guard imposed upon him and is conducted by them wheresoever they please And now the Ministers return in triumph to their Widowed Churches where they had the Pulpits at command but nothing else agreeable to their expectation For the Lords having served their own turns took no care of theirs insomuch that in a Parliament held in Lithgoe immediately after they had got the King into their power they caused an Act to pass for ratifying the appointment betwixt them and the King by which they provided well enough for their own Indempnity But then withall they suffered it to be Enacted That none should either publikely declare or privately speak or write in reproach of his Majesties Person Estate or Government Which came so cross upon the stomacks of the Ministers whom nothing else could satisfie but the repealing of all former Statutes which were made to their prejudice that they fell foul upon the King in a scandalous manner insomuch that one Gibson affirmed openly in a Sermon at Edenborough That heretofore the Earl of Arran was suspected to have been the Persecutor but now they found it was the King against whom he denounced the Curse that fell on Ieroboam That he should dye Childless and be the last of his Race For which being called to an account before the Lords of the Council he stood upon his justification without altering and was by them sent Prisoner to the Castle
to wonder and much more marvelled that the Bishops had not yet suppressed the Puritans some way or other Pandocheus is made to tell him That one of their Preachers had affirmed in the Pulpit That there were One hundred thousand of them in England and that their Number in all places did encrease continually 10. By this last brag about their Numbers and somewhat which escaped from the mouth of Paul touching his hopes of seeing the Consistorian Discipline erected shortly it may be gathered That they had a purpose to proceed in their Innovations out of a hope to terrifie the State to a compliance by the strength of their Party But if that failed they would then do as Penry had advised and threatned that is to say they would present themselves with a Petition to the Houses of Parliament to the delivering whereof One hundred thousand Hands should be drawn together In the mean time it was thought fit to dissemble their purposes and to make tryal of such other means as appeared less dangerous To which end they present with one Hand a Petition to the Convocation in which it was desired That they might be freed from all Subscriptions and with the other publish a seditious Pamphlet entituled A Complaint of the Commons for a Learned Ministry But for the putting of their Counsels in execution they were for the present at a stand The Book of Discipline upon a just examination was not found so perfect but that it needed a review and the review thereof is referred to Traverse By whom being finished after a tedious expectation it was commended to the Brethren and by them approved But the worst was it was not so well liked of in the Houses of Parliament as to pass for current which so incensed those meek-spirited men that they fell presently to threatning and reviling all who opposed them in it They had prepared their way to the Parliament then sitting Anno 1586 by telling them That if the Reformation they desired were not granted they should betray God his Truth and the whole Kingdom that they should declare themselves to be an Assembly wherein the Lords Cause could not be heard wherein the felicity of miserable men could not be respected wherein Truth Religion and Piety could bear no sway an Assembly that willingly called for the Judgments of God upon the whole Realm and finally that not a man of their seed should prosper be a Parliament-man or bear rule in England any more 11. This necessary preparation being thus premised they tender to the Parliament A Book of the form of Common-Prayer by them desired containing also in effect the whole pretended Discipline so revised by Traverse and their Petition in behalf thereof was in these words following viz. May it therefore please your Majesty c. that the Book hereunto annexed c. Entituled A Book of the Form of Common-Prayers and Administration of Sacraments c. and every thing therein contained c. may be from henceforth put in use and practised through all your Majesty's Dominions c. But this so little edified with the Queen or that Grave Assembly that in the drawing up of a General Pardon to be passed in Parliament there was an Exception of all those that committed any offence against the Act for the Uniformity of Common-Prayers or that were Publishers of Seditious Books or Disturbers of Divine Service And to say the truth the Queen had little reason to approve of that Form of Discipline in which there was so little consideration of the Supreme Magistrate in having either vote or place in any of their Synodical Meetings unless he be chosen for an Elder or indicting their Assemblies either Provincial or National or what else soever or insomuch as nominating the particular time or place when and where to hold them or finally in requiring his assent to any of their Constitutions All which they challenge to themselves with far greater arrogancy than ever was exercised by the Pope or any Bishop or inferior Minister under his Command during the times of greatest Darkness But the Brethren not considering what just Reason the Queen had to reject their Bill and yet fearing to fall foul upon her in regard of the danger they let flye at the Parliament in this manner that is to say That they should be in danger of the terrible Mass of God's Wrath both in this life and that to come and that for their not abrogating the Episcopal Government they might well hope for the Favour and Entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law the Favour and loving-Countenance of Jesus Christ they should never see 12. It may seem strange that Queen ELIZABETH should carry such a hard hand on her English Puritans as well by severe Laws and terrible Executions as by excluding them from the benefit of a General Pardon and yet protect and countenance the Presbyterians in all places else But that great Monster in Nature called Reason of State is brought to plead in her defence by which she had been drawn to aid the French Hugonots against their King to supply the Rebel Scots with Men Money Arms and Ammunition upon all occasions and hitherto support those of the Belgick Provinces against the Spaniard Now she receives these last into her protection being reduced at that time unto great Extremities partly by reason of the death of the Prince of Orange and partly in regard of the great Successes of the Prince of Parma In which extremity they offered her the Soveraignty of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland to which they frame for her an unhandsom Title grounded on her descent from Philippa Wife of Edward the third Sister of William the third Earl of Heynalt Holland c. But she not harkning to that offer about the Soveraignty as a thing too invidious and of dangerous consequence cheerfully yeelded to receive them into her protection to raise an Army presently toward their defence consisting of Five thousand Foot and One thousand Horse with Money Ammunition Arms and all other necessaries and finally to put the same Arms so appointed under the Command of some Person of Honour who was to take the charge and trust of so great a Business The Confederates on the other side being very prodigal of that which was none of their own delivered into her hands the Keys of the Countrey that is to say the Towns of Brill and Flushing with the Fort of Ramekins And more then so as soon as the Earl of Leicester came amongst them in the Head of this Army which most ambitiously he affected for some other Ends they put into his hands the absolute Government of these Provinces gave him the Title of His Excellency and generally submitted to him with more outward cheerfulness than ever they had done to the King of Spain It is not to be thought but that the Presbyterian Discipline went on succesfully in those Provinces under this new Governor who having countenanced them in England
against the Laws might very well afford them all his best assistances when Law and Liberty seemed to speak in favour of it But being there was nothing done by them which was more than ordinary as little more than ordinary could be done amongst them after they had betrayed their Countrey to the Power of Strangers We shall leave him to pursue their Warrs and return for England where we shall find the Queen of Scots upon the point of acting the last part of her Tragedy 13. Concerning which it may not be unfit to recapitulate so much of Her story as may conduct us fairly to the knowledg of her present condition Immediately on the death of Queen MARY she had taken on her self the Title and Arms of England which though she did pretend to have been done by the command of her Husband and promised to disclaim them both in the Treaty of Edenborough yet neither were the Arms obliterated in her Plate and Hangings after the death of that Husband nor would she ever ratifie and confirm that Treaty as had been conditioned On this first grudg Queen ELIZABETH furniâ—heth the Scots both with Men and Arms to expel the French affords them such a measure both of Money and Countenance as made them able to take the Field against their Queen to take her Prisoner to depose her and finally to compel her to forsake the Kingdom In which Extremity she lands in Cumberland and casts her self upon the favour of Queen ELIZABETH by whom she was first confined to Carlisle and afterwards committed to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury Upon the death of FRANCIS the Second her first Husband the King of Spain designed her for a Wife to his Eldest Son But the Ambition of the young Prince spurred him on so fast that he brake his Neck in the Career The Duke of Norfolk was too great for a private Subject of a Revenue not inferior to the Crown of Scotland insomuch that the Queen was counselled when she came first to the Throne either to take him for her Husband or to cut him off He is now drawn into the Snare by being tempted to a hope of Marriage with the Captive-Queen which Leicester and the rest who had moved it to him turned to his destruction Don Iohn of Austria Governour of the Netherlands for the King of Spain had the like design that by her Title he might raise himself to the Crown of England To which end he recalled the Spanish Soldiers out of Italy to whose dismission he had yeelded when he first came to that Government and thereby gave Q. ELIZABETH a sufficient colour to aid the Provinces against him But his aspirings cost him deer for he fell soon after The Guisards and the Pope had another project which was To place her first on the Throne of England and then to find an Husband of sufficient Power to maintain her in it For the effecting of which Project the Pope commissionated his Priests and Jesuits and the Guisards employed their Emissaries of the English Nation by Poyson Pistol open Warr or secret practises to destroy the one that so they might advance the other to the Regal Diadem 14. With all these Practises and Designs it was conceived that the Imprisoned Queen could not be ignorant and many strong presumptions were discovered to convict her of it Upon which grounds the Earl of Leicester drew the form of an Association by which he bound himself and as many others as should enter into it To make enquiry against all such persons as should attempt to invade the Kingdom or raise Rebellion or should attempt any evil against the Queen's Person to do her any manner of hurt from or by whomsoever that layed any claim to the Crown of England And that that Person by whom or for whom they shall attempt any such thing shall be altogether uncapable of the Crown shall be deprived of all manner of Right thereto and persecuted to the death by all the Queen 's Loyal Subjects in case they shall be found guilty of any such Invasion Rebellion or Treason and should be so publickly declared Which Band or Association was confirmed in the Parliament of this year ending the 29 th of March Ann. 1585 exceedingly extolled for an Act of Piety by those very men who seemed to abominate nothing more than the like Combination made not long before between the Pope the Spaniard and the House of Guise called the Holy League which League was made for maintenance of the Religion then established in the Realm of France and the excluding of the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde and the rest of the House of Bourbon from their succession to the Crown as long as they continued Enemies to that Religion The Brethren in this case not unlike the Lamiae who are reported to have been stone-blind when they were at home but more than Eagle-sighted when they went abroad Put that they might not trust to their own strength only Queen ELIZABETH tyes the French King to her by investing him with the Robes and Order of St. George called the Garter She draws the King of Scots to unite himself unto her in a League Offensive and Defensive against all the World and under colour of some danger to Religion by that Holy League she brings all the Protestant Princes of Germany to confederate with her 15. And now the Queen of Scots is brought to a publick Tryal accelerated by a new Conspiracy of Babington Tichborn and the rest in which nothing was designed without her privity And it is very strange to see how generally all sorts of people did contribute toward her destruction the English Protestants upon an honest apprehension of the Dangers to which the Person of their Queen was subject by so many Conspiracies the Puritans for fear lest she should bring in Popery again if she came to the Crown the Scots upon the like conceit of over-throwing their Presbyteries and ruinating the whole Machina of their Devices if ever she should live to be Queen of England The Earl of Leicester and his Faction in the Court had their Ends apart which was To bring the Imperial Crown of this Realm by some means or other into the Family of the Dudley's His Father had before designed it by marrying his Son Guilford with the Lady Iane descended from the younger Sister of K. HENRY the Eighth And he projects to set it on the Head of the Earl of Huntington who had married his Sister and looked upon himself as the direct Heir of George Duke of Clarence And that they might not want a Party of sufficient strength to advance their Interest they make themselves the Heads of the Puritan Faction the Earl of Leicester in the Court and the Earl of Huntingdon in the Countrey For him he obtaineth of the Queen the command of the North under the Title of Lord President of the Councel iu York to keep out the Scots and for himself the Conduct
of the English Armies which served in the Low-Countreys to make sure of all He takes a course also to remove the Imprisoned Queen from the Earl of Shrewsbury and commits her to the custody of Paulet and Drury two notorious Puritans though neither of them were so base as to serve his turn when he practised on them to assassinate her in a private way I take no pleasure in recounting the particulars of that Horrid Act by which a Soveraign Queen lawfully Crowned and Anointed was brought to be arraigned before the Subjects of her nearest Kinswoman or how she was convicted by them what Artifices were devised to bring her to the fatal Block or what dissimulations practised to palliate and excuse that Murther 16. All I shall note particularly in this woful story is the behaviour of the Scots I mean the Presbyters who being required by the King to recommend her unto God in their publick Prayers refused most unchristianly so to do except only David Lindesay at Leith and the King 's own Chaplains And yet the Form of Prayer prescribed was no more than this That it might please God to illuminate her with the Light of his Truth and save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast On which default the King appointed solemn Prayers to be made for her in Edenborough on the third of February and nominates the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews to perform that Office Which being understood by the Ministers they stirred up one Iohn Cooper a bold young man and not admitted into Orders of their own conferring to invade the Pulpit before the Bishop had an opportunity to take the place Which being noted by the King he commanded him to come down and leave the Pulpit to the Bishops as had been appointed or otherwise to perform the Service which the Day required To which the sawcy Fellow answered That he would do therein according as the Spirit of God should direct him in it And then perceiving that the Captain of the Guard was coming to remove him thence he told the King with the same impudence as before That this day should be a witness against him in the Great Day of the Lord And then denouncing a Wo to the Inhabitants of Edenborough he went down and the Bishop of St. Andrews entring the Pulpit did the Duty required For which intollerable Affront Cooper was presently commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he took with him Watson and Belcanqual two of the Preachers of Edenborough for his two Supporters Where they behaved themselves with so little reverence that the two Ministers were discharged from preaching in Edenborough and Cooper was sent Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness But so unable was the King to bear up against them that having a great desire that Montgomery Arch-bishop of Glasgow might be absolved from the Censures under which he lay he could no otherwise obtain it than by releasing this Cooper together with Gibson before-mentioned from their present Imprisonment which though it were yeelded to by the King upon condition that Gibson should make some acknowledgment of his Offence in the face of the Church yet after many triflings and much tergiversation he took his flight into England where he became a useful Instrument in the Holy Cause 17. For so it was that notwithstanding the Promise made to Arch-bishop Whitgift by Leicester Walsingham and the rest as before is said they gave such encouragements under-hand to the Presbyterians that they resolved to proceed toward the putting of the Discipline in execution though they received small countenance in it from the Queen and Parliament Nor were those great Persons altogether so unmindful of them as not to entertain their Clamours and promote their Petitions at the Council-Table crossing and thwarting the Arch-bishop whensoever any Cause which concerned the Brethren had been brought before them Which drew from him several Letters to the Lords of the Council each syllable whereof for the great Piety and Modesty which appears in them deserves to have been written in Letters of Gold Now the sum of these Letters as they are laid together by Sir George Paul is as followeth 18. God knows saith he how desirous I have been from time to time to have my doings approved by my ancient and honourable Friends for which cause since my coming to this place I have done nothing of importance against these Sectaries without good Advice I have risen up early and sate up late to yeeld Reasons and make Answer to their Contentions and their Seditious Objections And shall I now say I have lost my labour Or shall my just dealing with disobedient and irregular persons cause my former professed and ancient Friends to hinder my just proceedings and make them speak of my doings yea and of my self what they list Solomon saith An old Friend is better than a new I trust those that love me indeed will not so lightly cast off their old Friends for any of these new-fangled and factious Sectaries whose fruits are to make division and to separate old and assured Friends In my own private Affairs I know I shall stand in need of Friends but in these publick Actions I see no cause why I should seek any seeing they to whom the care of the Commonwealth is committed ought of duty therein to joyn with me And if my honourable Friends shall forsake me especially in so good a Cause and not put their helping-hand to the redress of these Enormities being indeed a matter of State and not of the least moment I shall think my coming unto this Place to have been for my punishment and my hap very hard that when I think to deserve best and in a manner consume my self to satisfie that which God Her Majesty and the Church requireth of me I should be evilly rewarded Sed meliora spero It is objected by some that my desire of Uniformity by way of Subscription is for the better maintenance of my Book They are mine Enemies that say so but I trust my Friends have a better opinion of me Why should I seek for any confirmation of my Book after twelve years approbation Or what shall I get thereby more than already I have Yet if Subscription may confirm it it is confirmed long ago by the Subscription of almost all the Clergy of England before my time Mine Enemies likewise and the slanderous Tongues of this uncharitable Sect report that I am revolted bâ—come a Papist and I know not what But it proceedeth from thâ—â—r Leudness and not from any desert of mine 19. I am further burthened with Wilfulness I hope my Friends are better perswaded of me to whose Consciences I appeal It is strange that a man of my place dealing by so good a warrant as I do should be so encountred and for not yeelding counted Wilful But I must be content Vincit qui patitur There is a difference betwixt Wilfulness and Constancy I have taken upon me by the Place
knowing of what consequence that imployment was and how destructive of his Interest to the Crown of England commanded them by publick Proclamation to avoid the Kingdom But withal gave them day till the last of Ianuary that they might not complain of being taken unprovided Which small Indulgence so offended the unquiet brethren that they called a number of Noble-men Barons and Commissioners of Burgly without so much as asking the King's leave in it to meet at Edenborough on the sixt of February to whom they represented the Churches dangers and thereupon agreed to go all together in a full body to the Court to attend the King to the end that by the terror of so great a company they might work him to their own desires But the King hearing of their purpose refused to give access to so great a multitude but signified withall that he was ready to give audience unto some few of them which should be chosen by the rest But this affront the King was forced to put up also to pass by the unlawfulness of that Convention to acknowledg their grievances to be just and to promise a redress thereof in convenient time Which drew him into Action against Maxwel and some others of the Popish Lords and for the same received the publick thanks of the next Assembly that being no ordinary favour in them and was so far gratified withall as to be suffered to take Mr. Patrick Galloway from his Charge in Perth to be one of the Preachers at the Court. Of which particular I had perhaps took little notice but that we are to hear more of him on some other occasion 37. The next fine pranck they plaid relates to the Crowning of Queen Ann with whom the King landed out of Denmark at the Port of Leith on the 20 th of May 1590. aud designed her Coronation on the morrow after None of the Bishops being at hand the King was willing to embrace the opportunity to oblige the Kirk by making choice of one of their own Brethren to perform that Ceremony to which he nominated Mr. Robert Bruce a Preacher at Edenborough and one of the most moderate men in a whole Assembly But when the fitness of it came to be examined by the rest of the Brethren it was resolved to pretermit the Unction or Annointing of Her as a Iewish Ceremony abolished by Christ restored into Christian Kingdoms by the Pope's Authority and therefore not to be continued in a Church Reformed The Doubt first started by one Iohn Davinson who had then no Charge in the Church though followed by a Company of ignorant and seditious people whom Andrew Melvin set on work to begin the Quarrel and then stood up in his defence to make it good Much pains was taken to convince them by the Word of God That the Unction or Annointing of Kings was no Iewish Ceremony but Melvin's Will was neither to be ruled by Reason nor subdued by Argument and he had there so strong a Party that it passed in the Negative Insomuch that Bruce durst not proceed in the Solemnity for fear of the Censures of the Kirk The King had notice of it and returns this word That if the Coronation might not be performed by Bruce with the wonted Ceremonies he would stay till the coming of the Bishops of whose readiness to conform therein he could make no question Rather than so said Andrew Melvin let the Unction pass better it was that a Minister should perform that honourable Office in what Form soever than that the Bishops should be brought again unto the Court upon that occasion But yet unwilling to prophane himself by consenting to it he left them to agree about it as to them seemed best and he being gone it was concluded by the major part of the Voices That the Annointing should be used According whereunto the Queen was Crowned and Annointed on the Sunday following with the wonted Ceremonies but certainly with no great State there being so short an interval betwixt Her Landing and the appointed day of Her Coronation 38. It was not long before that they had a quarrel with the Lords of the Session touching the Jurisdiction of their several Courts but now the Assembly would be held for the chief Tribunal One Graham was conceived to have suborned a publick Notary to forge an Instrument which the Notary confessed on Examination to have been brought to him ready drawn by one of the said Graham's Brethren Graham enraged thereat enters an Action against Sympson the Minister of Sterling as one who had induced the man by some sinister Practises to make that Confession The Action being entred and the Process formed Sympson complains to the Assembly and they give Order unto Graham to appear before them to answer upon the scandal raised on one of their Brethren Graham appears and tells them That he would make good his Accusation before competent Judges which he conceived not them to be And they replyed That he must either stand to their judgment in it or else be censured for the slander The Lords of the Session hereupon interpose themselves desiring the Assembly not to meddle in a Cause which was then dependent in their Court in due form of Law But the Assembly made this Answer That Sympson was a Member of theirs That they might proceed in the purgation of one of their own number without intrenching on the Jurisdiction of the Civil Courts and therefore that their Lordships should not take it ill if they proceeded in the Tryal But let the Lords of the Session or the Party interested in the Cause say what they pleased the Assembly vote themselves to be Judges in it and were resolved to proceed to a Sentence against him as a false Accuser In fine the business went so high on the part of the Kirk that the Lords of the Session were compelled to think of no other Victory than by making a drawn Battel of it which by the Mediation of some Friends was at last effected 39. The Kirk is now advancing to the highest pitch of her Scotch Happiness in having her whole Discipline that is to say their National and Provincial Assemblies together with their Presbyteries and Parochial Sessions confirmed by the Authority of an Act of Parliament In order whereunto they had ordained in the Assembly held at Edenborough on the 4th of August Anno 1590. That all such as then bore Office in the Kirk or from thenceforth should bear any Office in it should actually subscribe to the Book of Discipline Which Act being so material to our present History deserves to be exemplified verbatim as it stands in the Registers and is this that followeth viz. 40. Forasmuch that it is certain That the Word of God cannot be kept in the own sincerity without the Holy Discipline be had in observance It is therefore by the common consent of the whole Brethren and Commissioners present concluded That whosoever hath born Office in the Ministry of the
Kirk within this Realm or that presently bears or shall hereafter bear Office therein shall be charged by every particular Presbytery where their residence is to subscribe the Heads of the Discipline of the Kirk of their Realm at length set down and allowed by Act of the whole Assembly in the Book of Polity which is registrate in the Assembly-Books and namely the Heads controverted by Enemies of the Discipline of the Reformed Kirk of this Realm betwixt this and the next Synodal Assemblies of the Provinces under the pain of Excommunication to be executed against the Non-subscribers and the Presbyteries which shall be found remiss and negligent herein to receive publick rebuke of the whole Assembly And to the effect the said Discipline may be known as it ought to be to the whole Brethren it is ordained That the Moderator of each Presbytery shall receive from the Clerk of the Assembly a Copy of the said Book under his Subscription upon the Expences of the Presbytery betwixt this and the first day of September next to come under the pain of being openly accused in the face of the whole Assembly 41. This Preparation being made they present their whole desires to the King in the following Parliament convened at Edenborough in the Month of Iune 1592. In which it was proposed 1. That the Acts of Parliament made in the year 1584 against the Discipline of the Kirk and the Liberty thereof should be abrogated and annulled and a Ratification of the Discipline granted whereof they were then in practise 2. That the Act of Annexation should be repealed and restitution made of the Church's Patrimony 3. That the Abbots Priors and other Prelates bearing the Titles of Kirk-men and giving Voices for the Kirk without Power and Commission from the same should not be permitted in time coming to give Voice in Parliament or convene in the Name of the Kirk And 4. That a solid Order might be taken for purging the Realm of Idolatry and Blood wherewith it was miserably polluted On the second and third of these Desires the King took longer time of deliberation as being points of great concernment to Himself and others touching the main of their Estates But He resolved to give them satisfaction in the first and last It was answered therefore to the first part of the last Article That saying of Mass receiving of Iesuits Seminary Priests and Trafficking Papists against the King's Majesty and Religion presently professed should be a just cause to infer the pain of Treason with this Proviso notwithstanding That if the Iesuits and Seminary Priests did satisfie the Prince and the Church the foresaid Penalty should not be laid on the Receivers And to the second part thereof concerning Blood it was answered That the same should be remitted to the Courts of Justice In like manner it was answered to the first branch of their first Proposal That the said Statutes should be no ways prejudicial nor derogatory to the Priviledges that God had given to the spiritual Office-bearer in the Church concerning Heads of Religion matters of Heresie Excommunication Collation or Deprivation of Ministers or any such Ecclesiastical Censures grounded and having warrant of the Word of God But to the second branch thereof he gave his Plenary assent according to the tenor of the Act here following which in regard it contains the sum of all their Projects for life-time then past and the ground of all their Insolencies for the times ensuing it shall not grieve me to subjoyn nor be troublesome to the Reader to pass it over if he have not patience enough to go thorow with it Now the tenor of the said Act is as followeth At the Parliament holden at Edenborough June 5. in the Year of God 1592. 42. Our Soveraign Lord and Estates of this present Parliament following the Laudable and Good Example of their Predecessors hath ratified and approved and by the tenor of this present Act ratifies and approves all Liberties Priviledges Immunities and Freedoms whatsoever given and granted by His Highness his Regents in His Name or any of His Predecessors to the True and Holy Kirk presently established within this Realm and declared in the first Act of His Highness Parliament the 20 th day of Octob. 1579. And all and whatsoever Acts of Parliaments and Statutes made of before by His Highness and His Regents anent the Liberty and Freedom of the said Kirk and specially the first Act of Parliament holden at Edenborough the 24 th of October in the year of God 1581 with the whole particular Acts there mentioned which shall be as sufficient as if the same were here mentioned and all other Acts of Parliament made since in favour of the true Kirk and such like ratifies and approves the general Assemblies appointed by the said Kirk and declares That it shall be lawful to the Kirk and Ministers every year at least or oftner pro re natâ as occasion and necessity shall require to hold and keep general Assemblies providing that the King's Majesty or His Commissioners with Him to be appointed by His Highness be present at ilk general Assembly before the dissolving thereof to nominate and appoint time and place when and where the next general Assembly shall be holden And in case neither His Majesty nor His Commissioners be present for the time in that Town where the next general Assembly is holden then and in that case it shall be lesum to the said general Assembly by themselves to nominate and appoint time and place where the next general Assembly of the Kirk shall be kept and holden as they have been used to do in times by-past And also ratifies and approves the Provincial and Synodal Assemblies to be holden by the said Kirk and Ministers twice ilk year as they have been or presently are in use to do within every Province of this Realm And ratifies and approves these Presbyteries and particular Sessions appointed by the said Kirk with the whole Discipline and Jurisdiction of the same agreed upon by His Majesty in conference had by His Highness with certain of the Ministers convened to that effect of the which Articles the tenour followeth 1. Matters to be intreated in Provincial Assemblies 43. Their Assemblies are constitute for weighty matters necessary to be intreated by mutual consent and assistance of Brethren within the Province as need requires This Assembly hath Power to handle order and redress all things omitted or done amiss in the particular Assemblies It hath Power to depose the Office-bearers of the Province for good and just causes deserving deprivation And generally these Assemblies have the whole Power of the particular Elderships whereof they are collected 2. Matters to be intreated in the Presbyteries The Power of the Presbyteries is To use diligent labours in the bounds committed to their charge that the Kirks be kept in good order To enquire diligently of naughty and ungodly persons and to travel to bring them into the way
again by Admonition or Threatning of God's Judgments or by Correction It appertains to the Eldership to take heed that the Word of God be purely preached within their bounds the Sacraments rightly ministred the Discipline entertained and Ecclesiastical Goods uncorruptly distributed It belongeth to this kind of Assemblies To cause the Ordinances made by the Assemblies Provincial National and general to be kept and put in execution To make Constitutions which concern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Kirk for decent Order in the particular Kirk where they govern providing that they alter no Rules made by the Provincial and General Assemblies and that the Provincial Assemblies aforesaid be privy to the Rules that they shall make and to abolish Constitutions tending to the hurt of the same It hath power to excommunicate the obstinate formal process being had and due interval of times observed Anent particular Kirks if they be lawfully ruled by sufficient Ministers and Session they have Power and Jurisdiction in their own Congregation in matters Ecclesiastical and decrees and declares the Assemblies Presbyteries and Sessions-Jurisdiction and Discipline aforesaid to be in all times coming most just good and godly in it self notwithstanding whatsoever Statutes Acts Canons Civil and Municipal Laws made to the contrary to which and every one of them these Presents shall make express derogation 44. And because there are divers Acts of Parliament made in favour of the Papistical Church tending to the prejudice of the Liberty of the true Kirk of God presently professed within this Realm Jurisdiction and Discipline thereof which stand yet in the Books of the Acts of Parliament not abrogated nor annulled Therefore His Highness and Estates foresaid hath abrogated casted and annulled and by the tenour hereof abrogates casts and annuls all Acts of Parliament made by any of His Highness Predecessors for maintenance of Superstition and Idolatry with all and whatsoever Acts Laws and Statutes made at any time before the day and date hereof against the Liberty of the true Kirk Jurisdiction and Discipiline thereof as the same is used and exercised within this Realm And in special that Act of Parliament holden at Sterling the 4 th of November 1543 commanding obedience to be given to Eugenius the Pope for the time the Act made by K. Iames the 3d in His Parliament holden at Edenborough the 24 th of February in the year of God 1480. And all other Acts whereby the Pope's Authority is established The Act of the said King Iames in his Parliament holden at Edenborough the 20 th of November 1469 anent the Saturday and other Vigils to be Holy-day from Even-song to Even-song Item That part of the Act made by the Queen-Regent holden at Edenborough the first day of February 1551 giving specially License for holding of of Pasch and Zuil 45. And further the King's Majesty and Estates aforesaid declare That the 129 th Act of Parliament holden at Edenborough the 22 d of May in the year of God 1584 shall no ways be prejudicial or derogate any thing from the Priviledg that God hath given the Spiritual Office-bearers in the Kirk concerning Heads of Religion Matters of Heresie Excommunication Collation or Deprivation of Ministers or any such like Ecclesiastical Censures specially grounded and having warrant of the Word of God Item Our Soveraign Lord and Estates of Parliament foresaid abrogates casts and annihilates the Acts of the same Parliament holden at Edenborough the same year 1584 granting Commission to Bishops and other Judges constitute in Ecclesiastical Causes to receive His Highness Presentation to Benefices to give Collation thereupon and to put Order to all Causes Ecclesiastical which His Majesty and Estates foresaid declares to be expired in the self and to be null in time coming of none avail force or effect And therefore ordains all Presentations to Benefices to be direct to the particular Presbyteries in all time coming with full Power to give Collation thereupon and to put Order to all Matters and Causes Ecclesiastical within their bounds according to the Discipline of the Kirk Providing the foresaid Presbyters be bound and astricted to receive and admit whatsoever qualified Minister presented by His Majesty or Laick Patrons 46. Such was the Act by which the Presbyterian Discipline was setled in the Kirk of Scotland They had given Him trouble enough before when they had no authority of Law to confirm their actions But now He must expect much more and they will see His expectation satisfied to the very full So that it may be much admired that He yeelded to it the rather in regard the Reasons of it are not certainly known nor very easie to be guessed at Whether it were that he were not well enough informed touching the low condition which the English Puritans were at this time brought to or that He stood so much in fear of the Earl of Bothwell whose treacherous practises threatned Him with continual danger that He was under a necessity of conforming to them for His own preservation or that He thought it His best way to let them have their own Wills and pursue their own Counsels till they had wearied both themselves and the rest of the Subjects by the misgovernment of that Power which He had given them or whether it were all or none of these it is hard to say Nor is it less to be admired that the Nobility of Scotland who had found the weight of that heavy yoke in the times fore-going should take it so easily on their necks and not joyn rather with the King to cast it off But they had gotten most of the Church-Lands into their possession and thought it a greater piece of wisdom to let the Presbytery over-top them in their several Consistories than that the Bishops Deans and Chapters or any other who pretended unto their Estates should be restored again to their Power and Places and thereby brought to a capacity of contending with them for their own In which respect they yeelded also to another Act against the everting of Church-Lands and Tenths into Temporal Lordships for To what purpose should they strive for such empty Titles as added little to their profit and not much to their pleasures There also passed some other Acts which seemed much to favour both the Kirk and the Kirk-men as namely For the ratification of a former Act 1587 in favour of the Ministers their Rents and Stipends for enabling Lay-Patrons to dispose of their Prebendaries and Chaplinaries unto Students and that no Benefices with Cure pay any Thirds There passed another Act also which concerned the Glebes and Manses in Cathedral Churches preserved of purpose by the King though they thought not of it that when he found it necessary to restore Episcopacy the Bishops might find Houses and other fit Accommodations near their own Cathedrals 47. Thus have the Presbyterians gained two Acts of great importance The one for setling their Presbyteries in all parts of the Kingdom The other for repressing all
to go off with credit he prepares for Ireland But long he had not dwelt on his new Preferment when either he proved too hot for the Place or the Countrey by reason of the following Warrs grew too hot for him Which brought him back again to England where he lived to a very great age in a small Estate more comfortably than before because less troublesome to the Church than he had been formerly 18. Thus have we seen Travers taken off and Beza quieted nor was it long before Cartwright was reduced to a better temper But first it was resolved to try all means for his delivery both at home and abroad Abroad they held intelligence with their Brethren in the Kirk of Scotland by means of Penry here and of Gibson there two men as fit for their Designs as if they had been made of purpose to promote the Mischief Concerning which thus Gibson writes in one of his Letters to Coppinger before remembred whereby it seems that he was privy to his practices also The best of our Ministers saith he are most careful of your estate and had sent for that effect a Preacher of ours the last Summer of purpose to confer with the best affected of your Church to lay down a plot how our Church might best travel for your relief The Lord knows what care we have of you both in our publick and private Prayers c. For as feeling-members of one body we reckon the affliction of your Church to be our own This showed how great they were with child of some good Affections but there wanted strength to be delivered of the Burthen They were not able to raise Factions in the Court of England as Queen ELIZABETH had done frequently on their occasions in the Realm of Scotland All they could do was to engage the King in mediating with the Queen in behalf of Cartwright Vdal and some others of the principal Brethren then kept in Prison for their contumacy in refusing the Oath And they prevailed so far upon Him who was not then in a condition to deny them any thing as to direct some Lines unto Her in this tenour following 19. RIght Excellent High and Mighty Princess Our dearest Sister and Cousin in Our heartiest manner We recommend Us unto You. Hearing of the Apprehension of Master Vdal and Master Cartwright and certain other Ministers of the Evangel within Your Realm of whose good Erudition and Faithful Travels in the Church We hear a very credible commendation however that their diversity from the Bishops and other of Your Clergy in matters touching their Conscience hath been a mean by their delation to work them your misliking at this time We cannot weighing the Duty which We owe to such as are afflicted for their Conscience in that Profession but by Our most effectuous and earnest Letter interpone Us at Your Hands to stay any harder usage of them for that cause Requesting You most earnestly That for Our Cause and Intercession it may please You to let them be relieved of their present Strait and whatsoever further Accusation or Pursuit depending upon that ground respecting both their former Merit in setting forth the Evangel the simplicity of their Conscience in this Defence which cannot well be their Lett by Compulsion and the great slander which would not fail to fall out upon their further straitning for any such occasion Which We assure Us Your Zeal to Religion besides the expectation We have of Your good will to pleasure Us will willingly accord to Our Request having such proofs from time to time of Our like disposition to You in any matter which You recommend unto Us. And thus Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Princess Our dear Sister and Cousin We commit You to God's Protection Edenborough Iune 12. 1591. 20. This Letter was presented to the Queen by the hands of one Iohnson a Merchant of that Nation then remaining in London But it produced not the Effect which the Brethren hoped for For the Queen looked upon it as extorted rather by the importunity of some which were then about Him than as proceeding from Himself who had no reason to be too indulgent unto those of that Faction This Project therefore not succeeding they must try another and the next tryal shall be made on the High Commission by the Authority whereof Cartwright and Snape and divers others were committed Prisoners If this Commission could be weakned and the Power thereof reduced to a narrower compass the Brethren might proceed securely in the Holy Discipline the Prisoners be released and the Cause established And for the questioning thereof they took this occasion One Caudreys Parson of North-Luffengham in the County of Rutland had been informed against about four years since in the High Commission for preaching against the Book of Common-Prayer and refusing to celebrate Divine Service according to the Rules and Rubricks therein prescribed For which upon sufficient proof he was deprived of his Benefice by the Bishop of London and the rest of the Queen's Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes Four years together he lay quiet without acting any thing against the Sentence of the Court But now it was thought by some of those Lawyers whom Travers had gained unto the side to question the Authority of that Commission and consequently the illegality of his Deprivation In Hillary Term Anno 1591 the Cause was argued in the Exchequer Chamber by all the Judges according to the usual custom in all cases of the like importance and it was argued with great Learning as appears by the sum and substance of their several Arguments drawn up by Coke then being the Queen's Sollicitor-General and extant amongst the rest of his Reports both in English and Latin inscribed De Iure Regis Ecclesiastico but known most commonly by the name of Cawdrey's Case In the debating of which Point the Result was â—his That the Statute of 10 of the Queen for restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction c. was not to be accounted introductory of a new Authority which was not in the Crown before but only declaratory of an old which naturally and originally did belong to all Christian Princes and amongst others also to the Kings of England For proof whereof there wanted not sufficient evidence in our English Histories as well as in some old Records of unquestioned Credit exemplifying the continual practise of the Kings of England before and since the Norman Conquest in ordering and directing matters which concerned the Church In which they ruled sometimes absolutely without any dispute and sometimes relatively in reference to such opposition as they were to make against the Pope and all Authority derived from the See of Rome 21. Against this Case so solidly debated and so judiciously drawn up when none of the Puritan Professors could make any Reply Parsons the Iesuit undertook it but spent more time in searching out some contrary Evidence which might make for the Pope than in disproving that
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
City of Embden and afterwards in all places under his command prohibiting the exercise of all Religion but the Lutheran only Which Prohibition notwithstanding some Anabaptists from the Neighbouring Westphalia found way to plant themselves in Embden where liberty of Trade was freely granted to all comers which allured thither also many Merchants and Artificers with their Wives and Families out of the next-adjoining Provinces of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland then subject to the King of Spain Who being generally Calvinians in point of Doctrine were notwithstanding suffered to plant there also in regard of the great benefit which accrued unto it by their Trade and Manufactures But nothing more encreased the Power and Wealth of that City than the Trade of England removed from Antwerp thither on occasion of the Belgick Troubles and the great fear they had conceived of the Duke of Alva who seemed to breathe nothing but destruction unto their Religion And though the English Trade was removed not long after unto Hambourgh upon the hope of greater Priviledges and Immunities than they had at Embden yet still they kept a Factory in it which added much to the improvement of their Wealth and Power insomuch that the Inhabitants of this Town only are affirmed to have Sixty Ships of One hundred Tun a-piece and Six hundred lesser Barks of their own besides Seven hundred Busses and Fishing Boats maintained for the most part by their Herring-fishing on the Coast of England 44. Having attained unto this Wealth they grew proud withall and easily admitting the Calvinian Doctrines began to introduce also the Genevian Discipline connived at by Ezardus the second the Son of Enno in respect of the profit which redounded by them to his Exchequer though they began to pinch upon him to the diminution of his Power In which condition it remained till his marriage with Catharine the Daughter of Gustavus Ericus King of Sweden who being zealously addicted to the Lutheran Forms and sensible of those great Incroachments which had been made upon the Earl's Temporal Jurisdiction by the Consistorians perswaded him to look better to his own Authority and to regain what he had lost by that Connivence Something was done for the recovering of his Power but it went on slowly hoping to compass that by time and dissimulation which he could not easily obtain by force of Arms. After whose death and the short Government of Enno the second the matter was more stoutly followed by Rodolphus the Nephew of Catharine who did not only curb the Consistorians in the exercise of their Discipline but questioned many of those Priviledges which the unwariness of his Predecessors had indulged unto them The Calvinians had by this time made so strong a Party that they were able to remonstrate against their Prince complaining in the same That the Earl had violated their Priviledges and infringed their Liberties That he had interposed his Power against Right and Reason in matters which concerned the Church and belonged to the Consistory That he assumed unto himself the Power of distributing the Alms or publick Collections by which they use to bind the poor to depend upon them That he prohibited the exercise of all Religions except only the Confession of Ausberg And that he would not stand to the Agreement which was made betwixt them for interdicting all Appeals to the Chamber of Spires Having prepared the way by this Remonstrance they take an opportunity when the Earl was absent arm themselves and seize by force upon his Castle demolished part of it which looks toward the Town and possest themselves of all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition with an intent hereafter to employ them against him And this being done they govern all Affairs in the Name of the Senate without relation to their Prince making themselves a Free-Estate or Commonwealth like their Belgick Neighbours 45. Extreamly moved with this affront and not being able otherwise to reduce them to a sense of their duty he borrows Men and Arms from Lubeck to compel them to it With which assistance he erects a Fort on the further side of the Haven to spoil their Trade and by impoverishing the people to regain the Town The Senate hereupon send abroad their Edicts to the Nobility and Commons of East-Friesland it self requiring them not to aid their own lawful Prince with Men Arms or Money threatning them if they did the contrary to stop the course of all Provisions which they had from their City and by breaking down their Dams and Sluces to let the Ocean in upon them and drown all their Countrey Which done they make their Applications to the States of Holland requiring their assistance in that common Cause to which they had been most encouraged by their Example not doubting of their Favour to a City of their own Religion united to them by a long intercourse of Trade and resemblance of Manners and not to be deserted by them without a manifest betraying of their own Security All this the States had under their consideration But they consider this withall That if they should assist the Embdeners in a publick way the Earl would presently have recourse for some aid from the Spaniard which might draw a Warr upon them on that side where they lay most open Therefore they so contrived the matter with such Art and Cunning that carrying themselves no otherwise than as Arbiters and Umpires between the Parties they discharged some Companies of Soldiers which they had in West-Friesland who presently put themselves into the Pay of the Embdens and thereby caused the Earl to desist from his Intrenchments on the other side of the Haven After which followed nothing but Warrs and Troubles between the City and the Earl till the year 1606. At what time by the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some other Honourable Friends the differences were compromised to this effect That all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition which were found in the Castle should be restored unto the Earl That he should have to his own use the whole Profit of the Imposts which were laid on Wine and half the benefit of those Amercements or Fines which should be raised upon Delinquents together with the sole Royalties both of Fishing and Hunting And on the other side That the Embdeners should have free Trade with all the Profits and Emoluments belonging to it which should be granted to them by Letters Patents But for admitting him to any part of the Publick Government or making restitution of his House or Castles the ancient Seat of his abode as there was nothing yeelded or agreed on then so could he never get possession of them from that time to this Which said we must cross over again into the Isle of Brittain where we shall find the English Puritans climbing up by some new devices and the Scottish Presbyterians tumbling down from their former height till they were brought almost to as low a fall as their English Brethren AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
Noble Lord command is given unto the Provost of Edenborough To attach the Ministers But they had notice of his purpose and escape into England making Newcastle their retreat as in former times 25. It is a true saying of the wise Historian That every Insurrection of the people when it is suppressed doth make the Prince stronger and the Subject weaker And this the King found true in his own particular The Citizens of Edenborough being pinched with the Proclamation and the removal of the Court and the Courts of Justice offered to purge themselves of the late Sedition and tendred their obedience unto any thing whatsoever which his Majesty and the Council should be pleased to enjoyn whereby they might repair the huge Indignity which was done to his Majesty provided that they should not be thought guilty of so great a Crime which from their hearts they had detested But the King answers That he would admit of no purgation that he would make them know that he was their King And the next day proclaims the Tumult to be Treason and proclaims all for Traytors who were guilty of it This made them fear their utter ruine to be near at hand The ordinary Judicatories were removed to Leith the Sessions ordained to be held at Perth their Ministers were fled their Magistrates without regard and none about the King but their deadly Enemies And to make up the full measure of their disconsolation Counsel is given unto the King to raze the Town and to erect a Pillar in the place thereof for a perpetual Monument of so great an Insolence But he resolves to travel none but Legal ways and being somewhat sweetned by a Letter from the Queen of England he gives command unto the Provost and the rest of the Magistrates to enter their persons at Perth on the first of February there to keep ward until they either were acquitted or condemned of the former uproar Whilst things remained in this perplexity and suspence he is advised to make his best use of the conjuncture for setling matters of the Church and to establish in it such a decent Order as was agreeable to God's Word To which end he appoints a National-Assembly to be held at Perth and prepares certain Queries fifty five in number to be considered and debated in the said Assembly all of them tending to the rectifying of such Abuses which were either crept into the Discipline or occasioned by it Nothing so much perplexed the principal Ministers who had the leading of the rest as that the Discipline should be brought under a dispute which they had taught to be a part of the Word of God But they must sing another Tune before all be ended 26. For the King having gained a considerable Party amongst the Ministers of the North and treated with many of the rest in several whom he thought most tractable prevailed so far on the Assembly that they condescend at the last upon many particulars which in the pride of their prosperity had not been required The principal of which were these viz. That it should be lawful to his Majesty by himself or his Commissioners or to the Pastors to propone in a general Assembly whatsoever point he or they desired to be resolved in or reformed in matters of External Government alterable according to Circumstances providing it be done in right time and place Animo aedificandi non tentandi 2. That no Minister should reprove his Majesty's Laws and Statutes Acts or Ordinances until such time as he hath first by the advice of his Presbytery or Synodal or General Assemblies complained and sought remedy of the same from his Majesty and made report of his Majesty's Answer before any further proceedings 3. That no man's Name should be expressed in the Pulpit except the Fault be notorious and publick and so declared by an Assize Excommunication Contumace and lawful Admonition nor should he be described so plainly by any other Circumstances than publick Vices always damnable 4. That in all great Towns the Ministers shall not be chosen without his Majesty's consent and the consent of the Flock 5. That no matter of Slander should be called before them wherein his Majesty's Authority is pre-judged Causes Ecclesiastical only excepted 6. And finally That no Conventions shall be amongst Pastors without his Majesty's knowledg except their Sessions Presbyteries and Synods the Meetings at the Visitation of Churches admission or deprivation of Ministers taking up of deadly Feuds and the like which had not already been found fault with by his Majesty According to which last Artiele the King consents unto another general Assembly to be held at Dundee and nominates the tenth of May for the opening of it 27. It was about this time that Dr. Richard Bancroft Bishop of London began to run a constant course of Correspondence with the King of Scots whom he beheld as the undoubted Heir and Successor of the Queen then Reigning And well considering how conducible it was to the Peace of both Kingdoms that they should both be governed in one Form of Ecclesiastical Policy he chalked him out a ready way by which he might restore Episcopacy to the Kirk of Scotland To which end as the King had gained the liberty in the last Assembly to question and dispute the Government then by Law established and gained a power of nominating Ministers in the principal Cities so in the next they gratified him in this point That no man should from thenceforth exercise a Minister without having a particular Flock nor be admitted to that Flock without Ordination by the Imposition of hands He required also in the same That before the conclusion of any weighty matter his Highness Advice and Approbation should be first obtained And so far they consented to the Proposition as to express how glad they were to have his Majesty's Authority interposed to all Acts of importance which concerned the Church so as matters formerly concluded might not be drawn in question He gained some other points also in the same Assembly no less important than the other towards his Design as namely 1. That no Minister shall exercise any Iurisdiction either by making of Constitutions or leading of Processes without advice and concurrence of his Session Presbytery Synod or General Assembly 2. That Presbyteries shall not meddle with any thing that is not known without all controversie to belong to the Ecclesiastical Iudicatory and that therein Vniformity should be observed throughout the Countrey And 3. That where any Presbyteries shall be desired by his Majesty's Missive to stay their proceedings as being prejudicial to the Civil Iurisdiction or private men's Rights they should desist until his Majesty did receive satisfaction But that which made most toward his purpose was the appointing of Thirteen of their number to attend his Majesty as the Commissioners of the Kirk whom we may call the High Commissioners of Scotland the King 's Ecclesiastical Council the Seminary of the future Bishops to whom
some always of that number present to give voice in the name of the Church It was agreed also That so many should be appointed to have voice in Parliament as there had been Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots and Priors in the times of Popery Which coming to the number of Fifty or thereabouts gave every Minister some hopes to be one of that number It was resolved also That the Election of the Persons should belong partly to the King and in part to the Church But as for the manner of the Election the Rents to be assigned unto them and their continuance in that Trust for life or otherwise these points were left to be considered of at better leisure 31. For the dispatch whereof with the more conveniency it was appointed That the matter should be first debated in each Presbytery and afterwards in Provincial Synods to be holden all upon one day that to be the first Tuesday of Iune three men to be selected out of every Synod to attend the King and they together with the Doctors of the Universities to conclude the business with reference notwithstanding to the approbation of the next Assembly Accordingly they meet in Synods and appoint their Delegates who being called to Falkland in the end of Iuly did then and there conclude upon these particulars first for the manner of Elections That for each Prelacy that was void the Church should nominate six persons and the King chuse one and that if his Majesty should like none of that number six others should be named by the Church of which his Majesty was to chuse one without more refusal Next for the Rents That the Churches being sufficiently planted and no prejudice done to Schools Colledges and Universities already erected he should be put into possession of the rest of that Prelacy to which he was to be preferred As to the term of his continuance in that trust there was nothing done that point being left unto the consideration of the next Assembly And for the naming of the Child the God-fathers agreed that he should be called the Commissaire or Commissioner of such a place if the Parliament could be induced by his Majesty to accept that Title or else the General Assembly to devise some other But fearing lest this Commissaire might in time become a Bishop it was resolved to tye him up to such Conditions as should disable him from aspiring above the rest of his Brethren But more particularly it was cautioned and agreed upon That he should propound nothing in the Name of the Church without express warrant from the same nor give consent to any thing proposed in Parliament which tended to the diminution of the Liberties of it That he should be bound to give an account of his proceedings to the next General Assembly and to submit himself to their judgment in it without any Appeal That he should faithfully attend his particular Flock and be as subject to the Censure of his own Presbytery or Provincial Synod as any other Minister which had no Commission That in the Administration of Discipline Collation of Benefices Visitation and other points of Ecclesiastical Government he should neither usurp nor claim to himself any more Power and Jurisdiction than the rest of his Brethren That if he shall usurp any part of Ecclesiastical Government the Presbytery Synod or General Assembly protesting against it whatsoever he should do therein shall be null and void That if he chance to be deposed from the Ministry by the Presbytery Synod or Assembly he should not only lose his Place and Vote in Parliament but the Prelacy should be also voided for another man And finally That he should subscribe to all these Cautions before he was admitted to his Place and Trust. 32. In the Assembly of Montross which began on the 28 th of March Anno 1599 these Cautions were approved and two new ones added 1. That they who had voice in Parliament should not have place in the General Assembly unless they were authorised by a Commission from the Presbyteries whereof they were Members 2. That Crimen Ambitur or any sinister endeavours to procure the Place should be a sufficient reason to deprive him of it As for the term of their continuance in this Trust the Leading-members were resolved not to make it certain and much less to endure for term of life all they would yeeld unto was this That he who was admitted unto that Commission should yearly render an account of his Employment to the next General Assembly That he should lay down his Commission at the feet thereof to be continued if they pleased or otherwise to give place unto any other whom his Majesty and the said â—sâ—embly should think fit to employ To all which Cautions and Restrictions the King was willing to consent that so the business might proceed without interruption not doubting but to find a way at some time or other in which these Rigors might be moderated and these Chains knocked off Nothing now rested but the nominating of some able persons to possess those Prelacies which either were vacant at that time or actually in the King 's disposing The Bishopricks of St. Andrews and Glascow had been given or sold to the Duke of Lenox the Bishoprick of Murray to the Lord of Spinie and that of Orkney to the Earl which must be first compounded with before the King would nominate any man to either of them The Sands of Galloway and the Isles were so delapidated that there was nothing left to maintain a Prelate and therefore must be first endowed The Sees of Aberdeen and Argile had their Bishops living both of them being actual Preachers and those of Brechen Dunkeld and Dumblane had their Titulars also but no Preaching-Ministers So as there were but two Churches to be filled at the present that is to say the Bishopricks of Rothes and Cathness to which the King presents Mr. David Lindesay Minister of Leith and Mr. George Gladstaves one of the Ministers of St. Andrews of whose sobriety and moderation he had good experience Which two enjoyed their places in the following Parliament and rode together with the rest in the Pomps thereof 33. Thus far the business went on smoothly in the outward shew but inwardly were great thoughts of heart which first appeared in words of Danger and Discontent and afterwards in acts of the highest Treason The Leading-members of the Kirk which had so long enjoyed an Arbitrary Power in all parts of the Realm could with no patience brook the Limitations which were put upon them in the Assembly at Dundee and much less able to endure that such a fair Foundation should be laid for Episcopacy which must needs put a final end to their Pride and Tyranny of which sort was a Letter writ by Davidson to the next Assembly In which he thus expostulates with the rest of his Brethren How long shall we fear or favour Flesh and Blood and follow the Counsel and Command
Street cryed out so loud that he was heard by all the Lords and Gentlemen of his Retinue who thereupon prepared themselves for his assistance In the pursuit whereof the Earl himself is killed by Eveskin as he was making haste to help his Brother and Alexander is dispatched by Ramsey one of the King's Pages who being acquainted with the House came by the back-stairs time enough to preserve his Master Of this great Danger and Deliverance the King gives notice to all his Subjects desiring them to joyn with him in thanks to Almighty God for so great a Mercy which was accordingly performed by all honest men but the whole Story disbelieved discredited mis-reported by the Presbyterians whom it concerned to wash their hands of so foul a Treason And how far they were Parties in it or at least well-wishers to it may appear by this That when the Ministers of Edenborough were desired to convene their people and give God thanks for this deliverance of the King they excused themselves as not being well acquainted with all particulars And when it was replyed unto them That they were only required to make known to the people That the King had escaped a great Danger and to excite them to Thansgiving for his deliverance They answered That they were not very well satisfied in the truth of the matter That nothing was to be delivered in the Pulpit the truth whereof was not certainly known and that they were to utter nothing in that place but that which migh be spoke in Faith On which Refusal it was ordered by the Lords of the Council That the people should be drawn together into the Market-place That the Bishop of Ross should make a Declaration of the whole Design and therewithall conceive a Prayer of Thanksgiving for the King's Deliverance Which was performed on his part with a true affection and entertained by the people with great joy and gladness 37. But the whole Nation was not so besotted by the Presbyterians as either to dispute the Story or despise the Mercy Which wrought so far upon the Consciences of all honest men that in a Parliament held at Edenborough in November following the Estate of Goury was confiscate his Sons disherited the Name of Ruthen utterly abolished but the last dispenced with the bodies of the two Brothers brought to Edenborough there hanged and quartered the Heads of both being fixed upon the top of the Common Prison and finally The Fifth of August ordained by Act of Parliament for a Day of Thanksgiving in all times succeeding The like done also two years after at a General Assembly of the Ministers of the Church held in Haly-Rood-House as to the Day of Thanksgiving which they decreed to be kept solemnly from thenceforth in all the Churches of that Kingdom And it was well they did it then the King not venturing the Proposal to them in the year fore-going when they assembled at Burnt-Island whether in reference to some indisposition of Body which he found in himself or rather of some greater indisposition of Mind which he found in them But now it went clearly for him without contradiction as did some other things propounded to their consideration His Ey now looks unto the Crown of England and he resolved to bring the Churches of both Kingdoms to an Uniformity but so to do it as might make neither noise nor trouble The solemnizing of Marriage had been prohibited on Sundays by the Rules of the Discipline but by an Order made in the present Assembly it was indifferently permitted on all days alike Sundays as well as other days at the will of the Parties Before this time the Sacrament of Baptism was not administred but only at the times of Preaching on some opinion which they had of the indifferency or at the least the non-necessity thereof But now it was ordained with a joynt consent That the Ministers should not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to Infants nor delay the same upon whatsoever pretext the same being required by the Parents or others in their name Which brought them two steps nearer to the Church of England than before they were 38. It was not long after the end of this Assembly when the King received Intelligence of Queen Elizabeth's death and of the general acknowledgment of his Succession both by Peers and People This puts him on a preparation for a Journey to England where he is joyfully received and found no small contentment in the change of his Fortunes here sitting amongst Grave Learned and Reverend men not as before a King without State without Honour without Order where Beardless Boys would every day brave him to his face where Jack and Tom and Will and Dick did at their pleasures cenâ—â—re the proceedings of him and his Council where Will stood up and said he would have it thus and Dick replied Nay marry but it shall be so as he describes their carriage in the Conference at Hampton-Court p. 4. and 80. So leaves he Scotland and the Puritans there with this Character of them recorded in the Preface of his Book called Basilicon Doron in which he paints them out as people which refusing to be called Anabaptists too much participated of their Humours not only agreeing with them in their General Rule the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams Imaginations and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that agree not to their Fancies in making for every particular Question of the Polity of the Church as much Commotion as if the Article of the Trinity was called in question in making the Scripture to be ruled by their Conscience and not their Conscience by the Scripture in accounting every body Ethnicus Publicanus not worthy to enjoy the benefit of breathing much less to participate with them in the Sacraments that denies the least jot of their Grounds and in suffering King People Law and all to be trod under foot before the least jot of their Grounds be impugned in preferring such Holy Warrs to an Vngodly Peace not only in resisting Christian Princes but denying to pray for them for Prayer must come by Faith and it is not revealed that God will bear their Prayers for such a Prince To which He adds this Clause in the Book it self viz. That they used commonly to tell the people in their Sermons That all Kings and Princes were naturally Enemies to the Liberty of the Church and could never patiently bear the Yoak of Christ. And thereupon he gives this Counsel to the Prince To take heed all of such Puritans whom he calls the very Pests of the Church and Commonwealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind breathing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations the square of their Conscience protesting before the Great God That he should never find in any Highlander baser Thieves greater Ingratitude and more Lyes and vile
Perjuries than amongst those Fanatical spirits he should meet withall 39. But on the contrary he tells us of the Church of England at his first coming thither That he found that Form of Religion which was established under Queen ELIZABETH of famous memory by the Laws of the Land to have been blessed with a most extraordinary Peace and of long continuance which he beheld as a strong evidence of God's being very well pleased with it He tells us also That he could find no cause at all on a full debate for any Alteration to be made in the Common-Prayer-Book though that most impugned that the Doctrines seemed to be sincere the Forms and Rites to have been justified out of the Practise of the Primitive Church And finally he tells us That there was nothing in the same which might not very well have been born withall if either the Adversaries would have made a reasonable construction of them or that his Majesty had not been so nice or rather jealous as himself confesseth for having all publick Forms in the Service of God not only to be free from all blame but from any suâ—spition For which consult his Proclamation of the fifth of March before the Book of Common-Prayer And herewith he declared himself so highly pleased that in the Conference at Hampton-Court he entred into a gratulation to Almighty God for bringing him into the Promised Land so he pleased to call it where Religion was purely profest the Government Ecclesiastical approved by manifold blessings from God himself as well in the encrease of the Gospel as in a glorious and happy Peace and where he had the happiness to sit amongst Grave and Learned men and not to be a King as elsewhere he had been without State without Honour without Order as before was said And this being said we shall proceed unto the rest of our Story casting into the following Book all the Successes of the Puritans or Presbyterians in his own Dominions during the whole time of his Peaceful Government and so much also of their Fortunes in France and Belgium as shall be necessary to the knowledg of their future Actings AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XI Containing Their Successes whether good or bad in England Scotland Ireland and the Isle of Jersey from the Year 1602 to the Year 1623 with somewhat touching their Affairs as well in France and Sweden as the Belgick Provinces 1. THE Puritans and Presbyterians in both Kingdoms were brought so low when King IAMES first obtained the Crown of England that they might have been supprest for ever without any great danger if either that King had held the Rains with a constant hand or been more fortunate in the choice of his Ministers after the old Councellors were worn out than in fine he proved But having been kept to such hard meats when he lived in Scotland he was so taken with the Delicacies of the English Court that he abandoned the Severities and Cares of Government to enjoy the Pleasures of a Crown Which being perceived by such as were most near unto him it was not long before the Secret was discovered to the rest of the people who thereupon resolved to husband all occasions which the times should give them to their best advantage But none conceived more hopes of him than some Puritan Zealots who either presuming on his Education in the Kirk of Scotland or venturing on the easiness of his Disposition began to intermit the use of the Common-Prayer to lay aside the Surplice and neglect the Ceremonies and more than so to hold some Classical and Synodical Meetings as if the Laws themselves had dyed when the Queen expired But these Disorders he repressed by his Proclamation wherein he commanded all his Subjects of what sort soever not to innovate any thing either in Doctrine or Discipline till he upon mature deliberation should take order in it 2. But some more wary than the rest refused to joyn themselves to such forward Brethren whose Actions were interpreted to savour stronger of Sedition than they did of Zeal And by these men it was thought better to address themselves by a Petition to His Sacred Majesty which was to be presented to him in the name of certain Ministers of the Church of England desiring Reformation of sundry Ceremonies and Abuses Given out to be subscribed by a thousand hands and therefore called the Millenary Petition though there wanted some hundreds of that number to make up the sum In which Petition deprecating first the imputation of Schism and Faction they rank their whole Complaints under these four heads that is to say The Service of the Church Church-Ministers the Livings and Maintenance of the Church and the Discipline of it In reference to the first the Publick Service of the Church it was desired That the Cross in Baptism Interrogatories ministred to Infants and Confirmations as superfluous might be taken away That Baptism might not be administred by Women That the Cap and Surplice might not be urged That Examination might go before the Communion and that it be not administred without a Sermon That the terms of Priest and Absolution with the Ring in Marriage and some others might be corrected That the length of Service might be abridged Church-Songs and Musick moderated And that the Lord's Day be not prophaned nor Holy-days so strictly urged That there might be an Uniformity of Doctrine prescribed That no Popish Opinion be any more taught or defended That Ministers might not be charged to teach their people to bow at the Name of Iesus And that the Canonical Scriptures be only read in the Church 3. In reference to Church-Ministers it was propounded That none hereafter be admitted into the Ministry but Able and Sufficient men and those to preach diligently especially upon the Lord's Day but such as be already entred and cannot preach may either be removed and some charitable course taken with them for their Relief or else to be forced according to the value of their Livings to maintain Preachers That Non-residency be not permitted That K. Edward's Statute for the lawfulness of Ministers marriage might be revived That Ministers might not be urged to subscribe but according to the Law the Articles of Religion and the King's Supremacy It was desired also in relation to the Church's Maintenance That Bishops might leave their Commendams some holding Prebends some Parsonages some Vicaridges with their Bishopricks That double-beneficed men might not be suffered to hold some two some three Benefices and as many Dignities That Impropriations annexed to Bishopricks and Colledges be demised only to the Preachers Incumbents for the old Rent That the Impropriations of Lay-men's Fee may be charged with a sixth or seventh part of the worth to the maintenance of a Preaching-Minister And finally in reference to the execution of the Church's Discipline it was humbly craved That the Discipline and Excommunication might be administred according to Christ's own Institution or at the
least that Enormities might be redressed as namely That Excommunication might not come forth under the name of Lay-persons Chancellors Officials c. That men be not excommunicated for Trifles and Twelve-penny matters That none be excommunicated without consent of his Pastors That the Officers be not suffered to extort unreasonable Fees That none having Jurisdiction or a Register's Place put the same to Farm That divers Popish Canons as for restraint of Marriage at certain times be reversed That the length of Suits in Ecclesiastical Courts which hung sometimes two three four five six seven years may be restrained That the Oath Ex Officio whereby men are forced to accuse themselves be more sparingly used That Licenses for Marriages without being Asked may be more sparingly granted 4. And here it is to be observed that though there was not one word in this Petition either against Episcopal Government or Set-forms of Prayer yet the design thereof was against them both For if so many of the Branches had been lopped at once the Body of the Tree must needs have rotted and consumed in a short time after The two Universities on the contrary were no less zealous for keeping up the Discipline and Liturgy of the Church then by Law established And to that end it was proposed and passed at Cambridg on the ninth of Iune That whosoever should oppose by word or writing either the Doctrine or the Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof whatsoever within the Verge and Limits of the same University otherwise than in the way of Disputation he should be actually suspended from all Degrees already taken and utterly disabled for taking any in the time to come They resolved also to return an Answer to the said Petition but understanding that the University of Oxon was in hand therewith and had made a good progress in the same they laid by that purpose congratulating with their Sister-University for her forwardness in it as appears plainly by their Letter of the 7 th of October All this was known unto the King but he resolved to answer them in another way and to that end designed a Conference between the Parties A Conference much desired by those of the Puritan Faction in Queen Elizabeth's time who could not be induced to grant it knowing full well how much it tended to the ruin of all publick Government that matters once established in due form of Law should be made subject to Disputes But K. IAMES either out of a desire of his own satisfaction or to shew his great Abilities in Judgment Oratory and Discourse resolved upon it and accordingly gave Order for it To which end certain Delegates of each Party were appointed to attend upon Him at His Royal Palace of Hampton-Court on the 14 th of Ianuary then next following there to debate the Heads of the said Petition and to abide his Majesty's Pleasure and Determination At what time there attended on behalf of the Church the Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord Bishop of London the Bishops of Durham Winchester Worcester St. Davids Chichester Carlisle and Peterborough The Dean of the Chappel Westminster Christ-Church Pauls Worcester Salisbury Chester and Windsor together with Dr. King Arch-Deacon of Nottingham and Dr. Feild who afterwards was Dean of Glocester Apparelled all of them in their Robes and Habits peculiar to their several Orders 5. There appeared also in the behalf of the Millenaries Dr. Iohn Reynolds and Dr. Thomas Spark of Oxford Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Knewstubs of Cambridg Apparelld neither in Priest's Gowns or Canonical Coats but in such Gowns as were then commonly worn in reference to the form and fashion of them by the Turkey Merchants as if they had subscribed to the Opinion of old T. C. That we ought rather to conform in all outward Ceremonies to the Turks than the Papists Great hopes they gave themselves for setling the Calvinian Doctrines in the Church of England and altering so much in the Polity and Forms of Worship as might bring it nearer by some steps to the Church of Geneva In reference to the first it was much prest by Dr. Reynolds in the name of the rest That the Nine Articles of Lambeth which he entituled by the name of Orthodoxal Assertions might be received amongst the Articles of the Church But this Request upon a true account of the state of that business was by that prudent King rejected with as great a constancy as formerly the Articles themselves had been suppressed under Queen ELIZABETH It was moved also That these words neither totally nor finally might be inserted in the Sixteenth Article of the publick Confession to the intent that the Article so explained might speak in favour of the Zuinglian or Calvinian Doctrine concerning the impossibility of falling from the state of Grace and Justification Which Proposition gave a just occasion to Bishop Bancroft to speak his sense of the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination which he called in plain terms a desperate Doctrine Upon whose interposings in that particular and a short Declaration made by the Dean of St. Pauls touching some Heats which had been raised in Cambridg in pursuit thereof this second Motion proved as fruitless as the first had done 6. Nor sped they better in relation to the Forms of Worship than they had done in reference unto points of Doctrine some pains they took in crying down the Surplice and the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage and the Interrogatories proposed to Infants And somewhat also was observed touching some Errors in the old Translation of the English Psalter as also in the Gospels and Epistles as they stood in the Liturgy But their Objections were so stale and so often answered that the Bishops and Conformable Party went away with an easie Victory not only the King's Majesty but the Lords of his Council being abundantly well satisfied in such former scruples as had been raised against the Church and the Orders of it The sum and substance of which Conference collected by the hand of Dr. Barlow then Dean of Chester can hardly be abbreviated to a lesser compass without great injury to the King and the Conferrees Let it suffice that this great Mountain which had raised so much expectation was delivered only of a Mouse The Millenary Plaintifs have gained nothing by their fruitless travel but the expounding of the word Absolution by Remission of sins the qualifying of the Rubrick about private Baptism the adding of some Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany and of some Questions and Answers in the close of the Catechism But on the other side the Brethren lost so much in their Reputation that the King was very well satisfied in the weakness of their Objections and the Injustice of their Cavils insomuch that turning his head towards some of the Lords If this be all quoth he which they have to say I will either make them conform themselves or hurry them out of the Land or
but not unlawful That therefore they endeavoured to perswade the Ministers rather to conform themselves than to leave their Flocks the people rather to receive the Communion kneeling than not to receive the same at all but that the Authors of that Book and some other Pamphlets pronounced them to be simply unlawful neither to be imposed nor used some of them thinking it a great part of godliness to cast off the Surplice and commanded their Children so to do This made the Bishops far more earnest to reduce them to a present Conformity than otherwise they might have been though by so doing they encreased those discontentments the seeds whereof were sown at the end of the Conference All this the Papists well observed and rejoyced at it intending in the carrying on of the Gun-powder Treason to lay the guilt thereof on the Puritans only But the King and his Council mined with them and undermined them and by so doing blew them up in their own Invention the Traytors being discovered condemned and executed as they most justly had deserved But this Design which was intended for a ruin of the Puritan Faction proved in conclusion very advantagious to their Ends and Purposes For the King being throughly terrified with the apprehension of so great a danger turned all his thoughts upon the Papists and was content to let the Puritans take breath and regain some strength that they might serve him for a counterpoise against the other as afterwards he gave some countenance to the Popish Party when he perceived the opposite Faction to be grown too head-strong Nor were the Puritans wanting to themselves upon this occasion but entertained the Court and Countrey with continual fears of some new dangers from the Papists and by appearance of much zeal for the true Religion and no less care for the preserving of their common Liberty against the encroachments of the Court came by degrees to make a Party in the House of Commons And hereunto K. IAMES unwittingly contributed his assistance also who being intent upon uniting the two Kingdoms by Act of Parliament suffered the Commons to expatiate in Rhetorical Speeches to call in question the extent of his Royal Prerogative to embrue many Church-concernments and to dispute the Power of the High-Commission By means whereof they came at last to such an height that the King was able in the end to do nothing in Parliament but as he courted and applyed himself to this popular Faction 13. Worse fared it with the Brethren of the Separation who had retired themselves unto Amsterdam in the former Reign than with their first Founders and Fore-fathers in the Church of England For having broken in sunder the bond of peace they found no possibility of preserving the spirit of unity one Separation growing continually on the neck of another till they were crumbled into nothing The Brethren of the first Separation had found fault with the Church of England for reading Prayers and Homilies as they lay in the Book and not admitting the Presbytery to take place amongst them But the Brethren of the second Separation take as much distaste against retaining all set-forms of Hymns and Psalms committing their Conceptions both in Praying and Prophesying to the help of Memory and did as much abominate Presbytery as the other liked it For first They pre-suppose for granted as they safely might that there be three kinds of Spiritual Worship Praying Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and then subjoyn this Maxim in which all agreed that is to say That there is the same reason of Helps in all the parts of Spiritual Worship as is to be admitted in any one during the performing of that Worship Upon which ground they charge it home on their fellow-Separatists That as in Prayer the Book is to be laid aside by the confession of the ancient Brethren of the Separation so must it also be in Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and therefore whether we pray or sing or prophesie it is not to be from the Book but out of the heart For Prophesying next they tell us that the Spirit is quenched two manner of ways by Memory as well as Reading And to make known how little use there is of Memory in the Act of Prophesying or Preaching they tell us That the citing of Chapter and Verse as not being used by Christ and his Apostles in their Sermons or Writings is a mark of Antichrist And as for Psalms which make the Third part of Spiritual Worship they propose these Queries 1. Whether in a Psalm a man must be tyed to Meeter Rythme and Tune and Whether Voluntary be not as necessary in Tune and Words as well as Matter And 2. Whether Meeter Rythme and Tune be not quenching the Spirit 14. According to which Resolution of the New Separation every man when the Congregation shall be met together may first conceive his own Matter in the Act of Praising deliver it in Prose or Meeter as he lists himself and in the same instant chant out in what Tune soever that which comes first into his own head Which would be such a horrible confusion of Tongues and Voices that hardly any howling or gnashing of teeth can be like unto it And yet it follows so directly on the former Principles that if we banish all set-forms of Common-Prayer which is but only one part of God's Publick Worship from the use of the Church we cannot but in Justice and in Reason both banish all studied and premeditated Sermons from the House of God and utterly cast out all King David's Psalms whether in Prose or Meeter that comes all to one and all Divine Hymns also into the bargain Finally as to Forms of Government they declared thus or to this purpose at the least if my memory fail not That as they which live under the Tyranny of the Pope and Cardinals worship the very Beast it self and they which live under the Government of Arch-bishops and Bishops do worship the Image of the Beast so they which willingly obey the Reformed Presbytery of Pastors Elders and Deacons worship the shadow of that Image To such ridiculous Follies are men commonly brought when once presuming on some New Light to direct their Actions they suffer themselves to be mis-guided by the Ignis fatuus of their own Inventions And in this posture stood the Brethren of the Separation Anno 1606 when Smith first published his Book of the present differences between the Churches of the Separation as he honestly calls them But afterwards there grew another great dispute between Ainsworth and Broughton Whether the colour of Aaron's Linnen Ephod were of Blew or a Sea-water Green Which did not only trouble all the Dyers in Amsterdam but drew their several Followers into Sides and Factions and made good sport to all the World but themselves alone By reason of which Divisions and Sub-divisions they fell at last into so many Fractions that one of them in the end became a Church of himself and
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
it pleased God to put into the heart of the late Queen Our most dear Sister to permit and allow unto the Isles of Jersey and â—uernsey parcel of the Dutchy of Normandy the use of the â—â—â—â—ment of the Reformed Churches of the said Dutchy whereof they have stood possessed until Our coming to the Crown For this cause We desiring to follow the pious Example of Our said Sister in this behalf as well for the advancement of the Glory of Almighty God as for the edification of his Church do will and ordain That Our said Isles shall quietly enjoy their said Liberty in the use of Ecclesiastical Discipline there now established Forâ—idding any one to give them any trouble or impeachment so long as they contain themselves in Our obedience and attempt not any thing against the Power and Sacred Word of God Given at our Palace at Hampton-Court the 8th of August in the first year of Our Reign of England 1603. 36. This Letter was communicated unto all whom it might concern in a Synod of both Islands held in Iersey Anno 1605. But long they were not suffered to enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation For sir Iohn Peiton who succeeded Governour of Iersey in the place of Raleigh had of himself no good affections to that Platform and possibly might be furnished with some secret Instructions for altering it in the Island on the first conveniency The ground whereof was laid upon this occasion The Curate of St. Iohn's being lately dead it pleased the Colloquie of that Island according to their former method to appoint one Brevin to succeed him Against this course the Governour the King's Attorney and other the Officers of the Crown protested publickly as being prejudicial to the Rights and Profits of the King Howbeit the Case was over-ruled and the Colloquie for that time carried it Hereupon a Bill of Articles was exhibited to the Lords of the Council against the Ministers of that Island by Peiton the Governour Marret the Attorney and the rest as viz. That they had usurped the Patronage of all Benefices in the Island That thereby they admitted men to Livings without any Form or Presentation and by that means deprived his Majesty of Vacancies and First-fruits That by the connivance to say no worse of it of the former Governours they exercised a kind of Arbitrary Iurisdiction making and disannulling Laws at their own most uncertain pleasure In consideration whereof they humbly pray His Sacred Majesty to grant them such a Discipline as might be fittest to the nature of the Place and less derogatory to the Royal Prerogative 37. In the pursuance of this Project Sir Robert Gardiner once Chief Justice of Ireland and Iames Husley Dr. of the Laws are sent Commissioners unto that Island though not without the colour of some other business To these Commissioners the Ministers give in their Answer which may be generally reduced to these two heads First That their appointment of men into the Ministry and the exercise of Jurisdiction being principal parts of the Church-Discipline had been confirmed unto them by His Sacred Majesty And secondly That the payment of First-fruits and Tenths had never been exacted from them since they were freed from their subordination to the Bishops 〈◊〉 â—onstance to whom formerly they had been due But these Anâ—â—â—â— giving no just satisfaction unto the Council of England and nothing being done in order to a present Settlement a foul deformity both of Confusion and Distraction did suddenly overgrow the face of those wretched Churches For in the former times all such as took upon them any publick Charge either in Church or Common-wealth had bound themselves by Oath to cherish and maintain the Discipline That Oath is now disclaimed as dangerous and unwarrantable Before it was their custom to exact subscription to their Plat-form of all such as purposed to receive the Sacrament but now the King's Attorney and others of that Party chose rather to abstain from the Communion than to yeeld Subscription Nay even the very Elders silly souls that thought themselves as sacro sancti as a Roman Tribune were drawn with Process into the Civil Courts and there reputed with the Vulgar Nor was the Case much better in the Sacred Consistory the Jurates in their Cohu or Town-Hall relieving such by their Authority whom that once paramount Tribunal had condemned or censured And yet this was not all the Mischief which befel them neither Those of the lower rank seeing the Ministers begin to stagger in their Chairs refused to set out their Tythes and if the Curates mean to exact their Dues the Law is open to all comers to try their Title Their Benefices which before were accounted as exempt and priviledged are now brought to reckon for First-fruits and Tenths and that not according to the Book of Constance as they had been formerly but by the will and pleasure of the present Governour And to make up the total sum of their Mis-fortunes one of the Constables preferrs a Bill against them in the common Cohu in which they were accused of Hypocrisie in their Conversation and Tyranny in the Exercise of their Jurisdiction and finally of holding some secret practises against the Governour which consequentially did reflect on the King Himself 38. In this Confusion they address themselves to the Earl of Salisbury then being Lord Treasurer of England and in great credit with King IAMES who seeming very much pleased with their Application advised them to invite their Brethren of the Isle of Guernsey to joyn with them in a Petition to the King for a redress of those Grievances which they then complained of A Counsel which then seemed rational and of great respect but in it self of greater cunning than it seemed in the first appearance For by this means as certainly he was a man of a subtile Wit he gave the King more time to compass his Designs in Scotland before he should declare himself in the present business and by engaging those of Guernsey in the same desires intended to subject them also to the same conclusion But this Counsel taking no effect by reason of the death of the Councellor they fall into another trouble of their own creating The Parish of St. Peters falling void by the death of the Minister the Governour presents unto it one Aaron Messering one that had spent his time in Oxon and had received the Order of Priesthood from the Right Reverend Dr. Bridges then Bishop of that Diocess but of himself a Native of the Isle of Iersey A thing so infinitely stomacked by those of the Colloquy that they would by no means yeeld unto his admission not so much in regard of his presentation by the Power of the Governour as because he had taken Orders from the hands of a Bishop For now they thought that Popery began to break in upon them and therefore that it did concern them to oppose it to the very last A new Complaint is
having concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the States United wanted Employment for his Army and that he might engage that King with the greater confidence he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome and marries the Lady Magdalen Daughter to the Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the German Princes of that Religion which also he established in his own Dominions on the death of his Father This puts the young Marquess to new Counsels who thereupon calls in the Forces of the States Vnited the Warr continuing upon this occasion betwixt them and Spain though the Scene was shifted And that they might more cordially espouse his Quarrel he took to Wife the Sister of Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine and Neece of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange by his youngest Daughter and consequently Cousin-German once removed to Count Maurice of Nassaw Commander-General of the Forces of the Sates Vnited both by Sea and Land This kept the Balance eeven between them the one possessing the Estates of Cleve and Mark and the other the greatest part of Berge and Gulick But so it was that the old Marquess of Brandenbourgh having setled his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia and left the management of the Marquissate to the Prince his Son left him withall unto the Plots and Practises of a subtil Lady Who being throughly instructed in all points of Calvinism and having gotten a great Empire in her Husband's Affections prevailed so far upon him in the first year of their Marriage Anno 1614 that he renounced his own Religion and declared for Her 's which he more cheerfully embraced in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the Higher and the Lower Germany in defence of his Cause as his Competitor of Newbourgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve his Interest 15. Being thus resolved he publisheth an Edict in the Month of February Anno 1615 published in his Father's Name but only in his own Authority and sole Command under pretence of pacifying some distempers about Religion but tending in good earnest to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms for having spent a tedious and impertinent Preamble touching the Animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches between the Lutherans and those of the Calvinian Party he first requires that all unnecessary Disputes be laid aside that so all grounds of strife and disaffection might be also buried Which said he next commands all Ministers within the Marquissate to preach the Word purely and sincerely according to the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles the Four Creeds commonly received amongst which the Te Deum is to go for one and the Confession of Ausberg of the last Correction and that omitting all new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men affecting a Primacy in the Church and a Power in the State they aim at nothing in their Preachings but the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind He commands also That they should abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either were not subject to their Jurisdiction nor were not lawfully convicted of the Crime of Heresie which he resolved not to connive at for the time to come but to proceed unto the punishment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform themselves to his Will and Pleasure After which giving them some good Counsel for following a more moderate course in their Preachings and Writings than they had been accustomed to in the times fore-going and in all points to be obedient to their principal Magistrate he pulls off the Disguise and speaks plainly thus 16. These are saith he the Heads of that Reformation which is to be observed in all the Churches of Brandenbourgh that is to say All Images Statua's and Crosses to be removed out of the place of publick Meetings all Altars as the Relicks of Popery and purposely erected for the Sacrifices of the Popish Mass to be taken away that in their room they should set up a Table of a long square Figure covered at all times with a Carpet of Black and at the time of the Communion with a Linnen Cloth That Wafers should be used instead of the former Hosts which being cut into long pieces should be received and broken by the hands of those who were admitted to communicate at the holy Table That ordinary Cups should be made use of for the future instead of the old Popish Chalice That the Vestments used in the Mass should be forborn no Candles lighted in any of their Churches at noon-day No Napkin to be held to those that received the Sacrament nor any of them to receive it upon their knees as if Christ were corporally present The sign of the Cross to be from thenceforth discontinued The Minister not to turn his back to the people at the Ministration The Prayers and Epistles before the Sermon to be from thenceforth read not sung and the said Prayers not to be muttered with a low voice in the Pulpit or Reading-Pew but pronounced audibly and distinctly Auricular Confession to be laid aside and the Communion not to be administred to sick persons in the time of any common Plague or Contagious Sickness No bowing of their knee at the Name of Iesus Nor Fonts of stone to be retained in their Churches the want whereof may be supplied by a common Bason The Decalogue to be repeated wholly without mutilation and the Catechism in some other points no less erroneous to be corrected and amended The Trinity to be adored but not exprest in any Images either carved or painted The words of Consecration in the holy Supper to be interpreted and understood according unto that Analogy which they held with the Sacrament and other Texts of holy Scripture And finally That the Ministers should not be so tyed to preach upon the Gospels and Epistles that were appointed for the day but that they might make choice of any other Text of Scriptures as best pleased themselves Such was the tenour of this Edict on which I have insisted the more at large to show the difference between the Lutheran and Genevian Churches and the great correspondence of the first with the Church of England But this Calvinian Pill did not work so kindly as not to stirr more Humours than it could remove For the Lutherans being in possession would not deliver up their Churches or desert those Usages to which they had been trained up and in which they were principled according to the Rules of their first Reformation And hereupon some Rupture was like to grow betwixt the young Marquess and his Subjects if by the intervention of some honest Patriots it had not been closed up in this manner or to this effect That the Lutheran Forms only should be used in all the Churches of the Marquissate for the contentation of the people and that the Marquess should have the exercise of his new Religion for Himself his Lady and those of his Opinion in their private Chappels 17. But the
Arch-Duke Leopold Bishop of Passaw and one of the Emperor's younger Brothers Which Invitation he obeyed entred the Countrey with an Army of Twelve thousand men makes himself Master of New Prague and attempts the Old But he found such resistance there that K. Matthias with a powerful Army came time enough to their relief and dislodged the Besiegers Which Aid he brought them at that time not out of love to their Religion or their Persons either but only upon some Advertisement which had been given him of Duke Leopold's purposes of getting that Kingdom to himself as formerly Matthias had extorted the Realm of Hungary in despight of the Emperor But meaning to make sure work of it he prevailed so far that the Emperor resigned unto him that Kingdom also to which he was cheerfully elected by the Estates of the Countrey before the end of this year Anno 1610. And within two years after was raised to the Imperial Dignity on the death of his Brother Advanced unto which Power and Height he governed his Dominions with great Moderation till the year 1617. When being Himself and all his Brothers without hope of Children he cast his eyes upon his Cousin Ferdinand then Duke of Gratzi a Prince wholly acted by the Jesuits whom he adopted for his Son declared him for his Successor in all the Patrimony and Estates belonging to the House of Austria and in the year 1618 put him into the actual possession of the Realms of Hungary and Bohemia but not with any such formality of Election unto either of them as in his own case had been observed 29. This gave encouragement to some of the Catholick Party to take offence at some Churches lately erected by those of the Reformed Religion â—â—d either totally to deface them or to shut them up Complaint hereof is made unto the Emperor but without any remedy So that being doubly injured as they gave it out they called an Assembly of the States that order might be taken for the preservation of Religion and their Civil Rights both equally endangered by these new encroachments The Emperor disallows the Meeting commanding them by Proclamation to dissolve the same Which so exasperated some hot spirits that the Emperor's Secretary and two of his principal Councellors were cast headlong out of the Castle-Windows And though all three miraculously escaped with life yet the Conspirators conceived the Fact to be so unpardonable that they could find no means of doing better but by doing worse For hereupon they set a Guard of Soldiers on the Baron of Sternberge Governour of the Castle and Kingdom they secure Prague displace all the Emperor 's old Councellors and totally clear the Kingdom of all the Jesuits and presently as well by Letters to Matthias himself as by a publick Declaration scattered in all parts of the Kingdom they justifie themselves and their actings in it Which done they nominate Two and thirty persons of their own Perswasion to have a superintendency over all Affairs which concerned that Kingdom whom they called by the name of Directors and enter into a Solemn League or Covenant to defend each other against all persons whatsoever without excepting either King or Emperor For punishing these Insolencies on the one side and preserving the Malefactors on the other from the hands of Justice a terrible Confusion first and afterwards a more terrible Warr breaks out amongst them In the first heats whereof the Emperor Matthias dyes and Ferdinand is lawfully elected to succeed in the Empire To stop the course of whose good Fortunes the Bohemian Confederates renounce all Allegiance to him proclaim him for no King of theirs nor so to be acknowledged by the Princes and Estates of Germany 30. But their new Governours or Directors as they called them being generally worsted in the Warr and fearing to be called to a strict account for these multiplyed Injuries resolve upon the choice of some Potent Prince to take that unfortunate Crown upon him And who more like to carry it with success and honour than Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine the Head of the Calvinian Party Son-in-law to the King of England descended from a Daughter of the Prince of Orange and by his Wife allyed to the King of Denmark the Dukes of Holstein and Brunswick three great Lutheran Princes These were the Motives on their part to invite him to it and they prevailed as much with him to accept the offer to which he was pushed forward by the secret instigation of the States United whose Truce with Spain was now upon the point of exspiration and they thought fit in point of State-craft that he should exercise his Army further off than in their Dominions And unto these it may be added He had before incurred the Emperor's Displeasure on a double account first for projecting the Confederacy of the Chiefs of the Calvinists whom they called the Princes of the Vnion for defence of themselves and their Religion And secondly for demolishing the Fortifications which were raised at Vdenhaine though authorized by the Placart of Matthias himself for which he was impleaded in the Chamber of Spires Upon which Motives and Temptations he first sends forth his Letters to the Estates of Bohemia in which he signified his acceptance of the Honour conferred upon him and then acquaints K. IAMES with the Proposition whose Counsel he desired therein for his better direction But King IAMES was not pleased in the precipitancy of this rash adventure and thought himself unhandsomely handled in having his Advice asked upon the post-fact when all his Counsels to the contrary must have come too late Besides he had a strong Party of Calvinists in his own Dominions who were not to be trusted with a Power of disposing Kingdoms for fear they might be brought to practise that against Himself which he had countenanced in others He knew no Prince could reign in safety or be established on his Throne with Peace and Honour if once Religion should be made a Cloak to disguise Rebellions 31. Upon these grounds of Christian Prudence he did not only disallow the Action in his own particular but gave command that none of his Subjects should from thenceforth own his Son-in-law for the King of Bohemia or pray for him in the Liturgy or before their Sermons by any other Title than the Prince Elector At which the English Calvinists were extreamly vexed who had already fancied to themselves upon this occasion the raising of a Fifth Monarchy in these parts of Christendom even to the dethroning of the Pope the setting up of Calvin in St. Peter's Chair and carrying on the Warr to the Walls of Constantinople No man more zealous in the Cause than Arch-bishop Abbot who pressed to have the News received with Bells and Bonfires the King to be engaged in a Warr for the defence of such a Righteous and Religious Cause and the Jewels of the Crown to be pawned in pursuance of it as appears plainly by his Letters to Sir
Saxon Weimar were taken Prisoners the Bohemian Ordnance all suprised Prague forced to yeeld unto the Victor the King and Queen compelled to flye into Silesia from whence by many difficult passages and untravelled ways they came at last in safety to the Hague in Holland Nor is it altogether unworthy of our observation That this great Victory was obtained on a Sunday morning being the 8 th of November and the 23 d Sunday after Trinity in the Gospel of which day occurred that memorable passage Reddite Caesari qua sunt Caesaris that is to say Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars Which seemed to judgâ— the Quarrel on the Emperor's side Hereupon followed the most Tragical or rather most Tyranical Execution of the chief Directors who had a hand in the Design the suppressing of the Protestant Reformed Religion in all the Emperor's Estates the falling back of Bethlem Gabor into Transylvania the proscribing of the Prince Elector and his Adherents the transferring of the Electoral Dignity together with the Upper Palatinate on the Duke of Bavaria the Conquest of the lower Palatinate by the King of Spain and the setting up of Popery in all parts of both In which condition they remained till the restoring of Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector to the best part of his Estate by the Treaty of Munster 1648. 35. Such was the miserable end of the Warr of Bohemia raised chiefly by the Pride and Pragmaticalness of Calvin's Followers out of a hope to propagate their Doctrines and advance their Discipline in all parts of the Empire Nor sped the Hugonots much better in the Realm of France where by the countenance and connivance of King HENRY the 4 th who would not see it and during the minority of LEWIS the 13 th who could not help it they possessed themselves of some whole Countreys and near Two hundred strong Towns and fortified places Proud of which Strength they took upon them as a Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom summoned Assemblies for the managing of their own Affairs when and as often as they pleased Gave Audience to the Ministers of Forreign Churches and impowred Agents of their own to negotiate with them At the same Meetings they consulted about Religion made new Laws for Government displaced some of their old Officers and elected new ones the King's consent being never asked to the Alterations In which licentious calling of their own Assemblies they abused their Power to a neglect of the King's Authority and not dissolving those Assemblies when they were commanded they improved that Neglect to a Disobedience Nay sometimes they run cross therein to those very Edicts which they had gained by the effusion of much Christian Blood and the expence of many Hundred thousand Crowns For by the last Edict of Pacification the King had granted the free exercise of both Religions even in such Towns as were assigned for Caution to the Hugonot Party Which liberty being enjoyed for many years was at last interrupted by those very men who with so much difficulty had procured it For in an Assembly of theirs which they held at Loudun Anno 1619 they strictly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuit nor those of any other Order to preach in any of the Towns assigned to them though licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess in due Form of Law And when upon a dislike of their proceedings the King had declared their Meetings to be unlawful and contrary to the Publick Peace and had procured the Declaration to be verified in the Court of Parliament they did not only refuse to separate themselves as they were required but still insisted upon terms of Capitulation even to a plain justifying of their actings in it 36. These carriages gave the King such just offence that he denied them leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Dort to which they had been earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands For being so troublesome and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their Provincial or National Meetings what danger might not be suspected from a general Confluence in which the Heads of all the Faction might be laid together But then to sweeten them a little after this Refusal he gave them leave to hold an Assembly at Charenton four miles from Paris there to debate those points and to agree those differences which in that Synod had been agitated by the rest of their Party Which Liberty they made such use of in the said Assembly that they approved all the Determinations which were made at Dort commanded them to be subscribed and bound themselves and their Successors in the Ministry by a solemn Oath Not only stedfastly and constantly to adhere unto them but to persist in maintenance thereof to the last gasp of their breath But to return to the Assembly at Loudun They would not rise from thence though the King commanded it till they had taken order for another Assembly to be held at Rochel the chief place of their strength and the Metropolis or principal City of their Common-wealth Which General Assembly being called by their own Authority and called at such a time as had given the King some trouble in composing the Affairs of Bearn was by the King so far disliked and by especial Edict so far prohibited that they were all declared to be guilty of Treason who should continue in the same without further Order Which notwithstanding they sate still and very undutifully proceeded in their former purposes Their business was to draw up a Remonstrance of their present Grievances or rather of the Fears and Jealousies which they had conceived on the King's journey into Bearn This they presented to the King by their own Commissioners and thereunto received a fair and plausible Answer sent in a Letter to them by the Duke Des Diguiers by whom they were advised to dissolve the Assembly and submit themselves unto the King Instead whereof they published a Declaration in defence of their former Actions and signified a Resolution not to separate or break up that Meeting until their Grievances were redressed 37. It hapned at the same time that the Lord of Privas a Town in which the Hugonots made the strongest Party married his Daughter and Heir to the Viscount of Cheylane and dying left the same wholly unto his disposal Who being of different perswasions from the greatest part of his Vassals altered the Garrison and placed his own Servants and Dependents in it as by Law he might This moved the Hugonots of the Town and the Neighbouring Villages to put themselves into a posture of Warr to seize upon the places adjoining and thereby to compel the young Noble-man to forsake his Inheritance Which being signified to the King he presently scored this insolence on the account of the Rochellers who standing in defiance of his Authority was thought to have given some animation unto the Town of Privas to commit
fearing nor having cause to fear the least disturbance With those of the Catholick Party they were grown so intimate by reason of their frequent inter-marriages with one another that in few years they might have been incorporated with them and made of the same Family though of different Faiths The exercise of their Religion had been permitted to them since the passing of the Edict of Nants 1598 without interruption And that they might have satisfaction also in the Courts of Justice some Courts were purposely erected for their ease and benefit which they called Les Chambres d' l' Edict wherein there were as many Judges and other Officers of their own Perswasions as there were of the contrary In a word they lived so secure and happy that they wanted nothing to perpetuate their Felicities to succeeding Ages but Moderation in themselves Gratitude to Almighty God and good Affections towards their King 44. Such were the Fortunes and Successes of the Presbyterians in the rest of Christendom during the last ten years of the Reign of K. IAMES and the beginnings of K. CHARLES By which both Kings might see how unsafe they were if men of such Pragmatical Spirits and Seditious Principles should get ground upon them But K. IAMES had so far supported them in the Belgick Provinces that his own Calvinists presumed on the like Indulgence which prompted them to set nought by his Proclamations to vilifie his Instructions and despise his Messages Finally they made tryal of his patience also by setting up one Knight of Broadgates now called Pembroke Colledg to preach upon the Power of such popular Officers as Calvin thinks to be ordained by Almighty God for curbing and restraining the Power of Kings In which though Knight himself was censured the Doctrines solemnly condemned execution done upon a Book of Pareus which had misguided the unfortunate and ignorant man yet the Calvinians most tenaciously adhered to their Master's tendries with an intent to bring them into use and practise when occasion served So that K. IAMES with all his King-craft could find no better way to suppress their Insolencies than by turning Mountague upon them a man of mighty Parts and an undaunted Spirit and one who knew as well as any how to discriminate the Doctrines of the Church of England from those which were peculiar to the Sect of Calvin By which he galled and gagged them more than his Popish Adversary but raised thereby so many Pens against himself that he might seem to have succeeded in the state of Ismael 45. In this conjuncture of Affairs K. IAMES departs this life and K. CHARLES succeeds who to ingratiate himself with this powerful Faction had plunged his Father in a Warr with the House of Austria by which he was brought under the necessity of calling Parliaments and gave those Parliaments the courage to dispute his Actions For though they promised to stand to him with their Lives and Fortunes in prosecution of that Warr yet when they had engaged him in it they would not part with any money to defray that Charge till they had stripped him of the Richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem But he was much more punished in the consequence of his own Example in aiding those of Rochel against their King whereby he trained up his own Subjects in the School of Rebellion and taught them to confederate themselves with the Scots and Dutch to seize upon his Forts and Castles invade the Patrimony of the Church and to make use of his Revenue against himself To such Misfortunes many Princes do reduce themselves when either they engage themselves to maintain a Party or govern not their Actions by the Rules of Justice but are directed by self-ends or swayed by the corrupt Affections of untrusty Ministers These things I only touch at here which I reserve for the Materials of another History as I do also all the intermediate passages in the Reign of K. CHARLES before the breaking out of the Scottish Tumults and most of the preparatives to the Warr of England AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XIII Containing The Insurrections of the Presbyterian or Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland The Rebellions raised by them in England Their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof Their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline And the greatest Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1636 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independents 1. THE Presbyterian-Scots and the Puritan-English were not so much discouraged by the ill successes of their Brethren in France and Germany as animated by the prosperous Fortunes of their Friends in Holland Who by Rebellion were grown Powerful and by Rapine Wealthy and by the Reputation of their Wealth and Power were able to avenge themselves on the opposite Party To whose Felicities if those in England did aspire they were to entertain those Counsels and pursue those courses by which the others had attained them that is to say They were by secret practises to diminish the King's Power and Greatness to draw the people to depend upon their Directions to dissolve all the Ligaments of the former Government and either call in Forreign Forces or form an Army of their own to maintain their doings And this had been the business of the Puritan Faction since the death of Bancroft when by the retirements of K. IAMES from all cares of Government and the connivance or remisness of Arch-bishop Abbot the Reins were put into their hands Which gave them time and opportunity to grow strong in Parliaments under pretence of standing for the Subjects Property against the encroachments of the Court and for the preservation of the true Religion against the practises of the Papists By which two Artifices they first weakned the Prerogative Royal to advance their own and by the diminution of the King's Authority endeavoured to erect the People's whom they represented And then they practised to asperse with the Name of Papist all those who either join not with them in their Sabbath-Doctrines or would not captivate their Judgments unto Calvin's Dictates Their actings in all which particulars either as Zealots for the Gospel in maintaining Calvinism or Patriots for the Common-wealth in bringing down the Power and Reputation of the two last Kings shall be at large delivered in the Life of the late Arch-bishop and consequently may be thought unnecessary to be here related And therefore pretermitting all their former practises by which their Party was prepared and the Design made ready to appear in publick we will proceed to a Relation of the following passages when they had pulled off their Disguise and openly declared themselves to be ripe for Action 2. The Party in both Kingdoms being grown so strong that they were able to proceed from Counsel unto Execution there wanted nothing but a fair occasion for putting themselves into a posture of defence and from that posture breaking
which by an unexpected Tempest was blown down to the ground and looked on as a sad presage of his following Fortunes Passing thorough Staffordshire he gained some small encrease to his little Party but never could attain unto the reputation of an Army till he came to Shrewsbury to which great multitudes flocked unto him out of Wales and Cheshire and some of the adjoining Countreys Encouraged with which supplies and furnished as well by the Queen from Holland as by the Countrey-Magazins with Cannon Arms and Ammunition he resolves for London gives the first brush unto his Enemies at Poick near Worcester and routs them totally at Edg-hill in the County of Warwick This battel was fought on Sunday the 23 d of October Anno 1642 being a just Twelve-month from the breaking out of the Irish Rebellion this being more dangerous than that because the King's Person was here aimed at more than any other For so it was that by corrupting one Blake once an English Factor but afterwards employed as an Agent from the King of Morocco they were informed from time to time of the King's proceedings and more particularly in what part of the Army he resolved to be which made them aim with the greater diligence and fury at so fair a Mark But the King being Master of the Field possest of the dead Bodies and withall of the Spoil of some of the Carriages discovered by some Letters this most dangerous practise For which that wretched Fellow was condemned by a Court of Warr and afterwards hanged upon the Bough of an Oak not far from Abington 20. In the mean time the King goes forward takes Banbury both Town and Castle in the sight of the Enemy and enters triumphantly into Oxon which they had deserted to his hands with no fewer than Six-score Colours of the vanquished Party But either he stayed there too long or made so many halts in his way that Essex with his flying-Army had recovered London before the King was come to Colebrook There he received a Message for an Accommodation made ineffectual by the Fight at Brentford on the next day after Out of which Town he beat two of their choicest Regiments sunk many pieces of Cannon and much Ammunition put many of them to Sword in the heat of the Fight and took about Five hundred Prisoners for a taste of his Mercy For knowing well how miserably they had been mis-guided he spared their Lives and gave them liberty on no other Conditions but only the taking of their Oaths not to serve against him But the Houses of Parliament being loath to lose so many good men appointed Mr. Stephen Marshall a principal Zealot at that time in the Cause of Presbytery to call them together and to absolve them from that Oath Which he performed with so much Confidence and Authority that the Pope himself could scarce have done it with the like The next day being Sunday and the 13 th of November he prepares for London but is advertised of a stop at Turnham-Green two miles from Brentford where both the remainders of the Army under the Earl of Essex and the Auxiliaries of London under the Conduct of the Earl of Warwick were in a readiness to receive him On this Intelligence it was resolved on mature deliberation in the Council of Warr That he should not hazzard that Victorious Army by a fresh encounter in which if he should lose the day it would be utterly impossible for him to repair that Ruin Accordingly he leads his Army over Kingston-Bridg leaves a third part of it in the Town of Reading and with the rest takes up his Winter-Quarters in the City of Oxon. 21. But long he had not been at Oxon when he received some Propositions from the Houses of Parliament which by the temper and complexion of them might rather seem to have proceeded from a conquering than a losing-side One to be sure must be in favour of Presbytery or else Stephen Marshal's zeal had been ill regarded And in relation to Presbytery it was thus desired that is to say That his Majesty would give consent to a Bill for the utter abolishing and taking away of all Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Sub-deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chaunters Chancellors Treasurers Sub-treasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church and all other their Vnder-officers out of the Church of England And that being done that he would consent to another Bill for consultation to be had with Godly Religious and Learned Divines and then to settle the Church-Government in such a way as upon consultation with the said Divines should be concluded and agreed on by both Houses of Parliament A Treaty howsoever did ensue upon these Propositions but it came to nothing the Commissioners for the Houses being so straitned in point of time and tyed up so precisely to the Instructions of their Masters that they could yeeld to nothing which conduced to the Publick peace Nor was the North or South more quiet than the rest of the Kingdom For in the North the Faction of the Houses was grown strong and prevalent commanded by Ferdinand Lord Fairfax who had possest himself of some strong Towns and Castles for maintenance whereof he had supplies from Hull upon all occasions The care of York had been committed by the King to the Earl of Cumberland and Newcastle was then newly Garrisoned by the Ecrl thereof whose Forces being joined to those of the Earl of Cumberland gave Fairfax so much work and came off so gallantly that in the end both Parties came to an accord and were resolved to stand as Neutrals in the Quarrel Which coming to the knowledg of the Houses of Parliament they found some Presbyterian Trick to dissolve that Contract though ratified by all the Obligations both of Honour and Conscience 22. But in the South the King's Affairs went generally from bad to worse Portsmouth in Hampshire declared for him when he was at York but being besieged and not supplied either with Men Arms or Victuals as had been promised and agreed on it was surrendred by Col. Goring the then Governour of it upon Capitulation Norton a Neighbouring Gentleman of a fair Estate was one of the first that shewed himself in Arms against it for the Houses of Parliament and one that held it out to the very last For which good Service he was afterward made a Collonel of Horse Governour of Southampton and one of the Committee for Portsmouth after the Government of that Town had been taken from Sir William Lewis on whom it was conferred at the first surrendry A Party of the King 's commanded by the Lord Viscount Grandison was followed so closely at the heels by Brown and Hurrey too mercenary Scots in the pay of the Houses that he was forced to put himself into Winchester-Castle where having neither Victuals for a day nor
best assistance to the lawful Ministers for the receiving and enjoying of their Glebes and Tythes With an Injunction to all Sheriffs Mayors and other Ministers of Iustice to be aiding to them and to resist by force of Arms all such as should endeavour to disturb them in their lawful possessions But this served rather for a Declaration of His Majesty's Piety than an Example of His Power For notwithstanding all this Care his faithful Subjects of the Clergy in all parts of the Realm were plundred sequestred and ejected for the Crime of Loyalty some of them never being restored and others most unjustly kept from their Estates till this present year Anno 1660. 32. In the other Proclamation he forbids the tendring or taking of the Covenant before remembred Which Proclamation being short but full of substance shall be recited in His Majesty's own words which are these that follow Whereas saith he there is a printed Paper entituled A Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religion the Honour and Happiness of the King the Peace and Safety of the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the 21 of September last to be printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make some specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against Vs and against the established Religion and Laws of the Kingdom in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and Endeavour to bring in Forreign Forces to invade this Kingdom We do therefore straightly charge and command all Our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever upon their Allegiance that they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby forbid and inhibit them to impose administer or tender the said Covenant as they and every of them will answer the contrary at their utmost and extreamest perils Such was the tenour of this Proclamation of the 9 th of October which though it served for a sufficient testimony of His Majesty's Prudence yet it prevailed as little as the other did For as the Two Houses did extend their Quarters and enlarge their Power so were the Subjects forced more generally to receive this yoak and to submit themselves to those Oaths and Covenants which they could neitâ—â—r take for fear of God's and the King's Displeasure and dared not to refuse for fear of losing all which was dear unto them So that it was esteemed for a special favour as indeed it was for all those which came in on the Oxford Articles to be exempted from the taking of this leud and accursed Covenant by which they were to bind themselves to betray the Church and to stand no further to the King than as he stood for the defence of that Religion which they then allowed of and of those Liberties which they had acquired by what way soever 33. And to say truth it was no wonder that the Presbyterians should impose new Oaths when they had broken all the old or seize upon the Tythes and Glebes of the Regular Clergy when they had sequestred the Estates of the Loyal Gentry and intercepted the Revenues of the King and Queen And it would be no wonder neither that they should seize on the Revenues of the King and Queen when they were grown to such a high degree of impudence as to impeach the Queen of Treason and were resolved of having no more Kings to comptroll their Actions They had already voted for the making of a new Great Seal though so to do was made High Treason by the Statute of K. EDWARD the third that they might expedite their Commissions with the more Authority and add some countenance of Law to the present Warr. Which must be managed in the Name of the King and Parliament the better to abuse the people and add some Reputation to the Crime of their undertakings And being Masters of a Seal they thought themselves in a capacity of acting as a Common-wealth as a State distinct but for the present making use of His Majesty's Name as their State-holder for the ordering of their new Republick But long He must not hold that neither though that was locked up as a Secrete amongst those of the Cabala till it was blurted out by Martin then Knight for Berks. By whom it was openly declared That the felicity of this Nation did not consist in any of the House of STVART Of which His Majesty complained but without reparation And for a further evidence of their good intentions a view is to be taken of the old Regalia and none so fit as Martin to perform that Service Who having commanded the Sub-dean of Westminster to bring him to the place in which they were kept made himself Master of the Spoil And having forced open a great Iron Chest took out the Crowns the Robes the Swords and Scepter belonging anciently to K. EDWARD the Confessor and used by all our Kings at their Inaugurations With a scorn greater than his Lusts and the rest of His Vices he openly declares That there would be no further use of those Toys and Trifles And in the jollity of that humour invests George Withers an old Puritan Satyrist in the Royal Habiliments Who being thus Crown'd and Royally array'd as right well became him first marcht about the Room with a stately Garb and afterwards with a thousand Apish and Ridiculous actions exposed those Sacred Ornaments to contempt and laughter Had the Abuse been script and whipt as it should have been the foolish Fellow possibly might have passed for a Prophet though he could not be reckoned for a Poet. 34. But yet the mischief stayed not here Another visit is bestowed upon these Regalia not to make merry with them but some money of them Mildmay a Puritan in Faction and Master of the Jewel-House by his Place and Office conceived that Prey to belong properly to him and having sold the King must needs buy the Crowns But being as false to his new Masters as he was to his old he first pickt out the richest Jewels and then compounded for the rest at an easie rate The like ill fortune fell unto the Organs Plate Coaps Hangings Altar-Cloaths and many other costly Utensils which belonged to the Church all which were either broke in pieces or seized upon and plundered for the use of the State Amongst the rest there was a goodly Challice of the purest Gold which though it could not be less worth than 300 l. was sold to Allyn a decayed Gold-Smith but then a Member of the House at the rate of 60 l. The Birds being flown the Nest is presently designed to the use of the Soldiers who out of wantonness and not for want of Lodging in that populous City must be quartered there And being quartered they omitted none of those shameless Insolencies which had been acted by their Fellows in other Churches For they not only
brake down the Rails before the Table and burnt them in the very place in the heats of Iuly but wretchedly prophaned the very Table it self by setting about it with their Tobacco and Ale before them and not without the company of some of their zealous Lecturers to grace the Action What else they did in imitation of the Brethren of Exon in laying their filth and execrements about it also I abhor to mention And now I must crave leave to step into the Colledg the Government whereof was taken from the Dean and Prebendaries and given to a select Committee of fifty persons some Lords but Members for the most part of the Lower-House who found there a sufficient quantity of Plate and some other good Houshold-stuff to a very good value which was so Husbanded amongst them that it was either stoln or sold or otherwise imbezilled and inverted to the use of some private persons who best knew how to benefit themselves by the Church's Patrimony 35. But the main business of this year and the three next following was the calling sitting and proceedings of the new Assembly called the Assembly of Divines but made up also of so many of the Lords and Commons as might both serve as well to keep them under and comptroll their Actions as to add some countenance unto them in the eye of the people A Convocation had been appointed by the King when he called the Parliament the Members whereof being lawfvlly chosen and returned were so discountenanced and discouraged by the Votes of the Lower-House the frequent Tumults raised in Westminster by the Rascal Rabble and the preparatives for a Warr against the King that they retired unto their Houses but still continued undissolved and were in a capacity of acting as a Convocation whensoever they should be thereunto required and might do it with safety But being for the most part well affected to the Church of England they were not to be trusted by the Houses of Parliament who then designed the hammering of such a Reformation both in Doctrine and Discipline as might unite them in a perpetual Bond and Confederation with their Scottish Brethren And that they might be furnished with such men the Knights of every Shire must make choice of two to serve as Members for that County most of them Presbyterians some few Royallists four of the Independent Faction and two or three to represent the Kirk of Scotland Which ploughing with an Ox and an Ass as it was no other was anciently prohibited by the Law of Moses And yet these men associated with some Members of either House as before is said no ways impow'red or authorised by the rest of the Clergy must take upon them all the Powers and Priviledges of a Convocation to which they were invited by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons bearing date Iune the 12 th His Majesty makes a start at this encroachment on His Royal Prerogative and countermands the same by His Proclamation of the 22 d. In which He takes notice amongst other things That the far greatest part of those who had been nominated to the present Service were men of neither Learning or Reputation eminently disaffected to the Government of the Church of England and such as had openly preached Rebellion by their exciting of the people to take Arms against Him and therefore were not like to be proper Instruments of Peace and Happiness either unto the Church or State For maintenance whereof and for the preservation of His own Authority he inhibits them from meeting at the time appointed declares their Acts to be illegal and threatens them with the punishments which they had incurred by the Laws of the Land 36. But they go forwards howsoever hold their first Meeting on the first of Iuly and elect Dr. Twisse of Newberry a rigid Sabbatarian but a professed Calvinian in all other points for their Prolocutor called to this Iourney-work by the Houses they were dispensed with for Non-residence upon their Livings against the Laws preferred to the best Benefices of the Sequestred Clergy some of them three or four together and had withall four shillings a man for their daily wages besides the honour of assisting in so great an action as the ruin of the Church and the subversion of the present Government of the Realm of England In reference whereunto they were to be employed from time to time as occasion was to stir up the people of the Counties for which they served to rise and arm themselves against the King under colour of their own defence as appears plainly by the Order of the tenth of August And that they might be looked upon with the greater reverence they maintain a constant intercourse by Letters with their Brethren of Scotland the Churches of the Netherlands the French and Switzers but chiefly with Geneva it self In which they laid such vile Reproaches on His Majesty and the Church of England the one for having a design to bring in Popery the other for a readiness to receive the same that His Majesty was necessitated to set out a Manifest in the Latin Tongue for laying open the Imposture to the Churches of all Forreign Nations Amongst the rest of this Assembly Dr. Dan. Featly not long before made Chaplain in Ordinary to the King must needs sit for one whether to shew his Parts or to head a Party or out of his old love to Calvinism may best be gathered from some Speeches which he made and printed But he was theirs in heart before and therefore might afford them his body now though possibly he may be excused from taking the Covenant as the others did An Exhortation whereunto was the first great work which was performed by these Masters in Israel after their assembling the Covenant taken by them in most solemn manner at St. Margarets in Westminster on the 25th of September the Exhortation voted to be published on the 9th of February 37. Now to begin the blessed Reformation which they had in hand the Houses were resolved upon exterminating all external Pomp and comely Order out of the Worship of Almighty God And to this end upon the humble motion of these Divines of the Assembly and the sollicitation of some zealous Lecturers who were grown very powerful with them or to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish Covenanters whose help they began to stand in need of or finally out of the perversness of their own cross humours they published an Ordinance on the 28 th of August For the utter demolishing removing and taking away all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which notion it was ordered That before the last of November then next following all Altars and Tables of stone as if any such were then erected should be demolished in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom That the Communion-Tables should in all such places be removed from the East end of the Chancel unto some other part of the Church or Chappel That all such Rails as had been
which they had fancied to themselves and shall be better husbanded to the use of their Adversaries though it succeeded worse to his Majesty's person than possibly it might have done if they had suffered him to remain at Holdenby where the Houses fixt him 59. This great turn hapned on the fourth of Iune Anno 1647 before he had remained but four Months in the Power of the Houses Who having brought the Warr to the end desired possest themselves of the King's Person and dismissed the Scots resolved upon disbanding a great part of the Army that they might thereby ease the people of some part of their burthens But some great Officers of the Army had their Projects and Designs apart and did not think it consonant to common prudence that they should either spend their blood or consume their strength in raising others to that Power which being acquired by themselves might far more easily be retained than it had been gotten Upon these grounds they are resolved against disbanding stand on their Guards and draw together towards London contrary to the Will and express Commandment of their former Masters by whom they were required to keep at a greater distance The Officers thereupon impeach some Members of the Lower House and knowing of what great Consequence it might be unto them to get the King into their Power a Plot is laid to bring him into their Head-Quarters without noise and trouble which was accordingly effected as before is said Thus have the Presbyterians of both Nations embroiled the Kingdom first in Tumults and afterwards in a calamitous and destructive Warr. In which the Sword was suffered to range at liberty without distinction of Age Sex or Quality More goodly Houses plundered and burnt down to the ground more Churches sacrilegiously prophaned and spoiled more Blood poured out like Water within four years space than had been done in the long course of Civil-Warrs between York and Lancaster With all which Spoil and publick Ruin they purchased nothing to themselves but shame and infamy as may be shown by taking a brief view of their true condition before and after they put the State into these Confusions 60. And first the Scots not long before their breaking out against their King had in the Court two Lords High Stewards and two Grooms of the Stool successively one after another And at their taking up of Arms they had a Master of the Horse a Captain of the Guard a Keeper of the Privy Purse seven Grooms of eight in his Majesty's Bed-Chamber and an equal number at the least of Gentlemen-Ushers Quarter-waiters Cup-bearers Carvers Sewers and other Officers attending daily at the Table I speak not here of those who had places in the Stables or below the Stairs or of the Servants of those Lords and Gentlemen who either lived about the Court or had Offices in it All which together make up so considerable a number that the Cour might well be called an Academy of the Scots Nation in which so many of all sorts had their Breeding Maintenance and Preferment Abroad they had a Lieutenant of the Tower a Fortress of most consequence in all the Kingdom and a Master-Gunner of the Navy an Office of as great a Trust as the other and more of those Monopolies Suits and Patents which were conceived to be most grievous to the Subjects than all the English of the Court. In the Church they had two Deanries divers Prebendaries and so many Ecclesiastical Benefices as equalled all the Revenues of the Kirk of Scotland All which they had lost like Aesop's Dog catching after a shadow And yet by catching at that shadow they lost all those Advantages which before they had both in Court and Countrey and that not only for the present but in all probability for the time to come Such losers were the Scots by this brutish bargain but whether out of pure zeal to the Holy Discipline or their great love to filthy lucre or the perversness of their nature or the rebellious humour of the Nation or of all together let them judg that can 61. If then the Scots became such losers by the bargain as most sure they did as sure it is that their dear Brethren in the Cause of Presbytery the Puritans or Presbyterians in the Realm of England got as little by it The English Puritans laid their heads and hands together to embroil the Realm out of a confidence that having alienated the greatest part of the Tribes from the House of David they might advance the Golden Calves of their Presbyteries in Dan and Bethel and all other places whatsoever within the Land And for the maintenance thereof they had devoured in conceit all Chapter-Lands and parcelled them amongst themselves into Augmentations But no sooner had they driven this Bargain but a Vote passed for selling those Lands towards the payment of the Debts of the Commonwealth Nor have they lived to see their dear Presbytery setled or their Lay-Elders entertained in any one Parish of the Kingdom For the advancement whereof the Scots were first incouraged to begin at home and afterwards to pursue their Work by invading in England Nor fared it better with those great Achitophels of the popular Party who laboured in the raising of a new Common-wealth out of the Ruins of a Glorious and Ancient Monarchy To which end they employed the Presbyterians as the fittest Instruments for drawing the people to their side and preaching up the piety of their Intentions Which Plot they had been carrying on from the first coming of this King to the Crown of England till they had got His Sacred Person into their possession Which made them a fit parallel to those Husband-men in St. Matthew's Gospel Matt. 21.38 who said amongst themselves This is the Heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his Inheritance A Commonwealth which they had founded and so modelled in their brains that neither Sir Thomas Moor's Vtopia nor the Lord Verulam's new Atlantis nor Plato's Platform nor any of the old Idea's were equal to it The Honours and Offices whereof they had distributed amongst themselves and their own dependance But having brought the King though as it chanced by other hands to the End they aimed and being intent on nothing more than the dividing of that rich Prey amongst themselves gratifying one another with huge sums of Money and growing fat on the Revenues of the Crown and the Lands of the Church and guarded as they thought by invincible Armies they were upon a sudden scattered like the dust before the wind turned out of all and pulickly exposed to contempt and scorn All which was done so easily with so little noise that the loss of that exorbitant Power did not cost so much as a broken Head or a bloody Nose in purchasing whereof they had wasted so many Millions of Treasure and more than One hundred thousand Lives Thus have we seen the dangerous Doctrines and Positions the secret Plots and open
less of Rome then before it had though nothing was meerly Romane and not Primitive also yet was it still as far off from the Rules of Geneva as it was at that time which gave a new Alarum to Calvin that he should take so much pains and trouble so many of his Friends to so little purpose And long it shall not be before he lets us know his resentment of it The English Protestants being scattered in the Reign of Queen Mary betake themselves to divers places in Germany at Geneva and amongst the Switzers In Germany some of them procure a Church in the City of Frankfort but they were such as had more minde to conform themselves to Calvins Models then to the Liturgie of England and such a deviation thereupon was made from the Rules of this Church as looked little better then an open Schism The business bad enough before but made much worse when Knox that great Incendiary of Scotland took that charge upon him when at his coming he found many not well pleased with those alterations which had been made by others from the Church of England which he resolved not to admit of how much soever the continuance of it had been recommended by such Divines as had retired to Strasburgh Zurick and elsewhere To over-ballance whose Authority which he found much valued he flees for succour unto Calvin sends him a Summary or Abstract of the English Book in the Latine Tongue and earnestly desires his opinion of it not doubting but all opponents would submit to his final sentence What Calvins judgement was in the present Point and what sentence he was like to give in the case before him Knox could not but have good assurance when he wrote that Letter having lived with Calvin at Geneva and published some Seditious Books from thence with his approbation before his coming unto Frankfort and it succeeded answerably to his expectation as may appear by Calvins answer to that Letter which in regard it was the ground of all those troubles which afterwards were raised against the Liturgy by the Puritan Faction I shall here subjoyn 17. It is no small affliction to me and in it self no less inconvenience that a contention should be raised between brethren professing the same Faith and living as banished men or exiles for the same Religion especially for such a Cause which in this time of your dispersion ought to have been the Bond of Peace to bind you the more finally to one another for what ought rather to be aimed at by you in this woful condition then that being torne away from the bowels of your native Country you should put your selves into a Church which might receive you in her bosom conjoyned together like the Children of the same Parent both in hearts and tongues But at this time in my opinion it is very unseasonable that troubles should be raised amongst you about Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer as happens commonly amongst those who live in wantonness and ease by means whereof you have been hindred hitherto from growing into one body I do not blame the constancy of those men who being unwillingly drawn into it do earnestly contend in an honest Cause but rather the stubbornness of those which hitherto hath hindred the holy purpose of forming and establishing a Church amongst you For as I use to shew my self both flexible and facile in things indifferent as all Rites and Ceremonies are yet I cannot always think it profitable to comply with the foolish waywardness of some few men who are resolved to remit nothing of their Ancient Customs I cannot but observe many tolerable fooleries in the English Liturgy such as you have described it to me By which two words those names of tolerable fooleries I mean onely this that there is not such Purity or Perfection as was to be desired in it which imperfections notwithstanding not being to be remedied at the first were to be born with for a time in regard that no manifest impiety was contained in them It was therefore so far lawful to begin with such beggerly Rudiments that the Learned Grave and Godly Ministers of Christ might be thereby encouraged for proceeding farther in setting out somewhat which might prove more pure and perfect If true Religion had flourished till this time in the Church of England it had been necessary that many things in that Book should have been omitted and others altered to the better But now that all such Principles are out of force and that you were to constitute a Church in another place and that you were at liberty to compose such a Form of Worship which might be useful to the Church and more conduce to Edification then the other did I know not what to think of those who are so much delighted in the dregs of Popery But commonly men love those things best to which they have been most accustomed Which though in the first place it may seem a vain and childish folly yeâ— in the next place it may be considered that such a new Model is much different from an alteration Howsoever as I would not have you too stiff and peremptory if the infirmity of some men suffer them not to come up unto your own desires so I must needs admonish others not to be too much pleased with their wants and ignorances nor to retard the course and progess of so good a work by their own perversness nor finally to be transported in the manner by such a foolish Emulation For what other ground have they for this contention but that they think it a disgrace to yeild unto better counsels But possibly I may address my words in vain to those who peradventure may not ascribe so much unto me as to vouchsafe to hearken unto any advice which doth proceed from such a despicable Author If any of them fear that any sinister report will be raised of them in England as if they had forsaken that Religion for which they put themselves into a voluntary exile they are much deceived For this ingenuous and sincere Profession will rather compel those godly men which are left behind seriously to consider what a deep Abyss they are fallen into whose dangerous estate will more grievously wound them when they shall see that you have travailed beyond the middle of that course from which they have been so unhappily retracted or brought back again Farewel my most dear Brethren the faithful servants of Jesus Christ and be you still under the governancce and protection of the Lord your God 18. This Letter bearing date on the fifteenth of the Calends of February and superscribed in general to the English which remained at Frankfort carried so great a stroke with the Knoxian party that there was no more talk of the English Liturgie the Order of Geneva being immediately entertained in the place thereof And when the matter was so handled by Dr. Cox first Tutor and then Almoner to King Edward
the Sixth brought thither by the noise of so great a Schism that the Liturgie of England was again restored Knox was so far from yeilding to the Gravity and Authority of that Learned man that he inveighed against him in the Pulpit without fear or wit But Cox not able to endure a baffle from so mean a fellow informs against him to the Senate touching some passages in one of his Seditious Pamphlets in which it is affirmed that Queen Mary whom elsewhere he calls by the odious name of Iesabel and a Traytoress to England ought not to joyn her self in Marriage with the Emperours Son because the Emperour himself maintained Idolatry and was a greater Enemy to Christ then ever was Nero. Knox hereupon departs by Moon-light but howsoever quits the Town and retires to Geneva leaving the Liturgie for the present in a better condition then he had found it at hiâ— first coming thither But Cox considering with himself how necessary Calvins favour might be to him salutes him with a civil Letter subscribed by himself and fourteen others all of them being men of Note in their several places In which they excused themselves for having set that Church in order without his advice not without some rejoycing that they had brought the greatest part of those who withstood their doings to be of the same Opinion with them Which how agreeable it was to Calvin may be seen by his return to Cox and his adherents Coxo Gregalibus suis as the Latine hath it bearing date Iune 14. 1555. 19. In which Letter having first craved pardon for not writing sooner he lets them know that he had freely signified to Dr. Sampson a very fit man to be acquainted with his secrets what he conceived of the Disputes which were raised at Frankfort as also that he had been certified by some Friends of his who complained much of it that they did stand so strictly on the English Ceremonies as shewed them to be too much wedded to the Rites of their Country And further certified that he had heard somewhat of those Reasons which they stood on most for not receding any thing from the Form established but they were such as might receive an easie Answer that he had writ to those of the opposite party to carry themselves with moderation in the present business though nothing was therein remitted by Cox and his and howsoever was now glad to hear that the difference was at last composed He speaks next touching their retaining of Crosses Tapers and such other trifles of that nature proceeding at the first from superstition and thereupon infers that they who so earnestly contended for them when it was in their choice not to do it did draw too neer upon the dregs He adds that he could see no Reason why they should charge the Church with frivolous and impertinent Ceremonies which he should no way wrong if he called them dangerous when they were left at liberty to compose an Order for themselves more pure and simple that in his judgement it was done with little Piety and less brotherly Love on any clancular informations to call Knox in question for so I understood him by his letter N and that they had done better to have stay'd at home then to have kindled the coals by such a piece of unjust cruelty in a Forreign Country by which others also were inflamed and finally that he had written howsoever unto some of the adverse party of whose intent to leave that place he had been advertised that they should continue where they were and not violate the League of their Friendship by their separations with other things to that effect But notwithstanding this advice many of the Schismatical party removed from Frankfort and put themselves into Geneva the principal of which were Whittingham Knox Goodman and he which afterwards was able to do more then all the rest Mr. Francis Knollis allyed by Marriage to the Caryes descended from a younger Sister of Queen Anne Bullen and consequently neer of Kin to Queen Elizabeth These men grew very great with Calvin with whose good leave they put themselves into the form of a Congregation chose Knox and Goodman for their Brethren and in all points conformed themselves to the Rules of that Church which afterwards they laboured to promore in England and actually did effect in Scotland to the no small disturbance of either Kingdom By the perswasion of these men he is resolved to try his Fortune once again on the Church of England before the resetling of the Liturgie under Queen Elizabeth might render the design impossible or at least unprosperous To which end he addresseth his desires to the Queen her self at her first coming to the Crown The like he doth to Mr. Secretary Cecil by his Letters bearing date the 17 of Ianuary 1558 in which he makes mention of the other in both he spurs them on to a Reformation complaining that they had not shewed such a forwardness in it as all good men expected and that cause required But above all things he desires that a pure and perfect Worship of God may be fully setled that the Church may be throughly purged of its former filth and that the Children of God in England might be left at liberty to use such purity in all Acts of publick Worship as to them seemed best And what else could he aim at by these expressions comparing them with the Contents of his two last Letters but that the former Liturgie should be abolished or brought unto a neerer conformity to the Rules of Geneva or at the least that liberty might be left to the godly party to use any other Form of Worship which they though more pure But finding no such good return to either Letter as he had promised to himself he leaves the cause to be pursued by such English Zealots as he had trained up at Geneva or otherwise had setled their abode amongst the Switzers where all set Forms of Worship were as much decryed as they were with him And that they might not slacken in the midst of their course he recommends the general Superintendents of the Church of England to the care of Beza who after his decease succeeded both in his place and power of whose pragmaticalness in pursuing this design against the Liturgie condemning all established Orders of this Church his interposing in behalf of such of his Followers as had heen silenced suspended or deprived for their inconformity we shall speak more large at when we come to England 20. There happened another quarrel in the Church of England and he must needs make himself a party in it Mr. Iohn Hooper having well deserved by his pains in preaching and publishing some Books which very much conduced to the peace of the Church is nominated by the King to the See of Glocester Willing enough he was to accept the charge but he had lived so long at Zurick in the Reign of King Henry where there
History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB X. Containing A Relation of their Plots and Practises in the Realm of England Their horrible Insolencies Treasons and Seditions in the Kingdom of Scotland from the Year 1595 to the Year 1603. THE English Puritans having sped so ill in a course of violence were grown so wise as to endeavour the subverting of that Fort by an undermining which they had no hope to take by storm or battery And the first course they fell upon besides the Artifices lately mentioned for altering the posture of the Preacher in the Spittle-Sermons and that which was intended as a consequent to it was the Design of Dr. Bound though rather carried under his Name than of his devising for lessening by degrees the Reputation of the ancient Festivals The Brethren had tryed many ways to suppress them formerly as having too much in them of the Superstitions of the Church of Rome but they had found no way succesful till they fell on this which was To set on foot some new Sabbath-Doctrine and by advancing the Authority of the Lord's-Day Sabbath to cry down the rest Some had been hammering on this Anvil ten years before and had procured the Mayor and Aldermen of London to present a Petition to the Queen for the suppressing of all Plays and Interludes on the Sabbath-day as they pleased to call it within the Liberties of their City The gaining of which point made them hope for more and secretly to retail those Speculations which afterward Bound sold in gross by publishing his Treatise of the Sabbath which came out this year 1595. And as this Book was published for other Reasons so more particularly for decrying the yearly-Festivals as appears by this passage in the same viz. That he seeth not where the Lord hath given any Authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to sanctifie any day except that which he hath sanctified himself And makes it an especial Argument Argument against the goodness of Religion in the Church of Rome That to the Seventh-day they had joyned so many other days and made them equal with the Seventh if not superior thereunto as well in the solemnity of Divine Offices as restraint from labour So that we may perceive by this what their intent was from the very beginning To cry down the Holy-days as superstitious Popish Ordinances that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone and Sabbath now it must be called might become more eminent Some other Ends they might have in it as The compelling of all persons of what rank soever to submit themselves unto the yoak of their Sabbath-rigors whom they despaired of bringing under their Presbyteries Of which more hereafter 2. Now for the Doctrine it was marshalled in these Positions that is to say That the Commandment of sanctifying every Seventh day as in the Mosaical Decalogue is Natural Moral and Perpetual That when all other things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken away this stands the observation of the Sabbath And though Jewish and Rabinical this Doctrine was it carried a fair shew of Piety at the least in the opinion of the common people and such as did not stand to examine the true grounds thereof but took it up on the appearance such as did judg thereof not by the workmanship of the Stuff but the gloss and colour In which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only to give way unto it but without more 〈…〉 the same till in the end and that in very little time it grew the most bewitching error the most popular infatuation that ever wa◠infused into the people of England For what did follow hereupon but such monstrous Paradoxes and those delivered in the Pulpit as would make every good man tremble at the hearing of them It being preached at a Market-Town as my Author tells me That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit Adultery In Somersetshire That to throw a Bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man In Norfolk That to make a Feast or dress a Wedding-Dinner on the same was as great a sin as for a Father to take a Knife and cut his Child's throat And in Suffolk That to ring more Bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to commit a Murther Some of which Preachers being complained of occasioned a more strict enquiry into all the rest and not into their Persons only but their Books and Pamphlets insomuch that both Arch-bishop Whitgift and Chief Justice Popham commanded these Books to be called in and neither to be Printed nor made common for the time to come Which strict proceedings notwithstanding this Doctrine became more dispersed than can be imagined and possibly might encrease the more for the opposition no System of Divinity no Book of Catechetical Doctrine from thenceforth published in which these Sabbath-Speculations were not pressed on the People's Consciences 3. Endearing of which Doctrines as formerly to advance their Elderships they spared no place or Text of Scripture where the Word Elder did occurre and without going to the Heralds had framed a Pedigree thereof from Iethro from Noah's Ark and from Adam finally So did these men proceed in their new Devices publishing out of Holy Writ both the Antiquity and the Authority of their Sabbath-day No passage of God's Book unransacked where there was mention of a Sabbath whether the Legal Sabbath charged upon the Iews or the Spiritual Sabbath of the Soul from sin which was not fitted and applied to the present purpose though if examined as it ought with no lesse reason than Paveant illi non paveam Ego was by an ignorant Priest alledged from Scripture to prove that his Parishioners ought to pave the Chancel And on the confidence of those Proofs they did presume exceedingly of their success by reason of the general entertainment which those Doctrines found with the common people who looked upon them with as much regard and no less reverence than if they had been sent immediately from the Heavens themselves for encrease of Piety Possest with which they greedily swallowed down the Hook which was baited for them 4. A Hook indeed which had so fastned them to those men who love to fish in troubled waters that by this Artifice there was no small hope conceived amongst them to fortifie their Side and make good that Cause which till this trim Device was so thought of was almost grown desperate By means whereof they btought so great a bondage on all sorts of people that a greater never was imposed on the Iews themselves though they had pinned their Consciences on the Sleeves of the Scribes and Pharises But then withall by bringing all sorts of people into such a bondage they did so much improve their Power and encrease their Party that they were able at the last to oppose
Edctis of the two next Kings for tolerating lawful sports upon that Day and to confirm some of their Sabbatarian Rigors by Act of Parliament 5. From this Design let us proceed to the next which was briefly this When the Genevian-English resolved to erect their Discipline it was thought requisite to prepare the way unto it by introducing the Calvinian Doctrines of Predestinationn that so men's Judgments being formed and possessed by the one they might the more easily be enclined to embrace the other so long connived at by the Supream Governours of the Church and State to which they were exceeding serviceable against the Pope that in the end those Doctrines which at first were counted Aliens came by degrees to be received as Denizens and at last as Natives For being supposed to contain nothing in them contrary to Faith and Manners they were first commended to the Church as probable next imposed as necessary and finally obtruded on the people as her Natural Doctrines And possibly they might in time have found a general entertainment beyond all exception if the Calvinian-spirit being impatient of the least opposition could have permitted other men to enjoy that liberty which they had took unto themselves and not compelled them to Apologize in their own defences and thereby shew the Reasons of dissenting from them One of the first Examples whereof for I pass by the branglings between Champney and Crowley as long since forgotten was the complaint of Travers to the Lords of the Council against incomparable Hooker In whom he faulteth this amongst other things That he had taught another Doctrine of Predestination than what was laid down in the Word of God as it was understood by all the Churches which professed the Gospel To which it was replyed by that learned man That the matter was not uttered by him in a blind Alley where there was none to hear it who either had Judgment or Authority to comptrole the same or covertly insinuated by some gliding sentence but that it was publickly delivered at St. Paul's Cross not hudled in amongst other matters to the end it might pass without observation but that it was opened proved and for some reasonable time insisted on And therefore that he could not see how the Lord Bishop of London that was present at it could either excuse so great a fault or patiently hear without rebuke then and controlement afterwards that any man should preach doctrine contrary to the Word of God especially if the word of God be so understood not by the private interpretation of some as two or three men or by a special construction received in some few Books but as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and therefore even by our own Church amongst the rest 6. This hapned in the year 1591 or thereabouts somewhat before the breakings out of the stirrs at Cambridg occasioned by a a Treatise published by William Perkins a well-known Divine but withall a professed Presbyterian entituled Armilla Aurea or The Golden Chain containing the Order of the Causes of Salvation and Damnation according to the Word of God Maintaining in this Book the Dostrine of the Supra-lapsarians and countenanced therein by Dr. Whitacres the Queen's Professor some opposition was soon made by Dr. Baroe Professor for the Lady Margaret in the same University Which Baroe being by birth a French-man but being very well studied in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers had constantly for the space of more than twenty years maintained a different Doctrine of Predestination from that which had been taught by Calvin and his Disciples but he was never quarrelled for it till the year 1595 and then not quarrelled for it but in the person of one Barret who in a Sermon at St. Maries Church had preached such Doctrines as were not pleasing unto Perkins Whitacre and the rest of that Party For which being questioned and condemned to a Recantation he rather chose to quit his place in the University than to betray his own Judgment and the Church of England by a Retractation The rest of Baroe's Followers not well pleased with these Haâ—sh proceedings begin to show themselves more publickly than before they did which made Baroe think himself obliged to appear more visibly in the head of his Company and to encounter openly with Dr. Whitacre whom he beheld as the Chief Leader of the opposite Forces And the Heats grew so high at last that the Calvinians thought it necessary in point of Prudence to effect that by Power and Favour which they could not obtain by force of Argument To which end they first addressed themselves to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh then being their Chancellor with the disturbances made by Barret thereby preparing him to hearken to such further motions as should be made by them in pursuit of that Quarrel 7. But finding little comfort there they resolved to steer their course by another Compass And having pre-possest the most Reverend Arch-bishop Whitgift with the turbulent carriage of those men the Affionts given to Dr. Whitacre whom for his learned and laborious Writings against Cardinal Bellarmine he most highly favoured and the great Inconveniences like to grow by that publick Discord they gave themselves good hope of composing those differences not by way of an Accommodation but an absolute Conquest And to this end they dispatched to him certain of their number in the name of the rest such as were interested in the Quarrels Dr. Whitacre himself for one and therefore like to stirr hard for obtaining their Ends The Articles to which they had reduced the whole state of the business being ready drawn and there wanting nothing to them but the Face of Authority wherewith as with Medusa's Head to confound their Enemies and turn their Adversaries into stones And that they might be sent back with the Face of Authority the most Reverend Arch-bishop calling unto him Dr. Flecher Bishop of Bristol then newly elected unto London and Dr. Richard Vaughan Lord Elect of Bangor together with Dr. Trindal Dean of Ely Dr. Whitacre and the rest of the Divines which came from Cambridg proposed the said Articles to their consideration at his House in Lambeth on the tenth of November by whom these Articles from thenceforth called the Nine Articles of Lambeth were presently agreed upon and sent down to Cambridg not as the Doctrines of the Church but as a necessary Expedient to compose those differences which had been raised amongst the Students of that University And so much was acknowledged by the Arch-bishop himself when he was questioned by the Queen for his actings in it For so it was that the Queen being made acquainted with all that passed became exceedingly offended at the Innovation and was upon the point of causing all of them to be attainted in a Praemunire but by the mediation of some Friends of Whitgift's and the high opinion which she had of his Parts and Person she was willing to admit him to
acquaintance with the English brought them to more sense of Piety And now they took the opportunity to train the people to the Church in the Afternoon by the Authority and Reputation of the present Synod For having entertained the Palatine Catechism in their publick Schools it was resolved that it should be taught in all their Churches on Sunday in the After-noon That the Ministers should be bound to read and expound that Catechism though none were present at the Exercises but those of their own Families only in hope that others might be drawn after their example and that the Civil Magistrate should be employed by the Synod to restrain all Servile Works and other Prophanations of that day wherewith the Afternoons had commonly been spent that so the people might repair to the Catechisings And though some Reformation did ensue upon it in the greater Towns yet in their lesser Villages where men are more intent on their Worldly businesses it remains as formerly 11. As little of the Sabbatarian had the Palatine Churches which in all points adhered tenaciously unto Calvin's Doctrine For in those Churches it was ordinary for the Gentlemen to betake themselves in the After-noon of the Lord's Day unto Hawking and Hunting as the season of the year was fit for either or otherwise in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them As usual it was also with the Husband-man to spend the greatest part of the After-noon in looking over his Grounds ordering his Cattel and following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his Nature and Education no publick Divine Offices being prescribed for any part of that Day but the Morning only And so it stood in the year 1612 At what time the Lady ELIZABETH Daughter to K. Iames and Wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every After-noon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England gave the first hint unto that Prince to cause the like Religious Offices to be celebrated in his part of the Family afterwards by degrees in all the Churches of Heldenbourgh and finally in most other Cities and Towns of his Dominions Had he adventured no further on the confidence of that Power and Greatness which accrued to him by contracting an Alliance with so great a Monarch it had been happy for himself and the Peace of Christendom But being tempted by Scultetus and some other of the Divines about him Not to neglect the opportunity of advancing the Gospel and making himself the principal Patton of it he fell on some Designs destructive to himself and his Who though he were a Prince of a Flegmatick nature and of small Activity yet being prest by the continual sollicitation of some eager Spirits he drew all the Provinces and Princes which profest the Calvinian Doctrines to enter into a strict League or Union amongst themselves under pretence of looking to the Peace and Happiness of the true Religion 12. It much advantaged the Design that the Calvinians in all parts of Germany had began to stir as men resolved to keep the Saddle or to lose the Horse In Aix the Latins call it Aquisgranum an Imperial City they first appeared considerable for their Power and Numbers Anno 1605 at what time they shrewdly shaked the Estate thereof But being thereupon debarred the exercise of their Religion and punished for the Misdemeanor they kept themselves quiet till the year 1614 when in a popular Tumult they surprise the City secure the principal Magistrates of it and eject the Jesuits And though by the Mediation of the French Agents and those of Iulier's a Peace was for the present clapt up between them yet neither Party was resolved to stand longer to it than might serve their turns But whosoever made the reckoning the Calvinists were at last compelled to pay the shot For the Town being proscribed by Matthias the Emperor and the execution of the Ban committed to Arch-Duke Albert he sends the Marquess of Spinola with an Army thither by whom the Town is brought to a surrender the ancient Magistrates restored and the Calvinians either forced to forsake the place or to submit themselves unto Fine and Ransome if they kept their dwellings Nor did they speed much better in the City of Colen where their Party was not strong enough to suppress the Catholicks and therefore they forsook the City and retired to Mulleime which they began to build and fortifie for their habitation But those of Colen fearing that this new Town might in short time overtop that City both in Wealth and Power addrest themselves unto the Emperor Matthias By whose Command the Duke of Newbourgh falls upon it destroys the greatest part thereof and leaves the finishing of that Work to the Marquess Spinola 13. In Hassia their Affairs succeeded with more prosperous Fortune where Lodowick of the second House of the Lantgraves who had the City of Marperge for his Seat and Residence declared himself in favour of their Forms and Doctrines at such time as the Calvinists of Aix before remembred first began to stirr followed therein by George his Brother commonly called the Lantgrave of Darmstad from the place of his dwelling half of which Town belonging to the Patrimony of the Prince Elector had easily made way for Calvinism into all the rest And though this Lodowick was disturbed in his Government or Possession by his Cousin Maurice commonly called the Lantgrave of Cassells from his principal City who seized upon the Town of Marperge Anno 1612 yet was he shortly after restored to his whole Estate by the Palatine-League which for the time carried a great sway in those parts of Germany But of greater consequence were the agitations about Cleve and Gulick occasioned by a difference between the Marquess of Brandenbourgh and the Duke of Newbourgh about the partage of the Patrimony and Estates of the Duke of Cleve For Iohn-William the last Duke of Cleve deceasing without Issue in the year 1610 left his Estates between the Children of his Sisters of which the eldest called Maria Leonora was married to Albert of Brandenbourgh Duke of Prussia whose Daughter Ann being married to Iohn Sigismund the Elector of Brandenbough was Mother of George-William the young Marquess of Brandenbourgh who in her Right pretended to the whole Estate The like pretence was made by Wolfgangus Guilielmus Duke of Newbourgh descended from the Electoral Family of the Princes Palatine whose Mother Magdalen was the second Sister of the said Iohn-William The first of these Pretenders was wholly of a Lutheran Stock and the other as inclinable to the Sect of Calvin though afterwards for the better carrying on of their Affairs they forsook their Parties 14. For so it hapned that the Duke of Newbourgh finding himself too weak for the House of Brandenbourgh put himself under the protection of the Catholick King who